A Kiss Before Doomsday

by Laurence MacNaughton

  “Better read it fast,” Opal suggested.

  “Thanks.” Taking off her glasses, Dru pulled the lamp down until she could position the fishbowl-like lens over the scrap of paper. The articulated lamp’s long springs jangled out a discordant tune as she adjusted it.

  Through the magnifying glass, she could clearly see the incredible details in the inked illustration of the urn. Motifs of death and destruction were drawn all around its swollen sides, from its spiky top down to its clawed feet.

  Falling stars. Volcanoes. Drowned cities. Heaps of dying victims reaching up in supplication. The urn in the drawing was almost a shrine to doomsday.

  Opal leaned in close behind Dru’s shoulder, her perfume filling the air between them with the scents of honeysuckle and orange blossoms. “Look at that. The end of the world.”

  Together, they stared at the drawing in silent horror.

  Finally, Opal held up the nearly empty box of miniature cinnamon rolls. “Pecan roll? Last one.”

  “No thanks.” Just looking at this drawing clenched up Dru’s stomach. “Give it to Rane. She’s had a rough day.”

  “She already ate half the box. Then she went out for smoothies. Said she’d burned too many calories in the cannonball fight.” Opal shook her head. “Can’t take that girl anywhere.”

  As Opal started to turn away, Dru changed her mind and snatched up the last chewy sweet roll. Unfortunately, the delicious blast of cinnamon across her taste buds didn’t do anything to banish her worries. The thought of sorcerers working for centuries to bring about the end of the world left a sour taste in the back of her throat.

  “What do you make of this?” Dru pointed to the lines of symbols scrawled beneath the urn.

  “Better off leaving that alone.” Opal folded the empty box in half and crammed it into the trash can. “I don’t trust anything written in rat signs.”

  Dru squinted at the symbols. “I think I can figure it out.”

  “Even coming from you, those words are terrifying,” Opal said. “The thing about rat signs, you get even one thing backwards, we all end up in hot water. And when I say ‘we’ I’m being generous, because really I mean you. But you know I’ll help you anyway.” Then she muttered, “Against my better judgment.”

  She wasn’t wrong, but Dru chose to ignore it. “Far as I can tell, this urn was created to hold some kind of fragment of the apocalypse scroll. Not the text itself, but maybe a fragment of paper. Maybe a drip of wax from one of the seals. Something like that. The symbols right here mean ‘safekeeping,’ or ‘finding.’” She tapped a pair of boxes near the end of the line of symbols. “If the Harbingers actually had this urn in their possession, I think they could have used it to find the actual apocalypse scroll. I just don’t know how they did it.”

  With a long, tangerine-colored fingernail, Opal tapped on a pair of symbols buried in the middle of the page: an elongated hexagon beside a triangle. “That’s what your friend Salem spray-painted outside our door that one time.”

  “Do you think he’s really a friend?” Dru hadn’t said a word to Rane about Salem, but keeping a secret like that didn’t sit well with her. Right now, though, she didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with that. Doomsday was a bigger priority.

  “Sure, he’s a friend.” Opal gave her a surprised look. “Salem fixed up the shop, didn’t he?”

  “Well, true. But even if you cut him some slack for being, um, complicated . . . he’s still kind of a jerk sometimes.”

  Opal sniffed. “We get rid of all the jerks, we won’t have any customers left. So what do these symbols mean, anyway?”

  “Kristalo sorcisto,” Dru said in the sorcerer tongue. “‘Crystal sorcerer.’” That struck her as odd. “Huh. Do you think the Harbingers could have had a crystal sorcerer like me on their team?”

  Opal put one hand on her hip. “Like you? I doubt it. Lots of sorcerers use crystals, but I have never heard of someone who actually does what you can do, charging them up like that.”

  But Dru was fascinated by the thought of a crystal sorcerer like her among the Harbingers. “I’ve never . . . Do you think that’s possible? Another crystal sorcerer, back in the 1960s?”

