Battle Mage Chapter 18

The second rewind chapter as Act 3 is poised to begin. Timothy's lineage is explained and we get to see a glimpse of how all this madness began.

She came to visit her blood relative once in the orphanage. It was a rundown giant of a building fitted with four stories, endless rooms with minimal furnature, and overlooked a part of town that lacked in hope. The building screamed unending colonies of bugs, arachnids, and rats without actually coming across one herself on the way up the flight of stairs. Her Matriarch designer shoes echoed against stone with every move up to the door. She could almost imagine the ground tearing away with its decay. She could almost feel that an attacker could come any second and swipe her purse of her jewelry from her bag.

Lindsey however was a strong woman. Actually she was about the age of fourteen but she was often told by her domineering mother to never reveal her true self to anyone. Her age, her love of bacon and barbecue, and her admiration for Sesame Street even in her older years was not meant to be anyones knowledge. She had been kept out of the public eye until they were sure they could sell her in the right light.

Fortunately her mother did not know that she was here. She had spent the past three years writing to “her pen pal” under the radar. Her brother, what little she felt she could remember him had always responded with horrible handwriting and positive vocabulary. It was like talking with a close friend she never had. When his letters would arrive in the mail, it was like a birthday present.

Lately she started to feel a sadness coming from his responses. Mrs. Gardner had come to town and brought the family to attend some sort of generic social gathering.

Lindsey knocked on the door. She sat there stairing at the unopened space. She couldn’t hear any sounds of people coming to open it, but she could hear children laughter and crying throughout the rest of the building. Some adult was scolding someone, and two kids, from what she could tell were getting into a verbal altercation. The door was still closed and she stared through it, believing at any second it would open and she would be able to see her brother.

She counted the seconds knowing a blink would occur and it would be open, but time passed on. When she was thinking that maybe no one heard her knock, she looked to the left and the door began to rattle. The knob turned and slowly she saw a blinding light from the inside. This was her brothers home, and she was getting ready to enter his world.

“Hi, can I help you?” It was an elder woman. Perhaps a good decade or two from reaching the last set of stages of her life. Lindsey chuckled at her dark sense of humor.

“I am here to see Timothy…oh dear, I forgot his last name. Well, maybe he is using mine. I am here to see Timothy Gardner.”

The grey haired woman stared at her, sizing her down.

“It is the outfit, isn’t it? I am sorry but I don’t have any normal clothes.” Lindsey didn’t realize just how priviledged that statement was until it came out of her own mouth. She then just stood there tense, nervous, and not sure how to procede.

“Come with me. But be careful.”

She walked in and watched her world go from extravagance to the horror stories her mother would tell her of the poor and impoverished. Two children to her right where running around in disgusting, stained and blotched clothing with strategic rips for maximum poverty effect. She found herself holding her fashion statement purse close.

Lindsey was told to stand tall and never show weakness, it was easy to do this around the bad neighborhood for some reason, however here, when heads were slowly turning. The elder woman infront of her smelled of some cheap air freshner. Again she laughed at her dark sense of humor, she could smell the age reeking from her body. Her poor brother.

A receptionist stopped them. “What is going on? Who is she?”

“Spalding’s sister I take it.”

Was that his name now?

“Miss, are you sure you should be dressed like that in this place? You want me to hold onto your belongings? We have had a string of thefts in this place and I don’t want anything to happen to…”

Lindsey turned her nose up at the receptionist. “I can take care of my own stuff.”

“This way. Mr. Spalding should still be..”

A loud voice rang out, “You can burn in hell!”

She looked to the direction of the room the noise came from and saw her young life flash before her eyes. She made a mistake in coming here and now she was going to die by some random mugging, “You can go to hell” was going to be the last words she ever heard. But it wasn’t. She walked two steps more and saw two kids playing a broken game board game of monopoly.

They looked like generic brats with dirty blonde hair and scrappy young faces. They looked like the type of friends or family that often would get into physical altercations atleast once a day but in the end, they would play their games, watch their television and even share their late night dinner as if they were the only company the other had in the world. Instantly Monopoly pieces sprayed into the air as one of the kids had rage quit.

“I told you to not do that!” A kid huddled into the corner, watching but not participating in the game yelled while cowering hoping his outburst had not inspired one of them to be violent to him.

The taller dirty blonde kid looked to the socialite child and instantly smiled.

