“Now, Mr. Obsession Killer, if you don’t mind, I have a very interesting magic item I need to examine.”
He turned and entered the vault, paying no mind to the shaking gun pointed at the back of his head. He started rummaging through the various sized wooden crates stacked like cargo in a shipping container, searching the ID numbers stamped on the shiny metal cases that protected the magic items locked inside.
I trembled as I watched, wavering back and forth on what to do. Should I end this right now and kill the man that framed me for murder, or let him go and hope that I could eventually find the evidence I needed to clear my name?
NOW!
All logic went out the window, my finger instantly pulling the trigger before my mind had the chance to catch up with what my body was doing. The room trembled like an earthquake. Wooden crates burst into pieces, and heavy metal cases blasted into the air hitting the floor with a resounding thunk. I stomped forward, closer to my target.
Nolan turned to the auctioneer. “Find the object marked 514. I will take care of this.”
AGAIN! The voice reverberated inside my head, a second blast penetrating the room. I had no control over myself. The relentless rage pouring from the voice spread to every part of my body, and we now shared that wrath as one. No longer did I waver on what I should do. I needed my revenge and I needed it now. I didn’t care what the consequences might be. Nolan needed to pay.
Several more cases blew open and magic items spewed everywhere. Nolan and the auctioneer were each thrown in opposite directions into piles of metal and magic. The unexpected recoil rocked me off my feet, my foot kicking up in the air as I fell into a pile of debris, knocking loose a briefcase that nearly hit my head.
When I looked up, Nolan was gone.
“Looking for me, my friend?” I spun around, making an X with my wrists to block his punch. Instead, he wrapped his skeleton fingers around my wrist and squeezed it like a crushed soda can. Deep radiating pain shot up my arm and my hand went limp, dropping the gun to the floor. I struggled against the intense pressure about to snap my bone in half like a carrot stick.
I hesitated, then kicked him in the nuts. He wasn’t expecting that dirty trick. He keeled over about to give birth to his testicles, and I took that opportunity to dive behind a stack of cases searching for something to use as a weapon. Great, now I was pinned in the corner of the vault with no clear way to the exit.
“Over here!” The sound of marching footsteps down the hallway was heading in this direction, growing louder by the second. Reinforcements were on the way, and the anger inside me was quickly replaced with panic.
What the hell did I just do? That stupid voice deceived me again. Now I was screwed. Nolan was going to win and I’d either end up dead here or back in prison for good, the truth never surfacing to clear my name.
“He’s over here!” Nolan feigned a yelp like a scared little puppy, pointing to the box I was crouched behind across the room. Two guards entered the vault and started firing their magic guns in my direction, a third ushering Nolan and the auctioneer out of harm's way, along with any chance I had to exact my revenge.
I clutched my ears and ducked my head toward the ground, trying to avoid the onslaught of magic being aimed directly at me. As I was staring at the floor, I noticed a shiny silver box laid broken open in front of me. With no idea what it did, I picked up the slingshot, loaded one of the spell bombs from the case, and launched it at the two guards entering the room.
“Imperium!” The red marble soared across the room, creating a giant crater in the side of the wall. The frightened guards tensed up, terrified of what it would have done had I actually hit my mark. More footsteps were coming. I was out of time.
I spoke the word written on another spell bomb. “Liquefio!” The purple marble exploded mid-air, and a steaming clear liquid rained down, melting everything it touched. A drop burned through my tux, singeing the hair right off my skin as it reached my arm. Shit that was painful!
If that was what a single drop felt like, then I felt bad for the guard who just endured the brunt of the acid. His skin blistered and began dissolving right down to the bone as a desperate, terrifying howl filled the room. I winced at the gruesome sight but accepted the fact it was every man for himself. He wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to me. One down! Countless more to go.
I turned to load another marble, but the case was empty. They must have rolled away when it smashed open on the floor. I scrambled to find one but came up empty. The remaining guard moved in on me, maneuvering around the debris of blown up storage boxes on the floor. With nowhere to go, no way to defend myself against a magic gun, I feared for what fate might bring this time.
He was so close I could hear his labored panting. He stepped around the corner of the stack of boxes I was hiding behind and lifted his gun. The gun could be spelled with anything, or maybe nothing. He could end up setting me on fire, sticking the barrel down my throat and drowning me, or maybe he had something else more terrifying up his sleeve.
I closed my eyes waiting to hear the pop of the gun that would soon bring me death. It seemed like an eternity passed until I flinched my shoulders at the sound of a thud next to me. I cautiously opened my eyes to see the guard drop to his knees and face plant into the tile floor. Blinking in disbelief, I saw the black metal knife in his back dissipate in a swirl of shadowy smoke. Just inside the entryway, one badass woman wearing a glamorous evening gown was throwing knives in every direction and kicking them with her pointed heels. That would be Lizzy coming to save the day and holy shit was she frightening.
“Come on, we have to go.” Lizzy held out her hand to help me up. We ran toward the exit, where the sizzle of electricity frying the guards outside in the hallway mixed with the smack of metal against skin in an unsettling symphony of magic combat. Moments later, Blair and Eli appeared behind Lizzy, bodies dropping in every direction.
