Misfit Mage

by Michael Taggart

  It didn’t.

  Sandy was skilled enough to keep her magic flowing with one hand and use the other to move the charms around for us. That way we didn’t have to move the circle. After that the recharging started going quickly.

  Sandy wasn’t kidding when she said she had more than a hundred and fifty charms to charge. Her sack had all sorts of items in it, including an old set of brass knuckles. I don’t know what they did magically but they charged just like all the others.

  The girls were as happy as kids in a candy store. If I was missing my magic and then got it back, I’d be pretty giddy too.

  Even with our new method and all the extra magic in the air, it still took a while to charge everything. We were down to our final three charms when I heard a voice.

  16 Rumble in the Park

  “Well. Well. Well. Look what the cat dragged into the park.” I’d been so focused on the magic ring and the whole process that I hadn’t paid any attention to the rest of the world.

  The voice was behind me so Sandy and John could see who it was but Annabeth and I couldn’t. They both looked startled and apprehensive, but Sandy kept moving the charms and charging them. Nobody broke the circle, although I could hear the sound of someone approaching.

  Actually, I could hear the sound of several someone’s approaching.

  Two charms left, then one charm. Neither Sandy or John said anything which was strange. I felt the hair on my neck standing up.

  Final charm done! Sandy, John, and Annabeth pulled out of the circle in record time. I pulled my magic and made sure Penny was safe around my index finger before turning around.

  What I saw completely shocked me. I’m used to seeing with my magic sight and my natural sight at the same time and usually they are complimentary. For example, the elephant charm looked like a regular charm to my natural site, but it glowed with pink light to my magical site. My magical sight just usually makes things more interesting.

  The woman I was looking at was the complete opposite of that. To my natural sight she looked like a real life version of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. Long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, tight fitting shirt with big boobs and slim waist, tight pants with hips and legs for days. Arched eyebrows with perfect skin made her look like a Photoshop version of a real person. She was a walking bad ass sex kitten.

  She was every boy’s wet dream, unless they saw the magical side. The only word for what I saw there was abomination—something that should not exist in nature.

  Her magic was diseased and rotten. It rolled and billowed around her like a putrid fog. Chunks of it would fall off, like a fruit that had been left so long it was brown, slimy, and falling apart. It would slide down her aura, only to be absorbed again. Her magic looked like it was puking, eating the puke, then puking again.

  I thought I saw a face scream at me before fading away. I had never smelled magic before, but she smelled like bodies that had been left in the dark for days. I wanted to run away, wash my hands, something.

  Say what you will about the quality of the magic, the quantity of it was enormous. It was thick and powerful, easily the most forceful display of magic I had seen. There was so much it trailed along the ground behind her and towered over her head that I had no doubt that she could hit and hit very hard.

  “Annabeth, Jason get behind me,” Sandy said quietly. I was only too happy to do so. I probably looked like a scared rabbit, but I didn’t care. I wanted nothing to do with whoever this was.

  “Annabeth, when I tell you, grab Jason and run toward the House. Protect yourselves as best you can but do not look back and do not stop for anything.” Sandy was talking softly to us but she never took her eyes off of miss tits and ass.

  When the abomination bombshell got about ten feet away, she held up her hand and everyone stopped. I’d been so focused on her that I’d completely missed who she was with. It seemed like a small army was arrayed behind her. I did a quick headcount, 36 people. So, three full mage circles. They all glowed with various levels of magic, although no one had anywhere near the power of their leader.

  They also seemed to share her diseased magic to some degree or another. Most of them still had their original auras shining through with only the occasional pus spot. The ones nearest to her, and obviously her highest ranked cronies, were almost as putrid as she was. There was one person, an older looking Asian woman, who just had a pure black aura. There wasn’t any disease on her that I could see, and she looked calm, even serene. The pure black aura still struck me as sinister and she couldn’t be good hanging out with this bunch.

