Magic Required

by Obert Skye

  Not wanting to be slowed down by accidentally plowing over them, Ty waited with the rest of the cars for the light to turn green. Once it did, he wasted no time speeding the last few blocks to the hotel.

  Clark was mystified. For his entire existence, he had believed that he was capable of almost anything—if anything didn’t require opposable thumbs or patience. But now with the ones he loved in danger, he could see no way to find them. Not having the ability to eat made it clear that he lacked guts. So when he tried to go with his gut instinct it didn’t pan out.

  “Where would a wizard go?” he asked as he flew above Portland.

  Knowing that Rin liked to burn things, the bird scanned the entire city for some sign of fire. Sadly, there was none.

  “Sigi,” Clark chirped.

  Knowing the girl liked math and cat videos he flew through the streets looking for a group of nerds standing around a phone or TV. There were plenty of nerds in Portland, but nobody he saw was talking about math or watching cat videos.

  Clark thought of Ozzy.

  Knowing the boy liked Sigi, he flew through the city looking for her by looking for nerds who were watching cat videos. His search quickly became an unfruitful loop of dead ends.

  With gut failure, Clark decided to try intuition.

  The bird flew through a couple McDonald’s drive-thrus knowing they served all-day breakfast. Nothing. He thought he was onto something when he spotted a cart near a park selling dreamcatchers and colorful witch hats. But that hunch ended with an upset cart owner with an upset cart, and Clark no closer to finding his friends.

  The dirty bird landed on top of a streetlight and took a moment to think things over. His non-gut instinct had failed him, and his intuition had been even spottier.

  “If I were a human who always said dumb things, where would I be taken?” Two ravens settled on the streetlight next to him. “I hate to be an unkindness. So, shoo.” Clark waved his wings and the birds took off. “Ozzy likes Sprite. Is that something?”

  The sentient bird was thinking about giving up and going back to the upset dreamcatcher cart to stare at some of the handmade jewelry again when he heard bells. He glanced down and saw an unkindness of old men riding squished bikes. The flags on the back of their bikes were appealing as they flapped in the wind. Clark considered landing on the helmet of one of the men and getting a free ride through downtown, but his considerations were dashed as he looked through the windshield of a sleek looking vehicle stopped near the light.

  It was Ty.

  The thought struck Clark that it might be wise to follow the car and see where Ty went. Another thought that struck Clark was that it might be fun to follow the old men and see where they went.

  “A bird’s time is never his own,” Clark complained.

  The nearby traffic light turned green and the cars began to move forward. Clark opened his wings and followed the ogre in the aerodynamic car.

  Ty went directly to the front desk of the hotel and requested to speak with the manager. A bubbly little man came out from the back. The name tag on his dark blue shirt said Waldo. Ty apologized for the mess he and his friends had left in the room and offered to pay for any damages.

  “That would be appreciated,” Waldo said.

  Ty pulled out his wallet and handed the manager a credit card.

  “It was all an accident,” Ty explained. “I hope it isn’t too much trouble to clean.”

  “It was a bit of a chore.”

  Ty looked upset. “It’s already been cleaned?”

  “Yes.” Waldo handed the credit card back. “I believe it’s finished.”

  Trying not to appear bothered, Ty smiled at the bubbly man.

  “Oh,” he said snapping his fingers, “I just remembered. I left my glasses in the room. Do you mind if I take a quick look?”

  “It’s been cleaned,” Waldo said. “I’ll see if anyone reported them.”

  The manager lifted a walkie talkie and communicated with someone in housekeeping. There was a brief exchange of words and he signed off.

  “They didn’t find any.”

  “Can I speak to the person who cleaned the room?”

  “He’s gone home,” Waldo said. “He wasn’t feeling well.”

  “I know the glasses are in there,” Ty said seriously. “Let me just take a quick look.”

  Waldo appeared a few bubbles shy of his normal effervescent self.

  “I can let you take a quick look.”

  Ty followed Waldo up to the third floor. Waldo let Ty into the room and the ogre checked behind the door. There was nothing there but a peephole with a small dent beneath it.

  “Not good,” Ty said.

  Waldo let him check the door on the adjoining room, but it was missing a beak-sized hole.

  “You said the boy who cleaned all of this went home?”

  “He wasn’t feeling well,” Waldo said. “It’s the weirdest thing. A bird chased him down the stairs.”

  “A bird?”

  “That’s what he said. It flew right out the doors of the lobby.”

  Ty wanted to strangle the bubbly man, but instead he pushed him aside and ran down the hall toward the stairs.

  “What about your glasses?” Waldo yelled.

  Ty was already in the stairwell and descending at a rate much quicker than four steps at a time. He burst out of the stairs and ran through the lobby. Once outside, he jumped into his car and sped away.

  He raced down the street saying the kind of words one expects an angry ogre to say.

  Behind him, twenty feet in the air, a spot of speckled black followed.

  Ty drove wildly, slowing only when he arrived at the gate to the Infinity building. The gate opened for him and he drove in.

  He was not in good spirits.

