Mystify the Magician

by K. A. Applegate

  She'd brought me along to keep the group from ever jelling and coming together. And she'd brought April because Senna is a sadistic bitch and wanted to pay April back for... for being a nice, normal, decent girl, I guess.

  But now we weren't working for Senna. We were working against her. David's crazy-generalissimo thing was working against her. And so was Jalil's twisted-Spock thing. And April had turned out to be a lot tougher than Senna had thought.

  As for me, I was no hero, never had been. But I wasn't the same guy I had been on that fateful day when Fenrir dragged us all into the deep end of the pool with no water wings. I still see the world as more funny than tragic, I still like a drink, I still admire a babe, I'm still not the ratcheted sphincter that David is.

  But I wasn't ready to play the screw-up anymore.

  Keith was my problem, at least to some extent. I wasn't the reason why Senna recruited him, at least I didn't think so: It's just that Keith is registered at the employment agency for the hopeless lava-brains. And yet, I'd had my own involvement with Keith. He'd thought I was like him. That was enough. He thought I was one of him, one of them, and, man, there are few things more disgusting than discovering that some seething little hate machine like Keith thinks of you as a brother.

  Plus the little bastard had shot at me.

  So I figured at some level Keith was my problem. Let David handle the universe, I'd take care of Keith.

  I pitched in with everyone quickly, quickly outfitting Jalil's tank. And when David said we'd divide into two groups, one in the tank that would draw fire, and one that would cruise the roofs and upstairs windows, I said I'd do the tank.

  Etain had no idea what was going on with the tank, I guess, but she saw David's expression, the gloomy "Been good to know you, dude" look he gave me. She knew I'd just volunteered to follow MacCool into the Celtic afterlife, so I had my moment of misty-eyed hero worship.

  Had to ruin it, of course.

  "The tank has a beer cooler, right?" I said.

  A fairy came buzzing up the street with the news that the bad guys were at the gates of the village.

  "How do they look?" David asked.

  The fairy was taken aback by that question. He considered, his shrewd little face twisting into a grimace. "Drunk. I would take them for drunks."

  "Was the witch with them?" April asked. "Was Senna there?"

  "Not that I could see," the fairy answered carefully. He knew better than to trust his eyes when it came to witches.

  "Well, let's do this," David said. And then the cornball grabbed my hand in a manly grip and gave it a manly shake.

  "Oh, great, now I'm definitely dead," I said.

  David took off with his six fairy archers. Jalil and April headed back to the battlements of the castle. And Etain laid a quick kiss on my cheek.

  I was so dead. By all the Unwritten Rules of Movies and Television, I was dead: the reformed bad boy who does the heroic thing at last? I could not be more dead.

  "Come on, boys," I said to my own six fairies.

  They'd never seen TV, but they seemed to share my own grim assessment. As usual, they looked like real tough twelve-year-olds. They wore livery uniforms, with King Cam's purple-and-green color scheme. They had cute little tin-pot helmets that might almost cause a flying bullet to shrug before it went ahead and tore through their brains and blew gray fairy goo out the back.

  We climbed up into the cable car. The tank.

  Jalil had commandeered every piece of flat or not-so-flat steel that could be rounded up at short notice. It was roped into place, layered two and three deep around the front of the cable car, creating a kind of dull gray snout. Unneeded track had been torn up and the long I-bars had been hung along the sides with convenient bullet-sized gaps here and there.

  Still and all, it was a tank. A San Francisco, Rice-A-Roni tank that could rocket along at an amazing five miles an hour —about as fast as a power walker. Yippee.

  I inspected my troops. Fairly idiotic, since under normal circumstances they were the professionals and I was the amateur. But I had a due as to what we were going into and they had diddly.

  "Okay, men. Fairies, I mean. Here's the thing: They have guns, and guns make a whole hell of a lot of noise. Louder than anything you've ever heard before. Don't let the noise rattle you."

  Yeah. Why would bang bang bang bother anyone?

