Shadow

by David L Dawson

  “Try and say please!” he shouted back. He threw his marble statue spell at her. She stepped to the side and it hit a man standing to the rear of her instead. Seth Gambit, now a marble statue, toppled over onto the ground.

  Miss Weber stared at Seth in horror. She couldn’t go through all this again, having someone she cared about turned to marble and left like that forever! She turned to Abe with a snarl, all the anger she had felt towards her father bubbling to the surface. This Marble Man version two would pay for what he did!

  She threw her crystal statue spell at him again, but he dodged it. That was her plan. While he was distracted she kneed him in the groin, punched him in the neck and threw herself on him, pinning him to the floor. She punched him in the face once, twice, three times, before stopping. The urge to hit him over and over again was overpowering but he needed to be conscious so he could save Seth.

  “Change him back!” she screamed.

  “I can feel the spell slipping,” he moaned. “The house…”

  “Change him back!” she ordered him, slapping him hard.

  “The house…”

  A huge, monstrous groan echoed down to the ground from the heavens. Abe’s eyes went wide; the spell was failing. No amount of help from the crystals, siphoning power from the house’s inhabitants, could help him if it failed. He might be able to regain control but first he had to get rid of his attacker.

  “Oh no, the house,” mumbled Miss Weber, quickly coming back to her senses. If Abe let go of the spell the house with all its inhabitants would fall back to earth. They would all die. The Drake triplets were still fast asleep and she didn’t have the power to stop it. It was either save Seth or Cressida and her family. Seth could wait; she could hunt Abe down later if he escaped. Cressida didn’t have that chance. She couldn’t come back from the dead.

  She stood up, accidentally stepping on Abe’s hand in the process. She took a gun out of the holster on her belt and pointed it at him.

  “Lower the house, slowly,” she ordered.

  “Then you’ll let me go?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said. “Then you turn Seth back into flesh and blood.”

  Abe hesitated, then said, “I’ve never turned anyone back before.”

  “You will do it!”

  Abe feared what would happen to Grace if he were to fail in his plan to bring Cressida and the book to the Shadow Assemblage. They would kill her. They must have been spying on him all the time, finding a weakness they could exploit just in case he decided he didn’t want to play with them anymore. Grace was his weakness. He couldn’t allow her to be hurt, and this woman was standing in the way of that.

  “I don’t think so,” said Abe.

  Chapter 21 – Sky High

  Cressida pulled her mother away from the porch step. The drop to the ground was so far away she could only see a green blur that may have been grass or trees. She found the levitation spell in her mind and wondered if she could use it on herself to reach the ground. It was quite a distance and she was sure she could do it.

  “We could try levitating ourselves down,” Cressida suggested.

  They all heard her but didn’t respond.

  “What are we going to do?” Corona/Joe asked. Corona figured she could just separate from Joe’s body and use her own wings to fly away and leave them all to it, but that was the cowardly way out. Bullavent would be really angry if she just abandoned her mission like this. Besides, she liked everyone here. She didn’t want to see them die.

  “Close the door,” said Ginger. Bram closed the door, and Cressida breathed a sigh of relief. The thought that a drop to her death was just a step away was making her feel quite sick.

  Emily entered, fat cat in her arms. She had a deep scratch on her arm, probably caused by the cat. They gathered around in the living room, none of them sitting. For a while no one said anything.

  “Why are they doing this?” Cressida asked them all. “What sense does it make to fly the house all the way up here and just leave us hanging? If they want the book all they have to do is let the house fall and smash us all to pieces.”

  “I don’t want to be smashed to pieces,” said Emily.

  “And where are the spies?” Ginger exclaimed. “They’re supposed to be protecting us from things like this. Fat lot of good their so-called protection is.”

  Cressida thought the spies must be dead, otherwise they’d be here, but she didn’t voice her suspicions out loud. Miss Weber, Seth and the Drake triplets couldn’t be dead. They were too well trained to be caught out like this. So they must have a plan, and all they had to do wait and see what it was. But could they wait long enough? They all might be dead by then.

