Gideon
Raven leans over her fallen warrior. Silent tears gleam as she says goodbye. “We should bury him.” The words are rough-hewn and shaky.
“We should,” I say, “but we can’t afford the time. He would understand.”
Her quiet sniff breaks my heart. If I had the power, I would make her pain mine. Carry her burdens, wear her tortured skin, breathe every anguished breath.
“One second, okay?” She hunches and using her forefinger, draws a line in the mud alongside Ferdy’s body from his head all the way to his feet. Cole and I leap aside as the earth shudders open creating a hollow in the ground. A smothered sob escapes her as the Minotaur rolls into the twelve-foot crater she’s made from nothing! A little rut in the dirt.
Her rise is unsteady. My arm wraps her waist, and I’m grateful she accepts my touch. Again, using her forefinger and thumb this time, she mashes her fingers together in the air. Another tremor taps our feet and the earth moves. Dark soil envelops Ferdy for an eternal sleep under a loamy blanket. A small rose bush responds to Rae’s crooked finger and waddles from the maze. The thorny plant roots at the head of the gravesite and rests there.
Cole pats Raven’s head. “Nice. What other secrets have you been keeping from us, little minx?”
She imitates one of Cole’s one armed shrugs. “I couldn’t leave him here like that.”
Water fills a dozen circular puddles at our feet. As many reflections of the girl I love stare back at us from the ground, the silver sky her backdrop. I’m impressed, stunned by her expanding power. Yet that’s nothing compared to the girl she’s always been. My chest swells and aches at once.
“I’m sorry, Raven,” Cole says. He scans the trees with something near loathing. “I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but we need the fastest route back to Gideon’s mirror.”
Mirror … Truth flutters against the sticky web of memory. The threads vibrate alerting me to something important I’d forgotten. The watery puddles, silver skies, reflections, the Weird Sister’s ramblings …
“His power to see you lies in the ability to see himself. Pollute the silver circles. Blind him, and he will seek you no more.”
Mirrors, that’s it! Rose told Cole that Pan’s mirrors were his view to the world, stored in different places and connected like a hive. That’s how he sees. And ours is both mirror and doorway.
I release Rae and grab Cole’s shirt sleeve. Confusion lowers his brow. An explanation’s on my tongue when I remember Rae’s warning. I hurry to the courtyard, dragging Cole after me.
He trips and lets fly with a string of British insults I’m sure would piss me off if I understood them.
I stoop for a broken stick, set the end ablaze, and then blow it out. Squatting over the stone courtyard, I scratch my message in soot. When the blackened end won’t write anymore, I light it again, and repeat the process until I’ve communicated everything on my mind.
Cole slaps my back. His eyes light with understanding unsafe to express with words. When he motions for my stick, I pass him the makeshift pen, and he writes:
Brill, but forget Pan. Go home.
Raven is wild as she plucks the stick from Cole’s hand. It won’t write. I suppress a smile when she shakes it like a stubborn ballpoint, and I re-singe the end for her.
Stop him.
Gently, I take my pen from her. Our fingers brush and the contact jumpstarts my quiet pulse.
How?
Everyone goes still. How do you destroy an ancient magic? The portal is a mirror, but one made of liquid smoke. Raven extends a hand. Retrieving the stick, she writes once more.
Promise.
Her gaze hones in, steady as a missile locked on target. I’m sure her request is about more than shutting Pan in The Void. She’s asking if I’m trustworthy, if I can keep my word.
I promise.
The sun ducks under a haze of thin cloud cover. Cole slaps two fingers across his wrist indicating his long lost watch. It’s hard to gauge the time left until sunset, but no one wants to spend another night here.
Cole nods to Raven. “How ’bout a lift, luv?” He dares a smile, and I’m gratified to see her return one.
“Sure.” She rubs her mud-coated palms on her equally filthy pants. “Will you gentlemen be traveling by tree or triceratops?” With that, she bounds off, signaling to a huge elm nearby.
