Wilder Mage

by CD Coffelt

  They couldn’t see him, but they knew he was somewhere. That he existed. That he was among them.

  In unison, the wizards lifted hands filled with questing magic and sent the elements to find that flare of enormous power.

  One face filled his vision, a woman. Behind her was a large window showing office buildings and the bustling downtown of a large city. In that fleeting glance, he saw the waters of a lake reflecting a million sparkles from the sun.

  Initially, her face showed astonishment, as had the others. But now, a triumphant gleam appeared as she fisted one hand and threw it at him, splaying her fingers wide as she did.

  He felt a change inside him, a fierce rage as he clenched and bared his teeth at her. Her gauzy, expectant face changed, her laughter died. She seemed to draw back, and then her form wavered like early morning fog dissipating in the sun.

  Then he remembered the ward stone lying hidden in the depths of the manger.

  You fool.

  With an oath at his idiocy, Justus knew he had only moments before the elements found him. He extended his hand, palm out, and called to the stone. The manger rattled, and he heard movement in the bottom of the hay. Wryly, he wondered if he might be calling a rat. But the stone slapped into his hand, and he felt the immediate effect as the strange elation ebbed and the touch of the Spirit element died away.

  The loss shook him, and Justus dropped to his knees, holding the stone and chain against his chest as he bowed his head over it. For a few motes of eternity, he crouched there, but it was too much like supplication. He struggled to his feet.

  He would never bow his head to anyone again.

  Justus ran to his car.

  It was coming.

  He started the motor and did not expend magic to part the brush growing in the drive, but gunned the car. The hood hit the overgrowth and limbs scraping the paint screeched as nails pulled from a wooden board.

  He felt it getting nearer.

  The car exploded from the brush and weeds. Immediately, Justus settled into a sedate cruise down the gravel road. He glanced at the rearview mirror and caught sight of the rapidly diminishing aura of elements that still swirled around the old farmstead. But as he watched with jittering nerves, the phantasms vanished, dissipating or sinking into the air, earth, and surrounding energies.

  Nothing remained.

  Justus resisted the need to rocket down the road. The highway loomed, and he turned off and gradually climbed to just under the speed limit.

  He felt it nearing and gripped the steering wheel. For that eternity, Justus held his breath.

  It passed and continued away from him.

  The gauges on the car spun wildly for a moment and then settled again. He forced his hands to relax on the wheel and released the pent-up air in his lungs.

  After a few miles, he pulled into a small rest stop. Kids chased each other round the park-like lawn. The adults gathered in excited groups, talking and gesturing.

  Justus sat in his car, listening but not expending any magic. One man stared at him and finally began to amble to his vehicle. Justus got out of his car and waited for the man, a vacationer in cutoffs and a brightly flowered shirt.

  Justus nodded as the man walked up. “Hi. What’s going on?” he said. He marveled that his voice sounded so normal.

  “Don’t know,” the genial man said. “There’s like a solar disturbance or something going on. Our vehicles went nuts a bit ago.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No, no one went off the road,” the man said. He looked at Justus’s car. “Did you notice anything a little while ago? Like kind of a hiccup in your motor?”

  Justus looked into the distance and saw nothing but blue sky and clouds. “Yes. But not enough to put me in a ditch.”

  The man nodded and tried to look more intelligent. “Probably the government trying out a new weapon,” he said with a knowing look. He tapped one finger on his cheek.

  “Probably,” Justus said. He got behind the wheel and started the engine.

  “Hey, what happened to your arm?”

  Justus looked down at the bloody furrows cut in his hand and forearm. Like thorns had slashed him. Or claws. Glacier-cold claws that made him shiver. Even now, he felt the chill.

  “Cat,” he said.

  “Mighty big one,” the man muttered. The man waved and yelled, “Be careful!” as Justus pulled onto the highway. Then the man was behind him.

  Be careful. Just like his mom always said. Strange, he thought she meant don’t trip, or drink alcohol, or pick up the wrong friends. Luck was a better companion, he thought.

  In her haste to find him, Tiarra’s powerful elements slashed through the questing energies sent by her mages, disrupted their energies and confused all of them into swirling eddies of magic. They dissipated, just as his phantasms at the barn.

  If she had allowed them to continue without sending hers into the mix, he would not have been able to hide. And the noose would have been tightening at this moment.

  Being careful had nothing over Lady Luck.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Time dragged, but not without its emergencies, Sable thought. After all, while the McIntyres vacationed, who else could water their plants or clean out Zephyr’s litter box? To be sure, it took a measure of endurance to survive such an anticlimactic day. After living most of her life as a transient, she wasn’t familiar with tedium.

  With the McIntyres gone and Wesley finding new digs across town, the house slept like a cat drowsy in the warm sun. Quiet. Relaxed.

  Boring.

  By midmorning, nothing sparked her interest. Not the pages from a new novel, roaming the trails in the woodland, or giving the horses a scratch. All had lost their charm.

  Wesley’s announcement that he had found employment with a local marketing firm resulted in a thrilled Maggie and a suspicious Emmett. He’d readily helped his nephew pack and pitched the luggage into the car like a farmer throwing hay bales. And with about as much concern. As the taillights of Wesley’s car vanished around the corner, Emmett danced a jig and grabbed Maggie around the waist to whirl her around as she had protested.

