Wanderers 4: A Tough Act to Follow (The Wanderers)

by Richard Bamberg

  “When I became a Wanderer, I had a wife and two children. I couldn’t very well return to them, but I saw to it that they were taken care of. I followed my family through the years, always checking in when time permitted and making sure that they were safe from mundane and mystical elements. For that reason, perhaps, most of my descendants died of natural causes. But you died fighting to save another and thus you were deemed worthy of becoming a Wanderer. As such, I felt I had to take you as my apprentice rather than letting Raphael gather you up.”

  I was stunned. Could he be telling me the truth? It was hard to believe, but why would he risk such a great lie? There were ways to determine kinship, but something in me told me that Rowle was being honest, at least in this much.

  When I got my emotions under control, I said, “So, we’re related. That doesn’t justify all of your actions, but it would explain your wanting me for an apprentice. But I’m supposed to train under a Wanderer, how could I become a Wanderer as your apprentice?”

  “You will have all the powers of a Wanderer when you finish your apprenticeship, but whether you accept the obligations that go with those powers are up to you and you alone. I won’t even interfere in your accepting Verðandi’s summons, when you’ve proven yourself capable.”

  “You would really train me and then let me be a true Wanderer, not some kind of renegade like you?”

  Rowle spread his hands wide. “My departure from Fate’s service was because I could no longer tolerate her orders, her unwillingness to explain some of her actions. When you are trained, it will be up to you to make your own decisions. I would not insist you follow me. A man must decide his own fate.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. He sounded reasonable enough, nothing like the power mad magic user that Tess had told me about. “Would you be willing to have a DNA test done to prove we’re related?”

  Rowle’s hands came up almost as if he were pleaded with the gods for patience. “Alex, you must feel that I’m telling the truth. I can tell you are my off-spring without any test, but if it will make you more comfortable with me, I will agree to whatever test you require.”

  I nodded. “Okay then, I’ll take you at your word about this relationship until there’s an opportunity to get tested, but I still want to talk with Tess and Rafe about this. There’s no reason that you have to be enemies if I’m going to be your apprentice.”

  Rowle was frowning before I finished my statement.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Alex, it’s not I that has a problem with Raphael. Rather it’s you,” he said as he pointed a single finger at my chest.

  “What? Me? I don’t understand. What problem do I have with him?”

  Rowle’s eyes grew sad again. “You understand that you were possessed by a shade the night your mother died, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Tess told me about it. She said Rafe was able to remove it somehow. What’s that got–”

  “And yet he didn’t remove the one in your mother and thus she died,” Rowle said.

  Again, I nodded; I’d thought about her death too much over the months since the shade had killed her. “Yes, Rafe and Tess had been too late to save her, but I can’t blame him for not getting there in time.”

  Rowle shook his head sadly. “Alex, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Raphael is the one who killed your mother.”

  Chapter 16

  raphael

  I felt Tess grab me by my upper arms as I fought to keep control of my emotions. Damn, gone, almost all of the tattoos I’d spent more than forty years acquiring had vanished in under a minute.

  “I don’t understand,” Tess said. “How can your tats be gone?”

  “It’s that goo that was on me. Somehow, it erased every one of them except for the ones on my hands. It must not have reached them when I summoned lightning. Damn, how is that possible?”

  “You can restore them,” Gail said.

  “Goddamnit! You know how long it took me to burn back all of the ones that were destroyed when I lost my legs. I… Mount up. We can’t discuss this here.”

  I reached out and found Beast’s mane. I swung myself onto his shoulders. He launched into the air a second later. As we gained altitude, I tried to sense my tattoos, to no avail. Whatever had erased them had done a thorough job of it. Other than the meteor tattoo and the lightning tattoo that were both on my left fist, my flesh was devoid of my magical tattoos.

  “Beast, across the river. Find a clearing away from any structures,” I ordered.

  Beast banked to my left and then flew east. I heard the beat of feathered wings as Maia drew up alongside.