  Ty parked his car and walked quickly toward the building. The automatic glass door at the front slid open and he stepped inside. Behind him a flying dart shot through the air, tracking the man like a missile. Just as the door closed . . .

  The door didn’t close.

  Instead, there was a horrible squawking noise. Ty turned around to see a metal bird caught in the door. Clark was four feet off the ground and pinched between the two glass doors. He was also dotted with bits of red and yellow and struggling to get free.

  Ty leapt at the fowl creature and grabbed him with his big hands. He held the bird tightly, thrilled by his stroke of good luck, and staring at the elusive angel of death.

  “Take a picture,” Clark chirped. “It’ll last longer.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Ty said.

  “You seem like someone who has a hard time believing,” Clark said. “Now, where’s Ozzy?”

  Ty gripped the bird in his hands and went to find Ray. He had something positive to report.

  Sigi struggled with the ropes around her, rocking the chair she was in as she fought with the thick twine. Her arms were tied to her sides and the fight for freedom caused her curly hair to stick to her forehead and create almost as much irritation as the ropes.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” she insisted.

  Rin sat calmly in his chair, gazing at his daughter.

  “What do you think of Ozzy?” he asked.

  “Please,” Sigi begged. “I think he’s in trouble. Just like us.”

  “There’s that,” Rin agreed, “but has it been difficult having him live at the house with you and Patti?”

  “Difficult? We’re tied to chairs after being tranquilized and brought here by a madman. So yes, it’s been a little difficult.”

  “I think you’re handling it well.”

  “Would you—!”

  Sigi was planning to say a few unkind things to her father, but her mood was altered by the sight of Rin’s ropes dropping from around him and falling to the floor.

/>   Rin instantly put his finger up to his lips to silence his daughter.

  “Boy, I sure do hate being tied up,” he said loudly as he slipped out of the rest of his ropes and stood up from the chair. He motioned for Sigi to join the pretend conversation.

  “Oh, . . .” she said, catching on, “. . . me too.”

  Rin came around the back of Sigi’s chair and untied her.

  “I guess we’re stuck here for good.”

  “Right,” Sigi said as the ropes around her fell to the floor.

  As quietly as she could, she stood up next to her dad. The sensation of being untied was painful but exhilarating. The two of them quietly stretched and flexed as they carried on with their fake conversation.

  “If only we hadn’t been captured,” Rin said, stepping carefully toward the door.

  “But we were,” Sigi said sadly.

  Rin found the small hidden handle on the round wall. He looked at his daughter as he stood next to her.

  “Ready?” he mouthed.

  Sigi nodded and Rin gave the handle a gentle pull.

  He pushed open the hidden door and found a hallway with two tall ferns sitting in two tall pots. Between the ferns there was a long hallway that led to a white door with a gold handle.

  “What—?” Sigi started to whisper before her dad signaled to still stay quiet.

  The two of them walked down the hall and stood near the white door. The doorknob rattled and both Rin and Sigi stepped to the side and stood with their backs against the wall.

  The door opened and an ogre in a blue suit walked out. He was moving so quickly that he didn’t notice the two people at the sides of the door. In his right hand he was holding a strange-looking gun. Rin stuck out his foot and yanked it backwards. He caught the man on the right shin and the motion sent the ogre hurling forward toward the ground. The falling giant hit his head squarely on the edge of a potted fern. A loud fleshy clunk filled the hallway and the man’s gun flew out of his hand and skidded across the floor.

  Blue suit lay face down and motionless.

  “He’s not dead, is he?” Sigi asked.

  Rin reached down and picked up the gun. Without hesitating, he shot the motionless man in the back of his left leg.

  Sigi jumped, expecting there to be noise, but it was a tranquilizer gun that shot small darts.

  “Is that what we were hit with?” Sigi said.

  Her father wasn’t there to answer the question. Rin had already dashed into the room that the man had come out of. Sigi joined him.

  Inside the room there was a table covered with electronic surveillance equipment. Next to the table were two chairs. There was no sign of anyone else.

  “Where’s Ozzy?” asked Sigi.

  “Somewhere,” Rin answered as he searched through all the equipment on the table. “This room was just for listening to us.”

  “How’d you get your ropes untied?”

  “Wizards have complete power over ropes,” Rin said. “Here it is.”

  Rin picked his phone up off the table and pressed the screen.

  “You’re not posting something, are you?” Sigi said angrily.

  Rin looked at her. “No.” He tapped at his phone a few more times. “There. I just needed to send a couple of texts.”

  “To who?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now let’s find that boy you’re sweet on before that man in the hall regains consciousness.”

  “That’s not a line most dads say to their daughters.”

  “I’m not most dads, and you’re definitely not most daughters.”

  Inside the surveillance room there was another door that led them down a different hallway.

  “How do we know where Ozzy is?”

  “We don’t.”

  Rin began opening doors, but they were all just dark empty rooms.

  “This place has no windows,” Sigi said.

  “I think they’re hoping it keeps out the birds.”

  “I hope Clark’s okay.”

  “Have you ever known him not to be?”

  “Countless times, thanks to you.”

