by CM Raymond
Shouts from a block away cut him short. A young woman with a boy in her lap was screaming and looking in every direction. Zeke’s eyes widened as he saw the green light flow from her into a tiny lizard. His jaw dropped as the creature suddenly grew.
It was magic, there was no doubt about it. But that power was unlike anything he had personally witnessed. Following the disappearance of the green light, the boy’s tremors ceased and life came back to his face.
A toothy grin cut across the young man’s face, which lasted until a group of men rushed them. In a beat, the boy and the woman were running in opposite directions.
“What the hell is that all about?” Ezekiel pointed to the action down the block.
The young man was watching the action as well. “Hell’s got nothing to do with it. They’re Hunters. If they catch her they get a bounty. Pretty lucrative position if you can get it.”
“Hunters?”
“Sure. To catch the illegal magic users. Unrestricted use of magic is outlawed here. Hunters bring in the Unlawfuls—dead or alive.”
“That’s monstrous,” the old man’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of anger flashed across his face. When he had left Arcadia, magic had been free for any with the will to handle it. One needed a mentor to tame that which is within, of course.
But restrictions would have been unheard of when he was here last.
“You must’ve been gone a while, old-timer. That’s how things are run here in Arcadia. Have to control the magic, that’s what we’re told. It’s too dangerous if just anyone used it. I’m sure it’s for the best.” The kid turned to watch the three men rush after the girl. “She should know better. Those guys are gonna do a number on her.”
The boy shrugged, then looked back at the old man.
But he had disappeared.
****
Glancing over her shoulder, Hannah saw the men gaining. The three goons were faster than they looked. She turned right, then left, then right again. She popped out of the alley and into the heart of the bazaar. Her legs moved like they never had before as if a new sense of life flowed through her body.
Hopping over a cart filled with apples, she grabbed the handle, halfway jerking her arm out from the momentum. However, she was able to flip it and sent the green orbs rolling across the cobblestones.
She prayed the obstacles would gain her a few steps.
The grocer hurled curses behind her. Ignoring him, she ducked through a stall selling fine silken scarves that she could never afford. Hannah spun through the crowd, pushing her way toward safety, but the shouts behind her indicated she had not yet lost the Hunters.
Her eyes cut around the square, flicking from exit to exit, now alive with the excitement of a chase. She spied an alley she thought she knew and broke for it.
Footsteps grew louder as the men got closer. Dodging a large, wooden crate blocking her path, she took three steps before she looked down the alley.
“Shit,” Hannah muttered as she found herself arriving quickly to a dead end. The clamor of the men scrambling over the crate filled the alley, and she turned around and backed herself against the wall. Hannah lifted her hands in surrender.
She smiled, the humor never finding her eyes. “Fun game, guys. You caught me. I’m it now, right?”
“On your knees,” the lead man, a brute with a scar across his left eye, growled as he approached her.
“Seriously. I’m not what you think. Just a kid. My brother he—”
“Don’t look like just a kid to me,” a second said with the laugh of a hyena. “You look like a ripe woman. Ripe enough to eat.” His eyes scanned her body, making Hannah want to retch.
The two smaller men started to laugh but went dead quiet when the giant raised his hand.
“We’ve heard every excuse, Unlawful. None of them worked. No one’s talked their way out before. You’re certainly not going to be the first.”
The leader drove a bronze staff, which was nearly as tall as him, into the ground. Its tip glowed blue.
Magitech, Hannah thought. She’d seen the Hunter’s weapons take men down before. It was not a pretty sight, but she never thought she’d experience its power first hand.
Her eyes darted around the alley, both to the men and up to two windows, she doubted there was anyone listening who would intervene. She came back to her attackers. “I don’t know magic,” she cried. Her heart pounding out of her chest, she pleaded, “I beg you, listen.”
But these were men of violence, prone to act first and listen never.
The two men behind the staff bearer followed suit. In unison, their eyes covered over in black as if replaced by perfect midnight. It was the sign that they were about to do their own magic.
One of them swept his arms across his chest and followed the motion over his head, making two arcs. By the time they came to rest by his side, two perfectly round fireballs danced in his hands. The man laughed as he saw the look of fear and awe on Hannah’s face.
He hurled a flaming orb just over her shoulder. It crashed behind her in a tiny explosion of fire. Shards of brick bit at her neck. She tried to move, but the other man extended an arm and flicked his wrist. A barrel flew from the edge of the alley. Hannah ducked, narrowly dodging the missile.
