The Revenge of Magic

by James Riley

  “Is this what you’re going to do for attention?” Blaine asked. “Since you’re done getting pitied for the D.C. attack, now it’s time to make up another one?”

  Anger coursed through Fort, and he slowly turned to face the Destruction student, just now noticing that Chad and Trey had moved to surround Fort. “I’m not making this up. I was just in the officers’ mess, and—”

  “The officers’ mess? That’s where I usually have dinner too,” Chad said. “What did the tentacle monster do, order the steak?”

  His two friends snickered, while the rest of the boys went back to whatever they were doing before Fort entered. Were they serious? Something supernatural had just appeared out of nowhere, and none of the boys even cared? Or did they really just not believe him?

  “Must have been a really bad attack,” Trey said. “You know, considering how none of us heard anything, and no one’s outside bringing in the tanks. By the way, Band-Aid, who said you could take this cot?”

  “Who cares about the bed?” Fort shouted. “I’m telling you—”

  “This is our bunk,” Blaine said, sitting down on it and shoving Fort’s clothes off. “We use it as a spare. Pick another one, or we’ll see how long it takes to burn that uniform of yours.”

  “The one you’re wearing,” said Trey.

  “I think that was implied,” Blaine said, giving the other boy a dirty look.

  Trey shrugged. “I could see it going either way. But it’s not very threatening if we’re just talking about lighting his extra ones on fire.”

  Blaine sighed. “Did you get my point, Band-Aid? That we’re going to burn you and the uniform at the same—”

  Fort plowed into the boy, crashing them both to the ground. Blaine landed hard, still surprised by the attack, and Fort punched him in the stomach, once, twice, a third time, rage overwhelming his mind. All the anxiety and betrayals and terror of the past day bubbled up inside him, and he let it out on the boy beneath him.

  Someone yanked him backward, and he lashed out wildly but missed as Blaine rose unsteadily to his feet, one of his hands burning with a deep red flame.

  “Hold him,” Blaine said to the other two, and strong hands grabbed Fort’s arms, pulling them behind his back painfully. “Of course you’d fight like some kind of . . . normal, without any magic.”

  “At least I fight one-on-one!” Fort shouted, kicking out at Blaine, though his foot came up short.

  The two boys behind him laughed, and Fort began to smell smoke. They dropped his arms, releasing him, and he quickly pulled his now-flaming shirt off and beat it on the ground to put the fire out. Trey and Chad now both had flames in their hands too, and all three surrounded him, leaving him nowhere to go.

  “You chose that bed, Band-Aid,” Blaine said. “Now sleep in it.”

  Even with the threat of being burned, part of Fort was still thrilled to have an excuse to fight again, to let his anger out. And it wasn’t like these boys didn’t deserve it. But a voice that sounded a bit like Jia’s broke through his fury, reminding him that if he got caught fighting, he was probably going to get sent home even earlier then Dr. Opps already wanted.

  “No,” Fort said finally, taking a deep breath and lowering his hands. “I’m done with this.”

  “Lie down on your bed or we burn you,” Chad said.

  “If I lie down, then you’ll just burn the bed,” Fort said, his eyes flicking from Blaine to Chad to Trey.

  The other three boys just looked at each other. “And?” Chad said.

  “So if you’re going to burn me either way, I’m not doing what you say.”

  Someone groaned loudly from farther in the dorm. “All right, I’ve had enough of this.”

  All four of them turned to find the tall boy Fort had seen in the cafeteria earlier, the only healer to actually still have his appetite. The boy strode toward them from his bed at the far side of the room, and the three Destruction students actually seemed to shrink in response.

  “This is none of your business, Sebastian,” Chad said, but Fort saw him back away a bit.

  “It is if you’re annoying me,” Sebastian told him, his hands glowing a strange color of blue. Fort could feel the cold coming off them from a distance, and he realized with a start that these Destruction students were actually afraid of a healer.

  “We were just having some fun with the new Band-Aid,” Blaine said, holding his hands up defensively as Sebastian grew closer.

