by Brian Harmon
A thick haze of smoke was obscuring his vision. It hung over the forest, concealing the monster. All he could make out was a pair of massive feet. But they didn’t look like giant’s feet. That was, they didn’t look like the feet of a giant human. They were blocky and thick, lumpy, with only two toes. A strange, hoof-like thing protruded from each heel and its skin was a filthy, mottled gray.
He looked down at the dagger in his hand and might have laughed if he wasn’t sick with dread. Enchanted or not, this tiny weapon was not going to make much of a difference against something that size. Though it may well kill the behemoth, it probably wouldn’t do it quickly enough to allow them any chance of escape.
“Now what do we do?” whispered Alicia into his ear.
“How far to the parking lot?”
“For us, I’d say about two hundred yards or more. For him, though…”
“A hop and a skip. Yeah. I get it.”
Those enormous feet weren’t coming straight at them yet, but they were getting closer. A burning oak toppled and crashed to the ground with a swirl of flame and smoke in the monster’s path.
“We can’t fight that,” said Holly. “There’s no way.”
Eric watched the creature as it moved through the flames. A great, gray hand descended from the clouds of smoke, a gruesome thing with three fingers and a strange claw protruding from the bottom of its wrist. It seized a medium-sized, burning pine and pulled it up by the roots. Like the imps in the motel, it was obviously impervious to fire.
The tree rose up into the smoky haze, illuminating it like a torch and revealing a massive shadow looming there. Eric tried to grasp what he was seeing, but he couldn’t quite do it before the tree was tossed aside, closing the smoky shroud around the monster again and setting fire to another acre of forest.
The scene was so eerily apocalyptic that it was difficult to imagine that there was still a world waiting for them beyond the borders of this doomed park.
Holly was right. They couldn’t fight this thing. And they couldn’t hide here. Eventually they would be found. They had no choice but to run.
But if it caught sight of them, they’d never make it.
He looked at Holly and Alicia. They needed another plan. And he thought he might just have one.
“Can you run yet?” he asked Holly.
Her pretty eyes twitched from him to the monster and back again. “I think I can manage.”
“Good.” He looked at Alicia. “What about you? Can you muster another of those tree attacks?”
She looked scared. “I think so…” she replied. “But it’ll take all I’ve got.”
“That’s okay.”
“And it probably won’t do much to that thing.”
“It doesn’t have to. You said you can send it through the trees so you don’t have to get close to your target. Does that mean you can shoot it from any direction?”
She stared at him for a moment, confused, then understanding blossomed in her eyes and she nodded.
“Excellent.”
She stood up and turned to the nearest tree. She didn’t shout and throw her hand out like Holly did. Instead, she simply closed her eyes, muttered something under her breath and then reached out and gently touched the tree. Instantly, the tree gave a shudder that passed to the next tree and then the next. Just as quickly, however, she swooned.
Eric caught her.
A moment passed and then a terrible roar shook the ground and the massive monster turned and stomped away from them.
Alicia looked up at him weakly, then lifted a hand and gave him a thumbs-up before dropping it again.
“Good job. Now let’s get you out of here before it figures out we’re not over there.”
He slipped his arm around her and lifted her to her feet. Holly tried to help, but she, too, was still weak.
“Which way?”
She gestured to the right and Eric and Holly led her in that direction.
Wielding the dagger in his free hand, he looked out at the forest around them, but the smoke and fire was rapidly turning the quiet forest into a scene from hell.
“There,” she told him. “Follow that path.”
The flames were dangerously close, but Eric could see one of the picnic tables up ahead. They were nearing the front of the park.
So close, and yet so far…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alicia was right. It wasn’t very far back to the parking lot. But it felt like miles. He kept expecting something to stop them. Another pack of imps. Another ogre. But the path remained clear. It seemed that their distraction had cleared a path for them.
It almost felt too easy.
Delphinium’s minivan was right where they’d left it. He’d expected to find it engulfed in flames or the engine ripped out, but it had remained undisturbed in spite of all that was happening in the surrounding forest.
It didn’t make sense.
But he didn’t dare stick around to think about it. He slid open the side door, made sure there weren’t any ogres crouched in the back seat, and then ushered the girls inside.
He sped away from the horrors of Clodsend State Park with his eyes on the rearview mirror, hardly believing he was still alive.
Once it became obvious that an ugly gray giant wasn’t going to come chasing them down the highway, Alicia turned her attention to Eric. “So what’s going on? Why did Del send you guys to find me? Why now?”
Holly met Eric’s eyes in the rearview. The look didn’t go unnoticed.
“What?” she pressed. “Did something happen? Tell me.”
Holly sighed and told her about the dead girls.
She took it as well as Eric could have hoped. She looked devastated, but like all of her sisters so far, she managed to remain mostly composed. He suspected that much of it was the shock. Such news was always jarring. And yet, it was also not entirely unexpected, either. They all knew the danger they were in.
As the minivan fell silent, Eric’s phone began to ring.
He expected it to be Delphinium, but it was Paul again. He opened the line and lifted it to his ear. “Please tell me you’re not still lost.”
“Flat tire,” grumbled Paul.
