Shadow Land

by Adam J. Wright

  “I’m sure you’re right.” But Felicity looked worried.

  “Did you find anything in the Arthurian lore?” I asked her.

  “No, not yet. There’s a lot to look at and with all the research surrounding the case as well, I haven’t really had the time.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “Mister Scary and Sammy Martin are our priorities. We’ll deal with Cantrell if we have to but as long as everything stays quiet and we don’t get a call from him or Amy, we’ll put that problem on the back burner for now. Hell, for all we know, the sword didn’t actually do anything to him.”

  “You said his eyes were glowing. That sounds like something.”

  “Okay, it’s something. But right now we have to focus on Mister Scary and Sammy. We don’t have the resources to work three cases at the same time and we don’t even know that what happened to Cantrell is a case. Maybe he just had a bad reaction to the sword and that was that. It lasted a couple of minutes and then was gone.”

  But even as I said those words, I remembered the sword calling my name. For whatever reason, it had rejected me when I’d gone to it. The voice in my head had disappeared. But when the sword had been calling me, it had seemed to have a purpose for doing so.

  And maybe, when it had reached into Cantrell’s mind, it fulfilled that purpose.

  12

  Sheriff Cantrell drove his police cruiser into the parking lot of Darla’s Diner and killed the engine. There were only a couple of other cars in the lot. The rain was probably keeping people indoors, warmth and a home-cooked meal more appealing than going out to eat.

  Since leaving Harbinger’s house earlier today, he’d felt lightheaded. The world around him seemed fuzzy and distant. And he couldn’t hear anything clearly, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton balls.

  Maybe a burger would fix that. It could be a blood-sugar thing. He’d been meaning to go to his doctor to get checked out for a while now but hadn’t made the appointment, probably because he didn’t want to be told he had a problem and that he had to change his diet.

  It was getting dark. His shift was over but he couldn’t remember what he’d been doing for most of the day. He knew he’d been to the Martin residence and talked to the press, and then what? Had he been driving around town aimlessly? His mind couldn’t recall any details.

  His phone rang. It was Amy. He tried to shake the sudden tiredness he felt and sound upbeat. Amy could usually tell when something was wrong. “Hey, Amy.”

  “Hey, Dad, where are you?” She sounded concerned. Had she detected something in his voice?

  “I’m at Darla’s,” he said.

  “Oh, have you eaten already? I was going to make us something.”

  “Haven’t eaten yet. Haven’t gone inside yet.” For some reason, it took effort to get each word out of his mouth. And he suddenly felt cold—very cold. The heater had switched off along with the engine but he shouldn’t be feeling this cold yet. He felt as if he were encased in ice.

  “Dad, are you okay? You don’t sound too good.”

  “Not feeling great,” he said. “I just need to eat, I think.” He turned the car on again and as the engine came to life, he dialed the heating all the way up.

  “You should get home. I’ll bring you some chicken soup.”

  “Okay,” he said through chattering teeth. Was he getting a fever? He pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. His skin felt frozen.

  Then he heard a crackling sound all around him. Ice was beginning to spiderweb across the windshield and the windows, slowly at first but then faster. In a couple of seconds, it had covered every inch of glass.

  “What the hell?”

  “Dad, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  Although his view of Darla’s Diner was obscured by the ice on the windshield, he could see no ice on the diner at all. And the other cars on the lot were unaffected. Only his car was affected by the ice. He tried to open his door, to get out, but it was frozen shut.

  “Amy, I need help.” He felt the ice creeping into his blood now, slowing his heart. He tried to breathe deeply, to get more oxygen into his system, but the air around him felt thin. He could see his weak breath misting in front of his face.

  “Dad, what is it? Should I call an ambulance? I’m on my way.”

  “No ambulance,” he said weakly. “Won’t do me any good.” This was no blood-sugar thing. It wasn’t anything normal and thinking otherwise wasn’t going to help him or Amy. He remembered what Harbinger’s assistant had said earlier. “Blackwell sisters,” he told Amy. “Get…Blackwell…sisters. Only they can…help me.”

