Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  And it was making him forget that a canister had just gone up in flames, and a shimmering curtain had just disappeared.

  “Come on,” Quentin said, refocusing himself. “Let’s go see Norman.”

  Chapter 20

  Lydia

  This day had been filled with twists and turns, and it was only mid-morning. After a sleepless night, she had run to Quentin, distraught and convinced that something terrible had happened to her friend. Now she was just confused about what Jack was doing. She had seen him herself, and she knew he was safe—at least, physically safe. She had also run to Quentin knowing that he might very well turn her away because of the lack of trust that they had in each other, and now they were being open with each other about everything. As they drove towards Norman Rockwell’s house, she had talked to him about all of the things that she had read about dragon shifters that were so fascinating to her, and he had agreed with certain parts of it, and he’d debunked other myths that she’d adopted as true.

  And she had run to Quentin this morning convinced that she could never tell him that she had been pursuing him because she knew his true identity, but now she had confessed all, seen him in all of his incredible beauty and power as a dragon, and she was going to meet the oldest living member of the Rockwell Clan, so that they could all investigate a supernatural mystery together.

  “Here we are,” Quentin said, pulling up in front of a house that was set off on its own, on the edge of Baton Rouge. It was a large house with three floors, and a big porch, and lots of green space around it that was beautiful even though it was mid-January. There were white columns rising between the wooden slats of the porch and the picturesque overhang. Flowering bushes framed the porch, and tall, towering trees rose up from behind the house, making the entire scene picturesque.

  “God, it’s beautiful,” Lydia said, unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of Quentin’s car. “It’s like the quintessential southern home …but better.”

  Quentin chuckled. “Yeah, that sums it up well enough.

  Norman was expecting them, and he was waiting with the door open, as they walked up the porch steps. Quentin had called ahead, and Norman had welcomed them over. Now, as they approached him, the slightly stooped, silver-haired man with a beaming smile and warm, lively eyes motioned for them to come inside. “Come, come, come,” Norman said, welcoming them and ushering them into the main sitting area. “I always enjoy visitors in the morning. It’s the best time of day, if you ask me. You can’t be tired of the day before noon, can you?”

  “Thank you for having us over,” she said as Norman handed her a glass of sweet tea. “My name is Lydia Winn. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  “Yes, yes, it is,” Norman said. “Nice to meet you, that is. Everyone, please—sit down, sit down.”

  They all sat with drinks in hand. There were also little snacks on a plate on the coffee table, and after running away from her breakfast before she’d really had a chance to eat, the cheese and crackers looked appetizing. She leaned forward and slipped a few crackers and slices of cheese onto a small napkin that was beside the plate.

  Norman smiled and nodded at her, and Lydia took a sip of her tea, her lips almost puckering at the sweetness of the drink.

  Quentin seemed to think nothing of his own drink as he took a sip. “Norman, we won’t take up much of your time. I’m just hoping that you can help me with a case that I’ve stumbled on here. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t have any evidence with me—no pictures or anything. I just have to describe it to you.”

  Norman nodded, leaning back in his chair comfortably, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. “All right, son. Let’s hear it then.”

  Lydia listened attentively as Quentin explained again to Norman what he had already explained to her numerous times. The sense of power in the apartment, the shimmering curtain in the kitchen, the canister they had found—the one that had burst into self-contained flames that were resistant to the water that they had poured over them. The curtain vanishing, along with the tickle of power that Quentin experienced now when he was in the apartment.

  The whole time, Norman nodded along, his foot jiggling lightly, and his fingers pressed together and resting beneath his chin. “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” he said, clucking his tongue as Quentin finished. “Well now, isn’t that something?”

  “What?” Quentin asked. “Do you know what it is?”

  “Oh, I know what it is all right,” Norman said, laughing and shaking his head. “Never thought I’d get to see one of those. They’re rare, these portals. Very rare. Never seen one in all my years. Read about them, sure. But never seen one.”

  Lydia and Quentin looked at each other, and Lydia spoke first. “Portals?”

  “That’s right,” Norman said, nodding. “Portals are strong magic. Very strong magic. And they’re downright dangerous magic, if you ask me.”

  “Portals to where?” Lydia asked, not understanding. “Do you mean that the curtain is a portal? Why couldn’t we go through it?”

  Norman lowered both feet to the ground and leaned forward, his elbows resting against his knees as he spoke. “Yes, the curtain is a portal. Portals often materialize as curtains or doorways—sometimes arches. It’s something symbolic of a passageway from one world to another. There’s this concept of multiple dimensions, and portals are kind of like that, except they’re not. A multiple dimension is a concept created by Hollywood, right? This idea that there are infinite versions of ourselves living in other dimensions where things play out differently.”

  Lydia nodded. “Sure, like a science fiction trope.”

  “Exactly,” Norman said, with such enthusiasm that Lydia had to smile, even though she was intently focused on what he was telling her. “You’ve got it, spot on. It’s a thing for the movies. Except …there are such things as portals. But, see, what has to happen first is the schism. The schism has to take place, and then the portal forms and the portal connects the two schisms.”

