by Jamie Hawke
“Okay.” I was about to ask why, but the pain was still in her eyes, so I took a bite of salami and waited for her to speak.
She took a long sip, the bubbles causing her to burp slightly. At least that took away some of the tension. Setting it aside, she continued. “Whenever things didn’t work out perfectly for those involved, there were… repercussions.”
“Steph, I—”
“I don’t want your pity or anything like that.” She turned away, eyes cast down. “Just… I’m sharing because my point is, I don’t think they’re smart enough to strike right now. They suffered a major setback, even with Fatiha regaining her power. She’s rogue, as far as I know. So, they’ll be regrouping, punishing those they think deserve to be punished. They could show up at any minute, but… I wouldn’t think so.”
Finishing off a cheese and salami combo, then cringing at a sip of the kombucha, I nodded. My mind was working to process her words, my emotions not able to hide how annoyed I was at the idea of anyone ever hurting her. But I let it go, instead focusing on the here and now.
“Okay. We might have time. Then… we…?” I was at a loss.
“Visit Rianne? See if she has any answers for us?”
I nodded and reached out for her hand.
“One sec.” She engulfed a massive bite of sushi, chewed it awkwardly for a few seconds before swallowing, and took my hand. “Ready.”
Taking her hand, I closed my eyes and reached out to that magical world. Before, it had only been accessible via dreams, but my understanding now was that it was connected to our world again.
Only, nothing came.
My eyes opened to see Steph staring at me, her lips pressed together so that they formed a thin line. Her left eye twitched.
“I need to try something,” she said, and then stood, taking a step away from me. With a lick of her lips, she narrowed her eyes, focusing.
Nothing happened.
“Are you…” I started, but her look of frustration caused me to stop.
Again, she focused. Again, nothing happened.
When her eyes burst open, she let out a loud “FUCKKK!” and “SHITTT!” followed by throwing her hands forward in what would have otherwise been a fireball. As it was, nothing happened.
“Shit,” I said. “You…”
“Nothing.” She turned to me, shoulders back, nostrils flared and breathing heavily. “No fire, no Wraith Knights. What the fuck did you do?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Well you sure did something, because it’s gone, they—they’re gone!”
I threw my hands up, about to argue, but instead ran them through my hair, standing there like that for a moment, hands on head, thinking.
“Could it be the return of Avalon?” I asked.
“No.”
“No?”
She scoffed. “J… We just tried to connect to Avalon, and it didn’t work. Oh, shit,” she put her hand to her chest as if pained, “what if this is them? The enemy doing this?”
“Fuck me.” I blinked, rubbed at my eyes, and knelt, putting my hand to the floor. Before, I had been able to sense when the house was under attack. Oddly, when I shifted the floor around with my transmutation power, it worked. “I can’t sense anyone attacking, and I’m still able to use magic.”
This time, she looked like she was going to be sick. “So maybe… since my powers were corrupted by darkness, kind of… maybe only mine are gone?”
I indicated the stone gargoyles, shaking my head, then turned to Shisa who was eyeing us with its wide orbs of eyes. Not giving us any answers, though. Steph was staring at me, hands clutched to her chest and biting her lip as if she expected me to come up with an answer.
“If we’re being attacked, we need to know,” I said, then turned back to Shisa. “Can you… sniff out any magic that might be affecting us?”
Shisa jumped off the bed, walked to the door, and glanced around before continuing.
“That’s our plan?” Steph asked.
“Until we come up with a better one? Yeah. I can’t sense anything, but maybe Shisa can, or maybe there is an attack and at least we’ll be able to find a clue, somehow.”
I took her hand and we followed along, moving toward the back staircase that I had made while changing things around. It led down to the basement, and we kept on until we were in a large room with ancient weapons but not much else. I marveled at an especially cool double-sided axe, but turned to see Shisa moving along the walls, clearly looking for something.
“While we wait,” I said, eyeing Steph. “Back there, when you couldn’t access… them…”
“The Wraith Knights.”
“Yes. You seemed pretty shook up about it.”
“Is it ‘shook’ or ‘shaken’?” She forced a grin, clearly trying to avoid the question. When I folded my arms, she sighed. “There’s a bit of a story there.”
“We don’t know how long we have, and… it’s not like we know what else to do in the meantime.”
Eyeing me a moment longer, she nodded, then glanced over to the wall. “Make us a bench to sit on, at least.”
I chuckled as I obliged, loving that I had the power. Only, as soon as the wall moved out to form the bench, Shisa growled and darted into an opening he had found. Steph and I shared a look of excitement. Putting her story on hold, I made the opening larger and we followed Shisa in to find a drop off that led to darkness below. A growl, and Shisa fell.
“No!” I shouted, reaching with one hand and using the other to grab the wall and morph whatever was down there to grab him. Only, nothing happened.
“What?” Steph asked.
“It’s not… part of the house. Down there.”
“So?” She leaned over, kneeling at the edge to see better. “Doesn’t your power work on rock and whatnot?”
