by Rain Oxford
“Becky, you are three times the woman you think you are and twice as powerful as your father.”
She scoffed.
“I’m serious. Any wizard can light a candle or make a potion. You can make people listen. That’s rare.”
She blushed. “Well, I’m glad you think so, because I’m going to be on the new wizard council when it gets going again, and I was hoping I could convince you to be on it with me.”
“Not a chance. I’ll see you later.”
* * *
Next, Henry and I stopped by the vampire hunter shack, which was deserted, fortunately. We went down into the underground site and gathered up all of the light bombs. Since we had no clue how they worked, we grabbed everything else that looked like it was electrical, just in case it was needed. With that done, we used the shadow pass again to return to the apartment.
Darwin was interested when we showed him the bombs, but his eyes really lit up when we dumped the electronics out of the bag in front of him. We left him to figure out how it worked while Henry made lunch.
“I may never eat the school food again with you around to cook it just the way I like it,” Darwin said, taking a plate of something he called Omurice.
Henry smacked his head lightly. “I’m not your maid. Pick up your trash.”
“Call my mother to do it.”
“Have you figured out how to work the bombs yet?”
“Duh.” He set the plate of food aside, searched the mess on the coffee table, and picked up one of the turtle-shaped bombs and what looked like a black plastic key. “This is your basic on/off.” He then picked up what was clearly a detonator. “And this is your ‘never press’ button.” He put it down and stuck the key into the middle of the flat side of the bomb. When he turned it, the other side lit up with a circle of blue lights. “Unlock, press the button, boom.” He turned the key the other way and the lights went out. “Lock, press the button, fizzle, you still got your face. Got it?”
“Yes. Can you tell if it’s dangerous to anyone other than vampires?”
“No, and going by your plan, we only have enough to test one. That’s assuming there is a zero percent dud rate, which I’m sure it’s higher.”
“Okay, what’s the safe thing to do?”
“Dispose of these and let the shadow walkers kill the wizards.”
“What is the humane thing to do?”
“Well, if I say euthanasia, you’re going to slap me. If you insist on putting other people’s lives ahead of your own, take the spare out where there are no people, detonate it, and hope you don’t lose your face.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing. This is going to be dangerous. We’re not just dealing with nut job humans and murdering fathers anymore.” He dropped the stuff back on the table, walked into Henry’s room, and shut the door.
I sighed. “Make sure he eats,” I said, picking up one of the bombs, the detonator, and the key.
* * *
Instead of trying to use the shadow pass again when I was already starting to feel like death warmed over, I got in my car and drove. Between the visions and the rapid visits to the shadow pass, I knew I was going to run out of steam very soon, and it wouldn’t come on slow. I would be fine one minute and crash the next. Fortunately, I didn’t crash in the car.
I drove to a state park I knew was usually pretty deserted. Once I pulled into a spot by a lake with a picnic table, I used my magic to search for anyone around. Fortunately, I was alone. I set the bomb on the picnic table, stuck the key in it, turned it on, and backed up. At about fifty feet away, I covered my eyes and hit the detonator. Although it didn’t make any sound, I did feel heat. I looked up after a few seconds. The bomb didn’t look any different. The lights were still on.
I did a quick search again to make sure there was no one around, turned around, and hit the detonator again, this time not closing my eyes. It was almost too bright to handle even facing away from it, but it faded after a few seconds. Again, the bomb looked fine, but the lights were yellow instead of blue.
Excited about my discovery, I gathered everything and drove back to my apartment. As I did, the presence came back, and it was almost suffocating my instincts. I felt like someone was right behind me. I ignored it.
When I got inside, I told Darwin and Henry what I learned; they were not only harmless to people, but they were reusable. So, Henry and I gathered it all up and got to work on our plan. Darwin took Scott to my mother’s place so that if I needed Rocky, he could pop in and help me without leaving my mother and Kyle alone. Darwin could get ahold of me in just a few seconds if something happened.
I used the shadow pass again to take us to the wizard who lived out in the woods. From the moment we appeared in the dark shed, I could hear the dog barking. I was worried we were too late.
Then the shed door opened and the wizard stood there with a fireball in his hand. “What are you doing on my land?” he asked.
“We’re here to help you,” I said.
“Does that ever stop someone from shooting you when you appear out of thin air on their property?”
“I normally try not to appear out of thin air in private property, so I don’t know.”
He lowered his fist and the flame was doused. “You have the wrong man. I don’t need your help.”
“At sundown, you’re going to get a visit from a demon.”
“Well, that’s a first. I don’t meet too many religious wizards.”
“Not that kind of demon. I’m talking about a ridiculously powerful creature that is going to appear out of the forest and kill you. He may first try to get you to serve his master.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because there are more of them who are doing the same thing and because… I had a vision.”
He scoffed and started to turn, then paused. “Wait. Are you Devon Sanders? John Cross’s son?”
“Unfortunately. How do you know of me?”
