Story Thieves (21 page)

“Maybe you can ask him in a minute,” Owen mumbled, running a hand over the spell book. The book started to snap at him, but he'd gotten used to dodging it now. Even with the hostility, it was nice to have the actual book back in his hands; the e-book version just didn't feel right. “I know you and I don't get along,” he whispered to the book. “And that's fine. But right now, I need a forbidden spell to bring a dead person back to life for a few minutes. Notice I said need, not want, 'cause I don't
want
to do this any more than you want me to. So can we just agree that this is a horrible idea, and get on with it?”

The book's harsh glare turned to surprise, but it still didn't move, at least not at first. Finally, almost reluctantly, the book slowly flipped open toward the back, revealing pages of black paper and bloodred writing.

Um. There'd
never
been any mention of black pages and red writing in the Kiel Gnomenfoot books before. Nope. Not one.

The spells herein are forbidden to all but the most powerful magicians,
the first page read.
Without the utmost power and control, these spells will turn on you and destroy you as well as your surroundings. Be warned. Be AFRAID.

Okay. This was
such
a bad idea.

“What's taking so long?” Charm asked him, one foot on a Science Soldier body. “Do you need me to hold your hand?”

For the briefest of moments, the idea of her holding his hand derailed all his thoughts. He shook it off and showed her the black pages. “The book says we're messing with power beyond our control. Just so you know.” He tried to grab the page to turn it, but for some reason, the paper resisted his touch, and he had to use his fingernails to pry the page free from the rest of the book.

The picture on the next page tied his stomach into knots.

“Um, maybe not that one,” he said quickly, swallowing hard.

“Seriously, we don't have time, Kiel,” Charm said. “Find a spell and bring the dead back to life already!”

The next spell was worse, followed by one he couldn't even look at, so he kept turning pages until he found a spell showing a person rising from a coffin. Conquer Death, the
spell said, but that was about all he could read off the page. The spell itself was written in some other language, not even the fun nonsense words like the rest of the Kiel Gnomenfoot spells.

No, these words sounded
dark
.

This was so weird. Why would these spells be any different from the others? Wouldn't Jonathan Porterhouse have written them all the same?

“Krtttlqqqfbapr,” Owen said, trying to work his way through the first syllable of the first word. Weirdly, he felt nothing this time. No warm
or
cold feeling, just strangely . . . empty.

A sudden chill made Owen shiver, like the entire cave dropped a good twenty degrees in temperature.

“Did it just get colder in here?” Charm asked, glancing at him and rubbing her arms. Great. He hadn't imagined it.

The next word came out, and the light spell he'd cast earlier flickered, struggling to remain lit. The shadows all around them seemed to grow taller and somehow
hungrier
.

Well. Things definitely seemed to be taking a very horror-movie-type turn, didn't they?

Instead of waiting, Owen just shut his eyes, recited the last
word, and finished the spell as quickly as he could.

And just like that, his light spell fizzled out, leaving them in complete darkness.

For a second, nothing happened, and Owen and Charm both waited, holding their breath in the dark. Then a pair of sickly green lights lit up the darkness, right about where the First Magician's skull had been.

“Finally,” Charm said.

“So, so bad,” Owen whispered.

The light in the skeleton's eyes expanded, flooding that sickly green shade out to surround the First Magician's bones. The light wrapped itself around the body, then faded into ripped skin, fading organs, and other unpleasant things.

“Um, Mr. First Magician sir?” Owen squeaked, his voice somewhere at the bottom of his pants.

The green eyes didn't respond.

“Oh, Kiel,” Charm said quietly. “Please don't tell me you just made him a zombie.” Owen noticed that the green light reflected off her ray guns, which she'd pointed at the former skeleton.

Green Eyes shuddered once, then again. Finally, his formerly skeletal arms moved, and he pushed himself to his now
flesh-ish feet. The decaying hands pointed somewhere generally in Owen's direction, and they began to glow green like his eyes.

