The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series (7 page)

              "And I wouldn't make a habit of telling me what I should do, Theodore."

              The woman turned swiftly on her heel, transforming immediately into a tall, slender woman with a flowing black dress, sharp features, and waist-length black hair. She wore a cape-coat made entirely of black feathers that fell to the floor and drug across it as she walked. On her hand she wore a black ring with an amethyst center that glowed fiercely.

              "Well, I don't listen very well. You could have left him that much."

              "I could have," she spat, "but what's the point of that? Going soft on me?"

              A silhouette in a top hat emerged, just visible from beneath the staircase.

              "Of course not. But there's necessary brutality and unnecessary heartlessness, and you've long forgotten where the line between them is."

              "Maybe you should learn that there is no line."

              "I've learned that much is true for you."

              The figure stepped out from beneath the staircase, still cast in shadows of the walls and the two creatures that now flanked the tall woman - Eleanor. They came together until each represented a point in what could have been, in a human game of connect the dots, a diamond.

              "I don't like your tone," she said.

              "And I don't like your attitude. What's your point?"

              "Just because you...shall we say...creatively maneuvered your way into your position doesn't give you the right to..."

              "It gives me a right to a certain manner of authority. Don't forget that."

              Passing a dismissive hand through the air, Eleanor replied, "No matter. It's done. Plus the Confounding Curse was your brilliant idea."

              "Yes, it was. But it would have worked even if you'd left the letters."

              "Oh, Theodore. You'll never learn."

              "Oh I've learned quite a bit."

              "Are we done here?" Her expression was stone.

              The man took another step forward. "I suppose there's not much else to do," he replied.

              They each motioned to a dark figure, and the pair of them ascended the staircase without touching the ground. Standing on the staircase, one positioned slightly above the other, they faced the hanging body of his father. Each raised the hand that wasn't holding a head, and spread their palms open toward the body. Two streams of smoky white light drifted from his father's body in equal portions, into the hands of the two beings.

              "The portal, please," said Eleanor.

              The man from beneath the staircase, still veiled in darkness, handed a familiar token across to her. His father's pocket watch. At least that's what he'd always thought it was. But now...

              Eleanor held up the pocket watch with a sneer on her face.

              "This would be so much easier if we could just take it."

              "Well magic has a few moral constrictions you don't adhere to," replied the man.

              She shot him a glare with stoic eyes, and Connor thought she could have killed the man on site if she'd been so motivated. The two beings on the staircase held up the hands that had received the two strands of his father's...what? Spirit? Soul? Life force? She continued to hold it as the two streams of ethereal smoke made their way to the center and, slowly, eased their way into the confines of the pocket watch.

              "It is done," she said, somewhat begrudgingly.

              The two beings with faceless heads in their hands disappeared as though they'd never been there.

              "Not a moment too soon," said the man beneath the staircase.

              "Hmm. See you on the other side, Theodore."

              The man stepped forward and there, dressed in a crimson suit and carrying a golden staff. Rumsfeld. The Magician. The man who'd tried to convince him that he cared, that he was trying to help, had, as far as Connor was concerned, played an integral part in his father's death.

              Connor didn't remember uttering the scream, but he heard it this time, like a shriek that originated in the stomach of a beast. Not human. Not his. But it was. In an instant he found himself back under the willow, holding the book in his hands, drenched in cold sweat, shaking uncontrollably, sobbing in shuddering, breathless gasps.

              "CONNOR!"

              Kit knelt in front of him, holding him by both shoulders. A small crowd had gathered around what must have been the most disturbing sight they'd ever seen. Connor, plastered to a tree trunk, gripping a book, screaming, sweating, shaking. He felt as though someone had inserted a syringe into his soul and extracted everything that made him human. He could barely stand, could barely move. And though he still wasn't sure about Kit, in the next moment he learned to like her just a little bit more.

              Spinning on her heel, her red hair somehow even brighter than usual, she narrowed her eyes and addressed the crowd.

              "What the hell are you idiots looking at? Get lost!"

              Nervous glances. Timid steps. People walking away and scattering, offering back glances at the strange black and red clad woman who was at this point screaming a litany profanities at them. Kit didn't seem to mind the response.

              She spun back around and addressed Connor, taking him by the shoulders more gently and placing a concerned hand on his face.

              "Connor, are you okay? What the hell happened?" she said.

              "I...I don't. There...h..." Words failed him. Fear and confusion held his tongue captive and his mind prisoner.

              "Come on," she said gently, "Let's get you out of here. Too many people that can't mind their own damn business."

              She helped him to his feet and guided him down the hill toward the dorms.

