They had no expectations as they arrived at the Youth Center, nodding at Tuco as he made the rounds of his boys and making small (and smack) talk with Danny Alvarez, another of the kids identified as a target of the perp.
That was, until Danny stopped talking suddenly and started shaking.
“Yeah, you say that around Mr. Santos, and he’ll smack ya a good one!” Ramon smiled as he said it, though. “And you’ll have earned... Yo, Danny?”
“It’s...her. I remember her now,” Danny whispered.
Over there, off to the side, talking to a dazed Juanita Diaz. Ramon, Sedrec, and Felicia, who was on Sedrec’s shoulder, all looked in that direction. Felicia snarled as she leapt down, shifting into wolverine form.
Unfortunately, the woman heard it and looked at the source. She didn’t hesitate. Her hand darted to clutch Juanita’s shoulder and she did...something...that made the girl scream and collapse.
The woman shifted, growing and twisting. Eight, then nine feet tall. Hideous. A thing from nightmares.
A hag.
“Danny, run! Tell everyone to stay away!” Ramon yelled as he and Sedrec erected shields. Just in time—the hag threw a blast of magic, but instead of being the green of rot and decay, this was laced with dark magic threads. The extra kick cracked Ramon’s shield, the slimy goo splashing his left side. Ramon’s head reeled from the light exposure.
Felicia leapt at the hag, her wolverine claws glistening with power, but the hag easily avoided her. Too bad; doing real damage would’ve been a bonus. Felicia had gotten between the hag and the child, though; taking care of this bitch wasn’t her job. Sedrec repositioned a shield to cover both him and Ramon as he cut loose with a blast of light magic, only to see it casually absorbed by a mantle of dark power.
The hag’s wild, maniacal laughter blasted out. “You are insects! You cannot stop me! They are mine! Mine!” She sent another blast at Ramon. This time, he used his blade as a channel to slice the spell. Sedrec’s shield wavered but held. In return, the elf sent a shear wave through his blade, slashing high, trying to cut through the hag’s black defenses. They held, also shakily.
The bitch was losing it. How dare they! She pulled out the amulet, clearly a dark magic artifact given its sinister pulsing blackness. She drew on it, rapidly creating another missile, hungry to consume magic and life and even soul. Both Ramon and Sedrec responded quickly. Ramon slashed it with another shearing wave, and Sedrec used a counter-missile. Ramon’s wave disrupted the spell’s structure even as it died, and Sedrec’s blasted it apart.
“Breaching...now!” Ramon yelled as he focused a bright laser-like blast at the hag. It slammed into the amulet’s protections and caused them to flare, seemingly without harming the hag.
But that wasn’t the point. They’d developed this to crack defenses. The breach spell did just that—create a hole in an opponent’s defenses and a channel for another spell to blast through the gap. Sedrec obliged with the Hammer, as they called the other half of the spell combination. The hag screamed in agony as several ribs were broken and dove desperately at Juanita, the dark magic from the amulet resembling a lamprey’s mouth, open and ready to lock on. Felicia was there, however, and her claws slashed that hideous mouth, blocking it.
That gave Ramon and Sedrec time to repeat the Breach and Hammer with greater focus, purpose, and effect. Occupied as the dark amulet was, its shielding wasn’t close to adequate. The hag’s now-wide-open chest cavity sprayed the wall behind her with gore.
And even a hag couldn’t regenerate from that much damage.
They both remained tense for a few moments in the aftermath, until Felicia hissed.
“Ah, sorry! You’re right my dear! Sed, check her out. I’ll go grab some potions.”
Everyone was waiting for Mr. Diaz to arrive. Sedrec had given Juanita a healing potion and careful sips from an energy potion Ramon had brought back, along with Clouseau, who was busy licking Juanita’s face. His tail was wagging furiously and making the girl laugh. Ramon’s phone buzzed as a priority email came in. He checked it, then chuckled mirthlessly.
“Day late and a dollar short, guys.”
He showed the message, which was from one of the tomb raiders, to Sedrec.
“Nice to have confirmation, but we’ve already dealt with one Clarita Ocaso.”
FINIS
Author’s Notes
There. I hope you like it. We’re always hearing “write what you know” so that made the setting easy...I’ve lived here for thirty-plus years now, and I worked at White Sands Missile Range for several. My main goal was to get the three characters on paper, at least some. Ramon and Sed are largely modeled on Etheric Empire Rangers—freelance but cause-driven. Las Cruces and the surrounding area is their territory, because no one else is doing it. Felicia’s just fun. Her concept’s straight from gaming, specifically Shadowrun. I wanted her to be an entertaining but still very useful, sidekick. And Clouseau. Bassets are just the best. I still miss ours from when I was a kid. He’s there to make me smile first and foremost, but I do hope he makes you smile too.
This was a lot of fun, and a fair bit of work. This isn’t the type of coherent writing with which I have much practice. Tech writing, yes. Background writing for game worlds, yes...nothing published, just for personal use. And I have done a ton of gaming over the years, but that’s more acting when you do it right than it is writing. I’ve got a process to develop should I want to do more of this. That may largely be up to you.
Again, thanks for reading, and thanks to Michael and Martha for Oriceran, and to the entire team at LMBPN for the opportunity.
Craig Lewis
Las Cruces, November 2018
Other series in the Oriceran Universe:
SCHOOL OF NECESSARY MAGIC
SCHOOL OF NECESSARY MAGIC: RAINE CAMPBELL
ALISON BROWNSTONE
THE DANIEL CODEX SERIES
THE LEIRA CHRONICLES
I FEAR NO EVIL
THE UNBELIEVABLE MR. BROWNSTONE
REWRITING JUSTICE
THE KACY CHRONICLES
MIDWEST MAGIC CHRONICLES
SOUL STONE MAGE
THE FAIRHAVEN CHRONICLES
OTHER BOOKS BY JUDITH BERENS
OTHER BOOKS BY MARTHA CARR
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