Mage of Shadows

by Austen, Chanel

  "I just wanted to talk in private honestly." Ruark said with a shrug, "That's why I Pushed you into the engineering building and this bathroom."

  "Pushed?" I asked quizzically, suddenly remembering my strange behavior outside. I had felt like I had been in a daze up until the moment I actually stopped at the urinal and wondered what the hell I was doing in the bathroom in the first place.

  Ruark smiled, "You'll learn soon enough, Stratus. There's a lot about manipulating magic that you don't know." The smile faded, "Listen. What happened to Emily was terrible, no matter what anyone says. But keep your mouth shut, do you understand? You don't want to be next, do you? Vengeance isn't an option, not for me or for you."

  I had to ask, "Why not?"

  Kevin's sad eyes met my own as he shrugged his shoulders, looking very defeated, "Because, Stratus. Much like you I'm only a pawn in a game older than the language we're speaking. I know you talked to Vik, soliloquist that he is. No doubt he made you feel like you were important, a part of the change that is coming… but you and I are just insignificant droplets compared to the hellish rainstorms that are our masters. They can kill us with a thought, and that is why vengeance is impossible. All you will do is get yourself killed."

  Although I could process his words, it was hard to really process the actual danger that Ruark was trying to warn me about. Only one memory made the diffuse cloud of peril solidify into something tangible. The day of Emily's memorial service when magic had slipped completely out of my control, seemingly by the will of a single mage… I now had the sinking feeling that that had been my first and only brush with truly mastered magical ability.

  Ruark smiled wanly, as if he saw that I finally understood, "A pawn cannot truly challenge a queen. Nor can we challenge the triumvirate. Remember that, Nick… it'll keep you alive."

  Chapter 7: Nightmarish Realities

  Dreams and nightmares are built atop the strangest foundations, still not well understood today, the subconscious. I've heard dreams described as the defragmentation of the mind's memories. They have no meaning, hold no power, no purpose. Others, mages usually, believed that dreams held the keys to understanding the future through one's past. Our magic's way of speaking to us, if you will.

  I never remembered my dreams when I woke from them. Nightmares were similar, vague reminiscences of moments in my life I would rather forget. After Ruark had so graciously introduced himself to me as the waking terror that had followed me into my dreams where I could not run, the nightmares about that particular night subsided. However, it just opened way for old fears, things that I had left undone, very real monsters from the past unsettled- to stir. To wake and laughingly claw at me again.

  We're all haunted by our past, the mistakes there, some just more than others.

  I had no name for the night I had lost my closest friends, Reggie and the rest. The night that I had met Max, learned that there was a place for my supernatural abilities, for me to learn how to defend myself.

  There had been no glorious battle, no heroic sacrifices. Just blood, pain, and fire.

  So much fire.

  It had been born from my need to survive, my lust to continue being… I wanted to live that night. Maybe that's why I had been able to draw up my power, defend myself in that moment when the unknown mages had attacked us brutally when Nat brought us to them. I was able to hold them off just long enough- by will and flame alone- for Max to hit them from behind and save me, putting himself at risk.

  I had survivor's guilt, even months later. That was what caused me to wake up in a heated sweat, two days after Ruark and I had spoken. I sat up on my mattress, clutching at the thin blanket like a child, salty trails marked down my cheeks… I had thought naively that I was finally past all of it. Foolish, I suppose. Our inner demons don't stop haunting us just because we try to lock them away and forget they exist.

  I couldn't sleep, so I tossed the blanket off and dressed. It was barely four AM and my body cried bitterly for rest. My mind, however, taunted me with godforsaken remnants of a time I wanted desperately to leave behind. I had to escape, to see something real, so I could hold onto that instead. I was dressed and out the door without a second thought for the time.

  Even so early in the morning, the front desk of UT was manned by a sleepy looking student. He stared at me, as if wondering why a freshman would need to be awake before even the sleeping sun. I wouldn't have been able to answer the question if he asked. How do you explain that you were eighteen and probably suffering from PTSD? I couldn't exactly see a shrink and tell them my friends had been killed by two maniacs with magical powers. The lie I had fabricated with Max to the police was attempted robbery-homicide.

