by Tara Lain
When he’d become invisible that time, none of the humans could see him, but Dash could. Does that mean all mages can see through an invisibility spell? Or just Dash?
Jazz could be on the verge of finding out the hard way. Still, the woman was moving faster and was out in the open part around the marble arch in the center of the park. No place for him to hide, so he was going to have to hope the spell worked on the female mage, or else.
She headed straight for the arch.
Walking softly, Jazz stayed behind her by a few yards.
Suddenly she stopped and looked over her shoulder. Jazz froze, but right then three skateboarders sailed through the space between them. The woman glanced around uneasily, but then turned and kept going. Either the skateboarders distracted her or she couldn’t see Jazz. He hoped for the latter, but could he trust that?
As she approached the arch, again the woman looked back, even turned in a full circle. She looked right through Jazz, and he finally released his breath. Invisible. Cool.
The mage seemed to take a breath too, and then she took off like a race walker, powered under the arch. And disappeared.
What?
Had she turned invisible like Jazz? Invisible to the invisible? Or was there another portal under the arch? The portal theory seemed likely, but the one Jazz had gone through had been slower, more like a door. This was a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t type portal. Whoa. Weird.
So how do you get in? It didn’t seem likely that he’d be able to shove in an arm like he had before. Slowly he entered the arch. Other people—humans—were ambling through with no problem. He turned in a circle, flailing his arms. He couldn’t feel anything unusual.
A guy taking a picture of his girlfriend was backing across the arch and slammed into Jazz. The guy yelled and looked back, then all around him. With wide eyes, he hurried away, taking his girlfriend with him.
That’s right, I’m invisible. Maybe that makes a difference.
Jazz trotted to a clump of bushes, ducked down, and focused again on his chest, letting the warm fire cool. After a few seconds, he felt… different. Emerging from the foliage, he smiled at the first person he saw, and she smiled back. Okay, good.
He sprinted to the arch, tried for the same place the woman had disappeared, focused his mind, and whispered, “Aperi portam.”
Zippity doo dah happened.
Try again? Somehow he was certain that they wouldn’t use the same spell for every portal. Hell, Arcantaria might be hush-hush, but it was still a school full of mages. Wonder what this place is?
The way that woman kept looking around, I’ll bet this place is even more top secret than Arcantaria. And damn, that is way secret.
Jazz’s phone dinged, and he pulled it out of his pocket. The text from Carla said, Hey, fam, I’m here. Where are you?
He grinned and typed with his thumbs, Be there fast. Lots to tell. Get the society.
Forget class. He took off at a run to the subway.
DASH STOOD with his back against the wall in the obstacle course. No obstacles present. Only a big open box. He rested his hands on his knees, head hanging down, breathing hard.
Jazz. He was drowning in a tidal wave of Jazz. Dash swore he could smell Jazz, all woods and fresh air. His skin tingled with Jazz’s touch, and his brain saw images of him. It was like Jazz was there, and Dash’s heart beat a tattoo—Jazz, Jazz, Jazz.
Dash wanted to run down the halls of Arcantaria screaming and begging someone to tell him where Jazz was. Maybe Jazz decided to come to Arcantaria after all? Oh man, that would be so amazing. Yes he was pissed that Jazz had chosen to leave him alone, but he’d get over it fast if Jazz came to Arcantaria. Maybe Jazz is as lonely as I am? Hell no. He has our friends. I’m alone except for Anastasia and Kitty.
Don’t be ungrateful.
“Dash, are you okay?”
Dash kept his hands on his knees but glanced up at Hillebrand who was standing there looking at Dash sideways. “Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I get this, I don’t know what to call it, like an energy wave. It’s pretty overwhelming.”
“Ah yes, development of the magical stratum. It’s a characteristic of the most powerful mages. Quite normal, but it can be exhausting. Are you sleeping well?”
Like crap. “Well enough.”
“Make sure you don’t burn the candle at both ends, young mage. Do you feel well enough to work?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, Brand.” He grinned and Hillebrand smiled back. Dash forced himself to stand and try to look relaxed. The sense of Jazz being there, a part of him, had receded, although the pulse beat remained.