  She looked across at the window to see the sky platform hovering outside the house. Hope suddenly ignited with her.

  “The sky platform!” Cressida shouted. “Miss Weber’s here to rescue us!”

  Cressida ran over and opened the window but found the platform slowly floating away from her. She reached her hand out to grab it but it was out of reach. The only humans on it were the Drake triplets and they were fast asleep. Where were Miss Weber and Seth?

  “Wake up!” she called. “Wake up!”

  They didn’t even stir. She spoke the levitation spell, hoping to pull the sky platform closer so they could climb on it, but nothing happened. There was that feeling inside her, that tingle, which told her she was using magic, but she couldn’t see the effects. She tried it again but still the sky platform floated serenely further and further away. What’s wrong with my magic? She thought. I performed the spell right! I know I did!

  She turned to the others. “I can’t do magic!”

  “Well, I admit you’re not that good but it does take time to reach the level at which most adults and I have reached,” said Emily. “Perhaps in the future you will be able to perform spells more accurately.”

  Ginger saw Martin looking at her strangely, and a terrifying thought came to her. She said the required spell and found herself inside the wolf’s mind.

  “Martin,” she said. “Is…”

  Some sort of fuzz pushed her from his mind. She tried the spell again but the same thing happened, almost as if she wasn’t doing it right. Yet she had. Once she had a spell memorized, Ginger could remember it word perfect. She had never said a spell wrong in her life. Now it was as if she just didn’t have the energy to do it.

  “I’ve just tried to make a light sphere,” said Bram. “It appeared for a second then flickered out.”

  Emily was trying to make her cat levitate to the couch, but a third of the way there the enormous feline dropped to the floor with a loud screech. Emily tried to pick her up again but was rewarded with a hiss and another scratch.

  “We’re like Joe,” said Emily, distraught. “We’re useless at magic!”

  Corona noted that the effects on the others were identical to the ones that Joe had when trying to perform magic. Had her words to Joe, that Ginger was stealing his power, actually been true? Maybe it wasn’t Ginger. It could be someone else. But why were they doing it, and why hadn’t either Joe or Cressida noticed? Corona was determined to find out and she would make whoever was responsible very sorry indeed. Not only were they taking magic from Joe but from herself as well.

  Corona said, in response to Emily’s cruel barb, “Welcome to my world.”

  Ginger began to think, putting all the pieces together. “My theory is that our magic isn’t gone it’s just being drained somehow. Until whatever it is that’s tapping into our energy is destroyed then we can’t do a single thing to get out of this.”

  “So we just sit here until whoever did this shows up to grab me and the book?” Cressida wailed. “I’m not going to do that! I coped perfectly well without magic and I’m sure there’s a way we can get away without magic.”

  “Why haven’t they come for you, though?” Bram wondered. “Why are they waiting?”

  Cressida didn’t care. As far as she was concerned the slowness
of whoever was causing this, most likely the person Miss Weber had seen lurking around yesterday, was giving them more time to formulate a plan. All they had to do was find a way to get out of the house and safely to the ground.

  “Have we got any rope?” said Emily. “We could climb down.”

  “We’ve no rope,” said Ginger.

  Damn it, Cressida thought. That was going to be my first suggestion.

  The house suddenly dropped several feet. For the briefest of seconds they all found themselves weightless, then thrown onto the floor once again. The house was making loud groaning noises, like a whale in pain. Cressida had the awful suspicion that they were going to fall at any minute. If she was to think up a plan she had to do it now.

  “The telephone!” Emily declared. She tried her mobile but it was broken; she’d forgotten she’d thrown it in the bathtub last night. Cressida went over to the landline phone but when she picked up the receiver all she could hear was white noise.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Ginger, feeling defeated.

