But when the second quake hit moments later, even I couldn’t deny that something big had happened. Not only was there obvious physical damage in the buckling of the asphalt where I stood, but there was also an energy shift so massive that I would not be surprised if it was felt by both magical and non-magical folks alike.
I had witnessed far greater quakes in my life, but none had produced this level of magical energy. I thought for a moment that I might have been at the center of the quake, but that would not have made sense. If Betty was to be believed, and fracking was the sole cause of Blackbird’s instabilities, I would have suspected the epicenter to be near the fracking site, which was on the far west side, beyond the university. I was on the south side, near the bend in the river, at the site of the old paper mill that had once sustained Blackbird’s economy. Yet, I could not deny what I felt, and what I felt was a shift coming from the remnants of the old mill itself.
I heard Donna’s Buick before I saw the headlights turn off the main road. She’d been over on the west side taking care of the wolves and pixies that always seemed to pop up near the university.
“Where’s Louise? And what the hell are you doing here?” I asked as two thirds of the coven and Bogie piled out of the car.
“Comatose,” Betty answered. “The poor girl has an early meeting, so if the quake didn’t wake her, I wasn’t going to.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here and not making sure your uncle isn’t up to something,” I growled at Bogie.
“Seth’s on his way over to check on Uncle Howie. I’m here ‘cuz this ain’t no regular quake as you mighta guessed.” He added something else in a low, inaudible mumble that sounded a lot like the words ‘ruined date’ and several ineffectual hexes in my general direction, but went suddenly mute when I casually kicked his binding spell up a notch or two.
“So why are we over here?” asked Donna. “Wouldn’t the fracking site be a better place to start our investigating?”
“You would think, but you felt the same thing I did. This is where the epicenter is,” Betty answered with a frown.
“Doesn’t fracking push water into any and all underground pockets?” I asked. “Is it possible that they jarred something loose over here?”
“Well, yeah, but they had to make sure not to pollute the river.”
“Do you think they even care?” Donna asked with a snort. “This old mill dumped so much chemical waste that I wouldn’t be surprised if the river was filled with three headed carp.”
“Still, I would hope…” Betty began, but Bogie interrupted.
“Uh, guys? I think yous all need to see this.”
Bogie was standing on what used to be the loading dock for the mill. According to Seth, most of the original structure had been gutted years ago, but the outside brick walls had remained mostly intact. A few feet from where Bogie stood was a sink hole of about five feet in diameter that went down about ten feet. Whether the quake had created it or it had been there before, I didn’t know, but that wasn’t important. What concerned me was what appeared to be a network of hairline fractures at the bottom. Rather, the distinctly chaotic aura they were giving off.
“Is that what I think it is?” Donna asked, leaning dangerously over the edge. “It feels so…”
That was all the convincing I needed. I grabbed Donna around the waist and hauled her away from the edge. As a Nyx, the lure of the realm would be stronger for Donna than someone who was entirely human. Then again, I looked over at Bogie.
“Aren’t you going to jump?”
“Surprisingly, no,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, I was banished, right? It ain’t like I woulda gone anywhere if I tried. But it ain’t just the banishment keeping me back now. I’m kinda…” His face screwed up as he searched his limited vocabulary for the right descriptive. “I dunno… Repulsed? Yeah, that’s the best word for it. I got no desire to even try returning. I guess what they say is true. You really can’t never go home again.”
All of the sudden Betty’s eyes bulged as she realized why everyone was acting odd.
“Are you saying there’s a Hell mouth down there?”
“It’s just a crack right now,” Bogie answered. “Were it a full portal, Red here woulda fought a heck of a lot harder to get at it.”
“Right now, the only concern I have is how we are going to prevent that from happening,” I said, sending off every bit of information I could gather about the fissure to Arkady. Our best bet would be to have a reconstruction team come in and create a seal, but the area had to be stabilized first.
“I… I don’t know if we can,” Donna said. I hadn’t heard her come back over to where we stood. “I’m…” She started shaking and I grabbed her hand, just in case she had any ideas about going to visit her paternal relatives. But instead of jumping, Donna went slack and fell to the ground. The sound her knees made when they connected with the concrete floor made us all wince, but Donna didn’t seem to notice. Instead, her eyes rolled back and her head lolled forward. The sudden burst of magical energy compelled me to loosen my grip on her arm, yet I discovered that I could not.
My surroundings faded and suddenly everything that I knew to be constants in the universe decided to collectively vomit. I realized that what I was experiencing was a vision, Donna’s vision, which was why I was not able to release her from my grasp. I’d only heard of this happening on rare occasions because mystics typically did not have control over when the sight would overtake them. It was something that I had never been keen to experience and now that I had no choice, my conviction solidified.
There were no words to describe what I was experiencing. Despite being called a vision, I could see nothing. The entire event happened on a level that transcended senses and was made even less pleasant by the chaotic element of what I learned. By the time the vision ended, and I was able to extract my hand from Donna’s arm, I too was weak enough to fall to the ground, but thankfully, I still retained enough of my faculties to ensure I did no damage to my knees.
“Uh, boss? You okay?”
