The Magic Collector

by Clayton Wood

  “Or cut their hands off,” Gideon confirmed, showing her the stump of his right hand.

  “Is that what they did to you?”

  “Not the Pentad,” Gideon replied. “The Collector’s men. I was hired to retrieve useful objects from paintings and catalog their properties, not to paint. If I wanted to work for them, I had to agree to have my dominant hand amputated.”

  “But I’ve seen you paint perfectly with your left hand,” she pointed out. He winked.

  “I’m ambidextrous.”

  “Ah.”

  “They didn’t want me to paint while I was there, of course. Not until I completed ten years of loyal service. Protection against double-agents, you see. Only Kendra was allowed to paint there.”

  “So you let them paint your hand off?” Bella asked.

  “Ah, no,” he replied ruefully. “They did it the old-fashioned way.”

  Bella’s eyes widened in horror.

  “You had your hand cut off for…”

  “For you,” he confirmed. “And for your grandfather, yes.”

  Bella swallowed with some difficulty.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled.

  “You’re my daughter.”

  She leaned in, giving him a hug. Then she pulled away.

  “You should get someone here to paint it back on,” she stated, gesturing at his stump. He grimaced.

  “Ah, no,” he replied. “That’s quite alright.”

  “But…”

  “It…reminds me of my mistakes,” he explained. “With your mother gone, I can never be whole again.”

  “Gideon…”

  “But enough talking,” he interrupted. “It’s time we took your painting to the next level. Come on,” he added. “…time to paint!”

  Chapter 31

  Long after the sun had gone to bed beneath the horizon, plunging the world into darkness and lulling the denizens of the Castle Under to sleep, Piper laid awake in his own bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was a large bed, fit for two. And until Kendra had gotten her promotion, vanishing in Castle Over without a trace, two had always occupied it.

  He rolled onto his side, staring out of the small window of his small room on the second floor of the castle. There was only blackness beyond, the stars hidden behind a thick carpet of gray clouds. To the right of the window was an old wooden door leading to the long hallway of the living quarters, the eastern wing of the castle that was devoted to housing the Collector’s artists.

  Piper rolled onto his back again, reaching up to pick at his lip.

  Where the hell is she?

  Other Painters had been promoted. Plenty of them. Usually after having been with the Collector for years. After creating lots of paintings for the man. Then they were taken upstairs to the mirrored castle in the sky.

  And now that Piper thought about it, he’d never seen a single one of them again.

  Promoted Painters weren’t allowed to work with the Painters in Castle Under, of course. They were probably working on secret projects, ones the Collector didn’t want those of questionable loyalty to know about. It made sense to segregate them, but Kendra would never agree to be separated from Piper for so long.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  Piper sighed, fidgeting in bed. That awful corner of his mind, the one that always assumed the worst – kicked into gear, a paranoid voice that whispered terrifying thoughts in his ear.

  She’s dead, it told him. They all are.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the dark thoughts to go away.

  He killed them all.

  “Shut up,” he muttered to himself, rolling onto his side again, this time away from the window. He closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep…and knowing that in doing so, he was virtually guaranteed not to. Then he heard a creak.

  Piper’s eyes snapped open.

  He heard another creak, this time lasting much longer than the first. As if a door had been cracked open, then swung open all the way after someone had peered through.

  Piper’s heart pounded in his chest, and he closed his eyes, straining his ears. He heard nothing more, but knew damn well that didn’t mean anything. Whoever was in his room – if there was someone in his room – could be wearing magical boots that made no sound. Or they could be levitating above the floor.

  There’s no one here, he told himself. It’s just your imagination.

  He felt a presence in the room, imagined dark eyes staring at him from the door.

  He killed them all, the dark thoughts whispered. And now he’s going to kill you.

  Piper opened his eyes, forcing himself to imagine the Collector strangling his wife to death. Her eyes wide with horror, her face beet-red and swollen. Imagined what he’d do to the man if he got the chance.

  Rage boiled within him as he played out his revenge, visions of extraordinary violence coming to him. He bit his own tongue, the pain magnifying his anger, the sudden taste of blood feeding it.

  In his mind, he rammed the heel of his boot in the Collector’s face. Over and over and…

  His body swelled, muscles growing as he transformed, as he became Vengeance, the incarnation of his desire. A character he’d created long ago, when he was a child. Before he’d even realized what he was. Larger and taller he grew, until his legs threatened to dangle off the bed, even with his knees tucked to his chest.

  And even as he grew, he rolled off the bed…and saw a man dressed in a black uniform and mask standing in front of him, holding a gleaming dagger. The would-be-assassin lunged at him, plunging the blade into Vengeance’s belly.

  The pain was hot and immediate, the dagger cutting through skin and muscle, lacerating his intestines. A blade almost certainly coated with lethal poison.

  Vengeance roared, shoving the assassin backward into the stone wall. So hard the stone cracked.

  The man bounced off the wall like it was a trampoline, and Vengeance swung one massive fist at the man’s nose.

  Bones crunched under his knuckles.

