Truth to Light

Excerpt

Truth to Light
Eddie Newton © 2021
All Rights Reserved

Prologue

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Vincent Prospero asked the trio of college kids in response to their drunken taunts concerning his anachronistic attire.

Vincent stood at the bottom of the hill in the middle of Ningúno Lane in Eden, Delaware. For the first time in three years, he was back. On a Saturday night, this part of Eden featured frat boys and sorority sisters stumbling between saloons up and down the neighborhood. There was not a sober undergrad in sight. Vincent had originally planned on walking past the partiers and straight up the street to the house on the top of the hill.

But the three inebriated instigators just had to make a comment on his top hat.

Vincent was tall and thin and dressed like Abraham Lincoln. He tipped off his top hat to reveal a mess of blond hair, which matched his wispy goatee and made him resemble a man featured on a circus advertisement from the nineteenth century. Vincent held the hat out for the college kids to inspect.

The brilliant grin of a small child bloomed on the face of the big jock in a football jersey, intoxication imitating innocence. He wore the number seventy-seven with the name “Murphy” above it. Murph put his two palms together and rubbed his hands like a miser surveying his millions.

“So that ‘splains the goofy getup,” Murph drooled, and a string of spittle connected his bottom lip to the pavement of Ningúno Lane. “I wanna see a maji-trig.”

“Me too,” said the girl beside Murph. His girl. Certainly, she was always a me-too.

“Yeah,” agreed the third wheel.

Magic was all about secrets. The trick worked because you did not know the truth. You couldn’t figure out the how. Vincent liked his secrets.

“Here,” Vincent said, handing his cane to the third wheel. “Hold this. Careful now, the magic is in there.”

The young man held the cane across his open palms as if cradling legendary Excalibur itself.

“Just a normal top hat. Nothing inside. Here, put your hand in.” Murph’s girl put her petite hand in halfway up her forearm. Nothing inside. “Empty. Agree?” She nodded. Vincent turned it around and spun it in his hands. “Look all around it. Nothing suspicious?” Three heads shook, all a little wobbly.

Vincent held out the hat and opened it upward. The sun hung over the rooftops of Eden, evening languidly exhaling the last light of day. Twilight blanketed the lane in cozy shadows, obscuring the interior of the top hat.

“Now, young man, tap the cane on the edge of the hat,” Vincent instructed the third wheel. The man raised one manicured eyebrow. “Nothing to fear, I assure you. Magic is only dangerous when it needs to be.” The third wheel took the end of the cane in his hand so gently he must have been imagining it was a tender lover who might scorn him if he handled her too roughly. “That’s right. Just a light rap. Very good, young man. Just that way.”

Vincent reached inside and fumbled around a bit. His arm went inside the same distance as the girl’s had when she checked the hat. Vincent made a show of pawing around for something inside, like an old lady searching for Tic Tacs at the bottom of her purse. Then he grinned, a showman’s expression, and his eyes popped open in dramatic flair.

Vincent pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

Murph and his girl oohed and aahed, swooning like teenage girls at a boy band concert. But the third wheel frowned, staring suspiciously at the white rodent. His nostrils flared as if he smelled something rotten about this whole thing.

“Lame,” he commented. “That is the same thing I’ve seen a hundred times. It’s the oldest trick in the book!”

“Oh, I don’t know if it is the oldest,” Vincent opined, “but it is tried and true. Not as flashy and loud as you young people prefer nowadays?”

“You only pulled a bunny out of a hat,” the third wheel sneered. “My gramma could have done that trick a hundred years ago.”

“You want to see something epic?” Vincent asked.

“Epic,” he agreed. “Yeah.”

“Me too,” said Murph’s girl. Again with the me-too.

Murph was too boozed to form a full response. He managed a clumsy nod.

Vincent let the bunny go, and it hopped down Ningúno Lane in the opposite direction of the hill. He twirled the hat in a theatrical flourish and held it out once again for the third wheel to tap with the cane. This time the undergrad knew his role. Tap tap tap.

“You may want to step back,” Vincent warned.

