The Talisman War Box Set

Chapter 10

Dakota didn’t really own any luggage. Or furniture. Just a whole lot of miscellaneous clothing, a few of his mom’s old trinkets to be handled tenderly, and a single box of personal belongings that he actually cared about. While he shoved his clothes into garbage bags and tightly wrapped the trinkets in newspaper, the box sat unattended next to his bed. He never unpacked it to begin with, even though it contained the things he valued the most, apart from his new necklace.

It made sense, in a way. He never felt at home here. These things—photos, small gifts, and artifacts from his childhood and happier times—they were better than this place. They deserved to be out in the open, but with people who could appreciate where they came from and what they meant. Even Aiden wouldn’t really “get” half of the stuff, though he certainly wouldn’t say anything negative about it. In fact, he probably would’ve been happy that Dakota wanted to share it with him.

But he couldn’t risk the possibility of judgment or ridicule. He didn’t want to be vulnerable. In the three months or so since starting college, very few of the items in the old office-style cardboard box saw the light of day: only a couple of pictures of his sister and mother, which he kept on his nightstand; a few of his books; and a hand-knitted blanket he kept on the chair by his laptop.

Terrell helped pack up the computer and his alarm clock. Once he finished, he inevitably hovered over the box that constituted Dakota’s pre-college life. Whatever he saw right away, it made him smile. He reached inside and produced the offending object. Holding it up—by the ears—for Dakota to see, he asked, “Yours?”

He refused to look at him. “Yeah, uh, it just got thrown in with the rest of my s**t when I moved here.”

The answer didn’t satisfy Terrell, probably because it was a lie. He carried the worn cotton, off-beige-colored stuffed animal over to Dakota and cradled it in both hands. “C’mon. This thing looks loved. You don’t have to hide stuff from me, okay? I really don’t want to keep any secrets from you, and you never have to do it with me.”

“I’ve had it since I was a kid,” he reluctantly admitted. “Like four or five. I haven’t been able to get rid of it.”

Terrell smoothed down the faux fur on the rabbit’s face. He looked down at it lovingly. “Does he have a name?”

He did. Kids always named them. Always. Even if it was just a descriptive term or one they kept to themselves. They named them because toys like that could end up being your best friend in a way. Even for sociable kids. Your friends from school weren’t there when you fell asleep or tagged along to the grocery store—or your parents were screaming at each other in the next room. Yeah, the stuffed animal had a name, but he felt no less mortified at having to talk about it. “Jack.”

Though Terrell laughed, it wasn’t out of derision or even amusement at the nineteen-year-old bringing an infantile toy with him to college. He quite possibly found it endearing. “Because he’s a rabbit?”

Without making eye contact, Dakota nodded. “Not the most original name in the world.”

“Nahh, I like it. It’s cute.” He wandered back to the box and carefully returned the stuffed bunny to its former location. “Sometimes you gotta hold onto things that make you feel better. It’s how you survive.”

Picking up two bags of clothes and slinging the laptop case over his back, Dakota finally turned toward him. “Do you have anything like that?”

Terrell shook his head. “No, I…umm, I don’t have a whole lot of stuff from when I was younger.” On the surface, he seemed to be opening up, but Terrell held something back. “I wish I did, though. Mostly, I think I just kind of find people to hold onto, instead. You know?”

“You mean like me?” Dakota found himself asking before really thinking it through.

He nodded. “Maybe.”

“What makes you think I’d be good for that? I’m barely standing on my own feet. Terrell—” Dakota’s voice took on an undertone so filled with sympathy that he actually surprised himself. “I dunno if I can give you what you need.”

“I’m not lookin’ for a crutch. You’re more than that, anyway. What I meant was, I keep people close. If I let somebody in, I care about them a lot, look out for them.” After a couple seconds of hesitation, he continued, “Trust them. You may not think that much of yourself, but when I gave you that necklace, you put it on. And you didn’t take it off. You’ve been taking care of it for me without there being much in it for you.”

Dakota couldn’t help but pick up the heavy disk and wrap his fingers around it tightly. Maybe he was right. Quietly, he asked, “What about your family? Are you gonna tell them about me? Us?”

“I’ll have to. They’ll find out eventually even if I wanted to hide it, which I don’t.” He paused, his expression growing pensive and distant. “I’ve never told them, you know. I mean, that I like guys, too. I had girlfriends, so they just always assumed that that’s the end of the story.”

“Do you think I’m worth changing that?”

