The Realm

by A. Q. Owen

  Magic wasn’t magic at all, but people learning how to tap into the power that was all around, permeating the universe.

  He rounded the corner, blood pulsing through his veins faster now. The realization had him excited, though he didn’t know why.

  Another memory rushed to his brain. The famous double-slit experiment. It proved that things, everything, exist as potentials. People, miracle workers, and magic-wielders were using the same power, simply altering reality with a powerful sense of belief, as Christ had described in one of his talks to his followers.

  “Belief,” Orion said as he neared an office, its open door allowing bright light to spill into the hall. “Belief is the unifying field theory.”

  “What’s that?”

  Steve’s voice echoed from his office. It was shrill, like he’d not had enough sleep the night before. That, or he just woke up from a nap. Orion wouldn’t judge on that count. He hadn’t seen any other cars in front of the church, so he had the feeling there wasn’t a lot going on in the priest’s schedule for the day.

  Orion rounded the corner and looked into the office. Steve was sitting behind a humble wooden desk made from pine and stained to a dark mahogany. There were a few personal pictures hanging on the wall, but for the most part the room was bare, save for a few crosses, a miniature sculpture of Christ on the cross, and a large Bible on a stand off to one side. Two cheap-looking chairs sat across from Steve. They were upholstered with a burgundy vinyl that was cracked in a few places around the corners.

  “Orion?” Steve stood up and walked around the desk. “Good to see you again, man. How you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” Orion said with a suspicious nod. “Have a little headache, but the ibuprofen is kicking in now.”

  He only just realized that his headache was subsiding. A sense of appreciation trickled through him.

  “That’s good. I don’t think I’ve seen a human put that much alcohol in their body before.” He scratched the back of his head as if thinking about some long-ago memory. “Although there were a few nights where I put a good amount of it down.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Orion said. “You’re Catholic.”

  Steve shrugged. “I suppose not.” He grinned. “What brings you by today?”

  Playing coy, Orion thought. Fine.

  He dug into his pocket and fished out the ring he found in his apartment earlier that morning. He held it out so Steve didn’t have to strain to see it.

  “I found this near my door this morning. I figured you dropped it by mistake, given that you’re the only person who’s been in my house in the last month. Plus, the whole cross thing made me figure it was one of your religious keepsakes or something.”

  Steve’s face twisted with genuine befuddlement. He reached out and pinched the ring between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the light to inspect it closer. After a moment, he shook his head. “Nope. Sorry, my friend. It’s not mine.” He extended his hand toward the visitor to return the jewelry.

  Orion frowned as he took back the ring. “What are you talking about? It has to be yours.”

  Steve chuckled, both eyebrows arching at Orion’s insistence. “I swear. It’s not mine. I’m a priest, Orion. We don’t lie. It’s kind of our thing.” Then his face grew grave. “Have you had any break-ins lately? Crime in that part of town?”

  “No.” Orion’s voice grew distant, and he gave an absent shake of his head.

  A moment passed, the two lost in parallel thoughts.

  “Well, that’s certainly strange. Nothing was taken from your place?”

  “No.”

  Orion pondered how much he should say. Then he figured it couldn’t hurt anything. He and Steve weren’t friends, although the way the priest was looking at him he certainly gave off the vibe that’s where he wanted things to go. What the hell, Orion thought. It’s not like it would make this whole reunion any weirder.

  “There was something else,” Orion said.

  “What’s that?”

  “When I took this ring over to my computer station, the thing fritzed out on me. It shut down, the lights went off, power in that entire part of the house went out.”

  Steve’s skin paled, the color in his cheeks draining, replaced by a chalky white. “I’m sorry, did you say the power went out?”

  “Yeah. And there’s one more thing.” He held the object in his palm. “On the inside of the ring, there were some words. I think it was Latin, but I’m not sure. I can’t read Latin.”

  Steve bent closer and inspected the ring again, this time paying close attention to the inner part of the band. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I know. And this is gonna sound crazy, but while it was sitting next to the computer, the words disappeared. Then the power came back on. I thought it was just a coincidence, at least the deal with the lights going out and all that. The letters on the band, though, that’s what I can’t figure out.”

  A moment passed as Steve considered the new information. He drew a long breath through his nostrils and then reached out, taking the ring from Orion’s hand once more. He turned and walked back over to his desk and eased into the seat. His hand moved unconsciously over to a magnifying glass on the surface near the corner. He picked it up and held it over the ring to have a more thorough look.

  “I still don’t see it,” he said after nearly minute of intense inspection.

  “I know. And I know how this sounds.”

  “Put the ring on,” Steve said. It came off more as a command.

  Orion frowned and looked at his host with a befuddled stare.

  “What? Why?”

  Steve stood up and walked back around the desk. He grabbed Orion by the wrist, the guest resisting for a moment.

  “Give me your hand,” Steve said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to try something.”

