by Sevan Paris
Obi lowers the blackened stick. The glow fades. “They separate themselves from the Magicks that link them. The Sayers will survive the process.”
My Grav Blasts disappear. “But not the Wards,” I say, picking up on Obi’s tone. “Or anybody else that the Sayers’ Magicks touched. But … Mystick is smart. Too smart not to think about this.”
“Like Obi, she’s seeing things from the inside,” Casa says. “She wants to think the best of her and hers. That they’ll be united and kumbaya over their culture’s continued existence. And they’ll forget about what happened last time.”
Obi nods, lowering his eyes and the capture stick. “It will be just like the Crusades all over again: Sayers keelling Wards, Wards keelling Sayers … ‘dere will be a radical imbalance of power. And others will be blamed. War will erupt—everywhere.”
Silence.
Why is no one considering the possibility that Mystick’s plan may actually work, without any of these consequences?
Casa gives me one of his looks—it’s the one that I really hate … like a scientist watching a hamster.
If Mystick has found a way to defeat Macabre, I say we let her. Ember’s concerns are reasonable but the outcome of that paradigm is far more difficult to predict than the current one. Macabre will kill more Sayers. He will become more powerful and kill others. You may view Pink’s death as … unfortunate. But if she could sacrifice her life to save those of others—don’t you think that’s the decision she will make? Especially with her new-found conscience?
“Care to weigh in?” Casa says.
I cross my arms.
Remember the terms of our agreement, Gabe. If you want my cooperation, especially when a far better solution presents itself, I will be heard.
After a long silence, I power down and look at Obi. “How can …” I hold my eyes closed for a moment … “what will the outcome be, most likely, if we let Ember and Pink die?”
“How dare you even ask such a thing!” Obi squeaks.
Casa’s eyes narrow on me. “It’s not him that’s asking.”
Obi looks between us. “What?”
“Someone that we may need help from will want to know. And the answer to that question is the same. Fearing for their lives, many of the Wards will turn against their own Sayers. There will be a rebellion that will spill out into the world, and everybody else—Superheroes and Norms—will be sucked in. Earth will become a battleground. Which will gain the attention of the other Magick users in the universe. They’ll want a fair shot of the power that’s up for grabs, just like everybody else. Earth will be lucky to survive the next decade.
Oh … well, okay then. Since you put it that way …
Obi looks at Casa. “You’re right. Every single bit of it … you’re absolutely right.”
“You get used to it,” I say.
Doubt I ever will. Even though we’re in agreement on what we don’t want to happen, I still think we need a better plan for what we DO want to happen.
I sigh. M’s right. And there is only one way I can think of to stop Mystick. “Is there a way we can find Macabre?”
***
Immediately after returning from Casa’s apartment, I hand Obi Pink’s Hello Kitty clock.
“How long did she have ‘dis?”
“At least the last month. Maybe two.”
“Six weeks,” Casa says.
“Is it going to be enough?” I say. “Or do I need to go back and get something else?”
Obi holds the object in his hands for a few moments. He has that same look on his face Mom gets when she plays Where’s Waldo. “ ‘Dere is only one way to tell for certain.”
Obi chalked a wide circle on the floor while I was gone. It’s white, large enough to lie down in, and surrounded by hieroglyphics. Obi steps into it. The markings flare up and a solid beam of circular light rises from the floor, stopping at Obi’s waist. The halo slowly spins around him with a hum.
“This object will suffice,” Obi says. “Give me a few moments to finish.”
“Have what I asked for?” Casa says behind me.
I turn and hand him a bottle of Maker’s Mark. “Are you sure that’s a good idea right now?”
He unscrews the top and takes a hard swallow. “Sure don’t want to face this thing sober.” He points to Obi’s sales counter with the bottle’s neck. “Here’s everything Obi had left that we could use.”
