by Scott Duff
“Have we got your attention now?” yelled Ferrin. He had to yell to be heard over the crackle of his own energy storm. I scanned the nearby buildings just in case something showed up in my heightened awareness. Nothing did, but I wasn’t sure how far past the roof it would extend.
“The young man behind you has a few questions to ask,” Ferrin yelled. “Answer quickly and to our liking and you may walk out of here in one piece. Blow smoke up his arse even once though and you get to find out why I’m afraid of him.” He cackled while he powered down, to a pretty cool effect, if you ask me! He pushed it straight back into the battery I gave him. Any other mage watching would’ve choked watching him swallow that much power. Like I said, pretty cool effect.
But he was wiped out. Totally gassed. That’s why he passed the game to me and now I had to watch out for him. He trusted me. I didn’t think he did that.
“All right, let’s make this quick so these fine gentlemen can get back to their lives, shall we?” I yelled, mostly to get their attention turned back to me. I made eye contact with Mr. Leather then looked at Ferrin with what I hoped was a meaningful look.
“Start with why you were following him in the first place,” I said. “Who wants to answer?” I looked of the group of seven remaining conscious men. I tried not to look any further at the others. There were several bodies strewn around.
“We are the backup team for the contract killers you just… killed,” said a rather average looking man close to the middle of the group. He was average height, brown eyes, good, solid build, average.
“And you are?”
“Dan Wilkerson,” he said, gulping slightly.
I used the Stone’s power to move him in front of me while dropping the Day Sword into my hand. It brightened the rooftop considerably.
“See my bright and shiny Sword, Mr. Wilkerson?” I asked him, my voice devoid of sarcasm but the question wasn’t. “This blade is sharp enough to remove your skin a layer at a time and there are seven layers of skin on the human body. Continue to lie to me and I will show you how painful that process is. Do you understand me, Mr. Wilkerson? Or do you want to be the object lesson for your fellows?” The Sword thrummed then, a deep bass sound of yearning to do the deed, providing a counter point to my threat to him.
“I wasn’t lying!” he cried with a pained look on his face. Fear streaked through his aura.
“It was misleading, though, wasn’t it?” I said. “Same as. You made it sound as though they were leading you. What is your title?”
“What?” he asked, acting confused.
Thrusting out, I put the point of the sword under his chin and raised his head, making him look at me down the golden blade. “Last chance.”
“Lt. Commander Dan Wilkerson,” he said with a grimace.
“And why were you following him?” I asked again.
“Our mission was three-fold: follow the mage, identify his associates, especially those with like talent, then assist in his assassination.”
“And why was he targeted for assassination?” I asked the suddenly talkative lieutenant commander.
“He is an abomination of nature,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?” I said, thoroughly confused by that.
“Didn’t you see what he just did? It was unnatural! He, no, you are an abomination. Demons, all! You look like men but you hide in your ivory towers converse with the devil about God knows what, making decisions that affect thousands of men’s lives. You turn a man to dust on a whim. You’re fucking evil and the world needs to be rid of you. I’m just sorry to be the first team to lose in battle.”
I just stared at him for a moment. Then I called the scabbard and sheathed the Sword and hung it from my belt that the Stone quietly formed for me.
“There are so many things wrong with that spiel I don’t know where to start,” I said, shaking my head. “Last time I checked, though, there wasn’t a ‘Lucifer Lightbreaker’ in my calling plan.” I leaned up on my toes to look over him to Ferrin. “How ‘bout you, Mike? You got Satan on your speed dial?”
“Nah!” he yelled. “Had a Suzy Satin once. Exotic dancer from Chatwick. She was a bit evil in the sack, though.” He received a raucous round of laughter from the gallery of leather men with that. I thought that was kind of odd, considering where they came from, but really, who was I to judge? And it was kind of funny.
“Also, isn’t it the Jews that run the world? No, wait, it’s the Catholics. No, wait, you’re right, it’s the Illuminati or a Star Chamber. OPEC? The Masons? Rosicrusians? Opus Dei? That’s the Catholics, so never mind. Maybe we are and I just didn’t get the memo. Do you know which one of us is doing it? ‘Cuz I got a bone to pick with him. Or her.”
He wasn’t amused. Darn.
I smiled at him. “I don’t expect to change your mind there. You have such a religious fervor about that belief. But consider this, if I can do anything I want, why would I want to control you? I mean, who are you to me?” I jumped through a portal and came out behind him. “I mean, really, who are you that I should care?” I jumped back in front but to the right by three feet of where I was. “This morning I was in Ireland. This afternoon, New York, and now I’m here and it was pure luck that I ran across a friend of mine and ended up here. But you wouldn’t have fared any better against him, though, I assure you.”
I moved back in front of him. “But the most damaging thing that you have said is that this is your side’s first loss. That actually says a lot about your side. First, it says that your upper echelon is a bunch of liars. This isn’t your first loss. This is my third win and his second. In a week. The first wave of attacks was about thirty percent effective and you paid an extremely high price for all of them. In mine alone, about thirty-four men were killed and another sixty and some were captured.