“Are you mad?” Cole asks, once Rae’s out of earshot. “You can’t keep that promise.”
I’m not arguing the point, so I answer with a question of my own. “If I fail, will you get her through the portal?”
His dark head angles from me to Raven and back, a grim expression coating his features. “You won’t fail.”
Once the ancient cypress deposits Cole’s feet on solid ground, he promptly drops and retches. Though my reaction isn’t as violent, I’m anxious, and sweating, and relived it’s over.
“Now what?” Cole asks. He wipes his mouth and pushes to a wobbly stand.
We cluster together near the small pond where our journey began, and contemplate the door’s destruction. The shimmering portal is so unlike the flip-side, where it masquerades as a harmless mirror in my father’s study. Roughly twelve square feet, the portal quivers like heat waves off a newly tarred road. The gateway home is nothing more than a smear in the scenery. Yet, from this side of The Void, it sends a warning, emitting the subtle hum of a hot electric fence.
Raven tosses her head. “There’s got to be a way.”
I’ve both dreamed of and dreaded this moment, because I don’t know the answer. The witch said to destroy it but didn’t say how. Or did she?
Come on, Maddox, figure it out!
My brain fixates on the Weird Sister’s instructions. I pace the length of evil shine, dissecting her words. “She said pollute … ” My mind casts about for clues. “Taint, poison, contaminate … corrupt? If something is pure, a foreign substance will pollute it.” We didn’t kill the Draugar. In the end, we didn’t need to. Slowing them down was enough. “Maybe we don’t have to destroy the portal,” I say. “Can we disable it?”
“Gideon!” Raven points indicating Pan is listening.
“I think we’re past that now, don’t you, luv?”
Cole’s right. There’s too much to communicate in writing, and it’s only a matter of time until he shows.
Urgency releases fresh heat in my veins. I shove a hand through the glass. The same sticky fluid as before covers my skin. A force I don’t understand starts its subtle draw, pulling me toward the other side. When I resist, the mirror releases its hold, and my hand pulls free. “It’s fluid, like liquid silver, nothing like real glass.”
“Can’t be shattered,” Rae confirms. “What about using fire? Can you melt a mirror?”
Cole’s headshake is anything but promising. “We tried once with a laser in Mr. Belfield’s science lab. The glass bubbled, burned it a bit, but that’s all.” My frustration must show because he adds, “Don’t panic. Let’s review, shall we?” He holds up a finger. “The witch said Pan only seeks the living.”
Raven nods. “He lives off their suffering.”
“Right.” Another finger goes up. “He watches our world and brings his victims here through the mirrors.” A third finger rises. “We pollute them and he can no longer do either.” Forth finger unfurls. “So, what’s left?”
“The dead,” I finish. “She said the dead may not enter. Blind him, and he will seek you no more. So who … ?”
Raven snatches my arm. “My mother!” Her nails bite my skin as she stares straight ahead, unseeing. “I’ve been dreaming about her for weeks. Strange dreams that always end in nightmares about plants, and the earth—deaths, burials, and resurrections.” She blinks, and that seems to snap her out of her trance. “I think she’s been trying to tell me all along.”
I gently pry her vice-like grip from my forearm. She folds into a sitting position at my feet, her shoulder blades poking out like wings.
“What are you saying?” Cole lowers himself to a seat next to her, and I do the same.
She makes a quick study of her bloody nail beds before raising her eyes. “Do you know anything about what happened to my mother, after she died?” There’s barely a breath before she continues. “It was this huge scandal in our town. Turns out she was never cremated. The funeral home took our money, from other families too, and then dumped the bodies in a mass grave on their private property. We only found out because a storm unearthed them. Can you imagine what that was like for us? Driving down a flooded road and passing floating corpses everywhere? That’s how people found out. The evacuation route went past the acreage where the bodies were dumped … ”
Her eyes glimmer, but she doesn’t cry. She only waves her hand as if shooing a mosquito. “That doesn’t matter right now. It’s what I learned afterward that’s important. State and federal laws exist about burials for a reason. The dead can spread infectious diseases, taint the ground, poison a well, or contaminate the air.” Her laugh is brittle. “The dead pollute.”
