He roared so loud this time that he had to throw his body into it to get the sound out, and in so doing could feel his abdominal muscles locking up. He stood up from the chair and tried to walk it off. This time, he had to wave his arm to restore the protective casings, now shattered, about his fine artifacts, impenetrable shields that yielded only to his magic.
The shifting geometries over his third-eye…. They had centered him enough to realize that he’d have to find the congruence between all the patterns known to him and all those unknown to come up with The Seed Pattern. Forget it, Victor, not in the time you have available. That’s an apogee project for when you’re sitting on the throne seat and reigning over not one but all multiverses. Sometime between now and then you’ll figure out how to do that, but not today, and not in time to save you from the Soul Searcher.
But what you might be able to do….
He settled back into the chair and shifted his position in the seat, and folded his legs into a cross-legged configuration. As he slipped into a lotus position, with his back more erect, he rested the back of his hands on his knees with the thumbs and middle fingers of each hand touching.
The chair began to morph about him, its clean geometric lines finding new relationships until it finally collapsed into a floating dais made of pure energy in the shape of a mandala—one designed to neutralize gravity—a flying carpet, as it were, as only a mandala magician could configure.
He recalled the two patterns he’d brought together originally and converged, and how the overlay had created the opening The Masked Man had needed to jump into their world. Now, all he had to do was use the inverse patterns to reverse the direction of that vacuum; instead of sucking the genie out of the bottle, this should work to flush him back into it.
Victor had been meditating all this time to find a way around this ploy. In the event the trick worked, The Masked Man might be sucked back to oblivion, all right, but he might elect to take everyone else with him, considering the magic he’d worked with the black hole earlier.
What’s more, finding the inverse of his geometric pattern overlays was a lot more complex than it sounded. You flipped two overlapping triangles over, you got the same shape; you were just looking at it from the other side. No, he had to intuit how that pattern of energy veins warped space-time as they passed through it, the subtle forces created—and then he had to figure out how to create the inverse of that. Victor wasn’t just good at making others’ heads hurt with his conundrums; he excelled at making his own hurt too.
The entire apartment receded into the floor this time, his pedestals, the walls, and the roof, all created with magic.
With the clear shot to the sky, Victor began his handiwork.
Three…
Two…
One….
***
P-3 was just looking for his opportunity. Portal People Protector—that’s what the three Ps stood for. He had a way of flying through a portal and sealing it. All he had to do was pass through to collapse one. Something about his biophysics—he wasn’t sure what. He could make a right-good living on this world if only the people opening the portals would keep them open long enough for him to do his thing.
But he was a one-trick pony. The town was full of them. Not even a major ensemble player. Of course, if things kept going the way they were going in Syracuse, he might well become a major leaguer.
So far, no portal. So he continued to bide his time incognito. He needed his cane to walk, these days. The fact was, flying through a portal also energized him; his own personal fountain of youth. But if he went too long without a portal to seal…. As it was, his last remaining energy was being stored in the faceted crystal sphere in the head of the cane. There was just enough for him to absorb for one last flight through a portal. Ordinarily, he’d never be this drained. The whole reason he’d chosen to stay in this place as opposed to jumping through the next portal to wherever it took him was that Syracuse was a veritable portal garden—planted on very fertile ground. Curse his luck, whoever was opening them of late could close them on his own—before P-3 could fly through and absorb their energy. So he had to be on the lookout. He kept his eyes to the sky, though it was hard to keep his head up with the arthritis in his neck. He was aging fast, too fast, if help didn’t come soon.
But help would be coming, he was sure of it. One look at The Masked Man told him as much. They had to get this guy off this world and fast—before he made a right good mess of it. He was tearing through major ensemble players just fast enough for P-3 to get promoted to major ensemble—even in his present state.
This wasn’t good.
The planet depended on these guys. They were the first line of defense. Until the transhumanists and the greens took over in congress and the senate and in governments around the world, replacing liberals and conservatives—labels for a bygone era with bygone issues—until the very people who comprehended the degree to which scientific and environmental concerns were everything anymore for powering an economy—it was pretty much down to the mavericks who could fly upstream of a lack of funding.
And so it was, ironically, that an age of magic was rising once again to fill the vacuum—even in a hi-tech age. Because the challenges were just too big anymore to be dealt with by conventional means, using conventional scientific methods.
One of the major players was facing off against The Masked Man now. P-3 was tempted to close his eyes. It was just too painful to watch.
***
Celestial Fire was using his flames against The Masked Man as only he could. They did not burn away physical matter. They burned the soul. Burned it clear of all evil and darkness. Priestly, which was his other nickname, had taken up the wizard gig to supplement his dwindling coffers. Catholic Church attendance was down, and this was a hell of a way to recruit eager followers. When he hit someone with celestial fire, it was like instant promotion to angel status, or at least Saint status. They spent the rest of their lives traveling the world, doing good, going from one beleaguered peoples to another, giving hope when no one and nothing else would.
Priestly wasn’t entirely comfortable with the whole false idols thing, as the Bible spoke out clearly against it. Still, maybe in the service of the Lord, who he was happy to point people back to, insisting he was but the hands of this God, doing his will…. Maybe the Almighty would cut him some slack.