  “Cool, let me join in,” Sebastian said, and lunged forward, grabbing Blaine’s flaming hand. The fire was immediately extinguished, and the boy started to yell in pain as some sort of pustules began to grow on his hand.

  “Stop that!” Chad yelled, and launched a yellow bolt of energy at Sebastian. The healer just sidestepped the magic missile, letting it slam into an innocent Destruction student behind him as his hand stayed locked on Blaine’s.

  “I’m never quite sure what I’m going to get with Cause Disease,” Sebastian said, then reached out his free hand toward the other two. “Apparently Bryce has had the chicken pox in the past, so that’s what came up for him. It’s pretty rare now, actually! Want to see if you two are that lucky?”

  Both the other boys immediately put up their hands in surrender, their flames going out, as Blaine—no, Bryce—fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. “They itch,” he whimpered as the rash spread over his face and the rest of his body. “They itch so bad!”

  “I wouldn’t scratch,” Sebastian said, releasing him. “Not unless you want permanent scars.”

  Bryce angrily pushed to his feet, his hands on fire once more, but Sebastian just threw him a look. “Apologize, or I leave you like this.”

  The flames on Bryce’s hand gradually went out, and he sniffled loudly. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. Would you please fix this?”

  “Apologize to the new kid,” Sebastian said, nodding toward Fort without looking at him.

  Bryce wiped his nose, then turned to Fort. “I’m sorry. You can have this bed.”

  Fort grabbed his extra uniforms. “That’s okay. I think I’ll take one in the back.”

  Sebastian waved a hand over Bryce, and his chicken pox immediately cleared up. The Destruction boy laughed almost hysterically in relief as Trey and Chad pulled him away. Sebastian, meanwhile, just turned and strode back to his bed. Fort followed quickly behind him, noticing Cyrus was waiting in the bed next to the one he’d pointed out that Fort would chose earlier that day.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Fort told Sebastian, as he moved to match the other boy’s pace. “I don’t need people protecting me here. I can handle myself.”

  Sebastian gave him an ice-cold smile. “Did I ask? They were bugging me. If they’d set fire to you outside, I’d have been fine with it.”

  Fort paused, not sure if he was kidding. “I’m . . . I’m Fort. I’m a healer too, and—”

  Sebastian’s hand locked on Fort’s wrist, and he felt his head grow cloudy as his whole body started to ache. “You were the one distracting Jia in class. She usually covers for Mason. I had to heal, like, half a dozen of his wounds when he got back from Destruction training.”

  Fort began to shiver violently, suddenly feeling like the room had dropped ten degrees, but he refused to look away. “Maybe he should have been better at bone mending, then.”

  Sebastian’s eyes widened a bit, but he smiled wider. “Welcome to the Oppenheimer School, new kid. Let’s hope you survive the experience.”

  And with that, he climbed onto his bunk, leaving Fort to collapse into his new bunk with a full-blown case of the flu.

  - NINETEEN -

  APPARENTLY A FLU VIRUS WASN’T considered a minor wound in terms of magical spells. That would have been helpful to know before Fort cast his only spell on himself, since using it made it disappear from his head, and nothing much happened other than some temporary relief from the aches and fever, like he’d taken some aspirin.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve already seen J
ia fixing that for you tomorrow,” Cyrus told him as they faced each other from their beds. The lights had gone out a few minutes ago, and most of the boys were either reading or playing video games. “I’m sorry that you’re not going to get much sleep tonight, though.”

  Tomorrow—when he’d be down to just one full day before the test. And here he hadn’t even mastered one spell yet. Fort sighed, shivering under his blanket. Even without the flu, he couldn’t imagine getting much sleep, not after everything that had happened today.

  But even so, getting a prophecy of insomnia was something he could have done without.

  “Something really did appear in the middle of the officers’ mess, Cyrus,” Fort whispered to his only friend, and filled him in about everything that he’d found out since he’d last seen Cyrus, from hearing Dr. Ambrose and Dr. Opps’s conversation about how both wanted him gone, to somehow hearing Dr. Opps’s thoughts at dinner about someone named Sierra, to the fact that the creature had been looking for Telepathy magic, which somehow it had felt Fort using. Or this Sierra girl was using it on him, from what he’d heard in Dr. Opps’s head.

