Lizzy’s soft voice broke the silence.
“Can you promise me something?” She turned to face me, her normally loud and obnoxious voice a gentle murmur. She began nervously scratching a hand in her lap.
“You’re the second person to ask me that today. What is it?”
She hesitated for a moment, straightening her posture curiously wondering who else had asked such a favor, but then leaned in closer until her shallow breath swept against my lips. She put her shaking hands on my knees and spoke.
“Promise me, no matter what happens, that we will always...find each other?” I waited for more, but that’s all she offered.
I searched her eyes for deception, but all I saw was a world of anguish and pain behind her stoic expression. I knew that look well. I felt the same way when I first learned I was a useless police officer with an inability to use magic.
There was something suffocating her, and she was suffering through it alone, longing for someone to share it with and for whatever unknown reason she chose me. I had never known someone who cared enough to risk their life for me. The thought was unsettling, but at the same time comforting. While my mind told me not to trust her, my heart told me otherwise. A strange, unfamiliar feeling washed over me. The warm feeling of being accepted and cared about.
“Sure,” I smiled and matched her sincerity in my voice, letting her know I’d hold true to my answer. If she was willing to keep saving my ass when I got in trouble, then I’d do the same for her.
At that moment, she leaned in the final few inches and pushed me down to the bed.
“What are you—”
She forcefully pressed her soft lips against mine, confused mumbles trying to escape my mouth. My immediate reaction was to push her away, and believe me I tried, but she clasped her hands around my wrists and pinned me to the bed. Her delicate fingers squeezed harder the more I struggled against her hold.
I squirmed uncontrollably trying to force myself away until eventually I just gave in. For a moment, my tense muscles were somehow comforted by the smell of wet dog and vanilla that emanated from her hair and clothes. An unusual warm sensation of fluttering butterflies filled my stomach, my heart racing through my chest. A moment later, when my senses came back to reality, I managed to shove her off from on top of me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I exclaimed, wiping her germs off my lips with my shirt sleeve.
A tangled ball of emotions unraveled in my brain. For the first time since my parents’ death, I felt at ease. Like maybe, just maybe, I had someone I could truly rely on. But I knew better than this. No matter how badly I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t trust her. Only pain, sorrow, and deception followed that path. She must be planning something, and I wouldn’t allow myself to fall into her trap.
She threw her arms up above her head, then let out a long, obnoxious yawn. “Well, I guess I’m gonna go take a shower and change into something warmer. Maybe get some sleep.” And like nothing ever happened, she rose from the bed to leave.
On her way out, the black velvet box I placed on the dresser caught her eye. “What’s this?”
“A gift from my kidnappers.” That’s all I told her, not ready to detail everything about the conversation Julie and I had. I moved over to her side, watching anxiously as she opened the box to discover a shiny stainless steel watch staring back at us.
“Wow. You must have been hostage of the year to earn this,” she commented, extremely confused.
“I’m guessing it’s spelled.” I picked up the watch from the soft, fuzzy case. Its metal links glimmered against the overhead light. The watch face was sapphire blue with silver hands ticking around the shiny circular glass. The more I examined it, the more I realized how identical it looked to the watch my dad wore. In fact, if it weren’t for the whole magic part of it, I’d say it was the same watch...could it be?
“Give it to Eli. Maybe he can help tune it for you. Oh, he also has something else to give you.”
She snapped the box shut and casually tossed it at me, then shut the door as she stormed out of the bedroom. I swear I will never understand her.
I flipped the watch over, mentally reading the word on the back of the watch face. Impetus. Although its origins are Latin, the word in English means a sudden and violent driving force, like an attack or assault. Not thrilled about the sounds of that.
I curiously shook the soft velvet box like a Christmas present. I could hear the faint sound of something else moving around, tapping against the sides of the box. I removed the padded bottom, and a folded piece of paper exposed itself underneath. Intrigued, I opened it.
Adrian, my sweet boy, I apologize I couldn’t give this to you sooner. Please keep it on you always, so that both your father and I can be there with you at your side. To understand its secret, you must find a man named Nolan Benson. Love forever, Mom.
Chapter 16
M y brain went into overdrive. My mom really had been working on a secret project...and not only that, she was working together with Nolan! She couldn’t have possibly known what he was up to, could she? Her own son was framed for murder, then hunted down by the very man who supposedly helped her. How did I even know it was safe to use this watch...that Nolan didn’t somehow sabotage it to kill me when I activated it?
I sighed as I distantly gazed at the watch, falling into a trance as the second hand ticked around in circles. She had turned it into a magic object. Just for me. But why couldn’t she give it to me sooner? I would need to find Julie again and ask the swarm of questions buzzing around inside my head. But first, I needed to figure out exactly what my mom had left me.
I strolled down the hallway and tapped my knuckles on Eli’s door.
“Come in,” a voice on the other side grudgingly approved.
The door opened into a bedroom five times the size of mine. I immediately caught the whiff of a metallic odor that reminded me of that musty smell you get when handling coins, which didn’t surprise me given Eli’s ability. The curtains were closed and blocking the sunlight, but the six monster sized monitors taking up nearly half a wall illuminated the room enough to see.
