Distant Star (2 page)

“This is Declan Hale. A Renegade
Forgetful just tried to punch me in the sack.” What else was there to say?
“Jeffrey Brade. Calling himself the Pagemaster. Obviously fancied himself some
sort of wizard. He was trained in Will, but was sloppy.” I paused. “Send only
one, if you must.”

A single exhalation of breath
down the line preceded a dry click as the listener hung up.

*~*~*~*

I called Sophie and Marcus to
make sure I was the only one who had been attacked and to summon them to the
shop. They arrived a little before six o’clock with a third man in tow—a
kid, in truth—who couldn’t have been much older than Sophie. I’d put him
at about twenty, given his wiry stubble.

“Who’s this?” I cast my Will
against the tall, lanky chap and sensed a wild talent in his heart. He was
Infernal—Forgotten and Unfound—neither Knight nor Renegade, if I
was any judge after all this time.

“This is Ethan,” Sophie said,
linking her hand in his. “I met him at uni. He has—”

“Some talent,” Marcus grumbled.
He stood brooding and impressive in the shadows against the True Crime shelves.
His notable weight made the bulging cases groan. “And don’t look at me like
that, Hale. This is the first time I’ve met Sophie’s apprentice.”

“He’s not my—”

“An apprentice can’t have an
apprentice,” I said. “That’s just silly. Ethan who?”

The boy cleared his throat and
shoved his dark fringe back from his eyes. “Reilly. Ethan Reilly. It’s an honor
to meet you, Mr. Hale.”

I smiled wryly at Reilly.
“Sophie’s told you all about me, has she?” The sweet thing had grace enough to
blush. “Give me your hand, Ethan.”

Ethan looked at Sophie, who
nodded, and then he extended his hand toward me. I grasped it between both of
mine.

“You should have brought him here
sooner, ‘Phie.”

“We didn’t think you’d approve.”

“I don’t, but here we are
anyway…” I could sense Ethan’s apprehension and anxiety. His Will was a
thousand burning fireflies, blinking in and out of existence, swirling through
his mind and soul.
Wild and wilder.
He had no professional instruction, which didn’t mean he could be trusted, but
it was a step towards that trust. “You have some talent, yes. A Will enough to
navigate the Forget, even. But please tell me you haven’t been doing that.”

“The Forget?” Ethan snatched his
hand back.

“Sophie not so forthcoming on
that?” I laughed. “You’re meddling with the power that burns at the heart of
the universe, and you have no idea what you’re doing. Sound about par for the
course, Marc? Just swinging Roseblades in the dark, hmm.”

Marcus grunted and took a sip
from his hipflask.

“‘Phie, you had to know this was
foolish.”

“Who I spend my time with outside
of this dark and stuffy shop is no—”

I raised my hands for peace.
“You’re an adult now. Of course it’s not my business. He, however,
is
my business. Untrained Will burns
like a flare to others, like the Knights, or perhaps worse, the Renegades, who
know what they’re seeking. He has to learn to douse the flames. You
know
that, kid. If Tal taught you
any—”

Sophie slammed her palm down on a
mountain of leather-bound Austen’s. “Don’t you talk about her!
Don’t you dare!
”

A tense silence clung to the
heart of our little group, under the flickering light afforded to us by the
dull chandeliers. For a moment there, in my arrogance—
always in your arrogance, Hale,
Jon
Faraday whispered across time—I had forgotten Sophie’s one rule. Never
talk about her sister. Ever. I had no right even to her memory.

Ethan, for his part, put his arm
around Sophie and pulled her close. She rested her head on his shoulder, fought
back tears, and stared at me with more defiance than an army of Renegades. I
loved her for that—for looking like her sister again. Loyalty to Tal had
kept Sophie nearby since my exile. Just like Marcus, she had turned her back on
the Knights and the Renegades—on Ascension City—for a shadowless
traitor. I intended to see her loyalty rewarded one day, when I was no longer
exiled.

