by Tao Wong
“Exactly. They didn’t even give you a specific time or place. Just the city. So what does that tell you?” Alexa said, her voice quieter now, no longer as forceful as I’d calmed down.
“I’m… not sure.”
“Neither am I. But I think we should find out, don’t you?” When I reluctantly nodded, Alexa smiled at me. “Tomorrow, we’ll split up.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t find out what’s going on. And it’s obvious that together, we’re targets. So we’ll split up. You train and Level. I’ll find out what’s going on in the city.”
“You?” I let my eyes rake over the statuesque woman. “Alexa, you’re… ummm…”
“Less noticeable than a Mage with his magic aura? Trained in espionage? With knowledge and contacts in the supernatural world—especially in the city—over and above yours? And most importantly, not the most wanted man on Earth?” Alexa said.
“But you’re known.”
“I’ll avoid our enemies. But the man on the street? The ones we’ve helped? They won’t care. They won’t even know. It’s not as if the organizations are going to announce that they’re hunting you. Not exactly the kind of news they want to spread around. Bad for their reputations in some cases. Dangerous in others,” Alexa said.
Acting against me exposed organizations that might not want me to survive long enough to become a power to their enemies. It was one of the reasons the Mage Council had been willing to watch over me—a way to act against their enemies without expending significant resources. If the Council wasn’t acting against me directly, nor the Orders, Alexa was safer. At the very least, she wasn’t the final target. And we did need that information.
Still…
“Why are you doing this?” I said, tilting my head sideways as I regarded the ex-Initiate. “This, this is a lot more than what a friend can be expected to do.”
“Friend… I guess so.” Alexa offered me a half-smile. “But I don’t think you’re just a friend. You’re family. And if I’ve learnt anything, family means giving everything.”
“Without hope or expectation of anything in return.” My lips twisted into another wry smile before I decided to admit it. It was the least I could do. “I think of you as family too. You and Lily.”
Alexa flashed me a smile, then leaned forward as she explained her plan. I’d be surprised that she had one, but after so many years and hours of driving, I wasn’t. If anything, sometimes I wondered if Lily should have gone to Alexa. Certainly she was better at planning and figuring things out than I was. All I had was a little knowledge from my gaming days.
Pushing aside guilt and my need to control things, I focused. Because my feelings didn’t matter here, and more importantly, it wasn’t just my life on the line anymore. Not even just Alexa’s. Now it was about my entire family, and I would not fail them. No matter what.
Chapter 15
Twelve hours later, I was standing in the basement of a rented farmhouse. The farmhouse was one of those incongruities of the modern age—a building that had once housed the farmer and his family, now abandoned as pieces of a once-proud farm had been sold off in dribs and drabs until nothing more than a large field was available. Unsuited for a working farm now, it functioned as a country retreat for rich yuppies and the occasional tourist. Like me.
Of course, the homeowner had been surprised when I turned up alone, carrying nothing more than a single backpack, to take the entire location for myself. But once I handed him the month’s rent up front in cash, questions had disappeared.
Once I was settled in, I had to clear out the basement and set up multiple repeating wards. I kept at it, layering ward after ward till I was fairly certain that between the wards and the ambient interference from a nearby ley line, I should be safe.
My hand hovered over my ring as I stood in the middle of the enchanted circle, my wards glowing, the entire basement lit by a quartet of fluorescent bulbs. If I was wrong, I’d be setting a flare off for everyone and their hellhounds to find me. But if I didn’t…
Tired of my own hesitation, I rubbed the ring, sending a thought beckoning Lily out. At first there was nothing, and then… there was nothing. Frowning, I stared at my ring, wondering if I had broken it. Her. Then I discarded the thought for being silly.
“You’re risking a lot,” Lily spoke up and made me jump.
I turned toward her. Seated to the side of me, legs crossed, Lily tilted her head as she regarded my form.
“I had to.”
“Your family.”
“You heard?” I sighed. “Of course you heard. You’re always around.”
“I’m sorry. I wish… I wish we had thought of that.”
“Covered them with the wish or something?” I said, grimacing. I should have thought of that. I should have… “Can I wish them away?”
“Your family?” Lily raised an eyebrow. “It’s doable, but—”
“No, not them. My enemies. Can I wish them dead?” I said, anger heating my voice.
“All of them?” Lily’s voice grew quieter.
“Yes!”
“And how’d you define enemy?”
“Those threatening my family. Those threatening Alexa. And me,” I said.
“The entire organization?” Lily asked softly.
“Yes!”
“All of those organizations?”
“Yes!”
“Is that your wish? Your final wish? Master.” Lily’s voice grew cold, distant, and officious. It was enough to make me pause, to stare at her.
“Nooo…” I whispered, closing my eyes. “No. I’m not going to ask you to kill hundreds—”
“Thousands.”
“Thousands for my-my peace of mind.” I sighed and carefully stepped out of the containment circle, then sat on a dusty chair. I coughed a little, clearing my throat, and cast a grasping hand to float over a bottle of water. After taking a swig, I looked back at Lily, my lips twisting in a wry smile. “Sorry about that.”
