Draper tried not to think on it. It was not his business. This time period had been a complete disappointment in that he’d once again failed to find what it was he sought. Queen Elizabeth had recently ascended the throne here in England and the Renaissance was reaching its zenith with genius like Shakespeare and Marlowe. It was enough to cause him to hang around for a bit, tend the bar at a local tavern, and enjoy the burgeoning intelligence.
But there was no magic here. Not the kind he was looking for.
And he shouldn’t have stayed. Staying had been a mistake; it had gotten him arrested.
Maybe this was a hopeless quest, but it was one he’d undertaken for his people long ago and with heart-felt hope. Somewhere out there, some when out there, his kind would no longer be shunned, relegated to the shadows – or burned at the stake. At some point in the future, magic would be accepted. And he would find that time, or he would tirelessly travel eternity looking for it.
This wasn’t it, that was certain. In fact, this time and place was so much worse than the one he’d initially left. His people had once imagined that the human race could only become more knowledgeable with the passage of time, and therefore become more open-minded and accepting of the world around them. Clearly that was not the case. Time did not heal all wounds. Some wounds, it ripped wide open and filled with salted lemon juice.
Draper glanced over his shoulder, nodded about some other pointless thing the jailor said, and then returned to his work. A few days ago the jailor, a man named Black who was not necessarily a bad man but a man relegated to a bad job, had provided Draper with a chisel. Black had been bored, Draper had been charismatic, and the chisel had been shortly delivered thereafter with the promise that Draper would only use it under Black’s supervision.
Draper didn’t plan to tunnel his way out of the Salt Tower with the tool. That would have been ridiculous. Not only would a hole that size be seen and its rubble be impossible to hide, getting out off of the castle grounds would have been impossible. The Salt Tower was in the lower East corner of the massive castle more commonly known as the Tower of London, and should anyone actually manage to tunnel through the dense wall of any of their cells, they would next have to contend with the outer walls encircling the twelve acre estate encompassed therein.
Instead, he would simply use the chisel to draw the symbol he needed to make his next slip through the centuries.
“Wha’ is tha’ there?” Black the jailor asked, his deep gravely voice slick and thick with the sludge of impending sickness.
Draper finished off an angle in the symbol on the stone that he had painstakingly been working on for hours without a break. It was the last angle to be smoothed out. He was finished now. He straightened and dropped his arms to his sides. His muscles ached. No doubt he was becoming ill. The putrid water and food he’d been given during his stay had been of better quality than that of the other inmates, but it was still contaminated. Everything in this time was. Fortunately for him, traveling would automatically heal him of whatever malady he’d acquired.
Unlike the other prisoners taken by religious fanatics, when Draper had been arrested, he had immediately admitted that he was a “witch,” as his accuser had suggested. After all, he did indeed use magic. It was the truth.
His immediate confession spared him the torture that would have come if he’d denied what he was and laid false claim to the pious love of some god he did not believe in. And the uncertainty of what he could do earned him enough fear and respect that instead of sending him to be executed on Tower Hill or to a dungeon to be abused, he’d been relegated here, to one of the larger, higher rooms in the Tower. Not many Tower prisoners were actually put to death. No one wished to anger a real witch.
Here, he was assigned Black as a jailor, perhaps because Black had the most lenient reputation amongst the guards.
“It is a calculation of the angles and pathways of the planets and stars,” Draper told Black, referring to the carving he’d just completed.
The jailor of course stared at him as though he had two heads rather than one. “Wha’?”
Draper took a deep breath and shook his head. “It is a diagram. Nothing more.”
“Oy, papa, look!” the jailor’s daughter exclaimed. Draper turned to glance at her. She was pointing at the diagram. He followed her gaze to find that the opposite end of the carving was now glowing, its lines shimmering and vacillating with familiar magic.
He smiled. And nodded. It was really was finished. Now the magic would happen.
“It has been illuminating making your acquaintance, Mr. Black,” said Draper. He placed his hand atop the diagram and attempted to mentally prepare himself for the shift, pull, and disorientation that would come any second.
The last trip had taken him back in time, like an arm cocking in preparation for a hard throw. It was the necessary back swing he was forced to repetitively endure in his efforts to reach that special point in the future he so desperately wished to reach. With the last casting of the travel spell, he’d gone from the eighteenth century, where he’d seen the abolishment of slavery in Russia and a culmination of enlightened renaissance, to two hundred years prior.
This next trip would take him forward once more some uncertain distance in time.
It was his theory, based on what he’d been through thus far, that he would now be shoved forward through time to somewhere near the twenty-first century. That was, if the world still existed in that time. Plague, famine or war might have taken its toll on the planet by then. The gods knew they were given the chance to do so again and again.
But there was only one way to find out.
The Tower of London jailor, Jonas Black swore under his breath and pulled his tiny daughter away from the Salt Tower cell as the carving on the wall lit up entirely and the air in the cell heated. The wall beside Hugh Draper turned red, the carving flashed once with its culmination of magic, and Draper gritted his teeth as time yanked him from the here and now and threw him head-long into the then and there.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I think we’re far enough from Southbridge now,” said Katelyn. She had been peering out into the darkness beyond the passenger side window. “This is probably a good place to stop.”