“The dead may not enter … ” Cole twists toward the flickering portal.
We’re quiet together. Nothing but the quick sound of a squirrel up a tree and some fussing birds witness our collective ah-ha moment.
“That’s it, then.” Cole stands, brushing mulch from his pants. “We drag something dead through the mirror, and we’re home!”
“Tsk, tsk. Always in such a hurry to leave me, eh?” Out of a nearby hedge walks Pan, calm and unremarkable as if he’s out for an afternoon stroll. At least, I assume it’s Pan. He’s retaken the form of a man, shirtless with black leather pants and boots adorning his lower half. Stringy hair, white painted face, eyes blackened and running with makeup, he’s a bad impression of Brandon Lee in The Crow. And adding insult to injury, the asshole’s stolen my cane.
I’d like nothing better than to grab Raven and Cole and jump through the mirror to freedom, but I made a promise. My body heat rises as I brace for a fight. I concentrate the power around my organs. The sky darkens. Several trees appear above the hedgerow.
I arch my neck until vertebrae cracks. “We’re done here.”
“Indeed?” He smiles. “Certainly you may go, as soon as you decide who will stay.”
Raven and Cole take their place on either side of me.
My chest is a furnace. “Never figured you for a welcher, Pan. The deal was to enter the labyrinth, locate the girl, and find our way out again. You knew Rose was a lie.” When Cole flinches, I curb my speech. “Desiree is dead. Our deal is void.”
“Interesting choice of words, dear boy, but they won’t help you.”
His gaze tracks Raven. “One will stay. I’m afraid we won’t be denied. You can’t kill the dead, and there’s no escaping your own mind, am I right? Even the insane will tell you—wherever you go … well, there you are.” His strangled laugh ejects from his throat in a gag.
The maniac’s confidence works in our favor. He thinks we mean to kill him, not trick him. The Draugar weren’t alive either, technically, but we crippled them anyway. Too bad they aren’t here. What I wouldn’t give for one of their stinking hides right now—toss it through the portal—end of story.
Across the lawn, pond water stirs. Pan keeps his back to the ripples spreading over the surface in ever widening rings, yet his sick grin convinces me he knows what’s coming. The water laps itself in waves until they skim the bank.
I step in front of Raven, ready for another scorpion. Her breath warms the skin of my arm. She’s alive, and going to stay that way if I have anything to say in the matter.
Countless lumps boil under the pond scum until the surface resembles green oatmeal. When the lumps rise, I note their human shape. They’re not Draugar. In each face, the eyes and nose are missing. Mouths are nothing but thin gashes sewn shut with black yarn, but if they’re dead, they’ll do.
Pan’s new army aligns with him.
So be it.
I allow the heat begging for release to spread throughout my body. The sky mushrooms into chalky gray storm clouds.
Cole sends a message in his churning vortex of doom. Animals and trees break onto the scene. I’m no longer interested in solitude. This shared power with my friend and the girl I love makes me so much more than I am alone. And this time, I’m fighting on the right side.
Pan crosses his arms. “Come, come, children, who will it be? Monday’s child—fair of face, Tuesday’s child—full of grace? I prefer the girl, but the first to raise a hand will do.”
Plants and wildlife loyal to Pan face off against Rae’s band. Anxious expectation fills the air, then everything happens at once.
A moan echoes through the trees, quickly answered by one on the other side. Leaves quiver, moved by gusting winds. Timbers creak as opposing trees collide. Unfortunately, they’re so busy fighting each other they cancel each other out as allies.
The faceless men march. I launch a firebomb in the shape of a burning lion. Cole rises two feet off the ground and feeds my flame more oxygen, tripling its size. My fire-beast lopes toward Pan’s gruesome troops.
Pan spins, giving us his back. Hands in the air, he drains the murky pond sending gallons of liquid high into the air. The water gallops forward becoming a foaming, white stallion.