  The would-be killer flew back into the wall again, his skull ricocheting off the stone. Vengeance roared, ramming the man with his muscled shoulder and pinning him against the wall. Then he grabbed the man by the temples, lifting him off the floor.

  And smashed the assassin’s head into the wall. Over and over again.

  Then, long after the assassin had drawn his last breath, Vengeance threw him to the floor. Vengeance’s shoulders heaved as he stared down at the body, imagining himself stomping on the assassin’s face until it was nothing but bloody pulp. But a sudden, burning pain in his abdomen distracted him.

  He looked down, seeing the dagger still jutting out of his lower belly.

  Damn.

  He felt the rage trickling away, and swore, gripping the handle of the blade and closing his eyes.

  And yanking it out.

  “Ahh, f…” he swore, the dagger falling from his hands and clattering on the floor. He bit back a scream, hot blood pouring from the wound. The burning pain intensified, spreading rapidly outward from the wound.

  The poison!

  Pain spread across his belly, as if hot oil were being poured on his skin. Spreading through his body to kill him. He doubled over, sweat pouring from him.

  And then, as his rage left him, so did Vengeance.

  The room seemed to expand around him as he shrank, his head no longer threatening to scrape against the tall ceiling. His arms lost their huge muscles, and his golden uniform once again appeared around him.

  He was Piper once more.

  Piper blinked, eyeing the body, then his bloody knuckles. The memory of being Vengeance was vague, as it always was. As all of his characters’ memories were. But he remembered the wound Vengeance had sustained. A fatal one.

  He lifted his shirt, the wound in his belly gone…and the pain gone with it. For Vengeance had been the one stabbed, not him. But if he changed into the character again, Vengeance would most certainly die…and Piper would never be able to play
him again.

  “Well then,” he muttered, turning away from the body and running shaky hands through his hair. This was almost certainly not the only assassin who’d been sent to take him out. The Collector had to know how hard it could be to kill a good Actor…especially one as uniquely trained as Piper.

  “Sometimes the paranoia is right, babe,” he muttered. Which meant that the love of his life was already dead…or was trapped somewhere in the Castle Over. And there was only one person in this world he knew of that was powerful enough to help save her.

  He focused, willing his feelings to fade. A chill ran through him, and he felt himself growing again. A black cloak appeared around him, his hands and forearms vanishing within silver gauntlets. There had to be many more assassins out there, waiting for him to emerge from his room.

  But he doubted any of them would have the balls to face a Reaper.

  Chapter 32

  Havenwood was everything an artist could ever want, a magical, cheery place filled with endless nooks and crannies to explore, each revealing small treasures that delighted the sense. There were small parks with sparkling fountains hidden within the great mushroom forest. Buildings that ran up Dragon’s Peak in a vast, interconnected network, allowing one to scale nearly the entire mountain without ever once having to walk the spiraling path.

  Most of these buildings were uninhabited, for Havenwood had only been created a few decades ago, populated by artists who had decided to make the pilgrimage to a place where they were free to create what they wished. And all a creation of the curious and ancient mind of Thaddeus Birch.

  But for all of Havenwood’s whimsy, Bella found herself happiest when she returned to the quiet solitude of her mother’s subterranean estate, deep within the bowels of Dragon’s Peak. It was a preference that made her feel rather guilty, preferring being alone over the company of other artists. But after a lifetime holed up in her apartment with Grandpa, she found the solitude comforting.

  She’d also set up one of the larger rooms in her mother’s mansion as her own personal studio, moving all the furniture out. It was just down the hall from Grandpa’s new office, conveniently enough. Gideon had made her paint her own painting supplies, including an easel, an enormous quantity of paint, brushes, and even canvases. Magical canvases that rolled and unrolled themselves like Gideon’s.

  She’d spent the last few days sketching different ideas for paintings while Grandpa wrote and Gideon did…well, whatever Gideon was doing. Her father spent most of his time out and about in Havenwood on the surface, only occasionally returning to the darkness to check in with her.

  This morning she’d run out of ideas of what to draw, so she threw up her hands and drew what she always did when she didn’t know what else to do. A sketch of her dragon.

  It came to her effortlessly, even at a much larger scale than her notebook back at school. A fierce dragon standing by her side, one bony hand clutching her shoulder. Great wings spread wide, its eyes glowing with an inner fire.

  No, not its eyes. Her eyes. For her dragon was definitely a girl.

  When Bella finished her sketch, she stood back, eyeing it critically. It was, she knew, her best version of her dragon yet. At three feet wide and five feet tall, this canvas allowed for far more detail than her algebra notebook.

  “Hello Bella,” she heard from behind.

  She turned, spotting Gideon entering the room. He smiled at her, then eyed the sketch.

  “Ah, Bella’s dragon!” he proclaimed, studying her work. “Thaddeus told me all about it.”

  “Really?” Bella replied. She hardly expected Grandpa to mention her doodles.

  “Of course,” Gideon replied. “It’s good,” he opined. “At least the dragon is.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I wouldn’t paint yourself in it though,” he cautioned. “Remember what I told you about painting humans.” She’d included herself in the sketch, after all.

