The Wizard's War (25 page)

The electrical lights in the hallway burst, plunging
the entire mansion into darkness. There was a window at the far end of the
hallway and only the light of our smaller moon, Odzuki, provided any light.

I felt the creature bat against my shield, when the
most unexpected thing happened; my shield collapsed. The creature was gone,
women were screaming in their bedrooms, and I stood in the hallway, confused. I
drew on my magic to create simple fire… and nothing happened. For the first
time in my existence, my magic was not working.

There was only one being that could possibly be
powerful enough to do this to me.

“You have to let it happen.” In the light of the
moonlight, he appeared before me and vanished again in a tenth of a second.

“Ronez? Where are you?”

“He will die.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Who are you talking to?” Verda asked behind me.
Instead of answering her, I led her back to her room. “Why would Taron-sep
attack me when I have been helping him?” she asked when she shut and locked her
door.

“This is not because you refused him.”

“Was he mad that I saw him?”

“No, that makes no sense either. Perhaps it was who
we saw him with. What attacked you was a creature of magic, and nobody here
that I have seen has enough magic to control such a beast.”

“I thought monsters stayed on Mijii or Shomodii. Is
the creature dead?”

“No. Before I could defeat it, my powers failed.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“It has never happened before. We need to set a trap,
which we will implement the moment my powers return.”

“Are you sure they will return?”

“More sure than I am about anything.”

*          *          *

Our plan was rather rudimentary; we would create a
trap in Verda’s room and then she would lure Taron-sep in. The problem was that
my magic did not return that night. When we woke in the morning, we discovered
that three women, including the woman Taron-sep slept with, was dead. The
master of the manor couldn’t care less.

As we waited for my magic to be restored, Verda went
on as usual. I, on the other hand, had a terrible time. I couldn’t flash out to
get food or even request something from my brothers, so I had to settle for
sharing with Verda. “Maybe I should pretend to be one of the servants so I
could get better food,” I mused. She stopped to gape at me, food halfway to her
mouth. “What?”

She set the piece of bread down. “For one thing, I think
you would slap the first person who gave you an order and kill the second. You
seem about as submissive as a naowen.”

The knob on the door started to turn as someone tried
to enter without knocking. I reached out with my magic, instinctively, and flipped
the lock. Unable to open the door, the person in the hall started knocking.

“Your magic is back?” Verda whispered. I nodded,
stood up, pressed myself against the wall, and let my magic make me invisible.
Verda answered the door.

It was Maida standing there, crying. “Abro-do is
dead. Please let me stay with you. I am afraid to be alone.”

Alarms went off in my head. Before I could reach into
the girl’s mind to find out what she saw, she was pushed aside. Two men I had
seen before in passing each grabbed one of Verda’s arms. Verda struggled and
demanded to know what they were doing.

“You are being arrested for the murder of Abro-do
Todeko.”

“What?” Instead of fighting harder, Verda went limp
and let herself be dragged away. I followed, easily skirting around the young
girl. Instead of taking her down to the dungeon, the men took her to
Taron-sep’s room.

Taron-sep was waiting when the men pushed her into
the room, stepped out, and shut the door behind them. I almost had trouble
making it in without touching the men, which is why I normally hated going
around invisible. Verda sat on the floor with her feet under her.

“I have never killed anyone,” Verda said softly, as
if no one would believe her.

“I know that,” Taron-sep said.

“Then why have you brought me here?”

“Because if I show favoritism, people will die.” He
sat on the bed and patted the spot next to him, indicating that she should sit
by him. She remained on the floor.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“If I allow you to go without chores, even though you
are working in other ways, especially since we have lost so many servants
recently, I worry that you will anger whoever is killing the girls. You will
have to return to doing chores.”

She looked up at him. “Why do you care about me being
killed? You never seemed to care about the others.”

“I care that they are dying, but until I know who is
killing people, I cannot risk making things worse. At least, that was my
intention, especially since I believed Abro-do was the killer. Abro-do was just
killed, however, so I have no suspects.”

“Does anyone in the mansion have the power to conjure
a magical creature?” she asked.

“No. I have too much invested in electrical equipment
to allow magic here.”

“I will start on the chores again tomorrow. May I go
now?”

He nodded. “I will send someone with you.”

