Wild Spark

by Al K. Line

  With life turned upside down, I took a hard look at myself and my attitude to magic. I'd accepted that I was an addict whatever anyone said, that it was so much a part of me I would be a fool to try to eliminate it from my life.

  Magic made me whole, made me who I was. And magic had grown while I battled my inner demons. Once I put it into practice, it expanded inside until it reached what I believed was its full potential.

  I was no longer merely Faz Pound, a.k.a. Black Spark, a rather snappily dressed dark magic enforcer. I was more. Much more. Ever since Japan, people looked at me different, and once I'd accepted my power I understood why. Truth be told, I'd undergone more than others could endure, had forged ahead when others would have fallen, and taken on more pain and hurt than most could imagine let alone survive.

  And I had the magic of a giant, a gift that had been awoken and unleashed. But that wasn't all. The pain from using and abusing magic was gone now. The magical comedown almost non-existent. I'd crossed over into a different level, one that often took centuries if it was ever achieved at all. I was the one in control, not the magic, not the Empty I stole this power from. Faz Pound was no longer merely a man, he was true Hidden. A magical being who belonged to the Empty and it to him.

  Strong. Powerful. Death.

  Dancer kept me busy after the zombie incident and jobs were a breeze. My reputation preceded me, and those that tried to play it down paid the price when I went to deal with them. I grew stronger by the day, threw myself into my work to forget the past and the pain it had caused.

  I accepted the new me, the strong me, and I knew that at the heart of it all was what I had gone through. I had survived the most intimate of attacks on my most personal of desires. I should have crumbled. But I didn't. I took it, accepted the ache in my soul, and for once looked on the bright side. I was thankful for what I had and knew it was enough. That I had a family. Kate, Grandma, Mithnite, and even friends. Who gets that much in life? It was certainly more than I'd ever expected or often felt I deserved, so I got my act together, thanked the powers-that-be for giving me this much, and embraced my power.

  Part of me knew I was fooling myself, don't get me wrong, for I also knew that although I was lucky, and was grateful, I wanted more. I wanted my own family and that desire never left. But we can't always have what we want in life. Now it seemed like maybe I could.

  So I would go to this damn party, get Kate back, and then we'd go do what we had to so she could bear children. I wondered what that could be. It was bound to be something ridiculously complicated and dangerous; that's a given when you walk in my shiny shoes.

  As I looked up, snapping back to reality from my thoughts and dreams, my feet taking me where I needed to go, the idea of a cab forgotten, I realized I'd arrived at my destination without noticing my surroundings for the whole walk. It must have taken me an hour, but maybe that was a good thing.

  Energy coursed through my tattoos, wild and hardly contained, primed for action and crackling across my skin. Silver sparks dancing around like faery dust as I looked up at Morag's impressive town house.

  With a deep breath, and getting the magic under control, I passed through the open gates and walked down the long drive to the large classical entrance. Hidden murmured and whispered, stepped aside as I approached. Seemed everyone knew who I was, and I couldn't help but give a wry smile. Sycophants the lot of them. Hidden of all kinds here to pacify the cruel witch.

  I ignored them, walked up to the two vampires standing either side of the open double doors, the party inside already in full swing, and said, "Black Spark. I got an invite."

  One of them nodded and checked a tablet then waved me in.

  As the heat hit, I loosened my collar and stepped into the maddest party I've ever attended, and I once went to Grandma's Halloween bash where everyone had to come as food. Yeah, it got nasty.

  Happy Birthday to You

  I've been accused of talking too much, and of repeating myself, going over and over the same stuff, like we don't all do it. If there's a problem you have then it consumes you. You think about it constantly, talk about it endlessly, and everything you do revolves around it. Either you're trying to deal with it, you are ignoring it by doing something else, or it's on your mind no matter what.

