“If I survive this, I’m never staying in another dingy motel,” I said when Alexa walked in seven days later.
It had taken me two days to make it to our meeting spot, after which I’d ended up staying in a motel room, finishing up the last of my preparations. Most of that consisted of repeatedly making the same enchantments I had made before, carving new wards and enchantments into whatever materials I could get my hands on. Getting ready.
“They do have a certain disreputable character to them,” Alexa said, wrinkling her nose. “Did you know, when I asked about the key you left for me, the receptionist winked at me. As if I was… I was…”
“Doing something illicit?”
“Yes!”
“Well, we kind of are…”
“Not like that!” Alexa said, looking scandalized. “I would never. Especially with you!”
“I’m hurt,” I said, clutching my chest.
Alexa smacked the top of my head and I laughed. I stopped the moment she dropped a thick file folder on the bed.
“My family?” I said.
“Alive. Unharmed. And untouched. They don’t seem to know what’s going on, though they are worried about you.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for all that she had said. But… “Worried?”
“Yes. They’ve even lodged a missing person’s report.”
“Shit.” I breathed deeply and shook my head. Surely that wasn’t as bad as I thought. Getting rid of a missing person’s report should be simple. I was an adult. I could disappear for no good reason. After my house burned down… “Hundred hells’ worth of shit.”
“Just about.” Alexa said. “Good thing you changed your hairstyle. You don’t look at all like the photo they have of you on the missing person’s report. It’s, like, six years out of date. Also, I like the spikes.”
I ran a hand across my hair, feeling the spikey and now blond-tipped hair. It was a little eye-catching, but not much. Add a pair of glasses that I didn’t need and bulky shirts and it was an easy change of appearance. As for the photo… six years? Had I not stayed for a photo, not taken one with my family for that long? In an age of selfies and mobile phones, of Facebook and Instagram, how had they not had a better photograph?
“Henry?” Alexa said, drawing my attention as she opened the file. “Are you with me?”
“Yes. Go on,” I said.
“Okay. Here’s what I found…”
***
Debriefing took hours. Not just because there was so much information to get through, but because I had questions. So many questions. I did my best to keep them on track, but questions about how she’d gotten all this information, what she’d had to do to get it abounded. Something in the way Alexa spoke, the way she held herself, the lines under her eyes and the pain in them told me I might not like the answers. And so I didn’t ask, even if I wanted to.
“All right. So, to sum up. We need to get my family out in two days—Saturday—because that’s when all my family will be in one place. They’ll be watching more than ever, but you’re hoping I can pull at least some of their people off. Because otherwise, there’s too many,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “That sum up that portion?”
“Yes.”
“As for threats we’re facing, we’ve got…” I took a deep breath and exhaled threadily. “The Dark Council. A small faction of the fey. At least four different Knightly Orders. Two different mundane hunter organizations. A naiad bounty hunting group. And a group of Oni gangsters.”
“Those are the credible threats. There are more, but those are the ones you have to worry about. I want you to memorize their pictures and details.” Alexa tapped the pile of files she’d drawn from her bag as we’d been talking. I’d glimpsed the details, but she was right. Knowing what they looked like would help. “Now, what were you up to?”
I found myself grinning, pulling up the duffel bag and plopping it onto the bed. Then I pushed against the bundle of Mana that made up my Level stats and made it visible to Alexa. “Why don’t you check it out yourself?”
Class: Mage
Level 79 (11% Experience)
Known Spells: Elemental Control (4 Base, Force), Mana Control, Shaped Control, Forced Healing, Heal, Wards, Link, Track, Wards, Greater Glamour & Illusion, Lesser Summoning, Empower, Lesser Divination, Cleanse, Runic Script, Elemental Resistances.
“This is rather different.” Alexa frowned as she looked over my adjusted spell list. “You’re missing a lot.”
“We decided to clean things up,” I said. “Once I’d progressed my Elemental Control, I didn’t really need a slot for Iceball, Fireball, Airball, or Earthball and then another one for each type of dart, spear, cone, or whatever else I decided to come up with. Part of my training was learning to deconstruct spells so that I’m just shaping the elements to make it what I need.”
“Makes sense. Doesn’t tell me what you can do though.”
“Pretty much everything you’ve seen me do, except bigger. I can link two different elements together now, so I can generate a Firestorm or create a Freezing Fog without relying on the spell formula’s Lily put in my head. Magma’s a bit out of my wheelhouse and Lily refuses to teach me that one,” I said, pouting a little. “But my biggest improvement is in my actual skill set. Here…”
Another mental prod and a new piece of data appeared.
Magical Skill Set
Mana Flow: 7/10 *
Mana to Energy Conversion: 6/10
Spell Container: 8/10
Spatial Location: 6/10
Spatial Movement: 6/10
Energy Manipulation: 6/10
Biological Manipulation: 4/10
Matter Manipulation: 7/10
Summoning: 2/10
Duration: 7/10
Rituals: 2/10
Multi-Casting: 6/10
Enchanting: 8/10
“Your spell container and enchanting abilities are really up there, aren’t they?” Alexa said.
“Yup. Have to be. They feed into one another. Got to control the inscribed runes when I’m enchanting, so that’s been progressing along with the matter manipulation. Same with multi-casting, though I’ve hit a wall there,” I said. “When I’m enchanting, I can handle up to eight different flows. But once I start moving and fighting, I drop down to about four. Five at a push.”
“Five spells?” Alexa’s eyebrow rose in surprise.
“Five flows. Three to four spells, depending on how complicated the spells are and if I’m using a pre-generated one or not,” I clarified.
