Sanctuary: The Sorcerers' Scourge: Book Two

by Michael Arches

  At the end of the hallway, a metal letter was hanging down from an opening in the ceiling. The ladder was attached to a partially open door. Luckily, the music got louder as I approached. The ladder seemed to be in decent shape, but it was sure to creak as a big guy like me climbed it.

  I rested my staff against the wall and slowly put my foot on the bottom rung. Then I gradually transferred my weight to that foot and rose off the floor. The metal groaned, but maybe I was hyper-conscious. I froze and listened for movement from the sorcerer above me. He hadn’t reacted yet.

  Moving with agonizing slowness, I continued upward. Each of my movements produced some sound, but the noise must’ve been masked by the radio. Thank you for head-banging music.

  The asshole must’ve been deaf, because the music was loud. Unfortunately, the song ended, and there was a gap of silence about a second long. That gap came exactly when the ladder creaked.

  The sorcerer finally moved. I froze, barely breathing.

  The music resumed with old Led Zeppelin tune, but he’d turned the radio down. I remained frozen in place with my head about a foot below the opening. I could sense the sorcerer feeling worried, but that might’ve been my imagination rather than true insight.

  After what felt like years, the Zep song ended and a second song started: Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit. The sorcerer apparently loved it, because he began to sing along.

  It wasn’t my kind of music, but I’d heard the song enough times to know when it would get particularly loud. I waited until Kurt Cobain began screaming, then I took another step up. Slowly, I lifted my head enough to see above the floor. The sorcerer was staring out the window toward the ranch and was still singing.

  I stepped up one more rung, high enough that I could point at the sorcerer. “I challenge you for magical power!” I yelled.

  A loud buzzing began in my ears.

  I froze, stuck in place for ten seconds, but it appeared that the only two ways out of the attic were to pass me or jump out the window. I was significantly bigger than him, and I had a tight grip on the ladder. I doubted he could get past me in ten seconds. As for the window, there was a twenty-five-foot drop outside to the ground. In short, unless he had a rope I couldn’t see, he was fucked.

  My body was frozen, but I could see in front of me and think. He was a stocky black man of about forty, with short, curly hair. A scar crossed his forehead, and the backs of his hands were tattooed. He had a gold earring in one earlobe.

  The sorcerer jumped up and spun around, revealing the pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. He grabbed a staff leaning against the wall and stared at me, his face contorted with rage. He’d probably gone through the exact same series of options I just had and had realized that his only way out was through me.

  As the radio started to play Stairway to Heaven, the sorcerer ran at me. My upper body was still filling the opening. He tried to kick me in the face, but magic wouldn’t let him—yet.

  I concentrated on my protective ward, visualizing the limestone wall at Carter Pass. As soon as I could move again, the ward formed around me. The sorcerer’s second kick hit my barrier and bounced off. Then he swung at me with his staff, but my invisible protection blocked that blow, too.

  I charged up the remaining steps and stood in front of the opening in the floor. No way would I let him go down.

  He formed his own protective wall.

  I thought about all the people at the ranch that this bastard had spied on, including Laura. That got my blood boiling.

  I pointed my finger at the sorcerer. “HOLARTHON, ASSOMME!”

  Magic poured from my hand, hit his wall, and obliterated it. The force of the spell was so great, I staggered backward, almost dropping through the opening.

  I caught myself by spreading my legs to straddle the hole.

  That’s the problem with fighting, idiot. Things never seem to go as you planned. Gotta learn to roll with the punches.

  Luckily, the sorcerer had his own problems. Still frozen, he teetered. I rushed forward, hit him with one shoulder, and knocked him over.

  With tight fists, I punched him twice in the chest to knock his wind out.

  He began to move again and gasped as he punched back, hitting my forearms. One lucky blow got through and caught me on my right cheek. “

  Damn, that hurt. I tried to hit him in the face, but my punches were too slow.

  He threw up another ward and hid behind a large stack of boxes.