“I can walk myself, thank you,” she said. I could see
in his eyes that her words, or maybe her tone, irritated the man, but he nodded
again. She stood, went to the door, opened it, and stepped back so that I could
pass her. “Sleep well.”

We were halfway back to the room when I felt the
presence of the creature lurking out of sight. I stopped Verda with a light
hand on her arm. She knew not to say anything or look around, so instead she
looked out the window beside her, as if that had been her intention all along.
I created a shield, powerful but also invisible, around her and stepped away
from her. We only had to wait for a couple of minutes before the creature came
into view.

I knew immediately that I had jumped to a very wrong
conclusion.

Dylan must never hear about this.

The creature I faced was not a familiar conjured by a
powerful wizard. It resembled a very large Earth jaguar, except it was pure
black. This was a raduma from Skrev; a mere shifter. With my power, the beast
was nothing.

As the beast slid from her shadow, her eyes were
trained on me, for she could smell me even if she couldn’t see me. Raduma has
some of the most powerful senses of any animal on their world. I reached into
her mind, found her frustration, and soothed it. In the process, I could see
how she came to kill people on Zendii.

Her mother was sago as far as she knew, but she never
met her father. She was normal for most of her life until she fell in love with
Taron-sep, who ignored her on account of the fact that she was five years under
the legal age of independence. When she went through the emotional turmoil, her
cat broke free of her sago genetics and she became a shifter who has been
killing every girl her master took notice of. Abro-do had suggested Maida be
sent away for her own safety because of her age, which was why she killed him.

The raduma sat there, calmed by my power, while I
sent out a summons to Ghidorah. Before the Guardian of Skrev could respond, my
energy faded. Instantly, the cat pounced on me… only to be stopped cold by an
iron skillet, which Verda smashed into the cat’s face.

The cook had approached, carrying the pan, while I
was occupied. Verda had taken it and acted without thought. As tough as the
creature may have been, it had to have hurt. The raduma wavered, whimpered, and
tried again to attack, only to end up falling on her face. Ghidorah appeared
with a flash, courtesy of Araxi.

“Hello, Divina,” the Guardian greeted. “You have
never called me before.”

“No, but I figured this was something you should
handle. One of your raduma was misplaced. See that this doesn’t happen again. I
don’t blame you, but she has killed sago.”

“And you did not simply kill her because Dylan would
frown on that?”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously.”

He and the raduma vanished, only to be replaced by
Xul. “Sup, girly?” he asked me in English. I pressed my hand against his chest
and a burst of energy struck him hard enough to slam him against the wall.

Hey, my powers are back.

“Shit,” he groaned as he slid down. “I take it you
got all the testosterone in your marriage?”

Dylan saved all his testosterone for the bedroom.
When we weren’t alone, he cared too much about solving mysteries and being a
Guardian to worry about acting macho. Of course, he did like pushing Mordon
around.

“Hail needs you,” he said before climbing slowly to
his feet. “Ron and Hail are separated. So are Mordon and Dylan. Something
powerful is keeping them apart. I think it’s---”

“Zero. Yeah, I think we got off too easy with him. Is
Dylan okay?”

“His energy is boiling over in a bad way without
Mordon. It’s not even him against the universe anymore; his own energy is
starting to attack itself. Dylan is not doing well. Since my power is tied to
his, I can tell.”

“Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing; I’m going to
talk to my brothers.”

Without waiting for his response or thanking Verda
for her help, I flashed to the Land of the Iadnah and called all of my brothers
to me, even Vretial. If I could get them to work together for two seconds
without bloodshed, I would have to start believing in miracles. Instantly upon
appearance, Regivus slammed his fist into Vretial’s nose. As Vretial had a
mortal body, he started bleeding.

“What was that for?” my eldest brother whined

“I don’t remember, but you did something.”

I would have laughed, except I knew what Vretial had
done, and it wasn’t my brother’s fault; it was mine.

“Can I hit him, too?” Avoli asked.

Avoli was the youngest of us after me and really
never developed the understanding of our power like the rest of us have. It was
my belief that he was actually attacked by a more powerful god before we
entered this universe, which explained his lesser power and the fact that he
was naturally so inclined to surrender control. This wasn’t the reason I
coddled him. I didn’t actually know why I stood up for him, or why Dylan seemed
to despise him.

