The Obsidians

But suddenly, Mistress Obsidian turned to look at him. “You can wipe that smirk off your face, Christopher Blue,” she barked. “There’s more in store for you.”

Chris felt his pulse spike with anxiety. He quickly rearranged his features into a neutral expression.

“Yes ma’am,” he squeaked, his mind reeling through all the possible punishments she was certain to mete out.

Mistress Obsidian pinned him to his seat with her cold, mean stare, and continued in the same firm tone. “I’ve imbued you with the most powerful dark magic. You have a lot of potential. But you need to be trained.”

Chris blinked with shock. All around him, he heard the sound of the other Obsidian students shuffling in their seats. Mistress Obsidian’s words had taken them all by surprise.

“Trained?” Malcolm spat. “What about punished?”

Mistress Obsidian ignored his outburst. Her eyes remained on Chris.

“Trained?” Chris repeated.

“Yes. Properly. Your powers are too much for any of the teachers at Obsidian’s to handle.”

The headmistress snapped her fingers and the door behind her flew open. A man walked into the office. He was dressed in a long black robe that covered the entirety of his face as well as his whole body. The only things showing were his brilliant blue eyes, the bright blue eyes of a rogue seer.

“This is your new trainer,” Mistress Obsidian told Chris. “Colonel Cain.”

Chris recognized the man instantly. He was one of the fighters from the dark army who’d fought against Sister Judith alongside him in 1690s England.

His heart began to pound. He felt dizzy with emotion. Seconds ago he’d been expecting a harsh punishment but now he was discovering instead that he would be trained by a soldier from the dark army! It was quite a shift for his mind to make.

Despite his best attempts to maintain a blank expression, Christopher felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. When he’d been back in 1690s England, fighting alongside the dark army, he’d felt a pull toward them, a sort of calling telling him that he belonged with the army far more than the Obsidian school. Now his wish was coming true.

“It will be extremely hard,” Mistress Obsidian barked, forcing his attention back to her and out of his head.

Chris gave a series of hurried nods and spoke in a quick voice. “I understand. I’ll work hard for you, ma’am.”

The headmistress paused, her lips pursed into a thin line as she regarded him for a couple of beats.

Chris felt his insides squirm. Mistress Obsidian had that effect on most people. Oddly enough, his fear of her just added to his admiration and desire to please her.

“You’d better,” she said finally, settling back into her throne. “Because there will be no third chance.”

The words struck Chris like a lightning bolt. He didn’t need Mistress Obsidian to explain what that meant. He’d failed once. This was his final chance to prove himself to her. If he failed again, it was over.

Out the corner of Chris’s eye, he could see that Mistress Obsidian’s warning—no, threat—had turned Malcolm Malice’s glower into a delighted, evil smile. The sight of his stupid face made determination swell in Chris’s gut.

“I won’t let you down,” Chris said forcefully, his attention directed at Mistress Obsidian like a dart to a bull’s-eye. “Whatever it takes. Wherever you send me. Whoever you need me to kill. I will do it.”

Mistress Obsidian tipped her chin up, her gaze locked on his. Chris noticed the spark behind her eyes that told him she believed in him.

The tension in his chest released. He slumped a little in his chair, exhausted by the stress of it all but relieved to know she had faith in him. Her approval meant everything to Chris.

“Good,” Mistress Obsidian said with a sharp nod. “Because there’s no time to waste.”

She leaned forward on her elbows and waved her arm over the vision bowl on the table before her. It was her spying device, the one she used to watch their rivals at the Amethyst School for Seers. Usually there was an image inside, but this time there was nothing but a smudgy blur, like a dark storm cloud.

“Since your failed escapades back in 1690s England, the Amethyst School for Seers has been fortified even more,” she explained. “I can no longer see inside. But don’t worry. We have people working for us on the inside.”

“Do you mean a mole?” Madeleine, the ginger-haired seer, asked.

It was the first time any of the Obsidian students besides Malcolm or Chris had dared to speak.

Mistress Obsidian looked at her and smiled. “Yes.”

Madeleine looked delighted. She clapped her hands. “How exciting. Who is it? A student? A teach—”

But before Madeleine could finish her sentence, Mistress Obsidian waved her hand in the air to mime a zipping motion. In the blink of an eye, Madeleine’s lips disappeared, leaving nothing but a fleshy covering where her mouth used to be.

