Power Mage 2

by Hondo Jinx

  Janusian gave a slight nod. “Speaking of youth, how do you like your partner?”

  “Krupski’s great, sir,” Jamaal said. “A real go-getter. High energy, smart, talented. And loyal to the core.”

  “Excellent,” Janusian said, studying Jamaal with glittering eyes. “I have come to value loyalty above all other traits in my subordinates. Tell me what you know.”

  Jamaal cleared his throat, feeling cagey. The initial shock at finding Pater Janusian sitting across from him had worn off, but he remained rattled by the fact the arch mage was here at all. And despite Janusian’s pleasant small talk and reputation for going easy on rogue psi mages, everyone in the Order knew that the arch mage held his agents to a much different standard. “Where should I begin, sir?”

  “The beginning,” Janusian said, rolling the cane back and forth over his thighs. “Pretend I know nothing.”

  Jamaal recounted recent events, leaving out the Mack girl and the missing librarian and focusing instead on Dutchman and company. It was a risk, but he couldn’t confess to covering up the early stages of an investigation that had gone so far off the rails that the arch mage himself was now seated across from him.

  Jamaal was thankful Janusian hadn’t turned up earlier. The revelations about Dutchman, Don Valdez, and the animated corpses felt significant.

  Janusian took it all in, nodding impassively, then said, “Do you remember the last thing Ms. Heath said to us?”

  Jamaal nodded, trying not to show how badly the strange question had jarred him. Of course, he remembered. He would remember her words till the day he died, no matter how hard he tried to forget them. But he wouldn’t remember them as the words of “Ms. Heath.” He would remember them as the words of Sarah, their friend and colleague, whom they had killed that dark, dark night. “He will come for you.”

  “Yes,” Janusian said. “Over and over. He will come for you.”

  “She was frightened, sir. Hobbled and—”

  “At the time, you felt she spoke prophecy. You suggested that another power mage would rise to avenge the Culling.”

  “I was frightened, too, sir.”

  Pater Janusian nodded. They sat in silence for several seconds, Jamaal frozen like a rabbit beneath the shadow of a circling hawk.

  “Do you remember why we killed them?” Janusian asked.

  “For the community,” Jamaal said, his throat suddenly parched. “For the world. They were too powerful.”

  Janusian shook his head. “We’re alone, old friend. Don’t parrot what we told the community. Do you remember the real reason we had to kill them?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jamaal said, his throat suddenly dry. “Two unknown power mages broke the prime directive.”

  “For the first time in a thousand years,” Janusian said. “Since Oleg the Terrible.”

  “We eliminated the threat, sir,” Jamaal said.

  “Did we?” Janusian asked, amusement playing across his features. “Then why am I here?”

  “Sir?”

  But Janusian suddenly sat up straight. “Something has happened.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jamaal said, an event of significance crashing into him like waves against the shore. A major development in Miami.

  Janusian stood. “I must leave.”

  Jamaal rose, grimacing as sciatica struck again. “Would you like me to ride along, sir?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the arch mage said, turning to leave, and Jamaal felt a wave of relief.

  But his relief was short-lived.

  Because as Pater Janusian reached the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. “Follow through with your plans to interrogate the old Seeker. I believe that you will learn much from her.”

  With that, he was gone.

  Jamaal just stood there, reeling, for a long time after the arch mage had departed.

  He had never mentioned Hazel.

  20

  On their drive back from the cemetery, Brawley and the girls passed a convoy of black FPI vans, racing toward the graveyard.

  Three vans, four, five… they kept coming. Brawley counted, watching them pass, figuring the odds and not liking the outcome.

  Eleven vans in total. The FPI was invading Miami in full force. And after the shootout back in the Middle Keys, they would be on high alert.

  Brawley kept waiting for them to circle back and show up in his rearview, but they didn’t.

  “Please pull into the next shopping center, husband,” Sage said a short time later, and asked him to pull up in front of a large store. Hallo-Whenever, the colorful sign read, Costumes and More.

