by Karen L Mead
Both men rapidly assumed an air of nonchalance that was entirely forced when Ethan entered the room.
“If it isn’t the young Master Buckley,” Golding said.
“Oh, uh, Ethan,” Sam said, running his fingers through his hair nervously.
“It’s good you’re here, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Mainly to apologize. Listen, the other night, when I had to fight Azazel—”
“I understand, it’s fine,” Ethan said quickly. Actually, the experience of having magic pulled through him that quickly had been painful and terrifying, but for now, he was trying not to think about it. He’d thought of asking Sam never to do that again, but he didn’t see the point of asking him to make a promise they both knew he couldn’t keep.
“I know it might not seem that important right now, but there’s this tournament at the Morse Center on Wednesday night—”
“Oh for God’s sake, Ethan!” Sam exclaimed, his tone of contriteness dropped. “We’re trying to avoid the end of the world here, and all you care about is this stupid card—”
He stopped in mid-sentence, then looked at Golding.
“Waitaminute. He knows a lot more about Sorcery than either of us.”
Golding licked his lips rapidly, thinking.
“Ethan. Tell me everything you know about this tournament. Maybe we’re missing something obvious here.”
Ethan drew himself up to his full height of 4’10”, and took a deep breath. He felt like his whole life had been leading up to this moment. He began to explain, in exquisite detail, the player ranking system, how matches were decided, special rules for tournament play, which regions received which special cards, and so on.
The two men listened keenly at first, then with slightly glazed expressions after the first five minutes or so. Both looked like they kind of regretted bringing it up, but didn’t want to say anything. Ethan continued, undeterred: they had asked for it, and he was going to deliver.
Finally, Golding’s eyes lit up. “Wait, wait! Back up. About the special prize.”
“Oh, that’s a Fantastic Foil. They’re really rare, and they almost never give them away, so that’s why this tournament is so special. Otherwise I wouldn’t want to play in it so bad.”
“What are these Fantastic Foils like? What makes them so rare?”
“Uh, I don’t know…they’re metal? They’re made of some kind of metal, no one knows what kind, though. Their stats are really high, but more important than that, there are only like a hundred of them in the whole world.”
Golding beamed like Ethan had just told him that he’d won all the lotteries that had ever been held. Sam looked at the other man quizzically.
“Why is this relevant?”
Golding turned to Sam, shaking slightly, unable to contain his excitement.
“Don’t you remember what Liddell said? That there’s a metal tablet that contains the spell that summons the Phantasms, but no one knows where it is? That it could be in pieces?”
Neither Ethan nor Sam took long to figure out what Golding was suggesting.
“No,” said Sam, rubbing his eyes like he was in pain. “No, do not tell me we have to track down every single one of those cards. Do not tell me that’s what this has come to.”
Ethan didn’t miss a beat.
“So should I tell the tournament organizer to add my name to the list, or what?”
Chapter 45
“So, as you can see,” Cassie said, pointing to the image of the weather report that had been magically projected at the front of the room, “we won’t get any rain until the area until Saturday. There’s a practically zero percent chance of precipitation earlier in the week, so they’re not going to try to start a new flood then. So we’re fine until Saturday, unless you take me somewhere else where the weather is different.”
A room full of demons were looking at her with quizzical expressions. Sammael was the first to break the silence.
“I would listen to her. Girl knows a little something about floods. I’ve had an opportunity to learn this.”
Azazel sighed, looking exhausted. It was the most human he had ever looked, to Cassie’s eyes.
“Why do the Watchers need rain to start a flood?” another demon interjected. He was wearing a bright purple suit, which piqued Cassie’s curiosity, but she doubted she’d get a chance to ask him about his choice of businesswear. “They can create as much water as they like, can’t they? They are water beings.”
“They can,” Cassie said, crossing her arms. She felt oddly like she was teaching a class somewhere. “But if you want a lot of water, like I mean a lot—enough to flood the whole planet—it’s a lot easier if you have some help. When it starts raining, that will give them some base water to multiply. It’s going to be hard enough just getting through a portal from their realm to the human world, they don’t want to waste all their energy creating billions of gallons of water if they don’t have to. Not if there’s an easier way.”
She didn’t really think about the words as they came out of her mouth, but once she had said them, she felt they were correct. She didn’t feel like she was one of the Watchers—not yet, anyway—but predicting their plans just seemed natural. It was like predicting what her ornery great-uncle would do; the man hadn’t changed in fifty years and he wasn’t about to start now. Some things were just obvious.
“Let’s say you’re correct,” Azazel said, tapping his fingers on the table. “Let’s say you’re right, and they won’t make their move until Saturday, at the earliest. Why should we send you back at all? If we keep you here, they won’t bother invading, because they don’t want to be here!”
Cassie also knew that was true. The Watchers had been stuck in an airless prison for eons; moving to Realm really wasn’t much of an improvement. It would be easier to manifest here, due to the rather fuzzy physics of the place, but this wasn’t someplace anyone wanted to be. They wanted the human world, with its sheer beauty and freedom.
