by King, R. L.
The gun barrel dug in a bit harder against Stone’s head.
“Y’all right, Doc?” Malcolm asked.
“Had better days,” Stone said through clenched teeth, trying not to move his head as he spoke. He was wondering why Blitz hadn’t re-formed his illusionary monster—perhaps such a realistic working required time and concentration. If he’d killed the other Forgotten earlier, he must be brimming with stored power, unless he’d used it for something else earlier in the day.
“Go on, Blitz!” the crazy kid urged. “Kill the bums! Do it! I like to watch ’em go poof!”
“I wanna know who killed my monster first!” Blitz glanced up, finally appearing to notice the remains of Stone’s magical contraption. He reached up and yanked at the part hanging down, pulling the whole thing loose. “What the fuck’s this?”
“These so-called ‘bums’ are a bit more than you think they are, aren’t they?” Stone asked.
“Shut up!” Randy yelled, and hit him in the gut with his gun-free hand.
Stone doubled over, the wind knocked from him—but for just a second, Randy wasn’t pointing the gun at his head.
That was all the time Verity needed to make her move. Randy’s arm shot up, and he screeched as an unseen force yanked the gun toward the ceiling.
Stone dived forward, rolling toward cover as Verity popped up from behind the pile of trash and launched an impressive lightning bolt at Blitz and his two buddies.
It hit an invisible shield and dissipated, and then all three of them winked out.
“Fuck!” Malcolm yelled. “Don’t let ’em get away!”
“They’re trying to go back the way they came!” Verity yelled back, leaping over the pile. Zenna, next to her, raised her rifle and fired at the spot where they’d been, but there was no way to tell if she’d hit anything.
Two shots sounded from where the three guys had been, deafening in the enclosed space, and one of the Forgotten shouted and went down.
A commotion sounded farther back up the hallway, and suddenly two more Forgotten were there, bulling their way in, pushing hard as if the air was resisting them. They went down in a heap and then Blitz and his friends winked back in again, untangling themselves from the two tackling Forgotten.
“Don’t shoot our guys!” Zenna yelled, swinging her rifle barrel around, trying to get a clean shot.
With a roar, Blitz grabbed hold of the closest downed Forgotten. The man screamed and tried to wrench himself free, but it was too late. His scream stopped abruptly, and his body disappeared. His clothing fluttered to the ground.
Blitz disappeared again, and so did his friends. The other Forgotten man in the pile, eyes wide with terror, flung himself away.
“There he is!” someone shouted, pointing. Blitz was on the far side of the room now, running full-tilt for another exit. One of the other riflemen popped up from behind cover and took aim.
“Wait!” Stone yelled. “It’s an illusion!”
The man squeezed off a shot before he could finish. Blitz threw himself forward, executed a perfect forward roll, and continued toward the exit.
And then he—the real version of him—appeared behind the rifleman, who screamed and dropped his rifle as he too was consumed. Blitz roared in triumph and winked out again before the others could get a shot off.
“Watch the auras!” Stone yelled, hurrying toward Verity. “It’s the only way to know for sure!”
The Blitz on the other side of the room had disappeared.
“He’s there!” Verity yelled, pointing at empty air near a grouping of ragged furniture. “They’re all there! Look out!” She waved her hand, and the terrified and confused Forgotten woman standing nearby lifted off the ground and flew to the other side of the room, screaming.
Zenna took a wild shot toward the furniture, and was rewarded with a disembodied “Fuck!” The kid wearing Stone’s coat flashed back in, clutching his arm.
Before anyone could get another shot at him, though, he too shrieked in agony, his back arching as if he’d stepped on a live wire, and then disappeared. Stone’s coat hung there in the air for a second, then drifted down. The area behind where the guy had been standing was empty.
“He’s killing his own guys!” Verity shouted. Then, quieter to Stone: “His aura looks weird. What’s going on?”