  Chapter 22 – Silver vs. Spider: Round 3

  Abe wiped globules of blood from his nose with his sleeve, feeling a little like the sociopath he was before he’d met Grace. This woman had no right to dictate terms and order him around. He was the one holding up the house with all those people in it, so it should be him calling the shots.

  “If I lower the house you let me go,” he said.

  “I’ll never let you go!” Miss Weber railed. “You need to change Seth back! I won’t let him stay like that forever!”

  “Like I said I’ve never changed anyone back before,” said Abe truthfully. “I don’t know how to do it and I’m not sure if I could do it properly. You don’t want me to damage him or anything do you?”

  Miss Weber shouted, “You’re lying!”

  She flew at him again. He dodged the gun as she swiped at his head but, surprising them both, the gun went off. A bullet was fired from the chamber, propelled forward and buried in the ground a mere inch from the statue of Seth. Any closer and the bullet would have cracked his foot.

  Miss Weber tried the crystal statue spell again and missed a second time. A nearby tree instead turned into the world’s biggest glittering statue. It would almost be beautiful it there wasn’t a family of squirrels living in it, frozen forever. She didn’t know that, though, and continued her assault on Abe with a determination and viciousness she didn’t know she possessed. What if he loses grip on the house, she thought. You’ll be condemning Cressida and her family to death.

  As the fight raged on Miss Weber began to put the pieces of her own puzzle together. The man was lying. He was augmenting his power, somehow. He didn’t have the strength to lift such a house so high with his own power alone. If it was just him then he would’ve let go of the house a while back but he hadn’t. The house had only seemed to fall a tiny bit when he was trying to get her off him.

  She laughed, using a levitation spell to flip him over twice in the air before throwing him onto the ground.

  “You will listen to me!” she screamed. “You will turn Seth back and then you will lower the house or I will kill you. Then you can leave.”

  “If I don’t get Cressida and the book then Grace will die,” said Abe.

  “You got yourself involved with the Shadow Assemblage but this family got pulled into it purely by chance,” said Miss Weber. “How is that fair?”

  “Grace got dragged into it just the same way.”

  Their eyes locked onto each other, both not wanting to give way. They had too much to lose. If either of them gave up someone would die and they would have failed in their duty. Abe could never see Grace hurt. She was the one thing in his life that made it all worthwhile. Miss Weber couldn’t allow Cressida to die because it was her job and she actually cared for the girl.

  “Are we just going to stand here all day?” asked Abe, still on his back.

  “We could join forces,” Miss Weber suggested. “We’ll find Grace and protect her, and you help us defeat the Shadow Assemblage.”

  Abe laughed. “They can’t be defeated!”

  “Yes they can!” Miss Weber assured him. “All we have to do is try.”

  He thought about this for a second. They could never protect Grace. Look how badly Miss Weber was doing trying to keep her current charge out of danger! The wrath of his masters would be terrible if he did change sides. His only option was to continue with the second part of his plan, and to do that he had to be rid of this spy.

  A noise behind them, kind of like a loud splash, distracted Miss Weber for an instant. Abe grinned and took the opportunity to fling his spell at her. She deflected it, then the next one he sent her way. She laughed as he threw one marble statue spell after another at her, but still she managed to deflect every one of them back at him.

  “Is this all the Shadow Assemblage can manage these days?” Miss Weber shouted, firing her gun at him. He rolled on the ground to dodge the first bullet, and then turned the second to stone. “My father would be most disappointed that you couldn’t turn one measly human into a statue.”

  Abe roared. He didn’t like to be made fun of, and he knew in his heart that Copernicus Silver was proud of him. He had been more a father to him than to this woman, his actual daughter! She had no right. So when he tossed his statue spell at her, and she deflected it back, he fired the same spell once again. The two spells cannoned into each other, creating a small explosion that petrified the very oxygen molecules around it. As the statue, a sort of big lump of exploding marble, fell to the ground Abe shot off his spell again. Miss Weber didn’t have the time to counter-attack, and she was hit.

