I point at it. “How did you manage to get that?”
He grins broadly. “Magical beings mature faster, so the legal drinking age is fifteen here.”
I gawk at him. “No way!” I gulp down the Monster in front of me. “Why didn’t you say so? Give me a beer then!”
Charlie hops from the bench and makes his way to the bar.
I lean over the table. “So you’ve all had your powers for a while?”
Simon shakes his head. “Not me. I discovered all this about three months ago. Charlie’s veil lifted six months ago and Quinn…” I can see his mind racing. Eventually he looks at our friend. “You’ve known your whole life, haven’t you?”
Quinn tilts his head a little. “Pretty much.”
I narrow my eyes. “I thought the veil lifted when someone’s power developed.”
He finishes his beer. “It does.”
Charlie comes back with four large beers.
In just a few seconds, I empty half of mine. “What kind of beer is this? It’s delicious.”
Charlie holds up his glass. “It’s goblin beer. Cheers.”
I almost spit out my next swig.
Simon slaps my back. “Don’t worry. Not all goblins are bad.”
I study the contents of my glass. “But they did something to it, right?”
“Of course.” Charlie licks his lips. “It tastes better than human beer, and it’s much safer, you know. You can get drunk, but it will wear off when you’re thirty feet from where you drank it.”
“No drunk driving, and no fights,” Quinn says.
I grin. “Awesome.”
“Definitely.” Quinn wipes the foam from his lips. “So who’s Vicky?”
My face heats up at the thought of her. But I’m not ready to tell them. “Don’t change the subject. We were talking about you. You’ve had your powers since you were a baby? You’ve always known about this magical world?”
His dark eyes avoid mine. “Yes, as far as I know.”
“So what is it?”
He rakes his hand through his hair. “What is what?”
“Your power. What can you do?”
Charlie answers before he can. “He can read your mind.”
“No way!” I shoot Quinn a questioning look. “Really? That is so cool.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes.”
I try to imagine what it would be like to be able to hear everyone’s thoughts and agree that it could also suck a lot.
“That can’t have been easy on your father. Raising you alone, knowing you could hear everything he thought.”
His shoulders move up again. “He was used to it.”
“Oh right, I forgot. You’ve got brothers. Do they also have powers?”
Quinn moves his glass around in his hands. I’ve never seen him this uncomfortable. It’s like he doesn’t want to talk about this. But why not? We all have powers now. There shouldn’t be any more secrets between us.
Unless of course…
I feel his gaze upon me as soon as I think about the possibility that Quinn can’t be trusted. Too late I realize that he must have heard my thoughts.
I take a couple of sips from my beer and try to clear my mind.
“Yeah, they all have powers. The same as me. But as you know, I hardly ever see them.”
His voice is flat. I can’t look at him, so I just nod to my beer. I try to remember what I’ve been thinking around him before. He must already know about Vicky and the Shield, because I thought about them at my pre-vacation party a couple of nights ago. What if…
“Don’t worry about Quinn. You can trust him more than anyone.”
Oh great. The voice has decided to join us. Thanks, now he knows about you, too.
“Don’t worry. He already did.”
Of course he did, the first time the voice spoke to me was at the party at my house.
Slowly I look up. Charlie and Simon are whispering to each other about some girl dancing in the middle of the bar. They haven’t noticed the awkward silence between me and Quinn.
When I meet Quinn’s eyes, he lifts his beer.
“See, it’s fine,” the voice continues. “You should be more worried about Paul and Simon.”
Oh, I am. Especially about Paul.
Quinn doesn’t answer. Does that mean he feels the same way?
“Yes,” he says out loud.
Can you also hear the voice? I ask him in my head.
“Yes.”
This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had. If I hadn’t seen all this crazy stuff over the last couple of days, I would have checked myself into a mental institution.
But I’m not crazy and I have to find out whether I can trust Simon.
“So,” I say, pulling the attention of the others back to me. “How about you, Simon? What’s your power?”
Charlie opens his mouth again to answer, but I raise my hand. “He can tell me himself.”
It’s obvious that Charlie wants to fill me in on everything now that he finally can. That makes me trust him more again. But I want Simon to explain his own powers to me. He might give away something about his intentions.
“I am an air elemental.”
I almost choke on my drink and wipe the spilled drops off my pants. “You’re a what?”
CHAPTER 10
A wide grin spreads over Simon’s face. “I’m an air elemental. Which means I can transform into wind.”
My disbelief must show on my face, because he stands up and beckons. “I’ll show you.”
“Can’t you do that here?”
He gestures towards the crowd and benches. “I don’t want to break anything or anyone.”
The others are already on their feet. Charlie conjures a block of grease and puts it on the table. There’s a word carved into it and I bend over to read it. Reserved.
He straightens his Hawaiian shirt with a grin. “We don’t want to lose our seats, you know.”
“I have to admit that’s pretty cool.”
He’s already on his way through the crowd and I dive after him, afraid of another mythical creature seduction.
