by Barry Lyga
Millennia ago, he’d taken Madame Xanadu’s mysterious playing card from Iris’s desk and put it in his pocket. Now, millennia later, he knew what it was for.
“It’s a key,” he said in wonderment, holding it aloft for Citizen Hefa to see. “It unlocks the magicians’ spire.”
Had Madame Xanadu foreseen this moment? Barry wondered. From her storefront on the Central City Pier in the twenty-first century, had she peered forward into the future, navigating the web of alternate futures and worlds that might-yet-be to see this exact, specific moment in time, when he would need this card? And then had she neglected to scoop the card back into her deck so that Barry would take it with him . . .
. . . and leave it with Iris when he went to Earth 27 . . .
. . . so that it would still be intact when he needed it . . .?
Had the whole thing been planned from the beginning? From the moment he’d stepped into Madame Xanadu’s shop, had his free will been tossed out the window, replaced with . . . fate?
Was it truly magic?
Or was it just dumb luck?
Maybe, he thought, they were the same thing. And maybe, he thought further, it just didn’t matter. He’d put one foot in front of the other, over and over again, running his path. Whether the path was newly made or predetermined, it had gotten him here, to this moment in time. To a world thousands of years after his own death, so far in the future that his name should be forgotten, crumbled to dust and scattered to history’s winds.
And yet Citizen Hefa knew who he was. His story began in the past but resonated into the far, far future. Who could say what was intended and what happened by accident? In five thousand years, almost anything could happen. And apparently, almost anything had.
“This is our way in,” he said, holding up the card. “I can’t explain how or why, but I have it. And I’ll use it.”
Citizen Hefa clenched her fists briefly, and the hologram disappeared. “Let’s go, Flash.”
He shook his head. “No. It has to be me. Alone.” He wasn’t sure why, but he was sure. He had to brace the magicians in their den by himself. Maybe just to face down Hocus Pocus and finally throw off the shackles of fear and self-recrimination that he’d been bound up in ever since Hocus Pocus had mind-controlled him. Some part of him was still afraid, still living in fear that he could once again lose control of himself, find himself in a position where he not only couldn’t help people but also couldn’t stop himself from hurting them.
He had to face that fear, in the person of Hocus Pocus. He had to face it down and defeat it, once and for all.
“I’ll go in,” Barry told her, “and I’ll bring them out.”
Citizen Hefa hesitated, but Barry knew that she would agree. The Quantum Police might do a great job policing matter and energy, but their criminal-law-enforcement chops were atrophied. And she knew it. She would defer to the caveman from ancient history because he knew that the best way to stop the magicians wasn’t by decommissioning their spire—it was by socking them in the jaw. Sometimes more than once, if you were lucky.
“I’ll set up a dampening field outside the spire,” Citizen Hefa said resolutely. “If any of them come through the door, it will prevent them from teleporting away immediately.”
He grinned at her. “See? That’s called backup in my time. Good one.” He held up the card. “Can you scan this? And if something happens in there, can you—”
“—create a copy so that the Quantum Police can breach the door and offer assistance? Yes, of course. It’s already done.”
Since he hadn’t noticed anything happen, he had to take her word for it. She must have sensed his skeptical hesitation, because she gestured with one hand, and an exact replica of the playing card appeared in her hand. It was, he had to admit, a great card trick.
“Voila!” he said, since she didn’t.
“Voikitlakit may actually be inside,” she warned him. “Be careful; she is quite dangerous.”
Of course there was a techno-magician named Voila. Of course there was.
Barry gave Citizen Hefa a moment to set up her dampening field, and then he dashed to the front door. There was actually a doorknob there, and a great wave of homesickness washed over him at the sight of it.
A peephole set into the middle of the door made a slight clicking sound, and something telescoped from it, a lens protruding out perhaps an inch. Barry held up the card, its face toward the peephole, and sucked in an expectant breath.
It took no time at all. The peephole/telescope retreated flush to the door again, the knob turned on its own, and the door creaked open with a sound that told him it was the first thing in centuries that needed to be oiled.