  Quentin held up his hands. “Hold on, Uncle Norman. We’re not following you. Can you tell us from the beginning?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, of course,” Norman said, waving his hand. “I’m sorry.” He smiled at Lydia. “I’m an old man now, you see. My sweet wife, Grace—before she died, she used to tell me—Norman, you’re getting too old to talk to people without me around to explain it to them better.”

  Lydia couldn’t help but smile again. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall head over heels in love with this sweet old man in the purest of ways, and then where would she be? “You’re doing great,” she told him, sincerely. “I’m following you—schisms and portals.”

  “No,” Quentin said, though he sounded amused. “You’re not doing great, Uncle Norman. We still need to back up.”

  “Yes, yes,” Norman said. “From the beginning. Now, see, a person with the power to do it—a witch, or a warlock, or a sorcerer—they have to create the schism. It’s done with a spell. They put the spell on a person, and they essentially divide that person’s world in two. And from that point on, that person exists in two different worlds that play out simultaneously. That’s how it’s like multiple dimensions, except it’s really not multiple dimensions. It’s two worlds – sometimes three – that play out at the same time. And, yes, events in each world do play out differently most of the time. Essentially, the one person becomes two different people.”

  Lydia and Quentin looked at each other again, both thinking about Jack and how this had happened to him.

  “Now …,” Norman said. “A portal is between the two schisms, you see? There can appear a door—or a curtain, or an arch, or whatever—between the two worlds. And while that door is open, the person affected by the schism can move in-between worlds.”

  “And if that happened,” Lydia said. “The version of the person who came through the portal into this world might not recognize anything about this world. That person might be scared and might …run away from people that they would
otherwise recognize.”

  Norman nodded. “Oh, yes, and much, much worse than that can happen. You see, the version of the person that lives in one schism cannot survive long in the other. A few days, at the most. Now, this is the part that I never really read much on, mostly because it didn’t interest me as much. But there’s something about being in the opposite schism that affects the person physically. Their bodies start to shut down and wither away. This version of the schism just cannot sustain them. So, yes, they might run from people they should theoretically know, and they may also fall very ill. They may lose their grip on reality. Think how you would feel if the whole world suddenly changed around you and nothing made sense, and you couldn’t find your own reality anywhere. Remember, these people affected by the schism—they don’t know. Even if they know that they’ve been divided into two worlds, there’s no guarantee that both of them know, or that they really understand what it means.”

  Lydia was gripping the arms of her chair hard now, her plate of cheese and crackers and her glass of sweet tea abandoned on the floor beside her chair. All she could think about was how terrified Jack must be—and how little time she had to figure out how to fix it.

  “But the portal is gone,” she told Norman. “Could he have gone back through the portal, and everything was fixed? The portal is gone now.”

  Norman shook his head. “It seems you know someone affected by this, my dear, and I’m very sorry for that. You see, there are few reasons to manipulate a schism, and none of them are usually for the health and happiness of the person affected.”

  “What are those reasons?” Quentin asked. “It seems like a strange thing to do to yourself or to someone else. What’s the point?”

  “Well, for one thing, imposing a schism on someone is a good way of controlling them,” Norman said. “Once you’ve divided someone in two, the part of them that is left is more susceptible to being controlled. Also, even though it’s very bad for the affected person to travel back and forth between the two worlds, the person who created the schism in the first place can easily travel between worlds. This brings plenty of advantages, depending on the nature of the other world. But, of course, the most frequent reason is harvesting.”

  Lydia scrunched her nose. “Harvesting?”

  Norman sighed, seeming, for the first time, to be reluctant to tell them the rest, but he pressed on. “A person who has been divided has a divided lifespan as well. They won’t live a normal number of years because their years are being played out in two different worlds. And, for some reason, a person who has been divided, well, …their organs multiply.”

  “What?” Lydia asked, looking at Quentin for clarification. He shook his head at her, a concerned look on his face.

  “They grow hearts, and livers, and kidneys, and hair, and eyeballs …,” Norman said, holding up his hands as if even saying such things offended his sense of gentlemanliness.

  “On their bodies?” Lydia asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.

  “Well, no,” Norman said. “That would be quite inconvenient.”

  “Then how?” Quentin asked, his voice grave.

  Norman slid his hands over his light denim jeans, blowing out a breath. “The witch, or warlock, or sorcerer will reserve some of the hair and skin cells of the divided person. They place them into individual jars, and then the organs grow within the jars. Those organs are then very useful for other spells, and medicines, and whatever else is needed for the person’s magic.”

  Lydia bent over in her chair, putting her face in her hands. She had studied the supernatural for so long, but she had never come across or imagined any of this. Of course, her focus had always been on dragon shifters rather than sorcery, but it was still a shock—especially given that Jack was apparently suffering from all of this, and the Jack that had run from her today was the Jack from the other version of his world.

  She picked her head up. “But wait, I was asking about the portal. It’s gone now. Could he have gone back through it? How do we create the portal again?”

