by Randall Pine
“You told me, like, six hours ago that you were terrified of daylight! Now you’re afraid of the dark?!”
Virgil considered that. “Maybe I’m just afraid of woods…” he mused thoughtfully.
“Well, you can shoot magic beams from your hands,” Simon pointed out, “so I think you should be fine.”
“Yeah, hey, speaking of that...you know how much better I’d feel if we had our manacles?”
“I know. But we’ve been over this. They’re in Llewyn’s chest, and it’s frozen shut,” Simon frowned. “We’ll just have to…aim better.”
Virgil grimaced. “Great,” he muttered. “Also, while I’m complaining about things, it’s cold out here.”
“It’s not that cold,” Simon said.
“I can see my breath!” Virgil exhaled for emphasis, and a cloud of steam billowed out from between his lips. “It’s cold, and it’s dark, and it’s the middle of the night, and I’m tired.”
Simon checked his watch. “It’s 9:17,” he said.
Virgil started. “Seriously?” he asked. He looked around at the dark woods and frowned. “Man, it sure gets dark early in the fall.”
“But you’re not one to complain,” Simon reminded him.
“I am not one to complain,” Virgil agreed.
They stood in quiet contemplation for several long minutes, waiting for something to happen. Virgil rubbed his arms to keep himself warm, but Simon was too lost in thought to notice the chill in the air. “You said the Refracticore collects energy, then redistributes it?”
Virgil nodded. “According to Reddit.”
Simon held his tongue on that one. Instead, he pressed on with his point. “When the lightning hits, it scorches the victims. What is it draining? Water? Moisture?”
Virgil shrugged. “Yeah, like hyper-evaporation.”
Simon rubbed his chin, his face a mask of frustrated thought. “But if the Refracticore is being used to redistribute moisture, why get it from people? Why not just…you know…drain a river, or something?”
Virgil chewed on his bottom lip, considering the question. “That’s a good point,” he decided. “Let’s ask the people driving up the path in that van.”
A pair of headlights cut suddenly through the forest, bouncing wildly as the van bumped along over the unpaved path. Simon grabbed Virgil and pulled him to the ground just as the headlights swept over them. They crawled up behind one of the larger trees, ducking behind its cover as the van came to a squeaking stop on the other side of the clearing.
There was a string of lights running down each side of the van, and the dim glow illuminated the writing on the side: FURTIVE HILLS.
The door opened, and a man stepped out. His features were lost in the darkness and the shadows of the woods, but they saw him pull two objects from his pockets, each about the size and shape of a stone. The man clapped them together in front of him, and they cracked like eggs. But instead of yolk running out, two streams of liquid fire dripped down from the broken shells. They stopped in midair, just before hitting the ground, and the liquid pooled on top if itself until the two knobs of fire became thick and viscous, burning brightly, suspended above the ground with about three feet of space between them and illuminating everything around them like torches. In that new light, they could see the man more clearly; he wore a purple cloak, but unlike the mysterious woman’s silk robe, this cloak seemed to be made of a rougher, uncomfortable material, like canvas. His eyes were hidden by his hood, which he had pulled up over his head, and all they could see of his face was a strong jaw with dark stubble and a shiny gleam of a scar running across his chin.
There was a symbol painted on the front of his robe in yellow paint that had dripped a little as it dried. It was a circle bisected across the middle with a horizontal line. Above the line, balanced on its point, was the outline of an upside-down triangle. Below the line was a right side-up reflection of that triangle, filled in with color. It looked sort of like a half-full hourglass inside of a ring.
The hooded man climbed back into the van. After a second, they heard the pressurized whine of hydraulics, and they watched as a small ramp slid out from the van and its end planted down on the forest floor. The hooded man stepped back out of the van, walking down the ramp, then turned and beckoned up into the vehicle, motioning for the people inside to follow him.
Simon and Virgil could see shadows moving behind the windows, lumbering slowly toward the door. Like slow, shuttered prisoners testing their freedom, they emerged, shuffling down the ramp, holding onto the safety railing and easing themselves down to the ground.
“They’re…old,” Virgil said.
The senior citizens walked slowly out of the van, using their walkers and canes for support. They crept forward in their creased pants and heavy sweaters, some of them with silver hair glinting in the moonlight, some of them flashing smooth, bald scalps as they passed through the torches and ambled into the clearing.
“Make a circle,” the man in the canvas robe barked. The elderly men and women formed themselves into a ring, grunting and groaning with the effort of walking through the fallen leaves and branches.
Virgil heard one woman near their end of the clearing murmur sourly about a pain in her hip. The man next to her leaned over and whispered, “You’ll be right as rain.”
As the men and women of Furtive Hills spread into a circle, the man in the cloak strode to the back of the van. He opened the doors and retrieved a long bundle wrapped in gold silk. He carried it into the center of the clearing and carefully unwrapped the fabric. The elderly people encircling him craned their necks and jostled their canes so they could lean in and get a better look, and Simon and Virgil had to stand up and peek out from behind the tree in order to see what the man in the cloak was unwrapping.