  The silent house ate at her nerves, and as the ordinary morning led to an ordinary afternoon, Sable felt a growing need for escape. She slid into the driver’s seat of the pickup and drove to the shop. An afternoon spent running a wet rag over dusty shelves was better than waiting for Justus to return.

  A church bell toiled twelve noon as she parked in front of the shop. As Sable unlocked the shop door, a rumble came from beneath her feet under the sidewalk. Earth-deep, it vibrated the door as she opened it. She shut the door and leaned back against it, fisting her hands at her side.

  China rattled, but didn’t fall, though she readied magic to catch them. The groan of tortured earth faded into low mutters, then was gone. Sable released the breath she didn’t know she held and passed through the connecting room and out the back door leading to Emmett’s grill. She needed privacy and contact with the surrounding elements, and no buildings adjoined the back alleyway. She stood in the open and allowed her senses to expand.

  Carefully, carefully, using minute bits of magic, she let the phantasms search for other wizards, then sighed. She was alone. All their fears of discovery, afraid the Mathons would jump her and force her to turn. Or at the very least, haul her in to face Tiarra. All unfounded. Dayne and Macy seemed more inclined to observe than threaten.

  Sable thought of her half-packed bag in her apartment, readied in case she needed to leave in a hurry. The anxiety Justus tried to hide from her, the rage that tightened his jaw when he thought she wasn’t watching. What he would say when she told him of her decision? Would he dissuade her? Smile with those fire-hot eyes. Groan? Or wrap his hard-muscled arms around her and breathe into her hair? The thought caused the elements to sizzle around her. She tamped her emotions down again.

  She would stay and fight at his side. Eventually, she would learn to construct a shield stone herself. It w
as possible; she knew she could do it, given enough time. All the elements, Justus had said. A shield to block Tiarra’s bond would take an infusion of all five phantasms. Sable grinned without humor as she slid her silver charms down her arm to cover the scars. Her bracelet was the opening act in the creation of a shield. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have experience making one, just not one quite as powerful.

  A tattered shopping bag tumbled across the half-moon back lot. Sable snagged it, wadded it into a ball, and took a step to the door. She smiled at the thought of Justus’s reaction to her choice.

  She stopped as another vibration passed under her feet. This time, sound did not accompany the tremor. The soft breeze that lifted her hair a moment ago died, and the world seemed to hold its breath.

  Something borne of the sun teased the edges of her senses with flares and beads of light. It grew and crackled like that of a spitting fire, sparks without heat radiating from every direction. They gathered as one and the rotating mass shot to the north.

  North, the route Justus had taken.

  In that moment, she felt a wizard’s signature unlike any she had ever touched before. It tasted of ash, but not like that of wood burned cleanly. This was like the greasy touch of burnt carrion, foul with old blood.

  She gagged and bowed under the psychic rain, the invisible malice bearing her to her knees before the essence abruptly cut off. Sable panted, her eyes squeezed shut until her senses returned, and she struggled to her feet.

  Justus. The plan to infuse the stone must have backfired and he was in trouble.

  She slammed through the back door just as the entrance door opened and Wesley stepped through. He stopped short, then his face broke into a grin.

  “Well, hello. Thought you might be here. I went by the house, but…”

  She cut him off with one hand. “No time to talk right now. I gotta go see about something. See you later, okay?” She started to pass him.

  “Oh, wait, I’ve got a message for you, something a friend wanted you to see,” Wesley said.

  “Message? What message, and who are you talking about? Is it Justus? Did he call?”

  Wesley’s chiseled face turned blotchy with patches of red. “No. Nothing from him,” he said through his teeth. “But a woman, a mutual acquaintance. Kind of a friend. She wants you to see something.”

  “Wesley, I do not have time for this. What is it? Show me and then get the hell out of my way.” Sable felt the first stir of her emotions and magic began to crackle around her.

  He grinned. “Here, look at it in the light. Stand here in the sun coming through the window and see it properly.”

  Wesley led her to the display window with the quartz crystals and held out his hand. A broad gold ring was on his middle finger.

  “See? I got this from a friend.”

  The broad gold band was old, the metal worn. It had a dull black stone like onyx. The black set in the ring reflected no light. It was as if a hole into the depths of the earth had opened up on his finger.

  “Neat, huh.” He pulled his hand back and looked down at his hand. “Kind of a promissory ring.” Wesley laid his ringed hand on her arm and squeezed it roughly. A spark like static electricity passed between them, leaving her skin tingling.

  Sable stiffened and pushed him away, instantly furious. He laughed again, his face triumphant, and pulled her into a bear hug. Both arms around her, he pinned her to his chest. Sable struggled, but his arms held her tight.

  “What’s wrong, sugar? Don’t you like me? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t like squirrelly bitches like you either. Unless they are flat on their backs.”

  Sable gasped, then struggled to free herself. Emotions, keep your emotions under control, she thought. “You greasy bastard, let me go.”

  He grinned and shrugged.