  To pump up my anger again, I thought about who was the most vulnerable witch at the ranch. Katie. She could’ve been jumped later today when she took the book to town for safekeeping.

  That got me raging. “HOLARTHON, CHOQUE!”

  I moved to the side to get a clear shot at him, and a bolt of green lightning boomed in the small room before hitting the asshole in the head. He thrashed on the floor, and his mouth opened and closed without him making any sound.

  I approached to finish him off, kicking him in the side, but he caught my foot in one hand and twisted it, pulling me over. My left hip joint screamed with pain.

  He scrambled for the hole in the floor, but I lunged after him, despite how much my hip hurt. I gripped his pant leg at the cuff and pulled him back. Then I remembered how helpful Katie had been last night, and crawled over him. When I got close enough, I punched him in the head with everything I had.

  He blocked me at first, knocking my fists away, but I caught him on his left temple. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed. The buzzing in my ears stopped.

  Nobody threatened sweet Katie and got away with it, not if I had anything to say about it.

  It took him a few minutes to come around. I waited patiently, enjoying his awkward posture. Unfortunately, my hip was killing me, so I finally said, “Wake up!”

  After he sat up, I said, “Stand.”

  He did, but his legs quivered.

  “Who told you to do this?” I asked as he helped me to my feet.

  “I’m sorry, Master, but an oath prevents me from saying.”

  “Was it that asshole Hudson?”

  He shook his head. “I wish I could tell.”

  I felt like whacking him on the head a few times with his own staff, but a blood oath was inviolate. “I claim the spoils of victory.”

  I braced myself for the warm rush and savored the feeling as it washed over me. Then I called Diana.

  “I took care of him,” I said.

  “It’s good to have you back, Ian. Bring him, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  My real struggle was getting back downstairs. I could barely move my left leg. I only made it down the steep ladder by letting my slave hold my left hand from above.

  Good thing I didn’t kill him.

  Chapter 9

  University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

  AFTER I FINISHED WORKING at the animal hospital in the afternoon, I met Katie at CU. She brought Gill’s book, and we took it to the office of Dr. Frederick Mendelev. He was a tall, thin man about fifty. His dark brown hair was long and wavy, and he had a goatee. He spoke English well, but with a distinct Russian accent.

  His eyes gleamed as I summarized what Gill had told me about the book. He carefully unwrapped it using surgical gloves. Gill had carefully packed it in a heavy cardboard box. Inside, the book was surrounded with soft foam and wrapped in tissue paper.

  The book itself wasn’t much to look at. The cover seemed to be made of thick leather, and the pages inside were bound together by some kind of cord that pierced the binding a dozen times.

  Fred closed his eyes and put his hands on the cover without attempting to open it.

  After a moment, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s a ritual I have for opening rare objects. I pray to the gods that the book doesn’t disintegrate into powder in my hands.”

  With agonizing care, he pored over the front and back covers with a magnifying glass. Then
he photographed every side.

  “The cover is made of horsehide, and it’s in surprisingly good condition for a book that’s supposedly over a thousand years old. The book is bound with woven hair from a horse’s tail.”

  Working very slowly, Fred untied the string and unthreaded the binding. Then he lifted the front cover up before setting it to the side.

  Underneath was a title page in black calligraphy. I couldn’t read the individual letters, but it didn’t appear to be the English alphabet.

  Fred’s hands began to shake, and he punched a few buttons on his phone. “Phil, do you have an emergency right now?” he said into the speakerphone.

  “Nope, unless you count grading papers.”

  “Good,” Fred said. “Get your ass down to my office if you want to see something amazing.”

  A minute later, an elderly man limped in, leaning on a black cane. Katie and I were introduced to Dr. Philip Matthews, another professor in the ancient languages department. From then on, he and Fred seem to completely forget we were there.

  The two men giggled like schoolgirls.

  “It’s parchment, isn’t it?” Fred asked. “Maybe goat. I’m so excited, I’m about to pass out.” He leaned over with his head between his knees for a moment to increase the blood flow. “We’ve got to keep this a secret until we know what it is and we can get our paper in. Do you recognize the words?”