He nodded forcefully. “And then some.” Clearing his throat, he asked, “Can you give me a little bit to work it out, though? I—I dunno. They’re all I got, so I wanna make sure I do it right.”

One part of Dakota wanted to be annoyed, but it wasn’t worth the energy. He’d keep an eye on Terrell’s progress and try to be patient. He kissed his cheek. “If you need some time, you got it. I’ll still be here.”

“Thanks.”

“When you do tell them, I think they’ll love and support you. When you’re ready.” He planted another smooch and smiled at him. “If we hurry, we might be able to make it back in time for dinner. Your aunt’s cooking is growing on me.”

Terrell laughed.

* * * *

When they pulled up to the house and swung open the front door, no delicious smells or warmth greeted them. The house wasn’t properly lit, as though no one had entered it since the sun started to dip below the horizon. Immediately, Terrell had a horrified expression. “Something’s wrong,” he whispered. From a small table in the main hallway, he pulled out a handgun and held it in front of him.

Dakota spied a light emanating from the den at the far end of the hall, and he could just barely make out the sounds of women talking. “I don’t think you’re gonna need that,” he warned, pointing at the rectangle of light. Last thing they wanted was for Terrell to accidentally shoot a family member just because they were having some sort of important meeting and hadn’t filled him in.

He lowered the weapon. As they approached the room, both of their hearts sank. The women weren’t just talking; they were crying. Panicking. Terrell tucked the gun into the back of his waistband and hid it with his shirt. With a familiar gentleness, he knocked on the door frame. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

All four of them spun to look at him nearly in unison, and their faces were red from sobbing. Lorna spoke first, merely uttering his name. When Eleanor took her turn, she shed some light on the situation. “It’s Carrie,” she cried. One of Terrell’s cousins. “Somebody attacked her. Cut her up pretty bad and burned her skin. She’s in the hospital.”

Terrell’s own emotional state degraded. He used the wall to steady himself, but he looked like someone punched him in the gut. Dakota stood on the periphery. He didn’t know this person, apart from hearing her name in conversation. He had no tangible connection to the news. But he felt for them. He knew what it was like to lose someone, and it sounded like she almost didn’t make it.

His first inclination was to ask questions, but he wisely stopped himself. It wasn’t his place to do that. Hell, he probably shouldn’t even be here. And he didn’t move to comfort Terrell, either, despite wanting very deeply to try. Instead, Dakota pushed him softly into the room so he could be with his family.

The answers to most of his potential inquiries came quickly enough. Somebody looking for their talismans tracked the poor lawyer down to her condo in NYC. He was white. Late twenties. “Wild,” angry eyes. Fiery red hair. Wearing strange necklaces with multiple, large crystal discs that seemed to glow. He spoke to Carrie as if he knew her, but she said she didn’t recognize him. He forced his way into her home.

For the better part of twenty minutes, he tried to get information about the talismans. He said they rightfully belonged to his boss, a powerful magic wielder. Though he contended that he didn’t want to hurt her, he used a knife to make small cuts on her body and later burned her with magic fire. Bloodcurdling screams alerted the neighbors. They called the cops, and one man tried to break through the door, but to no avail. By the time they got in, the mystery attacker was gone, having left out the fire escape.

He didn’t steal her talisman because her cousins kept it at the ranch. And he didn’t get any information out of Carrie, either. She was as stubborn and strong-willed as Eleanor and Eddie, and she most certainly knew what this monster could do to her extended family. But torture was torture, and no one would have blamed her if she cracked under such brutal treatment.

Regardless, they needed to assume the attacker would soon find the ranch’s location and what the group kept there. He might already be planning to hurt them.

The family members slowly picked themselves up and started making preparations. Lorna spent much of the evening on the phone with police and other family members. She played innocent to both state detectives and the FBI, which believed that the bastard might be a serial killer in training. Her acting proved surprisingly good, at least to Dakota. He wouldn’t have guessed she would’ve been able to lie so convincingly on cue.

Eddie translated her unabated rage into action. She put at least one gun in every single person’s hand by the end of an hour-long whirlwind, which also included locking all the doors and windows in the house, chaining the cellar shut, and taking about fifteen minutes to explain to Dakota how to use a hunting rifle. She insisted he keep the heavy weapon, along with a lighter handgun, on his person, and she implied that he would be helping her keep watch and patrol the property. He wanted to object, having never fired a gun in his life and being prone to violence against himself, but who else could help her, apart from Eleanor?

