Blood Oath: Part two: Chapters 4-6

Chapter Four
         Adrian blinked against the reflection of the sun on the snow. It seemed that in the past few hours he’d forgotten just how harsh sunlight was.
         Across the street, children were enjoying their day off by playing in the snow.
         “Hi Adwian!” shouted a little boy in a red snowsuit as he appeared from behind the snowman he was helping his siblings construct. He was about four.
         “Hey Jason.”
         “Wheyuh’s Jasmine today, Adwian?”
         “Um, she’s not feeling good, so she’s sleeping.”
         “Want us to bwing her some chicken soup? It’s weally good soup. Ewin makes gweat soup.”
         “Erin does make great soup; I’ve had it before. So thank you, but Jasmine just wants to sleep today, all right?”
         “Okay.”
         His oldest sister, who was seventeen, called for him. “Jason! We need your help to get the head on him! He’s too tall without you!”
         “Coming, Ewin!” He held out his hand and shook Adrian’s. Adrian smiled at him a little. “Nice to see you again, Adwian.”
         “Always a pleasure to see you too, buddy.”
         The little kid scampered back off across the road to his family. He climbed on top of his brother’s shoulders, carefully placing the head straight on the seven-foot snowman.
         This large family always amazed Adrian. There were nine of them, and they all loved each other. There were only three in his family, and yet he couldn’t get along with either of the other two.
         Adrian shoveled and salted some of the snow out of his driveway. This task was always made worse by his knowing that he could just melt it off with a simple gesture. It was just one of the disadvantages of living in a tight suburban neighborhood.
         After about a half an hour, Adrian went back into his garage and started up his car. With an anti-tracking charm protecting his family from his wrath, there were very few places to turn. The most logical place to start was going to be the DeRes mansion, five hours away.
         He turned on the radio for background noise as he started to drive away.
         “Son, Forrest Gump says that ‘life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get,’” Darrius quoted as he hoisted a body into their “moving van”. “I say that life is like a corpse; cold, hard, and, if not properly taken care of and guarded, it can end up somewhere you don’t want it to.”
         “Like in the back of our van?” Adrian asked.
         “Exactly,” Darrius laughed. “Like in the back of our van.”
         Adrian was snapped out of his thought by an animal bounding across the street.
         “Shit!” he yelled as he slammed on his brakes and swerved to avoid it. The car spun around on the icy road and slid into a ditch. He pulled himself out of the driver’s side and slammed the door. “Great, just what I needed today. Amazing.”
         A snort came from across the road, causing Adrian to whirl around. He jumped back, as this brought him face-to-face with a black stag not ten yards from him. The stag’s piercing red glare squinted as it flashed a snow-white scowl, and then immediately ran back into the forest.
         Adrian knew exactly what this meant. First off, it meant that one of his family members had done this to him, and he was pretty sure that the deer most resembled Boone. Second off, it meant that his car was not going to start, even if he got it out of that ditch. Boone would make sure that it was both wrecked and out-of-order. And, finally, it meant that at least one, if not all, of his family members were somewhere in that forest.
         He slid across the road and dashed into the forest. “Get back here! I know it’s you, Boone Alastair DeRes! You can’t hide forever! You may think that your magic is superior to mine, but you’d be wrong!”
         Adrian was getting some practice at thinking on his toes; he wasn’t sure what spell he could use right now. At least he was making Boone angry. Boone wouldn’t be able to sit quietly while his brother challenged him like this.
         Then the idea came to Adrian—exactly the spell he needed. He held his hand to the sun, and then, in a single motion, closed his hand, twisted it around, and jerked his elbow down to his side. Golden threads of light dangled from his hand. He stretched them between his two hands and then, pulling with all his might, snapped them in half. A blinding flash of light filled the forest, like that of an exploding atom bomb.
         Like a bat using its sonar, Adrian waited for the energy to journey through the forest. If it struck any magical sources it would bounce back to him.
         Just when he was beginning to think that he’d already lost them, a warm spot hit his left arm. He dashed in the direction from which it had come, crunching through the snow. He grumbled as he waddled through nearly-knee-deep snow for about twenty yards until he realized that it would be a lot easier to just melt it away. As if on a commercial for the Clapper, he clapped twice, elbows high. Now a circle melted away around him wherever he walked. Or, in this case, wherever he ran.
         He stopped and performed the atom-bomb-like spell again. This time it took a shorter amount of time for the energy to hit him, although the source was going a slightly different direction. Changing his path accordingly, he dashed off again.
         Adrian kept running until, suddenly, he stopped. He felt it—the person he had been pursuing was right here. He was thinking on his toes, ready to attack when the chance presented itself.
         “Who do you think you are?” asked a familiar voice.
         Adrian turned around. “I knew it was you, Boone.”
