Tells

by Scott Rhine

  Waterford pulled back as if to strike me. Dina cringed, but I stuck out my chin. If I was right, he’d hurt himself by punching me. “What has Zak told you?”

  I smiled. Maybe it’ll intervene if he strikes me. “Nothing, but I know you’re a thief and a liar.”

  The professor gripped me by the throat. “I’ve invented all of this. Nobody will believe your brother.”

  Zak burst into the room. “Leave them alone. They’re just little girls.”

  Once Waterford released me, I coughed and regained my breath. I could tell that Dina had dozen things to say to him, but I repeated the words of the angel to her. “Fear not. Truth wants to be known.”

  “No,” Waterford said, grasping Zak’s arm. “The secrets of the universe are hiding from me, and you need to dig them up. Now!” He shoved my brother into the second chair in front of a monitor.

  The air conditioning fell silent, and the lights in the room winked out.

  Yay, Luca! I squeezed Dina’s shoulder in victory. “Looks like there won’t be any more experiments tonight.”

  Yet when Zak touched the keyboard, his monitor sprang to life. Pale light from the screen lit our faces. “Uninterruptible power supplies. Every machine on this floor has them. That way, no important data gets lost.”

  “How long will they last?” I asked.

  “Less than ten minutes,” my brother replied.

  Waterford waved the gun around. “Which should be more than enough time to finish my experiment if you do what you’re supposed to. Everything I have is riding on this grant. We must demonstrate the prototype by midnight. If I fail, I can blame it on her sabotage and your incompetence. You’ll never work in this field again.”

  I faced my brother. “That may be worth the price. Don’t abuse our family heritage this way.”

  This time, Waterford smashed me across the face with the pistol.

  I felt the metal rattle my teeth. The iron taste of my own blood coated my front teeth. No protection. What was that lazy Book doing instead?

  The professor shifted the muzzle toward Dina. “Do. It.”

  Zak clicked a few buttons, and the program whirred to life. On the screen, over ninety power meters turned green. A handful remained red. The pure tone hummed to life and built in intensity until it became a whine. The volume was so loud that I could see the monitor’s reflection shaking in the window.

  Is it the bad lighting, or are the edges of the Book turning gray? I needed to reach my bat.

  The tone began to warble as another meter turned orange. Waterford leaned over the screen and clicked the mouse frantically. “Bring in the backup nodes. Replace the faulty ones. Hold the circuit until it reaches steady state.” The tone increased in pitch.

  “The controls are pulling too many amps,” said Zak. “My workstation is failing.” The volume faded until it was no worse than one of those tests of the Emergency Broadcasting System on the radio.

  Waterford typed on the flickering console. “There. I’ve put it in background mode. The program is locked in.”

  As I crouched on the desk with my feet under me, I tapped on Dina’s arm three times. On three, I leapt toward the hallway.

  “What?” said Waterford as he spun to face the door.

  I tumble-rolled, and he fired into the darkness. After grabbing my bat, I staggered though the open computer-room door and ducked to safety. I could see by the blinking lights on the machine. Something was wrong with the white floor tiles, though. They had heaved upward, causing the racks of computers to roll outward into a circle.

  Dina didn’t join me like I expected her to. Instead, she rose up behind the psychopath and smashed her loaded purse down on his head. I could hear the crash of the coins followed by the thump of a body on the floor. “Little girl, my well-muscled ass.”

  When I poked my head out to see what was happening, I saw Zak take possession of the pistol from the professor’s limp hand. Then he snapped Waterford’s trigger finger so he wouldn’t be a threat again, a trick he learned from the Japanese manga he read. “Dina. You’re not hurt?”

  “We came to rescue you.” She poked him in the chest with a finger. “And you’re just as much an immigrant as I am. We were both born in this country with foreign parents. I shouldn’t need to defend myself to you. Your skin is the same color as mine.”

  Tall and ripped though he might be, Zak lowered his head like a kid being scolded by his mother. “Sorry. You deserve better.”