“And what can I do for you?”

“You can do nothing Mr. Jackson.” The old lady shot a look at the feisty child. The lady then grabbed Lindsey’s hand a bit forcefully. “And now we are back on our way.” She did one final look at the chaos she had stopped further, “You will have this mess cleaned up and your hair dignified when I get back or your supper rations will be less this night. Do you hear me Mr. Jackson?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Lindsey felt the tug and realized she may have just made the biggest mistake in her life coming out here. She felt her shoes make uneven steps. The drag on her wrist didn’t hurt but it was an annoyance. The tug did not last long as they made their ways to the stairs on the east side of the building. The barbaric world seemed to echo behind them and the lady let go. She turned back and saw kids running around and then looked up to the tired face of the one who ran the place.

“I am sorry, this place will eat you alive. But, I think you coming here might actually be a good thing. Timothy Spalding hasn’t been well as of late. He always seemed to manage a smile when he writes to you. You are his sister, right?”

“Yes. I…”

“He just got adopted.”

Lindsey stopped cold in her tracks.

“The paper work is being processed and the family, the Spaldings, they are going to be coming to get their child next week.”

They walked up in silence. The stairs provided a security from the mad chaos outside. When they got to the third story, the old woman nudged her head in the direction to the main central hall. Timothy must have been in this direction.

It was a shock, after two doors of pure quiet down, to see a raggedy child with pale skin and black curly hair that looked like it wanted to droop over his face just stare down as if looking at space. She was curious at first as to who she was looking at and why this was the child being showcased in front of her. It then clicked before eye contact had been made. She was looking at him. Her dear brother whom she hadn’t seen in so long.  

“Mr. Spalding.” The woman spoke with a soft and strange affectionate voice. The tone in her speech was that of a mother.

Timothy turned around, a black eye on his right, a thin neck and a shirt that couldn’t fit his lack of shoulders. String for arms but his eyes spoke of a ancient and strong soul. He looked at her with a strange unsureness, he was looking at a complete stranger. That was what this young girl was to him, a stranger who did not belong in his world.

“Hello Tims.” She said weakly. She felt scared, maybe she shouldn’t be here.

The kid, who looked at her strange, smile politely with a hint of soft joy and asked, “I am Timothy. Who are you?”

“I…” She felt a tear go down her right cheek.

“Are you okay miss?” He asked innocently. Timothy still confused then looked to the elder lady as if to ask what is going on. But he looked back at Lindsey instead of waiting for an answer.

“I am your sister. I am Lindsey Gardner.”

He stopped breathing after half of her sentence. The emotions hit him quicker than she thought possible.

“Sister…” He simply said.

“I am your sister. Flesh and blood.” She lent out her hand.

She got tackled hard by a kid one third her weight. He held her like she was a life raft. His tears did not hold back at all and she could feel her shirt soak them in. She tried to pry him off for space but just found her arms doing the opposite, keeping him there in her arms.

“Tims, off,” She weakly said.

He let go and they stood up.

She saw the boy with long curly hair, chaotic and defying gravity, just staring back with a smile on his face.

“You came. I… I never thought I would see you again Si-si.” It was his name for her when they were even younger. The joke was he could never say her name full so he shortened it to the last syllable of her name and duplicated it. It made her heart melt. It was like the one confirmation and everything was not a fantasy to her. She wanted to hug him again.

“I came to see you Tims. I was in town and figured maybe…” She wanted to say she wished she could save him from this place. Lindsey thought maybe she could do something heroic for him.

“It is okay, you came. I am happy.”

“Do they treat you well here?” She asked.

“Yes. They feed me.”

She gave him another once look, “But you are nothing but skin and bones!”

“I eat.” He said coyishly. “It just does nothing for me.”

“I am supposed to be the skinny one.” She laughed after saying that, remembering all the lectures their mother gave her.

“Why? I mean why should you be skinny? You are pretty the way you are.”

‘Timothy’s bluntness and kind nature was a bit of a shock to her.

“You know how mother can be a litte…”

“She can burn in hell.” Timothy said this without an ounce of hate, or emotion in his eyes. It was a fact in his opinion. “She can’t love her own child.”

“She loves…”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I have a new mother, and a father too.”

“Have you met them?”

“Yes. They seem nice. I found out they weren’t able to have kids of their own so they decided to adopt.”