“Focus. Something is keeping Ron and Hail as well as
Dylan and Mordon apart.”

“I have tried to help,” Vretial said. His nose was
already healed. “I failed.”

“Yes, and any one of us probably would. I do have an
idea, though. If we can combine our power and try to---”

“I refuse to work with Vretial,” Azenoth growled.

“Good!” Erono barked. “You are the weakest here
anyway.”

“Settle down, both of you,” Mreje said.

Then Zer added his two cents in and I just sighed
while my brothers acted like idiots. After several minutes of letting them
argue, Vretial flicked his wrist. My brothers were shocked out of their anger
by the sudden rain falling from the nothingness above them. As quickly as it
started, the rain stopped.

“That is better. Now, let’s get to work,” Vretial
said.

Ron

We returned to Earth with the battle axe and the
dagger. Having never seen a griffin before, Stacy shrieked when we appeared in
her kitchen. John stood from his chair at the table and pushed his wife behind
him.

“It’s okay!” Drake told his parents. “Seimei is
nice.”

“Hey, cool!” Kyle yelled, standing in the doorway.

Knowing Seimei would be nice, left the room to clean
up. I started with an hour-long shower followed by carefully perfecting my
hair. “
Hail?
” I called for the millionth time since I failed to flash to
him.

I sighed with frustration when he didn’t answer. I
hated that there was a person, god, or demon who was powerful enough to keep me
away from my brother. It was my plan to destroy whoever it was as soon as I got
Hail back.

Bright light filled the room, but before I could
prepare myself for a possible attack, I felt the familiar presence. My magic
and even the balance reacted with joy. I felt like I could finally breathe.

The door burst open and both Sen and Drake ran in
just as the light cleared. Hail’s clothes were torn and dirty as if he was in a
fight. I couldn’t even open my mouth before he was crushing my bones in a huge.
“Hair,” I gasped.

“Shut up about your hair. I’m not letting you go ever
again.”

“Breathe… can’t…”

“Don’t care. You don’t need air. What are you two
doing here?” he asked.

“We were helping,” Sen said. “We helped Ron get three
of the four missing weapons.”

“Also, this is my house,” Drake added. Hail let me go
and I nearly staggered as blood rushed back into my limbs. “Where have you
been?”

“I was stranded on Canjii for a few days and then
Mordon and I went demon hunting. What weapons did you find?”

“We have a dagger, a bow, and a battle axe. We need
to get a wand now.”

“I want to see the bow.”

“We gave it to Samorde to give to Regivus because we
couldn’t carry it around with us. Xul gave me this,” I said, pulling the charm
out from under my shirt. “It keeps making me see Alice, who tells me where to
find the weapons. However, that might be a problem now.”

“Why?”

“In order to show me Alice, it has to be in my mind,
which it managed because we were apart. Your protection spell over me wasn’t
working. Now that you’re back…”

“I know. Show me how to loosen it.” He held out his
right hand flat, giving me no chance to argue.

I sighed, pressed my left hand against his right, and
closed my eyes. Discovering that I was born with my mother’s energy inside me
was comforting when I was four years old. Discovering that I was responsible
for protecting my brother from Vretial was a little daunting. I didn’t
understand at that age why everyone was so afraid of Vretial, including Hail.

I knew for as long as I could remember that the elder
god couldn’t talk to my brother in his mind. It was because of my
self-reflection that I figured out why.

A light tingle through my hand reminded me to focus.
I visualized my brother at the hot springs. It was at home with our family,
there was water to swim in, and it was bright daylight, so for Hail, this was
the most relaxing, peaceful scene possible. Even though my protection was only
to keep people out of his mind, including reading his mind, manipulating his visions,
or controlling him, my power incased his entire soul. Therefore, it looked like
an iridescent shield around him that reflected colors like a soap bubble.

It wasn’t energy that I was trying to control; my
energy did exactly what I wanted it to. For lack of a better word, the shield
around my brother was love. Instead of pulling back on energy, I thought of a
reason to uncover Hail’s mind, particularly so that Vretial could help us
understand Hail’s visions. However, since this was just an exercise, I imagined
that Dad was going to help us understand Hail’s visions instead.

