Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (5 page)

I took the Cask and dropped it into my pocket. It felt much lighter than it had only a few minutes before. I almost still didn’t believe all this, but couldn’t deny that a transformation had come over the Cask. It had grown heavier and hotter, then lighter and cooler. Who’d have known that raw emotion had weight and temperature—and that it smelled like popcorn? Not me.

“What is the emotion used for?” I said.

Nick’s eyes widened with lunacy, and he smiled so big and crooked that I nearly stepped back. He only really lacked an evil cackle. The red flags went up in my head, again.

From his pocket, Nick withdrew a small jar of what looked like purple lip-gloss.

“We turn the emotion into this,” he said.

“Lip gloss? You make glittery lip gloss?”

He held the jar up between one forefinger and a thumb, and rocked it back and forth. A faint purple light emanated from it. He opened his mouth to speak, but behind me, the bathroom door creaked as it opened. My heart leaped.

“Richie!” came Mom’s voice. “Is everything okay in there? You need to get back on stage.”

The door stood open six inches, but she hadn’t poked her head in. Thankfully.

“I’m trying as hard as I can!” I said.

“You okay?” she said.

“Yeah. You know. Just takes a while some times. Did you want to come help?”

“Just hurry. Everyone is waiting for you.”

“I’m still going to be a minute,” I said. “I want to make sure I’m good and done.”

“Okay, okay.”

The door creaked as it shut. My heart pounded as I turned back to Nick. He still held the tiny jar between a forefinger and thumb, and picked up right where he’d left off.

“No, son,” he said. “Not lip gloss. Brink.”

“Brink?”

He nodded. “Bright ink.
Brink
for short.”

“That sounds suspiciously dangerous. I love it.”

“It gets better.”

“What? Is it flammable? Because anything that can burn ranks right up there with nachos and pizza.”

He grinned and unscrewed the jar’s lid. The scent of cinnamon rolls filled the air. He tipped the jar upside down over an open palm. The brink flowed out, thick and slow like cold syrup. It sparkled and glowed, and even tinkled like a distant crystal wind chime. It pooled in his hand, about the size of a quarter.

“Is it hot?”

He shook his head and tipped the jar back up, stopping the flow. He closed his fingers over the brink in his palm, lifted his fist up and turned it forward, closed fingers toward me.

“You feeling tired?”

I nodded.

“Well, feast your eyes on this. You’re gonna love it.”

He opened his hand and moved it through the air. Where it passed, the brink hung in a flat line about an inch wide, like he’d smeared it on a window. The smell of cinnamon roll grew stronger, and the tinkling of crystal louder.

“That,” I said, “is way better than nachos!”

With his palm open, he drew a vertical line about two feet tall, then a widening spiral around it, from bottom to top. He gave the spiral wings, then drew an arrow from the shape to me. Finished, he looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Son, this is how we use the emotion. We transform it into brink, then cast spells with it.”

At some point, your amazement stops increasing. Some people experience this with a fancy new device, or with a particular piece of music or art. It’s so awesome—so amazing—that you couldn’t possibly be more amazed.

I had reached this threshold.

Yet, in books, movies, and games, spells almost always hurt people, sometimes causing very large messes of flesh and blood.

Had Mom known about this stuff? Of course she had. Rule five. No lip gloss or lighters. This was what all her warnings and rules had been about. Maybe even the necklace she’d given me had something to do with this. Just how much did she know? Had Nick used this to get into my dressing room?

“What does this spell do?” I said.

He opened his hand again and scraped it against the jar, so the brink on his palm rejoined the brink inside the jar. He put the lid back on, put the jar back into his pocket, and withdrew a silver lighter. It had grooves in it to improve the grip. The lid had ornate silver vines around it.

“A good lighter,” he said, “is crucial for magic. You want it to light every time you strike it. Now, step back a bit.”

I obeyed. My heart pounded. What kind of mistake was I making? At least I had the wisdom to wonder, even if I discarded the thought.

With his thumb, he flipped up the lid of the lighter. An orange flame jumped up. Without hesitating, he touched the tip of the flame to the bottom of the vertical line.

