The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(78)

Now for Lintz.

“Help me,” he said to Demeter, who was just coming back around.

Lintz lunged at Alex, grasping him by the shoulders and shoving him backward. It sent him flying against the nearby wall, his head slamming against the stone, but Alex didn’t let it faze him. He dove toward the professor, forcing his hands onto the sides of Lintz’s head. Despite Lintz’s forceful attempts to remove him, Demeter managed to pin the old man, ensuring that Alex wouldn’t be thrown off again.

Alex had only intended to calm Lintz down the way he had calmed Demeter. However, as he ran his anti-magic into the professor’s temples, he found himself accidentally crossing over into the realms of mind control and spirit lines, combining the two as he searched within the professor’s mind, using what he had learned from Vincent and Demeter in a strangely complementary fashion. It was an odd mix of skills, but it seemed to work, easing Lintz’s delirious screams and violent arms. With it came an instant wave of memories and emotions. Through the sparks in Lintz’s fevered brain, Alex saw flashes of the professor’s life, as seen through the old man’s eyes.

One fell upon a scene in which a woman of around thirty was speaking with Lintz. Glancing around, Alex realized they weren’t in the familiar stone setting of Spellshadow Manor, with the recognizable hallways and Derhin as his constant shadow. It was somewhere much more clinical, the wallpaper a muted jade green, linoleum on the floor. In the center of the room was a hospital bed, and sitting at the head of it, propped up by a stack of cushions, was the woman. She looked tired but happy, and in her arms, she cradled a small, red-faced newborn who snuffled softly in the throes of slumber.

“What do you think of your baby sister?” the woman whispered.

“I love her,” he heard Lintz say, in a voice much younger than the gruff old tones he was used to.

The woman smiled. “Oh, my darling, she loves you too! You will be such a good big brother to her.”

Alex watched as Lintz rested his finger beneath his baby sister’s outstretched hand, and felt the thrill Lintz felt as the tiny girl instinctively gripped it with surprising strength. She yawned, the sound soft and sweet, partway between a whisper and a squeal.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” the woman asked.

Lintz nodded. “Kind of.”

The woman laughed. “But you will protect her, won’t you?”

“I’ll be the best big brother,” Lintz promised.

“Because you know I won’t be around forever, don’t you?” said the woman sadly, making Alex wonder if there was something more to the sick, tired look on her face. “And she’ll need you when I’m gone. You’ll need to make sure she grows up big and strong, knowing she’s loved. You’ll have to tell her about me, one day.”

Alex could feel the sad uncertainty growing within the young Lintz, filtering through into his own emotions, and the understanding filled him with grief for the old professor, in the present day. Though he could only speculate, Alex realized that when Malachi Grey came for Lintz, that little girl must have been left alone somewhere, without her brother to look out for her, as he had promised to do. Alex imagined the prospect would have eaten away at the old man, over the years—in the same situation, Alex knew it would have eaten away at him. A similar one already was, with his mother and her illness.

Alex wondered if that was why Lintz had endeavored to become a professor at Spellshadow Manor, on the off chance his sister would have the same magical capabilities and Finder would someday bring her to the gates, giving them a long-awaited reunion—but that hadn’t happened. That girl was potentially still out there somewhere, waiting for the brother who disappeared and never came home, though she would be elderly by now, Alex presumed, looking once more at the dated décor and the fifties-style pattern on the hospital chair. Lintz and his sister were just like the rest of them and their families, ever hopeful of a reunion.

Feeling like he was violating Lintz’s privacy, Alex focused a few happy images into the forefront of the professor’s mind. The red fog faded away, the paranoia and the demons forgotten in the wake of Alex’s mental suggestions, which overtook the false images the haze had placed in the old man’s head, returning him to normality. Slowly, Alex removed himself from Lintz’s mind, certain that the fog had gone. Even though he felt a touch of guilt, he couldn’t deny it was nice to get a few flashes of insight about the professor’s much younger days, before he had ever been touched by the hands of the magical world.

Lintz blinked, suddenly aware of his surroundings.

“Goodness me, I am sorry!” he wheezed, struggling to stand. “Did I hurt you?”

Alex rose to his feet. “No harm done,” he replied, eager to get moving again. There were still four people to find. “Could you look for Caius and let him know what’s happened? Alypia is here, but the fog took over her, and she ran off somewhere. I need to find the others so we can try to round her up.”

“Oh dear, this has all gone a bit awry, hasn’t it?” Lintz said anxiously.

Alex nodded grimly. “You could say that.”

“We’ll find Caius, and if we come across Alypia before you do, we’ll try to get her safely locked away,” Demeter assured him.

“Go—find the others,” Lintz agreed.

“Just watch out for traps. I don’t want any more fog going off,” Alex said.