Mana Dissociation

by Christopher George

  I’d never actually travelled this section of the road before, but I knew that it would be similar to the roads we had taken on my original journey south from France.

  We must have travelled for about an hour before Wesley lowered the screen between the driver’s compartment and mine.

  “Ma’am, we have a problem.” He said as he slowly pulled the car over.

  I leaned forward and peered through the window. We had a big problem. A small section of trees had come loose and fallen over the road. This being a small country road meant that it had completely blocked our path.

  “Do you think…” Wesley murmured softly, “you could move it?”

  What? It took me several seconds before I realized exactly what Wesley was asking me. I had a vague picture in my mind of him meaning that I should pull up my sleeves and try to lift one end. That was crazy. It was also incorrect. He hadn’t meant that at all.

  I looked at the size of the trees that had fallen across the road. They were massive, far larger than anything I’d attempted to lift before. But it was worth a shot.

  I pulled up my sleeves, which caused a wry grin to come to my face given my earlier thoughts and got out of the car.

  I moved in closer to the branches and raised my hand out letting the mana flow down my arm to my fist. I let the power build for several seconds reveling in each moment before I summoned the thread.

  The thread shot from my hand with unexpected speed and wrapped itself around the main branch. Okay, step one was done. I attempted to lift.

  At first, it looked like I almost would be able to move it. I poured every ounce of my strength into the thread and I managed to cause it to rise slowly from the ground. Unfortunately, I sagged and the tree fell back to the ground with a despairingly loud crunch.

  I couldn’t do it. It was too heavy.

  I was trying to see if I could maybe break it up into smaller pieces, when a voice called out from the side of the road.

  “Need a hand?” The voice was coy and I turned to see Aiden emerge from the bushes on one side. He was disheveled and sporting a ragged looking beard. It also looked like he hadn’t showered in about a week.

  The arrival of a newcomer caused Wesley to spring into action, jumping between us and reaching under his jacket to remove a gun. It happened so fast.

  He pointed the gun at Aiden, but I could tell from the way that he was shaking slightly that he knew that it might not be enough. He could be right. I had no Idea how powerful Aiden was, but I knew that he was more powerful than me. I’d couldn’t raise a shield to protect myself from a punch, let alone a bullet, but I knew that Aiden could. He’d shrugged off several when we had been attacked in Scotland.

  “Aiden, don’t.” I called.

  “You should be with me!” He murmured in a strange tone. He was shaking slightly, but I wasn’t sure if that was sickness, weakness or something else.

  “Miss Wright,” Wesley murmured, “Please get back into the car. It is time to leave.”

  “No!” I whispered, “He’ll attack once I’m out of the way.”

  “Miss Wright,” Wesley repeated, “Please. We can’t leave until you’re in the car.”

  His words made sense, but I didn’t like them. I had no idea what would set Aiden off, so I acted very slowly and carefully moved towards the car.

  Aiden’s eyes followed me every step of the way. I very slowly opened the car door and ducked inside. At any second, I feared that I would hear the explosive sound of a gunshot or something that would indicate that something very wrong was happening. Fortunately, there was only silence for the next few seconds. The sound of the driver’s door opening sounded unnaturally loud from inside.

  “Miss, you should buckle up,” came Wesley’s terse voice as the vehicle suddenly burst into reverse. I watched with dread though the window as Aiden took several steps forward and raised his hand.

  The car jerked to an immediate stop as a mana thread wrapped around the front of the vehicle. I watched as the mana slowly lifted the car from the ground and I heard a curse from the driver’s seat as Wesley realized what was going on.

  The mana thread was shuddering as the weight of the vehicle bore down upon Aiden. He obviously wasn’t strong enough to keep the vehicle in the air and I briefly wondered what his next plan was. He could easily throw us off the side of the road and from what I saw on the way up. No one would survive that.