  Rin opened a door near the end of the hall, and sitting in the middle of the room was Ozzy. He was still tied to a chair and his head was hanging down to his chest. The light above lit him up but did nothing to make things brighter. Next to Ozzy was a man in a green suit. He was sitting by a cart that had tubes running from it to Ozzy.

  The man stood up and opened his mouth to holler. He was too slow. Rin shot a dart into his leg and the man and his green suit collapsed on the chair.

  Rin and Sigi ran to Ozzy.

  Moving quickly, Rin removed the needle from Ozzy’s right arm. The wizard grabbed the tubing and a small glass case containing four vials of blood. He shoved everything into the pocket of his robe as Sigi worked at the ropes that were tying up Ozzy.

  “Ozzy,” she whispered fiercely. “Ozzy! Wake up.”

  The boy didn’t move.

  “Help me,” Sigi said to her father.

  Rin stepped over and undid one of the knots. Sigi tugged at another and the rope loosened and slid down around Ozzy’s lap.

  “He’s still not moving,” Sigi said frantically.

  “They’ve taken a lot of blood,” Rin told her.

  Sigi lifted Ozzy’s head up and his dark hair hung in front of his eyes like frayed leather.

  “Ozzy,” she whispered again. “Ozzy.”

  “We don’t have time to waste,” Rin told his daughter.

  “Come on,” Sigi begged while trying to lift him up out of the chair.

  “Leave me alone,” Ozzy said mournfully, his eyes still closed.

  “What?” Sigi asked. “Why?”

  “I know the truth.”

  “Okay, fine,” Rin sighed. “So, I’m not really a size thirty-two; I’m a thirty-six.”

  “Stop, Dad. What do you know the truth about, Ozzy?”

  “Healing Winds,” the boy whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Sigi said, sounding confused. “Healing winds?”

  Rin pulled out his list and checked off another item.

  Ozzy looked at him. The boy’s grey eyes were ringed with red the color of the plaid stripes on his pants. He appeared lost and afraid and checked-out.

  “Come on,” Rin said kindly. “We need to move.”

  “If you want me to go,” Ozzy said in a whisper, “you’ll have to use magic.”

  Rin shrugged. “There’s nothing more magical than the human body.”

  The wizard reached down and yanked Ozzy up out of his seat and threw him over his right shoulder. The loose rope fell to the ground, but the boy didn’t protest. Rin protested a little by groaning under Ozzy’s weight.

  “Let’s go,” Rin said to his daughter.

  At the end of the hallway, they turned and saw a set of automatic glass doors in the distance. The natural light looked like a miracle and gave them something to run toward.

  Moments before reaching the doors, two shadows approached the building and the automatic doors slid open.

  Ty and Ray stepped in.

  Rin stopped and stood twenty feet away from the two men. He still had Ozzy over his shoulder and the weight of the boy was beginning to take a toll.

  “What are you doing here?” Sigi yelled, standing by her dad and staring at the two men, who were backlit by the light coming in from the doors.

  “What?” Ray asked. “No hello?”

  Sigi gave him a different mix of those two words.

  Ray ignored her. “I see you found Ozzy. Sorry, but we can’t let you take him.”

  Sigi looked at her dad as he stood there trying to keep Ozzy on his shoulders. The wizard was shaking like an enchanted leaf. She glanced down and saw the end of the gun sticking
out of his right robe pocket.

  “Well, then,” Rin said grunting. He shifted Ozzy, trying to get a better hold on him. “I guess we’re at an impasse. Because we are a package deal and we’re not leaving without him. You have his blood back in the room. That should be enough.”

  Sigi knew her dad was lying; she’d seen him take the glass case and tubing.

  “We made the mistake years ago of not collecting the boy,” Ray said with no trace of good humor or grace. “I will not have any loose ends again.”

  The situation felt hopeless, so Sigi did the only thing she could think of.

  With a quick jerk, she reached down and pulled the gun from her father’s pocket. Then before anyone could react, she pointed it toward Ray and pulled the trigger. The dart hit his right shoulder. The red-headed man’s knees folded, and he crumpled like a dirty towel that had been dropped down a chute.

  Sigi turned the gun toward Ty and pressed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  She pressed again, but the weapon was out of darts.

  Ty laughed.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” the large ogre said cruelly.

  Ty began to move closer and Sigi threw the gun like an axe. It hit the man squarely in the forehead. Ty swayed for a moment before his eyes crossed and he fell backwards. His falling body activated the automatic doors.

  Rin looked at his daughter and smiled proudly.

  “You know that in normal situations you shouldn’t shoot people with darts, right?”

  Sigi nodded.

  “I’m glad this wasn’t a normal situation,” the wizard said.

  “Me too.”

  Rin hauled Ozzy out the open doors and across the parking lot toward a bus stop. They reached the stop just as a bus pulled up and opened its doors.

  They climbed on.

  “That was good timing,” Sigi said as they sat down on the back row and propped Ozzy between them.

  “Wizards and buses have a special bond.”

  “Well, maybe you and this bus and that rope back there should run off together.”

  Rin pulled a length of rope out of his pocket.