Doorways to Infinity (30 page)

“Fire away,” Eric said.

Jamie pointed one hand at the helicopter and the other at the airplane, his arms forming a V, and summoned his will.
Too bad Rollie and Bryce aren’t here to appreciate this
. He released twin bolts of extreme energy, then immediately erected his shield.

The aircraft burst into massive fireballs, flames surging 100 feet in the air while bits of metal and burning plastic rattled angrily off Jamie’s shield. Jamie saw it all in slow motion, the aircraft exploding into little pieces that flew outward in all directions, the awesome, curling globs of fire, and fragments arcing like fireworks into the sky with a gracefulness that belied the violence.

“
Awe—some!
” Terry said. “Totally, totally awesome.”

Eric chuckled. “I agree. Take that, Phillip Freakin’ Cage.”

Jamie waited a few seconds for the shrapnel barrage to end, then lowered his shield and began shooting more blasts into the smaller explosives on the runway. Each blew up with satisfying madness, and when he was finished, Jamie surveyed the devastation with grim pride. Nothing remained of the helicopter and the airplane but two burning slag piles, with more flaming debris scattered everywhere. Five smoking craters pocked the runway, each deep enough to swallow an automobile.

“Looks like a war zone.” Eric slapped him on the back. “Job well done, I’d say.”

“I always wanted to do something like that,” Jamie said. “Got any army tanks I can blast while we’re at it?”

“Not tonight. Maybe on the next mission.”

More lights came on around the monastery, and Jamie heard angry shouts and distant gunshots. Terry said, “Looks like we really shook the hornet’s nest. We need get out of here.”

They turned and rushed for the edge of the cliff and the magic doorway that lay below it, and Jamie thought,
That was fun, but I sure hope no one got hurt
.

He didn’t hear any screams, at least.

* * *

Jamie’s parents were angry with him when he told them about it later that night, though Carl seemed to cool off once Jamie made his case for why he did it.

Rachel glared at Carl, sitting next to her at the table by the kitchen. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m not on anybody’s side. I think Jamie was trying to help those two agents, and maybe he took some reckless chances, but his heart was in the right place.”

“Some reckless chances?
Some?
The whole thing was dangerous. And very, very stupid.”

“But it sounds like they accomplished their mission.” He looked at Jamie, who sat across from him. “I just wish you’d taken me and John Paul with you. We could’ve provided extra cover.”

“Like I told you, Eric and Terry insisted that we keep it small. And if you and John Paul came, Fred would’ve wanted to come, and probably Rollie, too. Then we would’ve had too many people to make it work.” Jamie slumped on the table, suddenly feeling drained. “I just hope nobody got killed by the bomb on the road.”

“I know that bothers you,” Carl said, “but remember, they were probably all ruthless, brutal men, like Eric said. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

“Yeah, but I’m not you.”

Rachel reached across the table and laid her hand on Jamie’s arm. “We know. I’m glad you’re the way you are. I’d be frightened if it didn’t bother you to kill.”

“I would be, too,” Carl said. “You have too much power to have a weak conscience. We’d all be in trouble.”

“Well,” Jamie said, “if somebody died, it wasn’t because of my magic. It was a bomb. And I put it there.”

“It doesn’t matter if it was magic or not,” Rachel said. “Killing is killing, no matter how it’s done, and I’m glad it bothers you.”

“I would be worse than Renn if it didn’t bother me, because my magic is stronger. I’d be as dangerous as that demon.”

“Jamie, you’d never be anything like Renn.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “And you might not be an angel, but you’re no demon.”

Fred was less willing to forgive Jamie than his parents had been. He went to her house after he talked to them, and sat with her on the gold-colored couch in her living room while he told her about the espionage mission. She grew angrier with each passing detail. He knew that she would be mad, and his best strategy was to be contrite and weather the storm she would unleash, as best he could. And remind himself of something his father had told him years ago: “Always say
I was wrong dear
, even when you’re not.”

Fred’s parents had taken Sammi into the basement to watch TV and give Jamie and Fred some privacy. Jamie wished they had stayed nearby. He would’ve felt safer. Less chance of lightning strikes.

