“That weren’t no luck,” he muttered in a voice that made me real suspicious-like.
“What exactly does that mean?” I asked.
“Nothing you gotta worry about,” he dismissed, but I didn’t fail to catch the mild threat, which made me even more suspicious. I mean, I ain’t accusing my uncle of nothin’, but all of the sudden I was finding it hard to ignore the fact that I ain’t seen too many of his failed relationships hanging around.
“Ain’t none of my business,” I agreed, ending the conversation by going to my room to get dressed. Suspicions was one thing. Poking around in someone else’s business was another.
“Alright,” I said as I was getting ready to leave. “Stay outta trouble and I’ll see about bringing up some beers a little later.”
“Wait, where the hell are you going?”
“Work.”
“But the bar ain’t even open for another couple of hours!”
“It’s delivery day,” I explained. “I gotta meet the truck out in the alley.”
“And you’re just gonna leave me here with nothin’ to do? I’m trapped with no form of proper entertainment here! Ever since the kid made me do a three sixty on his personality he ain’t been asking me for much.”
“A one eighty,” I corrected.
“Whatever. I ain’t no math professor. I’m just… Bored!”
“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” I sighed. “Watch some gameshows or somethin’. Or read a book.”
“Read a book? Read a book? I said I was bored, not that I wanted to be bored to death. Come on, kid, just turn the good channels back on. I thought I was your favorite uncle?”
“You is! Or at least you was,” I said, losing what temper I had left. “Which is the only reason I ain’t set this whole situation with Jem right just yet.”
“You what?”
Ah heck. I didn’t actually mean for that to come out. I looked over at Uncle Howie, who had sunk back down into the sofa and was wearing an expression that told me he had strung two and two together.
“You wouldn’t,” he said, suddenly without so much bluster. “Wait. Is you threatening me?”
“No, of course not,” I said quickly, but added, “I mean, as long as I got a choice in the matter, I don’t plan on doing nothin’ of the sort.”
“Ah geez kid, what the hell does that mean?”
“Look, I ain’t told nobody nothin’ about the method in which you was bottled,” I said, giving him a serious stare down. “But I ain’t so sure they can’t figure it out on their own. Say what you want about Des, but he ain’t stupid.” I kept the part about meeting with the Creator to myself. Weren’t no sense in panicking the guy.
“So what? You always cave to what Des wants you to do? Is family loyalties something you is willing to sacrifice to save your own bacon?”
Okay, I had to admit, Uncle Howie weren’t making it too easy for me to have sympathy for him.
“Look, if you weren’t wallowing in your own self-pity, you mighta noticed that I ain’t any freer than you is. The first thing Des did when he seen me is throw a binding spell on my keister,” I warned. “I ain’t sayin’ the guy hasn’t given me some freedoms, but there’s definitely a limit to his generosity.”
“What isn’t you saying?” Howie asked, finally takin’ notice of the fact that I weren’t bluffing.
“What I isn’t sayin’ is that if Des were to find out how to break your bond with Jem, he wouldn’t be above forcing me to do just that and there’s not a darn thing you or I can do about it.”
“Except make sure he never does figure it out.”
“Easier said than done,” I muttered. “Listen, if I can help it, that ain’t ever gonna happen, but I’m gonna need some motivation here.”
“Motivation?”
“As in, maybe clean the place up, don’t run up my cable bill, and generally treat your favorite nephew with a little respect.”
“Hey! I thought you said you wasn’t threatening me!”
I grabbed my coat and headed for the door, turning back to Uncle Howie to give him the old stare down.
“I ain’t gonna put your life in danger, but I’m kinda sick of tripping over pizza boxes, so…”
“So indeed,” he groused. “I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
If ever there were a place as predictable as the Five Penny, I never heard tell. It was Wednesday night and the usual crowd was sitting up around the bar drinking cheap domestic and staring like a bunch of zombies at whatever sport ESPN was offering up on the boob tube. I swear, some of these guys would watch competitive lawn mowing if there was some retired superstar doing the commentary.
“Aw man! They’re showing that commercial again!”
“Again? You know I thought about taking the wife and kids out for dinner, but a Google search shows the closest location is four states away! Can you believe that?”
“Someone call the cable company and tell them to stop playing commercials for places we ain’t got!”
“Screw that! Someone call Big Royal Burger and tell them to open a location in Blackbird!”
As I was sayin’, predictable. So predictable that I could set my watch by the time the local cable company ran that stupid ad. The commercial for Big Royal Burger came on at least once a night and each time, these yo-yos would all start complaining about how they was missing out ‘cuz Blackbird ain’t got a franchise. They wasn’t. I mean, sure, it was pretty okay for fast food, but it weren’t like it were one of them specialty chains or nothin’. We had ‘em all over out in California and they wasn’t no big deal.
Or was they?
Come to think of it, Seth was grousing one night when the commercial was on and both Desmond and the Guardians had mentioned how much they was missing their favorite menu items from Big Royal Burger. Maybe, just maybe, I was getting an idea that could solve a lot more problems than someone’s craving for low quality meat products. Maybe. There was still the issue of being magically bound to this dump, but I ain’t nothin’ if not resourceful.
