A Wizard of the White Council (6 page)

He slipped through the trees and found a comfortable-looking spot not far from the invisible door to the Tower. A few insects chirped, but the woods lay quiet otherwise. Arran wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down, trying to get comfortable. He closed his eyes, thoughts and plans whirling through his tired mind. Should he try to find Alastarius first? Or should he seek out Marugon’s agents? Perhaps finding one would lead to finding the other. 

Arran contemplated hunting Marugon himself, but rejected the idea. The last of the Warlocks would crush him like a gnat. Siduri had been right. He had to find Alastarius…

Arran fell asleep.

###

The next day he explored in a different direction. He had developed a sense for the buses, and used them to speed his explorations. His clothing and swords elicited many strange glances, but Arran ignored them, taking in more of Chicago. His path took him to a vast indoor marketplace with a glass roof and multiple balconies, its walls lined with dozens of shops, each one equipped with a garish sign of glowing glass over its entrance. One shop sold metal boxes with glass eyes that showed moving images. Another shop sold countless shoes and boots, and still another held more books than Arran had ever seen in his life. 

He stood on a balcony and took in the sight while the crowds flowed around him. Neither Sir Liam nor Siduri would have believed such wonders. The people of Chicago had such bounty. No wonder so many of them were fat and slow and timid. A courtyard attached to the indoor marketplace boasted dozens of food merchants, and Arran used some of his dollars to buy food. 

He ate, caught a bus, and continued on his way. 

A few hours later he walked down a desolate-looking street. Large brick buildings lined both sides of the street, ringed in fences of barbed wire and metal. Arran guessed they were warehouses of some sort. Tired-looking laborers sometimes walked past, their clothing and faces stained with sweat and soot. Arran disliked this part of the city. It had a grim aspect…

His Sacred Blade jolted. 

Arran’s hand clamped around the weapon’s hilt. He looked around, his eyes scanning the warehouses and road. A boxy black jeep sped down the road, its sides painted with lettering. Arran caught a glimpse of a hunched, bearded figure at the wheel.

An electric jolt of rage shot through Arran. He recognized the shape behind the wheel. The winged demons often adapted such disguises when they walked among men. “Winged ones, there are winged ones on Earth.” He shouldn’t have been surprised. Had not Kaemarz mentioned that wicked and ancient Goth-Mar-Dan himself had come to Earth? Arran drew his Sacred Blade, the crimson steel glimmering with blue light, and set himself in a guard position… 

The black jeep shot past, and the winged demon did not spare him a glance. The creature must not have seen him or sensed the white magic in his Sacred Blade. Arran started to run after the jeep, sword in hand, until he realized the futility of the action. 

“Holy hell.” A grimy young workingman squinted at Arran. “Was that thing glowing?”

“That jeep,” said Arran, “that black jeep. Did you see it?”

The workingman frowned. “I didn’t see no jeep.”

Arran’s anger boiled over. “Damnation! That black vehicle! Did you or did you not see it?”

The workingman raised his hands. “Hey, cool down, man. That black van? Yeah, I saw it. See them driving past all the time.”

Arran realized he had raised his sword, and he rammed it back into the scabbard. “The lettering on the side? What did it say?”

The workingman looked confused. “Yeah…I think it said ‘the Gracchan Party. Vote Jones and Wycliffe in November’.” 

“What does that mean?” Something clicked in Arran’s mind. “Wycliffe. I know that name.” He remembered the Ildramyn’s second vision. He had seen a short, fat man named Wycliffe talking to another man named Kurkov about selling things to Marugon.  “Gods damn me for a fool. I knew it the entire time. This man Wycliffe is the gun-merchant.” The workingman looked frightened. “Wycliffe. Do you know the name?” 

“Yeah,” said the workingman. “He’s a Senator. He’s running for president, I think. Or was it vice-president?”

“Senator?” said Arran. “What is that?” 

“You know…he gets elected to the Senate. They sit around and pass laws and raise taxes.”

Arran grunted. “So the United States is a republic.”

“I always thought we were a democracy.”

“Thank you.” Arran started forward. “You’ve been helpful. But I warn you! Stay away from Wycliffe and his men. They are dangerous beyond anything you can imagine.”

