The Wizard

by Karen Ranney

  He was probably doing this all wrong. Maybe he should draw a pentagram on the floor with white chalk. Or say something in praise of the devil or one of his names.

  Nope, he wasn’t going to do that.

  Why did the devil have a lot more names than God? Were people more afraid of the devil than the Almighty? Is that why they sidled up to him using different names all the time? He wasn’t even sure there was such a thing as a devil.

  Maybe this wasn’t the ideal time to have a mental theological debate.

  He stood in front of the altar, the black candles flickering wildly as if there was a wind. He looked down at his phone, expanded the picture a little to make it easier to read, and arranged the ingredients in the small crystal dishes he’d found.

  He couldn’t tell, from the illustration, if there was a pattern he was supposed to follow in what went where, so he just went by the order the ingredients were listed, arranging the crystal dishes across the altar.

  Yet the feeling of power lured him, pushed away thoughts of restraint. He'd been too damn restrained all this time. Too understanding. Too gullible by half.

  He thought about wearing one of the robes he'd found and then dismissed the idea. Breanna had been a witch. He was a wizard. According to Grace, his abilities dwarfed those of his wife. He didn't need the trappings. He might not even require the list of ingredients.

  Could he bring back Breanna from the dead?

  Had Lionel raised the dead? Had he really brought back his wife? Had she lived – if that was the word to use – here with Lionel and Breanna?

  He would find out, wouldn’t he?

  “What are you going to do?” Ellie asked when Grace walked back into the Great Room.

  Ellie was intelligent and brave. She would need the latter attribute now.

  The NASACA Elders did not approve of people who violated their rules, including the “do not speak” dictate. If anyone learned that Ellie had come to her, the girl would be in trouble.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea right at the moment,” Grace said, opting for honesty. “I’m leaning toward lecturing Derek and telling him what could happen to him if he brought Breanna back.”

  “He probably doesn’t know that.” Ellie pressed her palms together, then released them. An anxious gesture, one that revealed that she didn’t feel as calm as her voice sounded.

  “You’re probably right. However, I would think he would have some common sense. You don’t have to be practiced in magic to know that raising the dead is wrong.”

  There was condemnation in her voice but it wasn’t for Derek. She was angry at Paul and Angie. What kind of parents failed to instill a reverence for life in their child? Perhaps some of her irritation was reserved for herself and for Jeffrey. His wife had created an untenable situation for her, but she had been initially guilty of the greatest sin, falling in love with a married man.

  All of them were to blame, each one of them and maybe even Ellie, sitting there twisting her hands together.

  “Would you like me to tell him?” Ellie asked.

  She glanced at the girl. She didn’t know whether she was feeling incredulous, amazed, or impressed at Ellie’s effrontery.

  “Do you have some words at your disposal that I don’t know? Some ability to cajole, perhaps? What is your talent, my dear?”

  To her shame, twin spots of color appeared on Ellie’s cheeks. “Precognition. It’s why I’m here,” she said in a low voice.

  “You saw this?”

  Ellie nodded.

  Grace detested bullies yet she’d just acted like one.

  “Forgive me, Ellie. I’m out of sorts and more than a little worried. We have, as I see it, three problems in front of us. The Elders, who must remain ignorant of what is happening. Jeffrey, Derek’s father, who is probably actively promoting chaos at this exact moment, and Derek’s actions which could bring down all sorts of disaster on our heads.”

  She needed an ally. Whether or not the girl wanted the position, by coming to her Ellie had volunteered for the spot.

  To her credit she didn’t immediately start running.

  “The most important thing is to stop Derek,” Ellie said.

  Grace nodded. “I’m afraid, however, that we will have to accomplish a great many things concurrent with each other. The Elders have spies everywhere. You should know, you’re one of them.”

  Ellie’s face flushed.

  “We are fighting for a man’s soul, if not his life. We are fighting for yours, too.”

  Ellie blinked several times, as if she were trying to understand what Grace had just said. Finally, she nodded.

  “You think the Elders would do something to me if they learned what I know?”

  “It isn’t what you know, my dear. It’s what you haven’t told them. You haven’t told them about the list. Do you think the people at Sticks & Stones are going to protect you?”

  The color on Ellie’s face faded, leaving her complexion as pale as death.

  “You haven’t told them about coming here, either, which is why I put a cloaking spell on you the moment I saw you.”

  Once more the girl looked startled. No, more than that. Grace had shocked her. Ellie needed to get over that fast or she wasn’t going to be much of an ally. Grace’s time would be spent trying to prepare the girl for the reality of what they faced.

  If the Elders learned of what they were going to do both of them would be punished. Not only that, but there was every possibility they were going to have to challenge the most powerful wizard on the planet. Add to that the fact that Derek was a strong personality in his own right even without magic and was extraordinarily stubborn.

  They had a great deal to do and not much hope that they could accomplish it.

  32

  Something changed in the room. Derek could feel the energy rising up from the floor and the air growing heavier. He took a step back from the altar, feeling as if he had to push the air away to do so.