  Morag put me to shame. She had been, and still was, utterly consumed by the extremes of magic and its multitudinous possibilities. She trod a fine line, as even she would be very dead very quickly if she pushed it too far, but push it she did. Her particular field of interest lay in the strange, ancient art of metamorphosis. Therianthropy, changing from human form to animal, now known as shapeshifting, has been a part of magic for as long as anyone can recall. There since magic was brought to humanity by somebody who went mad because of it and almost brought about its end.

  My host was obsessed with this ability. Shifters were her closest friends and allies and she held them in the highest regard, kept a veritable menagerie in her court. Myriad animals and creatures from large to small. But it wasn't just the natural occurrence because of some magical warping of people's DNA that interested her, it was the ability to create and twist the transformation she was consumed by.

  Hence the hedgehog hybrid that delivered her invitation earlier. She had, by all accounts, and looking around at the assembled guests I believed it, long ago mastered the art of bringing out the inner animal in people. Whether they wanted it or not.

  We all have it, a creature that lurks inside, often more than one. We are complex creatures with complex emotions and many sides to our personalities. Some are dominated by one aspect, others by numerous, and these traits are signs of our animal nature. Something that goes beyond mere explanation but is a part of who, and what, we are nonetheless.

  I guess it's a link to our ancestral past. The fact that our DNA is only fractionally removed from a monkey, a few blobs different to that of an elephant or a mouse. The base structures that make us up are almost identical in every way to all other creatures that have ever been or ever will exist, and nobody, absolutely nobody, knows quite how it is one collection of cells becomes one thing and another set something else entirely.

  Nobody in the Regular world, at any rate. Us Hidden, us users and abusers of magic, we know. It's magic. That's it, pure and simple. This miracle called life is magic. It has to be. There is no other explanation for the impossibility of existence, for the ridiculous number of coincidences and the absolute implausibility of ever being born into this amazing world.

  There is less chance of you being born than there are stars in the entire universe. To be here it means that right back until the beginning of time each set of parents had to first meet, then have a child, that child had to survive and it had to meet another person just as lucky, and then they had to have a child and on and on for an impossible number of generations. It's just downright impossible for one of them to have not died or been eaten by a tiger or whatever.

  And for each birth the cells that formed the child had to have that magical spark of something elusive to fire them into life.

  Magic.

  Everything is connected and has a shared past, and we are so close to every other living thing that no wonder shifters are a reality. It's kind of surprising there aren't more of them, a lot more.

  In Morag's home there were plenty.

  The strange animals she had released from their human prisons were in abundance. Many were mindless creatures, the human personality long ago faded. Others had some humanity remaining, and were happy to have been changed, many even requested it. Whilst others were being punished for misdeeds real or imagined, the witch turning them for her own amusement and to further her knowledge of just how far the body and mind could be pushed.

  It was the stuff of nightmares and I vowed never to go to another one of her shindigs.

  Everywhere I looked in the grand ballroom, covered in ornate decoration and entirely too lavish and over the top for my tastes but impressive nonetheless, were Hidden I was fami
liar with and creatures I most certainly wasn't. Looked like she'd stepped up her studies and had gone way past the sanity boundary and stepped firmly into "nutty bonkers as squishy between the ears as a donut" land.

  There were man cats, rhino women, and birds with human heads they couldn't hold up. Snakes with arms and legs, chattering squirrels clinging to the plasterwork on the ceiling and running around the coving, almost looking cute if it wasn't for the human mouths and ears and the unbearable sadness in their eyes as they fought and lost the battle to remain human and slowly faded to mindless animal.

  There was a real sense of unease in the air. I wasn't the only one who was surprised by the turn her interests had taken. This was way over the line, and way out of my league. This was for the Council to deal with, but they had seemingly given her permission as no way would the news of what she'd done not have reached them by now.

  And there she was, sat on a ridiculous gilt chair at the end of the long hall, surrounded by sycophants and chattering creatures. Hidden giving her gifts, humans simpering like the pathetic fools they were. Yet I had eyes for none of them, not even for Morag herself.