“Well, I don’t know what Sophie
has told you, Ethan. But we’re a merry band of misfits here. If you want to
learn, we’ll teach you. But it’s not a game, that’s for damn sure. Whatever
Sophie’s taught you, we’ll probably have to start from scratch.” I looked at
Sophie. “I take it that’s why you brought him?”

Sophie nodded. “Also because of
the trouble you talked about on the phone. I know he has to learn to mask his
Will, which we’ve been working on, but if there are Renegades in town… I’m not
a fool, Declan.”

“No, you’re not. I apologize.”

Somewhat mollified, Sophie
shrugged out of Ethan’s arms and sat on the front counter. She swung her legs
back and forth. “So what happened today?”

“The past, I think, is about to
catch up to me, though why now, after five quiet years, I’ve no idea.” That was
a lie. I had some idea. If anything, the Pagemaster’s attack was long overdue.
But some secrets had to be kept, even from this close circle.

And from Ethan, whose current
status was New Guy: trust pending.

CHAPTER TWO

The
Scotch is Callin’ the Shots

“It begins, ‘Tessa sat laughing
by the rose bushes. A drop of starlight pooled in the cusp of the
flower—’”

“Hold on,” Marcus said. He was
drinking red wine from a champagne flute. Sophie and Ethan had left after a
quick sip, in search of their preferred pre-mixed children’s booze down the
road at Paddy’s Pub. Marcus and I were alone in the shop. “Rose bushes? Rose…
bushes. I don’t like that.”

I pushed my reading glasses up
the bridge of my nose. “The first line, and you already hate it?”

“You think with all these books
you could find a better way of saying rose bushes. It sounds…” He waved his
giant hand in slow circles. “Common. Too simple.”

“You’re being a touch
persnickety.”

“Persnickety? Really? Is that
your word of the day?”

“Less is usually more when it
comes to writing.”

“Got anymore of the Merlot?”

I handed him the bottle. “The
rose bush is important. The different colors of the roses lead to different
worlds, where Tessa can live in her memories. Red for passion, white for love,
yellow for friendship… and so on.”

“You should avoid the white,
buddy. How long is this novel?”

I shrugged. “Half a million
words, give or take.”

“Less is more, huh? A Voidling
would need a year to eat that thing.”

“Shut up and drink your wine.”

I saw Marcus out just before
eight o’clock and wandered under an overcast sky into Riverwood Plaza for
dinner. My shoes clicked softly against the cobblestones as I circled the large
ornate fountain in the heart of the square. I studied the new addition to the
cadre of businesses surrounding my shop in Perth’s outer suburbs. An old man
stood behind a small ice cream stand, set up out front of Christo’s Kebabs, in
the gunmetal light.

Thin letters scrawled in black
paint were splashed across the side of a gently humming freezer trolley:

Frozen Banana - $2

“Warm enough night for it,” I
said to the proprietor. Three crystal vases adorned the top of his trolley,
each containing a single, solitary flower: one red rose, one yellow daffodil,
and one white lily.

The old man frowned and stared at
me. His lips moved as if tasting my words. “You trade, boy?”

“Excuse me?”

“Banana for book.” He pointed
across the plaza at the dark and dreary storefront of my bookshop. “For book.
With almond.”

His grasp of English was poor,
but his smile was honest. I shrugged. “Banana for book?”

He nodded, tapping a pair of
tongs rather vigorously against the metal rim of his cart.

“Sure, I guess. Any particular
requests? Chaucer, Tolstoy, Dickens? Which book, mate?”

“Which book… which book…” he
muttered. “Storybook.” His laughter boomed across the quiet courtyard. “Yar. A
storybook.”

Okay, a storybook. Or a book of
stories. I nipped back into the shop and grabbed one of the ten thousand copies
of Grimm’s Fairy Tales I’d been hoarding for years. That book was like a bad
penny—it never stopped turning up.

