Amanda smiled. She could counter the Magic and blind Lucian in less than a second, but she waited. She wanted to do it just as she attacked him, causing the most confusion that she could.
Roaring, she ran straight at him, catching him off guard and landing a punch right on his jaw. As she attacked, she put as much Magical power into disintegrating his Magical senses as she could.
The effect dissolved into nothing instantly.
Amanda saw Lucian’s reaction right away. He stiffened in shock and took a few staggering paces back. She had no time to waste. She gave him no quarter and threw everything at him. Essentia strikes, punches, kicks, she even shouted at him, yelling incoherently. Anything to keep him off balance and make the most of his confusion because she felt sure it wouldn’t last long.
Lucian’s defences were strong. They held up against her attacks as he tried to create his Magical senses again. Amanda saw it form and countered it easily, unravelling his Magic before it went anywhere.
“Aaaagh, fuck off!” he shouted, his Essentia flaring again. A wave of force energy shot out in all directions. The kinetic shockwave hit Amanda and knocked her back, skidding and stumbling away as she went.
Lucian stood tall during the brief lull in her attacks. He pulled Essentia back into him and worked his Magic.
“Clever girl, no one’s figured out that I’m blind before today. I respect that. But you should know, I can’t let you leave here now.”
“No!” Amanda yelled, seeing her chance to beat him slipping through her fingers. His Magic worked again and his senses started to reform, this time, inside his Aegis.
Gunfire rang out. Lucian’s Aegis lit up as bullets ripped into it, peppering his Shield with tiny destructive rounds of Essentia.
Amanda looked up and saw Liz holding a gun in both hands as she fired her clip until it clicked empty. Lucian dropped to his knees with a roar, his Aegis faltering.
“Are you alright?” Liz called.
Amanda jumped up and strode towards Lucian.
“I’m fine,” she said as she called on her Magic. Essentia lashed out from her, ripping at his Aegis. In the chaos and confusion, he fumbled his Magical Senses effect, leaving him blind once more.
Amanda knew this would be it. This would be her last chance. She pulled out all the stops. She threw everything she had at him, screaming in anger and rage at the monster who kneeled before her.
Tears fell down her cheeks as she blasted him. The surging energy rushed through her body like a hurricane whipping her red hair around her head like one of the mythical Furies borne to life. Magical energy, fire, and lightning flew out of her and slammed into the Nomad, his Aegis flaring black and blue from the attack until it finally fractured and fell with a pulse of blinding light, scattering to the four winds.
Lucian’s body fell to the floor as her Essentia blast faded. He scrambled to get back to his feet, but Amanda didn’t stop. Catching her breath, she called on her Essentia again, unravelling the other Magical effects he’d cast on himself. In his panic, he tried to resist, to push Amanda’s Magic away, but his defences were confused and ineffectual. With one of her Multitasking minds, she delved into his head and took hold of his mind. All resistance stopped, as she took away his control over his Magic.
Amanda stood before the defeated Nomad where he knelt on the floor. He tilted his head back as if looking up at Amanda from his empty eye sockets, his face filled with hate.
She felt elated. Tired, but elated. She’d done it. She’d stopped him. She took a moment to just catch her breath and calm herself down.
She stood about six feet from Lucian with a few more rips in her jeans and her dirty top barely hanging on. Like Amanda, Lucian was covered in dust and dirt and slime, his body scratched and bleeding. He sat in a puddle amongst debris from the roof collapse an air of defeat hanging over him. He looked weak and pitiful. Not the powerful, competent Magus he once was.
“You’re powerful,” Lucian said. “Very powerful for a Knight. It’s a shame you can’t see the truth.”
“What truth?”
“The truth that all Nomads realise. The knowledge that when the Archons return, only we will survive to rule by their side,” he preached.
“Is that right?” she asked rhetorically, rolling her eyes.
“You would have made a sublime Nomad,” he continued, ignoring her.