“So, uh,” I said, to the mouthiest group, sliding ‘em a complementary refill on their pitcher of watery light domestic. “None of yous never had Big Royal Burger before?”
“I ain’t driving all the way to Minnesota for a burger,” said Teddy, one of the loudest of the loudmouths.
“I hear ya,” I said, “But man, you is missin’ out.”
“You’ve eaten there?” Bernie asked. Bernie weren’t so bright, and all the drinking and brain cell killing he was doing probably didn’t help.
“Course he has,” Sam piped up, smacking Bernie one good on the noggin. “They got everything out in California, don’t they?”
“Oh sure,” I said, nodding along. “In fact, a buddy of mine owns a couple of franchises. Used to get free food and everything. Ya know,” I added as if I had only just thought of it, “I bet you if there was enough interest, my pal might just think about branching out.”
At least a dozen pairs of eyes widened at me. Well, all except Bernie. I weren’t kiddin’ when I said that guy weren’t too bright.
“Tell you what,” I said. “You guys put the feelers out and lemme know if there’s some interest. I’ll make a couple of phone calls and see what I can do.”
And with that, I had ‘em. I had ‘em and I mighta even had a way to work myself outta some of the jam I was in. Least I hoped. I had a plan, but if I failed, I wasn’t sure what was worse; facing the possibility of Armageddon or facing these guys when I couldn’t deliver on their burger dreams.
Chapter 9
Suspensions & Suspicions
Predictably, at ten o’clock on Monday morning, the phone rang. I didn’t even have to glance at the screen to know that the call was from the administrative office of Chapman High School. The only uncertainty at this point was whether the phone call would be about Nai, Jem, or both. I considered ignoring the phone, but if I did, they would just try Seth. Given that I knew how busy he was at work, I
decided not to be selfish and took the call.
As it turned out, both Jem and Nai had been suspended for fighting. Also not surprising, they had been suspended for fighting each other. One of the side effects of having the same, unpleasant demeanor was that they now managed to clash and get on each other’s nerves even more often than they had when they were polar opposites. It drove everyone crazy and I had half a mind to demand Jem wish his own personality back, but even I couldn’t deny that he was much safer in his current state.
In fact, in the week since he made the accidental wish, I was pretty sure Jem hadn’t wished for anything else, intentionally or unintentionally. Though after waking up with a magical hangover from trying to soul gaze himself, he had wished some rather creative curses on Slick. It was fortunate for the wayward imp that the djinn had enough self-preservation to assure that type of wish could not be fulfilled.
I couldn’t decide if the suspension was a blessing or a curse. On one hand, I didn’t have to worry about the school calling and interrupting my day for at least a week. On the other, I had two volatile teenagers underfoot who were doing enough interrupting on their own. I tried putting them to work, separately of course. Nai typically needed to feel involved, so I hoped that Jem would now have the same passion for investigating and research. Whether or not that was true, I didn’t know, but at least both of them were out of my hair at the moment and I could concentrate on my own agenda.
What my own agenda involved was charting all of the obstacles that stood between us, and Blackbird’s continued and undisrupted existence. Though I couldn’t help but wonder if the battle I was preparing for was not just for Blackbird, but also the continued and uninterrupted existence of all of Order. It did not escape my notice that in the brief time since I’d been assigned here, the number of issues facing us seemed to grow exponentially with each passing day.
“Can I ask you something?”
I’d been so caught up in trying to prioritize which of our problems was most dire that I hadn’t heard Nai’s footfalls on the stairs to my basement laboratory. I’d have accused her of using trans-cyclical travel were it not for the wards I put in place specifically to stop her from doing just that.
“You may ask me anything, Nai,” I said, pushing away from the charts that were beginning to swim in front of my eyes. Perhaps I would have Seth take a look at my findings. He seemed to have an eye for such things. “Whether or not I answer is at my discretion.”
At that, she huffed and rolled her eyes.
“You know that’s really irritating, right?”
“Grownups are supposed to be irritating,” I countered with what I hoped was a disarming smile. “What’s bothering you, Nai?”
“Am I really as horrible as Jem’s being right now?”
“Well,” I said and cleared my throat. That certainly was a loaded question. “Without sugarcoating it, you are the dark half of a split soul,” I began and held up my hand as she winced. “However, there are two things to keep in perspective.”
“And they are?” she asked in a frosty tone.
“Number one, you’re seeing your own flaws magnified by reflection, so they are going to look worse to you than to anyone else. And number two, you’re seeing Jem’s projection of you, which is a bit more extreme than most because of the limitations on his own personality.”
“So is that a yes, I’m the biggest bitch in the world or a no, I’m not?”
“That is a no,” I assured her. “You’re not horrible and Jem isn’t as horrible as he seems to you. Actually,” I added with what I hoped was a reassuring smile, “that you would even ask shows a certain amount of vulnerability that proves you’re not without redeeming qualities.”
“Great, so you’re saying I’m weak,” she said with a huff.
“Not at all, but don’t worry, you haven’t lost your abrasive edge entirely,” I assured her, shaking my own head at the warped teenage logic. “Was there anything else you needed or just an ego boost?”