  Having finally caught up to the present, Fort pulled his blankets up closer to his face, trying to glean every last ounce of warmth out of them as his teeth chattered. “You believe me, right?”

  “Of course!” Cyrus said, smiling supportively.

  For the first time all day, Fort actually felt a bit better. “And you can use your powers to see all of it, and tell everyone else I’m not crazy?”

  Cyrus’s smile didn’t fade. “Nope, not even a little bit. I can only see the future, not the past. And since you were just going to dinner, I didn’t bother looking to see what might happen there. Seemed like it’d be a fairly dull affair, to be honest.”

  Fort groaned and rolled over on his back. What use was being able to see the future if you had to know ahead of time where to look? “Of course you didn’t. Tell me you at least know who Sierra is?”

  “Never heard of her,” Cyrus said. “I can try looking in the future for her, but without knowing more about her, I’d have almost no hope of finding her.”

  Fort scrunched his eyes closed as he shivered. “Is there anything you can tell me? Like, am I going to get sent home?”

  The other boy paused, closing his eyes. “Tonight . . . no.” His eyes reopened and he grinned. “See, that’s good news! Do you want me to look ahead to the next few days?”

  Fort sighed softly. “Nope. How about we just look up lottery numbers and call it a night.”

  Cyrus shrugged. “The future isn’t good or bad news, it just is. Life is less about what happens and more about how you deal with those events. For some people, winning the lottery might end up ruining their life. And look at you, learning magic. You’re only seeing the obstacles, but lots of people, including most of the adults here, would kill for the chance to cast even one spell.”

  “I get that,” Fort said, flopping back to face Cyrus in irritation, now sweating from the warmth of the room. What was wrong with the heating here? “But I’m not here for the magic. I’m here for what it can do for me. But now I don’t even know what’s going on. How could I hear Dr. Opps’s thoughts? And why did that thing show up, right after I did? It had to be connected, right?” His eyes widened. “Wait a second. Earlier today, I heard all the school administrators saying stuff during my test, but Dr. Opps said no one said a word. The lights flickered then, too. Maybe I was hearing their thoughts, and that thing was tracking me down somehow?” He shivered, and this time not from the chill. “What if it comes back, Cyrus? I don’t even know how I’m doing this! What if I do it again, and it hears me?”

  “Could you two shut up?” Sebastian said from a few beds down. “If I hear one more word, I’m going to heal both your mouths closed.”

  At least that had been out loud. Cyrus gave him an apologetic look, patted his shoulder, then settled into his bed. Fort sighed and flipped over, far too worried and apprehensive and flu-ish to sleep.

  Minutes ticked by, and Fort got cold again, though he somehow still seemed to be sweating. The rest of the boys had turned out their personal lights now, and next to him, Cyrus quietly snored away. For a moment, Fort wondered what it would be like, knowing the future. Would it be comforting, since you’d always know ahead of time if something bad was going to happen? Or would you just be dreading all the worst things you knew were coming?

  At least he’d know if that creature was coming back. Who could have sent it? Had it come from the same place as the creature who’d attacked D.C.? But that monster hadn’t seemed intelligent, while the horror in the mess hall clearly could think for itself.

  Wait a second. All this time, he and everyone else had assumed that some foreign country had sent the creatures to attack D.C. But what if it wasn’t some other human being? What if there were creatures out there, creatures like the one in the mess hall, that were to blame? None of the adults in the room had been able to stop the thing tonight, and Fort doubted many of the students would have had any better luck.

  If that thing wanted humanity dead, was there any way to even stop it? Colonel Charles had said something about awakening a power within him, which probably just meant Fort learning Destruction magic. But what if it didn’t? What if there was some other form of magic that he could learn, that might actually let him face these things?

  Speaking of other magic, there was the Sierra problem.