I step over to the counter. On top of it lays the capture stick, a claw hammer, and five Magickal pencils. I point at the pencils. “What do they do?“
“The pencils come preloaded with a number of spells that can be written out on the fly—anything from a fireball to a healing spell. The capture stick you’ve already seen. And this little baby …” Casa picks up the hammer. Markings blaze up on the handle right before he throws it at an empty shelf.
The hammer flings itself across the room, rears back—hesitates for just a moment—then unleashes an absolute fury on the oak shelf. Within a few seconds and a dozen blows, the Magickal hammer has busted the shelf into five huge chunks of wood. Within several more seconds, the chunks become kindling.
Casa holds out his hand. The hammer hurtles back and slaps into his waiting palm.
You wouldn’t happen to have another one of those, sledgehammer size, would you?
I reach into my pocket. “It may not be enough. Here.” I hold up a green stone dangling from a silver necklace. On the stone are the carvings of two crescent moons facing each other. “Here’s that thing that you gave me behind the bookstore when this whole mess started. The one that kept me from Magicking myself to death.”
Casa takes the necklace from me and narrows his eyes at it. “The Draining Amulet … He shakes his head and hands it back. “You hang onto it. You stand a better chance at being able to put it to use. And there’s not much juice left anyway.”
The circle of light spins faster around Obi. He murmurs something and pours the ashy contents of a mortar onto the ground. The light changes from white to red, casting an eerie glow over the empty shelves in the store.
I shove the Draining Amulet into my pocket, along with one of the pencils.
“Why does Mystick need these other dudes to help with the Lifelink?” I say. “She’s supposed to be really powerful.”
Casa takes another hard swallow from the bottle. “She is really powerful. But the nature of this Lifelink spell falls into the one percent category that Sayers rarely use. It requires a lot of preparing and a lot more focus. Poet and Mariachi have to categorize their Magicks. But they’re powerful and dependable enough to help her get the job done.”
“What do you mean ‘categorize’?”
Casa raises the bottle back to his lips. I snatch it away, making some bourbon splash out.
“Haven’t you already wasted enough hooch for one day?” he says.
“What do you mean by categorize?”
He rubs the back of his head in frustration. “Magick works by turning words into reality, which means it takes a very powerful Sayer like Mystick to use her native language to access her power. Most just don’t have that kind of focus. They compartmentalize their power by only accessing their Magicks through … unconventional words or actions. For Poet, it’s verse. For Mariachi, who doesn’t have a tongue, it’s the use of a Spanish guitar.”
“And for Braille?”
Casa holds out his hand. I sigh and return the bottle.
“Braille’s not a Sayer. He used to be a Ward, but now he’s just covered with a lot of Magickal tattoos. He obviously can’t access Magicks like a Sayer, but he’s just as powerful as most. And as dangerous as any.”
“What about Macabre. Do you know anything about him? Anything I can use?”
“People in the Magick community have given him so much power, both through exaggeration and ignorance, that it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. The only people that do know details about him aren’t sharing.” Casa takes another swallow.
�
�Which means what?”
He fastens the lid back onto the Maker’s Mark and sets it on the counter next to the hammer. “The truth is scarier.”
“Okay, we are ready,” Obi says. He steps out of the circle, parting it. The hum changes to a higher tone, then resumes its original pitch when the circle of light reforms behind him. “Now all you have to do is …” he trails off, looking at the busted bookcase. “What happened to ‘dat?”
“Don’t throw the blame my way,” Casa says. “You’re the one that left me alone—not me.”
Obi draws a breath to say something …
I power up and step between them. “So, how does this work? Do I just step in, say Macabre’s name or something? Then learn where he is?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Obi’s eyes meet mine. “You do step in. You do say Macabre’s name. But then you GO to where he is.”
Beg pardon?
“I’m teleporting to him? Blindly?”
Obi shrugs. “Only way.”
Lovely. This couldn’t possibly get any worse.
The circle keeps humming, louder and louder. I hesitate, just for a moment, then step towards the spinning red lights. Obi stops me with a hand to my chest.