         “Who do you think you are to call me ‘Boone Alastair’?”
         Adrian appeared to lower his defenses slightly, although really he was ready to pounce at a fraction-of-a-second’s-notice. “Did that really bother you that much?”
         Boone shifted in his place a little. “No.”
         “It did, didn’t it?”
         “No!” Angrily, Boone fired off a spell.
         Adrian dodged what looked like a cluster of bats and sounded like a cluster of dying hamsters that flew towards him. He hit the ground as they whizzed by. “Is that how this is going to go down?” Adrian retaliated with his own spell, a binding charm intended to attach Boone to a nearby tree.
         Boone saw it coming and blasted the magic chains away with a jolt of energy. “Did you actually expect that to work?”
         “No.” While Boone was still distracted by having blasted the first set of chains away, Adrian fired a second. They caught Boone and held him fast to a nearby birch. “I did expect that to work, though.”
         “What the hell? But…I…”
         “That’s what the ancient Greeks called hubris. You let your pride get the better of you.”
         Boone was steaming mad as he tried to twist out of his binding. “This can’t be happening. You’re not even dark. I’m almost a Whitewall graduate!”
         “Psh, Whitewall. Who needs it?”
         “Yeah, well, you weren’t even good enough to get in!” Boone was getting defensive now.
         Adrian shrugged. “Oh well. It doesn’t matter.” He walked up to Boone and poked his face, but jerked back when Boone tried to bite him.
         “Don’t touch me! You might contaminate me with your whiteness.”
         Adrian narrowed his eyes. “You really think you’re that much better than me?”
         “I know I’m that much better than you.”
         “Then how do you explain the fact that you’re tied to a birch tree right now?”
         “Fluke.”
         “Really? Fluke? That’s all you have to say?”
         Boone was silent for a moment. “If you’re better, then prove it right now.”
         “How? Didn’t I just do that by tying you to a tree?”
         “Fluke!” Boone shouted in response. “I mean, let me down and duel me, right here, right now. First one to throw up the white flag loses.”
         “I don’t trust you.”
         “What, just because I’m dark I can’t be trusted with anything? Or is it because you know you’ll lose to an eighteen-year-old?” His steel blue eyes sparkled impishly from under his jet-black bangs.
         Adrian wasn’t about to fall into his brother’s trap. He shrugged. “No, I just think I kind of already won, seeing as how you’re tied to a tree. You’re the one with the losing hand, here—you have no right to be challenging me! You should be trying to win me over.”
         “You’re afraid of me, admit it.”
         “Boone, I’m not one of your sniveling little friends—that shit doesn’t work on me. You may be insecure enough to have to take every little challenge of your abilities, but I’m not. I don’t have anything to prove.” He stared at Boone with a slight smile. “Do you have something you feel you need to prove?”
         Boone growled. “I have nothing to prove! I’m not insecure.”
         “See, then what was that?”
         “What was what?”
         Adrian laughed. “You just tried to prove to me that you have nothing to prove to me.”
         Steaming, Boone tried to retaliate, but had nothing.
         “Face it; you’re weak.” Adrian turned and started to walk away, saying, “Dad will find you eventually. Of course, you do have that anti-tracking spell…”
         Not wanting to let Adrian walk away victorious, Boone blurted out, “Oh yeah? Well, I killed your precious little girlfriend!” He laughed.
         Adrian stopped and clenched his fist. “Walk away,” he whispered to himself. “Keep moving.”
         “I wanted to have my way with her first, but dad and Alison were all ‘we came here with one goal.’”
         Breathing deeply, Adrian kept moving away from his brother, gritting his teeth.
         “The look in her eyes as she went…I’ll never forget it. The realization of what was happening…like a deer, just before it meets the machine those headlights are connected to. Exhilarating to watch mortals die.” He grinned.
         Adrian snapped around, a fierce anger showing in his eyes. Quick as a flash, he struck Boone with a simple but painful charm that had an effect similar to a taser, only twice as painful. As though he’d never even turned back, Adrian walked away again, Boone convulsing against the tree behind him as the spell repeatedly shocked its victim.
         When he left the forest, he tried to get his car out of the ditch. With magic and a lot of hard work, the car finally moved from its place. Adrian jumped in the driver’s seat and tried to start it. It made a sound like cats fighting on top of a police siren, and then died again.
         Sighing, Adrian got out and lifted the hood. “Ugh, ew, ew…” he stammered as he shuddered and wiped his hands off on his pants, as though he had just touched something covered in mud.
         The engine had turned into a conglomeration of snakes, rats, and centipedes. They crawled around sickeningly. Adrian moved his hand towards them and then drew back. “Okay, this is disgusting.”
