Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  Another man popped out in front of her, only for Rebecca to repeat the process without fuss or problem.

  Rebecca looked like she meant business, both in her actions and how she looked. She wore a one-piece black catsuit with a gun strapped to her leg, and two blades strapped to her back. Everything she wore seemed to be Magical.

  Movement caught Liz’s eye from the left side of the Russian group, across the rank of cars from Rebecca. Liz watched as a man saw her and raised his gun almost as if in slow motion. He had a clear line of fire across the gap to where Liz crouched next to the pickup truck.

  Liz braced herself, only to see the man’s exposed hand explode as Rebecca put a bullet through it from over twenty feet away. Rebecca moved quickly, checking her corners and soon found the man leant up by the side of the car he hid behind, holding his ruined hand. She put two rounds through his head without any hesitation and continued on, sparing one quick glance and nod to Liz as she moved.

  Rebecca had been assigned to their group at the last minute by the Magi Council. Apparently, she came from the Arcanum, the organisation of Initiated Riven who policed the crossover between the Mortal population and the Magi. Rebecca was one of their highly trained Black Ops Agents.

  Because there would be a strong Initiated element to this mission, the powers that be saw fit to send her.

  Liz wondered if this might have been as much to keep an eye on them as it was to help them.

  From the other side of the row of cars the Russian gang had brought, a man appeared and looked out into the space between the vehicles of the two gangs. Liz watched as he checked around before focusing on the three handcuffed men sitting huddled in no-mans-land. They’d been brought by the Russians, apparently to sweeten the deal. But as the fight broke out, they’d been left in the mud.

  The man, who had been leading the negotiations for the Russians, took a couple of steps and raised his gun, aiming it at the three men.

  Working her Magic quickly, Liz erected an invisible Aegis around the prisoners. As the Russian fired, the bullets bounced off the Shield leaving the men unharmed.

  “What the hell?” the man said in Russian. Liz understood him, having Magically learnt the language not too long ago.

  Running forward at a blistering speed, Liz took advantage of the man’s confusion as he looked at his gun, wondering how he’d missed. He looked up a moment before Liz’s knee slammed into his nose as she jumped at him. With a satisfying crunch, the man whipped backwards off his feet as blood exploded from his nose all over her black leggings. She landed behind him, turned, and with a quick twist of Magic in his mind, he fell unconscious.

  Looking up, past the three terrified looking men, she could see Xain and Orion doing their thing with the German gang. Orion ran up and over a van, jumping off in a flip, firing his guns as he went, while Xain took on several at once, his sword in one hand and a futuristic-looking pistol in the other. His movements were graceful and fluid, but lethal.

  Beyond them, the side of the warehouse exploded as a huge metal gas tank flew through the wall, widening the hole that was already there.

  Balor stepped through the hole he’d made just before Liz had jumped off the roof. She wondered if he’d killed the Nomad Magus he’d slammed through the wall.

  Walking through the flames, he roared as he waded into the waiting men who opened fire on him.

  A faint noise and a feeling of foreboding made Liz duck and look behind her as a gunshot rang out, aimed for where her head had just been. A shiny black blur appeared beside the man. It was Rebecca. She kicked his gun arm up, sending his gun flying, and buried one of her blades in the man’s gut.

  She caught the gun as it dropped and put one round between the man’s eyebrows, dropping him like a ragdoll.

  Two other men approached Rebecca. Liz nearly called out, only to watch in awe as this young woman moved at a speed that was difficult to follow and quickly killed them both without breaking a sweat.

  Finished with those two, Rebecca switched back to her own gun and paused.

  “I’ll finish the rest of these off, you get the hostages to safety,” Rebecca said without looking at Liz, before raising her gun to her eye and moving out.

  Liz nodded and moved over to the hostages, where they crouched in the dirt. With a quick working of Magic, their cuffs dropped from their wrists.

  “How did you?” asked one.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said another. All of them looked relieved, tired, and scared.