Amanda sighed. “You brought this on yourself, you realise? You had to know it would end this way one day.”
“Just get on with it. Death would be a sweet release from your self-righteous whining,” he answered, hanging his head. “I go to the dark embrace of my master in dread Tartarus.”
Amanda sighed. “Very well, this is for all the lives ye’ve destroyed.” She closed her eyes and pulled on the threads of Magical energy.
Lucian’s body appeared to pull itself apart, ripping into shreds and splattering across the floor in front of Amanda.
She opened her eyes, and then looked away. She might have been the one to kill him, but it was still disgusting to look at.
She looked up at Liz who stood above her on the edge of the hole looking down. Xain, Orion, and Shaun had joined her.
“Eww, that’s gross,” Liz called out before disappearing, the sounds of vomiting coming from somewhere out of sight.
“You okay, Amanda?” Xain said.
Amanda nodded. “I am now.” Her Magic flared, and she Ported up to stand beside her friends.
“Are you just going to leave him there like that?” Shaun asked.
Amanda looked down at the crimson stain on the dirty concrete below her.
She thought about it for a moment, before reaching out with her Magic and pulling down another section of floor. The rubble buried his remains, leaving nothing to find.
“That’ll do,” she said.
Xain raised his eyebrows. “I suppose it will,” he said. “Rest in pieces, Lucian,” he quipped.
She turned and saw Yoh, Maya, Raven, and Gentle Water all approaching from the tunnels looking a little battle-scarred, but otherwise relatively unharmed.
Amanda looked down at herself. She looked just as bad. She felt tired and really didn’t want to be here any longer.
Liz ran over, wiping her mouth, and gave Amanda a hug.
“Are you alright?” Amanda asked her.
“I’m fine. I’m just glad we found you when we did,” Liz said.
“I would have been grand, don’t worry. It’s over now.”
Gentle Water walked up to her. “Lucian is finished?”
“Dead,” Amanda confirmed with a nod of her head.
“Excellent. Then we done here. I believe we clear this place out.”
“We should give it one last sweep before we leave,” Xain said. “To be sure. Wouldn’t want to leave a Nomad hidden here somewhere.”
“Sounds good, let’s go,” Raven said. He walked over to Amanda and put his hand on her back. “Well done. Another Nomad gone for good.”
“No bother,” Amanda said and pulled him in for a brief hug.
She looked around for Yoh. He and Maya walked a few paces behind her. She let go of Liz’s hand and moved in next to Yoh.
“You okay? You look like you’re in shock,” Amanda said.
“I’m alright. I just can’t believe we did it. I’ve lived in New York for years and have seen first-hand Arcadians try and take out Lucian before and how badly that went. It just… it doesn’t feel real yet. You know?”
“Kinda.”
Yoh smiled at her. “You’ve not lived here as long as I have.”
“What doesn’t feel real to me is that it was me who killed him, and his lapdog, Raal. That doesn’t feel at all real. I feel like there should be some big change in me.”
“What you did, you did for all the right reasons, and you have undoubtedly saved lives because of it. There should be no stain on your conscience for this. We’re Magi. We don’t have a police force, we can’t ask the mortal authorities to deal wi
th the Nomads. They’re our problem, so it’s down to us to deal with them,” Yoh said.
“Will the Magi council feel the same way?” she asked.
Gentle Water looked back at her. “I believe so. I feel sure they will be interested in events here. They will contact you, I have no doubt,” he said.
“I suppose this changes everything here in New York, then, with Lucian gone,” Amanda said.
“That’s right,” Yoh answered.
“It does,” Gentle Water agreed.
“Victoria will want to know what happened as well, I bet,” Amanda said.
“And the Legion. I have no idea how they’re going to react,” Yoh commented.
“Well, I ain’t leaving,” Amanda said. “This is my home. I’m staying, so I am.”
- Mexico
Celest walked along the dusty desert highway. The relatively flat land gave way to mountains in the distance to her left, but Celest continued to walk north.