“There are too many of them! We need to get out of here and go after the shifter!” Blair’s words were barely audible amongst the crackling, pounding, and popping of bodies and magic. I watched as Blair and Eli were pushed back by the army of guards, leaving Lizzy and I to fend for ourselves while they set off to complete the mission.
With nowhere else to go, we retreated back into the vault and paced around, digging through the mess of magic items that had rained down like confetti when I had blown up the room. Some were damaged, some were missing pieces, some still locked and unable to be opened. Nothing would help us get out of this alive. I threw my head back in defeat when an idea came to me.
“There!” I pointed to the air vent in the ceiling the size of a large pizza box. We stacked a few unstable wooden crates on top of each other. Lizzy climbed up first, punching the grate with a single blow reminding me that although she may be small, she was surely stronger than anyone else here. Including myself, which was a little embarrassing to admit.
Lizzy glared at me with her judging eyes like I was about to sneak a peek up her dress. I rolled mine back at her, then she grabbed the rim of the vent and hoisted herself up. She closed her eyes and a bubble suddenly formed around her head. So that’s what the bubbles were for. She was protecting herself from the dust and dirt inside the vent while she breathed the clean air inside the bubble. Clever.
Her hand lowered to help pull me up, but the tower we constructed was no match for the tornado of air that shot out from the MP-Vanquisher thanks to a new round of guards passing through the doorway into the vault.
Air, electricity, fire, and a slew of other magic surrounded me, including non-magical, very real metal bullets. I slipped behind one of the few remaining wooden crates that hadn't been blown to pieces. There was no way I could get up to the vent now without setting myself up for target practice.
“Go,” I shouted to Lizzy over the onslaught of magic whizzing by my head. “You don’t need to get involved in this.” Her sorrowful eyes teetered on what to do, almost like she felt guilty abandoning me but
knew she had no other choice. Blair and Eli had left us, and now she was leaving me too.
“Take this,” she threw her sequin purse down to me.
“Can I hide inside it? Because I don’t think your lipstick is going to help.” A corner of the wooden crate shattered, splinters pricking the side of my face.
“I stole some spell bombs from a guard on my way here. Use them.”
I plucked out a little green orb, then all of a sudden I fell over and my chest hit the ground. The contents of the purse spilled out around me. Before I knew it, I was being dragged across the slippery tile, clawing at anything that might save me from whatever lay on the other side of the massive black hole that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere along the side of the wall at the end of the room.
The razor-sharp edge of a metal shard sliced my cheek as the air around me stretched and twisted, sucking in the entire room like a man-sized toilet drain. The guards, on the other side of the room by the door, scampered away before they lost their chance.
“Demitto!” The glass in my hand exploded, securing it to the floor. It began stretching like a piece of bubblegum, the strength of the spell no match for the vacuum sucking me in. A few seconds later, the spell gave out. Stupid unstable magic.
I scraped my fingers at the floor. There was nothing I could do but wait for the black hole to devour me. My heart began pounding through my ears. I struggled to push against the dense pressure pulling me closer into the unknown. Debris swirled left and right around me, slicing and colliding across my body before disappearing into the opening behind me. Feet away, I knew I was a goner. The last thing I remember was Lizzy’s terrifying scream as she watched me disappear into a prison of complete darkness.
Chapter 14
I woke up to the smell of wet socks and burning fuel. For a moment, I thought maybe someone doused me in gasoline and was about to set me on fire. I shot up in disgust, covering my mouth from the acrid taste of mold and gas defiling my taste buds.
Nothing looked familiar. An ironic laugh squeaked out of me when I realized this was the second time in a week I was knocked unconscious, had the crap beaten out of me, and woke up in an unknown place. At least no one had undressed me this time. Coated in dirt and ripped to shreds from top to bottom, I looked like a zombie rising from the grave.
I brushed a curl to the side of my head and dragged my ass from the folding cot I was resting on. Thankfully, my head wasn’t spinning in circles but when I tried to move I wondered if the other end of that dark hole was a twenty story drop off the side of a building, followed by a parade of steamrollers plowing over me.
The large room was wet, dusty, and full of disregarded office furniture. The sizable windows lining the outside edge of the building were shattered, allowing the pouring rain to blow in from outside. A wooden skeleton formed a wall that once encased the spacious office.
I walked over to the doorway that led to a small metal landing looking out over a vast desert of nothingness. I saw no traces of life, just more shattered glass windows and rusting metal walls that reached up to a domed colossal sky of darkness. I did, however, now understand where the burning smell was coming from. In front of me was a small, compact jet, its shiny white siding seen only briefly through the short burst of sporadic lights flickering like stars along the walls.
I shimmied my way across the room avoiding the nails, sharp metal, and splintered wood to a window overlooking the tarmac outside. Lines of reflective markers were illuminating the otherwise dark and empty runway. The missing glass windows let in a chilly breeze that brushed against my hot skin, the cold rain pelting against my aching body and echoing against the corrugated steel arches of the building.
“You’re up!” I shot around to see a figure hidden in the shadows by the doorway. He was twirling a neon green folding knife in his hands.