  I was still trying to figure out what I should be doing when I heard the window roll down and a gunshot go off. I saw Aiden wince and a blossom of red appear on his shoulder. The effect was immediate. The car dropped to the ground with a sickening thump and then instantly reversed again. Wesley’s foot was obviously still firmly planted on the accelerator. The car buckled and a loud smash echoed throughout the cabin. The car tilted backwards as it attempted to back up the embankment. Wesley cursed again and threw the wheel to a hard left, causing more crunching noises from the rear section of the car. The car eventually pulled back onto the road leaving a trail of dust and dirt behind us.

  “Who the hell was that?” Wesley said as he frantically looked behind him in the mirror.

  “Aiden,” I called from the back seat, “I don’t know what he wants though,”

  “I’d say it’s pretty clear what he wants,” Wesley grunted, “I’ll need to ring this in.”

  He pulled his phone from the center compartment and went to bring it to his ear. However, before he could dial the phone gave an electronic shriek and a small explosion as it collapsed in on itself.

  “Fuck!” Wesley snarled. He threw the destroyed phone onto the seat beside him, “How did he do that?”

  I was wondering the same thing myself. I hadn’t seen any mana surrounding the phone, but it may have been too fine for me to detect.

  “Just drive!” I ordered, somewhat unnecessarily.

  Wesley was already driving way too fast around the windy roads. There was a good chance that we’d lose control and careen off the side of the mountain. However, as I recalled the look in Aiden’s face, dying in a car crash seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

  “We need to get out of the range of his scry.” I muttered, more to myself than to Wesley who wouldn’t have known what I was talking about.

  Scrying was still beyond my abilities, but I had read some of the techniques involved. It had been closely aligned with teleporting as the two often used in tangent.

  Getting out of range sounded like a great idea, except that I had no idea what his range was. I had a weird sense of déjà vu as we attempted to get out range. Aiden had attempted to do just the same thing when he had dragged me from London into Scotland. It hadn’t worked overly well for him and to be honest I had my doubts that it would work now.

  I was almost tempted to get Wesley to turn the car around and face Aiden down, but I wasn’t sure what the outcome of that would be. I was fairly certain that he wouldn’t hurt me, but I had my doubts that Wesley would survive another encounter with him, especially after he shot at him.

  I didn’t know how injured Aiden was. Perhaps this would resolve itself. But I seriously didn’t think so.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, “I mean, eventually.”

  “I don’t know,” Wesley replied back tersely, “Maybe we can find a side road or something that will allow us to swing back around to get back to Barcelona.”

  “No,” I said firmly, “I’m guessing that he’s expecting us to do that. We’ll need to do something he doesn’t expect.”

  “Such as?”

  “Head to Paris,” I said, as the thought came upon me. It was the one place that he hadn’t followed me before. It wasn’t until we had reached Toulouse that he had caught up with me again. Maybe he didn’t want to go to Paris. That would make sense. He wouldn’t want to go there with such a high Mage community.

  “That’s a ten-hour drive, ma’am,” Wesley reminded me.

  “Yeah, but it’s ten hours in the direction we’re going.” I nodded.
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  “Fair point.”

  I would have loved to have been able to sleep during the ride north, but I was too scared. It wasn’t a pleasant drive, as at any moment I expected Aiden to come barreling out of nowhere and attack the car again.

  We made it out of the mountains without running into him again. Once we were on the main highway, I felt a little bit better. It was far too busy for him to make a play for us here. I thought for a moment that we were clear and free. It was a foolish hope, but I clung to it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Wesley made it to Paris in eight hours. I’m sure that he broke some road rules to do so, but he got us there. I didn’t care about the road rules though. The relief once I saw the sign saying that we’d entered Paris was almost palatable.

  “Head for the Primea’s estate,” I ordered. It would take about an hour to get to the estate, as we’d arrived in Paris during peak hour and the cars were bumper to bumper. This was annoying, but once again I took comfort in the fact that it was too busy for Aiden to try anything.

