“Let’s get this over with,” Hank sneered through gritted teeth.
“What?” Parker asked with a smile. “No foreplay? Fine, we’ll do it quickly, since that’s what you’re used to.”
Hank’s sneer turned to rage, and he came in telegraphing a right hook from a mile away. Parker easily ducked the fist and spun behind Hank, landing a playful kick on the man’s broad ass. The kick, plus Hank’s own momentum, carried the big man forward until he nearly stumbled through the ropes and into the crowd.
They responded with loud cheering. Parker turned to them and gave a deep bow.
Hank’s face turned wine red as he pivoted back toward Parker. “All right, ya little shit. Was going to take it easy on you, but no one makes an ass of me.”
Parker smiled. “Of you or your ass?” The crowd laughed again and began hollering when Parker mimed a little kick.
The man charged again, head aiming for Parker’s torso. With the agility of a dancer Parker avoided him, then used Hank’s head to vault. The big man hit the ground, kicking up dust into the air. Parker danced around the edge of the ring, waving and blowing kisses.
The onlookers whooped and hollered in return. They were starting to enjoy Parker the Pitiable, and Parker certainly took the moment to enjoy the crowd. But his bragging stopped as he turned just in time to take a left jab on the chin followed by a heavy right. Hank’s fists were like bricks, and Parker’s head spun as he dropped to one knee.
Hank gloated over his victim. He raised his arms overhead, roaring like a pagan warrior. It was his signature move, and the crowd had been waiting for it.
But so had Parker.
As the Wildman stood over him playing to the crowd, Parker put all his weight behind a kick at the man’s groin. Hank’s roar of delight turned into a high-pitched squeak as he doubled over. Parker wasted no time pushing his advantage. He slammed a fist into Hank’s throat, then placed his foot against the larger man’s knee and pushed with all the strength he had.
The winded man fell like an oak, dropping hard to the packed dirt. Before he could catch his breath, Parker was on him. The kid delivered a flurry of blows, aiming as best he could for the soft spots beneath the man’s ribs before rolling off to the side.
Parker leaned over Hank as he rolled on his knees. “Need a hand, Henry?” Parker asked in his best impression of a concerned friend. Mockery would get him everywhere, or at least that was what Parker hoped for.
Hank finally pushed himself off the ground, his eyes bloodshot, and his breathing ragged. All that remained was for Parker to stay out of range of Hank’s fists until he could land the final blow.
Parker had never been strong, but growing up on the Boulevard taught him to be smart and fast. The strong preyed on the weak, but not if they couldn’t catch them. Hank was used to fighting men who either matched his own brute-force tactics or cowered in fear.
The insults, the acrobatics, and the speed of this kid left him disoriented. But Hank was a seasoned professional, able to change his strategy on the fly. He hadn’t given up yet. This time he came in cautiously, working his feet like the experienced fighter he was. All Hank needed was one shot to pin Parker down, and this kid would be toast.
Parker offered him that chance. He stepped up to him and dipped his shoulder as if going into another roll. Hank took the bait and bent to catch the shifty fighter. Slamming on the brakes, Parker transitioned his move into an uppercut, clenching both hands together and putting all his strength and momentum into the blow.
“Scheisse! Da damned fool,” the rearick yelled as the kid swung his double fists into the man’s chin. The crowd went silent in awe and admiration. They had loved every minute of Parker’s dancing, even his cheap shot to Hank’s balls. But they never thought the kid would actually come out on top.
Not until that uppercut.
This time Parker didn’t stop for celebration or to work the crowd. Hannah knew her bet would finish things right then and there. She held her breath as she watched him stomp-kick Hank’s knee, chopping him down to size. The big man buckled as his leg twisted out from under him. Stunned, the champion looked up at his adversary like prey who knew the hunter had won.
Parker dropped and swung his elbow into the man’s temple to finish him. The crowd went silent and then roared with glee as the Wildman went out like a light.
