Chapter One

TIMOTHY HUNTER WINCED AS Molly O'Reilly's mother launched into a tirade.

"I've told you to stop calling," Mrs. O'Reilly snapped on the other end of the phone line. "Molly is not allowed to speak to you. And if you ring again, I'll be speaking to your father about it."

Mrs. O'Reilly's cold fury came through the phone with such intensity that Tim imagined icicles forming along the line. He forced the thought aside. Being magic, he had learned that sometimes if he imagined something, it could actually happen. The last thing he needed was to have to explain to his exasperated, irritated, melancholy dad how the phone froze.

"Have I made myself quite clear, young man?" Mrs. O'Reilly demanded.

"But—" Tim began to protest, then stopped himself. Mrs. O'Reilly was being unreasonable, but for him to say so would only get him and Molly in deeper trouble. Adults hated it when they were corrected by thirteen-year-olds. He and Molly were in deep enough as it was.

"But?" Mrs. O'Reilly repeated, the word coming out as with frosty and incredulous admonishment.

Tim cringed. You really need to learn to keep your mouth shut, he told himself.

"How dare you try to defend yourself to me, Timothy Hunter," she scolded.

If he'd had any doubt before, he knew he was in trouble for sure now. Molly's mom usually liked him, and she only used his whole name if she was particularly angry or horribly worried. Like the time he was eight years old and she had been taking care of him and Molly, and he had managed to knock himself out on the swing set. She had called him "Timothy Hunter" then, too.

"After keeping my daughter out all night," she exploded, "without any explanation! Lord knows what the two of you got up to—"

"Nothing!" Tim blurted. "We didn't do anything wrong, I swear."

Mrs. O'Reilly snorted. "That may be true. Then again, maybe not. So leave Molly alone."

Slam went the phone. Tim replaced the receiver glumly. "Well, that was less than useless," he muttered.

He trudged back up to his room and flopped onto his unmade bed. He'd never been in so much trouble before—not even when he skipped out of school in the middle of gym class. He was also pretty certain that Molly's parents had never been so mad at her. And it was all his fault. Well, not exactly his fault. More precisely, it was magic's fault!

Tim's whole world had tilted ever since he'd discovered he was magic. And not just magic—he had the potential to become the most powerful magician ever. Which was part of the problem. This possibility made all kinds of other magical sorts—demons, for instance—much too interested in Tim and his future. In fact, Tim had discovered that there was a whole set of powerful creatures who wanted to make sure he didn't have a future. This was what had gotten him and Molly into so much trouble. Molly had been kidnapped and whisked off to the Demon Playland. Tim couldn't quite put his finger on why, but he knew that Molly had been kidnapped by demons because of him. It took a while for them to escape, and that was what had kept them away overnight.

Molly's parents had gone ballistic, and she had been grounded. More like placed under house arrest, Tim thought. Demons were a lot less scary than Molly's furious parents, Tim had discovered, and even though magic had gotten them into this mess, it wasn't going to get them out of it. At least, no magic that Tim could think of.

Tim reached over and grabbed a ball that sat on the floor. He rolled onto his back and tossed the ball from hand to hand. He'd been grounded, too, but his dad hadn't been quite so fanatical about it. Tim wondered if that was partly because his dad wasn't his real dad. That was another one of the whammies hurled his way along with the magic. Tim's real dad was a bloke called Tamlin who had lived in another world entirely, a world called Faerie.

Tim began bouncing the ball against the wall and catching it. Thwump. Catch. Thwump. Catch. It made a satisfying rhythm.

Then again, Tim thought. Thwump. Catch. Maybe dear old "Dad" didn't even notice I was gone.

When Tim had arrived home that morning, Mr. Hunter hadn't even been there. He'd been sitting in the wrecked car that he kept in a parking lot several streets over. The car was so damaged it would never run again, but Mr. Hunter still hung on to it. He would go sit in it sometimes on his seriously bad days. Mr. Hunter had been at the wheel of that very same car when he'd gotten into the accident that had killed Tim's mum and had left Mr. Hunter with only one arm. Tim called the car the Guiltmobile.

So it was perfectly possible that Mr. Hunter had spent the night slumped in the Guiltmobile and never even noticed that Tim had been gone the whole time. When Mrs. O'Reilly came over to scream bloody murder at everyone within hearing distance, Mr. Hunter had been pretty mild about it all. His response had been, "Kids will be kids, and these are a pair of good ones." That made Mrs. O'Reilly madder.

Copyright © 2004 by DC Comics.