The workingman grunted. “I stay out of politics anyway.” 

Chapter 5 - Stalkers

Anno Domini 2012

Ally woke up.

“What?” she muttered, lifting her face from the desk. Her dorm room lay dark and quiet, the faint glow of the floodlights seeping through her curtains. Ally yawned, ran her fingers through her hair, and looked at her iPhone.

“Oh, man.” It was three in the morning. She had started studying for her chemistry test at about ten. About midnight she had gotten up to get some coffee. The empty mug sat on a corner of the desk, atop her lab notebook. After that she couldn’t remember a thing 

Ally sighed, flicked on her desk lamp, and tried to sort her notes into a semblance of order. She had a good grasp of the material, but she wanted to go through it one more time. Perhaps she should just go to sleep. A tired mind did not write good tests. 

Ally closed her eyes. She did not want to go to sleep. 

The nightmares came then. 

She tried to study for another ten minutes, her exhausted brain refusing to absorb any more material. Equations and electron levels blurred before her eyes in an incomprehensible mess. She gave up and flicked off her desk lamp. 

More books and papers lay strewn across her bed. Ally grumbled, scooped them up, and dumped them on the floor. She considered undressing, decided it was too much work, and crawled into bed. 

Sleep came almost at once, and so did the dreams. 

###

Again she lay on the courtyard floor of cold stone, red-lit smoke billowing over the dark sky.

Ally gasped for breath, blood welling in her throat. Her side and back burned with agony. She tried to stand, but her trembling muscles refused to obey. 

Terror flooded her. 

She remembered what happened next.

The dark shadow dropped from the sky, its vast wings blotting out the light. An iron-clawed hand plunged towards her chest. She shrieked as the iron claws ripped through her skin, plunged into her chest, and curled around her heart…

The world shattered with her unending scream.

###

“Wake up,” murmured a deep, sonorous voice. “You must wake up.”

Ally stood in a vast corridor of dark marble, a green glow illuminating the black stone. A half-buried part of her mind remembered what would happen next. The black things would boil from the walls and overwhelm the old man with two swords. She would flee for the rune-carved doors, Lithon in her arms…

But instead a younger man trudged down the corridor, his face weathered and grim, his dark clothes worn and dusty. Tangled hair and an unkempt beard masked half his face, and a sword and a pair of automatic pistols hung from his belt. He moved like a hunting cat, despite his obvious weariness. The weathered man stopped in a domed chamber. His eyes widened, his hand flying to his sword…

###

“You must remember,” whispered the deep voice. “You must.”

Ally floated in a dark space. “No.” 

“You must. Else he will find you before you are ready.”

“No!” She tugged harder, trying to escape. “I don’t want this, I’m tired of the dreams, just let me sleep, let me sleep…”

Something shattered. 

Ally flew backwards. For a moment she glimpsed all of Chicago spread out beneath her, lights glittering and shining in the night. Then she plunged down, soaring over a park not far from the campus. She saw the old man with the camouflage jacket and the cane, a stern expression his face. A hideous thing with leathery gray skin crouched behind a bush, its red eyes burning with madness. 

She turned and fled, the city blurring around her. 

Something pulled on her, drawing her over the crumbling brick warehouses in the South Side. Winged monstrosities, iron claws dangling from their fingers, circled in the night. Ally’s terror rose to a fever pitch. She tried to flee, but something pulled her down. A vast warehouse complex loomed before her, lights burning in the night. Slouching thugs with bushy beards guarded the entrance. Ally swooped before a large warehouse, marked 13A in red paint. She fell through the floor and found herself in a large library, books resting in handsome dark wood shelves.

A man in a black robe sat in an overstuffed chair, his head bowed. A dreadful cold seemed to radiate from him, like the blast of a blizzard wind. The man lifted his head, his face pale. 

His eyes were bottomless black pits into the void.

Ally shrieked and fled, speeding through the city. “No, no, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s a dream, it’s a dream…”

###

She woke up, her legs thrashing in the blanket. 

“It’s just a dream!” Her last word rose to an angry shriek. 