  I still don't know or care to know what Max did with the bodies.

  Imagine living in a fantasy world, beauty carved out of pure ignorance. Then, imagine it being torn asunder, ripped to shreds by the real world, cruel and unrelenting. Survival of the fittest. Darwin's axiom, taken to new extremes. Simply put, coven mages were protected from attack… we hadn't been coven mages. We had been fair game.

  As I hoped when I walked into the night, the cold air ushered my mind back to reality, to the here and now, away from my past troubles. I wasn't in Virginia anymore, this was Michigan. Cold, harsh, real Michigan. The present wasn't the past, and there was always the future… my mind calmed, and uneven breathing steadied to something more normal.

  Rarely have I felt the heartfelt desire to smoke, but I needed one at that moment. My nerves were still frayed, fluttering against my skull like a thousand tiny hummingbirds. I had the fortuitous insight to grab my only pack and stuff it in my hoodie before I left the apartment. I sat at the edge of the walk just in front of UT, lighter clicking away, my hand its only buffer from the wind. It took a pathetic four attempts to get it lit, but I managed to set the stick's end aglow.

  Alone, smoking and shivering at a little past 4 AM, I must've been a sight to see. Not that there was anyone out and about, not counting the few rare cars that swept by the building. Their scuttling metal shells separated them from the world, my world. They didn't count as part of it… so there was no one around, no one but me.

  One is the loneliest number, the first, the only, but it could also be the last. Strange that such a singular concept could hold so much duality in it. One word, many meanings. Just like human.

  It was in that moment of complete isolation, oddly serene in its purity, that they arrived. Nothing good ever happened after two in the morning, especially to someone with luck as terrible as mine. Murphy's Law incarnate, that was me.

  They stalked out of the darkness, moving as easily as if they had been born in it. Made to live in its power, they faded into my periphery like darkened blotches that marred the stillness of the night. I turned my head to watch their approach with interest, oblivious of the danger they represented.

  From afar, I could only say one was tall and long, the other short and fat. A contrast of extremes set side by side moving calmly towards me. What an eerie sight it had been, just to watch one move with the smooth certainty of any gentleman, and the other a waddling facsimile, more penguin than man.

  I expected to get a good view as they passed me by. I felt no need to fear them; after all, what could I possibly be afraid of? I was a mage, after all.

  Just as they crossed my line of sight they stopped suddenly and in tandem, some five feet from me on the street. Even now, I could not see their faces as they wore twin hooded trenchcoats, matte black barring the silver fastenings that glinted in the flickering streetlight.

  Now I was finally unnerved. I tried to appear uninterested, taking a drag from my cigarette, attempting to project confidence from my stooped seat on the rolling curb of UT.

  For a long breath, they didn't move and neither did I. They stared and I stared, but patience was never one of my personal virtues. I stood and flicked my cig away, glaring at them impetuously.

  "You got a problem?" I demanded, trying to make my tone sound
deep and dangerous, wincing as my voice cracked a bit. Nothing strikes fear in grown men like a skinny teenager out in the dark at 4 AM. At least I had remembered a jacket to protect myself from the cold, so I wasn't shivering in front of them.

  They turned their heads simultaneously to look at each other for a long moment, then turning back to look at me. It was creepy to say the least. Still, neither said anything to me.

  I turned away, thoroughly weirded out, "Okay, whatever." I said aloud, "Freaking psychos." I began to walk towards the welcoming light of UT, some twenty feet away.

  "We sense you, boy."

  The voice made me stop in my tracks, I turned back to stare at the source, "What did you say?"

  The tall specter had pulled a cane from somewhere behind his back, leaning forward on it and I could feel his eyes on me from beneath that hood, "We sense you."

