by Dan Wingreen
“Lee—”
“You wanted a ‘somehow’.”
Aidan sighed softly in defeat. "Fine. But promise me you won't use it unless it's completely necessary. I'm talking last resort, surrounded, and there are eighty thousand deathbolts flying right at our head, necessary here."
"Don't worry," Lee said, heavy, oppressive shadows lurking behind his eyes. "I ain't doing this unless there's absolutely no choice."
That was exactly what Aidan wanted to hear.
So why don't I feel like that was supposed to reassure me?
◆◆◆
"Thanks," Aidan said as he took the tour badges from the lady behind the large desk in the tourism building next to the White House. She gave him a brilliant smile in return, like handing out passes was the highlight of her life.
"You're welcome, sweetheart. You enjoy the tour, now."
Aidan nodded, then spared one last smirk at the still lit candle as he turned away and left the building. After all these years, lighting the stupid candle was definitely worth the wait. It was even worth the ash currently staining the inside of his right pocket where the spell had burned up.
He walked over to one of the benches on the path leading up to the White House entrance. Lee was sitting there, staring up into the sky with a small smile on his face and looking like he was enjoying himself in the early afternoon sun.
Like an idiot enjoying himself. They were back in their tourist gear, plus Aidan's messenger bag, except this time Lee was the redhead and Aidan was the blond. They had different shirts too, but they were somehow even worse than the monstrosities Lee had bought the last time. Who in their right mind thought salmon went with azure?
Lee turned away from the sky as Aidan approached. He raised an eyebrow as he saw the badges.
"So, you lit your candle, then?" he asked wryly. "Was it everything you hoped it'd be?"
Aidan's lips twitched. "Better than sex."
Lee gasped, looking so legitimately affronted that Aidan couldn't help but laugh. "Better 'n sex he says. Just wait till I get your ass alone again, I'll show you better 'n sex."
Aidan flushed, half because part of him liked the idea and half because the couple walking by them heard and was giving them strange looks.
"Just…take it," Aidan said, shoving the badge at him. With a smirk and a small wave to the quickly departing couple—who also had tour badges, Aidan noted with a suppressed groan—Lee clipped it to the front of his shirt. Aidan did the same, once again trying and failing not to notice how similar it was to his old Wizard's License. It was just a piece of laminated paper with a transcribed picture of the White House on it, but it was spelled to count down the ninety minutes before it expired, the numbers ticking away in faint, glowing blue magic that reminded him too much of the way REVOKED had been emblazoned on his license.
"You ready?" Lee asked. His tone was light so nobody overhearing would think they were talking about anything but going on the tour, but his eyes and the set of his shoulders couldn't hide the fact he looked like a man about to go to war. Aidan almost laughed. He'd have preferred a war. At least in a war there would be more than two people on their side.
"Yeah," Aidan said with a nod, "I'm ready."
Lee nodded back. He got up off the bench and held out his hand. Aidan took it and then they were off. Just one more couple excited to visit the White House on their vacation.
The main tourist entrance was under a large, columned archway. They passed through the doors and Aidan tried to remember he was supposed to be awed. Inside was a large, open room filled with displays of historical information and stern-faced DMS agents, standing in front of doors that the tourists weren't supposed to enter. The ceiling was high, cutting through two floors, yet somehow it made the room feel stifling.
Aidan clutched the strap of his messenger bag, a ball of dread and nervous anticipation growing in the pit of his stomach. He held back a scowl. It hadn't felt like this the last time they were here. Last time you weren't here to attack the place either, idiot. It's too bad we don't believe in gods anymore because this would be a great time to make peace with one…
He shook himself out of his incredibly unhelpful thoughts as they approached the line in front of the security desk. After a surprisingly short wait, they were waved over by two of the dark-suited agents behind it. Lee was waved through after a glance at his badge, but the agent on the right held out his hand when Aidan went to follow him.
"Not you," he said, his green eyes startlingly pretty in a face that was anything but. "We need to check your bag."
