The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  “I promise,” I say without devotion or conviction.

  “We’ll speak to you about Joseara after the Arch is made.”

  The spinning disk of light shoots upward so fast, all three of us fall over.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Darik

  The cries of the three men magically affixed to the wall die down. They now grumble to each other about witches and how they don’t get paid enough and that, “Carlo is going to pay.”

  A loud pop explodes in the room, and two men appear lying on their chests in the dirt in front of the heatwave-looking section of air.

  And Joseara.

  “Joseara?” I leap out of hiding and run to her. I’m pleased when she meets me halfway.

  I slow down to inquire about what happened to her, but she throws her arms around my neck. My heart stutters. I embrace her back without question. Wishing to all saints I was shirtless.

  The two men who magically arrived with her rise to their knees, looking at us with massive questions in their eyes.

  Joseara must feel their eyes because she disconnects. “Darik, this is Jaicom.” She points to the man in the English coat, looking like it was trampled into the mud by a herd of cattle and then set on fire. “You saw him in front of the Pantheon. And this is Zadicayn, the wizard.”

  The man she indicates stands up and faces me. He’s about my age, with the haircut Joseara described, though bits of white flakes cling to the black. He’s wearing a drawstring shirt–torn into a deep V down the chest, the string cut and clinging to both sides–at odds with any current-day culture I know, and pants tucked into tall boots. Didn’t Joseara say he came from the Middle Ages?

  “Zadicayn, Jaicom, this is Darik Vandazmer. I was kidnapped by slavers when we first stepped into Rome, and he rescued me. He’s been helping ever since. He knew where to find Brynn, but we failed to break her out before tonight. He also knows where Levi is, and Levi is safe.”

  I hold out my hand and approach him. The named wizard narrows green eyes on me but shakes my hand firmly. We release, and he folds his arms, finally giving the three men pinned to the wall a glance. They have stopped moving as if hoping they would go without notice.

  “Joseara, Jaicom said ye put Brynn in a safe place?” Zadicayn asks.

  His English accent startles me, only because I didn’t hear the same accent from Joseara–because of her time in the Fae Realm?–and his use of the word ‘ye’ has my eyes bugging out of my head. I tend to inadvertently pick up speech tones and styles from people and use them myself by accident. Earlier in the day, Joseara laughed, and I laughed back, having to force myself to stop because the stupid part of my brain started mirroring her laugh.

  “Yes.”

  “And I believe I met your daughter,” I interject. “I raced into this catacomb to rescue you and found a little girl who did…” I throw my arm toward the three men pinned to the wall. “This. Is Eudora her name?”

  His glance on me sharpens. “Yea. Where is she?”

  Yea. And this guy is real. “She’s with her mother. Both are safe.”

  He grins.

  Joseara removes the amulet from around her neck and hands it to the wizard. Zadicayn places it promptly over his head with a deep sigh. He looks again at the men on the wall. “Darik, translate for me.”

  A demand. But one I’m willing to obey, eager to be of help, and finally glad to have met the man this whole circumstance has revolved around. Hopefully, the stupid part of my brain won’t insert an English accent in my Italian as I translate.

  “Communicate to these men where I can find Carlo Vizzardelli.”

  “Of course.” I walk toward the men. “Dove possiamo trovare Carlo Vizzardelli?”

  The men look at each other, shaking their heads. One of them volunteers, “Non lo sappiamo.”

  “They say they do not know.”

  “The bloody hell they don’t. These are the men who were taking my blood before I was sucked into the time warp.”

  Time warp? I look at the wavering patch of air. So many questions.

  “Tell them if they don’t tell me where he is, I will smash them to bits with the dirt.”

  I look at him to make sure I heard right. Apparently so. His body stands rigid with masculine purpose. “Se non gli dici dove si trova, lui ti rovescerà a pezzi con la sporcizia.”

  The men look at each other again, murmuring and shrugging. “Non sappiamo dove sia. Ci giuro.”

  “They still don’t know.”

  “Apparently I’m going to have to show them my magic is to be feared over Carlo’s demon.” Zadicayn looks at a spot of dirt on the floor. The dirt shifts and tosses as if something long ago buried is unearthing from below. I step back.

