Chapter 25
The bullet approached, ripping through the air. However, when it got about halfway to him, it rebounded against a thin, invisible shaft of metal. My real staff, which leaned against the table several feet away, jerked.
Lucky for Lance, the clone I created between us could block metal just as easily as the real thing. I was betting on the fact that Ingram had his vision off in fear that I’d blind him, and it paid off.
Despite the block, the bullet ricocheted into Lance’s shoulder with a hollow splat.
I didn’t wait for Ingram to notice. Using the moment of distraction, I magnetized my ring to my staff, and my weapon flew toward me. I wound toward Ingram. The staff reached my grasping hands. As I spun, I willed the ethereal clone to fade, bringing the full weight of the staff back where it belonged. My weapon knocked his elbow, as a blast erupted from its tip. Fire sprayed, but launched into the ceiling, raining sparks down the aisle.
Still holding my own gun, I took aim, but I pulled it quickly up as Lance sprang off his feet beside me. Lance speared himself directly into Ingram, even with his hands bound behind his back.
The brief tackle was enough to save my life. I hadn’t noticed that Ingram’s rings were glowing. When Lance’s shoulders jabbed into the man’s chest, a gust of hot flame sprayed inches from my shoulder.
Ingram recovered almost immediately, knocking Lance away with a flourish of his wand. Blue flame erupted from the tip of his wand. Ingram’s blast sent the elderly man flying down the aisle, where he bashed heavily against the bar. Lance’s shoulders slid across the slick countertop, and his forward momentum made him slide up and over. He landed on the opposite side, out of my sight.
Spinning back toward me, Ingram sent the same sort of flame my way, which I was able to duck under. It reverberated against the wall behind me.
The fear inside me erupted. The metal hilt of my gun felt foreign in my palm, but with actions guided entirely by fear, I pointed the barrel and shot three times.
Ingram bounded into one booth, hiding between the barrier of the seats. The only thing I was sure I hit was a bottle of liquor.
Out of sight now, I heard his high voice bellow through the empty room, over the screams of police sirens. “Gregory Scythe, I summon thee! Kill this man.”
My robe fluttered out in front of me as I readied myself for the paranormal attack.
The ghost of Gregory Scythe appeared in the center of the room. His ruffled hair clung to his sunken, blotchy face. He gazed dully at me, defiant, and with all the grace of a vulture.
“Give it up, Ingram,” I said as I focused my thoughts toward the ghost. Ingram’s the one you want. Go after him!
The rules of war quickly changed. This was no longer about flinging flame and force about. This was about willpower. Who wanted the ghost more? And after everything Ingram had put me through, death by his own spell seemed like a perfect fit to me. I had no doubt in me. True, I didn’t want to kill Ingram, but so long as Gregory Scythe was here, someone was bound do die. I sure as hell wouldn’t let that someone be me.
He may have been hiding in one of the booths, but it still felt to me like a battle between two cowboy gunslingers, standing face to face. I was simply the less cowardly of the two.
The ghost he summoned looked from me to Ingram, but his gaze was disheartened and distracted. All of his trademark anger was gone now, as though the ghost were merely tired. The once madman’s snarl was now merely a sedated glare. The ethereal blue sheen appeared dull and grainy. It was like watching a rerun through an old television. Somehow, the ghost had been defeated. Whereas in the past I could always see through the ghost, now I could hardly even see him.
Ingram winced as the ghost turned, but the blow was merely to his ego. If the ghost had been powerful, I’d have won that fight.
The room was suddenly encased in a full, white light. The police had arrived, and with each new car came a new spotlight. The sudden brightness was disorienting, and for a brief moment, all I could do was put up my hand before my eyes.
Ingram, however, was still hidden in his booth, below the streams of light. Swiftly using the advantaged, he leapt toward bar, grabbed a bottle of Vodka, and shattered it against the floor between us. A simple spell ignited it. Peering behind his half-wall, he didn’t bother converting the fire into anything else. He simply lifted the flame from the floor and let it grow like a living ball of hungry flame.
And so, the battle resumed.
One of his rings glowed as he ordered the floating flame forward. The ball of white-hot fire grew more intense as it approached. The sudden surge of heat forced me to react.
I know how to throw a fireball. It isn’t all that hard. Essentially, fire is simply an intense form of rapid oxidization. My staff has all the equations necessary pre-programmed in to throw a blowtorch flame out of the end.
Ingram, on the other hand knew fire, and in ways I’d never even imagined. The blue blasts he’d used earlier were flames so dense that they could pound things away as though they were a semi-solid force. He controlled fire as though it were a servant awaiting his orders.
There was one thing about fire that I did know – it requires a fuel to burn.
I flung his flame aside with a blast of force powered by heat. As the spells collided, my spell simply devoured the flame’s heat, but some random variable redirected the blast. Part of the spell spiraled randomly to the right, directly through the window. The glass shattered outwards with a flourish of maroon curtains. Another pelted heavily into the decorative mirror behind the bar, shattering it, while a third shot a hole through the booth directly beside me.