  Granted, he’d been afraid occasionally, but he’d never backed down from anything because of fear. Paul had taught him that. Accept the circumstances, recognize that he was afraid, analyze his surroundings and the situation, but then go forward.

  In the past forty years most of the fear he’d faced had been career based. Would the speaker of the house really manage to get him fired? Would a particular politician convince the IRS to audit him for the past decade? Were his facts correct or would he be outed as an idiot in the morning edition?

  He hadn’t been physically afraid often. The last time had been weeks ago when someone had taken aim at him. And now. He was definitely afraid right now.

  What the hell was he doing? He was challenging everything he believed in because he was getting off on the idea that he could give life back to Breanna.

  He should close up everything, lock this room and never come inside again. Even better, he should have it gutted and blessed by a priest.

  What if it was true? What if it was possible? What if he was as powerful as Grace said?

  He was. He knew he was.

  He told himself it was because he had an intellectual curiosity, that’s all. For years he’d nurtured his habit of questioning everything. Why should he stop now?

  They drove to the Crow’s Nest in Ellie's car. Or in Ellie's mother's car, to be exact. The interior smelled of Lily Hunt, with her penchant for using cinnamon in almost all her spells. She was a lovely woman, but a weak and ineffectual witch. The fact that Ellie had such power was no doubt due to her father's influence. He was much stronger, but he fought magic. Grace suspected that Caleb had a puritanical belief that magic was evil. For that reason he didn't use it as often as he could have.

  "What do we do when we get there?" Ellie asked.

  "It all depends on how receptive Derek is. Will he listen to me? Will he listen to anyone?"

  "I never know when a vision is going to happen. I don't know when what I saw will happen to Derek."

  "You must train yourself,
" Grace said. "It's possible to do so, Ellie. Your powers are at the behest of your will, not the other way around."

  Ellie glanced at her, then back at the road. She could almost hear the girl’s protests. The young didn't understand that magic was a tool. It was shaped by personality. How powerful you became was directly tied to how strong a person you were.

  Blessedly, they weren't far from Derek's house. No, she wasn't going to call it that. It didn't belong to Derek. He shouldn't live there, either. The house held the memory of the magic that had been done in it. Black magic.

  You couldn't expunge that from a structure. You could have a dozen exorcisms, but it would never purify what had happened within those walls. The only remedy was to raze the house, burn what was left, and never build on the land again. She doubted that Derek would do such a thing, but hopefully she could convince him to move. Sell the house to someone who had no connection to magic. They would be the safest there.

  Ellie pulled the car into the Crow’s Nest garage.

  Grace had never been to the house. She'd had no desire whatsoever to visit the place.

  She followed Ellie into the kitchen, through the hallways and up the stairs to the second floor. Grace had the strangest sensation of being pulled toward the highest point in the house, almost as if something was exerting an immense sucking force. She didn't say anything as Ellie opened one door, revealing an office, and then another.

  "He isn't here."

  Grace looked up, went back to the stairs and stared up at the third floor landing. She didn't say anything as she started to ascend, but Ellie followed her.

  She hesitated, looked down at Ellie and said, “Go back to the car. Even better, go back to my house. You'll be safe there."

  She pulled out her key ring, extracted her house key, and would've handed it to Ellie.

  The girl was shaking her head. "No, I'm not going to leave you here alone. I'm the reason you're here, Grace. What kind of person would I be if I left you alone?"

  "A wise one."

  "I'm not leaving."

  Grace put the key back on her key ring. In all honesty, she was grateful for Ellie's presence even though it might turn out to be an extremely foolish move.

  They were heading into danger. She could feel it. Something was terribly wrong in this house and they were walking toward it.

  Derek was on the second stanza when his phone beeped at him, alerting him to one of the sensors on the property. The camera showed him Ellie’s car heading toward the garage. He touched a control on the bottom of the picture and it focused on the picture of two women. Ellie, her face looking older than when she’d left. Beside her was Grace.

  Damn it, he didn’t want to stop now. The door was locked, they couldn’t interrupt him. Instead of blowing out the candles, stepping back and leaving the room to greet the two women, he continued speaking.

  It took him a few minutes to realize that the air was not only heavier, but the room had gotten darker. The incense had grown stronger in the past few minutes. The stench of decay had faded, but the odor of flowers was making it difficult to breathe.

  He continued, ignoring the beep from his phone that told him that one of the doors had been opened in the house. Neither woman knew about this room. He hadn’t told anyone and it would take them a while to find him.

  As if they’d heard his thoughts, the phone rang, interrupting him. He declined Ellie’s call, intent on the incantation.

  Nothing could have made him stop at this moment. He was – the word escaped him and he made his living in words. Excited, that was it. Thrilled. Anticipation thrummed through him. Something was happening, he could feel it. He couldn’t explain how he knew that he was going to be successful, but he did. He just did.

  Should he have placed something of Breanna’s nearby? A lock of her hair, a toothbrush — something with her DNA?