  I only had eyes for Kate.

  She must have sensed my presence. She smiled at me, mouthing, "I'm okay."

  I nodded and walked across the room, greeting those I knew politely but not slowing.

  Halfway there and the lights suddenly dimmed. A monstrous cake, almost black the chocolate was so dark, with candles sparkling violently, was wheeled in from a side door by two goblins. The best chefs you can find but also the most annoying creatures I have ever come across.

  Then the damn song started. And everyone sang along, me included, as even though the lights were out and the candles only lit a small circle, I knew Morag was staring at me. The last thing I wanted was to cause a scene here, on this day, so I sang Happy Birthday and kept on walking, and by the time it had finished I was standing just off to the side as she smiled at me then turned her attention to the cake.

  She breathed in deeply and then with a big blow, plus a little magical assistance that swept across the candles, all six hundred were extinguished at once and the room was plunged into darkness.

  Cool breath tickled my neck as Morag whispered quietly, right in my ear, "Did you bring me a present?"

  I turned, but knew she was already moving away, and as the crowd grew uneasy and began to murmur, the lights sprang to life, music blared, and Morag was back on her idea of a throne, clapping happily as everyone began to dance.

  I stepped forward as the cake was being wheeled away to be cut, and went to answer her question.

  It's New

  As I stepped forward, Morag's eyes sparkling with amusement close to glee, I saw the fires burn brighter in her pupils and knew there was to be trouble.

  I was right. Before I had the chance to speak, to talk to Kate or even say "Happy birthday you fucking insane psycho bitch," a hand rested on my shoulder as if the owner of said hand had the right to touch me.

  He did not.

  Moving effortlessly into cool Faz mode, as smooth as a faery's silk dress, and without even turning to see who it was, I said, "Get you hand off my jacket, right now. It's new, or new to me, and you are invading my space."

  The hand remained, fingers clenching tighter against my shoulder, trying to crush me. I looked first at the oversized hand, hairy and muscular, covered in thick blue veins easily visible under skin as pale as moonlight and just as cold and uncaring, and then into the face of my enemy. For he was my enemy. He had soiled my suit, and you know how I am about my clothes.

  He had eyes almost as pale as his skin, a sickly blue so faded and distant, empty of emotion, that for a moment I thought I was looking at a mask. But no, he blinked, slowly like a damn sloth, licking weak lips with a pale pink tongue that seemed way too long to fit back into his mouth.

  White hair shot from his scalp in utter disarray, the effect like he had one of those Jester hats the wearer thinks is hilarious and everyone else thinks makes you look like an utter dick.

  But the shock of hair and the pale features weren't the oddest thing, it was the man as a whole that made you doubt what you'd seen and look again to be sure your mind wasn't playing tricks on you.

  He was way too thin. Not skeletal, not skinny, ill, malnourished, or just a lanky guy, no, he was seven feet tall and willow to the point of actually swaying in the gentle breeze. It blew through the open windows where floodlights showed off a rear garden full of well-manicured shrubbery, and where many guests had escaped to the moment they thought it polite enough to do so.

  The room seemed to sense that something was amiss, and the raucous, forced laughter and jolly mood quieted. The dancing slowed then came to a halt as everyone's attention turned to us.

  So much for keeping it low-key.

  "Your hand," I said slowly, "is still on my shoulder. Take it off. Now."

  He squeezed tighter, and if I'd been a lesser adept he would have crushed me. The hands were oversized like a giant's even though he didn't seem like a giant so much as a normal person who had been stretched out and all excess tissue and muscle removed.

  Mr. Bendy just stared at me as if he didn't understand, but I knew he did, that this was Morag's idea of fun. Seeing how I'd react, how far the guy could take it. I knew he'd try to take it all the way, crush me, as she was in party mood and what better way to celebrate than to punish foreigners who turned up late?