  I turned my head to give them a little privacy and figured out why the Book was working so hard. A two-foot-wide crack running the length of the ceiling looked like a red and orange nebula from Star Trek, except it felt wrong. I pulled out Mom’s kaleidoscope and peered through it at the chasm. The edges of the tear were tinged with gold, while tendrils of purple moved in the depths. The dark mass was growing larger or closer. This was a wound in the side of our universe, and infection was trying to seep in. “Guys. Fight later. I need help.”

  19. Boss Battle

  Zak and Dina dashed into the room. Dina held her purse up like a talisman and began the midnight prayer. Zak’s face filled with awe. “It worked. We folded space.”

  I pulled his lone chest hair to grab his attention.

  “Ouch!”

  “Stop admiring the hell gate. The radiation alone could kill us all. Which gadgets do I smash to end this?” I held up Dad’s bat, and the sigils encompassing it shimmered in the nebula light.

  “You can’t.”

  To test Zak’s theory, I swung hard at the machine closest to my elbow. The pizza-box-sized computer rocked backward, and its green light winked out. However, the tone stayed strong.

  “I rigged it with over a hundred spares. You can’t disable enough machines with something blunt. If I had a samurai sword, I’d cut the bottommost cables on each rack—those are the power supplies.”

  “Would a long machete or a fire ax do?” I asked. Or the flaming sword of an angel?

  “Yeah. Take out seven racks, and this circuit should collapse.”

  While he was distracted, I grabbed his notebook out of Dina’s purse and hid it behind my back.

  He had a weird, dreamy look on his face. “Later, we can rebuild safely. This technology could be used to make an Einstein-Rosen bridge. Of course, powering a full-scale model would cost an insane amount of energy.”

  Nodding, I pulled Dina up from her knees. “I’ve got this. Escort Dr. Frankenstein out of the building, pronto.” I jerked a thumb toward my brother. “Use the purse on him it you have to.” She knew how to use tunnels to avoid the wolves, and anyplace was safer than here.

  “I’m not leaving my sister alone with a freak like Waterford,” he said.

  “She can handle this,” Dina said. “She’s a powerful witch, and there are more on the way. We can’t let them catch you.”

  Puzzled at this flood of emotion and information, Zak stared at both of us. “Huh?”

  Dina whipped out the baggie full of cookies. “I made you these.” Oddly, that was enough to divert this attention. It’s not what I’d meant by using the purse to persuade him, but it worked.

  “Find your roommate Pete on the fifth floor,” I told him. “The girl with him has the keys to Dad’s car. If nothing else, get Dina back to the visitor lot before the FBI shows up and arrests her.”

  “Right,” he said, chewing his first cookie. “Do I need to carry you?”

  A smile flickered across Dina’s face as she led him from the room. “Maybe later.”

  When the others were gone, I knelt before the abyss. I could feel cold breeze coming from the rip in the ceiling. Fog formed on the floor. “Mr. Martyr, please?”

  Nothing. I dashed back to the office and snatched up my Book. The edges of the pages were curling and turning ashy, but it might still help amplify my plea. I also picked up a dry-erase marker from the whiteboard tray before running across the hall.

  In the vibrating computer room, I drew a circle on the white floor panels, conn
ecting to the doorframe on each side. An increasing amount of fog danced in the breeze. A good protective ward might keep this spatial rip confined to one room. Sprinkling the fast-food salt inside the circle, I recited, “Let this ground be purified and free of evil influence.” Without candles, I substituted a scattering of dimes around the perimeter. “I fortify it with the love of a parent and alms to poor children.”

  Clutching the Book against my chest, I tapped the bat toward each of the cardinal compass points. “I call on your favor, Keeper of the Martyrs. I remind you of the boon you granted, Angel of the Most High. I invoke your promise, Abdul Baatin. I summon you to face this, my greatest opponent.”

  The circle flashed white. The coins melted and reformed into a two glowing rings, separated by tiny triangles. It was a work of art any jeweler or doily maker would have been proud of. Fog rebounded from my “line in the sand.”