Hillebrand said, “Let’s take up where we left off.”
Dash nodded. He needed to soak up the teaching. Where else could he learn teleportation? If Lysandra could do it, he’d never seen it, and he’d seen most every power she had.
Hillebrand said, “Okay, as we said, like most magic, teleportation’s in the mind and the core. So begin by balancing your body so it can be ignored.”
Dash equalized his weight between his two feet, rooted himself, and softened his knees.
“Good. Now close your eyes. Heighten your awareness of where you are. I’ve removed as much detail from the obstacle course as possible to make it easy to imagine this plain gray box.”
After a deep breath, Dash felt, heard, smelled, and sensed his place of origin. Little flashes of Jazz kept intruding, but he managed to hold the room he stood in at the front of his mind and breathed into the visualization.
Hillebrand said, “All right, now settle into that vision and allow your mind to create an image of the place you would go.”
Dash whispered, “What if I go there?”
“Don’t worry. You’re not ready for that step yet. This is for development of the mental recreation of the scene. But it’s best to make the destination not too far away. Stay inside Arcantaria. After today’s lesson, we’ll do some serious patterning of the destination, but today is mainly visualization practice.”
“Okay.” Dash pictured his own bedroom in the tower, recreating the details of the small bed, basic chest of drawers, window, pizza box—wait, pizza? Wishful thinking. He dragged his mind back to the room, imagining the books on the small bookcase. The funny lamp on his bedside table that only worked sometimes and vanilla colas. Weird. He shook his head a little to clear it, and Jazz’s face, intent in conversation, filled his mind.
Dash’s heart slammed against his ribs. Everything in him vibrated, Yes! I want to go there. I want to be with Jazz.
No, stop. Wait. What’re you doing? Suddenly he was in his own bedroom, almost like he was standing there at the foot of the bed, but then whoosh. He stood in the middle of a living room. Five of his very favorite people sat on the floor eating pizza and drinking vanilla colas, and all he wanted was to be there too, with the five he loved. With Jazz. Oh gods, his chest hurt.
Jazz chewed and waved his hands, talking around the pizza. The rest of them were listening so intently their faces seemed frozen in shock and they forgot to eat. Dash could see Jazz’s lips moving, but he heard nothing except rushing in his ears like a hurricane.
Dash pressed the palms of his hands against his ears, trying to unstop them, to make the wind die down. He wanted—no, he needed—to hear what Jazz was saying.
Suddenly, Jazz stopped talking and grabbed his chest. His big eyes got even wider, and he looked around as if maybe he could see a ghost—or Dash. Dash waved his arms. “I’m here. Here.”
Jazz turned in a circle, and Carla jumped up and grabbed his arm as if to keep him from falling.
Dash yelled, “I’m here. Right here.”
“Dash! Dash.”
Someone grabbed Dash’s arm, but it wasn’t Jazz or Carla. Dash shrugged it off. “I’m here. Look this way. Here!”
The hold on his arm got tighter, and someone started shaking him.
Suddenly, like a television picture fading from sight, the room where Jazz and the others were gathered telescoped out o
f existence, and Dash was standing in the middle of the gray box that was the obstacle course. He blinked and tried to catch his breath.
Professor Hillebrand stood beside him, shaking his arm. “Dash, can you hear me?”
A wash of disappointment so strong it nauseated him flowed through Dash, but he managed to nod his head. “Yeah, sorry. I got caught in some kind of loop.”
Hillebrand escorted Dash toward the locker room entrance. “That’s frightening. Come on, you need to sit down.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Inside the locker room, Hillebrand pressed Dash down on a bench, then went to get a glass of water. When he came back, he sat on the bench as well as he handed the glass to Dash. “Tell me what you experienced.”
Dash wanted to know what had happened, but he also didn’t want to say too much. “Uh, well, I was picturing myself in my room in the tower, and for a minute I felt like I was actually there, but then, whoosh.”