“I don’t really have a choice,” Cassie said, starting to feel nervous again. This was the part that she doubted she’d be able to sell. “If I don’t go, the world’s going to end anyway, so that’s not an option. We have to let them invade, then fight them off, somehow. That’s the only hope.”
“How could you possibly know this?”
“Devon told me.”
The room exploded in jeers and whispers.
“You asking me to trust the word of…hmm…who was it again…ah yes, THE PRINCE OF LIES????”
“I’m not so sure that he’s a liar,” Sammael said slowly, like he was considering every word. “He flat-out told me who he was, that I was his grandfather, many times. I just didn’t believe him. I wonder if that hasn’t been it all along: he tells truths that seem impossible to believe, so we all assumed he must be lying.”
Azazel sneered.
“Thank you for that salient analysis. How could we possibly doubt you, O Exalted One, when your recent judgment has proved so reasoned and wise?”
Sammael didn’t even acknowledge the barb. “I think the fly-eater was telling the truth. If the Watchers kill all the humans, that’s no fun for him; he always did like toying with them way too much. He wants the Watchers driven off; if anything, he’ll probably help with that.”
Azazel pointed at Cassie, his jaw tight.
“So you want me to send back this little Angelic time bomb, right where she can do the most harm, because the fugitive Devil might be willing to fight for our cause? I don’t think so. The witch stays here, under my care.”
Cassie felt numb. She hadn’t really expected Azazel to listen to her, so she didn’t feel shocked at his decision. She also wasn’t entirely sure he was wrong either, but she felt like she had no choice but to trust that what Devon had told her was true.
How am I going to get out of here? If he won’t allow it, I’ll have to find another way. I don’t know what it is yet, but….
The sound of Sammael getting up roused her from her though
ts.
“Heeeeeey,” he said, crossing the space between his seat and Cassie. He grabbed her upper arm, as he often did.
“This is my crazy little witch with a side of angelfood cake. Get your own.”
Azazel hissed.
“We’re past this now. We’re past your little japes, your little games. I will watch over her myself until we can find some way to reverse what she’s become. Or until she dies, whichever comes first."
They stayed like that for a long moment: Sammael and Azazel staring each other down, Sammael keeping his grip on her arm.
“Don’t test me,” Azazel said. “Even you can’t fight us all.”
Cassie yelped as Sammael pulled her closer. There was a light sizzling sound as the tip of her wing began to cook the skin on his hand.
“Why do you always assume I want to fight? These kinds of assumptions can be so hurtful, guys.”
Then the room melted away, and Cassie was gasping for air. She’d traveled to and from Realm before but never like this; this time, it was very painful. Sammael was trying to pull them from one place to somewhere else as fast as possible, like pulling a grape through the eye of a needle, and she could feel the strain. She shut her eyes to keep the vortex of swirling colors from blinding her, and tried to ignore the pulsing waves of nausea that were suddenly wracking her stomach.
It took a while for her to realize she was no longer traveling, because she thought the feeling of floating was part of the trip. Even after she opened her eyes, it took a moment to process that she was underwater. Looking up (at least, in the direction she assumed was “up”), she could only see the barest suggestion of light. Not only was she underwater, but likely so deep underwater that she would never be able to swim to the surface without suffocating first.
She looked around frantically for Sammael, hoping he could transport them to safety, but he was nowhere to be found. She could barely see, but somehow she could sense an eyeless fish stared back at her, right in front of her face. In her surprise, she lost the breath she was holding, all the air in her mouth escaping as a few huge bubbles.
Chapter 46
It had been a pretty normal Sunday for Kevin. He’d started out paying a pile of bills over his morning coffee, then went out and did some errands. He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening organizing his Sorcery cards and working on his latest deck, only stopping briefly for a TV dinner of Salisbury steak and apple pie. He went to bed tired, but confident that his deck would likely be ready for the next tournament. He just needed to track down a few more cards that were hiding in an old binder somewhere, and then the deck should be ready to squash his competitors like a bug.
He was surprised to be awoken, during the wee hours of the morning, by a slip of a girl who had apparently broken into his house.
“What in the--? H-how did you…” he spluttered, then trailed off as she grabbed his hair with a strong grip, lifting his head off the pillow.
The girl was sitting on his bed, looking at her phone with her other hand.
“There’s a post here, made three days ago, by MageMasher87. The post says, and I quote, “LOL I already have five of the foil cards, that’s more than anyone else on this server has. Maybe in the world. You guys come in here bragging about your Japanese rare cards with reversed colors and I’m like”…and then there’s a picture of a cartoon character making a weird face, I don’t know what that’s about. Anyway, is this your post?” she said, holding the phone up to his face.
“You’re MageMasher87?”
“Uh….” Kevin began. He was pretty sure it was dangerous to admit to ownership of his handle right now, but denying it might have been more dangerous. Plus, the girl interrogating him was really cute, and his sheer terror at the home invasion kept getting overshadowed by the knowledge that a hottie wearing a short skirt and thigh-high pantyhose was sitting on his bed.
