Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  Amanda shook her head, knelt down next to Cherub, and used her Magic to plant a powerful suggestion in the Nomad’s mind. It would direct Cherub to tell Angel that she needed to call Amanda at a phone number which she implanted as well.

  Amanda stood up and looked around. Bodies, some of them dead, lay scattered about. Others moved and groaned, nursing wounds and broken limbs from Amanda’s attacks.

  “Help me,” called one of the ones who’d been caught in her gravity well and had somehow managed to crawl out of the rubble with both legs mangled beyond all recognition.

  She looked again at the devastation she’d created and the lives she had just ended or ruined, and just stared at the mess. A feeling of disbelief washed over her. “What have I done?” she whispered on a heavy sigh.

  Some of these guards would know the kind of people they worked for, but many of them probably didn’t. To them, this was likely just a job, a nice easy job most of the time, walking the corridors of this building.

  She crouched down next to the man with the ruined legs. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said and worked her Magic, blocking the pain receptors in his brain and sending him gently to sleep. She looked down at his legs and felt sick at the sight.

  They were deformed, bloodied, and bent at odd angles with bones jutting out of the raw flesh and muscle, with an entire foot missing. She couldn’t leave him like that, so she used her magic again and healed his legs, re-growing his entire missing foot in only a few seconds.

  Brushing her long red hair from her face, she looked around again at the bodies of the security guards she’d fought.

  She’d been in a rage and angry with Angel for kidnapping Edge. It was true, she didn’t really know him, but he had the information she wanted. But did that really warrant the deaths and injuries she’d inflicted on these men and women?

  Seeing the aftermath, she realised she didn’t recognise herself anymore. The person who had done this, who had acted so callously towards these guards, wasn’t her. Or, she hoped it wasn’t.

  But it was.

  She had done this. She had been responsible for this devastation.

  Something had caused this to happen. Something had changed her, made her care less about others and think only of herself.

  Had she really become this self-absorbed that she would kill innocents?

  As she looked around her, she caught sight of herself in the polished sheen of a glass panel and paused.

  She saw the tattoo that encircled her arms and spread onto her back. Reaching up, she ran her fingers over the skin on her arm where the tattoo marked her. It felt no different to the rest of her skin, but somehow, maybe, this had changed her.

  The sounds of approaching people broke her thought process and snapped her back into reality. With great regret over her actions, she Ported away.

  - Texas.

  “Rylie, thank you. You have outdone yourself with these, girl” said Forrest as he leafed through the prints in his hands. On them, in graphic high definition, were images of that red-headed whore, Amanda, having some fairly wild sex with famed Nomad, Yasmin the Dark.

  “This is incredible work,” Forrest said. Finished, he put them on his desk and looked up at Rylie.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “I think we can finally put our plan into action. She will never survive the fallout from this. This is a great day, Rylie, a great day. You should be proud.” Forrest stood up and walked Rylie to the door. “Go tell everyone that we’ll have a meeting in about thirty minutes. We have a lot of work to do.”

  He watched Rylie walk away, her blonde hair swaying as she went. With her far enough away, he placed his Do Not Disturb sign on his door, then shut and locked it. Closing his blinds, he returned to his desk and looked down at the photos, spreading them out a bit. He pulled down his pants and started to touch himself as he leafed through the explicit photos once again.

  “Oh, yeah, we’re gonna’ fuck you good!” he said to himself, looking at Amanda in the throes of ecstasy.

  Arrest

  New York

  Amanda rounded the corner from her living room and looked up the stairs. She’d been waiting in the lounge for a little over an hour, hoping to catch Liz as she came in. She’d been up most of the night thinking back over the past few days and how she’d been acting to her friends and what they must think of her.

  In short, she’d been a self-absorbed idiot, and now she needed to make amends to those who mattered most to her.

  Liz had been avoiding her for a few days now, always walking out of rooms she was in and just not talking to her.

  Halfway up the stairs, Liz paused as she saw Amanda step into the hallway below.

