Gun Mage 2: Surviving a Post Apocalyptic Magic Earth

by Logan Jacobs

  I was right behind him when I heard several quick pops from behind the building. It was definitely gunfire, though at a faster clip than I’d ever heard before.

  “The Glock,” Darwin explained quickly when he saw that I had stopped.

  We ran past the ATV and around the edge of the building. We found Freya and Sorcha with both horses, all apparently unharmed. Freya had the Glock in her hands, and she pointed it toward us as we jerked to a halt. When she saw it was us, she lowered the gun and then walked over to a red bundle.

  “He tried to come up behind us,” she stated as she nudged the mage with her boot. “Sorcha was able to stop him long enough for me to shoot.”

  “And your parents didn’t want me to teach you how to shoot,” Darwin scoffed.

  I smiled at Sorcha, who had a death grip on both sets of reins. The horses still looked edgy, but they were standing still at least. I started to walk toward the Irish mage, but then I heard a familiar sound on the road.

  “Horses,” I called out.

  “The Chief must have gotten things organized,” Darwin replied, “though it doesn’t sound like they’re racing to get here.”

  “They must have worked out that there were a lot of guns out here,” I chuckled as I ran toward Sorcha and the horses.

  “Like I said,” Darwin added, “Parker’s not dumb. He probably waited as long as he could before riding off after the mages.”

  Sorcha and I mounted quickly while Freya and Darwin darted back to the ATV. A few moments later, the engine growled to life and the ATV raced down the road.

  “I guess we’re following them,” Sorcha laughed as she urged her horse forward.

  “I guess so,” I agreed as I rode after her.

  Chapter 16

  Darwin led us on a merry chase across some rough terrain, and the horses weren’t the only ones starting to flag when he finally stopped the ATV and pointed toward a small town. It sat at the foot of a mountain, between the forested slope and a wide, flat river.

  “We can hole up there for the rest of the night,” Darwin suggested. “Head out in the morning before people get too curious about who we are.”

  “Are you going to take the ATV into the town?” I asked as my horse snorted impatiently. It could smell the water and the town, and probably hoped that a warm stall was in its near future.

  “We’ll just tell anyone who asks that it runs on magic,” Darwin replied. “Who wouldn’t believe that?”

  We wound our way down a rocky hillside toward a wooden bridge that spanned the river. There was no guard at the bridge, and only a simple barricade of sharpened logs around the town. A drowsy officer did appear as our odd caravan came to a halt in front of the blockade that protected the entrance to the town, and he rubbed his eyes in disbelief when he took in the ATV.

  “Here, what’s all this?” the man demanded.

  “Sorry to arrive so late,” Sorcha replied in a deep, soothing voice. “But we were delayed. The inn has been expecting us.”

  The officer looked at the Irishwoman in surprise, then he slowly nodded.

  “They’ve been expecting you at the inn,” the officer said. “Sorry to hear you were delayed.”

  “There may be someone following us,” the mage continued. “From a place called Motown. If they appear, you’ll deny that we’re here.”

  “I’ll tell them you’re not here,” the guard assented.

  “Now, let us through,” Sorcha instructed.

  The man rubbed his eyes one more time, then slowly moved the barricade aside. There was just enough room for the ATV to slip through, but soon we were all inside the barricades and moving down the only street wide enough for the ATV and horses to ride side by side.

  The inn was easy to spot, as it was the only building that still had a light on outside it. It was a flickering mage light that lit up a sign with an image of a woman with a blackbird on her shoulder. The woman looked pleasant enough, but the blackbird had a malevolent glare that seemed to follow you no matter where you went.

  “What an odd sign,” Sorcha mused. “I can’t decide if they’re welcoming us or telling us to go away.”

  The sound of the horses and the ATV had drawn a pair of sleepy eyed boys from the stables next door to the inn. They gawked at the ATV, and ignored the horses, even when Sorcha’s mount leaned over and tried to bite one of the boys.