32
The disciplinary board of the Central City Police Department sounded impressive and stately, but it met in a smallish windowless room in the basement of the precinct. There was a long table at one end, behind which sat Captain Singh and two other ranking officers. A smaller table faced the long one. Sitting at that table was Darrel Frye, who wore a crisp blue blazer and a fantastically annoyed expression.
When Iris and the others entered, Frye was in the middle of speaking.
“. . . cannot be present at the moment, but I don’t believe that should be held against him.”
His voice laden with derision, Singh responded, “Sergeant Frye, Barry Allen is subject to this hearing because he’s late to everything and rarely shows up when needed. If he can’t even make it to his own hearing, that tells us everything we need to know!”
“Excuse me!” Iris said. “I’d like to speak on Barry Allen’s behalf.”
Frye turned in his chair to behold Iris, Joe, Cisco, Caitlin, and H.R. clustered just inside the door. He sighed, passed a hand over his eyes, and slumped a bit in his chair.
“Ms. West, this is highly irregular,” Singh said. There was a microphone in front of him, and he put his hand over it. “Joe,” he stage-whispered, “knock this off, and get this gaggle out of here!”
“Can’t do it, Captain,” Joe said. “You know that. We have to fight for Barry.”
“When he isn’t even here to fight for himself?”
“Especially then,” Iris said.
One of the two officers on the board with Singh cleared her throat and spoke directly into her microphone. “There’s no rule saying witnesses can’t speak on behalf of the officer being disciplined if the officer isn’t present,” she said. “If Sergeant Frye would like to call these folks, I don’t see why this board wouldn’t at least give them the courtesy of hearing them out.”
Frye started to groan, thought better of it, and turned it into a cough. He pointed to Iris. “You first, I guess.”
Iris took a deep breath.
33
Inside the magicians’ spire, all was dark. The door had closed behind him as soon as Barry entered. His eyes adjusted, and then he noticed a flickering light from ahead.
Slow down. Madame Xanadu’s advice, still ringing in his ears after almost five thousand years. Good advice, really. Who knew what traps could lie around a corner, powered by nanotech that could capture even a speedster?
He crept forward, toward the light. Shadows danced and parted as he closed in. Around the corner, he spied two torches in sconces mounted to flagstone walls. It looked like a medieval castle. He dragged his fingers along the wall. It felt like authentic stone. Nanotechnology could create pretty much anything, he imagined.
“!” a voice called out. “
!”
At that, more torches spontaneously lit along the wall, bringing light to the darkened stone corridor. Barry followed them. He had no choice: The hallway only went in one direction, with no side corridors.
After a few moments, the corridor opened up to a massive theater. It looked like something from the late nineteenth century, with rich, sumptuous crimson curtains hanging over the stage, a gilded crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling, and chairs set up bleacher-style, facing a proscenium arch and the stage itself. Another sp
asm of homesickness hit Barry. It was old to his twenty-first-century eyes but still familiar. Joe had dragged Iris and him to many a play at the Central City Municipal Theater when they were kids. This place looked like it.
Down on the stage, four figures stood, arguing. Barry immediately recognized Pocus and Kadabra, as well as the chunky man Citizen Hefa had identified as Citizen Ali. The fourth person was a woman, wearing an abbreviated outfit of coat and tails, along with a tall top hat perched at a rakish angle on her head.
Hello, Voila, Barry thought.
Four of them. Four magicians. As far as he knew, they all had the same powers and abilities as Hocus Pocus and Abra Kadabra. The last time he’d taken on a techno-magician, he’d had Wally’s help and the backup of Team Flash at his disposal. Now he was going up against four of them on his own.
This doesn’t end well for anyone, he thought mordantly.
They were speaking in raised voices, clearly distraught and annoyed with one another. Beyond that, he couldn’t nail down specifics—they were speaking in that strange sixty-fourth-century language that he did not understand. He should have asked Citizen Hefa to download that into his Wernicke’s area.