Simon is standing in the middle of the driveway to the parking lot. “Are you ready?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Sure.”
He lifts his arms towards the sky, and makes a pulling motion. I watch closely and step back in alarm.
He just disappears. It’s like he’s erased, from head to toe. All that’s left is a transparent wave, like gas that moves through the air.
“Did he go invisible?” I whisper at Charlie, who’s pulling his hair together.
“Nope. He turned himself into wind.” He smirks at me. “Hold on.”
I want to ask why, but find out half a second later when a small tornado hits me. I keel over backwards, waving my arms for balance. Before I hit the ground, the wind lifts me off my feet.
“Do you believe me now?” Simon’s voice asks from all around me.
“Yes!” It comes out frightened and he chuckles.
“I could carry you to the roof easily.”
“No, that’s fine. Just put me down.”
Still laughing he slowly sets me down. Charlie holds out his hands to steady me.
With a soft whoosh, Simon appears again. First his legs, then his slender body and finally his grinning head with the messy brown hair. He bows and we all clap.
Charlie releases his hair, while I recover.
Simon steps closer, his thumbs hooked into his belt loops. “Well?”
I shove him playfully. “Now I understand why your hair is always sticking out in all directions.”
I expect him to smile at that, but he just presses his lips tightly together.
I slap him on the shoulder. “But all kidding aside. That’s a great power to have.”
His smirk returns. “Thanks.”
We go back inside. Quinn walks to the bar to get us more dr
inks.
“So on a scale of one to ten, how powerful are you guys?” I ask after we toast.
This time Charlie isn’t too eager to answer. As expected, Simon is. “I’d say I’m a nine. Charlie is probably a seven and Quinn a six.”
The others hum in agreement and Simon turns his gaze to me. “What about you? Are you powerful? What can you do?”
Charlie waves his glass at me, spilling more beer on my pants. “Dante here is probably an eleven. He has-“
One warning look from me silences him. He pretends to choke on his beer and waves his hand in apology.
Simon cracks his knuckles. His nose is scrunched up. His true self is pouring through his frozen smile. All doubts about him go up in smoke. I can’t let him know how powerful I am. Or will be.
“Charlie is exaggerating, as usual,” I say lightly. “I have premonitions. That’s it.”
Simon relaxes a little.
“Premonitions are cool,” Charlie mumbles, taking a bowl of peanuts from the bartender and digging into it.
Simon narrows his eyes at me. “Charlie said you were a Mage, like him. That means you can cast spells, too.”
“Oh, that.” I pick up my beer, pretending it’s way more interesting than any power I could have. “I tried one, but it didn’t work, so I’m probably more like a five or less on the scale of awesomeness.”
Simon observes me for another minute, while I enjoy my beer. Then he finally leans back and sighs. “Well, don’t sweat it man, I’m sure you’ll get better.”
I certainly will.
“Nice job,” the voice says. “Keep it going.”
Going where? I wonder.
“Ask him about Paul.”
I put down my beer. “So guys, we’re here to talk about Paul, right?”
Quinn and Charlie take a silent swig from their glasses, while Simon flinches almost unnoticeably.
I turn to Charlie. “Did you find out anything new?”
He twists his long blond hair together. “Nothing. Nobody knew anything and Paul has vanished. My locating spell didn’t even work, you know.”
I watch Simon’s reaction from the corner of my eye. “That’s strange.”
“The only explanation I could think of was the one you gave, Dante.”
Simon looks up with a start. “What explanation?”
I turn my glass around in my hands. “I figured he was under some kind of dark spell. But hey, what do I know? I’m new to this. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” I take another swig from my beer and look from Simon to Quinn. The latter is watching Simon intently, as if he’s trying to see straight through his head.
He’s trying to read Simon’s thoughts, but by the looks of it, it’s not working. Something must be blocking him.
Simon interrupts the suspicions rolling around in my head. “I think you’re right. Paul has been acting weird lately. This might explain it.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I just can’t believe he’s evil.”
He nods vigorously. “Exactly.”
“If he was,” I continue, “You would have noticed something sooner. You’re his best friend, after all.” I try to hold his gaze, but he hides his dark eyes behind his glass.
So he does have a conscience, that’s good to know.
Quinn’s gaze is still fixated on Simon’s face, and that gives me an idea.
I slide off the bench. “Where’s the toilet? I have to make room for more beer.”
The others point to the corner of the bar.
I hurry into the nearest cubicle and pull Dad’s notebook from behind my waistband. “Please let there be something here I can use.”
I flip through the pages and hold back a cry of victory when I find what I’m looking for.
Anti-blocking spell.
I scan the ingredients and sigh. “This won’t be easy.” I should ask Charlie or Quinn to help me.
A knock on the cubicle door makes me jump and I almost drop the notebook in the toilet.
“Dante? Are you in there?”
It’s Charlie. I open the door and peek out. “Yeah, what is it?”
“We can’t trust Simon.” He looks over his shoulder. “Something is really wrong with those two, you know.”
