6. Tunnel Vision
Tunnel Vision
Elias Shaw had been working on the tunnel behind that brain poster since .
. . well, who knows when. Far longer than he liked to think about.
Multiple decades, anyway. Had to be. Decades of careful, methodical spellwork—tiny finger movements that liberated microscopic pieces of the wall, one grain at a time.
Decades of patience that had yielded a tunnel roughly the size of a rabbit hole, plus a fourteenth chair that he’d been constructing grain by grain from the excavated material.
Not exactly the Panama Canal, he thought. But it’s not as if he was brimming with options.
“This escape of yours is taking for-evvvv-errrr.” Max was splayed across the waiting room chairs like he was auditioning for a Tennessee Williams play. “At this rate, we’ll still be sitting around when the sun burns out.”
Elias resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Try living here a century, sport. Then we’ll talk.
“Well, Max, considering there ain’t any time in the Void, I’d say we got plenty of it.
” He continued his delicate finger spells, coaxing another nearly invisible speck from the wall.
Magic felt sluggish here—everything did—but it was still reliable enough for the small stuff.
“Besides, you want to alert every guard from here to eternity? Because that’s what happens when you get impatient. We get sloppy, we get pinched.”
“But surely there’s got to be a faster way. Once I made an entire birthday party disappear—”
“Into a heavy rainstorm, yeah, you mentioned.” Elias coaxed another speck from the wall. “Tell me, Max, in your whole magnificent career, you ever actually make anything disappear on purpose? Not just happy accidents involving weather patterns?”
Max sat upright, sending his cape swirling. “I’ll have you know, I once made the Statue of Liberty disappear.”
“Uh-huh. And did anyone notice?”
His confident expression faltered. “Well . . . no. Turns out there was a really thick fog that day, so . . .”
“Right, more weather.” Elias fixed him with a hard stare. “You’re a party magician. Not only that, you’re an overly confident party magician, which has got to be the worst type. You think maybe—just maybe—there’s a reason you got yourself caught and ended up here with me?”
Before Max could mount a defense, a sound drifted through the endless gray nothing surrounding their little waiting room.
Singing. Very, very bad singing. “Once I lived the life of a millionaire . . . Spendin’ my money I didn’t have a care . . .”
Elias stared at the closed door in bewilderment. What fresh hell is this? In all his years of imprisonment, he’d seen plenty of new arrivals. Some arrived screaming, some arrived weeping, many arrived doing both at once. None had ever arrived singing like she was headlining the Cotton Club.
“Is that . . .” Max whispered.
“Singing,” Elias confirmed. “By someone who definitely ain’t a singer.” But I gotta admire the brass, he thought. Ain’t just any dame who can sing her way into hell.
“When I began to fall so low . . . I didn’t have a friend and no place to go .
. .” The voice was getting closer—an impressive feat in itself, since most new arrivals were too distracted by the unforgiving descent to attempt any sort of movement.
Stranger still was how untroubled the voice was.
Off-key, sure, but relaxed. Not the sound of someone free-falling through an interdimensional void while being molested by Void eels.
“How is she so calm?” Max crept toward the threshold of their sanctuary. “When I arrived, I was screaming like I was on fire.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“So if I ever get my hand on a dollar again, I’m gonna hold on to it ’til them eagles grin. Nobody knows you, when you’re down and out . . . Oh! A door! Excellent!”
The waiting room’s outer door flew open.
A young woman stepped through, and Elias had to admit she was quite a picture.
Curly blond locks that looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon, rather than an unending void.
Sharp green eyes that surveyed the room, suggesting she found the whole situation more interesting than terrifying.
Which didn’t make a lick of sense.
“Hello,” she said brightly. “I’m Luna Melrose. I’m here to rescue Elias Shaw. Is he here?”
Max scrambled to his feet, his cape tangling around his legs. “Maximillian the Magnificent, pleasure to make your acquaintance.
“Ohhhh, it’s . . . you.” Her bright expression dimmed. “Hello, Max. Should have known you’d end up here eventually. What’d you do this time?”
“Wait, you know me?”
“Yeah, you’re kind of a dick.”