“Are you kidding?”
“I wish. Just when I thought I was finally getting somewhere…”
“Well get it changed quick.”
“Can’t. Spare’s flat, too.”
“What?”
“I know. I’ve never had such terrible luck. It’s crazy.”
Eric scowled at the open road before him. Terrible luck was right. He was beginning to wonder… “What are you doing now?”
“Waiting on roadside assistance. Nothing else I can do.”
“Well give me a call when you get moving again.”
“Sure thing. How’re you holding up?”
“It’s brutal,” he confessed. He glanced up at the rearview, at the empty road behind them and recalled the giant in the smoke. “Things are getting real weird around here. Even for me.”
“That’s saying a lot.”
“It is.”
“Stay safe.”
“I’ll try.”
“I’ll keep trying to get to you.”
“Thanks.” Eric dropped the phone back into the cup holder and glanced at his passengers in the seat behind him. “You okay?”
Alicia was staring off into space, distracted, but when he said that, her eyes met his and she sat up, as if surprised. She nodded.
“Strength coming back?”
“I’ll be okay in a few minutes.”
Eric fixed his eyes on the road again. “Good.”
“That was close,” said Holly. “I really thought we were done back there. Several times.”
“Me too,” said Eric, recalling the haunting image of the magic man silhouetted against the flames, looking back at him. They were lucky he didn’t kill them all right then and there.
In fact, why didn’t he kill them then and there?
&n
bsp; He rubbed at the back of his neck. It was hard to think clearly. His entire body had begun to ache and it wasn’t any wonder, given all that he’d been through. Those ogres had been tossing him around like a beach ball.
“You okay?” Holly asked.
“Just sore,” he assured her. But something was bothering him. He felt like he was missing something. He looked down at his phone in the cup holder. “Did you get anything back there?”
NOTHING FROM THE MONSTERS, BUT THAT GUY WAS SERIOUSLY CREEPY
“Yes, he was. What was with the fire, anyway? It looked like it was coming right out of his hands.”
Holly looked up at him, surprised. “You saw the magic man?”
Eric nodded. “Just a glimpse.”
PYROKINESIS, replied Isabelle. I’VE HEARD OF IT BEFORE. THE WAY I UNDERSTAND IT, IT’S AN EVOLVED FORM OF TELEKINESIS
From moving things with your mind to setting things on fire with your mind. “Didn’t Stephen King invent that word?”
DID HE?
“I think so. That’s what I read somewhere once, anyway.”
WELL, IT’S A PSYCHIC THING, AS FAR AS I KNOW. I DON’T KNOW HOW ANY OF IT RELATES TO MAGIC
“Could still be the same thing.”
TRUE. AND REGARDLESS OF WHAT DELPHINIUM SAYS, HE’S TOTALLY NOT IMPRESSING US WITH THOSE MONSTERS. SEEMS LIKE HALF THE PEOPLE WE MEET CAN DO THAT
“I know. But we’ve seen less impressive monsters,” he reminded her.
WE HAVE
“Wait,” said Holly, who’d been reading over his shoulder. “You’ve met conjurers before?”
“I met a man who could create projections from his mind,” Eric explained. “They were scary, but ultimately harmless. The slightest impact made them burst. He used them to scare people. Another guy could turn his aura into a physical fluid that was a lot more dangerous to deal with. Another guy could create both residuals, which were little more than an intangible, recurring image from the past, and golems, which I very much hope to never run across again.”
THOSE WERE SCARY, agreed Isabelle.
“Okay…” said Alicia, her eyes fixed on the strange cell phone that was talking to Eric as if it were a person. “So exactly who are you? What do you have to do with all this?”
Holly told her the story of how Delphinium cast her spells and found nothing but grim prophesies until she asked for help and found Eric. It sounded like a fairy tale, even to Eric, who had already lived through much of this strangeness.
“So you’re the one who’s supposed to save us?” she asked when Holly was done talking.
“Apparently,” replied Eric.
The girl was remarkably wise for her age. The next thing she asked was, “What do you think about that?”
Eric looked back at her in the rearview. “I don’t know, honestly. I just tend to do what I’m asked. But I have been through some stuff like this before.”
She looked at the cell phone again, clearly recalling the strange conversation she’d witnessed, and then nodded. “Okay then. I guess…”
“That’s Isabelle, by the way,” said Holly, pointing at the phone.
“Isabelle?”
HI, ALICIA
Alicia leaned toward Holly and whispered, “She knows my name…”
Holly whispered back, “I know!”
“Now your turn,” said Eric. “I’m still trying to figure all this out, too, so why don’t you tell me what you were doing in those woods back there and how you managed to find us without getting caught by those things?”
Alicia sat back in her seat and said, “I set up a campsite in the most remote area of the park I could find.”
“You weren’t scared out there, all by yourself?”
She shrugged. “I’m a nature witch. I’m in tune with nature. I went out there because I knew I’d be safest there. The forest would tell me if anyone dangerous came looking for me. And it did.”
Eric cocked his head. “The forest told you? How does that work, exactly?”