“Know ‘dis,” he says. “There are still a lot of people here to evacuate. I can not risk the lives of innocents still left here in Old Prose … I am sealing the portal up behind you.”
Wrong again.
“I’ll be waiting for you at Mystick’s,” Casa says.
I look at Obi. “And you?”
“I’m still needed here,” Obi says.
One would think that all of existence would need you more.
“We could use your help, Obi,” I say. “With the keeping the world from dying stuff.”
“My presence will make little difference ‘dere, and more difference here. I do not wish it to be ’dis way—”
Yeah, right.
“But ‘dis is where I can do the most good.”
I nod. “Alright.”
Alright? This situation is anything but alright! At least bring something else with us. That capturing stick device perhaps?
“Casa will probably need the capturing stick more than us.”
…. That’s no reason not to take it.
I shake my head and, with a heavy breath, step into the circle. The hieroglyphics rise, bringing the spinning circles up with them.
“Macabre!”
In an abrupt burst of light, I’m gone.
CHAPTER THREE
A violent flash takes me away from Obi’s shop and dumps me onto grey sand.
Water roars behind me, shoving at my back, pushing me farther into the fluffy white sand of a long beach. I stand, wiping the sand off my knees. “M?”
Hang on, Gabe. I’ll have our location momentarily.
Another wave slaps my ankles, clinging to the spaces between my starry toes before it retreats back to the ocean. Brown seaweed clings to the bank of the surf before an edge of vegetation starts, overtaking everything. Mountains rise in the distance. Dark clouds blot out the sun, making the daytime darker than it has any right to be.
“No need. I recognize it from Pink’s memory: V-Island.”
V-Island? Why would Macabre return to the former hive of that wretched Dr. Villainous person?
“Don’t know …” I trail off as a line of sand, long as an eighteen wheeler, swirls into the shape of a massive arm. It rises into the air, casting a shadow over the entire beach. A fist morphs out of the top.
And rushes at me.
I take off, barely missing the building-sized arm crashing into the shoreline. “Maybe he’ll stop trying to kill me long enough so that I can ask!”
Clumps of sand rain everywhere for a moment, then the beach returns to an ironic calm, leaving no trace of the proceeding weirdness.
I hate this ‘Magick’ nonsense. I really, really do.
I fly inland, towards the mountains at the island’s center. “If you are connected to it, doesn’t that mean that you kind of hate yourself?”
No, it means that I hate your primitive species having access to abilities that they can’t comprehend, and by extension don’t deserve. You can’t even split the atom responsibly. What makes you think you can handle splitting the very fabric of reality itself?
“Magick’s been around a long time, dude. Since the Crusades apparently. If something bad like that were going to happen, think it would have happened already.”
How do you know it hasn’t?
I stop to a hover, above the soundless jungle.
See? That’s exactly the type of attitude I’m talking about. You humans … so sure of yourselves. Surely nothing can exceed your grasp, nor your comprehension. If you’ve yet to witness an event, then you can feel secure—wrapped in a blanket of absolute certainty—that it never occurred. Yet with these abilities, an individual can easily make something appear as if it never happened, either willingly or unwillingly. This Macabre fellow may be leading the world, perhaps even existence itself, towards perpetual ruin … but he may very well be the only being which recognizes his power for what it really is.
“Which is what?”
Absolute.
It takes a few heartbeats to find my voice. “Which … which way is he?”
How should I know? This entire island is riddled with Ramma Radiation. There is no way I can tell you with any degree of certainty where he is hiding.
Half a mile away, the rocks of the tallest mountain break away and pile on top of one another. Stone splits apart with thunderous cracks, then rises into the shape of a jaw bone and teeth. Two round pits appear, forming the eyeholes of a massive skull.
Though I can hazard a guess …
The dark pit of a mouth opens, shooting a jagged column of purple flame at me.