  “Are you okay?” Tess asked.

  “Except for being blind and losing almost every tattoo I have? Yeah, I’m just peachy.”

  “You don’t need to snap at me. It wasn’t my fault.”

  I bit my lip and tried to dampen my anger. It wasn’t anger toward Tess and I had no right snapping at her. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just…this is trouble, Tess.”

  “I hate to add to the bad news, but I can’t see the protective spells on your leathers,” Tess said.

  “What? Hell, that’s not…never mind. It’s obviously possible. Less than twenty-four hours after Verðandi tells us that Alex has joined the ranks of the Wanderers, I trigger a booby-trap that takes away most of my tattoos. This can’t be a coincidence.”

  “But how could anyone arrange for Alex’s death and a trap that your ward wouldn’t detect?”

  “If I knew that, I’d probably know who did it. There’s only one person I’ve ever come across that I would have thought could arrange this and he’s dead.”

  “Rowle?” Tess asked.

  “Yes. If I thought it was Rowle, it’d be one thing, but to have an unknown player pull this off is scary. People just don’t attack Wanderers.”

  Beast began to dive and a few seconds later, he touched down a lot softer than he usually did. He usually saved soft landings for when Tess or someone else was on his back.

  I flipped a leg over his neck and slid to the ground, keeping one hand on Beast’s shoulder as I did.

  “Beast, you and Maia take turns providing over watch. I want a warning if anyone or anything gets within a mile of us.”

  I heard Maia land and a couple seconds later Tess thumped to the earth beside me.

  “Tess, get your saddlebags. We’ll make this our camp for the night. Maybe by morning I’ll have my sight back and I can see about restoring some of my tattoos.” I hesitated. “Ah, could you get my saddlebags?”

  I heard leather sliding against hide. Then Tess said, “I’ve got them.”

  I felt the breeze as our familiars launched into the night sky.

  I felt for my bottle of salt, located it, uncorked it, and threw the salt into the air. Immediately, I spoke the first circle spell that should form the salt crystals into an unbroken circle around us.

  There was no snap of power as I finished the spell.

  “Oh, hell.”

  “Ah, Rafe, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but that salt landed all over me and you both.”

  “This is worse than I thought,” I mumbled.

  “Your spell didn’t work, did it?” Tess’s voice was tremulous.

  “Afraid not,” I said. “Tess, would you be a dear and cast it for me?”

  “I’ll need your grimoire.”

  I patted my pockets and then drew out the small grimoire that was always in my jacket pocket. Holding it out, I felt Tess take it from my fingers.

  “Should we mesh first?” Tess asked.

  “No, that’s all right. You just cast it. We’ll mesh to engage the circle.”

  Tess said, “Show me what I seek.”

  I heard the grimoire flipping pages until it came to stop on the spell she needed. It was a minor spell, not worthy of a tat, but had always served me well. She spoke the spell and I felt the snap of energy as it completed.

  “It’s done,” she said.


  I held out my right hand, Tess clasped it in her left and we meshed. As soon as our emotions, auras, and energies were meshed, I felt the concern that was affecting Tess. I tried harder to get my own emotions under control. As I did, I felt Tess calming also.

  “It’ll be alright,” I said. “I was freaked out, but we’ll get through this just like we have everything else. I’m sorry if I had you worried.”

  Tess stepped close and put her arms around me. I copied her actions and for a full minute, we stood still, both enjoying the embrace and letting the stress of the assault bleed out of us.

  She kissed the hollow of my neck lightly and I felt her lips on mine. The kiss was tender. With the meshing, I could see through her eyes. It was odd to watch the skin on my face change as her healing spell worked its magic.

  Together, we focused energy and spoke the second spell. A nigh impregnable shell of energy sprang into existence over us.

  Separating, I dropped into a sitting position, cross-legged; a moment later, I heard the rustling of material and felt Tess’s knees bumping mine.