Chris flinched in his seat. The sight of Madeleine with no mouth disturbed him. But what disturbed him even more was why Mistress Obsidian had decided to show off her powers in that way. It was a warning, Chris realized. A warning for him. This, or something similar, was the fate that awaited him if he screwed up the mission.

Madeleine’s eyes were wide with alarm as she pressed her hands to her mouth. Her voice was now nothing more than a muffled noise.

“Does anyone else feel like interrupting?” Mistress Obsidian asked, her glare roving across them all.

Everyone remained silent.

The headmistress carried on as if nothing had happened. “The fortifications that obscure my ability to see only cover the school grounds. Which means the second Oliver Blue steps outside the boundary of the school, I will be able to track him again.”

At the sound of his brother’s name, Chris sat up a little taller in his seat. His desire to kill that pipsqueak once and for all grew even stronger inside of him, building to a murderous fever pitch that pounded in his ears like a tribal drum.

“And the second he does,” Mistress Obsidian continued, her voice sounding sly, “I’ll be sending you after him.”

She slammed her fist onto the tabletop and everyone jumped. But her gaze was fixed only on Christopher’s.

He gulped as the intensity in her eyes burned into him.

Her voice became louder, sterner, more enthused. “This time, we won’t fail. We cannot fail.” Her eyes sparkled with malice. She drew herself up to her feet and waved a fist in the air. “This time, we will kill Oliver Blue.”

CHAPTER THREE

Leaving the School for Seers was always difficult for Oliver. Not just because it involved leaving behind the friends and teachers he adored, but because the school was situated in 1944, right in the middle of the war, and that meant leaving it was always perilous.

Beside him, Oliver heard Hazel whistle. He looked over at her to see her gazing around at the row of noisy factories all constructing things for the war effort. Their tall chimneys spewed smoke into the air. Steel fire escapes zigzagged across their exteriors. Large posters adorned each building, urging men to join the war against the backdrop of American flags. Distinctive black cars that looked like they were straight out of a gangster movie chugged by.

“I forgot what the world outside the School for Seers looked like,” Hazel said. “It’s been so long.”

Like the rest of the students, Hazel had abandoned her old life in order to train to become a seer, to partake in important time travel missions to keep history in order. This was her very first mission. Oliver could understand why she looked so overwhelmed.

Walter drew up to their sides, standing on the sidewalk as the traffic buzzed by.

“Where to now?” he asked.

David also came up beside them. He was holding the scepter; Oliver thought it made the most sense for the fighter amongst them to keep hold of the weapon. He could see the sand shifting within the hollow tube inside of it. It sent a jolt of panic into him to know that time was passing them by.

“We must find the portal,” Oliver said with urgency.

Quickly, he pulled his compass from his pocket. The special device had been given to him by his guide, Armando. It had once belonged to his parents. Along with a notebook of his father’s old lecture notes, it was the only link to them he owned. It had helped him on a previous mission and Oliver was certain it would help him now. Though he’d never met them, Oliver felt like his parents were always guiding him.

The symbols, when interpreted correctly, showed him the future. He could use it to guide them to the portal.

He looked down at the compass. The main dial, the thickest of them all, pointed directly at the symbol of a door.

That was simple enough to understand, Oliver thought. Their quest was to find the portal and that was certainly represented by the door symbol.

But as he peered at the other gold dials, each one pointing at a symbol that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics, it became a little harder to work out the meaning the compass was attempting to show him. One image looked like a cog. Another appeared to be an owl. A third symbol was easily identifiable as a dog. But what did they all mean?

“A cog. An owl. A dog…” Oliver mused allowed. Then suddenly it hit him. As it dawned on him where he was being directed, he gasped. “The factory!”

If he’d read the compass correctly, it was directing him to a place all too familiar to Oliver. Armando Illstrom’s factory, Illstrom’s Inventions.

The factory wasn’t too far from here. The cog could represent the machine he worked on, the owl because of the flying mechanical birds that nestled in its rafters, and the dog could represent Horatio, the old inventor’s trusty bloodhound.