“Melrose, did you say?” Elias interrupted. “Are you some relation of Kelly Melrose? She was one snazzy tomato, I’ll tell you that for free.”
“My mother?!” Luna made a face. “A snazzy tomato?”
“I’ll say! My name’s Elias Shaw. I take it you’re here for me, sweetheart?”
“I’m not your sweetheart, but yes. Apparently you helped keep my mother and her friends safe until they could be rescued. So now I’m here to return the favor.”
“Lady, do you have any idea where here is? Do you understand where you are right now? Because your singing suggests to me that you don’t.”
“Sure, this is the Void, isn’t it? Interdimensional prison space between portals. Remarkably depressing décor, I must say.” Luna looked around with obvious distaste. “Seriously, who chose beige?”
Elias chuckled. “You got a point. A little flash wouldn’t kill ’em.”
“Wait, I don’t understand,” Max interjected. “You’re not screaming. You’re not even scared.”
“Should I be?”
“What about the constant falling into nothingness? What about the Void eels?”
“Void eels, is that what you call them? Cute. No, listen: magical creatures like those are easily tamed with the right melody. And the falling sensation is just a matter of a quick spell to adjust your inner ear. Honestly? Compared to whiny hotel guests, Void eels are downright relaxing.”
Elias found himself torn between admiration and annoyance.
On one hand, any broad who could stroll into the Void like it was a garden party must be made of pretty stern stuff.
On the other hand, this gal’s complete lack of respect for the horrors herein made him suddenly feel a few inches shorter than usual.
“Listen,” Luna continued, “about that rescue. I have a one-way ticket out of here, courtesy of a very cranky god. So let’s get rolling.”
“Oh, Luna . . .” Max cleared his throat. “I hate to even ask this, but . . . what year is it now? Because I’ve been here since 2026.”
“It’s um . . .” Luna frowned. “It’s still 2026, Max. Why, how long do you think you’ve been here?”
At the same time, Max and Elias said “four years” and “four days” respectively.
“I’ll admit,” Elias added, “it does feel like I’ve been putting up with him for four years.”
“I’ll bet. Shall we get going?”
“Hold your horses there—2026 don’t mean a thing to me. I got a life waiting for me back in 1926.”
“Why would you go back to 1926, where the magicians who put you in here are going to just grab you again, instead of coming to 2026 where you could start fresh?”
“Listen here, Melrose—”
“Oh, we’re doing last names now? Okay, Shaw.”
“—I didn’t ask for your rescue. Back in my day, I worked the rackets with a real classy dame, and she deserves better than wondering if her partner just up and lammed it.”
Luna’s eyebrows shot up. “A classy dame? Whose partner lammed it?” She studied his face with an intensity that made him feel oddly exposed. “Wow, so people actually talked like that, huh? Wild.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. It’s just—look, I came here to help you because you helped my mother and her friends. First of all, I’ve only got this one spell left. I’m not taking you back to 1926 so I can get stuck there, while you get recaptured by whatever magician you charmed, swindled, and/or aggravated.”
“For your information, the guy had it coming.”
“No doubt. But I only get one trip, and we’re going to my time.”
There was something in the way she said it—firm but not unkind—that reminded him of Kelly Melrose. This one had her mother’s steel spine, he could tell.
“Actually, Elias,” Max offered, “you might like 2026. I know I’m looking forward to getting back there.”
Luna made a face. “Who said I was rescuing you?”
“You know what, just take Max and get outta here.” Elias turned away, his hands already moving in the familiar patterns of his tunnel-digging spell. “I’ve been getting along just fine without any rescue operations, thanks very much. I got my own escape plan.”
Luna looked past Elias, toward his pet-sized tunnel. “Aw, cool! Is that a secret tunnel? Like The Great Escape!”
“Well, I don’t know how great it is. Been working on it for the better part of a century, and—”
Luna burst out laughing. Not the polite laugh of someone trying to be nice, but the kind of genuine, delighted laughter that made Elias want to say something funnier next time.
“No, no—The Great Escape! The movie! With Steve McQueen and the motorcycle and the—” She caught sight of his genuinely confused expression.
“Oh. Right. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? ”
“Lady, the last picture show I ever saw had one Al Jolson and zero baseballs.”
