Robert lips twisted up. “That is disgusting.”
Arran took another bite. “Not really, if the choice is between old jerky and starvation.”
Robert hopped to his feet. “That looks like it was made from a cow’s butt.”
Arran eyed the jerky. “It most likely was.”
“Hang on for a minute,” said Robert. He pointed at a shop across the street, its windows marked with the sigil of a golden arch. “I’ll get us some food better than that stuff.” He jogged into the street.
Arran sat up straighter. “Watch where you’re going!” Robert dodged the jeeps with deft speed and crossed the street. Arran grumbled and gnawed at the jerky, trying to tear at the stiff meat with his teeth.
Robert reappeared a few minutes later, a brown paper bag marked with the arch sigil in hand. In his other hand he carried a tray containing a pair of paper cups, each adorned with the same arch sigil. “Here we go. Fast food is kind of gross, but it’s definitely better than that stuff you’re eating.” He handed Arran the bag.
Arran frowned. “Fast?” Robert reached inside the bag and handed him a cardboard cup holding some kind of fried potatoes and a warm paper-wrapped lump. “The food is...prepared quickly, I take it?”
“Yup.” Robert unwrapped his own paper-wrapped lump. Inside was a sandwich.
“Fast food?” said Arran. He unwrapped his own sandwich. “Well, I suppose you did return rather quickly.” He gave the sandwich a dubious glance, shrugged, and took a bite. Warm, greasy meat filled his mouth. “Not bad.”
“Better than the jerky stuff?”
Arran nodded. “Far better than the jerky stuff.”
“Here.” Robert handed him one of the paper cups. A straw stuck through the top. “I didn’t know what you wanted to drink, so I got you a Coke.”
“I’d prefer about a gallon of wine,” said Arran, “but this will do.” He frowned. “Coke? You…mean coal? You drink coal?”
“Huh?” said Robert. “That’s not coal! That’s soda.”
“Oh,” said Arran. “How I am I supposed to drink this?”
Robert gestured. “Well, suck through the straw. Or you could take off the lid.”
Arran grunted, lifted the straw to his lips, and took a long drink. Cold, sweet liquid sloshed through his mouth. He coughed and almost dropped the cup. “Gods.”
“What?” said Robert, grinning. “You don’t like Coke?”
“What is this?” said Arran. “Sugar water?”
Robert thought for a minute. “Basically. And some caffeine. That makes you hyper.”
Arran took another drink. Some of the weariness faded from his limbs. “This is like…the horsemen of Antarese used to have a drink they called kaffa. It gave them energy. It was black and tasted foul.”
“Oh, you mean coffee,” said Robert. “My mom and dad drink that stuff all the time. It really stinks. And my mom, she’ll get these fancy coffees beans from some place downtown…actually, I think it’s just over that way.”
Arran sat back and chewed on the beef sandwich, listening to Robert prattle. He felt a pang of regret. Had he married, his own children would have been only a few years younger than the boy.
Had Marugon not returned from Earth, much would have been different.
“You okay?” Robert spoke around a mouthful of the fried potatoes. “You looked like you were going to fall in the street for a minute there.”
“I’m fine,” said Arran. He ate some of his own fried potatoes. “Just thinking.”
Robert took a drink from his paper cup. “I guess you have a lot to think about, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
Robert waved his hand at the skyscrapers. “Well, you said you came from a foreign country, and it sounds like a lot of bad stuff happened to you there. And now you’ve come here to look for your friends, and you’ve seen all this stuff that you’ve never seen before. If I were you, I would have quite a lot to think about.”
Arran laughed. “Quite right. I suppose I do, do I not?”
They ate in silence. When they had finished, Robert took the papers, wadded them up, and tossed them into a nearby green-painted metal can. “I should really be getting home. My parents are going to start wondering what happened to me, sooner or later.” He made a face. “Probably later.”
The sun had started to go down. “It has been a long day.”
They got up and walked to the elevated train’s platform.
