Shattering windows and tearing through metal, the explosion transformed the well-groomed Financial District avenue into a cratered battlefield. People screamed and groaned all around. Alex spotted several elves trying to fit severed limbs back onto their bodies in shock. Someone was tapping away at their smartphone screen with bloody thumbs.
Amid the chaos, two figures held steady and unaffected. One was mounted on a chrome bike; the other was astride a lightning-riddled cloud.
Silently and emotionlessly, the Mask turned and flew off down the road on his cloud.
“Not so fast!” Alex shouted, pulling up his kickstand and throwing open the throttle to give chase. A long lash in his hand glared with red fire.
Creating the lash drained the last drops from Doom’s second magic source, but he couldn’t let the Mask escape again.
He had to make sure.
He had to see the face hiding behind the mask.
Even if that meant demolishing the whole district.
Chapter 51
Travis suddenly burst into the student dormitory where all the rest of the B-52 gang were. He cast a furious glare over the kitchen table his friends were seated at, sipping beer and playing board games.
“Are you nuts?” Travis yelled, rushing for the kitchen drawers in a hectic search for something he appeared to need urgently and desperately.
“He finally lost it,” Elie said.
The rest watched Travis silently, forgetting the figures and counters on the map spread out over the table.
“…sitting there clueless,” he grumbled. “Where the hell is it?”
“What are you looking for?” Jing asked flatly.
“The damn remote control!”
The friends exchanged silent glances as Mara, saying nothing, held it out to Travis. He was too busy with his search to notice, so she had to tap him on the back with the device.
“What now?!” the redhead bellowed, turning around so abruptly he almost knocked it out of her hand. But after seeing it, he grabbed it without a word of thanks and pressed a button.
The big screen on the opposite wall flashed on with what the group at first mistook for another big-budget movie trailer, but the news strip and the female reporter’s familiar voice proved that guess wrong.
“We’re reporting live from the heart of the Financial District.” They couldn’t see the reporter’s face, and her voice was at times drowned out by the sound of the helicopter. “As you can see down there, the two wizards are continuing their chase right along the city streets. As far as we know, no security forces have admitted to employing them. The police and military alike are advising everyone to stay clear of the pair.”
“What’s going on—”
“Look!” Travis interrupted. “Just look!”
And there was a lot to look at. Right in the middle of the street, going the wrong way, a tall wizard in a gray trench coat and mask appeared to be using a flying device. But when the helicopter camera found a better angle, the device on the screen turned into a thundercloud riddled with lightning.
Hurtling after him on a chrome chopper sparkling with silver and black enamel came another man. His face at first sight appeared to be hidden beneath a mask as well, but the camera zoomed in to reveal that it was a presumably black magic spell.
A narrow tie fluttered behind the biker, his polished shoes reflecting the city lights, and his expensive ArmaniMagico suit looking completely out of place.
“Oh my! That’s—”
“The professor,” Jing interrupted Mara, which was very out of character for him. “Professor Dumsky.”
“What’s he doing?” Elie half rose out of her chair. “What are they both doing?”
“I have no idea,” Travis answered. “But he’s… Just look at that! You don’t even see stuff like that in fantasy movies.”
The wizard in the real, physical mask, the thundercloud rider, waved a hand. The camera zoomed in so close the spectators could even see the gray leather gloves he was wearing.
Red seals flashed. Not fiery seals or those of the Blood Magic School, but something completely different. Even through the TV screen, they breathed something creepy, destructive, and otherworldly.
“I’ve never seen signs like those.”
“Which magic school is that?”
“No idea.”
From each seal burst a predatory, wriggling giant tentacle tipped with a scary claw and surrounded by a round fanged maw.
The four tentacle braids shot out in all directions around the wizard. Two of them uprooted lamp posts from the sidewalk to throw them like spears at the professor.
