by Ryan Attard
Tenzin and I had meditated like this during our time together. Memories and the pain of loss threatened to surface, but my power wouldn’t let them. It was like my connection with the forest had built a barrier – after all, it could not feel loss.
All it felt was anger, and yet, at the same time, peace — a bizarre solidity in between. It was awe-inducing and terrifying. It was a sensation that no human could grasp. Primal rage and inner peace amplified a thousand-fold to a level where a human would just go insane. Raw emotion that would break down even the strongest of minds.
And it all coursed through me.
Even in my trance, I heard the helicopter approaching. The chopper hovered on the opposite side of the field. White mist flew from the snow. A ladder dangled from the helicopter, and Crowley descended. His feet touched the snow, and he waved at the pilot.
He looked as sharp as usual. A silver-gray suit with a black, silk shirt, expensive Italian loafers and that ridiculous gray fedora he always wore. He didn’t wear his gloves this time – I suppose there was no real need to hide his gray-blue skin. He had a pair of aviators on and his usual smile. Even against the reflective white snow, his pearly white teeth were clearly visible. He walked away from underneath the chopper holding his hat in place with his hand. I got up and walked toward him, slowly. We both took our time, preparing ourselves for the confrontation to come. It was like a scene from a John Wayne movie.
“Is that your ride back home?” I asked. Crowley nodded. He pursed his lips and stretched them into a smile.
The forest felt the two intruders within it. Both men were evil. One was immune to magic, decaying it before it could reach him — he was treading the snow. I could even tell that he had lost some weight due to injuries. The other man was hovering in the chopper, but not out of reach. He was evil, too, to a different degree than the man below. His magic was also weaker in comparison to the other. The forest wanted to punish these two.
The winds picked up, assaulting the chopper. I sensed the pilot’s panic as he experienced a malfunction and his aircraft spiraled downward. It crashed against a nearby peak, exploding in a small ball of fire. Crowley let out a low whistle.
“In case the point wasn’t driven home,” I said as I assumed a fighting stance, “you’re not going back. This icy mountain will be your grave.”
Crowley removed his aviators. He calmly folded them and put them in his breast pocket in front of his folded handkerchief. “That’s an awful thing to say, little boy. You owe me a chopper, by the way.” He splayed his hands. I felt the magic around him wither and die as his area of affect extended further and further.
“Bill me,” I replied. A streak of energy shot at Crowley as I flicked Djinn upward. I slashed downward, sending a second streak on top of the first. Crowley’s eyes narrowed. The azure energy withered into nothing before it could as much as knock his hat off.
But it didn’t matter.
Djinn’s elongated blade dug into the snow, and I flicked it upward into his face. The snow was not affected by his magic, and he let out a string of curses as it went directly into his beady eyes. I lunged, stabbing an enhanced Djinn into his gut. Its magic dissipated on contact with Crowley, and the blade receded. But he couldn’t affect the sharpness of the original blade, and even as its magic decayed, it reverted back to its original size and went a good three inches into him. He bent forward and grabbed the blade. I balled my left fist and delivered an uppercut into his throat as I pulled the sword backwards. As my fist crushed his throat, he made a gurgling sound.
“That one’s for Gil,” I spat at him. My leg snapped into a low roundhouse kick. I heard his knee crack, and he dropped on it. I kept my momentum, raised my right hand and smashed the pommel of my sword against his jaw. I heard something crack. Best of all, the damn hat sailed away, revealing slicked-back, oily hair. He had bald spots and burned patches, courtesy of Tenzin.
“This one’s for my mom.” I kicked his face in. His head snapped backwards. It would have been a lethal blow, but he allowed himself to be thrown backwards, dissipating the force, and placing him a safe distance from me. I felt magic dying all around him.
He got to his feet. Parts of his body cracked as some form of healing took place.
“I wasn’t exactly tellin’ you the truth about my magic,” he said as we both panted. “I decay magic. But the question no one asks is ‘and then what’?”