“It should,” I replied with a frown. A look around revealed stone, maybe the foundation upon which the house was built. Parts of it had crumbled away, likely due to my shifting of the house numerous times. When I tried to adjust it, though, nothing happened. “Shisa, you okay?”
A flash of light reflected as something moved, followed closely by what sounded like a grunt.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Steph said.
“Still, we’re going down.”
“How?”
I glanced around, then back at the walls behind us. While I couldn’t adjust the rocks, I had an idea. Hand on the wall, I made the whole wall transmorph to move out and form a stairway leading down.
“After you, my lady.” I gestured, then laughed at her annoyed look. “Joking, joking.”
Holding her hand behind me, I took the lead, adjusting the stairs slightly as my first step made me worried about slipping and falling. On the third step, there was a vibration and then, halfway to the next, a loud booming sound.
“Outside, I think,” Steph said.
It was followed by more of those booming sounds, and I found my mind flooding with images of the enemy up there, breaking in and finding a way to collapse the whole house down on top of us.
“Tell me about the knights,” I said, reaching the bottom and crouching to rub Shisa’s ears. The lion-dog looked fine, with just a small chip out of its left ear and a crack on the curled tail.
As we stood and moved about in the darkness, my eyes started to adjust. We felt our way along the walls, in what was clearly once something more. For one, the room was cleared out in a way that didn’t make sense for a house’s foundations. Also, the stone of the walls was smooth, but in some places seemingly forming patterns.
“It was before I met you, of course,” Steph started. “Long before. And… I’d had a dream.”
That caught my attention. “You, too? With the dream travel stuff?”
She nodded. “Ironically, it only began when I started at your school. So… clearly connected. But, I thought they were only dreams at first. One day I was napping in the library, this guy sits next to me and I groggily wake up but am like,
‘fuck it,’ and go back to sleep. Something touched my arm, and then the dreams came. I was in a dark tunnel, taken over. Then…”
“Yes?”
“I… don’t want to talk about it. So much is a blur. So much… pain.”
Nodding, I took her hand and waited.
“They sacrificed themselves for me,” she finally said. “Every last one of them, all because this witch lady had said I was meant for greatness. That I had some role to play in their beliefs, and I think… relating to you.”
“That’s… intense.”
“It was. Is.” Shaking her head, she tried again to make the wraith knights appear, but nothing. “So, you can see why, I mean… it’s not like I was ever romantically involved with any of the knights, but knowing who they were and what they sacrificed for me…”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“They’re like my best friends. Friends I can’t really have conversations with, but… friends, anyway.”
More sounds of explosions outside, then a bunch at once, and I laughed.
“What?” Steph asked.
“Shit, what day is it?”
“I don’t…” Her eyes widened, and she laughed, too. “Fourth of July? No shit?”
“I mean, that doesn’t explain the magic not working, but at least those explosions probably aren’t us being attacked. Damn, what kind of American am I that I forgot the Fourth?”
“A shitty one, for sure.” She winked my way, gesturing around. “You are a bit distracted, though. I think that, considering what you have on your plate, Uncle Sam will let it slide.”
“That explains all the flags and hot dog carts and whatnot around earlier today.” I knelt, feeling a marking in the floor. “I mean, I thought it must be some presidential address the nation celebration or something.”
“For someone who was going off to college, you sure aren’t up to date with any of this D.C. stuff.”
“Well…” I shrugged. “Key word there is was, you know?”
“Bullshit. You’re thinking about not going?”
I looked up from the markings, waving her over. “Like you said, I have a lot on my plate.”
She pursed her lips, kneeling at my side and letting it go. “What do you have here?”
“Hard to see in this light, but…” I heaved.
“Can you…?” I asked, moving my hand as she would when doing her fire magic.
She held up her hand and moved her fingers, as she would when creating little flames to give us light. But that didn’t work—blocked. Frowning, I attempted it, watching the light of the room intensify with each blink. Sometimes my powers astounded me.
“Whoa,” we both said. Now that we could see the room, it was clear that this was much more than we had first realized. Pillars with stories carved into the stone, more runes carved along the ground in patterns like flowing water, and walls with rocks that seemed to shift in shape and hue before me.
And, for the first time, it at least made partial sense. There was so much more to do, more to experiment with down here, but for now, that would have to do.
“Come on,” I said, pulling her back toward the stairs. “Let’s see if there’re any more fireworks we can catch from the roof.”
“Wait.” She pulled me back, then in to kiss me passionately. “Okay, now we can go.”
I started off, but froze. Then laughed.
“What?” she asked.
“The magic, of course. Ebrill and the others should be awake now. We’ll take them up for the show.”
“Great idea.” She beamed, and we made our way back up, Shisa at my heels.
3
Fireworks continued, visible even from the bedroom window. Kordelia was already there watching as we came skidding into the room. Ebrill was transforming, stone glowing blue and cracking off her as she moaned, a final touch from the orgasm the night before. Aerona was the last of them, stone breaking apart as we turned her way.
She emerged from her hard cocoon with a golden burst of light and a roar. Her eyes met ours and for a moment she looked strong, defiant… but then stumbled back, hand going out and being caught by Kordelia.