  “Are there any rooms left?” Sorcha asked pleasantly when one of the boys finally turned to look at the horses.

  “Only just,” the boy replied around a yawn. “Everyone’s come to town for the harvest festival tomorrow, but there’s some space left in the attic.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” Darwin muttered. “I’ll just tuck the ATV into the barn and make sure everything is secure. You three see what they have left.”

  Sorcha and I dismounted and handed our reins to the stablehands. The boys accepted their charges and even offered each horse a carrot before leading them toward the stables.

  “Hold up,” I called out as Darwin started to follow the horses. “Let us just grab our packs.”

  Sorcha and I poked around under the tarp until we found our packs then stepped back to watch Darwin as he tried to navigate past the barn doors with the ATV. The vehicle managed to squeeze through, and then I heard several of the horses inside nicker in disapproval of the new arrival.

  Our arrival hadn’t aroused just the stable boys, however. Before I could place my hand on the inn’s front door, it was opened halfway and an older version of the woman on the sign peered around the edge of the door at us. The wavy brown hair had threads of gray and the heart-shaped face was a little rounder, but the hazel eyes and plump lips were still the same.

  “We heard you might have some rooms for the night,” I said quietly.

  “There’s three of you?” the woman asked as she studied us.

  “Four, actually,” I replied. “Our companion is just… tending to the horses.”

  “I’ve got two rooms left in the attic,” the woman replied. “You’ll have to double up.”

  “That’s fine,” I replied.

  The woman looked us over again, then opened the door the rest of the way. She disappeared into a dimly lit foyer and left us on the doorstep. I exchanged an uncertain look with Freya and Sorcha, then followed the woman inside.

  “So, you want the last two rooms?” the woman asked from behind a counter where she had retreated.

  The innkeeper pulled out a ledger and made a quick notation, then pushed the book toward us.

  “How much for the rooms?” I asked as I remembered the stablehand’s mention of the harvest festival.

  “Two silvers for both,” the woman asserted.

  I exchanged another glance with Sorcha, and I heard Freya choke back a snort of disbelief.

  “That seems pricey for a pair of rooms in the attic,” I replied.

  “The festival is tomorrow,” the woman explained with a sniff of disdain. “And there aren’t any other rooms in town.”

  “Fine, we’ll take it,” I huffed as I pulled the required coins from my pouch.

  “I just need one of you to sign for the rooms,” the woman added as she bit the edge of one of the coins.

  Sorcha picked up the pen and wrote the name ‘Ava Long’ in a looping script.

  “Lovely name,” the woman mused as she pulled the ledger back to her side of the counter. “Here are your keys. Just take the stairs all the way to the top, and then follow the hallway to the end. You’ll see another set of stairs back there. Those will take you to the attic. Your rooms are the last two on the left.”

  Darwin stepped inside and gave the woman a quick nod.

  “We got rooms?” the ex-trooper asked.

  “Two,” I replied. “In the attic.”

  “Well, I guess there’s a couple of ways we could do this,” Darwin mused. “But the proper thing is to let the girls share a room.”

  “Gramps,” Freya protested.

  “I’m a light
sleeper, by the way” Darwin added as he scooped up both sets of keys and started toward the stairs.

  “It’ll be fine,” Sorcha assured both me and Freya. “It will give us ‘girls’ a chance to talk.”

  Neither Freya nor I must have looked quite as happy with the proposed sleeping arrangement because Sorcha gave us both a reassuring pat on the arm and then followed Darwin’s heavy tread as he marched up the stairs.

  “I guess I’m sleeping with Charles,” I sighed as I followed the mage and the ex-trooper.

  “Have fun with that,” Freya teased as she moved lightly up the stairs behind me.

  I followed Sorcha’s golden locks to the top floor of the inn, then down the long, narrow hallway past several doors. I could hear snores and quiet conversations behind most of them, and the heavy pounding of sex behind the last one. And then we trudged up a set of narrow steps barely wide enough for a foot and found ourselves in an even narrower space with a line of closely spaced doors.