  More dirt combines and grows, forming a creature with two legs and two thick arms. I back up further, along with Joseara and Jaicom.

  The men’s eyes widen big enough the orange light from my lantern reflects on the whites. The dirt creature walks toward them, lifting its arms. The men shout and cover their faces as the two arms slam into them, spraying dirt everywhere, even over Zadicayn who remains standing, resolutely watching.

  The men appear undamaged, but they’re shaking and panting.

  “Darik, ask them again.”

  “Dov'è Carlo?”

  The men take longer to respond, but they still shake their heads and swear they don’t know. I’m starting to believe them. Zadicayn refuses to.

  Fire erupts in front of Zadicayn, and I flinch back further yet.

  “Tell them if they don’t tell me, I will burn them alive, slowly and painfully, so they will starve to death before the fire consumes them.”

  I have massive reservations about saying something so gruesome, but I’m starting to fear Zadicayn and his holy wrath. “Se non gli dici, ti brucerà vivo, lento e doloroso, affinché tu morirai di fame prima che il fuoco uccida.”

  They don’t say anything. Not even to deny knowing Carlo’s location. The fire creeps toward them and rises up the wall toward their boots.

  “Stop! Parlerò!” one of them shouts.

  “Stop. He says he’ll talk.”

  The flame stops advancing but remains in position, just mere inches from their boots.

  The man pants heavily, lantern light glistening off the sweat on his forehead. He blubbers on in Italian, back-tracking, confusing facts–whimpering most of the time–but he finally finishes with something hopeful I can give Zadicayn.

  “He says they were going to deliver the blood machine to Carlo. Carlo is waiting for them at the Piazza Navona.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Zadicayn

  I shove the slow one forward. He stumbles but picks up his feet to keep even with his friends. The man in the middle holds the machine that sucked my blood out of me–empty now. He walks like an animated statue. I’m not even sure he’s breathing.

  Darik keeps a good pace and purpose beside me. I haven’t known him ten minutes, but I can already see why Joseara–who has known him longer–embraced him. His long strides bespeak a man with a goal and knowing how to get it, and a relentless desire to keep on forward despite the odds, despite having not known me longer than ten minutes. Our strides are evenly matched.

  We walk through tunnels and ancient underground chambers. Darik says Rome built up, not out. Many years of history remain buried to all, except those who exploit these secrets for the benefit of themselves.

  “According to Joseara, ye knew where to find my wife prior to tonight. How is that?”

  Darik flares a hand in front of him. He uses his hand excessively to talk. “I was at Sant’Ivo’s church. A man and Englishwoman came in. The man handed a baby over to my good friend who works in the church, and then dragged the woman out. She was very upset over the loss of her child. I…wouldn’t call it a hobby, but it’s something I feel deeply about, and that is the unfair treatment of women…”

  And Darik followed Carlo and my wife to a prison he named Castel Sant’Angelo, bu
t didn’t go inside, and then saw Carlo enter the clock shop where Darik works two days later. He followed Carlo again. Turns out, Carlo is a cardinal at the Vatican.

  Darik says much more, how he rescued Joseara and tried to free Brynn, without success, but I’ve stopped hearing most of it. The only thought revolving around my head now is this: the Pope orchestrated my wife’s kidnap. A new fury occupies the already cramped space in my heart, but I force it aside to deal with what I’m about to do to Carlo.

  A few more turns bring us to a wooden stairway leading to a door.

  “Stop,” I say.

  The three men ahead of me stop. Their shoulders heave up and down in rampant breathing, counting on me keeping my promise to let them go if they do, indeed, deliver me to Carlo.

  “What’s behind that door?” I ask.

  Darik translates.

  The man holding the blood machine turns slowly to look at me. “Carlo.”

  Anxiety wells inside me for what’s to come next. “Darik, rejoin with the others. I won’t be needing thee right now.”

  He steps resolutely beside me, so close our elbows brush. “I’m staying with ye…you to the end.”