“What’s happened?” Ebrill asked, sitting up and assessing them, eyes going to the fireworks show outside.
“It’s late,” Kordelia noted. “And… that?”
“If you can make it to the roof, I’ll explain on the way,” I replied, not sure if we should stick to the plan of going up there to watch the fireworks. Now that they were all up, though, and curious, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
They came, Ebrill throwing on her armor as we went so that she was decent, and we emerged onto the roof as a crescendo of fireworks went off over the area by the Lincoln Memorial.
“First, those are fireworks,” I explained. “A celebration of our country’s freedom. Enjoy the moment.”
“And second?” Aerona asked.
“Why didn’t we wake with sunset?” Ebrill added.
“That… Well, we found out something interesting—a block on most magic, including, apparently, the type that allows you to wake.”
“No.” Kordelia’s eyes flicked to Steph, then back to me. “How?”
“It wasn’t the enemy,” Steph said.
I nodded. “At least, our best guess is it had to do with me rearranging the house for our defenses. There are a series of old runes below the house, and—”
“Wait, what?” Aerona interrupted.
“Yeah, old runes, carved deeply into the stone. My actions caused other stones to fall down there and affect it, creating a break in a rune, changing the spell.” I took a breath, making sure they were following. “And… while I think the runes were meant to amplify magic or do something of the sort, when I broke it like that, it did the opposite, or maybe created a new pattern that had a limiting effect.”
“Meaning…” Ebrill’s eyes lit up. “If we could learn to control that, we’d have the option to turn magic on and off. Or at least as it relates to our general vicinity.”
“That might work,” I admitted.
We all turned back to watch the fireworks as what had to be the grand finale started, each of us likely considering the runes below and the implications. I was thinking mostly how we could use them to amplify our powers even more, but first I would need to create some sort of digital map of them with my powers, as I had for the screen that tracked my levels. From there, I could study the patterns, maybe figure out ways of altering the runes for various effects.
“I don’t get it,” Aerona said, the reds and blues highlighting her face as she turned to me. “Some sorcerer just showing off?”
Steph chuckled, but motioned for me to explain.
“Not magic, actually.” I tried to indicate the spot the fireworks were coming from, telling her about how the fireworks were shot off from there, made from gunpowder or something for the point of celebrating.
Aerona frowned, then turned to Ebrill. “Still sounds like a sorcerer showing off, to me.”
I scrunched my nose, then nodded. “Sure, but it looks pretty, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” Kordelia chimed in, unable to take her gaze from the fireworks. Every once in a while, she would startle at an especially loud firework.
Steph leaned against me, watching as her hand found mine, but soon the last of the fireworks drizzled out and faded, leaving only purple tails of smoke in the sky.
“How much did we miss?” Kordelia asked.
“Of the night?” I glanced around, realizing that without a phone or watch, I didn’t really have much concept of time.
“No, the show. I want to see it again. When can we?”
I chuckled. “Once a year, although… we could go to Disneyland or SeaWorld, where I think they do them every night?”
“Let’s do that!”
“Right…” Steph put a hand on Kordelia’s arm, moving away from me as she provided mock comfort to the gargoyle. “Considering your wings and whatnot, I don’t know if going to s
ome of the most crowded places on Earth would be prudent.”
“Prudent? Fuck prudent.” Turning to Ebrill, Kordelia added, “Can’t we just illusion ourselves to fit in?”
“Not if it’s that crowded.”
“Ladies,” I cut in. “There’s no point in talking about it right now. We have to find the rest of your group, to figure out what we’re going to do about the rest of the Nine that might come after us—”
“And we don’t have the money,” Steph pointed out. “It’s a bit of a trek from D.C.”
I shook my head. “Fatiha had said Gertrude took care of me, or left us well provided for. While she was a traitor, I believe a lot of what she did had truth to it—every good lie has at least some level of truth.”
Steph looked impressed. “Shit, we might be loaded.”
“We might be very loaded. Worst case scenario, there have to be some vases and whatnot worth money in here… And actually, Gertrude confirmed it, too. Another thought—maybe some closer theme parks have shows?” Turning to Kordelia, I held out a hand for her to shake. “I’ll make you a deal. We take care of all this stuff we have to do like finding the others and staying alive business, and I’ll do my best to get us to another fireworks show as soon as possible. Yeah?”
She grinned, shaking my hand with a strong grip.
“Wait, the show’s not over,” Kordelia said, dropping my hand and stepping toward the edge of the roof.
I looked up, wondering if the fireworks show had been slow to release the true finale, or part of the display had been late to trigger, but this wasn’t that at all. It was several lines of light blue and green moving our way in a sort of wavy pattern.
A moment later, they were converging on us, exploding in puffs of smoke that turned into one man. He stood tall right there in front of us on the roof, head bent, hands at his side, feet spread shoulder-width apart. The city lights reflected faintly from his armor.
“You…?” Steph asked, shaking her head. “But it’s… impossible.”
I turned to her, my mind reeling with which attack I should use, but she wasn’t getting ready to attack. In fact, she was staring at the man as if she had seen a ghost.
