Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  Raven charged in without waiting, followed by Gentle Water. Amanda hesitated for half a second, a flicker of doubt passing through her mind when she saw the mob of people in there wanting to cut her to ribbons, but it was gone as quick as it appeared, and she ran into the carriage.

  One of the Crusaders dodged around Raven, stepped up onto a side bench and leapt at Amanda, swinging his Essentia-laced blade at her. It sang as it whipped through the air, missing her as she dodged away.

  Their weapons, including their guns, if her Magical sight was to be believed, were infused with Magical energy, meaning their strikes would damage her Aegis and hurt like a mother-fecker if they actually hit her.

  The Crusader swung his blade back and forth, again and again, forcing Amanda back until she spotted a gap in his defence and stepped in with a solid jab to his face.

  She felt his nose crack as she landed the punch. He staggered back.

  Three more Crusaders had followed the first to her, and one of them leapt forward over his falling teammate and shoulder barged her, ramming into her flank.

  Amanda cursed under her breath as she fell. That was an idiot move, she thought, leaving herself open like that. She moved with the fall, though, and rolled backwards, through the door, and back out into the vestibule. In a single beat of her heart, she was up again as the Crusader lunged, stabbing at her with his blade as he stepped through the small doorway. Amanda dodged, kicked out, and heard his knee crunch.

  The man yelled in pain. The other two that were after her followed their comrade, looking for a way to reach her. Amanda heard the door behind her open and looked to see Fran and Liz in the doorway.

  Shit, she thought, what are they doing here? She needed to get these Crusaders away from the twins. With a swipe of her hands and a working of Magic, the Crusader with the fractured knee flew sideways and smashed through the side exit door to Amanda’s left with a loud bang of wrenching metal and shattering glass.

  She looked up at the two remaining Crusaders. They were utterly focused on her and looked furious beyond words on seeing their companion get thrown from the train.

  “Come on,” Amanda yelled at them and ran towards the exit door she’d created as the two Crusaders stepped out. Amanda leapt, caught hold of the top of the door, and swung herself up and around, landing on top of the moving train.

  The wind whipped past her, sending her hair flying and her skirt flapping, ruining any modesty she still had. Backing off towards the front of the train, Amanda hoped her gamble would pay off, and the two Crusaders would follow her up, ignoring the twins.

  As she waited, she concentrated and used an effect that her mentor had told her was called Multi-tasking. The Magic split her mind into several parts—in her case three—each entirely independent and able to use Magic individually, while still working as a whole rather than at cross-purposes. She’d yet to use it in a real fight, but now seemed like a good time.

  Another second later, and the first of the two Crusaders jumped up onto the roof, landing in a crouch. A beat later, and the second one appeared—a female who looked just as angry as the first.

  The man ran at her, holding his sword ready, but he was furious and off-balance. Calmly, Amanda spun around him, dodging him entirely, flicking one of her feet out to pull one of his out from under him. Giving him an elbow jab into his kidneys at the same time, she released a shock of Essentia as she did it.

  The Crusader stumbled and fell behind her as the woman swung at her.

  Dodging again, Amanda slapped the weapon away and drove the heel of her hand into the girl's jaw. Hearing an audible crack, Amanda followed with an elbow into her sternum, knocking the wind out of her. With her opponent off balance, Amanda swiped her leg. Her booted foot caught the Crusader’s leg, and suddenly nothing was holding her upright. The Crusader hit the roof of the carriage face first with a grunt.

  She heard footsteps behind her.

  Amanda spun to see the first Crusader run and then leap at her, sword held ready. Essentia whipped out as she bent it to her will and kinetic energy hit the Knight side-on, sending him flying into a passing tree trunk with a rather sickening thud.

  “No!” yelled the Crusader behind her. The woman jumped to her feet, brandished her sword and charged, screaming. “I’ll cut you in half for that.”

  Amanda turned, called on her Essentia again and sent a bolt of blue lightning at her. The powerful blast struck the Knight in the chest, knocking her down with a savage yell and a grunt before hitting the roof of the carriage. She didn’t get up again.