Hannah placed her own elbow on the rearick’s shoulder and leaned on him like she would lean against the side of her house. “Sorry friend, better luck next time.” She held out her hand, asking for the payment he had promised.
The man’s face turned from white to red underneath of his bushy beard. “Ye…ye swindled me? Ye knew he was going tah win? Ye knew it all along?”
She grabbed the coin purse out of his hand and shrugged.
“Now, how could I have planned something like that? I’m just a little girl, after all.” Her look of innocence turned into a wry smile as the man from the Heights blustered in rage. She quickly melted into the crowd before he could make a move.
As she walked through the crowd, away from the Pit, she counted her winnings. She had risked everything she had on that bet and it had paid off. Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes locked with the rookie fighter’s. Blood trickled from Parker’s nostrils, but his wounds didn’t dampen his smile.
She nodded, then turned and headed back down the alley away from the market. Hannah would let the crowd and the victor have their moment. She had a pocket full of coins and plenty of work to do.
“Stay seated,” Adrien told the receptionist with a wave of his hand as he crossed into the Capitol’s infirmary.
The receptionist, mouth wide, stood anyway, which was precisely what Adrien had expected. The Chancellor was a damned celebrity in Arcadia, and the fact that he seldom left the Academy grounds made an encounter something common people would talk about for days.
He’d learned to hold back years ago, but a small smile still pulled at the edges of his mouth. “I’m here to see them.”
“Sorry, sir, who?” She asked, her mousey voice hardly audible above the hum of the magitech equipment. The infirmary was one of the most technologically advanced buildings in the city.
He raised an eyebrow. “The Hunters,” he responded, his answer causing a blush.
“Oh, right, of course.” She looked down at a clipboard and back up at Adrien. “They’re just down the hall. But, sir, the doctor is about to discharge them. Wouldn’t you rather I just sent them directly to your office?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Oh, no…”
“Helen, sir.”
Adrien flashed his perfectly white smile. “No, Helen. I wanted to see the men before they were released. Raise their morale a bit. Thank them for their service. Means a bit more if I do it here.”
“Oh.” The woman sounded pleased with his answer. “Would you like me to show you to their room?”
“I’m sure I can manage,” Adrien said as he left the front desk. As soon as he was out of her view, his smile dropped like rotten fruit off a tree.
Adrien found the small room, entered without knocking, and shut the door behind him. When he turned back around, he was greeted by three shocked stares, each one belonging to a Hunter built like a prize fighter. He looked them over to see an assortment of bandages and slings; bruises covered their bodies. All three men got to their feet, though it took one of them great effort.
The arm of the biggest man was completely wrapped all the way down to the elbow. It hung heavy at his side. "Chancellor, what a surprise, I mean, honor!” the man said, his voice trembling with fear.
Adrien knew the man wasn't excited to see him. "Well, Jasper, I do care about the men protecting this city. The Governor and I work very closely on the issue of patrolling for Unlawfuls. And I heard the three of you had quite the run-in, so I wanted to investigate the matter personally."
Adrien smoothed out his cloak and leaned back against the wall by the door. "Please, gentlemen, sit down and t
ell me what happened." He crossed his arms.
The two smaller men looked at Jasper, waiting for him to respond.
Finally, Jasper sat. "Hard to say, really. I mean, at the beginning everything seemed pretty cut and dried, Chancellor. We were on the street and some kid, a girl, sat on the cobblestones with a younger boy in her arms. As far as we could tell, something was wrong with him. Really wrong. I was about to call for medical, when, well, it happened.”
He glanced at his men, who gave him a nod before he continued. “It was evident that the girl had used magic. We could feel it, and the effects were immediate. The boy just healed in front of our eyes. We announced ourselves as required, and she ran. So we set off after her, finally cornering her in an alley. All aboveboard."
One of the other men chimed in. "Cut and dried. It was by the book."
