Vengeance (The Sorcerers' Scourge Series Book 3)

by Michael Arches

  Sequoia took me by the hand. “Sit in front of the tree and maintain the connection. You don’t need to touch anything here.”

  I did as he said and lost myself entirely. It was the strangest experience, like a trance. I thought about nothing, and an overwhelming sense of contentment filled me. I was happier than I’d ever known. This was like heaven on earth.

  I came back to the present when Laura touched my arm. “I’m afraid we have to go.”

  I looked at her and blinked a couple of times. Then I noticed that the sun had moved far across the sky, and I stood and followed her back to the others nearby.

  Sequoia beamed at me. “You should wait several weeks before visiting old trees again. It will take that long for your mind to adjust to all the new power you’ve absorbed, but continue to mediate several times every day. You probably won’t be able to connect to the Infinite every time, but your link is getting stronger. The journey of a lifetime has begun.”

  -o-o-o-

  FROM THE SUBLIME, WE headed to the ridiculous. Although Las Vegas was almost due east from the park, there was no road over the highest part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Katie drove southwest to the Central Valley to circle around the mountains.

  As we drew close to Bakersfield, Sequoia said, “I’m feeling a strong call for home. Would it be possible for you to drop me at the local airport and send me back to Eureka?”

  I’d been afraid this would happen. He hadn’t talked much since we left the park, and he had to dislike Vegas as much as I did.

  I tried to get him excited about seeing the Grand Canyon or some of the ancient Anasazi sites still occupied by native people, like Canyon de Chelly, but he didn’t bite.

  Gill, Katie, and Laura pitched in to help me, but Sequoia knew what he wanted and stuck to it. Reluctantly, we took him to the Bakersfield airport and bought him a one-way ticket to Eureka via San Francisco.

  Before he entered security, I gave him a tight hug. Then I tried to give him two hundred bucks in walking around money, but he refused. The guy planned to leave us with no cash at all. I couldn’t let him be that stupid, and I insisted on him taking at least twenty. He finally relented.

  My throat tightened as I already began to miss him. In a hoarse voice, I said, “I just can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated your sacrifice in coming this far. You’ve opened my eyes to a view of the world I’d never imagined.”

  He grinned at me. “You’re taking the first steps on an infinite journey. You are becoming one with the Great Spirit, and joy will fill your heart.”

  The security line was short, and I watched him until he vanished down the gateway. As he disappeared, I wondered how I was going to fashion my magical life. I sure wasn’t going to follow his path of renouncing most possessions and relationships, and I couldn’t ignore the threats posed by Sitka and his puppet master Escobar. I was going to have to figure out how to blend Sequoia’s brand of tribal magic with Gill’s Holar spells.

  -o-o-o-

  FROM BAKERSFIELD, WE DROVE southeast over Tehachapi Pass into the Mohave Desert and east to Sin City. We camped at an RV village out on the desert in the middle of nowhere and ate at a diner. Actually, they ate, but I was still overflowing with life energy from the trees.

  Thank God, the place had its air conditioning running full blast because it was in the nineties outside. I made a last-ditch effort to talk Gill out of going into the heart of a town filled with sorcerers, but it was no use. He told me he could take virtually any asshole there, and Laura and Christina were immune.

  Exasperated, I finally said, “Why do you want to waste your money gambling?”

  He cackled. “I can’t spend it fast enough. I’ve got nothing to lose. What I don’t get rid of soon is going to you anyway.”

  That shut me up. I knew I was his magical heir, and he’d already given me his most precious gifts, a book of Holar’s teachings and the medallion. I hadn’t expected money from him, and I had plenty of my own for the first time in my life.

  “Then blow as much as you can,” I replied, “I hear roulette is a bad bet, as are the hard way bets on the crap table.”

  He grinned and nodded.

  Before Gill, Laura, and Christina left, I pulled my wife aside. “Can you keep an eye on him. He really seems to have decided to go crazy. I’m getting a very odd feeling from him now.”