“For almost making me become a mass murderer again?” Lily said.
“Again?”
Lily looked sad, a hand fiddling with a stray lock of hair. “Dark history, remember?”
I nodded. For all that she had played fair with me, with the ring, if she had been given that kind of order before, she’d have no choice. Never mind whatever else she might have done before her imprisonment. “Yeah. Sorry. Could you have done it?”
Lily paused, cocking her head. Her eyes grew distant, weighing the lives and deaths of thousands before she shrugged. “Eventually. If you managed to stay alive and hidden long enough. But probably not.”
“I’m not sure if I’m relived or sad about that,” I said.
Lily let out a choked laugh before she fell silent, staring at me.
Eventually, I grew uncomfortable enough to ask, “What?”
“You’ve changed. Grown more serious.”
“Being chased around the country has a tendency to do that,” I said.
“Also, you’re the one who summoned me. Did you have something in mind?”
“I need to Level up,” I said. “I need to increase my strength. I need to learn, to get better.”
“You intend to fight them?” Lily said, frowning.
“Not exactly. I think, I think I need to be a distraction. For Alexa to get my family out. And then while they’re chasing me and the ring, then I’ll need to escape too.”
“Another portable shelter?”
“No. They’ll be ready for that.” I drew a deep breath before letting it out, resolve growing stronger in my voice. “I need to hurt them. Make them think twice about angering me. I need to be a credible threat.”
“In two months?” Lily raised an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah.” I knew how crazy that sounded. How impossible that request was. I didn’t need the jinn to say it.
And thankfully, she didn’t. The jinn just nodded before cracking her hea
d to the side. “Then let’s get to work.”
***
How do you raise Levels fast? As any gamer knows, you grind. In my case, since my Levels were tied into my magical understanding and my body’s ability to channel magic, I spent hours casting spells. Making adjustments in the spell formulas, pushing my understanding and abilities to the maximum. I cast spells while upside down, while blindfolded, without moving my hands, with only oral components or even without that. Spells were formed and created, mixed and matched with reckless abandon.
Again and again, the shielding spells I created—and recreated—in the basement were put to the test as my headlong rush toward enlightenment had explosive consequences. I burnt my eyebrows off twice, my hair four times before I gave up and shaved it tight. I picked up myriad scars on my hands, the Mana channels in my fingers and palms burnt and scarred from spell blowback. Late into the night, I trained, falling asleep on the table only to wake from the throbbing pain as my exhausted Mana channels protested the abuse. Only for me to start again.
Not that I didn’t take care to not over-exhaust myself. I took expeditions, Quests that Lily offered as she stretched the boundaries of the ring to the maximum. A dryad’s healing sap, taken from her tree after helping her with a logging problem from the local forestry company, put into a bath helped to fix some of the burgeoning problems. A local group of giant beavers needed their dam reinforced, the natural enchantments around the dam no longer sufficient to stop queries from the locals. A Chupacabra infestation killed off.
Those were the easier quests. Other, more dangerous ones saw me stumbling home, bleeding from wounds, my clothing and armor shredded. Victorious while fighting the monsters in the dark. Wendigos. Wraiths. Other darker, unspeakable creatures that lurked at the edges of civilization, waiting for the foolish, the unwary. Normally they’d be impossible to find without help, without significant time invested. But I had a cheat—I had a friend who could find them and give me their locations. And she let me throw myself at them, all in a bid to let me learn. Learn new and painful ways to stay alive.
But monsters were not all that I hunted. In two cases, I ambushed hunting parties, individuals searching for me. I ended their lives before they could get too close, before they could locate me. It was dangerous, going hours away in different directions to attack them, to leave trails. But it was necessary. For my training. For my safety.
Days passed, days of sweat and pain. It ended a month and a half later when my burner phone, kept turned off but for five minutes a day, beeped with a waiting message.
Meet in 5. Purple Green—Z
It was in code, a simple one that we’d agreed on. Three locations, each given a color. The time was in days—not five days as the number mentioned, but seven. Add two to the number offered. And the name was a simple transliteration, a shift of the alphabet. Z meant A—Alexa. But Z also meant she was doing this unencumbered, unthreatened.
A tension that I had not known that I carried released, the knowledge that my friend was fine relieving a little bit of my worry. But I sobered up soon after, knowing that the hard part was coming next. The bad part.
“Is it time?” Lily said from her corner.
I looked at where my friend sat patiently. Trapped in a circle, forced to stay there lest she let the world know where she was. Lest she bring their wrath upon us. More than what had been brought at least. One and a half months, and she had never voiced a single complaint. Not a request for a cell phone to play a game on, not a single whine about how bored she was. Every moment, every time we spoke, she had helped as best she could, pushing the boundaries of the enchantment, of the rules set upon her. Disregarding the pain to help. To help me.
“Yes,” I said.