  He allowed himself to think of his wife as she had been on their wedding day. The ceremony had been held on the grounds of the Crow’s Nest, next to the lake. It had been a beautiful, magnificent spring day and his heart had swelled as Breanna had walked down the aisle alone, the five hundred guests murmuring their appreciation for his beautiful, smiling bride.

  He’d nearly been overcome with love at that moment.

  How much of it had been real? Breanna had told Grace that she’d come to love him, but when? A month later? A year? Two weeks before her death?

  The room darkened even further. He blinked several times, feeling strangely out of place, as if he was having trouble ensuring that he had his feet on the floor.

  The light from his phone was the only illumination and he continued to speak the words of the spell.

  “Derek?”

  Damn them. Insufferable, meddling, harpies. Didn’t they realize what he was doing was so much more important than what they wanted, whatever it was?

  He didn’t want to be disturbed. He couldn’t be disturbed. Not now, not when everything was working just as it had been planned to work. Years had gone into this. Years of his life’s blood and his agony, for just this moment.

  “Derek?”

  Another voice added to the first. They were not going to give up. They were going to destroy everything.

  The doorknob rattled.

  He could feel her at the door, knew that she put her hands on the wood, could feel her breath chilling the warmth in the room.

  “Derek, please, don’t do this thing.”

  “Go away!” He didn’t recognize his own voice. It was lower, angrier, filled with a bottomless rage.

  They couldn’t be allowed to interfere, not now. He had to do something. He stretched out his right hand and pointed it at the door. Lightning flowed from his splayed fingers, charging the wood.

  He heard her yelp as she was thrown backward against the wall. Good. Maybe he had broken something. She’d need medical care now and that would stop her from coming into the room.

  “Derek.”

  He recognized that voice although it took him a few moments to place it. Ellie. He knew her, or at least he thought he did. In a life far, far distant from this one. A sweet young thing with bright red hair as orange as a Texas sunset. She had a naïve way about her, for all that she was a witch. A young practitioner of magic with some talent that needed to be developed. Perhaps he could help her with that.

  The spell was not finished. He focused his eyes upon the image of the page and forced his mouth to keep saying words that would lift him out of the darkness and give him life once more.

  “Derek, I’m coming in.”

  She would ruin everything. She had to be destroyed, before he was. He lifted his hand once more, but something stopped him. Annoyed, he half turned and scowled at the door. To his surprise, it opened. What had he once learned? That innocence would occasionally triumph over evil.

  He wasn’t evil; he’d just been cheated of his life and he wanted it back.

  33

  Grace walked to the middle of the hallway with Ellie close behind her. She placed her hand against the door, then turned the knob. It was locked. The spell to unlock it was known to every first year student of magic.

  Except that the spell didn’t work.

  “Derek.”

  A second later she was thrown against the far wall.

  Ellie bent over her. “Grace, are you all right?”

  No, she was startled, and unprepared for what had happened, but she wasn’t going to let Ellie know.

  “We have to get inside,” she said, getting to her knees and using Ellie’s help to stand.

  This battle was going to be as bad as she feared.

  She placed her hand flat against the door and whispered for Ellie to do the same. Their combined efforts unlocked the door.

  A greenish blue ball of light shimmered in the middle of the room. At least ten feet wide, it extended from the floor to the ceiling. The power from it was so great the walls trembled. Grace had the feeling that, left uncontrolled, it could destroy the house around t
hem.

  Ellie stepped forward just as Grace was thinking to send the girl from the room.

  The laptop Samuelson showed him was the technological equivalent of remote viewing. The big black house on the hill was somewhat of a surprise.

  “That’s where he lives?”

  Jeffrey knew Derek’s history intimately since he’d studied it for years. He’d compiled a dossier on the only man who could destroy him.

  Derek couldn’t have picked a better house, one that mirrored all the dark desire that probably lived in his heart.

  “Are you certain, sir, that you want to do this yourself?”

  No one else would’ve had the temerity to ask that particular question, but Samuelson had been with him for nearly fifty years now. They were both showing some signs of age but nowhere near what they would’ve looked like had they been civilians.

  Magic imbued its practitioners with a fountain of youth. Older witches had something, not easily defined, that set them apart from the general population. A certain style, perhaps. Some of the women chose not to dye their hair but let it go a glorious white. Their faces were unlined, their bodies those of thirty-year-olds in fine health. He could identify a witch in any photograph. She stood out like gold among ashes.

  Wizards had the ability to defy age to an even greater degree. Jeffrey didn’t look a day over fifty, even though he was nearly a centenarian.

  Derek wouldn’t have an opportunity to age, poor lad. Yet he should never have been allowed to reach his majority, let alone forty-one. For that matter, he shouldn’t have been born.

  “Thank you, no, Samuelson. I intend to handle this matter myself.”

  He didn’t add that it was possible Derek had acquired some power they didn’t know about, thereby making it a difficult confrontation for anyone without a wizard’s ability.