###
“Well, this is my stop.” Robert hesitated. “Do you know…um…how to get where you want to go?”
Arran nodded. “I shall ride the bus until it reaches the corner where we first met. I can walk the rest of the distance.”
Robert reached up and pulled a yellow wire running along the windows. A bell rang, and the bus pulled up to the curb. “I've got to go. You take care, Mr. Belphon. I hope you find the people you’re looking for. What did you say their names were?”
“Lithon Scepteris and Alastarius.”
“If I see them, I’ll let them know you’re looking for them,” said Robert.
“Thank you.”
Robert grinned and patted in his pocket. “No, thank you for the fifty dollars.” He turned, trotted down the aisle, and disappeared out the bus doors.
Arran watched him go. It would have been useful to stay with Robert, but the risks to the boy would have been too great. Marugon and his agents were on this world. Sooner or later Arran would find them, or they would find Arran.
Anyone around him would suffer when that happened.
He rode the bus until it came to the corner. He reached up and pulled the yellow cord. The bus stopped, and Arran walked to the doors.
“Hey, mister.” The bus driver, a burly man with dark skin, leaned forward. “You take care, you hear? A lot of crazies out there tonight.”
Arran nodded. “But no crazier than I.”
The bus driver gave him a look.
A quarter hour’s walk brought him back to the white house and its sunken woods.
Lights burned in the house’s windows, and a blue jeep sat in the driveway. It appeared the house was not abandoned after all. He crept to one of the windows and peered inside. He caught a glimpse of an old woman with a thick iron-gray braid sitting in a chair, a stack of books on a low table besides her. He watched the woman for a moment, and then crept away through the darkness, making for the sunken woods. The old woman looked like a scholar - hardly the sort of woman to go hunting through the woods at night.
He slipped through the trees and found a comfortable-looking spot not far from the invisible door to the Tower. A few insects chirped, but the woods lay quiet otherwise. Arran wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down, trying to get comfortable. He closed his eyes, thoughts and plans whirling through his tired mind. Should he try to find Alastarius first? Or should he seek out Marugon’s agents? Perhaps finding one would lead to finding the other.
Arran contemplated hunting Marugon himself, but rejected the idea. The last of the Warlocks would crush him like a gnat. Siduri had been right. He had to find Alastarius…
Arran fell asleep.
###
The next day he explored in a different direction. He had developed a sense for the buses, and used them to speed his explorations. His clothing and swords elicited many strange glances, but Arran ignored them, taking in more of Chicago. His path took him to a vast indoor marketplace with a glass roof and multiple balconies, its walls lined with dozens of shops, each one equipped with a garish sign of glowing glass over its entrance. One shop sold metal boxes with glass eyes that showed moving images. Another shop sold countless shoes and boots, and still another held more books than Arran had ever seen in his life.
He stood on a balcony and took in the sight while the crowds flowed around him. Neither Sir Liam nor Siduri would have believed such wonders. The people of Chicago had such bounty. No wonder so many of them were fat and slow and timid. A courtyard attached to the indoor marketplace
boasted dozens of food merchants, and Arran used some of his dollars to buy food.
He ate, caught a bus, and continued on his way.
A few hours later he walked down a desolate-looking street. Large brick buildings lined both sides of the street, ringed in fences of barbed wire and metal. Arran guessed they were warehouses of some sort. Tired-looking laborers sometimes walked past, their clothing and faces stained with sweat and soot. Arran disliked this part of the city. It had a grim aspect…
His Sacred Blade jolted.
Arran’s hand clamped around the weapon’s hilt. He looked around, his eyes scanning the warehouses and road. A boxy black jeep sped down the road, its sides painted with lettering. Arran caught a glimpse of a hunched, bearded figure at the wheel.