  I was wrong. It happened so suddenly that, at first, I thought it was just co-incidence. The car shuddered and rocked as if a car had hit it from behind. The noise was so loud. It echoed throughout the interior of the cabin. I swung my head around to try to see the car that had hit us only to stare around in confusion. There was no car.

  Wesley pulled the car into a tight skid and tried to get off the road. It was amazing that the car didn’t flip. The impact was so hard. We slammed onto the sidewalk. This car wasn’t going anywhere anymore. I shook my head to clear it and was amazed that the crash hadn’t hurt anyone. Wesley was groaning from the front seat, but otherwise he seemed okay. He seemed as stunned as I did.

  “What happened?” I breathed.

  “I think he tried to lift the car off the road,” Wesley grunted, “We need to get out of the car before he tries something else.”

  I glanced around in a panic as I considered my options. There really wasn’t that much choice. The street we were on was deserted, but most of the buildings had the look of corporate offices with wide open glass foyers. Not ideal for hiding. I glanced around frantically unable to come to a decision.

  “Ma’am, we need to leave!” Wesley urged as he pulled my arm, “Now!”

  I didn’t notice Wesley flinch as he propelled me away from the car. At first, I had no idea where he was directing me, but it soon became clear. At the far end of the street was a cathedral. I hadn’t seen it earlier, but it would be the perfect hiding place. I could only hope that it was open.

  Wesley ran ahead of me and I finally noticed his condition. He was holding his left arm close to his chest and I could see blood on his shirt.

  “Are you okay?” I gasped as I tried to keep up with him. For an injured man, he could certainly run.

  “Not now,” Wesley grunted as he scanned the rooftops warily for Aiden, “Let’s get into the Church. We need to get off the street.”

  I made it to the stairs of the cathedral and made it to the doors just seconds before Wesley did. I glanced across the road and thought I caught a glance of Aiden on one of the rooftops on the far side of the street. He quickly ducked behind a pillar to remain out of sight. This seemed strange. Why the hell was he trying to remain hidden? He’d just thrown a car across a crowded city street.

  I didn’t have time to ponder this as Wesley pulled me into the church. I’d never been inside a French cathedral before but it was everything that I had been expecting. The light from outside shone through the stained glass windows and shone a kaleidoscope of coloured lights and shadows across the room. They were obviously in the midst of restoration of the windows as there were large scaffolds in front of the windows. I glanced around quickly half expecting someone to challenge us and ask us to leave, but there didn’t seem to be anyone here.

  I took a quick glance at Wesley and wondered what our next move was going to be. I don’t think he had planned this out too far ahead. I suspect that he had hoped that the cathedral would have had people inside.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” A voice called out, echoing across the chamber. I knew that voice and all of a sudden the welcoming feeling of the church disappeared. Nothing had changed, but it now felt cold and stark.

  “Aiden,” I called back, “Stop this.”

  “Stop what?” the voice echoed again. It was difficult to determine exactly where the voice had originated with the damned echo.

  “Leave me alone!” I snarled as Wesley pulled me behind him. A gun had almost magically appeared in his hand and he was pointing it in a wide arc as he attempted to determine just where Aiden was hiding.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Wesley grunted, “but I will. You need to leave – or someone is going to get hurt.”

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Aiden’s voice echoed, causing us to immediately spin around. It sounded like the voice was coming from directly behind us.

  “Show yourself!” Wesley ordered, as he brought the gun back around for another pass.

  “When he does,” Wesley whispered, “Run. You can get away. I’ll slow him down.”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “Please,” Wesley murmured softly as he spun around once again, “No arguments.”

  “Are you too scared to face me?” Wesley called out, “I’d heard that you were a coward.”

  “Please,” I whimpered, “Stop this.”

  Wesley only whispered one word to me, “Run.”

