“Hey, is she starting something again?”
“You started it,” the miniature girl replied with a smile. “And you’re wrong, Travis. You have to know dark magic before you can protect yourself against it. If you didn’t sleep through history class, you’d know there aren’t any spells from any of the battle magic schools that compare to black magic at the same level when it comes to how lethal they are.”
“Travis staying awake through a class that isn’t P.E. or practical magic?” Ellie asked venomously. “That’s asking way too much, Mara. I have no idea how this blockhead even passed the entrance exams to get into First Magic with us. Before him, I thought they only accepted gifted students.”
“Stop it already!” Travis pounded the table with both hands and stood up. “Enou—”
“Do you need something?” Jing asked suddenly, though he wasn’t addressing any of the people at his table.
They all lapsed into silence.
Travis and the others turned toward the bar. Not far from them, a colorful character was cleaning up. He was a tall, lean young man with sharp but attractive facial features, black hair, and bright, emerald green eyes. Some work clothes made up his outfit, and he was leaning on a broom.
“How old are you kids?” His voice was arrogance and annoyed. “This is a bar, you know. Not a café. If you’re not going to order any alcohol, go hang out at Mickey D’s. They have a discounted Happy Meal today.”
The five sat stupefied and silent, blinking at him owlishly.
“You… you…” Travis struggled to even form a coherent sentence, choking with indignation.
“How dare you talk to customers like that?” Ellie stood, immediately attracting the hungry gazes of most of the men—and not just the men—at the bar. “Get your manager. I demand—”
“Oh, I beg your pardon.” A rather large character in his mid-forties seemed to appear out of nowhere next to the kitchen door. He had a protruding beer belly and a very obvious bald spot, and he was wearing an apron similar to his rude employee’s, just not white. It was black and sported the Jolly Roger. The look was completed by a wooden crutch (just about in the 22nd century!), a patch over his right eye, and several gold teeth that marred an otherwise snow-white smile.
“He’s a new hire, an immigrant from Old Earth. We’re still training him. Could I give you something to make up for the inconvenience? How about a loyalty card?” The innkeeper (who else could such a colorful man be in a bar that looked like a ship’s quarters?) produced a plastic card out of thin air. There was no magic to the trick, just sleight of hand. “Every fifth visit, you’ll get a free glass of the best craft beer in the district.”
Storming over to the pirate, Travis grabbed the card and made a gesture, apparently transferring a payment to the bar’s account.
“I lost my appetite,” he said through gritted teeth as he started toward the door.
“Sure,” the cleaner mumbled. “You already inhaled three double burgers. Who could eat more after that?”
Travis stopped, turned around slowly, and opened his mouth, only to have Mara take him by the hand and silently walk him out. The carefree, platinum blonde guy followed them out, humming some tune as he went.
“I don’t think we’ll be needing your card,” the beauty said arrogantly. After paying for her order, she left as well. “Shit. I was so happy to find a place with good food so close to the university, too. What a cruel world.”
The Asian was the last to leave. Finishing his meal, which only took a couple more seconds, he stood up calmly and wiped his lips with a napkin before turning to the cleaner, bowing slightly.
“Please forgive my friend’s insult. He didn’t mean to offend you.”
Then he exited the bar and joined his friends, who were already crossing the street. Directly opposite the bar was First Magic University.
***
“What the hell was that about?” Deaglan asked.
Shaking his head, Alex continued cleaning the floor.
“Hey, doesn’t it seem strange to you,” he drawled with exaggerated thoughtfulness, “that your name is Deaglan, which means ‘absolutely good’ in Irish? And yet, here you are, an ex-con.”
Deaglan buried his face in his hands, wheeled around, and rushed back to the kitchen.
“Bloody officials,” he whispered. “Damn them. Damn them. Damn. Damn.”
Alex completely agreed with him. He would’ve never imagined that the deal he’d made with the mysterious suit would include an apartment over a bar, if not a cheap one, and that he’d have to work for his keep.
By doing honest work!
Cleaning floors at the bar!
Damnation. What other terrors did those officials have in store for an unfortunate and honest dark wizard?
“How did you notice it, boy?” Doom squinted in thought. “Eh... Maybe things are going to go better than I was expecting at the university.”
As he pondered, Alex continued mopping away diligently. Faced with the choice of cleaning the damn floor to keep his magic or going back to jail, he obviously preferred the former.
The whole thing was just temporary, after all.
Chapter 11
Alex pulled his apron off and tossed it right onto the hooked aluminum needle protruding from the wall. In his small room, it served as both his clothes rack and his wardrobe.
Removing his oily, dusty work pants on the go, he flung them across the only armchair, which doubled as study and seating area in the cramped, dark space located right over the bar. It had just one window overlooking the fire escape and a ceiling so low he could reach up and touch it.
Even Doom’s room at the orphanage had been bigger. The suite, as they’d called it jokingly, had accommodated two dozen growing boys, so it had been twice as large as this closet.
Alex tripping over the creaking floorboards of the once-durable floor, got tangled up in a sweater that smelled like mold, and managed to plop down onto the bed. It creaked plaintively, and his weight kicked up a small cloud of dust, but it nonetheless withstood the sudden onslaught.
