The Reluctant Assassin Boxset

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  As Zayn pulled himself from the sticky floor, Sparky ran through the crowd, screams following as people received shocks from incidental contact.

  Zayn followed him to a back exit. When he hit the alleyway, he saw Sparky turning onto the street at a full sprint. Zayn checked behind him, but none of the others had seen him leave. He thought about going back for them, but was afraid he'd lose the guy if he did.

  "Shit."

  He let the door close behind him and ran after Sparky, hoping he could get back to the High Dragon before Katie's set ended.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tenth Ward, March 2014

  Following a shocking individual

  It wasn't hard to track Sparky. He kept shooting off random bolts of lightning that would jet into the low cloud bank in the sky, or crackle against the upper floors of apartment buildings. The problem was that he was fast. Zayn was already a block behind, the distance growing greater by the second.

  After a few blocks of running full out, Zayn heaved to a stop and bent over at the waist, hot breath coming out of his lips like mist. The air was chilly but he was warm from running. An ambulance siren sounded from somewhere behind him.

  "I'm an idiot," he muttered, remembering his imbuement and pouring faez into it.

  He caught up to Sparky on Ninth Street, near the Korean grocery store where Skylar worked. The occasional car motored past, but this area of town was shut down at this time of night. Sparky had stopped. He was standing like a pole at the corner, arms down by his sides.

  Zayn stayed on his side of the street. "Hey man, are you okay?"

  When Sparky spoke, his mouth was a hive of electricity. "Stop following me."

  "I only want to help," said Zayn. "That stuff you're taking is dangerous. It'll kill you."

  "But I need it," said Sparky, staring at his hands.

  Only the distance between them saved Zayn when Sparky shot a thick bolt of white-hot energy across the street. When it passed Zayn as he dove, it burnt the bottoms of his shoes before blowing the windows out of an electronics store.

  With broken glass scattered around him, Zayn scrambled to his feet, prepared to dodge again, but the glowing energy inside of Sparky had diminished.

  Zayn saw his chance and started moving across the street, slowly, with his hands up, as if he were trying to corral an escaped pet.

  "I don't want to hurt you, but you're going to get someone killed if you keep doing that," he said, checking behind him in hopes that his friends might have found him.

  With the energy discharged, Sparky looked sweaty and worn out, like he'd had the flu all night. His eyes were cavernous.

  "Stay...back."

  Zayn stopped halfway across the street. He thought about trying the charm again, but it hadn't worked the last time. He'd have to do this the old-fashioned way.

  "Do you have a name?" asked Zayn.

  "Jeffrey."

  "Hello, Jeffrey. I'm Zayn."

  Jeffrey's forehead bunched up. "Are you from Jamaica?"

  "Ya man. I am. And I've seen some others like you and it didn't end well for them," he said.

  "But it gives me magic," said Jeffrey in a breathless delirium. "I had no idea that it would feel so good. It's better than sex."

  "It's killing you. Even for trained mages faez is dangerous, and it's especially dangerous for mages without a patron. If this drug is giving you magic, then you should be worried."

  "I don't feel worried."

  Zayn cast about for another tactic. "Do you have a family?"

  "No, why?"

  "Brothers, sisters?" asked Zayn.

  "A sister. Jessica. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband," he said.

  "Think about her. Think about how sad she would be if you died," said Zayn.

  "She would be. She's pregnant. Told me they might name the baby after me."

  "Great," said Zayn, taking tentative steps towards Jeffrey. "Then you should stop taking it. Does that drug have a name?"

  "Alpha."

  "You should stop taking Alpha right away. Do you have any more?" asked Zayn.

  Jeffrey's hand went reflexively towards his front pocket. "No."

  "Jeffrey, you know you do. Think about Jessica. Think about her baby, little Jeffrey. You want to see him, right?" asked Zayn.

  After a moment, Jeffrey gave a slow steady nod.

  "Then pull it out, and throw it away. No more Alpha. No more dangerous magic," said Zayn.

  Jeffrey reluctantly reached into his front pocket and dug out two baggies filled with a sparkly powder. He stared at them longingly.