  "And, look, guns can kill you from a long way off, so we wait till I give the signal, all right? No one pokes his head above the armor till I say, otherwise they are going to blow your head right off your shoulders. When we get close enough I'll give the signal, then it's load up your arrow, jump up and shoot, and drop right back down again. This is important: Stay low to load, up and shoot, then get down again. If you stay exposed, you die, period."

  As a pep talk it wasn't exactly inspiring. I was depressing myself.

  I was driving the cable-tank, but I had a couple of spears and a sword that King Camulos gave me from his own collection. Hard to say how that was going to be useful. But you want to have something.

  The cable car was poised at the head of the street, just a few blocks off the main town square.

  The cable ran past the station, through the square, across the turntable, then down the main drag to the town gates.

  About twelve city blocks in all.

  I sucked in a deep breath. We wanted to hit the bad guys in the narrow street, not in the square. Time to go.

  I grabbed the five-foot-tall lever and jammed it as I'd been shown. Down under the street the gear grabbed the cable and with a wild jerk we were off and cruising, armor rattling like my knees.

  Past the station.

  "What? No riders waiting?" I muttered nervously. "Okay, then we'll just keep going."

  Through the square, and all of a sudden I heard a not-very-distant popopopopopop. Someone shooting for fun. Maybe they'd spotted a civilian peeking from behind a shutter. Or maybe they'd just blown a great big hole in David.

  Ratting across the square. Time to notice the pigeons. Time to notice the park benches. Time to wonder if the sun ever shined in this place.

  And then, into the street, with buildings close on both sides, some almost leaning over us. Two, three-story, some built fairy-scale, some clearly for humans. All shuttered. All silent. Like the town was empty.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  There they were. Twelve, fifteen guys sauntering along in a loose gaggle, guns slung everywhere, ammo belts, and one of them pulling some rude little wooden cart loaded with green steel ammunition boxes.

  They hadn't noticed us yet, and just as they were about to I saw an arrow grow out of one guy's neck. Then a blur of arrows from two high windows. Two guys were down, pincushions, screaming, yelling.

  Guns blazed. Men scattered, right, left, hiding under the eves, looking around cautiously, shouting insults and challenges.

  I saw one of my own fairies peeking. "Stay down!" I yelled.

  "Jeez, you idiot, I have to be up to drive this thing, what's your excuse?"

  Taking my own advice I crouched low, kept my hand on the big lever, but brought most of my body down behind the armor.

  David's fairies struck again, this time shooting around a corner from an alley. A dozen arrows flew before the creeps could return fire. And now another of them was staggering around bellowing, arrows in both thighs.

  A window opened, arrows, machine-gun fire, and a fairy tumbled out and landed on the pavement like a sack of cement.

  "Shoot the windows!" Keith yelled in sudden manic inspiration. I recognized his voice. They cut loose, blasting wildly at every window.

  But still they didn't shoot at us. I realized why. They saw us; they just didn't know enough about Everworld to know how weird it was that there was a cable car rattling down the street.

  We were closing fast. Two hundred yards. One-fifty. A hundred, and then...

  A machine gun opened up on us. The armor rattled like a punk drummer was keeping time with a sledgehamm
er. The whole rickety car rattled and I dove for the floor, giving my boys the proper example.

  Then a bullet found its way through and entered one of my archers in the chest. He looked down at the little red hole and fell straight back.

  A fairy jumped up to shoot and spun around, his face a red mess.

  "Not yet!" I yelled.

  The hammer blows continued, sitting damned ducks, waiting to be killed, sitting here behind too-weak armor, helpless, wanting to shoot back, scared to shoot back, seconds dragging dragging dragging and any second could be the last one. I was cursing a blue streak, filling the air with nervous, shaky, terrified, half-giggled words. Every word I could think of and making up some new ones. Had to peek, had to see where we were, oh. man, no, let's just cower right here, and gotta do it, up!

  I looked and dropped and a stream of lead sliced the space my head had occupied.

  I had just four guys now.