Oliver wasn’t sure if he was correct in his interpretation but it certainly seemed plausible that the portal may be somewhere within the factory’s grounds. He couldn’t help but feel excited at the prospect of seeing his old hero again. It felt like a very long time to Oliver since he’d last set foot inside the magic factory.

“This way,” he told the others, pointing in the direction he knew the factory to be.

They began to walk, passing row after row of war-era munitions factories. Workers in brown and beige jumpsuits filed in and out of the heavy steel doors, including many women. Every time a door opened, the sounds of saws and drills and heavy machinery would increase.

“I hope Esther isn’t in too much pain,” Hazel said as they went.

Just the mention of her name sent bolts of anguish into Oliver’s stomach.

“She’s being taken care of,” Walter replied. “The hospital at the School for Seers is the best in the universe.”

David drew up beside Oliver. He was at least a head taller than Oliver and he’d pulled his chin-length black hair back into a small ponytail. With his all-black attire and the scepter slung across his back, he looked a bit like a ninja.

“Why are you on this mission with me?” Oliver asked him.

He realized as soon as he’d said it that his tone had been quite blunt. He hadn’t meant it that way, he was just confused. Bringing a stranger on the mission added a whole other level of uncertainty.

David looked across at him, his expression neutral. He held himself with a serious air. “Didn’t Professor Amethyst explain it to you?”

Oliver shook his head. “Not really. He just said you were a good fighter.”

David nodded slowly. His face remained expressionless, in a way that reminded Oliver of a trained soldier. “I’ve been sent along as your personal bodyguard.”

Oliver gulped. Bodyguard? He knew going on time travel missions was perilous but having a bodyguard seemed a little over the top.

“Why do I need a bodyguard?” he asked.

David’s lips pursed. “I haven’t been told all the details. But Professor Amethyst was quite clear about my brief for this mission. Keep you alive. Do everything and anything necessary.”

His explanation brought little comfort to Oliver. Professor Amethyst had never deemed him in need of extra protection before, so why now? What was so dangerous about this mission in particular?

Still, who was he to question the way the headmaster operated? Professor Amethyst was the most powerful seer of them all, centuries old, and had seen many timelines play out. He knew what was for the best. If the strangely militaristic David Mendoza was part of that, then Oliver just had to accept it.

As they strode through the streets, Oliver’s attention was drawn over and over to the hollow tube inside the scepter. The sand had already noticeably shifted, indicating that time was already sifting away. The thought of Esther’s time running out sent a jolt of pain stabbing his heart.

There was no time to waste. He had to reach the portal.

He hurried his pace.

The sky was starting to darken when they reached the road upon which the factory was located. But before Oliver had a chance to stroll straight to it, Hazel stopped him with a gentle hand to his upper arm.

“What is it?” he asked.

Hazel pointed to the compass in Oliver’s hands. “The dials on the compass, they all suddenly changed.”

Frowning, Oliver pulled the compass up to his face to get a better reading.

Everyone crowded in to look as well. Several of the dials had changed positions, though the main dial itself remained pointed resolutely at the door.

“It’s still leading us to the portal,” Oliver explained. “But it seems to want us to go some other way now.”

He squinted, trying to decipher the symbols and what they were now showing him.

“I don’t get it,” he muttered with frustration. “Now it’s pointing at a tree, a brick wall, a key, and…” He tipped the compass upside down to try to make sense of the final symbol. “… a fire hydrant?”

“Oh,” Hazel’s voice came. “You mean like them?”

Oliver’s head rose immediately to see Hazel pointing across the street. Sure enough, there stood a fire hydrant in front of a large oak tree. A little behind them was a tall, red brick wall. Set into the wall was an old wooden door with a large, rusty keyhole.

Oliver’s breath hitched. The compass must have directed him toward the factory in order to get him to this specific spot.

“Do you think the door is the portal?” Hazel asked.

Oliver put the compass back into his pocket. “There’s only one way to find out.”

He led the others across the street to the door. They gazed up at it. It looked completely normal. No signs of it being a portal at all.

Walter tried the handle. “It’s locked.”

A bolt of inspiration struck Oliver then. He recalled the key symbol on the compass. He crouched down, positioning his eye to the keyhole to look through.

