Bad Apple (The Warner Grimoire) (8 page)

“Power,” Nathan said slowly. “For his master, and the Old Dominion. They need foot soldiers to fight their battles, fodder for their war.”

“Master?” Simon said. It scared him--how could someone like Boeman serve another? What monster could hold his reins?

“Yes,” Nathan said. “A wicked man, if you can even still call him one.” Nathan eyed the firefighters in the street. “These men are going to have a hard time with that spellfire. Sam tried to hold it back, but it was too much for him to hold out for very long. He’s out of practice, and Boeman has strength only the old can know. He’ll be halfway back to his lair in the Volobog by now.”

“Then what happens?” Simon asked. “He’ll be...broken?”

The look on Nathan’s face was all the answer he needed. He swallowed the lump of fear in his throat and grabbed his backpack from the table. “We need to get him back,” he said, trying to sound strong, to hide the waver in his voice. “We can’t let him be
broken
.”

Nathan looked at Simon and laughed a small, quiet chuckle. “Brave kid. Like your old man,” he said, and Simon felt another slight twinge in his heart. Nathan must have seen it, quickly adding, “He was a good guy, your dad. You’re real dad, I mean. Sam too, yes, but, I meant Thomas...” Another deep breath. “I don’t know what all Sam has told you, but--”

“Nothing,” Simon snapped. “I’ve just...I’ve always lived with him.”

Nathan looked away. “It...I...” He looked over at Molly. “We need to get going. Ms. Molly, for Sam’s sake.” He swallowed. “Will you watch their home?”

Molly stared across the street at the green fire. “Magic?” she said, her eyes searching Nathan’s face for the truth.

Nathan produced a small seed from one of his pockets. Silently, he put it to his lips, then set it on the table. Quietly the husk split open, and tiny green roots began to poke out and dig into the table. Within moments a plant had taken full root in the table, growing to half a foot in height, when a bright purple bloom appeared. The flower blossomed and stretched towards Molly, who tightened her jaw, but did not make a noise. Then, just as quickly as it came, the flower was gone, already wilting. A moment later the entire plant had crumbled to dust and was gone.

Molly, ever the stoic, took this impossible event in stride. Slowly she nodded and asked, “Where are you going?”

Nathan considered his words for a moment. “Somewhere,” he said. “A place where we have built a home for ourselves.” He ran his hand through his hair. “A hidden place where we will find help.”

Another slow nod. “How long?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan said. “Not long, I imagine. Help will either find us, or…”

Simon looked up at Nathan. “What?”

Nathan let out a deep breath. “I hate to admit it, but where we’re going, it’s curse or be cursed.” Nathan stuck his hand in one of his many pockets, drawing out a silvery white stopwatch. “Oh, hey,” he said. “Free silver. This should do.” He grabbed Simon by the shoulder. “Grab your bag. We have people to meet.”

#

They left the firehouse and quickly made their way to the edge of town, until the last row of houses smashed up against the woods, then they found the old train tracks heading south out of town. They followed the tracks for almost an hour when Nathan abruptly turned left at a fallen tree and started straight into the wilderness. Another hour passed when they finally reached the river bank. The moon was directly overhead by then, lighting their way as they went further from town into the wilderness.

Dread began to claw at Simon. He had expected to find somebody, anybody, waiting for them when they reached the river bank, but instead, they found only fog and the chirping of cicadas. Bugs ate at him. “We’re really meeting somebody out here?” he said finally, breaking the silence.

“Friends,” Nathan said. “Should be here any time.”

Simon looked over his shoulder where they had broken through the trees. The bank dropped down right to the river’s edge, where huge trees towered over them and the water. For a moment Simon feared eyes were on them, great and terrible things watching them from just out of sight. A strange mixture of fear and concern began to overwhelm him. Nathan was supposed to be a friend, and Sam had brought him in to help, but that was before the fire, before the abduction. Simon found himself relying on this complete stranger in a way he had not expected, and he had followed him into the woods without question. Had he acted foolishly. He had followed Nathan away from his home and Molly and Zoey down to the river.

