by CM Raymond
Returning to the great hall, he found two plates of food—one hardly eaten, the other smashed to pieces on the floor. Something was wrong, and the wizard feared the worst. She had had company, and there was some sort of conflict.
Ezekiel fastened his robe, grabbed his staff, and concentrated. His body had not yet rested from the last jump; the magician’s power was still waning. Digging deep into his reserves, he concentrated on his pupil and jumped away from the tower.
****
As Hannah raced toward her home, she smiled thinking about Parker. Her friend was more than able to handle himself, especially at home on the Boulevard. She was lucky to have him. Although she didn’t believe in the Matriarch or Patriarch, she nevertheless felt blessed by someone or something. For the first time ever, she felt like she had been given much and felt incredibly strong.
Her magic was far from mature, but the power inside of her was there and waited to be used to set things right.
Turning the corner toward her house, she was glad to see light in the windows. Something had psychically clued her into trouble with her brother, and now she was beginning to think that maybe it was just the power bubbling around in her blood mixed with her imagination.
It wasn’t exactly something she had learned from Ezekiel, after all. By the time she reached the door, she had convinced herself that there was nothing wrong, and she was even glad for the chance to see her brother. It had been so long since she’d seen him.
Hell, she was even happy to be back in Arcadia.
Despite her haste, Hannah had the presence of mind to pause before entering the house, making sure that there were no prying eyes lurking outside. She then climbed the steps to her door.
The few weeks spent living in the ancient tower in the woods had changed her perception. All of Arcadia already looked smaller, including her house. It was as if she had drunk a potion that made her grow. She turned the knob and pushed open the door.
As she opened her mouth to yell her brother’s name, something struck her. It was the smell, something like the iron that made up Ezekiel’s tower. But this was somehow different, and as she stepped further in, her stomach began to boil.
Her house was covered with blood.
****
Parker glanced over his shoulder just as Hannah cut down a side street toward her house. Their ruse had worked, now he just had to keep those assholes busy to give his friend time to make it to Will. He slowed, letting the men advance on him. Their footsteps clattered on the cobblestones.
He knew that either of them would gladly rip his head off. Wildman Hank wanted vengeance for the humiliation Parker had put him through, and the toll master was just a cruel son of a bitch. In a fair fight, either of them would be able to do Parker some serious harm. But there was nothing fair about fights in Arcadia, and he would use every trick he had against them.
Kicking over a bucket on the curb, to make sure they still had a trace on him, Parker turned for Leroy’s Pub. Leroy’s was a dive, the kind of place where you could buy black-market booze that had a better chance of causing blindness than getting you drunk.
More importantly, he knew that Leroy’s had what he needed. With the men on his tail, he cut past the corner of the pub, climbed a stack of wooden crates and grabbed the bottom rail of the ladder that led to the roof. There were a hundred ways onto the roofs of Queen’s Boulevard, and Parker knew them all. But he needed one that the clumsy, drunk men could follow.
Making it to the top of the pub, Parker ran to the opposite side and waited.
The men, in due time, scrambled over the edge and onto the roof. Monte, the toll master who’d spilled the beans about the government looking for Hannah, shouted out, “Thought you gave us the slip, you little bastard? The Queen Bitch herself couldn’t help you now.”
When the men got close, Parker spun and jumped from Leroy’s to the building adjacent. It was a three feet gap and Parker made it easily. Legs hitting the flat rooftop, he ducked into a roll and popped to his feet. Cursing filled the night air behind him.
Glancing back, he saw the men standing on the edge, trying to convince each other to go first. Finally, Wildman made the jump and Monte followed. Parker repeated the process several more times, the gap between the houses increasing as he moved on.
Growing up in the quarter, Parker knew the sequences of roofs like the back of his hand. It was the way the kids of the neighborhood would move around to avoid detection. But these two men had kept up with him so far.
Alright, time to take it up a notch.
Parker took a running start. Pushing over the greatest gap yet, he nailed the next rooftop. This one had a pitched roof. He started to slide, his foot making purchase on a tile just before the edge.
“See you later, shitheads,” he taunted. He could see on their faces that it worked.
Monte the toll man went first. The brute pushed himself off the ledge of the roof, and Parker was actually impressed with his distance, but it wasn’t enough. From where he was standing, he watched the overweight man hit the edge of the roof with the middle of his chest.
His hands groped desperately for a handhold, but the tile wouldn’t hold. He pulled part of the roof off with him as he slipped off the edge. With screams and a clatter, the man crashed into the alleyway below.
“Give it up, I could do this all day,” Parker yelled back to Wildman.
Smiling, Hank shouted, “The chase will only make the kill more enjoyable, kid. I’ve been waiting for some payback.”