  "Okay. I'm going to count to three, then shoot and drop," I said. "One. Two. Three!"

  Up they popped and bows twanged and they dropped.

  Say what you will about fairies: They aren't stupid. They learn.

  "Ready," I said. "One, two, three!"

  Up and shoot and drop.

  Up and shoot and drop.

  Up and shoot and now I had three archers.

  Three dead bodies in the car.

  Up and shoot and drop.

  We were in them now, right among the bad guys, wild yelling and shooting and cursing, hammer blows and twanging bows and a flying tumbling steel ball.

  Hand grenade!

  The explosion ripped a hole in our armor ripped a four-foot exposure right across the front of Jalil's tank. Fire pouring in, another fairy dead, arrows coming from a high window, and I was yelling, "Keep shooting, keep shooting!" at the last two fairies.

  I grabbed a bow myself and fitted an arrow into it. Pathetic, I didn't know what I was doing.

  A lurch, the car rocked, a beefy face appeared over the top of the side armor, an angry face, a grown man, for God's sake, trying to stabilize himself long enough to bring his rifle down on me. I snatched up a spear and stabbed him. A shallow cut on the bottom of his left arm, but he yelled and wobbled uncertainly. My next thrust drew gushing blood from his chest and he fell back.

  Then Keith's shrill voice yelling, "Fire in the hole!" and a second grenade went off and I was standing in the side yard looking up at the elm tree with my dad.

  "It's the beetles," he said, and I yelled in rage and frustration and grabbed my head with both hands.

  "Since when do you care about the yard?" my dad wondered.

  Chapter

  XVI

  It was the beetles. Those damned Asian Long-horn beetles that have been going after trees all over the Chicago land, and every time the experts think they've beaten the beetles, the beetles battle back and out come the chain saws. If it wasn't the Dutch Elm disease it was the drought, and look at the lawn. No one wants to work anymore. Used to be neighborhood kids would come around pushing their own lawn mower and do the grass for five bucks, and that was generous. It was almost a relief that summer was over, the pain-in-the-ass yard and all.

  I could scream.

  I gritted my teeth while beads of sweat popped out all over my forehead despite the fact that there was a definite chill in the air.

  Was I dead? Was I dead?

  Well, obviously not dead here, not here in the real world, although I might be in some kind of Catholic purgatory wandering along behind my dad as he angrily pointed out the numerous flaws in the perfection of our yard.

  He was about a six-pack of the way toward toasted. This was the anger build-up phase. It was late afternoon, I was back from school, the sun was threatening to set way too early, and my dad had obviously bailed out of work early to come home and work out some personal crap with a warm-up six to be followed by a couple quick shots of Jack.

  Maybe he'd stop then, but maybe not. If my mom came home in a similar mood it would be one of those nights, the two of them mad-drinking, glaring at each other as they drank to keep even, to pay each other back. Drinking like it was some kind of game of Battleship: I fire a Sam Adams at you! Bastard, you hit my destroyer! Fine, take this martini! You sank my aircraft carrier.

  My head was going to explode.

  "Need to repaint this area, look at this. The goddam dogs are pissing all over it, and it eats right through the paint. Forget your lazy Saturday, you and me are going to Home Depot, get some paint, and fix this."

  "I gotta go," I said. I needed to find David. Jalil. April.

  Whoever was going to tell me what was happening over there.

  "The hell you do. Your mother isn't even home yet."

  "I have a thing," I said. My head was buzzy, weirded out, waiting for some slow-motion death to come zap me across the big universal divide. "A school thing."

  He laughed. My dad's a screwup, but when he's sober he's okay. He has a sense of humor, at least. "Friday night you better be doing something better than a school thing. What's the name of that girl you were seeing?"

  "Jennifer. Yeah, not seeing her anymore," I said. Not much point mentioning that her dad had threatened to kill me if I ever came near him, his daughter, or his wife again. I tried to wink and grin and leer and added, "I have a new target of opportunity in my sights."