She carried little with her. Just a backpack with some essentials inside and the clothes she wore. She’d torn the legs off the jeans Amanda had created for her and wore them as shorts now.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead as a car passed by and pulled over a short distance ahead. She hadn’t flagged it down, which gave her a moment’s pause, but she couldn’t smell anything untoward.
She walked to the door, bent down to look in, and saw a woman in her forties. “Can I help you?” Celest asked.
“You out here on your own?” the woman asked.
“Sure am.”
“Where you headed?”
“North, into the States. Maybe L.A.,” Celest said.
“Jump on in, I’ll take you as far as I can. You shouldn’t be out here all by your lonesome.”
“I can take care of myself, lady,” Celest stated.
“I can see that,” the woman said, looking at her huge muscled arms. “All the same, jump in. Don’t be a martyr.”
Celest looked down the road at the journey ahead of her, before opening the door and jumping in, putting her bag into the footwell.
The car revved and wheelspun on the dry dirt before hitting the road and disappearing off north through Mexico.
Taking stock
Greenwich Village, New York
Sitting with her knees crossed and leaning back in her chair, Amanda soaked up the warm sunshine that beat down on her. City life buzzed around her with conversations in half a dozen different languages. People walked this way and that, going about their business, while the cars on the nearby road did the same, sounding their horns occasionally in frustration.
People were going about their day-to-day routines, unaware of the war all around them.
Amanda felt good today, really good. The coffee in her hand felt warm through the porcelain mug, its aroma mixing with others coming from the coffee shop she sat outside of. The smell of freshly ground coffee beans tingled in her nose as she sat enjoying the atmosphere.
The warm weather today had been a welcome surprise after a few days of cooler temperatures, so she’d splashed out and worn a light summer dress with knee-high brown boots.
Sat at the table with her, in a figure-hugging Maxi dress, Maria also took a moment to enjoy the sun. She wore sunglasses with large lenses to complete the sun worshiper look.
Amanda had just finished telling Maria about the assault on Lucian’s stronghold. It had been a long story, but Maria has listened intently and asked questions as they went. Amanda felt emotionally drained after reliving the whole thing, so she was glad for a moment of silence to settle her mind.
When she’d moved here, she’d felt a strange mix of her usual optimism that all would work out in the end, but she also had a distinct lack of confidence in her ability to stand up to Lucian. She’d run with the boys on their missions numerous times before her trip, but she’d always followed their lead, and never took on their targets alone. They were their missions, she just happened to tag along.
But New York had been her choice, it had been her dream to move here. She’d brought her friends, and they would always be there for her, but this had been her choice. This had been her thing, her mission, and she didn’t want it to fail. So many people had warned her about coming here and they’d all assumed she’d fail. They’d been convinced she’d made a mistake.
Deep down, she knew she was right. She knew this was her path, but saying she’d succeed, was very different to actually succeeding. When she’d first come here, she’d tried to hide. She’d heard the stories of Lucian and thought it best to slip under his radar and try to live here quietly and unnoticed.
That hadn’t worked of course, and confrontation became inevitable. She’d been lucky though, and as it turned out, she felt reasonably sure she owed her life to a Nomad, of all things.
Thinking back to just before she’d moved here, she knew now that she’d just ignored the threat Lucian posed. She knew that she might have to stand up to him one day, but she hoped it would be somewhere off in the distant future and she’d deal with it then.
As it turned out, it had been the actions of others that had given her the drive and confidence to act, rather than react.
If she’d acted earlier with Lucian, she might have prevented Liz’s kidnapping and maybe saved more of the kids in that hellhole in Columbia. If she’d acted earlier in Ireland, she might have prevented Alicia from being possessed. But, it went back further than that.