ELEVEN

⌛

Kit had walked him back to the dorm, and he didn't remember much of the trip. Given her accounts of the stares and mutterings, he was glad not to have remembered it. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he held a cup of chamomile tea in his hands, courtesy of Kit. He hadn't moved or shifted his gaze in the last twenty minutes, and he was fine with that. Physical sight was of no use, anyway. The only image he could see was that of his father slipping off the balcony and hanging himself. It was like a chipped DVD that kept replaying the same broken image of death over and over again.

              "Connor, what happened back there?"

              He didn't respond.

              "Connor!" It was Stuart's voice.

              Finally, Connor looked up and met his gaze. Never had he seen eyes filled with such fright and panic, and suddenly he realized how selfish he'd been to ignore the pleas of the only people he considered friends when he had been fully capable of responding.

              "I...don't even know where to begin."

              Kit looked down at the ground while Stuart let out a sigh, presumably of relief, and allowed the tension in his muscles to leave.

              "You scared the hell out of me, man."

              It was the first time Connor had ever heard Stuart swear, and the juxtaposition of his glasses and sweater vest to his usage of a swear word made him smile.

              "What's so funny?" Stuart was not amused.

              "I'm sorry. It's not funny, it's just..."

              "You don't look like the swearing type," Kit finished.

              Stuart's modest smile returned and he flushed a few shades of pink.

              "Sorry, you just...you just scared me." His eyes watered and he blinked furiously, suddenly preoccupied with dramatically ridding himself of a nonexistent eyelash in his eye.

              "Hey. I know this is hard, but you gotta start telling us what's going on." Kit was earnest, and for the first time since he met her he trusted her completely.

              "It's a long story," he said.

              "We've got time," she replied.

              And so he began. He started by telling them all about the dreams. The locket, the Sands, the book, the confrontation. The most recent and horrific chapter of the story in which he'd witnessed his father's suicide and the strange creatures that appeared afterwards.

              "And HE was there!" Connor spat. He was suddenly furious.

              "Who was there?" Kit asked.

              "Rumsfeld! He was there the whole goddamn time!"

              "That bastard!" Kit stood and paced. "Of course he was."

              "You act like he's your long lost brother or something. You know him?"

              "No," she responded quickly. Too quickly. "Although at least he bothered to show some kind of compassion. Tried to help in some way." She was distracted, muttering more than speaking, almost to herself.

              "Yeah he was really helpful. He had a lot of compassion when he allowed and, from what I heard, played a part in my father's suicide. He's a real gentleman!"

              Connor's head swirled. Was he being unfair? Maybe. But yet again Kit was being just as cryptic as Rumsfeld. Maybe she did have a point. Yes, Rumsfeld had something to do with his father's death - or at least appeared to have had - but he did try to add some amount of decency to the situation. At least wanted he and his mother to have the letters his father left. And since one of his mother's chief war drums of the last several years had been "He didn't even care enough to leave a letter!", who knows how that might have healed the situation.

              But it didn't matter, did it? His father was dead, the letters were destroyed, and his life had been more of a mess than anything he could have dreamt up in his worst nightmares. But it also wasn't Kit's fault.

              "Look, I'm sorry," Connor said, exhaling deeply, interlacing his fingers and resting them on the back of his neck, elbows on his knees, head hanging low. He felt Kit's hand on his back, and shockwaves of electricity shot through his nervous system, relaxing and igniting every fiber of his being simultaneously. Tears formed in his eyes, and he didn't bother to try to stop them. Was too tired to think of how.

              "Connor. It's okay. I get it. Nothing personal, no worries."

              Tears fell like acid rain to the ground, and Connor exhaled through his mouth, closing his eyes, hoping it would stop the images. But it didn't. Nothing could. And he feared for a brief, horrific moment that nothing ever would. That he would spend every day of his life fighting back the images of his father, hanging from a rope.

              Nobody could be trusted. Nothing was as it seemed. He lifted his head, tears redirecting from their vertical drop to the ground to a bumpy ride down the contours of his face. His eyes met Kit's and he heard the words coming out of his mouth before he could stop them.

              "Who are you?" he asked.

              Her laugh was meant to throw him off, but her eyes were far too honest.

              "Kit," he said gently.

              She gave up the laughter. Set aside the comedy mask. Didn't pretend she wasn't aware of what he was talking about. In fact, she looked just as sad as he did. Maybe even more so. Confusion swept over him like a disorienting wave. He'd expected her to be defensive. React violently, perhaps. Swear at him and tell him he was full of it. Ask him how he dared to question her when she'd been there for him. Maybe even accuse him of lunacy, which he might not have readily refuted at the moment.

              But instead, she lowered her head and released her own prisoners. Tears flowed down her face, but she was silent.

              "Hey, I didn't mean to..."

              "No." She held up a hand. "No, you're right. I should have..." she exhaled. "I should have told you. I just didn't know how far it had gone. With you. With...him."

