He sat in the darkness and watched the tree line from his window. He was not imagining the things he saw that morning. Over the years he learned the rhythms of the animals outside Elysian Fields. Gopher tortoises did not come out in the pre-dawn cool. Rabbits did not chase each other in the heat of the day. Storks and egrets did not do mating displays in the fall. Something was turning the balance of nature on its head.
He cracked the window open. The sounds of the night filtered in on a wave of warm, heavy air. The chirping of crickets, the hum of small insects. The underbrush in the tree line rustled as stout animals waddled through it.
Back when he was a boy, before he had embraced being Walter Connell, the song of the night sang him to sleep. The nights he spent with his Anamassee grandmother in her shotgun shack at the edge of the Everglades had been filled with this same calming melody. She taught young Walter the ways of the natural world, how to become part of it, instead of trying to stand above it.
He was six when his grandmother died, much to his father’s relief. Her embrace of their anachronistic Anamassee heritage had been a lifelong source of personal humiliation for him. His father left the shack to rot and kept Walter well within the Miami city limits.
Walter prospered within man’s concrete canyons off the white south Florida beaches. A chain of dry cleaning shops put his two children through college and on to lives of their own along the West Coast. When cancer took his wife at age sixty-two, he was left alone, physically and mentally. Walter dove into community service projects, but he could not assuage his growing spiritual solitude. In the unnatural quiet of his empty house, he wanted to hear those night sounds of the Everglades again.
He returned to his grandmother’s old home. The acres had never been sold, deemed too worthless by his father, and later too priceless by Walter. Hurricane Andrew had leveled the house to nothing but a floor atop pilings of concrete blocks. Walter pitched a tent on the remnants of the hardwood floor he once raced Hot Wheels across. Darkness fell and the cooing trill of the Everglades evening enveloped the tent.
At midnight, he awoke nose-to-nose with a sniffing armadillo. He didn’t move. The armadillo didn’t move. But Walter Connell heard it speak. Inside his head, the armadillo announced that he was Walter’s spirit guide, sent by his grandmother and his Anamassee forefathers to rescue him. He had traveled alone for far too long. He had a great destiny to fulfill and his name from now on would be Walking Bear.
It was surprisingly easy to shed the existence he had taken a lifetime to build. He sold the shops, sold the house, cut his ties. He met with the few tribal elders that still remained and immersed himself into the ways of the Anamassee.
A year into his journey of renewal, he had a small stroke. The doctors recommended a rest and caregivers at the ready for the likely event of another onset. Walking Bear had never been to Citrus Glade, but Elysian was the closest home to his beloved Everglades. He never regretted the move.
Something rustled the bush outside his window. Walking Bear leaned his head against the mesh screen. Two tiny black eyes looked up at him. The armadillo waved its armored snout back and forth.
“You have news for me, Spirit Guide?” Walking Bear asked.
The armadillo sniffed the air and then scratched at the ground. Something snapped in the woods across the lawn. The armadillo froze and its ears rotated that way in response. It turned and skittered away.
Walking Bear knew he wasn’t crazy. His spirit guide felt the disturbance. He focused on the tree line.
A dark shape slunk low between the bushes. It ventured out into the clearing and became distinct, a dull brown in the faded indirect light. A feral hog, several hundred pounds large with four robust tusks.
The hog swung its head with a snort and returned to the woods. Walking Bear gripped the window sill. What he thought he saw had to have been a trick of the light, a reflection from the moon. There was no way a hog’s eyes could shine blue like that.
Now he’d never get to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next day, the bell on the Magic Shop door rang multiple times. That told Lyle the boys were early. Which meant they were right on time.
He entered from the back room and all four apprentices stood in the empty shop, spent magic props in hand. Red-rimmed eyes stared out from wan skin. Their clothes were wrinkled and dirty. They looked like hell. To Lyle, they looked wonderful.
Barry Leopold pushed his way past the other three. Fingerprints smudged the edges of his glasses. Lyle wasn’t surprised the low man on the Outsider totem pole took the lead. He had the most to lose.
“It’s not working,” Barry said with a wave of his hat
Lyle suppressed a cringe at the whine in the boy’s voice.
“The power’s gone again. We can’t do the magic.”
Lyle feigned surprise. “Why, none of you have the magic?”
Four wearied heads shook no. Ricky rocked back and forth in place. Paco rubbed his right hand up and down across a nasty-looking burn on his left forearm. Zach pulled his coin from his pocket and held it out for Lyle to see. His hand shook like a quaking aspen.
“It’s not working,” he said. His voice was dry and cracked. “There’s no power.”
“Only the most powerful apprentices could drain so much magic so quickly,” Lyle said. “Nothing lasts forever.”
Zach rushed forward and grabbed the front of Lyle’s shirt. He tugged at it with a weakness disproportionate to the desperation in his eyes.
“You gotta pump us up!” Zach pleaded. “You gotta!”
Lyle flashed a mock sympathetic smile and then backhanded Zach so hard the boy careened across the room. His rings flew from his hand and pinged against the floor. He hit the wall and slumped to the floor. Blood seeped from where Lyle’s blue ring sliced Zach’s cheek.
