by Dan Wingreen
"Well, that definitely don’t seem too fair, then," he said, completely ignoring the not-so-veiled threat. "How about a new game? Somethin’ a bit fair for everyone." He winked at Beer Gut. "So, obviously not any kind of eating contest."
"Oh, I think we've had entirely too much of you," Beer Gut drawled, then, almost faster than Aidan could blink, his arm snapped up and a crackling bolt of purple lightning shot out of his hand right towards the man in black.
Aidan gasped. He'd never seen a deathbolt before. Not in person anyway. When he was being trained to keep his magic under control by the DMS, one of the classes he had to take was about recognizing restricted magic so he could report it if he saw it used by anyone who wasn't a government official. The deathbolt was one of the first spells he'd been taught to recognize. He must have watched a dozen different crystal ball recordings of it, but he never thought he'd actually see someone use it.
It was a nasty spell. It didn't matter where the actual bolt hit, as long as it touched any part of a person, it was instantly absorbed and traveled straight to the chest, where it turned white hot and burned the victim's heart to dust right there in his ribcage. The horrible part was that a person could supposedly feel it traveling through their body like a thousand tiny, burning knives on the way to the heart. Some of the more sadistic murderers were known to purposely cast it at their victims' feet, so they'd feel it going through their whole body before they died. Aidan felt sick at the thought of seeing someone die like that right in front of him.
The man never even moved, just stood there calmly as the bolt flew towards his head—
And struck a magical shield less than a foot in front of his face. The shield crackled and glowed blue where the bolt struck, then absorbed it and turned invisible again.
"Right," the man said. All the cheerfulness was gone from his voice, but the smile never wavered. "If that's the game your wantin’ to play."
Beer Gut snarled. "You're not a wizard."
The man shrugged. "Not illegal for a sorcerer to walk through a Wizard Town, is it? Not that I'd be caring much if it were."
"You're a terrorist," Barnes said.
"Am I now?" the man asked. "Well, news to me."
"Leave the wizard," Beer Gut snapped at Barnes. "Kill the rogue."
"With pleasure," Barnes said, licking his lips. His hand dropped away from Aidan and the flames disappeared.
Aidan let out a breath and tensed to run, but Barnes flicked his fingers and two arcs of light shot towards his wrists and, like manacles, pinned them to the stone wall.
"Don't move, doggie. We'll get back to you in a minute." Barnes smirked, then turned away.
"Shit!" Aidan hissed. He struggled against the magical bindings, but they were strong. He slumped against the wall, his hair falling in front of his eyes. So much for escaping.
The two officers circled slowly around the strange man, stalking him. The man never moved or gave any hint he was even the tiniest bit concerned.
Insane then. Definitely insane. If Aidan could make a shield that strong, he'd be halfway down the street by now. Of course, if Aidan had magic he could use, he wouldn't be in this situation, stuck to a wall and waiting for a crazy man to do… What, exactly? Was he seriously hoping this crazy man would hurt police officers? What do I even want to happen here? He had no idea. He only wanted to be someplace else when it happened.
Beer Gut held his hands slightly away from his sides as they crackled with purple energy. Directly across from him and behind the man, Barnes' hands erupted in flames.
"Don't miss," the man in black said.
As if that was the signal they'd been waiting for, the cops raised their hands simultaneously and unleashed the full force of their magic.
Purple deathbolts flew from Beer Gut's hands one after another, striking the man's shield with loud cracks and pops. A steady stream of fire shot out from Barnes' hands and spread along the back of the shield like a horde of starving cats swarming over a wounded bird. Barnes laughed as the shield was covered in flames.
Aidan squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw against the heat and the noise, hoping it would be over before he caught fire, too. He'd never felt such heat, and he was still a good thirty feet, at least, from the fight. He had no idea how the man could survive. Surely even the strongest shield couldn't block out so much raw fire and energy? And even if it did, he had to be roasting alive in there.
Suddenly, after what seemed like a small eternity to Aidan, the roar of flame and magic stopped.