Adrien knew they were lying. And they were fools for doing so. "By the book, was it?"
“That's right." Jasper nodded. "Squeaky clean. Just doing our duty.”
The brazen deception angered Adrien, but it wasn't at the top of his list of concerns. He didn’t really care that his men took certain liberties, as long as they got results.
Order required a strong hand and strong men had needs, after all. But these men had failed in their task, and he wanted to know why. Doyle’s description still rang in his ears.
A demon that cast lightning bolts.
Adrien looked at each man before returning his focus to Jasper. "If everything was aboveboard, then why are you three here and not patrolling my streets? Tell me about the other one. The one that did this to you." He glanced toward Jasper’s bandaged hand.
Just the mention of the magician rattled the three Hunters. They exchanged glances, each man hoping another would respond.
Adrien waved his hand in a circle. "Come on, dammit. I don't have all day."
The third man, the one who had been silent since Adrien entered the room, finally spoke. Smaller than the other two, he smelled of smoke. Adrien guessed he was a fire user. "Never seen anything like it before. It came out of nowhere, had green skin and large red eyes. Horns on his head and powerful, like the devil himself—”
“You fool.” Adrien cut him off, his anger escaping through gritted teeth. “That was no demon creature. It was only a mind trick. It’s obvious this magic user is one of the mystics.” Adrien rolled his eyes. It was apparently true about quantity of muscle being inversely proportional to intelligence.
At least sometimes.
He shook his head and continued, “If you three little boys weren’t such cowards, you’d have seen that.”
The fire user swallowed hard and glanced at the others for help, but they kept their faces down. He looked back at their boss and continued, “Begging your pardon, sir, but I thought those mystics were all peaceful. I thought they couldn’t do physical magic. That thing, I mean, that magic user, it did physical magic like I’ve never seen before.”
Adrien sneered. “Explain.”
The man looked like he had just been stabbed.
“Well, he had this wooden staff, and he used it to throw lightning bolts at us. Never seen a magic user do that before. And Jasper’s magitech staff, the guy melted it like it was wax…”
The brute kept talking, but Adrien heard nothing more. He retreated into his own mind. The description of the wizard reminded him of his mentor, who had left the city in his hands decades ago. He remembered their parting well, and thought about the level of trust that it had taken for the old man to pass the mantle of magical stewardship to his protégé.
He had given Adrien the keys to the kingdom and then wandered off into the mountains, never to be heard from again.
The Chancellor shook his head and convinced himself it couldn’t be the same person. That man was dead. And if it were him, by some miracle, then what was the connection with this young Unlawful woman?
Merely circumstantial?
Jasper, the large one with the scar across his eye, took over the talking. “I’ll get him back for what he did to us. And that little Boulevard bitch too, sir.”
“No, not the magician,” Adrien snapped. “Leave him for me. But let this be a lesson to all of you to be on your guard. Remember, I don’t stand for this kind of anarchy. Unlawfuls like this need to be kept in line.”
Jasper nodded. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. He knew the Chancellor was short on patience and shorter on mercy. “I won’t forget, sir.”
Adrien’s sickly smile didn’t relieve their concern. “I know. Not after I give you a little reminder,” Adrien told the three.
The Chancellor turned to the sidekick on Jasper’s left.
The man was either a coward or an idiot. Neither was acceptable. The perfect person for Adrien’s object lesson.
Adrien raised his hand in the shape of a “C” and slowly squeezed. The Hunter tried to gurgle out a scream, but nothing emerged as Adrien crushed his throat. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body slowly started to slide before ending in a rush, his head sounding like a melon as it cracked on the floor.
Once the Hunter’s body lay motionless on the ground, Adrien turned to the man on Jasper’s right.
“Please, no…” the fire user said. He raised both hands before his face as if that could do anything to stop the Chancellor’s wrath.