Huddled in the far corner was a full sized bed, its messy sheets and pillows bunched up in the middle. The rest of the room was what I’d expect to see in a superhero’s secret lair. The monitors were stacked in two’s, displaying maps and gibberish code that made no sense to me. Below them, Eli sat at a wrought iron desk with a weathered wooden top, one of those flexible desk lamps lighting up the surface while he was tinkering with what appeared to be a set of metal welding goggles. You’d think he’d open a curtain to let some more light in.
“Can I help you?” Eli asked in an annoyed tone, continuing to angrily fidget with his work.
“Lizzy said you had something for me?” I slipped the watch into my back pocket for now. First thing first...I needed to find out what else they were going to give me so I could keep the guilt train running full steam ahead.
“Oh, yeah.” He pulled open a drawer hanging from under his desk and removed a brown envelope.
“Here,” he said, shoving it into my chest. “If you’re going to help us, you’ll need this. If anyone stops you or you get in a bind, we can’t have you getting found out. So I worked some...magic...to get you a new ID and a credit card.”
“Oh. Cool. That’s helpful, but you know I can’t actually afford to pay the credit card.”
“I said it’s magic. Let’s just leave it at that. But don’t go buying a luxury sports car or anything with it.” He threw his head back, raking his hands through his prickly cobalt hair then dropped them back to his desk continuing to tap away furiously on the keyboard.
I stared at him puzzled for a moment, but decided not to question what kind of magic he pulled off to do this. I guessed it was more identity fraud than real magic. So instead, I opened the envelope and out came a driver’s license along with a shiny brand new credit card with my new name on it. Then I immediately scowled.
“Thomas Peacock? Really? You couldn’t come up with something a little more...cooler sounding than that?”
Eli shrugged his shoulders, staying focused on his project. “Take it up with Lizzy. She’s obsessed with peacocks.”
He seemed frustrated, constantly scratching the back of his neck and clenching his jaw. Whatever he was working on, he’d been at it for a while and wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Why not add one more project to the list?
“So, uh, I think this was in the vault. Lizzy said you might be able to tune it for me so I don’t blow myself up?”
He grunted loudly, slamming a fist down on the keyboard and swiveling his chair around violently to face me, holding his hand out for me to pass over some stupid toy. I started to extend the watch to Eli, then retracted it. I didn’t want him messing with my dad’s watch in a foul mood.
“You know, I can just come back—”
He immediately reached to snatch it from my hand. Eli suddenly became still, raising his eyebrows in awe as he stared at the magnificent magic object before him.
“What? Is it bad? A bomb?! Shit, what did I do this time?”
“No, not bad. Fascinating. This is some next level magic for your world. Something you might find on Iradel, but not here.”
His frustration transformed into curiosity, perking up in his chair as his tired eyes widened with interest. He examined the watch under the desk lamp, the blue sheen catching the light as he studied it closely.
“And you can tell just by looking at it?” I crossed my arms, leaning over him on one foot curious to know if he had some other magic power he was hiding.
“My magic ability is magnetism. But I also tinker with things. You can’t rely on one ability all the time, sometimes you need an object to get the job done. But this is intriguing...the magic being vomited out of this thing is insane.”
I cocked my head, not sure if he had a firm grasp on the meaning of his choice of words. Nevertheless, I got the gist of it.
He placed the watch on top of a metal square the size of a mousepad on his desk, waving his hand and releasing some magic over it. One of the computer monitors began vomiting out some crazy code.
“Huh. So magic spells are just a bunch of code? Who would have thought.” I looked up at the monitor, trying to make out anything that was scrolling up the screen.
“Of course it’s not. There are two types of magic. Magic you are born with and the magic you supplement it with. Take Lizzy. Her innate magic ability resides in her blood, but she can’t just go around smearing blood on everyone. It’s impractical. So she supplements it by using the magic tattoos.”
I nodded. “Makes sense.”
“There are objects like those magic spell bombs designed to do one particular thing the user can’t, or you can use an object that works with your internal magic, like my metal boomerang. Very few people have the ability to actually see raw magic energy, the free floating magic energy that manifests in the air around us. Otherwise, we’d all be able to invent new magic spells and use whatever type of magic we want. I’m not surprised to see magic here is so unstable because the spells need to be cast perfectly. However it’s being done, it seems to be a little off. One slight deviation of the spell is what makes it so unpredictable.”
“So you can actually see the magic energy emanating off that thing?”
“Most of us, especially those trained in the military, can sense magic energy, but I’m not one of the fortunate ones able to see it. It’s a rare ability, actually. People who possess it are called Paramounts, since they have supreme power over magic unlike anyone else. They can see the magic around us and use it to create new spells that can then be casted onto other objects by machines, like this one.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the computer behind him.
“Paramounts are the rare few who can basically use whatever type of magic they want. Some really impressive Paramounts can actually pull the magic right out of the air and cast a spell with or without an object.”