“I can’t believe you did that!” Fred said for the third time, her voice rising to a near shriek.

Jamie cringed and put a finger to his lips. “Can you please keep it down? We don’t want the whole world to know.”

“To know what? What an idiot you are? Because I think they already do.”

“That’s not fair. Everything went just fine, except for the bomb on the road. I don’t know if anyone got killed when it went off.”

Fred crossed her arms and scowled, her emerald eyes crackling with static electricity. “I still say you should’ve taken me with you. And Rollie, too. We would’ve been a big help.”

“I told you, Eric and Terry said to keep it small. That way we would be faster in and out of there, and less of a chance of somebody getting hurt.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she huffed. “I can take care of myself. You’re not the only one with magic, you know.”

“Of course I know that.” Jamie sagged onto the couch cushions at his back. “We could’ve used you when we encountered the first guard. Terry took him out, but I don’t know what she did to him. She might’ve killed him. I didn’t ask.”

“See? I could’ve used one of my pendants and he would’ve been harmless as a baby.”

“I know. And Rollie could’ve used his super speed to place the bomb, but it wasn’t my call. It was Eric and Terry’s. And I was just doing it to help them, anyway. I think they should be with their families for the holidays, and this mission might’ve made that possible.”

“You just wanted to blow up the helicopter and the airplane. Admit it. You’ve always wanted to do something like that.”

“Well…yeah. I enjoyed it, too. Immensely. I hope I didn’t enjoy it too much.”

“Can you show me what it looked like sometime? With your new video playback spell, or whatever you call it?”

Jamie thought he saw the thunderclouds beginning to part in her eyes, and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “Sure. Rollie and Bryce will want to see it, too. We could get everybody together now and I could show them.”

“Now?” Fred wrinkled her nose. “No. I want you all to myself right now.”

The weather was definitely improving. Jamie was sure of it when she draped her arms around his neck and said, “Next time, take me, okay?” She looked deeply into his eyes. “We’re a team. We tackle the big problems together.”

“Okay.” He smiled. “Together. You and me.”

She shook her head gently. “You and I.” And she pulled his face to hers.

* * *

The next morning, Fred sat with Jamie in church. She felt she’d properly chastised him the previous night before she forgave him with kisses. Now they were side-by-side, holding hands, and she felt good.

The late-December sun was illuminating the stained glass windows on the east wall of the sanctuary, and they glowed brilliantly, casting soft, warm, rainbow colors over the room, turning the congregation into a pastel portrait.

Unfortunately, the new minister, Reverend Doyle, was delivering his sermon with all the flair of stone soup. The slight, mousey-looking man with the thin voice had his head bent and his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, droning like a hypnotist over the printed text that lay before him on the rostrum. This was the part of the service where Fred usually zoned out, barely able to keep her eyes open. She wasn’t the only one. A few other members of the congregation often had to be awakened at the benediction.

Fred had decided that Reverend Doyle was a mixed bag as a minister — nice man, boring speaker. Today she was in too good of a mood to let it bother her.

This was the first Sunday in months that their two families were together, and they stretched nearly from one end of the pew to the other, ten in all, with Fred and Jamie in the middle. Evelyn, Jamie’s grandmother, sat on his right, and next to her were Rachel and Carl, with Aunt Connie and Uncle Ray near the aisle. On Fred’s left was Sammi, holding Fred’s hand and wearing a dimpled smile. Sammi’s other hand was in Lisa’s, and Lisa was holding Larry’s, something she never used to do in church before Sammi came along. Fred suspected that Sammi had something to do with that, in some subtle, secret way.

Jamie turned his face toward Fred and smiled at her, then squeezed her hand. She felt the magic tingle run through her fingers and wrist and up into her arm, and she shivered. “Oh,” she breathed. “
Love
that.” Then, surprisingly, she felt it in her other hand.

She spun and looked at Sammi, who grinned and whispered, “Did you feel that?”

“Yes. That’s a first, coming from you.”

“Unh hunh.” Sammi leaned across Fred and raised her eyebrows at Jamie, then gestured with her head toward Evelyn. Jamie stared at Sammi blankly for a moment, then he seemed to get what she was suggesting and he took Evelyn’s hand. Sammi’s smile broadened. Evelyn returned Sammi’s smile with one of her own and twined her fingers with Rachel’s, who appeared startled for a couple of seconds before taking Carl’s hand. Then Carl took Aunt Connie’s and she took Ray’s.