  “Come with me,” Liz said in their native Russian and led them out of the line of fire to the gap between two warehouses. “Get in here, come on,” she said.

  They moved quickly, but were clearly in pain and struggling with their movements.

  “Who are you guys? Why were you brought here?”

  “They hate us. Russia is a dangerous place for people like us,” he said.

  “Us?” Liz asked, confused.

  “We’re gay,” they said.

  “Ah, I understand,” she said. She remembered the Nomad that had been watching the deal, who Balor had hit at one hundred miles an hour through a brick wall. He belonged to the Children of Pain Coven, a Neo-Nazi Nomad coven who operated in Eastern Europe.

  Their Intel had said that a Magus called Hans would be in attendance, she wondered if Hans would still be alive.

  “Stay here,” she said and ran towards the warehouse Balor had been in and the hole he’d made in its wall. She reached it without incident and looked inside at the terrific mess that the Scion had made. Factory machines lay in a huge tangled heap. She couldn’t see a body in the wreckage, but there was some blood.

  Liz furrowed her brow in consternation, had Hans gotten away?

  A shadow fell over Liz. Turning quickly, she whipped her hand out, only for it to be caught in a huge and unyielding fist.

  “He Ported away,” Balor said as he released her arm.

  “Sorry,” she said, feeling embarrassed for lashing out at him.

  “Don’t be, reactions like that could save your life one day. Much like they saved Hans’ life today,” he rumbled, his voice sounding like two boulders grinding together.

  “We stopped the deal, though, and saved the lives of three innocents. The day wasn’t a total loss,” Liz offered.

  Balor looked down on Liz and smiled. “As you say.”

  “Speaking of disappearing acts, I think you should make yourself scarce, so we don’t scare the mortals,” she said as she looked over the now-quiet battlefield. Xain and Orion moved through the German gunrunner’s vehicles, looking for any stragglers. To Liz’s right, Rebecca walked towards them, scanning the area as she moved.

  “Agreed,” Balor said. His great wings spread wide, he launched himself into the air, and with a couple of beats of those bat-like wings, he’d disappeared from view.

  “Heads up,” came a voice from above. A moment later, Stephen Loomis dropped to the ground by Liz’s side and straightened up. “Well done, you were impressive,” he said.

  Stephen wasn’t a fighter but had come to offer some Magical aid. He watched the perimeter and kept other Riven away from the fight with a mixture of sound dampening and illusions.

  “Thank you,” Liz said. “Did you have any trouble on your end?”

  “Kept a few workers away and diverted them to safer routes, nothing too stressful.”

  “Good,” Liz said.

  “One moment,” he said and concentrated for a second. Liz felt the Magic roll out from him and envelope the weapons in the crates nearby. Liz watched with her Aetheric Sight and saw the guns erode and quickly fall to ruin. They were useless now.

  “Good thinking,” Liz said.

  “I think we’re finished here,” Xain said as he and Orion approached.

  Liz watched as Rebecca walked up to the gap between the warehouses and spoke to the hostages who were down there.

  “You’re safe now,” she said in Russian. “You’re in Minsk, Belarus and you’re
free to go. Here,” she said and offered them a roll of paper money. She finished with a few pleasantries and moments later, Liz could hear the men run off between the warehouses as Rebecca walked to them.

  “Shall we leave?” Xain asked.

  Everyone agreed, saying yes, apart from Rebecca, who only nodded.

  ***

  Hans appeared in a dimly lit tunnel with a snap. A puff of dust kicked up from his sudden appearance slowly settled around his feet.

  The tunnel had rock and earthen walls held in place with wooden support beams, from which hung the occasional lamp.

  He staggered for a moment and called on his Magic, feeling its power sweep over him and heal the broken bones, cuts, and internal damage caused by the Gargoyle’s attack. He leant against the nearest support beam and caught his breath. After a few minutes, he called on his Magic and sent his senses hundreds of miles from Warsaw to Minsk and looked upon the scene he’d just left. Barely a couple of minutes had passed, but the fight was all over and the Arcadians were gone.