Hank took three quick steps and leaped for the rooftop. Unlike his friend in a broken heap below, Hank was a fighter with better than average reflexes. He found his feet and scrambled up the pitched roof.
“Shit!” Parker yelled, feigning concern. He took off toward the other edge.
Their rooftop chase began at Leroy’s and would end on the other side of town. There was a place that he and Hannah used to hang out to split their spoils when the weather was too bad for Capitol Park. But their lair didn’t last. Years of bad weather and neglect turned the old condemned building so bad, it was dangerous to squat there even for a short time.
Parker ran across two more buildings, lowered himself to another, and cut away toward his target. Wildman Hank was on his heels. Parker was awestruck by the man’s physical abilities. He was also seriously glad he wasn’t in the ring with him again.
Slowing down a little, Parker prepared to make his last jump. He knew his aim had to be perfect. The jump from the last rooftop was short, but he also knew that there was a thin line of a brick wall that ran the length of the middle. It was almost dead center.
The brick below the surface of the failing structure was barely wide enough for a man to stand on. In the light of the moon, he could hardly discern the safe zone. Leaping, he kept his eyes on his landing spot, ready for the worst if he missed.
But he didn’t. His feet stuck the brick. Regaining his balance, he turned to watch the night’s main event. The abandoned house was at the edge of a block, and there was nowhere else to go. Seeing the kid waiting, Hank developed a shit-eating grin. Hunger for violence was plastered on his face as he made the simple jump, ready to take his reward. But Hank’s smile was nothing compared to Parker’s.
As Hank landed, his glee turned instantly to fear. The rooftop likely wouldn’t have held Hannah’s dragon, let alone a three-hundred-pound dipshit. With a mighty crash, the man disappeared into a hole of his own making. Another crash and Parker knew that he fell through the second floor as well.
Parker turned to climb down the building without even looking. He knew the man was done for, and he hoped he wasn’t too late to offer his friend some help.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
For as long as she could remember, Hannah hated her father. Arnold wasn’t an easy man to like. He didn’t have many friends if any at all.
The women that would occasionally stumble home with him from Lloyd’s pub left early in the morning with more money than they came with.
And
then there were the beatings. Hannah’s memory stretched far enough back to recall him hitting her mother more than once, and with her and William, he wasn’t exactly gentle.
The man had been at best worthless, at worst despicable.
But when she saw his body on the kitchen floor beaten to a bloody pulp, a strange feeling of love washed over her. The kind of love that could only be familial and could, often enough, be mixed with hate.
Hannah ran to his body and dropped to her knees. The back of his head had been bludgeoned, and she could clearly see the contents normally protected by his thick skull.
As anger and rage seeped in, fear took over.
“William!” she shouted, running to their bedroom.
The boy’s body was crumpled next to her bed. Hannah dropped next to him, pulling him into her lap and rocked his lifeless form gently. But then her brother twitched, and he turned, looking up into his sister’s deep brown eyes.
“You came,” he said. The boy tried to smile. “You shouldn’t have. They’re looking for you.”
“Shhh, quiet, Will. Be still. I need to get you help.” She told him.
William ignored her, knowing his fate. “They came for information. Made me sit and watch as they beat dad to death, then they came for me.”
Hannah put her fingers to his lips. “It’s OK, Will. It’s going to be, OK.”
He blinked, kissing the tips of her fingers as he continued. “They wanted you. They wanted the Founder. I told them to piss off.”
The boy started coughing before he finally laughed, crunching, his stomach causing him pain. “Thought they would break me. But they couldn’t. I told them nothing, Hannah.”
The girl rocked her brother and wept tears into his hair. She cursed her “good fortune.” She cursed the magician. She cursed Adrien and the Governor. She cursed the Mother and Father, in case they existed.
“Hannah, you gave me everything,” William whispered. “And this is what I could give you back. You always protected me. I’m glad I got the chance to protect you for once. I love you, Hannah. But now… now, you have to go.”
“No, William, I won’t leave you.” She held her brother and uncontrollably sobbed, her tears flowing down her face, dropping onto him.
“If it weren’t for this bloody MAGIC!” she screamed. And then realized that the thing she was cursing was exactly what she needed to call on.
She laid William’s body flat and then leaned over him, placing her hands on his chest. Concentrating, she urged the power within herself to transfer to her brother.
Nothing happened.
Remembering that the healing arts were the arts of the druids, she muttered strange tongues, trying to convince the universe that her magic was strong enough to heal him.
But it wasn’t strong enough; she wasn’t strong enough. If she had only worked harder, listened more to Ezekiel, pushed herself to tap into the power, she could have done this.
She tried again, pushing on her brother’s still chest, thinking she might just be able to physically force the energy out of her and into him.
