Josh and the Magic Vial (6 page)

She gave him a sharp look, but bit her lip. “You
will
let me know?” she fretted.

“Yeah, Mom. Promise.”

Up in his room Josh ripped the first envelope open and unfolded the note, which had been penned in a crabbed, shaky hand:

Dear Master Dempster,
As you can imagine, shops such as Lil's Magical Emporium
and Second Hand sometimes receive merchandise of
questionable origin. We do our very best to identify goods, and
if there is any suspicion they might have been stolen, return
them to their rightful owners. We are in possession of a
skateboard and backpack that I have reason to believe may
belong to you. The backpack has your name written in it.
Could you please stop by and identify these items. If they are
yours, they will be returned to you at once.

Sincerely, Lil

Josh scratched his head and frowned. It seemed more than a little fishy that his things had gone missing a half hour after he'd been in Lil's shop, then they'd turned up there. Of course, if a member of the Street Level Gang had robbed him, you'd expect his stuff to end up at Lil's. But why would she send him a letter? Were the rumours about Lil and the Street Level Gang untrue? He couldn't figure it all out. Still puzzled by the first letter, Josh reached for the second, ripped it open, and read:

Josh Dempster,
Do not do anything Lil tells you. Stay away from her. Her real
name is Endorathlil and she is very dangerous.
A Friend
PS Do not tell anyone about this letter or you will place me
in great danger. Destroy it immediately.

“Endorathlil?” he mouthed the unfamiliar sounds.

He read the second note again. What should he make of it?

A prank? A serious warning? The scribbling of a lunatic? There was only one way to find out. Picking up the phone, he punched in the number to Lil's Magical Emporium and Second Hand.

“I can take care of myself,” Josh reasoned. “If she's up to something, I'll figure it out. What's she going to do? Turn me into a frog?”

“Lil's Magic and Second Hand,” Endorathlil barked into the phone.

“Uh — hello. This is Josh Dempster.”

“Master Josh!” she said brightly. “You got my letter, then.”

“Yes, I did.”

“I'm glad to hear it. When will you be able to stop by and look at these things?”

“Right now, if that's all right.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “That will be just fine. The shop is closed at the moment, but knock when you get here. I'll be expecting you.”

“Closed?”

“Yes,” she said hastily. “We're doing an inventory check. I've discovered some stolen goods, you see, so I'm checking over my entire stock before I sell another thing.”

“Th-that's pretty decent of you.”

There was uneasiness in his voice, but he would come, she guessed. Then she would have him. Oh, she could feel it in her ancient bones. She would have him!

“Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “no amount of profit can pay for a ruined reputation, can it? I'll be expecting you, dear. Just knock when you get here.”

Her cheerful manner wilted the moment she hung up. “Conky!” she shouted, clambering off her stool. She flipped the sign hanging in the shop door from “open” to “closed” then drew the blind and twisted shut the deadbolt. “Conky McDougal!” she shrieked.

The leader of the Street Level Gang sauntered out of the back room, where he had been loafing with his associates. It was useful having the gang around, Endorathlil had discovered, but now she needed them to clear out — all of them except Conky and Ian Lytle, her assistants.

“Get them out!” she ordered. “Our pigeon is on the wing.”

Conky nodded. He'd been instructed earlier and knew exactly what to do. Much as Endorathlil disliked his arrogance, she appreciated his ruthlessness. She had plans for this one. As for Ian Lytle, well, that was another matter. She doubted his loyalty. He vexed her with all his talk of a better life for himself and his brat of a sister. For now she needed his peculiar set of talents — his stealth and wits. But Endorathlil sensed she would need to enforce his service, and the only lever she could think of was the girl, Adele.

She pushed these thoughts aside, bustling into the back room just in time to see the last of the gang members hustled out the door. “Clear off,” she shouted after them. “Now listen you two,” she said when the back door was shut and locked. “We've got important work to do. Young Josh will be here any moment. Stay out of the way. Look busy among the shelves, counting and such, until I give the signal. Then be quick, eh. Do you understand?”