“Julie, he’s up!” His voice bounced against what was left of the walls in the empty building. As he slowly crept toward me, the figure started to take shape. The lanky man had short brown hair and dirt smudged all over his face. His washed out jeans and argyle sweater vest took on the dust and dirt that covered this entire place. He pushed a pair of rounded metal-framed glasses up to his bushy unibrow and extended his other hand with the knife toward me.
I backed away and yanked a broken wooden plank from the floor, ready to slap that unibrow right off his face. He slowed his stride and folded the knife into his pocket, then held up his hands in front of him like he was trying to calm a frightened child.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you with that. I’m Mike.” He held out his leathery hand for a shake. “We didn’t mean to get you caught up in this. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
That seemed to be the story of my life...always in the wrong place at the wrong time. From the day my parents died, my quandary on the job, and right up until now, I’d been managing to find myself in sticky situations I didn’t ask to be in.
I cautiously met his greeting, keeping myself on guard for any sudden movements.
A middle-aged woman with a white lab coat entered the room and I immediately lost it. I started hyperventilating, darting my head back and forth wondering how badly I’d injure myself if I jumped from the second story window onto the pavement below. I decided not to chance it...yet. That left busting through the crumbling wall or trying to maneuver around these two people to get to the door, jump down the stairs, and run as far away as my jellied legs would take me.
While caught up in the moment trying to figure out which of my daring escapes would be least likely to end in death, a cold hand firmly gripped my arm and hauled me across the room.
“What exactly are you planning to do with that sad excuse for a weapon? Sit down. We’re not here to harm you. We had nearly a full day to do that if we wanted to.” The woman’s soft, tired voice was anything but intimidating. She threw me into a filthy wooden chair, a sharp crack sounding from one of the legs splintering under the weight it could no longer hold.
“I’m Julie. And this is Mike. You got caught in our...um...wormhole I guess you could call it...when we raided the vault.” She looked like she came right from work, wearing a drab, wrinkled gray dress with a thin white belt fitted around her waist. Strands of her long chestnut hair draped around her sunken eyes, pulled away from the braid that hit right below her shoulders. A badge dangled from a pocket on her white lab coat that read Willow Green Hospital. Dr. Julie Forrester. Why did that name sound familiar?
I focused on her heavy blue eyes, judging whether I should believe her or not. I decided not to but still let her think I did.
“You raided the vault? But how? And why?”
“Look, we’re not thieves or criminals,” her sideways glare alerted me to the fact she knew exactly who I was. “I don’t know what you were doing there, but our intent wasn’t to involve ourselves with your skirmish. We just wanted to get these dangerous magic objects out of the reach of dangerous people.”
My eyes twinkled and I leaned forward in the chair, perhaps a little too much as it threatened to collapse under the sudden movement. She had done what Blair refused to do and I was grateful for that. Although everyone thought I was an unhinged psycho killer, the reality was that I still considered myself to be a police officer at heart. I wanted to keep the city safe from the violence of gangs and assholes like Nolan.
“Well, I’m glad you were able to get them. Although I could have used the assistance a little sooner.”
Satisfied with my reaction, she loosened her posture and rolled her shoulders, letting out a sigh of relief. Or maybe she was just really tired. I couldn’t tell.
“We couldn’t. There was a magic barrier around the vault blocking us from getting in. Until there wasn’t.”
I thought about it for a minute. “When I shot off the energy wave from the magic gun, it must have somehow shorted out the barrier or something.”
She nodded and continued, “Mike’s knife over there is a magic obje
ct that can essentially cut through the atmosphere to create a...wormhole of sorts. A portal.”
“What the…” I rapidly blinked in disbelief, my thoughts scrambling to understand how the hell magic like that could exist and who would be crazy enough to attempt using it. There was no way an average civilian could figure something like that out on his own. Even a magic technician would probably have a difficult time. Maybe he wasn’t average at all. Maybe he was from Iradel like Lizzy and the others. Another reason not to trust them.
Mike got up from his seat and pulled out the glowing green knife, fiddling with it in his hands as he spoke. “I’m an astrophysicist. I dedicated my whole life to understanding the mysteries of space. When my grandmother became ill, I wanted so desperately to be there for her but the five hour drive made it difficult to constantly go back and forth. I even bought a plane and became a pilot! But as you can see it was a little too expensive to maintain. So instead I studied magic and used my knowledge of science to come up with an idea that could essentially get me to where I needed to go. And quick.
“Unfortunately, it’s not like wormholes currently exist and can send us through space and time. Plus, I’m not a magic technician. So I had to enlist the help from some...less than desirable people...to assist me in creating it. It took me three years, but we finally got it working. Sort of.”
His softened gaze fixated on the floor. By “less than desirable people” I was assuming he meant some type of criminal organization, like the Black Mark.
“Part of the deal was that in exchange for providing me with whatever I needed, I'd have to hand over my work to them when I was done so they could mass produce it and sell it illegally. I couldn’t live with that, knowing the horrible things people might use it for. When I refused, they beat the crap out of me, took my knife, and left me for dead on the street. Julie here found me and fixed me up.”
How to Hunt a Menacing Magical Shadow Page 10