  His brain was too cold to conjure up any more words and his lips were too numb to speak them. He closed his eyes, expecting to fall into a long, deep sleep. But instead of seeing darkness, he saw a vision.

  It was as if he were entombed in a slab of ice that sat within a cave and he was looking up at a ceiling of dirt, rocks, and huge twisting tree roots. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry for help.

  Cantrell opened his eyes again and saw the interior of the car. Ice was now creeping over the steering wheel, the dashboard, the seats. The vision was somehow manifesting itself in the car.

  He closed his eyes again and saw the vision of the cave, tried to dismiss it from his mind. He couldn’t.

  When he tried to open his eyes again, he couldn’t.

  His eyelids were frozen shut.

  Amy Cantrell arrived at Darla’s Diner, the lights on her patrol car illuminating the building with flashes of blue. A handful of people had gathered around her dad’s car. Why were they just standing there? Why weren’t they helping him?

  Throwing open her door, she dashed from the car and pushed her way through the gawkers. When she saw the car, she stopped in her tracks and felt a fist grip her heart.

  The patrol car was sheathed in ice. It clung to the doors, the windows, and the tires. There was no ice anywhere else in the parking lot and even the ice that surrounded the car had only spread for a few feet in each direction.

  She could see her dad inside, sitting behind the wheel. He wasn’t moving.

  “Somebody call an ambulance!” she shouted at the people standing there. But no one moved.

  Amy realized that the bystanders were just as frozen as the car. There was no ice anywhere near them but they were frozen in place, their eyes staring blankly at the patrol car.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Her question drifted into the cold night, unanswered.

  Turning back to the car, Amy tried the door. It was frozen shut. She pulled on the handle with all her strength but she couldn’t get a grip on the ice-coated metal.

  She remembered that she needed to call an ambulance. Grabbing her phone from her jacket pocket, she began punching in the numbers but stopped when someone spoke behind her.

  “There’s no point in calling an ambulance, Amy. It won’t help your father.”

  Amy whirled around and found herself facing Victoria and Devon Blackwell, the two people her father had said could help him. Both women were wrapped up against the cold in long black coats that reached down to their ankles and thick black scarves that wound around their necks and trailed down to their knees.

  “What’s happening?” Amy asked. The words came out weaker than she had intended; she mentally cursed herself for sounding like a lost child in front of these two women whom she hardly knew.

  “We aren’t exactly sure,” Victoria said. “Devon had a vision of your father in trouble so we came here immediately.” She gestured to the frozen car. “And we found this.”

  “Is he dead?” Amy asked.

  “No,” Devon said. “But he needs our help.”

  “Now, why don’t you go into the diner and find some hot water so we can get the car door open?” Victoria said to Amy.

  Without hesitating, Amy sprinted to the diner. The place was empty, all the staff and customers outside by the car. Had they been affected by the same thing that had frozen her
dad’s car?

  She found two empty coffee pots and filled them with hot water, careful not to spill them as she went back outside. When she reached the car, she poured the water over the edges of the driver’s door.

  The ice cracked and softened. Amy pulled on the door and it opened. When she saw her dad, she was sure he was dead. His skin was blue and he was completely covered in a layer of frost.

  She reached in to unbuckle his seatbelt but Devon gently pushed her aside. “Let us handle this. It could be dangerous to move him without the proper precautions.”

  Amy did as she was told, wondering why she was even listening to these witches. Maybe she should call an ambulance, let the medical professions help her father. But the last thing her dad had said to her on the phone was to get the Blackwell sisters. He usually dismissed the sisters as phonies or kooks, so there must have been a good reason for him to ask for their help. Amy just prayed she was making the right decision by honoring his request.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Victoria told Amy. “Don’t you worry.”