  She smiled at me. “I will, as much as I can. Christina can’t go into the gambling areas. I don’t know how to be with them both.”

  It would’ve been reckless for me to go when I was sure Escobar had an all-points bulletin out for me among the sorcerers. “Maybe Katie could go and watch Christina?”

  Laura and I asked her, and she agreed.

  “I’m worried about him, too,” Katie whispered. “I’m growing very fond of the old codger. It’ll be good for him to have a healer close by.”

  -o-o-o-

  AFTER THEY LEFT IN the SUV, I walked out into the desert. The sun hung low in the western sky, and it was already cooling off. I’d heard that it gets cold at night in the desert, and I hoped that turned out to be true.

  After running for several miles, I found a flat rock to sit on and gaze out at the vast barren expanse of the desert. Jesus once headed to the desert to pray, and I did the same until the sun went down. To my surprise, I managed a fair connection to the Infinite out there in the silent barren expanse.

  Afterward, I returned to a nicely air-conditioned lounge in the RV park and waited for the urban adventurers. Long after dark, they returned. Christina was still awake and bubbled over as she described all the lights and fantastic things she’d seen.

  Gill spoke in his typical loud, brash voice, but something seemed off.

  “How badly did you lose?” I asked him.

  He snorted. “Did my best to blow your inheritance, kiddo, but didn’t happen. Every crappy bet I made came up a winner. I’m eighty-six grand richer than I was this morning. Sorry.”

  Katie beamed, and Laura did, too, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She tucked her daughter into bed.

  When Gill left for the restroom, I asked the two women, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He seems fine,” Katie said, “just maybe a little overexcited. He really had a great time playing the loudmouthed, obnoxious Texan, and because he tipped heavily, the casino people loved him.”

  Laura shook her head. “He had a short moment when he froze at the roulette table. I don’t know if he suffered a mini-stroke, or it was simply a moment of gastric upset. He won’t let me touch him. But he froze for a good twenty seconds. Nobody else seemed to notice.”

  “I’ll try to find out,” I said and wandered over to the restroom myself.

  I found him inside, peering at his face in the mirror. He’d never done that before.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He spun around. “Never better.”

  The light was bright in the room, and I stared at his eyes. They were duller than usual.

  He could read my mind at will, so there was no point in being coy. “Something’s wrong with you, isn’t it? Let’s cut the bullshit.”

  He looked away. “None of your business, punk. I’m entitled to the occasional senior moment without everybody pissing their pants.”

  “Sure,” I replied, “if that’s all it is. But if you’ve suffered a stroke, you need to get healed right away before it causes more damage.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t need any help. Don’t want any. I’ll do this my way.”

  Because he knew it would annoy the hell out of me, he began singing the Frank Sinatra signature song. I tried to shut him up, but he only sang louder. Then a stranger came into the bathroom and joined in. I waited for them to go through the lyrics twice.

  When they finished, they clapped each other on the back. The stranger took a leak and left.

  “You can’t stop us worrying,” I said.

  He blew out a raspberry through his tight lips. “Guilt doesn’t work o
n me, kiddo. Your wife already tried that and failed.”

  He walked back to the RV as fast as he could, but I had no trouble keeping up with the old geezer.

  “By the way,” he said, “I’m still feeling great, but just in case, before I left Boulder, I gave Diana a key to a safe deposit box. She doesn’t know where the box is. You have to remember—I’ve stashed lots of money in the First State Bank of Liberty, Texas. It’s my hometown. I took box number 66, easy to remember because of D-Day. Think you can keep that in your hard head?”

  “Yes, sir. First State Bank of Liberty, Texas. D-Day.”

  “Good. The same envelope with the key has my will in it, and I’ve informed the bank’s manager that you’re the executor of my estate. He shouldn’t give you any trouble. Maybe you could use the money to pay for poor witches to move to Boulder where they’ll be safe. And take your gal out for a nice dinner on me.”

