Life Reader

by Shea, K. M.

  “I am not devious,” Raven sniffed. “I am a female. I am strategic, and I need girl time!”

  “Welcome back Ray!”

  “Thank you Shannon.”

  “Alright, we’ve hit a dead end on this end of the search,” Asher said Tuesday afternoon as he, his twin, and Raven stood at the base of the infernal slope. They had just spent the better part of an hour trying to break, mold, slip past, and negate the magic that kept them from climbing the hill with no luck. “Any ideas?”

  “Just one. Let’s try using one of those fireworks we bought at Muligan’s. They’re small sparks—they shouldn’t be too dangerous even though we’re in an enclosed area,” Aron said, digging into the backpack they had brought with them.

  “Do you think it will do anything?” Raven doubtfully asked.

  Asher shrugged. “Why not? It’s worth a shot. Ray, you’ll have to plant ‘em,” he said as Aron approached Raven with a lighter and a blue paper tube.

  “Me? What, are they rigged to explode instantly? No way. You two are the ones with the fire magic. Light it yourself,” Raven said, backing away from the younger twin.

  “That’s why it has to be you,” Asher called, already retreating farther down the tunnel.

  “Yep. Anyone would be able to scan the atmosphere later and read that we used our magic. Call it paranoia, but this way if something happens Director Eastgate can suspect us, but he can’t blame us,” Aron said, handing the firework over.

  Raven rolled her eyes but took the firework and lighter and started up the incline. “That’s a pretty lame excuse.”

  “Whatever,” Aron said, scooping up the backpack. “You’re still the one lighting the firework.”

  Raven planted the firework against the wall, wedging it on an outcropping of the ground. She clicked the lighter on before lighting the fuse and running.

  Asher took the backpack from Aron and glanced inside it as Raven trotted up to them. “…Aron,” Asher said, clawing the bag open. “I thought you said we should use the fireworks from Muligan’s.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I grabbed.”

  Asher pulled out a wad of thin, green fireworks. “These are the small sparks from Muligan’s.”

  “Then what was the blue one?”

  Asher almost threw the backpack down. “That’s our tube of dragon dust!”

  “What’s dragon dust?” Raven nervously asked, glancing over her shoulder. The firework fuse was almost gone.

  “A highly explosive powder,” Aron said before snatching up the backpack.

  “Run!” Asher said, grabbing Raven by the arm before pulling her down the passageway.

  They got through two intersections before the dragon dust went off. It roared like the mythical species it was named after, blasting light down the hallway like water. The explosion was so powerful it knocked Raven and the twins to the ground and shook the library foundation.

  When the ground stopped shaking Raven lifted her head. “You guys carry that stuff around in your backpack?”

  “Ugh, not anymore we don’t,” Aron groaned, slowly sitting upright.

  “My…everything,” Asher moaned, wincing as he dragged himself into a standing position.

  “That explosion was huge! We might have compromised the structural integrity of the building!” Raven said.

  “Nope, no way to do that. It’s crafted together with magic,” Asher said, dusting himself off. “That’s a for sure fact. We could tell you how we know that, but it’s a long story.”

  Aron glanced up the hallway. “But that probably did some cosmetic damage and it will catch Eastgate’s attention. Evasive maneuvers are required, or we will be in some serious—”

  “Let’s change our objective for a while, shall we?” Asher mildly suggested as he pulled Raven to her feet before, again, hauling her down the tunnel.

  “What, so our new objective is to get out of here before Director Eastgate figures out it was us?”

  “And the janitor. Fear the janitor, Ray-Ray,” Asher said as they charged ahead at a brisk walk.

  “I know,” Aron said, raising his hand in the air. “Why don’t we see if we can sniff out anything about that magic abuser that’s going after this cauldron thingy?”

  “We could try,” Raven tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear as Asher towed her along. “But I don’t know how we would carry it off. The emissary I’m reporting to is closed mouthed. I’ve gotta admit I would like to know more about what we’re dealing with, but it’s not like any of us have clearance for the EC Network.”