  You would be too, if not for Sierra, he’d heard Dr. Opps think. Meaning he’d have been dead in the attack in D.C. if not for this girl. But who was she? He had heard a girl’s voice in his head, both during the attack, and in his nightmares ever since. Was that what Dr. Opps meant, that her voice telling him to run was what saved him? But who was she?

  More importantly, if she could take over people’s minds—which explained all the silent tourists fleeing in single-file lines during the attack—then she was the one who’d stopped him from saving his father. And that was something he couldn’t forgive.

  Sierra, if you’re out there, we need to talk about some things, he thought about yelling out into the void, just to see if she heard him. But wait, what if that creature sensed her using her Telepathy and came back to the base? The last thing he wanted was to hear any more thoughts!

  Sighing, Fort pulled his blankets up again, wondering miserably if sleep would ever come. At least if he stayed up all night, he’d avoid any of those really crazy fever dreams he always got when he was sick. . . .

  - TWENTY -

  OKAY, TELL ME WHAT YOU can see,” a familiar girl’s voice said as Fort watched through her eyes, his mind in a dreamy haze.

  “Whoa!” said a red-haired boy with closed eyes who stood in front of the girl. He quickly raised his arms and began to flap them. “I’m flying! How are you doing this? I’m really flying! It feels completely real!”

  The girl laughed gently. “That’s because it is real, as far as your mind knows. Think about it: Your senses tell your brain what exists outside your body. If I fool your brain with a little magic, how would you know my illusions aren’t real?”

  The boy broke into a wide grin as he swung his arms around in place, like he was gliding. “This is amazing,” he said. “Can you see what I’m seeing?”

  The girl grinned, and Fort could feel how much fun she was having. “Of course. I’m the one creating the scene in your head. You’re just seeing what I’m imagining, Michael.” She turned to a dark-haired boy off to the side, who was paging through one of the books of magic, ignoring the rest of them. “You want to try next, Damian?”

  “No thanks,” he said quietly, not looking up. “I don’t have time to play.”

  The girl felt a pang of annoyance at this but wasn’t exactly surprised. Damian avoided the other three whenever he could. She couldn’t tell if he didn’t like them, or just really was that intent on studying his magic, but whichever it was, she was torn between wanting to help him and punching him in the face.

 
“I wouldn’t exactly call it playing,” said another familiar voice. Fort looked up through the girl’s eyes to find Dr. Opps smiling down at her and Damian. “Think of the uses for something like this. There’d be no need for anesthetic in surgery, not if the patient had no idea they were being operated on. We could send someone to space, and the rest of the world could witness it through their eyes.”

  “You could also sneak into places pretty easily,” the girl said, and Michael laughed. Damian threw her a look that she couldn’t read, and for some reason, it made her feel guilty for joking. Ugh. The punching side was winning now.

  “That’s not why we’re here, Sierra,” Dr. Opps said, and Fort gasped silently. This was Sierra’s memory he was seeing? “These books are a gift, and we have to use them for the betterment of humanity, not to break into banks.”

  “I never specifically said banks,” Sierra said, grinning at Michael. “It’s not like I’d need the money, not if I could trick someone into thinking I’d paid them in their mind.”

  “Could you be serious for one minute?” Damian asked her, his look even darker this time. “Dr. Oppenheimer is trying to make a point.”

  “Well, how exactly is Destruction magic supposed to help humanity?” Michael asked, creating a sword of fire in one hand and swinging it around the room. “I mean, sure, I can protect people with my powers, I guess, but—”

  “Is that what you call what you did to my office, Michael?” Dr. Opps asked, smiling gently. “Protection?”

  Michael blushed, and the fire sword disappeared. “That was an accident.”

  “And a good lesson for why we train,” Dr. Opps said. “Sierra, I think it’s time we move on to mind reading, shall we?”

  Michael’s eyes widened, and he slowly moved toward the door. “I really should go, um, study or something,” he said quietly.

  Sierra gave him an innocent look. “What’s wrong, Michael? Got things in your head you don’t want me to see?”

  “Well, yes?”