1.01 – The Everett Hall Incident

Everett Hall had always been the subject of numerous ghost stories that floated around the campus of Sun Valley University. Students spoke in hushed tones of endless hallways, distorted corridors, and an overall feeling of spookiness.

Carda had always laughed off the stories as rumor and superstition, but now, standing atop the old residence hall, he remembered that even the strangest fiction has some kernel of truth.

Ten seconds earlier, he had been standing at the foot of this very building.

James Carda and his twin sister Michelle were both sophomore students at Sun Valley University. Michelle was pursuing a fine arts degree in dance while Carda (he hated being called by his first name) was majoring in archaeology with a minor in theater.

It was a consistent source of contention with his parents that his theater grades were consistently higher than those of his archaeology courses.

David and Abigail Carda were renowned archaeologists who seemed to specialize in legend and folklore. People often joked that movies could be made about their “exploits,” but the couple insisted that their job was quite boring most of the time.

Carda and Michelle laughed at this claim. They had heard all the real stories, not just from their parents, but from those David and Abigail worked with, and the stories were quite exciting. From booby-trapped dungeons to fanatical locals, there seemed to be never a dull moment in the archaeologists’ lives.

Carda had never been sure that he wanted that much excitement in his life. So even though he had promised his parents that he would pursue an archaeology degree, he spent more time and effort on his theater courses. Not even the threat of losing his Grey Foundation scholarship (which, his parents insisted, was the only thing keeping him in school and off the streets) was enough to convince Carda to focus on archaeology over theater.

Theater was just more fun, he pointed out. To which his parents always replied that not everything in life could be fun. Carda always stopped arguing at that point, since the discussion always started going in circles from there.

Carda’s other joy, and one that his parents seemed to tolerate more (much to his puzzlement), was street racing. Sun Valley had always been one of the hubs of the racing scene, and the fact that a full-blown race course had been built in an effort to keep racers off the public city streets only served to cement the city’s reputation as a racer’s paradise.

While Carda wasn’t the number one Racer To Beat, he was definitely in the higher echelons of the local scene. His drifting ability was one of his defining characteristics. While Carda’s Roadster may not have had much power in the top speed department, it was his maneuverability that won him most of his races. The other top racers of Sun Valley claimed that Carda could drift circles around you if you let him.

Carda, for his part, let the others do most of the talking while he did the driving. He enjoyed the feeling of control, of manipulating his vehicle just the way he wanted to get the best performance from his machine. For Carda, racing wasn’t about money or bragging rights, even though he had a fair amount of both. It was about the skill.

Some of the other racers, particularly racers who weren’t quite as good, didn’t seem to view things the same way he did. There was always the new guy who thought he had skills until Carda shut him down in a sanctioned race.

The previous night, Carda had done just that.

The race had begun as they usually did.

“You think you’re all that, don’tcha?”

Carda turned to see a swaggering 19-year-old in leather jacket and sunglasses approach him. “Dude, what’s with the fighter pilot getup?”

“You got a problem with how I dress?”

“Only that it’s 80 degrees out here. At nine o’clock at night. In the desert.”

“Yeah, so?”

Carda shook his head. “Whatever. You here to race?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“The fact that we’re at a racetrack might have something to do with it.” Snickering from the more elite local racers registered in Carda’s hearing; his pre-race banter was considered to be almost as good as his racing skills.

“Watch your mouth, man, I got skills you only ever dreamed about.”

“Care to put your money where your mouth is?” Carda had remained calm throughout the entire exchange, mainly because he was starting to get annoyed. The other racetrack regulars knew that a calm and collected Carda was ready to get into his car and shut up whatever young punk happened to be irritating him.

“Two hundred dollars, one lap, winner takes all.”

Carda’s eyebrows shot up as muttered astonishment arose around them. The average wager for a race was twenty-five dollars a lap, plus the loser paid for the winner’s next tank of gas.

“I think you’ve got a deal. What should I call you, anyway? I like to make sure my opponent’s checks won’t bounce.”

The contender glared behind his sunglasses. “Shades.”

“Okay, ‘Shades,’ let’s get this show on the road.”

“What am I lookin’ at, Slicks?” Carda inquired.

Rick “Slicks” Tucker was the racetrack’s local mechanic. His prices were relatively high, but no one begrudged him that; the man was GOOD at what he did. “I’m worried about this one, Carda. I think you may be in over your head.”

“Yeah, I see it too.” They were both referring to the tanks in Shades’ trunk, the valves of which Shades was finishing his pre-race adjustment on. “Nitrous oxide.”

“He’ll blow your doors off on the first straightaway you come to.”

“What about the track? Isn’t it still set up for technical racing?”

“Yeah, but there’s still the long back stretch that they’ve been using for straight drag runs this week.”

“I’ll just have to make sure I don’t give him an opening, then.”

“Godspeed, man. You just might need the extra wings this time.”