Aidan nodded with what he hoped was casual impatience. They'd known this would happen and they'd prepared for it. Hopefully.
Here we go…
Aidan ducked under the strap as he pulled the bag off his shoulder and handed it to the agent. He opened it, then raised an eyebrow as he took out Aidan's two spell books and a few of the pens, which he put back with barely a glance. The agent skimmed through the newer book, but when he saw there was nothing but blank pages, he put it back as well. When he started to flip through the dark gray one, he furrowed his brow.
"What's this?" he asked, turning the book around and pointing to the single word on the first page. 'Word' being used in the loosest possibly way, of course. Aidan had seen more legible writing from three-year-olds. Even he could just barely make out what it said, and he had every single spell in that book memorized by now.
Time for the stupidest part of Lee's plan, then.
"Poetry," he said.
The agent stared at him. "Poetry," he repeated skeptically.
Aidan nodded and pasted an eager smile on his face. Just an idiot in an awful shirt happy that someone's asking about his art… "Yep," he said. "Every night before I go to bed, I write down one word that sums up how I felt that day."
The agent stared at him for so long it bordered on harassment. "Are you serious?"
"Oh yes," Aidan said, still smiling.
The agent stared at Aidan again, then shook his head slightly and went back to leafing through the book. Aidan tried not to twitch. Hopefully he couldn't make out any of the words, because Aidan was gonna have a hard time explaining some of those "feelings".
"Hey," the agent said, nudging the shoulder of the agent next to him. This one was tall and lanky, with short hair and a suit that hung off his frame.
"What?" Tall asked.
"Can you make this out?" Green Eyes asked, pointing to a word about halfway through the remaining pages of the book.
Tall glanced at the page, frowning. "Who wrote this, a child?"
Green Eyes nodded towards Aidan.
Aidan waved, his cheeks starting to ache with the strain of holding the smile.
Tall sighed. "Your handwriting is atrocious." He glanced back at the book. "Looks like it says 'smoke', though."
Shit.
Green Eyes looked at Aidan with a raised eyebrow. "You were feeling 'smoke'?"
Aidan nodded, frantically trying to think up a way to explain it. Don't worry about it, he said. Oh no one will ever read it, he said. They'll just wave you through, he said.
Stupid wrong sorcerer.
"Um, yeah," Aidan said, hoping he didn't hesitate too long. "I felt, you know, nebulous. Like…I was floating through life…without really affecting anything or having any significant, positive impact on society."
He nodded again, warming up to that. Definitely sounds arty, right?
"It's like I was—"
Green Eyes cut him off. "You felt like that a lot, apparently. These all look like the same word."
"Yes," Aidan said solemnly. "Yes, I felt that way a lot."
Green Eyes stared at him again. Aidan fought the urge to run or yell at him or something equally stupid. Instead, he devoted all his energy towards convincing himself there was no way their plan could fall apart this fucking soon.
After an eternity, Green Eyes shrugged. "What about this one?" he asked Tall.
He squinted. "Looks like�
�'fire'."
They both booked at Aidan expectantly.
"Passionate. I felt like I'd seized the day," he said with a small fist pump. "Like I was on fire and everything I tried to do I did and was great at it." He nodded. "Yeah. Fire days are great…"
"Uh…huh," Green Eyes said slowly. "And this?"
"Shield," Tall said.
They looked at Aidan again.
"Um, when I feel like I protected someone. Like, when I helped an old lady carry her groceries and protected her from overbalancing, or when I pet a dog and protected it from feeling unloved…"
They looked back at the book.
"Force?" Tall asked.
"When I feel like I plowed through an obstacle."
"Sleep?"
"Some days are really boring."
"Cut?"
"Sometimes the darkness feels overwhelming."
"Wind?"
"When I feel like, um"—Aidan drew a blank—"blowing."
They glanced at each other, then shot speculative looks towards Lee.
Just arrest me now. Aidan closed his eyes.
