by Karen L Mead
It’s easy to have a perfect body when you can look like whatever you want. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of being embarrassed.
Sammael seemed to finish adjusting his wrist-mounted device, then looked at her with a disapproving expression. “Took you long enough.”
“I had to figure out how to get this outfit on so my boobs wouldn’t pop out every time I moved even a little.”
“I don’t know why you bothered,” he said, then turned and gestured toward the ruined landscape. “This is our combat environment. I’m going to put you in a situation where you have to fight, so you’ll learn to use black magic consciously instead of just by accident.”
“Are we going to be collecting points or something?” Cassie asked in a resigned tone.
The demon’s smile practically sparkled. “So glad you asked!”
Cassie stiffened as he suddenly spun around so he was behind her, holding her shoulders. Her pulse quickened; she knew his masculine form was an illusion, something he could conjure out of nothing, but it was still hard to think straight when he was prancing around in that outfit.
“Oh stop, if I was going to sexually harass you, do you really think I would have waited this long? I’m setting up your user interface for you.”
“How long have you been waiting to play this game with someone?” Cassie asked. Sammael chose to ignore the question.
After a moment, Sammael tapped her gently on the back of her head. “Okay. Blink for me.”
Cassie did. When she opened her eyes, there were images superimposed over her field of vision. On her left side, there was a sphere of glowing white energy; on her right, there was a clear sphere. There were also various floating pieces of text, the meaning of which she couldn’t parse. One said, “Prehistoric Black Ops Ver. 3.67,” but the rest was incomprehensible to her.
“As you can see, you have a pool of white magic, and a pool of black magic. Or rather, you will, once I give you some.”
Sammael put a hand on the small of her back and Cassie nearly jumped. There was a weird feeling of cold entering her body, and she shivered slightly. On her display, the clear sphere on the left began to fill with an inky black substance. Something was weird about the viscosity; it seemed to be somehow too thick and too thin at the same time. But before Cassie could make any sense of it, the sphere had filled completely and all she could see was a ball of faintly glowing black energy.
Sammael moved so he was back in front of her, gesturing to the items on her display.
“Obviously, you use your white magic for barriers, and you use your black magic to fire off curses. It should be pretty difficult to get those two confused.”
Cassie looked at the sinister ball of black energy in front of her and frowned. “I don’t know if I can use a curse.” It wasn’t just that she’d never done it before; something about the whole idea just seemed fundamentally wrong.
Sammael dismissed that concern with a wave of his hand. “Of course you can, anybody can use a curse. Even humans can use curses, sometimes, if they’re really evil and really worked up. You’ve just never applied yourself.”
“What do I say?”
“You’re not word-locked, so you can say whatever you want. Anything that feels right at the moment.”
Cassie looked down at her hands, already sweating profusely in her uncomfortable vinyl outfit.
So I just point at stuff, yell something, and it dies? That’s what demons seem to do. I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that….
“Listen, uh…are we going to talk about what just happened before? What you saw in my mind when…when we….”
Sammael was either really impatient to start the game, or had no desire to address the question, because he cut her off.
“Here are the rules: You get 100 points for big dinosaurs, 50 points for medium-sized ones, and 30 points for flyers. If I have to replenish your black magic pool, then we lose 200 points for being wasteful. We need 500 points, collectively, to clear the level.”
Cassie took a moment to process that.
“Why are we fighting dinosaurs?”
“Why not?”
Cassie opened her mouth, but she couldn’t really think of a good response to that, so she said nothing.
“Okay, put a barrier around yourself and then we’ll start.”
“I’ve never done that. I’ve seen Sam make barriers, but I’ve never made one myself.”
Sammael looked annoyed.
“Well, get to it already. You’re a witch, aren’t you? This should be second nature to you.”
Cassie felt hot, and could hear the blood pounding in her ears.
Oh God, this is not going to work at all. I’m going to piss him off. Again.
“Barrier, go!” she yelled, trying to remember what it had felt like when Sam had done it. Nothing.
She shot him an apologetic look, and he motioned for her to try again.
“Protection magic, activate!” she yelled, throwing her arms out theatrically. Nothing.
Sammael facepalmed.
“It’s even worse than I thought,” he muttered. “You really are one of those people who can’t do anything unless it’s an unconscious response. The worst possible personality type for a witch.”
He snapped and Cassie gulped; she felt something fit into place around her, but there was no sound. She felt like her brain was stuck listening for a sound that wasn’t there.
“I gave you a barrier, just because I don’t want to stand out here all day. When you’ve got some T-rexes trying to eat you, hopefully the fear of death will help you focus your mind and you’ll learn to use your magic at will. I think that’s how these things usually go.”
“You think? You’re not sure?”
“Enough chitchat, Game Start! We’ve got incoming!”
Sammael then dove off to the left, did a graceful somersault, and ended up taking cover behind a stack of rusted junk. For a moment Cassie was distracted by the ridiculousness of an immortal demon diving for cover, then she saw what was coming and felt an odd mixture of primal fear and intense confusion.