The brink ignited, burning purple and crackling. The flames spread up the line and spiral, out onto the wings, and up the arrow. It flared bright.

I prepared myself for potential pain or injury, yet didn’t move. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the spectacle.

The flames transformed to pure light. A shaft of violet shot out of the arrow and struck me in the chest. I flinched, expecting a million terrible things.

Warmth filled my body, growing from somewhere inside. It spread through me. The weariness in my muscles faded, replaced by strength. I felt energized.

With a puff, the shaft disappeared. The glowing shape faded, although the memory of the burning spiral with wings remained in my vision. A fine black ash floated down to the floor. It smelled like burnt cinnamon buns.

I grinned. “Holy. Freaking. Amazing.”

“Now,” Nick said. He eyed me with a toothy grin. The crazy look had returned. “Do you reckon you could go out there and wow that audience some more?”

I nodded, but couldn’t speak. For the first time in days, my body didn’t hurt.

“Well then, son,” he said. “What are you waiting for? Go get some more emotion.”

Chapter 9: The long-practiced move

Richie came up with the guitar-smashing routine while we watched footage of old rock stars. I wholly endorsed the idea.

-David Van Bender

I didn’t know if the spell did more than just strengthen my body. Maybe it also quickened my mind and built my enthusiasm. Either way, the second half of the concert passed like a flash. I loved every second of it, and never felt weary.

I worked the crowd. I made them laugh and cheer. Near the end, when I played
Just a Minute (Alone with You)
, nearly every person in the crowd lifted a cell phone into the air. The field became a sea of rectangular lights that extended up into the bleachers all around.

Sandra looked up at me, her lips closed in a beautiful smile, her dark hair touched by a wind. She held up two cell phones and swayed back and forth. Kurt said something to her, and with a smile she looked down and away, as if embarrassed.

I felt it was the best night of my life. I was with my fans and my best friends. I’d met my rock star idol, who’d shared secrets with me and used magic to heal my body. The night couldn’t possibly get any better.

I performed two encores and would have done a third, but at the end of the second switched my guitar out for a regular old Gibson, then pulled a move I’d been practicing for months—a run across the stage, followed by a dive to my knees and slide of a dozen feet, then at the end swinging the guitar over my head and smashing it on the stage.

The guitar shattered. One final burst of flames spouted across the front of the stage. My heart raced. The crowd roared. The lights dimmed. The curtains dropped.

The Cask felt like it would burn a hole in my leg.

I bolted from the stage, to the left, away from Mom.

Chapter 10: It depends on how you define “tricked”

Ah, I love the young and gullible.

-Nick Savage

“What do we do with the emotion now?” I asked.

Nick smiled. We were back in my dressing room. I’d given him the Cask, and he’d promptly placed it back in the box. Strangely, in my heart I could sense the emotion, as if Nick had placed a part of me inside that box. If I closed my eyes and he moved away, I could have tracked the emotion with my heart. I’d never felt anything like it.

Nick stood from the couch. “We transform it into brink by blowing it up.”

“Blowing it up?” Was he joking?

He nodded, gripping the box in both hands and trembling with excitement. He’d nearly been speechless at the heat of the Cask.

“What?” I said. “Like with dynamite? A bomb?”

For just a moment, as he smiled, he looked all the part of an off-kilter rock star. His expression of unruly anticipation matched his extreme outfit and hair.

“A bomb would sure get the job done.”

“Well, then let’s do it. My mom will be here any minute. I’d prefer if she didn’t see it. She frowns on me blowing things up. Usually.”

Fortunately, I’d managed to give her the slip in the confusion after the concert. With luck, she would search for me everywhere but in my dressing room, thinking I’d made a bolt for the crowd. Maybe Sandra and Kurt would distract her.

“We will, son. Soon.”

He nodded and headed for the door. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave now that he’d gotten the emotion.

“What?” I said. “Not tonight? With a bomb?”

“It doesn’t
have
to be a bomb. It could be something like a fire-cracker. But the bigger the explosion, the better.”

This was getting better every second.

I said, “Where are you going?”

Near the door, he turned to me as he tucked the box under one arm and took out his vial of brink from a pocket.

