The Law of Three: A New Wasteland (The Portal Arcane Series - Book II)

by J. Thorn

  Jack spun to his right, where a man was hunched over, elbows resting on the brass running along the edge of the bar.

  “Do I know you?” Jack asked.

  “Now how the fuck would you know me?” the man asked.

  Jack shrunk, trying to crawl inside his own slumping shoulders. The man laughed and thrust a hand at Jack. It was tethered to a forearm crawling with tattoos.

  “The name is Kole,” he said.

  “I’m Jack.”

  “Yeah, I know who you are, dipwad.” Kole raised a finger, and a piercing whistle shot from his mouth. “Another round?”

  Jack turned to look over his shoulder and then back to Kole.

  “What is this place?”

  Kole laughed again, shaking his head. “The reversion scrambles your brains, don’t it? Makes you forget all the details of real living, like booze.” Kole nodded toward a young professional with the buttons on her blouse a bit looser than they were prior to five o’clock. “And cleavage.”

  The bartender arrived with a damp towel slung over one shoulder. He dropped two beer bottles in front of Kole without speaking. The amber glass stood out against a sea of highballs and martinis.

  “Seven.”

  “Damn,” Kole shouted. “For two beers?”

  The bartender remained silent.

  “Here,” Kole said, shoving a ten-dollar bill across the bar toward the bartender’s growing paunch. “Keep the change,” he added with a wink to Jack.

  The bartender grabbed the bill and headed for the cash register.

  “I thought I was sleeping. So, this,” Jack said, pointing at the scene in the bar with his eyebrows. “This isn’t real.”

  Kole let out a gruff moan.

  “Major musta been so tired of constantly dealing with this kind of bullshit. I didn’t realize it then but, man, it’s a downer.”

  Jack waited, unsure how to respond.

  “No, it ain’t real, ya fucking genius. Do you really think you’d go to sleep in a reversion and wake up at McCray’s Irish Pub? C’mon, dude. You’re smarter than that.”

  Again Jack remained silent, not sure how to deal with Kole’s backhanded compliment.

  “Let me guess. Sammyboy wants you to escort him to the peak, the mountain. Am I right?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Is that a problem for you?” Kole asked.

  “Depends,” he said.

  “On what, champ?”

  Jack looked down at his feet, and Kole leaned his head back to release a roaring laugh.

  “Oh, shit. It’s the chick, ain’t it? You’re hot and heavy for her. Linda? No, Lindsay. It’s Lindsay, right?”

  Jack nodded, unsure if he was confirming her name or his feelings for her.

  “She’s so out of your league, man. Not even close.”

  Kole lifted his beer bottle and tilted it upward. Jack watched water drip off the bottom and pool on the bar below. After a few seconds, the bartender reappeared, wiping the surface dry.

  “Let me tell you something, Jackster. You got no shot at her with him around, and if he gets to the mountain, well—” Kole let the last word drift. “Your best bet is to sit tight in that cabin and wait for the cloud. It wants him, not you or the broad. It’ll leave you two. Alone. In the cabin.”

  Jack felt his eyes tighten and a pressure at the base of his neck. The noise in the bar had amplified and the air felt heavy, as if the humidity had begun to squeeze his chest.

  “But he says getting to the mountain is our only chance. We have to get there if there’s any hope.”

  Kole shook his head. “My beer’s almost empty, which means our time is about done. Do you want to sit here and whine, or do you want to know what you need to do to get Lindsay?”

  The pressure on Jack’s head increased until he was certain a vise gripped his skull. “Okay.”

  “Good.” Kole nodded. “All you have to do is keep the three of you in that cabin until the cloud arrives. I’m sure you noticed the spider-crabs sitting in your front lawn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that should help, don’t ya think? The cloud is coming and when it does, it’ll scoop up Samuel and bring a gigantic fucking shoe for all of those creatures, leaving you and that little hottie in the cabin.”

  Jack smiled. The plan sounded fairly simple. Straightforward. All he had to do was maintain the position they were in now.

  “How do you know all this?” Jack asked.

  Kole turned to face Jack. Jack saw the pain in his eyes and felt it in his chest.

