Chapter Seven: Silver Arabic Letters
Two-Bit's eyes were glazed over and his mouth hung slightly open as he stared mindlessly at the television. He wasn't paying attention to much of anything, and that was why he didn't hear Carmen sneaking up behind him.
She crept silently across the room, with absolutely no intention of using sorcery. I'll try this the mortal way, she thought. It'll be an experience.
It certainly was an experience. Approximately two feet from the back of Two-Bit's head, Carmen brought her hands down heavily on Two-Bit's shoulders.
He leapt in shock and whirled around, relaxing when he saw Carmen grinned widely. "Oh. It's you," he commented.
"Yeah, and you were expecting maybe the Tooth Fairy?" Carmen suggested. Two-Bit snickered. "Yeah, where's my quarter?" he joked.
"Where's your tooth?" Carmen shot back. Two-Bit flashed his pearly whites at her. "I'll give you all of them for a hundred."
Carmen shoved him away and hoisted herself over the back of the couch, landing neatly next to Two-Bit. "Hah. Next thing you'll be telling me the tooth fairy's real," Two-Bit muttered more to himself than Carmen as he searched for the remote.
Carmen grabbed the remote just as Two-Bit caught sight of it and switched off the television. "It's no joke. The Tooth Fairy's a very hardworking woman," Carmen said seriously. "I'll never figure out how she does it."
Things never get boring with Carmen around, Two-Bit mused. He pulled his switchblade from his back pocket and flipped it open.
"So? Can we get started? Huh? Can we? Can we? Can we?" he begged like a little kid asking for candy.
Carmen somehow managed to choke out between her laughter, "Yes. Sure." Two-Bit cheered.
There was a noise from the door. Two-Bit leaned over to get a better look at the door. "Hey, someone just put something through the slot."
Carmen stopped laughing and leaned over to look, muttering, "That's weird. Normally they just put it in the mailbox…" she trailed off, eyes wide with horror.
"What? What is it?" Two-Bit demanded. Carmen barely heard him through the roaring in her ears.
There was a violet envelope on the floor where it had come in the mail slot. Carmen tried to speak, but her throat was too dry. She cleared it and tried again, but she had forgotten what she had wanted to say.
Two-Bit had already gotten off the couch and headed to the door to pick up the envelope. He crouched on the floor and turned it over. On the front, in flagrant silver letters, the names: Carmen and Azure.
Two-Bit frowned. "Azure?" he repeated, his brow wrinkling. "My mother's first name. No, don't open it!" Carmen added a second too late.
There was a sound like a volcano eruption. When the smoke cleared, Carmen bit back a laugh at Two-Bit's charred face and his hair sticking up straight. He coughed slightly, and a puff of smoke escaped from his mouth.
Carmen gestured gently with her hand, and Two-Bit winced as things unseen and unheard flitted up to him and began scrubbing his face clean.
Two-Bit, his face clean, although pink from the scrubbing, and his hair still standing on end, turned back to the envelope. "What," he demanded, "was that?"
"I told you not to open it," Carmen sighed. Two-Bit made a face at her and repeated his question.
"It's a warning. From my father," she explained wearily. "He sends those occasionally. You know, kind of like a threatening phone call. He never does anything about it though. Not unless he could find us…"
Two-Bit was already unfolding it. His eyebrows knitted as he turned it over and over, unable to read it. "What does this say?"
"Here, let me see," Carmen said, walking over. Two-Bit handed her the letter, and she squinted at the tiny silver print on the purple paper.
"Oh. It's written in Arabic," she said quietly. "Arabic?" Two-Bit repeated in disbelief. "Can you read it?"
"Yeah. It's kind of weird…Everyone in Lilanazar speaks English, but we all write in Arabic. It says, 'Beware, I'm coming to get you one of these days,' and more of the same garbage. Hang on…"
Her eyes skimmed the page, and she turned it over. "Hah. I knew it. 'P.S. Consider your mortal friend's spell broken. By the time you receive this letter, it will be.'"
Carmen tore the letter in half and looked up at Two-Bit. "I don't know how he'll do it," she said quietly. "But he'll have a hell of a time, is all I can say."