Then the energy flickered out from his fingers to explode throughout the cave.

“DOWN!” Charm yelled, shoving Owen to the floor. She shot her ray guns at the magician, but the blasts just bounced off that green light and back into the cave.

“What's he doing?” Owen whispered, his voice hoarse.

Behind them, metal began to creak and moan, almost like a living thing. Voice boxes crackled with static. Rock scraped against robot.

The First Magician's green eyes turned down and stared directly at the two of them.

“I
might
have zombified him,” Owen admitted.

“That's not all,” Charm said, nodding over her shoulder. Owen threw a glance behind them, where all the broken Science Soldiers now had glowing green eyes, at least the ones that still
had
eyes. Even those without eyes had begun picking themselves up and were shuffling mechanically toward Charm and Owen.

“Okay, great,” Charm said. “Now the robots are zombies
too
.
That's not even possible. This really went well.
Nice job, Kiel.
”

“YOU were the one who told me to make him live again!” Owen screamed at her.

Charm started to shout back, then looked up just in time to see the zombie First Magician's hand light with green fire, then fire that magic directly at them both.

A
birthday party. Four candles on the cake. Bethany watched, dreamlike, as a bunch of little kids screamed and yelled, while a woman and a man corraled them all toward the table.

In front of the cake sat a little girl with bronze-colored hair, wearing a bright-blue dress and a huge smile.

“Daddy, watch!” she shouted, bending her head over the cake.

Then she pitched face-first straight into it, sending frosting, candles, and cake flying everywhere.

The man laughed, long and loudly as the girl in the blue dress pulled her head out of the cake and laughed too, wiping the frosting off her face with both hands, then shoving those hands into her mouth.

“That's not how we eat cake!” the woman said, but smiled in spite of herself. “What about the other kids?”

“You heard her, kids!” the man said. “Go for it!”

One by one, the kids shoved their faces into the cake, taking away mouthfuls as they retreated for the next kid in line to have a turn. Cake and frosting ended up on every surface in the dining room, while the girl in the blue dress clapped her hands loudly. “I love my party!” she shouted.

Bethany walked through the room unnoticed, no one touching her, even as the kids ran around her, mere inches away. It was as if she weren't there at all, a presence that no one could see or touch.

She squatted in front of the girl in the blue dress.

“I'm Bethany,” Bethany said to the girl, everything feeling unreal and foggy. “What's your name?”

“Bethany?” said the man, and Bethany turned. As did the girl in the blue dress.

The man held up a pile of wrapped gifts. “Who's ready to open some presents?”

“PRESENTS!” the girl in the blue dress yelled, and ran past Bethany toward the living room.

“Get them out of here,” the woman told the man. “I'll . . . well, I was going to say clean up, but I think we're past that now.”

“This should distract them for a little while at least,” the man said, carrying the presents into the other room.

“No,”
Bethany whispered, but wasn't sure exactly why. What was this? Why did it seem so familiar?

“You know how this story goes, Bethany,” said a deep male voice, a voice she recognized. Bethany looked around, but she was alone now, apart from the woman. The man and all the kids had left to open presents in the other room.

“I don't,” Bethany said, fighting to clear her head. “Who are you? Where . . . where is this?”

“This is your home,” the voice said. “You are living out the story of your life. A mistake was made here, a mistake that will haunt you for years to come.”

“I'll . . . I'll change it,” Bethany said, and took a step toward the living room, not knowing what the mistake was, but feeling like that's where she ought to be. “I'll fix things. Whatever went wrong, I'll make it right.”

“Will you?” the voice asked, and suddenly Bethany froze, unable to move. She struggled against whatever invisible bonds held her, but they tightened even more in response.

From the other room the girl in the blue dress yelled in
surprise and happiness. All the other kids shouted too. Something about a gift.

