Lebenstein jerked his chin up, his eyes flashing arrogantly. Not everyone can pull that off. Shorty has a gift.
Then Alex looked at Leia, who was drilling through him with eyes that were practically yelling gotcha.
Damn. The esper had turned him in. Stabbed him in the back. So low. So mean. Alex was a fan. Damn. Keep that up, and I’m going to fall in love.
“Sir Dean. I’m…” Alex pretended to be struck through the heart. Wounded in the soul. Spat on and humiliated by Roman soldiers for trying to pull Christ down off the cross. In the depths of despair. “I did it…for the department…for us…”
Stunned at first, Lebenstein started listening to Alex with growing attention.
“When I joined our wonderful Department of Theory and Magical Calculation, superior in every sense and led by one of the world’s brightest minds, a light of magic science…”
The dean straightened up and, adjusting his robe, puffed his chest out (his belly was still two lengths ahead). “…our department wasn’t faring as well as it should be. We had to recruit new students from anywhere we could, even accepting kids who wouldn’t have made it into community college! So, I decided to restore the department to its former glory and put its name on everyone’s lips! The only problem was that I had to sacrifice my moral principles.”
The dean signed mournfully and looked down at his feet.
“I appreciate your zeal, Professor Dumsky, and I share your pain. Still, I can’t have B-52 become part of this barbaric entertainment, replicating gladiator fights for the amusement of mindless crowds.”
Perriot exchanges glances with the students, looking almost as shocked as they were.
“But just imagine,” Alex whispered persuasively. “If we win, the department will get a spotlight no money can buy. We’ll attract brilliant students. Research grants. We’ll be able to put display boards in each auditorium.” (Lebenstein’s eyes flashed with hope.) “There will be universal recognition for our department leader. For you, our brightest mind.” (The dean looked like he was holding a press conference in his head.) “The Board of Governors will hear about you. They’ll probably make you the next headmaster…”
“Yes…the Board of Governors…”
“Who knows?” Alex continued, his voice dropping lower and lower. “Maybe after becoming headmaster, you’ll be elected Minister of Magic…”
“Yes…Minister…” Lebenstein drawled, then froze with his mouth open before shaking his head. “No. Stop. What are you talking about? What Board of Governors? We don’t have one of those. What headmaster? What Minister of Magic?”
“Wait, really?” Alex gasped, eyes wide. “We aren’t in the middle of a Hogwarts cosplay? You have the robe and you’re talking nonsense, so I thought—”
“This is the traditional garb of magic scholars!” Lebenstein interrupted with a squeal. “And I’m not the one talking nonsense! Pack your things now, take B-52 with you, and stay away until—”
The first signal for the draw rang out.
“Mara, go get the number,” Alex ordered in a cold, steely voice. “You’re the captain.”
“But…”
“I have Rector Lupen’s permission.” Doom poured an icy, murderous glare over Lebenstein. The dean shivered, though he didn’t look away. He does have something in him. “Dean, if you want to keep my group from participating, you have to get through me.”
Doom then glanced past Lebenstein at the displeased Miss Perriot.
“That goes for you, too.”
She just flashed her middle finger at him, striking his heart once more. Ah, a real femme fatale.
“By the way,” Doom said with a broad smile as he turned back to the dean. “If we’re going to watch this kitten parade together, what about pledging some money to a cat shelter?”
“What? What cat shelter?”
“The one I own. I love the fluffy rascals so much. But money has been tight recently, and…”
Alex spent the next fifteen minutes convincing the dean to donate. And he almost succeeded. But then the first tour began, and it was announced that B-52 would be facing the battle department group from American Magic University in the very first round.
Karma’s a bitch.
I should have washed my hands at least. My nails taste really gross.
Chapter 57
Doom’s nails didn’t really make for a good meal, so he put his headset on and got down to coaching.
Everyone else on the B-52 team also wore an earpiece, albeit a smaller one. The youngsters were walking up to one of the many podiums where the duels were going to take place.
So many teams had entered the tournament that the committee was trying to weed out half of them on the very first day, employing a trivial but very efficient method: a fight-off.
The rules were simple: the first team to knock out two or more members of the other team won and lived to fight another day. The bouncer team.
It was violent but consistent with the new approach to magical education commonly adopted after the Magic Wars, a time when wizards had to confront whole hordes of monstrous creatures ravaging North Eurasia and North America. The brunt had been borne by the Scandinavians, Canadians, and Russians.
Before the wars, the department headed by Lebenstein had actually been the center of attention. But it had been eclipsed by the battle magic department. More and more wizards trained to become soldiers or magic creature hunters rather than researchers or scholars.
There was nothing special about the uniforms the contestants were wearing. Each team was dressed in jumpsuits, either blue or red, with strong defensive properties. Doom’s little chicklets drew blue. After a jumpsuit took 1,000 mana points of damage or more, it turned white and the player wearing it was knocked out.