  The psi script beneath announced, The Sexiest Party Wear for Miami’s Sexiest Carnals!

  “Bella said we need costumes for Heaven and Hell tonight,” Sage said.

  “Oh, this is going to be fun,” Nina said, and tugged at his forearm. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m all right. You girls go ahead.”

  “Carnals are assholes,” Nina said. “They won’t let you in without a costume.”

  Brawley shrugged. “I got a costume.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “Now go in there and get something baggy.”

  “Baggy?” Nina pouted. “I want to be something sexy like a French maid.”

  “Go ahead and something like that, too, if you want to fool around later, but tonight, you need a costume that will hide your Mac-10.”

  After the girls disappeared inside, Brawley checked the lot again. Nothing. He eased back in his seat.

  His mind was buzzing, hyped up on the juice he’d gained from killing the assholes who’d ambushed them at the cemetery.

  They should’ve let sleeping dogs lie, Brawley thought. Trouble was, their deaths wouldn’t go unnoticed. The Order would respond just like the FPI appeared to be responding.

  He checked his new psi score.

  176.

  No wonder his mind was buzzing. He’d gotten a four-point boost.

  Further investigation showed that he’d spent only a handful of Seeker points but had blown through thirty points of Unbound force.

  So be it. He’d catch a nap before hitting Heaven and Hell. The party hung over his head like a dark cloud grumbling with thunder. On one hand, he shared the girls’ cautious optimism concerning Bella. On the other hand, though, they were walking into a party full of crazy Carnals, and that asshole Colton Finn would probably be there.

  A lot could go wrong.

  But with every passing hour, his gut told him more confidently that he needed to open his Carnal strand next. He needed to risk it, needed to go to that party.

  He gave the question a little Seeker juice and felt almost certain he would bond with a flesh mage at Heaven and Hell.

  In and out, he thought. Hopefully, he and Bella would make a match. Either way, he was hitting the road tonight.

  He picked up the strange book and stared into the eye, which continued to shift from one color to another. He flipped it open. Undecipherable script shifted upon the parchment like dunes in a sandstorm.

  If he opened his Cosmic thread, would he be able to read the arcane text?

  A pang of loss skewered his heart when he realized his parents had probably held this book in their hands.

  He played back the memory in his mind.

  Where were two missing items crucial to his survival?

  He held that question in his mind and released a squeeze of Seeker juice, but he gained nothing. Not even a hunch.

  For now, this book and the missing items were a dead end.

  He checked the lot again, then slipped back into his mind, where he pulled enough force to fill both arms to the max. As always, he was tempted to train, but he couldn’t take the time to try splicing again. He needed to keep a clear head and an eye on the parking lot.

  Sage came out of the store, smiling with a large plastic bag thrown over one shoulder, looking like anything in the world other than a girl who had just survived a shootout in a cemetery.

&nbs
p; Nina trailed after, looking dejected.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked as his purple-haired wife climbed onboard.

  “These Miami Carnals are a bunch of horn dogs,” Nina said. “The costumes are all super-duper sexy. I told the woman at the counter that I wanted something baggy, and she looked at me like I had two heads.”

  Sage laughed prettily. “Tell our husband what you purchased.”

  “You’re just laughing because you got to pick a sexy costume,” Nina grumbled. “Not all of us have a little Glock in a carry bag.”

  “Tell him,” Sage said, her blue eyes gleaming with amusement behind the large lenses of her sexy librarian glasses.

  “It was the only baggy costume in the store,” Nina said, shaking her head and peering down into the bag.

  “What is it?” Brawley asked.

  “When I was a girl,” Sage said hours later as they crossed the lot, passing luxury cars on their walk from the heavily cloaked RV to Heaven and Hell, “I always wanted to go trick-or-treating. But my parents thought it was a foolish distraction, and we never stopped anywhere long enough for me to forge the sort of friendships requisite to receiving invitations to Halloween parties. I am excited to finally attend a costume party.”