  With a long sigh, Opal picked up a heavy-looking stack of books and started reshelving them behind Dru. “Honey, with all the weirdness I’ve seen walking in this door over the years, nothing would surprise me anymore. If you’re going to do anything with those symbols, you just be careful about the way you translate them. Don’t burn down the shop.” She gave Dru a critical look. “Again.”

  “That was an isolated incident,” Dru muttered. She went back to staring through the lens of her lamp, breathing in the oddly soothing scent of its hot light bulb. As she studied the symbols, a surge of hope rose up inside her. “If the Harbingers weren’t just using crystals, but they actually had a real crystal sorcerer on their team, that could really help us.”

  Opal looked nonplussed. “How, exactly?”

  “It means maybe I could potentially undo the things they’ve done. We just need to figure out how they did them.” Dru thought hard, trying to put herself in the shoes of the Harbingers. “Okay, let’s think about this. The Harbingers were a product of the late 1960s counterculture movement, right? They were sick of what they considered to be the failings of the modern world. They tried to wipe the slate clean.”

  “Oh, here we go.” With another sigh, Opal settled into one of the ugly plaid armchairs. “We’ve been over this so many times. What else can we possibly say about the Seven Harbingers?”

  “That’s it.” Dru snapped her fingers, realizing what she’d been overlooking. She put on her glasses, grabbed her notebook, and went flipping back through it. “There were precisely seven of them. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?”

  “Far as I can tell, everything about them was odd.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Dru kept flipping backward through pages, looking for the first thing she had found about the Harbingers. “Seven. Is it a reference to the seven deadly sins? Or the seven heavenly virtues? Or was it just a coincidence, that there just happened to be seven megalomaniacal evil sorcerers all in one place on the Summer of Love?”

  She found what she was looking for and stabbed her finger down on the page. “Listen to this. This is from their actual journal: ‘Now, there are seven of us. Seven angels or seven demons? Neither. Seven Harbingers. Seven creators of the new world, because today the world is too sick to survive. The day has come to wipe the slate clean. Do it over, and do it right.’”

  Opal shrugged. “Whenever you’re getting at, Dru, I’m not seeing it.”

  “Seven.” Dru tapped the page. “Seven angels, seven demons. Where have I heard that before?”

  “I don’t know.” Opal shrugged. “Everywhere?”

  “No, no. I read it somewhere. I know it.” Dru launched herself out of the chair and searched the bookshelves, skimming over the thousands of ancient bound manuscripts that packed the back room of her shop. “Stanislaus wrote something about seven demons. And there’s all that angel stuff in The Codex of Zipporah. Gosh, I wish we’d been able to get our hands on The Compendium of Decimus that one time. That would’ve been awesome.”

  Opal got up and followed her, stopping to pull out a thick, leather-bound book with tarnished silver hinges. “How about The Libram of Squire Otho?”

  Dru paused. “Didn’t they find him dead, drained of blood, in 1609?”

  Opal thought. “I think it was 1612.”

  “Yeah. Not that one.” Dru found the padlocked Stanislaus journals and looked around for the key. She dug through the wooden drawers in her workbench, but just as she found the keys, Opal interrupted her.

  “Here it is. Lafayette.” Opal slid the thick, handwritten book onto the workbench in front of her. On the wrinkled yellow pages, Lafayette had sketched out a seven-point paradigm for tracking down demons.

  Dru studied the notes and sketches, flipping back and forth through the pages with a g
rowing feeling of excitement. Although Lafayette hadn’t known how to actually implement her idea, Dru did.

  She compared Lafayette’s paradigm with the sorcio symbols scrawled on the paper she had taken from Salem. The parallels were unmistakable. When she put them side by side, suddenly the pattern became clear.

  Those symbols scrawled underneath the urn weren’t just cryptic notes, Dru realized. “These are instructions for casting a location-finding spell. Using crystal magic.”

  Opal’s face went through a series of emotions, from mild fascination to shock and finally to worry. “Oh, no you don’t.”

  “Why not? It’s perfect.” Goose bumps ran up and down Dru’s arms. “If I can find this urn and cast the same finding spell, that means I should be able to find the apocalypse scroll itself.” And then she hastily added, “With your help, obviously. What do you think?”

