Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1)

by S. James Nelson

  He never finished his sentence. I never made it to the brink. Because the last of Nick’s emblems caught fire.

  Chapter 56: Another in a long string of questionable choices

  I really never meant to blow anyone up.

  -Nick Savage

  The rumble reached a crescendo as all of the sound gathered together into a single groan of the deepest note imaginable. My ribs felt like they might detach from my spine and sternum.

  From the emblem nearest Nick—three interlocking circles inside a triangle—streams of red light shot at my parents, striking them in their chests. Marti screamed. My parents didn’t make a sound. Nick dashed through emblems to the building’s doorway.

  My parents stiffened. The streams of light flowed into them, lifting them up onto their toes. Their mouths widened in silent wails. Their heads tilted backward.

  I couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t stop this nightmare.

  The streams of light thinned, faded, and disappeared. My parents fell backward, as if the light had tapped them so they would collapse.

  They fell backward through the burning emblems, smearing the fire, landing like boards in the gravel.

  Every emblem extinguished, turned to ash that the rain slapped to the ground.

  I ran to my parents.

  They’d lost. They’d died trying to fix the mistakes I’d made. Guilt filled me.

  Wet ash surrounded me, turning to a nasty black paste on my skin, clothes, and the gravel. I reached Dad. He lay on his back, his eyes open. A line of black ash smeared across his forehead. The expression on his face made him look just like one of the soldiers.

  Maybe Nick hadn’t killed him.

  I placed my ear against his chest, listening for a heartbeat, blinking to keep the ashen rain out of my eyes.

  His heart beat, slow but strong.

  A joyous shout escaped my lips as I leaped to Mom. She also lay with her mouth and eyes wide, staring into the clouds.

  I listened for a heartbeat, and heard it.

  Relief flooded me. Except—in just a few minutes, a nuclear bomb would go off less than fifty feet away.

  I stood and turned toward the building. Rain had washed most of the ash from the air. The mist had dissipated. Nick stood in front of a zip-door that blocked the doorway. No one could enter the building until someone triggered the zip-door.

  Marti stood a few feet back from him, brink in her hands. Her body trembled as she faced him.

  “You have a choice, missy,” Nick said. “You can step through this portal into a potentially dangerous situation, or you can stay behind and try to save them.” He motioned at the soldiers, then at my parents. “The choice is yours.”

  “Or,” she said, “I could just keep you from leaving, and we can all die.”

  He grunted and slid to the side, out of the path to the zip-door. “If you want to save their lives, you’ll have to let me escape.” He smiled as if at a disobedient child. “I think you know what to do.”

  She glared, her fists clenched at her side. “It might be worth it just to see you dead.”

  “Except you wouldn’t see me dead. You would be dead along with me. But it’s up to you. Will you save lives? Or destroy them?”

  They faced each other for a few seconds before, with a growl, Marti turned back to the soldiers. She immediately began drawing ribs on one of her arches.

  What to do? I could throw my parents through the portal, but unless I could get us all through at the same time, someone would be left behind.

  Nick turned to me, smiling. “Son, I made a promise to you that I need to keep.”

  I tensed to tackle him, though I didn’t know what good that would do. “That’s real comforting. Thank you so much.”

  “I told you I would give you some brink created from your emotion, and I will.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m so worried about that at this point. You’ve lied to me all this time.” I felt foolish about it—for being inclined to believe him. But clearly, from the start, everyone else had been right. I shouldn’t have believed a word he’d said.

  I wanted to punch him in the teeth.

  “No,” he said, “I haven’t lied to you. Not once, Richie. You have to believe me.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I do not.”

  “Just do whatever he says,” Marti said. She had her back to me, still drawing foot-long lines perpendicular from one of her arches. She’d lit one of the lines, and it had disappeared.

  “Why aren’t you fighting?” I said to her.

  She glanced at me. “I know a lost cause when I see it. Cut your losses.” She stepped over a soldier on the edge of the group, and finished drawing ribs along the arc.

  “That’s right,” Nick said. “She’s made the right choice. You have a choice, too, son. You can try to stop me, or come with me.”

  I stared at him, my heart thundering. I had no good way out of the situation. That’s what happens when you throw a nuke in with a lunatic rock star.

  “Son,” he said, “I don’t want anyone to die. Not your parents. Not Marti. Not even these good soldiers. In my plan no one dies. I’m not a murderer. I’m not even insane.”

  “That’s debatable,” I said.

  He gave me a patient smile. “Just come with me, so I can keep my promise to you.”

  “What, you’re a man of honor now?”

  “I’ve always been a man of honor. I’ll take you somewhere we can watch from a distance.”

  “Why not stay here? Under Marti’s protective spell?”

  He laughed. “Certainly, we can, but why risk a spell malfunction?”

  “You’re risking them,” I said, and pointed at the soldiers, Marti, and my parents.

  “Some things can’t be helped, son. Stories say that the spell works, but I’m not going to risk it. I’m not going to trust someone else’s story when I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. Are you coming with me, or not?”

  Marti looked over her shoulder. She’d started back across the group of soldiers, drawing that same long arc. The series of curves and lines looked like a toothed cage over the soldiers.