Crouching behind the last row of seats, concealed by shadows, he peered down onto the stage. Speed and surprise were his advantages, of course, and he could—
Whoa!
As he watched and pondered his best course of action, Hocus Pocus suddenly spun around and lashed out with his wand, sending a beam of light at Citizen Ali, who reacted a split second too late, raising his own wand in an effort to deflect.
The beam of light exploded into a shower of multicolored sparks and flares. Citizen Ali fell back several steps, waving his wand madly. Little clouds appeared, firing bolts of lightning.
Meanwhile, Voila floated up into the air and fired a blast of frigid air at Abra Kadabra, who made a gesture with his left hand that redirected the cold beam up into the rafters. It started snowing inside, big fat flakes drifting down from the shadows up above.
Barry shuddered, remembering his fight with Hocus Pocus in the Central City Park. The magician had made trees come to life, conjured a waterspout from a fountain, and reversed gravity. Now there were four of them with those kinds of powers, apparently ready to kill one another.
At least they’re isolated in this spire. They can’t hurt anyone else in here.
A stray lightning bolt from one of Citizen Ali’s clouds zipped right over Barry’s head and exploded against the wall behind him. OK, strike that—they can’t hurt anyone but me!
He peeked over the chair again. Someone had conjured an enormous bullfrog, which now squatted in the center of the stage, lashing out with its tongue at Citizen Ali. Hocus Pocus was floating in the air with Voila, the two of them concentrating their firepower on Abra Kadabra, who was down on one knee, teeth gritted in concentration as he gestured manically, sending lightning bolts, bursts of flame, freeze rays, and other harmful blasts scattering off in all directions.
It was a coup. Voila and Pocus were trying to get rid of Kadabra. And then, no doubt, Pocus would betray Voila. After all, he wanted to be the Most Exalted Abra Kadabra himself, and he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.
Barry was tempted to let them fight it out among themselves and then take out the winner on his own. But they didn’t seem to be pulling their punches, and he couldn’t just stand by (well, crouch by) and watch people get killed. Not even evil techno-magicians from the sixty-fourth century.
He heard Cisco’s voice in his head: You know, if you’d lay off the morals for just five seconds, you’d make your life a lot easier.
And then he heard Joe: That’s not the man I raised, Cisco.
And then Iris: It’s a good thing we know you’re kidding, Cisco. Barry would never do that.
And he wouldn’t. With a sigh, he popped up from behind the seats and raced down the aisle toward the feuding wizards.
First, he extricated Citizen Ali from the bullfrog’s tongue. It was a sticky, slimy business, and he was glad that his costume had gloves. The bullfrog croaked in indignation and hopped into the air, shooting its tongue out at Barry at the same time.
And now the wizards were aware that the Flash was on the scene.
“Flash!” Hocus Pocus screamed.
“Flash!” bellowed Abra Kadabra.
“!” said Voila.
Citizen Ali said nothing. He was furiously pawing at himself, trying to wipe off the coating of frog saliva that had covered his entire midsection.
Kadabra snapped his fingers. Large spotlights wrenched themselves free from the ceiling and spun through the air. One of them collided with Voila, knocking her back down to the floor. Pocus managed to dodge another.
A third came right for Barry. He avoided it, but as it sailed past him, its cable snaked out and wrapped around his ankles, tripping him. He landed with a whoof! on the floor, and the spotlight spun around, a mouth suddenly opening where the bulb was. The glass became teeth, shining brightly, and the thing shot over to him, its maw wide.
Watching the spotlight-turned-monster zip toward him, glass teeth gnashing, Barry thought, Well, there’s something you don’t see every day.
Above, Hocus Pocus sent a flurry of flaming hail down toward Barry and Abra Kadabra. Voila, meanwhile, had pulled something like ten yards of silk out of her shirtsleeve and sent it flapping and flailing through the air until it wrapped around Citizen Ali, who was still sloughing off bullfrog spit. The silk enveloped him from head to toe and started squeezing.