More anyway, than this guy.
The Masked Man only laughed at him; if anything, he looked energized by the celestial fire. How could this be? He was pure evil; Priestly could sense it. Maybe Priestly just wasn’t powerful enough. Maybe not centered enough. He started chanting his Hail Marys—just in case he was on Christ’s shit list right now; it couldn’t hurt to try a workaround, get on mommy’s good side. But he was running out of time. He couldn’t sustain the flames much longer. It was draining him. He’d masked his age some by trimming up his hair and his beard, to show off the priest’s collar, if nothing else. But the lines in his facade cut so deep, especially the one tracing the edge of his lips all the way under his chin, that the individual pieces of his face resembled the block pieces of a ventriloquist’s dummy. What’s more, his own trepidations over what he was doing were draining him. If he weren’t resisting his own abilities, they might well enliven him.
The Masked Man—he seemed to sense his doubts, feed on them. If Priestly didn’t know better, he’d swear The Masked Man was amplifying those very fears, forcing him to face them. Maybe he was. Maybe that was the source of his magic. If so, Priestly had to let go of them fast—or he was done for.
***
Soren arrived on the scene in The Jaded As Fuck New Yorkers district, in time to see what was going on between Priestly and The Masked Man. Venders on the street were selling popcorn, hot dogs, sodas, just as if downtown had become one outdoor coliseum for the latest big event. Spectators were only too happy to buy up the snack food, anxiously waiting for the next big dramatic thing to happen between The Masked Man and his l
atest nemesis.
The world could end any minute, but hey, there was no denying the entertainment value…. Jaded as fuck just didn’t seem to go far enough to capture the essence of these sector enthusiasts.
Priestly and The Masked Man ought to have been a good match; if anyone could provide a knockout punch to a guy like this, it was Priestly. The old man had offered to use his abilities on Soren once, but Soren wasn’t up for it. That was a little too much truth for him all at once. The old man had earned his respect by not forcing the healing on him. He had to do something to help this guy.
The little voice inside Soren’s head told him to look skyward—against all reason. Shit! Victor was at it again. He was opening another portal. Let’s hope this time to suck this guy back to oblivion. But Soren wasn’t taking any chances. Victor’s magic had backfired once before; it could well happen again. Soren let go with the next-gen assault weapon in his hand, just big enough for him to hold like a small, sawed-off shotgun, balancing the barrel with one hand as he bore down on the trigger with the other.
Whatever the sound wave the weapon was putting out, it must have been like the one that only dogs could hear. For one eternally-dilated, panicked moment, Soren was convinced they prototype was a failure.
The weapon shot out a stream, nonetheless, that put a quick end to The Masked Man’s laughter. His eyebrows furrowed as he readied his arm to lash back. But then Victor’s portal took hold of him, sucking him up toward it. Now the Soul Searcher needed the other arm to deflect the sucking action of the portal. He was doing it, too. Neutralizing Soren’s weapon—if barely, and the drag of the portal—if barely. For now, he was caught halfway between the two.
But something tipped the scales.
Naomi.
He could feel her. Her telekinesis… my God, it was powerful. He could feel the pushback from here. He had to crouch down to make sure he didn’t get sucked up as well.
The Soul Searcher spun toward the portal. Naomi was rotating him to make it harder for him to counteract the forces of the pistol and the portal. It was working. He was getting balled up in his own energy cords like an invisible cat playing with a ball of yarn, only in reverse, the ball getting bigger, not smaller, with the tugs.
And then he was through the tear in space-time.
But even working together, Victor, Naomi, and Soren couldn’t shut down the friggin’ portal.
Victor and his mandala magic again. Always overreaching himself. If they didn’t shut it down fast, something else was going to come through. If not the Soul Searcher, maybe something worse.
And then, out of nowhere, came this superhero with P3 emblazoned on his chest. He flew through the portal and it closed instantly.
A minor ensemble player, a one-trick pony, biding his time for the right moment. Techa bless him. If it weren’t for him… the three master wizards would all have been stymied. Overcome by someone just a bit too out of their weight class.
Soren lowered the weapon and sighed. But not with relief. With worry. What if something had slipped through and hadn’t bothered to announce itself like The Masked Man? That would be the smart thing to do, right? Especially with the portal people protectors assembled here today.
Something else. Naomi had forged a link with Soren’s mind so he was inside everyone’s mind, just as she was: inside Victor’s, inside Priestly’s, inside P-3’s, inside hers. All but the Soul Searcher, who she wisely did not extend a psychic lifeline to.
Victor, the mad man…. He wasn’t just looking to learn what he could to rule over Earth, by taking his game up a notch, fending off each of these better-than-world-class wizards. He wanted to rule over everything—the multiverse—all multiverses. And he had just the plan that would let him do it, allowing him to climb one rung of mastery in his wizardry at a time. And he had the tools to get the job done. Something in Victor sensed that it was his place in the scheme of things. If there was one wizard that could rise above the others, in time, it was him.