  I didn’t exactly see what had happened, but a shadow dropped from the rafters to the floor and Wesley immediately turned and brought the gun to bear. I expected him to shout or call out or something, but he didn’t. He simply fired. Three shots rang out in quick succession and the noise prompted me into action. I took his advice and ran up the chamber towards the altar and the benevolent face of Christ staring down at me from the cross.

  I’d been so focused on getting away from Aiden that I hadn’t been watching where I was going. With a shriek I fell forward as my feet tripped on something lying on the ground. I turned in horror and saw a body lying on the floor. It was an old man. He was wearing priest vestments. He looked like he had been dead for some time. This had been a trap! Aiden had wanted us to come in here! I glanced around in panic, feeling very much like the waters were rising above my head. I frantically sought an escape path. There was only one problem. There was nowhere to go. There were only two doors and they were locked firmly. Had I been in more control of myself, I would have realized that I would have been able to easily use my powers to break through, but I didn’t. I frantically grasped with the handles before moving on to the next door and trying that. The place was locked up tight.

  There was only one way out. Back the way we came, through Aiden. I could see Wesley in the centre of the chamber, his gun still pointed towards the where we had seen the shadow drop. He was still nervously glancing around.

  “Is that the best you’ve got?” Aiden’s amused voice echoed throughout the chamber, “Shall we try mine?”

  A rumbling noise followed his question as three of the heavy oaken pews seemed to pull themselves up from the floor and threw themselves at Wesley. I saw Wesley’s eyes open in panic as the pews launched themselves at him and he threw himself to the side to avoid being crushed. He slid across the smooth marbled floor as the pews were smashed into kindling only metres from where he had been standing.

  It was meant to be intimidating, but Aiden had finally made his mistake. I had been able to see the Mana thread that he had used to lift the pews.

  “He’s in the corner!” I shrieked as I pointed at the far corner of the room.

  “Go!” Wesley called as he regained his feet. He immediately fired several more shots into the corner and I saw with panic a shield spring up to deflect the shots.

  “Very clever!” Aiden called from the darkness.

  We needed to get out of here. He had blocked us in and the only way out was past him. No, wait that wasn’t quite true,
there was another way. The windows! It seemed like sacrilege to break them, but I had no choice. The only problem was that they were far above us. I had no choice. There was only one way I was getting up there.

  I wrapped a mana thread around the scaffolding and used it to pull myself up to the top of the cathedral. The scene looked different from up here. The shadows weren’t as dark and I could clearly make up Aiden’s mana soaked form hiding in the shadows. He seemed to be trying to keep one of the pillars between himself and Wesley. What was he afraid of? Surely he had already proved that he wasn’t afraid of getting shot?

  “Go!” Wesley called again as he realized what I was doing as he calmly fired several more shots into the pillar that Aiden had been hiding behind.

  I watched it all happen. It must have happened so quickly, but for me it seemed to slow down and happen in slow motion. I saw Wesley stalking towards Aiden, with small flares of light bursting from his pistol as he fired. The marble walls and columns shattered into small shards as the bullets ricocheted against them.

  Unable to interfere, yet wishing fervently to do, I watched Aiden slowly duck from behind the pillar and take several bullets on his shield. The bullet had no effect as the mana flared along his shield and, with agonising slowness, Aiden formed a thread that lashed out. As slow as everything seemed to be happening, I couldn’t seem to act fast enough to stop it. I would have loved to have been able to block the thread, but I was too slow. I saw the thread hit Wesley with a sickening thump that echoed throughout the chamber. I saw Wesley’s form shudder as the thread hit him and his head snapped savagely to his left side. Then he began to fall. He fell so very slowly. First, his legs crumpled and he fell his knees. I don’t know if he was still alive at this point or not, but he seemed to pause for a few seconds and for a moment I wondered if he had survived. Then he simply fell forward and lay still. I didn’t need to be told that he was dead. The stillness of his body told me that. I’d never seen a dead body of someone I knew before, but I knew that this was exactly what I was looking at now.