Shift

TWENTY-THREE.2

Blaze bit down hard on his tongue, stifling a yell. Each stroke felt like the sharp carving of a knife into his flesh, and the pain spread from his cheek throughout his head and neck, taking away all other thoughts and feelings. The only thing he could sense was dark pain.

He screamed, and his mouth tasted like iron. Stars danced before his eyes, flickering between black and white and red, making the figure of Naven above him look like some sort of twisted celestial being.

Naven smiled, drawing the chalk line down to his neck. "Don't worry about your girlfriend," he said as Blaze writhed beneath him. "I'll get back to her once I'm done with you."

"No you won't," came Kayden's voice.

Blaze wasn't entirely sure what happened, but a moment later he felt Naven lurch above him and the touch of chalk on his skin faded. He looked up and Naven was clutching his head with both hands, a string of obscenities slipping out of his mouth.

"Move!" Blaze heard Kayden yell.

Blaze pushed Naven off of him and then attempted to pin him down. But Naven began to thrash against him, kicking and clawing and fighting for every inch. Blaze didn't think he'd be able to hold him down for much longer.

But suddenly Kayden was at his side, and she pressed down on Naven's shoulders, trying to help. Blaze stared at her in shock, wondering how she had gotten free from the wall, but he didn't have time to ask.

"What can I do?" Kayden asked. He could see the look in her eyes, the fright intermingled with determination. She was tougher than Blaze had realized, but she was too light to pin Naven.

"Grab the chalk!" Blaze gasped, and Kayden picked it off the floor. When she held it out to him, he said, "Draw an aknah on his neck."

Kayden's eyes widened. "I don't know what that looks like!"

Naven was beginning to break free, his movements even more erratic as both of them began to lose strength.

Blaze struggled to explain it. "It has the vertical line going through it... It's the symbol for the search button online!"

"That was weeks ago! I don't remember what that looks like!" Kayden cried, but then her eyes widened and she dug into her pocket and pulled out a small metal ball: the timekeeper Walter had made her. "Aknah!" she shouted, and the thing lit up, flashing a symbol across its face for a brief moment: the aknah.

"Draw that!" Blaze shouted, slamming Naven's head to the side as she drew. With the white chalk, it was impossible to see if she had done it right, but he didn't have the time to check. Just as Naven was about to get loose, Kayden shouted, "Done!"

Blaze didn't waste a second of time. "Aknah!" he yelled, pressing his hands down. He felt a flood of energy run from him into Naven through their shared contact, and then Naven's body jerked as if he had been shocked by an electric socket. A moment later, he was nothing but a slumped form beneath Blaze, lost in unconsciousness.

Kayden's left hand fell over her mouth, the other holding the chalk for dear life. "Is he... dead?"

"No, unconscious," Blaze said, getting off the ground. The room spun around him and his head was pounding, but he closed his eyes for a moment and that seemed to help. "But he won't be that way for long." His eyes fell on Kayden's shoulder; blood was dripping down her arm from where the control rune had been. "How were you able to break his spell?"

"One of his fire blasts hit me and burned that thing on my arm off. So then I kneed him in the head." Blaze would have expected her to smile, but her mouth was a thin line. Her eyes refused to leave Naven's body. "Will he wake up?"

"If we don't do anything else, then yes. That aknah isn't specific enough to knock him out for good. Get Walter and bring a copy of his book. Hurry."

Kayden nodded and passed Blaze the piece of chalk before running out into the hallway.

Blaze looked down at Naven. He was barely breathing and bleeding from a few shallow cuts, but Blaze couldn't care less. He squeezed the piece of chalk, remembering all too clearly when he had first opened the door to the closet and had seen Kayden pinned against the wall, screaming as Naven touched her.

Blaze felt a stirring in his gut, a mixture of horror and anger and fresh feelings of guilt. He didn't want Kayden anywhere near Naven alone ever again. Not even his unconscious body.

"I got him," came a voice from the doorway.

Blaze looked up and saw Kayden with Walter right behind her. The old man's hair was skewed wildly and his eyes were large orbs behind his round glasses.

"What happened here?" Walter demanded, his eyes first sweeping over Naven's unconscious figure and then trailing over the smudged chalk markings on the walls.

Blaze ignored him. He saw A Progressive Book of Magic clenched tightly in Kayden's hands and gestured for it. "Pass that here."

She obeyed and he looked at Walter. "Is there a spell in here to keep him unconscious? Or bind him up?"

"Blaze," Walter said. It was the first time he sounded like an adult and not just some crazy old man. "Blaze, you can't assault a member of the Congregation—!"

"He tortured us," Kayden said simply, looking straight into Walter's eyes.

There was silence for a moment as the color drained from Walter's face. Then he turned to Blaze without another question. "Page 22. Magical binding spell. But I'll cast it. You're not in any shape to be using magic."

Blaze passed him the book, but refused to give him the piece of chalk; it was the only piece he had.

Walter quickly went to work on the binding rune, referring to the book only once to check his work. He murmured an incantation, and a snake of gold magic wound its way around Naven's prone form, banding his wrists, arms, knees, and ankles together. A thin strip also appeared around his mouth, no doubt to stifle any screaming once he woke up.

"Now," Walter said, looking around. "Will you two please tell me what happened?"

Blaze opened his mouth to speak, but Kayden quickly cut him off.

"I'll start," she said. Her eyes were hard and there was a firm set to her mouth.

Walter shut the door to the closet and sat down on the floor. "All right. But be quick."

Kayden sat down too. Blaze realized how odd it was, to sit around the body of the man who had tortured them. It was like a twisted camping trip, but instead of a blazing campfire and ghost stories, there was an unconscious body and a different kind of terrifying story to be told.

"Well," Kayden started, "earlier tonight, I found a note on my pillow..."