“Weird how?” Like the Forgotten, Stone was looking around constantly, trying to get eyes on Blitz when he popped back in. He cursed his lack of magic, and was almost tempted to try looking for auras again, but the fear of burning himself out stopped him.
Verity had it under control, however. She was doing great. This is what he’d trained her for. Much as he hated to do it, he had to let her handle this one on her own. He gripped his arm, trying to stop the bleeding, and kept scanning.
“Too bright,” she said. “Like oversaturated.”
“Where is he now?”
She pointed. “Both of ’em are over there, hiding behind that chair. I think they have to stay together or he can’t keep the other one invisible.”
Stone nodded, then ducked low and ran toward where Zenna was crouched behind cover with another of the remaining riflemen. He pointed below the line of trash in the direction Verity had indicated. “Concentrate your fire there,” he told them. “On that green flowered chair.”
Zenna and the other man did as they were told. The ratty green chair bucked and jumped, emitting little clouds of stuffing from its rear cushion. Someone yelped.
“They’re moving again!” Verity yelled. “Toward the back! Look out—”
Two more disembodied gunshots, and another Forgotten, an old woman this time, cried out and fell.
Verity popped up and flung a concussion beam in that direction, but dropped back down, frustrated and panting, when it didn’t appear to hit anything.
Even from where he was now, Stone could tell she wouldn’t be able to throw too many more like that. Offensive magic was harder for white mages, and Verity wasn’t trained for protracted magical combat. He wondered how long Blitz would be able to keep going—even if he specialized in illusions and invisibility, the spell by its nature was difficult to maintain. He must be burning through a lot of power to keep it going while running around as much as he was. And what had Verity meant about his aura being “weird” and “oversaturated”?
The Forgotten were getting restless now. The ones with rifles—including a new one who’d picked up the one the downed one had dropped—were swiveling the barrels around, looking for anything to fire at while simultaneously swiveling their heads around looking for threats.
It made sense—the very real possibility of being obliterated without warning, turned to nothing but a pile of ash—had to be terrifying. Hell, Stone himself was a bit nervous about it, even though he was fairly sure it would be a lot harder to do it to him. But the fact remained that the longer this went on, the more chance that one of the Forgotten would freak out at a sudden movement and fire on one of their own.
He glanced over toward Verity, but she wasn’t looking at him; instead, she scanned the area in front of her intently. She looked troubled. After a moment, she turned toward Stone and shrugged, her expression confused.
Had she lost sight of them? Had they left?
He didn’t have time to consider that for long as something behind Verity caught his eye—something moving. “Verity!” he yelled. “Look out!”
She jerked down, but wasn’t fast enough to completely avoid the chunk of concrete flying toward her. The good news was, it didn’t hit her head, which was where it had been aimed. The bad news was that it crashed hard into her right shoulder. She cried out and went down to her hands and knees, stunned.
Stone was about to leap up and run toward her when Blitz and Randy appeared behind her. Blitz had the gun now. He pulled her up in front of him and put the barrel to her head. “Awright!�
�� he yelled. “This is it! Every last fuckin’ one of you bums drop yer guns and get the hell out here, or I blow this chick’s head off. Now!”
Stone didn’t stop to think. He didn’t consider the effect his action might have on him in the future. The only thing consuming his mind was rage at this two-bit punk of a wild talent who was threatening his apprentice. He gathered every bit of energy he could pull to him, focused it, and before any of the Forgotten even had a chance to move, flung it at the kid’s gun hand.
It wasn’t much magic. It wasn’t a fraction of what he could summon up at the height of his power. But a sense of exultation filled him as his body sang once again with the Power, as it coursed through him and flew unerringly to where he directed it. There was pain, too—he’d overtaxed his barely-restored skills, and he felt blood trickling from his nose, but he didn’t care. At this particular moment, none of that mattered to him in the slightest.