Steps took me over, and I stared at Lily, the jinn who had brought both wonder and terror to my life. Who had supported me while I threw myself into danger, all the while shackled to me and my life. I drew a deep breath, then let it out, trying to find the words.
“You don’t have to say it. I’m ready. While you were out questing, before this”—Lily gestured around the dank basement—“I was downloading and copying all the games I could get hold of. They’re all in my ring. All the books, all the games. Quite a few replicas of the various game machines too. If you fail… I’ll be fine.”
I ducked my head then, memory of the devil’s deal we made pushing against my soul, my guilt. If I failed—when I failed and died—Lily would be forced to an eternity of solitude. Trapped by the ring, trapped forever by her own power.
“It’s fine. The ring itself is failing. Another ten thousand years, I’m sure I’ll be able to break free,” Lily said with false cheer.
After so long, even I knew she was being optimistic. The greatest failure point in her ring was the material itself, but even that would take tens of thousands of years to break down. After all, the enchantment took a portion of her strength to bolster the durability of the ring.
“I-I wasn’t thinking that,” I said. Lily made a mocking hurt face and I felt my lips twitch. “Stop it. This is serious.”
“Deadly serious.”
I stared at the jinn incredulously before breaking into laughter, shaking my head. “Gods. You’re impossible.”
“Yup. That’s why I’m stuck in here.”
That kept me laughing until even Lily broke down and joined me. Together, we laughed until I had to wipe the tears away.
“Thank you. I think I needed that,” I said.
“Almost as much as you need getting laid.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me,” I said and tugged at my jeans. Living with two beautiful women, neither of which I was sleeping with, had been hard. Especially when my social life had become non-existent. Hell, even when I was penniless and a hardcore gamer, I’d gotten better action. “And stop distracting me. I was trying to say thank you. And sorry.”
“You don’t have to.” Lily placed a hand over her heart, looking me in the eyes. “This. This has been the best time of my life.”
“Not a high bar, with the masters you’ve had before.”
“No. Not just while I’ve been enslaved. In my life.” Lily intoned those words with assurance. “You treated me like—like a friend. You let me stay out. You let me play games. You didn’t push me when I had problems with going out. And then did, when I needed it. You listened to me and laughed with me. You and Alexa, you’ve offered me…” I waited for her to finish, but she did not. Instead, she flashed me a smile. “Thank you.”
“No, I should—I’m talking to air.” I sighed as the jinn disappeared, having gone back to her ring. There was no warning, no flash of light. One second she was there, the next she was gone. Except she wasn’t really gone. I touched the ring again, twisting it on my finger. “I still think I owe you. And if I survive, we’ll go find some of those augmented reality places and play them as much as you want.”
I could almost swear I heard a squeal of excitement rise from the ring. Smiling, I turned away and began the process of packing up. Time to get ready to go.
***
Three hours later—one of which consisted of cleaning up the various enchantments and the other two of hiking into town—I was footsore and tired, waiting at the bus depot for the next cross-country coach. Traveling by coach into the city was neither glamorous nor smart, which was why our meeting point was not in the city itself. Still, the bus was convenient and cheap—and considering I had just spent the vast majority of my liquid funds, the last was highly important.
The bus stop was shaded from the midday sun and open to the elements otherwise. That left me shivering as winter winds blew through the single-road town. Magic could have solved the problem, but I was too close to my goals to break discipline. No more magic, not till the city. I couldn’t afford to let them know, not now.
“Nice bag.” A teenager on his skateboard kicked it up, marveling at my duffel. It had been purchased from an army surplus store, at first an ugly camo gr
een, but now bedecked with gold and red thread. The gold shimmered slightly as it caught rays of light and the kid’s attention. “Love the style, man. Peace and war.”
“Thanks.” I looked down, spotting the hippie peace symbol that had caught the kid’s attention before shrugging. “You know what they say.”
“What?”
“Hope for peace, prepare for war.”
“Deeeep.” The teenager nodded and let the board down, waving goodbye as he kicked off. “Later!”
Thankfully the kid hadn’t queried about why the thread was glowing and shimmering. Residual magic from the enchanted objects within was bleeding off, too much magic in too close a place. The runic designs could barely suppress the magical signature, so the physical signs were a trade-off I had to make. If I’d had more time, if I’d had better materials…
If, if, if.
But I had no more time for ifs. At least, not for those in the past. The future, the potential ifs, those I had time for. Those I had planned for. With the many, many enchanted objects I’d made. And if I had the opportunity, maybe I’d be able to really show them what it meant to anger a gamer.
Chapter 16
“If I survive this, I’m never staying in another dingy motel,” I said when Alexa walked in seven days later.
It had taken me two days to make it to our meeting spot, after which I’d ended up staying in a motel room, finishing up the last of my preparations. Most of that consisted of repeatedly making the same enchantments I had made before, carving new wards and enchantments into whatever materials I could get my hands on. Getting ready.
“They do have a certain disreputable character to them,” Alexa said, wrinkling her nose. “Did you know, when I asked about the key you left for me, the receptionist winked at me. As if I was… I was…”