  “Liz, please, don’t walk away. I… I need to talk with you. Please.”

  Liz narrowed her eyes briefly. “Okay, sure,” she said, turning and descending the staircase. Amanda led her into the lounge.

  “Thank you,” Amanda said. “Let’s sit, shall we?”

  They both sat on the soft sofas. Amanda looked down at her hands for a moment, knowing that Liz was looking at her expectantly.

  “Firstly, I want to say I’m sorry. I’ve had a bit of a realisation and I think I’ve been a bit of a feckin’ dick recently, yeh know?”

  “A bit of a self-entitled bitch, to be accurate,” Liz answered.

  Amanda flinched. “I suppose I deserve that.” Amanda looked up from her hands and looked at Liz. “Look. Things have been… difficult for me recently. With everything that’s been going on and how people have been with me recently, it… I don’t know. It did something to me. I think I started to believe the hype. I think with everyone saying how great I am and how I’m going to save the world, I think I just ended up agreeing with it. I mean, that mixed with what happened on the island and the prophecy and all that, it just had more of an effect on me than I realised. I know that I ended up hurting you guys as well. I know I said some pretty horrible things and accused you of being in the wrong, that you were being the obnoxious ones, when in fact, it was me. So, I suppose, I just want to say, I’m sorry.”

  Liz sighed and nodded.

  “Apology accepted? Amanda asked.

  “Yes…”

  “Oh, good…” Amanda blurted out.

  “You’ve not been your usual self, at all. But, I get it.” Liz continued.

  “Hey, I am the Chosen One, ye know,” Amanda said, but winked as Liz looked up in horror.

  Liz slapped Amanda’s hand. “Cow!”

  Amanda laughed.

  “You’re only human, just like the rest of us,” Liz explained. “You need to try to keep your feet on the ground a little more. I mean, sure, you’ve been lucky, I guess. You seem to be the one spoken of in that prophecy, but so what? Who cares? That’s not what defines you. That’s not really you. Who you are, and what you do are what count. For all we know, this whole prophecy thing could be a big joke or a trick to get you to act a certain way. You need to be more careful.”

  “I know. You’re right. I’ve been so caught up with this prophecy and how everyone has been treating me that I kind of forgot who I was.”

  “I noticed. I certainly didn’t recognise you these last few days. You weren’t the kind, relatable Mandy that I’d met in London. I mean, I kind of get it. When you have everyone coming up to you and treating you like some kind of celebrity, it’s tough not to get caught up in that. I get it, I do, which is why it becomes even more important to keep yourself grounded. I know that can be difficult as a Magus, given what we can do. But if we don’t, then we lose sight of what we’re fighting for. We forget that there are lives at risk,” Liz said.

  Amanda thought back to the fight in Milan just a few hours ago and the people she’d hurt, and felt worse than ever. She’d acted no better than a Nomad.

  She thought back to Yasmin’s words, about going out there and taking whatever she wanted. Somehow, she’d equated them with Maria’s words of living her life to its best and fullest, and mixed the two
together.

  Maria, of course, didn’t agree with Yasmin’s point of view. She just wanted Amanda to have the best life possible, to not miss out on experiences and opportunities. But there was a line in the sand. There were some caveats to that philosophy. Maria meant that everyone should be able to live their life to its fullest, but to do that, you had to work together. Her right to swing her fist ended at the faces of others. She could do as she wished as long as whatever she did didn’t stop others from doing what they wanted to do. Hurting or taking from others would be a breach of that philosophy, but that was exactly what Yasmin was advocating. Yasmin only thought about herself, she wanted power and she didn’t care who she stepped on to get it.

  This, in itself, was something of a realisation for Amanda. Her opinion of Yasmin had shifted after Yasmin’s abrupt departure their encounter and after she asked about the Lazarus Scroll.

  Maybe Yasmin wasn’t such a victim of gossip and rumour as she’d thought she was. This realisation about her philosophy buttressed that idea somewhat.