  “So says the sexy nurse,” Nina grumbled, lagging a few feet behind in her bulbous M&M outfit, which covered her from the upper thighs to the top of her head. She frowned from the face hole, a single lock of purple hair falling across her forehead.

  Nina had ditched her fishnet stockings but still wore her combat boots and fingerless gloves. Beneath the costume, she had strapped the Mac-10 to her body with a makeshift sling created from the terry cloth belt of a hotel robe. Looking down at herself, she said, “Not just an M&M. A brown M&M. Why couldn’t I at least be green?”

  “Buck up, young lady,” Brawley said. “Like my grandma used to say, walk tall and cut a wide swath.”

  Nina frowned. “Did your grandma ever dress up as an M&M?”

  Brawley laughed and grabbed her hand and dragged her up to his side. “You look sweet, darlin.”

  Nina scowled. “Was that a candy joke?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “I’d punch you if you didn’t have a gunshot wound,” she said, but a smile brightened the face hole of her costume.

  “Remember,” Brawley said. “In and out.”

  “That’s what she said,” Nina joked.

  “We’ll see what she says,” Brawley replied. “We have to stick together in there, all right? I got a bad feeling about this place.”

  “I understand your misgivings, husband,” Sage said, clicking along in her white heels, super-short white mini skirt, and white bikini top with red crosses over the nipples. A similar red cross adorned the little nurse hat sitting atop her blond hair, which was pulled back in a long braid. Completing her costume were a phony stethoscope and her carry purse, which she had thematically improved with the red-and-white medical sticker that had come with the costume. “But my own sense is that tonight could go well or unwell and that the events will be momentous either way.”

  Brawley nodded. Sage’s depiction matched what he was feeling, a strange blend of dread and excitement. He was surer than ever that this was the right move, that he would meet his match here. And yet a sense of menace loomed heavily over the event.

  “One way or the other, don’t bother trying again to talk us out of coming,” Nina said.

  “You’re kind of surly for a piece of candy,” Brawley said.

  “Deal with it,” Nina said. “We’re in this together.”

  He had tried to convince the women to stay in the RV, but they wanted to come. Bonding was forever, and if Brawley hooked up with a Carnal, whether it be Bella or a different flesh mage, Nina and Sage would be stuck with her, too.

  So his psi-wives understandably wanted a say in the matter. Brawley knew they would go with whatever choice he made but also understood why they wanted to ride along. Besides, as the fracas in the graveyard had proven, if shit went sideways, he might need their help. Or they might need his. Best to stick together.

  The same doorman stood on the loading dock, smirking down at them as they came up the ramp arm in arm. “The nurse can come in,” he said. “You two can take a hike.”

  “Either you’re trying to be cute,” Brawley said, pulling the VIP card from the hip pocket of his jeans, “or you got a piss-poor memory. Bella invited us.”

  “I remember,” the doorman said, leaning back against the wall and crossing his muscular arms. “But this is a costume party, and you’re not wearing a costume.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “What are you supposed to be?”

  “A cowboy,” Brawley said.

  “If you’re a cowboy, where’s your hat?”

  “Waiting on me,” Brawley said. He’d almost put it on just for the costume but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had vowed not to wear the hat until he’d ridden another bull, and a promise was a promise. So no hat.

  “Waiting on you,” the doorman said. “Bullshit.”

  “He’s not just a cowboy,” Nina said. “He’s a sheriff.” She flicked the tin badge Brawley had pinned to his white t-shirt. One of his PBR buddies had given it to him after Brawley had been the first to cover a rank bull called Outlaw.

  “Yeah,” Brawley said, “see my toy guns?” He slapped the XDS and nodded toward the AA-12, releasing just a squirt of Seeker juice to reinforce the illusion.

  The family heirloom his grandmother had willed him would’ve been perfect for the costume. It was the old Colt .45 her great-grandfather, Texas Ranger Randall Haggerty Hayes, had carried back in the 1800s. But it was back in Texas. Besides, the Colt hadn’t been fired since before Brawley was born. He’d always wanted to get it restored. But first he’d been too poor and then he’d been too busy.