  I blinked as a shadow moved across my vision. “Hey, good news, I can see shapes again.”

  “That’s great, Rafe. Now what?”

  “Now I start burning my tats back. Could you call up the shield spell?”

  Tess laid the grimoire on the ground between us.

  “Show me what I seek,” she ordered again.

  The grimoire opened and pages flipped past until it stopped on the shield spell that had been my first tattoo. I unzipped my leather jacket. Standing, I shucked it off and dropped it to the dewy grass at my feet. Taking off my shirt, I dropped it atop my jacket and then laid down prone on the grass in front of Tess.

  “You’re putting it in the same place you had it?” Tess asked.

  I shrugged. “No point in changing what worked.”

  Closing my own eyes, I studied the grimoire’s page where it sat on the grass in front of Tess. I studied the spell for a minute and then tried to recall the complete pattern. It took me far longer than it should have.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to use the recall spell that Joe taught me?”

  “I told you, that’s cheating.”

  “You’re just being stubborn. You know it’s helped me, why can’t you just accept that it’s a better way of remembering things?” Tess scolded.

  “It may be okay for memorizing a location so I can open a portal back to a particular spot, but that isn’t how Wanderers earn their tattoos.”

  “Even when you’re desperate?”

  “I’m not desperate,” I stated.

  “I know what you’re feeling, Rafe. I’ve never seen you desperate before, but I recognize it when I see it.”

  “Tess, Apprentice, just let me do it my way.”

  “Being my mentor doesn’t mean you can’t be wrong,” Tess said puckishly.

  I wanted to roll my eyes at her, but while we were meshed, it would be too obvious.

  “Just let me concentrate,” I said.

  “Fine, be a stubborn old man.”

  At least ten minutes passed before I was comfortable holding the spell in my mind.

  “Okay, I’ve got it. I’m going to do this one in one pass.”

  “Okay,” Tess said.

  I relaxed and focused on a spot on my lower back. Tess put her finger at the spot. I held the pattern in my mind’s eye and focused energy where I would start burning the pattern into my flesh.

  Nothing happened.

  I concentrated harder. Sweat beaded up on my forehead as I focused, concentrating more and more energy.

  Nothing happened.

  “Ah, Rafe…why aren’t you starting?”

  I fought the panic that was trying to overwhelm me.

  “I did start. It. Just. Isn’t. Working!”

  The one thing that made Wanderers superior in magical combat was our tattoos. Without them, I was just another magic user.

  I focused more energy and concentrated on that damn spot on my lower back.

  Still, nothing happened.

  Chapter 17

  Therese

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m doing everything I always do, but it just isn’t burning a tat,” Rafe said with a quiver in his voice.

  I could feel the concern behind his words. He couldn’t hide his emotions while we were meshed and I’d never felt anything like this from him before. Rafe was always confident, always cocky, and always capable of performing any magical task he set for himself. This was not like him.

  I ran my fingers across the bare skin of his back in a gentle caress and then leaned down to kiss the nape of his neck. “Perhaps you’re trying too hard. Maybe you’re still too shaken by the blast and the spell that erased your tats. Try resting for a bit before making another attempt.”

  “You really think I’m not calm enough to control my focus?” Rafe spat.

  “Hey, easy there, Rafe. I’m just offering a suggestion. I’m not implying anything.” Rafe never snapped at me. He might criticize my actions and even put me in my place when he felt I was abusing our mentor/apprentice relationship, but he never sounded angry with me. He must be affected more than he thought, but how could I make him see reason if he thought I was criticizing him?

  I massaged the muscles of his shoulders and tried to work loose the tightness I could feel there.

  “I’ve been burning tattoos longer than your father has been on this earth. You think being upset would affect my ability to focus energy?”

  He rolled out from under my hands and leapt to his feet. With a gritty growl, I’d never heard before, he swore, “I–never–lose–control.”