When I open my mouth to answer, he shakes his head. “Simon and Paul, I mean. Not Quinn. I think we can trust him.”
“I agree. Quinn has been trying to read Simon’s thoughts, but I think he blocked them with some sort of spell.” I hold up the notebook. “So I looked up an unblocking spell.”
Charlie’s eyes grow wide. “Wow, where did you get a spellbook?”
I show him the first page and he gasps when he reads my father’s name.
“It’s not a spellbook,” I explain. “More like a diary with some spells in it. But anyway…” I flip back to the anti-blocking spell. “These are the things I need. Can you get them for me?”
He scans the lines and gives me a thumbs up. “I have some stuff in my car, for emergencies. Leave it to me.”
“But he’ll see…” I begin, but I cut my objections off when he walks to the far wall and starts chanting under his breath.
He moves his hands around, a bit like Jeep does when he’s raising the dead. Dust rises from the floor and hovers in front of him, pressed together in a ball. Charlie moves his hands in a circle and the ball mimics the movement. The words he utters come out more urgent and suddenly the ball lunges forward. It explodes into tiny specks of dust when it hits the wall. The specks crawl into the crevices like ants and one by one, the bricks are pulled out, until a hole as big as a man appears.
I gasp and Charlie winks at me over his shoulder. “I got into a fight here a couple of months ago, you know. I accidentally put a hole in this wall and promised to fix it. While doing so, I decided to put in a personal emergency exit.” He steps outside into the parking lot and quickly fills the hole with the grease from his hands. In the dark corner of the restroom, the difference is hardly noticeable.
When someone comes in I pretend to wash my hands.
Thankfully he leaves again before Charlie takes down his grease wall and steps back in.
Within seconds, the brick wall is back in place.
I stare at his grinning face. “I love magic.”
He hands me three candles, a lighter, a wick, a small bottle, a pair of scissors and a dandelion. “Here’s everything you need. Don’t take too long. I’ll tell the others you’ve had too much beer.”
I dive back into the cubicle. “See you in a minute.”
He walks to the door.
“Oh, wait,” I call after him.
He turns around. “What is it?”
I put the candles on the toilet seat. “There’s something I don’t understand. I thought only Mages could cast spells. Simon isn’t a Mage, so how did he block his thoughts?”
Charlie shakes his head. “Any magical creature can, in theory, cast a spell. Mages just have more talent for it than others. Lots of magical beings practice for years and are still unable to perform that kind of magic.”
“So that means Simon must be pretty strong.”
He sighs. “I’m afraid so.”
“Okay, you’d better go back, before he suspects something.”
I close the door to my cubicle and put the candles in a triangle around me. I lay the notebook open on the water reservoir and read the instructions. “This should be easy enough.”
I hear the restroom door opening and make puking sounds, while dipping the wick into the glass bottle, which is filled with ethereal oil. Then I carefully remove the petals from the dandelion and rub them onto the cord. I wait for the restroom door to open and close again before I light the candles.
Softly I read the words.
“Powers of High, hear my call.
Cut the block that hides it all.
Make all evil show its face,
to the people in this place.”
I light the wick, wait for the first petal to catch fire and cut the wick in half above the toilet. Smoke curls up when the two halves hit the water and I flush quickly. I blow out the candles and put the notebook back behind my waistband. When I realize I don’t have anywhere to put all the stuff I’ve used, I leave the cubicle and throw everything in the bin next to the door. Then I hear a scream, followed by panicked footsteps.
CHAPTER 11
I peek around the corner of the restroom door. The crowd has split into two groups. A large group of relatively normal looking people, backing up against every wall, window or table they can find. And a small group in the middle of the room, consisting of a bulky man with the head of a bull, a person with a slender human body and limbs like a tree, a man with greasy black hair, a mouth covered in slime and yellow eyes in hollow sockets and a crouching zombie dressed in rags, that licks its sharp teeth.
I spot Charlie just two feet away and dive towards him. “What happened? What are those?”
He whispers back with a worried look. “Your spell must have gone wrong. Just before you came out of the restroom, these four changed shapes and started hissing at us and baring their teeth.”
So this is my fault? I hit myself on the forehead. Then I bend back towards my best friend. “But what are they?”
“Can’t you tell?”
The man with the bull’s head paws the ground and everyone nearby presses their backs harder against the wall.
“That’s a minotaur. That monstrous thing is a boogeyman.”
“Wait, those are real, too?”
He shrinks back against the wall. “Unfortunately.”
“What about that tree-like creature?”
“That’s an ent.”
I study the flailing branches and the bark that covers its face, if only to keep my mind off the boogeyman. “I thought ents were benevolent beings.”
“No species is naturally good.” He tilts his head. “Well, except for angels and fairy godmothers.”
“And the other one is a zombie?”
Charlie shakes his head, meanwhile keeping an eye on the monsters in front of us. “That’s a ghoul. It feeds on corpses.”
Cards of Death Box Set Page 28
