The Wizard Returns: Book Three of the Wizard Born Series (6 page)

“I think they make a very attractive couple, don’t you? People noticed. I saw quite a few turn in their seats to look at them.”

“They look especially handsome sitting next to our kids. Our children are so beautiful, Rachel.”

“They’re not really children anymore, Lisa. They’re almost adults.”

They sat silently for a moment, their coffee cups resting in their laps, the only sound coming from a pair of cardinals, the first Rachel had seen that year, flitting in and out of the bushes behind them.
They’re building their nest
, she thought idly.
They’ll have baby chicks soon. They’ll be busy little parents
.

Rachel closed her eyes and rubbed them with the fingertips of one hand. “Oh, Lisa, what are we going to do when our kids leave for college? Look at us! It’s still six months away, and we’re already pitiful.”

Lisa didn’t answer right away. She turned and looked at Jamie’s two-story clubhouse and playset, still standing in the back of the yard. Not far behind it was the creek where their children used to explore, often capturing frogs, crayfish, and other wildlife, and bringing them show to their mothers as great prizes.
Take that outside right now!
Rachel had said more than once, pointing firmly at the door.

Lisa turned back to Rachel, one corner of her mouth turned up slightly. “How about when Adele gets here, we go down the street and meet that new family? You know, just kinda introduce ourselves? Get them used to us before we start borrowing their little girl.”

“Lisa, you are crazy! They’ll probably call the police on us.”

“Maybe if we take them some brownies or something. Do you have any brownie mix?”

“No. My mom is the brownie maker, remember?”

Lisa sighed deeply and leaned back in her rocker. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to adopt, then. Some nice little girl.”

She almost sounds serious
. “Adopting is expensive. Carl and I looked into it, before Jamie was born, and we couldn’t afford it after we bought this house. If Eddan the Sorcerer hadn’t helped me get pregnant, I might never have had children, natural or adopted.”

“And you thought you were just buying a house from him. What a bonus, huh?”

“And I had no idea. I never felt a thing. He probably cast a spell on me when I sat across from him at the real estate agent’s office.”

“Good thing he did.” Lisa said, bobbing her head. “You know, I’ve heard it’s easier to adopt slightly older kids, ’cause everybody wants babies.” Lisa’s face grew bright. “We don’t want to mess with diapers anyway, do we?”

Rachel began to feel excited about Lisa’s fantasy. “But not too old,” Rachel said with a nod. “Because then they get attitudes.”

“Right. Not too old and not too young. Maybe seven or eight. No older than that.”

“With dark hair, for a change.”

“Big, dark brown eyes. Pretty face.”

“And sweet. She’s got to like cuddling.”

“And she’s got to have a little magic in her.”

“All children do, Lisa.”

“Hah! Yes, they do. But then it’ll be a problem with Adele. She’s gonna want to share this girl, too, you know. Garrett doesn’t like magic.”

“They don’t have to know about that. It won’t be a problem.”

“No. We’ve managed to keep our kids’ magic a secret.”

“Garrett won’t find out.”

Lisa tilted her head back and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Come here, little dark-haired girl. We’re calling you.” She grinned at Rachel. “That ought to do the trick.”

Chapter 6

Jamie knocked on the door to the Video Productions classroom and entered. Harvey sat in a wooden chair, feet propped up on a desk, a small paper bag in his lap, holding what remained of a sandwich. He motioned Jamie in with his free hand but didn’t speak, his cheeks stuffed with food.

“Don’t get up, Harvey.” Jamie closed the door behind him. “Do you have the footage from Friday night’s game handy?”

Harvey swallowed and pointed at the computer monitor on the desk in front of him. “It’s loaded and cued up, right to where Rollie enters the game, just like you asked.” He put his feet on the floor and scooted his chair over. “Wanna watch it now?”

“I gotta hurry so I can still grab some lunch before my next class.”

He joined Harvey at the desk and the lanky boy said, “What did you want to see it for, anyway?”

“I’m, uh, looking to see if I can show this to Coach Rawlins. Bryce thinks Rollie should try out for track.”

“Rollie’s
fast
. It was hard to keep a tight shot on him. Had to zoom back most of the time so he wouldn’t run out of the frame.” He tapped the computer keyboard and nodded at the large monitor. “Watch, and you’ll see what I mean.”