The air around Aidan was still uncomfortably hot, and his face felt slightly singed, but he let out a breath of relief. Short lived relief though, since, unless both officers had passed out from using too much magic, he was still due a hand burning. Aidan chewed on his lip. He didn't want to open his eyes and see the blackened corpse of the man who had stupidly tried to save him.
Did he try to save me? Or was he just a crazy man doing something crazy?
Either way, Aidan didn't want to see him dead. He'd keep his eyes closed until Barnes came back and finished his cruel work, then, since he couldn't go to a wizard's clinic without his license, Aidan would drag himself home and hope he didn't die from his wounds. As plans went, it was pretty terrible, but it wasn't like he had a lot of room to be creative.
Except… He started to realize there were no sounds at all. No footsteps walking towards him, no more laughter from Barnes, no scoffing remarks from Beer Gut. Just silence. Maybe…they really did pass out? He guessed it wasn't impossible. Except he was still shackled to the wall, so Barnes, at least, had to be conscious. So, why couldn't he hear anything?
After another few seconds, his curiosity got the better of him, and Aidan slowly opened his eyes.
No…way…
The cops hadn't passed out. They were staring slack-jawed at a bright white, perfectly intact magical shield in the middle of the street. The cobblestones all around one side of it was scorched and singed, but the shield itself looked pristine. As Aidan watched, the white slowly faded to the usual soft blue and then disappeared entirely. The man inside, whole and not even slightly mussed, grinned.
"So," he said, cocking his head, "that would be it, then?"
"Impossible," Beer Gut whispered.
The man nodded. "Right, then. Guess it's my go."
His right hand snapped up, palm out, and a short blue bolt of magic shot out and hit Beer Gut in the middle of the chest. He flew through the air and came crashing face down on the sidewalk near Aidan. Almost immediately after Beer Gut had left the ground, the man spun around with catlike grace, crouched down, and shot an underhand bolt at Barnes, who went flying in the other direction. Neither one so much as twitched after they landed.
The man stood up fluidly and looked around, then smiled.
"Well," he said, the cheerfulness back in his voice. "Guess this means I win."
The man raised his arms and stretched to the left, then the right, then lowered his arms and quickly shook his head back and forth a few times. "Bleh, bloody hate when it goes white like that," he said. "Always feel like I haven't slept in a week afterward."
He didn't look like he was tired though. If anything, he seemed more animated now than he had since he first walked out of the alley. He jogged over to Barnes' body with "pep in his step", as Aidan's grandfather used to say, then knelt down and…did something. Aidan couldn't see but he thought maybe he was going through the officers' pockets. After a few seconds, the man stood up, snapped his fingers, and Barnes' body started floating behind him as he jogged over towards Aidan. The man gave him a quick, almost self-conscious smile.
"Just a tick," he said.
He knelt down next to Beer Gut's body, and Barnes slowly floated down and rested gently on the sidewalk in front of Aidan. The man started going through Beer Gut's pockets too.
"I always liked that saying, 'just a tick'. No idea why. Just fun to say, I guess. You lot never really say it over here though, so I always get a few odd looks when
I use it. Kinda ruins the enjoyment, you know? I—shit, this one's heavier than he looks—I hate havin’ people gimme looks when they should be listening." He grunted loudly and struggled to turn Beer Gut's body over on its back. "There we go!" He grinned and started going through the pockets on the front of his uniform.
"Ah! Got it!" The main hopped up and grinned. He turned and held Aidan's Wizard License out to him. "Here you go. Not even singed."
Aidan made no move to take it. He just stared at the man in fascinated horror.
"You…you killed them," he said quietly.
The man opened his mouth. Then paused. He closed it, then cocked his head. "I what now?"
"You killed them!" Oh, sweet Merlin, he really did kill them! They're dead. He just killed two police officers right in front of me. I don't even…how do I even… Oh shit, this makes me an accessory doesn't it? An accessory to murder. He's a murderer. No! He's a terrorist… No! He's both. Oh…oh no, I think I'm maybe definitely probably going to throw up now.