They nodded.

“No bungling, now,” she instructed.

Again, they nodded. Conky made as if to slap Ian on the back of the head by way of emphasis, but thought better of it.

Endorathlil hobbled to her perch at the front counter and sat down, fluffing and preening in preparation for her visitor.

“Get to work, you two,” she croaked. “You look like a couple of thugs waiting for a victim . . . which is precisely what you are!”

She cackled at her own joke. Conky, too. Ian Lytle didn't laugh, though. This was no laughing matter.

10

J
osh tapped at the window. A blind had been pulled down, so he couldn't see inside. Perhaps Lil wasn't in after all. “Don't be such a chicken,” he told himself, tap-tap-tapping again.

“Wait just a second!” Endorathlil cawed. “I'm coming.”

A bolt shot open, the knob twisted, and her pinched face poked out the gap. “Master Dempster,” she cried. “Do come in.”

She closed the door after him, and locked it. “Sit down,” she gestured to a stool in front of her counter while she limped around to the other side. Wheezing and grunting, she climbed onto her own stool, then fixed him with an unsettling gaze. “You won't mind talking to a lonely old woman for a bit before I fetch your things, will you?” she said.

“N-no,” he answered politely. “But I do need to get home. My parents are expecting me.”

“Ah,” she commended. “How refreshing. Why most parents have no idea what their whelps are up to these days, eh? There'd be a lot less trouble in the world if only parents would be more attentive.”

Endorathlil found this funny and she tilted her head back to laugh. Something flashed at her neck, catching Josh's eye. It was a vial, on a fine, silver chain. The thing glowed with a peculiar light that transfixed him. The bottle seemed to be filled with a colourful, dancing gas — light that lived.

“You are drawn to the vial?” Endorathlil observed.

“What is it?”

She touched it instinctively. “It is a precious artifact. Most people have no idea, though. They do not see in it what you have seen. Only a very few appreciate its beauty.”

“The light inside? What's that?”

Endorathlil thought for a moment, as if she'd never considered such a question. “It is spirit,” she answered. “Pure spirit.”

“How do you get spirit into a bottle?”

“Why, magic of course!” the old witch crowed. “You think of me and my kind as crackpots, or clever entertainers. Well, my boy, it takes more than a cheap sleight of hand to capture the essence of a soul and preserve it in a crystal jar.”

“Whose soul?”

“Eh?” she croaked, taken aback by the question.

“Whose soul is it in the bottle?”

“Oh, no one's in particular,” she flummoxed, waving her hands about as if she were shooing off flies. “Just spirit extracted from the air . . . The air lives, you know. There's not a moment you aren't surrounded by spirit.”

“But you said ‘soul' just then,” he insisted. “A soul always belongs to someone.”

“Bah!” she spat. “We quibble over words. The bottle, and what's in it, belongs to me. It's been mine these fifty years and it will stay mine until the day I die.”

Josh was on the point of disputing this, but he shut up, seeing her hard look. He couldn't explain it, he knew it was completely irrational, but he felt the vial belonged to him. He was certain the strange substance inside was reacting to him, calling out his name in an indecipherable language of light.

Sensing his covetous thoughts, Endorathlil tucked the vial into the folds of her robe.

“You wouldn't sell it, then?” Josh asked.

“Sell it! Why I would part with my very life before I'd part with this trinket. A witch parting with a Spirit Bottle? Unheard of!”

She glared, then — remembering their business — softened her look with a frightful grin. “If you appreciate the true nature of a Spirit Bottle, you must be interested in other aspects of Occult,” she said.

“I don't believe in magic.”

“Don't believe! How can you
not believe
what you've never considered? What if I showed you the power of magic?”

Josh shrugged, trapped by her challenge. “I'm willing to try anything, I guess,” he said with a nervous laugh.”

“Good.” Endorathlil rubbed her hands together. “I do like a young man who's not afraid to learn something new. You shall take something far more valuable than your skateboard and backpack away from my shop today. You shall leave with knowledge of a whole new world.”