The flying posts melted as they flew, acid burns marking where they had been touched by the creepy spells. But the pursuing rider didn’t turn to dodge the projectiles. He didn’t even slow down as he maneuvered between the oncoming magic cars.
The long lash in his right hand glowed with the same otherworldly red light. He waved it over his head, and the lash, already no less than fifteen feet in length, stretched ahead to cover a distance three times that long.
Like the giant serpent painted by medieval artists, the wriggling lash flew over the cars to catch the lamp posts in the air, slashing them into the finest of melted steel ingots that fell to the ground in a fiery rain.
Without stopping, the lash stretched onward to the Mask, almost catching his cloak flaps before a red tentacle could dash over to intercept.
The two spells began fighting. Magic flashes reflected in the lens of the camera mounted on the reporters’ helicopter. Someone was squealing into the microphone, but the students couldn’t hear what they were saying.
If they’d begun to suspect that their professor’s title as a black wizard wasn’t just words, they still couldn’t have begun to imagine that—
“Look! The guy in the mask has a car!”
The camera zoomed away, focusing on the red tentacle embracing a cheap SUV whose wheels spun helplessly in midair. Hanging down from the window of the soaring vehicle, the father let down a boy to be caught by his wife standing on the ground.
“Bastards,” Travis hissed. “No one even thought to stop.”
That time, not even Elie argued. None of the other cars slowed down even a little bit, everyone trying to get as far away as possible. And that was despite the fact that eighty percent of Myers City’s residents had magic powers—four out of five cars were driven by full-fledged wizards.
“Oh no!” the reporter screamed. “He isn’t going to make it! He’s not!”
The father, already hanging twelve feet above the ground, was desperately reaching for another small hand stretching from the back of the car to meet his. Their fingers almost touched when the car jerked another twenty feet higher.
Shaken off, the man fell to the ground, right at the feet of his wife and a boy of eight. The shrieking woman would have dashed into the oncoming traffic after the SUV being dragged away by the tentacle if it weren’t for her son holding her back.
The camera flashed to another boy, this one about five, almost falling out of the SUV.
The boy’s hands clutched an action figure in a red cape and blue jumpsuit with a capital S on the chest.
Unfortunately, the real world had no superheroes.
Only supervillains.
With a wave of his hand, the Mask flung the SUV at his chaser.
The reporter screamed as the SUV flew over the street like a softball aimed right at the professor.
Mara and Elie covered their mouth with their hands. The guys, Leo included, clenched their fists.
It was clear that the professor’s only option was to dodge; his spell was too busy fighting one of the tentacles. And the kid in the car…
At least he’d die quickly.
The pursuer took one hand off his handlebar and thrust it forward. Riding in a straight line at an absurd speed, he managed to maintain his balance with just his knees.
“Are you sure this isn’t a movie?” Leo asked dubiously.
No one replied—everyone’s eyes were riveted to the professor. A few tar-black seals, oozing pure darkness, flashed in front of him, glowing with magic power that made the camera quiver. The flapping of thousands…tens of thousands of leather wings drowned out the sounds of the chase and traffic.
An enormous cloud of bats born of black mist rushed for the SUV, enveloped it in a dense shroud, and carried it out of the line of impact and over to the sidewalk. The passers-by, scattering at first, approached it warily to open the swinging door.
“The boy’s fine! Thank god!” the reporter screamed.
“God?” Mara nervously drummed her fingers on the table. “The opposite, I would think.”
“Look!” Travis jumped up, pointing at the screen. “How much mana does that spell have to be burning?”
“No idea,” Jing replied, shaking his head. “More than we can imagine, anyway.”
The avenue ended in a T-shaped crossroad at the foot of a 68-story skyscraper. The building was so wide it completely blocked the view of the next street.
But the Mask was not about to stop.
Without slowing down, he dashed for the skyscraper. Three of his four tentacles merged to dig into the road coating, carving a deep trench across the entire street.