         The worst part of fighting with his brother was that they knew each other’s weaknesses. Boone would’ve been able to put his hand in that mess of vermin, pull out a cobra, and cuddle it like a kitten. Adrian, however, couldn’t stand rats, snakes, bugs, bats, or any other “creepy” animals.
         “Um, um…” he said as he danced around, skin crawling. “Oh, ah! Pied Piper charm, duh.” He started doing this strange dance until, out of nowhere, there was a small stream of music beside him.
         His “engine” crawled out from under the hood as he danced back into the woods. He led them to a cliff and then drove them off of it.
         When he got back to his car, he glanced at the void where his engine should’ve been. “Hmm…In retrospect, not the bestway to deal with that.”
         He leaned against his door and pondered his next move. “This hill actually looks kind of steep,” he mumbled to himself as he walked up the rest of the way up it. “If I can get it to the top, I can at least coast it for a distance.”
         Grabbing the frame of the driver side door, Adrian walked up the hill, using a little bit of magic to back him. He was sweating profusely as he tried to avoid slipping on the ice and losing all progress.
         Finally, the top of the hill had been reached. Adrian jumped in the car as it started to roll downwards.
         “Please no stoplights, please no stoplights!” he pleaded as the car picked up speed. The car zoomed down the hill and crested the next one, then went straight for a distance. Adrian came to an intersection that was, luckily, pretty sleepy. He turned left here, and kept going. As he started to slow down, another hill appeared and soon brought him to a halt.
         “Well, that was a good five miles. That cut about an hour off of my walking time.” He ditched the car at the side of the road, after removing and setting fire to anything that could have been used to identify the car as his. He had no time to deal with any legal matters that could arise from this.
         “Let me think…five hours going an average of sixty miles an hour is…300 miles. I walk at about four miles per hour, so three-hundred divided by four is…twenty-five times three…oh, great, only seventy-five hours. Cut out the twenty-five miles I’ve already gone, and you still get too long.” Adrian was thinking aloud as he walked. “Let’s see…if I walk sixteen hours a day and find a cheap motel every night for the other eight hours…seventy-five divided by sixteen…Well, seventy-five divided by fifteen is five, so about five. Five days to get there. So be it. Nothing will stop me from getting there.”

         Meanwhile, back in the forest, Boone was still being zapped continuously by Adrian’s spell.
         “Boone, what happened?” Darrius asked as he approached the tree. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” He undid the chains and Boone fell convulsing to the snow. “Geez Boone, how’d you get yourself into this mess?” He performed a countercharm.
         Boone lay panting on the forest floor.
         “What happened here, son?”
         “A-a-a-a-a-,” he stammered, “a-a-a-ddd-ddd-ddd-r-r-r-r-r-i-i-i-i-i-i-aa-aa-aa-nnn-nnn.”
           “That little son-of-a-bitch. I can’t believe he would actually have the balls to do this.”
         “J-j-j-j-j-j-ea-l-l-l-ou-sssss-y-y-y.”
         “I’m sure it was jealousy. Now, follow me to the car and we’ll try to find him.”
         “C-c-c-a-a-a-n’t-t-t m-m-m-oo-oo-oo-vvvvve.”
         “Oh, good point.” Darrius lifted Boone off the ground with a levitating charm and carried him to the car.
         “Boone!” screeched Alison as the two approached where she was sitting in the car. “Are you all right?”
         “He’ll be fine in a few hours,” Darrius assured her. “Adrian did this to him.”
         “How? Boone, you must have slipped big time.”
         “Sh-sh-sh-u-uu-uu-u-t-t-t-t th-th-th-e h-h-h-e-e-e-e-ll-ll-ll-ll u-u-u-pp-ppp.”
         The car drove away.



Chapter Five
         Adrian pulled his hood up over his numb ears. There was nothing but road up ahead, nowhere to stop. “Not like I should, anyway. I’ve got to get sixteen hours of walking in.”
         His stomach growled, as if saying otherwise. “I can’t stop, stomach,” he told it. “They’re on my tail. Oh!” He quickly protected himself with an anti-tracking charm. “Good thing I thought of that.”

         Alison twitched and then grumbled. “We’ve lost him now. Apparently he finally thought of hiding himself.”
         “We’ll still get him,” Darrius assured her.
         “W-w-ee’d-d be-tt-tt-er-r.”
         “Boone, it sounds like your stammering is starting to go down a little,” Darrius said.
         “D-d-d-oe-s-s-n’t-t doesn’t m-m-a-tt-tt-e-rr-rr. S-s-s-t-t-t-i-ll-ll g-g-o-n-n-n-a k-k-ki-ll h-h-him-m-m.”
         “What?” Alison asked, meanly.
         “D-DOESN’T M-M-M-A-T-T-T-ER-R-R!” Boone shouted, annoyed.
