by Tao Wong
Alexa ignored my mutterings, focused as she was on our trek within the forest. Thankfully, there seemed to be an often-used deer track here, which we presumed had been used by Corey too. In either case, at one point, Alexa even stopped to point out a relatively clear footprint embedded in dried mud.
“It rained, what, last night?” I inquired out loud and got a nod from Alexa. With some indication we were on the right track, the pair of us sped up.
Forty minutes later, slightly out of breath, Alexa raised her hand and stopped me from stepping into the clearing. I frowned, the fading light of day making it hard to see within the forest. “What?”
“Light Ball, inside the clearing please,” Alexa said simply, her spear casually leveled toward it. Rather than ask why, I muttered the words for the spell and made a Light Ball blossom within, pumping a small amount of mana in it but keeping a tether to it just in case.
Light Ball Cast
Synchronicity 94%
Efficiency 82%
The light blossomed, shedding a gentle yellow light that filled the clearing and cast back shadows. As the light reached upward, my gaze was attracted to minor movement that set leaves shivering and branches bouncing.
“Whaaat?”
“Shhhhh,” Alexa hissed and then took a step backward. When she realized I hadn’t followed her lead, she hissed. “Back.”
“But—”
“Giant spiders,” Alexa said softly. “If he’s been caught, he’s dead.”
“That’s not right,” I said but followed her lead, backing off. I proceeded to pre-cast Fireball in my mind, building up the spell formulas while I had time. “In Lord of the Rings—”
“Not a book,” Alexa said, cutting me off. “And Corey’s not a full-blood troll. His regeneration is probably only twice or thrice as efficient as yours. He’s dead. Or so close, he might as well be.”
“You can’t know that,” I said, coming to a stop and growling softly. The Fireball formed in my mind, ready to be used, while I tied off the Light Ball and began dual-casting a Force Spear.
“No. I can’t. But I’m not risking our lives for a dead troll,” Alexa said.
“But…” I paused, then realized something. “He’s alive. He has to be, or else his blood wouldn’t be working as strongly.”
My words made Alexa pause for a second before she shook her head, waving me backward. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not our responsibility.”
“It’s our fault he was looking for those mushrooms,” I said, spreading my feet. “And I don’t understand why you’re refusing to help.”
“Because he’s a troll,” Alexa hissed while scanning the treetops around us, her spear held in both hands.
“Who’s got wives and kids. A family,” I said. “Who worked for us, talked to us. Hell, even shared his snacks with us.”
“Lower your voice!” Alexa snarled softly.
“Yes, do shut up!”
“I won’t—” I paused, my brain catching up finally. Eyes wide, I turned toward where the third voice had erupted from and blinked. “Corey?”
“Yes. While it was nice to hear you defending me, your friend is right. We should go,” Corey said, limping out from the undergrowth where the camo-clad troll with his grey skin was easier to see. I absently noted he had a bag hanging from his shoulder.
“Incoming!” Alexa snarled and side-stepped suddenly, allowing the dropping spider to miss her and fall to hang between the two of us. While she did so, she struck out and stabbed a second spider. On instinct, I released my first held spell, the Fireball smashing into the large spider and burning through its skin, sending it shaking and twisting in the air. With an abrupt, strangled shriek/squeak, it dropped the rest of the way to the ground even as its body burned from within.
“Die!” I snarled and football-kicked the small-dog-sized spider away. In passing, I absently noted the monster had red spots on its back and big, big fangs. Fangs? No, different word. I didn’t have time to care. As it skidded among the dry leaves, creating a mini-tsunami of discarded vegetation, I followed up my attack with my Force Spear, pinning and killing the creature.
“Time to go!” Alexa said, having extracted her spear and now using it as a bat. As the loud, skittering noises and the rustling of the branches increased, I started backing off at speed, Force Balls conjuring beside me. As spiders dropped toward us, I fired my spell effects at the large arachnids, battering them away.
Of course, the only negative of that was since they were falling on their threads, physics eventually had its way and swung the damn monsters back toward us. After the second swinging spider nearly took me in the chest, I really sped moving backward. Thankfully, the spiders weren’t willing to follow us too far from their nest. Either that or the accumulated losses from Alexa’s and my repeated attacks finally made them give up.
“Where’s Corey?” I asked after we had backed off another twenty feet from the point where we last saw the spiders stop. I received a shrug in reply from Alexa, and my eyes narrowed. A quick fumble and check and I realized the needle was now pointing back the way we came.
When we finally made it back to the car, we found Corey leaning against it, a cigarette between his lips.
“You left us!” I said, waving my hands.
“I did,” Corey admitted unashamedly.
“We came looking for you!” I said heatedly.
“And it was real nice.” Corey nodded. “But I didn’t ask you to. And it wasn’t me who was busy attracting the spiders. If you’d been quiet, I would have been able to sneak back out.”
“Sneak?”
Corey nodded, patting his bag. “Blood blossom spider eggs. Worth a pretty penny, but their parents are very territorial. Took me days to get in and out.”
While I fumed, Alexa pointed at the bag, her voice cool. “And the mushrooms?”