The trio of young drunkards took a step back on rubbery legs. Vincent reached into the hat. This time he pushed his arm farther into the opening. He smiled at the students, gave a wink. His arm went in even more. He pushed his tailored sleeve into the top hat all the way up to his shoulder. The girl’s eyes grew as big as a werewolf’s.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Vincent answered.

Vincent yanked. Hard. The object in the hat was stubborn. It had slept for a thousand years, and waking was a ponderous endeavor. Vincent had the thing by the tail. With a final violent yank, he drew the contents of the hat out through the small orifice like an obstetrician pulling a newborn from the birth canal. This baby was as ugly as a troll and as angry as a poltergeist. As big as any beanstalk giant. Rearing a scaly head in rage, the dragon vomited fire into the twilit sky.

“Mama,” Murph managed to mumble before the dragon noticed the marinated morsel. It snapped its beak over the big football player. The dragon’s mouth was a kiln, and Murph melted in a matter of moments; boiling blood and liquified bones slid down the gullet.

Murph’s girl and the third wheel screamed like toddlers and turned to run for their lives. The dragon pivoted its head on a serpentine neck and scooped them up from the side and its jaws snapped shut on the main parts of the undergrads, leaving behind two rolling noggins and two pairs of trendy tennis shoes, the smoldering stumps of their feet included.

The half-dozen drunkards standing stunned along the street scattered, screaming. Vincent looked at the dragon beside him: wet scales glowed from the streetlights, intense eyes roamed the avenue for further prey, and smoke issued from flared nostrils. Demonic wings stretched and threatened to fly.

“Not yet,” Vincent told the creature. “We need to visit an old acquaintance. Afterward, there will be plenty more to eat.”

Vincent looked up Ningúno Lane to the house high on the hill.

*

Camila Mondragon stood on the wide front porch of Esperanza Manor, positioned between porticos, looking down the steep incline at the small city set at the bottom of the lane. As the sun set and shadows stretched across the landscape, streetlamps activated randomly and bright lights peppered the dark city, pinpricks in the gray canvas making a starry pastiche in the valley below the hill.

“Sometimes, I watch the streetlamps come on and wonder if they represent enlightenment. Consciousnesses remembering who they are. Maybe each one is a soul somewhere, finally finding her true self.”

“You speak of going rogue as a romantic endeavor rather than a renegade act of rebellion,” Julián commented, standing directly behind Camila. “I do not think Father would appreciate you talking so.”

Camila turned her back on the town. She settled a tired gaze on her brother, repeating the same script they had exchanged for nearly twenty years. The effort was akin to arguing with a braying ass. Julián was as stubborn as the will of kings. As princess of the Mondragon clan, Camila knew about arguing with monarchs.

Pointless.

“I think I’ve proven when the time comes to honor tradition, I follow expectations. My sense of romance ends at the point of obligation.”

“As it should,” Julián agreed, always a jerk about everything even when he didn’t have to be.

They closed the door behind them before darkness fully fell, missing the dragonian massacre at the bottom of Ningúno Lane. The walls insulated Esperanza Manor entirely from the outside world, intended to keep secrets inside, but also effective in deafening the screams of Murph and his companions as they died at the foot of the hill.

Camila Mondragon had never seen a dragon, despite their family name. She once asked Vincent Prospero if they were real, years ago, while laying side by side and looking up at the stars. He pointed out a constellation cluttered in the northern sky. “That’s Draco right there,” Vincent said.

“That doesn’t mean dragons are real,” Camila said.

“The stars don’t lie,” he answered.

“I want to see one someday,” she said wistfully.

“And so you will,” Vincent replied. “I promise.”

That was before Camila had learned secrets are more powerful than promises. Romance ends at the point of obligation.

Camila and Julián joined the rest of the Mondragon family for dinner. A long table with seating to accommodate sixteen sat only ten that night, the immediate family in attendance and no guests for the evening. Mother and Father sat at each end, neither the head nor the foot, co-equal as matriarch and patriarch of the clan. Esther, Francisco, and Emilie were arranged along one side, Camila’s youngest three siblings. Grandfather Eduardo sat next to them. Aunt Consuelo faced opposite the others. Beside her was Camila’s husband, Rex. Camila took her place next to him. Julián took his seat nearest Mother.