They waited. Cold air rolled off the river, sticking to Simon’s skin and making his bones feel like ice water. He tightened his jacket around him and rubbed his hands over his arms, wondering all the time just who these friends could be.

Another hour passed in complete silence when Nathan began to look concerned. He paced up and down the river bank, his hands jammed into his pockets and his eyes fixed firmly on the river. Simon sat on the ground nearby, huddled into a ball for warmth, watching Nathan as he walked back and forth.

“Mr. Tamerlane--”

Nathan tilted his head but didn’t stop walking. “That is absolutely unnecessary, Simon. Please, call me Nathan.”

This got under Simon’s skin unexpectedly. “Got it,” he said. “Sorry.”

Nathan stopped pacing. He gave Simon a thoughtful look that seemed to last for hours, then finally he walked over and plopped down on the ground next to him. “No worries,” he said. “Better to have manners than not.” He flipped through his mental book again, then he checked his watch and pulled out his leather book. Simon peered over at it. It was a little bigger than a paperback, a journal of some sort from the looks of it. It was bound in dark brown leather with blood red material on the corners and the spine. A symbol of a leaf shimmered in silver on the cover.

“What is that exactly?” Simon stared at the leaf. “Spell book?” It seemed too stupid to be right, but how far off could he be?

“Close,” Nathan said, snapping the book shut. “It’s called a grimoire. It’s like a...like a textbook, or a planner, I guess, and a journal, good for keeping track of accounts and things.” Nathan ran his fingers over the leathery cover, his fingers tracing the leaf symbol. “It’s very important. Very necessary in my line of work.”

Simon stared at the silver leaf on the cover. It seemed familiar, like some half-remembered dream. Searching his mind yielded only ghosts of memories, phantasms without names or places to ground them. The closest he could envision was a woman’s voice, soft and quiet, like a lullaby. As hard as he tried to remember more, that was the limit of his memory. “What do you do?” he asked.

Nathan gazed off into the waters. “A lot.” His eyes flittered across the surface of the river, towards the crickets chirping just off shore, over by the trees and then the overgrowth. He eyed the grimoire in his hands. When he finally spoke, his voice was ash. “So you really don’t know anything, do you?”

Simon’s cheeks ran hot. “Yes I do,” he said, defensively. He took a small breath and asked what had been burning in his mind since the firehouse. “I know you knew my parents.”

“Tom, yes.” Nathan checked his watch again, the lines in his face crimping into a grimace. “Your mother, too, but only a little. Wonderful woman, especially to put up with your dad like she did.” A small smile forced itself on his face. “We used to work together, he and I. Used to track revenants out west.” He looked at Simon, who only stared at him. It was so strange, after all this time, to hear his parents talked about so casually, not like mysteries, but like people. Nathan cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his hair. “They were good,” he said. “As good as you can get.” He handed the leather book over to Simon. “Here, take a look. Probably none of it will make any sense, but no harm.”

Simon took the grimoire in his hands. As he opened it a small sensation like a raindrop ran down his neck. Unsure whether it was excitement or fear, he flipped to a page at random, only to find it filled with diagrams and notes, all handwritten and scrawled over every available inch of space. Flipping forward he found more drawings, this time they reminded him of his geometry homework, all circles and triangles and, off to the side, what looked like algebra equations, but with symbols rather than letters, none of which Simon had any hopes to recognize.

Impulsively, Simon flipped to the very front of the book, and on the first page was a handwritten inscription, which read:

NATHAN ALAN TAMERLANE

BORN IN A SUMMER STORM, RAISED IN THE RAIN

JOURNEYMAN - GOOD STANDING

DIVISION NO. 713

THE GREAT HALL OF THE FREE AND ACCEPTED MANCERS OF NOVA MUNDUS

REESTABLISHED 1680.

