The Wizard's War (35 page)

I couldn’t do it when every time I saw my father, I
wanted to kill Sen. There was one person in the universe that I couldn’t kill
and it was the person I wanted to more than anything. Part of me wanted to use
this injustice to push me over the last hurdle. I was so close to becoming
unstoppable that this should have helped me.

Instead, I just wanted to sit down on the ground and
wait for my dad to tell me what to do. Hail had his own way of dealing with his
grief, but it left me completely alone when I needed him more than ever.

*          *          *

I could feel the soft breeze against my father’s
skin, which was quite possibly the oddest sensation I had ever felt. I could
only see my father, as clear as day, while everything else was shrouded in
absolute darkness. It was like there was a spotlight on him, but the light was
not centered on any one area of his body. My mind was doing this to focus, not
to point something out.

“Be quick,” he said, out of breath. He was panting
slightly as if he was tired but not completely out of breath, and he wasn’t
sweating.

Instantly, my mind searched for clues. His clothes
were clean; a simple blue t-shirt, jeans, and boots. Normal. No blood, sweat,
or dirt. His skin was unmarked and his hair was clean. There was a calmness
about him and an acceptance in his clear eyes that bothered me.

“Who are you talking to?” I asked aloud. He didn’t
see or hear me, of course, because this was just a vision.

The field of light widened to include Mordon, who
faced my father. My uncle was panting harshly with his blood-soaked claws out.
His clothes were torn and bloodied, but he was wearing clothes, so he hadn’t
just come out of his shifted form. The azurath sword was in his hand, but it
wasn’t bloody, so that meant he hadn’t used it. There was blood on Mordon, but
not on my father.

Mordon raised his sword in a position that was more
ceremonial than efficient. He was obviously not expecting his opponent to move
as he stabbed the sword deep into my father’s chest. It wasn’t shock that made
me gasp. I felt short of breath and my heart beat too fast. There was a reason
I felt this pain that scorched my chest.

*          *          *

I woke to my brother screaming. I sat up and got out
of bed. There was no reason for us to have our own rooms. I opened the door
that joined our rooms, closed it, and climbed into bed beside him. He wrapped
his arms around me and hugged me to the point where I couldn’t breathe. It was
only our bond that kept him from accidentally causing me serious physical
damage. He was shaking and sweating, but I couldn’t say anything.

“Why did we see that? Mordon didn’t kill Dad.”

“Maybe that was the fate Dad wanted to avoid,” I
said.

“I can’t see Dad die again. Should we ask Vretial
about it?”

It was a sign of how badly my brother’s world was
shaken that he was the first to suggest going to see Vretial. “Okay.” Light
filled the room and cleared in a split second, leaving us standing before the
dark god.

He sat, as he usually did, on his boulder. Instead of
making some weird or rude comment like he would have before Dad died, he just
waited patiently for us to talk. Although Hail really hated him, he had never
done anything to hurt my brother. If anything, I believed Vretial cared about
Hail in his own unique way.

“I had a vision of Mordon killing Dad.”

The god’s eyes were sad and tired. “You had a
nightmare, Sammy. Go back to bed.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” I argued.

He studied me as if judging my sincerity. “Let me see,”
he finally said.

Hail lightened his protection over me enough for
Vretial to see into my mind. The sensations and images replayed in my mind as
clearly as if I was seeing it all over again. When he finally pulled away and I
could shield my own thoughts, there was a slight glint of worry in his eyes.

“Return to Raktusha. I will tell you if I find out
anything.”

Hail and I were back in Hail’s room, no flash or
anything. “Does he know something?” Hail asked.

“Vretial always knows something. He’s always trying
to twist things around to get what he wants. However, I think he’s angry that
he never got to figure out what Dad was. I wish we could talk to Alice.”

“But she’ll never be born now that Dad is dead.”

My brain wanted to find clues and solve the mystery so
that everything could be okay, but there was no mystery to solve. Everything
was quiet. Even the energy felt solemn, like it was mourning the loss of my dad
as well.