They’d pulled off of the main road a while back and had been following dirt paths for several minutes. The forests surrounding town were full of them, some smooth and well traveled by hunter and forest ranger alike, others barely trails that were at the best of times braved by ATV’s.
Dominic had said he wanted to move downstream a bit in case the bottle was actually tossed into the ravine exactly at Southbridge. It had been raining steadily, and the ravine was in full flow. The rain would have washed the bottle down a distance.
Dom pulled the Volkswagen to a stop between two tall pines, shut it down, and stared out the window. The ravine gurgled and roared a few yards ahead, its ledge illuminated by the car’s headlights.
“We didn’t come far enough,” Logan muttered as she stared over the seats at the rushing water ahead of them. There must have been a flash flood; the ditch was completely full and the water was moving faster than she’d ever seen it. “I don’t think there is a far enough.” There was no way they were going to locate a single bottle in the gurgling, bubbling mess of muddy water speeding past.
Dominic turned around in his seat until their faces were a mere few inches apart. Logan’s instinct was to pull back, but Dom reached out, like lightning, and his fingers encircled the denim sleeve over her wrist.
She froze; her breath stilled.
Dom’s pupils dilated. “Logan,” he said, his tone low and serious. His green eyes burned with their strange, new aqua-colored light. “We have to find that potion. If we don’t and Sam gets his hands on it, he’ll come after you. And if he comes after you….” He didn’t finish his thought, not out loud. But Logan had a feeling it went a little further than, “I’ll lose you.” She had a feeling he was thinking about his best frien
d, and that he knew if they could somehow defeat Sam, Alec might just come back the way the others had the first time they’d beat him.
“There’s nothing she can do, Dom,” said Katelyn, who reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. He brushed it off, suddenly and apparently very irritated, and shot her a warning look. Katelyn moved back.
Logan pulled her wrist out of his grasp. “Yes there is,” she admitted.
She was betting that at this point, with as crazy-insane as life had become, she – the bard – could simply write their way to finding the spell bottle.
The problem was, if Sam was anywhere nearby when she did the writing, he would absorb more power from it. Mr. Lehrer had insisted that she not take any more chances like that. He’d warned her against this.
But it was zero hour and they were desperate. “Give me a piece of paper and something to write with.”
*****
“Did you know that in 1755, there was an earthquake in Lisbon on All Saints Day?” Mr. Lehrer asked, clenching his teeth as Meagan maneuvered him closer to the streetlight. She needed to see how bad the wounds were.
She met his gaze for a split second, noted the glassiness of pain, and returned her attention to his arm. The Hell Hound had managed a bite and a claw, both of which had taken chunks out of his flesh. At one location, bone peeked through, pink and shiny.
Meagan swallowed against a rising queasiness.
“I can’t heal this,” she told him frankly. She had nothing left to give. And even if she’d possessed enough strength to cast another healing spell, her magic was useless against this particular wound.
“I know,” he said. She heard the tightening of his voice and understood that pain was getting the better of him.
These were not like normal dog bites. Meagan knew from reading lessons Mr. Lehrer had given her and other young members of her coven that a Hell Hound’s bite left poison behind.
“We need help,” she said. They couldn’t go to an emergency room. Modern medicine could clean the wounds, suture them, and prescribe antibiotics, but there was nothing in the medical journals to deal with Hell Hound magic. It was in Lehrer’s veins now. They had to fight fire with fire.
“We need to find a phone.” She released his arm and looked around. Pay phones had all but gone the way of the Dodo, but landlines still existed inside businesses.
Mr. Lehrer had managed to drive the jeep all the way into town and park it in the wet, empty lot outside of a mini-mall before his wounds forced him to shut it down and get out. He was edgy, restless, and unable to hold still. Meagan would guess that severe pain was literally driving him nuts.
“The coven can help us,” she told him.
There were nine businesses strung side by side along the mini-mall. Four were women’s clothing shops, one was a donut and coffee shop, one was a craft store, and the last was a dry cleaners. That one was sure to have a phone near the front windows.
“There,” Meagan said, taking Lehrer gently by his uninjured arm and steering him in that direction.
“It killed more than a hundred thousand people,” said Lehrer.
Meagan’s gaze cut to him, her brow furrowed. “What?” She noticed the drops of sweat along his forehead and the red tinge to the brown of his irises. He was fighting something more than pain now, and he was babbling. “Hang in there, Mr. Lehrer. We’ll have help soon.”
“Do you know why the earthquake killed so many the day after Halloween, Meagan?” he asked, his voice guttural.
Meagan of course had no idea, and she wasn’t sure that she cared. She was desperate to keep him talking, if that helped him deal with the pain, but more so to keep him moving toward the building that had the phone. They would have to break the window….
“Why?” she asked, placating him as she moved them along.
“I don’t know,” he admitted with a harsh laugh. “But my guess is the door hadn’t been closed right,” he gritted out. “The door to October Land. I think that time, it hadn’t quite swung all the way shut.”