  Buoyed by the admiration and awe of others, she had taken a few steps down that path before realising what she had done, and now, looking back, it seemed so clear.

  Had she danced along the start of the Nomad’s path?

  Maybe.

  Her mind returned to thoughts of her recent dalliance with Yasmin and the admittedly amazing, if poorly judged, sexual encounter.

  Having realised how much of an idiot she’d been, the thought that she had been set up, and that this would cause her problems, raised its ugly head once more.

  That afternoon with Yasmin had been a mistake and a pretty big one.

  Amanda felt Liz’s fingers touch her upper arm and looked down in surprise. She brushed Liz’s fingers away and covered up her tattoo with her hand.

  “What did you do?” Liz asked.

  Amanda blushed, knowing that Liz had seen the redness of her skin around the tattoo. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Amanda, they’re red and raw.”

  Taking a deep breath, Amanda sighed and looked at the floor. “I know,” she answered, as she remembered sitting in the bath last night, scrubbing at the strange markings until they bled. She’d been so embarrassed by her actions that she’d tried to get rid of the marks. In that moment, she hadn’t wanted them anymore. She’d had enough. She’d hurt her friends and done some bloody stupid things, and she wanted no further part in it.

  The marks hadn’t changed, though. They remained where they were as the skin around them had bled into her bathwater.

  “Jeez, Amanda. What the hell? Come here,” Liz said, and pulled her in for a hug.

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda muttered.

  “Me too. I should have talked to you or…”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Liz. I was the one being the idiot, not you.”

  “Okay, but, I’ll try to be a better friend.”

  “You already are. You gave me exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Liz said and smiled back at her.

  She had no idea what she had done to deserve such great and forgiving friends, but she knew how grateful she felt for them. She knew she could trust them, and she really wanted to tell Liz about Yasmin. She needed to offload the growing feeling of fear that it would blow up in her face, and the weight of keeping such a thing a secret created on her mind. But she was also afraid. Afraid that telling Liz about it might set their friendship back, just as they’d started repairing it.

  “Look, Liz, I’ve…” she started, then took a deep breath and made up her mind. “I’ve done some… questionable things, recently,” Amanda said.

  “I know. But there’s no need to go back over them. We’ve talked about it, we can move on now.”

  “No, I mean, other things, not just how I treated you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well…”

  “AMANDA. THE TRAITOR KNOWN AS AMANDA, WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT.”

  Amanda looked up at Liz who was staring at her with wide eyes, no doubt mirroring her own expression at the booming, amplified voice from out in the street.

  By the time it had finished, Amanda was standing at the window and looking out into the street with Liz next to her.

  She felt her mouth drop open in shock as Gentle Water ran up to the window beside them. She glanced over at him and he looked as shocked as she felt.

  The intersection had been cordoned off entirely with barriers, while police cars and SWAT vans parked up, with more joining all the time.

  Cops were hiding behind their vehicles, pointing their guns at her house, and as she scanned the faces of the determined-looking officers, her eyes suddenly landed on a face she recognised. Forrest Ward, the leader of the Magi Legion Coven stood dressed in a suit with an FBI badge on his chest, holding a megaphone, smiling as he looked up at the house.

  “What the feckin’ hell is this?” Amanda blurted out.

  “I have no idea,” Liz answered.

  Amanda used her Aetheric Sight and took in the scene again, paying attention to the Magic on display.

  Forrest had managed to cast a very subtle, but persuasive illusion over everything, meaning that whatever Amanda was seeing, the mortals probably saw something quite different. She could also now spot the rest of Forrest’s coven, spread out amongst the cops and onlookers, keeping close to mortal civilians, which was no doubt a calculated move on their part.

  “I DON’T WANT THIS TO GET MESSY, AMANDA. YOU NEED TO COME TO YOUR FRONT DOOR AND SURRENDER. YOU MUST ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE,” Forrest called out.

