CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
DUEL
I BALANCED ON my chilled toes, ready to run, although the idea swept over me that there really wouldn’t be any safe place to go.
He reached a hand out toward me, then withdrew it, and instead brushed his hair away from his forehead and deep-set jade eyes. As salt rained down, he chuckled faintly and shook himself again. He half-turned about. “I must go.”
Had I expected a thank you? You bet your barbecuing reputation I did, but it obviously wasn’t forthcoming. “Did it work?”
“I believe so. My prison fed off my own essence as well, so I am greatly weakened. I cannot stay, Tessa of the Salt. Nor will I be of much use to you.”
“What was that thing?”
He hesitated as if he wanted to withhold his answer. “A vampiric cloak. It fed off me and whatever life essences it could grab. I am, perhaps, even more surprised than you that salt would have had any effect on it and eternally grateful it did.”
“But you’re free now.”
“Let us both hope so.”
I persisted, saying, “I need your help. At least your knowledge about Devian—”
He wavered and for a moment, I could see right through him as if he did not exist. “I have no help to offer but the one idea I gifted you, and you have only to remember it to have all you need. I am not a being you choose to take your side. Remember that of me, if you recall nothing else.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you cannot call on me as you do the sun lion and the phoenix and the demon.”
“Oh, that’s great. You left out Hiram.”
“Good-bye for now, Tessa. You have my gratitude.”
And then he left, shimmering apart like a soap bubble bursting, transparent and prismatic one second and gone the next.
I picked up the limp plastic bag of salt remnants. “I’m buying another bag,” I told the thin air. “Just in case.”
I couldn’t count it as a win, but it didn’t seem like a total loss either. He said he’d left me something if I could remember it. Great.
My dreams that night didn’t involve a fight for my life although I thought I heard Steptoe whispering, not once but twice, “Hurry, ducks. Hurry.”
Coming out of the mudroom, I heard muted voices from my mother’s study. For a wild moment I thought my father had broken free of his basement prison and had come upstairs to talk with her, the talk sounding intimate. But as I approached, I recognized the professor speaking to my mom.
“I’ve read the last few pages, Mary. It’s encouraging that you’ve had a break-through and the paper is progressing well . . .”
“But.”
“Yes. But. You’re taking a stance that ultimately could be very harmful.”
“And it’s obvious from the casino incident that you won’t be rushing in to save anyone.”
“Yes, well, as to that—I’m not at full strength, and even if I were, magic has its limits.”
“Courage appears to be one of them.” A sound came from the laptop being pushed along her desk slightly, and I could sense her leaning back in her chair and giving him a look. One of those “you let me down and you know who you are” looks. A momentary silence followed.
“Be that as it may, and I have no intention of explaining myself to you, I have to caution you against this dissertation and the direction you’re currently taking it.”
I could barely hear her respond.
“This is not wise, Mary. For you and Tessa. Your paper touches too closely on the boundaries between our worlds, and the one I inhabit, the one that I know best, doesn’t want to be revealed.”
“Professor, I’m not writing truth that will be taken literally.”
“You don’t know how it will be taken.”
“I know that, after reading Winnie the Pooh, people didn’t really expect their stuffed bears and donkeys to walk around and talk.”
He made a gruff sound. “You are playing with fire.”
“And look who’s talking.” A chair scraped the floor. “I’ve gotten quite a bit written, and I’m running out of time to gain a permanent position at the university. I can’t start over, not again, and whether you think so or not, Tessa and I have a stake in this. You invaded our lives, and I discovered a truth in that which threads through much of our history, written and lived. You can’t deny that.”
“You don’t have proof.”
“It’s not a scientific paper. I can build my thesis on the backs of other literary works, and you know that the theme runs throughout human existence. We’ve always seen a bit of the sparkle, the cast of a shadow where there shouldn’t be one.”
I pressed back into the hall as sounds came telling me my mother had closed her laptop and was locking it away in a desk drawer for the night.
The professor made a near inaudible sound. “I can’t dissuade you.”
“No. And it would be horribly selfish of you to try. I’m trying to establish a future for my daughter through my scholarship, and I’m close. Very, very close.”
“Very well, then. But if I should choose to offer more advice—”
“I don’t promise to follow it, but I will listen.”
And steps sounded, so I scampered back up the stairs quietly and went to bed, feeling achingly proud of my mother, who sounded absolutely unbent by the circumstances we’d found ourselves in years ago. I managed to sleep.
Chemistry class had a brief quiz. My instructor sounded foggy and interrupted class twice to get a throat lozenge, complaining that students bought more germs to campus than completed assignments. We complained that he was unduly vindictive, but I knew the basic compounds pretty well, and it seemed auspicious that the test paper started off with NaCL.
English assigned us an 800-word essay on cursive writing and whether it should be continued or abolished in elementary teaching. History talked about something or other in the past.
And, as predicted, my gym teacher and coach tried to run our behinds off on the field, her eyes squinting as she chanted, “Just because it’s posted as optional, doesn’t mean it is! Is breathing optional?”
“No!” we chanted back as we thundered past her.