  Darwin had stopped in the middle of the hall to peer at the keys and then the numbers on the doors. Sorcha swept up to him and quietly retrieved the keys, then made her way to the end of the hall. She opened both doors, and after a moment, selected one for herself. As the rest of us dragged ourselves to the end of the hall, she grabbed Freya by the arm and pulled her inside.

  “See you in the morning,” the Irishwoman whispered as she closed the door.

  I peered into the second room after I pulled the key from the lock. The bed was little better than a cot, and the ceiling was so low that both Darwin and I would have to stoop down just to get inside. With a sigh, I stepped into the room and dropped onto the far side of the bed.

  Darwin joined me a moment later, and we both quickly stripped down to our undergarments and scrunched up under the thin blanket without another word being uttered. I could hear the low murmur of conversation in the women’s room, but other than that, the attic was oppressively quiet. I tried to ignore the back pressed against mine, and somehow, I fell asleep even though I was convinced that I would be awake the rest of the night.

  The sun was already up by the time I stirred, though I only knew that from the light that managed to sneak in through the thin crack between some of the planks. I stretched as I tried to work out some of the kinks, and then realized that I was the only one in the room. I glanced around in the paltry light, and saw that Darwin had already dressed and collected his gear.

  I found the indoor bathroom on the floor below, and after waiting in the hall for a wannabe stage performer to finish his solo in the shower, finally managed to duck inside and get cleaned up. There wasn’t much water left, but I didn’t feel like waiting for the tank to refill, either. I did the best I could, and managed to remove the grime and sweat in record time.

  By the time I stepped back into the hall, the smell of bacon and coffee had started to drift up from the kitchen. My stomach growled in appreciation, and I scurried back to the room, where I threw on some clean clothes, then gathered up my own gear and headed downstairs.

  I found Darwin at a table near the dining room’s largest window. It overlooked the street we’d ridden down the night before, and even from the lobby doorway, I could see people walking up and down the street, most dressed in their best clothing. Sunlight filled the street and poured through the window, giving everything a warm, hazy glow, including Charles.

  “How long have you been up?” I asked as I slipped into the chair across from him.

  “About half an hour,” Charles replied. “I woke up when the cook arrived and started banging around in the kitchen. I just ordered some coffee and breakfast, whatever that is. Apparently, they don’t do menus on busy days like today.”

  “Well, I smell bacon, so that’s a good sign,” I declared.

  “Can’t go wrong with bacon,” Charles agreed with a grin. “Ah, and here come the ladies.”

  I turned around to see Freya and Sorcha approach the table. Both looked fresh, clean, and golden, and aside from a bruise along Freya’s right cheek, you would never know that she had been arrested and spent time in jail.

  “Something smells good,” Freya said as she and Sorcha sat down.

  “Well, the waitress should be back soon with my plate, so you can order your own, then,” Darwin replied.

  On cue, I saw the door to the kitchen swing open and a teenage girl with orange hair and a line of pimples along her chin darted over to our table and dropped a plate in front of Darwin. It was loaded with bacon, toast made with a dark pumpernickel, fried eggs, and a small bowl filled with blueberries and blackberries. A collection of jam jars and a giant mug of coffee were deposited as well as the waitress took in our appearances.

  “The rest of you want breakfast?” she asked in a nasally toned voice.

  “Yes,” the three of us replied.

  “And I’ll have coffee,” I added.

  “Tea for me,” Sorcha quickly interjected.

  “Um,” Freya pondered. “Do you have any juice?”

  “Grapefruit,” the waitress suggested with a shrug.

  “That will be good,” Freya replied.

  The waitress nodded and scurried over to another table as three more guests took their seats at a table.

  “So you know Chief Parker,” I said quietly a few moments later. “Will he follow us all the way here?”

  “Eventually,” Darwin admitted. “But he’ll give us time to pack up and leave town before he gets here. All he needs to do is tell everyone back in Morristown that we’ve fled the area and he can go back to rounding up the drunks on Saturday night. He has no interest in a shootout.”