Meagan stopped in her tracks, frozen by what Lehrer had just said. The sound of her teacher’s ragged breathing filled the damp night air. In the distance, thunder rolled over the hills like a lazy juggernaut.
She swallowed hard. “October Land?” she asked.
“The realm between this one and Samhain’s. It surrounds us like….” He closed his red-rimmed eyes and swayed on his feet. She steadied him with a tight grip on his bicep. He opened his eyes and focused on the coffee shop several yards away. “Like a donut,” he finished.
“You’re losing it,” Meagan muttered. But despite the bizarreness of his words, she couldn’t ignore him. Mr. Lehrer was their grove leader by way of merit. He’d earned his place at their head. He was a smart man, a capable man, and an excellent wizard. If he was telling her this right here and right now, maybe there was a reason.
“Go on,” she prompted reluctantly. “Tell me about October Land and the door.”
“The pain,” he hissed, shutting his eyes tight again. “It’s taking over.”
Meagan nodded and swallowed hard. “I know.”
“The door you already know about,” he suddenly said, waving his hand dismissively. “But October Land, you don’t.” He opened his eyes once more and zeroed in on her. His pupils seemed warmed at their centers by some kind of firelight.
Hell fire, Meagan realized.
“Our multiverse is round,” he told her hastily. His words were scratched through his throat like nails across the chalkboards of agony, but she didn’t stop him. She knew instinctively that she needed to hear this.
Lehrer seemed to marshal himself, skin pale and damp, darkness blooming beneath his eyes, fire rising within them. He straightened a little and took a deep, shaky breath. His level gaze became serious. “Surrounding it is a world that acts as a conduit between realities. Because we feel and hear and see it the most during October, we’ve named it October Land.” He stopped, gasped as some of the Hell Hound poison no doubt found his heart, and held up his hand to stop Meagan when she reached out to grab him once more.
“No,” he said. “Let me finish. The door has always been closed, Meagan. Always before the end of October, that’s what our books say. But I think there’ve been other close calls. Times when something went wrong. Like in 1755. And a close call could cause some of October to slip out. Some of Samhain to be left behind. Then things happen.”
“Like earthquakes?”
Lehrer nodded. Then he stumbled back, and this time Meagan made it to his side, righted him with effort, and steered him toward the dry cleaners.
“Okay,” Meagan said. “I get it.” When Sam returned to his realm on October 31st, they needed to lock up after him. “Shut the door, shut it on time, and shut it tight.”
Chapter Thirty
Logan’s hand was shaking. Her fingertips were going numb where they squished against the ridges of the yellow wooden pencil. Katelyn and Dominic were quiet, breaths all but held, neither moving a centimeter. The car had become as still as a tomb.
Katelyn had pulled a backpack from the trunk of the Beetle and extracted a dull pencil and math notebook from its rather messy entrails. Pieces of torn paper stuck out of the notebook at odd angles and eraser shavings decorated the coils on the left-hand side. Not that Katelyn ever bothered to erase her math problems. Normally, she either scratched them out impatiently or left them incorrect. Unlike languages and science, which Logan knew Katelyn secretly adored, math was not her thing. Rather, the shavings most likely came from the white doodles Katelyn had erased into the colored cover of the notebook.
Logan worried her bottom lip with her teeth until a dull ache pulsed through it. She didn’t know what to write. She felt that the slightest squiggle or dotted “i” would condemn them all. But if she wrote nothing, they would never find this potion bottle Sam was looking for, and then he would find it.
And Logan would die.
She swore softly under her breath
and pressed the pencil lead to the first line on the paper. Normally, this was the moment in life that she enjoyed most. It was this split second of endless possibility that flooded her system with a feeling of omnipotence. She lived for this beat in eternity when all seemed to slow and hush and wait – to see what she would create. It could be anything. Anything. No other freedom could compare.
But now the hushed world was filled with monsters, and they weren’t waiting to see what she would create. They were waiting to see which of them she would let in.
Very slowly, she wrote. The lead left a silver gray trail behind it, like a gemstone snail dancing across a field of white. One word, two, a sentence. At the end, she placed the period with a sense of finality she’d never before known.
“Let me see it,” said Dom, who held out his hand from where he gazed at her over the back of the driver’s seat.
Logan studied him. His aqua green gaze was so bright, so vivid and stark against his handsome but notably pale features. She picked up the notebook and handed it to him. He turned it around and read what she’d written.
“It won’t work,” he told her. He looked up, leveled his gaze on her hands, which held only a pencil, and added, “Clearly.”
Logan began chewing on the inside of her cheek.
Dominic went on. “Maybe in Samhain’s realm, your bard powers would be rooted enough to work like this, but not here. This is too… umm….”
“Magical?” Logan offered sheepishly. Her voice almost cracked under the strain of her embarrassment.
Dom caught her eyes with his. She felt a strange pull, as if she were being drawn into the stormy seas of him. Slowly, he smiled. “Yes.”
Logan waited a beat, if only to continue staring at him, and then she held out her hand. “I’ll try something else.”
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