“Got them too. Four more. You want to take them here or for me to drop them off at your place?”
“We’ll take them here,” Alexa said, and Corey nodded, pulling the bag off his shoulder.
As he rummaged within, he continued. “Going to need another set of batteries. Pulled the ones you gave me out while I was working, but I’m down to one recharge.”
I growled and jerked slightly, but Alexa tugged on the backpack over my shoulders. I reluctantly gave it up and watched as Alexa fished the mana batteries out, receiving the Wynn mushrooms as well as the now-defunct batteries from the troll. After confirming our next appointment, we left, leaving the troll to head back home by himself. A part of me—the nice, polite part—wanted to offer the troll a ride back. However, the grumpy, hurt, and bewildered portion won, and I stayed silent till we were back on the highway.
“How can you be so, so, blasé about that?” I asked with a slight snarl.
“He was right. He didn’t ask us to rescue him,” Alexa said with a shrug. “And he still got us another four mushrooms.”
“But he left us to die!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. It was just a nest of blood blossom spiders. At worst, you could have burned the trees and really scared them off,” Alexa said, lips parting. “Of course, I’m glad we didn’t start a forest fire, but we were never really in danger.”
“But—”
“Henry,” Alexa said, using my name to catch my attention as she drove. “He’s a troll. You’re a mage. I’m a Templar. We have a nice, simple business arrangement. Stop trying to make it more than it is.”
“Why’d you even agree to go looking for him if you didn’t give a damn?” I asked.
“He has your compass and mana-battery system,” Alexa said. “It’s not exactly impossible for him to find someone else to recharge the batteries, is it?”
“No,” I admitted and then frowned at the Templar. “So, that’s it? You decided to follow up to make sure we got my gear back?”
“And take any mushrooms he had collected. And the breakage fee for the contract,” Alexa added.
I crossed my arms and growle
d slightly, glaring at Alexa as my irritation grew. Gah. These, these… supes. They were all callous, annoying idiots. Business deal. I growled, falling silent as Lily’s reminder resounded in my mind. As much as I sometimes thought I knew Alexa, I also had a tendency to forget that the same woman who snored in her sleep and had to be taught what Cowboy Bebop was was also a cold-blooded killer of supernaturals.
Perhaps… perhaps helping her complete her quest might not be the best idea there was. Lost in thought, I fell silent as we drove the rest of the way home.
Chapter 15
“You seem troubled today,” Caleb said to me after my latest ritual attempt fizzled out, breaking at a baker’s dozen of points. I prodded at the spell formulas, irritation coursing through me as I realized I had literally just looked at these lines.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“No. You’re in the twenty-third dimension, the elemental plane of metal and Kuala Lumpur,” Caleb said, tapping the ritual. “Or your summon would be at least. And maybe portions in Johannesburg.”
“Fine.” I leaned back and crossed my arms while staring at the older mage. He returned my glare calmly until I broke. “I had an argument with Alexa.”
“If this is a relationship issue, you may leave now,” Caleb said.
“Of course not!” I said. “It’s just, she treats the supernaturals like they’re not, you know, human. And I can’t help but think, well, does she think of me like that? Should I be helping her?”
“And you believe supernaturals to be human like you,” Caleb said simply.
“Well, not exactly like me,” I said slowly. “But the races, they’re sentient. Good.”
“Some. Some are very similar to us. Others have strange beliefs and rituals, biology that requires different things. The vampires and their need for blood, lycanthropes who lock themselves away every twenty-eight days, the ghouls who must eat corpses to survive,” Caleb said. “The Templars have good reason to treat each race coldly. There is a long history of each race preying upon humanity.”
“But they’re not doing that now,” I said stubbornly.
“True. Modern society and overpopulation have allowed many races to live in relative peace with humanity. Resources are significantly more abundant,” Caleb said. “But even if as a percentage the number of malcontents has dropped, the increase in all populations has seen a total increase in attacks. Add the slowly decreasing number of Templars as years of continued secrecy take their toll, and you begin to see how they have taken a harder line.”
“But she wasn’t like that earlier!” I said, crossing my hands.
“Really?”
I opened my mouth to retort but closed it, and my brain began the slow process of evaluating all the things Alexa had ever done. We’d worked a ton of quests together, but I recalled how she almost always pushed for the harder ones, the extermination quests. Almost always monsters, almost always creatures who were, without a doubt, something that needed killing. Even when we took on more mundane tasks, she never really interacted socially with our employers. Oh, she was cordial and polite, but she never tried to find out about their lives, never asked how they were doing.
“Huh.”
“You object to Ms. Dumough’s attitude, but have you considered that your own might be a product of your advantages?” Caleb said.
“My advantages?” I asked.
“Unlike most, you are protected.” Caleb pointed to the ring on my finger, the object of magical import. “You cannot make a mistake that will see your instantaneous death. Creatures of true power are barred from attacking you, leaving you to contend with only the lowest, and those offer you the respect and wariness that is your due as a mage. Few would turn away a closer relationship with a powerful mage.”