The field around him faded until it was barely
visible. After a moment, I redirected it to strengthen, because I would never
leave my brother unprotected. Once the spell was unbreakable, I opened my eyes.
“Do you get it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Get what? What are you talking about?” Drake asked.

I started to pull away from Hail, but he squeezed my
hand and closed his eyes. I saw myself in a dim library, sitting in a
ridiculously comfortable chair, reading a thick, old book.
“Is this really
what I think is most comfortable?”

“It was either this or you sitting atop of pyramid
with a huge umbrella and a person fanning you while you ordered slaves to build
the statue of you faster,”
my brother answered.
 

“That wouldn’t be relaxing… it might be fun,
though.”

“Let me concentrate.”

“Would you really want to own slaves?”

Alice’s voice startled me into opening my eyes. She
was sitting on the bed, propped against the headboard like I was in the chair
in the vision. It was pretty obvious by their expressions that neither Drake
nor Sen saw or heard her, but Hail was looking right at her.

Apparently, my head is the least private place in
this house
. “No, of course I probably wouldn’t,” I said. Hail glared at me.
“I mean, of course I absolutely would never want that. Now tell me where the
last weapon is.”

“Ron, don’t be mean.”

“She isn’t our sister; she’s an avatar of the demon
charm.”

“The last weapon, the wand, will be the easiest for
you to achieve,” Alice said.

“Great. What is the catch?”

“You must trust the balance. The balance is not your
enemy; it is the force that protects the universe from destruction by the
void.”

“The balance tried to open the gates that the gods
closed for a good reason. The balance would kill all the people and my parents
if it could.” I allowed it into me to protect my father and I knew I would have
to learn to control it when Hail and I made the plan.

“You cannot win the demon war when you are fighting
the balance.”

“Then can I prevent the war?”

“No. To find the wand, you must return to the moment
when this all began.”

“When what began?” I asked. I was talking to thin air
because Alice had already disappeared. Frustrated, I sighed and sat in the spot
on the bed that Alice had vacated.

“What do we do?” Hail asked.

“We go home. There is no telling what she was talking
about, so let’s start at home and go from there.”

“I can come, right?” Drake asked.

“Don’t you think that’s unfair to your mom? I bet she
missed you and worried about you every minute,” I said. “You don’t want her to
be upset anymore.”

He hesitated as he considered my advice. Oddly, Sen
looked unhappy. Maybe he became good friends with Drake despite their constant
bickering, which I could understand. Drake wanted to be treated as capable and
independent. Sen wanted to matter to someone and have a voice.

I flashed Hail, Sen, and myself home. Seimei appeared
of her own magic and made a surprised, irritated huff when she saw Ikiru
sitting on the couch with Sari. The male griffin ignored us and made a purring
sound, happy to have Sari’s attention.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Hail asked his griffin.
Ikiru looked at Hail, then up at Sari, and purred louder.

Seimei gave me a look as if saying, “This is why you love
me more.”

“Sari, what are you doing here?” I asked. “And why do
I want to bite you?”

Her eyes widened. “I’m here because Mordon and Hail
dropped me off.”

“Well, we’re here now, so you can go away.” It wasn’t
that I was trying to be mean to her. Honestly, I always carefully thought
through what to say and scrutinized how it could be interpreted. Unfortunately,
more and more over the years, what popped out of my mouth was not what I had
intended to say.

Hail sighed. “If the wand was here, where would it be?”

“Hidden in Mom’s stuff.” A quick rifle through our
parents’ things left me scarred for life. Among Mom’s potion ingredients and
collection of random bones, I found trinkets Dad had given her over the years,
pictures of our family on vacation, and an excessive number of satin scarves
and ties. With horror, I dropped the box of cloth as if it were a hairy spider;
I knew my parents did parent things, I just didn’t want to know the
particulars.

Sari’s scream startled me and I turned in time to
catch the severed head that flew at me. Sari stood shaking with an empty box.
She must have seen the head and instinctively flung it away.

“Hey, Stevie!” Hail exclaimed with delight, taking
the head from me. “I remember this!”

The doll’s head was about the most hideous thing I
had ever seen. Before we left Earth, my brother and I became really good
friends with some kids at school, especially a girl named Tatum. When we left,
Tatum said she wanted us to have something to remind us of her, so she took off
the head of her doll— which she was too old for in my opinion— and gave it to
Hail. Before I could express my horror, Dad told us that since Tatum’s family
was from Malta, we had to accept, because refusing gifts was a dishonor to
them.