I sighed and sat in the middle of the floor. Dad
always had something to say, some words of wisdom that would make everything
make sense, so I started going through them in my head. “Remember when Dad
tried to teach us problem solving skills?”

“Yeah, he locked us in that room and put the
bracelets on us. We had to find a way out. The only thing he said was that the
clock was ticking.”

“We thought he meant that we had a time limit until
we realized that the clock on the wall was broken. Yet we heard a ticking
sound, which led us to the secret passageway.”

“It was an air shaft, not a passageway,” my brother
argued. “And all that damn psychology he made us learn… It never did us any
good. It didn’t do him any good in the end, either. Mirror neurons.”

“Every time I see you smile, my own brain lights up
as if I am smiling. Change blindness.”

“You don’t usually notice changes when you don’t
expect them to occur.”

“Your peripheral vision is adapted to spot movement.”

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the
answer but wish we didn’t. Dad was always giving us phrases. And when we got in
trouble, he would make us tell
him
what we did wrong instead of him
telling us. He taught us everything we needed to know about being Guardians.
Now maybe we will have to grow up and do it.”

Tears started streaming. “You grow up! I’m fifteen,
so shut up and leave me alone.”

“You don’t want to be alone.”

I didn’t, but for the first time in my life, it
wasn’t my brother I wanted.

*          *          *

“Ron, pay attention.”

I woke as if I had been slapped hard across the face
and sat up fast enough that the room spun. My heart pounded like I had been
running. “Dad!” I cried when I finally caught my breath. I smacked Hail’s arm
repeatedly until he groaned. “I heard Dad! I heard him!”

“You were dreaming.”

“I wasn’t! He was trying to give me a clue! He
said---”

“Pay attention.” I stopped and looked at him, but he
just rolled over. “He’s said that to you a thousand times. You were dreaming.”

My heart crumbling from his frustration, I scooted
away from him and tried to sleep. After many hours of lying there in the dark
with my cheeks sore from tears, I fell back to sleep.

*          *          *

“The echo. What happened to the echo?”

I didn’t even wake my brother this time as I woke
with more adrenaline running through me than I could stand. I flashed to my
mother, who was curled around my father’s breathing corpse, crying.

“Mom?” I asked softly.

Her eyes turned to me, clear with sanity, but she
didn’t move the rest of her body. She wore a red plaid shirt, one of Dad’s
favorites, and short black shorts. My dad was only under a sheet, for he hated blankets
in his sleep.

“What happened to the echo?” I asked.

I knew she wanted to ask what it mattered, but that
would have led down a vicious cycle neither of us wanted to walk into. “I think
Xul took it.” Her words were soft, but steady as her thumb stroked across his
rising and falling chest.

When Mordon had told Xul, the Ancient refused to
believe it at first. His last words were, “So much for the happy ending.”
Apparently, he stuck around long enough to take the echo.

“Thank you.”

“Ron,” she said as I started to flash out. She
swallowed. “You and your brother should visit more. We need to pull this family
back together.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s what your father would have wanted.”

That was enough for me. I loved my mom, so even
though she could never make my brother laugh or put everything into perspective
for me like Dad could, I would try. “I will be back soon.” I flashed to Xul and
just gawked for a minute.

“Hey, you can’t be in here!” someone yelled.

Xul didn’t turn, so I needed to get his attention,
because there was no way I was taking one step further into the nasty, dank
little bar. “Hey, stupid-butt!” I yelled.

Startled, the demon turned. “What are you doing here,
french-fry? Damn, kid, are you ever going to reach four foot?”

I was five-four and not about to get into an argument
over it. “Get over here, fish-brain!” I was fifteen and no longer had a father
to scold me for fowl-mouthing someone, but Dad had said a million times that
using fallback, vulgar cusswords was a sign of a lazy mind.

Fortunately, the demon did as I ordered, because the
smell of drunken men and cigarette smoke was going to make me gag. It was one
of those bars like in the movies, where the characters never remembered the bar
anyway because they went home with some… maybe I shouldn’t have watched those
movies.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, narrowing my eyes
and crossing my arms.