  Amanda just stood there for a moment, looking down at the body of the Crusader Knight with the huge burn mark on her chest.

  “Feck me,” Amanda muttered. “Was it worth it?” Predictably, there was no answer. Amanda just shook her head and took a breath, knowing she’d better get back in there and help her friends.

  Amanda found the door and swung back inside, landing in the vestibule in a crouch. She looked back into the passenger car, but couldn’t see Fran or Liz.

  Frowning and wondering where they might be, she stepped into the Inquisitors’ car. Fran and Liz were in there, standing between her and the fight that Raven and Gentle Water were engaged in with their backs to her. Bodies of unconscious or maybe dead Crusaders, beaten into submission by Raven and Gentle Water, lay scattered over the floor, but they still had a small army to deal with.

  What were the girls doing? she wondered. The fight ebbed and flowed, and when a gap opened up around the side, the girls, led by Fran, darted around the action.

  She guessed the Knights didn’t see them as a threat and ignored them.

  Moving inside, Amanda peered through the fight to try and see what the girls were doing.

  Suddenly, she spotted Vito standing alongside a stiff-looking woman with a bob of black hair in some fairly fancy ecclesiastical robes. Nearby, the golden book lay on the table closest to Vito and the woman. Sitting near them on the opposite side was Stephen.

  She couldn’t hear anything with all the shouting and fighting, but she saw the girls step forward and shout at the Inquisitors. Vito immediately pulled his sword and strode towards the girls, its blade glowing brightly with Magical energy in her Aetheric Sight.

  Before Amanda could react, Essentia flared from the girls in a powerful wave of energy that rushed out of the pair. They were holding hands, fierce determination making their spines straight and their heads held high.

  The side of the train exploded out, taking Vito with it. The shockwave slammed the woman against the far wall, where she slumped, unconscious.

  The train braked hard and lurched to a sudden and jarring stop that sent everyone staggering until it finally came to rest. The screeching, juddering stop sent most of the people in the train sprawling to the floor, Amanda included, as she tried to keep an eye on the girls.

  Amanda saw Fran and Liz get back up off the floor after having fallen and run for Stephen. Amanda lost sight of them as another Crusader broke free from the fight and ran at her, his sword swinging. Jumping to her feet, Amanda ducked under the blade and slammed her elbow into his stomach before standing up and shoulder barging him away.

  The man staggered back and stood up to find a gun pressed against his temple. Amanda looked on in shock. Angel, having just entered the carriage, was taking aim at the Knight.

  The gun fired with a flash of golden energy from the Essentia-powered bullet. The crusader died instantly, with half his head missing.

  Angel didn’t hesitate and turned the gun on Amanda.

  Amanda lashed out, knocking the gun sideways and out of Angel’s grip. The look on Angel’s face was wonderful, she thought. Confusion and shock played over the Nomad’s features for a second, but Amanda wasn’t going to stand there and enjoy it. She turned and kicked out, bringing her foot up high across Angel’s face. She spun a second time, getting a follow-up kick in and then another in a jumping boost as she flipped again before landing, turning, and swinging her foot in for a fourt
h strike.

  Angel caught it in a vice-like grip.

  “My turn,” she said and twisted Amanda’s leg. She was too strong to resist and would have broken or dislocated something, so Amanda went with it and flipped herself over, kicking out with her other booted foot.

  Her quick thinking must have caught Angel by surprise because she released Amanda’s foot and cursed.

  Essentia flared and Amanda was thrown back against the rear wall, her Aegis crackling as it fought off the attack.

  Amanda pushed herself up off the floor where she’d landed. She finally got her feet under her, only to be knocked back and then lifted up from the floor by more Magic. Meanwhile, three or four more flares of Essentia were blasting out of Angel and hitting Amanda’s Aegis, breaking it down, and keeping her pinned to the wall.

  Angel looked up at her and cocked her head sideways. “My dear, you’re not quite at a level that you can stand up to me. This little fight has been fun, but I think this lesson is over,” she said with a smile that Amanda did not like.