  "Well, go on," he said, looking deflated and lonely and disgruntled.

  I fired up the Cherokee and drove off in search. David first.

  Not at home. No one at home. I drove to Starbucks where he worked. Not there, but I bought a cup of coffee, and that calmed me down a little. There was a pay phone at the bagel place so I called Jalil. Also not at home. Of course not, it was Friday night and even Jalil had a life. Probably seeing that Japanese chick. Heavy Snow or whatever. Deep Ice. Something.

  April. I called her house. Answering machine.

  Then I remembered. "Rent!" I yelled. The play. April's stupid school play, it was tonight, and I was supposed to be there. I really did have a "school thing." Weird when truth rears its head amid the comforting network of lies.

  I looked at my watch. It started at what, eight? An hour.

  Yeah, April would be there at the auditorium.

  I hopped back in the Jeep and pulled away. School parking was always bad, and worse when something was happening. At least tonight's football game was away. I parked on the street, watched by three black guys in full hip-hop regalia. Probably steal my car.

  No, we don't think that way anymore, Christopher, I chided myself: That's Keith-ism. Loser-think.

  I locked up anyway and pointed my keys like I was turning on the nonexistent alarm. Yeah, that would fool the whole world.

  I ran across the street, slowed to a herky-jerky walk across the scruffy prison yard that was our school quad, agitated now, what if April didn't know anything? I mean, what did I think?

  That she had fallen asleep over in Everworld, just dozed off while we were having our little gun battle?

  This was stupid. Unless David was here, too. That's who I needed: David. If he was back on this side then we were both probably dead, which meant no going back at the very least.

  "Would that be a bad thing?" I asked myself, and earned a dismissive eye roll from some theater-type girl.

  "Hey. Do you know April?" I yelled to her.

  She hesitated, stopped. She held the door open for me.

  "Yeah, I know April."

  "Do you know if she's here yet?"

  "She probably is," Theater Girl said. She looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was April's boyfriend.

  "Well, where would I find her? She's having a baby and she forgot to take her special prenatal vitamins."

  Another snotty, dismissive eye roll. "Down the hall, go around down that back area, you know where they always pile all the tables? That leads backstage."

  "Thanks. We'll name the baby after you." I ran for it.

  April was there all right, in street-
hooker costume and slut makeup, practicing a song at half-volume while other kids walked around looking scared or self-important and the theater arts faculty dithered and stormed and yelled orders that no one obeyed.

  "April."

  She broke off in mid-note. "Christopher. What are you doing here?"

  "First let me just say that whole 'want a date, sailor?' look works. I never pictured you doing the fishnets-and-spike-heels thing, but now I'll never picture anything else."

  "Always glad to contribute to your little fantasies, Christopher. What's happened?" She took my arm and guided me out of the way, into a dark little corner.

  "I think maybe I'm dead," I said.

  Chapter

  XVII

  "Back up. Last thing I know is I was told to talk to Brigid.

  Which I did, for all the good that did."

  "Yeah, well, things are moving right along. David and I are in the middle of a fairies-versus-Nazis thing that isn't going real well. I think maybe I got blown away."

  She stared at me sideways.

  "I like the tube top, too," I said.

  "Well, we've always wondered what would happen. You know, if something happened to one of us over there. But you know what, you may already be back over there. It's not like you can tell."

  "I can tell. At least usually. Not always. Mostly, though, I get this feeling, this, I don't know, this whole kind of checking-out, not-quite-there thing."

  She nodded. She knew. But of course she was right, too, we didn't always know for sure.

  "Have you seen David?" I asked. "I mean, if I'm dead he may be, too."

  "If you're dead over there you're still alive here. You noticed that, right? Hey." She snapped her fingers in my face. "My face is up here. Talk to my face, not my boobs."

  "Sorry." I ran my hand back through my hair. "I don't know what to do. I mean, Senna's got Keith over there and a bunch of other inmates from his asylum, and I'm thinking maybe there's some way I can help out, you know?"

  "How?"