  I look sharply at him. He turns his head forward, olive skin reddening nearly to rival my amulet.

  “Art ye mocking me with my speech?” I ask carefully.

  He shakes his head furiously. “No. The way you talk is…contagious. It slipped out.”

  “Ah. I see. It was just that hearing it come out of ye makes me understand how much of a fopdoodle I actually sound to others. But that aside, I return to my request of ye returning to the others. I don’t desire thee to be caught in the crossfire.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  I look at him hard. “I would deeply appreciate thy services if ye gather my son and deliver him to Brynn. Ye art the only one who knows where he is, yes?”

  His expression wars between agreeing and remaining steadfast. “Si. I will get him and bring him to Brynn.” He nods and runs back down the corridor.

  I motion the men forward. All three of them cram onto the narrow stairway in front of the door. I crouch behind them. Above us, five solid knocks thump the door. My heart pounds so rapidly, it’s hard to swallow.

  I feel forever passes, and I’m tempted to ask them to knock again, but the door rattles and swings open. I peer up between their legs, at the black pointed beard on the edge of Carlo’s chin.

  I spring forward, prying my body between two of the men. All three shout and tumble off the stairs. The blood machine crashes to the ground, and I just miss Carlo’s coat as I reach out to snag it. He leaps backward like a buck alerted to the twang of a bow for the arrow meant for him, and sprints across the room. I move so fast I slip and slide on the slick marble floor.

  Carlo snaps around the doorway, out of the room. I dodge around a dusty table. I’ve got a ready spell in my head in case I turn a corner, and his demon is waiting for me. But I turn the corner, and Carlo has already reached the doors at the opposite end of the chamber, dashing under the doorway marked with the words EGREDERE NON OMIS. He’s fast, faster than me. He slams the door behind him.

  I ram the double doors with my shoulder. They burst open and rebound crazily off the outside wall. I sprint into a downpour of rain splattering onto a massive square, walled all the way around with buildings. Directly across is a fountain and a tall pillar. Carlo skirts past the fountain toward a white, church-looking building, water splashing up his legs with every step, coat whirling behind him.

  I throw both hands onto the cobble at my feet. Accompanied with the spell, the rainwater gathered on the cobble heaves upward in a straight line in front of my hands and rushes around the fountain. The water shoots past Carlo and turns, crashing together in front of him, fencing him in.

  Carlo skids to a halt. Another spell weaves the water together, added on by the rain, and forms a thick blockade between Carlo and his escape. It’s only water, and he could push through it, but whatever hesitation he has for doing so keeps him rooted. Just in case he changes his mind, I animate the human statues around the fountain.

  The statues break away from the stone from which they were carved, leaping into the pool of water at their feet, all four times the size of a real human. I accentuate the movements of their legs and arms, rock bursting free at the joints as they bend. Carlo watches them walk around him, marching like soldiers following commands, rain sluicing off their cold shoulders.

  The statues stop on the other side of the wall of water. Whatever Carlo’s imagination believes, it’s keeping him from running. He faces me. We stare at each other through the blurring rain which has filled my boots and drenched our clothes.

  “What can I do for you, wizard?” he shouts across the space, the rain muffling his words. “I can guess you have your wife back. And your amulet. And so, I don’t see what else I can do for you. However, you may still make the request, and I will sure try to accommodate. We can still be civil, can’t we?”

  He stands poised, hands clasped in front of him, as if not beholden to the wet and cold of the rain. I watch his hands because he must use them to direct his demon in his commands.

  I’ve already killed him ten different delicious times in my head. Carlo doesn’t understand how quick and easy I could do it, and though he would deserve it–and my rage justifies it–I need him alive so he can sprint back to the Illuminati and beg them to leave me and my family alone for now, for my grandchildren…until the world burns with God’s second coming.

  So, I’ve nothing to say to him.

  I tuck my right boot behind my left ankle and relocate three feet off the cobble, where I hover. His eyes rise with me.