My thoughts drifted to how I was pretty much the exact opposite of what Eli just explained. I seemed to disrupt magic, since every time I tried to activate it something bizarre would happen. How powerful it must feel to be as useful as someone like a Paramount. They were not only able to invent new spells, but weren’t limited to a certain type of magic they had an affinity to.
Eli snapped me out of my daydream, the shadow of a pretentious grin appearing on his face. “This bad boy here holds a database of over five thousand different spells. I can also use it to analyze and test how likely a new spell might work. It may not be as effective as actually being a Paramount, but with some time and extra effort it gets the job done. If only I could see the damn magic energy though…”
He shook his head in frustration, the proud smile on his face fading away at the thought of his limitation. However, now I understood why he was so testy with me in the car heading toward the auction. If his computer broke, he’d probably lose everything on it...including this program. Then we’d all be screwed.
“Damn,” was all I could respond to his robot wizardry.
Eli held out his palm, flexing his fingers at me. “Hand.”
He grabbed my wrist, pricked my pointer finger with a needle, and placed it onto the same metal square he used for the watch. He held his hand over mine. As he activated his magic, I could feel the slight pressure of what I assumed was Eli’s magnetic force pressing against my skin.
“Your personal magic energy is like a blood type. When you’re working with magic objects, it’s best to understand how compatible the spell is with the person’s own magic energy. You may give off a funky vibe, but I sense no magic energy from you so the least I can do is tidy up the spell and see if it’ll respond to an actual blood sample instead.”
Well, that certainly unwrapped a magical revelation. Not only was our magic unstable thanks to inconsistent spells being cast onto objects, but it would seem that magic was also not a one-size-fits-all solution, reacting differently to each person’s magic DNA. Even though we may not be able to harness this energy, everyone still possessed it inside them.
Everyone except me, that is. I was giving off a funky vibe, devoid of magic. Eli could sense it, but not see it. And it appeared my magic fuel tank was empty.
Eli tapped away furiously at his keyboard, examining the code on the screen. “Done. So, it looks like it’s some kind of generic magic energy spell. But here’s the kicker...its user can manipulate it into pretty much whatever he wants. Create anything from a simple ball of energy to a tennis racket made completely of magic. Its possibilities are only limited by its user.”
Unfortunately, that user was me. The loser who was very limited in the area of possibilities. I remembered Nolan telling me once that skilled users could manipulate the outcome of a spell as they saw fit by visualizing what they wanted it to do, a helpful tool for something like hitting a target perfectly. I couldn’t even use a regular magic object correctly, I can’t even imagine what would happen if I used something like this.
“Well shit, that can’t be good for me. Or anyone within a twenty mile radius of me.”
“Try fifty. This watch is juiced with twice the normal amount of energy you’re used to an object having.”
Eli inspected the watch, then handed it over. “Here. It’s definitely not perfect but it's the best I can do.”
I clasped the watch around my left wrist and grinned to myself at the memory of my parents. This was probably the very last thing my mom had worked on before she passed.
“Try not to kill anyone with it. Or more importantly, me. Shall we test it out?”
I rolled my eyes at the quip. “Here? Inside a building? Are you sure we shouldn’t like...drive out into the middle of the desert or somewhere there’s nothing for hundreds of miles I can destroy?”
“Just do it already. It’ll be fine.”
I took his word for it, idly thumbing the smooth, cold glass surface of the watch.
> So, extending my arm as far away from my body as I could, I inhaled a deep breath, and went for it.
“Impetus?” The word squeaked out of my mouth like I was suggesting the watch think twice about actually activating. I flinched, turning my head away and closing my eyes, preparing for the worst.
I waited and when I realized my body was still in one piece. I let up on the tenseness in my muscles and marveled at the faint orange hue glowing around my hand, like the color of a ripe cantaloupe. It was the same almost invisible orange glow I saw on the magic gun when shooting off the energy spell. It was so faint that it blended in with my skin, barely noticeable it was even there.
“Ha! I’m using magic! You have a piece of metal or something I can punch the shit out of?”
Eli’s eyes lit up brighter than a fire in a charcoal factory, and I was the added gasoline fueling it. Now we were talking.
He opened the door to a closet...a huge walk-in closet with shelves of gadgets, tools, and metal scraps shoved wherever they would fit. Thanks to Lizzy cleaning out my closet, his became an avalanche of metal waiting to bury someone alive. He pushed some stuff aside, pulling out a shiny metal block the size of a brick.
“It’s iron, so it’s pretty strong. Let’s try karate chopping it.” He held an end of the block with each hand, then let go as it hovered in mid-air like a spaceship swirling inside an almost completely transparent blue cloud of magnetic magic. He stepped away, remaining fixated on either the excitement of what was about to happen or the fear we might be spending the evening in the emergency room.
I examined the shiny silver brick in disbelief, not sure how a floating block of metal could withstand such a supposedly powerful force. But when I pressed on it, with my magic engaged, it still didn't budge.
Trying to pretend like I knew what I was doing, I positioned my feet one in front of the other, and flattened my hand, ready to slice and dice the metal in front of me like a Kung Fu master cooking up a vegetable stir fry. After a few awkward practice swings, it was showtime.
How to Hunt a Menacing Magical Shadow Page 12