An electric jolt of rage shot through Arran. He recognized the shape behind the wheel. The winged demons often adapted such disguises when they walked among men. “Winged ones, there are winged ones on Earth.” He shouldn’t have been surprised. Had not Kaemarz mentioned that wicked and ancient Goth-Mar-Dan himself had come to Earth? Arran drew his Sacred Blade, the crimson steel glimmering with blue light, and set himself in a guard position…
The black jeep shot past, and the winged demon did not spare him a glance. The creature must not have seen him or sensed the white magic in his Sacred Blade. Arran started to run after the jeep, sword in hand, until he realized the futility of the action.
“Holy hell.” A grimy young workingman squinted at Arran. “Was that thing glowing?”
“That jeep,” said Arran, “that black jeep. Did you see it?”
The workingman frowned. “I didn’t see no jeep.”
Arran’s anger boiled over. “Damnation! That black vehicle! Did you or did you not see it?”
The workingman raised his hands. “Hey, cool down, man. That black van? Yeah, I saw it. See them driving past all the time.”
Arran realized he had raised his sword, and he rammed it back into the scabbard. “The lettering on the side? What did it say?”
The workingman looked confused. “Yeah…I think it said ‘the Gracchan Party. Vote Jones and Wycliffe in November’.”
“What does that mean?” Something clicked in Arran’s mind. “Wycliffe. I know that name.” He remembered the Ildramyn’s second vision. He had seen a short, fat man named Wycliffe talking to another man named Kurkov about selling things to Marugon. “Gods damn me for a fool. I knew it the entire time. This man Wycliffe is the gun-merchant.” The workingman looked frightened. “Wycliffe. Do you know the name?”
“Yeah,” said the workingman. “He’s a Senator. He’s running for president, I think. Or was it vice-president?”
“Senator?” said Arran. “What is that?”
“You know…he gets elected to the Senate. They sit around and pass laws and raise taxes.”
Arran grunted. “So the United States is a republic.”
“I always thought we were a democracy.”
“Thank you.” Arran started forward. “You’ve been helpful. But I warn you! Stay away from Wycliffe and his men. They are dangerous beyond anything you can imagine.”
The workingman grunted. “I stay out of politics anyway.”
Chapter 5 - Stalkers
Anno Domini 2012
Ally woke up.
“What?” she muttered, lifting her face from the desk. Her dorm room lay dark and quiet, the faint glow of the floodlights seeping through her curtains. Ally yawned, ran her fingers through her hair, and looked at her iPhone.
“Oh, man.” It was three in the morning. She had started studying for her chemistry test at about ten. About midnight she had gotten up to get some coffee. The empty mug sat on a corner of the desk, atop her lab notebook. After that she couldn’t remember a thing
Ally sighed, flicked on her desk lamp, and tried to sort her notes into a semblance of order. She had a good grasp of the material, but she wanted to go through it one more time. Perhaps she should just go to sleep. A tired mind did not write good tests.
Ally closed her eyes. She did not want to go to sleep.
The nightmares came then.
She tried to study for another ten minutes, her exhausted brain refusing to absorb any more material. Equations and electron levels blurred before her eyes in an incomprehensible mess. She gave up and flicked off her desk lamp.
More books and papers lay strewn across her bed. Ally grumbled, scooped them up, and dumped them on the floor. She considered undressing, decided it was too much work, and crawled into bed.
Sleep came almost at once, and so did the dreams.
###
Again she lay on the courtyard floor of cold stone, red-lit smoke billowing over the dark sky.
Ally gasped for breath, blood welling in her throat. Her side and back burned with agony. She tried to stand, but her trembling muscles refused to obey.
Terror flooded her.
She remembered what happened next.
The dark shadow dropped from the sky, its vast wings blotting out the light. An iron-clawed hand plunged towards her chest. She shrieked as the iron claws ripped through her skin, plunged into her chest, and curled around her heart…
The world shattered with her unending scream.
###
“Wake up,” murmured a deep, sonorous voice. “You must wake up.”
