going to get away from them safely.
“You have these Dark Men chasing you, but you can’t run forever. What are you going to do?” I asked.
She stared at me with a pained expression on her face.
“What?” I said, a tad impatient.
“I don’t want to say in case the Dark Men come back. I don’t want to get you involved further.”
“I’m already involved,” I argued. “You just told me how the key works and that I am a target now too. The Dark Men will be after me now, even if we go our separate ways.”
“True,” she conceded. “But, I’m not certain they will be back for you.”
“The Dark Man we left in that shop is alive and knows I'm with you. If you leave now, odds are, they will think I know where you’re going and still target me anyway. I’m not willing to take the chance that they’ll be back. Also, I can’t in good conscience let you do this alone, especially since I know the danger you’re in. I’d rather just help you end this.”
“Oh, yes. He does know you’re with me, doesn’t he” She said to herself, realizing her folly. “I just couldn't watch him hurt you and they aren’t exactly easy to kill, which is why I left him alive.” She looked up at me for a moment, debating about letting me come or leaving me behind. “I really am sorry about this mess,” she sighed. “Okay, you’re coming with. The plan is to end this all by destroying the key.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“Before I got the key, my father had it. The Dark Men have been searching for the key for a long time, even before my father got it. He found the key a few years ago and did his best to keep is safe and locked away. My father found it in his travels in a shop in France. It was there for years, untouched and forgotten until my father found it. Not too long after he touched it, the Dark Men showed up and tried to take it. That’s when my father began looking for the book. This book is an instruction manual for the key,” She took the thick book out of her bag. It was the same book she used to knock the Dark Man out with.
“What does the book say about the key?”
“It’s a really dry read, but it describes the origins of the key, contains notes from some of the previous owners, and, more importantly, describes how to destroy it.”
“How do we do that?” I asked.
Amber didn’t reply for a moment. She turned her ear towards the door as if she had heard something. I followed her gaze and stared at the back of the door. Luckily, after a moment of intense waiting and praying, Amber let out a sigh of relief. “I’ll explain what the book says and fill you in, but we should find some place safe to talk first. I want to be long gone when they get here.”
I quickly filled my backpack with some essentials like extra cash, clothes, and basic toiletries. With my bag packed, I followed Amber out of my doom room. She watched the stairs and elevator bank while I locked the door. When I was done, I stepped aside to give her access to my door. Gripping the handle in her left hand and the key in her right, she paused for a moment while she imagined a door in her mind. When she was ready, she inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. The room on the other side was dark, but some natural moonlight filtered in through the sheer curtains, illuminating a private office and library. I walked towards Amber, but she stopped in the doorway for a moment.
“What is it?” I asked her, aware that there was a time limit. I did not want to be stuck on the wrong side of the door.
“I’m just facing an old ghost,” she replied quietly. When I knew her she was an only child living with her mom and dad. It suddenly occurred to me that she was all alone now. Her father wasn’t with her. I began to wonder what happened to her family.
She took a deep breath, grabbed my hand, and together we stepped through the threshold. The room we entered was cool and musty. It smelled familiar, like old books. It had a cozy and familiar smell. Two old plushy guest chairs stood to the side of the room while a mahogany desk stood near the windows. We had played in those chairs, putting the seats together to make a sailboat in our imagination. This was the room we played in whenever I visited. Amber walked in slowly, not really caring about the door. She stepped towards the desk and rested a hand on the cool wood surface.
I heard a soft squeal behind me and I turned just in time to see the door close on its own. The portal closed and the dorm hallway disappeared behind it. Just out of curiosity, I walked to the door and opened it. On the other side was a dark hallway, not the one from my dorm hall, but in the house I remembered from our childhood.
Whoa, I thought to myself filled with both wonder and apprehension. I closed the door and stared at the wood panels while I processed the awesome power of the teleporting key. I no longer doubted why the Dark Men would want such a wonderfully powerful item. I turned back towards Amber.
“Are we safe here?” I asked, suddenly wondering how a familiar place to Amber could be safe from the Dark Men.
“For now, in this room, we're okay,” she replied, looking towards me. “The Dark Men won’t think to come here. Plus, my father shielded the room so they can’t track the key here. They can’t even get into this room. That being said, we should definitely not use the lights so they won't know we're here.” Amber walked over to a seat by the bookshelves and sat down. I sat down in the seat next to her, putting my bag on the floor beside the chair.
“How and why did your dad shield the room?” I wondered, still not sure of the extent of this new magical world I had just been introduced to.
“I mentioned that the Dark Men have their own supernatural talents, remember? The book actually mentions that the Dark Men forced a sorcerer to try and replicate the key. The entry was written a year after the key's creation and includes notes from some of the key’s previous owners. The Dark Men have been trying since then to get the key. The new keys were failures, so the next thing they forced the sorcerers to do was create a way of tracking the key. They have a map that shows them the key's location.
“The creator of the key, at this point, devised a way to protect the key from the map. He wrote down the instruction in this book. Unfortunately, the spell is a long and involved process so I can't do it everywhere I go. That means there are only a few safe rooms. The key is not always in a place of protection.”
“Spell?”
“Yeah, believe it or not there is a great deal of magic behind the key. I mean, how else would you explain how the key can open a door here and connect it to a door on the other side of the world?”
“Good point.”
“According to the book, an old sorcerer created the key. The book was unclear on why. I think it’s because he wanted to be able to sneak into his lover’s room without being detected, but that theory is just that. When he died, the key just started being passed from owner to owner, and eventually, I think, the key went dormant. The Dark Men have been after this key since just about as early as it was created.”
“Ah,” I replied, letting everything sink in. “Why did the key go dormant?”
“I don't really know. In all likelihood, it was probably left untouched by people and magic for a long period of time so it temporarily lost its power.”
“If the key was created by magic and a sorcerer, why can’t a sorcerer destroy it?”
“There aren’t any left,” she replied. “The Dark Men have killed them all hoping for another key to be made. To my knowledge, no other sorcerer has succeeded. It’s dangerous enough, that one of them figured out how to track the key.”
“So the key is kind of like a hot potato. And that just leaves you and me to destroy the key?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically. I still wasn't satisfied with the fact we were the only ones who could do anything. “Wait, how did your dad cast the shield spell? I mean are there other people with magic that could help?” I saw her expression sadden at the mention of her father. I wish I hadn’t of a
sked, but I needed to know if I was going to help her. I needed to know we weren't foolishly and unnecessarily putting ourselves in danger.
“Dad had some magic,” she replied. “We all have some magic, but for most people it stays dormant or at a minimal level. Have you ever wished hard enough for something to happen and then it does: a light to change green, an elevator door to open, etc.? That's magic. Sorcerers naturally have a higher level of magic than most people. They also typically study it and learn how to control it.
“Maybe with proper training, my Dad could have become one, but that’s impossible now. There are no teachers left. My dad could handle the shield spell and he was preparing for destroying the key when he was killed,” she paused, tears welling up in her eyes. “He gave the book to me and told me that everything I needed to destroy the key was already ordered by a family friend.” She stared down at her hands as she spoke.
We sat in silence for a moment before I asked, “Amber? Can I ask what happened?”
Amber took a deep breath before replying, “Dad went through all the trouble of shielding the room as soon as he figured out it was dangerous, but it was too late. They figured out he had it. One night, about three months ago, mom and I went for a walk. That’s when the Dark Men attacked.” She paused for a moment, swallowing some tears. I found an old napkin in