Quite a regular five-versus-five fu—
“Professor Dumsky,” Lebenstein coughed, interrupting Alex. Sure, the dean had only interrupted his train of thought, but it was still an interruption. “I hope you understand that you’re vouching with your life for—”
“We don’t vouch with our lives where I come from.” Alex turned away from the fat man to fix his eyes on the podium. “But don’t worry. We’ll fu—”
“Watch your language, Professor!” the dean squeaked. “There are children here.”
“Sexually mature children. With voting rights. Hey, chicklets, roll out!”
Miss Perriot and Dean Lebenstein hiccupped simultaneously. Alex felt a twinge of anger that neither of them had apparently seen Transformers. Illiterates. Not much you can expect of them.
“Jet Li,” came Jing’s calm voice over the headset.
“Barbie,” Elie said with gritted teeth.
“Gimli,” Mara whispered.
“Flashlight.” Leo seemed to be polishing his nails out there. What a—
“Weasel,” the redhead said in a voice mimicking his blonde friend.
“At least you remember your nicknames. Well, we’re lucky—this round looks easy. We’ll walk over these guys like Jesus on water without getting our heels messy.”
“Heels? But I didn’t make a pedicure appointment—”
“Focus, Flashlight!” Doom barked. “Have you ever been on a job? All talk is strictly business. Not another word from you, lookout, unless it’s a cop signal.”
Dumsky was so into the game that he let a little of the street in. No man’s fool, he’d bet ten grand on the chicklets’ victory. Considering they came in at 1:3, the prospect of winning twenty stacks was too attractive to miss.
Overall, he got why they were so nervous.
Facing them were five gentlemen and…the feminist world wanted everyone to say gentlewomen but, as a sexist, Alex preferred ladies.
They all hailed from the holy land of cheap burgers and stunning movies like The Shawshank Redemption, shows Alex watched over and over again back in prison.
The five were apparently seniors. Two were big guys: a fair-haired and blue-eyed one who would have looked right at h
ome in a Nazi uniform, and a seven-foot, fifteen-stone African-American who had apparently come straight from the football field, forgetting his weed, hoes, and bucket of fried chicken.
Not only did that sound racist, it actually was.
Doom was a black jerk (no mistake there).
And the three ladies. A sexy Latina with a prominent booty. A nerd, bespectacled and pug-nosed (Alex would only have fucked her with a bag over her head). And a mulatto who looked more dangerous than sexy.
“So,” Alex said, covered his mike with a hand, “Nazi boy is a light wizard. Some 900 points. Give it to him with fire—odd as it sounds, light wizards are bad at resisting it. The other guy, football boy, is a voodoo master. Don’t let him get your nails or hair. Latino stripper is a fire wizard. Barbie, take her hot and heavy, get all these guys horn—”
Miss Perriot coughed from behind me.
“Take her hard from the back and—”
Miss Perriot coughed again.
“I get it, Professor,” blondie said in an icy voice that contrasted with her magic element.
“The next girl is a red nerd. Like our Weasel.”
“There are lots of people with red hair,” Travis protested.
“Of course,” Alex nodded. “There are lots of idiots, too. Now for the most dangerous, the mulatto panther. She’s…a literal panther.”
“A shapeshifter?!” seven voices screamed at once—all five chicklets, the dean, and the esper, the latter two apparently listening the whole time. Were they never told not to eavesdrop when they were little?
“No, a summoner,” Alex winced. “Jing, don’t let her round you up. Keep it simple. Feel free to improvise, but go with our two-two-one tactic. Knock Nazi boy and stripper girl out first. The rest don’t matter.”
Alex was true to his habit of nicknaming everyone around him. Since his early years, it had been his favorite way of sizing up people and their most prominent parts.
Speaking of prominent parts, he didn’t at all mean male geni—
“How do you know what their powers are?” Perriot interrupted.
What the hell? Some kind of hostile magic seemed to be turning the situation PG.
“Experience,” Alex said honestly. “Please stop distracting me. I have five chicklets here who are about to get fu—”
“We can hear you!” the students shouted.
Alex rolled his eyes. There definitely was some wizardry keeping him from swearing.
The referee lifted a flare gun overhead and pulled the trigger. No fucking doubt, it’s about to go down.
He’d done it!
Sadly, in his joy at being able to swear at last, he missed the beginning of the round. It was spectacular.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, Nazi boy and stripper girl drew a seal in the air (Senior battle magic students drawing magic seals with their fingers! Why don’t they use a stencil, too?) that flashed with fire and light, so pure and clear it made Alex itch to hit the light thing as hard as he could.
Football boy, in the meantime, dropped a rag doll to his feet that instantly sprouted long, green, snake-like vines.
Panther kneeled, rolled her eyes, and put her hands on her podium to start summoning.
Their defense was handled by the red nerd, who spread her arms, singing into existence spells that flashed multi-colored shields around the five.
The Americans’ well-coordinated effort was on point.
But Doom had his point, too. It was the trademark of the whiskey he’d kept in his old jacket, one that had died brave in his battle with the Mask.
The double sea the attacking couple made shot a fiery tornado that took the shape of a giant hand clutching a sword. It was formed by the finest rays of all-piercing light.