  "Where did you get those?" asked Zayn. "So I can make sure no one else gets hurt."

  Jeffrey weaved like a snake in a trance, and then he came out of it. "The moon lady gave it to me..."

  His voice trailed off, and Zayn had started to close the final distance between them when he heard shouts from up the street.

  "It's him! He's this way!"

  Vin was running up the sidewalk towards them. In the dim streetlamps, he looked like a menacing hulk.

  "This is a trick, isn't it?" said Jeffrey, ripping open both packets and emptying them into his mouth before Zayn could stop him.

  When Jeffrey's skin turned translucent with light, Zayn fled the other way. A bolt of lightning charred a blue Volvo near him, melting its tires to slag.

  Zayn didn't bother looking back. The hairs on the back of his neck told him that Jeffrey was chasing him, and catching up. A second bolt hit the traffic light, showering him with sparks.

  Further up the street, a car was headed his way, but wisely made a tire-screeching U-turn. Zayn wished he had such a quick getaway.

  When he took a left, he found the way blocked by construction fences and detour signs. Zayn looked for a way past the chain-link fences, but the gates were chained and locked. Trapped, Zayn turned and faced Jeffrey, who had slowed as well.

  He looked like a human candle with flecks of lightning jumping from his brow and sparks spitting from his hands. When Jeffrey shot another bolt, only Zayn's enhanced reflexes saved him from annihilation.

  "Stop, Jeffrey. Think about Jessica. Think about the baby," said Zayn, but Jeffrey kept coming.

  Zayn went for the fence and made it halfway up before another blast of electricity turned the whole thing into hot fire. His muscles contracted, squeezing his fingers around the metal wires, cutting them. His back arched and he smelled his hair crisping.

  When it was over, he collapsed onto the pavement. His limbs shook. It was a miracle he hadn't wet himself. Zayn struggled to his hands and knees, but the effort took his last reserves of energy.

  Zayn looked up in time to see Jeffrey lift his hands again. Lightning scintillated across his body.

  Zayn was tensed, hoping he could throw himself out of the way, when a shadow rose up from the street and struck Jeffrey in the head. He collapsed, knees buckling and body jackknifing into the concrete.

  Portia stood in the space that Jeffrey had only just occupied. Her dress was ripped and tattered, split up the sides from the chase. The other two came running up, looking similarly disheveled, but there was no time for small talk. Jeffrey's unconscious body looked like a bottle of lightning, and the glow was growing stronger.

  "Run!"

  No one took any further prodding. They fled, and though Zayn's muscles ached as if he'd finished two consecutive marathons, the fear of being turned into charred ash pushed him.

  When Jeffrey exploded, it knocked them off their feet. Windows in the nearby buildings shattered. Zayn ripped the skin from both palms when he hit the concrete. The concussive blow rang in his ears.

  It took a minute for them to recover. No one got up. They sat on the street, admiring the destruction that they'd only barely avoided.

  "I think I'm sober now," said Zayn, to murmurs of agreement from the others.

  "What do we do now?" asked Portia.

  Zayn picked tiny rocks from his palm. "We don't tell Instructor Allgood, that's for s
ure."

  "Why not?" asked Skylar. "I thought you said this was our ticket out of the bottom?"

  "We didn't learn anything new. Nothing we can use," said Zayn, then remembering Jeffrey's comment, he added, "Well, he did say something about the moon lady but I have no idea what that means."

  "That seems vaguely familiar," said Skylar.

  "Never heard of it myself," said Vin.

  Portia merely shook her head.

  When they finally got up, they limped their way back to the nearest train station and ignored the stares from the other passengers at their state of clothing. The whole way back to the hall, it wasn't his near-death experience with Sparky that weighed on his mind, but that he missed meeting up with Katie after the concert.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Varna, June 2005

  A sticky hot day in Alabama (but aren't they all?)

  Nothing good had ever come of young men without something constructive to do. It was an aphorism his father had relayed to him time and time again, but it was too damn hot to do anything else.