“You’re saying they’re friendly because I could be useful?” I asked, somewhat hurt by the implication. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular at school, being Asian and a nerd, but I wasn’t exactly unpopular either. I just had my own friends. I thought it was just a case of finding more people who were like me, like a giant convention.
“Somewhat,” Caleb said. “Your power is useful, but Ms. Dumough on the other hand represents a power that has hunted and will hunt them down. Offering a business arrangement, an impersonal mien, while dealing with supernatural races allows all parties to grasp and operate on a comfortable footing.”
“So she might want to be friends but doesn’t know how?” I asked slowly.
“I will not speculate on her feelings, but she has good reason to be wary of the races,” Caleb said. “And they, of her. As would you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. That I knew. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been warned that at the end of the day, my “friend” was going to demand my ring at some point, which left me wondering, once again, if I should perhaps not help her. But I knew too the Templars would just replace her, probably with someone else, someone who might not be “fated” to be here but who was less friendly.
And in the end, I did consider Alexa my friend. Even if she didn’t, me.
“If we are done, let us review the ritual you have been working on,” Caleb said, tapping the table to bring my attention back to him. I sighed but nodded, focusing on the ritual. It wasn’t going to draw itself.
Later that day, I stumbled back into our house, notebook filled with scribbled notes about the ritual and other aspects of rituals. Lunch was a hurried affair, Alexa almost dragging me off my seat as I finished my noodles.
“Okay already. I’m coming,” I grumped at her, shrugging my coat on and grabbing my trusty backpack. “It’s not as if the ritual is going to break right this second.”
“But the contractors are arriving today,” Alexa said, “and they want to speak with you.”
“Contractors?”
“The supernatural ones you insisted we hire,” Alexa said, ushering me into the car. Within seconds, she had pulled away from the curb and merged with traffic, her fingers drumming on the steering wheel.
“Oh, those. Glad you all finally decided to be smart about it,” I said, smiling grimly. With the right group, the orphanage could probably finish the necessary work without disturbing the ritual further or, at the very least, mask it so it looked like the work was done while other, more magical means were used to create the same effect.
“It is not smart to let the…” Alexa trailed off and shut her mouth.
“The what?” I asked, prodding.
“The enemy.” Alexa jutted her chin out, fingers squeezing the wheel tighter as she waited for me to explode. “Wait.”
I watched all this quietly but decided not to comment, the information and her reaction no longer a surprise. Though, I had a feeling her reactions were not so much over her feelings but concern over me attacking her beliefs again.
“Who do we have coming?” I asked.
“There are meant to be three contractors.” Alexa’s shoulders relaxed slightly at my topic change. “The Grimwalls are bidding, as are the McClintocks and PMC.”
The Grimwalls were a dwarven company, one we had actually done work for before. Good people, though I was somewhat hesitant about their level of magical knowledge. After all, the last time they ran into an unusual ward, they’d hired me to figure it out.
“The McClintocks are a group of Scottish fae. They don’t do a lot of work for non-fae, but since our building is mostly stone and mortar, they are willing to give it a shot. As for the PMC, they’re a multi-national corporation. We’d actually tried to hire them at first, but they had no crews available. Now, they want to assess the work before committing,” Alexa explained, giving me details of the two I didn’t know.
“And I’m there for…”
“To reassure them the ritual is not active, to answer questions about the rituals you created, and be our magical consultant,” Alexa said.
“Har. Consultants get paid,” I grumbled.
“You are,” Alexa pointed out, and I shut my mouth, recalling the fact that I actually did
negotiate payment earlier on. I’d actually forgotten, having delegated this entire quest under “helping a friend.” Since it was an actual quest, a real job, perhaps I should stop contemplating stopping work. It’d be really unprofessional after all.
When we finally pulled up, it was to the sight of the Grimwalls stomping out, the titular-named leader literally scurrying out of the building. By the time Alexa had the car parked and I was out, the dwarves were too far for me to call to them, especially considering they seemed to be very clear in their desire to be gone.
“That’s not foreboding at all,” I muttered. I grabbed my bag and walked in. The abbess gave me a relieved smile when she noted my presence and quickly waved me in. “Problem?”
“The atmosphere was a bit much for the Grimwalls,” she said softly, gesturing within. I nodded slowly, making a face, and took directions to find the other pair of contractors in the basement, staring at some damaged wallboards. As I walked, I sampled the increased mana corruption, the dense block of corrupted mana filling the entire building and its grounds. Obviously, our attempts at containing the corruption had worked.
Legends had the fae as beautiful, amazing creatures whose very presence could enchant and terrorize in equal measure, but it was a bit of a lie really. At least for those fae who still lived on Earth. With the ever-increasing volume of iron and the corruption and destruction of nature, pure-blooded fae had left our world long ago. Only the changelings, the thin bloods, and the lower fae were left, groups who could handle the pervasive use of technology. The fae still weren’t happy with their new situation, many electing to stay in communes or in smaller towns, but they stayed. Truth be told, staring at the duo of thin bloods, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I literally could have taken either one, dumped them in the middle of a country music concert, blinked, and have lost them.