“It’s not your day to die, fool. At least by my hands. Find the girl. Both of you. Bring her to me alive. If you must get rough, so be it, just so long as she can still answer my questions. Destroy anything that stands in your way.”
Jasper looked down at his deformed arm and smiled. “Gladly. But what if we see the other magician?”
Adrien raised an eyebrow, thinking back to the power his old mentor had wielded. The power to change lives or destroy them.
“If you’re smart you’ll run like hell for your useless, bloody lives.”
5
Few Arcadians he had approached had ever heard of Eve, which didn’t surprise Ezekiel. She was as meek as she was beautiful. Ironically, she, like Adrien and Ezekiel, had been there at the beginning with the opportunity to seize wealth, power, or celebrity status along with all the privileges that accompanied them. But these were not important to Eve.
From the founding, her pursuits had been different, purer. All that she had wanted behind the giant walls of Arcadia was a small plot of land to garden and a house in which to raise a family. The old man had loved her for her unpretentiousness, among other reasons.
Eve had gotten one of her two desires.
Ezekiel found her home, a small, single-level house with pristine sandstone walls, bright blue shutters, and a welcoming oak door. Settled among houses that were nearly palatial compared to the rest of Arcadia, the tidy little place appeared austere without a trace of presumption. A tiny garden lay nestled in the back.
It had taken a long time, but Ezekiel finally found an old man who knew exactly who he was looking for. Leaning his staff against the wall, he pushed back his wild, white hair and smoothed his beard.
He’d fought men and monsters of all kinds, but standing in the doorway of the only woman he had ever loved terrified him more than any wild beast. Finally, mustering his nerve, he rapped on the door.
Within seconds it flew open, and a beautiful young girl with blond curls halfway down her back stood in the entryway. Her eyes glimmered like sapphires. “May I help you, sir?”
He stepped back as she watched him. He checked that he had the right house before stepping back up to the doorway. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for a woman named Eve. I heard she lived here once?”
The girl laughed, and the old man felt his ears burn. “Yes, Auntie Eve lived here once and still does. Well, we live here…I mean, we both do.”
“Auntie Eve?” the man repeated. “Well, you must be Jessica’s daughter, then.” His face brightened as he took in the girl. It had been forty years since he’d seen Eve or her sister, but the similarities between the girl and her mother were striking. The blue
eyes made it all come together. “Is your mother here?”
The girl looked down at the cobblestone path and back again. “She’s been gone since I was young. Don’t even remember her.” Her eyes grew moist.
“Oh. Terrible. I am so—” he started to mumble. He had spent too many years away from people to remember how to be polite.
She raised a hand. “No, forgive me. This is not our kind of hospitality. It’s good you’re here. She’s been waiting.”
“For me?”
The girl nodded. “Come along.”
Fingers as frail as fallen twigs reached up and brushed Ezekiel’s cheek. Her touch felt the same as it had decades ago, only now it was at once gentler and somehow stronger. But the strength deceived him. Eve lay still, her face as pale as the winter moon. Surrounded by pillows, the bed had been her permanent residence for the past eight months. Death called, but she refused to answer, waiting for this day.
The old man sat next to her. “I’m sorry, Eve, I—”
She pressed her fingers against his lips and slowly shook her head. “No. Not like this. I knew you had to go. Don’t you remember? I gave my blessing.” A faint smile spread on her lips. “The only thing you ever let me give you.”
He nodded, knowing she was right. This was not a time for sadness. Gritting his teeth, he forced a smile. “It is good to see you, Eve. My heart has longed for this day. I imagined you’d have married, been surrounded by grandchildren.”
His words drew a laugh. “Well, now you make a presumption, my old friend. I did in fact marry. Not long after you left. His love was a balm for my broken heart, but he didn’t mind. Peter was a good man, strong. The Matriarch gave us two good years together, and then I lost him in an accident at the factory. I’m told he died quickly.”
Welcome To The Age of Magic Page 5