“That you believe it means that your operation runs in cells of some kind,” I continued. “You don’t see your own fighting forces completely. I’ve seen mostly groups of four. And they can be modularized into eights, twelves, and sixteens, like tonight. Just a guess, mind you, but am I right?”
Wilkerson went stoic at that point.
“Cat got your tongue, now?” I asked him. “Seems a bit late for that, Mr. Wilkerson.”
“You’re lying,” he muttered, his eyes filled with hate and mistrust.
“Yes, Mr. Wilkerson, I have so much cause to lie to you,” I said sarcastically. “You and your people have scared me so much that I shall go back to my high school and think of nothing but girls, the Prom, and which community college I should attend next fall.”
I felt a tiny twinge of power use near me, just the smallest push of energy in our direction, but not at me. The Night Sword would have reacted to that. This was directed at Wilkerson. He stiffened abruptly and gasped. Then there were more fluctuations coming and I pushed myself and I pushed hard to crush those tiny fluctuations aimed at my prisoners. I wasn’t fast enough to save all of them, though. Wilkerson died as he fell forward into me. I couldn’t tell why, it was happening too fast. Two more of those tiny little spells got through the iron curtain of the Faraday cage I threw up around them. The cage was so strong around them that it gave off a light blue glow, a trail.
Letting Wilkerson’s body fall to the ground, I followed the loose paths of the spells back across the rooftops to a building caddy-corner. Seeing nothing but HVAC units at first, I pushed out into the energy plane and kept looking. There, behind the heat sinks of the air conditioners near the back corner, was a man huddling, hiding. He poked his head around one side, hoping no doubt, to see us panicking over the deaths of our captives. Instead, we locked eyes, even over that great distance.
And I had his secret. Something about those double irises in elven eyes that they just couldn’t veil from me. Why he thought he could get away from me, I didn’t know for certain. He knew who I was and what I was capable of, the weapons I had at my disposal. But he tried anyway and he still tried to make it look human. Good for him. He sto
od and ran for the edge of the building and jumped. My resolve crystallized. He wasn’t getting away that easily.
A man jumping off a four-story building is pretty stupid. Chances of surviving aren’t good. An elf, well, much higher. But he wasn’t going to land here. He’d pierced the veil between worlds just below the lip of the roof. I could feel the land of Faery from here like an itch I couldn’t scratch. My anger got the best of me and I just reacted in the same way I’d been reacting to attempts on my life all night.
I created a portal. Right in front of his and he fell right through it. I kept it open as he fell toward the Atlantic Ocean, just to make sure he wasn’t able to open another to escape through. But only for a moment. Apparently, elves aren’t adaptable to low air pressure with high winds. I watched with some satisfaction as he bloated suddenly and an arm was sheared off his body in what I assumed was a crosswind. If he screamed, I didn’t hear it. I closed it after I realized he wasn’t in any condition to do much of anything, and the hole into Faery as well, turning my attention back to our captives.
Wilkerson was dead. There was nothing I could do for him now, but two of the elf’s spell got through. The two fallen men were surrounded by their fellows protectively. I understood that, considering their perspective. All they’d seen was three men collapse and me turn away for a few seconds. I doubted they could see the elf, or even the image of a man, on the building so far away and at night. I didn’t have time to be understanding, though, these men were gonna die if I didn’t do something.
“Get out of my way,” I yelled and using the Stone’s power, I shoved the standing men into the wall of leather men. Kneeling down, I slapped my hand on the chest of the first fallen man and started hunting for the elf’s spell. Small and fast-acting, I knew it had to attack the brain, so that’s where I went first. The man was hemorrhaging blood—I found the spell. The elf was inducing strokes.
First I sealed the blood vessels that has been cut. There were two, an artery and a vein. Then I started moving the escaped blood slowly back out through existing veins and out into his blood stream, relieving pressure and stopping further damage. There was damage already, though. A good amount of tissue around the cuts had already necrotized. I moved to the second man and went straight for the brain. He was like the first except I’d stolen a little more power from that spell. It had only managed to nick enough of one artery to cause a rupture, but it was a bigger bleeder. The artery had already sealed itself—score one for healthy living. I searched through the damaged area for anything salvageable. There wasn’t much I could do. It was depressing that it was so easy to do so much damage with so little effort.
Sighing, I heaved myself to my feet as I pulled out and realized there was a fight going on. The four I’d tossed aside were fighting with the Leather men to get back to their fallen comrades—I wouldn’t try to think they were friends. Some of the Leather men were good fighters. Most of them weren’t even involved at all except in the shouting. I don’t think the military these guys belonged to would appreciate knowing about this. Snapping a few pictures with my cell phone, I sent them off to Peter’s phone and hoped they’re decent in the dim light. They looked hilarious to me, Joe College jock getting whooped up on by Leather Biker. Still, I had to be the adult here and break it up.
Exploding two huge flash-bangs at the feet of the fighters, I shouted, “That’s enough!” Nobody heard the shout after the bangs but everyone was so disoriented by it they separated anyway. Ferrin sidled up beside me, having taken precautions apparently.
