The Magic Collector

by Clayton Wood

  He looked up as he fell, seeing Nemesis leap off the balcony after him with her wings spread wide, Bella clutched in the dragon’s foot-claws. Nightmare followed right after, its tentacles wrapped around Kendra, Piper, and Thaddeus.

  “Gideon!” he heard Bella cry.

  His guts leapt into his throat as he entered into free-fall, the air tearing at his clothes. He reached down, pulling out a rolled-up painting from his right thigh-holster.

  “Apertus!” he commanded.

  The painting unrolled itself, revealing Myko.

  Gideon reached in with his stump, hooking it around Myko’s collar and yanking the wolf out. He held on to Myko’s collar for dear life, looking down.

  The floor was only a hundred feet below…and coming up fast.

  “Clausus,” he commanded, and the painting re-rolled itself. He jammed it into its holster, then grabbed onto Myko’s collar with his left hand, swinging his legs over the wolf’s back to mount him.

  Okay, he told Myko silently. Remember the Conclave trick?

  He glanced upward, seeing Nemesis and Bella still a good fifty feet above. Nightmare was falling much faster, three of its tentacles extended downward. The Familiar could land and absorb the shock of the impact, bending its legs to make Piper, Kendra, and Thaddeus slow to a safe – if uncomfortable – stop.

  He, on the other hand…

  Gideon took off his hat, reaching in to pull out a black disc. He threw it down at the rapidly approaching floor, then gripped Myko’s flanks tightly between his legs.

  Go!

  Myko flashed bright silver, and Gideon felt them burst upward!

  The air howled in his ears as he shot past Nightmare and Nemesis, the paintings all around him a blur. A moment later, Myko’s moon-phase ended, and their ascent slowed, then stopped.

  Gravity grabbed them, pulling them inexorably downward.

  Gideon reached into his chest-painting, drawing out his cane and gripping it as hard as he could, his eyes on the floor far below. The black disc landed in the center of the floor, and Nemesis and Bella landed to one side of it, Nightmare on the other.

  “Get back!” he cried, falling toward them with terrible speed. The floor approached rapidly, and he lifted his cane high above his head. “Anulus!” he shouted.

  The black disc expanded, creating a large hole in the floor directly beneath him…and he and Myko fell toward it. Gideon brought his cane down as hard as he could right as they passed through, slamming it into the edge of the floor.

  And then gravity shifted, and he found himself sliding on the floor behind Myko in his Conclave, heading right toward the wall some twenty feet ahead.

  Which, conveniently, was heavily padded.

  Myko slammed into the wall, and Gideon crashed into Myko, the impact blasting the air out of his lungs. He grunted, hearing Myko yelp in pain as the wolf’s ribs crumpled underneath him.

  Gideon bounced off, sliding backward across the floor, then coming to a stop.

  “Ow,” he gasped, rolling onto his belly and pushing himself up to his knees. He felt dizzy with the movement, and closed his eyes, collecting himself. Myko whimpered, scrambling to get to his feet. But one of the wolf’s legs was clearly broken.

  Sorry old boy, Gideon apologized.

  And then Myko burst forward in a ray of silver light, passing right back through the portal of the Conclave.

  Gideon got to his feet, feeling his cane vibrating powerfully against his palm. He smiled, then strode toward the portal after Myko.

  “Time to kill some Reapers,” he declared.

  * * *

  Bella stood at the edge of the black hole in the floor of the tower, staring into the darkness. Nemesis stood behind her, and Piper, Kendra, Goo, and Grandpa were on the opposite end of the portal.

  “Gideon?” Bella called out.

  A ray of silver light shot out of the portal, materializing into a large silver wolf. Myko fell to the floor beside the portal, grunting with the impact. Gideon’s head popped out of the portal a moment later.

  “I could use a hand,” he quipped, extending his cane to Piper.

  Piper reached down, grabbing the cane and pulling Gideon out of the portal. Then Gideon deactivated it, putting it back in his hat.

  “Incoming,” Kendra warned, pointing upward. Bella glanced up; there, descending slowly through the air toward them, were the Reapers, their cloaks rippling, their long scythes gleaming in the light of Gideon’s lantern, which had landed near the wall. Gideon ran to grab it, tucking his cane into his right armpit.