“I’m friends with Vincent. He told me his nephew was the hero type. You know; the kind who goes around trying to help everyone else. It’s rare to find a wizard who gives a shit anymore. That’s why the council flopped. I said it would. I said it first,” he said, walking away. Henry and I followed. The house was just as I had seen it in my vision and we had less than an hour left to prepare, so Henry and I placed the bombs around the house as we explained that the demon would appear using shadows. If he used the detonator as soon as the dog started barking, it should prevent the demon from being able to take shape.
“So that’s your entire plan? Flash some lights at him?”
“You’re a wizard, too, so you can come up with another plan if you want. We have to leave. Press the button or don’t. You get at least two shots, but I can’t guarantee more, and I don’t know what it will do once the demon has fully formed, so time it well.”
I then dropped Henry off in Nevada, where he could watch over the guy at the club and make sure the shadow walker didn’t actually kill the cops.
Finally, I used the shadow pass to find the man on the train. It must have taken ten times as long as normal before the shadows dispersed, and when it did, it felt like it was trying to take my skin with it. The world tilted violently, the lights stabbed at my eyes, and I threw up.
Chapter 9
Closing my eyes against the bright light, I reached out for anything I could hold onto. I grabbed plastic seats, so I used those to balance. The presence was back and it felt like I was in some kind of constrictive suit. A hand grabbed my ankle and I turned, opening my eyes automatically. Although the slimy hand was just my imagination, I wasn’t alone. Sitting in a seat at the other end of the train car was a man. He didn’t seem to even notice me.
Common sense told me the lights weren’t as bright as they seemed to be, but that didn’t help when it felt like they were going to burn my eyeballs out of their sockets. Glancing down at myself, I expected my clothes to be charred or my skin to be bleeding. Ins
tead, darkness clung to my body like smoke. I took a few steps towards the door, only to have to brace myself as vertigo threatened to flip the car over on me.
“Not this way,” a girl said. I jumped back because all of a sudden, there was a girl in her early teens standing right next to me.
“Who the hell are you?”
“You can’t go this way. You have to go that way.” She pointed to the door on the opposite end of the car, where the man was.
When I turned to look, the man was gone. “Why? What’s that way?” I asked, turning back to the girl… who was also gone. “Okay, I need to tell Henry to stop putting weird shit in my food.” The presence vanished then, along with much of the vertigo. I still felt like I hadn’t eaten or slept in a week, but at least my internal organs weren’t trying to crawl up my throat.
I managed two steps towards the opposite side of the car when my instincts stopped me cold. Danger. Before I could backtrack, the subway train lurched to a stop. I hit the floor and rolled forward. I grabbed one of the center poles to stop my momentum just as the lights went out. My instincts screamed at me to get out of the car. I pulled my penlight out of my pocket…
“Fuck!” I had forgotten to switch it with a working one!
And then, with a deafening sound of crunching metal and snapping electrical cords, the entire back half of the train car was torn away, leaving me dangling on the edge of the remaining half over the tracks. People were screaming, but at least that meant they were alive for the moment.
“Well, if it isn’t Devon Sanders. I didn’t think I would be the one to take you out. This is going to be fun.”
I climbed to my feet, relying way too much on the pole, and then turned to face the shadow walker. The part of the car that had been ripped off was completely gone and the man standing on the tracks was barely visible in the dim light of the wreckage. Along with a few fires that had broken out, several of the cars down the line had slow, flashing lights.
The shadow walker looked no different than any other man with black hair and dark eyes. His physique was hidden under his black robes that made him damn near invisible. I held out my hand and called on my staff. What I really wanted was my elemental sword, but I didn’t know how to summon that because it was a creation of the world and not my magic.
My staff came to me easily, yet the shadow walker only looked more confident. “I guess you don’t want to play games then,” he said snidely.
I had to keep his attention off the cars behind me that were full of people. I drew on my magic, focused my mind on hatred and anger towards this shadow walker who was willing to kill so many people, and struck with red lightning. It was a technique Langril had taught me to use against Krechea because it was functional on Earth and even more devastating on Dothra. Although it was almost like conjuring fire, fire was part of nature and this lightning was more like an affront to the elementals. Why the lightning was red, I didn’t know.
Unfortunately, the energy required to make it nearly knocked me on my ass, whilst the lightning simply hit an invisible barrier around the shadow walker and disintegrated harmlessly. As I cursed, he laughed. “Is this really what the Shadow Master is so worried about?”
I gathered the energy inside me again.
“Let me show you how it’s done,” the shadow walker said before I could strike. Both of his hands seemed to glow, but that wasn’t where the attack came from. Instead, black smoke suddenly surrounded me and the pole I was still holding onto like a small tornado. It was unbearably hot, and as it started spinning faster and faster, red fire and lightning crackled inside the thick smoke.
I forced myself to breathe calmly and not choke as I reached out with my magic for his mind. To my dismay, the smoke confused my magic, so I couldn’t find any mind outside of it. A red glow lit the narrow space an instant before I was struck in the back and chest simultaneously.