The video began with Rollie slapping hands with A.J., the starting guard, and taking his place on the court. Harvey said, “I edited out some of the boring stuff already.” In the next scene, Rollie zipped to the other team’s guard and pressured him into making a bad pass. “Look at
that
. Rollie’s so quick, that other guy didn’t have a chance.”

“Yeah, he’s quick,” Jamie muttered.

The next scene, North Henderson inbounded the ball from beneath their own basket and Rollie dibbled quickly down court, streaking around defenders like they were standing still. Harvey grabbed the computer’s mouse and began scrolling through the video. “You can’t really tell in this footage, but there’s a spot coming up where Rollie runs so fast that he practically blurs. I mean, he was out of focus or something. I kept adjusting the camera, but sometimes...I don’t know. Maybe we need a better camera for this class. I’ve been telling Mr. Steele that all year, but he keeps saying it’s not in the budget.”

“Maybe it’s not the camera. Maybe it’s Rollie. He’s too fast for the camera.”

“Yeah, he is.”

He doesn’t realize that I’m serious
.

“Okay, here it is.” Harvey pointed at the screen. “Watch this.”

On the video, a player from the other team lobbed a pass to a teammate, but Rollie dashed in front of it and blazed down the court. Then he seemed to go out of focus, and nearly ran out of the frame before the camera jerked into position and caught Rollie laying the ball into the basket.

“See that?” Harvey said. “He’s all blurry.”

“What if you had a high-speed camera?”

“We don’t have one.”

“Is there somewhere you could rent one?”

“Argent Video. They’ve got ’em, I think.”

“Is it expensive?”

“Don’t think so, but the school sure can’t rent one. I can barely get Mr. Steele to pay for blank tape for the old camera.”

“Okay.” Jamie patted Harvey on the shoulder. “Thanks. You were a lot of help.”

* * *

The demon sat beside a tree and picked through the bones that lay next to him on the ground, hoping to find a remaining morsel or two. The long-legged, brown-furred animal had presented a challenging hunt, fast and able to leap and change direction quickly, but had eventually tired before the demon killed it with one swipe of his clawed hand across its throat.

Now it was just a pile of bones, and the demon’s stomach was only half full. He picked up a femur and paused when a light breeze blew by, bringing with it a scent of prey. It was the same scent he’d smelled when he first arrived on this world, of a two-legged, nearly hairless animal that had a sweet taste.

He rose silently, fighting the instinct to throw back his head and roar, and loped down the trail in search of the source of the scent, using his nose as his guide.

* * *

Carl waited until dinner was nearly over before bringing up the subject that had been bothering him all day. “I got a call from a buddy this morning, Hank Carlan. He’s a park ranger. There’s been another bear attack.”

Rachel gasped. “Another one?”

Jamie’s eyebrows drew down. “What do you mean, another one?”

“There was one a week or so ago. Couple campers got killed on the Appalachian Trail just north of here. Another one got killed two days ago, a male, hiking alone.” He stretched his mouth tight across his teeth. “All they found was a hand. They used the fingerprints to identify him.”

“Oh my.” Rachel pressed one hand to her chest. “What are they going to do?”

“They’ll try to trap the bear.”

“Not with one of those steel kinds with teeth that clamps on their leg, I hope,” Jamie said. “Those are inhumane.”

“They’ll use one of those big cylindrical ones. They bait it with meat, and when the bear enters the trap, a metal door slams shut behind it.”

“What’ll happen to the bear?”

“They’ll probably destroy it.”

“Why? The bear is just trying to survive.”

“Jamie, they have to. Once a bear develops a taste for human flesh, it’ll always be a threat. We can’t let it go on killing hikers, can we?”

“No.” Jamie stared at the table. “Just don’t tell me about it when they do, okay? I don’t want to know.”

* * *

Jamie sat with Fred and Bryce for most of Friday night’s game against Roberson High, but when North Henderson went up by twenty points midway through the second half, Rollie got off the bench. Jamie stood, too.

“Where are you going?” Fred asked.

“I want to talk to Harvey for a minute.” Jamie hoped Fred couldn’t tell he was lying. “He’s filming the game.”