She blinked, cold sweat dripping down her jaw. Ally groaned and looked at her iPhone. It was six-thirty. She sighed and huddled back into her blankets. Her test wasn’t until two-thirty. She could sleep through her morning class and study some more in the afternoon. 

Someone knocked at the door. Ally rolled out of bed, shuffled across the carpet, and pulled the door open. “Yeah?”

Kelly McBrian stood in the hallway, still wearing her sweatshirt and yoga pants from her morning run. “Hey, Ally. Sorry if I woke you up. Some of your neighbors said they heard you screaming. You okay?”

Ally pushed her hair out of her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just some bad dreams, that’s all.” 

“You want to talk about it?” said Kelly. 

Ally didn’t want to tell anyone about it. “No. I…just have a pulled muscle, and a lot going on with school, and…”

Kelly nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” She grinned. “I think I’ll go take a shower. I probably smell real ripe.” 

“You do.”

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Well, thanks! Later, Ally.” Ally shut the door and collapsed back into bed. She fell asleep almost at once. 

No dreams tormented her this time.

###

Ally walked across campus, fallen leaves crunching beneath her shoes. The test had gone well, which brightened her mood. She wanted to get to her room, change, and get to work. She had a night class to teach with Katrina at the studio. Perhaps she and Katrina could go out to dinner after the class. Maybe she could tell Katrina about the dreams. 

Something moved behind her.

Ally turned, her eyes narrowing. She saw nothing but the usual students talking on their cell phones. Ally shrugged and went on her way. But the feeling of someone following her refused to go away. 

She whirled without breaking stride, just in time to see someone dart into the bushes. Anger overrode her common sense, and she stormed into the bushes. A man knelt in the dirt, looking at a smartphone. He wore jeans and black sports jacket, and a number of earrings glittered beneath his unkempt dark hair. He peered through the leaves, squinting.

“Why the hell are you following me?” said Ally.

The man jumped to his feet. “Oh, shit.”

Ally stalked towards him. “I said, why the hell are you following me?”

The man stammered. “I…um…I’m not following you. I work for…um, the museum. I’m trying to capture bugs…”

“Crap,” said Ally. “I thought someone’s been following me for the last few days. It’s you, isn’t it? Why?”

“Um.” The man blinked, turned, and ran for it. 

Ally caught him before he’d gone five steps. She seized his arm, twisted it behind him, and slammed him against a tree. “Ow! Hey, stop that. That hurts, that hurts…”

Her anger grew. “Why are you following me? Tell me or I’ll…”

“Let him go, please.”

A scruffy old man with a gray beard and a steel-handled cane stood behind her. “What do you want?” Something tickled in the back of her mind. “Wait a minute. I remember you. You’re that old man I saw a few months back. What was your name?” She snapped the fingers on her free hand. “Regent, that was it. Regent.” 

The man she held against the tree whimpered. “Regent, hey, help me out here.”

Regent raised his free hand. “Could you kindly let my associate Mr. Allard go?” 

Ally glared at him, but let Allard go. He staggered away, watching her with a half-terrified expression. “Associate? You mean you work with this guy?” Regent nodded. “Then you were following me the other day, at the coffeehouse.” 

Regent lifted his free hand. “You have to understand. We weren’t following you. We had to…”

“Bullshit,” Ally snarled, her temper building to a fever pitch. “What are you, some kind of stalkers? Kidnappers? Or just a pair of perverts?”

Regent’s eyes glinted. “It’s nothing like that.” He hesitated. “I may have to tell you some things…”

“I don’t want to hear anything from you,” said Ally. “Stop following me. Do you understand? Stop following me. Or else I’ll call the police.” Her temper burned hotter. “No, forget the police. If you keep following me, they’ll need to call the police once I’m done with you. Understand?”

A bit of anger burned in Regent’s eyes. He pointed his cane at her. “Damn it, listen to me…”

White fire blazed in Ally’s mind

She moved faster than she had ever thought possible. Her left hand clamped over Regent’s cane. She twisted, wrenched the cane from his hand, and leveled the tip at his throat.

Regent raised his hands, his face very still.

“Holy shit,” said Allard.