  Phil shook his head.

  “Me neither.”

  He kept up a one-sided conversation, because Phil couldn’t seem to speak. He just nodded or shook his head when it was appropriate.

  After photographing the first page, Fred was about to lift it to see the next one, but Katie broke in. “Whoa, there, tiger. Before you do anything else, we need to talk about the ground rules.”

  The two men’s jaws dropped. “What do you have in mind?” Fred asked with a frown.

  “Until we know what this book says, nobody has any right to publish anything. It may have a particular meaning for an association of people we represent who do not want the contents made public.”

  “There’s no need to speak in riddles.” Fred smiled. “Phil is an elder of the Mendile Guild with me, and he knows how to keep his mouth shut. Phil, before you came in, these excellent people told me they suspect this book is an ancient Celtic translation of a much older book about Holar that may even have been written by Holar.”

  “Holy shit!” Phil said.

  “Yeah, I know. My thoughts exactly. Unfortunately, the lettering isn’t right. Do we know anybody who reads ancient languages and is a witch? I can’t think of anyone.”

  “I’m told this book might be written in old Breton,” I said.

  Phil sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. “What about Henri Degilas at the Sorbonne?”

  The two professors threw names around for a few minutes, and then Phil said, “What about Professor Leòideach?”

  “Oh, she’d be perfect,” Fred said.

  “Whoops.” I put up my hand to stop them. “Do you mean Sorcha Leòideach at Oxford?”

  “Yeah, do you know her?” Fred asked.

  I shook my head. “Our benefactor apparently dislikes her a lot. She’s the only person he insists can’t work on the project.”

  They frowned and threw around a few other names but seemed dissatisfied with each.

  Finally, Fred said, “Sorcha will be hard to replace. We need to find someone who can help us read this and who can keep his or her mouth shut. Give us a few days to throw some feelers out. Katie, can I contact you?”

  “Sure, but what happens to the book in the meantime? Do you have somewhere safe to keep it?”

  “Under my pillow,” Fred said with a broad smile.

  I frowned.

  “Okay,” Fred said. “Bad joke. We have a bank we use for protecting valuable works like this, and I’ll make sure it gets there before closing time today. In the meantime, the book looks to be about sixty parchment pages. Would you mind if I photograph them today, so if, God forbid, something does happen to the original, we’ll have electronic copies I can spread around for safekeeping?”

  Katie looked at me, and I said, “If I have your word that you’ll be particularly careful in separating the pages and rebuilding the book afterwards. I’m taking care of this for an extremely powerful Holar warrior. If something bad happens to this manuscript, God help you both. His lightning bolts are better than Zeus’s.”

  Both professors looked shaken, but Fred said, “Understood, and we won’t tell anybody about this, or show them a copy, without your permission. All we’ll say for now is that we’ve come across an old text, and we need help translating it.”

  I and Katie both nodded.

  -o-o-o-

  Santolini’s Pizza and Pasta, Boulder, Colorado

  BECAUSE KATIE WAS ALREADY in town, I invited her to my meeting with George at a pizza place he liked. Although it was Thursday, the place was noisy and filled with college kids. She and I grabbed a booth in a corner and waited for the reporter.

  “CU doesn’t have classes on Fridays,” Katie said. “For the students, every weekend is three days long.”

  Our waiter light a stout candle on the table that smelled like rosemary, and it was a soothing fragrance. I breathed in deeply.

  “I could go for a four-day week.”

  George showed up, and we ordered a large deep-dish pizza, half pepperoni and half sausage and mushrooms. Katie and I shared a bottle of wine, and George pounded down a couple of root beers.

  He sat next to me so I could show him the video on my phone. I played the file, and I paused it several times to explain who the people were. By this point, I’d seen it a dozen times, and months had passed since the murders, but the impact was still strong enough to make my throat burn with fury.