Fire and water arc toward each other. The elements hit in a brilliant head-on collision. Heat evaporates water. Water cools the blaze. Resulting steam hisses overhead, spreading on the wind in a cobra’s pale hood before dissipating.
A willow tree breaks from the woodland skirmish. Long roots wriggle over the earth like octopus tentacles heading straight for Cole.
Raven dashes after him, in line with the accelerating willow. I let her deal with the tree, because Pan’s mob is busy corralling me.
I whirl one hundred and eighty degrees, and shoot heat from my arms like a human flamethrower. Bodies blur inside a sea of red fire, but my exhale is premature. Charred and blistered, the faceless men pitch forward, continuing through the blaze.
With no eyes to see, they advance in slow, shuffling steps. Fire destroys the stitches sewn through their lips. Mouths hang open from nose to chin, the tattered, fleshy edges blowing in and out with every breath. The air fouls under their curse of decay and living death. Were they ever men?
In my years at school, I never attended any R.O.T.C. classes. I never went to boot camp. No one in my recent family history was in the military, or a cop, but everyone hears the stories. Their bravery and courage inspires us to leave no man behind … I always admired them. People talk about how in the heat of battle, fear and confusion cause panic. I understand that now. Events unfold so quickly, there’s little time to think. You react. Make mistakes. So your training better be thorough, ingrained, and damned smart.
In our reality, my friends and I are willing but untried and untrained. It’s only now that I see our mistake. We’ve been separated.
I peer between the shoulders of two faceless men and locate Pan still standing near the drained pond. With a wave, he’s gone, reappearing directly in front of Raven’s path. Every heartbeat punches my chest as I watch her run right into his waiting arms.
If I attack him with fire, it could scorch her. In frustration, I send another missile into the approaching clones, charbroiling those closest. I need to put something dead through the portal, and fast, but not until my friends are through.
Cole grapples with a willow on the far side of the lawn. He’s distracted by Rae’s abduction and misses the writhing branch hovering at his back. Fear is a cold stab as I watch fine tendrils deftly wrap his neck. One quick snap and he drops, boneless as a sack of corn meal.
“No!”
Heat churns in my abdomen, fueled by fury, pain, regret. I release the power pent up inside me. The blast engulfs the next string of faceless in a second inferno, allowing me to break through their ranks. Cole hasn’t moved. After all he’s come through, to die in The Void …
I ask for help. Send the prayer I think Raven would. God, if you can hear me. If it’s not too late, please, don’t let him die. My blood pumps faster as I sprint.
Trees on opposing sides thrash each other in the distance, fully consumed in their own war. Trunks crack and split. A hemlock crashes to the ground and is mauled by the pulverizing limbs of a great oak.
A boom thunders across the field. The ground shakes as tiny cracks spread across the earth and widen.
Raven.
My head whips up as she bolts from Pan’s grasp. He shrieks as mud gloms onto his legs and sucks him down.
Unlike the Minotaur’s gentle burial, Pan’s entombment is an ugly, violent thing. His hands windmill as he sinks. Caught between the will of two wielders, the earth first swallows Pan and then releases him with every alternating command. But who’s stronger?
Safely out of reach, Rae turns, focusing all her attention on the hole Pan’s clawing his way out of. Holding her hands high, she summons her element. Pale roots rise from the ground and curl around Pan’s body.
A ten-foot wall of dirt and clay swells up like a muddy ocean wave hammering him deep into the tunneling pit. High and wide, more soil piles on until the mound becomes a knoll, the knoll a hill, the hill a mountain.
Seconds pass like hours until I finally reach her. Grabbing the arm of the goddess who is also just a girl, I wrench her around and pull her to my chest. The action is rougher than I mean, but relief drives me. My arms wrap her thin shoulders, but there is nothing frail about this girl. My eyes burn as I breathe her in. There’s so much I want to say, but I only press my lips to her head.