He pushed my shoulder to turn me and forced me out
the door. “No sago kid should be subjected to this kind of place. I was just
leaving, anyway.”

“I am a quarter human! Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer, and instead forced me to get into a
hideous, beat-up, old yellow pickup truck. I was hesitant, having seen horror
movies that started like this when we lived on Earth and Dad had to work late.
However, Xul was Dad’s demon, so he could be trusted. I sniffed at the seat
when he jumped in the driver’s seat and cringed.

“Who died in here?”

“Still as primadonna as ever, I see.”

We stopped a few minutes later at a brightly lit fast
food place. I wanted to throw a fit; I hated fast food. He didn’t give me a
choice, though, and dragged me out of the truck and into the horribly dismal
place.

“Find a booth, midget.”

I stuck my tongue out at him but did as he
instructed.
Why am
I
doing as the
demon
says? I am the
balance.
I found a halfway decent booth and desperately wanted to ask for
some cleaning fluid… or maybe Hail could do it.
He would do it if he was
here.
There were duct-taped tears in the light green, vinyl seats. The
plastic table was white with strawberries.

“Did you ever have a milkshake when you were on
Earth, shorty?” Xul asked as he sat across from me.

Pushed passed my normal restraints of elegance, I
scratched my cheek with my middle finger up and my others down in a very clear gesture.
He just laughed and passed over one of the large plastic cups and orders of
french-fries. As he popped off his lid, I looked into his cup first, which was
full of white goop. “Is that cauliflower puree?”

“Oh, God,” he said. He scooped some up with his
straw, which made me shudder at the texture of it, then put the straw in his
mouth and blew. I screamed as I was splattered with the frigid white muck. He
laughed until he nearly fell out of his seat.

I tried to ignore him, since it would have been a
dishonor to my dad to send this uncouth demon to the void, and collected
napkins from the dispenser. I cleaned myself up first, but tasted it on my lips
in the process. It was some form of ice cream. I was a little humiliated as I
wiped down the table. My own muck-shake was brown. His was vanilla, so I
assumed mine was chocolate.

I tasted it, hesitantly, and found I was right, and
also that it was pretty fantastic. French-fries were one of my favorite junk
foods, but they went especially well with the shake. So, naturally, I dipped my
fries in the shake, which made Xul gag.

“So, what were you doing at the bar?”

“Well, there was this hot young---”

“Demon,” I interrupted. “I have three knives on me
and only half an hour of sleep. Tell me, or I will read it in your entrails.”

He sighed. “I’m trying to find those two Ancient that
your dad stripped of power.”

“Why?”

“I thought I’d start a club.” I growled. “You have no
sense of humor. I know they don’t know what your father was, but maybe they
know
something
. Also, the Ancient who faced your father before the war
said a word. I didn’t hear it clearly, but it was an Enochian word. I’ve heard
it before from a minor demon that was referring to Dylan. I can’t think of many
reasons why a demon would use an Enochian word.”

“How are you living without your powers?”

“Dylan restored my powers before he died. Now that
the link is broken, I am as powerful as I was before I met your father and not
a drop more. That means if you or He-Man is hurt, I can’t sense it and pop in
to save your ugly butt.”

Although it was late enough that there were no other
customers, this was still a public place. For no other reason did I not draw my
dagger. Instead, I stuck him in the throat with my straw. “My butt is perfect,”
I growled. He wiped off chocolate shake, undisturbed, while I went back to
enjoying my chocolate fries. Perhaps it was a good thing I could never gain any
weight.

“I believe finding the female Ancient could lead me
to answers.”

“Why do you want to know what Dad was? He’s dead, so
he’s not a threat to the demons anymore.”

Xul sighed. “Dylan was never a threat to anyone. He
would have gladly allowed all demons to be amongst the living if only they
promised not to hurt anyone. Unfortunately, it is in our nature to destroy. Still,
it isn’t me who wants to know.”