A purple and black vortex swirled on the other side, with bright white forks of lightning zapping across its surface.

Shocked, Oliver gasped and flinched back so violently he fell right onto his backside.

“What did you see?” Hazel asked, grabbing his arm to break his fall.

David grasped hold of his other arm just as quickly.

“A portal…” Oliver stammered. “That’s the portal.”

As David and Hazel helped Oliver to his feet, Walter rushed excitedly over to the keyhole and looked inside. When he turned back to face them, his face was in a wide grin.

“That is wild!” he exclaimed.

He was always the most enthusiastic of Oliver’s friends, though he was also prone to fits of ill temper. Hazel was the smart one. She’d helped Oliver defuse Lucas’s atomic bomb.

Hazel hurried to look through the keyhole next. But when she turned, her expression was quite different from Walter’s. “That looks kind of terrifying.”

Oliver nodded slowly. He felt the same way as Hazel. The swirling purple lights and the long, endless tunnel he’d seen through the keyhole were beyond intimidating. The thought of stepping in there terrified him. He’d been through enough of them now to know how peculiar and unpleasant it felt to travel through a portal. But he knew he had no choice. He had to be brave for Esther and for the school.

“So, how do we get inside?” David asked, rattling the handle.

Unlike the others, he didn’t seem interested in peeking through the hole at the portal.

“I need pure intentions,” Oliver explained. “Then it will connect me to wherever it is I need to go.” He looked at his friends standing behind him. “Then you all follow.”

Oliver knew there was one way to ensure his intentions were pure. He looked in the sephora amulet.

On the surface of the shiny black onyx gemstone, he could see that Esther was sleeping. She was as pretty as ever. But she looked troubled, as if she were enduring a terrible pain.

Oliver’s heart lurched. He had to save her.

“I’m ready,” he said.

He grabbed the handle and turned. But the door was stuck.

“It didn’t work!” Oliver said.

His chest heaved. Were his intentions not pure enough after all? Doubt began to take hold of him. Maybe Professor Amethyst had made a mistake sending him on this mission. Maybe he didn’t have a pure enough heart after all.

“Let me try,” Hazel said. “Esther’s my friend, too.”

She, too, rattled the handle. But it just would not open.

Walter tried next. He, too, failed.

Oliver’s stomach dropped to his feet. They couldn’t fall at the first hurdle! And the ticking clock in the hollow tube of the scepter was a constant reminder that Esther’s time was finite, that they were in a race to save her. They had to hurry.

Just then, David stepped forward. Oliver knew that David, who had no intentions toward Esther at all, having never even met her, couldn’t possibly be the one to open the door to the portal. But they were out of options and so he may as well try.

David looked contemplative as he studied the wooden door in front of him, quirking his head left and right. Then he took a couple of steps back, planted his feet firmly to the ground, and kicked the door heavily with the sole of his boot. He used the strength of a kickboxer.

To everyone’s surprise, the door flew open.

The portal swirled ahead of them, a huge, roaring beast like a violent churning whirlpool. Oliver gasped as a huge gust of wind seemed to try to suck him inside.

But even with access now, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being a failure. Why hadn’t the door opened for him? Why David?

He looked over, hair flying in his face, at the boy Professor Amethyst had sent on this mission with him.

“Why did it work for you?” Oliver asked over the roaring wind.

“Because,” David called back, “I figured if the portal only takes you to where you need to go with pure intentions, perhaps the portal door only opens to someone with the pure intention to unlock it. You’re all focused on Esther, on the destination. My focus, though, is to help you in whatever way I must. So my pure intention was to open the door for you.”

His words struck Oliver deeply. So David’s sole intention on this mission was to help him? His ability to open the door to the portal had proven his loyalty. That’s why Professor Amethyst had sent him.

“Now it’s your turn, Oliver,” Hazel said. “Your turn to show your true intentions.”

Oliver understood. Motivation zapped in his veins as he grabbed the amulet again and focused on Esther sleeping inside. His heart lurched.

The wind swirled.

He looked back at his friends. “Here goes nothing.”

They jumped.

CHAPTER FOUR

Chris stood on the soggy field in the shadow of the Obsidian School for Seers. He was covered in mud, all the way up to his waist. Rain lashed down on him.