  The look on Opal’s face was the opposite of what Dru had hoped for. “Look, I love you, but I think this is a terrible idea, and no two ways about it. Those Harbingers were into some dark magic, and you don’t have any idea what the spell is going to do. Besides, we don’t have the urn.”

  That was true. For a moment, Dru was stumped. She had to have some kind of magical artifact closely connected to the subject in order to use the spell. She didn’t have anything related to the apocalypse scroll.

  Then a brilliant idea popped into her mind, filling her with excitement.

  “I may not have the urn. But I do have this.” Dru dug in her pocket and pulled out the smooth oval of black jade. The flecks of pyrite inside it sparkled in the light.

  Opal straightened up. “Isn’t that the rock you gave to Greyson?”

  “Yes it is. If I don’t have the urn to find the apocalypse scroll, then I can still use Greyson’s rock to find him.” Dru pointed at the scrap of paper. “Using that finding spell.”

  The silence in the room stretched out, becoming thick.

  “With a crystal magic spell from the Harbingers?” Opal said at last. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious. The Harbingers had a crystal sorceress. I’m a crystal sorceress. I can use their spells. Not for evil, but for good,” Dru said.

  Opal, looking even more worried, bit her lip.

  “Greyson is cursed, and I need to find him. This spell is the solution. And I’m going to use it.” Dru’s throat tightened up at the thought of him, and her eyes blurred with unshed tears. She had almost convinced herself that he was dead and gone. But the moment she had found this rock, she knew he was still alive. The black jade warmed in her hand, and she closed her fingers over it, holding on as tightly as she could.

  Opal put one warm hand over Dru’s. Gently, she said, “Look, honey. We don’t even know that he’s still alive. Or where he could be.”

  “We will find him,” Dru swore. “No matter where he is.”

  14

  IF YOU WERE HERE

  In the back room of the Crystal Connection, Dru checked her calculations three times before she actually started assembling the crystal circle. Then she checked them again just to be extra sure. Everything seemed to be in order. Theoretically, the spell would tell her exactly how to find Greyson.

  Theoretically.

  She moved a few stacks of books aside, piling them on one of her plaid comfy chairs, clearing space to lay out a circle on the floor. After measuring out lengths of bare copper wire from the roll Opal had picked up at the hardware store, Dru snipped them off and wove them together. A thick beeswax candle went in the very center of the circle, intersected by copper lines. She checked the angles twice before she laid out the crystals around the circumference.

  First, on the left and right sides of the circle, she placed a pair of mossy green teardrops of natural glass. These two tektites, created by the molten rock of a meteorite impact millions of years ago, would project her magical energy far into the distance. As far as it took to reach Greyson.

  Going around the circle, she placed a nugget of bright yellow sulfur to absorb any negative backlash from the spell. There was always backlash. She had learned that the hard way.

  Next to that, she added a flat pyrite disk, shimmering like a miniature gold record. Not only would it help deflect negative energy into the sulfur, but it also helped synchronize the tektites to make them more accurate.

  Then she carefully placed a brownish-red staurolite crystal, which had naturally formed in the shape of a plus sign. According to her research, staurolite would form the core of the spell. But it was also a powerful good luck talisman called a fairy cross. And right now, she needed all the luck she could get.

  The final crystal was the polished oval of gold-flecked black jade she had given to Greyson to protect him from the dark side. She took it out and held it in her hands, still warm from her pocket. It took a force of will to place it directly across the circle from her. Even that felt too far away from her.

  As Dru worked, Rane returned and leaned against the doorframe, making the wall creak as she stretched her hamstrings. “Why don’t we go look at that abandoned mine shaft where we came out of the netherworld?”

  “Good idea,” Dru said without looking up from where she sat cross-legged on the floor. “Do you remember where the mine shaft is located, exactly? Or which unmarked roads and trails to take to find it?”

  Rane shrugged. “Come on, how many abandoned mines can there be in the mountains?”

  Dru peered over the top of her glasses at Rane. “About twenty thousand known abandoned mines. And thousands more that aren’t on any map.”