The old man handed me an icy
banana dipped in caramel and coated in almonds. I gave him his tales and
offered my hand.

“Declan.”

“Mathias.”

His grip was like iron, and his
fingers were rough with calluses. You didn’t get those from freezing fruit.
Still, the banana treat was delicious, and I told him as much.

“Family recipe.”

I nodded. My family, the few
still alive, were scattered to and even beyond the four corners of all
creation. Last I heard, my grandfather, the custodian of the largest library in
existence, had been discredited because of my sins. Good for him.

“Why the flowers, Mathias?” I
gestured to the three crystal vases resting on his trolley. The glass was
pristine, flawless.

“Pretty, yes?”

“Of course.”

“It would be forty years of
marriage next month.” He sighed. “I remember this… but I do not remember my
wife’s favorite color. These are nice, though. Pretty. I think she would have
liked these.”

Ah, damn. Well to remember that I
did not have a monopoly on the infinite sadness.

We talked for a few more minutes.
A buzzing streetlamp overhead cast Mathias’s shadow against the redbrick wall
behind him. It should have done the same for mine, but I’d long since forfeited
my shadow… to gain lost and uncertain powers. I cast no shadow, not even on the
brightest of days.

After returning to the shop, I
locked the front door from the inside and flipped the sign over to ‘Closed.’ An
almost invisible ripple of power shimmered across the storefront, like a pebble
cast on still waters. The night was quiet, which was always a touch unnerving.
The wards, subtle enchantments of Will designed to protect from intrusion, were
small comfort, but comfort they were.

I took a deep breath, embracing
that familiar smell of good old hardbacks. Musky vanilla, shaved grass and a
hint of wood fiber—best aromas in the world. The soft chandelier light
cast flickering shadows over the books spilling off the shelves and stacked ten
feet high.

“Rose garden,” I said aloud
across the empty shop. “Rose bush. Garden. Rose bed. Ah…”

The rough texture of the old
books under my fingertips reminded me of afternoons spent in Granddaddy Hale’s
library. My store was a poor imitation of that immense catalogue. Through
Biography and into Horror, beyond Horror to Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and then to the
hallowed, white shores of General Fiction. Here there be monsters. The shelves
ended in a small alcove with a window seat overlooking the street, where Marcus
and I earlier had been sipping wine and critiquing terrible prose.

I slumped down with a heavy sigh
and straightened up my pages. When I looked up, a man sat across from me
chewing on a worn pipe. Smoke drifted in sparse rings toward the ceiling.

“Good evening,” I said. “You know
I can’t help you anymore, old friend.”

The English detective’s brow
furrowed and he leaned forward, placing a hand that felt all too real on my
shoulder. “My good man—the game is afoot.”

I closed my eyes, counted to ten,
and thought of everything that shoulda, coulda, woulda been. Of Tal. When I
opened them, the detective was gone.

But I could still smell the smoke
from his pipe.

*~*~*~*

Some time near midnight, I awoke
with a splitting headache and the dry, starchy taste of old scotch in the back
of my throat. Whisky and wine—never a winning mix. I’d fallen asleep in
the window bay, spilling a glass of red across the pages of my novel.
Bothersome, but not as troubling as what woke me.

A silver orb of liquefied metal
rippled in the space between the floor and the ceiling, pulsating gently. Short
bolts of blue energy coursed along its surface, striking the dust from the
piles of books and knocking a lidless bottle of scotch from the counter. A pool
of amber liquid spread quickly across the floor. The orb was a construct of
Will, of that I was sure, but not one I’d ever seen before.

A taste of copper clung to the
air like blood on the tongue, or a mouthful of pennies. My wards were supposed
to prevent this.

All the sound had been sucked
from the shop. Standing up, I felt as if I were moving through tree sap, or
trying to run underwater. The orb bulged, and a slit opened along its underside
like a popped seam. A heavy, dark form wreathed in the silver light fell
through the slit and landed with a thump against a stack of dollar paperbacks.
It was a body.