Aidan started coughing. He bent over and put his hands on his knees, realizing suddenly he wasn't shackled to the wall anymore. Of course, I'm not shackled to the wall anymore; the cop who cast the spell is fucking dead!
Aidan’s coughing turned to dry heaving
"Are…you okay?" the man asked.
Aidan swallowed back another heave and glared at the man. "Of course I'm not okay. You just killed two cops right in front of me!"
The man's jaw dropped open, and he shook his head in disbelief. "Did you maybe miss the part where they were going to torture you and then walk off with your license?"
"No, I didn't miss anything. I was right there for that." He pointed at the wall. "I was also right there for your…your…your…murder spree!"
"Spree? Are you daft? In what world does killing two people suddenly count as a murder spree?"
Aidan swallowed one last cough and stood up straight, practically vibrating with tension and anger. "How do I know they were your first victims? You're a murdering killer terrorist. You could have killed a hundred people before you killed them."
The man put his hands on his hips and glared right back at Aidan. "Or maybe I didn't kill anybody, because I just knocked 'em unconscious! Did you ever think of that before you started slingin' around words like 'terrorist' and 'murder spree'?"
"Of course not! Because you…I…you didn't…" Aidan trailed off. What? He glanced at the bodies. They sure looked dead. Of course they do. They're bodies. Bodies look dead because they're dead. He's just lying. For some reason. Terrorists do that. They lie. And go on murder sprees. And then lie about it. "You're lying."
The man rolled his eyes and stepped back, gesturing at the dead officers. "Go check," he said.
Aidan glanced at the bodies again then looked back to the man. He just stood there, obviously annoyed but somehow also infinitely patient. Like he could stay there all night, waiting for Aidan to make up his mind about what to do. He chewed his lip again, suddenly less sure about the man's "terrorist on a murder spree" credentials than he was a second ago. Surely if they were dead, he wouldn't just let Aidan find out for sure. Not if he was trying to convince him otherwise, right? Unless he was waiting for Aidan to lower his guard so he could kill him.
"You'll just kill me when I walk by you," Aidan said. Or maybe he asked it. He wasn't really sure.
"No offense, wizard, but if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't need to distract you first," the man said.
Aidan blinked a few times. That…made perfect sense, actually. "Right… Yeah. Um… Okay then." He took a deep breath. "I'll just…go touch the dead bodies then."
He slowly walked by the man in black, shooting him furtive little glances as he passed. He didn't do anything remotely threatening, didn't even move, but Aidan still let out a tiny breath of relief when he got by unscathed.
I'm past him now. My apartment's right down the street; I should make a run for it. Except, the man took down two trained officers in less time than it took to say it. Aidan didn't think having a two-second head start would save him if the guy really wanted to kill Aidan. Even more than that, though, Aidan wanted to know if the man was telling the truth or not. He wasn't really thinking about being an accessory anymore, though he should have been, since accessory to murder and accessory to assault of an officer probably didn't hold very different punishments for a wizard. He was…curious.
I'm not scared of him, he realized suddenly. Why am I not scared of him?
He reached the bodies and stopped. They certainly looked dead. Their eyes were closed, and Barnes' mouth was open, the tongue hanging out. All he needed were little Xs over his eyes, and he'd look exactly like the dead traitors in the Adventures of Agent Arthur comic scrolls Aidan had read as a boy. He slowly knelt next to them, took a deep breath, then tentatively placed his hand on Barnes' chest.
Aidan tensed, half expecting Barnes to suddenly wake up and start burning his hand off. He didn't even move though. Not an inch. Except for a shallow rising and lowering of his chest.
He's alive! He quickly checked Beer Gut. He was breathing, too. They're both alive.
He waited for the relief to come. Strangely, though, it didn't. Instead he felt…scared.
Why am I scared? He stood up and took a few quick steps away from them. Why am I scared of them and not the guy I thought killed them? Why was I never scared of him?