  “Sandy,” the woman sneered. It was less of a greeting, more a sound of disdain.

  “Isobel,” Sandy said neutrally.

  Ohhhhhh. So, this was the head of the mages in Louisville! No wonder Sandy didn’t get along with her. Sandy hadn’t mentioned her rotting aura so maybe she couldn’t see it like I could. She had obviously felt it, though, and knew something was amiss.

  “Nice circle.” Isobel gestured at us dismissively. Now that was some shade. With one comment she managed to point out that Sandy didn’t have a full circle and that some of us were complete novices.

  “Nice hair,” Sandy replied. Isobel looked furious. Oh, that’s right! Sandy had set fire to her hair! What had they called her… Old burnt and crispy? The tension was getting to me and I laughed. I didn’t mean to but I laugh when I get nervous.

  Suddenly their whole crew was looking at me. Not good. I wanted to sink into the ground.

  “Run into a golem recently?” Isobel said pointedly to Annabeth.

  “Missing a golem recently?” I said sweetly. Two can play that game. She looked at me and hissed. She hissed like a snake! Me and my big mouth. Everyone was looking at me again. One of the guys in the front smacked his hand with a baseball bat.

  I looked at everyone again, and realized they were here to rumble. I saw baseball bats, tire irons, wands, staffs, a few charms, and even a sword. Oh shit. This was way out of my league.

  As far as I knew we had no weapons, and I had no training on how to use them even if we did. Sandy and Annabeth had charm bracelets but we suddenly seemed pretty underpowered.

  I resolved to do the one thing I could do, run very fast.

  Like really super-duper fast.

  “Nice charms.” Isobel said. The bitch fest was still going on. “It’s been months since you’ve had a decent circle. How about you give them to me and I’ll make sure they get charged for you?”

  She said it so sweetly, but as she looked at our pile of charms her eyes were filled with greed. I’ve been looking at charms as something you use for magic, but hadn’t considered how valuable they might be.

  I looked at her crew again. There was a lot more baseball bats and tire irons rather than magical items. The charms on the table was easily ten times more things than they had. This must be the motherload for them.

  I got a bad feeling about this. They were not going to leave without taking everything we had and we were going to get hurt in the process.

  “My charms are fine,” Sandy replied, scooping up the loose charms in the bag. Except for the pair of brass knuckles. Those went on her hands. She stuffed the bag into her pants. They were going to have to go through her to get those charms.

  “I really must insist,” Isobel said. “We will take good care of them. A girl like you shouldn’t be playing with them anyway.”

  Oh, the shade of it all!

  “Since I can make my own charms rather than steal them, I would think they are safer with me. Given your age I would have thought you would have learned how to make a few trinkets by now,” Sandy said.

  Isobel looked furious. This must be a sore spot for her.

  “Some of us don’t need charms to work real magic,” Isobel spat out. “We are quite capable of defending ourselves when attacked. Just like your friend found out.”

  Sandy had been pretty cool up to this point, but that last comment got her.

  “What do
you mean?” she demanded.

  “I mean that we can stick up for ourselves, and when your friend attacked us, we attacked back,” Isobel said. Sandy looked flabbergasted. “Oh yes, your houseguests think you are so special. That the world revolves around you. That you are all just pretty flowers and that your shit don’t stink.”

  She stepped closer. “Well it does little missy. It does.”

  “What happened to Jennifer!?” Sandy challenged.

  “You’re precious Jennifer attacked three of my coven. That arrogant little pisser thought she would teach us a lesson, but I was there. I stopped her. I took that pretentious like urchin and showed her what real power was. And I didn’t need any charms to do it!” Isobel was shouting now. Playing to the crowd behind her.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Sandy said in a quiet, dangerous voice. “Three of your cronies ambushed Jennifer and when she won, you stepped in and beat an already exhausted mage.”

  Isobel hissed again.