Two-Bit didn't grin. "But will he have broken it?" he asked worriedly. Carmen cast her eyes down. "I don't know," she admitted. "But if he has, he'll be coming soon. We'll have to be prepared."
She looked up at him, eyes intense and questioning. "You can leave if you want to. You don't have to help us."
Leave a blonde damsel in distress? I think not. It's the chivalrous Sir Two-Bit to the rescue!
"No way. You made me a wizard, so I'm going to help you," Two-Bit assured her. Carmen bit back a laugh at his gallantry, especially after those thoughts of his she had just heard.
"Thanks, Two-Bit. But to fight, you have to be ready. So shall we get started?" she suggested, the mischievous glint back in her eyes.
Two-Bit grinned. Now that's what I'm talking about!
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Russell tried his best not to scream as the white-hot sorcery flew from the evil wizard's fingertips and ran its course through his veins.
I would have been better off in hell, he thought painfully. Slowly but surely, the magic loosened its grip on his brain and his memory came flying back. He could have sworn he saw sparks for a moment and heard the wind whistle as the mortal wizard's magic escaped through the window.
"Blast. Lost the magic," Mordred muttered. Russell's knees gave way and he sunk to the floor. "Where are they, boy?"
Russell struggled against his body's will to pass out. "O-out-outside. Outside the…the soda shop…Tulsa."
That having been said, Russell succumbed gladly to the blackness approaching fast.
He gasped and his eyes flew open as a jet of cold water hit him in the face. "What the—?" he sputtered, catching himself as he caught sight of his master glaring at him, wand drawn.
"Tulsa, Oklahoma?" Mordred demanded upon realizing Russell had regained consciousness. Russell nodded, blinking the water out of his eyes and shaking his head like a wet dog.
"Well, well, well," Mordred said deviously, more to himself than anyone else. "Where exactly in Tulsa, boy?"
"Can't…don't remember. Not at her house…not by anyone's house. On the street. She was walking…I ran into her," Russell said vaguely. His head was throbbing, and it was a struggle just to stay conscious.
Mordred tried to keep his temper. "Which street?"
"I…don't know. It was in a bad neighborhood, though…the sidewalks were all cracked and the paint was peeling on everything."
Mordred snorted in disgust. "Idiot, they are always in a bad neighborhood. Financially, they have nothing!" He paced back and forth, fuming. "I must have their exact location, or else risk missing them completely!"
Missing them? Russell wondered, but said nothing. "I mean, I am going to create a potion that will allow us to watch them closely and strategically plan our attack." Russell wished Mordred would stop treating his mind like a book, opened and flipped through at leisure.
Mordred was not finished with his ranting. "This time, I want to make sure my daughter is under my power, and I want her mother and that mortal dead." He said "mortal" as though it meant "scum of the earth."
Striding across the room, each step deliberate and echoing loudly in the large chamber, Mordred chose a book off the bookcase in the corner of the room and flung it at Russell. He doubled over as it sailed into his stomach.
"Look up Spell #72, Section 5.87, Category 4," Mordred commanded. Russell did as he was told, and, having done this enough times before to know what was coming next, began reading the text in a resigned monotone.
"'Boil water to the rim in thy cauldron. Place in thy cauldron five milligrams of essence of sage, eight ounces of powdered bat wing, seven grams of—'"
"Slow down, boy!" Mordred barked. "I can't keep up when you read so fast."
Russell obediently stopped until Mordred was caught up, and then continued at a slower pace.
Carmen thinks she's the only one who has to be obedient? Yeah, right. I'll get my sorry behind incinerated if I disobey Mordred.
"You're right there, my boy," Mordred said idly. Jeez! Russell thought with disgust.
Half an hour passed, with Mordred mixing ingredients and letting the potion simmer. Finally, when turquoise steam began to gently rise from the cauldron, Mordred stood up and strode towards it.
"Come here, Russell, and together let us search for my daughter and the mortal. Perhaps, if we are lucky, we shall find them in that vast 'bad neighborhood'. I cannot do it as quickly as you. I am not a Finder, as you are."
Russell joined his master, bending over the cauldron to peer inside. He concentrated his Finding powers on the cauldron. The substance inside began to swirl ominously. Mordred was holding a slide rule over it, muttering to himself and turning it this was and that.