Evelyn, leg outstretched and elevated, waved cheerily at me every time I passed until her arm got tired. By the time I sat down at the bottom bleacher, towel around my neck to mop my face, I couldn’t talk. I hadn’t the breath.
She could.
“I haven’t heard from Hiram.”
Speaking still evaded me. I waved a hand in the no harm, no foul signal before pointing at her shin.
“Better. It’s going to stay the most awful purple for another week or two. I’ll have to wear ice skating tights to hide the marks. Shona Barrett is taking my place on the squad. She’s so excited she hasn’t stopped bouncing.”
We both smiled at that. Shona was a pixie of a cheerleader, normally second squad, whose diminutive size and enthusiasm made her the natural top of any pyramid, although her inexperience made her more of a daredevil than she should have been. Evelyn sighed. “She’ll learn. Right now, she’s just a brown blur, rushing everywhere. She’ll be an asset.” She adjusted her ice pack. “I have asked the squad to include her whether I come back or not. She just needs more practice.”
“You’ll be back. I think my eyelids are melting,” I managed to answer.
“Ewwww. You do look all red and sweaty.”
“Thanks.”
The coach jogged up. “Back to work, Andrews.”
I stifled a groan as I stood up, dropped the now soaked towel somewhere near the team bench, and lurched back out on the track. It got easier as I fell into the rhythm. I could thank jogging with Scout for the additional stamina in my legs or I didn’t think I would have survived. When the coach signaled we were done, I staggered back over by Evelyn, who started chattering again as though we’d just had a brief recess.
“Dad wasn’t too upset with me, considering, although he is having videotapes in the area pulled to see if the police can identify the jerk that did this. They, of course, are too eager to help, just in case he wins the election and they have to be on his good side, although I think they should be interested in justice and all that. Suppose he bashed someone else?” She eased the ice pack into another sore spot. “I kind of hope they find him and kind of hope they don’t. My dad can be a real Papa Bear. Needless to say, I didn’t answer Dean’s calls today except to tell him what an asshat he was, running off and leaving me. Baby, that bridge has burned!” She made an emphatic hand gesture.
“Of course, I know you really didn’t like him, and you were right, but thank you, ma’am, for not telling me. I had to find out for myself. Lesson learned and all that.”
I merely nodded.
“So tell me about Hiram.”
Oh, hell. I needed to be able to breathe better to do that. My teammates saved me by gathering me up by the elbows and trotting me off to the locker room to shower and get more presentable. Not to worry. Evelyn, on crutches, waited for me at the exit doors when I’d finished.
She talked all the way to the car, where her father had a nice demo vehicle from the luxury dealership and driver waiting for her, and I had to ponder if I had enough skeletal strength left to pilot my little red vehicle home or if I’d turned to jelly. I waved her off as she made the usual “call me” sign at me. When I could breathe.
The sun had broken through early morning clouds and my car’s interior felt a comfortable toasty warm as I sat down and got my keys ready. I enjoyed it for a few minutes before starting the motor up. Just in case it might work, I chanted Steptoe’s name three times, but it didn’t. Sometimes the magic world seems to have no rhyme or reason. Then again, if it were easy, anybody could do it.
I came home to a quiet house. Scout came downstairs yawning, looking as if he’d just woken up, his puppy hair standing out all over while I took him outside. He didn’t want a romp, which worked out well because I didn’t think my knees had one left in them. He sat down by his empty dog food bowl and gave it a longing look.
“I’m pretty sure Mom left it filled when she went to work this morning. I saw her with the kibble bag when I left for campus.”
He pawed it disdainfully.
“You’re gonna pull that, huh?”
He flattened himself, propping his chin on the empty dish. Those big, soft, puppy eyes stared at me.
“Really?”
He chuffed.
I relented. “All right, half a bowl full because you must have been starved the few days you were a captive.”
Scout sat up spritely and devoured the kibble as I poured it in the bowl. I think I should have put the middle man aside and just gone straight down the gullet, but a dog needs to chew, doesn’t he? Strong teeth and healthy gums and all that.
I went upstairs to change into something less rumpled than I currently wore and saw the tell-tales in their vase had all slumped over. One or two managed a look at me.
“It’s all right, guys. We’re gonna get Simon back.”
If they understood, they didn’t brighten up any. I changed, checked the weather, put on waterproof shoes, and got a hoodie out of the closet. Sunny today, but evening warned of a storm cloud or two drifting in, and rain might not be out of the question.
When I poked my head out of my bedroom, it occurred to me I hadn’t heard the professor moving about. On the first floor, I cast around, looking to see if the house were as lonely as it felt, getting confirmation that it was just me and Scout. I was rummaging in the pantry looking for something easy to fix for dinner when the door bounced in its frame.
The odor of ash and soot drifted through the house before his soft footfall did. He sat down wearily, sighing.
“You went back again.” It wasn’t a question. It was obvious Brian had gone back to the ruins of the old house.
“It’s gone,” he told me. “They bulldozed it today, down to the foundation. Another rake or two by the backhoes, and there will be nothing left, not a brick, not a stick, not even a twisted rod. Sometime tonight, it’ll be a patch of mud.”