“Gideon.” She drags her gaze from Cole’s still form. Water fills her eyes, polishing her gray irises until the tears break loose.
My thumbs brush the glistening trails from her cheeks. “Shh, I know.” I scan the grounds. The dirt summit covering Pan hasn’t moved, but the faceless have. While his army plods forward in drunken steps, I take Raven’s hand and tug her toward Cole.
She pulls free and speeds ahead. Dropping to his side, Raven places her head on Cole’s chest. Nerves jumping, I glance behind us. The willow has disappeared, but I keep an eye out just in case. The faceless aren’t close, yet are tireless in their pursuit. Black and smoking, they swing each wobbly leg forward in a slow but steady motion. I lob another fireball.
“Rae … ”
She straightens. Her eyes lit brighter than candles. “Gideon, he’s breathing!”
I thank God for listening as I kneel and scoop an unconscious Cole into my arms. “Let’s get him home.”
I can only move so fast with my leg and wounded cargo, but we break for the mirror. The faceless change direction, but our lead gets us to the portal well ahead of them. Colors in the scenery shift and waver as we near the doorway.
“Rae, go on through.” Her lips part, but I don’t stop. “It will take one on each side to keep him from falling and splitting his skull. Once he’s through, call 911.”
She glowers at Pan’s charred army.
“We’re okay. I’m right behind you.”
She reaches for my hand, and then she’s gone.
Light refracts off her profile like a laser show as she enters the portal, and again as her dripping hands reemerge. I fill them with Cole’s head and shoulders, and he passes for the very last time from Void to home.
Two down.
When I look back, one of Pan’s men is almost on me. All I have to do is dive through the portal, and I’m free. I nearly do it. But the man’s arm hangs in shreds at his side. Shattered bone protrudes from the blackened flesh. It’s all I need to pollute the door.
I spring for the arm. Wrapping both hands around the elbow, I twist backward until I hear a crack.
His jawbone works up and down in a silent scream. His radius hangs at a wrong angle, but the ligament won’t tear free. As I pull, the dead man’s other hand grabs my throat with crushing strength. Fire is my element, so why does his touch burn? The rotting fingers on my neck sear my skin. The sensation is icy-hot, an anti-burn, as though the creature’s coated in coolant—and my kryptonite.
I slam a flaming fist into his cheek. One last wrench and the arm rips free with a wet snap. Prize tucked into my side, I turn and plunge head first for the portal. My feet leave the ground. I’m flying, hurtling through the gooey plasma wall between worlds.
My head smacks a hard surface as I’m yanked short and stopped mid-air. Beneath the ringing in my ears, someone calls my name.
I’ve landed on my back, but can’t roll over because I’m only partway through the portal. Everything below my knees remains stuck in The Void. I clutch the severed arm with one hand while Raven grabs the other and pulls.
A vice secures my ankles from the other side of the portal. Trapped by one of Pan’s faceless soldiers, I wait for the punishing burn to begin. When I kick to free my feet, something sharp hooks my calves. Raven yanks until my shoulder threatens to dislocate, but we make no progress. And we’re getting tired.
So close to freedom, our frustration merges. We color the air with swearing until a new weight crushes my legs from the other side. Pressure moves along my shins, over my knees and thighs, until a head pokes through the portal. Slowly, the face lifts. Dark hair, slick with oil from the mirror, recedes as two curling horns sprout on either side of a broad head. The nose elongates to a snout, pupils narrow to sharp slits inside yellow orbs.
Not a faceless ghoul, or a man, or even a mere magician.
Pan.
Heat fills my lungs, filters out to my extremities. His arms extend as he thrusts himself onto my torso and snatches at the severed arm.
My fingers slide over the burnt, greasy skin of the arm as I fight to maintain my grip. No way in hell is he getting this back. We play tug ’o war with the slimy limb, fire building inside me all the while. Rae and Cole are too close. I can’t blast Pan without baking them or take the chance the portal will close with him on our side.