  I nodded. This confirmed my worst suspicions about his health. “I’ll call it the Gill Cunningham Happiness Project.”

  He didn’t complain, and I took that as approval. “Listen, at least, let me soothe some of your cares away.”

  “Nope. I got what I got, and I ain’t getting rid of none of it. Plus, I’m fit as a fiddle. Don’t bug me no more ’bout my health.”

  Stubborn old man. “Okay. Be a snot if you want.”

  He cackled. “I do. And if something were to happen to me, despite my fabulous heath, you’ll check my bag here, right?”

  Fucking son of a bitch! He knows his days are numbered.

  I took a good look at his face in the light from a street lamp in the park, but all I could see was a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes.

  I threw up my hands in frustration. “Don’t die on me, old man. I’m a long way from being safe, and you’re my only hope.”

  He shook his head. “Taught you all I can already. Sequoia was the final piece of the puzzle. Now you just need to marinate for a while before you take on Escobar. In the meantime, get rid of that asshole Sitka. You should be able to beat him now.”

  I was sorely tempted to punch Gill’s lights out, but I figured that’s probably what he wanted. A nice quick and easy passing into the hereafter.

  He wasn’t going to get it from me. “What’s next on your entertainment schedule, Your Majesty?”

  “Grand Canyon, we’re heading out early tomorrow. We’re all going to run the river. My treat. Get a good night’s sleep.”

  When we got back to the RV, he turned in early, which was also unusual for him. Whether he wanted me to or not, I fussed about his health all night long. No chance of that good night’s sleep.

  Chapter 13

  Saturday, May 4th

  WE DROVE THE RV into Vegas and parked it in a large lot behind a huge casino. We then walked, carrying a week’s worth of clothes, to a waiting shuttle bus that took us and twenty other adventurers to a small airport nearby where we boarded a chartered plane for a flight to Lee’s Ferry, Arizona. After an hour’s explanation of dos and don’ts on how to survive the trip, our group and five other people joined an experienced river runner in a large orange raft.

  My teeth chattered from excitement. Gill couldn’t stop grinning. But Christina was most excited of all. She could hardly sit still and insisted on seeing everything from different perspectives.

  To make sure she didn’t take a header into the water, I gripped her life vest continually. At first, the water ran slow and lazy, but I held on tightly anyway. I’d read John Wesley Powell’s diary of the first group of lunatics who ran this river. The men who stayed with the expedition all survived, but barely. And since then, hundreds of people had lost their lives rafting down this river.

  To ensure that Gill didn’t overtax himself, I did all my assigned duties plus his, too. All he had to do was relax, tell great stories, and enjoy the incredible scenery as we floated a vertical mile below the rim of the canyon.

  Katie seemed to hang on his every word, and that encouraged me. Gill might not want to keep living to help me, but I knew nobody could resist Katie’s charm.

  The rapids were exciting, and maybe I was fooling myself, but all that churning water seemed to release magic just like a waterfall. All I knew for sure was that running these rapids was a hell of a lot of fun.

  My favorite part of the trip was the beginnings of days and the ends, when the light was low. That’s when the red, orange and yellow cliffs revealed themselves much better than in the bright sunshine.

  Most of the time, I forgot about the outside world and sorcerers in particular. But each day, Gill and I trained for at least a half-hour for my battles sure to come. At the end of each day, we’d wander off from our campsite for privacy.

  I also took the opportunity to run up every trail we stopped at along the way. The canyon was steep enough that most people didn’t get far from the river. I got in as much exercise as I could, despite the oppressive heat.

  One evening, after Gill and I finished training, he said, “Been thinking a lot about how to blend both sides of your powers.”

  I had, too, but without much result. From the first days, I’d struggled with learning how to keep part of my mind calm for defensive magic while the rest of me got furious enough to use attack spells.

  A wild burro came up to us out of the growing gloom and begged for food, but we didn’t have any. After I patted him, he marched toward our camp close to the river.