  “Just leave it to us,” Asher darkly grinned.

  In no time at all the trio stood just outside Daire and Jeremiah’s joint office. Asher inserted a key into the door before flinging it open.

  Raven’s eyes bulged as the twins nonchalantly strolled into the room, flicking on lights.

  “What are you doing?” Raven asked as Asher plopped down in Daire’s cushy office chair that wheeled around.

  “Investigating,” Aron said, opening Daire’s laptop before leaning against the desk. “Close the door, would you? Daire and Jeremiah might not be around right now, but Royce can be such a girly tattle tale.”

  “Why are we in here? I didn’t think Jeremiah and Daire knew about the cauldron,” Raven said, robotically closing the door before joining the twins behind the desk.

  “We know. We’re just going to use Daire’s computer so the authorities can’t track our blatant law breaking back to us,” Aron said with a comforting smile.

  Raven forced herself to take two calming breaths. “I think I understand why your father looks so exhausted all the time.”

  “Hey, if you think we’re bad you should see Brannon. He might be a football player, but he’s got mad hacking skills,” Asher said as Daire’s computer chirped a greeting when Asher correctly entered the password.

  “We would have asked him for help, but he’s got football practice today— he’s the one that gave us Daire’s password,” Aron said. “Besides him, Asher and I are the only one with these special talents, so it’s up to us.”

  Asher’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Here we go, the Kingdom Network. Da-dum!” he said as a little trumpet noise chimed out of the laptop’s speakers, announcing their acceptance into the network.

  “This is a general information network for Kingdom Quest citizens. Why are we on it?” Raven queried.

  “Because we don’t have access to the EC Network, but dear old Uncle Harold does,” Aron beamed.

  Raven blinked. “He’s an ambassador. How could he have that kind of clearance?” Raven asked as Asher typed in IDs and passwords into several login commands.

  “We had to complete a lot of online classes for him to get it,” Asher groused. “Not to mention all the cash we forked over.”

  “And he only has the trainee level clearance, but that should be enough to give us a peek at our attacker’s files,” Aron said. “I managed to get a glance at the guardians’ report on our break in. It said our attacker is known as the Fox of Hades.”

  “Wait… so you two got clearance for your uncle?”

  “Cha.”

  “He doesn’t even know he has it.”

  “Which is good because he would probably abuse it by deleting his driving tickets.”

  “Here we go! Fox of Hades,” Asher said, removing his hands from the keyboard into order to pound a quick drum roll on the desk.

  The computer screen blinked before displaying relevant information.

  “Let’s seeee. His name is Fox, he is estimated to be in his late teens or early twenties—wow, talk about a juvenile delinquent,” Asher read.

  “Here,” Aron said, tapping on the screen. “It says he’s part of the Errësi.”

  “Oohhhh a link! Let’s click on it!” Asher said before clicking on the Errësi hyperlink.

  “Errësi is a group of magic abusers led by Korbin Crowfeather. Now that is a bizarre last name. The members specialize in varieties of black magic and are g
iven animal code names,” Aron said.

  “That makes sense, Fox of Hades, isn’t Korbin a kind of bird?” Raven said, leaning closer to the twins in order to peer at the screen.

  “This is boring. They don’t have plans for world domination,” Aron complained.

  “No, but they were the ones who opened that fake Pandora’s Box in Starcrest City in 2009. That was pretty bad, I thought six people died in that accident,” Raven said, pointing to information further down the screen.

  “The Errësi also released five cave trolls in Chicago before Kingdom Ops managed to stop them. Man, clean up on that incident must have been horrific. Imagine all the memory wiping,” Aron said before continuing. “They are suspected to have several rare, dangerous items and creatures in storage,” he broke into a whistle. “Including a flesh eating albino unicorn? How did they get their hands on that?”

  “It looks like they mostly use artifacts to cause mass hysteria among the public. They’re like magical terrorists,” Asher said, thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the keyboard.