  Somehow, the African man was already in the computer room, propped against the doorjamb. “This wasn’t your greatest opponent. You could have solved all this yourself. Now it will be much more difficult.”

  “What? How could I possibly stop this in the next few minutes without knowing magic?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “What is the last example you gave your brother as a weapon?”

  “A fire ax? But Luca is downstairs.” Then I figured it out. Code required a fire-suppression box on every floor. We’d even passed one on the way to the office.

  I stepped out into the hall to grab the ax. When I reached the glass case, I smashed it with my bat. “Hey, the hose would be even better than an ax. I could kill a dozen computers at a time.” I set the bat and Book down so they wouldn’t be water damaged. Then I dragged the nozzle back to the hell gate. Of course, Baatin was already gone.

  Luca appeared at the head of the staircase.

  Before she could ask a question, I shouted, “Turn on the water valve. Hurry!” I could feel cold waves blowing through the room. The intensity of the circle’s glow was fading.

  While I waited for her to figure out the mechanics with the aid of her Book, I “drafted” the rift spell, pulling power from it to bolster the angelic ward. I knew it was working when the silver rang like a miniature bell.

  The force of the water caught me off-guard, lifted me off my feet, and tossed me around the room. My aim wasn’t the most accurate, but every piece of technology that the forceful stream hit tipped over or winked out. The room was so cold that the spray was turning into snowflakes and icicles.

  Luca appeared at my side, adding her weight and directing the stream of destruction. I crouched on the hose to help control it as I continued to steal power to pump into our defenses. If that purple virus-looking thing made it through, we’d need all the juice we could get.

  At some point in the hose rodeo, enough computers were fried to silence the resonance wave. “Enough?” asked Luca.

  “Don’t stop until every device in the place is dead. I didn’t want scientists reconstructing this experiment.” For good measure, we sprayed everything in the Waterford’s office, reducing his diagrams to pulp. Then, I had her turn off the valve. I left the nozzle draped over the professor to make it look like this was his fault.

  Her phone buzzed with a text. “The others, including Pete, are safely back at the car.” She slumped against the wall.

  “Quest completed!” I said, trying to high-five her.

  “Too tired,” Luca replied. “Had to use a spell to control hose. Arms exhausted. Dizzy.”

  I helped her to her feet and grabbed my supernatural gear: my Book, bat, and the notebook.

  “I can’t believe you dispelled that thing,” she said.

  “We all did. It was a team effort. You and Dina can cover my back anytime.”

  We raced downstairs as fast as Luca could go. Several times I had to steady her, so I loaned her the bat to use as a cane. “I won’t be able to drive to Holy Oak,” she said.

  I tucked my credit card into her blazer pocket. “We’ll get a room in Cambridge. You can’t stay at the dorm, or the response team might carry my brother off.”

  “Where are you going to be?” she asked, resting against a planter in the first-floor lobby.

  I pointed through the glass front doors on Vassar Street at the helicopter landing. “I have to open the doors for the response team and tell them what happened. You join the others.”

  Luca climbed to her feet, slouching. “So tired.”

  “Have Pete drive. Don’t let Zak or Dina behind the wheel.” My brother had failed his first two tests, another reason Dina may have been attracted to him. “Can you make it to the parking lot?”

  She nodded and staggered off in a westerly direction.

  Opening the glass front door, I waved the emergency squad over. All five wore white gloves and SWAT armor with Books strapped to their midsections.

  “Lieutenant Koroya of the Council Response Team.” She was six-feet tall and built like a Slavic prison matron. She could probably wrestle monsters into submission.

  “I’m Isa Hutchinson. Where’s Blaise’s mother, the Captain?” I asked.

  The second-in-command replied, “We left her in Holy Oak. Where’s the breach?”

  “I already closed it,” I said, tapping my Book. “Dr. Waterford will definitely need a mind wipe, though.”

  “We’ll need to investigate for ourselves,” said Koroya.