         “Kids, shut up. Save it for Adrian.”

         Since putting the charm on himself, Adrian had decided to take a slightly different route. Since then he’d walked two hours. He was now almost completely numb and really hungry. Just when he was about to stop and build a fire, he saw a small town approaching on the horizon. He picked up speed as he joyfully got closer to the town.
         His first stop was a little restaurant on the right side of the road. The bell dinged cheerfully as he pushed open the door.
         “Hello, welcome!” shouted a peppy middle-aged waitress. “You’re not from here, are you? I know all six-hundred-twelve residents of Halton, and you’re not one of them.”
         Adrian didn’t feel like sparking up much conversation with this chatty woman. “Nope, not from here. Can I have some coffee? I’m freezing.”
         “Of course, of course. Sit down and I’ll get you some coffee.”
         Adrian sat in a booth near the window and looked out around him. The town was full of kids playing. Not one car drove by; no one was going anywhere today.
         “Here’s your coffee.” The waitress sat the cup down in front of him. She looked out the window. “Beautiful, isn’t it? No traffic on days like this. Of course, we rarely have traffic anyway, but…hey, speaking of which, how’d you get here? I don’t see your car.”
         “I’ll have the house burger with fries,” Adrian said, ignoring her question and handing her the menu. “Medium rare, please.”
         “Oh, okay, um, be back with that soon.” She left the booth, thinking about how strange this customer was.
         Adrian sipped on his hot coffee and got lost in thought.
         “Hey, Adrian! Think fast!”
         The eight-year-old boy was struck by his sister’s magical snowball in the courtyard of their mansion. “No fair! I wasn’t ready!”
         “That’s why I said ‘think fast’, duh!”
         “Well, I’ll get you back for that!” He packed a snowball and, with clumsy magic, flung it at Alison. She deflected it. “Hey, no fair! You’re better at magic than me!”
         A corpse servant came out of the door and rang a bell. “Come on, Adrian!” Alison said. “The hot chocolate’s done!” She ran past the corpse and through the door.
         Even though they’d been a part of Adrian’s life since the moment he was born, the corpse servants always gave him an eerie feeling. He walked past the servant, eyes watching her nervously.
         He found Alison sitting in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate. Boone was tottering around the humongous space, giggling at things no one else understood.
         “Here’s your hot chocolate, baby,” their mom said, putting the mug in front of Adrian.
         “Thanks, mommy.”
         “Boone, don’t eat that. No, no, no!” She rushed after the two-year-old to pry whatever it was out of his mouth.
         “Something’s not right with you, Adrian,” Alison stated, mater-of-factly.
         “What do you mean?”
         “I saw how you looked at Esmeralda. Like you were afraid of her.”
         “I’m not afraid, it’s just…I mean, all of my other friends think zombies are scary, but I mean, I live with them, and my friends don’t understand why I think zombies aren’t scary because they don’t know that we have zombie servants, and maybe they are a little scary, you know?”
         Alison glared at her brother. “There’s nothing scary about them, Adrian. They’re under our control.”
         “But isn’t it slavery? Isn’t that bad?”
         “Adrian, they’re dead. It’s not like they actually have any kind of feelings. Besides, they’re not doing anything else useful.”
         “I know. I guess you’re right.”
         “My name’s Tiny Gordon on account of my pa was Big Gordon and my older brother was Little Gordon. But my other brother’s name is Jimmy. He wasn’t named Gordon like the rest of us, you know. Don’t know why.”
         “Nice to meet you, Gordon.”
         “Tiny Gordon.”
         “Tiny Gordon, okay. I’m Adrian.”
         “Well, I’m just going to call you Abe.”
         “Um, what?”
         “I can remember the name Abe better than A—whatever your name is. See there, I forgot it already!”
         “Adrian.”
         “Nope, Abe to me!” he laughed.
         “Okay…”
         “So, you’re not from Halton?”
         “No, I’m not.”
         “Well then, welcome!” He grinned. A few teeth were missing. “You seem like a nice young fella. Bet you have a pretty little lady, don’t you?”
         Adrian stared into his coffee cup and didn’t say anything.
         “Sorry, didn’t mean to strike a nerve or anything. She just leave you?”
         Adrian sighed and then quietly replied, “Yeah, she just left me.”
         “Well, if she would leave you, then good riddance to her, am I right?”
         Again, Adrian didn’t say anything.
         “Well, we got plenty of pretty girls here in Halton. In fact, you look like you’re about as old as my own youngest daughter. Her name’s Tiny Gordonia, on account of I didn’t have any sons to name Gordon, so I named my daughters Gordonia, and she has two older sisters—Big Gordonia and Little Gordonia. It’s a pretty name, don’t you think? I thought of it myself.”