“Well...don’t stay too long.” She blew him a kiss as he walked up the steps behind them. “I get lonely.”

“You’ve got Bryce to keep you company,” he said over his shoulder, then he focused on where he was stepping, careful not to trip. He’d done that before, more than once.

Jamie didn’t want to talk to Harvey. He wanted to sit where he could use his magic sense while he observed Rollie, and he would have a better view of the whole court from the middle, even if it was up high in the bleachers. Plus, he didn’t want Fred to distract him.

There was plenty of room right below the platform that held the camera tripod, and Jamie waved a quick hello to Harvey before settling on a seat.

Jamie planned to use his magic slow-motion vision, a trick he’d inherited from Eddan. The only times he’d ever used it was during stressful situations, like the night Renn tried to kill him, but Jamie was pretty sure he could call it up when he wanted to.

Jamie turned his attention to the court and focused on Rollie. Jamie didn’t want to use the heightened sense all the time, only when Rollie made one of his explosive sprints down court.

Jamie sat, tense as a baited mousetrap, watching Rollie dash about, harassing the other team’s ball handlers when he was on defense, dribbling and passing when he was on offense. Several times Rollie seemed on the verge of making a break on the ball and Jamie called up his power, only to have a false alarm. Jamie felt warm beneath his purple North Henderson High sweatshirt and a trickle of moisture ran down his side from one armpit.

Then Rollie flashed to a lazy pass. Jamie called up his power and the whole court seemed to slow as if they were playing underwater. Rollie pushed the ball to the floor with one hand as he dribbled ahead, but it took seconds to reach the polished hardwood, to Jamie’s magically enhanced eyes. Rollie took a step and blurred, then vanished momentarily, only to reappear another couple of yards ahead, then blurring before vanishing again. The pattern repeated — blur, vanish, reappear; blur, vanish, reappear — all the way down the court, until Rollie slowed near the basket and laid the ball up for a score.

Oh — wow!
Jamie thought.
What in the world was that? I’ve never seen anything like it before
. He sat there, open mouthed, watching the game, until Rollie broke on another bad pass and it happened again. Blur, vanish, reappear. Jamie put the fingertips of one hand to his temple and blinked hard, realizing that he felt the magic tingling stronger than ever, and he wasn’t sitting by Fred.

Rollie’s using magic
.

Lanny’s Pizza rocked again with the sound of exuberant teenagers, still pumped up from their basketball victory. Jamie waited until Fred, Melanie, and Tanisha went to visit some friends at another booth before leaning across the table and telling Rollie and Bryce what he’d seen earlier that night at the game.

When Jamie finished, Rollie stared back at him, hands behind his head, eyes as hard as his tone. “I can’t believe it. Just can’t believe it. And I thought you were my friend.”

“What?” Jamie said. “I
am
your friend.”

“Doesn’t sound like it right now. Sounds like you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous. I’m just trying to help.”

Rollie leaned forward and put both hands flat on the table. “I’m finally having some success,
finally
, after all these years of playing sports, and now you want to ruin it...to...to make it into something else.”

“Rollie....” Jamie looked away for a moment and gathered his thoughts before facing Rollie again. “You’ve always been better at sports than me.
Always
. At everything. Baseball, swimming, soccer, football, you name it, you’re better at it. I’ve always wished I was as good as you, but it ain’t gonna happen. I’ve accepted that.”

Bryce crossed his arms. “Then why do this now?”

“Because something
very
strange is going on, and Rollie needs to know. Denial is never good.”

Rollie stared at Jamie for a long time, working his lower jaw like he was chewing hard gum. “What if I say I don’t believe you?”

“I’m prepared for that, and I think I can prove it to you. If you see it with your own eyes, will you believe me?”

Rollie answered with a small shrug.

“Then I need you and Bryce to come over to my house tomorrow when you guys get off work.”

“Why me?” Bryce asked.

“I need your help. I’ll show you why tomorrow.”

* * *

The afternoon sun was tilting toward the tall pine trees at the back of Jamie’s yard when he checked the rented high-speed video camera one more time, making sure it was set up correctly and firmly attached to the tripod. He had placed it at the edge of his long grassy lawn next to the camellia bushes; his house was on his right and the clubhouse on his left. Bryce and Rollie stood nearby, idly tossing a football back and forth.