  His mom, Sela, had tried to get them to stay at home, but the Stack, despite being a creation out of the mind of MC Escher, was made of shipping containers, which in the summer, turned to giant ovens. Everyone had been lounging in the courtyard, beneath the colorful drapes—yellows and oranges—hung between the shipping containers, providing shade. The terrible twins had adorned themselves in armor made of pegboard and shoelaces, and had been launching skirmishes all day, so he and Keelan took off into the woods, headed east on the railroad tracks that went around town.

  The vine-choked trees turned the tracks into a strange verdant corridor. Zayn, in jeans and with his shirt off and tucked into the back of his pants, was walking across the left track, balancing on the hot steel, while Keelan was on the right. Neither had fallen in more than a hundred yards.

  "Is Uncle Jesse really going to work for the Lady?" asked Zayn.

  "He's not working for her, but the Speaker," said Keelan, reflexively touching the side of his face where a bruise stained his jaw. Neither one of them had talked about it, and Zayn knew better than to ask. The answer would usually be: "I tripped in the kitchen" or "I was jumping on the bed and fell off."

  "I thought he hated the Lady," said Zayn, pausing for a moment to catch his balance.

  "What does it matter? He says we still gotta eat, and nothing happens in Varna without her permission," said Keelan.

  "Do you hate her?" asked Zayn, though it wasn't really what he was asking.

  Keelan half-shrugged, nearly falling off the track in the process, before wheeling his arms around his head and righting himself.

  "I hate that we can't leave town, but I love that I get to do this"—an illusionary topless dancing girl in a hula skirt appeared on his palm—"and not go mad. The Lady might have poisoned us, but at least there's a good side."

  "You're not supposed to do magic," said Zayn.

  "Are you going to tell on me or something?"

  Zayn shook his head. "No way. But it makes sense why we're not supposed to. If she thinks you're good at it, you get sent to the Halls to become one of her Watchers. Then it's like you're not even a person anymore."

  "Better a Watcher than going nowhere in this town," said Keelan, then he added with a grin, "Or getting eaten by her."

  "She doesn't eat people," said Zayn. "Name one person that's gone missing."

  "I don't know. That's just what I heard. Maybe she gets them from out of town." Keelan paused, hunching his forehead. "Do you feel that?"

  At that moment, a vibration hit Zayn in the heels. "Train coming, we should get off the tracks."

  "If you do, then you lost," said Keelan, grinning.

  "We didn't agree on any contest," said Zayn, glancing at the curve in the tracks that they couldn't see beyond. The train whistled in the distance, though with the heavy foliage surrounding them, it was hard to tell how far away it was.

  "Fine by me if you want to get off. Then I'll be the winner," said Keelan, placing an imaginary crown on his head.

  "I'm not getting off," said Zayn, using the distraction to surge ahead of his cousin.

  "I knew it!" said Keelan, laughing as he tottered forward, arms pinwheeling.

  They made it another thirty feet before the train appeared around the bend. The vibration made Zayn's teeth hurt, but hadn't affected his progress. He nearly fell off when it sounded its horn.

  The moment of distraction gave Keelan a chance to take the lead. Zayn lengthened his stride to catch up as the train was bearing down on them.

  "We should get off," yelled Zayn as the train sounded its horn again.

  "You can if you want," said Keelan, laughing and nimbly hopping forward like a mountain goat as if his earlier struggles keeping balance had been an act.

  When the train was a hundred feet away, Zayn felt the rumbling in his gut. He'd heard stories of kids getting too close when a train went by, and getting sucked underneath, crushed beneath the wheels.

  "We have to get off!" yelled Zayn as he tried to keep up with Keelan.

  They were shoulder to shoulder. The train blasted its horn again. The train was so close it looked like a tsunami of steel approaching.

  The heat and the noise surrounded him. Zayn could hear the clacking of the wheels like hammer strikes in his ears. The glare of the front grill burned his eyes. He heard shouting from behind him, though he still sensed Keelan at his right shoulder.

  With no room left, Zayn threw himself off the track, the wall of wind throwing him into a spin. He landed hard on the rocks, parallel to the tracks. The train whipped past him like a massive metal snake.