  Amanda fed even more Essentia into her Aegis, but she couldn’t build it up as fast as Angel could rip it down.

  Pinned against the wall, a foot above the floor, Angel’s Magic hammered against her Shield. It was an unstoppable force slamming into her and trying to crush and obliterate her.

  Amanda did her best to push back with her own Magic, but Angel was way more skilled than she was. What she lacked in skill though, she made up for in raw power. She might not be equal in rank to Angel, but her connection to Essentia was a strong one.

  Opening her eyes, Amanda saw that Angel wasn’t even looking at her anymore. She was looking out over the room, past the fight Raven and Gentle Water were still engaged in. More Essentia flared and the golden book that Liz had since grabbed, started to float, dragging Liz with it as it rose up to move over the top of the fight.

  Liz yelped.

  Gentle Water looked back at Amanda, doing his best to fend off two Crusaders while he was distracted by Amanda’s plight.

  Raven spotted Liz, and Amanda saw Magic flare out of him towards Liz as they did their best to resist Angel’s pull.

  Amanda struggled to breathe. The attack was breaking through her Aegis and crushing her lungs. The pressure forced air out of her chest and squeezed her throat.

  As she struggled to catch a breath, her vision began to tunnel. Black nothingness crept into the edges of her sight as she gasped for air, but found none.

  Images flashed through her mind. Memories of her time in the orphanage, of her friend Alicia who had been there for her when no one else had. Howie in New York who had taken her in, cared for her, and given her some hope. Georgina who had helped her when she needed it and had become one of her best friends in the process, even if their life on the streets wasn’t exactly ideal.

  And, of course, Gentle Water, who was looking at her now with desperate concern. The Knights who fought him took advantage of his distraction and pressed the fight as she thought back over the last two years of her training.

  Her mentor had brought her through the grief of losing her friends and shown her the world was bigger and stranger than she could ever have imagined.

  She didn’t want to lose that and made a promise to herself that if she ever got out of this, she would live her life the best way she knew how. She would throw herself into this world of Magic and become the best she could be. It was what Georgina would have wanted.

  The blackness closed in as the scene before her shrunk away, fading into nothingness.

  Light, blinding and powerful, flared up from the darkness as she dropped to the floor. Amanda pulled in a great lungful of air in a laboured gasp. She took another breath and then suddenly remembered the danger she was surrounded by and looked up.

  Angel was on her knees, looking as if she’d been slammed with a momentous attack that had wiped her out. She lifted her head and cowered as a figure in black stepped into the carriage.

  Amanda recognised her right away. It was the woman from the museum, Yasmin, and she did not look happy as she stared down at Angel.

  She wasn’t in the slinky dress anymore, though. Instead, she wore a strange fitted, black catsuit, or at least, that’s what it looked like. It had a peculiar pearlescent quality to it and ended at her wrists and neck as it if were liquid, with glistening black runnels of it reaching down to her hands and up to her jaw.

  She still had that lustrous, wavy, jet-black hair with purple streaks that framed her angular face.

  She stopped just inside the doorway, with Nate appearing in the opening just behind her.

  “Yasmin…” Angel gasped under her breath.

  “Angel,” Yasmin replied, her tone cold and sharp. “Always getting in my way.”

  “My Baal, my utmost apologies, I didn’t…”

  “Shut up,” Yasmin barked, having turned her head sideways to look at Amanda.

  Getting to her feet, Amanda looked back, using her hand to steady herself against the wall as she regained her balance on wobbly legs.

  “Curious,” Yasmin said to herself quietly.

  “What are you doing here?” Amanda asked.

  Yasmin let out a breath and raised her eyebrows with a look that said, really?

  Amanda glanced left at the golden book still in Liz’s arms, as her mentor and Raven finished off the last of the Knights nearby.

  With unsteady feet, Amanda stepped over the bodies of Crusaders and stepped up next to Liz. Yasmin watched her move, tracking her like a hungry cat watches a bird.