Before he could say anything Endorathlil closed her eyes and began to hum, rocking precariously on her stool. Then she chanted.

Where night resides, in sacred cave,
or gloomy grove, or wormy grave
I utter mystic prayers
. . .

Josh sneered. But a shiver tickled his spine.

Arise, dread force, I summon you
with ancient rite and proper dues
from musty, dripping lairs
. . .

He could not take any of her ranting seriously, but Josh had to admit Endorathlil sure could put on a show. He was sort of scared.

Arachne! Weave your subtle strands.

Enmesh the air with silver bands.

Make fast your deadly snare
. . .

“Wha . . . !”

Startled, Josh sprang back off his stool. Something like a cobweb
had
brushed his cheek. Had Endorathlil tricked him? Had she thrown something, or released some kind of sticky substance with a secret mechanism?

The victim struggles all in vain.

Your venom numbs his fevered brain.

Aught's left but cold despair.

Too late he realized the invisible threads that bound him were real, and that there was venom in Endorathlil's words. Struggling to free himself, Josh crashed into the table behind him, then collapsed with a clatter onto the floor. Barely conscious, he felt hands grabbing under his arms and legs, then the room turning sickeningly on its axis as he was lugged toward the back of the shop. He had one last thought before numbness claimed him utterly, and that was that he'd been very, very foolish.

11

Q
uick! Quick!” Endorathlil had squawked. Even Conky McDougal was too astounded to move, though. He and Ian Lytle stood frozen in the back room doorway, staring wide-eyed.

“Holy smoke!” Conky breathed.

“Boys!” Endorathlil shrieked. “Come and get him. Now!”

Jolted by her command, they scrambled to the front of the shop. Conky gestured for Ian to take Josh's arms; he took the legs. Grunting, they lugged Endorathlil's stunned victim down the aisle.

“Carefully,” the witch fussed. “If we're lucky, he won't have any marks on him at all. Nothing to remind him what happened here.”

“Or to use as evidence,” Ian thought.

“Get on you two!” Endorathlil urged. The interior of the shop was concealed, but if someone had put their face to the window, they just might have found a chink in the blinds and seen the boys wrestling with what appeared to be a corpse.

In the far corner of the back room Endorathlil kept a cot, a sagging, creaky apparatus, covered with a moth-eaten blanket. They laid Josh out, propping his head against the greasy pillow, then stepped back as Endorathlil pushed past them.

“Ah,” she crooned. “It's him, I'm certain, Vortigen. He must be the one.”

Again, Ian and Conky exchanged a puzzled glance.

She gazed adoringly at her anaesthetized victim until he twitched and moaned, startling her. “To work,” she scolded. “To work.” Bustling to the foot of the cot, she fetched a metal tin from a rickety chest of drawers. Ian imagined cookies had once been stored in there, or cake, things that gave delight to its original owners. What Endorathlil kept inside he shuddered to think.

So intent was she on her weird business, Endorathlil had forgotten all about the boys. She pried the lid off the tin and spread some utensils out on the mattress: scissors, a needle, plastic film canisters and cotton swabs.

“Just a few strands of your lovely hair,” she said, snipping a few tufts behind his ear. “I'm sure you will forgive me when you're seated on your side of the double throne, eh? I'm sure you won't hold this minor alteration against me.”

Conky twirled his finger next to his temple. “Nuts,” he mouthed.

She placed the locks inside one of the plastic canisters and sealed it.

“See, my Lord. He makes no objection. Surely that's a sign.”

Having obtained her sample of hair, Endorathlil took up Josh's left hand, examining it closely. She turned it over and studied its palm, tracing its lines with her crooked finger. “See!” she cried. “See how his future tends? Can there be any doubt? His very flesh announces who he is and who he will be.”

Endorathlil snipped a few clippings from his fingernails, put them into one of the film canisters, and then snapped the lid shut.

“Just one more ingredient, my boy, and your destiny is secured. One more little morsel for the Lord of Syde to savour come the night of the full moon.”