SIGNED, NICODEMUS LIMNIC, ARCHMANCER

“Inscribed by the former Archmancer himself,” Nathan said, a look of profound sadness on his face.

Simon handed the book back over to him, feeling he didn’t have the right to hold it anymore, let alone leaf through it at random. “Who are the Mancers of Nova Mundus?” he asked after a moment. The name was almost carbonated on his tongue.

“Our people,” Nathan said. “Nova Mundus, the New World. Witchbreed of all kind came to this land during the colonial times. Witches, wizards. Almost anyone or anything like us.”

The next question burst of him. “What about warlocks?”

Nathan hesitated. “No,” he said. “At least, not for long, usually.”

“Boeman said I was one. A warlock. Is there much difference?”

Nathan didn’t answer right away. His face was long and drawn out in the moonlight, and suddenly he seemed very aged. He looked out over the waters again, his eyes upstream. “Many differences, Simon. Warlocks are...” his voice was distant and low. “There’s a few big differences. That means a lot, where we’re going.”

“So, is that what I am?” Simon asked. “Are they bad, like Boeman? Am I--”

“Quiet.” Nathan jumped to his feet. “Stay behind me. Something’s here.” He motioned behind him.

Simon swallowed his question, suddenly angry to have been cut off, but he crept to his feet regardless, moving slowly, straining to look upstream, expecting Streaker or Boeman to come bursting out of the fog at any moment. The air had changed, he could feel it, and now something did seem to be happening. Someone, or
something,
was coming.

Silence cloaked the area. Simon finally stood beside Nathan, who held stone still, his hands held out at his sides. Simon strained to hear a noise, any noise, any clue of what to expect. His mind wandered from Boeman and Streaker to other possibilities, to bizarrely shaped shadow creatures that almost threatened to overrun his imagination. With a sudden, intense shudder Simon recalled his dream, questioning now just how much of it could be real, and how many other creatures might have been there. What else could be moving around in the night?

Splashing. A low, quiet noise out in the fog, growing steadily louder, yet Simon could not see where it came from. He braced himself as best he could, trying to steel his mind for whatever creature or beast was about to come sloshing out of the fog. Whatever came, horrible or unimaginable, Simon promised himself he would be ready, but his stomach started to churn, and he finally admitted to himself that he was ready to run, all the way back home if he had to. He stepped back, ready to take flight, when Nathan grasped him by the wrist and held him there.

The splashing grew.
It
was getting closer. Simon’s imagination went wild, filling his mind with terrible suggestions of what was coming. Everything turned inward on him, and he was awash in absolute, mind-shaking fear. Finally, a figure emerged from the fog.

It was a frog.

It made no sense, and his mind spasmed at the sight, but nonetheless a frog was advancing very deliberately on them, paddling himself along on a lily pad with a tiny stick he used for an oar. He stood about a foot tall and carried a tiny lantern on top of his twig. The frog paddled along, humming to himself as he made his way ashore. As it came closer his lantern turned out to be a firefly, which flickered one last time and flew away as the lily pad coasted to a stop several feet from the shore.

He swore his eyes were tricking him, but as the frog drew closer Simon could see the frog was fully dressed in a small and elegant uniform, like something an admiral might wear. On its head, though, was a tiny, floppy straw hat.

Nathan’s shoulders relaxed. He stepped closer to the water and whistled a small, songbird-like tune. The tiny frog cocked its head towards the sound, then after a moment, whistled back a response. Another whistle from Nathan, then the frog began to paddle towards them. When he reached the embankment Nathan stepped forward, waving Simon to follow.

The firefly flew high over the frog’s head, the light reflecting in his small, black eyes. The frog spoke with a thick Creole accent. “Dis’ the boy?”

“Hello,” Simon said quietly

“Oh he speak!” The frog smiled at Nathan. “He’s talent!”

Nathan spared a smile towards the frog. “Please, Lungwort, play sweetly with him.”

The frog hopped furiously. “Names! Names! Mind yourself Tamerlane, or I leave now!”