“Oh. Right.” Alexa fell silent, and I basked in her good regard, knowing that my month and half of struggle and pain had resulted in great improvements. When I stayed silent, Alexa frowned. “And the asterisk?”
“What asterisk?”
“That one!”
I frowned and looked closer, then blinked. “That wasn’t there… Lily!” Of course the jinn didn’t answer me. Couldn’t. I glared at my ring instead until a tap on my thigh made me look at Alexa. “It’s… nothing. Just a little reminder.”
“About?”
“I had to raise my Levels. So I kind of—”
“Damaged some of your Mana channels and your body?” Alexa finished for me, flicking her gaze to my scarred hands.
“If you knew, why’d you ask?” I crossed my arms, hiding my hands belatedly.
“I wanted to see if you’d tell me.”
“Gah! You’re as bad as my mum!” I said. Then paused, realizing what I’d said.
We both sobered, the reminder making me sigh.
“I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Alexa offered into the silence.
A thought struck me. I raised a finger, then lowered it slowly.
“What?” Alexa said.
“Nothing.”
“Henry…”
“Ugh. She just might want to know who you are. It’s not like we, you know, introduced you or Lily,” I said. “And well, she knows of you. And might, you know, think you’re my girlfriend. Or something.” The last was squeaked out.
“Or something?”
“Well… we have been staying together. In the same house. And my mum’s wanting me to… well, you know how old people are. Parents…” I coughed, flushing red.
Alexa blushed too when she caught on, smacking me on the thigh before turning aside. After a moment, when the blush had reduced, she turned back to me. “That… might be better.”
“What!?!”
“I need them to come with me. Without question,” Alexa pointed out. “Them thinking we’re… together might make it easier.”
“Right. Right. And we can just tell them otherwise. Later,” I said, running a hand through crusty hair with a grimace. “That’ll be fine.”
“You don’t sound convincing.”
“That’s because it’s my parents,” I whined.
Alexa gave me a half-smile and I shook my head, pushing it aside. Not the time for that.
“So, wanna see my toys?” I pointed at the duffel while hefting my smaller backpack too.
“Yes!” Alexa said, almost bouncing in eagerness. There was a flash of avarice in her eyes, but more wonder. Even after all this time, the ex-Initiate still found some wonder in our lives. I wished I could mirror that right now, but…
“All right. So first, my vest.” I pulled out the simple buckled-on vest that I’d mashed together from a vest and a bunch of leather cords and pouches.
“Ugly.”
“I never said I was a seamstress. Or fashionista,” I retorted but had to admit, the brown and green leather straps and pouches clashed with the black base of the vest. In each of the pouches was an easily accessible wooden sphere a little smaller than a baseball. “Each pouch is linked to a pouch in the duffel. I’ve got more copies of each of these enchanted spheres in there. So all I need to do is pull one out.” I demonstrated by pulling the sphere. “Arm it and toss, and while I’m doing that…”
“It fills up!” Alexa’s jaw dropped. “That’s amazing. You’ve got an automatic replicator. But how far…?”
“About a mile. I’ve got multiple smaller bags with the same kind of enchantment in the duffel too, with smaller ranges. So I can basically drop the smaller bags around beforehand, giving me multiple caches to run to—but with shorter range—or I run around a central area, pulling from the duffel as necessary,” I said. “Gives me options.”
“What do the spheres do?”
“Basically, they’re magical grenades.” I pointed at each of the four pouches in turn. “Fire. Ice. Wind and earth—dust storm basically—and force sphere.”
“Force sphere?”
“This one takes a little more work, but I can either make it a defensive ward—though it holds me still—or a giant wrecking ball to throw at people. There’s a weird interaction between speed and size. Seems like it keeps the same momentum even when the force sphere activates, so if you throw it hard enough, it’s like a wrecking ball. I have a couple for you that are pre-charged.”
Alexa grinned. “That’s pretty good. How many do you have?”
“For myself? About a half dozen of each type. I’ve also got six wands,” I said, pulling out the bundle of sticks and pointing at the holsters. “Same thing, but they’re attached to this bag. They don’t fire more than a half-dozen overcharged attacks before they’re done, but they’ve all got their own charges, so it won’t use my Mana.”
“You’re planning on a long fight.”
“Yup. Got a couple of enchanted masks too, pre-set glamours and illusions.” I drew a breath and let it out. “I can provide the distraction. But even if you get out…”
“You’re worried they’ll still be caught?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry,” Alexa said. “I worked something out.”
“What?”
Alexa didn’t answer me. My eyes narrowed, then I realized why she didn’t want to tell me. If I didn’t know, it couldn’t be plucked from my mind. They couldn’t be used to hurt me, make me give up the ring. Though if I was already captured, would they really care about any of my friends or family?
Ah hell. Better to be safe than sorry.
“I’ve got a few more things.” I opened the duffel and showed her the tools I’d made. An assortment of pre-set wards, enchanted blocking wards, a couple of balls of grease, a couple of invisibility potions, and even one short-term gliding potion. All tools to help me evade and hurt others when needed.
In the end, when the show-and-tell was done, we regarded one another over the pieces of my enchanted gear, a choking amount of tension appearing. Knowing what was coming. And yet unable to avoid it.
“Alexa…”
“Thank me after.”
“I—”
“After,” Alexa said with finality and stood. “Now, get reading. I’ll get us food.”
I watched as the former blonde, now bottled redhead, walked out, and I sighed. If I had another wish…
But that was the thing about magic. It might be magical, but it was no miracle. It couldn’t fix most things. It was a tool. A versatile tool, but just another tool.