They didn’t really have to see it, though. They could have guessed.
As the silk fell away, the smooth, polished surface of the Refracticore caught the moonlight that filtered through the branches, reflected in its many facets.
The stone was big, much bigger than they expected. It was a little larger than a football, and it had a similar shape. Its color was deep purple, darker than an amethyst, and what light it caught was reflected in warm yellow-orange flashes. The Refracticore was set into the top of a golden staff, held securely by three sturdy prongs that curved out from the base and clamped down over the bottom half of the stone. The other end of the staff had two U-shaped stabilization crossbars that bent downward at the tips.
The man in the cloak rolled the staff over in his hands and held it up like a spear, turning slowly so all the members of the gathered assembly could see it clearly. There were several gasps and quiet moans of appreciation and awe as they gazed upon the beauty of the Refracticore. Then the man in the cloak jammed the staff into the earth, and it sank down deep into the ground.
“Behold, the moment of your great gift,” the man said. It sounded to Simon as if he were repeating a memorized line; there wasn’t a whole lot of passion behind the words. “You have been chosen. Let us honor the source of your deliverance and salvation.” He reached out in front of himself, touching his thumbs together and tenting his fingers over them, forming a triangle with his hands just below his chest, lining it up closely to the bottom triangle in the insignia on his cloak.
He looked around at the men and women gathered there. Most of them were squinting and leaning forward, trying to make sense of his movements in the darkness. The man in the cloak cleared his throat. He jiggled his hands meaningfully, keeping the triangle intact. A few of the people around him picked up on the cue, and they formed their hands into triangles in front of their chests, too. A quiet murmur spread through the crowd as some members of the assembly nudged their neighbors and instructed them to form the triangle. One of the men on the far side of the clearing hollered, “What?” A bunch of the others shushed him.
; It took a few minutes, but finally, everyone in the circle was making triangles with their hands.
“What…are they doing?” Virgil whispered. “Is this what a cult looks like?”
Simon held his finger to his lips, motioning for Virgil to be quiet. They were too close to the clearing to risk being overheard. But the look on his face made it clear that he, too, was both confused and troubled.
“Grant us your gift, lord of shades and shadow,” the cloaked man continued in the same rehearsed, almost bored-sounding voice. “Power the Refracticore, and make these humble servants whole.”
Nobody moved. Some of the group members shifted uncomfortably. The stillness and silence hung heavily in the air.
But then a subtle movement caught the corner of Simon’s eye. He glanced over to his right, deeper into the woods, outside of the open clearing. He gasped, then clapped a hand over his mouth. Virgil shot him a look…but Simon nodded into the woods, and when Virgil looked and saw what Simon was seeing, he had to put his hand over his mouth, too, to stop from crying out.
The shadows of the trees were gathering into a puddle of darkness.
It was such a small and subtle movement that they couldn’t be sure at first that it was actually what they were seeing. The moonlight was dim, so the shadows of the trees were insubstantial and hard to see against the forest floor. But they wavered, as if becoming liquid shadow-streams, and then they began to run together, slowly, connecting to each other like drops of mercury in the night.
More and more shadows came together, forming a bigger and bigger pool, and then the entire mass began to creep forward, passing over the leaves and pine needles and acorns and twigs like a dark, transparent sheet being drawn across the forest floor. The pool moved toward the clearing, pulling away completely from the trees that had cast the shadows to begin with.
Virgil looked at Simon, incredulous. Simon didn’t return the look, but shook his head slowly in response, his eyes still glued to the moving shadow.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Virgil mouthed.
“The shadow-man at Mrs. Grunberg’s house?” Simon breathed.
“Yeah,” Virgil nodded. He stared at the flowing darkness and whispered, “Moving shadow creatures.”
As the puddle approached the clearing, it split into three rivulets, like a stream, and spilled around two of the elderly women standing at the far edge; the shadow streams passed between their feet, then came back together on the inside of the clearing, reforming into a solid pool of darkness. The shadow moved toward the Refracticore, and as it did, its shape began to change. The front edge pinched in, forming four distinct fingers and a thumb, and the body of the shadow spread out behind it like an arm. The shadow hand twirled up the staff, winding its way higher until it reached the top. Then the hand expanded, quadrupling in size, and the palm closed over the stone, so Simon and Virgil could only see the dull, darkened glow of it, as if the Refracticore was shrouded in heavy smoke. The air in the clearing began to thrum with energy, and a purple light glowed to life deep within the stone’s core. It grew brighter and brighter until it melted the shadow-hand away; the darkness gathered back into the arm and slid down the staff, back to the ground.
The Refracticore shone so brightly, the assembled group members had to shield their eyes. One of the men reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses that he slipped on over his eyeglasses.
The light shone from every fact of the stone, beaming through the trees and creating dazzling patterns in the leaves.
Suddenly, a piece of the greater puzzle had fallen into place for Simon. The woman in the cloak hadn’t registered as magical because she wasn’t magical. She wasn’t controlling the Refracticore.
The shadow-monster was the one with all the power.