The goat-god’s snarl exposes long square teeth. When his neck bends sharply to the side, I jerk to avoid a blow. Instead, his mandibles close over my hip. My scream echoes through the room as he rips out a chunk of flesh and spits it back into my face.
Raven’s boot flashes over my head like a snake striking. Her heel connects with Pan’s eye, plunging deeply into the socket.
Blood pours from the ruined orifice. The house shudders as he bellows, yet, he doesn’t let go of the limb. Neither of us does.
Tree roots poke through the portal. I assume at Rae’s bidding. They wind around Pan, covering his arms and neck. But one command from him acts like an electric shock, and the roots snap back through the door into The Void.
Rae kicks again and misses. His head dips. Catching his horn on her pant leg, it tears through the leather and into her thigh muscle. She shrieks and drops to the floor.
My heart falters as she does. I’m helpless, pinned by Pan’s weight. The heat grows inside me to an unbearable level. A roar climbs my throat.
We’re failing. Pan will continue his reign of torture if we can’t stop him. My ancestors will never be cleansed of their atrocities. Rae and Cole will never be free.
I can’t allow that, whatever the cost to me.
My mind revisits the honor of soldiers, their courage and loyalty to each other. How adrenaline makes a guy strong enough to lift a jeep off his dying friend. Constant horrors of war bind soldiers together so profoundly, throwing yourself on a mine to save the rest is automatic. Automatic …
“Rae.” She lies on the floor near Cole’s body, hugging her torn leg. “Drag Cole out of the room.”
Her head tilts up, flashing eyes searching mine. I’m prepared for her stubborn objections, a debate. I get neither. Her gaze softens. Seconds pulse between us. Much as I try, I’ll never know what she’s trying so hard to say with her eyes. Does it echo what mine convey? Forgive me. I love you. You’re worth every bit of what I’m about to do.
With a nod, she pushes to a rocky stand. Sliding her hands beneath Cole’s underarms, she clasps them together, and drags him from the room.
Pan and I wrestle over the real estate of a rotten arm. This poisoned thing determines the future of the mirror, and with it, all of our destinies.
“Don’t do this,” Pan whispers, between labored breaths. There’s fear in his eyes, even terror. “Please, please don’t. Good boy. Have mercy. You don’t know what it’s like.”
There’s something truly panic-stricken in his tone that sends a chill through me. What’s so terrible, even a sadistic madman fears it?
I give Rae as much time as I dare to reach a safe distance. A torrid force rises to the surface. I sense my actions copied by Pan. Together, we radiate the power of a quasar. Blood becomes magma, bones liquid steel, our eyes incinerators. The energy rattles the teeth in my head. I cinch the bone in my palm and release the beast I’ve kept chained inside for so long.
Pan bleats a low moan. “Don’t leave me in there alone. It’s dark, so terribly dark.” His lids droop with his lessening grip, yet I grow stronger with each passing moment.
Heat warps the floorboards beneath us. Smoke rises, clouding the air. My enemy’s eyes spark white, yellow, and red. The skin of his face blisters and peels. His fur singes—the stink musty and stale.
A sticky fluid seeps onto my fingers. The flesh on Pan’s hands melts like hot glue. Knuckle bones poke through his fists. And he’s laughing.
Sonic booms pound my eardrums. Once, twice, three times. Everything goes pyrotechnic white.
There’s no pain. I might be dead. It’s not as though I’d recognize the feeling. The weight flees from my legs. I turn and move freely, but I’m nearly blind and deaf. Nothing but a solid white sheet is cast in every direction, that and the ringing.
I’m on my hands and knees, crawling across an imagined floor. My fingers search for the missing bone that pollutes the mirror, but I find nothing familiar.
Two gentle hands clasp mine and stop my searching. Soft and cool they cup my face, stroke my head. Raven? I can’t see her. I don’t need to. Whether real or a dream, she draws me into her lap. One hand drapes my shoulder while the other continues its gentle sweeping of my hair. Definitely heaven.
You’re safe. I think I hear. Sleep now.
And I do.