  “Go with him, you idiot. Don’t you remember what your dad said right before going under? He said to save yourself. Trust your dad.”

  I looked at my parents. At Marti. At the zip-door that separated me from the inside of the building.

  Two options to choose from. Should I trust Dad’s last order? Or should I make my own decisions and try to take action on my own?

  I made my choice.

  The only choice I could make.

  Chapter 57: Alone, I battle evil

  I love the smell of brink in the morning.

  -Nick Savage

  Nick drew another zip-door as I dragged my parents over to the group of soldiers.

  “We’ll be fine,” Marti said, giving my hand a squeeze. She leaned close. “Find a way to keep him from coming back here for the brink.”

  “Can’t you just get the brink once the bomb goes off?” I asked. “Because you’ll be fine, right?”

  She gave me an uncertain look. “I don’t know.”

  “He can’t stop me,” Nick said. “He doesn’t know a single spell.”

  He grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from Marti, through the door. The last thing I saw was her, standing above my parents, brow furrowed, lips turned down.

  Nick and I stepped out onto a metal floor that clanged with each of our steps. I stumbled to one knee.

  “Perfect!” he said.

  “Hooray,” I said, standing. “I’m safe! You twisted jerk!”

  We’d zipped to the balcony of a tower. It had a sheet metal floor and a waist-high railing—beyond which was only darkness, so I couldn’t tell how high up we were. The balcony curved to the right and left, presumably around the entire tower. Nearby, a red light over a metal door provided the only illumination.

  I could no longer feel the emotion.

  “By my reckoning,” he said, “we’re safe. Thirty miles east
of the bomb.” He took a deep breath and looked to the distance. “Near enough to watch.”

  “You’re sick.”

  He grunted and turned to me. “You’d find it fascinating if you weren’t so fretted about your parents.”

  “You’re right. Who needs parents, anyway?”

  “They should survive the blast. According to SOaP, anyway.” He turned and plucked a vial of brink from his arm. “Back in the fifties and sixties, SOaP tried out spells to shield against A-bombs. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn’t. My own research never produced a conclusive answer, because I was never able to detonate an atomic bomb, but SOaP insists that they work. They block radiation, heat, and fire.” He poured some of the brink into his hand. “Just to be safe, I’m going to protect us against the explosion, as well.”

  “Oh, good. I feel so much better about their safety.”

  He bent to the metal floor and began to draw a straight vertical line in front of the railing. “Best to be as safe as possible.”

  I watched him, not really focusing on his actions. How could Marti and my parents possibly survive at the hypocenter of a nuclear explosion? I’d seen movies. I’d seen cartoons. I’d seen plenty of re-creations of people disintegrating in nuclear explosions. Even just within miles. And my parents and Marti and the soldiers were fifty feet away from the bomb.

  I stepped backward, my knees going weak, and fell. My butt hit the metal floor and gave off a clang. It hurt, but I didn’t care.

  Nick finished drawing his vertical line, about eight-feet high, then drew a curved line from the right to the left. It intersected the vertical line at the top. He tossed the vial of brink over the edge, and plucked another from his left arm. He didn’t have many left. Three dangled from his right arm, and two more from his left.

  “After the bomb goes off,” he said, “we’ll give it a few minutes, then zip in to get the brink.”

  “It’ll be too late. By then my parents will get the brink. Them or Marti.”

  At that, he turned to me and narrowed his eyes. “No, I reckon not. It’ll be too windy and hot outside their barrier for them to get to it. They should be protected from fire, heat, and radiation, but only if they stay in the barrier. I, however, have prepared a safe place to zip into.” He turned and continued to draw the emblem.

  He sounded reasonable, but Marti’s spell to protect them could fail. Plenty of what she’d done tonight had gone wrong.

  I should have trusted them. I should have obeyed them, and stayed out of this entire mess.

  But it wasn’t over yet. I still had the red vial of brink Mom had given me. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out. As I did, my fingers brushed the metal cube that Nick had given me earlier that night.

  I held the brink up, and considered it with a frown.

  What could I do with it? What spells could I cast?

  Nick finished drawing perpendicular lines to his emblem. He took out his lighter and touched it to the center of the spell. As the flames spread all throughout the brink, he turned back to me and started when he saw my vial.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  There had to be a way to defeat him. “I pulled it out of my butt.”

  “Give that here,” he said, and held his hand out. “I don’t like that look in your eyes.”

  I couldn’t compete with him on any magic level, but maybe I could overpower him physically.

  I had to try.

  Or did I? Should I trust Dad and do nothing? What had he said at the last? Save myself? I’d done that. I’d obeyed him.

  What to do next?

  Could I make the right decision? I’d made poor ones all night long, without my parents there to guide me. Could I change that, now?

  I stood as if to give him the brink.

  His emblem finished burning. The red fire changed into thin lines of white light that hummed deeply for a moment before fading.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Hand it over.”

  He stood a few feet away, his left arm extended so the two vials of brink dangled down. If I remembered right, he had three others hanging from his right arm, but that was down at his side, and I couldn’t see them, let alone grab them easily.

  Well, one thing at a time.