  Orion sighed and relaxed his digits. Steve only took a second to size up which finger the ring belonged on. He slid it onto the right ring finger, over the knuckle and down to the base. It was a perfect fit.

  “Looks good on you,” Steve said with a smile. “You sure it’s not yours, you know, something you forgot you had a long time ago?”

  Orion shook his head.

  Steve shrugged and reached out again. “Okay. Well, let’s take it off and have another look.”

  A shiver shot through Orion’s body, followed instantly by a warm glow that resonated through his veins. He didn’t dare say anything about that to Steve.

  A second passed, and then the building shook from its foundation. The walls trembled, sending dust cascading down from the cracks between the bricks. Books fell off the shelves behind the desk and crashed to the floor.

  Almost as soon as the quake struck, it ceased and returned the office to silence.

  Orion swallowed hard and looked down at the ring on his finger. “What in the hell was that?”

  The priest ignored his language, wondering the exact same thing.

  “Earthquake?” Orion answered his own question with a weak hypothesis. The city and the surrounding area rarely had earthquakes. When they did, the tremors were usually weak, almost unnoticeable.

  Steve stared at his guest, turning his head one way and then the other in a dramatic answer. “I’m so sorry, Orion.”

  Orion frowned. His eyelids narrowed to slits, the brows knitting together. “What do you mean?”

  “I had to do it.”

  “Had to do what, Steve? What did you do?”

  Orion squeezed the ring with finger and thumb, trying to pull it off, but the thing wouldn’t budge. “What is this?”

  Steve’s face turned ashen. He stared at Orion with an intensity the visitor had never seen before, from anyone.

  “The old man I told you about, the one with the sword?”

  Orion listened without speaking.

  “He gave me that ring, too.”

  “What did you do, Steve? Is this some kind of magical thing?”

/>   “I’m a priest, Orion. I don’t believe in magic, but I do believe in the power that’s all around us. The old man said that when the time came to give that and the sword to the hunter.”

  Orion’s frown deepened.

  “Come with me. There’s something I have to show you.”

  “No, I don’t want to see anything else. I just want to get this damned thing off me and go back to my life.” He turned to leave, but the door slammed in front of him, closed by some unseen force.

  Orion spun around, incensed. “What the hell, Steve?”

  “It wasn’t me. I swear. I can’t wield that kind of power. It’s against my oath as a priest to do anything like that.”

  Orion stepped across the room in two big strides and grabbed his host by the cassock. “Open the door and let me out of here.”

  “You have been chosen, Orion.” He squirmed to get free, but it was no use. Orion was stronger, fitter, and had rage on his side. “Only you can finish this.”

  “Finish what?” He nearly spat through his clenched teeth.

  “Come with me. I’ll tell you everything.”

  Orion thought about it for a few seconds and then let go of the priest’s clothing. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been holding Steve off the ground, unaware of his own strength. Or was it something else, something making him stronger than he ever knew?

  “Fine. Show me. Then I’m out of here. And you leave me alone after that. Deal?”

  Steve nodded.

  The door opened once more, again surprising Orion.

  He stepped toward the door and then stopped, letting Steve walk ahead to lead the way. Once they were out in the hall, Orion turned to him as they strode toward the dark end of the corridor. He let curiosity get the better of him for a moment, pushing away the boiling anger inside.

  “What did you mean when you said the old man told you to give the hunter this ring and some sword? I’ve never hunted anything in my life.”

  They reached the end of the hall, and Steve stopped, fumbling for a key on an ancient ring of skeletons that looked like they belonged to a thousand-year-old church, not one built a few hundred years ago.

  “Your middle name,” Steve said. “It’s Orion.”

  6

  “Where did it happen?”

  The woman in the black business suit stood at the head of a glossy conference table. The blinds were drawn, only allowing in tiny slivers of light that played onto the floor and the backs of chairs closest to them. Laptops were positioned in front of every seat. A huge flatscreen on the wall displayed a map of the entire country.

  A woman in her early thirties looked up from her laptop at Myra. “South side,” she said.

  Myra Koch ran an extremely efficient operation. Her agency was one of only a handful in the world with the technology capable of tracking unusual spikes of power, power most people referred to as magic. She was now in her late forties and had established a ruthless, cunning, and unyielding reputation for getting the job done no matter the cost.

  They were known by myriad names, some less flattering than others. Only those in the room and the ones who’d formed the organization knew their true name: Dark Cell.

  Their ongoing mission was simple: hunt down powerful mages and execute them.

  As magic became more common in the world, the government’s fears had swelled. People with power were dangerous, said government leaders—to the well-being of ordinary citizens, to themselves, and most importantly to the order of things.

  An array of sensors fixed to satellites constantly in orbit gave the agency all the intel they needed. When there was a spike over a certain level, they were alerted immediately. Such an instance was rare but still far too common for Myra’s liking.

  To date, they’d hunted down and eliminated nearly a hundred unauthorized magic users. Most of the time, the operations were discreet, making it look like an accident. A leaky gas valve here, a car accident there, or now and then even using “natural causes” like a heart attack or stroke. The latter was her favorite—if the mage was easy enough to get to.