Sari shrieked even louder this time and dived behind
me when the left eyelid opened and closed in an eerie wink. It was one of those
dolls that were supposed to be asleep when you laid it down, only it kept
waking up when I tried to drown it in the toilet back on Earth. That had made Dad
mad, so I put it in Dad’s bed when he was in the shower. We needed a new window
after that.

The head was about the size of a baseball with a
chalky white face, light blue eyes, fire-engine-red hair, and creepy freckles.
As soon as we got home, I stole it from Hail, gave it to Mom, and asked her to
hide it in the darkest crevices of the universe. Apparently that was the back
of her closet. Or maybe the damned thing just made it back to this place on its
own.

I shall kill you with fire next time.

“Kill it!” Sari demanded.

Yeah, it gave me the chills, too. A few minutes
later, the four of us were sitting in the living room. Hail and I were on the
couch while Sari and Sen were in front of the fireplace, which wasn’t lit since
it was summer.

“So, Alice said it was at the start of something. I
was born here, you were born on Earth. I’m sure she wasn’t referring to Sen or
Drake.”

“We faced the demons in White Hills. Oh, and Dad
became a Guardian in Texas. We wouldn’t be here if not for that. Also, there is
Dad’s birth, and Edward’s house, where Mom and Dad met.”

“Hang on; maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.
There are an infinite number of
places
where
something
began.
Think of
people
who might be capable of protecting a god weapon, and we
can cross reference those people with the impact they had on our lives, Dad’s
life, or the demons.”

“Vretial,” Hail suggested.

“It wouldn’t be a god. He already knew about the
sword; we would have discovered the wand by now if he had it.”

“One of the Guardians?”

“A good possibility, but they have all impacted our…
oh, hey. One Guardian who was heavily involved in our lives, Dad’s life,
and
the demons… One who nobody would think twice of, despite the fact that he is
known for being good at hiding things…”

“Ronez,” my brother surmised. “But how do we ask him
if he has the wand when he’s dead?”

“Easy. We will go back to a time before he died.”

“I don’t like this plan. The odds are not in our
favor.”

“Screw the odds,” I said.

“Hush! Do not anger the odds!”

“You two are weird,” Sen said. “I already know Ron’s
plans always work, so let’s get on with it.”

“Let him tell you his plan before you start kissing
his plan’s ass,” Hail scowled at the dragon-mage. “How are we supposed to go
back in time? If we ask Vretial, he’ll just demand that mage staff.”

“Dad should have destroyed it.”

“Absolutely, but he didn’t. We could ask Emrys.”

“We could ask Mom,” he suggested.

I nodded. “Do you think she would trust us? I mean, I
know we can convince Emrys. Mom isn’t easy to persuade, especially when she is
trying to protect Dad.”

“You don’t have to manipulate everyone to get them to
help us. Give her a viable reason to send us back and she will.”

“But she
knows
us. She knows I can’t stay out
of trouble.”

“Doesn’t your mother constantly do things that are
irresponsible to protect your father?” Sen asked. “I mean, just from some of
the conversations I have overheard, her highest priority is protecting him and
all laws of nature come secondary. If you need the weapon to help Dylan, I
don’t think she would care if you screwed up as long as you tried.”

He made a good point. In my excitement, I wrapped my
arms around him. When I let go, he was blushing. “I told you never to hug me,”
he said.

“Why can’t I hug you?”

“You’re too old to be hugging family with so much
enthusiasm.”

“No, I’m not. Besides, we’re not really related, so I
can do whatever I want to with you.” Instead of assuring him, he blushed even
deeper. “You don’t think I would hurt you, do you?” I took his hand and held it
to my chest between both of mine. It was what Mom would do when she was asking
for Dad’s trust. “I would never hurt you!”

His expression was almost insulted. “You’re lying!
You would hurt me in a heartbeat if you thought it would benefit you,” he said,
pulling his hand away.

“Well, yeah, if I thought it would be in my best
interest. But don’t worry! I don’t think hurting you is beneficial. Right now,
you can help me. Besides, despite what I said, Mordon thinks of you as his son.
That makes us cousins. Dad said that cousins are always supposed to have each
other’s backs.”