  “Huh.” Standing on one foot, Rane hugged her other knee to her chest. “That’s a problem.”

  The golden bangles on Opal’s wrists sparkled as she waved her arms to encompass the circle. “Still, I don’t know about all this, Dru. I’m sorry, but this spell is too much of a long shot.”

  Still sitting cross-legged on the floor, Dru twisted the wire methodically around the crystals. “It worked for the Harbingers. They found the apocalypse scroll with this spell, and it wasn’t even located in our world. It was hidden in the netherworld.”

  “My point exactly.” Opal planted her hands on her ample hips. “Even if the spell works, you don’t know where it’s going to lead you. Even if Greyson is still alive—”

  Rane rolled her eyes.

  “—you don’t know what kind of situation he’s in,” Opal said. “What if he’s trapped in the netherworld? Will this spell open up some kind of portal and suck you in? And in that case, what will happen to this shop? More specifically, what about the people standing in it, us being innocent bystanders and all?”

  Dru clamped down on her own doubts. “I don’t know. I don’t. Some of my research is based on guesses, yes, but I don’t have any other choice. If there was any other way to find him, I would take it in an instant. But this is it. This is all I have. And I need to do it.”

  Opal’s expression softened. “Honey, I’m just trying to be safe. It’s not a good idea to go around experimenting with weirdo magic spells. That’s Salem’s bag. And look where it’s gotten him! The man is clearly insane.”

  “It’s made him really powerful.” Dru pushed her glasses back up her nose. “You can’t deny that.”

  Opal didn’t say anything to that, but she definitely looked unhappy.

  Rane clapped her hands together once, making Dru jump. “Face front, chicas. Breakthroughs don’t happen inside your comfort zone. Let’s do this.”

  Dru pointed to her. “Yes. That. Exactly.”

  Opal plopped down into the only plaid armchair that wasn’t full of books. “You don’t even know for sure this is the spell the Harbingers used. I know you’re going to do it anyway, but I’m going on the record right now. This is a bad idea.”

  “Duly noted,” Dru said. The moment the words left her lips, she realized it was something Greyson would have said. Somewhere along the way, she had picked up some of his confidence.

  Greyson. At the though
t of him, his face flashed in her mind.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated, picturing him. Slowly, she breathed out and relaxed, palms resting on her knees.

  “Hang on,” Rane said, breaking the quiet. “Don’t you need to light that candle?”

  “I will,” Dru said without opening her eyes. “But I have to do it the hard way.”

  The concept of the spell was simple, in theory: focus on what you were searching for, energize the crystals enough to light the candle, and then follow the smoke as it led the way.

  But in magic, as in life, the simplest things were often the most difficult.

  Before she had met Greyson, Dru’s magic powers were limited. She had always had a little bit of potential, at least sufficient to brew up magic potions and muddle her way through basic crystal circles. But nothing truly spectacular.

  Only after his touch had unlocked her true potential did she discover that she was actually a sorceress. His own untapped magical energy perfectly matched hers, and every time they touched, he amplified her powers to levels she had never dreamed of.

  Having him by her side, she had come as close as she could ever imagine to feeling unstoppable. But without Greyson there to add his power to her spells, she had to do it entirely on her own.

  Just like when she had saved Salem from the scourge, she reminded herself. She could do this. She needed to do this.

  She focused on her breathing. Concentrate, she told herself. Concentrate.

  “Dude, it’s not working,” Rane said loudly.

  “Just give her a minute,” Opal murmured back.

  Dru kept quiet. She steadied her breathing. In, out. Slowly.

  She pictured Greyson in her mind. Rugged, handsome, mysterious. Thick hair, stubble, kind eyes. She remembered him leaning over Hellbringer’s massive engine, looking up as she pointed out the magic sign painted under the black car’s hood.

  She remembered him scooping her up in his arms as if she were nothing, and carrying her over the black stone bridge as the netherworld skies exploded overhead like fireworks.

  She remembered the moment he had stood chained up in his garage, bare to the waist, fighting to stay human despite the demon inside him. That was the moment when she had first kissed him, and brought him back to his human self. That was when she first started to realize they were meant to be together.