Cars screeched to a halt and smashed into each other in an attempt to avoid the jagged outcroppings sprouting up right in front of their hoods.
The trench, about three feet deep and wide, became a natural obstacle between the Mask and his chaser.
“What is he doing?!”
Dispersing his red lash, the professor gripped the handlebars with both hands and hit the throttle.
The bike leaped forward, maneuvering between the hard-braking magic cars. When the trench was just a few feet away, a small seal formed in front of his face and shot a black ray out that hit a large pickup truck, popping the bed cover. Alex used it as a springboard to soar into the sky, fly over the trench, and land next to the skyscraper’s underground parking entrance.
But the Mask was too far ahead.
Not only horizontally, but vertically, too.
His thundercloud was racing up the skyscraper’s glassy surface just as easily as it had conquered the road.
“It’s over,” Travis sighed, sinking back into his chair.
“Not at all,” Jing said softly.
He was proven right almost immediately.
Chapter 52
Alex looked up. Whoever the Mask was, he seemed to have a colossal mana reserve. Or, more probably, he was using an artifact to support his thundercloud. How else could he have overcome gravity and soared into the heavens so easily?
“You think you got away?”
Biting his lip, Doom wiped it with his thumb and ran it over the bike’s gas tank. The bloody lines he left on the black enamel started to take the shape of a seal.
“I hope this wasn’t just another one of your stories, Robin.”
Alex had never tried the trick before, but, according to Loxley… Well, trusting Loxley was anything but a wise choice. The problem was that Doom was out of options.
Covering the bloody seal with hand, he called on the last drops of magic energy remaining in his second, miniature source.
“Ash’Mat’Nadok! To you I call. I, Black Wizard Alexander Dumsky. Blood of Solomon’s blood. Blood of the blood of your tamer! Hear my call! Hear my blood!”
Alex could feel the source inside him quiver with the onslaught of force. A few feet away, a long fiery cut slashed open the very fabric of the world.
“By the keys of the Gate leading to the Beyond I call on you!”
A dry wind kicked up old newspapers and other scattered trash.
“By the seals of Solomon I bind you!”
The fiery slash quivered and started to widen. A creepy, abnormal neigh assaulted Doom’s ears. Pouring in his last drops of magic, he uttered the final words in the ancient language spoken by wizards when most humans still lived in pits and caves.
“Bva l’evlm hzh any pvnh alyk, Ash’Mat’Nadok!”
Out of the slash, fiery tornados burst, producing the neighing sound that shook the windows bursting with heat and melted metal. Hooves clattered like the alarm bells of ruined churches, turning the sidewalk into flowing lava.
Taller than the bus stop. As black as the darkest abyss. With blazing yellow eyes and a mouth full of sharp, curved fangs. So muscular every sinew stood out. Mane and tail made of roaring, furious red flames, the same flames raging over the hooves and beneath the belly.
It was the demon Ash’Mat’Nadok.
Alex stared into its eyes and felt a blow slam against his soul. The urge came over him to kneel before the demon and, ripping his own heart out, present it as a gift to the powerful be—
“Obey my will, Ash’Mat’Nadok!” Doom held out his bloodied palm. “Obey my blood! Come hunt with me or go back to where I summoned you from!”
The demon horse reared and neighed.
The pressure was increasing.
Still, it was child’s play compared to Baltael.
“You puny creature,” Alex growled, “spat out by the abyss in the outskirts of reality. You are nothing but a servant to my will and my mind. You are nothing and nobody. A fleshless ghost born to Illusion. Obey me!”
Alex slapped the seal on his gas tank. The hell horse, still kicking fiery hooves in the air, suddenly transformed into a stream of fire flowing into Doom and pouring through his arm and hand into the seal and then inside the bike.
The Harley’s wheels became fiery hooves, its handlebar the reins, its seat the croup, and its luggage rack the hellfire tail.