Running toward her, weaving around the bare metal frames of old skyscrapers and building-high stacks of rusted-out cars, were large creatures that looked highly intimidating, yet also fuzzy. The closest one to Cassie, still so far away that it looked barely any bigger than her thumbnail, seemed to be covered with soft red fur. Wait, that wasn’t fur, it was…feathers?
“Are you sure these are dinosaurs?” she called out to Sammael. “They don’t look like dinosaurs.”
“Are you saying I don’t know what dinosaurs looked like? Typical. Anyway, hurry up and start throwing curses! I’m not carrying you through this whole level.”
Cassie took a deep breath; the dinosaurs (or whatever they were) might have started off far away, but they were moving incredibly fast. At this rate, the red one in front would be on top of her in less than thirty seconds. The sound of the dinosaurs’ feet pounding against the cracked pavement was drowning out the sound of her own frantic heartbeat.
Okay, I’d better learn how to do this really fast. Because even though Sammael probably doesn’t want me to die, it would be stupid to count on him to save me.
She pointed her index finger at the feathery red T-rex, and tried to imagine it falling over, dead.
“Curse you, T-rex! Die!”
Naturally, nothing happened.
C’mon. It’s not enough to just point at it and yell, I’ve got to think about it the right way. Point at it and just try to throw all the hate you’ve ever felt for anything into it. Imagine that dinosaur is Madison Clarke.
Even she was somewhat disturbed to admit to herself how much she disliked Madison Clarke.
“I curse you, evil dinosaur! Feel my wrath!”
Naturally, still nothing.
The T-rex let out a high-pitched, bird-like cry that hurt her ears, then it suddenly stumbled and fell, rolling over a few times from the momentum before it finally
slid to a stop. Cassie looked to her left and saw Sammael standing with a hand extended in that direction. Quickly, he directed curses at the other dinosaurs, which similarly fell over dead. The last one collapsed not twenty feet from Cassie.
On Cassie’s display, she saw the following message: +100, +50, +50. Total Score: 200.
He shot her a disgusted look, and she shrugged.
“Look, I tried, okay? You saw!”
“I told you, I’m not carrying our team. Next wave, you’re taking at least one of them out, and I don’t care if it chews your leg off first.”
Cassie groaned and stomped her foot, livid. At least for a moment, she was more angry than frightened.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I just can’t do this? That maybe I’m just not—”
“Incoming, three o’clock!”
Sammael did an obnoxiously high backflip and disappeared behind a metal retaining wall: Cassie groaned and turned to face the new wave of dinosaurs.
She started to point at the enemies at first, then felt like the whole thing was hopeless. Instead, she put her arms down and began to run as fast as she could toward one of the precarious piles of rusted-out cars and other junk.
“What are you doing?”
“Using the terrain. I’m not some lazy camper!” Cassie yelled over her shoulder. She clamored on top of a busted SUV, then from the roof of the SUV jumped to the top of a school bus. The bus was split in half, and slanted in a precarious position, but by running up the roof of the bus, she got enough height to jump on top of the next junk pile. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to do this in the real world, but here, gravity was just a little looser; she could jump a little further, a little higher. It was enough of a difference that she intuitively knew that she could do things that would be too physically demanding for her normally.
“It’s cute that you think this is a platform game, but will you get on with it already? Stop stalling and kill a dinosaur!”
The next wave of dinosaurs, three green ones with long necks, were closing in. They were over ten feet tall, but they were what Sammael considered “medium-sized” dinosaurs, thus worth 50 points. Careful to time it right, Cassie jumped off the tower of junk and awkwardly landed on a dinosaur’s back. Once she was straddling it, she began pulling its feathers out, one at a time.
The creature shrieked and began shaking violently, trying to throw her off. Somehow, pressing as hard as she could into the dinosaurs’ ribs with her knees, Cassie managed to stay seated. She kept picking out feathers, one after the other, which seemed to drive the thing nuts.
They went on like that for a while, Cassie clinging for dear life while the dinosaur screamed and flailed. At some point, the creature got too close to one of the piles of junk and rubble, and hit its head on the side of a cement mixer, stunning itself. The pile of junk came loose and began to tumble over, and before Cassie knew what had happened, the dinosaur’s neck had been impaled by a sharp piece of metal.
Feeling the strange being stumbling under her, Cassie took a deep breath and jumped off, trying to avoid both the dinosaur and the falling cars. The fall to the ground likely would have broken her leg, but she had a barrier, and the impact was dulled. Jumping to her feet faster than she ever had before, she sprinted full-out to avoid the falling debris.
After the cacophony of screeching metal stopped and the dust began to clear, a message appeared on Cassie’s display: +50 points. Total Score: 250.
“I got one!” she yelled proudly, only to see Sammael marching up to her with a death glare.
“Do you even understand what the point of this exercise is?” he said, clearly angry.
The other two dinosaurs exploded into bits, loudly. Cassie looked up to see Sylvia dropping bombs on them out of a yellow hot air balloon. She waved at Cassie with one white-gloved hand.
Even she’s getting in on this? What is she dropping on them, nitroglycerin?
Cassie pointed to the points notice on her display, although she wasn’t sure if Sammael could see her interface the same way she could.
“You’re the one who made this a game, don’t blame me for playing it!”
