The Painter Mage: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  Devan felt it too.

  She slipped a glass bottle into my hand. “How quickly can you repair it?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t know. I’m not even sure I can.”

  Devan shot me a glare. “You’re an idiot. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  I pulled the stopper off the bottle and glanced down. She’d grabbed green ink. It shouldn’t surprise me that Devan would have chosen green, even if by chance. The color of nature, of hope and growth, it was the color she preferred.

  I dipped my finger into it, bringing it to the window and working in an octagonal pattern around the one Taylor had added. This would isolate what she’d done. I still didn’t know if she had done it intentionally—or where she had gone, for that matter. What mattered now was reversing the effect. If I could isolate it, I might be able to then use the brown, but in doing so, I’d have to mix on the fly. That wasn’t my strength.

  A surge of energy told me the pattern held. Now the hard part began.

  Colors flashed on the other side of the window. Power practically sang in the air. As a painter—even a tagger—a part of me wanted nothing more than to go out and see what was happening. What would it look like to see such power created? What kind of creature had such ability? Even in Arcanus, I’d never seen anything like it.

  I pushed the thoughts away. They were dangerous thoughts that would do nothing but drag me to my death. Right now, I needed to focus on staying alive.

  With a delicate touch, I added a dab of green to the brown. Using a clean finger, I swirled them together, drawing them into a different pattern, a slow spiral that worked up to the edges of the octagon. With a careful twist, I inverted it, making it so the spiral seemed to spin, a trick of the eye. It was an arcane pattern, the only thing I knew that might hold.

  “Try it,” I said, sinking to the floor. How much more would I be forced to do tonight?

  My hands trembled in my lap. Green and brown inks smeared across my fingers and I tried wiping them on my pants, but they kept shaking so hard, I couldn’t clean them off.

  Devan grabbed the window and lifted. It budged slightly but even with her enhanced strength, she couldn’t open it. “See? Not so dumb after all.”

  “I thought you said I was an idiot?”

  She crouched and grabbed me by my shirt, pulling me to the center of the floor. Another circle worked there, this carved by me into the hardwood when we first returned to Conlin. The marking was subtle; unless you knew where to look, you’d never see it.

  She made certain to settle me in place before sitting alongside me. “You are an idiot,” she said, taking my hand. Her fingers felt hot and thin. “But not for the reasons you like to think.”

  I was tired and forced myself to focus on the windows and door. “Will it hold?”

  The power reached a crescendo. I held my breath. Whatever happened would be soon.

  Devan stared at the window. “I don’t know. I’ve felt something like it once before, but that’s been so long ago and not…”

  She trailed off, leaving me wondering where else she might have known power like this.

  “Where do you think she went?” I asked.

  Devan’s eyes went to the back room and the hidden entrance to the basement. “I hope she’s down there. Otherwise, only two explanations fit.”

  In that, we agreed. Either Taylor had used the painting on the window and escaped—with the door attuned to me, she might not have been able to open it—or something had come in and taken her. With no sign of a struggle, I worried that it might be the first.

  “Maybe she’s down there,” I agreed. Only, neither of us thought she was. To access those rooms required knowing—and using—patterns forbidden by Arcanus.

  I tensed uncontrollably as the power outside the house released.

  It struck like a hammer, like a thunderclap in the midst of a raging storm. I halfway expected the house to split open and Devan and I to be tossed into the night. Power poured over us like a torrential rain, but it seemed like the focus wasn’t on the house.

  The house shuddered against it and pushed back. I could feel it push against the magic. Somehow, it held.

  Like I said, my father was an artist.

  We waited, neither of us speaking. I think both of us feared another attack. I wasn’t sure the house could take another one like that. Hell, given how strong that attack had been, I’m somewhat surprised it held up as well as it did. Even my pattern had peeled paint off the doorframe. What must the outside of the house look like?

  Nothing followed.

  I finally let out the breath I’d been holding. Devan let go of my hand and scooted away. She stood and wiped her hands on her pants. “We need to find her.”

  I crawled to my knees and crouched there, my body trembling. I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. “Yeah, about that.”

  Devan faced me and planted her hands on her hips. “Now you want to sleep?”

  I did, but I knew I couldn’t. Whatever was out there—whatever that wolfhound was—was still outside my house. Or maybe it wasn’t. Could it have used all its power in the last attack, too?

  “Can you check the basement?”

  Devan started toward the back room. There was a soft surge of her power—a sense so different than what I controlled with my painting, and so different than the violent explosion we’d just survived—and a soft snick as an invisible door pulled back. Her steps thudded down the stairs, quickly going muffled. I counted while I waited, mostly to force myself to stay awake. I reached seventy-two by the time I heard her starting back up the stairs. When she stepped around to this side of the wall, her face was white.

  “She there?” I didn’t really expect Devan to find her, but she needed to check.

  Devan shook her head. “Not there. And neither is your book.”

  A surge of fear went through me, sending my heart racing and giving me enough strength to stand. “What do you mean the book is gone?” Only someone able to unravel the arcane patterns could open the door.