  “Ah, yes,” Norman said, nodding. “That’s what I was getting back to. You see, portals can exist within anything—a jar, a canister, a Tupperware container. Anything that can be enclosed. It’s another spell—a living portion of the original spell. It can be recreated, but it’s difficult. The only reason for one to be destroyed is if the original spellcaster destroyed it. And if the original spellcaster destroyed the portal after the two versions of the divided person have switched places …then that spellcaster has essentially doomed the person to death.”

  Chapter 21

  Quentin

  Quentin went to Lydia as horror set over her expression. He put his arm around her, as he crouched down beside her hair, rubbing her arm gently. She was in shock, and he understood why after news like that. She had just learned that her closest friend was under a death sentence—a death sentence so strange and convoluted that even Quentin didn’t understand fully what was happening, despite being an expert in the supernatural.

  “Here, dear,” Norman said, walking back in from the kitchen with a glass of water. He handed it to Lydia. “I saw that the sweet tea was not your cup of tea. This will help.”

  Quentin rubbed Lydia’s back as she gulped at the water, then he stood up, turning to Norman. “Surely there’s something we can do. This is Lydia’s closest friend who is going through this. His other self has come through the portal, I guess. I don’t know how or why. But there was a portal, and he’s acting strangely, like he doesn’t know her, and now the portal is gone. But that’s not the end, is it, Uncle Norman?”

  Quentin looked pointedly at Norman, asking him to give Lydia some hope.

  “Nothing is ever the end,” Norman said, simply. “There is always a way. Of course, another portal can be created, if you find this other version of your friend and a sorcerer who is willing to do the spell. The portal can be reopened, and you can send him back through, hoping that your friend will return to you. Nothing is ever completely lost, you know.”

  Lydia looked up from gulping down her water. “I want the schism off him. How do I figure out who put the schism on him?”

  Norman shook his head. “That I can’t tell you, my dear. That, you will have to figure out on your own.”

  “You’ve been lots of help,” Quentin told Norman, sincerely. “It would have taken me much too long to find all of that on my own. So, thank you. Really.”

  “Of course, of course,” Norman said, clapping Quentin’s shoulder and pressing. “You know that I’m always available to offer institutional knowledge. If there’s one thing I can still do, it’s remember things, as long as those things are not where I put my keys or my glasses.”

  Quentin patted Norman’s shoulder, and then Norman walked over to Lydia and took her hands, drawing her up to stand in front of him. He looked down at her sadly. “I’m sorry to have given you bad news. But knowledge is always power, and now you have the power that you need to go and save your friend. I have no doubt that you will, especially if my grandson and his friends are helping you.”

  Lydia gave him a shaky smile. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Come back anytime,” he said, patting her back lightly as he walked with them towards the door. “I will make some tea with less sugar in it next time.”

  Quentin nodded his thanks to Norman again, then led Lydia outside and towards the car. They managed to get into the car, and he had turned on the engine before she began her stream of consciousness rant that he had learned always accompanied her mental processing.

  “None of this makes sense,” Lydia said, her fingers rapping insistently against the passenger side door armrest. “I mean, what does any of that even mean? A schism? How did he get a schism? Who does he know, and how would this have happened to him? Why did the portal blow up? Why did it even open to begin with? Is it still true that he just runs off sometimes, and is that a portal thing? Or is that just him being an unreliable person? How are we going to fin
d him, and what does any of this even mean, and what if we don’t get him back in enough time—and God, Quentin, how are we supposed to open a portal again? Jack can’t die. You don’t understand. He can’t die. Why is any of this happening?”

  He had started to put the car in reverse to back them out of the spot they were in, but Quentin slid the car back into park and reached out, taking Lydia’s hand in his. He figured after all they had shared today it was acceptable for him to hold her hand. “That was a lot of questions,” he said, calmly. “I can answer some of them. The rest we’re going to just have to figure out together. And you need to get his wife down here—as soon as possible, Lydia.”

  “Oh God,” Lydia said again, her head falling back against the seat of the car. “How do I even begin to explain this to her? She never really understood why Jack and I were so obsessed with all things supernatural. Now this?”

  “She’s going to be upset,” Quentin said. “Of course, she is. But she needs to get down here as soon as possible. I’m calling in my friends as well. We need to form a search party and bring Jack in. If we don’t have him, we can’t do anything. So first we have to track him down, and we’ll figure out the rest from there.”

  Lydia nodded, pulling herself somewhat together as she reached for her phone. This time, Whitney answered almost immediately, and Lydia put the phone on speaker.

  “Did he show back up?” Whitney asked, sounding cheerful and normal.

  “Uh, no,” Lydia said, clearing her throat. Quentin pressed her hand, then turned back to drive the car, slowly taking them away from Norman’s house and back towards the agency. “Listen, Whitney, the situation has changed. Jack is in trouble. It’s been confirmed. I don’t really know how to explain it all to you on the phone, but there’s a problem—Jack’s life is in danger. I need you to come down here as soon as you can and help us find him, and try to get him out of this …this whatever he’s in.”