  Amanda put her arm around Liz as she pumped Essentia into her Aegis, mending its broken shell and giving her and Liz a modicum of protection. She knew it was relatively pointless, though. If Angel could best her, then Yasmin, an Arch Magus by all accounts, would destroy her.

  “You’ll need to go through me if you want this book,” Amanda challenged her, terrified, but resolute.

  “Whoever said I wanted the book or wanted to hurt you?” Yasmin asked. Essentia surged and Angel—protesting and struggling all the while—rose up from the floor in a curled up ball to hover beside Yasmin.

  “I’ll see you soon, Miss Page,” Yasmin said, and the roof of the train above her exploded out, allowing Yasmin, Nate, and Angel to rise up through it in a flash, leaving Amanda and her friends alone.

  “What was all that about?” Liz asked.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure. I thought she wanted the book, so I did,” Amanda mused. Something wasn’t right here. She couldn’t put her finger on it, though. Why would Yasmin come here, and then just leave? She couldn’t believe it was to kidnap Angel—that was surely just a coincidence… “Well, it’s not a problem to think about right now. How’re Fran and Stephen?” she asked, turning to see where they were.

  She saw them right away, embracing each other and sharing a kiss. Amanda relaxed, pleased they were unharmed.

  Movement behind them, hidden by their bodies, confused Amanda for a moment until she spotted the woman who had been with Vito and who’d been knocked unconscious by the Magic the twins had used, running at the young couple.

  The woman swung her sword, bringing it down into the back of Stephen’s neck and through Fran’s in a single, Magic-infused slash.

  The woman changed direction and bolted sideways as the two teenagers stood there for a second, slowly falling away from each other as their heads tipped over and fell from their shoulders to hit the floor before their bodies did the same. The thuds on the floor of the train car as the two heads bounced and rolled to a stop, trailing blood was sickening.

  The woman leapt from the train in a swan dive and disappeared out of the hole. Amanda ran over and stopped at the edge of the ragged hole in the side of the carriage. The train had stopped on top of an aqueduct and was easily over a hundred feet above the valley floor below. The woman had gone, disappeared, but Amanda suspected that would not be the last they’d hear from her.

  Behind her, Liz wailed. Everything she knew had been violen
tly ripped from her. Amanda went to her. She held the broken teenager in her arms and said nothing. She would simply be there for her from this day forward.

  - Nephilim Industries report by Michael on the missing CEO Angel Alergeri.

  It’s been two weeks now with no contact from her, which for Angel, is unusual. We are actively hunting for her now and following up on the last leads we had of her.

  Our informant within Yasmin’s organisation has also disappeared and may have been discovered. Which, likely means he’s dead.

  Further reports will be made as things develop.

  Moving on

  Donegal, Ireland

  Amanda leant against the fence that surrounded her cottage, resting her arms on the top beam, and looking out over the hills that surrounded her little home. It was a warm day and Amanda had broken out one of her sundresses. It was a plain white one, with thin shoulder straps, and a thigh-length skirt that the wind caught and played with.

  It had been a few weeks since the events on the train, and they had decided that some time here at the cottage was just what Liz needed. It was calm here, away from the stresses of day-to-day life and well away from anything that might bring back painful memories.

  Amanda thought that she had at least some idea about how Liz felt. She hadn’t lost a twin sister, of course, but she felt sure she could help a little bit and provide some perspective.

  She remembered the day that Georgina had told her she was HIV positive and that she had only months, maybe weeks, to live. She remembered the tears, the anger, and the frustration at the unfairness of it.

  Seeing her friend go through that, seeing her deteriorate and become a shell of her former self had been like living through a nightmare. It was so unfair, and yet, with the work they did on the streets of New York, they knew the risks. Georgina had been careless and had missed a few of her medicals, which might have picked it up sooner. What Amanda did know with absolute certainty, was that Georgina would want her to keep on living her life. She would want her to be the best she could be, to throw herself into this fantastic adventure, and to help others whenever she could.