Ally’s hands trembled. “No, you listen to me. Stop following me. Understand? Stop following me!” The cane felt warm beneath her hands, its surface seeming to vibrate. She scowled, threw the cane to the ground, and stalked away. 

After a moment she looked over her shoulder.

No one followed her.

###

Allard winced, rubbed his arm, and began picking pieces of bark from his cheek. “Why are the hot ones always psycho?”

“Allard,” said Regent.

Allard nodded. “I know, I know. I’m an idiot.”

Regent smirked. “Smart lad.” He grimaced, hobbled a few steps, and retrieved his cane. 

“God, she’s fast. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get the drop on you,” said Allard, picking the last piece of bark from his cheek. “At least she didn’t break the cane over your head.” 

Regent sighed. “She almost did.” 

“So are we going to stop shadowing her?” said Allard.

Regent picked some dead leaves from the handle of his cane. “Don’t be absurd. We don’t dare leave her alone, not with the way those changelings are prowling the city. And sooner or later we’re going to have to tell her everything.”

“And hope we don’t get any bones broken in the process.”

They returned to the sidewalk, Regent’s cane tapping against the concrete. “Marugon’s looking for her.”

That stopped Allard in his tracks. “What? How? That’s impossible. You said Marugon thought she was dead.”

“I might have been mistaken,” said Regent. “Marugon thinks Lithon is dead, I know that much. He must not have known about her when I…when Lithon’s death was faked. But think about it, son. What have we been doing every night for the last two weeks?” 

Allard shuddered. “Hunting changelings.” 

“Aye, son. Hunting changelings. And those changelings are looking for someone. I can feel the Voice of the black magic on them, compelling them to search. We’ve seen more winged ones flying overhead at night. And sometimes I can sense Marugon’s power hanging over the city. They’re looking for Ally.”

“Okay,” said Allard. “Then how does Marugon know about her?”

“He must have sensed her,” said Regent. “Whatever’s locked away inside her is getting stronger. It probably plays hell with her dreams. No wonder she’s so irritable. My skill with the white magic is feeble, and even I can sense it without even trying. Like letters of white fire written on her brow. Marugon must be able to sense her from five miles away. The changelings and the winged ones are creatures of the black magic. They must be able to sense her as well.”

“So why hasn’t he found her yet?” 

Regent snorted and raised a bushy eyebrow. “Give me a little credit, son. It’s because of us. Marugon would have killed her and her entire family months ago if it were not for us.” He rapped his cane against the sidewalk. “But I think things will come to a head soon. Alastarius’s Prophecy is going to come true.”

“How do you know?” said Allard.

“Wycliffe’s going to win the election,” said Regent. “We both know it’s going to happen.” The thought made Allard sick, but he could not deny it. “And if we know anything about that scheming soulless black-hearted bastard,” his voice rose in anger, “then he’ll be president in short order. William Jones is either a fool or a patsy. Or both. And Alastarius Prophesied that Lithon would bring him back. Something has to happen soon. Maybe Ally has something to do with it. But I’ll tell you one thing, son. My old bones know a storm’s coming. I’ve lived through quite a few of them in my life, and I know something’s going to happen soon. We’ve got to be ready.”

Allard swallowed. “What are we going to do?”

“Keep following her, of course…at a safer distance.” Allard rubbed his aching arm. “But sooner or later, we’re going to have to tell her the truth about who she is. I don’t think she remembers. Not surprising; I don’t want to remember my own past most of the time. But we’ll have to tell her.”

“She won’t listen to us,” said Allard. “She thinks we’re stalkers.” 

“Well, we’ll make her listen,” said Regent.

“Why not talk to her parents?”

Regent froze. “What?” 

Allard stammered. “Um…well…from what you’ve told me, her parents know. They’ve never told her the truth about herself, right? Or to Lithon?”

“Go on.”

“We could let them know just how much danger they’re in. Then they could tell her. Maybe she’d even work with us. We could take her someplace safe.”

Regent remained silent.

Allard groaned. “It’s a bad idea, isn’t it?”

Regent laughed. “Not by half. Sometimes you surprise even me.” He sighed. “We’ll talk to the parents, but not quite yet.” He stared off into space. “They’ll be rather surprised to see me.”