“Again,” Colonel Cain demanded. His eerie blue eyes flashed.

Chris gritted his teeth. He was exhausted. He’d been running laps around the field for what felt like hours. But then he remembered his mission—to kill Oliver—and his motivation returned.

His grueling combat training had started immediately. And while Chris was thrilled on one hand to be the only seer in existence to possess the power of dark matter, the early morning drills were grinding him down.

Chris had always been a chunky kid—he preferred snacks to sports—and all the hours of running in the mud and rain while having orders barked in his face was wearing him down. And yet despite all the hardships, his motivation only grew stronger. He would kill Oliver. Next mission, he would not let him slip away.

He began to run again, his chest heaving. He had a sharp stitch in his side but he ignored it and carried on. Out the corner of his eye he could see Colonel Cain watching on, his blue eyes glowing even through the driving rain.

Just then, Chris caught sight of a figure standing in one of the dormitory windows of Obsidian’s. He knew immediately it would be Malcolm Malice. He smirked, filled with pride that Malcolm was watching him. He knew Malcolm was jealous of his powers and of the special attention he was being shown. Malcolm would have loved to have been trained by the dark army. He was still bitter about their failed mission and falling from grace in Mistress Obsidian’s eyes.

As he ran, slipping and sliding in the muddy grass, Chris recalled again that moment on the banks of the River Thames where his hand had been clasped around Oliver’s ankle one moment, then suddenly he’d lost hold and Oliver had disappeared through the portal. Chris was determined not to let that happen again. Next time he came face to face with Oliver, he’d end him. Then he’d get all the glory from all the Obsidians, and Malcolm Malice would have none.

The sky was turning dark, Chris noticed. He rounded the corner and began racing back toward Colonel Cain. He’d been training since dawn, not even stopping for lunch. The colonel was like a drill sergeant. But no matter how hard he was worked, Chris never complained. Even now, with his breath coming in sharp, rasping wheezes, he would not let the man see his pain on his face. Colonel Cain was tough, yes, but he was admirable. Chris looked up to him in a way he never had his own father.

He made it back to Colonel Cain. Through the man’s dark robe, Chris could see him peering down with the unearthly bright blue eyes of a rogue seer.

Colonel Cain pressed the button on the top of his stopwatch.

“How did I do?” Chris asked.

“You’re getting slower,” came the colonel’s response, in an imposing, booming voice.

“I’m hungry,” Chris replied, putting his hands on his fleshy hips. “When are we stopping to eat?”

The colonel’s glowing blue eyes narrowed to slits. He looked furious.

“You have the power of dark matter inside of you, Christopher,” he snapped. “You should need for nothing. The power Mistress Obsidian gifted you with is the envy of every dark soldier in the universe.”

Between the hunger pangs, Chris felt a swell of pride.

“Come here,” Colonel Cain said, gesturing to Chris.

Chris approached cautiously, sliding a little on the muddy earth.

“Hold up your palms,” the colonel said.

Chris did as he was instructed.

“Do you know the power you hold within these?” the colonel asked.

Chris nodded. “I can spray acid out of them,” he said with pride, recalling how he’d destroyed Newton’s precious artworks back in 1690s England.

“You can do much more than that,” the colonel said.

He took hold of Chris’s hands by the wrists. His firm was grip. His fingers were like talons, knobby and long, almost inhuman.

“Focus your mind,” the colonel demanded. “Access your dark powers. Then use that power to melt through the fabric of dimensions.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chris murmured.

“I don’t kid,” the colonel replied.

Chris had learned about the dimensional fabric when Mistress Obsidian had called on the dark army to aid them on the last mission. She’d used a fancy knife to do it. But Chris was expected to do it just with his hands?

The colonel was staring at him insistently. Chris took a deep breath and allowed his mind to find that meditative place where reality began to blur.

Any time he reached his powers was exciting for Chris, because every time he found them inside himself he could tell they had grown. His powers sat like a huge smoldering volcanic rock, right in the center of his gut. Even from just the short time he’d been training with the colonel he could feel how much bigger they were, how much more they wished to be utilized. It was like they were something foreign to him, an alien that resided within his body, one that gave him the sort of power that people only dreamed of.