“The hell are you talking about?” I said.
“It’s really simple.” More body parts healed, but he was still walking with a limp. “What you see around you ain’t true magic. Fire, ice, energy, glowing statues – these are all effects. By ‘decay’ I meant ‘strip away all the effects’ and return magic back to its original form. My teacher called it Prime. It’s the fuel of magic, you see, the unlimited potential. That’s what we abjurers do. We play around with the Prime and shape it like putty. And the thing is, everybody’s got Prime in ‘em. What you might call a Core or a Spark. It’s the same stuff. It’s what holds the universe together.”
He straightened up. “So, you see, I’m damn near invincible. Whatever you do, I can decay and absorb the Prime to heal. Face it, Erik,” he licked his lips. “You’re my bitch.”
“Absorb this.” I lunged. Crowley sidestepped, quickly for someone who was limping, and latched onto me.
“I intend to.”
I felt my body go numb, and my magic dying within me. My head spun.
“I intend to decay every last morsel of you and suck out all that Prime. You really have no idea just how much you have,” I heard Crowley snarl. “It’s wasted on you. Now, give it to me, it’s all mine.” My soul ripped apart as his magic killed mine and left a husk.
A voice reverberated inside my head, drowning out Crowley’s.
Power. More power.
I felt my connection to the forest deepen, opening up a vast reservoir of magic. When I opened my eyes, it was as if someone had taken a picture of the red desert and the snowy mountain and overlaid them. Suddenly, I was torn between two worlds, and both were feeding me power. Not just any power, this was the nectar that Crowley wanted. Core magic, or Prime, flowed through me and darkness rose from me.
“What – what the hell is this?” Crowley relinquished his grip as his magic ceased working. He was just one man, after all. I was the forest. No, I was the world. That wasn’t it either. I was a vast universe of power, and I had one intention – destroy Crowley.
Tendrils of darkness stabbed through him and ripped away at him. It was not a physical attack — I attacked his magic, his Prime, turning it against him. And in that moment of agony, I felt connected to him. Not quite reading his mind or manipulating his personality, but it was like I could feel his doubt and rage. It was like I was piggybacking on his emotional process as he digested what he was experiencing.
I felt his fear when he faced Tenzin and Senju Kannon, soon followed by the pleasure he took in decaying that powerful magic.
I could feel his confusion and doubts at this very moment – there had never been a magic he couldn’t affect. He had sacrificed everything else to learn his obscure branch of abjuration. He gave it all up to become one with his magic so that no form of magic could harm him. I saw how his power had been enough to kill his master.
I saw his memories as if they were his. I felt that absolute belief in his power – the one that had saved his life countless times as he entered the magical drug trade and underground markets. It had always worked – so, what was different now?
I saw his mind go through hundreds of possibilities and finally settle to a logical conclusion. His magic was still the same, he realized. It was that he met a monster whose power was light-years ahead of his. A brat who held the power to reshape the world. Crowley’s insignificance couldn’t even begin to register against such power.
I’ll admit that I had completely lost control at that point. My reasoning, my consciousness, the parts that made me Erik were pushed into some dark corner.
>
Avenge Tenzin.
Kill Crowley.
Pay back for your suffering.
Those were my thoughts. Memories of my life with Tenzin and Gil. Memories of peace and happiness.
“And this one,” I said. “This one is for Tenzin.”
I let my power extend to the sky, and thunderclouds gathered. Djinn glowed furiously. I brought it up and slashed down, cutting into nothing. But I felt it, the slash sliced between Yin and Yang, positive and negative, and generated energy between them. The energy manifested in electricity, bright white-blue bolts that raced toward the clouds.
More lightning arced across the sky.
I could not summon the dragon deva. Heck, I wasn’t even sure what ‘deva’ really meant.
But I could sure as hell recreate the effect of one.