Because he wasn't. Even when Aidan thought the man had killed the cops, he wasn't scared. Angry and appalled? Definitely. But not scared.
And Aidan should have been afraid of him. He should have been terrified. He obviously had some pretty powerful magic, not to mention the "spin and crouch" move looked like something a trained combat sorcerer would use, and whether he killed them or not, the man had attacked two police officers. Legally appointed government officials. Aidan had an entire upbringing and a whole life of lessons and common sense telling him it was wrong. That nobody but bad people would ever attack an officer of the law. That nobody but bad people had to be afraid of police officers.
But Aidan was.
He wasn't a bad person. He wasn't a traitor or a terrorist or an anarchist or a siphon or any other kind of troublemaker. So, why did they go after Aidan?
He shook his head. It was too much. Too much to process. Too much to think about. He absently noticed his back was pressed up against a wall again, and he slumped against it before sliding down until he was sitting on the cold sidewalk.
I'm ruining a good pair of pants.
Whatever.
He heard footsteps coming closer. He glanced up when the man stopped in front of him and crouched down. His slate gray eyes were right in front of Aidan's and he couldn't decide if he liked them or not. He frowned, wondering why he cared either way.
"So, exactly how dead were they?" the man asked, smirking.
Aidan scowled. "Don't be smug."
The man laughed. "I think I've earned a bit of smugness. You did call me a mass murderin’ terrorist after all."
Aidan huffed. "I…might have been wrong about at least some of that."
"Just some?" The man raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I dunno." Aidan wrapped his arms around his chest.
"You 'dunno'?" the man asked. "Is that what passes for an apology ‘round here?"
Aidan narrowed his eyes. "Fine, you didn't kill anyone. But you still attacked two cops. That sounds pretty terrorist-y to me."
The man sighed. "I did it to save you, by the way. And how do you rationalize that? Two cops attackin’ an innocent wizard out of nowhere; tryin' to burn his hand off. Unless you did something to deserve it, of course."
"I put trash on the ground," Aidan muttered. He realized it was a stupid defense even as he wondered why he was trying to defend the people who attacked him.
"You…littered?" the man asked.
"I didn't litter," Aidan protested. "I just put it down to wipe my hands off. I was gonna pick it back up—" Aidan bit off the rest of what he was going t
o say when he noticed the man's face turning slightly red. "What?"
The laughter the man was obviously holding back burst out.
"What?" Aidan asked again, flushing slightly.
"Nothing. You just… you're so…" He shook his head. "I was gonna pick it up," he mocked then started laughing again.
"Well, I was!" Aidan glared at him.
The man just laughed harder. "Sorry," he said after getting himself under control. "But don't you think they overreacted just a wee bit with the burnin’ your hand off for not-littering?"
Aidan sighed, and his cheeks cooled down. He hugged himself tighter and looked at the ground. "They didn't even…they burned the garbage," he said quietly. "It was just an excuse."
"Exactly," the man said. "They were lookin’ for someone to hurt and abuse. So maybe the guy who saved said someone from said hurt and abuse deserves a thank you instead of havin' accusations and pejoratives slung at him, don't ya think?"
Aidan bit back a few choice "pejoratives and accusations" which came to mind. The man was right. Everything Aidan knew said he should be wrong and he was still right. Cops didn't act like that though!
"Maybe…" Aidan started tentatively. "They weren't cops? They could have killed real cops and stolen their uniforms." Okay, so he'd already rejected that earlier, but if he was wrong about the man being a killer, Aidan could be wrong about that too, right?
The man sighed. "It's possible. But I've seen them out around here every night for the past week just patrollin’ and checkin’ licenses and doing normal cop stuff. So, unless they killed two cops and then decided to do their jobs for them until they got bored and found some random someone to torture, I'd say they were probably the real thing. No matter how much you wish they weren't."
Aidan let out a frustrated breath. He decided not to think about it. It was too…wrong, like the thought of making out with a relative, and it was kind of messing with Aidan's whole world view. He could try to rationalize it later. Right now, he needed something else to focus on.