“Whoosh?”
“I was someplace else with, uh, friends, and I was really there, you know? I could see them talking and interacting, but I couldn’t hear anything.” He dragged a mouthful of water from the glass. “Plus, they couldn’t see me, so I guess I wasn’t really there.”
“Define really.”
“Excuse me?”
“You mean you didn’t teleport physically to your friends’ location, right?”
Dash nodded.
“But you could see them? You’re saying you could see your friends?”
“Yes, very clearly. It seemed like I was there, but—”
Hillebrand stood and stalked up and down the room, almost talking to himself. “Amazing. Sight’s a physical characteristic. So while you were unable to hear or perhaps smell or use your other senses, you were more than just psychically connected to the place. You did successfully migrate a physical experience to another place.” He stopped and ran his hands through his red mane. “This is actually excellent. Better than I’ve ever seen a student achieve in so short a time. I’m very encouraged.” He took the empty glass from Dash’s hand and went to the water jug to refill it. Carrying it back to Dash, he said, “A few more lessons and I’d say we can test that new skill and see if it can be put to use.”
“Really? How?”
For just a second, Hillebrand’s face looked crafty and sly, then he shrugged. “We’ll come up with some kind of fun, real-world experience for you.” Again he walked to the water dispenser and this time poured a glass for himself. He seemed oddly manic as he paced around the locker room. “Yes, I can picture all kinds of excellent uses for your new skillset. Imagine someone’s surprise when you arrive in their midst.” He grinned into space.
“I’m sure you must have had that experience a lot. Does it ever get you in trouble?” Dash grinned.
Hillebrand looked funny. Maybe embarrassed was the right description. “Actually, I can only teleport to certain locations that have been practiced and prepared—-programmed, you might say.”
“Oh, like the obstacle course?” Interesting.
“Yes, precisely.”
“It certainly works to blow your students away.”
“Teleportation’s a very unusual skill for a mage. I like you guys to know it’s possible.”
Dash flipped up his hand. “Inspired me.” Dash’s heart, which had slowed down a bit from his experience, started tripping again, but he tried to sound laid-back. “So do I need to program locations I can go to?”
The professor looked at Dash with slightly narrowed eyes. “Not right away. We’ll see if perhaps you have, uh, a wider range of destinations.”
He didn’t say “wider than me,” but it was implied.
Hillebrand turned suddenly to Dash. “You’re sure your friends couldn’t see you?”
“No. You saw me. I was yelling and waving my arms. No one seemed to notice.”
“And I continued to see your physical body here on the obstacle course, although at one point you became semitransparent.”
“I did?”
“Yes, but it’s possible that what occurred was more astral projection than teleportation.”
“Oh, interesting. I’d rather learn to teleport.”
Hillebrand waved a hand at him. “Yes, yes, all in good time, but astral projection is also a very useful skill.”
“Really? How?”
Hillebrand kept staring into space. “For spying.”
Chapter Nineteen
“JAZZ? JAZZ, what’s wrong?”
Jazz shook his head. “Weird. I felt like Dash was here. In this room. Like he was calling me.” He flopped back on the rug Lindsey had so carefully selected for Jazz and Carla’s apartment. He tried to catch his breath.
BeBop grabbed a slice of pizza from one of the two boxes spread out on their coffee table. After chewing a huge bite, he said, “Let’s synopsize, shall we?” He held up a finger, licked the pizza oil from it then held it up again. “Jazz has managed to break into Arcantaria. He now knows the secret abracadabra spell to get in there. He also knows there’s another magic portal at least one mage has disappeared into that doesn’t use the same magic spell to get in. So Jazz was presumably in the same place as Dash earlier today, and then he comes home and feels like Dash is here with him.” He grinned. “How am I doing so far?” He chomped another big bite of pizza.
“You’re doing fine.” Jazz sat up and sipped his vanilla cola. The cold and the sweet hit his light-headedness and sugar-rushed him right back to consciousness. “One of the things I didn’t get to tell you yet was I overheard a conversation where they were talking about somebody who had a lot of powers, but they had to be sure he was—” Jazz made air quotes. “—on their side.”