  “Scheisse,” he muttered as he stood tall and cancelled the Magic, buttoning up his now Magically restored suit jacket.

  Continuing on, he passed through an Aegis, through the main entrance into the of The Children of Pain’s Sepulchre.

  The inside of the complex had a clean and utilitarian look to it with its concrete walls and its 1940s stylings. The Sepulchre wasn’t huge but it comfortably housed the entire coven and guests when needed. Located beneath Warsaw, close to the controversial death camp that the Nazi’s had here, this had been Demitriov’s home for as long as Hans could remember.

  Several corridors later, Hans reached the door to his master’s office and knocked.

  “Enter, Hans,” Demitriov called out.

  Hans walked inside and closed the door behind him before approaching Demitriov’s desk. Old habits die hard, he supposed as he watched Demitriov finish writing something with a fountain pen.

  Hans tried to keep himself from fidgeting as he waited. He wasn’t looking forward to Demitriov’s reaction to his news of the Arcadian attack. Before long, his master looked up at him, eyebrow raised in question.

  Demitriov kept his hair cut short and today he wore a suit cut in an old-fashioned manner with a single gold swastika pinned to his lapel that gleamed in the light from the desk lamp.

  “Your report, please, Hans. Don’t keep me waiting. Did the Ruskies go for the deal?”

  “I’m afraid there was no deal. We had a problem…”

  “What?” Demitriov asked, sitting forward in his chair.

  “Arcadians, the Legacy, I think, they interrupted the deal. I was forced to flee the scene or die,” Hans said as he looked at his master. Demitriov’s clenched fist started to shake as his face turned a bright shade of pink.

  “Verdammt!” he roared as he lifted his fist and slammed it onto the desktop in anger.

  Prologue 2

  Texas, USA

  Angel leant on the fence with her forearms, bending at her hips but keeping her legs straight. It forced her bum into the air in just the right way, attracting admiring glances from most of the men, and several women too.

  She looked out at the rodeo, and these self-important idiots riding around on horses and bulls, thinking they're cowboys and oh-so-macho. The whole thing bored her to tears and she wanted nothing more than to hurt someone.

  But she was here for a reason, and that reason sat behind her on her right-hand side and had been staring at her ass for the past ten minutes. She glanced back, locking eyes with him and smiled as if she enjoyed his lingering gaze. She looked away and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, making her ass jiggle.

  She’d pulled in her Magical aura quite some way, so she looked more like an Apprentice than anything else. That served to get Troy’s attention. He sat with his Initiated and Riven friends enjoying this travesty they called entertainment.

  She looked back at him again, biting her lip, and giving him a smile that promised delights beyond compare. Troy pulled his eyes away from her perfectly formed rear smiled back, shifting his position due to his increasing arousal.

  She wore a pair of tiny Daisy Duke denim hot pants that barely covered anything, with cowboy boots, and a red plaid shirt that she tied up just under her bust. She finished the look with a cream-colored cowboy hat worn over freshly curled blonde hair that she twirled on her finger.

  She winked at him, and he smiled back. He looked around, before excusing himself from his friends. They whooped and hollered at him in encouragement as he walked over to her, his gait full of swagger.

  She turned, put her bum to the fence and smiled at him as he approached.

  “Hey there, little lady, you all by your lonesome?”

  “I sure am,” she said, putting on her best southern drawl for this dolt.

  “Well, that’s a cryin’ shame. Someone as beautiful as you shouldn’t be walkin’ alone around these parts. You never know what might happen to you.”

  “You here with your coven?” she asked, looking around in a fake attempt to see anyone else.

