The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series (21 page)

              A heavy sigh.

              "The truth is they don't really know yet. Hadn't been out of the house in a few days and given her..." He paused. "Her state, you know, people got concerned. Old man Rory called the cops. Wellness check, you know. Looked through the whole house, almost gave up."

              A pregnant pause told Connor that whatever they'd found was not something he wanted to hear. But he also knew he had no choice but to hear it.

              "Dan?"

              "Ah, hell, Connor. They...they found 'er up in the attic. Up with a bunch of stuff from your dad, I guess, story goes. She was by a window. Blood everywhere. Slit her wrists, they said. With...and this is the weird part....glass from--"

              "A broken hourglass."

              Connor cut him off. He didn't ask it as a question, he knew it for a fact. It was the one odd trinket he remembered distinctly from his early morning search through the attic. He hadn't thought much of it at the time or since, but it had stood out to him as being exceptionally odd. And perhaps he hadn't connected the dots until that moment. But suddenly it all made sense.

              "How'd you know?" Dan asked.

              "Just an idea. I went up there right before I left. Saw it up there."

              "Ah. Well. Man, I'm sorry. I woulda called you'f I'd known nobody did."

              "No it's alright. Thanks for the information."

              "Sure thing. Hey I'm sorry we had to catch up on such a sour note."

              "Me, too."

              "But, hey hope we'll see you around here sometime again."

              "Probably not for awhile. Thanks again."

              He hung up the phone, and handed it back to Kit. An emptiness like nothing he'd ever felt before carved his body out, like a pumpkin on Halloween. There was nothing but a cavern where his heart should have been. Tears poured down his face, but nothing else moved. He had lost everything. Only lost wasn't the right word. Everything - everyone - had been taken from him.

              "I'm so sorry," Hazel said in a broken voice and started to cry.

              Stuart held her closer to him, the rims of his eyes turning red. He didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. The look he gave Connor said it all, and Connor replied with a slight nod. Kit didn't show much of a reaction.

              "Sorry," was her only reply.

              "It's fine. We have work to do."

              Connor felt an instant of panic at the amount of emotion coursing through him. Not the sadness or mourning or grief, but the rage. He'd never felt that amount of burning hatred in his life, and felt certain that if Rumsfeld appeared to him in the room right then and there he'd kill him without a second thought. The shift within him was dramatic and terrifying, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

              Hazel tried to comfort him.

              "It's okay to feel--"

              "You don't know what I feel. And no it's not okay."

              She drew back, as though he had physically hit her.

              "We don't have time for mourning right now. Like Kit said, we have work to do and things to learn. If this is a battle, then let's start learning about our enemy, yes?"

              Everyone agreed simultaneously with mutters of "yes" and "absolutely" and "let's go", and it made Connor feel a little better to know that not only was everyone on the same page as far as what needed to be done, but that he wouldn't be forced to divulge his feelings.

              Kit opened the book and they began to flip through, starting from where they'd left off the day before. The Sunday morning sun failed to show, replaced by an overcast grey. He glanced out the window to see rain pouring in sheets. In a way it was a perfect metaphor for the state of things. With them. With his life.

              "Where was the map?" Hazel asked.

              "The map?" Kit responded, furrowing her brow.

              "You know, the one that Stuart pointed out to us yesterday when he figured out how the Void is set up?"

              "Oh the map! It's back here somewhere."

              Kit looked through the book and flipped open to the page in question.

              "Perfect."

              "Why do you want the map again? Shouldn't we be looking ahead to learn more?"

              "Absolutely. But I also think if we're at war, we should have as much information about the enemy's land and camp as possible, right?"

              "Sure, but --"

              "And shouldn't that map be portable?"

              Kit's eyes lit up for the first time since they'd all gathered there.

              "Hazel that's genius! But we didn't bring -- "

              "Tracing paper?" Hazel smiled.

              "You didn't!"

              "Of course I did. I'm one of
those
, remember?" Hazel teased.

              Kit always made fun of Hazel for being so artsy. She had a habit of saying that Hazel was off in the clouds and no earthly good. But at that moment nothing could have come in handier. After all, there was nothing rational or earthly about what they were facing. Why should the strategy to defeat it be?

              "Here!" said Hazel.

              She fished a pad of tracing paper out of her bag. Producing a charcoal pencil and a black marker she looked at Kit.

              "May I?" she asked.

              "Yeah, go, do your thing," Kit replied with a half-smile.

              "Thanks. I'll make one copy from the book, then others from that copy so you can keep looking."

              Kit smiled the first genuine smile Connor had seen in a long time, and for a moment he was taken aback by a sudden feeling of compassion. Had he been too hard on her? Did she really deserve the level of skepticism and criticism he'd leveled at her? He had tried not to keep secrets from them, but surely there were things that he knew that he hadn't let on, right? Yet her admission of intimate knowledge of the realm and its inhabitants kept him on edge, and until he received answers he didn't know if he could truly trust her.

              Hazel bent over the book and began to trace the image on the page. Her hands moved with precision, her eyes narrowed in an intent focus. Up until that point her face had shown signs of stress and worry. But as she worked, she appeared to be transported to another place, completely absorbed with her work. Her face softened, a small smile appeared, and she worked with the precision of someone who had been drawing for more years than Hazel had been alive. Watching her felt like nothing short of magic.