"Right," Green Eyes said after a few seconds of increasingly awkward silence. He closed the book with a loud snap and Aidan's eyes shot open. "You, uh, have quite a bit of wind in here."
Aidan nodded, flushing horribly and wishing he was back in the cave surrounded by rotting undead. Anything would be better than this.
"Okay, then," Green Eyes said. He put Aidan's book back in the bag as well. Tall smirked, then turned away when another agent to his left waved him over. "I think we're done here."
Aidan almost collapsed with relief. Oh, thank Merlin!
Green Eyes handed the bag to Aidan, but held onto it for a moment when Aidan tried to grab it back.
"So," he asked. "How do you think you're feeling today?"
Aidan blinked. "Um, it's too early to tell…" he mumbled.
Although "deathbolt" is sounding pretty good so far…
Green Eyes seemed disappointed, but he let go of the bag. "Well. Enjoy your tour."
He waved Aidan through and turned to the next person in line.
Aidan clutched his bag and scurried through the turnstile and over to Lee.
"So—"
"They won't ask, huh?" Aidan snapped.
"I—"
"Not a fucking word," Aidan ground out.
Lee wisely shut his mouth.
Aidan was still fuming when they made their way over to the area where the tour groups gathered. There were about fifteen people with outfits that were varying degrees of horrible, milling around together in the blue-taped off area waiting for the tour guide to show up; a little less than half the people that had been on their last tour. That was also part of their plan, one that, thankfully, seemed to be working out a bit better. They went for the third tour of the day, the noon tour, hoping most people would be at lunch. They’d been right. There were just enough people in their group that they could remain somewhat anonymous, but hopefully not so many that they’d get injured, or worse, when the rest of the plan kicked into gear.
Of course, there was no real way to guarantee that no one would get hurt. They’d done their best to limit what Lee called “civilian casualties”, but even Aidan knew that all the planning in the world meant nothing once spells started flying. Surrounded by the expectant smiles and excited chatter of clueless vacationers who might not survive the next hour, Aidan’s anger faded.
"Tell me again this is worth it," Aidan said under his breath.
For a moment, he didn't think Lee heard him. He was trying to decide if he could ask again any louder without anyone else overhearing when he felt two fingers lightly brush his wrist. He glanced up.
"It's worth it," Lee said, without a hint of doubt.
I hope you're right.
After that, Aidan buried his fears as best he could. He still made a point not to look too closely at the faces of anyone in the group, though.
Two more people showed up before the tour began. One of them was the guide, a man named Phil who smiled way too much and sounded way too happy as he launched into what Aidan quickly realized was the exact same speech, word for word, their last tour guide had given them. Just like last time, as grating as it was, it made it easier for Aidan to keep his mind on what he was supposed to do without getting distracted.
His heart was pounding in his chest as they rounded a corner and entered a long, narrow hallway that ran nearly half the length of the entire White House with several locked and guarded doors along the wall on both sides. It was the hall that connected the Washington Gallery with the wing of the White House that held the infamous Longstreet bedroom, where two hundred years ago the Prime Minister of the same name had gone crazy and magically sealed himself inside for weeks until he starved to death; as far as anyone could tell, at least, since the magic had somehow held up and no one had been able to get inside the room since.
Phil had just started telling the Longstreet story, one of the few bits of the tour that was actually entertaining, when Lee brushed Aidan's hand again, making him jump. They'd slowly, over the course of the tour, drifted to the back of the group so no one had noticed, but he still shot Lee a glare. The sorcerer ignored it and gave Aidan a small nod. Aidan took a deep breath and gave a shaky nod back.
It was time.
He slid his hand into his messenger bag, tore off the first page in his battered spell book and prepared to commit his first official act of 'terrorism'.
"Smoke," he murmured softly, concentrating on what he wanted to happen as he felt the page turn to ash in his hand.
It didn't take long. Dark grayish black smoke poured out from the gaps under every door in the narrow hall. The DMS agents guarding them cried out in surprise, then started coughing as the smoke quickly filled the whole corridor.