  “Sixth floor.” I gave them the room numbers. “You can’t miss it.”

  She shoved me toward a woman wearing a red-cross patch on her shoulder, the smallest on the team. “Medic, check her for damage.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  The medic had short, blonde hair and delicate fingers. “You have acute sunburn on your right side.”

  “It’s not peanuts. Might be frostbite,” I said. “Or radiation. My Book and sacred circle soaked up the worst.” I hope.

  While the other four pounded upstairs in combat boots, the nice lady pulled me into the helicopter out of view of any surveillance cameras that might be active. Inside, she waved a hexagonal crystal over me. “You definitely caught some black Kirilian rays, but you should be fine with a few days’ rest.” She handed me a bottle of water and a packet of electrolyte mix.

  “Mmm. Cotton candy flavored.”

  “It’s blessed. Only the best for our troops on the front line. It’s so good that sometimes I take a few packets home for my morning exercises.” She seemed puzzled at why she had just confided this information to a stranger. “Drink as much as you can hold. Let me see your Book.”

  I pulled away as if she’d asked for a public pap smear. “That’s personal.”

  She sighed. “If it makes you feel better, you can hold my Book while I do the exam.”

  Over her headset, I heard chatter about a janitor that they’d neutralized.

  “You could at least tell me your name first,” I said.

  “Freya.”

  Reluctantly, I exchanged Books. Hers was in an industrial-strength rubberize box.

  When she opened mine, I almost cried. It was toast. Only an oval the size of my palm remained readable on each page, and that looked like someone had left it in the oven too long.

  “Merciful heavens,” Freya said. Into her headset, she snapped, “Containment level one. Full shields. Scan everyone for Corruption.” Turning to me, she asked, “How big was the breach?”

  “Why?”

  “The last Book I saw this damaged, the owner had been burned at the stake. My team’s lives are at stake!”

  “I didn’t take the time to measure. Maybe thirty feet by three.”

  She glanced at the nearby city. “That’s what caused the blackout.”

  “I said that when I called. Though all the shadow wolves seem to have dissipated.”

  Freya reported over her radio. “Koroya, get us eyes on the breach immediately. This could become a Tungunska-level event.”

  The male helicopter pilot almost pissed himself. “Worse than Chernoby
l?” He took off his headset and turned up the cockpit radio.

  Koroya called back. “Confirm multiple Corruption rings over ten meters across on levels four and five. Control, call in all teams on the Eastern seaboard.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I took care of it.”

  Shoving me back into the seat, Freya shone a flashlight in my eye. “You’re lucky to be alive. What possessed you to charge alone into an event?”

  I didn’t want my friends or brother to be in trouble, but they might get sick from magical radiation if I stayed silent. “You know how my dad invents things? Well, my brother is even smarter.”

  Her eyes grew huge. “Warlock? Where is he?”

  “I’ll only tell you that if you promise not to hurt him.”

  “We can’t loose a person like this on humanity.” Freya gestured to the warped building that was dripping from the fifth and sixth floors.

  “It was like that before. Nobody will notice.”

  “You have an obligation!”

  I closed my damaged Book and pulled it to my chest. “As head witch in my family, my first responsibility is to my blood. If the Council wants me to swear some kind of loyalty oath, maybe they can find Zak a job doing research for them.”

  Koroya interrupted our argument with a curse over the radio. “One hostile in custody. This whole floor is contaminated, but the breach has been sealed. Ask her how.”

  I crossed my arms. “Not until my family and friends get immunity.”

  Like any fascist adult, the first thing Freya did was confiscate my cell phone.

  ****

  For two hours, Koroya hammered me with questions at the safe house. “Who drew that protection circle?”

  “Me,” I replied. She didn’t ask who enhanced it.

  “Impossible. You’ve had one class in the Art, but that was Master-level sacred geometry. We cut out the flooring to take it back to headquarters for study. It actually blessed the hose water as it passed through. We think it blocked the worst of the radiation as well.”