  It was hard to describe the tenor of his voice. High cultured, well trained, the kind of speech you would expect of some brilliant British politician… but there was something wrong with it. It was strained, as if it was painful for him to speak. Almost as if he was simultaneously walking atop broken glass barefoot.

  The shorter one giggled, high pitched and childish, "Mageling…" He squealed and my heart threatened to beat out of my chest cavity, "We sense you…"

  "What?" My wide eyes openly betrayed the sudden fear I felt. I wasn't using magic, how could they sense me, find me? How…?

  "Our master has business with you, boy." The taller gentleman said, pointing a long, bony, finger at me, "You will come with us."

  "Come with us…"

  "I don't think I will." I replied tersely, warily gathering power to me and causing the air to shimmer dangerously.

  If I thought that would deter them, I was wrong. The shorter one began to waddle towards me, giggling the whole way as I saw gather his own power, more than I was holding. They were ready to go all out to try and take me, for whatever reason their 'master' wanted me for.

  Anger surged through me, they could try.

  I threw out my will in all directions and pulled power to me until I was glowing brighter than an incandescent bulb. Ruark's words from our last meeting came back to me, urging me on.

  "It's your birthright to control that power; don't let me or anyone take it from you."

  I was sick of being thrown around, of not being taken seriously. This time I would strike out, it was time for someone to fear me instead of the other way around. I saw my opponent hesitate in his step, uncertain.

  Good, I thought triumphantly, you should be afraid.

  I threw my palm out with all the force I could muster. My will brought to life, it swirled through my body to my palm, and was released like I had shot a cannonball from within it. I heard him yelp as the coalesced power struck him in the shoulder like a heavy mallet, sending him spinning like a top before landing in a groaning heap on the ground. He didn't move.

  Before I could crow about my success, my other opponent moved, faster than anyone I had ever seen in my life before. He was in my reach before I had finished my next breath, striking out with a gloved fist. I clumsily grabbed at it with both arms and redirected in from my face. I didn't have any real experience in hand-to-hand, definitely less than my mysterious enemy. I had no response for his next move, a knee to my stomach followed by a derisive shove to the ground.

  Flat on my back, I groaned, but I was no stranger to pain. Almost immediately I rolled away and pushed myself back to my feet even as I pulled power again for another attack, I felt him doing the same. Our wills stubbornly ground against each other, fighting over the same source of energy.

  The resulting telepathic force was weakened on both ends, but mine more so. They struck together with a hard clap, but his still had enough force to push me back a few feet. Once again, before I could blink he was rushing me again, but I was more prepared for it this time. We grappled physically and I found to my surprise that he was much weaker than I had expected him to be.

  Our tangible struggle was accompanied by a mental battle over the power we had drawn around us, a mental tug of war that I stubbornly refused to lose yet again. Despite my efforts however, I could see the visible glow beginning to form around him yet again, while I remained powerless. I growled angrily, I wasn't going to let it happen.

  I kicked him in the knee, hard. He gave a keening cry and power streamed away from him as the pain broke his concentration. I readily accepted it. My exultant cry rang out through the night as I hammered him with my strongest telekinetic attack at point blank range. He flew back at least ten feet and rolled nearly as far on the hard pavement of the street. I had the vicious wish for a car to drive by and hit him at that moment.

  Before I could properly savor the euphoric taste of triumph, I felt an unexpected pain erupt in my skull. The shorter opponent I had knocked down first had apparently snuck up behind me while I wasn't paying attention.

  I toppled to the ground and could only kick myself mentally for forgetting about the second psycho. As I whimpered in a way that was as manly as possible, I felt him pulling me up and drawing my arms in a lock behind my back and holding me there.

  "Got him!" I heard his eerie giggle, "I got him, Willard! I got the mage!"

  …Willard? You had to be kidding.

  I struggled to gather my thoughts as my vision swam in and out, held in place both magically and physically by this little demon of a man. Willard, to my dismay, rose easily to his feet and brushed himself off before beginning to walk towards where I was being restrained. Panic shunted aside my dizziness as he approached and I began to struggle harder. Still, I remained locked firmly in place.