  “I can’t do both kinds of magic right,” I said. “Depending on the day, I manage one or the other, but I can’t work both kinds of magic great at the same time.”

  “Sure,” Gill said. “The truth is, nobody is great at both. You won’t be either, but I have an idea that might help improve both. What if you think of your mind as having two halves separated by a fireproof wall? You’d spend most of your time in one half, the cool, calm side. That’s the part of your mind you use to work with people and solve problems.”

  “Makes sense. That’s the real me.”

  “Nah,” he replied. “We like to think that, pretend we’re rational, but we’re lizards that walk on two feet. That’s your other half, the side that gets pissed and scared and horny. That’s also your fighting side.”

  I snickered. “That’s your inner salesman talking.”

  “Heh, sure. The point is, if you compartmentalize your mind, you could move from side to side consciously. That way, both sides could become stronger. If you keep a thick wall between them, when you move from the lizard side to the rational side, you’d know all your anger was still in that other room, waiting for you to get back and use it. I’ll bet you’ll be able to meditate much better.”

  Damn, I was glad he was still alive. “That’s a great way of thinking of things,” I replied.

  We headed back to join the others, and I tried to create the wall in my head. All the next day, I reminded myself that I had two parts to my personality, and I tried to consciously stay in one part or the other.

  That evening, when Gill and I practiced, both kinds of magic seemed to worked better. The man was a genius.

  -o-o-o-

  GILL HAD MELLOWED CONSIDERABLY during the trip, and he still seemed fine heath-wise. Thanks to his oversized personality and outgoing nature, he was a hit with everyone. I only noticed one worrisome fact—a point that was reinforced repeatedly during the week—he managed to avoid touching either me or Laura. Katie held his hand often, and Christina, too, but not me or Laura. He had to be hiding something.

  At the end of day seven, we reached our destination, Whitmore Wash. A helicopter flew us up from the canyon to a nearby ranch where we stayed the night. It had been a perfect week, and I’d managed to take seven hundred photos along the way.

  Our group sat around a campfire in the darkness, just relaxing and drinking. Each time that I tried to lead the conversation to our next adventure, he brought up some other point.

  Finally, Katie, Laura, and Christina headed off to bed. He and I were sipping whiskey, and I asked him straight ou
t, “Are you okay.”

  “Sure, just tired. Time to head back to Brittany and recharge my batteries.”

  That didn’t sound like him. Although frail, he’d always had plenty of energy.

  “Listen,” he said. “There’s one thing I’m not easy about in my mind. Remember how I told you to steer clear of that crazy bitch—I mean, that Oxford professor, Sorcha Leòideach?”

  The comment came out of the blue. “Okay. Sure. I made sure our CU guys didn’t work with her on the project.”

  He blew out a deep breath. “Might’ve been a mistake on my part. I shouldn’t have used you to settle an old grudge, and she knows Holar’s magic like nobody alive. When I’m gone, she’d probably be the best mentor you could find.”

  My heart seemed to shrivel. Did he mean gone from the USA or gone from this earth? “Please let Laura help you. I’ll go get her right now.”

  I stood but he held up his hand. “Nope. Sit down and listen. I gotta get something off my chest.”

  Swearing at his stubbornness under my breath, I sat.

  “The only thing holding you back as a fighter is the mental part of the game. Sequoia says the same thing for his deal. You need someone who can get your mind right.”

  I remembered one of his past shots at her. “You said in Brittany that she couldn’t fight worth a damn.”

  He laughed nervously. “Maybe I did say that. She can’t, but you remember the old joke about those who can’t do? They teach. You don’t want her fighting for you, believe me, but you do want her teaching you how to fight.”

  “I also remember who I’m loyal to. She has to know I’m one of your minions.” I downed the rest of my whiskey. “I doubt she’ll take me on.”

  “Hah, you won’t be her first choice. Far from it, but you’ve got something that she’d give both legs and one arm to study.”

  “Holar’s book of fables?”