  Dark Cell even had its own media specialist, a journalist in a former life with connections to every major news outlet in the country. There was no story they couldn’t spin. Now and then, the story would shame the victim to the point where the public was glad the person was dead.

  The stories, of course, were always fake news, littered with planted evidence that made the victims look like horrible people.

  Everyone on Myra’s team was committed, unquestioningly loyal to the cause of protecting the public at large and making sure that this newfound mainstreaming of magical arts didn’t get out of hand.

  She folded her hands behind her back and twisted to the left, pacing two steps and then stopping. A ray of sunshine poked through the blinds and sprayed across her dark brown hair tied up into a tight bun. Myra’s slender figure revealed her commitment to exercise. Everyone in the room knew she worked out incessantly, muscling through a wide array of exercises that included several kinds of martial arts. While, to a person, every agent in Dark Cell went through an extremely rigorous testing and training program, none were a match for their director.

  “Who’s in place there?” She asked the question knowing full well she didn’t have to wonder if they had someone in place. The second the alarm went off, her team was trained to get someone on site immediately to contain the situation so that Myra could assess the threat before plotting strategy and issuing orders. It was expensive to run an operation that way, to have assets placed in key positions all over the world. They’d run statistical analyses on millions of magic outbreaks over the last few years and noted certain locations had more than others—hot spots where magic users tended to pop up more frequently.

  “Agent Hopkins is on site and awaiting orders.” The information came from a young man with thick brown hair swooped to the right, trimmed above the ears.

  “Usual procedure, people,” Myra said in her commanding voice. “Tell Hopkins to hold and observe until we get more support over there. This one is close by, so that should only take a few minutes. When backup arrives, take out the target.”

  An unsteady silence fell over the room.

  She sensed it. That was one of her gifts, a talent from childhood. She always knew when another person was lying to her or when something was wrong. Maybe it was a sense she’d picked up from interactions with her parents. They’d always fought, always been yelling at each other. Until one day…

  Myra snapped her attention back to the room. “Where did the suspect go?” She didn’t sound pleased at this new revelation. It wasn’t the first time. They’d dealt with it before, probably more often than not. Usually, that meant the power spike was an accident, something that may have frightened the user at first. It wouldn’t matter. Tracking down those types was simple enough. They were sloppy, unaware creatures who floated through life without a second thought as to who was watching and why.

  “Hopkins said the target remained at his place for a short period then went to a church a few minutes’ drive away.”

  Myra let the information sink in. “So, when you said Hopkins is on site, you meant the church not the target’s home.” It was a statement not a question.

  “That is correct, Director.”

  “Good. That should give us a few minutes to check the suspect’s home and see what we can find. This target have a name?”

  The agent who’d been relaying information gave a nod. “Yes, ma’am. Full name is Blake Orion Cunningham.”

  The director had started moving toward the other end of the table when the name caught her attention. “Did you say Orion?”

  “Yes, Director.”

  She snorted a short laugh. “The hunter. Interesting. What do we know about this hunter?”

  “Thirty years old. Divorced. Daughter died last year in a car accident. He’s dipped in and out of society ever since. Not a lot of records on him from the looks of it. Pays his taxes. Works as
a freelancer, as far as we can tell. He made a considerable amount of money on some projects a while back.”

  “Hmm.” Myra pressed her index finger to her chin. That information certainly gave him motive. She’d found that often, when faced with intense tragedy, people turned to one of two things to try to set their lives right. One of those things was magic. The other she didn’t want to think about.

  Magic gave people the ability, or so they thought, to alter their realities to however they saw fit. Most were under the impression that they were calling upon some sort of latent inner power, a talent long dormant within the would-be user. That, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. The true source of magic, or the power that permeated everything, could be harnessed by anyone if they only had the knowledge and the belief concerning how to use it.

  “What else do we know about him?” Myra asked.

  There was a hesitation in the room. She could feel it, sense the scent of it. It smelled like fear. She’d worked in this business long enough to know when someone beneath her was afraid to give her details she wanted. It was usually bad news. No one wanted to give the boss bad news. Each person in this room had, no doubt, heard about what she did to people who disappointed her.

  Myra Koch operated above the law. In many ways, she was the law when it came to regulating the use of supernatural abilities. Most mages performed nothing more than parlor tricks, innocent little illusions that would never harm anyone, never bring danger to society. She was fine with them. There were too many to chase anyway.

  It was those who sought greater and greater power she looked to take down, and at any cost. That included murdering members of her own unit if their failures were big enough. The need for that course of action had only arisen twice, but the example she set with their deaths lasted well beyond.

  “You think me a little child that can’t take a bit of bad news now and then?” she asked. “Speak up. I want to know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Cunningham…is a former special ops guy in the military. He served four years during the heart of the war. Over 120 confirmed kills in combat. Some of them were…” The young woman’s voice trailed off.