  After the video ended, George stayed silent for a moment. Then he said, “I didn’t know spells could kill.”

  “They can if the magician is strong enough and the victim is unprotected,” Katie said with tears in her eyes.

  Our pizza arrived, and we ate for a minute in silence.

  “This is political dynamite,” George said. “If Cantor were still alive, it would destroy his political career.”

  “He should’ve been prosecuted,” I replied, “but my lawyer told me that wouldn’t happen.”

  George nodded. “The law can’t accept magic, and it probably never will. Too much of the law is based on empirical science. The legal system would turn into chaos if it allowed for magic that changes a man’s appearance or lets him vanish without a trace or lets an injured man become good as new in minutes.”

  I tried to understand why that was so hard to fathom. “It’s happening, even if the law doesn’t believe it.”

  George shrugged. “It doesn’t happen often. Fortunately, most witches are law-abiding, and sorcerers can’t attack non-magicians. So, the bad magic mostly involves fights between yourselves.”

  We talked about how magic could screw up lawsuits and criminal trials until we finished eating.

  After we’d paid the bill, I emailed the video to George. “What will your editors do?” I asked him.

  “After they watch it and I explain it to them, I expect they’ll run your story. That should cause some fireworks here and in Oklahoma.”

  -o-o-o-

  Friday, November 29th

  Brigid’s Community Ranch, Boulder County, Colorado

  AT BREAKFAST, DIANA DROPPED off the paper and sat next to me. “It came out about as well as I expected.”

  The headline was, O’Rourke Tells All: What Really Happened.

  George’s article recounted the story as I’d told it to him without equivocating. There were no weasel words like alleged or claimed, and he was much more eloquent than me. For a moment, I felt a warm, comfortable glow inside. Somebody important believes me.

  “Now what?” I asked Diana.

  “I don’t know,” she
replied. “Like Nicky said, don’t expect most people to believe you without proof. Still, it should cause a stir.”

  -o-o-o-

  Moraine Park Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

  I COULDN’T JUST SIT around and wait, so I suggested that Laura and Christina give me another cross-country skiing lesson. The park was almost empty this time of year, so I finally got to visit. Lazarus rode with us in an SUV until we got near the entrance. Then he flew overhead.

  The elk had long since descended out of the high mountains, and huge herds filled the lower basins. According to Laura, the yearly rut was over, but I still heard the huge bulls bugling from time to time. They were still wearing their massive antlers.

  While we were gazing at hundreds of grazing deer and elk, I thought of Pestone for the first time in weeks and said, “You know, I wonder what Oran Byrne would do if Pestone was still around. Would they duke it out?”

  Laura raised an eyebrow. “Of course, Ian. Pestone would attack any magician he thought he could beat, good or bad. Anything to become more powerful.”

  I nodded, and my stomach begin to revolt as I remembered how hard I’d had to fight to beat the asshole. “Sure, but is Byrne stronger than Pestone was?”

  Laura nodded. “Diana says so. You’d better stay out of Byrne’s way, that’s for sure. Meanwhile, back to skiing. You aren’t using your poles right.”

  I listened to her advice, but I also kept worrying about Byrne. We had to find a major weakness in him, or he was going to clean my clock. Maybe we could convince the globetrotter to move somewhere else. Europeans seemed to love San Francisco. Maybe the winters here would drive him away to balmy California. The bite of the wind in these mountains surprised me, and January was still a month away.

  When we got back to the ranch, nothing much seemed to have changed. The article hadn’t caused any obvious ripples in Boulder or Oklahoma. Not yet, anyway.

  -o-o-o-

  Saturday, November 30th

  Kyokushin Karate Dojo, Denver, Colorado

  THE FIRST APPOINTMENT I COULD get to meet Don Blake was Thursday afternoon because he was so busy. Then, it took me forever to find his office on the southeast side of Denver in an old strip mall he shared with a thrift store. Inside, the floor was mostly covered with mats. The walls were decorated with photographs of fighters in martial arts uniforms battling at tournaments.