Dij said, “Why is that significant, Jazz?”
“I’m not sure it is, but we know Dash is pretty powerful. I don’t know enough mages to get how different he is from the average, but—”
Carla made a loud snorting sound. “Come on, get actual. We know Dash is special in any group or company. So hell yeah, he could be the one they’re talking about.”
“I agree. And the rest of the discussion makes it clear that everyone in Arcantaria isn’t on the same side, whatever that means. Honestly, that worries me.”
Dij again said, “Why?”
“Where would be a better place to find talented wizards for some kind of weirdass scheme?”
“What else?” BeBop was chewing his fourth piece of pizza.
“What do you mean, BeBop?” Carla cocked her head.
“Jazz said that was one of the things he hadn’t told us. I want to know what else?”
Jazz gave BeBop a tight smile. “Smartass. You’re right. So when I was trying to get out of Arcantaria, having gotten in by accident, I got caught by this woman. She asked me what was I doing there. I couldn’t think of anything to say except that I was delivering a message to the professor.”
Carla said, “Whoa.” She fanned herself with her hand.
“Fortunately, she said ‘Professor Hillebrand?’ And I said yes.”
“Who’s that?” BeBop asked.
“No idea, but I agreed. And get this. Then she asked me who I was bringing the message from.”
“Holy crap.” Carla rocked back.
“I grasped at vapor and said I wasn’t authorized to tell anyone but the professor.”
“Good one.” BeBop laughed.
“But then she looks at me real serious and says, ‘Olympus.’”
“What does that mean?” Fatima was wide-eyed.
Jazz shrugged. “No clue, but I could tell she thought I should be impressed by it.”
“Wow.” That was Carla.
“So I said the only thing I could think of.” He took a breath, kind of enjoying the drama. “I said I was carrying the message from Odan.”
Fatima gasped.
Carla looked back and forth between them. “I don’t get it.”
Jazz scrinched his nose to the side. “The woman totally accepted
that I was bringing a message from Odan.”
“Okay, so?”
He gazed at her because he really wanted to see her reaction. “Odan’s our weird, supey next-door neighbor.”
Carla fell back on her elbows and stared at Jazz. “Holy shit!”
Jazz nodded. She got it.
BeBop wiped his hand and his mouth on a paper napkin. “Okay crew, we gotta divide and conquer. There’s too much suspicious stuff to leave it to Jazz by himself.”
Jazz spread his hands. “Lay out the plan, Stan.”
Carla bobbed up to sit cross-legged. “Give us the rundown, Sundown.”
BeBop side-eyed her. “Reaching.”
“True.”
BeBop leaned forward earnestly. “Odan has made contact with Jazz, so it seems like you need to nurture that relationship.”
“I told him about Carla moving in, so it would make sense for us both to call on him.”
BeBop nodded. “Good. Safer.”
Dij frowned. “That could be dangerous, actually. We know this man is supernatural and suspicious and may be connected to Dash in some way. He probably doesn’t know about Carla. Should we really bring her to his attention?”
Carla shook her head emphatically. “Jazz isn’t walking into some lion’s den alone. No way.”
Gods he loved her. “I’d agree with you, except chances are good since he knew about me and knows I’m connected to you guys, he’s almost certainly aware of Carla.”
BeBop nodded in agreement. “So Jazz and Carla call on Odan and try to figure out what he’s up to.” He made a back and forth motion between himself, Dij, and Fatima. “I think the three of us take on the mystery of the disappearing portal. We go hang around the arch and try to catch someone in the act of vanishing.”
Dij said, “We can also ask our sisters. They know nothing of the location of Arcantaria, but maybe there’s a chance they’ve heard something about this other mysterious portal.”
BeBop leaned back on his arms. “And I can ask my uncle. He wouldn’t tell us about Arcantaria, but maybe I can wheedle something out of him about the arch.”