The concussion bolt slammed into Blitz’s hand just as Stone had meant it to. Blitz shrieked, the gun flying out of his hand and clattering to the ground several feet away. Verity, stunned but still conscious, wrenched herself from his grasp and threw herself sideways, skittering back behind cover, over toward Stone.
Blitz let out a stream of profanity and grabbed Randy. Before any of the Forgotten could react, he clamped his hands on his friend’s shoulders and yelled something unintelligible toward the ceiling. Randy’s eyes bulged as his fate dawned on him only a fraction of a second before he was nothing but ashes on the breeze.
The Forgotten opened fire, but Blitz had already put up a glowing shield. The bullets hit it and bounced off, though thankfully for the Forgotten, the shield’s surface wasn’t hard enough to cause ricochets.
“That’s it!” Blitz screamed. “That’s it! You all gonna die now! You all gonna feed my power!”
Stone stared at him. Even without being able to see his aura, he could tell that something was wrong with the kid. It wasn’t just the manic expression, the wild eyes, the jerking motions of his limbs. There was something else he couldn’t put his finger on.
“Too…much…” Verity got out. She was on her knees next to Stone, still dazed from the hit she’d taken.
Blitz winked out again, then popped back in behind another small group of Forgotten. He grabbed one with each hand and let loose with a scream that turned into a maniacal laugh. The two Forgotten died like the rest.
“What?” Stone demanded. “What do you mean?” He didn’t think he’d be able to summon up enough magic power to hit Blitz again, and the Forgotten seemed to be frozen in place by the young mage’s insane actions.
“Too much…” she rasped again. “Looks like…he’s gonna explode.”
Shock gripped Stone as he realized what she meant, and what he hadn’t been considering. “Stop!” he yelled at Blitz. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
The laughter continued, even though Blitz had popped out again.
He reappeared in front of Stone, reaching out to grab him, still laughing.
“Stop!” Stone yelled again. “Don’t do this! You’ll kill yourself!”
Blitz didn’t stop laughing. His shaking hands reached out for Stone, who took a step back, watching in horror.
“Don’t shoot him!” he yelled.
“What you mean?” Malcolm yelled back. “He killed our guys! He killed Luke, man!”
“Don’t shoot him!” Stone ordered. “You don’t need to be murderers. He’s done already!”
He was sure he’d hear guns going off any second, but he didn’t. He watched Blitz as he stood there, shaking, eyes popping, his face full of terror.
“What’s happenin’?” he moaned. “Oh, God, what is this?” He clamped his hands to his head as his knees began to buckle. “My head—my head’s explodin’!”
Stone lunged forward and grabbed him, gripping his shoulders. In spite of everything, in spite of all the people Blitz had killed, this was hard for him to watch.
“Oh, God, his aura!” Verity said, her voice shaking.
“Help me…” Blitz begged, his frightened eyes meeting Stone’s. “Help me, man…I’m burnin’ up…”
His whole body vibrated under Stone’s hands, growing hotter. Sweat sprang out on his face, his hands, his neck. He began to glow—for a moment Stone thought he’d inadvertently switched to magical sight, but all around him, the Forgotten gasped. They saw it, too.
Blitz’s eyes opened wider, obscured by a brighter version of the glow. Energy radiated from them like beams as he threw his head back, sending small shards of concrete clattering down.
And then he screamed, high and terrified, and sagged in Stone’s arms.
Stone held him for a moment, his own arm shaking as he finally became aware that blood was still running down its length from the knife slash, then lowered him to the ground.
“It’s all right,” he called, voice raspy. “It’s over.” He dropped to his knees next to Blitz.
Slowly, one by one, the remaining Forgotten emerged from hiding. “Is he—dead?” Zenna asked. She kept her rifle pointed at him, as if expecting him to pop up again.
Stone felt for his pulse. “Alive,” he said. “But barely.”
Verity staggered over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me fix that arm for you,” she said.
He shook his head. “See to the others, if you feel up to it. This is minor.”