“Did you get him?” he asked quietly.
“The elf?” I asked, looking back between us at the building across the street. “Yeah, sent him deep sea fishing. He’s chum now.”
“Elf? You sure?” He was surprised.
“Positive,” I said. “Couldn’t you tell?”
“Too far away, I guess,” he answered. He watched the Joe College look-a-likes recover slowly from the flash-bangs and see to their associates. The Bikers just encircled them threateningly again, reminding the militarists of who held the upper hand here.
“What do I do with you now?” I asked, more rhetorically than anything, but I really didn’t know what to do with them.
“What?” asked the man kneeling down at the first man I worked on.
I looked down at him and asked the question again. He stared at me for a moment. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“If I let you go and you go back to your bosses at whatever headquarters you have, you won’t live out the night,” I said calmly. “I don’t want to kill you, either directly or indirectly, regardless of what you believe. And your friends on the ground require further medical aid. Your elf gave them strokes. Tried to stroke out all of you actually. Nice friends you have, by the way. So, what do I do with you?” I asked again.
“Why would they try to kill us?” he asked. “Just because of you? Of the shitty wizards we got saddled with? That doesn’t make sense, asshole.”
“They’ll kill you because you failed,” I said calmly. “And because you know about other failures. That’s the biggest one, the other failures. That will put the idea in someone else’s head that the war they all think they’re winning can be lost. Actually, they are losing. That once the elves are out of the picture, you won’t have a chance.”
“We aren’t involved with the elves,” he said vehemently, standing to face me. “The Devil’s Stepchildren are your purview, not ours.”
“Devil’s Stepchildren?” Ferrin said amused.
“Apt description, I suppose,” I said. “But they’re only our purview because we can stand up to them in some way. You can’t. Exhibits A, B, and C are at your feet.”
“You’re lying,” he said angrily.
Nodding sagely to him, I say, “So you don’t believe me. Okay, I can live with your decision. You can wait on the street for a few minutes. Let’s see who else wants to go with you.” I wrapped a portal around him and sent him to the sidewalk two blocks north of here. Turning to the next man, I asked, “What about you? What do you want?”
He looked up at me confused, near to crying. “It’s not fair,” he whispered hoarsely. His face was a mess, bruised already, bleeding from several cuts, and swelling on his right side. His aura was roiling in emotion and confidence was not one of them.
“That I’m leaving it up to you? Get over it,” I said, not sure exactly what I should be feeling here. “This is your choice: I put you on the north side with the first guy and you go back to your army pals or I put you on a south side and you take your chances where ever you want to go. I make no guarantees beyond that. I am making this not my problem.”
“We can help them,” said the lead Leather man, his soft voice booming across the rooftop.
That surprised me and I let my face show it, then smiled and said, “Thank you, but please understand that I will not be able to help you. I don’t know when or even if I will be back this way again.”
“I understand. Not asking for it,” he said. “But I lost a brother in the military and they’re somebody’s brothers. Or sons. Keep ‘em hidden long enough, maybe they can be that again. I can’t get back mine , but…” He shrugged slightly, as if he didn’t care. Score one for humanity. Now I was actually curious to see how this would work out.
“A third option, then,” I said, turning back to the beaten man and waited.
“It’s not fair,” he repeated, just as hoarsely. I think the last of his brain cells fried themselves out in the fight. There was no evidence the elf’s spell got through to him. He was just losing it. Not my problem. I wrapped a portal around him and gave him to the Leather man. “Next.”
The two men looked at each other. The right one asked, “What’s gonna happen to them?” He pointed to the men on the ground.
“I’m gonna have to drop them off at a hospital anonymously somewhere,” I said. “I’m not equipped to give them the type of therapy they’re going to need because of the elf’s spell. I don’t even kn
ow enough to say what they have lost, what the infarctions killed. They need neurologists and MRIs and CAT scans and things. I can’t do that.”
“But you’re ‘Miracle Boy’! You can do anything!” he said sarcastically.
“First off, call me ‘boy’ again and I’ll show you how it feels to be eaten alive. Second, if I could do miracles, those two wouldn’t be on the ground and Wilkerson wouldn’t be dead. Make a decision, I want to go home.” They looked toward the Leather men then at each other again, being indecisive. I’d had enough. “I’ll be right back.”
Wrapping a portal around myself, I went to the first man to leave. He was standing in the shadows of a storefront’s doorway about fifteen feet from where I dropped him.
“Your compatriots decided to go another way,” I told him. “You have two-hundred and seventy degrees of freedom from here. Do not go back to the bar. Ever. If I ever see you again, I will kill you, though honestly I don’t think you’ll see another sunrise if you go back.”
“Why should I believe you?” he growled. “Why would you just let me go? You’re gonna follow me, aren’t you? Follow me back to my league and try to catch us the same way we caught you.”
“Don’t believe me, I don’t care,” I said, testily. “Go back and die, don’t go back and live, I don’t care. It’s your choice. Just go.” I moved back to the rooftop. And I tried not to care. I really did.