“That was all,” she mumbled sullenly, but she didn’t leave. Instead, her eyes locked onto something on my workbench and she moved over to the chart I had been studying.
“What does this mean?” she asked, pointing to my theory on why there were so many wolves. As I explained, she frowned.
“So if there’s a way to keep the djinn out, there’s got to be a way to keep the werewolves out too, right?”
“If we had a shamanistic mystic, yes, it would be,” I admitted. “But then we’d be open to a glut of banshees, gremlins, harpies, or any number of known Discordant. Take your pick.”
“But I don’t understand,” she said. I could practically see the wheels turning in her head. “Last week, you said it would be too dangerous to banish the djinn. Why don’t we just let some of them through and banish the others? If there are enough djinn, then we wouldn’t have to worry about being overrun by werewolves.”
“If there was a way yes, but that’s not really an option at the moment," I began, but Nai cut me off.
“Why not? Werewolves kill people. Djinn fulfill wishes. I know, I know, the whole point is that the wisher ends up a slave to Chaos, but it’s not like that happens right away. We could just kill or banish the djinn before that happens.”
“It’s not really that easy. Number one, when a djinn bond is created, they become all but invincible, and we stand a greater chance of losing the soul they have bonded to than killing or banishing them. And number two, I don’t think you appreciate the full scope of the situation. There are more djinn than you and I can handle on our own. Even half of what Eller has trapped is enough to overpower us.”
“So, just let a few through,” she said with a shrug.
“If I thought we could, we would,” I said with a sigh. I really didn’t need a reminder of how convoluted and desperate our situation was. “Eller’s traps are complicated for a reason. If we were to attempt to let one out, the rest would follow and we’d be overpowered.”
“There’s got to be a way,” she said, getting the determined look in her eye that I was now used to. Normally, I’d be worried, but at that moment, Nai’s determination gave me one advantage.
“There may be, but I’ve got more pressing matters at the moment,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to add this to your pile of things to research?”
“Already on it,” she said with a grin as she ran back up the stairs.
Meanwhile, there was still the matter of an open fissure under Blackbird that needed to be dealt with. On the night it was discovered, I sent a message through Arkady to the Reconstructive division, requesting a team to help close the fissure before it grew into a full portal. The response I got back almost immediately was disheartening. The dragon that had been terrorizing the eastern hemisphere was not working alone. There was an unstable plate in the mountains that had opened up a gateway to the realm, which meant every able-bodied agent was currently halfway across the globe and that wasn’t likely to change in the near future. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if even one dragon got loose in Blackbird, let alone an entire tribe. Still, being overrun by an army of werewolves wasn’t a much better prospect, so I had to do something.
I’d tasked Jem with researching a temporary fix and hadn’t been overly optimistic about his prospects of finding anything, but he had surprised me. Apparently, alongside Nai’s demeanor, he’d also acquired her single-mindedness when it came to focusing on the task at hand. The spell he had found for me was sound, but even that had its risks. Not the least of which was the fact that it required the magical energy of a Nyx. Needless to say, he was not pleased when he discovered that I would not let him have that task as well.
Though to be honest, I was also reluctant to bring Donna back to the mill after what had happened, but the spell required a Nyx and should anything go wrong, at least I knew she would not become a portal for the Discordant. Besides, there was no time to seek an alternative. Every day, the fissure grew wider. It was o
nly a matter of time before it became a full portal and Blackbird was overrun by a virtual army of Discordant. Until we could investigate and stop the disruptive fracking, I had little hope for closing the fissure completely, but we had to do something.
Fortunately, there was nothing in the procedure that stipulated when the spell needed to be cast, so it was something we could do during the day when the Discordant were not as active. Warding the mill to keep curious explorers and passersby out was a simple matter. Working up the nerve to go through with the procedure was another entirely.
* * *
“How are you feeling?” I asked cautiously.
“I’m good,” Donna answered, taking a tentative step closer to the edge of the ten foot drop where the fissure pulsed with Discordant energy. What had been a hairline crack only a week and a half ago was now a scar in the earth large enough that I could fit my hand inside. There was no more time to hesitate and I could only hope that we weren’t already too late to have an impact.
“But just in case, take this,” she said, taking out a length of rope and tossing one end to me. The other half she tied around her waist. “It’s imbued, but hold tight because there’s no guarantee I’m not going to just decide to take a leap.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” I said, wrapping the rope around my hand several times. I could feel the magic pouring out over me and I hoped it wouldn’t interfere with what we had to do. “Are you sure we can do this alone?”
“Trust me, Desmond,” she said, rolling her eyes. Admittedly, this was not the first time I had asked the question. “The only other person besides the two of us capable of even attempting this magic is Jem, but quite frankly, he’s being a little shit at the moment. I know he found the spell, but I don’t trust him to do something to screw this up.”
“He knows the consequences if he does,” I reminded her as I circled to the opposite side of the sinkhole. Though to be fair, my patience with Jem was wearing thin as well. “But no, his soul is too weak to the Chaotic influence. I have enough reservations as it is.”
Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series Page 46