***
The students watched as silently as the female reporter. They couldn’t make out the professor’s words, though he was apparently shouting at the top of his voice.
The giant horse emerging from the fire became a strip of flame drawn into the bike. Then it returned, this time armored in chrome and black steel.
With a clatter of fiery hooves, Alex Doom resumed his chase astride the monster he’d summoned and apparently bound to his will. The hooves cut through the skyscraper’s glass to carry the wizard higher and higher, a swarm of rainbow-colored sparks showering behind them.
“Can someone explain to me what artifacts those two are using?” the reporter screamed. “I’m a military reporter, and I’ve never seen anything like that!”
The silence at the students’ table was oppressive.
Jing stared at the screen, something about his eyes showing that he knew a bit more than the others.
The Mask, racing along on his thundercloud, turned to face his pursuer for the first time. His serene demeanor unchanged, he threw out both hands to flash dozens of red seals. A variety of spells shot out, all producing the same uneasy feeling as the fiery horse the professor’s bike had turned into.
Red lightning, spears, fireballs, clots of blackness, predatory birds, and other things harder to describe—all of it was hurled at the pursuer simultaneously. But the professor made no attempt to dodge or slow down. Instead, he thrust his hands into the fiery mane of the roaring horse and pulled them back out. Each of his palms held a blaze of red fire.
Like a major-league pitcher riding a horse galloping up the skyscraper’s glassy wall, he knocked the Mask’s spells down, intercepting them with balls of fire scooped from the horse’s mane.
All of it looked as impossible as anything could be in a world where magic was made visible by hi-tech lenses.
“Turn! Now!” the reporter shouted, but it was too late.
One of the return spells smacked into a helicopter blade. For a while, the broadcast was interrupted by static.
The students jumped up, but before they could say anything, the shot flashed back to the studio, where the anchor, a headset pressed to her ear, spoke into the camera.
“Dear viewers, our special reporter Dina Clarke is all right. The helicopter is making an emergency landing at St. Patrick’s Hospital…”
***
Alex followed with the corner of his eye the smoky trace of the news helicopter as it flew off. Great. Fewer witnesses.
The edge of the skyscraper was getting closer. Firing off another volley (How many mana points does the bastard have? He’s already used up an average Adept’s reserve!), the Mask disappeared up onto the rooftop.
This time Doom, jerking his possessed bike to the side, simply dodged the spell. The lump of blackness hit the window and, breaking through the glass, burst into the control room to instantly plunge the brightly lit skyscraper into complete darkness.
Alex leaped onto the rooftop astride his hell horse in search of the Mask…only to be met by a giant armored gorilla, an identical twin of the one he’d fought in the museum.
Behind the demon’s back, the Mask was calmly dismounting his thundercloud. It had apparently been nothing but an illusion hiding the giant raven now hovering in the air by his side.
It was a cheap effect designed to keep the world from seeing the rather rare artifact he’d used for the flight.
An artifact only available for purchase at the Abyss.
Doom made a note to ask Farrokh a few more questions at their next meeting.
“We’re not in a museum this time, you dick.” Alex spat and lifted a palm overhead. He needed some more mana to feed his source.
A small silvery rune flashed on his black ring.
“Enjoy lightning, bastard?” Alex squinted. “Take that!”
A dark and glowing bolt of lightning so black that it was almost invisible in the night flashed out of the sky. Striking Alex’s palm, it stretched into a long spear headed with a wolf’s fanged maw and flew off to pierce the gorilla demon’s chest.
[Prohibited spell used: ABYSS LIGHTNING of the Darkness School. Mana consumption: 1,682.]
How could Alex, having just 1,200 mana points, easily use a self-developed spell with a consumption that much higher? That’s a whole other story.
Showering the skyscraper rooftop with black sparks, the spell buried itself in the demon. The gorilla took an awkward step forward and, before it could collapse to the gravel coating, vanished into smoke and stinking slime.
Dark Wizard's Case Page 28