She remembered that after her Epiphany, when she’d had full use of Magic, she hadn’t pursued it. She didn’t embrace it or act on it, either which could have meant saving Georgina’s life. It had been at that point, that she’d made a promise to herself and to Georgina to live life to the fullest, and now she could add to that, to always act and be proactive.
“So, there wasn’t anyone else in Lucian’s Sepulchre?” Maria asked.
“Not really. No Magi, anyway. There were a few Initiated mortals who we kicked out and told to leave New York, but that’s all, really. We disposed of the Nomad’s bodies. Well, Xain and Orion did, and we headed home.”
“And the club has remained closed?”
“So far. I think it will get bought by someone one day, but we sealed up the entrances to the Nomad tunnels beneath it. It’s far too dangerous for humans to go down there.”
“So, how’s Alicia now, then?”
Amanda raised her eyebrows at the question. “Well, that’s a bit of a mystery,” she replied. “When we got home, she’d gone. Disappeared. I have no idea what happened to her I’ve followed up with the orphanage, but they’ve not heard from her either. I’ll keep looking, but even my Magic hasn’t turned up anything.”
“Well, I hope you find her.”
“Thanks. Me too.” Amanda smiled.
“So everything’s calmed down now?”
“Pretty much. Gentle Water was right, the council turned out to be very interested in what happened and I even had a visit from one of their representatives. A guy by the name of Trevelyan. English bloke. He seemed nice.”
“I know him. He’s a friend to the Legacy, which is probably why they sent him.”
“Well, he thanked us for what we did, but told us to keep things quiet. They need to see how the Nomads Lucian worked with would react. So far nothing, but maybe they don’t know he’s gone yet.”
“They’ll realise something’s up pretty soon, and I doubt they’ll let it go. Nymira isn’t known to be terribly forgiving. Depends on Lucian’s standing within the group, though, I suppose. If he wasn’t liked, maybe they won’t bother you.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see. Time will tell, I guess,” Amanda agreed.
“How’s Liz after all that? She’s been through a lot, by the sounds of things.”
“I’m so proud of her,” Amanda said, smiling as she spoke about her apprentice. “She’s been amazing. She seems to have found a strength inside her that I never knew was there. None of this seems to have bothered her at all. She even took out one of the Sci
on wolves and an Initiated singlehandedly.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.”
“I know. She asked Xain and Orion for some training too. She wants to go on some missions against the Nomads with them.”
“Is she up to that?”
I’ll let the boys decide on that. I think she needs more Magical training first, but in a few months, maybe.”
“Best to leave it to them. Those boys will look after her and make sure she doesn’t get in over her head.”
“I know. They were invaluable on the raid.”
Maria nodded. “On the topic of men, I’ve got to ask, Mandy, is there anything going on with you and Raven?”
“Ugh,” Amanda answered, feeling a little deflated over that whole thing. “No, I think he’s seeing someone. I went to speak with him one night and someone, a woman, I think, was in his room with him, and they weren’t just having a chat.”
“Any idea who?”
“None. I have no idea, and frankly, it’s none of my business, really. I’d love to know, given it was in my house, but well, whatever.”
“So, no one else then?”
“I had a one-night stand with Yoh,” Amanda admitted. It came out before she’d really thought about what she was saying.
“Really? You little rascal.”
“It didn’t come to anything, though. That was just before he was attacked at the house. He’s been distant ever since he changed into a Scion.”
“Oh, shame.”
“Yeah, well. He seems closer to Maya now.”
“Is she nice?” Maria asked.
“I think so. She’s a little aloof and doesn’t say much, but she’s always been friendly to me. I like her, actually. We seem to get on.”
“You like her?”
“You really do have a one-track mind, Maria,” Amanda smiled.
Maria laughed. “Why, I’m offended. I’d never stoop to such a low innuendo.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t,” Amanda replied dryly. “So yeah, I’m signed off from men for a while, I think.”
Maria smiled and looked at Amanda with mischievous eyes.
“Don’t you get any funny ideas, though,” Amanda said.
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