         “Oh, um, thanks but, well…”
         The waitress arrived and sat the food down in front of him. “Here’s your house burger. She turned to the other man in the booth. “Well, hi there, Tiny Gordon! What can I get you?”
         “Well, I’ve been kind of wanting some pie. Give me some of that wonderful pecan pie, Missy.”
         “Will do!” She went back to the kitchen.
         “Now, back to our conversation. Gordonia would love to meet you.”
         “I’m sorry, but I really can’t stay in town long. I’ve got a long way to travel.”
         “All-righty, then. If you change your mind, though, we’ll be right here in Halton.” He got up and moved to the counter to talk to someone else who had just walked in.
         “Don’t mind Tiny Gordon,” the waitress quietly said to Adrian. “He hasn’t been right in the head ever since he lost his entire herd of cattle to a parasitic disease. Dairy was his livelihood, and then that was gone. His wife left him and the girls and he kind of lost his mind. Their names aren’t even Gordonia; he just likes to think they are. They’re real names are Rachel, Annie, and Lucy. Three of the nicest girls you’ll ever meet.”
         “Poor guy,” Adrian said, glancing over at Gordon. “Are his daughters a little…” he pointed to his head and made a circular motion.
         “No; they’re pretty sane, actually. Well, I mean, Rachel and Annie got hitched and left town. Gordon is trying to hook Lucy up, but she quietly refuses for his sake. She doesn’t want to leave him. But enough about our little town! Tell me more about you. We don’t get strangers through here often, and I like to hear new stories.”
         “Oh, well, um, let’s see…What do you want to know?”
         “Tell me about your family.” She sat in the booth.
         “My family hates me; not much else to say there.”
         “That’s sad—why do they hate you?”
         “Um, well…I wouldn’t join the family business.”
         “Oh. What’s the family business?”
         “Um…Chocolate.”
         She laughed. “Now why in the world wouldn’t you want to be a part of that business?”
         “I’m allergic to chocolate. I can’t go near the stuff.”
         “Oh?”
         “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter to them that I’m allergic, it’s still the family business! Well, I don’t care!” Adrian was really into it now. “They hate me for something I was born  with! I’m sorry that it doesn’t agree with my morals—morals, as in the other term for allergies, of course—and I’m sorry I just can’t do it, but I’m not going to be making chocolate with them.”
         The waitress looked out the window. “Oh look! Another out-of-towner, imagine that!”
         Adrian glanced at the car and nearly spilled the coffee all over himself. “Shit! Hide me, please!”
         “Do you know them?”
         “That’s my family! They can’t see me here! How’d they even find me?”
         “Geez, you really don’t get along, do you?” She looked at the people getting out of the car. “Funny—they don’t look the way I’d imagine chocolate makers to look…”
         “Missy, that’s your name, right?”
         “Yeah.”
         “Missy, don’t ask questions—just hide me, please. I’m begging you. Strange things might happen, and I apologize in advance.”
         “Okay, um, back in the kitchen, come on.” She ushered him through the door behind the bar. She brushed her hair down and strolled back out, a smile pasted on her face.
         The door opened forcefully and the bell tinkled merrily.
         “Welcome strangers! Have a seat, won’t you?”
         “Look,” Alison growled at her. “We’re looking for someone. His name’s Adrian; have you seen him?”
         “We don’t get to many strangers in this part, miss,” Missy replied calmly.
         Gordon swiveled around on his barstool. “You mean Abe? Missy, you know Abe! He’s that nice kid you just shoved back into the kitch—“
         Missy clamped her hand over Gordon’s mouth. “Tiny Gordon, that’s Abe, though. These people are looking for an Adrian.”
         Darrius, Boone, and Alison looked at each other. “Let us into the kitchen,” Darrius said.
         Missy blocked the door. “I’m sorry, but you can’t go back there.”
         Boone yelled past her, “Ad-d-rian, you hav-v-ve one m-m-more ch-chance to get out h-here. You m-m-m-ay b-be into h-hiding your id-d-dentity, but we don’t really c-c-care who knows, or how m-m-many m-mortals d-die b-between me out here and me g-g-getting my hands around-d-d your th-th-throat!”
         “Hiding your identity, what?” Missy was confused.
         The kitchen door opened. Adrian stood in the doorway, hands prepared to cast a spell. “Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got.”
         “Are we supposed to be scared of a little light boy like you?” Alison hissed.
         “Ask Boone, unless, of course, he’s still stuttering.” He smiled wryly at his brother.
         Boone growled and fired off a stream of blue light which Adrian quickly deflected. The few other people in the restaurant screamed and dove under tables.
         “Boone, I really didn’t want to have to do this.” Adrian put his hands together like a bird and then waved them three times. Boone became surrounded by a bright white light and an inescapable whirlwind and then disappeared.