When Aidan had been practicing in the carriage, he'd discovered that, after he cast a spell, he could direct it for a short time before he started to lose control of his magic. He did that now, pushing the smoke right up to the end of the hallway on both sides and holding it there. There were panicked cries and shouted questions from the tour group, along with one shriek Aidan absently thought might have been Phil.
Lee grabbed hold of Aidan's arm and dragged him back so they were pressed up against the wall. The smoke was thick and dark, filling the entire hallway like a mist of floating ink. He could barely see anything more than a foot or two in front of him, even though he was holding most of the smoke away from them. There were a few indistinct shapes running by, and Aidan winced as one of them ran into the wall with a sickening squish that he really hoped wasn't a nose being crushed. Whoever it was shrieked in pain, which was answered by screams of panic and shouted questions about fire and louder shouts to "stay calm and don't move", presumably from the agents.
While all this was going on, Lee cast spells of his own. With four abrupt gestures he sent four tiny balls of light up and into the smoke. Aidan lost track of them almost immediately, but knew they were latching onto the ceiling in different areas. He knew when each one landed, because a corresponding light blinked into existence on Lee's wrist. When all four were set, Aidan pulled out another smoke spell and cast it under his breath, setting it to slightly lower the opacity while holding the smoke firmly within the confines of the hallway, and so it would tug at his magic when it was about to run out. As it set, he could feel one of the faster thinking DMS agents trying to use magic to summon wind and blow the smoke away. He allowed himself a small, satisfied smirk when it only stirred the air, making it even harder to see.
Rock beats scissors, water beats fire, wizard beats sorcerer…
"You ready?" Lee asked him with an excited grin.
"I can't believe you're already having fun," Aidan muttered.
Lee nudged him with his shoulder. "You're having fun, too," he teased.
Aidan loftily ignored him. "I'm ready."
Lee smirked, but nodded. "Okay then." Mischief danced in his eyes as he grin
ned again. "Let's invade America."
Aidan shook his head as he fished the spell book out of his bag and flipped to the right page. He wondered how long it would take someone to notice the smoke was more like a thick, dark fog than actual smoke; it made it hard to see, but didn't make the eyes water or make it difficult to breathe, aside from a bit of coughing. Or that it was slowly becoming easier to see through; not much, just enough so people could see a bit further down the hall while still being able to make out nothing more than indistinct shapes. Pretty damn good for someone who couldn't use magic two weeks ago. Pride filled him. He tore off the spell and gave Lee another nod.
"Shields," he said under his breath.
Three completely opaque, oval-shaped, man-sized shields sprang to life at the end of the corridor they'd entered the hall from. Even with the lightening of the smoke, he couldn't see them, but he knew the agents at that end of the hall could. Just like they were supposed to. This was the only part he wasn't sure he could pull off. They'd tried it out the best they could at the hotel, but their room was much smaller than the hallway and he'd never been too sure of his control at a distance where he couldn't see the shields.
Please don't fuck this up.
Slowly, he started to move the shields down the hallway at roughly the same speed a person would walk.
He didn't need to worry. As soon as they started moving, Aidan found he could feel them faintly through the smoke the same way he’d felt the wind from the agent before. He let out a shaky, relieved laugh. "Okay," he said to Lee, "Your turn."
With yet another grin and a completely unnecessary flourish from Lee, Aidan felt three more shields pop into existence at the opposite end of the hall and begin to 'walk' down it.
"What's going on?" someone yelled.
"Are those people?" another person asked.
"Bloody rude not to answer, don't you think?" Lee asked. Before Aidan could say anything, not that he planned to, Lee placed his finger on the leftmost light on his wrist. "We're here for the Prime Minister!" he yelled. Instead of coming out of his mouth, though, his voice came from all the way down the hall where Aidan's shields were slowly advancing. Coincidentally, those shields were also right by a tiny little light in the ceiling no one seemed to notice. "Get on the floor and stay out of our way and nobody else will get hurt!"