When he reached her, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward him, grabbing her chin with his other hand.
“I’m running out of patience now, so let’s do this the direct way. I’m going to put the knowledge of how to throw curses right into your cute, fuzzy little head; even you can’t screw this up.”
He kissed her forehead and Cassie screamed. When he’d looked into her mind before, that was one thing; that was observation. This time, he was trying to put something in there that shouldn’t be. At that moment, Cassie didn’t understand anything about black magic, about curses, or demons; she just knew that whatever was being pushed into her mind absolutely did not belong.
“Get out get out GET OUT!” she yelled, and she felt Sammael’s body let go of her; it took a moment before she realized why.
At her feet, a jet of freezing water had erupted out of the ground, like a column of cold magma, and forced Sammael away from her. As the demon tried to find his footing, there was a sound like the cap shooting off of a shaken-up soda bottle, and jets of water burst through the ground in three other places. Instead of targeting Sammael, the water aimed straight up, only to fall back to the ground in droplets. In a moment, they were in the middle of a torrential rain.
A feeling of dread enveloped Cassie as she looked at Sammael. He was looking from side-to-side at the jets of water, with a look of utter confusion on his face. Somehow, seeing Sammael at a loss was more frightening than when he looked at her with malice in his red eyes.
“How did you….” he began, then turned as more jets of water emerged behind him. Soon, there were dozens of them, and the water was beginning to accumulate on the ground at an unnaturally fast pace; it was already up to Cassie’s ankles.
Cassie knelt, getting her whole lower body wet in the process.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to! I just wanted you to stop!”
The sound of the water rushing and falling was so loud, she wasn’t sure if he could even hear her. The pins-and-needles sensation in her back, which she sometimes felt whenever strange magic was afoot, was so strong that it actually hurt. She gritted her teeth against the pain.
She heard a scream.
“Milord!”
She turned around; it was Lisette, trying to hold her skirt above water.
“The flood will destroy the house!”
Not just the house; everything. Put an end to this miserable Realm, full of nothing but pathetic traitors and decaying human souls. Drown it all. Drown it all and start anew.
Cassie knew the words in her head weren’t her own, but she still heard them in her own voice. She wondered if Sammael could hear it too. Now, the water level had already risen so much that she was no longer kneeling in the water; she was floating. In a matter of seconds, the water had already reached the second-floor windows of the mansion.
She let herself drift underwater, at a loss for what to do. She knew that she had somehow set off this watery disaster, but she had no idea how to stop it; in fact, she was pretty sure she couldn’t stop it if she wanted to. Being submersed in water had its usual effect, calming her, but even in a more lucid mood, she felt certain she had screwed up irrevocably. The only consolation at the moment was that she was pretty sure it was mostly Sammael’s fault.
She’d lost sight of the demon when she ducked underwater, but suddenly, an explosion of blue-white light in front of her stung her eyes and made her close them. She swum up to the surface, eyes still hurting, and saw a massive figure standing knee-deep in the water. At first she thought it was one of the Watchers, but she realized it was different; where the Watchers were gaunt and grotesque, not unlike large zombies, this creature looked full of vitality. The long, gangly limbs and torso, so ugly on the Watchers, looked elegant and regal on this creature. Where the face should be was a blue-white nimbus of light
so strong that it hurt to look at. Emerging from its narrow back were large pillars of light; the light reacted with the swiftly falling rain, surrounding the creature with pale rainbows.
The angel motioned with its long arms, and the water started to pool upward. Soon, a giant whirlwind was directing the water upwards, back into the sky. In a matter of minutes, all of the water had been sucked into a giant whirlpool, hovering hundreds of feet above the wet ground. With a wave of its majestic wings, the angel threw itself forward and took up a position under the whirlpool, then reached up with one glowing white arm. What looked like a bolt of lightning erupted from one long-taloned hand, and nearly instantaneously, the entire whirlpool of water was vaporized. It didn’t disappear, exactly, but it shattered into millions of tiny, translucent polygons that seemed to evaporate of their own volition. The angel, still wrapped in rainbows, made a growling sound that was so deep and resonant, she felt it in her womb.
Sitting on the still-wet ground, Cassie found her vision getting hazy and lay back, afraid she would fall over. She had never seen so many rainbows, could never have imagined that so many slivers of multicolored light could ever exist in one place. The angel lurched toward her, and she felt a spike of fear. Fear, but also, recognition.
How can that be Sammael? He’s a demon, not an angel. Maybe his true form didn’t change…maybe all of the demons, in their heart of hearts, that’s what they really….
One of its large hands nearly encompassed her, but Cassie didn’t get to experience being touched by an angel; she had already passed out.
Chapter 36
Early in the afternoon, Sam walked into The Daily Grind, put on his apron, and began washing dishes in the back like nothing at all had happened. He looked perfectly normal, but Dwight was concerned and decided to check in on him.
Dwight put down his clipboard on the table in the break room and went up to Sam at the sink.
“Hey, uh…you doing okay? That bad voice in your head still causing problems?”
“Not really,” Sam replied, towel-drying a cappuccino mug. “I’ve talked to him and I think we’ve come to an understanding.”