         Darrius looked shocked. “What the hell did you do with him?!”
         “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
         “How’d you do that? What was that?” Alison asked, jaw dropped.
         “It’s something that dark magicians wouldn’t understand. If you spend too much time avoiding light spells, you never even learn what they are.”
         Darrius aimed at Adrian. “Bring him back, or else.”
         “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You may not know where Boone is, but anything that happens to me happens to him double.”
         Darrius lowered his hands. He and Alison looked at each other as though making a decision. “I don’t think you’re telling us the truth.”
         “Are you willing to risk it?” Adrian asked. “Are you willing to risk doing double to your pride and joy what you want to do to me?”
         “Bring him back, now,” Darrius demanded.
         “Or you’ll what? Fry me, and, consequently, twice-fry Boone?”
         “Great,” Alison whispered to her father, “we let him get the upper hand.”
         “Be quiet,” he snapped back. He looked at Adrian. “We’re not leaving until we get Boone.”
         “Well, that’s too bad, because I wasn’t even going to think about bringing Boone back until you left.”
         Alison looked at her dad and then back at Adrian. “Look, fine, we’ll go, but you’d better bring Boone back to us unharmed or—or else.” They walked out the door and got back into their car.
         “Okay guys, all clear,” Adrian shouted. “Sorry about that.”
         “What the hell?” Missy panted.
         “Woo-ee, Abe!” cackled Tiny Gordon as he got out from under the counter. “That was some show.”
         “What is going on?” Missy asked.
         “I’m sorry about that, but, uh, let’s just say the ‘family business’ isn’t chocolate.”
         “You think?!” Missy glared at him.
         Adrian put his hands up defensively. “Hey, don’t look at me; they’re the dark magicians. They’re the evil ones. I’m light. I’m good.”
         “I still don’t trust any of your witchcraft,” she answered disapprovingly. “Hell, I barely trust card tricks.”
         “Well, they’re murderers. The only people I've ever killed they forced me to kill against my will.”
         “You killed people?” she squealed.
         “When I was a kid and had no choice. But look, since seeing the light I’ve saved three-hundred-seventy-two lives. It’s why I became an EMT in the first place. First on the scene, first to keep them from being pronounced DOA. My boss doesn’t know about this; only my buddies on my team do.”
         She still watched him uneasily, not sure what to say next.
         “Look, I’ll just go. I still have a lot of walking to do, although, I’m not sure why. My initial goal was to catch up to them and kill them—they’re evil, remember—and I already found them…but, anyway, goodbye.” He handed her some money for the meal. “Keep the change.”
         “Aw, now Abe!” shouted Gordon. “You’re walking? Where to?”
         “Um, well, my old house, which is probably about four hours by car from here.”
         “Maybe you’ll walk yourself to death, witch,” grumbled Missy.
         “See, now, this is why I’m usually careful about who I tell. Boone, on the other hand, would have been strung up and burned at Salem. Apparently, though, no one got any actual magicians then, because hanging and burning wouldn’t kill one of us.”
         “Well Abe, I ain’t afraid of you,” Tiny Gordon assured him. “Look, I’ve got to take Tiny Gordonia to Yewburgh, about twenty-five minutes from here by truck. I can take you that far, at least.”
         Adrian smiled a little. “Thanks. I think I’ll actually take you up on that offer.”
         “Great! You, me, the old hound, and Gordonia!”
         “And Boone,” Adrian laughed, pulling a small bottle out of his pocket. Boone was screaming angrily at him.
         “Just can’t beat me, can you?” Adrian laughed.
         Boone flipped him off and Adrian put the bottle back into his pocket.



Chapter Six
         “Come on, Abe, my truck’s only a little bit farther up this hill.”
         “This hill is brutal, Tiny Gordon. How do you even get a truck up it in the first place?”
         “I drive it.”
         “Of course,” Adrian panted, trudging up the driveway. “What was I thinking?”
         “There’s our house, right there.” He pointed at the rundown building appearing over the crest of the hill. Adrian noticed a handful of chickens and a goat in the yard.
         “Tiny Gordonia!” Gordon shouted. “Are you ready to head into town?”
         “Coming, dad!” replied a voice. A beautiful blonde walked out of the door in a big red coat. Her face was perfect, and her eyes were an amazing, deep brown. She saw Adrian. “Oh, hello there. Who are you?”
         Adrian barely noticed how beautiful she was, because, no matter what, she was still no Jasmine. “Oh, my name’s Adrian. Your father offered to drop me off in Yewburgh.”
         “Oh, great! The truck’s a four-seater, so we have room.” She motioned toward the old green truck. Decades of rust and dents covered the old vehicle. She whistled. “Come on, Lilac.”