  She stopped at the window and peeled back the blanket. “The book is gone. I can’t tell if anything else is missing, but it’s not there.”

  What a shitty night. Taylor shows up in Conlin. Something tries pushing through a plate I never knew was a doorway. We’re attacked at my house—the house nearly destroyed. And now Taylor is gone, and with her, the one thing I had brought from Arcanus, the one thing I thought might help me understand what my father had been working on when he disappeared: a book of the symbols in his handwriting.

  4

  The thin roll of mattress smelled musty and stale. With my fatigue, I didn’t care. A steady pounding sounded against my skull and I wasn’t sure whether it came from my dream or from reality. Either way, I wanted it to stop.

  I sat up slowly. Sunlight streamed through the heavy blankets hanging in front of the windows, leaking around the edges and piercing my eyes. My head throbbed like a bad hangover. My mouth felt dry and I tried working my tongue around my lips, but I had no moisture to spare.

  “Devan?”

  My voice came out in a croak. The sparse living room was empty.

  Last thing I remembered, she was sitting with me, watching over me with the concerned look on her face she gets when she knows I’ve done too much. Then I drifted to sleep on the old bedroll she’d pulled from the back closet, keeping it within the carved circle in the middle of the living room. I hadn’t the strength to argue with her. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had; when Devan set her mind on keeping me safe, I had no choice in the matter. And she was supposed to be my charge. Too often, it didn’t work like that.

  Arranged around the outside of the bedroll were three different carved metal figurines. I studied them for a moment before trying to push out with a force of energy and will through the cross worked down the length of the house, but I still had nothing left. Likely it would take another day or more for me to recover. After what happened last night,
it was time I didn’t have.

  The pounding continued as I pushed up to my knees and forced myself up. I made my way to the door, pleased I only tottered a little, and pressed my head against the peephole. A local cop stood on the other side, dressed in full uniform. He had dark hair combed neatly to the side and aviator sunglasses that slid down on the bridge of his nose as he studied the door. He was tall—probably a good three inches taller than me, and I’m a little over six feet—and his arms strained at his uniform. I recognized him but couldn’t remember his name.

  Why would a local police officer be at my house? What else had happened last night?

  “Just a minute,” I grunted and pulled the door open. The officer studied me, hand raised to knock again, before lowering it to rest on his pistol. I eyed the gun warily. “Can I help you?”

  He pushed the shades back up his nose. “This your place?” He had a deep voice, but spoke more softly than I would have expected out of him.

  “Not impressed?” I asked.

  A half-smile distorted his lips. “Just move in?”

  I twisted to look over my shoulder. The living room looked little different than usual. Other than the bedroll, the only furniture I kept here were the folding chairs and the lanterns. Too much of my time was spent experimenting in the middle of the floor, using the circle to keep accidents from spreading.

  “I’ve been here a while,” I said.

  The officer tipped his head and I waited for the inevitable questions about why I didn’t have more stuff in my house. As if that stuff mattered. A comfy sofa would be nice, but other than that, I didn’t have much need for anything more.

  Instead of asking about that, he tipped a thumb over his shoulder. “You here last night?”

  I nodded carefully.

  “Neighbors report some kind of explosion. From the looks of the yard and the house, I would have expected a gas leak or something, but seeing as how the house is still standing, figure that can’t be it.”

  Gas leak? How bad was the attack last night?

  Strong enough for the neighbors to notice. Normally, magical attacks were invisible to those who couldn’t detect it. How much power must have been used for them to detect it?

  I shuffled out the door and felt a tingle of energy as I passed across the protections built into the house. Stepping into the sunlight, I raised my hand over my forehead and stared at the house. My mouth dropped open.

  The siding looked as if someone had taken a blowtorch to it. Gray paint peeled back. Streaks of black ash worked along the edges. The steel roofing—always before I’d been thankful that it wasn’t shingles that would have needed replacing—had warped and rippled. The windows were intact, but I wondered how much damage they had sustained.

  Here I had thought my father’s house could withstand anything. What the hell else had attacked us last night?

  “From the look on your face, I can tell you didn’t know.”

  I shook my head. “Not really, Officer…”

  “Jakes. Sam Jakes.” The officer tipped his head toward my backyard. “Come with me.”

  I glanced back into the house before closing the door and following him silently as he made his way around the house toward the back. Now that he gave me his name, I knew where I’d seen him. His father had been sheriff in town back when I was a kid. I’d seen him out at the house a time or two, and then more often after my mother disappeared. I knew old Bill Jakes had a son, but hadn’t heard that he’d come back to Conlin or that he had followed after his father. In the shape I was in, I didn’t think I could even summon enough energy to throw him off if I needed to.

  A few pine trees grew throughout my yard, sort of a prelude to the park. A small stone fire pit that hadn’t been used in a while now lay in a heap of rock. The grass all seemed withered. It wasn’t until I neared the back of my lot that I saw why. A massive rim of burnt grass was worked in an irregular shape—not quite a circle—that I could trace all the way around my house.

