Eli nodded for me to proceed. I wound my left arm back, stiffened my muscles, and with every ounce of strength I could muster, unleashed all the power coursing through my hands. Instantly, rage came rushing over me like a violent, swelling wave crashing into my soul, swallowing me into the turbulent storm of anger. This was for all those assholes who treated me like trash, who called me useless, who framed me for murder. I was no longer powerless to fight back against them. It was time to show them just how much they should fear me.
My scream roared like thunder rumbling across a vicious sky. My hand plunged downwards, connecting with the smooth silvery surface. A dent from my strike formed in the center of the block as it began to slowly fold in on itself. But I wasn’t done yet. I had more than this!
I dug deep into the magic coursing through me, driving my hand through with one last push. My hand roughly sliced through it like a dull blade splitting a log. But it didn’t stop there.
I lost my balance, my left foot lifting from the ground as I started to lunge forward. My hand continued along its destructive path, about to introduce an Adrian sized hole to the apartment below us.
“How do I stop it?” I worriedly asked him. There wasn’t exactly an off button. Or was there? We probably should have discussed that before we decided to break shit in the bedroom of a city apartment with a powerful magic object we’ve never used before.
Eli suddenly leapt across the room, rolling across the floor and snapping something across my wrist. Centimeters from being the main story on the five o’clock news—again—the propulsion started slowing down, and although my hand still continued to travel closer to the floor, I felt the magic starting to drain from my body a little bit at a time. I glanced down to see a metal contraption locked around my wrist dangling right above the watch.
“Calm down, you’re out of control!” It felt like my wrist was about to snap in half. Eli dropped to a knee as he tried to use his magnetic ability to control the metal around my wrist, pushing it in the opposite direction. The blue cloud of magic surrounding him grew with his strength.
The energy began to crackle, like it was shorting itself out. My foot tapped the carpet, and I gently regained my balance. The faint orange glow of the energy that shrouded my hands dissipated.
“Shit, that was close.” Eli wiped the glossy shine from his forehead, pushing away an unruly swirl of two-toned hair that clung to his forehead from the anxiety attack I just caused him.
“What the hell is this thing?” I examined the metal bracelet. It reminded me of half a handcuff, a lockable metal ring that could easily be snapped around someone’s wrist.
“It’s something we use in the military to block the flow of magic. It wasn’t going to stop your forward progress though, so I tried to push the metal in the opposite direction to slow you down.”
I examined my hand, flipping it front and back like it was a foreign body part I had never seen before. A dangerous weapon capable of dangerous things.
“Huh. That was frightening, but...so invigorating! See? I told you we should have done it in the middle of a desert somewhere!”
Eli crouched down to pick up the two pieces of warped metal that softly dropped to the carpet. The jagged edges where it broke in half looked exactly like how it felt when my hand penetrated through: rough and mangled. “I figured a karate chop would be less powerful than a full on punch. If you can chop like that, I don’t want to imagine how devastating a fist would be.”
I didn’t want to think about it either. Had that been a person’s head, I would have butchered it clean off his body. I was already known as a murderer. I didn’t want to actually be one.
“You need some training with control, but overall....not bad for your first time. Impressive for someone with no magic.” Eli was flattering himself more than me, but I wasn’t in the mood for compliments anyway after nearly taking out a building. I let my anger take over. It fueled the power of the attack like nothing I could have ever anticipated. What had my mom created? I sighed at the fact there was still so much about magic I didn’t know. And if I couldn’t control it like Eli suggested, we’d all be in trouble. Just like that, I was back to being a liability.
“Hey, I forgot I ordered a couple of pepperoni pizzas for dinner. Let’s go for a walk, get some fresh air.”
With no plans for the immediate future, and reminding myself I needed a babysitter to go outside anyway, I took him up on his offer.