“It feeds me its energy. It flows through me. And when something disturbs that energy, I feel it. I felt it big-time tonight. Something was prowling the woods. It was powerful. And it was bad.”
“Good thing,” said Eric, “since we didn’t make it there in time to warn you.”
“We were worried we were too late again,” said Holly. “Like with Sylvia…”
“I felt you guys, too,” said Alicia. “I didn’t know it was you, but I knew you were out there and you weren’t bad like the other guy.”
“So he arrived right after us?” asked Eric.
“Right before, actually.”
Eric frowned. “So he beat us there?” When he first arrived, he asked Isabelle if she felt anything. She told him no. Was he hidden from her somehow? Or had he simply been too far away for her to sense?
“By just a little bit. At first, I didn’t realize you weren’t with him.”
He wondered if the magic man had been just that one step ahead of them all night. And if so, what did it mean? Was he really piggybacking Delphinium’s seeking spells to help hunt down these girls? But if that was the case, then why had he only managed to kill one of them tonight? Was it really just dumb luck?
“I am glad you guys came,” Alicia told them. “I don’t think I could’ve handled those things on my own.” She looked at Holly. “Were they really ogres?”
Holly nodded. “Del says so.”
“How do you guys know so much about imps and ogres anyway?” asked Eric.
“Grandpa told us about them,” replied Holly. “He used to tell us a lot of stories about magical things.”
“And all the stuff the old witches and wizards used to be able to do,” added Alicia.
“Old witches and wizards?”
Holly nodded. “Years ago, there were more of them, and they knew a lot more than we do now.”
“A lot of the knowledge was lost over the years,” continued Alicia. “They were forced into hiding in more modern times, some of them hunted.”
“And Grandpa knew about all this?” asked Eric.
Both girls nodded.
“He was one of the best of his age,” said Holly. “But he told us he was nothing compared to those who came before him.”
“It was all in his book,” said Alicia.
“Book?”
“Grandpa’s book,” explained Holly. “It was lost in the fire. Along with most everything else.”
“What, like a spell book?”
“Of sorts,” explained Alicia. “It was kind of a patchwork of very old texts and his own journal. We don’t know how he came to be in possession of the old books.”
“He didn’t talk much about his past,” said Holly.
“He didn’t,” agreed Alicia.
“I couldn’t even read it,” recalled Holly. “It’s all in some old, dead language. But I guess Grandpa could.”
“He was the only one of us who could. He never taught any of us. Not even Del. He said it was dangerous. But he told me once that the original text was incomplete. He was always trying to fill in the missing pieces.”
Eric thought that Grandpa was becoming more fascinating the more he heard about him. He was a mysterious old man with mystic powers, an arch enemy, a secret past and a magic old book? “And these imps and ogres were described in this book?”
Alicia nodded. “And lots more. I was always fascinated with that book.”
“I was scared of it,” said Holly. “I just knew if I ever tried to peek at it when Grandpa wasn’t there, something would come out of it and eat me or something.”
Eric fixed his eyes on the road. Two possibilities occurred to him. First, Grandpa’s book was remarkably accurate, with the exception of how difficult it was to actually conjure these things. The second possibility was that whoever was conjuring these things might be someone familiar with this book, in which case, the magic man certainly had more than a fleeting connection to Grandpa.
Jude told him on the long dri
ve from Creek Bend that Grandpa had defeated the magic man in the past. It seemed that there was much more to that story than just some epic battle.
Maybe Delphinium could tell him something more about who the magic man might have once been.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Delphinium called about ten minutes later. After he assured her that Alicia Vaine was safely accounted for, she promptly informed him that he was now to head straight to Luscher to pick up Charlotte Canedy.
“Time is running out,” she explained. “It’ll be morning soon.”
“How long do we have?”
“I don’t know. Not long. I can already feel something stirring. There’s a strange energy gathering in the fields.”
“Energy?”
“Magic. Something dark is out there.”
That was how Isabelle had described it earlier in the night. She said she felt a strange sort of energy. “It can’t be the magic man. We just left him at Clodsend a little while ago. Even he can’t move around that fast. Can he?”
“Even if he could, he shouldn’t be able to get this close. But he can obviously cast his own spells over a vast distance. I think he’s looking for us.”
Eric frowned. “Can he find you?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest. When it was just me and Jude here, I doubt he could’ve seen through the spell. But Poppy and Cierra add a lot of energy and we’re more conspicuous now. I think he’s narrowing it down.”
“Will you be okay?”
“Even if he finds us, getting to us should be a different matter. We’ll be fine. But there isn’t time to waste.”
“Right.” Eric glanced back at Holly and Alicia. “Tell me what I’m looking for.”
“Charlotte’s at the hospital in Luscher.”
“The hospital?”
“She’ll be working there. She volunteers.”
“I see.” He was worried for a second there. It’d caught him off guard when he found Poppy in a wheelchair, but she’d turned out to be more than capable of defending herself. What would he do if he found the next girl lying in a hospital bed and utterly vulnerable?
“Charlotte was the first girl I ever found,” Delphinium explained as if reading his mind. “She’s also the oldest and the strongest. She can protect herself. Just bring her home.”