Lorna was made of strong stock, but she had to be in her early sixties. And anyway, they placed her on phone detail. Emily, while young enough to help, seemed terrified at the prospect of playing sentry with a madman on the loose. She barely belonged on a farm, let alone in a warzone. And the news about her cousin paralyzed her. She didn’t move from her position on the couch for much of the evening, and she only spoke when people talked to her first. Under any other circumstance, they might have taken Emily for medical treatment if it were safe, but for now, they cared for her the best they could and hoped she would eventually snap out of it.

Asking Terrell to wander around their five-acre, fenced-in estate while carrying a heavy gun he could only operate with one hand would be callous if not downright stupid. He couldn’t really defend himself, let alone the ranch, with most conventional weapons, and he’d just begun memorizing the talismans’ names and uses.

Eleanor understood them significantly better. She set one to work right away. Snow. Difficult to burn anything with inches of cold water covering every structure and patch of land. While it made patrolling the fences more arduous, it also cloaked everything from view past a couple feet, and it calmed their animals, who didn’t want to venture out into the bad weather.

The only inherited talisman not on the property was the second most useful. Cousin Al’s ice-making necklace. Since he lived so close to the ranch, he took it back home a few weeks ago. With a mind to cover everything in a protective sheen using snow as insulation, Eleanor called his girlfriend, but the man himself couldn’t be found. She assured them that he simply went out to a bar with a few friends upon hearing the news about Carrie. He didn’t drink often, but he needed some way to cope. He took the necklace with him. It was just terrible, what happened, she said.

After leaving instructions for Al and his significant other to hurry over to the ranch as soon as possible, Eleanor hung up. Worry flashed across her face. They couldn’t spare a person to go looking for the wayward cousin, and he wasn’t answering his cellphone.

Dakota wanted to spend more time with Terrell, to make sure he was okay after receiving such jarring news, but Eddie insisted he become her little soldier. Meanwhile, Eleanor conscripted Terrell to work some of the talismans, like the snow one, from inside the house.

The previously untested one—a brownish-yellow crystal that technically belonged to Terrell’s youngest brother—turned out to cause thunderstorms. Rain, lightning, hail, the works. They could use it in combination with the snow if they had to, but doing so might raise suspicions with the locals. The last thing they needed were innocent bystanders getting involved.

Two of the stones still remained a mystery and were thus essentially useless. Nonetheless, since most of them agreed with the defense theory, Eleanor wore the one belonging to Terrell’s sister, and she told her cousin to wear and activate his. While he said he would, he gave the same instruction to Dakota when they had a few brief minutes to themselves. It took a couple tries, but he eventually pronounced it right: “A’kash eta ma.”

When he looked inside his shirt, he could see it glowing green in places. But three layers of cloth hid it from view, and he intended to keep it that way.

“Is it working?” Terrell asked in a quiet voice.

Dakota nodded. “I guess.”

Eddie’s anti-electricity amulet would be a last-resort item, as well. It could hinder them by killing all their electronics, vehicles, and power. The stone-to-earth talisman got shelved completely since Eleanor worried it could destroy the foundation of the house.

Eleanor proudly wore her object-lifting talisman. She expressed an intense desire to pick up the torturer and fling him at the ground—over and over—until nothing remained but pulp and broken bones.

After much deliberation, Terrell took the bird-calling necklace his cousin nearly died trying to protect, and Dakota borrowed the mammal-summoning one for whenever he left the house to do a few circles around the ranch. When he wasn’t patrolling, it went back to Terrell, and both were given strict instructions only to activate it in case of an absolute emergency. But the fact that they gave Dakota one at all spoke volumes as to how quickly they let the newcomer into their lives. They not only needed an extra soldier, but they trusted him to an extent, and they trusted Terrell’s assessment of him.

With everyone armed to the teeth, both magically and conventionally, they put all the animals in safe locations and began an exhausting night of keeping watch.

Eleanor, Eddie, and Dakota each walked two tours around the property, with Eddie performing longer routes. They kept alert as best they could in the snow and darkness, while avoiding the few floodlights dotting the complex. They tried to kick up fresh snow whenever possible. That way, if someone saw their tracks, it would appear that far more people defended the place.

Satisfied at around eleven that no attack would come, the group hunkered down inside the house, locking themselves in, barricading the doors, and shuttering the windows. Lorna and Emily reluctantly went to bed, while Eddie and Eleanor vowed to take turns keeping watch and napping lightly. Dakota was relieved of his duties for now, and Terrell, for the most part, got ignored. He disappeared in the direction of his room without so much as a word to Dakota.