“I am happy for you.”

“But I wont be able to grow up with you. You will become someone with out me in your life.”

When he said this, she hugged him close one last time.

“I will save you.”

She noticed his soulful eyes were looking at her with a question in mind. She held tightly and reaffirmed, “One day, I will come back to get you.”

A smile, he wore it well she thought.

He walked into his dingy little room that he probably shared with three or four other kids. He grabbed a picture. She looked at it and realized it was a picture of him. “It is all I have of me in here. Take it. I promise, carry this as proof that I am your brother, and I will always be watching over you.”

“Thanks,” She said.

“May it be your good luck charm and protect you.”

 

Jules was just a child dreaming of what it would be to soon enter his teen years, but he was just two years short of that goal. The time had change from summer to late fall. Winter was wanting to come and his parents did not have a desire to have a baby sitter on all times of the day with their work schedual. They trusted him and told him how to call them should anything happen.

It was a rare day off, a holiday from his school though his mind didn’t register the specifics of such a great occasion. Boredom was creeping in as his television shows had gone to boring vintage programs and paid advertisements. He had picked up a book earlier from his shelf, but he forgot how quickly he had learned to speed through young teen novels that were at best a hundred and twenty page read. He closed the book he read countless times before and found it a small time waster at best.

His friends weren’t answering their phones and Jules was getting worried that he would have to either play with toys he was thinking he was getting a step too bored with, watch Star Wars one more time and see if he could recite it front to back without error, or read a twenty page (five minute read) comic book that he had dissected left and right. The thought of weakly going through the motions with no attachment would kill the purpose of a good read. His stuffed bear that he never dreamt of throwing away was staring at him, almost whispering evil words to him.

He thought of calling Timothy, his best friend, but they had just had a fight at school. It ended with the words, “shut up” “Get away from me” and “how could you betray me like this!?” The last line was spoken by Timothy to Jules. Their fight was over a girl that Timothy liked and Jules decided to play match maker.

Maybe he should call Laurence.

Laurence had moved to the seat behind him and to the left in class. They had become friends the year previous when Laurence fought off two kids trying to pick on Jules. The kid looked older in many ways but it was his more immature nature that was the reminder that he was younger than everyone. The younger but much larger Laurence had an obsession for pro wrestling, and girls. Jules understood vocabulary as “cute” but Laurence was more focused on the other features much to Jules and Timothy rolling their eyes. Jessica would slap him on the playground for “trying to act like her older brother.”

He found himself leaving the couch of the living room with the monster of a television and random VHS tapes lying around. His Sega Genesis was plugged and unplugged several times before he had decided to not play it. The games were on the floor, couch and table. His dad would get mad at him leaving a mess but for now his day off was wasting away, no cartoons to save him, no company to entertain him.

Jules walked a few steps into the library near his dad’s office. The books had some of his kids stuff but on occasion, they had something just a little different. Last year he was able to find something by an adult writer and found himself enraptured by serial killers, intrigue and violence with a touch of cannibalism. Maybe this year he would try his luck. The last book he read from the library made his dad cuss up a storm and yet, later his father admitted he was proud that he could comprehend such mature themes and concepts as provided by the novels.

The library itself was three cabnets filled with books higher than the young Jules could reach. In the center of the three giant shelves was a computer that could barely play Oregon Trail but it did what was needed of it. The thick books with giant leather binding screamed stay away and Jules instantly stuck his tongue out at the thought of even considering the needless torture of going through an encyclopedia for no reason but to cure boredom. To the left of the giant ten volume encyclopedia set was four different versions of the dictionary. He wished he could kill the man who invented the dictionary for wasting paper and shelf space.

 His life would have been forever normal had he left the room the way he found it. There would be no horror story with Faith. His battle to save some girl from a Warlock would never have happened and he would never have lost any sleep in a world without Lucy reaching the age of 21. Vampires would remain a myth and maybe, he would have figured out how to get a normal job or career later on in life. All he had to do, at this precise moment was walk out of the room on that one day, when he was by chance by himself in his dad’s library.

He almost did that too.

Jules turned around to give up and began to take a step out towards the main hall. It was then he felt a strange aura. It was as if he could sense a flood slowly pouring from a leak in the wall behind him. The energy gave him a slight shiver and he couldn’t place the how or why. He turned around for a quick second to see if anything was actually causing this strange unease he was beginning to feel.