Bogie squinted down at me.
“I’m fine,” I assured him, but as I spoke, I heard Donna give a heaving groan and turned to see what was wrong. Immediately, I regretted my decision as she let loose the contents of her stomach in my lap.
“Eurgh, sorry,” she groaned, wiping her mouth. “Vision sickness. Worse than usual. Did you get everything I did?” she asked me.
“I… I’m not sure… just let me clean this up,” I said, somewhat distracted as I called for a containment device to remove the sick from my pants and a bottle of water for Donna. “What I got from it is that we’ve got bigger problems than the crack between realms.”
“What could be worse than that?” Betty asked.
“The complete obliteration of Blackbird, which will facilitate the ultimate war between Chaos and Order,” I explained. “Also known in some cultures as Judgment day, Ragnarok, Armageddon… You get the idea.”
“So this is way more than a Hell mouth?” Donna asked, giving me a look of confusion that I dare say was mutual.
“It was your vision,” I countered. “You tell me.”
“That’s the weird part.” Donna said before turning away to spit. “It really wasn’t clear to me at all.”
“Oh?” That was odd. To me, the vision’s message was not only clear, but seemed to give credence to my earlier suspicion about the number of werewolves in Blackbird. “What do you know of Eller Raglund?” I asked on the off chance that my suspicions were correct.
“To stay the hell away from him,” Betty answered glibly. I turned to Donna to see if she had anything to add, but she only shrugged.
“I know he’s pretty powerful and keeps the djinns out, but yeah, mom’s warned us about going out to the bowling alley. Wait a minute,” she eyed me suspiciously. “I did get something about werewolves out of that. You don’t think…” She trailed off, but I could see the wheels turning.
“Right be
fore the quake, I happened to note that the influx of werewolves in Blackbird was higher than normal and wondered if that had to do with the void left by the lack of djinn. If I interpreted what we saw correctly, then my suspicions are likely confirmed. There is no question that Eller is good at what he does. I’ve seen no evidence of djinn activity since arriving in Blackbird. But it seems our problem is that he’s too good at what he does, which is why we have such a huge issue with werewolves. Unfortunately, I’m having trouble reconciling this as anything but a no win situation.”
“I don’t think I’m following,” said Betty.
“It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. Without the djinn’s presence-” I began to explain, but Bogie cut me off.
“Uh, Des? I think you wanna take a look at this as well.”
He was once again standing on the edge of the sinkhole. That he was so easily able to resist the pull of Chaos was interesting to say the least. I edged over to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing remarkable and said as much.
“Them dark spots? I think that’s some sort of tunnel.”
I took a closer look and sure enough, the runt was right. What I had first mistaken as shadows were indeed a system of tunnels that seemed to be carved out of the earth below the mill site.
“I’m going down there,” I said and lowered myself into the crater, mindful to avoid the fissure into the realm of Chaos.
“Wait! How are you going to get out?” Betty asked. “I’m not sure the three of us can pull you up.”
“No need to worry about that,” I said, waving off her concerns. I didn’t want to get into a discussion about trans-cyclical travel at the moment. Instead, I inspected the tunnels. It appeared as if there was one tunnel that the sinkhole had divided. From where I stood, about ten feet below street level, I could see a tube of about four feet in diameter that appeared to be angled down the further it went from the mill and up the closer it got to the production line.
As this was the shorter of the two, I climbed in to see where it would go. I didn’t have far to crawl before I was blocked by a series of grates. Slipping myself out of the Cycle, I bypassed the grates and found myself to be in some sort of long, narrow room with a wide concrete trough running through the center. The grates lined the bottom and it seemed as if it was some sort of filtration system setup. I could only guess that this was drainage for runoff of some sort. Having no knowledge of how papermaking worked, I made a note to check with Seth.
The other side of the tunnel went on for far longer than I had the patience to navigate and seemed to spider web off into a series of smaller tunnels that were far more difficult to traverse. Now I was suspicious. The whole system appeared to have been dug out in haste. Stress fractures were visible throughout. Parts of the tunnel had caved in on itself and other parts were full of water. Whether this was due to the river or fracking, I did not know, but what I did know was that the instability of the earth explained a lot about Blackbird’s rampant Discordant population and I didn’t like the implications.
Agreement or no agreement, if my theory proved to be correct, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot keeping the barrier between Blackbird and Chaos from disintegrating completely. If that was the case, I wanted to meet the man who was supposedly singlehandedly keeping this from happening. Conveniently, a quick internet search told me that Dogwood Lanes would be opening right around the same time that I typically woke up. With a plan in mind, I made my way back to where the others were waiting and explained my findings.
* * *
The first thing I noticed when I entered the bowling alley was the low hum of magical energy that I could pinpoint to a large display case full of shining gold and silver bowling trophies. The second was the overpowering stench of stale cigar smoke and spilled beer. In some ways it was exactly like the first time I stepped foot in the Five Penny. The third thing I noticed was the very last thing I had expected. The mystic who ran the bowling alley was clearly not a Blackbird native.