“I’m taking the emotion to a safe place, until we can blow it up.”

“Why isn’t
here
safe? The walls not thick enough? They seem thick enough. I bet they can withstand some decent shock from an explosion.”

He cocked his head to one side and shook it as he unscrewed the lid of the vial.

“Richie. Son. I’ve seen some SOaP agents around. They don’t understand me. Not anymore. They used to, but I’ve changed. I’m not who they think I am—I’m their best chance for defeating the Solar Flare, but they don’t know it yet. This emotion is the best chance we’ve got. They would take it and ruin it, so I need to keep it safe until we can transform it.”

Red flags waved in my mind. I wanted to reach out and take the box from him. Maybe he was the kind of person he warned me against—for that matter, the kind of person Mom warned me against.

Could I trust him?

It was probably a little late to ask that question.

Up until that moment, I’d automatically trusted him because—I realized—as one of the most famous rock stars on the planet, he didn’t need my fame. He didn’t need my fortune.

But it seemed he might need my fans’ emotions.

“You’re going to teach me how to use brink, right?”

“Sure thing.”

He poured some of the purple brink into his hand and motioned for me to step back. I obeyed.

I said, “What are you going to do with the brink once we’ve transformed it?”

He looked at me with narrow eyes, as if evaluating my trustworthiness. My internal sirens blared. I wanted to snatch the box away and bang him over the head with it.

He began to draw a large shape between us, starting with a horizontal line higher than his head. The brink tinkled. It smelled like cinnamon rolls.

“Son,” he said, “not many people know about this power we have as musicians. And people out there who do know, who
know
they’re in charge, don’t
know
that the world should know. But I know the world should know.”

“That’s a lot of knowing. Or not knowing.”

“I know.”

He widened his eyes and pursed his lips. The expression looked ridiculous beneath his spiky hair. He’d finished his shape, a rectangle roughly the size of a door.

“We’ll use this emotion to show the world that there is such a thing as magic. Oh, plus we’ll overthrow evil with it.”

That seemed reasonable, but I imagine Genghis Kahn had sounded reasonable to plenty of people.

“I can keep the emotion safe,” I said. “I’ve got places I can hide it. You know. Under my bed or in my underwear drawer. Mom doesn’t dare look in there.”

He shook his head and drew a line like a spike out from each corner of the rectangle, out away from me. He spoke as he worked.

“Son, people will talk to you when I leave. They’ll tell you I’m a bad person. I was, once, but I’ve seen what the Solar Flare is like. I understand, now, that we have to bring him down. And since this is your brink, I may need your help. Since you have priority with it, and all.”

“What do you mean, priority? Who—what—is the Solar Flare?”

“He’s the leader of the Sunbeams.”

“Sunbeams? Sounds dangerous.”

He shook his head, eyes wide. “You have no idea. And the Solar Flare—I’ve come to understand what power he really has. What his plans are. And how to defeat him. No one else knows this.”

“Then why don’t you tell anyone?”

“They wouldn’t believe me. I’ve been bad in the past, Richie. Worked for the Solar Flare. But now I’ve changed, and no one understands that. I’ve seen the light, so to speak. I’m different than I used to be. Not to mention that they would take the emotions from you. You’re still too naïve not to fall for their lies. I need to keep the emotions for now. You must believe me—and not believe them.”

“Because you’re giving me so many reasons to trust you?”

“I’ll be in touch. This is your opportunity to be part of something big, to get in on the ground on the biggest thing since living in houses.”

He scraped the remaining brink from his hand back into the vial, screwed the lid back on, and put the vial in his pocket. I wanted to take the box from him. Just snatch it away. But if I tried, he might use magic to turn me into something unpleasant. Like a country singer. Or—worse—a one-hit-wonder.

From a pocket, he pulled out his lighter, and lit the top left spike, then in rapid succession lit the other three spikes in a clockwise direction. The flame turned purple as the brink caught fire, spread up the spikes, then around the door. Once the entire shape of brink burned, the space inside the door shimmered and turned into a sheet of white light. It hummed like a florescent tube about to flicker out.