  Devon reached into the car and closed her eyes.

  “What is she doing?” Amy asked.

  “She’s just trying to find out what has happened to your father.”

  “And what about these people?” Amy indicated the diner’s staff and customers who seemed to be frozen in time. “Did the same thing happen to them?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about them, dear. We did that. We couldn’t have all these poor people confused about what they saw tonight, could we? Things like this can give a person nightmares. After we leave here, they’ll all wake up with a slight hiccup in their memories. They’ll probably wonder why they’re standing out here in the parking lot but apart from that, they’ll be right as rain.”

  Devon, eyes still closed and one hand pressed against the sheriff’s forehead, said, “He’s under an enchantment. His mind is locked inside a dream. There’s a cave deep beneath a tree and there’s someone else in there with your father but I don’t know who it is.”

  “There, you see,” Victoria said to Amy, “paramedics couldn’t help him with that, could they?”

  “But you can?”

  Victoria smiled warmly. “We’ll do everything we can to help. I think it’s safe to move him now.”

  Devon opened her eyes and nodded. “He’s deep within the dream. He won’t wake up.”

  “Waking him up could be quite traumatic,” Victoria explained. “Come on, dear, help us get him to our car.”

  Between the three of them, they got the sheriff out of the car and carried him across the parking lot to a black Volvo station wagon. When she felt her dad’s frozen skin beneath her fingers, Amy found it hard to believe he could still be alive. He was so cold that a chill emanated from his entire body.

  They managed to get him onto the back seat of the Volvo. Seeing him lying there, Amy felt a stab of grief. Her dad was usually so strong and healthy. She’d seen him show weakness a couple of times since her mom died but he’d never looked as fragile as he did right now in the back of the Blackwell sisters’ car.

  “We need to hurry,” Victoria said, pointing at a thin layer of ice that was beginning to spread over the seat around the sheriff. “If we don’t get home in time, our car will freeze up.”

  “I’ll follow you,” Amy said, rushing back to her patrol car. She realized as she got behind the wheel that she wasn’t exactly sure where the Blackwell sisters lived. She knew it was a house somewhere out of town but she couldn’t remember ever actually seeing it.

  The Volvo roared to life and tore out of the parking lot. Amy started the patrol car, floored the gas pedal, and skidded out onto the highway. She hit the lights and turned on the siren. There probably wouldn’t be much traffic around but whatever there was would get out of the way.

  She followed the Volvo north on the highway for a couple of miles and then along a side road through the woods. The rear window of the Blackwells’ car was frosted over and Amy could see a sheen of ice glinting on the bodywork. She had no idea how far it was to the witches’ house but she hoped they got there before the ice reached the Volvo’s engine and froze it.

  “If that happens, we’ll just put Dad into my car,” she told herself. “We’ll get there okay.” She wasn’t even sure where “there” was or what the Blackwell sisters could do to help her dad but she couldn’t let herself think about that. She had to concentrate on the task at hand or she’d go crazy and, right now, the task at hand was to get to the Blackwell house before the magic ice, or whatever the hell it was, made the Volvo’s engine seize up.

  A couple of minutes later, the Volvo’s blinker came on, indicating that it was about to make a right turn. Amy knew this stretch of road and she knew there was no right turn ahead. Were the witches pulling over? Maybe the car couldn’t go any farther. She put her foot over the brake, ready to slow down and pull over behind the Volvo.

  But the witches didn’t pull over. The Volvo made a right turn into the trees. Amy’s heart leaped into her mouth as she watched the black car head straight toward a seemingly impenetrable wall of tall pines.

  “No,” she shouted. The Blackwells must have lost control of the car. They were going to crash.

  But the Volvo drove into the trees and disappeared, as if the wall of pines was nothing more than an illusion. Amy hit the brakes and the patrol car skidded to a stop. She turned the wheel in the direction of the trees and inched forward. The pine trees loomed large in the windshield but she kept going, slow enough that if she hit a solid trunk, her car wouldn’t be a write-off.