“You make demands, apprentice? The rest of you have demands to make?”
The other three shrank back under the sorcerer’s gaze.
“Better,” Lyle said. “The next step opens the door to greater power, if you have the courage to step through it. But you have to be willing to commit. Are you willing?”
Zach slunk back to the others and all four nodded at Lyle in distressed affirmation. Lyle never doubted they would. They had drunk from the great fountain of power and now without it they would die of thirst. Lyle returned to the back storeroom, the four apprentices in tow.
Without command, the four took up positions around the black oak table, each on a point of the star painted on the floor. They lay their talismans on the table. The crystal ball that had sat at the table’s center was gone, replaced with a black iron chalice. A string of amethysts circled the base and a band of gold encircled the cup’s lip.
“Corundi metaba celesqui,” Lyle chanted.
The chalice rose from the center of the table. The boys’ eyes all focused on the cup.
“Gusti verato hubnis.”
The chalice began a slow rotation.
“Apprentices, you stand here ready to commit yourselves fully and completely to the power of this world, to the magic that brings you strength. Through the essence of your life, you will bind yourself to me and receive all that this world has to offer.”
The four boys stared at the glossy black cup with frantic anticipation, ready to pay any price for the power and ecstasy of performing magic.
Lyle drew a large knife from the small of his back. Intricate designs covered the pewter-colored blade. The white handle was carved from a human femur.
“Corobungi jakad.”
The knife levitated out of Lyle’s hand. The chalice hovered in front of him. He extended his hand over the chalice, palm down. The knife passed under his hand and the blade cut a crease in his palm. Blood ran down into the chalice. The wound closed.
Each boy extended his hand as Lyle had and watched the chalice’s advance with pleading eyes. The knife followed and at each boy’s station sliced an outstretched palm. One by one they added their prec
ious blood to the dark cup. It returned to Lyle and he grasped it with both hands.
“Corobungi wakad.”
He raised the chalice to his lips. The thick liquid poured down his throat like wildfire.
As the last drop left the chalice, the four boys’ heads snapped back in unison and they faced the ceiling. Spasms wracked their bodies but their heads stayed motionless, transfixed by something far beyond the room’s ceiling. Then their bodies went still and their heads lolled forward again.
Their eyes had rolled up so far that only the whites were visible. When they rolled back down, the pupils glowed neon blue. A wicked grin crossed each one’s face.
“Gather your talismans and return home,” Lyle said. “Make magic without ceasing.”
Each boy held out a hand. His talisman flew off the table and into his grasp. Without a word, they left the back room. The doorbell’s jingle signaled their exit.
Now Lyle felt them. The same way he felt sensation at the tips of his fingers, so he sensed the four boys as they silently split up to go home. Their essence was bound to his, three stronger than the fourth, but all more than strong enough. In this state, the boys would supercharge the power flow to the Apex plant and the Grand Adventure would shift into high gear. He just needed to cast two more spells and there would be no stopping him.
Ricky was just a hazy passenger on his bicycle. Buildings raced by on the way home, but he wasn’t making it happen. His feet pumped the pedals and his arms steered the bike, but it was as if he was inside a marionette with someone outside pulling the strings.
He didn’t feel quite right inside this body. Ricky had a sense of dread, like he was riding a train that was heading for a washed-out bridge. But he couldn’t keep a hold on that feeling. The bliss of the power of magic crowded it out. And if that wasn’t enough, there was the anticipation of more. Because as soon as he got home, it was going to be him and his magic cards all alone in his room. And that was going to be wonderful.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
With the boys gone, Lyle set about the rest of his business.
The test of this spell had gone perfectly when he tried it a few nights after his arrival on a single alligator. He’d gotten the thing to march right out one night and attack some oncoming traffic on CR 12. The alligator losing the contest validated the magic. The time had come to go wide open.
He brought out an open pottery bowl of small harvested organs; an alligator brain, a python esophagus, a hog gallbladder. He sprinkled the carcasses of a variety of dead insects on the top. Herbs and scorpion tails finished the mix. He held the bowl above his head and said the incantation. The bowl grew warm in his hands. The organs slithered inside of their own accord. A puff of black smoke arose from the bowl. The organs stopped and sizzled.
Suddenly, it was as if Lyle could see through thousands of eyes at the same time, eyes that dotted the landscape for miles around Citrus Glade. Snakes, alligators, wild hogs. With a thought, he could plant a single overriding command in each or all and the order would become their sole directive.
Lyle turned down the connection and kept it open at only the lowest level. Now was too early, but soon he would need these creatures at his command to help make the Grand Adventure a reality.
Lyle leaned forward and rested against the table. He was completing the equivalent of a sorcerer’s triathlon. Sparking the storm, tapping the animals in the Everglades, each would have individually been a day’s work for most. Channeling so much power was demanding and draining. Even Lyle, with thousands of years of practice, felt the strain of two such exertions. But there was one more spell to cast so that the Grand Adventure would continue unimpeded.