They were joined in a string now, like paper dolls that had been cut from one big piece of paper and unfolded across the pew. The tingle grew stronger, and steady. The older members of their families looked at each other curiously, and Larry leaned close to Fred and whispered, “Are you doing that?”

“Do you feel it, too?”

He nodded. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, I mean…not intentionally. Something’s happening.”

“Feels nice,” Lisa said quietly.

Fred shrugged. “I don’t know what’s causing it.”

Fred glanced past Uncle Ray and noticed that the couple on the other side of the aisle was holding hands, too. Then she heard a rustle and looked over her shoulder to see the family in the pew behind her, young parents with two little girls, all four of them holding hands.

Fred turned back to face the minister and noticed something unusual in the maroon-robed choir sitting on the risers behind him. Two little old ladies, Mrs. Pennington and Mrs. Ferry, who’d been best friends since they were little girls, had their fingers wrapped together as their hands dangled in the gap between their chairs.

“Wow,” Jamie said quietly. Fred heard more movement among the congregation, and others seemed to be following her family’s example, even though they couldn’t see them. It was as if a handholding spell, if there were such a thing, was spreading over the room, reaching all corners, all people.

Reverend Doyle apparently noticed, too, and began to struggle with his sermon, clearing his throat and punctuating his sentences with pauses while he glanced at his flock. After a few more awkward minutes, he pulled his glasses from his nose, set them on the rostrum, and rubbed his eyes with the fingertips of his other hand. He sighed deeply and said, “I don’t want to read this right now. I want….” He cleared his throat again softly. “I want to talk about something else. Something that I think is important. I want to tell you why I went into the ministry.”

He crumpled up the pages of his prepared text into a tight ball and smiled sheepishly when a few people chuckled, then he began speaking in a way that he never had before, extemporaneously, but sincerely. His head was up and his gaze swept the congregation, making eye contact with everyone, his face passionate but gentle. He spoke of what first attracted him to the idea of making a career as a Methodist minister. “When someone told me that God is love,” he said, “that was it. That’s what I wanted to do for a living. Share love with as many people as I could.” He gestured at the people who sat before him, spellbound. “Which is you. I want to tell you why I love you,
all
of you, each and every one.”

All eyes were on the small, thin man, who seemed to grow taller as he spoke, chin up, chest out, hands gripping the edges of the rostrum.

Jamie nodded slowly. “Something different just happened.” He turned to face Fred and mouthed
Magic
.

Fred knew it, too, and while she wondered what it was, she remembered something that Mrs. Malley had told her once:
Love has a very powerful magic of its own
.

Fred rode home from church with Jamie. He had barely driven them out of the parking lot before her phone chirped. She checked the screen and said, “It’s a text from Terry.” She glanced over at Jamie, in the driver’s seat of his Chevy, and she gave him a quick smile. “And get this. She and Eric are on their way back to Langley.”

“Great.” Jamie gave a satisfied bob of his head. “So I guess their boss said it was okay.” His brow wrinkled momentarily and he said, “Wish they’d told me earlier. I could’ve made a doorway for them to Virginia and saved them a bunch of driving time.” He tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs and twisted his mouth up on one side. “Text her back and ask her if she wants me to make one for them now, though I don’t know where they are, if they’re already on the highway. Make sure you use the code words my dad came up with in case anybody’s snooping.”

Fred sent the message and waited. The reply came in seconds. She read the display aloud, “She said don’t worry about it. You’ve done enough already.”

“I don’t mind. It’s just a doorway. It might take some effort to find them, though. Tell her I’ll do it.”

“Jamie.” Fred let out an exasperated sigh. “You
have
done enough. You risked your life to help them, and you blew up a helicopter and an airplane and a runway and a road. They don’t have any reason to complain.”

“But it’s probably an eight-hour drive, at least.”

“Terry told me Eric drives fast. He uses his CIA badge to get out of a ticket if he gets pulled over by a cop.”