Chapter 17
T he days were growing darker and colder as we inched closer into the depths of winter. I sported a very fashionable striped orange and blue beanie on my head, the tips of my hair circling around the rim like chocolate curls topping a cake. I tugged on the strings of my camo fleece hoodie to keep the chilled air from spilling inside. Lizzy had joked it would help me blend right in when she picked it out for me. Now that I have a credit card, I think I’d get rid of this hideous monstrosity and find something more my style.
Eli mirrored my actions, zipping up his military jacket right to the chin. Just for good measure, he patted his trusty metal boomerang folded and tucked away into his front chest flap pocket. The graphite color of his jacket matched the dull, overcast evening sky.
We were only a block into our frigid excursion when Eli said something I wasn’t expecting to hear.
“You know she admires you, right?” Eli glanced up at me, his metallic gray eyes catching a glimpse of my completely baffled face.
“Huh?” I knew exactly who he was referring to. I mean, it certainly wasn’t Blair. But Lizzy was a complex puzzle I had yet to solve. She always seemed to push me away yet at the same time tried to draw me in closer.
“You know who I’m talking about.” He quickly twisted his gaze to shoot me a devilish grin, then returned it straight ahead as we rounded the block. “She has a weird way of showing it but she’s totally infatuated with you.” He glanced at me again, squinting his eyes with a twinkle of mischief. He was loving this. “You wanna know why?”
“Not particularly,” I responded. OK, yeah, I really wanted to know. I wasn’t exactly the admirable type, but I felt like it was my duty as a man not to give in to his temptation.
“Stop being an idiot.” There it was again...that word...idiot. Everyone always uses the same exact insult to describe me.
“You know, you and Lizzy share a lot in common. On Iradel, her magic is, well, unique. Never been recorded before. And what people don’t understand frightens them. They’re afraid of her magic power, how she could control you by simply smearing a drop of her blood on your skin.”
“Lizzy would never do that.”
“And you would never go around the city on a murderous rampage killing everyone who steps foot in front of you, but that’s what they’re saying. The thought that she could make you walk off a cliff to your death and there is nothing you could do to stop it is enough to scare most people from ever going near her. Even her own family.”
I shuddered at the thought of my parents disowning me because I was different. How could they be frightened of their own child? It angered me just thinking about it.
“But when it didn’t work on you, a complete stranger, and you didn’t act like she was some diseased sewer rat that shouldn’t be touched, I saw a weight lift from her shoulders. I could tell she’d eventually become attached to you.”
Fantastic. I already had a shadow. What’s one more?
“You and Blair don’t seem to be scared.”
He shrugged at the observation. “True. But it wasn’t always that way. We were forced onto the same team. At first, we were a little guarded around her. But we’ve been working with her for a year now and things have changed. We’ve gotten to know who she really is, but I get the feeling she still hasn’t fully accepted us. We’re not friends to her. We’re just people she’s forced to work with.”
I suppose that explained all the awkwardness between us. Her default reaction toward people was to push them away. She’d never been around someo
ne who had accepted her as a normal person. Couple that with my inability to trust anyone and you have one messy relationship between two very broken people.
“So mind control isn’t a thing on Iradel?” I wasn’t really sure how their magic worked and what kinds of abilities people had.
“It is. Some people can control through physical touch. Others can use personal objects closely tied to someone. But remove the physical contact or destroy the personal object and the spell is broken. With Lizzy’s magic, it absorbs into your skin. There’s no way to stop something that’s physically inside your body aside from her releasing it. Or bleeding out, but that wouldn’t end well for most people.”
“So she relies on her tattoos instead of her blood. At the auction, she could have used that ability to make the guards fight themselves, or just flat out leave.”
“She’ll only use it as a last resort. Stronger opponents require more blood to overcome their power. The more opponents there are, the more blood you need. The last thing you want to do in a fight is bleed out because of your own misdoing.”
I squirmed uncomfortably in my hoodie. It didn’t feel right prying into her life, but I was glad Eli cleared everything up. Thankfully, we were approaching the pizza shop so I didn’t have to endure any more conversation about this.