Soren could feel the rightness and the wrongness of such a design on the heavens. Victor might well be the one who could keep the peace in a cosmos of forever warring wizards—if he could just master his own ego before taking the throne. Somehow, Soren wasn’t so sure he’d pull that off on his own.
Maybe with a little help from his friends.
But, like Soren, Victor really didn’t have any friends. Maybe it was time Victor got some. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, right? If they couldn’t talk this guy down, then they could at least try and rein in his ego. If they couldn’t do either, then they had to find a way to bring him down.
Even with what Soren knew of Naomi’s true abilities now, he doubted she would be enough; not in the state she was in. That flower was a long way from unfolding entirely. He doubted her posse, even with Soren’s help, would be enough to neutralize Victor.
But, ironically, Victor himself had provided the solution to how to bring about his own demise. If he kept inviting visitors to this world he couldn’t put down himself, to draw out the more powerful players on the planet still in hiding—identities still unknown—those Earthly wizards, banded together, they might have what it took to shut Victor down.
But Victor had a damnable way of learning from their failed efforts how to bring down the next-up-in-weight-class wizards and applying that learning before anyone else could. Soren had no delusions about how hard it was going to be to beat him at his own game.
Soren wasn’t sure he was up for round two of this urban brawl of wizards after seeing what round one had led to. That left, for now, playing the only cards he could. Victor, oh friend of mine, time for a visit.
Soren wasn’t holding his breath. The odds were long that Victor’s own meddling in the structure of the heavens wouldn’t end up in the destruction of the planet. They were no less long that he would end up on the throne seat, as anything but a complete megalomaniac, overlooking the heavens—that no one could stop. But the idea that Soren and company could rein him in—well, the odds against that were longer still.
ACT THREE
UNWILLING BEDFELLOWS
TWELVE
Stealy’s hand reached for the knob on the door to the roof of Victor’s building. Naomi had assured her his real penthouse was up here. But Stealy could feel the magic on the door. She knew if she opened it, she’d end up somewhere else. Very possibly in an alternate dimension there was no coming back from. Victor was just the kind of guy that could do it, and would be nasty enough to guard his place with such magic.
Shit, Stealy! What now? You’ve got to get your hands on one of his artifacts. It’s the only way that Soren guy is going to be able to divine how to apply the magic to you, to hold you together. It’s that or stand here long enough and explode again, hope the discharge neutralizes the door magic, at least temporarily. Hey, that’s not a half bad idea. If only patience were a virtue.
If only the next blast isn’t the one that destroys you for good.
She felt her hand reaching for the door despite her good sense. You can’t be this desperate, Stealy. This is suicidal. This has got nothing to do with wanting to live. Get. Your. Hand. Away. From. That. Knob.
She flashed. For once her out-of-control abilities had come to the rescue. The surge of power, looking for an outlet, had found it and done just as she’d hoped, temporarily short-circuited Victor’s mandala magic.
There was not a moment’s hesitation stepping through the door. She left it slightly ajar, just in case closing it restored the magical seal.
Oh, wow! Jackpot. She was a master thief with the dirt on every hidden artifact of magical significance on the planet. But she’d missed these entirely. Why? Victor, of course. He was way better keyed to mandala magic than she was. He probably had some way of keeping the trinkets hidden until he could get to them, shielding them from psychic probes. You can contemplate this shit later, Stealy. For now, get a move on!
Like a kid in a candy store, she didn’t know what to steal first. Sh
e had to calm her ass down so she had some chance in hell of figuring out what artifact might do her the most good, as opposed to adding to her problems.
Ironically, she hadn’t used her fourth power in a while. Facing off with Dr. Dark and with Player back in the basement, she’d really only availed herself of her way with wizard’s fire, with shield penetration, and with rapid-healing. Her levitating in midair long enough to do her thing—that was all Naomi, coming to her aid. As to manifesting a ramp to launch her motorbike off of—again, Naomi, helping out where she could.
But Stealy had always been, first and foremost, Stealy—a master at stealing the unstealable. It was a sixth sense that guided her to what was worth taking and how to take it. And when that sense was activated, she moved with more stealth than a black panther. It was as if whatever magic she’d inherited had been distilled from the best master thieves the world over, across generations. Someone had studied them, taken from each only what was best, invested it in herself. And then in their child. Had to be her mother. She never stopped complaining that dad was a lousy provider and if she didn’t… . Focus, Stealy! Damn it.
She could feel Victor getting closer. He was returning to his apartment after his epic battle with The Masked Man.
She slipped into stealth mode. Without realizing it, she’d gone invisible. She’d had no idea that was what happened whenever she engaged this ability, but she saw her reflection disappear in the glass casing covering the artifact even as her hand was scanning it to see if it was triggering her Stealy sense.
No. She moved on. No again. You really don’t have time to check out the entire menagerie, Stealy, better hope you get lucky and fast, because you can hear his footsteps now. No. No. No. No. Damn it, no!
Something. Not quite a yes. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she was tingling all over. It was probably the best she could hope for. She didn’t know shit about mandala magic. She had to hope that the unconscious part of her, tied to her Stealy sense did, and not being particularly articulate, this was the best it could do. It was the part of her that had steered her here in the first place.
Reborn (Frankenstein Book 1) Page 10