Nothing happened.
And then she realized why she had failed, he was already gone.
****
Hannah had no idea how long she had laid on the bed with her brother’s dead body. She knew the right thing to do was to run.
Capture would only allow the ones responsible for getting away with this and all the atrocities they had committed. Hannah preferred death to living in the hell hole of Arcadia without her brother. But life would allow her to taste justice, and she would take her bloodlust all the way to the top. Her thirst for vengeance required it.
She would kill Adrien.
But first, she had to deal with the ones that killed William. And at the moment, she heard her front door swing open. Her house’s floorboard squeaked as large bodies moved across it. Without looking, she knew who it was.
She recognized their power.
“We’re taking you to the boss,” a man said.
She knew the voice. For as many days she had remaining on Irth, she wouldn’t forget it. She spun off the bed and faced the man who had accosted her in the alley. The same smile that he had as he tore off her shirt was painted on his face. He looked exactly the same, except for his right hand. It was deformed like it had been dipped in liquid metal. The smaller magic user stood behind him scowling.
“You did this.” Her question was more of a statement. She knew the answer but wanted the man’s confession before she unleashed the power of the entire universe on him.
“I only wish I could have gotten the little shit to talk before I landed the finishing blow. But then again, here you are, so same result.” The man shrugged. “And without the wizard here to protect you, your time is up. The Chancellor demanded that we take you in in one piece. But I don’t think he’d mind if we had a little fun. Torturing your family has me,” he grinned, “all excited.”
As the Hunter stepped toward her, Hannah didn’t even try to control her emotion. She forgot every lesson Ezekiel had taught her in the tower. Instead, she let every emotion come to the surface. Her skin began to burn with power. She looked up at the Hunter, her eyes glowing a fiercer red than they ever had.
A sick smile crossed her face as she saw fear in the man’s eyes.
Her voice was malevolent, it sounded like two as the energy infused radiated everywhere.
“Trust me. I’m not the one getting screwed tonight!”
****
With his hands on his knees, Parker tried to catch his breath before going into Hannah’s house. The place was quiet, so he assumed that she was caring for her brother. As he stepped toward the door, a rush of wind struck him from behind, then Ezekiel appeared out of nowhere.
“You’re him,” Parker said with a shock as he took in the haggard looking old man.
“I am,” he replied.
The old man stepped forward, then slumped to his knees. Transporting took too much energy to use it as much as he had, but Hannah needed him, so he found the will. Now there was almost nothing left at all.
Parker ran over to him and leaned down. Hands shaking, Ezekiel accepted his help. He looked up at the young man that Hannah had spoken so highly of.
Damage to his face showed that he was tough, the fact that he was still standing told him that he was smart. Ezekiel knew that Parker could be an asset, if not a key member of their team.
“Queen Bitch…” Parker uttered as the windows of Hannah’s house started to flicker and strobe. Bright light shone through in blues and reds. Then a blinding white light burst, blowing the glass out of the windows. It sounded as if a lightning storm had rolled into town and collided with a hurricane. Parker heard high pitched screaming from within.
Parker took a step toward the house. But Ezekiel grabbed the tail of his cloak. “You can’t,” Ezekiel said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“But Hannah is in there!”
“I know. That magic is hers, but it is well beyond her means. She’s losing control. If you go in there now, you’ll be obliterated.”
Flames and beams of blue continued to fly, many of them jumping out of the windows, licking the sky.
“We have to try.”
The old man, with surprising physical strength, pulled Parker down to his level. Inches from his face, Ezekiel spoke. “You go in there, you’ll definitely be killed. Break whatever concentration she might be maintaining, and you could destroy her as well. She’s still a novice. This power is beyond her. She can’t control it.”
Eyes scanning the quarter that was coming to life, Ezekiel thought about the earthquake that he felt when she transformed Sal. Fear filled him as his head turned around, looking everywhere. “She could take out the whole damned neighborhood.”
Parker, uncertain of how to proceed, decided to place his trust in this crazy old man. Hannah trusted the Founder, and that was good enough for him. “What do we do?”
“You help me up. I can’t protect her, but m
aybe there is something to do to save the innocents.”
Ezekiel held his staff out, pointed over the roof of Hannah’s house that looked like it was about to explode. With his free hand, he cupped a palm toward the dusty ground as if he were palming a ball. His eyes turned red, but only faintly.
The old man closed his eyes and started to chant in a foreign tongue. As the volume increased, so did the intensity.
His eyes flashed open and they were as bright red as any metal smith’s flame Parker had ever seen.
This was like no magic he had ever observed in Arcadia. The man’s weight shifted onto Parker, who did all he could to keep the magician standing. Blue light streamed from the end of the staff, finding its apex directly over the house.