  “And they are after this unimpressive cauldron thingy,” Aron frowned. “Which means they know something about it that we don’t know,” he said, glancing at Raven.

  Raven shook her head “I already told you, the emissary won’t tell me anything. Besides, he’s not exactly forth coming with details.”

  “Oooohh, so he’s a male,” Aron snickered.

  “Guys,” Asher interrupted. “They have a meeting, tonight.”

  “What?” Aron said, whipping his eyes back to the computer screen. “How can the network know that?”

  “Errësi is under surveillance all the time. It looks like a KQ agent discovered this just a few hours ago,” Asher said, staring at the time table.

  “…I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to see this. No way does Uncle Harold have the clearance necessary for this,” Aron said, leaning over his brother’s shoulder.

  “Then why can we?” Asher asked, leaning back into the chair, worry clouding his green eyes.

  “Maybe we’re not the only ones hacking the page,” Raven suggested, the wheels in her mind turning. “My emissary said there was a security breech. That’s how Fox knew who I was. Maybe someone from Errësi is hacking the page too.”

  “At the same time? You’ve got to be joking,” Aron scoffed.

  “The meeting is set for Darkmoor Park in Sullivan. That’s a tiny town just south of here,” Asher said. “It’s at eight o’clock. Guys, we gotta go to it,” Asher said, wheeling around in Daire’s chair to face Raven and Aron.

  “Are you out of your mind?!” Raven squeaked. “We can’t go there! We’d be walking into the enemy’s camp! Black dogs handle this kind of thing, not teenage page turners!”

  “Ray is right,” Aron said. (Raven nearly had a heart attack right then and there. The twins? Split against each other?! Was it the end of the world?)

  “Then tell your black dog. Can you get in contact with him?” Asher asked.

  “Is there a magic mirror in the area?”

  “Yeah. Girls bathroom.”

  “Then I’ll try.”

  Raven stared at the swirling mirror, the bathroom door locked. Golden text floated across the glassy surface.

  Kaden Wishmore is not at home

  Send him a letter or something better,

  Who else would you like to phone?

  Her father wasn’t answering his emergency mirror.

  Raven bit her tongue to keep from screaming in frustration. She cleared her throat. “Thank you mirror. That will be all,” she said.

  The mirror gradually returned to normal, spitting out Raven’s page turner ring.

  Raven took her ring, slid it back on her finger, and dug her phone out of her pocket, punching in a number on speed dial.

  The phone rang for a few moments before someone answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey mom it’s Rachel. Is Dad around?”

  “No, he’s out playing golf with some of his old coworkers,” her mother replied, making Raven impatiently stomp her foot on the ground.

  Playing golf was the family’s code for meeting with Gram. Raven’s father was undoubtedly on some sort of mission or getting debriefed. There was no way to contact him in such a situation.

  “…Is everything OK?” Raven’s mother cautiously asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just wanted to talk to him,” Raven grouched.

  “Oh. I don’t think he’ll be home until late this evening. Can it wait until then?”

  Raven sighed. “I guess it will have to. Thanks mom, love ya.”

  “I love you too Rachel. Bye.”

  “Bye,” Raven muttered before hanging up. She returned to the twins, a frown marring her face as she opened the door and walked into the middle of a Montamos fight.

  “But it’s gone, Aron. They might not have gotten the information in time!”

  “I’m sure they did!”

  “What’s wrong?” Raven asked, glancing back and forth between the brothers.

  Asher twisted to face Raven. “The information about the meeting has been removed from the network.”

  “Asher thinks this proves we have to go, because now no one will find out about it. I think the black dogs assigned to them must know. How else could it have gotten posted on the network page?” Aron said, giving his twin a withering glare. “Did you talk to your black dog?”

  Raven bit her lip and shook her head. “He wouldn’t answer his emergency mirror.”

  The twins exhaled, their shoulders slumping. “Should you try telling those guys Kingdom Quest assigned you for protection?” Aron asked. (Raven had told them about her security team earlier that day.)