  “Sammyboy and me, we go way back. We met through a mutual friend, who sold me down the fucking river. That dickhead is still out there, slipping through localities and using people as he goes. Samuel has something that can help me track down Major, and I can’t get to him until the reversion brings him to me. I know your shitcan brain ain’t gettin’ any of this, and I don’t really care.”

  Jack sighed and shook his head. He noticed the music had stopped and the bar was empty.

  “What you need to remember is that you’ll be lucky to catch a glimpse of Lindsay’s fine ass as she follows Samuel to the mountain, while you’re left high and dry. Now, if Samuel’s out of the picture and the two of you are left in the cabin—”

  “How do you know she’ll get with me then?”

  “I don’t, dickwad,” Kole said. “Unless you’re buying the whore off a corner, you ain’t gettin’ no guarantees when it comes to women. But I can tell you with Samuel around, you ain’t nuthin’ but a little bro to her.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Fuck you and your best. I need it done. I need my hands on that talisman first and Major’s throat second. You feelin’ me?”

  The wall behind the bar began to vibrate. The bottles sitting atop a lighted shelf began to shake in a noiseless chatter. Jack watched as the glass collapsed, melting into pools of clear liquid that ran down the mirrored wall. The television mounted on the wall went dark, and it too dripped to the floor, pooling in an onyx puddle. Jack turned around as the rest of the bar fell like the backdrop in a cheap theater.

  “Keep them from getting to the peak, Jack. Do that and you have a chance. If you can’t, you’re going to end up like me. Having beers with blowhards in imaginary bars on the east side of fucking nowhere. Tell Samuel that Kole says hello.”

  Jack felt the floor vibrating beneath his feet and closed his eyes, hoping when he reopened them Lindsay would be there to comfort him.

  ***

  Lindsay felt the tug of sleep as soon as she placed her head down on the bundled pack that served as a pillow. Something hard dug into her ear and delayed her descent into the depths of dreams. She glanced around the cabin, watching the rise and fall of Samuel’s shoulder as he lay on the floor facing the wall, his back to the interior of the cabin. Jack was asleep on the other side, and it sounded as if he were talking in his sleep, chattering nonsense in an imaginary conversation.

  She closed her eyes and stretched her legs until fatigue overpowered her.

  The bench sat on the south shore of the pond, opposite the museum on the north. The early August air was heavy with humidity, pushing down on the surface and holding the water as still as mirrored glass. Lindsay looked into the reflection and saw the front of the museum as clearly as the real one standing upright on the other side. The sun boiled the park—even the birds hung from the trees without song or sound. She watched several couples circumnavigating the pond on the asphalt footpath around it. Behind her, the busy stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Highway cut across Euclid Avenue and segmented the campus in half.

  “Is this the year?”

  The question yanked Lindsay’s head to her right, where a young, thin woman stood next to the bench. She tilted her head toward it, seeking Lindsay’s permission to sit. Lindsay followed the woman’s eyes and nodded but did not reply.

  “The Browns. Is this the year? Training camp talk and all that.”

  Lindsay s
miled and then let it slide from her face instantly. The woman’s eyes left her with a heaviness in her chest, and she struggled to breathe.

  “My name is Mara,” the woman said, extending her arm and long, slender fingers.

  Lindsay could not help but feel the bundled emotions behind the woman’s crystal blue eyes. She wore her jet-black hair to the shoulder, tucking one side behind her right ear while the other swooped down against high cheekbones. Mara’s lips looked wet from blood-red lip gloss, and Lindsay could see the perspiration on her face threatening to ruin the eyeliner accentuating her eyes. Lindsay smiled again, this time letting it linger in its more natural state. She had a hard time breaking Mara’s gaze.

  “Lindsay,” she finally said.

  “This is beautiful. I’ve never been. It’s—”

  “University Circle,” Lindsay said. “That’s the Museum of Art, and Case Western Reserve is behind us.”

  Mara nodded, more so at Lindsay’s civic pride than the meaningless, institutional names she shared.

  “I was told everyone in Cleveland is a football fan.”