At least the bed was normal-sized, wide enough to accommodate three people or so. The red velvet blanket, probably forgotten by a renter long ago, was a joy to behold.
Dropping his sweater on the floor, Alex looked over at the windowsill. His suit hung there, safe in its plastic bag, the only expensive possession he still had. At least, apart from his bike and the ring on his finger. Things were looking up, even if they were still pretty bad.
“Give me one good reason not to turn your blood into hippogriff urine,” Alex said into the silent semi-darkness of his new home.
At first, the only answer he received was crows cawing somewhere outside the window. They mixed with the horns, engines, and everything else making up the symphony wafting in from the street. Myers City wasn’t a quiet place at all.
“You wouldn’t be able to if you tried,” a soft, pleasant voice finally replied.
Hell’s bells.
Had Alex been unaware of who the voice belonged to, he’d have thought a goddess had come to visit him. That melodious, honeyed voice was enough to force any man to hide the sudden tension in his pants.
But Alex knew well—too well, even—who stood behind the alluring voice.
A tall, slender girl stepped out from the dark corner. To call her beautiful would have been to cheapen every other time the compliment had been given to a woman.
To describe her as wonderful would have stretched the word beyond recognition.
Divine? That was a question best left to theologians.
To put it simply, she combined the sex appeal of the blonde from the bar (Ellie was her name, right?), the grace of a swan, and the stately bearing of a queen.
Her yellow hair, the color of wet gold, cascaded down to her knees, and her business suit accentuated all her curves.
She was a fairy woman.
And Alex didn’t need his lenses to tell him that his visitor belonged to Goddes
s Danu’s tribe.
He hated fairies.
“I wouldn’t,” Doom agreed. “But I would thoroughly enjoy the attempt.”
The fairy, who sported a badge on her absurdly beautiful, high, and firm breast, came over to the armchair and sat down gracefully on the armrest, her seductive legs and hips a hormonal teenager’s wet dream.
“Mr. Dumsky, my name is Lieutenant O’Hara.” Alex noted instantly how unusual a last name that was for a fairy. Generally speaking, you could only pronounce their family names after slurring your speech with a few liters of unfiltered beer. “I was sent to—”
“Get on my nerves,” Alex interrupted. Leaning back on his bed, he stared up at the ceiling and made a vague gesture with his hand. “But go on, beau—”
At first, he didn’t realize what had happened, not expecting the excruciating pain that seized him the very next second. It felt like a superpower’s entire nuclear reserve was being brought to bear on him.
He clutched at his wrist in an attempt to endure the waves of molten lava radiating from it. His entire body throbbed, every nerve ending on fire. Finally, he rolled off the bed to collapse face down on the floorboards.
The moments he spent in unspeakable agony felt like the eternal hell he’d read about in those old religious books.
At last, the pain subsided. Dark circles stopped dancing in front of him, and he could breathe again. He pulled in air with the greed of someone who had nearly drowned coming to grips with the simple fact that they were still alive.
“What…the…” Alex croaked, the words barely forced out of his numb and smarting throat. Had he been screaming? “What…t-the…f-fuck?”
He glanced at the bracelet on his right wrist. Made of steel and looking even kind of stylish, it was decorated with engraved runes. Very familiar runes. The smooth curls, sharp lines, and continuous ligature of symbols flowed into each other.
The language of the fae people.
Bloody fairies.
“That was setting seven out of ten, Mr. Dumsky.” The lieutenant waved a small remote control for him to see.
The room was still spinning for Alex, making it unsurprising that he hit his head on the central radiator when he dove forward to grab the bloody thing from out of her hand.
What was somewhat more surprising was that the radiator was at the opposite end of the room from the damn fairy.
“Now that’s an odd noise,” she said with a laugh a poet might have compared to wind chimes or a bird singing. All Alex could hear was a snake hissing. “Mr. Dumsky, don’t think you can escape from us as easily as committing suicide. Okay, maybe not so easy. But smashing your head against a radiator? The major was right—you’re psycho. I should’ve realized that when I heard about the cat.”
“Shut up.” Alex rolled over onto his back and wiped the blood away from the cut on his forehead. “I’m going to kill you. I swear. And that’s not just an empty threat to maintain my reputation; I really am going to kill you.”
“Aren’t you going to rape me first?”
A vivid image of him raping the fairy appeared in Alex’s imagination …and he almost vomited. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten anything that day. That made it easier to rein in his disgust.
“What a weird imagination you—”
“Stop!” Alex interrupted. “You can go ahead and activate that bloody bracelet if it means leaving my imagination alone! Me fucking you? I’d rather do it with a meat grinder.”
The girl was silent for a bit.
“Most humans,” she said finally, pronouncing the word the way only non-humans did, “have responded to that very differently.”
“Who are you?!” Bracing himself against the windowsill, Alex staggered to his feet. He looked at the bracelet and squinted, issuing a command to his lenses.
[Item: ERROR. No information in the database.]
“No point, Alexander. The design is unique. R&D worked overtime for a month to put that sexy little piece together for you.”
