Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (23 page)

She screwed her face up. “I hate to admit this, but you seem to be pretty good at this.”

Inside, the door shut slowly behind us. As Marti put her purse on the desk, she paused and frowned at the door.

“What?” I said, also looking at the door.

She gestured at the door. “That seemed off. Like the door shut too slowly.” She squinted and looked around the small room.

“What do you think is going on?” I said.

She shook her head and went around the desk. It looked like no one had been in the office since we’d retrieved the diffuser. The folders still sat in disarray on the desk, and the laptop still sat open.

Marti sat at the computer, and I sat in front of the desk. After a minute of typing she began pulling folders out of the stack on the desk. This time, she took out two blue ones, two green ones, and a red one. Each had a typed white label along the top. I couldn’t read the text from across the table, but Nick had indicated that they had code words on them, and that the database in the computer would tell me which ones to use, and how to arrange them. I don’t know how Nick expected me to do what he asked me to do. It seemed pretty complicated.

Marti moved her black purse aside and arranged the blue and green folders in a star-shaped pattern, alternating between blue and green, then placed the red one open, on top.

She paused and looked at me. “Want to cast this spell?”

I perked up. “Me? Really?”

“No, the monkey clinging to your face, sticking its butt out at me—oh wait, that
is
your face. Yeah, I guess you.”

“Funny that you would have pictures of a face that looked like a monkey-butt up in your room. You have strange taste.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m still going to win the award.”

I started to get out my brink. “No, sorry, I’m going to win.” Something occurred to me, and I paused as I unscrewed the lid of the brink.

This was the third time Marti had mentioned the award. What if she wanted to win so badly that she was helping me do something that could get me in trouble with my parents? At this point, it would surprise me if they even let me go to the awards ceremony and perform a song, like I was scheduled to do. But—was Marti trying to sabotage me, somehow?

“What’s wrong?” she said.

I frowned, and finished unscrewing the lid. “Nothing.”

But I couldn’t help but wonder.

She instructed me to draw a foot-wide circle on the red folder, then four foot-tall lines at even intervals around the circle, then another circle at the top of the lines. As I did, she drew another of those eyes in the air, and with a straight line connected it to a spiral on her forehead. We finished at about the same time.

I started to ask about the eye, but as she lit her emblem she frowned at my shape. The top circle looked a little warped.

“I don’t think you got it quite right.” Her eyeball emblem culminated and disappeared. “Light it, and see.”

She stood up and stepped back against the wall, as far away from my shape as she could.

“What could happen if I got it wrong?” I said.

“The possibilities are endless—but mostly harmless.”

“You stepped away.”

“
Mostly
harmless. You wanted to cast the spell. Go for it.”

“If it works, what do I do?”

“Just reach in and take the multiplier out.”

“Last time you said you could lose your hand.”

“So be fast. It would suck if you had to explain to your fans that you can’t play the guitar anymore because your hand got chopped off by a magical hole.”

I pulled out my boring old lighter and lit the top circle right where one of the vertical lines intersected with it. The flame spread around the top and down the line, until the entire shape burned.

But no pool of light appeared.

“Fail!” Marti said. “I thought that the top circle was a little lop-sided.”

I ignored her, tried not to feel embarrassed.

The fire puttered out, leaving black ash on the folders and burnt cinnamon in my nose. I brushed the ashes away and drew the spell again. This time, Marti spared me her commentary on the quality of my drawing, but actually rolled the chair back to where she stood, and crouched down behind it.

“You’re that worried about another misfire?” I said. The top circle of my emblem seemed wider than the bottom circle. “It is a little off, again.”

If what the Council and Dad had said were true, then I lived on the edge, only one misfiring spell away from an early death. I’d fought so hard to live. Endured all of those treatments to kill off the cancer. Was it foolish of me to light this spell, now?

She shrugged. “This is a pretty complex spell. The first time I drew one this complicated, I singed the hair off Grant’s face.”

I looked at the spell again. “Maybe it will be okay?”

“Light it and see.”