Everyone gathered around for dinner as tradition had dictated for as long as Camila was old enough to sit at a table. Excepting travel, expectations were always that everyone attended the evening meal. Camila missed the event on only a dozen occasions, half of them when she was on her honeymoon with Rex.

“Everything quiet in the city?” Father asked Julián.

Julián took a bite of escabeche and washed the food down with wine. “Of course. Nothing exciting ever happens in Eden. I swear this family decided to settle in the blandest berg in America on purpose.”

“Always looking for flavor rather than sustenance, Julián,” Mother teased. “Perhaps that’s why you are still single.”

“He’s still single because he likes too many flavors,” Emilie taunted from across the table.

“What can I say?” Julián answered with a smirk. “I have a complicated palate.”

“As long as the flavor es muy atractiva, eh, Julián?” Emilie taunted.

Julián gave his younger sister a wink and a smile.

Father transitioned to more pressing business. “Consuelo, have you a reply yet from Serafin?”

“The Angels have their haloes in a bunch,” Aunt Consuelo sniffed. “They think they know best how to deal with their own problems. But their problems are becoming our problems.”

“It’s going to mean trouble for all of us if—” Julián started, then cut himself off.

No one was listening to him.

Everyone’s attention centered on someone new.

The Mondragons all stared at the entrance into the dining room of Esperanza Manor. A dapper fellow stood in the archway, tall and thin. He held his cane in his right hand like the handle of a mallet. He tipped his top hat at the Mondragon family with his left hand.

Father stood, glaring all the way across the family table to where the intruder stood in the doorway. “Vincent, how dare you enter Esperanza uninvited? I believe I warned you in no uncertain terms to stay away from Eden for the rest of your life.”

“I’m sorry,” Vincent apologized insincerely. “I thought you said for the rest of your life.”

“Is that a threat, you witchy little whelp?” Mother demanded, also on her feet, wearing a glare to make even the bravest warrior quiver.

“I’m just here to speak with Camila,” Vincent declared.

Rex stood also, putting himself between his wife and Vincent Prospero. “She made her choice, Vincent. It’s over. It has been over for a long time now.”

“I know it’s over, Rex Plimpton.” Vincent tilted his ear as if listening to the quiet of Esperanza Manor. “I noticed there is no pitter-patter of little feet throughout the manor, Rex. Your loveless marriage has produced no offspring? No next generation Mondragons?”

“Good,” Vincent declared.

“Let me talk to him,” Camila said, putting a hand on Rex’s elbow.

She walked across the room, her family all behind her. She had not seen Vincent in three years since she was forced to marry another Human instead of a Magi. It was against the rules. Her parents had been apoplectic when she was younger, and she’d told them she was in love with Vincent Prospero. They made her give him up.

She has lived without him for so many long, cold months.

“You came,” she whispered when she was close enough for only him to hear.

“You called,” he said softly in return.

“I can’t,” she replied, gazing into his eyes. “Not another night.”

“You’re sure?” Vincent asked.

Camila looked over her shoulder. Brothers and sisters stared expectantly. Mother and Father glowered angrily. Grandfather looked confused. Aunt Consuelo itched for a fight. Rex, a spineless patsy. All of them aligned against Vincent. All of them in the way. She could not run away with him. They would find her. She could never be with Vincent.

She turned to face Vincent and smiled. She leaned forward, one quick kiss on the lips as the rest of her family leapt to their feet behind her. Vincent took off his top hat as the family started toward the star-crossed lovers. He pointed the opening of the hat toward the Mondragons and rapped the tip of the brim with his cane. Tap-tap-tap.

And the dragon, pure predatory machine with only one cardinal rule, attacked. The only limitation on its evil is that it cannot harm the one who summons it. Everyone else was fair game. As the black eyes settled on ten tasty morsels, Vincent shed one single tear. Camila, standing tall in the middle of Esperanza Manor’s dining room, mouthed three last words. “I love you.”

And then she was the first Mondragon consumed by the dragon.

She was not the last.