The blue smoke cleared, and, in the murky green liquid, Russell could clearly see Carmen. She was reading a wizard's manual rapidly, brows knitted and speaking aloud, although Russell couldn't hear a word she was saying.
"Ah…" Mordred said thoughtfully. "Perhaps she has received our threat, and has taken it seriously."
Russell sighed. "Why must you send those letters out every month, master?" he asked wearily. Russell despised those letters. He had lost many nights of sleep staying up, painstakingly writing out those tiny Arabic letters, while Mordred dictated.
Mordred would have written those letters himself, but he was unable. In Lilanazarian terms, he was illiterate.
"To keep them on their toes. They should know I haven't forgotten them," Mordred explained. It took all of Russell's willpower not to roll his eyes. He sometimes thought his master was half-crazed, though whether it was from power or obsession with finding Carmen, he didn't know.
Meanwhile, the scene changed inside the cauldron. Mordred looked as though he was arguing with himself.
"Hmmm," he said aloud. "If I add wormwood to get sound, the vision will turn blurry and black-and-white. If I don't, we see perfect picture but hear nothing."
Watching the silent movie before them, Mordred muttered, "Mat as well," and painstakingly measured out seven perfect drops before adding it in.
Mordred and Russell bent over the cauldron to see the blurry and black-and-white scene play out before them, although with excellent sound effects.
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Carmen ducked just in time. Two-Bit's left sneaker sailed over her head and hit the wall behind her.
Two-Bit stood in the center of the room, switchblade in hand and sock-footed. "Oops," he said sheepishly.
Carmen threw his shoes back at him. "Again," she commanded. "You're focusing too much on moving the actual object, and you're losing control. You're getting too enthusiastic. Concentrate more on the actual wand movement, all right?"
Two-Bit nodded. He focused on moving his left shoe, and carefully moved his wand in the complicated pattern the manual had diagrammed.
He felt the shoe slipping out of his control again as it rose gently into the air, and he stopped focusing on that and concentrated on his switchblade. The shoe dropped to the floor.
His shoulders sagged. "I'll never get this," he lamented. "Why couldn't I have been, like, a hypnotist or something?"
"Because a wizard's the best thing you can be when you're not born with natural powers of hypnotism or whatever. Sorcerers and wizards are born with raw power and can do anything with it. Hypnotists are limited to hypnotism," Carmen explained.
"Well, if I wasn't a wizard, what would I be?" Two-Bit asked, now curious. "A magician. You'd probably end up doing cheap card tricks in a pool hall somewhere," Carmen said.
"But wizardry is all…math! Geometry and all that," Two-Bit sulked. "Oh, do shut up!" Carmen said exasperatedly.
The door slammed and Carmen's mother entered with her arms full of groceries. "Two-Bit? Here again?"
"What, you don't like my company?" Two-Bit pretended to be hurt. Azure shoved her groceries into Carmen's arms, saying, "Put these away for me. And save the bags."
Carmen immediately did so, though rather hastily. When she bounded back into the room, Two-Bit was levitating the shoe again. She and Azure both ducked simultaneously.
Carmen was the first to cautiously raise her head when nothing happened. "Two-Bit, you've done it!"
"By George, I think I've got it!" Two-Bit exclaimed happily. He waved his wand in a figure eight, and the shoe followed suit.
He let the shoe drop and bent over to tug it back onto his foot. "Wahoo!" he cheered.
"All right!" Carmen said, slapping him a high-five. She picked up the wizarding manual that was lying open on the table.
"All right. Let's move on," she said. Two-Bit groaned and flopped on the floor. "Carmen, I'm beat. It's your turn."
"All right, then," Carmen said. "Mom, where's the sorcery books?" Azure snapped her fingers twice, and they came sliding, down the banister and on the floor, resting at Carmen's feet.
"Okay. Let's get started," Carmen said, flipping the book open to where she had left off.
Minutes later, there was an explosion that shook the whole house. It was fortunate that Azure and Carmen had enchanted the house to appear perfectly normal to anyone outside it, regardless of what was going on inside.
Two-Bit and Azure were in shock. Carmen stood in the center of it all, grinning sheepishly. "Oops?" she ventured.
Two-Bit shook his head sadly. "And I thought I was bad at wizardry."
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