“SHAW!” A new voice boomed from behind the scary door on the far side of the room. “SHAW, YOU MISERABLE SONUVABITCH!”
Heavy footsteps echoed. Multiple sets, moving with purpose, and Elias felt suddenly carbonated with dread. “Oh hell.” He swiftly hid his tunnel project behind the brain poster.
“Who’s that?” Luna asked, though her casual tone had sharpened considerably.
“Guards. Magician guards.” Max had gone pale. “They must have detected your arrival.”
The footsteps were getting closer, accompanied by voices carrying the unmistakable authority of people who were deeply unhappy and had the power to make that everyone else’s problem.
“—definitely detected unauthorized dimensional breach—”
“—trace leads right to Shaw’s cell—”
“—about time we caught him trying something—”
Max flung himself at the door, panic overtaking whatever dignity he’d been struggling to maintain. “It was his idea,” he shouted. “The tunnel is behind that poster! Shaw made me help! I told him it was a bad idea but he made me—”
“Max,” Elias said sharply. “Shut up.”
Luna grabbed Elias’s hand. “Well, this has been delightful, but it’s time we took our leave.”
She closed her eyes, and Elias could feel magic gathering around her like a warm breeze. Real magic, too—not the sluggish half-strength stuff that kept him limping along in the waiting room. This dame can open a portal just by thinking about it?
“Slow down there, Melrose. We haven’t finished our little time-travel discussion.”
“Nothing to discuss. I only get one trip and I’m certainly not getting myself stuck in a time before cheeseburgers.”
“I insist you take me back to 1926.”
“Then prepare yourself for disappointment.”
Luna’s magic was already responding to her will, and a shimmering portal tore open in the center of the waiting room. But even as it formed, Elias could tell something was seriously wrong. Portals should be clean, steady. This thing was wobbling like a drunk.
“Sweetheart?” He squeezed her hand. “Your portal is looking a little—”
“Stop calling me that!”
The portal flickered between two different scenes—one showing a modern street with odd-looking cars Elias didn’t recognize, the other revealing a nighttime cityscape that might have been from his era, but hazier somehow.
Both images kept shifting and blurring together like a photograph that couldn’t quite come into focus.
“Hey, portal!” Elias demanded. “Let’s go to Chicago, in my ’26!”
“No, to Oak Haven. In my ’26!”
The door that Elias hoped would never open now blasted apart. Three imposing figures in dark robes stepped through. “SHAW! Your many crimes, let me count the ways: attempting to breach dimensional barriers! Corrupting a fellow prisoner! Harboring an unauthorized visitor!”
Max leaped at Luna in blind panic. “Take me, too! Please!”
She shrugged him off. “You ratted us out before they even arrived! No chance.”
“Now that,” Elias said approvingly, “is cold.”
“Please, no,” Max begged. “Elias, come on! Get me out of here!”
“You made your bed, kid.”
The portal grew larger, and the guards backed away, their expressions alarmed. Even they knew better than to mess with unstable dimensional magic.
And there was something else. A smell drifted through the portal—a nauseating combination of sour garbage, stale urine, and hot tar baking in summer heat. Urban decay with a side of desperation.
“You smell that?” Elias wrinkled his nose.
“Oh God, yes. That’s not Oak Haven. That’s not anywhere good.” Sweat was beading on her forehead as she fought to control the spell. “The magic is pulling us somewhere else entirely. Somewhere . . . in between.”
In between. Elias didn’t like the sound of that. Nothing good ever happens in between.
The portal lurched violently, its edges becoming jagged. The smell got stronger, and now they could hear sounds—traffic, shouting, the distant wail of sirens.
“Whatever you’re gonna do, doll, you better do it fast.”
“There’s nothing I can do—the spell is collapsing!”
The portal gave another violent lurch and suddenly expanded with a sound like tearing fabric. As Elias was yanked forward, the last thing he heard was Max shouting, “Wait! I’m sorry! Please don’t leave me here!”
Then the sensation of falling through time itself, toward that nauseating smell and whatever was waiting for them in the space between their two worlds.
Well, Elias thought as reality dissolved around him, I’m not bored anymore.