  “Did that make you feel like a big girl? Did that make you feel powerful?” Sandy had control of the narrative and it was making Isobel furious.

  “Shut up,” she screamed.

  “Did four-on-one make you proud to be head of your coven that day?” Sandy said louder.

  “Shut Up!” Isobel was losing it.

  “So, what did you do with her? Do you have her locked up in your trophy room? Is she in a cage with a sign that reads ‘Here is the little mage it took four of us to take down.’”

  “I ate her.” Isobel’s eyes bulged and her aura writhed like a nest of angry snakes. “I sucked her magic out one little piece at a time.”

  Sandy drew back, shocked. I knew they thought Jennifer was dead but they had never thought of something like this.

  “When I was done with her there was nothing but dust. I swept her up and put her out with the trash. But do you know the best part?” Her eyes gleamed with remembered triumph.

  “Every day she would tell me that her precious housemates would find her. ’Sandy would never leave me,’ she said. Every day.”

  I couldn’t see Sandy’s face as I was behind her, but the set of her shoulders told me everything. She was so furious, and so sad at the same time. I didn’t know Jennifer but that sounded like a crappy way to go.

  “She had faith in you. All the way until the end. Then you failed her.”

  “I search so hard,” Sandy whispered.

  “Of course you did, dearie. Of course you did. You just aren’t powerful enough. You let yourself down. You let her down.” Isobel looked at me and Annabeth. “She’ll let you down too.”

  “The great House is supposed to be all big and wonderful. It’s really just a place for freaks and weirdos. A nest of grotesque aberrations that should be cleansed with fire.” Isobel was shouting again.

  I don’t think she had any room to talk about grotesque aberrations the way she looked magically. This girl was seriously cray.

  I think she was going to go with a big final line before the battle. Something like “It’s time to burn!” However, she never got that chance.

  A mage on the far left got a little trigger happy and shot off a spell at Sandy. The heat shimmer flew through the air, only to die when it met a blue shield that sprung up around Sandy. With a contemptuous gesture, Sandy shot the heat shimmer back. If she had a shield, it didn’t do any good as the spell wrapped around her and she burst into flame.

  It all happened so quickly. Isobel barely had time for a furious glare at the unfortunate woman before it was torch time. Everyone froze, almost like we couldn’t believe this was happening, then it was on. Spells flew thick and fast.

  Several of them landed on their unfortunate sister, snuffing out the fire. I think they sucked the oxygen out of the air, though, because she was now trying to breath.

  Most of them shot at Sandy, but she was already moving. She did a diving roll toward one of the mages in the front. She rolled inside his defense and shot to her feet while throwing an uppercut. She had her whole body and legs behind the hit, and it lifted him off his feet and flung him through the air. She smoothly stepped and punched at the next guy. I think the mage thought her shield would hold as she didn’t duck or move at all. Instead, the brass knuckles flared, the mage’s shield shattered, and she went flying head over heels too.

  John flared his magic and suddenly he was covered in a layer of sparkly gray. Spells bounced off him and didn’t seem to bother him at all. He roared and charged.

  Annabeth hugged me and a shield of blue shot up around us. Somehow all the spells heading our way either missed or died on the shield. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Annabeth.

  “Run!” She screamed at me and that is exactly what we did. The park isn’t that big, but we still had to cross most of it to get back to the House.

  We ran as fast as we possibly could, which didn’t seem that fast at all. There were some spells still aimed at us, but we were farther away and harder to hit now. Annabeth was behind me. Her legs were shorter so she ran a bit slower, and she was the one with the shield.

  I could see the House ahead of me when I heard Annabeth cuss and her footsteps stopped. At the same time I felt the ground shake. I knew that shake. I still felt it in my nightmares. There was a golem around here. I was about to turn around and see what was up when my feet suddenly stuck to the ground.