Lightning gathered around me until my ears rang and my skin went numb. I held Djinn like a javelin, and threw it high into the clouds. Lightning followed it, surrounding the blade like a furious sun. My magic was still connected to it, guiding and shaping it. The lightning morphed into a Chinese dragon with Djinn guiding it at the tip of its snout. It roared and thunder rumbled, shaking the mountain. My magic controlled the trajectory of Djinn, and the lightning dragon.
It shot from the heavens, straight into the man cowering in the snow as he stood in awe, watching his demise descend from the sky. The dragon crashed into the abjurer and exploded. Light and heat exploded from it. The ice on the mountain’s peak fell and evaporated, exposing a large patch of rock amongst an otherwise all-white, snowy peak.
That last spell had done it for me. The magic, the super-powered energy that came from the forest and the weird red desert, dissipated into nothing. My knees buckled as the torrent of power left my body, leaving behind a profoundly damaged Erik. I could barely blink — even that hurt.
The ice mist settled down, revealing the aftermath of my spell. Crowley was impaled by Djinn. The short sword pinned him to the ground, and occasionally, a small bolt of electricity would spark from it. Ignoring the pains and aches of my body, I walked toward him.
A hole gaped where his chest should have been. The only parts left intact were his head, a foot and both hands. The rest was a disgusting mixture of black goo and ash. The pendant that Tenzin had given me hung from the sword’s circular hand guard. I had fastened it there tightly before my visit to the Ashendale manor. It was a miracle that little trinket had survived. Then again, it did contain some powerful magic, even if just a tiny fraction.
Crowley’s eyes still shifted from side to side. I wasn’t worried – I could sense his death coming. His eyes were moving reflexively.
I smiled. It was a fitting end.
The last thing Crowley saw before crumbling into dust was the symbol for serenity that I had burned into my talisman. How poetic.
Serenity. Tenzin.
I hope it gets branded into Crowley as he burns in hell.
Crowley’s remains crumbled into ash and the wind swept them away. I bent down to pull out Djinn, but it held fast. I no longer had the strength to pull my own sword from the ground. Now that magic no longer nourished my body, I felt the exhaustion accumulated since I left the burning warehouse a million years ago.
I couldn’t take it. My body needed rest and forced it on me. My mind went blank, and the last thing I remember was lying face down on the cold ice.
42
Now
Sun Tzu’s hands had been clenched throughout my story. “What happened afterwards?” he asked. His grip relaxed.
“I woke up two days later buried in snow,” I replied. My hand snaked around the two empty whiskey bottles and clasped a half-finished third. For a second, I considered forgoing the use of a glass – I had drunk half of our supply anyhow. But I poured more liquid courage into the glass out of courtesy to Sun Tzu. He was still nursing his second glass.
“Turns out my healing power needed some time to recharge,” I continued. The liquid didn’t even burn as it descended down my throat. “So, two days in a coma and I was good as new.” I poured another shot. “I was so freaked out by the whole experience. I saw myself become something I couldn’t describe. I mean, I get it, you know. We use magic – we create stuff that’s not ordinary. We manipulate science. I get that. But when I felt that connection–” I paused and tried not to freak out too much. It’s been years since I had thought about that day. I mean, yeah, it’s always been there like a sore spot at the back of my head, but I’d never brought it to the spotlight.
“That was more power than any person should have.” I exhaled. “So, after I came to, I tried feeling out for power again. I thought it was the forest, but I found nothing. Now, I’m starting to think that whatever’s inside me tugged on the core power of the plane.”
“Yeah, you’re just about right.” Amaymon was in human form with his legs propped up on another table. He had a bottle of Jager all to himself. “Ain’t no forest got power. When people say they feel a particular place’s got a certain aura, they’re talkin’ about a Nexus. But when you went all He-Man, that wasn’t no Nexus. You pulled on the plane’s power. This entire universe, this entire plane of existence, was pumpin’ you up.”