She crouched down and looked into his eyes, her gaze searching. “Doc, was I crazy, or did you—”
“Later,” he said. “Go. Help them.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Later.”
She left him there, sitting next to the pale form of Blitz, who showed no sign of awakening. He didn’t move for a long time, and was barely aware of the Forgotten swirling around him, dealing with their wounded and their dead, cleaning up the remains of the battle.
He had a lot to think about.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Verity found Stone back in Luke’s alcove an hour later. “Hey.”
He looked up from where he’d been staring down at his notes without seeing them. “Ah. How are you?”
His apprentice stood in the doorway, his coat draped over her arm. She looked exhausted, but satisfied. He got up and waved her toward his chair.
It was a testament to how tired she was that she didn’t protest. She dropped into the chair, glanced at the notes, and then looked up at him. “I’m okay,” she said. “Feel like I could sleep for about a year, but okay.”
He nodded. He felt a bit that way himself. “Were you able to sort any of them out?”
“Yeah. Those guys were lousy shots. All the ones they shot were healable, so I took care of it. The other ones, though—” She looked away.
Stone nodded. “I know,” he said soberly. “It’s not an easy thing to watch.”
She sighed. “You just hanging out back here because you couldn’t take being around people for a while?”
“Mostly. Not much I could do to help anymore. I’d just be in the way.” When it looked like she was about to ask him something, he added quickly, “How is our illusionist? They didn’t kill him, did they?”
She shook her head. “They’ve got him handcuffed to a pipe over to the side of the big room, with a couple guys with rifles guarding him. They wouldn’t believe me when I told ’em he won’t be doing any damage any time soon. Maybe never.” She frowned at him. “What happened out there, Doc? You seemed like you knew. Did you? And sit down, okay? Let me take care of that arm.”
He sat down on Luke’s bed and allowed her to pull off the makeshift bandage he’d wrapped around it. For a long time, he didn’t say anything as his mind replayed the events he’d witnessed. Finally, he said, “You know, of course, that black mages draw their power from other people.”
“Sure,” she said.
“Yeah. Not often, though, right?”
“No, not often. Do you know why?”
She shrugged. “Because it’s hard to kill people? Most people wouldn’t do it even if it was easy.”
“That’s part of it,” he said. He winced as she probed at his arm. “But the other reason is because it’s not necessary. A black mage can perform most normal magic using the amount of power siphoned from donors—just a little bit from each person, enough to make them tired, but not enough to do irreparable damage.”
“So what do they get from killing people, then?”
“An order of magnitude more energy. The sort of thing that white mages can’t really equal, because there’s a limit to the amount of energy one can generate within one’s own body—or by using enchanted objects. But what they get from killing someone can keep the mage going for weeks of normal casting if they’re careful, or fuel the kinds of powerful spells black mages like to cast: quick, combat-oriented magic.”
She considered that, and nodded. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“Killing someone,” Stone said, “can give a mediocre mage the kind of power to stand up to an accomplished one—but only briefly. Holding that kind of power inside one’s body is a tricky thing. Takes practice, and even the best ones can’t do it indefinitely. That’s why the vast majority of black mages don’t kill their ‘batteries.’ And why virtually all of them don’t kill indiscriminately to draw power.” He shifted on the bed as the deep-down itchy feeling grew in his arm while Verity healed it.
“Hold still,” she said. “And be quiet for a sec, okay?”
Stone nodded. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the fact that his arm was itching like a bad sunburn.
After a few moments, Verity pulled back. “There. You might have a little scar, but it’s not bleeding anymore.” She went over and sat back down in the chair. “So are you telling me Blitz screwed himself over by taking in too much power?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Wild talents generally don’t have much training, if any at all. They discover their abilities by accident, and hone them through trial and error. I’m sure he had to be using a massive amount of power to keep that multi-sensory illusion going—that thing was better than most fully trained mages I know could manage, myself included.”