The girl gave his thinning hair a yank, just painful enough to make him whimper, then looked into his eyes intently. In the dark, Kevin couldn’t tell what color her eyes were, but nevertheless, he found he couldn’t look away.
“You will go find your Fantastic Foils, and give them to me, right now. When you wake up tomorrow morning, you will have no memory of my being here, and won’t remember that you ever owned those cards in the first place. Capiche?
Kevin felt an urge to get out of bed and immediately begin complying with her request, but after a moment, he regained control of his faculties. The girl wanted his Fantastic Foils? What was she, insane?”
“No,” he said. “Those are the crown jewel of my collection. Take whatever else you want in the house, but I’m not giving up my rares.”
A look of surprise crossed the girl’s face, then she made an annoyed grunt and looked away.
“Can’t believe it, magical immunity. This guy of all people is resistant to hypnosis.”
“Just our luck. Good thing I came, then,” a deeper voice responded.
Then Kevin screamed, because he realized that the pretty girl wasn’t the only uninvited guest in his bedroom. Standing near the window was a tall man, which would be disturbing enough on its own merits, but this man’s eyes had begun glowing a bright crimson color. He looked just like one of the demons in Kevin’s gray deck, and it didn’t take a card-counting genius to tell that was a bad sign.
“I haven’t done anything! All I do is collect cards and go to tournaments! There’s no reason to silence me!”
The girl hopped off his bed and went to stand next to the frightening man, who was drawing closer to him. His handsome face, illuminated by those strange red eyes, looked puzzled.
“Silence you? What do you mean?”
Kevin took a deep breath, feeling his blood pounding in his ears. “I’ve suspected for a while now that the monsters in Sorcery are real. It wasn’t a big deal when Sorcery was just a niche game, but now that it’s the most popular card game in the world, real supernatural beings don’t want that information floating around out there. I know how it is: we Mortals must not be allowed to know too much.”
The red-eyed man exchanged glances with the vampire.
“Sure, let’s go with that. You know too much, Mortal! But if you give me your foil cards, I promise not to hurt you.”
There was a pause as Kevin considered this.
“Does it have to be my Fantastic Foils? I have a deck of rare French cards signed by the artist. And he’s the one who died in that horrible Ferris wheel accident, so there’re worth hundreds of thousands. Maybe more now, I don’t have the updated edition of the price guide.”
The demon narrowed his glowing eyes and knelt by Kevin’s bedside.
“Mortal,” he said slowly. “This isn’t a negotiation. Either you give me your foil cards, or I’ll make you wish you were never born.”
There was no question that Kevin was frightened of this strange creature, but the thought of giving up his foil cards filled him with a searing anger that even he could not have anticipated.
“No. Do you know how many tournaments I had to play in to collect those? How many times I won, and the prize turned out to be a stupid Gold Lotus and not a foil? How many stupid hotel lobbies I sat in, all over the country, eating bad con food, waiting to find out if the prize was a foil, and then they announced it was one of the cards from the original set that had been printed in the wrong color, or some ridiculous bullshit like that? I devoted years of my life to collecting those. If you take them, then you may as well kill me, because they’re all I have.”
The demon glanced over his shoulder at the petite girl, who shrugged.
“I dunno. I was pretty into collecting Cabbage Patch Kids once, but this is like, whole ‘nother level,” she said.
The demon turned back to face Kevin and took a deep breath. The red light emanating from his eyes seemed to intensify, and Kevin’s eyes started watering just looking at him.
“Listen to me, you pathetic little worm. You may be immune to Miri’s powers, but I assure you, you are
not immune to what I can do to you. Either you give me the cards, right now, or what I do to you will go far beyond torture. No, I’ll take your very soul, and strip mine it. Your body will be food for my vampires, and your mind will be a toy for my pets. If you ever even try to resist me, you’ll be in agony for hours. You’ll be a slave, in essence. Is a stupid child’s game worth that?”
Kevin thought about it for a moment.
“That depends. While I’m your slave, will I still be allowed to play Sorcery? Obviously my slave work would come first, but after I was finished for the day, could I still play in my free time?”
The pretty girl giggled so hard she snorted. Feeling awkward, Kevin kept talking to fill the silence.
“I mean, my job at the bank is really pretty bad, I’m just counting the seconds until I get out of there every single day, honestly. It’s already pretty much torture. What you’re describing doesn’t sound much worse.”
The demon closed his eyes, and sighed.
“I did not think this one through,” Sam admitted.
Then, he was distracted by a presence he hadn’t expected to feel again for some time. It was subtle, far away, but definitely there.
“Cassie?”
Chapter 47
David Alderton took another sip of his tea and wrinkled his nose at the bitterness. His mother had always said they had terrible tea in America, but he’d always assumed she was just being hyperbolic. Now he was beginning to wonder if she had been right.
He was in the back of Liam’s car, driving to pick up Cassie. His presence wasn’t really needed, but he’d been sleeping at Khalil’s place when Khalil got the call from Sam that she had returned, and it made more sense to go with him than to stay in the empty apartment alone. Khalil seemed to take it as a given that he was going to tag along, in any case.