              The entire room seemed to disappear as she worked, and, passing a glance around the circle, Connor noticed that everyone was just as entranced with her as she was with her work. Stuart's eyes glistened as he watched her, and while Kit and Connor were looking at the page on which she was drawing, Stuart was looking at Hazel.

              When she finished she sat back and held up the drawing, which, while a perfect copy of the map she'd just traced, was Hazel through and through. Unique. Beautiful. Ethereal. He'd never been happier to have Hazel as part of their team. What else would her artistic talents be able to get them through? He gave a half smile of amusement as he imagined Hazel building a tree house out of banana peels on a deserted island and declaring it her Banana Bungalow. And, in all reality, he wouldn't put it past her.

              "Hey hand me that. I want to look at something," said Kit, holding her hand out.

              Hazel passed the book.

              "What are you looking for?" asked Hazel.

              "I  just want to look back at something," Kit replied.

              She ran her finger over the map, hunting for something, and then tapped the page when she found it.

              "Here. Remember how we saw this symbol and couldn't remember what it was?"

              She was pointing to the Hour that contained the odd oblong symbol they'd noticed a few days prior.

              "I remember that," Connor said. "What do you think it is?"

              "You know how you guys keep talking about the...."

              She still had a hard time saying it.

              "The D-e-m-a-f-a-e?" Connor spelled?

              She smiled. "Yeah, those."

              Connor frowned. "I've seen them several times, and so has Stuart. What are you thinking?"

              "Well...do those images look anything like them?" Kit asked, pointing again to the map.

              Connor stared at the image again, trying to remember the shape of the Demafae. Were they that long? That oblong? Could the icon represent something else entirely? He closed his eyes for a moment, and placed his finger over the icon in question. Why he chose to do it he had no idea, but it felt right. Felt like somehow it would help him connect to his memory. To the visions.

              In an instant a whirlwind of color and noise surrounded him. The hotel room around him disappeared. Even with his eyes closed, he could see visions of purple and black and searing hot-blue flashes. He tried to move his hand, but found it frozen in place. Everything had frozen except for the swirling madness around him.

              Shrieking screams echoed through the air, some of which sounded like the joyous, sadistic screams of a demon, others which came through drenched in pain and agony. The smell of burning sulfur burned his nose with such a sudden force that he almost vomited. His heart pounded, his eyes watered, and he tried desperately to scream, or move. To do anything.

              Suddenly he saw a vision of a Demafae, and the swamps rose before him once more. This time, however, he saw them from a different vantage point, directly across from the last place he'd stood in the wastelands.

              The Demafae moved toward him through the swamp. Fog hung in heavy layers around the creature, like disembodies hands clinging to their master for mercy that would never come.

              From behind him, a rustling like a great many animals fleeing from a predator stole his attention away from the encroaching creature, and he spun around, ready to flee. But far from the glowing eyes of a mythical creature set on his destruction or the ax of a huntsman, he saw the small form of a creature with frightened eyes, elongated ears, and tattered clothing. It gave the appearance of a squirrel mixed with a very small human, and reminded Connor of any number of garden gnomes he'd seen in his life. The creature could only have been about a foot tall, at most, and clung to the tree trunk closest to Connor for dear life. Its eyes darted about with wild anticipation, and its clawed hands - which appeared to be more for grabbing trees than prey - grasped the trunk so hard he thought it might actually loosen the bark.

              "You should not be here!"

              The squeaky voice caught him off guard.

              "What's happening? Who are you?"

              "No matter! No time! You must go!"

              "Go where? I didn't even come here on purpose, I..."

              "No, no you wouldn't. You're called. They bring you, the others bring you, everyone wants you ahem-ahem, everyone ahem."

              The creature inserted the word "ahem" the way humans would say "uh-huh", and it seemed to be a nervous habit that didn't serve any utilitarian purpose. It looked around furiously, and reminded Connor of a miniature chihuahua stuck in the rain.

              "Why does everyone keep saying that? That I wouldn't understand?"

              "No time, no time! Go!"

              "Go WHERE?"

              The impish creature suddenly snapped out of his spastic state and, for the first time, made and held eye contact with Connor. He looked behind him to see the Demafae still moving toward him at a slow but consistent pace. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

              Hands and arms, limbs and hair, began to emerge from the craters and pits in the marsh. It was just like before, only this time they came in multiples, all of them trained on him, not on a dying traveler. Unlike the Traveler's alabaster double, these figures had no face. They walked toward him, moving in jerks and starts, fluid motion long since abandoned. Screeching and moaning escaped from them, but not from their lips - they had none. Connor stumbled backwards a step without intention, without purpose. He had no idea where to run, he simply wanted to get away. 

              "Come with me!"

              Connor looked down to see the small creature jumping up and down, motioning with its hand for Connor to follow him. Just as Connor took a step toward the forest, the Demafae met him in one swift motion, pinning him to the ground with one hand. The hand holding its head lifted the orb to the cavernous gap covered by its hood, and placed the head where it should have been to begin with.