  Lindsay laughed. “I grew up in Detroit. Besides, I find it hard to care what overpaid men in tights do on Sunday afternoons unless it involves a stage, oiled pecs and a fistful of dollar bills.”

  Mara took her turn to giggle, a touch of red flushing her cheeks.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as so crass,” Lindsay said.

  “No, no. It’s fine,” Mara said.

  A silence settled between the two. Lindsay reached into a bag of stale popcorn and tossed a handful to the edge of the pond, a few kernels hitting the water and wrecking the museum’s reflection. A curious squirrel darted down the trunk of a nearby tree to snag one, but the birds remained perched.

  “I know who you are,” Lindsay said.

  Mara sat back. She looked up at the blanket of clouds, which allowed the sun’s rays through and trapped the heat.

  “But you don’t know why I’m here, in your dream.”

  Lindsay nodded and waited for Mara to elaborate. She somehow knew she was dreaming the entire time, yet could not wake from it.

  “You were with Samuel in the last reversion.”

  “Not the ‘last’, but ‘a’ reversion, yes.”

  “And you didn’t make it.”

  “Not to your current locality. I did not,” Mara said.

  An older couple came toward them on the asphalt path, the woman with a shawl bundling her shoulders and the man with an ancient windbreaker zipped up to his neck. They both smiled and walked as if the rest of the world did not exist. Lindsay and Mara stood and brushed imaginary flotsam from the bench so the couple could rest. When they sat and stared out at the museum, Lindsay and Mara began walking on the path and toward the museum’s colonnaded entrance on the north side.

  “Did you love him?” Lindsay asked. She kept her focus on the path ahead, not risking the chance of showing the emotions on her face.

  “Yes,” Mara said. “And no.”

  Lindsay waited, staring down as they walked. Mara’s black boots looked out of place next to her soccer sandals.

  “I came to love him like a brother, but he was ultimately responsible for hurting me. I’m not sure it would have changed my fate, although it might have. I may not have ended up in the reversion had it not been for his actions.”

  Lindsay let Mara speak, feeling as though the words were meant for both of their ears. Mara turned off the path until it intersected with a sidewalk. She stepped over a guardrail and waited for Lindsay to follow.

  “Severance Hall. It’s so beautiful. I’ve always wanted to see it.”

  “Looks closed,” Lindsay said, then scoffed at the idea that an entrance to a building in her dream would somehow be unattainable.

  “Let’s go inside,” Mara said.

  Lindsay nodded, and they both crossed a street devoid of cars or buses. Lindsay looked over her shoulder and noticed the couple was no longer on the bench. Even her discarded popcorn had been abandoned by the wildlife.

  “I’m going to wake up soon,” Lindsay said.

  “I know,” Mara said. “Let’s go.”

  Mara trotted across the road and up the steps of Severance Hall. She pushed through the glass doors and felt a wave of relief hit her in the form of air conditioning. Lindsay came through next and drew a deep breath, letting the dry air soothe her overworked lungs. Oil paintings of ancient myths sat between gold-leaf columns. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and red-velvet carpeting accentuated the brass hand-railings. Mara walked down three wide, marble steps until she reached the main door.

  “The immigrant marble workers from Florence rented old row houses on Murray Hill. That’s how Little Italy got its start. They worked mostly in Lakeview Cemetery, but did other marble work throughout the east side of the city.”

  “You sure have a flair for the historical,” Mara said.

  “I got to know life on the streets firsthand.”

  Mara nodded at Lindsay, leaving the comment and all of its implications untouched.

  “We need to talk about Samuel and the reversion,” Mara said.

  Lindsay dreaded the thought of waking up. The dark, cool air of Severance Hall relieved her senses from the suffocating humidity outside, and the low light was a welcome change from the scalding rays of the August sun.

  “You mean you need to tell me things and I need to listen.”

  “I guess that’s right,” Mara said.

  “I like you, Lindsay. I know that already. In another time, another locality, we were friends. Could have been friends. Are friends. But we’re both trapped in a place where we won’t find salvation.”

  Lindsay nodded, wishing again she could just remain in her dreamy version of University Circle in Cleveland, Ohio.

  “You must make it to the peak with Samuel. There will be distractions and, at times, it may appear as though you’re trapped.”