  Then he threw his lantern up into the air, right at the Reapers.

  “Eruptus!” he cried.

  The lantern exploded in a burst of eyeball-searing light.

  A shockwave burst outward and upward from the lantern, slamming into the Reapers and the paintings on the walls. The Reapers flew backward, one of them vanishing right into a canvas. The other smashed into the wall between two paintings, ricocheting off.

  And dozens of paintings fell from the walls, falling right toward Bella and the others.

  Gideon flung his hand outward, and his black glove shot off of it, flying upward. Then he ran for the door, flinging it open. Everyone burst through to the room beyond…just as the paintings struck the floor behind them.

  Moments later, Gideon’s glove returned through the doorway, clutching his lantern…and went right back onto his hand.

  “Get back,” he warned, handing his lantern to Piper, then holding his cane before him. Myko stood at his side, the great wolf’s fur glowing with a soft silver light.

  They waited for the remaining Reaper to reappear, but it didn’t.

  “Bet it ran off,” Piper guessed. Gideon said nothing, but stepped through the doorway back into the tower, being careful not to fall into one of the many fallen paintings lying in a heap on the floor. He looked up, his jawline rippling.

  “It’s gone,” he confirmed.

  “It’s going back to the Collector,” Kendra stated. “If we follow it, it’ll bring us right to him.”

  “We need to save these people first,” Grandpa countered, gesturing at the heap of paintings.

  “And we need to get you to safety,” Bella reminded Grandpa.

  “True,” Grandpa conceded. He gave a rueful smirk. “No such thing as battle-Writers. I’m afraid the pen isn’t always mightier than the sword.”

  “We’ll store you and the paintings in my Conclave,” Gideon decided. He retrieved his black disc, placing it beside the heap of paintings and activating it. “You get in first, and get on the bed, or go in my studio,” he instructed Grandpa. “We don’t want you to have a live painting fall on you.”

  “Will do,” Grandpa replied. He turned to Bella then, taking a deep breath in. “Well, I suppose this is it then.” Bella gave him a weak smile.

  “I guess it is,” she agreed.

  He leaned in, wrapping one arm around her and holding her tight.

  “I love you, sweetheart,” he murmured.

  “Love you Grandpa.” She pulled away, brushing a curly strand of hair from her face. “Thanks. For everything.”

  “You are most very welcome,” Grandpa replied. “Your mother would be proud of the woman you’re becoming,” he added, his eyes turning moist. “But it’s hard to imagine anyone being prouder than I.”

  Bella hugged Grandpa again, kissing him on the cheek. Then they pulled away, and she took a deep breath to collect herself. She turned to Gideon, giving him a nod.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Gideon helped lower Grandpa into the painting, waiting a minute or so. Then he began shoving paintings from the pile carefully into the portal. Bella went to his side to help, as did Piper and Kendra. After a few more minutes, every one of the paintings that had fallen – which was most of them – was safely stored away. Bella glanced at Nemesis.

  Can you grab the rest?

  Nemesis nodded, spreading her wings and flying upward to grab the remaining paintings…at least t
he ones with Painters stuck in them. The Familiar dropped these into the portal, then landed beside Bella.

  “Alright,” Gideon stated, facing everyone else. “Ready?”

  “Ready when you are,” Piper answered. Bella nodded in agreement, but Kendra gave Gideon a look.

  “Have an extra Painter’s uniform lying around?” she inquired.

  “No, but I have paintings,” Gideon offered. They went into the Conclave, and soon afterward, Kendra returned, clad in a simple shirt and pants. She’d wrapped small canvases around her upper arms and legs…a poor man’s Painter’s uniform. It would have to do.

  “Thanks again, Gideon,” she stated.

  “Ready now?” he inquired. Everyone nodded, and he began the long walk up the tower wall. Nemesis flew Bella up, and with few paintings left on the wall, Nightmare was able to use its long tentacles to climb up to the balcony high above, depositing Piper and Kendra upon it. And Goo simply crawled up the wall to the balcony, being sticky enough to do so.