  Just as she was sure she was about to crash into a tree, the hood of her car vanished and met no resistance. Amy continued forward, watching as more of the car disappeared into what was obviously some kind of mirage. When she was through the illusory trees, she found herself driving on a short road that led to a house.

  The Volvo was parked in front of the house and the Blackwell sisters were pulling Amy’s dad out of the car, which was now completely covered in ice.

  Amy pulled up behind the Volvo and jumped out of her car, helping the witches to get her dad into the house. They took him down a flight of stairs into the basement and through a door into a room that was bare except for a cot and magical symbols painted on the walls and floor in various bright colors.

  When the sheriff was on the bed, Victoria said, “The enchantment won’t be able to spread beyond this room.” She put a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “He’ll be safe here with us, dear. Now, let’s get you a nice cup of herbal tea.”

  “But what’s going to happen to him?” Amy asked as Victoria led her upstairs to the main part of the house. “How are you going to help him? How long will it take?”

  “We’ll find out what sort of enchantment has got a hold on him and we’ll try to remove it,” Victoria said as they entered a bright and airy farmhouse-style kitchen. She lit a gas stove and put a kettle on the burner. “Now, if we only knew how he became enchanted in the first place, our job would be much easier. Has he been antagonizing any local spell-casters? Reading books about black magic without taking the proper precautions?”

  “What? No, nothing like that. He doesn’t read books about magic and the only local spell-casters around here are you and your sister.”

  Victoria nodded, frowning. “Never mind, we’ll find out where the enchantment came from. It would just be quicker if we had more information.”

  Amy remembered her conversation with Alec Harbinger earlier. “Wait a minute, Alec Harbinger may know something. He called me today and said my dad had been mesmerized by a magical item or something.”

  Victoria’s face brightened. “Oh, Alec knows. That’s wonderful. We’ll get to the bottom of this in no time, I’ll just give him a call.” She took a phone from her jacket pocket and began tapping on it. Bringing it to her ear, she said, “Alec, how are you, dear? Oh, that’s good. Listen, we have a small problem here. Sheriff Cantrell is under some sort of enchantment and his daug
hter said you might know something about it. Something about a magical item.”

  She listened and nodded and then said, “I see. No, no, it’s nothing to worry about, we have the matter in hand.” She stopped and listened again and said, “He’s in an enchanted sleep. At our house. Yes, Amy is aware. She helped us bring him here. No, there’s no need for you to do anything, dear, Devon and I will sort it out. Okay, bye.”

  She put the phone away and said to Amy, “Alec says your father has been enchanted by Excalibur.”

  “Excalibur? What do you mean?”

  “It’s a sword that King Arthur—”

  “Yes, I know what Excalibur is. I mean how did it put a spell on my dad?”

  “The sword is at Alec’s house. Your father was there and somehow ended up in the basement with the sword. And his eyes were glowing.”

  “What?” Amy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was her family forever doomed to be affected by the paranormal events in this town? “There’s something you can do, right?”

  Victoria nodded but her former confidence had disappeared. “It may take a little longer than if this were a regular enchantment. Excalibur is a powerful magical artifact and whatever spell it has your father under will be difficult to break.”

  “So you can’t help him?” Amy felt as if the world had suddenly become much darker. First her mom had been killed helping a P.I. investigate a black magic cult and now her dad had been put into an enchanted coma by Excalibur. He was lying in the basement of the house she now stood in but there was nothing she could do to help him. She was totally reliant on the witches and that didn’t sit well with her.

  “I didn’t say that,” Victoria said. “I said it would take a little longer, that’s all.” She began fussing with the kettle and spooning herbs into a mug. When she was done, she handed Amy a steaming mug that smelled of mint, lavender, and something Amy didn’t recognize.

  “What’s in this?” she asked.

  “Just some herbs from our garden,” Victoria said. “Drink up.”