  Thoughts of spider-crabs and fire flashed through Lindsay’s mind.

  “But you’re not. If you two work together, you have the power to make it to the mountain.”

  “Why?” Lindsay asked. “What’s there?”

  “I don’t really know,” Mara said.

  Lindsay searched for the truth in her blue eyes and found it. “I think that’s part of the suffering for those of us in the worlds of the reversion,” Mara said. “There is so much that remains unknown. That’s why I came to you. I have knowledge of your fate, and I felt obligated to share it.”

  “And it’s tied to Samuel’s fate,” Lindsay said, a hint of uncertainty lingering in her words.

  “It is. His essence is different than it was in the real world and even what it was in the reversion I shared with him. He has matured, grown. I’m confident he will do what’s right. He will obey his ahimsa.”

  Mara saw the quizzical look pass over Lindsay’s face at the mention of dharmic duty, and she waved her hands in the air. “Sorry. We don’t have time to go into that right now. Remember that you must get to the mountain, to the peak, with Samuel and there you will have your chance at redemption. There is no guarantee you’ll be released from the cycle, but getting distracted or swallowed by the cloud ensures you won’t be released.”

  Lindsay nodded and closed her eyes as darkness rushed in to eat the remains of Severance Hall. Lindsay saw Mara’s smile as the dream concluded, and she awoke wearing the same one.

  Chapter 7

  Jack rolled over and winced as the crick in his neck woke him. He smelled the rich aroma of fresh coffee and then rubbed his eyes. Jack yawned, feeling as though his body had rested but his mind had not. Samuel stood in front of a potbelly stove, with his back to the cabin, holding a sizzling skillet.

  “Like bacon?” he asked without turning around.

  “Are you kidding me?” Jack said. He glanced at Lindsay, still asleep on the floor. Her hair covered her shoulders and he could see the top of her panties. “Everyone loves bacon,” he said, pullin
g himself together.

  “No, there isn’t a supermarket in the neighborhood. I know what you’re thinking. These cabins in the reversion, some of them are sort of like an oasis. Things show up, things we know and love.”

  “Like bacon,” Jack said.

  “And coffee,” Samuel said.

  “I can smell stuff.”

  “That’s something else that can happen in the cabins. The sensory deprivation doesn’t seem to be as bad. I’m not sure you get one hundred percent, but probably near eighty-five, and I’ll take it. The label on the coffee beans says ‘Mexican Chiapas,’ which I remember to be a nice, smooth dark roast with a hint of chocolate.”

  Jack stood and stretched, licking his lips and moving toward the skillet atop the stove. Samuel turned and smiled as he pushed the strips of bacon around with a steel spatula.

  “Oh my God.”

  Samuel and Jack turned to see Lindsay sitting on the floor, rubbing her eyes, with a grin racing across her face.

  “Tell me I smell coffee. Please tell me, even if it’s a lie,” she said.

  “No lie. And bacon,” Jack said.

  Samuel nodded and held the spatula up in a triumphant pose before pushing the bacon through grease that snapped and popped. The spatula made it easier. Samuel didn’t know why the cabin had one this time when he was forced to use his fingers in the last reversion. He assumed it was the reversion trying even harder to keep him where it wanted, stationary.

  “Samuel says sometimes the cabins have this stuff, that they’re like an oasis in the desert.”

  Samuel winced at the word ‘desert,’ having momentarily forgotten what lay beyond the dry-rotted walls of the cabin.

  “Coffee and bacon?” Lindsay asked, as if not trusting her nose.

  “Mexican Chaps,” Jack said, hopping from one foot to the next.

  “Chiapas,” Samuel said. “But close enough.”

  Three plates made of carved wood sat on the table, nestled against the wall opposite the bunk. Samuel pulled it over and then placed the only two chairs on each side.

  “Breakfast is served,” he said while lowering hot strips of bacon to each plate.

  He set the skillet back on the stove before retrieving a pot with steam pulsing from the spout. Samuel poured the dark liquid into each plain, ceramic mug before sitting down on a chair opposite Jack. Lindsay took a seat on the edge of the bunk and folded her hands together until Samuel sat down.