I ducked in fright, seeing the sweat on Ingram’s face as he sneered toward me. Yet the time for my fear had passed. I knew one simple fact. He failed. First, he failed to frame me, and now failed to kill me.
I arose slowly, holding my staff at my hip like Clint Eastwood would hold a shotgun. As I focused on keeping down the hatred toward this man, my mind was suddenly a full library of spells. One of my favorites came to mind, but I hesitated only to say, “It’s over, Ingram. Give up.”
The police bellowed at us again. Their spotlights made our shadows large on the left wall.
His answer was a focused ball of blue flame, which spewed out of his wand.
“Ventus Pulsis,” I bellowed.
But I knew that fire is that not all that dangerous without heat. Throwing out a wide, weak wave, it simply absorbed in any heat in its path. When the spells met, all the heat – all the power of his spell was absorbed into my own. It sped forward with a golden hue lining its shimmering surface.
Like a truck, the spell slammed solidly against anything in its path. Although Ingram leapt back between the booths, it simply didn’t matter. With the power of both of our spells combined, it shoved the entire seat backwards, trapping him between it and the bar.
Caught on the edge of the spell, he survived. The back wall of the bar, including the mirror, the beer taps, and the dozens of bottles of hard liquor, however, all evaporated on contact. Only solid construction kept the entire wall in place. For a brief moment, the back of that bar was an epic display of shattering glass, spraying liquids, and breaking counters.
Ingram’s wand had fallen limply into view. Using a cloned staff, I swept it out of his reach.
It’s over, I told myself. I’ve finally won.
I savored the second and took my time to walk over to Ingram, clunking my staff against the ground as I did. I slid my bare feet to avoid stepping on the glass. Halfway there he shoved the booth away from him, and struggled to get free. However, just as he was ready to scurry back toward his wand, I slapped my staff down front of him. It came down in the pool of Vodka, and droplets sprayed into his face. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you now.”
He looked up slowly, eyes wide like two grapefruits. Then he fumbled to a sitting position. “I–I’ll admit everything! I swear it!”
I still had a bad f
eeling, as though he still wasn’t ready to admit defeat. I stared into his frantic eyes.
“Just get out of here,” I said, pouring my anger out through my eyes.
He gave several jerky nods and pushed himself to his feet. I watched him leave, springing headlong out of the double doors, where he’d go right into police custody. The police sirens were still surrounding the room, and I knew that standing here, armed in their spotlights wouldn’t bode well. I dropped my staff, knowing that in a moment the place would be swarming, but I just took that moment to take a deep breath.
Several officers were already scurrying toward the door, where I figured they were going to meet him with a pair of handcuffs. The fight was over. Finally, I was out of the crosshairs. After a day as bad as this one, a police cell didn’t actually sound too bad. It wasn’t as though I had anywhere else to go. Leaning with my free hand against the toppled booth, I decided to simply bask in my victory before the police came with their cuffs.
That’s when the floor beneath my bare feet caught fire. Leaping backwards, Ingram was probably grinning now as he laid front-first on the ground. Just when I thought it was all over, I was in yet another burning building. Awesome.
But why? Why, after I’d clearly won? Surrounded by dozens of broken bottles, I watched in horror as the flames slowly wavered across the floor toward the bar.
Grinding my teeth, I backed up toward door, and thought, damn-it. Lance is still there! Damn-it. Damn-it.
Sure. Lance leaned heavily toward the evil side of the spectrum. However, he wasn’t necessarily the baddest of the bad. I couldn’t just let him just lie there as the flames consumed him. They were already licking the front of the bar. With my breath held, since the room was already growing foggy gray with black smoke, I sprang up and slid over the bar.
My feet screamed in agony when they planted down on the dozens of alcohol soaked, shattered bottles. The stinging made the insanely painful cuts put me on the verge of passing out. I focused on my goal.
Lance was still unconscious, so I grabbed him under his arms. My feet were stinging in agony.
“Get up!” I shouted, inches from his ear.
His head jerked lightly to the side, hardly conscious. With sluggish movements, I helped him to his feet.
The flames erupted on the top of the counter. Every now and then, another puddle of particularly potent alcohol ignited. The fire seemed to be doing a leapfrog toward me, ignoring the less flammable liquids.
I put my hands on my knees and took a breath of smoky air. Once again, my head went dizzy. “Lance! Get up!”
To my surprise, he jerked at his name. Within moments, he pushed himself up and hobbled to the broken window, leaving the establishment with his arms up.
I followed the best I could, shuffling through the broken glass as I walked around the counter. Even before I was outside, the officers swooped in around me, first to pull me out, then to hold me down. I grinned insanely as someone slapped a pair of cuffs on my wrist, simply happy to be alive. Ingram was pinned to the ground by a pair of cops, pleading to be let go.
To the cops, I was just some psychotic terrorist.
I’d beaten the bad guy. I’d saved the day. And here was my reward. A pair of handcuffs, and a small, barred room that would soon go with it. A threesome of men pulled me to my feet – one of them chanted off the Miranda Rights as they ushered me to the car.
Lance still looked amused, as he stared at me from inside a different police car.
Modern Pantheon: Ghost Page 24