              "What are you talking about?" Stuart asked, shooting her a gaze that had sufficed to straddle the fence between curious and outraged.

              She lifted her head, meeting his eyes, then looked back at Connor and continued.

              "When I was seven years old, my mother killed herself." She paused long enough to take a shuddering breath. "I was the one who found her."

              Stuart turned around, no longer trying to cover up his emotion, and sat on the edge of his bed facing Kit and Connor. Suddenly they all had something in common. She continued.

              "I came home from school, and the first thing I saw was the rope. It was hanging from the doorway to the kitchen, and for some reason I didn't see my mother until after I saw the rope. It was...like my brain could only process one thing at a time, but not the entire scene."

              For a moment she was somewhere else, and then she went on.

              "So anyway, she never left a note. But she did leave behind her things. One of those things happened to be a ring. Nobody ever knew where it came from. All sides of the family swore it wasn't theirs. And when it came time for me to pick something of hers to keep, I picked the ring. It was this...silver thing. Had a green stone. Real beautiful.

              "After awhile I noticed weird things started to happen. I had nightmares. At least I thought they were nightmares. A strange room with an hourglass. Lots of them, but one big one. A man in a crimson suit. And even when I was awake, the ring would glow at random times. Sometimes it would burn it would get so hot. That was usually when bad things would happen.

              "Long story short, there was a guy who moved in next to us and tried to help out a lot. Help my brother and I out. My dad was...missing in action, at least mentally. Emotional wreck, you know. And then...I noticed things. Like the fact that the ring glowed mostly when bad things happened, like I said. But it also glowed whenever this guy was around. He'd try to help me with homework and then say random things about my mom, like he knew her.

              "This elderly woman kept coming by his house, and we always assumed it was his mother, but..."

              "Oh my God," Connor said.

              Kit nodded.

              "It's the same thing. I knew what was bothering you as soon as I saw your pocket watch glow. As soon as I saw Rumsfeld call you out like that in class. And call me out. I knew."

              "You knew who he was?"

              "I had an idea. He looks exactly like the neighbor....and...the guy in my dreams. Both of them looked just like him."

              "So did our pastor," said Stuart.

              Kit and Connor looked at him in stunned silence.

              "What?" said Connor.

              Stuart's hands were shaking. He took several breaths that clearly took effort to control. If Connor had ever seen a man on the brink, other than having been able to see himself earlier, this would be it.

              "God, I....I just never thought...."

              "Stuart..." Kit prodded gently. She had a way with people when she wanted to. Or when she needed to.

              "My family was killed in a car wreck. Connor knew that. That much I told him."

              "But..." she said.

              He met her gaze as his own eyes overflowed, then returned to focusing on the ground.

              "But what I didn't tell him was what happened after. It's...it's basically the same thing. The trinket. The dreams. The strange man - in our case a new preacher at the local church. But...he took my trinket and never gave it back. It was um...a copy of
Moby Dick
that my dad had. Looked kind of like the..."

              The realization shattered in the room across all three of them like someone had dropped a bomb from above. The book from the library. The ring. The pocket watch.

              "But wait..." Connor looked around. "Where's the ring?" he asked Kit.

              "That's where things got weird. The guy asked to resize it and I told him that would be fine. He was a jeweler, he'd said, and the ring was too big for me to wear. So he was going to resize it so I could wear it..."

              "Stuart?"

              "The preacher...he bound books as a hobby and said he would...rebind it..."

              "So why did I get to keep my pocket watch?"

              "Because, Connor," Kit said somberly, "He hasn't gotten that far yet. Why do you think he wants you to keep searching? Why do you think he wants you back in their realm so badly?"

              "To get the pocket watch." He said it hollowly, absently.

              "How hard could it have been, though?" he continued. "I mean truly. He can go anywhere, clearly. Appears out of nowhere. Why didn't he just take it? Why give the book back? It doesn't make sense."

              "Not just that," Stu said through a choked voice. They looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

              "You really think it's a coincidence that the three of us just happened to be together at the same college? At the same time? In the same class? You think it's just coincidence that Connor was supposed to have a room to himself and they scheduled me to move in?"

              He shook his head, as though admitting to himself that he couldn't ignore it any longer.

              "I don't," he said. Then repeated, "I don't at all."

              Kit's eyes rested on his backpack, and at the book that peeked out from underneath the flap.

              "We need to start finding answers," she said, looking at Connor, and then at Stu.

              Stuart nodded, reluctantly but with conviction, wiping his face.

              Her eyes met Connor's, and he nodded, too.

              "But um. If we're going to do this...we need one more person," Kit said, pulling at a strand of her fire red hair with nervous rapidity. Connor looked at her, mouth agape.

              "Who?" Connor asked.

              Kit's eyes darted around the room, and then rested on Connor's.

              "Hazel."