“Have I told you that I’m going to kill you?”
“Twice.”
“Make it three times.” Alex waved her away and returned to the bed. His head ached as though…well, as though he’d just tried to head-butt a cast-iron radiator.
“Killing someone three times would be complicated.”
“I screwed a necromancer girl once…or twice… That after-sex glow makes for the best little talks about working with magic.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Lieutenant O’Hara replied with a shrug. “Anyway, let’s get down to business. I have a message from Major Chon Sook.”
“What spook?” Alex asked. “I haven’t met any spooks since I served my time. Well, except for you. You’re a world-class bitch, and I’m going to kill you last even though I don’t like you.”
She said nothing.
“Bloody hell! That’s a meme from Commando! How old are you? Five?”
“Ninety-six,” O’Hara replied in an icy voice, hiding the remote control in the inside pocket of her jacket. “Major Chon Sook. You enjoyed a limo ride with him after leaving prison.”
“Ah, that son of a bitch. Well, let’s hear what you—”
His wrist was pierced by another flash of acute pain. And while it wasn’t half as strong as the first attack had been, it was still unpleasant. Alex had apparently traded his adamantius collar in for that damn bracelet, and the cramped cell of the underground prison for a more spacious one in Myers City.
“Be respectful, human. I’m enjoying your company less and less, so why don’t I just get this over with? As you already heard from Deaglan, you either pay your rent yourself or do whatever work he asks you to do. As far as your job at the university goes, the whole of your salary will be paid to the city as compensation for the damage you caused during your arrest. As of right now, your total debt is…” O’Hara twitched her eyelids, which meant she was using her magic lenses. The magic races had gotten addicted to the puny humans’ technology, too. “…1,440,000 credits.”
Alex silently shifted his gaze from the bracelet to the lieutenant, then back to the bracelet, and finally to the radiator.
They won’t get away with it that easily.
“How much is a professor of dark magic paid?”
“Ask that tomorrow when you visit the accounting department.” The girl stood up with the practiced grace of a leaping cat and walked toward the door. “For now, that’s all you need to know. Your partner will help you settle in.”
She gripped the door handle and…
Alex felt another surge of acute pain.
Attacking her from behind was apparently also a punishable offense.
“Nice try, Alexander. Could you try to do that more often? I’m starting to like this bracelet.” Her piece said, she walked down the corridor with a clatter of high heels.
Alex stayed where he was, lying on the floor next to the threshold. In only his underwear. Drenched in sweat and exhausted.
Unsurprisingly, Deaglan reached the obvious conclusion when he came upstairs to investigate the noise.
“You’re no fool, boy,” he said, flashing a thumbs up. “I heard you going at it hard with that chick and—”
Alex vomited.
His imagination was just too vivid.
Chapter 12
The first day at a new job means different things to different people depending on what kind of person they are. Some see it as a mandatory initiation into adulthood; others think nothing of it. Some people celebrate; others couldn’t care less.
Alex belonged to that rare class of people who once believed they’d never have to work a day in their lives.
And so, as he kicked his bike’s footrest back (he’d had to visit a vet earlier in the morning) and puffed away at the cigarette he held in his left hand, Doom was utterly confused. How had it come to that? Is this really how miserable my life is going to be now?
“Shit,” he said when he had to move his right hand awkwardly as he
dismounted the bike.
He’d spent the whole night trying to remove the bracelet. Every spell he knew had been pressed into service, registered and illegal alike. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that exhausted. Perhaps after practicing with the Old Man back in his beardless youth. Those days were long behind him judging by all the facial hair he had going on.
But none of the magic had worked.
Finally, Alex had broken a leg off his decrepit armchair and…very nearly ended up breaking his arm along with it. That explained his trip to the vet.
The horse doctor had been surprised to see someone coming in without an animal at first, but a couple black magic pentagrams had convinced him to get to work regardless.
Old habits die hard. Alex had been halfway back to the university when he realized that he was probably not wanted by the cops anymore and could therefore have just gone to a human doctor.
That realization had soured his mood even further.
“Hey,” someone said as they clapped him on the shoulder. “You left your bike in the wrong…”
Slowly, his lip twitching from the stress, Doom turned toward the voice.
The gaggle of freshmen stepped away from him. He could tell they were freshmen by the appliques they had on the right side of their blue blazers: the number one surrounded by intricate patterns and resting on a golden shield. Overall, their uniforms were pleasant enough to look at. Gray pants and navy-blue blazers for the guys, gray skirts and navy-blue blazers for the girls. The skirts went down to a bit above the knee, long enough to be decent.
“I’ll shove your hand up your own ass,” Alex said through clenched teeth, holding his cigarette so tightly he almost crushed it. “Then I’ll pull it out your throat and beat you to death with it. If your carcass isn’t too disgusting at that point, I’ll take it to the nearest pub and feed it to some senile bum. Why a senile one, you ask? No idea. Just because.”
There were seven freshmen around him. They weren’t as strong as the ones he’d met in the Schooner the day before, but they each still boasted a respectable 400-500 mana points.
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