  Then as fast as it'd come, it was gone, the caboose sliding away. Zayn looked across the tracks for Keelan. He didn't remember seeing him leap. Searching those last frightening moments, he swore the train had hit him.

  Ignoring his bloody arms and the aching of his lungs, Zayn moved across the tracks, steeling himself for the moment he found Keelan's body. There was no way that he had avoided the train.

  But there was nothing on the other side. No body. No blood. Nothing.

  "Keelan?" called Zayn, then louder, "Keelan?"

  When he heard the laughing from behind him, Zayn started to understand what had happened. Climbing from behind a couple of bushes, Keelan appeared. He was back about fifty feet from where Zayn was standing.

  "You sonofabitch," said Zayn when he reached his cousin. "You could have got me killed."

  Keelan was laughing, tears in his eyes, hand quivering in front of his mouth. He was laughing so hard his knees were shaking.

  "You didn't have to stay on that track. Your dumb ass didn't want to lose," said Keelan through the tears. "It wasn't even that good of an illusion, but you fell for it."

  Zayn pushed him in the shoulder. "That wasn't cool."

  When Keelan stopped laughing and Zayn caught his breath, they left the tracks, cutting through the woods to head back towards town. Zayn wanted to jump in the pond near the Stack.

  In the woods, the thick air was claustrophobic and the insects came out. Zayn didn't feel like talking to his cousin, so the only noise was them pushing their way through the brush and the occasional slap at a buzzing mosquito.

  "Zayn, stop," Keelan said suddenly.

  "Screw you," replied Zayn, marching forward.

  "No stop, really."

  Zayn prepared to wheel on his cousin and give him a piece of his mind, when he saw the giant web inches from his face. He skidded on his heels, and his nose gently kissed the web. At the top corner of his vision, he sensed the spider's approach, and he threw himself backwards.

  "Thanks," mumbled Zayn as he watched the purple-veined spider creep down the web on spindly black legs.

  They watched the arachnid investigate its web, checking the area Zayn had touched and repairing the small rip. As he watched, the hairs on his arms rose.

  "That's a big one," he opined.

  "Purpura domina aranea," said K
eelan, "and no, not big, maybe an inch, inch and a half. Supposedly they can get as big as four or five inches under the right circumstances."

  "I don't want to know what circumstances those are," said Zayn, shivering. "When did you learn so much about spiders?"

  "Duh," said Keelan, throwing out his hands.

  "Oh, yeah. Your dad," said Zayn, remembering Uncle Jesse's predilection for learning facts about all manner of animals.

  "Anyway, seems stupid not to, given where we live," said Keelan, staring intently at the spider that was perched in the middle of the web preening. "They eat insects, make webs when they live outdoors, obviously, but will switch to hunting if they're indoors. Those are the bigger ones. They'll eat small frogs, crickets, larger prey. They're cousins to the achaeranea magicaencia, but most of their branch of the spider family tree is empty, no one knows why."

  "They probably ate their part of the family tree," said Zayn.

  Keelan moved near the web, a look of rapture on his face. "I have that old aquarium. I wonder if I took it home if it would grow bigger. Wouldn't that be cool?"

  "Uhm, no? And aren't you worried about it spying on you?" asked Zayn.

  "Even if I believed that the Lady could see through them, what do I have to hide?" said Keelan, who looked like he'd thought about this before.

  He yanked his shirt from the back of his pants and held it out with two hands. The spider, sensing the danger, scurried upward, but Keelan was too fast, and snatched it off, pinching the shirt at the top to make a little bag.

  They made their way back through the woods. Zayn kept quiet and his distance, eyeing the shirt clutched in Keelan's fist as if he expected the spider to slash its way out and crawl up his cousin's arm. Keelan, on the other hand, looked content and completely at ease holding a spider in his shirt.

  Exiting the woods near the culvert that went behind the trailer park, they ran down the concrete slope. Zayn turned left around the time he heard Keelan chuckle.

  "Check this out, cuz," said Keelan.

  Further up the other way, a tall gangly kid was sitting near a puddle of water with a couple of toy cars, running them across the concrete and making car noises.