“We knew it was scheduled.”
“And does knowing the exact march of time heal the hurt? No, it does not.” He put his hands on the table, turning his smoking pipe over and over in them. He rarely smoked it anymore, in deference perhaps to Brian’s reborn and healthy body, but I doubt the professor was even thinking about tobacco. He mourned a life he’d lost before he was ready.
“We’ve saved what we could.”
He threw his pipe across the kitchen. It clattered into the corner and rolled over on its side, unbroken. “It should never have burned in the first place!”
I stayed silent.
“That insufferable Steptoe. He pushed and pushed at me. None of this ever should have happened. Now it’s gone, years upon centuries of study, booklore, compilations and gatherings, objects that don’t even exist today. Even if I could remember how to recreate it all, and I can’t . . . destroyed. Fire, water, and now by bulldozer. The days of youth stretch far behind me, of my own and the civilized world’s. I ought to be able to recall them, and I can’t. I can’t even imagine how to rebuild, and I don’t want to. I feel old.”
He scratched at his ear, seeming surprised not to feel that old familiar tuft of hair that used to stick out from it, and paused. “I can’t even teach you what you need to know, Tessa. You’re a sorceress, but to work your talent, you need to know how to discern the true nature of things, so that you can Name them and call on their will. You need to be able to recognize the magic that lies within all objects and how to make it rise up in answer to you. I can’t give that knowledge to you now. Not that I was ever known to be a great teacher, I suppose. Everyone seems to remember me as a crusty old loner, set apart by choice rather than circumstance. It was what I wished.”
“Not entirely. You made friends with me.”
He grunted. “I do recall a bit of that, and it seemed to be far more effort on your part than mine.”
“You called me for help.”
“And you answered.” He looked up at me then, squarely. “Would you answer today, I wonder?”
“I would. Even as I intend to answer Hiram and Steptoe and whoever else needs it.” I rubbed at an itchy eye, stifling a yawn that had nothing to do with the seriousness of the topic. “I raced out to help Evelyn the other early morning.”
“How is she, by the way?”
“Sore and enjoying the attention. And asking after young Mister Broadstone.” I pulled up a chair next to him. “Should I nip that romance in the bud?”
“Don’t see as how you can. They both looked struck by lightning. Some rivers have to run their own course.”
I stumbled over the mixed metaphors. “But—”
“No buts. If there is one thing I do remember, it’s how stubborn the young can be about living their own lives.”
“Even if they get hurt?”
“Especially then.” He got up quickly to retrieve his pipe, checked it over, and then stuck it in his coat pocket. The smell of crushed herbs rose as he did.
“Steptoe thinks—”
“That demon thinks a lot of things, most of them incorrect, including that it was time for me to release his binding. Two hundred years of being centered to Richmond and he’d only just begun working to redeem himself and right the kinks he’d been busy twisting. I might have considered it in another decade or three.”
“You do remember some things.”
He started to bluster and stopped abruptly. “Some,” he admitted.
“Can you show me how to bring out the book? I think that’s going to be what we need to convince Devian to turn over Hiram. Steptoe . . .”
“Simon will be fine. If he sees the tiniest opening, he’ll plunge through.” Brian fidgeted once or twice. “The book will be difficult. Simon did most of the translocating on it, after it charged you; I just assisted with the boundaries.”
My gloves had been peeled off the moment I hit the house, and I rubbed the stone. “Illusion?”
“Probably the most likely, but at the same time, Devian will be most sensitive to that. He appears to deal heavily with manifestation, so he has talent and training in that area.”
“Then we’ll have to find a way to flash the real thing at him.”
“You could do that, but it would still be connected to you, and if the elf grabs it, he’ll take you with it. That would be most undesirable. Your very life counts on staying out of his reach. He’s one who would not hesitate to kill you to take the stone.”
“It wouldn’t work for him that way.”
“We are told that it wouldn’t, but the stone is chaos. It will do what it wants. It makes a good argument for us to say it can’t be taken, but I wouldn’t count on it. Especially not when you and your soul are concerned.”
“I’ve got to be able to produce the book, at least enough for him to think he can have it.”
“Sleep on it. Perhaps something will come to you, or me.”
I stared him down. “If you did rejuv, would you be able to handle Devian?”
“Restoration, from what I gathered in my journal, isn’t spontaneous. It is more like a river which has been dammed up and then freed, filling the waterways below. It might take me seasons or possibly years to be renewed to the point where I even know what questions I must ask to be the man I once was.”
“So the answer is no?”
“The answer is I don’t have one. And don’t be like Carter and think if you ask the same thing, but in a different way, you’ll get another response. I don’t know what I am missing, only that I have this abyss, this ache, inside of me and nothing I can do seems to fill it. And . . . as might have been suggested . . . I am afraid.”
He got up then and left me sitting alone. I’d been hungry, but now I wasn’t. I stayed, trying to design a way to get Devian to come duel with me so that my friends could go free. The stone grew warm and warmer in my hand as we conspired.