We pushed the door open and the smell of grease and fresh baked dough filled the small shop. There were two grimy wooden tables in front of the window, and a hideous fire engine red laminate counter ran almost the entire width of the narrow restaurant. A few slices of pizza were displayed on the other side of the plastic guard that probably hadn’t been cleaned since the store opened. I swallowed uncomfortably at the thought of eating from this filthy place.
A scrawny, fragile looking man was darting around in the back like a busy bee, hustling up to the front counter when he saw us walk in.
“What can I get you?” he huffed out, rubbing his flour coated hands back and forth along his apron.
“Picking up for Eli.” Bending his neck to check over the man’s shoulder, Eli scanned the back of the restaurant. “Hey, where’s Frank? He took my order when I called. I figured he’d be here. I wanted to say hi.”
“Oh, uh, he went home sick. I’m his son, Nate. Taking over for the night.”
A strand of his shoulder length, wavy chestnut hair slid out from his man bun, and he brushed it behind his ear. I watched his nervous movements, his branchlike fingers twitching as he searched the stack of boxes for our order. He was blinking his round evergreen eyes repeatedly like he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Something seemed off.
I glanced over at Eli, completely unconcerned. Maybe I was being paranoid...maybe he was just nervous because he didn’t normally work in the restaurant. No. Remember my motto...trust no one. I needed to be suspicious so I wouldn’t ever be caught off guard again.
I continued to watch him closely as he combed the entire restaurant for our order.
“Is it not done yet? I called almost an hour ago.” I think Eli was catching on, his narrowing eyes honing in suspiciously on Nate.
“It’s, uh, here somewhere. I’m sure. Just not, you know, familiar with the place like my dad.” He nervously laughed as he frantically turned over every box and piece of equipment in the place, sweat starting to roll down his forehead.
The back door into the kitchen opened up, and a tall, bulky man stomped in.
“Ah, here it is. Eli.” He grabbed two boxes from a metal shelf that he definitely had checked previously and slid them onto the front counter. He punched some numbers into the register and took Eli’s money. Eli picked up the two boxes, the unusual combined smell of smokey pepperoni and sweet pineapples wafting in the air.
I nodded in thanks and we both turned toward the exit.
“Oh, you forgot something.” Dread crept down my spine like a spider descending from a trail of silk, my heart seized and my feet locked in concrete blocks. We didn’t forget anything. I slowly circled my gaze around toward Nate, casting a concerning grin at the both of us.
“Dormeo!” A puff of vivid blue powder dusted my face, the fresh smell of baby powder striking my nose as I breathed it in.
With catlike reflexes, Eli grabbed his boomerang from his jacket pocket, pushing the button as two metal pieces snapped out from either side. He twisted his wrist about to throw it, but never got the chance.
“Im...pe…” My words trailed off, unable to complete the thought. The world around me began to fade out of focus. I stumbled on my feet, swaying my arms around unable to stay upright. Everything was spinning around me into one blurry image. A thud sounded as Eli dropped to the hard tile floor, pizza flying out of the box he was somehow still holding onto and landing on his face. Within a few seconds, I followed him.
Chapter 18
Y ou’re a fool. I could hear the words, but I couldn’t place them on a body. I strained my eyes to make out a figure in front of me. A figure with the same messy brown hair draping curls down his forehead. Familiar distrusting honey brown eyes stared back at me. Great. Now I was calling myself an idiot.
I stepped forward toward myself, but some kind of barrier prevented me from reaching him. Iridescent waves like a shimmering oily bubble rippled when I touched it. I felt nothing, but something was definitely there.
My doppelganger arced his arms in a circle above his head, clasping his hands together. Then he interlaced his fingers as he dropped them to the center of his chest.
Now wake up, dumbass. And find me. He thrusted his single fist forward, punching the barrier. A jolt of power surged out clashing into my chest, hurling me into the nothingness behind me. Agonizing pain bit through my bones like termites eating at me from the inside out. My head jerked back, and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The emptiness filled with a shimmering white light, like sugar crystals glistening on top of a Christmas cookie.