         A dog that looked to be about half golden retriever and half schnauzer bounded over to the truck and hopped into the front seat. Tiny Gordon climbed into the driver’s seat and beeped the horn.
         “Come on, Adrian, let’s go!” She ushered him towards the truck.
         “Oh, quick question—do you prefer I call you Tiny Gordonia or Lucy?”
         “Lucy, please,” she replied as she grabbed the back door. “After you.”
         Adrian slid into the truck. “Thank you.”
         Lucy shut the door behind her as her father started up the truck, Lilac howling along with the sound of the engine. “So,” Lucy asked Adrian, “what brings you out to these parts?”
         “He’s a magician, Tiny Gordonia!” Gordon cackled.
         “Oh?” She looked at Adrian. “I have a deck of cards here in the truck; why don’t you show me something?”
         He shifted in his place. “Not exactly that kind of magician…”
         “He’s got his brother in a bottle in his pocket!” laughed Gordon.
         “Sorry about him,” Lucy whispered.
         “No, he’s not lying,” Adrian replied as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle.
         “Adrian, you son-of-a-bitch,” squeaked Boone, “let me out of here, now!”
         Lucy gasped and then passed out. Adrian slipped the bottle back in his pocket and shook her. “Hey, Lucy! It’s okay—he’s in a bottle. He can’t do anything.”
         She opened her eyes. Blinking a couple of times, she jumped when she saw it was Adrian. “Stay back!” she squealed. “Please, don’t hurt me!”
         “Honey, he ain’t gonna hurt you,” Gordon assured her. “He’s the good guy.”
         Adrian pulled the bottle back out and tapped on the side. “This one’s one of the bad guys.”
         She stared slack-jawed at the little figure in the bottle. “He’s—he’s—“
         “Real? My brother? Evil? Yes on all counts.”
         “Adrian,” threatened Boone, “don’t make me hurt you!”
         “You can’t hurt me, Boone. You’re in that bottle. Go ahead; try it.”
         “I think I will!” Boone cast the blue stream of light again. It reflected off the side of the bottle and knocked him over, screaming.
         “You see? I told you.” He shook the bottle a little. “That should teach you something.”
         “Oh my Lord,” breathed Lucy.
         “Yeah, I’m sorry about him.”
         “This is just too freaky. I feel like I just walked into a children’s book.”
         “Trust me—my life is not appropriate for any children’s story.”
         Boone was coming to again. His head spun around like a pinwheel gone bad.
         “Still don’t believe me about the bottle thing?”
         “Shut up,” he snapped, sitting down cross-legged on the glass with his arms folded.
         “Face it; I’ve got control now.”
         “Put me back in your pocket and let me nap.”
         “No. I don’t think I will.”
         “Put me back!” he demanded. Adrian shook the bottle in response.
         “That’ll put you in your place. You’ve been treating me like your inferior since I was fourteen.”
         “How am I supposed to treat the only magical DeRes to not go to Whitewall?”
         Adrian shook the bottle again. “I’m actually enjoying this, Boone. What I said earlier about not wanting to do this to you—yeah, changed my mind.”
         “It’s true though! I mean, how did you fail that entrance exam? It was so easy!”
         Adrian didn’t answer him, but he shook him fiercer than before.
         “Hey now,” Lucy said, grabbing his wrist. “Is that really necessary? He’s such a cute little guy. He can’t be more than sixteen, right?”
         “I’m eighteen, damn it!” Boone corrected her. “And I’d like to prove it to you as soon as I get back to normal size, if you know what I mean. Of course, not all of me is ‘normal’ size, if you catch my drift.”
         “Ew, creep! Adrian, give me that bottle!” She took Boone from Adrian and shook the bottle with all of her strength.
         “Hey, bitch! I think you broke my finger!” Boone howled.
         “Aw, that’s too bad,” she said sarcastically.
         “I can’t bend it! You’re as dead as Adrian’s last girlfriend!”
         “What’s he mean ‘as dead as Adrian’s last girlfriend’?”
         “That’s what brings me out this way, actually. My brother, sister, and father decided that they didn’t like my girlfriend too well and killed her.”
         Boone laughed. “That’s right! Took her life early, even for a mortal. She deserved it, thinking she could be with my brother.”
         Adrian moved to shake him but quickly stopped. “What did you say?”
         “Um, ‘Took her life early’?”
         “No, after that.”
         “‘She deserved it’?”
         “Farther.”
         “I don’t know what you’re getting at here…”
         “You called me your brother! Boone, you haven’t said that since I was sixteen.” 
         “I slipped,” he grumbled.
         “Aw, family hug!” Lucy chimed in.
         Boone glared at her and Adrian shook his head. “Not going to happen,” he informed her.