  I was about to speak then thought better of it. Remaining calm, eyes focused on Morag, I let my eyes fade gently to black. No fast snap, just a gentle easing into the old Black Spark mode. Senses came alive and I had to withhold a smile as the most potent drug in existence made me want to sing and dance. Magic flushed through my system like I'd opened the floodgates. Swirling and reveling in the freedom as my ancient markings expanded and stood proud on my skin in bas-relief.

  It was different to how it used to be. More refined, under very precise control. There was no need to hold back, now I could summon the magic with no price to pay.

  True Hidden magic gave me a strength even when I didn't consciously switch to magic mode. But when I willed it to action, when I focused on it, well, this rude dude was about to find out what that meant.

  Casually, never flinching or taking my eyes off Morag, who was leaning forward and watching with interest and obvious amusement, I reached across my body with my right hand and put it over the man's. His skin was freezing cold, but there was plenty of life there, as he demonstrated by squeezing harder. I shunted energy into my shoulder and the ink expanded further, pushed against the force to stop him breaking bone and grinding it to dust. He grunted in surprise but I stayed Mr. Cool.

  Then I squeezed. And I squeezed some more. His grip released and he screamed as his body sank but I kept on applying pressure until his skin split and the bones cracked. And I kept on going. This was no time to show weakness, to reveal such acts made me sick. I'd be toast if I didn't remain hard, act disinterested, so I willed more magic down my arm and my hand glowed hot, sparkling with tiny red darts of energy that crackled above my skin as I made a fist. Bone and musculature obliterated.

  I released my grip, bent to the man now lying on the floor, panting heavily, sweat soaking his face, his arm hanging loose in a puddle of goo, and wiped my hand on his linen shirt, only standing when I was sure it was as clean as it would get.

  Turning back to Morag, I smiled, bowed, and said, "Happy birthday, Morag. What's a guy got to do to get a drink around here?"

  The room let out a sigh of shock as I hadn't used the title Queen. A collective breath was held as all eyes turned to her. Slowly, a smile spread across her face. And then she was laughing, and beckoned forth a waiter. I took a champagne flute from the tray, raised my glass, and with sudden inspiration shouted, "To the Queen."

  "To the Queen," everyone echoed, partly in relief, partly out of self preservation. Morag clapped her hands with glee then laughed and laughed as I took a sip. The party started ri
ght back up again.

  Champagne bubbles got up my nose, and I took only a taste as I was off the booze, but I think I handled it quite well.

  "Now," I said, "may I have a word with my wife?"

  Morag's face turned serious and she said, "Actually, I want a word with both of you."

  Great. Just great.

  The Usual Nonsense

  Morag rose and beckoned Kate to rise also. Kate was being weirdly subservient, which was unsettling. She'd grown less inclined to do what others asked her to do over the last few years, and if you told her to do something, well, you better run away. Fast. As the vampire nature grew so did her inability to calm herself when others tried to boss her around.

  With the strange tall dude seemingly cleared away like trash, and no other nasty surprises in store yet, we followed Morag out of the ballroom. She led the way, alone, down several corridors and through other large rooms until we entered a much more reasonably sized space. We walked behind her, only talking to ensure the other was okay, and as she settled on an expensive looking chair I closed the door behind us.

  The relief was instant. The noise was cut off, a relaxed atmosphere replacing the strained party vibe as the room exuded intimacy and a cozy, old school warmth. It was at odds with the rest of the house. Rather plain with comfortable sofas, chairs, tables, and the occasional ornament. Nothing special at all.

  "Please, sit," offered Morag.

  We made ourselves comfortable and waited. Morag was an odd looking woman, unlike other witches her age. Usually, once they hit what would be seen as a respectable age they did this odd transition to old lady look, wearing dated clothes and doing weird stuff to their hair. Obsessed about slippers and housecoats and stirring things in pots that smelled rank and tasted worse.