My hand trembled as I brought the flame up to the tinkling brink. I held my breath as the fire spread over the spell. When the entire emblem burned, it released a bang. Startled, I jumped. Marti screamed.

The top circle lifted off the shape, spinning and hissing. At the same time, the four straight lines ejected themselves and away from the emblem, shooting like blaster beams from Star Wars. One of them passed by my hip and stuck into the door with a hiss. One zipped to my right and one to my left, hitting opposite walls and leaving black marks and a fizzle of smoke. The fourth streak hit the chair Marti hid behind. The four beams of light faded and turned to ashes. Marti yelped.

At least, I thought she yelped. Someone did, but Marti had just screamed, and the yelp seemed to come from my left, near the door. But in the confusion and from my surprise, I couldn’t be sure. Now, after the fact, I see that I should have wondered more about it, and investigated.

Instead, I stood there wide-eyed as I looked up at the ceiling. A circle of black ash had burned into the otherwise white paint.

Marti stood up from behind the chair, shaking her head. Her hands trembled as they gripped the top of the chair. Smoke fizzled up into her face.

We spoke at the same moment.

I said, “You do it.”

She said, “I’ll do it.”

This time, fully conscious of the fact that I had a body, and that my body could get holes in it,
I
hid behind the chair as she drew the shape. Of course, her circles looked immaculate, and her lines as straight as rulers.

“No way,” she said. “You come over here and put your hand into the pool when it appears. I risked my hand for you to get the diffuser. It’s your turn.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so moved back over to the desk.

“How much time will I have?”

“Ten or fifteen seconds.” She raised the lighter.

“Which is it? Ten or fifteen? That’s a pretty big difference.”

“Be careful not to touch the flames. That will interrupt the spell.”

I started to object again, but she flicked the lighter. Flame spouted out and touched the brink. I prepared to jump away, just in case, but once the entire shape burned, a pool of white light appeared over the red folder.

I hesitated, but Marti glared at me so I snaked my hand in between the burning lines, down into the white light. Mentally, I started to count the seconds.

I’d expected warmth. Or even heat. But the pool felt cold—quite a contrast to the heat emanating from the flames. A chill made me shiver. Moving my hand through the pool of light felt like sliding it through a tub of pudding. As I plunged my hand deeper, I had to be careful not to lean into the burning emblem.

Five seconds. I felt no multiplier.

I explored, moving my hand around, expecting to find a hard surface, like the bottom of the table, or a cold floor, but felt nothing.

My fingers bumped something. I grabbed it, and jerked my hand up and out of the pool. The pool of light disappeared. The flames died.

I hadn’t counted even to ten seconds.

I gave Marti a dark look.

She smiled sheepishly. “I guess more like nine seconds.”

“Are you trying to destroy me?” Again, I thought of the award and my music career.

“Oh, stop it. You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.” She raised her eyebrows at my hand. “What is it?”

I opened my palm and held it out to her. She gaped in surprise. I laughed, astonished at what the multiplier was.

Chapter 40: Just a toy

I was so mad I wanted to kill someone. Richie happened to be the closest person.

-Sally Hammer, fundamentalist rapper

“Are we sure this is the right one?” I said, looking at the multiplier.

It was a Pez dispenser. With Yoda’s grinning head on it.

She nodded, still staring at the multiplier in surprise. “I guess so. We should call Nick. He may want us to be very fast, or may come very soon, so we’ll have to be ready to get out of here and cast the traps.”

She sat in the desk chair and rolled it into the corner, well out of sight of the spell. I cast the video-calling spell.

“This time no sneezing,” I said before I lit the brink.

She gave me a toothy grin. Then a petite little sneeze.

When I lit the brink, Nick came into view. Steam rose up around his face, and he wore a blue plastic shower cap over his spiked hair. He didn’t see me because he had his eyes closed. The sound of a shower almost drowned the sound of his singing.

“... my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza!” he belted as loud as he could. His southern accent sounded as thick as I’d ever heard it. “There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza—a hole!”