  “All right,” the doorman said, stepping aside. “But it’s a lame ass costume. Bella’s gonna boot you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Brawley said, walking past the musclebound pretty boy.

  They entered a dim corridor full of thumping bass and billowing waves of the sweet-smelling gas. A second later, Brawley was hard as iron, and both girls were getting squirmy.

  At the end of the hallway, double doors rattled with bass. Strawberry-scented mist rose from the slender gap at the bottom of the doors, sparkling in the flashing illumination of strobe lights beyond the door.

  “Ready?” Brawley asked his women.

  “This mist is dangerous,” Nina said. “I’m hornier than hell.”

  “I, too, am extremely sexually aroused,” Sage said. “I would like to have sex with both of you now.”

  “For as great as that sounds,” Brawley said, “let’s take care of business and get out of here. We’ll have fun later.”

  They pushed through the doors into the craziest party Brawley had ever seen.

  Heaven and Hell was aptly named. The cavernous warehouse was packed with impossibly beautiful people engaged in a wide variety of carnal delights, all to the beat of deafening music and strobing with a psychedelic laser show.

  Every inch of the sprawling dance floor was packed with mostly naked people gyrating and jumping, flaunting and fucking. In cages suspended from the ceiling, naked dancers spun and cavorted. Several stone pillars rose from the floor. Atop each raged a wild orgy.

  These people weren’t just physically perfect. They were athletically gifted, too. And they were showing off, reveling in that perfection.

  Brawley’s glance swept across the sweaty mass of writhing partiers, their smiling faces and mostly naked bodies half obscured by swirling pink mist and lashed in pulsing strobes of multicolored laser lights.

  A DJ spun records from an elevated platform against the back wall, flanked by massive speakers and crowned by one of the laser turrets, which synced with the beat, slicing the swirling pink fog with multicolored beams that played across the naked flesh of the ecstatic partiers.

  Here and
there, groups whirled in what Brawley first mistook as mosh pits. Then realized they were brawls.

  Men and women alike laughed as they kicked the shit out of each other, blasting away with lightning fast punches and kicks and nailing each other with knees and elbows and headbutts. People rocked and reeled. Combatants slammed each other into the concrete floor to the delight of dancing onlookers. Puffs of blood sprayed into the air, mingling with the aphrodisiac mist.

  Every now and then, a battered fighter would backpedal from the circle, shake it off, and leap with wild laughter back into the fray, covered in blood but completely healed.

  The whole place was boiling with lust and violence, everyone getting off on life. He saw people chugging liquor, smoking weed, popping pills, and snorting lines. Especially lines. He watched Carnals snort lines off asses, tits, and erections. Everyone was high and horny and ready to stomp somebody’s face in.

  Brawley felt a tremor of doubt. But they would stick to the plan. He would keep an eye on his girls and get the hell out of here as fast as they could.

  “Fresh meat,” said a gorgeous brunette in a tight black t-shirt that marked her as staff. She looked Brawley up and down and smiled at him like a fox showing a cornered rabbit its teeth. “Go home, sweetie. You’re not a Carnal, and you can’t hang with these boys.”

  Behind her, a pair of bodybuilder types started knocking it like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, standing toe-to-toe and piston-punching thunderous one-two-one-two-one-two combinations, heads jerking as their laughing faces split wide, going to pieces. Meanwhile, clusters of beautiful, seemingly oblivious girls knelt before the combatants, sucking them off even as hot blood rained down on their pretty faces.

  The brunette turned her predatory eyes on Nina, seemed to dismiss her quickly, then gave Sage a slow once-over. “The nurse stays. She can kiss the boys’ booboos. And she can kiss my booboos, too.”

  The woman reached for Sage, but her hand stopped as if it had run into an invisible wall.

  “Hands off,” the scowling M&M beside Brawley growled.

  The brunette’s eyes flashed with anger, and Nina started to open her mouth to say something that would only make things worse.