“This is your life, Bethany,” said the deep voice. “Yet you are not in control here. You have no power. Your life happens here, now, at
my
will, and you have no power to change it.”

“No,” Bethany whispered, and something in her mind screamed that she'd been here before, seen all of this. Years and years ago . . . The memory was so hazy, though. Why couldn't she think?

“What is it?” the man in the other room asked.

“A book!” shouted the girl in the blue dress.

The woman in the dining room next to Bethany froze in place, then dropped the plates she was holding back to the table. “No,” she whispered, just like Bethany had.

“How does this feel, Bethany?” asked the deep voice. Time seemed to slow down as Bethany watched the woman start to run to the other room, her mouth open like she was screaming something.

And then Bethany was moving with her, too slowly to do anything, too slowly to change anything, just fast enough to reach the doorway to the living room at the exact same point as the woman, as her mother. . . .

The empty living room. Empty but for a few wrapped gifts, a couple of toys, and a book lying open on the couch right in the middle of everything.

“NO!” her mother screamed, and she ran for the book, time speeding up again.

“NO!” Bethany screamed as well. “Not again! This isn't happening again!”

“Come back!” her mother screamed at the book, her voice breaking. She scraped at the pages desperately, as if she could reach through and pull someone out. “Please, no, come back, Bethany, my little girl!”

As her mother screamed, Bethany turned away, unable to watch and more angry than she'd ever felt in her life. “Why are you showing me this?” she shouted at the voice. “Why are you
torturing
me?!”

“You have to see how it feels to live a life out of your control,” the voice told her. “A life that chooses
for
you. A story controlled by another, putting you through horrible things for the entertainment of others. This is what you would have for me, and for my people. Do you see now, Bethany?”

“This is some sort of lesson?” Bethany shouted as her mother fell to the couch, sobbing, the book clutched to her
chest. “You put me through this just to make a point? How could you!”

“Perhaps I did,” said the voice. “But the lesson isn't over.”

Abruptly, a tiny hand reached out of the book.

Bethany's mother shouted in surprise and grabbed the hand, pulling it and the body that followed out of the book. It was one of the children from the party, with another following right behind. Another, then another child climbed from the book, some crying, some seemingly happy.

Finally, the girl in the blue dress climbed out, a huge grin on her face. “Did you see, Mommy?” the girl asked excitedly. “Did you see what I did?”

“Where is your father, Bethany?” her mother yelled, holding the girl tightly by the shoulders. “Please, tell me where he is!”

“Perhaps stories might still be changed,” said the voice of the Magister, “when writers are no longer in control of them.”

The little girl's face grew determined, and she leaned back into the book, her arm completely disappearing, only to grunt and pull back out.

And holding her hand tightly was a man's hand, a hand that
then grabbed the edge of the book and pulled. And there, just moments later, stood her father.

Her mother cried out, grabbing the man and hugging him tightly.

“Let's not give her any more books for now,” her father said, and hugged little Bethany and her mother closely.

C
harm's robot arm slammed Owen backward, smacking him against the wall as the First Magician's green magic bolt exploded right in the spot Owen had been lying. “We're in a little trouble here!” Charm shouted, tossing a ray gun at him. “No more magic, just shoot them!”

The First Magician aimed green magic at both of them, and Owen ducked as Charm took a hit in her robotic arm. The arm shuddered, then turned on Charm and began to clutch at her throat, as if it had a mind of its own.

Charm shouted in surprise, then shot her arm off at her elbow, letting it fall to the ground. The robotic arm hit hard but kept coming, clawing and scraping its way at her until Charm shot it over and over with her ray gun.

This is a horror book.
What had changed? There'd
never
been any horror in Kiel Gnomenfoot, but now it was coming out
of the walls! Was this meant to happen in the story, or was it because Owen had done something different than Kiel would have?

If Bethany was okay and he lived through all of this, he'd gladly sit for hours while she told him how stupid he'd been, and how right she was about everything.
Hours.