Magic Rising (9 page)

There was a hallway coming off the sitting room, running the length of the building. A couple of doors led from the hallway. One was a bathroom for guests. The next door led to a locked secondary hallway, a buffer zone, that absorbed sound and delayed escapees from exiting by the front of the building. Only people with the security code could travel through that door and into the rest of the compound.

Next was the mess hall. To the sides of the table lined sections was the kitchen and across from there, a lavatory. A single door continued to the library, another to the exercise room, weapons gallery, and finally the leaders’ rooms.

None of that existed now. She walked, finding busted marble and broken stonework. A few gnarled pots remained in what should’ve been the kitchen. From there, she found the first wall, not intact, but with most of it still standing.

Not one of the books from the library had survived. Charred bits of shelving clung to the walls but none of it recognizable from the years before the fire. The exercise room had a taller wall but again, it hadn’t really survived the flames. Melted mats were piled in the corner, nothing but liquefied black squares that had hardened into a single mass.

At last, she came to a door, a heavy wooden door hung with thick metal brackets. The edges of the door had been eaten away, cancerous markings of heat, flame and water, but still it stood. The top had nearly a foot missing in the mighty oak and the bottom several inches. This led to the weapons room.

Despite the rough treatment, the door didn’t want to move. She put her shoulder into it, shoving hard before hearing the squeaks of the rusted hinges. Another shove and it opened enough to let her inside where shadows from a partial roof clung to everything.

The sun’s light glinted off the rusted steel, displaying the ruined artistry of the swords that hadn’t survived. The crossbows were no more. Heat demolished the string, and in some cases, the wooden stocks. Any metal on them had been corroded to the point of a dangerous break if used.

At the back of the room was another door. This one was barely damaged by the flames. Deirdre pushed it open into the final hallway. There was more water damage here than charring from the flames. The hallway continued to a T-junction, with doors at both ends going to the outside and training grounds. The rest of the hall went down to the leader’s rooms and a set of stairs going up three more floors where the youth were housed and classes held. Exit points were few, and only going to the training grounds at the rear. For the adults to go to their dorm for the night, a leader had to escort them. The same went for those who worked in the garden. Everything was managed with careful attention to control those who might long for freedom.

It was hard to see here. This section of the roof had held up through the fire, and was now blocking out the light. A few windows guided her way as she walked to the leaders’ rooms. There were five, all large apartments on this end.

Deirdre performed a cursory search, opening the doors and glancing inside. There wasn’t much left on one side. Soot and smoke coated the curtains, walls, and ceiling. She imagined that most of them had died from smoke inhalation and not burned as she’d hoped.

They should have burned for their crimes
.

The other side of the hall had less damage. She closed her eyes and looked again, fearing that at any moment a leader would appear, walking from one of those deserted rooms and demand she go to the basement.

She walked back to the stairs and started up, moving slowly in case structural damage had occurred. On the second floor, she stopped. A wide room with wooden tables and chairs sat in front of a chalk board. Splatters of water had washed away much of the chalk, leaving gray lines running down the board. The chairs and tables were damaged but mostly from water and time.

To the side, painted on a section of smooth stone, were the names of those who had fallen. Above the names was the word, ‘Failure’. Deirdre went to the list, finding Scorpion. That was her mother’s Stone House name. Her real name was Aidena Flye. Deirdre never knew it until after her death. Even calling Scorpion, “Mom”, would cause severe punishment. That was handled in the basement or on the public grounds. The leaders always celebrated punishments, making them horrible displays that many considered entertainment.

She touched the word, written in black to represent death. Next to Scorpion’s name were Fire Fox, Silver Touch, and Spider. Those were the ones Scorpion had killed before they’d taken her down. Her killer had been Mercury, a giant man with a Jamaican accent and long dreadlocks. At least he’d been merciful. His dark brown eyes looked at Scorpion, while he performed the task without emotion, without the hate of the others. That’s why he’d been successful. There was no room for emotion in combat.

Everyone here was stripped of their birth name. The idea had been a rebirth, a new beginning where human names were lost to those in nature. Most had been given titles to invoke terror. She knew Wolf, Lightning, Black Death, Rat, and Cobra. Since Deirdre had been brought here as a baby, her mother named her. A dark dangerous name wouldn’t do for her daughter. Deirdre had been dubbed Dragonfly.

Deirdre could still hear the other children’s taunts. Black Death, loved to make her life difficult. She tolerated their insults for the first year of her education. At six, she’d had enough. Black Death had to be taken to the infirmary. A week later he returned and never ridiculed her again. From that point, Dragonfly was enrolled in advanced weaponry and martial arts.

It was the first time she ever felt ashamed of an accomplishment. Only her mother understood and warned her to never act weak or remorseful. That was also the day that Scorpion told her about the money and identification she’d left on the outside. If they ever managed to escape this place, they would have to run and never look back.

Escape wasn’t accomplished easily from Stone House. That’s what helped seal their fate when the fire started. Most of the group was eating dinner. Two bombs had gone off, one in the kitchen and one in the sitting room. Those who didn’t burn died from smoke inhalation. The exits were blocked by electronic locks and there was limited access to points on the first floor. The bomb took out most of the power, thereby locking the lower exits. That touch was another security feature in case someone cut the power in a desperate attempt to leave. The fire department had had to break down those doors just to fight the blaze.

Deirdre had always dreamed of escape, willing to risk the lashings if they caught her. With Scorpion dead, there was no reason to stay, then again there was no life to go to, not without her mom. Deirdre had gathered a bag and had made it to the window, jumping to safety simply because she was more afraid of the fire than anything, even being alone in a strange world.