  I touched the grass expecting to detect whatever energy had attacked, and was surprised to find it was mine. This was the pattern that charm had made? I thought the blast circumference would be about fifty feet. This was more like two hundred. No wonder I was feeling so drained today.

  “Still don’t know what happened?” Officer Jakes asked.

  I traced along the edge of the burnt grass, following it to where it met the edge of the park. There it simply stopped. I turned and looked back at the house. The backside of the house looked different than the front. There was no sign of the blowtorch effect.

  “Were you here last night?” he asked.

  If I answered him honestly, I only opened myself to more questions. But if I told him no, then he’d know I was lying about something. How else would I explain the fact that I hadn’t seen what happened to the house before now? I could always chalk it up to drinking too heavily—at least I felt like I’d gone on a bender—but the way he studied me told me I needed to be careful.

  “I got in late. It was dark.”

  “Hmm.”

  He started back toward the house, not waiting to see if I would follow. A flash of color caught my eye as I started to turn, and I hesitated. A streak of blue ink worked up the trunk on one of the trees in the park. As I hurried around the edge of the lawn, I saw two others like it, each with the same streak worked along the bark. Each marking was done on pine trees, though I didn’t know if that mattered. Probably. With painting, everything had meaning.

  I’d seen the color before. It was the color Taylor had used. To be certain, I’d need to check the markings more closely, but that would have to wait until Jakes left. If he saw me sniffing around a couple pine trees while he struggled to figure out what happened, he might suddenly have a few different questions for me.

  I kept my head down as I started back toward the house, trying to make sense of what I knew. My brain felt slower than usual today as I played a game of true or false with myself. Taylor shows up at the park looking for me with a book of symbols, claiming the Masters sent her to me. True. Hard is missing. Don’t know. And then some mysterious attack hits not only the park, but my house, and with more power than I’ve ever seen, enough to peel away the paint my father had placed on the house himself. Definitely true.

  From the markings on the trees, I suddenly understood that whatever happened here had been planned. The bold, blue stripes along the pines were too perfect to be made in a hurry. I didn’t know for certain, but there had to be some sort of pattern to the trees, but if that was the case, it meant Taylor was in on it.

  Could the whole thing have been coordinated? The book was missing, but what if there had been another reason, something I hadn’t discovered in my time back?

  I needed to get down to the basement.

  When I reached the front of the yard, Officer Jakes stood studying me. “What kind of work do you do?”

  I wanted to get back inside, to get down to the basement. I needed to get Jakes to leave, but I had a sneaking suspicion that if I said the wrong thing, he’d be back. “I’m a painter.” At least in that I could tell the truth.

  “Hmm. Not many painters around here.” He stared at my house as if appraising my work.

  “Like house painting.” I made the universal symbol for house painting, miming working a brush up and down, just like the Karate Kid—the old one, not the reboot where the kid never learns to do any work. “Why? Have some rooms you need redone? I could really use the work.”

  Jakes eyed the house for a moment and then laughed. “If your house is any indication of your work, I think I’ll pass.”

  “It used to look better,” I muttered, turning back to the house.

  Jakes stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got neighbors feeling a little uncertain right about now. Mind if I take a look inside?”

  I tensed. That was the last thing I wanted. Letting him inside would only lead to questions. Not only the obvious ones—things like Where’s your furniture
or Why don’t you have any food—but questions asking why the circle was carved into the floor, or why did symbols take up one entire hallway wall?

  “Not much to show,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Jakes slipped his sunglasses off as he stared at the house. The way his eyes flickered from the paint to the doorway and back to me spoke volumes. “Anything you want to tell me might help ease their minds.”

  My neighbors barely knew I existed, which was how I liked it. My house sat on an old, oversized lot, giving plenty of space between my house and the next. As far as they knew, it had been empty for years. I’m sure they were curious where I’d been and why I returned, but for them to have seen the explosion meant that it had been much bigger than intended.

  Unless they saw the other explosion. Even I hadn’t seen that.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

  Jakes nodded and flipped his sunglasses back onto his face, hiding his eyes. “If you come up with anything or think of anything else I should know.” He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it over to me.

  I paused long enough to take it from him and headed back into the house. As I crossed back over the protections, I saw Officer Jakes leaning against his car, tapping his hand on his leg. His brow furrowed as he looked from the house to the yard, finally settling on me. He tipped his head toward me.

  I closed the door and let out a long sigh.

  “Who was that?”

  Devan stepped out of the kitchen. She wore the same clothes as yesterday. Her dark hair brushed forward, leaving one eye covered. Had she been here when Jakes knocked?

  “Cop.”

  Devan went to the window and peered outside. “Kinda hot, if you like big muscles and angular jaw.”

  I snorted. “Said the neighbors called about what they thought was a gas leak.”

  “That’s what they always say.”

  “Who?”

  Devan slipped the curtain closed and turned back to me. “Movies, mostly.”