  Like he’s waiting for something, wanting me to fight, Sable thought. She growled and reached for her magic.

  Nothing.

  She didn’t understand, and he laughed harder and tightened his grip. Her arms throbbed with the blood pooling in his crushing hug. Sable tried to touch her magic again.

  Nothing; like stretching her hand blindly in a dark room, nothing met her groping fingers. No wall, no obstruction, an absence of sensation. She tried again, panting with the effort.

  Wesley laughed harder. “What’s wrong? You got a funny look on your face, as if you lost something. Is that it? Did you lose something?”

  Panic began to overwhelm her, and she fought in earnest, trying to pull away from him. One blow hit his belly and he grunted. He released her and she stumbled back. Again, she reached for her magic, for anything, for just one of the elements she knew she had.

  But she felt nothing.

  His face turned into an unrecognizable mask. Wesley doubled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the side of her jaw. Sable dropped to the ground, hitting the shelving holding figurines, and they showered down on her. Inside her head, confusion warred with questions, nothing making sense. He clutched her hair and dragged her up, and she saw again the ring on his finger. The black stone looking like an endless well, an empty hungry maw devouring everything in its path.

  Magic, fixed magic, triggered by the touch of a wizard, by her. It ate magic like a starved beast. And it looked hungry still.

  He stood over her, his face twisted with malice.

  “She’ll take you now, you snotty little bitch. And there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”

  He threw her roughly over his shoulder.

  “You ain’t so much now, are you?” Darkness swirled around her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Macy huddled on the hard wooden chair, her legs drawn to her chest. Dayne pulled her into his arms, and she trembled like a frightened animal. Her response to her surroundings remained minimal after the unknown wilder had exploded, and Dayne’s worry for her increased by the minute.

  “Hey, sweetie, we’ll catch him. Really, don’t worry, honey,” Dayne said. Anxiety coursed through him again when she shivered harder.

  She tightened her arms around his neck, pulling him into her, and didn’t speak.

  “You know we’re strong enough. If Tiarra can find him, we’ll combine our strength and collar this guy.”

  When the massive signature of the strange wizard had whirled into their consciousness, it shocked the Imperium complex into chaos. It still shook him to think of all that unbridled, untamed power that made the air hum in its wake. His heart had skipped a beat after they sensed the gather of elements. The scope of energies they felt from the wilder made his talent insignificant by comparison. The direction of the wilder was obvious, and immediately, Dayne pulled his Fire element from around him and sent it as a locating device to the wild mage. He would have found the wilder too, if it hadn’t been for Tiarra.

  She had been livid when she realized her gathered magic had disrupted theirs. Like a jet moving through the vapor trails of another plane, her hysterical response to the wilder disrupted the locating magic of all the other mages.

  Macy sat on the chair while Dayne yelled orders at subordinates and spoke to an enraged Tiarra over the phone. In all that time, Macy remained mute, but her scream at the distant wilder when the magic exploded still rung in his ears.

  The signature of the wilder was like nothing he had ever sensed, enormous with strength and talent. It swarmed into the sky like a massive cloud, towered over them, and then fell back to earth, collapsing like a fountain that had lost its source of water. No wonder Tiarra obsessed over finding every person with potential for magic. Here was a dangerous wizard, not only to humans, but to the Imperium as well. He could be a madman, bent on tearing the world apart on a whim. It could not be borne. They had to find and restrain or kill him by every means necessary.

  “Macy, are you all right?” Dayne said.

  “Yes.” Her words muffled against his chest.

  “Why did you say that stuff?”

  He hadn’t meant to ask, not yet. But it
burst out of him.

  “You said…you screamed those words, and I don’t understand. Why did you do that when the wilder revealed his magic? You scared me shitless.”

  She stilled her shuddering at his first question, and now she straightened and twisted out of his arms to level an even look at him.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Why shouldn’t I react? It was a shock. A wizard’s magic made everyone’s guts turn inside out. Including yours, mister. Why shouldn’t I react?” Macy said.

  Her jaw turned stubborn, and on a distant level, Dayne felt his worry relent in a small measure with the return of her usual self.

  “You yelled at the wilder to stop. ‘You don’t know what you are doing.’ That makes no sense. You acted like he could hear you, like you were warning him. I don’t understand why you did it, is all. Just…I just want to know if you are okay, if it hurt you in any way, the flood of elements that hit us.”

  Macy pursed her mouth and turned away. Her words were low, nearly inaudible. “I am all right now. It was just a shock.”

  He stared hard at her back, noting the tension in her neck and shoulders. “You are hiding something from me.”

  She didn’t reply.

  The sound of a discrete cough interrupted him.

  “Excuse me, Imperator; you have another call from Tiarra on the line.”

  He waited for Macy to respond for a little longer, but she nodded to the cell phone the man was holding. “You’d better take that,” she said with a thread of anger in her voice.

  She moved away and walked to the window looking out over the street.

  Dayne hesitated, noting Macy’s crossed arms, her stiff frame. He took the cell phone from his assistant. The man’s palpable relief in releasing the phone hardened Dayne’s sense of unease.

  “Yes, Tiarra,” Dayne said.