Dammit, did I die? I didn’t want to die in a cockroach infested pizza joint. If they threw me in the dumpster, I’d be eaten by raccoons. Or picked at by the mutant seagulls.
A blurry arm reached through the opening, hand extended toward me. Yup. This was it.
And then it clenched my jaw, the burly hand yanking my head left, then right, an uncomfortable, sharp crack sounding from my neck in the process. The blurry hand became a solid figure as my vision returned and painted the scene in front of me.
“This twerp can’t be the Obsession Killer.” The second man who walked through the back door hovered over me, stroking the five o’clock shadow covering his square jaw. His deep-set eyes were pits of darkness assessing my abrupt awakening, only a sliver of white peeking through. The man was built like a wild animal, muscles bulging from places I didn’t even know had muscles. So this is why Nate was stalling. He was waiting for his backup to arrive.
The man backed away, casually leaning backwards against a butcher block table with a half assembled pizza.
“He’s up. Now what?”
“What? No, no, no. He shouldn’t be up. That spell should have kept him out for...hours. I...I guess we’ll just have to dose him again.” The gawky man who introduced himself as Nate started searching his pockets for another sleep bomb.
We were still in the pizza place, now tied up in the back of the kitchen. Eli slouched next to me like a bear cub shot with a tranquilizer dart, face smothered in pizza sauce and bits of pepperoni in his hair. He was tied to one of the wooden chairs from the front of the store, eyes completely closed and head drooping to his chest. Drool dribbled from his mouth, soft snores sounded from his slightly parted lips. I made a mental note to definitely make fun of him for this later. Assuming there would be a later.
Other than being awake, my situation wasn’t much better. My hands were numb, the circulation cut off by the zip ties digging into my wrists bound behind me. I tried my legs, but each was duct taped snuggly around a leg of the chair.
I watched the two goons in front of me. They were about as sharp as a bowl of pudding. They clear
ly didn’t get the memo that magic affected me differently. And didn’t they stop to think that I was a police officer? I trained for situations like this. Time to put my rather rusty police skills to good use.
“Woah, hey there, Mr. Nate guy. Or whatever your name really is. What exactly is going on here?” He cautiously held out his arm, moving closer one inch at a time. Two fingers pinched the sleep bomb like he was dangling a steak in front of a caged lion, a black crosshairs tattoo visible on his forearm suspended above me. He dropped the marble on my lap and scampered away. He parted his lips to activate the sleep bomb, but I cut him off before the words came out of his mouth.
“Ah. I see you’re with the Black Mark. Mind telling me what the hell your gang wants with me? I blatantly remember telling that woman I refused to work for you miscreants.” I was on edge, but a new confidence came over me now that I had a powerful magic object to fight back with.
I still wished Eli was awake right now. This place was full of metal objects that he could use to easily get us out of this mess. I remembered my first experience with the watch, and the near destruction of the apartment building only a few hours ago. I was afraid to try that again. Especially on real humans, even if they were holding me hostage in the back of a moldy pizza joint.
Mr. Muscles intercepted my one way conversation with Nate, stepping in front of me hunching over until the pungent smell of garlic rolling off his breath made my eyes tear.
“Aw, poor baby’s crying,” he mocked in a whiny voice.
“No, not crying.” I shifted my head away in disgust, investigating Eli’s consciousness at the same time. “I’m suffocating at the stench of your garlic breath burning my eyes blind. Is that a special power of yours? It’s working splendidly.”
Mr. Muscles tightened his lips into a white slash, his nostrils flaring like a pissed off bull. I inhaled a deep breath, my lungs expanding and head lifting. My eyes met his and a cunning smile curled my lips. Got him.
“Dormeo!” I squeezed out the word and hoped for the best, making sure to continue holding my breath. The glistening marble in my lap exploded into a mini nuclear bomb of sleep powder. Before he even realized what hit him, he flopped to the floor like a sack of wet laundry.
How to Hunt a Menacing Magical Shadow Page 13