  My body still had all the forward momentum but my feet were now flat against the ground. It folded my body in half, and all that pressure landed on my calves, hamstring and back. I managed to stay upright, but I felt things stretch and hyperextend the way they shouldn’t. Pain flared up all over me and I realized I wasn’t going to be running any more tonight. I might be hobbling or crawling, but sprinting was out of the question.

  I looked over my shoulder and Annabeth was stuck too. I could see what looked like thick swampy magic around her feet. She was glowing in pink light, trying to get herself free.

  Then there was a splat, and she was covered in more magic that looked like toxic waste. She kept struggling so she was ok, but it was going to take a long time to get out of that.

  The shaking resolved itself into a golem, but not like the last one. This one had two legs and two arms, but from the shoulders up it was basically a throne. On that throne sat the toxic vixen herself.

  She sure knew how to make an entrance. She looked as badass as the White Witch from Narnia, only in all black. I had to admire her style. Just not her smell, or her magic, or really anything else about her. She came right up to me, still sitting on her golem throne.

  There is something really intimidating about a hulking stone monster only a foot away, and having to look way, way up to see cruel black eyes looking down on you in judgment. I felt very small at the moment. And very powerless.

  Her magic billowed around me, leaving sooty smudges on my aura. I felt like I needed to take a bath. I decided not to look at her. I just stared at the stone shifting in front of me.

  Without preamble she demanded “Where is my golem?”

  There was no way she made these golems. They were filled with mystery and magic and their aura was clean. Sandy said Isobel couldn’t even make a charm.

  “I don’t think that was your golem,” I said.

  “It’s mine by right of bargain. It’s mine to command. You have taken something from me, little urchin. Make no mistake, I will get it back. Now, where is my golem?” she demanded again.

  “It’s in the House,” I replied. She was going to figure that out on her own. It occurred to me she probably lost the ability to track it when my flying miners sucked it clean of energy.

  “It seems like you are liar, urchin. A lesson is in order,” she said.

  Without warning, a stone column shot out of the middle of the golem in front of me, and rammed me in my face. It was so unexpected that there was no time to dodge.

  The beam was big, it covered almost my whole face. I felt things crunch that shouldn’t be crunching. It hit m
e so hard it knocked me right out of the ground.

  I flew back several yards, grass and dirt still stuck to my feet. I couldn’t see. It was hard to breath.

  I was in shock.

  My face was caved in.

  My FACE was CAVED IN!

  My natural sight was gone but I saw the crone leap off the golem and start to come over to me.

  Suddenly, a little bundle of pure attitude bounded over the grass and stood in front of me. It was Bermuda, baby fur all fuzzed up, hissing and spitting. Doing a little sideways dance. He was the perfect picture of ticked off guardian, even if he was only a few pounds.

  I was still in shock at it all but I wanted to scream ‘Get out of here!’ This wasn’t a few confused groundhogs. This was a pissed off elder magic user with serious power and a desire to hurt something.

  Isobel stopped and regarded the little creature with narrow eyes. She gestured at Bermuda and a thick line of sludge like magic shot toward him. He clawed at it and the magic tore apart and faded into the ground.

  There was something absurd about the scene. This pocket-sized kitten taking on a magical giant. For a moment I dared to hope. Hope that I would be protected. Hope that I would be safe.

  Isobel shot another spell at him, which he clawed apart again. This time, though, she followed it up with a kick. Focused on the spell my little hero didn’t see the kick at all.

  She kicked him like a football, and he took it full on his chest. He flew through the air. Up and up until he was out of range of my magic sight.

  I felt sick.

  I don’t know how anybody could survive a kick like that. Not to mention how far he would end up falling.

  I wanted to cry but coughed up blood and teeth instead.

  “Not so lippy now, are you?” she said. “A little more respectful now, aren’t you, boy?”

  She kicked me. It wasn’t a little kick either. Her magic made her stronger and she was putting some anger behind it.

  “Now where”

  Kick

  “Is”

  Kick

  “My”

  Kick

  “Golem?”