  “But he sent that deputy out to the house,” Sorcha pointed out.

  “He was hoping to catch me off guard and drag me in before I could arm myself,” Darwin said with a shrug. “But now he knows he’ll have to face a barrage of bullets if he gets too close.”

  “Well, it’s not like we can sneak out with the ATV,” I mused. “So I would suggest we leave as soon as we finish breakfast.”

  “Sally, that’s the waitress,” Darwin replied, “she said that a lot of the farmers are here for this harvest festival. Most of the crops have already been brought in and everybody’s been busy either with the drying or the preserving. Officially, yesterday was the last day of the harvest, so today they celebrate with a big community meal and then the local mage will offer a blessing on the lands for the winter.”

  “Sounds nice,” Sorcha noted. “But I’m with Hex. I say we leave as soon as we finish breakfast.”

  “Same here,” Freya added.

  “I wasn’t going to suggest we stay,” Darwin replied as he held up his hands. “I was going to say that the roads are apparently going to be busy, so if we want to leave with a minimum amount of attention, we should probably use the ridge road that the stable boys told me about this morning.”

  The waitress returned at that point and placed three more breakfast plates on the table along with our beverages. I passed out the drinks Sally had left behind, and then started on my breakfast. It was all good, though the bacon really did turn out to be the best part. It was just thick enough that it crisped up nicely without turning into brittle sticks of burnt meat, and just soft enough that I could fold it onto a slice of buttered toast. It had been smoked with applewood, so the flavor was soft and subtle but still managed to stand up to the fried eggs and wickedly dense coffee.

  At some point, Darwin asked for a refill of the bacon and the drinks, both of which arrived at our table just as we polished off our meals. We nibbled on the fresh bacon and sipped at our drinks, and watched the locals start to fill the main road. When we couldn’t delay any longer, we gave up our table to a family of five and moved back through the restaurant toward the lobby.

  The owner gave us a quick smile as we passed the desk, though I’m not sure she really registered who we were. She was busy fielding questions from three different groups and trying to issue instructions to one of the maids, so we stepped outside int
o a bright, sunny day without anyone even noticing. I saw Darwin reach into one of the inner pockets of his jacket and pull out something that reminded me of the eye protection he had worn at the treehouse, but these were dark and the glass along the front completely shielded his eyes so that no one could see them. I noticed that the strange raccoon pattern around his eyes matched the frames, and I gave the ex-trooper a questioning look.

  “Sunglasses,” Darwin explained. “One of mankind’s best damn creations, and it’s a shame no one makes them anymore.”

  “Evan had something similar, but his weren’t dark,” I noted.

  “His are regular glasses,” Darwin said. “They help correct his vision, but they don’t block sunlight.”

  “And yours do?” I asked.

  “Here,” Darwin offered as he took off the sunglasses and handed them to me. “Just take a quick look.”

  I slipped the two long pieces over my ears as I had seen Darwin do, then let the darker plastic, I realized, rather than glass, slip in front of my eyes. The day instantly went from being sunlit to something a little less bright. Not dimmer exactly, but the harsh edge that made me squint was gone.

  “These are great,” I said as I peered around the street.

  “Don’t you start,” Freya sighed. “I think they look silly.”

  “But I can see so much better,” I replied.

  “Yep,” Darwin agreed. “Another thing I’ve been hoarding.”

  I took them off and handed them to Sorcha, who slipped them on for a moment.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize just how bright it was,” she said. “But it does make it easier to see.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and find some more,” Darwin said as he held out his hand. Sorcha reluctantly returned the sunglasses to him, and he put them back on.

  The sunglasses drew a few quizzical looks, but most people simply nodded and smiled as they walked past us. We slipped along the edge of the road and walked into the stables where the stableboys were cleaning the stalls. Our two steeds whickered as we approached and even nudged against us without biting. I patted both on their heads, and then stood back to give both horses a good look for the first time.