  With only one possible, desperate plan, I strained my right arm to try and reach for my pocket, just as my second captor stalked to a stop in front of me.

  "Silly boy." His voice was deceptively soft, "You should have known better."

  "Your mother should have known better." I bit back. I really needed to work on my smart retorts under pressure. Maybe I would write out a list to use, in the future.

  Just a little closer… almost there-!

  A ringing right hook to my cheek left me seeing stars again. I cried out, but as I said before, I was no stranger to pain. I grabbed at the familiar, sharp flavor and funneled it into my efforts to escape. Pain was motivation, after all, it meant you were still alive to fight back. Surrendering to the pain of life was the same thing as dying.

  I touched a finger to the lighter in my jacket pocket. Nearly there.

  "Your mouth is not appreciated." Willard said dryly, "Now quiet. Lord Kraven is quite put out with you, mageling. Did you think there would be no response?"

  "No response to what?" I asked, mainly to buy time.

  Willard leaned in close, and for the first time I saw under the hood and found myself staring into blue eyes that had been trapped in encompassing bloody red where there should have been white cornea- as if the vessels in his eyes had been ripped apart. More than his horrifying gaze, I felt there was something even more off-putting about his stare.

  I realized later, that I had looked into the face of one driven to insanity's brink.

  The lighter was in my right hand.

  "Boy," He said quietly, "Did you think that you could attack my master's men and nothing would come of it? Our dear friend Richard still hasn't recovered from his burns."

  Richard? Burns. Two-Bit. Damn. Now I understood what this was about.

  Willard's crazed eyes left me and he stood straight again without waiting for my response, "Edgar, do you have the rope? Or do I- what's that sound?" The hooded face looked to me again sharply, "What are you doing?" I ignored it as I continued to attempt to start my lighter, a muted clicking cacophony.

  Despite the situation I was in, I couldn't help grin as the lighter's flame finally steadied, "Escaping."

  I had long since stopped my struggles to grasp at magic, and as I had hoped, my captor 'Edgar' hadn't been holding onto his so tightly anymore. I ripped
it from him in a fraction of that second and lit his belly ablaze when I thrust the growing heat against it.

  He pushed me away hard with a pained wail. Flying forward, hands free, I collided with his buddy Willard. Wasting no time, I extracted revenge for my throbbing cheekbone by driving my left fist under his hood to hit his nose with a satisfying crack. Willard stumbled away, tepid blood flecking the grass in falling arcs, from his injury and my stained fist.

  Bastard, I truly hoped I broke that nose.

  The hooded man let out a keening cry of rage as he stumbled to regain balance and come at me again. I calmly clicked my trusty lighter again and was rewarded with another pinprick of power to build upon, which I did. It was only seconds later that I could marvel at the twin balls of fire that hovered inches above my palms. I backpedaled from both of my opponents so I could watch both, unwilling to make the same mistake again.

  Edgar had finally recovered from my attack. He had drawn the flames that had lit his dark shirt alight, much as I had drawn flame from Two-Bit's burning body nearly a month ago. The small man was whimpering and regarding me with caution, his hood thrown back in the confusion. I felt like I was staring at a certified fat little gnome, because that was exactly what he looked like with balefully tiny obsidian eyes and huge bulbous nose. Edgar was also completely bald, his head strangely misshapen like someone had dented the side of it in with a hammer.

  "Tell your master they had it coming." I snarled, as I stared both of them down, "They attacked me first." That much, was technically true at least.

  Willard's hateful eyes were all but glowing under his hood as they met my own, "Aether," He spat, "My master would grind you to dust, you are an untrained maggot in comparison to his power."

  "He can try." I responded fiercely, sounding a lot surer than I actually was. Aether… what was an Aether? I didn't know the word but it seemed familiar somehow. Like something I always had known, but just forgotten because it had been years since I had thought of it.

  My heart felt strangely hot. It was like it had just been lit with a quiet flame, steady, calm, but ready to explode if tested. I didn't understand.