  Kendra led them through the door to a series of hallways beyond, making their way to the tallest tower in the inverted castle. A spiraling staircase led ever upward, bringing them to a small landing. A horizontal bar, like one of the parallel bars a gymnast might swing on, stood there. Kendra leapt up, swinging back and forth until she swung all the way up…and let go, falling upward to a landing above.

  She looked up at them – or down, or whatever – gesturing at the bar.

  Gideon went next, making even quicker work of it than Kendra had, and Piper followed. Bella took one look at the bar, then glanced at Nemesis. The dragon grabbed her shoulders, flying her upward…and then rotating in the air with a sickening lurch, dropping Bella on the platform next to the others.

  “Ugh,” she grumbled, waiting for a wave of nausea to pass. Myko was last, simply moon-phasing to the spiraling staircase further down from them. Kendra took the lead again, bringing them to the bottom of the stairs far below, where a plain wooden door greeted them.

  “This is it,” Kendra whispered. “The Collector’s office.”

  Gideon strode up to the door, tucking his cane in his armpit, then grabbing the doorknob. He hesitated, glancing back at Bella.

  “You can do this,” she reassured. “If you wait until you’re ready to do something…”

  “I’ll never do it,” he recited. He smiled, inclining his head. “The student has become the teacher.”

  “Time to take care of an unintended consequence,” Bella declared. “I believe in you, Dad.”

  “Then I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied…and turned the doorknob, opening the door.

  Chapter 48

  Gideon stepped through the doorway into the Collector’s office, Bella, Kendra, Piper, and the three Familiars following behind him. The room was large, with shelves lined with books and artifacts lining the walls to the left and right. Above the shelves were large stained-glass windows, and a domed ceiling rose at least twenty feet above his head. On the far wall was a single door, with a large painting hanging directly above it.

  A very familiar painting.

  He felt his guts twist, a vision of the same painting standing on its easel in his old studio coming to him. A painting of a boy reaching out to him from under the dark waters of a lake. Of course, the painting of the boy was gone.

  But he hadn’t gone far.

  For there, seated at a large desk in the center of the room, was a man in a white suit, his back to Gideon. A man whose slicked-back hair was half-black, half-white.

  “Hello Gideon,” the man greeted. Standing up, the man turned to face him. Gideon swallowed, staring at him. At the man who he’d once thought of as his son.

  “Collector,” he replied coolly.

  He’d never seen his son – no, his creation – as an adult. The Collector had grown into a fine-looking man, and it pained Gideon to know that this was how his real son would have looked. But something was terribly wrong; the right side of the Collector’s face had aged considerably, his skin deeply wrinkled and so thin it was almost translucent. And his right eye was nearly opaque with cataract. He was wearing a bright white suit, a red handkerchief peeking out of his left breast pocket.

  “I see you met my wife,” Gideon observed. The Collector’s lips curled in a little smirk.

  “She made quite an impression,” he replied.

  “She had a tendency to do that,” Gideon agreed. He took a deep breath in then, steeling himself. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  The Collector paused, then nodded.

  “You’re right,” he conceded. “I didn’t. But she was protecting Thaddeus, and Thaddeus was a danger to me.”

  “Only because you attacked him and killed his daughter,” Gideon pointed out. “Thaddeus and Lucia had little love for the Pentad after what the Pentad did to them. You could have taken Blackthorne and let them go and they would have let you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Definitely,” Gideon retorted. The Collector raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you saying I brought this on myself, Gideon?” he inquired. Gideon grimaced, knowing exactly where this was going.

  “I brought you into this world,” he replied. “And I daresay I’ve paid the price.”

  “And now you’ve come to take me out,” the Collector declared, raising his arms up to either side. “Gideon Myles: the victim, the villain…and now, the hero.”

  “I’m no hero,” Gideon retorted. “I’m just correcting an old mistake.”

  The Collector chuckled.

  “So now I’m your mistake,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Did I ask to come into this world, father?”

  “No.”

  “Did I ask you to lie to me, to make me believe I was your son?”

  “No.”

  “Did you lie when you said you loved me?”