“That is real magic, Unlawful,” the man with the staff said. “It is for the few who are worthy, not for street scum like you. And we are the protectors of its use. We tag you as an Unlawful and enemy of Arcadia.”
The man flicked something the size of a playing card, which floated like a bird, finding its home on her forehead. It burned as it made contact. She scratched at the mark, trying to peel it away. But she knew it was no use, only magic could take away the tag.
Hannah eyed the alley behind them, looking for any way out. Nothing. She was caught, and a sense of doom washed over her. The feeling from the market square returned; a boiling rose beneath her skin. The young woman gnashed her teeth and tried to get control of her body.
The monstrous man grabbed her shoulder and shoved her to the ground. When her knees smashed into the cobblestones, she screamed in pain.
“Now that I have you in the right position, time to take my prize,” he said. With the glowing end of his staff, he tilted her head up to face her assailant. “You wouldn’t look half bad if someone washed the mud and muck off of you. A shame to lose such a beauty from our fair city, but the law is the law. Since we’re bringing you in DOA–” he leaned down to whisper near her ear “–might as well play a little first.”
A shit-eating grin covered his face. The sound of laughter and lewd comments surrounded her. Life for the bottom dwellers ranged from difficult to brutish, but she never expected to meet her end in an alleyway, gang-raped by a group of the Governor’s civil servants.
Her eyes narrowed in anger. “Go to hell!” she yelled at him.
She swung a clumsy punch to the man’s groin, and he pivoted just in time to catch it in the ass.
He grinned down at her. “Ooh, feisty one. I don’t mind some foreplay first.”
The man dropped a right hook. The sound of her crunching cartilage filled her ears as Hannah’s world went blurry.
Reaching down, the bounty hunter grabbed a handful of her threadbare shirt and pulled. Her covering gave way with little resistance. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms across her bare chest. Sobs of fear and resignation leaked from the broken young woman. Her head slumped slowly toward the earth.
“Don’t worry, little one.” The large man gave her a look of pity. “We won’t kill you. Well, not before I have my way with you first. And maybe the boys behind me, too.”
Hoots and hollers followed. The man flipped Hannah over. One hand held her hair in his fist, the other grabbed for the waist of her pants. The pressure cut a line on her stomach.
She closed her eyes and tried to hold back the sobs. Emotion was the one thing she might be able to keep from them. But fear of ungodly violation gripped her soul a tear escaped out of her eye, trailing a path t
hrough the dirt down her left cheek.
At least William was safe.
That was as much mercy she could hope for in a city like Arcadia.
“Hands… off... her.” The voice, clear through the noise coming from the bazaar, rang through the alley.
Hannah crumpled back to the ground when her attacker let go. Pulling the tattered shirt over her chest she looked up to see an old man, covered in the folds of a brown cloak. He was hunched over, supporting himself with a twisted wooden staff. The hood of his cloak covered his head—face hidden in its dark cavern.
“Step away from the girl, you cur.” He waved his staff back towards the only exit from the alley. “Take your ilk and be on your way.”
The three men looked at each other, then back at the figure. All three laughed at the stranger’s demands, but it was the one with the scar who responded.
“Go back to where you came from, old man. This is official government business.” He jacked a thumb at himself. “We’re Hunters, and we have a pocket full of tags to fill. Careful–” he pointed to the old guy “–or we’ll add you to our list.”
Tilting his hooded head up, they could see his eyes glowing in the darkness underneath. Bright red like embers. Hannah gasped and the men stepped back. The hooded man whispered words Hannah couldn’t discern and tilted his head, letting the hood fall onto his back.
She nearly screamed when the identity of her redeemer was exposed. Hannah expected a wizened old face, but instead, she saw the head of a monster—green and hairless—shining in the midday sun. Eyes big and round like an owl’s darted around the alley. Two horns jutted from its head toward the heavens.
The three Hunters screamed in fear.
****
As the three thugs stumbled backward, tripping onto the ground in terror of the demon standing before them, Ezekiel couldn’t help but smile. The devil mask was an ancient spell, one not practiced in Arcadia. At least not as far as he knew. It was designed to scare the shit out of those who saw it.
He was glad it hadn’t lost its effectiveness. He lifted his staff into the air, and before it met its apex, dark clouds covered the quarter. Thunder rolled overhead and winds whipped through the tight passageway. He extended his left hand toward the men.