  “I wasn’t going to paint any of it,” she replied rather defensively. “I was just playing around.”

  “Why not paint the dragon?” he inquired.

  She blinked, taken aback.

  “Because.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Gideon countered. Bella folded her arms over her chest.

  “Is too.”

  “Not a good one,” he pressed.

  “Because I don’t want to,” she answered, arching an eyebrow, as if daring him to challenge her. He smirked.

  “You draw it an awful lot for someone who doesn’t want to paint it,” he pointed out. “Why?”

  Bella shrugged.

  “I like dragons,” she answered.

  “Ones with heart-shaped rubies in their breastbones?” he pressed. She grimaced.

  “Yes. So?”

  “When someone draws or paints the same thing over and over again, it means something, Bella,” Gideon explained.

  “Like what?”

  “That’s for you to answer,” he replied. “The way we artists always do,” he added, gesturing at the canvas. Bella shook her head.

  “I’m not ready for that.”

  “Why not?” he inquired.

  “I’m not good enough.”

  “Hmm,” Gideon murmured. “And how would you know?”

  Bella glared at him.

  “Fine,” Gideon replied. “Just asking.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So this is what having a teenage daughter is like,” Gideon grumbled. “Your mother warned me about this.” Bella gave him a withering look.

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m difficult?”

  “Um…”

  “I’m messing with you,” Bella said, smirking at him. “You do have a lot to learn though.”

  “I missed out on a lot,” Gideon agreed. He lowered his gaze. “Too much,” he added.

  “Gideon…”

  “I couldn’t reveal myself to you,” he interrupted. “If I had, and the Collector’s men had gotten to you…” He sighed. “But I wanted to, Bella. Believe me. More than anything in the world.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think you do,” he countered gently. “How many nights I spent in that damn library, waiting for those bounty hunters to leave the book there so I could get lost in it…” He sighed. “It took me nine years to find your book, Bella. And for over a year I…”

  “I get it,” she interjected, stepping forward and grabbing his hand in both of her own. He lifted his gaze, his eyes moist. Looking absolutely miserable. “I forgive you.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Gideon protested.

  “It is for me,” she retorted. “You cut off your hand for me…Dad. You risked your life for me, and for Grandpa.”

  Gideon took a deep, shuddering breath in, tears dripping down his cheeks.

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  “It is for me,” she countered.

  “Not for your mother, it wasn’t,” he countered. His eyes hardened then, his jawline rippling.

  “Gideon…”

  “I should never have listened to her,” he insisted. “I knew better, Bella. Every inch of me screamed to go with you, to…”

  “Dad!” Bella blurted out. His jaw shut with a click. “Shut up,” she ordered.

  He did.

  “Give me a hug,” she commanded. He paused, then complied, wrapping his arms around her. She did the same, and they held each other for a long, quiet moment. At length, they separated.

  “Thank you,” she stated. “For being there for me, even when I didn’t know.”

  He smiled.

  “You’re welcome, Bella,” he replied. He cleared his throat then, glancing at the canvas. “So about that dragon…”

  “Not painting it.”

  “Right,” Gideon muttered. “Then what are you going to paint? Not this, I hope,” he added, gesturing at a canvas propped up against the wall. It was a sketch of a mushroom man growing out of a log.

  “It’s not that bad,” she insisted.
<
br />   “I beg to differ,” Gideon retorted. “Keep in mind that I’m over four hundred years old…and widely considered to be the best Painter alive.”

  “Your humility is staggering,” she grumbled.

  “Paint something that matters to you, Bella,” he insisted. “That’s all I ask.”

  Bella sighed, staring at the canvas. Then she looked about the small studio, trying to find some inspiration. The mushroom sketch was pretty lame, she had to admit. But what else could she paint? She wracked her brain, trying to come up with something.

  Then she was struck with an idea.

  “I don’t need to paint a painting,” she declared. Gideon blinked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean I don’t need to paint on a canvas,” she clarified. “What if I paint on clothes?”

  Gideon raised an eyebrow.

  “This uniform is okay,” she stated, gesturing at her Painter’s uniform. “But it only has panels for paintings. What if I made an entire suit that was painted. Like, all of it?”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Well, my suit helps me draw out paintings in battle,” Bella explained. “But it also protects me, right? Because if someone stabbed me in the chest with a sword, let’s say, it would just enter the painting, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So if I had an entire suit that was painted – made out of a single piece of painted cloth – it would protect me from any attack, right?”

  “In theory,” Gideon conceded. “But it could make interacting with your environment difficult.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, if I had to grab your arm to pull you away from something, my hand would just pass into your uniform,” he explained. “And your hands and feet would still need to be unpainted, and your head. They’d still be vulnerable.”

  “Unless I had a hood,” she countered.

  “Granted,” he replied. “But how would you put it on? And take it off?”

  Bella frowned, thinking it through. She hadn’t thought of that.

  “Don’t stop,” he urged. “Keep thinking.”

  “Well…what if I made it like the canvases?” she proposed. “And I could just say a command word and make it put itself on and off me?”