All that was there, a simple library of a man who collected books. His father’s unknown goal in life. What was the point of having all those books if he never read them. Jules didn’t understand and was going to turn around and head back out the room one more time when another wave hit. The sensation was magnetic.

He realized, he always felt a mild something he could never put his finger on when he entered the room, but now, this was strong. It was not just some unknown something, it was a calling. There was something in this room trying to speak to him. Jules thought to all his science classes; the way the world was dictated by rules not the unknown. However his instincts told him that he was experiencing something that would be apart of Unsolved Mysteries.

Jules, a kid, in his home, was being talked to by what might be described as a ghost.

His eyes, so he felt, began to play tricks on him. The aura was oozing with a strange color and the sense of pull was shifting Jules from his position to the door closer to the middle second to top shelf on the middle book case. Jules wanted to fight the sensation, he wanted to give into the strange fear. But he knew he had to comply.

The book was out of reach. Yes. It was a book. Jules put that together as soon as he stared upwards and saw he wasn’t going to be able to get it through traditional jumping and swinging his arms wildly. He thought for a second. It would now be easy to give up but the strange sense of a good puzzle kept him wanting to move forward now. Fear of the unknown was slowly becoming a battle of pride and curiosity. The sensation was fading however the slight magnetic tug on his soul told him the calling was still there.

Jules without thinking, pulled himself up to his dads computer desk and prayed his father would never find out. He was more worried as he made his way up of falling over and hurting himself on the wood floor. Again, the shelf was out of reach but that didn’t stop Jules from reaching out as best as he could. There was no real description in how Jules would personally want to justify what he was doing. He had flashes of his parents coming home, why he was standing on a table, using part of a shelf for leverage to get to some random book and risk hurting himself and ruining the whole room. He had no justification for it. Curiosity? They would say “What the hell is wrong with you?” and send him to his room.

He saw the black cover. Almost ancient looking.

In his minds eye, him and the spirit made eye contact. In reality the book was there, covered partly by the rest of the others in some strange order that he never bothered understanding.

“Just a little…” Jules thought. He felt an affirmation coming from the direction of the black book.

And time stood still.

Jules was half stretched. Most of his mass leaning over the ground some painful set of feet above. The book shelf might just randomly fall and pain would be his lesson. But nothing happened. He simply reached for the book and the book made the effort and grabbed his hand.

He blinked.

Jules stood there on his dads desks with a novel of some sort, that seemed to ooze a cool mist all over his hands and foreamrs. He could feel its soft breeze against his face and hair. He jumped down while questioning everything that was going on.

He ran to his room. He locked the door. He didn’t know why he locked the door to his room on this day when he was alone all by himself.

The book was slammed against his comforter on the bed and it sunk under the lack of resistence. He forcefully looked at the book and realized…

“The Book Of The Five Rings?”

It was written by some Asian name he didn’t even dare to pronounce.

No. This was a lie. The thick fog that came from the nothingness inside rubbed the letters off.

“The Art Of The…”

Jules focused. He realized his level of focus and concentration was able to move the fog and the imagery it could manipulate. He looked left, it would shift slightly right. If he stared deeply, as if to will it to disperse, it would separate. Realizing it was his will controlling the illusion, he shook his head to the side as if wiping a chalk board clean.

The strange aura of illusion flashed and disintegrated into the wind. The books true form had been revealed.

“The Art of The Battle Mage,” Jules didn’t know what was awaiting him, “The hell is a battle mage?”

He didn’t know the answer. He knew though, when suspeneded above the ground, he moved the book with his own will. Jules used magic for the first time in his life. After he turned the first page, he would learn a lot more of it.

 

In class. On a day celebrating the coming Spring. Jules brought a book to class. Him, Timothy, Laurence, Jessica, a newfound member of the group Carlos, and the girl who would never leave his side named Anna, sat in a circle during recess as Jules opened the pages. “Now,” Jules warned, “This is going to change your life.”

To give them a preview, he snapped his fingers and the lights in the classroom went out.

 

Author's Note

Every act is going to be followed by a self contained chapter that will tell an overarching story. First time we were introduced to a young Jules and Timothy as well as saw hints of darkness coming their way. Here we get to see what Timothy's connection with the serial killer is as well as the ominous lead into what was the prototype of the Council. Next chapter we hit the ground running into the rest of the book.