  Gideon paused, then shook his head.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Bullshit,” the Collector swore. He tore the red handkerchief from his breast pocket, unfolding it with a flick of his wrist. Black on one side, red on the other, the black side was a portal into a small pocket of space that held Excisus, a glowing silver sword with an edge so sharp it could cut through nearly any substance. A sword – and handkerchief – that Gideon had painted for the Collector himself.

  The Collector withdrew Excisus, holding it at his side, point-down.

  “I loved you,” Gideon stated calmly, ignoring the implied threat. “Even though, deep down inside, I knew you weren’t my son.”

  “You loved the idea of me,” the Collector retorted. “If Xander had come back to life, you would’ve sent me right back into my painting!”

  “Maybe,” Gideon replied. “Maybe not. But I’m going to send you back now.”

  “Maybe,” the Collector retorted. “Maybe not.”

  Gideon studied the man, eyeing his white suit.

  “You’re not wearing the black suit I painted for you,” he noted. A suit designed to protect his son’s painting from nearly any attack, to ensure that he would never die again.

  “I’m not,” the Collector agreed. He snapped his fingers then, and the door at the other end of the room opened. A woman with short silver hair wearing a silver dress stepped in, followed by a strange, porcelain-skinned humanoid wearing shabby clothes, a bottle clutched in its right hand. And at its side, a sullen-looking boy with slicked-back blond hair.

  Wearing a very familiar black suit.

  “Simon, this is Gideon, my creator,” the Collector introduced.

  “And Simon is…?” Gideon inquired.

  “My adopted son,” the Collector answered. He gave a wry little smirk. “How ironic…a painting with a Painter son, and a Painter with a painted son.”

  The woman in the silver dress walked to a chair in the rightmost corner of the room, sitting down. Gideon’s eyes flicked to her, then back to the Collector.

  “There’s no need to involve anyone else in this,” he reasoned. “Return t
o your painting peacefully and no one else will get hurt.”

  “Everyone here has been hurt,” the Collector retorted.

  “The Painters you trapped are free,” Gideon lied. “It’s over.”

  “It’s not over until I stop breathing,” the Collector shot back, lifting his sword and pointing it at Gideon. “One way or another.”

  A shadow slid out from under his desk, and a Reaper rose from it, bone-scythe in hand. It levitated beside its master, facing Gideon. The air grew instantly colder, sending the hairs on Gideon’s neck on-end.

  “Don’t do this,” Gideon pleaded. The Collector inclined his head at the Reaper.

  “Kill them,” he ordered.

  The Reaper burst forward, swinging its bone-scythe at Gideon!

  Gideon swung his cane to block the blow, and the cane discharged its stored energy with the impact, nearly ripping the weapon out of the Reaper’s hands and sending it flying.

  And at the same time, Myko moon-phased right into the Reaper.

  But the Reaper returned to its shadow-form, vanishing into the floor, and Myko shot past it, slamming into the wall beyond.

  “Simon, you and Doppelganger take care of the others,” the Collector ordered, striding toward Gideon. “I’ll handle Gideon.”

  The porcelain-skinned humanoid bolted forward, bursting past Gideon, just as the Collector lunged at Gideon, slashing at him with his glowing silver sword.

  * * *

  Bella saw the Collector lunge at Gideon, and drew Sleep Terror from her chest-painting, whipping it at the man. But the porcelain-skinned creature – the Doppelganger, the Collector had called it – leapt to intercept the blow. Her whip struck the Doppelganger, but its magic had no effect on the thing. It charged at her, raising its bottle to strike.

  Nemesis came to the rescue, holding onto Bella from behind and wrapping her wings around Bella protectively. The Doppelganger’s bottle went right into one of Nemesis’s wing-paintings, and it drew back quickly, clearly surprised.

  Behind her, Nightmare – Kendra’s familiar – sent a black tentacle outward to wrap around Doppelganger’s right arm, yanking it violently to the side. The Doppelganger smashed into the wall, its body shattering…and then promptly re-forming. Piper sprinted toward it, transforming into Vengeance in mid-stride, and rammed it with his massive shoulder.