Carda blinked, then looked across the track to where Sera stood. He wondered how she always knew when to show up for his races. Carda’s fellow student always wore white clothes, the brilliance of which never seemed to fade. Rick always joked about how Sera was Carda’s guardian angel, at which point he would wink at Sera. Carda never understood what he was talking about.

He shrugged and settled into his seat. Kyle, the local champion, stepped up to the starting line to begin the race.

Carda had to hand it to Shades; the guy was confident. He didn’t even try to jump the gun to get an early lead. Shades’ problem was that his car was tuned for power, acceleration, and top speed rather than technical turns, so he kept having to slam on his brakes to get around the hairpin corners. Carda, meanwhile, skated around him through the third turn on a four-wheel drift and maintained the lead by skimming over the asphalt through each successive curve.

Halfway through the long straightaway Slicks had mentioned, Shades made his move.

Before Carda knew what was happening, he was getting slammed into the guardrail. His lightweight car rolled through the air as Shades boosted ahead towards victory. Carda’s last thought before hitting the ground was a panicked prayer to a God he’d only ever read about.

And that was when everything slowed to a stop.

Carda recognized this. He’d had flashes of second sight before, which he always recognized by the sparks of purple electricity in the air. Everything slowly rewound, like a movie in 3-D, and Carda was able to look around and observe what would happen if he didn’t change something… although what he saw was in reverse. As he landed back on his wheels again, he saw Shades laughing. He watched while Shades’ car ricocheted off his Roadster’s left rear fender, showing that the movement had been deliberate. And everything slowed to a stop again back at the beginning of the long straightaway.

Carda knew that this meant he had a scant few seconds to change what he had foreseen.

The world slammed from pause back into full-speed ahead, and Carda was nearly disoriented by the abrupt change, but he still had the presence of mind to downshift and yank the steering wheel to the left.

Shades’ would-be bounce and boost maneuver missed entirely as Carda pulled off a 360-degree drift, swinging the back end of his Roadster out of the way of the oncoming attack. Shades’ car slammed into the guardrail, but since it was heavier, it merely skidded along the rail to a stop, the sound of shrieking metal piercing the eardrums of the spectators on the other side of the course.

Carda drifted sideways across the finish line and slammed his parking brake on before leaping out of his car. He knew that he likely would have died if he hadn’t foreseen it, and he was about to bloody someone’s nose for it. Preferably Shades’.

Shades, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t bothered crossing the finish line at all, opting instead to flee from the track through the nearest gate.

“Man, that punk owes you two hundred bucks!” Slicks griped as he ran up to Carda.

“He owes me a lot more than that,” Carda growled, figuring he’d never see Shades again.

The next day, Carda wished he’d been right.

Standing a fair distance away from the racetrack and observing through binoculars, a robed man smiled. He raised a cell phone to his ear and spoke. “You can tell Xelor that I’ve found a new chronomancer. …No, I don’t know if he’s the right one yet, but he definitely has the Spark. I’ll keep an eye on him for now. I’ll move in to recruit him when the time is right.”

Across the raceway lot, another figure stood overlooking the scene, this one nearly blending in with the darkness. A free-floating flame hovered over one shoulder. “So he IS the one,” the flame spoke.

“You had any reason to doubt me, my lady?” the shadowy figure answered.

“You have failed me before,” the flame replied.

“Not this time, my lady. He is the one, and he will join our side. My efforts in the past will soon come to fruition.”

“See that your plans do not fail, Dimetrius. For if your efforts fail, you too will have failed.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The flame dissipated into nothingness, leaving the shadow to consider its parting words.

The next day, Carda was roughly shoved up against the back wall of Everett Hall. Shades got up in his face and the two rough-looking thugs flanking Carda discouraged any attempts at escape.

“Do you have any idea how much damage you did to my car last night?”

“Damage I did?!? You tried to KILL me!”

“What are you talking about? It was just going to be a gentle tap!”

“A ‘gentle tap’ that likely would have sent me flipping over the guardrail! You’re lucky I’m still alive or you’d have vehicular manslaughter on your hands!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Shades growled. “My insurance won’t pay for the damages, so guess who’s going to pay?”

“Last I checked, I won that race,” Carda shot back defiantly. “I still want my 200 bucks.”

“You’re going to get more than that,” Shades grinned wickedly. “I figure the medical bills will be worth a couple thousand at least.”

As Shades pulled his fist back, Carda closed his eyes and prayed for the second time in two days.

There was a sickening crunch and a primal scream of pain… but Carda only heard these things from a distance. When he opened his eyes, he stood atop the roof of Everett Hall.

Carda couldn’t figure out how he had gotten here. He didn’t remember running, and he figured that if he had run up ten flights of stairs he would be winded. But he felt fine. Carda stepped forward and looked over the edge of the building. He could see Shades holding his wrist in pain, and the other two thugs looking around for signs of the vanished Carda. He stepped back and out of sight before anyone thought to look up.

“That was very impressive,” came a voice from behind Carda. He whirled around to see who had spoken…

…and found himself face to face with a girl he recognized from a dream.