  I faced him, expecting the bomb to detonate any moment.

  He was old. In his fifties. I could overpower him. I had to. So I wouldn’t lose my brink, I put it back in my pocket. It chinked against the metal cube.

  He started to lower his arm and speak.

  I dove forward, lashing out with my hands, reaching for the dangling vials of brink.

  And missed.

  My hand closed over nothing because he flinched away. My shoulder slammed into his chest. Momentum pushed us both toward the railing. He grunted as he struck it. Although the barrier spell he’d cast had faded, it still existed in the unseen world. So close to my ear, its humming filled my head. The air rushed out of Nick. I scraped my hands along the back of his arms, feeling for the vials.

  As we bounced back from the railing, he pushed me away. I gripped the back of his arms and set my feet, pivoting so I spun and he stumbled toward the center of the tower. I loosened my grip, so he slid out and away. My hands ran along the back of his arm, past his elbows, down his forearms toward his wrists. Each string holding the vials of brink to his jacket gave to the pressure and snapped. Two on the left, and three on the right.

  He fell backward against the wall, his eyes wide in terror. The vials clattered on the metal floor. Momentum threw me off balance. Unable to catch myself, I grunted as I hit the metal floor with a hollow bang, on top of one vial. Two more bounced and clattered near my feet. The other two vials had disappeared, maybe behind me.

  “You idiot!” Nick said. He dove for the vials near my feet.

  I kicked. The vials skittered across the metal platform, out under the railing, and into the darkness.

  Nick landed on my ankles, his arms out-stretched, but didn’t stay there for even an instant. He dove toward my body, reaching behind me, his face desperate.

  I rolled to my back, and promptly located the remaining two vials. They poked into my spine.

  I cried out and fought to push Nick off. He rolled toward the center of the tower, and I rolled toward the railing. In an instant, I was off the vials and laying on my stomach and elbows. Nick knelt on all fours, gasping for breath.

  The three vials sat between us. Two right next to each other, about two feet away from me. The third a foot past it, closer to Nick.

  Our eyes met. In his, I saw anger and panic.

  I hoped that in mine he saw one ticked-off teenage rock star.

  We both dove. He reached with his arm for the single vial, and I threw my body at it.

  I landed on his arm, just past the two vials. He shouted in pain, and struggled with his free hand to push me away. With my hand, I shoved the two vials toward the edge of the ledge. They clanked as they bounced and rolled away.

  Out over the edge. Into the night.

  Nick pushed me away. I spun to my knees then feet, turning to face him, and found him standing, already opening the vial he’d grabbed, breathing hard.

  Ducking my shoulders low, I lunged at him, aiming for his belly and wrapping my arms around him. I pushed him back into the wall, and the air gushed from his body, again.

  With my arms around him, I spun, pulling him away from the wall and throwing him along the balcony. He fell to his back on the metal floor with a clank and pitiful shout of pain.

  As he slid to a halt on the rain-slick floor, he had the vial’s lid off, and poured brink into his hand. I dove, but as he lay there on his back he drew a spell with one hand—very fast, so that I couldn’t even see the blur of his hand—and flicked his other hand.

  His lighter shot out of his coat sleeve, into his palm. It was just like in the movies, when someone has a gun or knife hidden up a sleeve, except for him it was his lighter. His hand closed around it. He flipped the lighter’s lid u
p. Flame spouted, igniting the tiny, intricate spell.

  It was an arrow with a circle around it.

  A force struck me like a punch to the chest, pushing me back and away, up against the wall. I grunted as the air rushed from my lungs. Nick drew another spell of circles and triangles, and lit it. I leaped aside. A stream of red light shot by me.

  And I ran. On the rain-slick metal floor I slipped once as I bolted around the balcony, but caught myself and kept going until I reached the opposite side. My feet pounded loud and hollow on the metal until I stopped and looked back to see if he’d followed. He hadn’t.

  Panting, I stood with my back to the railing, looking to both sides, wondering which direction he would come from. I wiped the rain from my face as I listened. Unless he crept, I would hear his feet on the metal.

  “Now, you know you can’t escape,” he called. I couldn’t tell from which side. “You can’t beat me.”

  He had a clear advantage with the brink. I couldn’t fight him on that level. But in a purely physical match, I could have taken him, easy. If only I could protect myself from the spells to neutralize his advantage, I could win. I needed something like the diffuser. Or the necklace Mom had given me earlier that night—the one with the pendant of a person standing inside the circle, arms outstretched. If only I knew the emblem that produced the same effect as that pendant or the diffuser.

  “You might as well come back here,” Nick said. “I’ll take it easy on you.”

  Maybe, I realized, the shape of the pendant was the emblem. Maybe that shape cast a protective spell.

  Chapter 58: Round and round

  I reckon the Tangle Rope is one of the best inventions ever. It ranks right up there with key chains.

  -Nick Savage

  In a moment, I had the red brink out and poured onto my hand.

  A person standing inside a circle, arms stretched wide. Size didn’t matter. I only had to get the proportions right.

  I looked from side to side in case Nick came around the balcony, but from his continued taunting I could tell he hadn’t moved in either direction. He thought I was helpless.