  He walked up to the marble Miss Weber. He admired the texture of the marble and how the woman’s face suited the life of a statue more than her normal flesh and blood existence. He had had done her a favor, really.

  Chapter 23 – The Book Saves the Day

  Whoever had done this to the house was waiting for something. Cressida had almost expected to find some assassin flying in through the front door to kill her and take the book by now, but no such assault had occurred, which was good for them as they could think up an escape plan. The thing was, none of them had any magic and they were stumped as to how they could proceed.

  I can’t be without magic, Emily thought. I don’t want to be powerless! What am I without my powers?

  Now I know what Cressida has felt like all these years, Ginger thought with sympathy. My poor daughter…

  Cressida thought long and hard. She had to pretend that she was still just normal, non-magic Cressida. What would she have thought of at a time like this? Emily’s rope idea was a good one, but they didn’t have any, not that she was aware of. They could parachute down, but she didn’t know how to make one. She clutched the book to her, starting to feel useless. She’d been useless all her life and she was useless now. The others were all shell-shocked over losing their magic. It’s up to me now, she thought.

  “The Book of Fire,” she whispered. She had been holding the answer all along. “Grandpa Bram!” Cressida shouted. “Catch!”

  She threw the book to him and, acting purely on instinct, he reached out to grab it. The moment he did, he vanished and the book collapsed to the floor. The others turned to look at her with astonishment.

  “Where’s he gone?” Corona/Joe yelled.

  “The book transported him to the nearest body of water,” said Cressida. “Have you not been paying attention?”

  Corona/Joe sulked. “Stop talking to me like you’re a teacher.”

  Corona liked Cressida very much. She was funny and a lot smarter than people gave her credit for. Yet her bossiness could drive a sane person over the edge.

  “Me next!” said Emily.

  The cat screeched and jumped on the book and was the next to leave. Emily reminded herself to call the cat a rotten traitor later on and made a flying leap for the book, just in case somebody else decided to beat her to it. Cressida’s new teacher pro
mptly vanished, to land in the river alongside Bram and a panicking cat.

  “Martin, you go next,” Cressida ordered.

  The wolf licked her hand, made a whining noise, and touched one of his soft paws onto the book. He vanished too. There was just Cressida, Joe, and Ginger left, and Cressida wasn’t even thinking about how she would get herself off. She knew she was stuck here, but hoped she could get the others to safety before any of them realized.

  “How will you get down?” Ginger asked.

  “Oh,” said Cressida. “You noticed that, hmm?”

  Ginger took her daughter by the arms. “I am not leaving you up here to face whatever force it is that raised this house! What kind of mother would I be if I did that?”

  “I have to get you all to safety,” said Cressida.

  “What about you?” Ginger cried. “The Shadow Assemblage wants you dead! The only reason they haven’t killed you already in this floating death-trap is because they can’t take the chance that the book might bond to someone not of their choosing.”

  “Then why didn’t they just blow up the house or something?” Corona/Joe wondered. “That way only the book would survive.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Ginger. “All I know is that I am not leaving you up here alone. I’m staying here with you.”

  Corona/Joe said, “Me too.”

  Cressida wiped a tear from her eye. She was touched that they’d stay, just for her, even if it meant they might get killed. Still, she couldn’t allow them to get hurt. She had dragged them into this, and it was her job to keep them out of it. So she did what she needed to do, and she pushed her unsuspecting mother backwards. Her bare shoulder brushed against the Book of Fire and she vanished in mid-scream.

  “Do I have to push you too?” Cressida demanded.

  Corona/Joe knew when she was up against an immovable object, and decided that there was no point in arguing with her. She gave her a hug, considering Cressida the first friend she had ever had, and turned towards the book on the floor. The wind from the open window was flicking its pages, and they settled on a spell towards the back of the book, the part they hadn’t gotten to yet. She recognized two of the words at the top of the page, she didn’t know how, indicating the title of the spell; they read “Ice Serpent.”