Jackie stared at Alice, unable to believe his eyes.
"This isn't a trick, is it?" he said, slowly walking up to her. "You're actually here, Alice?"
"I'm here," Alice said. "Really."
She raised her hand, fingers gently drifting to Jackie's face. And then, like a viper, snatched hold of Jackie's ears and gave it a painful twist.
"Owowowowowow!"
Jackie stumbled back after being let go, rubbing his tortured ear.
"Yep," he went, voice strained like the rusted hinges of a creaking door. "It's really you alright, Alice. Only you can pull off the Demon Ear Twist like Granny Tsing can."
Finally recovered from his own shock, Arnold shook himself awake, mustered up a stern look and walked up to the two teens.
"You have been a hard girl to find, Alice," he said. "You've got a lot of explaining to do. Like where you've been and what you've been up to. Oh, and why you're dressed like someone from Hogwarts. But that can all wait until we're back at the station."
Alice shook her head. "Sorry, but no. I didn't come here to be arrested."
Jackie's blood ran cold and his heart was seized with dread.
Clueless to the foreboding turn his stepson had sensed coming, Arnold frowned.
"Now look here, young lady," he said, trying for a gentle but stern voice of reason. "You're not being arrested. But there are a lot of people, present company included, who have been very worried about you. And it sounded like you got mixed up with some dangerous people. The police station is a safe place. We can protect you there."
"It's not my safety I'm worried about, Officer." Alice shifted her gaze over to Jackie. "It's yours."
Patience at an end, Arnold snapped, "And just what is that supposed to-!?
He never got to finish his sentence before he went flying up a dozen feet in the air where he remained hovering in line with Alice's outstretched hand.
"Arnold!" Jackie cried. "Alice, stop this. This is wrong. You know it is! Whatever the Wizard said, whatever you and the rest of the Gathering went through, it doesn't make that Ritual thing right. It has to be stopped."
"I'm sorry, Jackie," Alice said. "But there's no stopping the Ritual. You can't stop it. No one else can."
"No one else can?" Something about that phrase bothered Jackie. And then the pit of his stomach clenched as he realized something dreadful. The most dreadful discovery he's made so far. "Wait, Alice, you don't mean-?"
Instead of answering, Alice held up her other hand and Jackie found himself hovering several feet over the ground just like Arnold. She wordlessly looked up at her two captives and they looked back. Arnold was stunned speechless at the fantastical experience he was having. His mouth hung open and out came the garbled moaning of a man whose brain had turned to mush. Jackie was at a loss for words and could only beg through his eyes.
But whatever he conveyed with his gaze, Alice turned away from. She, instead, looked to her right where something apparently pretty tall stood next to her.
"Open the door," she ordered.
Neither step-father or step-son could see who, or what, she spoke to. As far as their eyes could tell, there was nothing there. But Jackie knew better by now that the Wizard must have lent Alice one of his big Egregors. Arnold remained ignorant until huge dents looking like hand prints appeared on the steel door.
With a high-pitch whine, the door rolled aside to expose the way into the warehouse. Right in the middle of the warehouse was an old leather sofa, gray and worn out but in good condition. Two armchairs, one red and another white, accompanied the sofa at either side of it. At the foot of the sofa was a big cardboard box opened to reveal it contained an assortment of bananas, apples, and carrots.
With a flick of Alice's wrist, Jackie and Arnold were flung into the warehouse. They hit the sofa, which nearly toppled over but managed to swing back down on its legs proper.
"There should be enough food in there to last you a few days," she said. "But if you're lucky, you won't need all of it. There are snack bars on the bottom. I also put a couple of cans of disinfectant spray behind the red chair for when you use the bathroom."
"No, Alice!" Jackie threw himself off the sofa and raced to the exit. He didn't even make it halfway when the door slammed shut. But that didn't stop him from ramming himself against it and then try pry it open. It didn't budge having already been chained and padlocked from the outside. Stubborn, he resorted to pounding his fists against the rusted steel sheet. "Alice, please! You don't have to do this! There's another wizard out there! A hell of a lot stronger one! He can stop the Ritual!"
There was a short pause, and then . . .
"If this other wizard is so great, why aren't you with him right now?"
"That's-!" Jackie tried to answer but quickly faltered.
A short moment of silence later, Alice's voice came through again.
"I knew it. Even if this wizard's real, but not even you can trust him, then there really is no one else who can stop the Gathering."
"I can still help you!" Jackie cried. "We can work together! Don't try to stop them on your own!"
There was a rustle of fabric and a clunk as Alice pressed her back against the door.
He heard a weak chuckle come in through the door. "So you figured out what I'm up to. What gave it away? Was it a small slip of my tongue? Whatever. I'm not surprised."
"You really are amazing, Jackie. You can see thing I can't. In a way, your eyes are even more special than mine."
"Alice . . . I-!"
"But you can't help me. Not this time."
"No, Alice! Don't go!"
But Alice shouted back, "Good bye, Jackie. Thanks! For being my friend! Take care of him for me, Officer! I'm counting on you!"
"Alice!"
Jackie called out to her again and again. He wouldn't stop screaming her name even when his voice turned into pathetic wheezes and to no avail. Alice was gone.
From the sofa, Arnold stared. He watched Jackie finally stop and slowly slide down to his knees, forehead and clenched fists pressed against the door.
When some wits, but not all, returned, the police officer, in a daze said, "What was all that? Did Alice just use magic on us? Real magic? Does that mean she's a . . . a witch?"
Jackie took a deep breath. And then another. His breathing rapidly grew quick and then he hoarsely shouted, "Shut . . . up! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
He whirled around and leaped to his feet, eyes blazing with fury.
"You always do this! You always make assumptions! Never thinking for a moment to give anyone the benefit of the doubt! You say you want to understand, for me to tell you what is going on, but when I try to do just that, you never give me the chance! You never listen. NEVER!"
He turned away and pressed his forehead on the door again. And then straightened up and turned back around.
"No, not this time." Jackie marched right up to Arnold. "This time, you listen and you listen good." He jabbed his finger two times into Arnold's shoulder. "No arguing because you saw the proof with your own eyes.
"Magic is real. Alice does have magic powers. But she learned it from the Wizard. The Wizard's the real problem. He's the mastermind behind the whole case of missing kids, using the Gathering to recruit people like Alice and turn them into his magic apprentices so he could get their help with an evil scheme to cast some kind of big magic spell or curse, or whatever, which he calls the 'Ritual', to get revenge on some people. While he's at it, he got his followers wanting get revenge on their bullies too, to get them on board with his plan. Alice looks like she's on board, but she's actually not. She let slip she plans to do something about the Ritual by herself, stop it somehow. But outnumbered and out-magicked, there's no way she'll survive."
"You say Alice is not on board but she just locked us in an abandoned warehouse!" Arnold pointed out.
"Don't you get it?" Jackie snapped. "She did that to protect us! To keep us somewhere safe! Alice is definitely NOT on board. She's actually going to stop the Ritual or die trying!"
**********
Alice could hear Jackie call out to her clear as day, but she kept on walking away from the warehouse, never looking back once. On and on, and on she walked down the street, the warehouse slowly shrinking behind her, until she approached someone waiting for her up ahead. It was Taylor, on orders from the Wizard to stand as witness to Alice's loyalty to the Gathering. But that was not where Taylor's own loyalties seemed to lie.
"Are you sure about this?" she asked. "We could really use all the help we could get."
Alice gave a resolute nod.
"I'm sure," she said. At last, she turned to give a look the warehouse where Jackie now resided, but only for a brief moment before turning back to Taylor. "We are stopping that Ritual. No matter what it takes."
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