The magic sword cut through the shields Travis hastily put up without any problem whatsoever, smacking into Leo at the tip of the team’s V formation.
Swept off his feet, the pink-haired guy flew across the whole podium and lost consciousness when he hit the ground, his jumpsuit turning white.
“Great!” Doom clapped, utterly surprising his fellow coaches, Miss Perriot, and Lebenstein, but not his chicklets. “The dead weight is gone. Now let’s send those Yankees home! Barbie, fire!”
And Eleonora fired.
It was so hot that Alex was fucking stunned.
Chapter 58
Eleonora lifted her arms, her fair, nearly white hair, sparking with electricity. From between her hands, waves of orange light spread, swelling until they burst into roaring fire.
Magic lenses were completely disabled at the tournament for both contestants and coaches, so Doom had no idea how much mana her spell contained.
But he was happy enough that she’d created it without a single move of her hands.
That bought the team a couple seconds.
In magic duels between illiterates, the outcome is decided by speed.
Barbie deserved full credit for learning how to form her seal with pure mental effort in less than a month.
The roaring stream of fire had no distinct shape, just a pure elemental flow that spread like a flaming flower over the red nerd’s shields. The Yankee girl doubled over, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. There was no way she could have expected a blow on par with something the average Mystic could pull off—magic storage devices were prohibited at the tournament.
“Hulk! Smash!” Dumsky ordered.
Mara stooped and touched the ground the way she’d done in practice dozens of times. Fortunately, the podium was made of rock raised over the arena surface by earth magic. When the Glomebood half-blood stood, she was holding a rather heavy stone hammer in her hand. It glowed with dwarf runes and emitted a solid amount of magic energy. So solid, in fact, that Doom felt a slight tingling in his fingertips.
In a matter of seconds, Mara created a magic storage device and filled it with part of her reserve. It was just single use, but she didn’t need anything more than that.
“That’s a storage!” the Yankee coach standing beside Doom yelled. “Referee! Violation!”
But the referee didn’t raise his flag.
Alex flashed a predatory smile.
The rules prohibited bringing storage devices onto the field, but not creating them on the spot. Chances were, no one present at Range One, including all the spectators, was able to do what Mara had just done.
Brandishing the hammer, she created a gray seal at her feet and two stone columns to toss it up into the air.
Football guy’s snakes were already circling Jing, but the Asian knew his job. And he was the only one of the five who didn’t wait for Alex’s command to get to work.
The shaman tattoos on his legs glowed through the jumpsuit. The magic energy literally flowing from the adolescent’s body formed big bubbles shaped like tiger paws, and that was when…Jet Li just vanished.
Despite all his experience, Alex lost track (though just for a moment) of the shaman’s moves. That made sense—shamans weren’t actually wizards.
Emerging a few feet behind the red nerd’s back, Jing assumed an attacking stance, though he didn’t strike.
He really did know his job.
Events from there unfolded so rapidly that Alex could hardly intervene with anything more than a brief command. And the fact that Travis responded to the summons in time was a testament to the job Rizen’s teachers had done.
The seal that appeared in front of the panther was filled with signs and symbols unlike any of those used by the standard magic schools. The magic actually had much more in common with shamanism than with the classical schools.
A wingless manticore burst out of the seal with a deafening roar—a lion with a bat’s head and a scorpion’s tail. A D-rank magic creature according to the Hunter Guild’s bestiary. It could have easily overcome a regular Practitioner or turned a student party like the tournament into a massacre. If the panther had lost control of the creature, the contestants on the podium would have felt like they’d been transporte
d back into the heat of the Magic War.
The referee held out a hand that clutched a magic wand carved with runes, a battle magic storage.
But Travis was faster.
Faster than the referee.
Faster than Alex himself could remember which spell would destroy the creature.
Weasel held his palms together. When he spread them, a glowing glass needle seemed to hang in between, though it was actually made of compressed, crumpled space. It was better than any sword at cutting and piercing.
“Fucking Doctor Strange,” Alex said with sincere admiration.
Space spells required absolutely perfect magic control. Doom had managed to create a very simple spell of that type only a month before he’d been jailed.
But the level of magic control Travis was showing right then, however much it pained Alex to admit it, was beyond his current ability.
He was somewhat excused by the fact that spells from the Space and Darkness schools were only unlocked at level 40 for Adepts and higher. That limited them to the cream of the Abyss Society.
Swinging widely, Travis flung the space needle spear, piercing the leaping manticor through. Its hard skin, which was capable of withstanding a shot from a sniper rifle, something that had been confirmed during the Magic War, and its anti-tank mine-proof skeleton both gave way.
“Now!” Alex barked into the mike.
By then, Mara had soared through the air, landing on top of the red nerd’s shield to balance on a magic plateau she’d created. It rose like a bridge over the five Yankees.
She spun the hammer overhead and brought it crashing down on the shield dome where most of the other team’s seals were concentrated.
Barbie’s flaming flower was still raging at the front of the shield, meaning that it had just come under the full combined power of the magic storage wielded by the human-dwarf.
Dark Wizard's Case Page 31