  Troy came in closer to her in order to talk in lower tones. “I have some friends here, why?” he asked, his tone defensive like he suddenly thought better of telling her the truth. Troy had been a member of the Magi Legion for years now, and although the Coven House wasn’t too far away, he was the only Magus here tonight.

  “I’m sorry,” she replied. She didn’t want to scare him off. “I don’t mean to pry, it’s just, I’m currently between covens, and when I saw your big ol’ handsome face back there, I jus’ had to know your name. I’m Angel, by the way.”

  “Troy,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that, but their loss is our gain. Why’d you leave your last coven?”

  “Man problems. The pig just didn’t appreciate me, didn’t understand my needs,” she said as she stepped in closer to him and put one of her hands on his chest. “If you know what I mean?”

  “Any man that doesn’t appreciate you, needs therapy.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, he got obsessed by some other witch. Said he’d heard stories that she was the Chosen One or something. Mentioned something about a Prophecy of Helene.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Amanda, that’s it,” she said snapping her fingers. “Amanda-Jane Page. Said she was some kind of ‘Chosen One’.”

  Troy backed off, he looked less enraptured and more than a little concerned. “Who… Who are you?”

  “Just a concerned member of the Magi community, wanting to make sure people know what’s going on,” she said, stepping back and away from Troy and into the crowd. “Don’t forget what I told you, now,” she said before she turned and walked away.

  ***

  Troy sat in Forest’s office in Fort Ward, the home of the Magi Legion. The office had a military and old west feel to it.

  Troy had returned from the rodeo only moments before, Porting back as quickly as he could after his encounter with Angel. She was a beauty, and his mind kept wandering off into more carnal thoughts as he tried to stay focused on the substance of their meeting. Things had taken a turn for the strange when she’d mentioned Amanda. Everyone in the Magi Legion knew of Amanda and her rise to prominence in New York. Forest hated her and made sure everyone in the Legion knew why.

  It all seemed a little too convenient that Angel would mention Amanda to him, given his allegiance to the Legion. But she’d also mentioned something new, and if true, slightly concerning. Angel’s comment about Amanda being the Chosen One and her reference to the Prophecy of Helene, was not something Troy had heard before. Troy didn’t know much about such things. He remembered being told something about the Prophecy, but he’d be damned if he could remember what exactly.

  Anyway, he knew Forest would want to know about this right away, which is why he’d left the rodeo barely fifteen minutes ago. Now, Forest sat before him looking into the middle distance having listened to Troy’s desc
ription of the encounter. He looked deep in thought.

  “So, what do you think?” Troy asked.

  “I’m not sure, but one thing is for certain, you’re not the only one to hear about this. It’s all over the Dark Web. Someone wants to either discredit Amanda or get unwanted attention on her.”

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Troy asked.

  “Possibly. But if this Prophecy is true and it’s talking about Amanda, then it changes everything,” Forest said. He looked over to his wife, Stella Ward. “Gather the coven, we have much to discuss.”

  Crossing

  Pacific Ocean

  Amanda walked up to the enormous rock in the centre of the small island in the middle of the atoll. She’d returned here a few times these past few weeks, looking for anything that might help her learn more about Mr Black’s fate.

  She pushed through bushes and undergrowth to find the odd metallic door set into the rock. Her enhanced Magical ability picking up the faint Magical signature hidden behind the door, but only just. She could feel the temporal energy that the device held in flux just on the edge of her senses, something she would not have been able to do prior to that energy hitting her and enhancing her Magic.

  She thought back to her meeting with Mr Black, here on this beach, when he’d told her everything that he knew. It had taken some cajoling to get the information out of him, but once he started talking, he didn’t stop.

  This strange man who went only by the rather formal name of Mr Black, although she doubted that was his real name, had turned out to be her father. He’d had a night in a brothel with a woman called Sofia, who he claimed looked just like her, before the device behind this door sent him back in time to free his family from the control of the Scion, Horlack. He succeeded, but paid a hefty price. His family had been wiped out and he’d been aged fifty years.