He brought out the gold plate that had held the crystal ball in place. He made a bed of wheat chaff and dusted it with ground human bone. He arranged the hairs of Vicente and Shane Hudson into a pile. He chanted an incantation over the plate.
He struck a match and touched the plate’s edge. Yellow fire licked across the wheat chaff. He uttered a second incantation and the flames turned blue. The hair in the center caught fire.
Lyle began his third, more lengthy spell. The coins he had given the Outsiders were antennae that attracted magic and redirected it to the boys’ talismans. The boys would be caught in the slipstream, but without access to Lyle’s incantations, could not direct the power they felt. Those whose hair he had collected and set afire would have so much more. The black whapnas of these individuals were ready to absorb the dark power the magic created and make them apprentices the likes of which the four boys could never become.
So Lyle commanded that some of the malevolent power he drew from the magic stream divert to those whose hair burned bright before him. The flames flashed cobalt blue and winked out.
His minions did not know it, but now they awaited his call.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Inspired by miracles, the Congregation of God’s revival preparations went full-speed ahead.
Carlina Arroyo activated the call list and recruited a dozen of the most faithful to spend the day in the service of the Lord. Given the heat and the expected overflow crowd that night, using the sanctuary was out of the question. In the tradition of revivals that stretched back to the 1800s, this event would be outdoors. First things first, the canvas tent had to go up in the Congregation of God’s backyard.
It was more of an undertaking than anyone remembered. The great white tent rivaled ones from the glory days of the circus and raising it took a lot of muscle and some trial and error. But by midday, it stood tall and proud, a snowy beacon announcing the arrival of the Word of God. Reverend Wright’s chest swelled with pride at the sight of it and then he chastised himself, quietly, for the sin.
The worker bees assembled the stage and set the podium at the center. Uncomfortable metal folding chairs faced the platform, ready to direct the attention of the congregation on the preacher’s words. The sound system and other pilferable items could wait until tomorrow evening to be set out. The Reverend had tremendous faith in human spirit, but little in the weaker human flesh.
Spouses of the participants organized a potluck dinner in support. By dusk the setup was complete and the volunteers had full bellies.
“We are so blessed,” Carlina said to Reverend Wright as she tied down the last corner of the revival banner. It hung across the face of the church and the red arrow underneath pointed to the tent in the back. “My orchard, the church fountain, the memorial. Tomorrow night we will give thanks for the miracle.”
“Indeed,” Reverend Wright said. “We will offer much up to the Lord.”
But the Reverend had plans to offer up more than thanks. He would offer up a revelation, a public exposé to show the Lord that the people of Citrus Glade were worthy of this great miracle he wrought among them. Until now, the town had done little to warrant God’s favor. For redemption, he would unmask Lyle Miller.
Carlina followed the last few volunteers home and left the Reverend alone at the church around nine-thirty p.m. He could wait until later to undertake his clandestine mission, but now was more than late enough. Downtown Citrus Glade rolled up the sidewalks after five p.m. By this hour, it would be still as a morgue. Besides, at his age, midnight excursions were something left long in the past.
Reverend Wright pulled a flashlight and a crowbar out of the shed. He tucked the flashlight into his pants and tried to hold the crowbar along the length of his arm to keep it unobtrusive, just in case he did cross someone’s path. He walked a jagged route behind businesses and along the edges of empty lots. He paused across the street from his target.
The corner traffic signal had reverted to its nighttime pattern, abandoning the three-color sequence for a four-way flashing red. Each flash bathed the building below it in a bloody spotlight and illuminated the words in the window: MAGIC SHOP.
The shop was dark, the sign on the door read CLOSED.
It was now or never.
The crowbar slipped against the Reverend’s su
ddenly sweaty palm. His pulse pounded in his ears. His plan had seemed simpler in the daylight. Break into the shop, find the evidence of evil that he was certain was there, and expose it to the town once the revival reached fever pitch.
He swiveled his head and scanned both sides of Main Street. Deserted. As it would be at this hour. Still, he suffered a touch of paranoia, a certainty that as soon as he stepped out to cross the street, the road would be filled with members of his congregation wondering why their shepherd was running through town with a crowbar in his hands.
He took a deep breath and broke for the other side of the street in a gangly, arthritic shuffle of a jog. He crossed over and tucked into the alley along the side of the Magic Shop. He gave the street one last look.
Still empty.
But he did not want to press his luck and get caught trying to open the front door. Every store had at least one rear entrance. The Magic Shop’s would be here in the dark somewhere.
He took a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart. He pulled the flashlight from his pants and snapped it on. He played the beam along the building’s side. No door. He killed the light.
He inched down the alley. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of urine and dog feces. He worried what he might step in, but kept his flashlight extinguished, more worried more about attracting attention. At the rear corner of the building he paused again. The Magic Shop backed up to the solid brick wall of the former Citrus Glade Fine Furniture, the perfect shield from prying eyes. He flicked on his light for a moment and lit the shop’s back door.
He ducked into the doorway. The old wooden door felt a bit spongy. There was no deadbolt. This was going to be easier than he thought. He wedged the crowbar between the door and the frame just above the knob.
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