Tears ran down Deirdre’s face. She touched them, looking at her fingers in the light from the window. She never understood tears, a secretion emitted when sadness or pain became overwhelming. It seemed silly and made her snotty. The past couldn’t be changed and grieving wouldn’t help anything. Still, she allowed herself another moment to cry. A world without emotions seemed inhuman. Perhaps that’s what they’d created in her. She didn’t want to consider herself an abomination, yet only that word came to mind.

She left the room and went back to the stairs. She stopped next at the girls’ dormitory. Her room had been on the end. The scent of smoke clung to everything even after all these years, and the darkness was nearly blinding except for the bit of light at the stairs where stained-glass panels of battles were displayed.

Deirdre continued down the narrow walk. Soot covered everything here too, although there seemed to be more smoke damage than anything else. Somehow, most of this horrid house had survived after all.

The door to her room was perfect, no damage on it at all. She pushed it open and stepped into her old bedroom, complete with her sketches still clinging to the walls and the metal wrist and neck guards hanging above her desk.

She pushed back the top cover of the bed and sat on the cleaner surface of sheet below. The board and thin mat serving as a mattress were hard but whole. Everything here had made it, haunting her future and waiting for someone like Ryan Farmer to discover it.

On the walls were her victories, written in red. The various belts she won in competitions hung on a nail near the door. Meets were the only times she was allowed out of Stone House. They let her start at the age of twelve, earning money for the house through wins and contests. She wasn’t sure why, but money for Stone House had been cut off, making supplies scarce and wins even more important.

By fourteen, she was allowed to stay the night with other children during an out of state competition. She’d almost escaped then, but knew her mother would receive the punishment for any unexcused absence. At least she’d been able to see life on the outside and it was beautiful.

There wasn’t time for this.

Everything here had been touched by smoke, like the rest of the house. The window by the bed was broken, the chicken wire that had lined the inside, rusted. Spiders clung in the corners and who knows what lurked under the beds.

There wasn’t much physically connecting her with this place. She would have to go to the records room. Anything damning would be there. Maybe she could glean a clue on what Farmer had found and how to counter his attack.

She sniffled hard and tried to get up. This place still managed to drain the life out of her. She survived. That was the one thing that helped her stand and walk to the door. After living through Stone House, she could survive anything.

Then, on a whim, she opened the closet door, just to see what remained of her weapons. Her body froze, and she thought her knees would give way and spill her onto the floor. She stepped back, watching in terror as a woman’s body shifted, and started falling forward. Deirdre had never screamed, not once in her life but when she saw the corpse, she couldn’t hold the terror inside anymore.

It fell, she moved just in time as the lifeless hull collapsed on the floor. The body had been dead a long time. Most of the skin was gone and what was left looked like leather, preserved, or cooked. It was a woman. The cause of her death appeared to be a stab wound. A handle of a sword or short blade hung in the shirt, the blade rested in the rib cage of the victim.

The terror wouldn’t fade. She saw two things that made her heart race faster and she wished this were some terrible nightmare, something she could wake from and end. One was a necklace engraved in Celtic charms. The second was the ring of a champion warrior at Stone House.

Deirdre knelt down, looking at the bones and leathered skin that avoided decomposition. She knew that woman. Her death was supposed to have been in combat. Deirdre saw Scorpion slain, blood spilling on the training field, but here she was. This body was that of her mother, not dead from the match, not burned on the pyre, not properly respected. Her mother was dead, years gone, and left in a closet to rot like some vermin.

“Mom?” she whispered. “What happened?”

The room swam before her eyes. Deirdre tried to calm down, to think. This was her mother who she’d watched die in the field. Deirdre had been left alone in this place.

“Why?” She held her breath a moment. “Scorpion, why did you leave me?”

The broken hull couldn’t answer. Deirdre reached down and removed the Celtic necklace from around its neck. She didn’t like touching the body but she wanted something to remind her later that she had seen it. With the necklace in her pocket, she wiped her hands on her pants and closed her eyes as she left the room.

Chapter Six

Earl glanced out the window, nervously waiting for Niam. He hadn’t had a drink since yesterday and would start withdrawals soon. Going through that again made his stomach turn. Nothing felt worse than the DTs. The need made him weak, he knew it. He’d been addicted to alcohol going on twenty years and the fact sickened him but not as much as going without a drink. That was hell.

A few times he considered giving up drinking all together. As a younger man he had endured the process of getting clean. Being sober never felt right though. He felt dead when he wasn’t drinking. Some say his wife’s death had done it to him, but Earl knew the problem was more complex. Life in general was too hard and a drink now and again made it bearable.

He paced again, looking out the front window every chance he got. If Niam didn’t show up soon, Earl might put his own mouth around that shotgun. A nasty sweat already clung to him and the shakes were creeping up, hovering on his nerve endings and ready to take hold.

The shakes weren’t the only things riding his nerves. He thought he’d seen those kids from the interstate. There had been someone in the woods nearby. Earl had found the beer cans, no beer, but they left their trash. When he made his way toward the road, he caught a glimpse of some guys heading to their car. Two of them were big boys, football players for sure. They didn’t like old Earl. Once they figured out where he was staying, Earl would have to move and fast. They were mean sons of bitches, too mean.

Outside a red pickup stopped in front of the house. Earl knew the truck, his savior had arrived. The good reverend got out and walked up the steps carrying a large paper sack. Funny, Niam didn’t look like a reverend. He had long black hair he kept in a pony tail and that strange look on his face, like he could turn nasty at any moment. Never mind the scars. He supposed something terrible had given the man religion. Not that Earl cared. He threw open the door before Niam got the chance to knock.