Marti gave me a quizzical look.

I stifled a chuckle. “Nick, it’s Richie.”

His eyes popped open and jerked in surprise.

I held up the multiplier. “I’ve got it.”

His face brightened, and he turned off the shower. “Nice work, son!”

“How do I get it to you?”

He opened his shower door and stepped out. His voice echoed in his bathroom. “There’s a training room with boxing rings in it. Do you know it?”

I nodded. “I’ve seen it.”

He yanked the shower cap from his head. I could practically hear the “boing!” as his hair puffed up and out. His eyes glowed with anticipation.

“I can’t believe you actually got it. I’ve been trying to get that for months—but I always get accosted and have to escape. Amazing!”

I smiled, shrugged, and didn’t look at Marti. “I’ll meet you in the training facility?”

He nodded and grabbed a towel from out of my vision, and spoke as he wiped is face. “Whatever you do, don’t let anyone know you have it. Put it in your pocket right now.”

I lowered it out of his sight, but didn’t put it in my pocket. I had no intention of actually taking it out of the Archive.

“How soon will I get my brink back?” I said.

He paused and frowned. “Go ahead. Put it in your pocket.”

How did he know I hadn’t put it in my pocket? Had he seen something, or was he just guessing? Just to be safe, I put it in my pocket. I would take it out before I left the room.

“We’re almost there,” he said as he toweled off. “Once I get the multiplier, I can take the emotion to the grounds and blow it up.”

“The training facility is big. Where should I meet you?”

“From where you enter, go to the far right corner. I’ll zip in—just stand about fifteen feet out from the very corner so I don’t kill you. Five minutes. I’ll meet you there.”

I nodded, still not looking at Marti, fearing that perhaps I’d given some hint I wasn’t alone and didn’t plan on actually giving him the multiplier.

“Five minutes,” I said.

He paused his drying off, and shook his head. “You’re doing the right thing, son. You’ll see soon enough.”

“My parents are going to kill me.”

“Everyone will see. Everyone will understand I’m not crazy. Or evil. Thanks to you, son. Thanks to you.”

With a nod, he raised his hand and wiped the spell away. As his face disappeared, the circle of flames died, and black ashes began to float down to the desk.

Marti jumped up from her chair. “Five minutes. We’ve got to hurry!”

I reached into my pocket for the multiplier, but before I could speak, a fundamentalist rapper wearing a long golden dress appeared in the room’s corner. Ashes poofed out from all around her.

She’d been invisible—something I would later learn was possible with certain illusion spells—and entered the room behind us. She’d been the one to yelp at my spell’s misfiring.

As the ashes scattered around her, she lunged at me, hands held out like claws, mouth gaping in a feral scream.

Chapter 41: Chase

My anger gave me wings. And scales over my eyes.

-Sally Hammer, fundamentalist rapper

I suppose the fundamentalist rapper meant to shout something intelligible. Maybe, “Thief!” Or even, “Traitor!” But all I heard was, “Threaauuuuuooooooghhhhhgbrlyraggpadooot!”

I barely had time to move, let alone dodge her. But I did manage to turn so that her fingers didn’t gouge out my eyes. She slammed into me, and the two of us fell—first onto the chair, then onto the floor. I fought to push her off, and she clawed at me, squealing in rage. She was a blur of big fancy hair, white lace, and golden fabric.

Marti leaped around the desk to us and reached down to grab the woman and pull her off, but the woman surged to her feet and shoved Marti away with a screech. Marti fell over the desk, sending the computer and folders scattering to the floor. The rapper headed for the exit, still screaming. Before either Marti or I could stop her, she fled the room.

“Come on!” Marti said, as she pushed herself off the desk. She grabbed her purse in one hand, and my hand in another—but was much more gentle with the purse. She yanked me the rest of the way to my feet. “She’ll warn everyone!”

As we exploded out of the room, the woman disappeared around a corner. I only saw her feet and the trail of her golden dress, but I could sure hear her voice.

“They’ve pillaged the Archive! They’re allied with Savage!”