  “Ah, Fae Wizard. I know you’re not going to kill me. I know you’ve been baptized and are not so eager to commit murder. You seem to be a God-fearing man, and I really don’t want to hurt you or your family. I never did. I just want your blood and amulet. You know we’re just going to come after you again and again. Our magic may be inferior, but Diablo grants us whatever we want, given the right sacrifice. We’ll find you. We’ll kill your family if that’s what it takes. Hand over your amulet, and we’ll leave you and your family alone forever.”

  I let him barter on. Impressing himself. I’ll even give him the first move. The higher he thinks he’s above me, the further and harder he’ll crash when he sees he’s nothing but blood, bones, and air; a small splat under the heaven, so insignificant among all others.

  He watches me steadily. I’ve yet to say anything. He sees I’ll say nothing, so he sighs. I see the moment of it in his dropped shoulders and fingers pressed into his eyebrow. His chest puffs out, flexing his hands and neck, preparing to mutter furiously in Latin to command his demon, like the Black Magician I dueled at the gypsy camp in Bristol six years ago. Only Carlo shan’t be throwing knives at me. I shan’t settle for just an illusioned pair of wings.

  He blasts Latin out of his mouth like a ball out of a cannon and points at the cobble. Invisible fingers rip at the stones, prying them up. They spin into a vortex as if caught up by the wind, more and more added until there’s near enough to build a chimney.

  The vortex of cobblestone spins toward me. There’re many different ways to handle this. I’ll choose the most frustrating one for Carlo. I rise higher in the air. Higher level demons are tall, so I rise high enough to make certain I’m above him. The vortex stops ten feet below my boots, spinning frantically. All at once, the cobbles stop spinning and drop back down to the ground. Carlo shrieks in Latin. Three cobblestones levitate off the ground and are hurled at me. A single word from me pushes them aside, and they fly past.

  Beneath the crack of thunder and flash of lightning, Carlo clenches his fists and looks up at me. “Come down here and fight me like a man!”

  I don’t want to say a single word to him, but this challenge has me shouting back with all the poison in my heart. “Funny how ye didn’t make this demand when ye sat across from me at Bristol. Ye supposed to kid
nap my wife and son instead. Ye art a coward, and not deserving of such honor.” I tip my head back, rain hammering my throat in cold darts, and speak the spell. Rain dashes into my eyes, but I blink it away, watching the deluge stop its descent…and rotate.

  Water lifts off the cobble to meet it in the middle, so now I and Carlo occupy a bubble of space where rain forms a swirling dome around us. Carlo grips his coat and keeps a steady eye on me. A glimmer of fear teases across his eyes; I can see it, even though he’s looking everywhere but at me.

  The magic spiraling in me and turning my eyes gold fills me with daring energy. “Afraid to meet my eye, Carlo?”

  My spell grabs Carlo’s boots, and with a quick thrust his head falls down, and his feet shoot upward, stopping ten feet across from me, so our eyes are level.

  “S-stop!” he shouts, flailing, eyes hovering above the ground where he will land if I let go of the spell.

  I hear real panic in his voice now. I don’t want panic. I want him more terrified of me than the devil and his eminent damnation for communing with a demon. I want him so scared he screams out God’s name for the forgiveness of his sins, that he screams himself dumb and deaf, because then–and only then–will he and his organization cease to come for me ever–ever–again, for as long as Fae Wizards walk the earth.

  I clasp both hands behind my back and illusion a massive pair of shimmering gold wings out of my shoulder blades. Carlo doesn’t know about illusion spells. He’ll think they, and everything else I’m about to illusion, will be real.

  “STOP!” Carlo screams again, the word choking in his throat. “You’ve won! I won’t come after you again. I swear.”

  “Swear it to God.”

  He spares a glance at me, then fixes his eyes back on the ground. He’ll lose his demon if he does anything in God’s name.

  He doesn’t say it.

  Illusioned Gemlings–furry fish with six dorsal fins and eyes taking up half the size of their bodies–appear within the swirling walls of the water dome containing us. Eudora calls them Gemgems, and they are her current favorite creature she’s seen outside the Human Realm. Harmless, they are pretty. I cause them to bob in lazy circles around us, dipping in and out of the water. I wish Eudora were here to see this. I did it for her.