         “Especially since I’m like two inches high and trapped in a bottle. Besides, it doesn’t mean I hate Adrian any less, it just means that I used a term from the first half of my life, when Adrian wasn’t a traitor. It happens.”
         “Admit it,” she cooed, “you love each other.”
         “I could crush him like a bug!” both brothers shouted at the same time. They glared at each other.
         “Yeah, right!” Boone laughed.
         “Dude, I’ve trapped you in a bottle.”
         “So what? That doesn’t change anything.”
         “Yeah, it does, actually. I could leave you in there for centuries—in fact, I know a complicated but fun spell to turn you into a genie—and you wouldn’t die of starvation, thirst, or old age. But, if I broke this bottle, you would die in seconds.”
         Boone went a little pale. “You’re lying!”
         Adrian put his hand on the window crank and grasped the neck of the bottle in his other hand. “Are you willing to bet your life on it?”
         “Stop!” Boone cried, grabbing his knees and sliding against the glass side. “Please, stop it, Adrian!”
         Adrian was speechless. Never before had he seen his brother in this state. Boone, who never let his weakness show through, was now trembling and his eyes, already filled with a mixture of pleading and terror, were now starting to fill with tears.
         “Adrian, I’ll do anything, just don’t break the bottle!”
         Adrian realized that his brother had never before felt mortal. For once in his life, Boone actually saw death as a possibility.
         Adrian was starting to soften, but the more he looked at his frightened brother, the more he saw Jasmine, pleading and screaming. He became furious.
         “I should just snap you in half right now,” he snarled.
         “I don’t want to die!”
         “Do you think Jasmine wanted to die?”
         Boone’s lip trembled as he looked at Adrian without saying anything. The he lay down on the bottom of his prison and closed his eyes tight.
         “Get it over with quickly, then,” he sobbed.
         Again, a reaction that Adrian wasn’t expecting. “No—I want to see you suffer.”
         Boone opened his eyes. “Why? We took her pretty quickly, didn’t we?”
         “She actually had something useful to offer to the world, unlike you. You deserve  to be tortured.” He slipped Boone back into his pocket.
         Lucy shook her head. “Man, if my sisters and I fought like this…”
         “I’d kill ya’ll!” Gordon chimed in. “And don’t you even think about locking one of them in a bottle!”
         “I’ll try not to, dad.”
         “Okay, good.” He parked the car. “Well, this is Yewburgh.” Hand extended, he said, “Nice meeting you, Abe.”
         Adrian shook his hand. “Nice meeting you too, Tiny Gordon.” He exited the truck after Lucy.
         “I wish you luck, Adrian, in whatever it is you’re doing.”
         “Thanks, Lucy. I wish you all the best of luck in your life, too.” Adrian walked away as Lucy ran into the building they parked by to escape the cold. “Well, that shaved a good five to six hours off of my time.”
         The road ahead had thin but steady traffic streaming down it. Adrian walked parallel to it, looking at the bleakly gray sky ahead as the snow continued to fall.
         “Isn’t it the sky beautiful, Adrian?”
         “What? Jas, it’s completely gray.”
         “I know.”
         “And that’s beautiful because…”
         “Because, Adrian, it’s different from that persistent three weeks of blue skies we’ve been having. It’s special. It’s unique.”
         “But our picnic is going to be in the rain!” he whined as the first few drops started to hit the windshield.
         “And that’s supposed to be a bad thing?”
         “Well, I mean, yeah, kind of.”
         “Why?”
         “Because we’ll…um, because…”
         “It’s hot out today anyway, Adrian. A little rain will feel nice.”
         He smiled. “I guess you’re right. Gray’s not that bad.”
         Today, however, after two weeks of endless gray days, gray was starting to get to Adrian. “I just want to see the sunny blue skies again,” he whispered to himself. “I just want to know that there’s still light in the world.”
         “Hey!” squeaked Boone from his in-pocket prison. “Hey, Adrian! Yeah, I’m a little hungry down here. What am I supposed to do about that?”
         “You won’t die,” Adrian said, pulling his brother out of his pocket.
         “But I’ll still be incredibly miserable.”
         “Oh wah, poor Boone.”
         “C’mon, there must be some way to feed me.”
         “Oh, yeah, there’s an easy way, I’d just prefer to see you miserable.”
         “I’ll be really annoying if you don’t feed me, you know.”
         Adrian sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
         “So are you going to feed me?”
         “I’ll think about it…”
         “Can we stop somewhere soon?”
         “Now wait a minute! You don’t even know if I’m feeding you yet!”
         “Oh. The ‘I’ll think about it’ wasn’t a ‘yes’?”
         “No, it wasn’t.”
         “Oh.” He paused for a moment. “I want fish.”
         “Just for that I don’t think I’ll feed you anything.”