The living darkness gathered into a formless pool once again and moved across the ground like silk. It slipped out of the clearing on the far side and crept up the trunk of a wide tree, close to the man in the purple canvas cloak. As the shadow climbed the tree, it began to take on a new shape. This time, it formed into the tall, slender shadow of a man.
The man in the purple cloak held out his triangle hands toward the shadow and said, “Thank you, lord of shadows and shade.”
Most of the senior citizens around the ring mimicked him, holding out their arms and mumbling their thanks to the shadow-creature.
Then, suddenly, there was a great thunderclap that shook the woods, and a brilliant beam of white light exploded out of the top of the Refracticore. It shot up into the sky, and purple-gold clouds began to roil in the stratosphere, clouding the column of energy. Virgil craned his neck and watched as a trail of light spread sideways across the sky, starting from the energy column and streaking toward the heart of Templar.
Satisfied, the shadow man returned to the forest floor. He spread himself across the leaves, back toward the trees from where he had come. The shapeless puddle gathered once more at the base of those trees, and then it separated into their shadows, solidifying until the essence of whatever spirit had possessed them had slipped away, and they were nothing but the simple shadows of trees once more.
“Turn toward the Refracticore,” the man in the cloak said loudly. “The ritual begins.”
Chapter 27
“What is this?” Virgil hissed.
The electric hum of the energy column was loud enough to drown out their whispers now, though the assembly in the clearing was too fixated on the purple stone to notice them anyway.
“Old people are attacking young people,” Simon whispered back simply. His brain felt soft and numb around the edges. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t this. It didn’t make any sense. “Why are old people attacking young people?”
“Revenge,” Virgil suggested. “For still being able to jump and stuff.”
Simon opened his mouth to respond, but just then, a surge of power flooded back down the energy column. Simon was reminded of the time they’d watched a snake eat a mouse in biology class, and they could see the shape of the mouse as it traveled down the length of the snake’s body, into its stomach. This was sort of like that, but bigger, and much, much faster.
The lump of energy shot down the length of the column, and it slammed into the Refracticore. The purple stone vibrated with the force and power of the gathered energy, and the facets of the gemstone exploded with light and power. Small, golden bolts of electricity shot out of each angled surface, firing out in all directions, finding purchase in the chests of the old people gathered around the circle.
But they didn’t lift off the ground, and they didn’t open their mouths to scream. Instead, they actually seemed to be smiling.
“What is happening?” Virgil whispered.
Simon looked on with his mouth hanging open in shock. He raised a trembling finger at one of the old men facing their direction. “Look.”
The man in question was short, and stooped, hunched low over a walker, his bald head shining in the wash of golden light. The thin bolt of energy surged into his chest; as they watched, he began to straighten up, his spine stiffening, his shoulders drawing back behind his ears. He let go of the walker and stood up straight. Then hairs began to sprout on his bald head…first there were just a few scattered, growing patches, and then all at once, his entire head was growing wavy gray hair that seemed to turn darker as they watched.
Suddenly, Simon understood everything. “They’re not frying people; they’re draining them! They’re draining the teenagers of their youth, and they’re absorbing it into themselves!”
Virgil’s eyes widened with the horror of realization. “They’re becoming young again,” he breathed.
It was more grotesque than Simon could stomach. He had to stop it.
He moved on instinct. He leapt out from behind the tree, pushed all the energy he could muster into his hand,
and shot the power beam at the Refracticore. His magic missile streaked through the air and exploded against the surface of the stone, but the Refracticore didn’t shatter, didn’t crack, didn’t so much as vibrate. It continued to absorb and reflect the energy of Templar’s youth.
A few heads turned their way, but none of the old people moved. They could feel the life and vitality surging through their bones, and it would take more than a mere distraction to pull them away from the stream of youth that was reversing their aging.
Besides, they had the man in the cloak for protection.
He sprang into action on the far side of the clearing. He pulled another small rock from his pocket and hurled it toward Simon. Simon threw up a shield just in time, and the rock exploded against it, spilling its liquid fire across the orange surface. For a few moments, Simon held a flaming shield, until it grew too hot for his hands, and he shook the magic out of existence. When the shield disappeared, the fire did too.
“Watch out!” Virgil cried.
Simon hadn’t seen the second fire-bomb coming his way. He ducked, and it narrowly missed his head. It broke open on a tree right behind him, and the flames singed his hair and turned the skin of his left ear pink. He stumbled out of the reach of the fire as Virgil grabbed Gladys from his psychic vault and hurled her across the clearing.
But preparations had been made since they had destroyed the mud-miner at the same clearing. A small but strong spell had been placed around the open ring, and when Gladys struck the space beyond the trees, she bounced off an invisible force field and rocketed back into Virgil’s hand.
“Aw, come on!” Virgil cried. Meanwhile, the man in the cloak had thrown another rock bomb, and Virgil caught it with a shield of his own. “How come he gets to throw things across the clearing and I don’t?” he demanded. He shook the shield away, then he held Gladys up in front of his face and gave her a quick pep talk. “You know what to do,” he said. Then he launched the wooden ball out into the forest, away from the clearing.