  As he pointed at a clump of grass, I felt him focusing. Energy swirled around us and I expected the grass to burst into flame.

  Nothing happened.

  Rafe’s face mirrored the horror I felt emanating from his emotions. He was beginning to doubt his own capabilities.

  Energy built. I activated my enhanced senses tat in an effort to see what was causing his problem. As my tattoo glowed to life, my sight spread into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, my hearing became sensitive to higher and lower frequencies that humans normal have no access to. Even my sense of smell, touch, and taste became acutely sensitive. In this onslaught of new sensations that I had become used to, I could see and feel the waves of energy spreading out from Raphael like the lines of force coming off a magnet. He was expending a prodigious amount of energy, but none of it was performing any action. It was like a huge generator spinning faster and faster with no load to slow it down. The amount of energy would have been enough to burn down a forest, yet he couldn’t focus it on a tiny clump of grass.

  As I watched in amazement, Rafe began to age before my eyes. He was expending his energy reserves faster than any spell I’d ever seen him cast. My amazement became horror. Raphael couldn’t keep this up; it’d kill him. Yet, he seemed oblivious to the energy he was wasting. Sweat beaded up on his skin. His eyes went wild.

  “Rafe…Boss! You’ve got to stop this,” I hollered.

  He didn’t stop, didn’t even look at me. His eyes were focused on that damn clump of grass.

  The hair on his scalp began to stand on end as if a massive charge was building up in him. A second later, I felt my own hair beginning to stand on end. The air around us began to crackle with energy and sparks darted between the lines of energy.

  Uh, oh, that couldn’t be a good sign.

  “Rafe!” I shouted and grabbed his arm.

  He didn’t try to pull loose, but ignored my actions and my words.

  “God damn it, Rafe!” I stepped in front of him and placed my hands to either side of his face. “You’ve got to stop before you kill yourself!”

  His eyes were beginning to glow with power. I’d never seen that happen before and didn’t want to see it now. Even standing between him and his maniacal focus on that clump of grass didn’t faze him.

 
; His flesh grew warm beneath my hands as his skin began to age and wrinkle. In seconds, he aged decades.

  I pulled his face down to me, meeting his lips with mine. At the same time, I tried to control his emotions as he had so often controlled ours when we were training. I’d never tried it before and it showed in a lack of result. Rather my emotions were merging more and more with his.

  What else would distract him? Slapping him? Kicking him in the gnads? I felt like neither would do as much as kissing him while we were meshed.

  Then I had a thought.

  I focused on the tattoo he had burned into his left fist. I could feel it in my mind just as if it were one of my own tattoos. With that much connection with Rafe, I just might be able to do it, but first.

  With a thought, I dropped the circle that protected us.

  Then I focused on Rafe’s tattoo, ordering it to life.

  It glowed.

  Lightning came out of the clear night sky and enveloped us in a glowing plasma of energy.

  Chapter 18

  alexander

  “What do you mean ‘he killed my mother?’” I asked while barely able to keep my emotions in check.

  Rowle leaned forward in his chair. “I wasn’t there the night your mother died. But Wanderers are capable of finding out things. I had a spy following Rafe that night and I saw the confrontation between your mother and Raphael.”

  “And?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “And my spy relayed the image of Raphael running your mother through with his sword.”

  I heard a grinding sound and realized it was my teeth sliding across each other. “That’s not possible. Rafe loved my mother. Tess told me.”

  “But did she tell you that he had been the one to run her through? Tess is still young and impressionable, but she has cast her lot with Raphael. She would do anything he asked of her, including lying about your mother’s death.”

  I stood up, knocking the chair I’d occupied over. I turned and kicked it out of my way as I stomped into my motel room’s small bath. I turned on the sink’s faucet and splashed water into my face until I thought I was awake. Staring at my reflection in the small rectangular mirror, I didn’t see the water dripping from my chin. I didn’t see anything but my own eyes, glaring back at me with a fury I’d never known before.