I had been through quite a few injuries in the paranormal world, as well as a curse that left me with a mortally damaged heart, and I probably had no business even being alive. All the times that I survived by the skin of my teeth either from the help of my friends or sheer luck probably gave me something of a subconscious immortality complex.
This time, however, I really thought I was dead. I really thought the pain would stop my heart, my eyes would close, and I would cease to exist. I felt my heart stop, I felt the hot metal floor as I collapsed to my knees, and I felt the world slow down around me.
And then my heart beat again.
The pain was chased from my organs and muscles by an entirely strange sensation of numbness. I looked up as strength filled my limbs and saw that the smoke had dispersed and my gargoyle was there, glaring at me as only a gargoyle could.
“How…?” the shadow walker asked, his voice weak with astonishment.
I stood and reached for his mind again, only to hit a mental barricade that was as strong as Vincent’s. And I realized as I did that after four consecutive visions, multiple trips through the shadow pass, and an unsuccessful attempt at using the lightning, my magic “well” was dry. I didn’t have enough magic left to light a candle.
Unfortunately, even though I had the power of my key left, my physical energy was just as depleted as my magic. On a last ditch effort, I reached through the bond between Rocky and me, only to discover that all of his energy was being used to keep me alive until the damage could heal.
The shadow walker must have realized this, because he didn’t waste another minute. He raised his fists, glowing once again with red energy, and Rocky stretched out his wings to cover me. Magic struck stone, but I still felt some of the blow through my bond with Rocky.
When I heard the shadow walker shout with surprise, I peered under Rocky’s wing to see what was happening, and I gaped. Felicity had appeared behind him and in the moment that he was distracted, she had stabbed him in the back with her sword.
* * *
I didn’t realize I had passed out until I woke in a soft bed… and I was being kissed. I opened my eyes, fully expecting to see my gargoyle, some bloodshed, and a seriously confused shadow walker.
There were two of those things.
I was alone with Felicity in a motel room, and she was naked, covered in blood. And she was kissing me. I tried to push her back, but my limbs didn’t want to work and I only managed to break the kiss. “What are you doing?”
“Healing you,” she answered, as if it should have been obvious.
“Why are you kissing me?”
She rolled her eyes. “My magic works differently than yours does. I have to feel affection for you in order to heal you.” She tried to kiss me again, so I pushed her away again.
My brain wasn’t back to full speed yet. “What happened with the train?”
“I killed the shadow walker, the gargoyle vanished, and I brought you here. I saved your life.”
“And why are you naked?”
“Because I don’t like being bathed in the blood of my enemies.”
“You’d rather kiss them.”
She full-on glared now. “No, I figured when I handed you the key to save all your precious little humans and then saved your life, that we weren’t enemies anymore! Sorry for my mistake! Heal your fucking self!”
I wanted to say something as she got up and hastily started dressing, but I had no idea what. I barely had enough strength to lift my head up. She stormed out the door. I fell back to sleep.
* * *
The next time I woke, I was in my own bed. I would have tried to go back to sleep if hunger didn’t drive me out of my room. Darwin was working on the laptop, Scott was drawing, and Henry was on the phone in the kitchen. All three of them stopped and stared at me.
“Is that food?” I asked, indicating a bunch of paper bags on the table.
“Mostly chicken fingers and chips,” Darwin said.
I grabbed a plate and dug through the bags until my plate was overflowing with chicken strips and French fries. I started eating before I sat
down and Henry handed me a mug of coffee. “So, what happened?” I asked after half my food had been devoured.
“You were gone too long and weren’t responsive when I tried to open a mental comlink, so I got worried and called my dad. He got ahold of Hunt and Vincent. Vincent found you and brought you back here, and Hunt got Henry.”
“Did you have any trouble with the shadow walker at the club?” I asked Henry.
“She was quite shocked when the cops were waiting for her. She resisted arrest for a few minutes and tried to kill a cop, so I took her down. I almost took off her head before she changed into shadows. There were no signs of her for the rest of the night.”
“What about---”
“I was just on the phone with her,” Henry interrupted. “Becky and her parents are fine. They think they killed the shadow walker, but it just disappeared, so they weren’t sure. She said her father enjoyed the excuse to use his magic in battle again.”
“Because bringing joy is what we live for. What day is it?”
“Sunday night. There’s another attack at about six in the morning. Do you think you can handle it?”
“I can,” I said. “Did you make any progress with your father?”
Darwin stared at the computer screen for a long moment. “I think he wants to talk about it and I just want to pretend he didn’t say he would kick me out if I could shift.”
“Darwin, you are a genius, but you underestimate your father’s love for you. I’m not going to tell you that you’re overreacting because you’re not, and I’m not going to tell you that you might have misunderstood because you already know that. What I will tell you is that your father would decimate his entire pack for you and if there is any chance that you two can coexist, he would do whatever it takes. Don’t throw that away. Things happen in this world to good people. Even the strongest man will eventually fall.”
He glared at the screen as if it had offended him. “Nothing will ever happen to my dad.”