  “Crimes?” Liz asked.

  “What’s going on?” asked Shaun as he appeared in the room with Vanessa.

  “This is bad,” Gentle Water said.

  “It’s the Magi Legion, they want to arrest me, I think,” Amanda explained to Shaun and Vanessa.

  Shaun looked out the window and quickly took in the scene, before he turned back to the group. “Clever,” he said. “Using the Riven as a human shield.”

  “But why?” Liz asked. “What crimes is he talking about?”

  “He must have something on you. He’s called you a traitor already, so maybe he’s trying to discredit you somehow.”

  Amanda’s heart sank, feeling sure she knew where this was going. “Oh, feck,” she muttered.

  “What have you done?” Shaun asked.

  “Amanda?” Gentle Water added.

  “Mandy, what is it?” Liz asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve done something they might not like. In fact, I think I’ve been set up. Shit, I knew this would come back to haunt me.”

  “Care to share with the group?” Shaun asked.

  Amanda sighed, there was no right way to say this. It would look bad no matter what she said. “This… this will sound bad, but I’ve met up with Yasmin a few times recently…”

  “We know. She told you where I was being held and…”

  “Not those,” Amanda cut in. “I mean in the last few days.”

  “Yasmin? As in, Yasmin the Dark? Legendary Nomad, Yasmin?” Shaun asked.

  “The same…” Amanda admitted.

  “This is unfortunate,” Gentle Water said.

  “Jeez, Mandy,” Liz said.

  “Anything else?” Shaun asked. “I mean, that’s not good, but, it doesn’t warrant this.” He waved his hand towards the street outside.

  “Look, I knew the stories, I knew the legends. But try and see it from my perspective. She’s only ever been either kind or indifferent to me. She’s saved my life on several occasions, some of which you lot have witnessed. Hell, she’s saved your lives, too.”

  “True,” Liz commented.

  “She’s flirted with me too, recently. She showed an interest, and, well, she’s a good looking woman, you know? Is it any wonder…?”

  “Oh, Mandy, you didn’t?” Liz said, dread in her voice.

  Amanda hung her hea
d.

  “You did, didn’t you? You slept with her,” Liz accused her.

  “Like I said, I was manipulated into it. She tricked me, got me to lower my guard, flirted with me. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

  “If they know of this, it will look bad, Amanda,” Gentle Water said.

  “Is there anything else?” Shaun said.

  “Not much, I don’t think. I’ve had a number of visitors to the house wanting to meet me, Arcadians and Independents, but that’s all.”

  “Okay, that’s fine,” Shaun said.

  “What are we going to do?” Liz asked.

  Amanda looked out the window at the red and blue flashing lights that were calling her to take responsibility for her actions and thought of how she’d hurt so many people recently in one way or another. Then she looked back at the crestfallen faces of her friends who now looked at her in a way that she didn’t like. They’d lost some of their faith in her today. Hearing how she had literally slept with the enemy, had clearly affected them.

  She wanted to regain that trust. She wanted to do the right thing, no matter where that led.

  Amanda walked through her friends.

  “What are you doing?” Liz asked.

  “Amanda, I urge caution,” Gentle Water said.

  Amanda paused and turned to her friends, who looked at her with looks of surprise. “I’m going to take responsibility for my actions. I’m going to turn myself in,” she said.

  “I’ll be running damage control,” Shaun said, and with Vanessa in tow, moved off towards the basement.

  Gentle Water just nodded to Amanda in answer to her statement.

  “Oh,” Liz said, a little surprised.

  Amanda turned and walked to the door, and with a deep breath, opened it, raising her hands in the air as she stepped outside. The mechanical sound of guns being cocked sounded throughout the intersection. No one moved apart from Forrest, who lowered the megaphone and walked towards her. Threading through the cars and cops, he broke through their front ranks and walked up to the base of her stoop.

  “Well, now, this is a turn up for the books. I thought I’d have to storm that there house of yours.”