  Raven reached for her dog tags before shaking her head. “I don’t know,” she said. Truthfully this would be exactly the sort of situation she should call them in for, but… “Roland seems okay. But Rocky—He. I, I just don’t trust them,” she finished.

  Asher furrowed his eyebrows. “You think this Rocky guy has something to do with the information leak?”

  Raven looked up, surprised he was able to accurately guess the source of her discomfort, and nodded.

  “So what do we do?” Aron asked, slapping his hands on his thighs. “You can’t talk to your contact, the information is gone, if we call up the local headquarters we will get into a ton of trouble when they figure out how we got the information. What can we do?”

  “We have to go,” Asher maintained. “Maybe you’ve forgotten but Ray totally paraded her special magic in front of that Fox guy. He might spill his guts about her at this meeting, and they’ll begin hunting her down like a dog. We need to be prepared,” Asher said, effectively silencing his twin’s objections.

  Raven licked her lips. “Maybe we should try to go. For all we know the Errësi know the information has been leaked, and they’ve decided to move the meeting,” she said, trying to keep herself from dwelling on Asher’s very logical argument.

  Aron sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  Asher thoughtfully stared at the ceiling. “There’s just one problem.”

  “What?”

  “None of us can drive. Aron and I have our temps, but we don’t have a car so that doesn’t matter,” Asher said, leaning back in his chair, slumping with defeat.

  “We can’t ask our Dad, or any of the other page turners for a ride. We’re stuck. We can’t even get there,” Aron flatly said.

  Raven bit her lip as she considered her options. How important was it to observe this meeting? “I know someone…,” Raven slowly said. “It’s going to be hard to convince him, but he’ll do it.”

  Chapter 19

  “You are insane, all three of you! Ray, if I knew this was the ‘favor’ you wanted I would have ratted you out to Dad!” Nate shouted.

  In spite of his protests, Nate drove down the road, peering into the night as the twins gave him directions to Darkmoor Park.

  “Take a left,” Asher said from the backseat.

  Rav
en grumbled and set her head against the glass window of the passenger’s seat.

  “You are so full of it!” Nate hissed while making the left turn. “I should turn this car around right now and drop you off at KQ headquarters.”

  “But you won’t, Adam,” Raven sighed, ripping her gaze from the window. “You’ve been chewing me out for twenty minutes. We need to do this and you know it, so could you cut the lecture short?”

  “NO I cannot ‘cut the lecture short!’ You are never going to learn, are you?”

  Raven huffed and stared at the car ceiling.

  “Wow,” Asher said.

  “Yeah, I didn’t know it was possible for Ray-Ray to get pwned,” Aron said, leaning forward to view Nate more admirably.

  “Asher, Aron, meet my version of Uncle Harold,” Raven said, gesturing at her brother.

  “Oohhh,” Aron said, peering at Nate with new respect.

  “Who?” Nate asked, suspiciously eyeing Raven.

  “Okay, so when we get there Asher, Aron and I will find out where Errësi is meeting and we’ll try and listen in. Adam, you have to stay with the car so we can leave as quickly as possible,” Raven said, staring at the light the Volvo’s headlights cast on the road.

  “No. Absolutely NOT. I’m coming with you, one of the brats can stay behind,” Nate sneered.

  “Are you kidding? And leave the car with them?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” Raven scoffed.

  “Umm, hey,” Aron said.

  “We can hear you,” Asher said.

  “I don’t care, I’m coming with.”

  “You are not! I only filled you in about the situation today. The twins have been researching this with me for days. They know what we’re looking for,” Raven insisted, shaking her head to cover up her real thoughts: She could never let Nate know about her magic! If Fox even hinted at it Nate would flip!

  “So? All three of you are just page turners, none of you have combat experience like I do,” Nate argued.

  “Ouch,” Aron observed.

  “We may be ‘just page turners,’ but might I remind you we fought of a swarm of decayors before you and your guardian squad even arrived on the scene!” Raven shot.