Barry managed to get to his knees. The spotlight grew closer, its cable tugging Barry in toward those hideous, gleaming teeth. He put his palms on the floor and started vibrating. In a moment, the spotlight trembled, then blurred as the vibrations really took hold. An instant later, the teeth shattered into glass dust, and a puff of smoke went up from the innards of the spotlight. The cable went slack around Barry’s ankles.
I just killed an inanimate object. Achievement unlocked.
Dodging the fiery hail and random spurts of laser energy from Kadabra, Barry weaved his way across the stage to Citizen Ali, whose face had gone purple and whose eyes bugged out as the cloth constricted around him. Voila was playing for keeps.
Barry grabbed the dangling end of the silk. It thrashed in his hands and tried to wrap itself around his wrist, but he turned his hand this way and that to foil its attempt. Then he ran counterclockwise around Citizen Ali, unraveling the fabric as he went. In the next instant, he snapped the cloth like a bullwhip, spun it over his head, and sent it sailing through the air at Voila.
She saw it coming and had just enough time to shout something he didn’t understand but that was probably not terribly nice. The silk enwrapped her and squeezed. Voila dropped out of the air . . .
. . . and landed right on top of Citizen Ali. Clonk! Both of them were out cold.
“You imbecile!” Hocus Pocus shouted from above. “You’re interfering with matters that do not concern you!”
“Once I’ve dealt with this pretender,” Kadabra snarled, indicating Pocus, “I’ll allow myself the pleasure of killing you.”
“I’m glad you guys speak ancient English,” Barry told them. “Makes it more fun to do the whole hero/villain banter thing.”
“Banter this!” Kadabra made a wide, broad gesture with both hands, swinging his arms out to his sides and snapping his fingers at the same time. Barry charged toward him, but just then the room shook around him. Suddenly, the walls pulled away, twisted, turned, and reconfigured themselves into a ceiling and floor. The audience seating area bent and flipped as if on a massive hinge, the aisle stairs now turned ninety degrees. The entire theater contorted itself into something out of the mind of M. C. Escher.
Gravity had gone wonky, too. Hocus Pocus alighted on what had been the floor but was now a wall, set at a ninety-degree angle to where Barry stood. Kadabra was a few yards away, snarling with satisfaction. He pushed out with his hands, and two fireballs soared at Bar
ry, who ducked and then ran sideways along a set of stairs that now led right into a corner.
The fireballs were following him. At the corner, he juked left, now running upside-down along what had been a wall a few seconds ago. “Above” his head—but actually under him—he saw Hocus Pocus swing his wand wildly. A slick of ice appeared under Barry’s feet, and he skidded out of control along the “ceiling,” until gravity suddenly decided to do its job again, and he found himself dropping like a stone.
The bullfrog, meanwhile, had become so disoriented by the reconfiguration of the room that it hopped straight up, hit a perpendicular line of new gravity, and ended up speeding right at Barry, its tongue flapping in the wind, flecks of spittle spattering everywhere.
Just as the bullfrog reached him, it croaked loudly in his ear, deafening him for a moment. He lashed out at it, knocking it away as he plunged downward. The bullfrog croaked again in outrage and “fell” upward to land on the wall/ceiling.
Barry, though, kept falling down. He recovered from the explosive croak in his ear at the last second and spun his arms in a whirlwind. He was too late; he created a cushion of air to land on but not one deep enough. The impact of hitting the floor rattled his bones and knocked the wind out of him.
Gasping for breath, he tried to push himself onto his knees but couldn’t move. His eyes watered with the pain. Get up! he told himself. There’s two magicians and a bullfrog on your butt! Get up!
Two feet came into view before him. The room tilted again, all topsy-turvy, and Barry tumbled down an incline, crashing into a breathless heap on what had been the floor and was now a wall. The feet followed him, ignoring the rejiggered gravity. He looked up.
It was Abra Kadabra, looming over him, leering, stroking his beard.
“Now, Flash,” he said with glee, “I will fulfill both of our destinies! I always knew that when you vanished from history, it had to be because I, your greatest foe, had lured you to the future and killed you here and now, in a time when your precious friends could not even find your body, much less save you.”