“Arcadians,” he spoke through the wind, the dirt and the trash whipping around them, “magic is not meant to exploit the weak, but to rescue them. I would have thought they still taught that here.”
A bolt of lightning screamed down from the heavens and connected with his staff. Channeling its power, he splayed out his fingers, and the lightning flew from their tips. It was a secret art learned from the people of the Dark Forest.
Two men slammed against the alley walls, their bodies twitching from the current. The smell of burning hair and flesh filled the alley, as the bolts danced over their unconscious bodies.
The large one, in an act of extreme stupidity, ran toward Ezekiel and swung his magitech weapon at the wizard, looking to cave his head in.
Ezekiel held out his palm, both the man and the staff stopped, slightly rebounding. The Hunter looked at his weapon, dumbfounded. Ezekiel smiled, his expression distorted into something sinister by the illusion on his face.
He closed his palm and twisted his wrist upward. The magitech staff began to steam. The Hunter screamed, but he couldn’t let go as his hand was fused to the pole. Then, the thing melted before his eyes, dripping molten bronze across his skin. He fell to his knees and stared at his deformed arm.
Ezekiel stepped forward and glared down at the man. “Now it is I who mark you—as a fool and wretched of Irth. You will never lay that hand on the innocent ever again.”
With that, Ezekiel raised his wooden cane into the air and cracked the man across his skull, sending him careening over to lay on the ground.
Sometimes, it just felt good to deal out justice the old-fashioned way. Some say that physical exertion was good for an old body like his.
The old man looked down at the Hunters crumpled in the alley’s filth.
He spoke the word of power and his demonic face disappeared, revealing his wrinkled skin and white beard underneath. The lines on his face loosened. A sense of accomplishment like he hadn’t felt in years washed over him.
Thoughts of restoration had consumed him since he had returned home, and it started in this alley. This was his first act of many.
If the Matriarch and the Patriarch were with him, he would find a way to cleanse this place. He looked up just in time to see the girl vault the metal box, the tatters of her shirt flying behind her.
Shaking his head, he realized that in the old days he would have tagged her with a tracking spell. He was rusty, and it seemed that the rust would need to be knocked loose. But he wasn’t worried. His cunning and intuition would be enough to find her.
And find her he must. He pictured the green energy that flowed from her to the strange lizard that formed at her command. Whether or not she knew it, she would have an important role to play in what was to come.
CHAPTER TWO
Hannah swiped a jacket from a booth in the bazaar as she ran toward safety. It covered her physically but did little to ease the pain of what had just happened. Those men were going to hurt her, maybe going to kill her, and for no reason other than they could.
They had the power.
Fear drove her legs as disgust churned in her gut. Remembering the tag, she pulled lengths of hair over her forehead, trying to hide the mark. The Hunters branded her as an Unlawful, as an illegal magic user and enemy of the city. Until she could find a way to remove it; the city would certainly be her enemy.
Which sucked in almost every way possible.
Beyond the marketplace, she finally made it to the small city park. It felt like a lifetime ago that she was on her way here with her brother. She stopped and dropped to her knees behind a tree. The smell of the scar-faced man still enveloped her.
She could still feel the tug of his hand on her hair and the rhythm of her heartbeat raced across her throbbing face reminding her of the blow the man delivered.
Doubling over, she spilled what little food was left over from breakfast onto the grass. Once empty, her body continued to retch, searching for something more to expel as if it might be able to rid itself of the memory of the assault. Finally, falling over on her side, she screamed into the earth and pounded the dirt with her fist.
“I only wanted to help him,” she cried through her tears in the empty park. “I only…wanted to help.”
As the words came, she pictured the man grabbing at her shirt, and a rush of anger came over her. It was the same feeling she had as she held her brother in her arms and again in the alley.
Powerlessness somehow turning to power. She pictured the strange lizard, the way it stretched and grew in front of her. She pictured her brother’s sick form suddenly becoming well.
Then she pictured the demon-faced man, hurling lightning from the heavens. Scared of the sensations, afraid that she was someone like that thing, she fought back against the urges within her body, and they eventually subsided.
Staring up at the sky, Hannah decided that she would do all that she could to keep the power within her at bay. But she also swore to herself that she’d die by her own hand before ever being treated like that again.
She swore she would find the Hunters and make them pay.
She swore that no other women would suffer at their filthy hands.
After what felt like hours, her thoughts turned from the violence in the alley to her brother. At least he was safe. Fear, anger, pain. None of that mattered as much as getting home to William.