“Kalevi?”
Mumble mumble.
“Kalevi? Wake up.”
Mom, I’m tired.
“I know, son. But you have to wake up.”
Please. Five more minutes.
“I know you can hear me, Kalevi. Come back.”
But it’s peaceful here and the covers are so warm.
“Come on, son. Come on.”
My eyes slitted open, the light far too bright. “Gah … whatsa matter?”
“Oh, thank god!” Mom cried. Why was she crying?
A rough voice said, “You had us worried, boy.” Dad sounded awful, like he’d been crying, too. What the hell?
“Throat … water,” I managed.
Blurry shadows moved and a straw touched my lips. Greedily I sipped at the cool water it offered. Images flashed in my mind’s eye. Was I dead?
“Easy now … drink too much too quickly and you’ll sick up,” Mom murmured in my ear.
“Better.” A lot better. I remembered … I had died. Glad to see it didn’t take.
Alex’s face swam into view. “I thought we might have lost you for good. You’ve been in a coma for a week, Kal. ”
“Good thing my death was only temporary,” I said in a painful rasp. “I see the soul gem worked.”
The young magician held up my watch. The crystal on the back looked burned and blackened. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure it would. Trapped your life energy pretty well, all things considered. I was afraid there would be some bleed out and not enough would remain to reanimate your body.”
I groped toward my throat, feeling small lines of scars crisscrossing my flesh. “Healing worked, too.” Canting my head side to side, I saw that I lay in the guest bedroom, the warm yellow walls glowing in the morning sun. It had once been my sister’s room. Appropriate.
He nodded. “Putting flesh back together proved to be the easy part, even the muscle and bone damage from the magical steroids. The difficult bit was replenishing your blood supply. Good thing you had a couple of donors.”
My parent’s nodded and displayed the gauze pads on the inside of their elbows.
Alex held up something for me to see—a toy Winnebago. “Managed to smuggle these little guys in.” Faint music wafted from the toy. Cancion Del Mariachi, I think.
My smile stretched parched lips. “Good to see they weathered the rough handling.”
Dad laughed. “They’ve been quite a help around the house. I don’t know how we lived without them before.” He shook his head. “The old place has never looked so good or been so clean.”
I changed the subject. “The funeral?”
“BB wasn’t there. Couldn’t make it because he’s overseeing rebuilding the Bureau. But it was a beautiful affair. Everyone cried.”
Relief washed over me. BB had proven over the years to be one of the sharpest knives in the drawer. Pulling the wool over his eyes was rarer than a total eclipse of the sun. Or an honest politician. “Thank god.”
Mom smiled through the trails of tears on her cheeks. “I’m glad you’re finally free of the Bureau, son.”
My answering grin felt stiff. I wasn’t free yet. “Mom … how are you doing on your training?”
Dad’s broad face smiled even wider. For a moment I thought his lips would meet in the back of his head. “It’s a good thing your mother is a quick study. Your friend Alex taught her a few spells that could come handy around the house.”
Mom thrust the straw between my lips again and smiled. “I’m not that talented, but it is fun to do.”
A thought burst into the forefront of my tired brain. “Ghost? Is he here?”
Alex held up a laptop hooked to an Ethernet cable. Bzzzz …”Right here, Kal.”
“Thank god … you had no problems with sending the video?”
“The only problem was fooling the Bureau’s sniffer programs, and that was simplicity itself.”
“So, Dad, you can recreate it?”
He scratched his head. “I’ve built Tesla coils in school, easy as pie. This thing, with that pattern of gems, gives me the willies. But I think I can pull it off. With a magician’s help, that is.”
“As long as the cell phone companies don’t install any towers, your folks will be fine.” Alex looked at Mom speculatively. “She catches on quick. A correspondence course in magic and she’s at the top of the class.”
Mom smiled. “I’m the only one in class.”
“Thanks Alex, Ghost. I appreciate everything.” The idea had come to me after I had found out Ghost’s identity; if he could send emails to his friend Jaime undetected, he could do the same with Mom, set up a line of communication untouched by Bureau sniffer programs. Little ‘packages’ of data that could help Mom become a magician. And I had been right … Her ‘feelings’ were a lot more than mere psychic awareness. The fact that my parent’s place was so far out of sensor range that she could turn all her neighbors into tree frogs and it wouldn’t create a blip on the Bureau’s radar, keeping her relatively safe.
Bzzzzz …”You’re welcome, Kal. I must admit, I had some fun tweaking the Bureau’s nose.”
“A question, Kal.” Alex leaned over me, voice becoming soft. “Why now? Couldn’t you wait until BB released you from the Emergency Clause?”
I sighed. “He was never going to release me, Alex, because he didn’t believe that I destroyed the coil by accident. Our beloved Director is far too cunning to be fooled for long.” My own voice lowered to a growl. “Besides, I checked with Dom … I’m the only one he invoked the Clause for. He knew which way the wind blew. I had to get out, now—before he put two and two together and we all faced the crap storm.”
He nodded and said, “Two issues, though, Kal. One: your mom is still kind of a novice. It takes a lot of practice to hold the Shape of the spells in your mind. No offence, ma’am.” Mom waved his worry away. “Two: you need some large, high-quality gems at max charge to fully utilize the coil.”
Mom and Dad just smiled. Alex threw me a confused look. “You forget how much I got paid,” I laughed. “Mom and Dad have been accessing our joint account for years, buying all manner of high-quality gems.”
“I should have known,” he said ruefully. “I should have known.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“So, white boy, what now?” Canton entered the room, teeth at full wattage.
“Glad you made it, redskin.” My heart did a little happy dance. No one else I’d rather have on my six than him.
“You kidding? I wouldn’t have missed this for all the tea in China.” His full-power smile dimmed slightly. “But couldn’t your mother have told me before the funeral? Lost my best knife.”
Laughing hurt my throat, but I didn’t care. “Buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Dad?”
From the bedroom closet Dad pulled down a polished pine box about twenty inches long. The letters CA were etched into the lid.
“Had Dad order you one,” I told him
Canton’s eyes flew wide as opened the box. “I don’t freaking believe this,” he breathed reverently, pulling out a long knife. A twin to my own Bowie, except the hilt was carved from walnut instead of rosewood. “Knew you were okay, white boy, the second I met you.” His eyes shone. “Now what?”
Mom answered for the both of us. “Now we kill a monster.” Her normally elfin face had become savage. It’s a commonly held belief that the female of the species is the most dangerous. Looking at Mom, I knew it to be true.
“Yeah, buddy, it’s time to kill a monster.”
I have a promise to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Born in Helsinki, Finland (The Land of the Uncommonly Stubborn), Mark Everett Stone arrived in the U.S. at a young age and promptly dove into the world of the fantastic. Starting at age seven with the Iliad and the Odyssey, he went on to consume every scrap of Norse Mythology he could get his grubby little paws on. At age thirteen he graduated to Tolkien and Heinlein, building up a book collection that soon rivaled the local public library’s.
In college Mark majored in Journalism and minored in English. The newspaper business wasn’t for him, so he did what every good writer does: find work in a wide variety of fields that included catering, bartending, and restaurant management. After getting married, he sold Hyundais (before they became popular) and, because he lives in Colorado, Subarus. Eventually he matured enough to be able to sit down and just write.
Mark is feverishly working on his next book, The Judas Line, while his amazingly patient wife, Brandie, keeps him and their two sons, Aeden and Gabriel, in check. You can find Mark on the Web at www.markeverettstone.camelpress.com.