With a name like Eller Raglund, I had expected some backwater hayseed with a big pale belly and a sweaty red neck. While the yellowing tank top he wore could barely contain his ample middle, the sweaty neck was not red, but nearly as dark as my own. His eyes, a lighter shade of brown, had a distinctive almond shape that marked him as being Middle Eastern or South Asian.
With my preconceived notions dashed, two new snap judgments began warring for dominance. On one hand, I could see why a man of color would be reluctant to draw attention to himself in a town like Blackbird. I had, more often than I cared to count, caught old timers using a particularly hateful nickname for the town when they didn’t realize I was nearby.
But on the other hand, to see a man as powerful as Eller Raglund hiding out on the outskirts of town infuriated me. After all, the damage done by hateful words might cut deep, but it was no match for a skilled magical attack.
“Had a feeling I’d be seeing you,” Eller grunted from behind the counter, sending a toxic cloud of Cuba’s finest in my direction. “Surprised you waited this long.”
“Oh?”
“You can drop the surprised act, my friend. Everyone knows the quickest way to make a Warrior act is to tell them they can’t do something.”
“No one has told me directly what I can or cannot do yet,” I noted, trying and failing to put a lid on my own displeasure. My distrust for mystics was rivaled only by my distrust of zealots. Even atheist zealots.
“You saying that Seth didn’t inform you of our agreement?”
“Seth told me of an agreement that the two of you made. Despite whatever twisted wording you may or may not have used, the arrangement has nothing to do with me, nor will I agree to the same terms. Deny me the information I seek and I will not hesitate to call for a trial.”
He leaned over the counter and squinted at me through the blue-gray smog surrounding his person.
“I reckon you’d do just that. Hell, I reckon you’re looking for any excuse to do just that. Seth may not approve of my intolerance, but he at least had the good sense to listen to the whole story, least the parts I chose to divulge, before setting his mind. On the other hand, you sir, can park your high horse outside because there ain’t room in here for the hypocritical baggage you’re carrying.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” he grunted and got up from the rickety stool that just barely held his weight, turning his back to me in the process. “You ain’t subtle. You can keep your preconceived notions and get the hell out of my business, or you can take a step back and admit that things aren’t always as they might first appear. Now, which is it going to be?”
“I’m listening,” I said, curious as to what exactly he was referring to.
“Good. Now, I’m guessing Seth told you to steer clear, but did he tell you why?”
“He explained that you agreed to keep the djinn out of Blackbird as long as he and the rest of the mystic and Order community left you alone.”
“I gotta say, Seth impresses me sometimes,” he said, turning back to face me. Thankfully, he stubbed out the foul smelling cigar, though the acrid smoke still hovered in the air at nostril level. His eyes took on a faraway look and he paused for a long moment before he breathed a heavy and defeated sigh.
“I was fourteen when my mother passed away. Before her death, we lived in an affluent neighborhood near Boston. My parents were both esteemed professors with tenure at their respective alma maters. My only concern at that time was whether I would follow my mother to Harvard or my father to Yale.
“But when my mother developed a rare genetic disorder that swiftly consumed her life, something inside my father died along with her. He didn’t even give notice with the university. One month after her death, he packed up the car, sold everything we owned, and moved us to the middle of nowhere and decided to open a damned bowling alley.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. It seemed a rather odd move, but grief was known for making people do all sorts of stran
ge things. “I imagine that must have been a jarring transition at such a raw time.”
“Jarring is one way of putting it. Hell on Earth is another,” he said with a pained expression. “I hated everything about this place and it soon became evident that the feeling was mutual. I was different. I was too dark for the white kids and too light for the black kids, but as much as that hurt, being the racial outcast was something I could live with because I knew that once I’d left for college, I’d never set foot in Blackbird again. It was when that plan became compromised that life became unbearable.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“My entire education up until that point had been at a private academy for students with a natural talent for advanced science and mathematics. Here, there were no such accommodations and I was forced to enter the public school system. Some of the teachers here took exception to my pointing out how woefully inept the curriculum was and decided that to teach me a lesson, they would require remedial studies. I survived just one semester at Chapman High before I had to take matters into my own hands and beg my grandmother back in the city to take me in and let me finish school back east.”
“And did she let you?”
“She did,” he said, his eyes now haunted by past regrets. “She came to get me and I never looked back. I was a teenager and I was selfish. All I cared about was securing my future. A future that had nothing to do with Blackbird. That my father was suffering and may have needed me never crossed my mind. It didn’t cross my mind when I graduated high school. It didn’t cross my mind when I chose my own path and took a scholarship to Princeton. It didn’t cross my mind when I took a year off to travel the world, honoring my grandmother’s last wish that I put my mystic curse to good use.
“In fact, not a single thought for my father crossed my mind until I received a babbling and incoherent letter from the man. At first, I was going to ignore it. It had been more than ten years since I’d spared a thought for him. That he didn’t come to either my high school or college graduation seemed to solidify for me that the man I thought I knew was gone. I was also in the process of establishing a name for myself with a prestigious German research institute. In fact, the name I use, Eller Raglund, was borrowed from two of my mentors at the institute.
Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series Page 41