I break right and dive. The flames barely miss, backlighting my shadow over the thick jungle.
M’s forcefield doesn’t do jack against Magick. If Macabre hits me with one of those things …
Any ideas?
“Macabre! I’m not here to fight! Just talk!”
Any GOOD ideas?
The skull opens wider, spitting an angry purple fireball, big as a Volkswagen. It roars past my left, with plenty of room to spare. “I don’t get it—that missed by a country mile. M, if this is the best he’s got, then maybe—”
Behind you!
I look over my shoulder. The fireball changes direction, heading right at me with a long tail of burning purple.
I dive towards the skull, fireball roaring close behind. Boulders roll up the mountain. They form a neck under the skull, and it lunges at me like a jack-in-the-box. I jerk left, flying out of its open mouth before it closes with a thunderous chomp. The trailing fireball explodes into the skull’s jaw, scattering purple flame and rock across a mile of jungle.
I’m sensing a sudden spike in Ramma Radiation from a lagoon on the far side of this larger mountain. It would be wise to—
I fly straight to the lagoon.
—avoid it at all costs. By The Void, Gabe.
“This is why we’re here, M! We can’t talk to him unless we’re where he is!”
Nor can we talk to him if we’re dead, now can we?
The base of the mountain is at the rear of the lagoon and columns jut out of it, forming a maze of rock and water. I stop to a hover between two of them. “Mystick and the others—they know where you are, Macabre!” I look around the lagoon, waiting for my echo to fade. “And they’re coming after you!”
The nearest columns jerk alive.
They crack, twist and turn in my direction. I have my fists raised, ready to head back to open sky when the columns lash around my ankles. They yank twice—hard—and I’m suddenly low enough for two other stony ropes to cinch around my wrists.
I fire Grav Blasts from each hand. But the rocks quickly reform and—if anything—seem to tighten even more. They pull at my arms and legs, stretching me in four different directions. “Mystick�
�” I grunt, trying to get past the crazy intense pain lancing through me, trying not to imagine my limbs suddenly ripping away—“Mystick has found a way—found a spell—to kill you!”
The pulling stops …
A ripple flutters across the surface of the lagoon. One long tentacle snakes out of the dark pool and finds purchase on the rock wall’s edge. More tentacles join the first, knifing out of the water’s surface, wrapping around rock or clinging to stony ledge. Every tentacle flexes at the same time, pulling a massive hump of corded muscle from the water. A cloud of darkness rushes in, covering most of the creature. But I can see its glowing red eyes looking down at me, from twenty feet up.
“You have my attention,” Macabre says slowly. His voice is just as deep and dark—just as insane—as it was in Pink’s memory.
I pull at the rocks again—they tighten in response. I want to go. Far away from this thing and it’s taking every bit of courage, every bit of Superhero-ishness, that I have to keep me from screaming in absolute horror.
Focus, Gabe … he’s using his abilities to intimidate you. And then using that fear to make himself even more powerful.
I take a deep breath … “And you have Mystick’s attention.” I barely manage to keep the tremble out of my voice.
Macabre screeches out a slow laugh. A tentacle rises, then flops back into the dark water. “What makes you think I am afraid of Mystick? It is her station in life to fear me. Not vice-versa.”
“Then why hide from her?”
The columns yank me up higher, so that I’m looking Macabre right in his glowing red eyes.
His breathing, a deep hissing sound, spills out of the blackness and echoes off the upper reaches of the mountain. “I am not on this island to hide. I am on this island so that I may appear to hide. So that those other fool Sayers will come at me one at a time, secure in the false knowledge that they’ve been able to accomplish what their peers have not: find me. The resources left here, along with the island’s isolation, make defending it a relatively simple task. Whether if it’s from Sayers.” Macabre’s eyes narrow. “Or from their quainter Superhero counterparts.”
“She’s about to do a Lifelink spell … to turn Pink into your own little personal horcrux.”