Ally stood in a vast corridor of dark marble, a green glow illuminating the black stone. A half-buried part of her mind remembered what would happen next. The black things would boil from the walls and overwhelm the old man with two swords. She would flee for the rune-carved doors, Lithon in her arms…
But instead a younger man trudged down the corridor, his face weathered and grim, his dark clothes worn and dusty. Tangled hair and an unkempt beard masked half his face, and a sword and a pair of automatic pistols hung from his belt. He moved like a hunting cat, despite his obvious weariness. The weathered man stopped in a domed chamber. His eyes widened, his hand flying to his sword…
###
“You must remember,” whispered the deep voice. “You must.”
Ally floated in a dark space. “No.”
“You must. Else he will find you before you are ready.”
“No!” She tugged harder, trying to escape. “I don’t want this, I’m tired of the dreams, just let me sleep, let me sleep…”
Something shattered.
Ally flew backwards. For a moment she glimpsed all of Chicago spread out beneath her, lights glittering and shining in the night. Then she plunged down, soaring over a park not far from the campus. She saw the old man with the camouflage jacket and the cane, a stern expression his face. A hideous thing with leathery gray skin crouched behind a bush, its red eyes burning with madness.
She turned and fled, the city blurring around her.
Something pulled on her, drawing her over the crumbling brick warehouses in the South Side. Winged monstrosities, iron claws dangling from their fingers, circled in the night. Ally’s terror rose to a fever pitch. She tried to flee, but something pulled her down. A vast warehouse complex loomed before her, lights burning in the night. Slouching thugs with bushy beards guarded the entrance. Ally swooped before a large warehouse, marked 13A in red paint. She fell through the floor and found herself in a large library, books resting in handsome dark wood shelves.
A man in a black robe sat in an overstuffed chair, his head bowed. A dreadful cold seemed to radiate from him, like the blast of a blizzard wind. The man lifted his head, his face pale.
His eyes were bottomless black pits into the void.
Ally shrieked and fled, speeding through the city. “No, no, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s a dream, it’s a dream…”
###
She woke up, her legs thrashing in the blanket.
“It’s just a dream!” Her last word rose to an angry shriek.
She blinked, cold sweat dripping down her jaw. Ally groaned and looked at her iPhone. It was six-thirty. She sighed and huddled back into her b
lankets. Her test wasn’t until two-thirty. She could sleep through her morning class and study some more in the afternoon.
Someone knocked at the door. Ally rolled out of bed, shuffled across the carpet, and pulled the door open. “Yeah?”
Kelly McBrian stood in the hallway, still wearing her sweatshirt and yoga pants from her morning run. “Hey, Ally. Sorry if I woke you up. Some of your neighbors said they heard you screaming. You okay?”
Ally pushed her hair out of her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just some bad dreams, that’s all.”
“You want to talk about it?” said Kelly.
Ally didn’t want to tell anyone about it. “No. I…just have a pulled muscle, and a lot going on with school, and…”
Kelly nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” She grinned. “I think I’ll go take a shower. I probably smell real ripe.”
“You do.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Well, thanks! Later, Ally.” Ally shut the door and collapsed back into bed. She fell asleep almost at once.
No dreams tormented her this time.
###
Ally walked across campus, fallen leaves crunching beneath her shoes. The test had gone well, which brightened her mood. She wanted to get to her room, change, and get to work. She had a night class to teach with Katrina at the studio. Perhaps she and Katrina could go out to dinner after the class. Maybe she could tell Katrina about the dreams.
Something moved behind her.
Ally turned, her eyes narrowing. She saw nothing but the usual students talking on their cell phones. Ally shrugged and went on her way. But the feeling of someone following her refused to go away.
She whirled without breaking stride, just in time to see someone dart into the bushes. Anger overrode her common sense, and she stormed into the bushes. A man knelt in the dirt, looking at a smartphone. He wore jeans and black sports jacket, and a number of earrings glittered beneath his unkempt dark hair. He peered through the leaves, squinting.
A Wizard of the White Council Page 6