“So, that’s my secret ability?” I asked incredulously. “Leech off the damn planet?”
“Not quite,” said Sun Tzu. “I believe that Crowley might have given you the answers which you seek.”
“Oh, this should be good.”
Sun Tzu ignored me. “I believed he mentioned Prime, did he not?”
“Yes.”
“I am led to believe that he was referring to Chi, the energy of life,” he said. “That is your ability.”
“I’m confused.”
“Ain’t that a surprise,” remarked Amaymon. “Listen up. This thing called Prime, it goes by many names. Prime, Core, Spark, Chi — whatever. Even Life magic. It all refers to the same thing. It’s the energy that created the universe and keeps it spinning. It’s what links the dimensions and planes together. It creates bonds between different planes, between man and magic.”
I stared at Amaymon, trying to comprehend what he had just said.
“So, in essence, I control the fabric of life?” I asked.
“From what I heard and saw, it controls you,” he said with a smirk.
“You get what the hell you’re suggesting?” I asked. “I can’t even light a damn candle without rolling in pain–”
“Which is often hilarious.”
“–so how is it possible that I control Life magic or Prime or whatever it’s called? It’s just insane.”
“But a link definitely exists,” said Sun Tzu.
“A link to what?” My voice grew hysterical. “It’s a power that exists in mythology.”
“And you live in a world where mythology and reality often intersect,” said Sun Tzu. His voice was stern, like a headmaster reprimanding a child. “Tenzin told you to accept who you are. Honor him and heed his advice.”
I shut up and listened. Talking about Tenzin had been hard enough. Now, Sun Tzu was using that against me. Well, it might have been for my own good, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Whatever.
“Okay, so I have this power,” I said with a self-defeated tone. “So, what now?”
Sun Tzu’s eyes softened a fraction. “You must understand the nature of your power. When lost, one must retrace one’s steps and start the journey anew. You must learn who you are again.”
“You got power,” said Amaymon. He must have felt the need to dumb it down for me.
My familiar knew me so well.
“You got the power, whatever it is,” he went on. “Once you understand it, you can control it.”
“And how do I do that?” I asked.
“Call me when you find out,” he said as he raised his shoulders. I sighed.
Basically, I had to understand a power I knew nothing about, without any outside help or clues of any kind. It’s linked to my healing, the shadows
and Life magic, or whatever it’s called. Oh, and I had to solve it quickly, because according to Amaymon and Mephisto, without this power, we had no chance against the Sins.
Hold my calls – this might take a while.
“Perhaps you could ask your sibling for advice,” suggested Sun Tzu. “I am certain that, as your twin, she must be experiencing a flux of power herself. Remember, this power affects both of you.”
“I’m not exactly on the best of terms with her,” I replied. “This discussion might just send us back to hating each other’s guts.”
“But you must look past your differences,” insisted the Asian. “This is no time for petty squabbles. The fate of the universe is at stake here.” His voice was more aggressive.
“Geez, okay, okay,” I said, taken back. “I’ll talk to her.”
Sun Tzu calmed down. Not that he had moved or indicated any change in his serene composure. It was the aura around him — it went from calm, to highly aggressive, to peaceful again. Amaymon tutted. Sun Tzu shot him a look, and the demon’s eyes clearly indicated that he had discovered some insight on Tzu’s nature, but intended to keep it a secret.
“Speaking of ice,” Amaymon said, breaking the sudden tension. “What happened once you thawed out? How’d you make it down the mountain?”
I nodded. That was the hint — change the subject before things get too bad. And I did not want to mess with Sun Tzu. Never, ever, screw around with old kung-fu guys. It rarely ends well.
“Same way I got there,” I said. “I walked.”
***
Approximately 8 years ago
I did not stop by the mansion on my way back to the city. I had seen enough pain and destruction and had no desire to see any more. Gil had made it clear that I wasn’t welcome there – not that I would have returned.