The wards bled most of the momentum from the vehicle. Force Columns, generated initially as Force Spikes, reared from the floor, meant to block or injure those who came through the windows. It had been easier to enchant the entire wall with the same ward form rather than pick out just the walls. They hit the truck’s undercarriage as they grew, throwing it upward and tearing up the shaft and other mechanical bits.
Rather than come all the way in and smash us into pieces, the truck stalled, two-thirds of its body in our residence, the last third held off the ground by the spike columns. I stared at the shattered front window and saw no one there. Gasoline tanks on the truck tumbled and creaked, dented and broken in the initial charge, but not exploding. Perhaps it was the other defensive portions of the ward or perhaps it was the Force Spikes, but whatever had been meant to set the gasoline on fire didn’t go off. Yet I smelled the spilled gasoline, heard it dribbling to the ground as my ears recovered from the cacophony of sound that the truck had created when it slammed into our building.
“Shit. We’re under attack!” I snarled, turning to Alexa. Only to see that my friend was only partially responsive, coming to her senses as a gash down one side of her head spilled blood. “Oh gods. Alexa!”
I looked at Lily only to see her untouched by dust cloud or injury, but staring in shock. Not at the truck, but the shattered monitor on her laptop. Rather than waste time on her, I cast around for something, anything. And saw the rolled up enchanting circle, the portable habitat I’d been working on.
I snatched it from its place and threw it on the table before picking up Alexa with a heave and stepping into the circle. It hummed for a second as I shoved my Mana into the runes, powering them. As the walls of the habitat flickered to life, the gas tanks on the truck finally exploded. If not for the flash of magic I felt just before the tanks went off, I would have thought the explosion had something to do with the sparking electricity or the broken truck itself.
The world went red and orange, flames and pieces of the truck itself striking the Force Walls. But they held, having been reinforced for just such an occurrence. Well, this and more. Mana sucked out of my body, flooding down the runes, taking whatever I had recovered and a little more before the world flashed white again.
Just before we left, I caught a glimpse of Lily, untouched in the remnants of our home, looking forlorn and lost. Seated amidst flame and smoke as our home, our place of residence and relaxation, was destroyed.
And then we were gone.
***
Our forms blurred, transported through a parallel dimension, pulled apart and shifted before we were returned to harsh reality and the anchor point I had created, returned to the mark I’d set. I lurched forward, the motion that was not motion throwing off my sense of balance. I tumbled forward, holding onto Alexa, and only managed to twist enough to not drop her onto the ground.
As I pushed myself upward, Alexa weakly struggled out of my arms to fall onto her butt next to me. Pushing aside her hands, I shoved at the cut on her head, pushing it together while casting Heal. Thankfully, this spell was one I had grown so used to that I no longer needed to use a physical component to cast.
A few minutes later, Alexa pushed me aside and scrubbed at her face. She cleaned off the sticky blood that had congealed from the heat that had managed to touch us even through the barriers. While Alexa was busy cleaning herself off, I took stock of our surroundings. I touched a ward and sent my Mana into it, reinforcing the wards that had automatically gone up when we’d teleported in. Among other things, it was meant to hide our aura signatures and Lily’s signature too. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would give me time to work on the next step.
Before I could get to that, Alexa spoke up. “Where are we?”
“Uh… well. Storage depot. About two miles from the house. I needed a place to test out teleportation wards, and I used to keep this for my, well, other business and forgot about it.” I gestured at the variety of suitcases, storage chests, and random pieces of furniture I’d collected and never managed to sell. Or in some cases, kept because I felt I’d make more later.
Admittedly, after I got my magic, I’d forgotten about my rainy day stash. I’d only remembered the storage shack because I had been considering a place for my teleportation experiments. And, I’d admit, I’d spent a little more time building the wards around here due to a quest that Lily have given me.
Which reminded me that I needed to make sure Lily’s signature and mine stayed hidden. That meant a moving enchantment ward. The easiest way to do that was to inscribe the enchanted ward on something easy to carry. Luckily, among the other things I kept here were small wooden blocks and scribing tools. In short order, I had a workplace set up.
“Alexa, can you find some string? I’m thinking necklaces,” I asked before turning to the blocks.
It took a few minutes for me to recall the wards I’d considered but never created. Once more, I considered why I hadn’t, why I had been willing to believe that my ‘allies’ would stick beside me. And cursed myself for the foolishness. Too late for regrets though. It was time to get to work, time to complete things I’d considered but not put into place.
Thirty minutes later, I had a pair of amulets. The first one suppressed and changed Alexa’s aura—that had taken me less than five minutes to create. The second warded amulet took the rest of the time, what with my stronger aura and Lily’s. I’d mentally planned a few ways of doing this. At first, I’d considered creating two wards—one for Lily’s ring and one for myself. However, the math on that didn’t work. Even the ambient aura from the ring meant that I would have to carry around a much larger, more powerful aura ward.
To fix the issue, I’d decided on something a little more creative. First, I subsumed the aura from the ring into mine. That made my aura much stronger while changing it. Once I had changed my aura, I needed to reduce its output. Of course, one of the aspects was that my aura was now so powerful, it was impossible to keep it suppressed on a daily basis. Instead, I altered it in stages by first compressing the ambient aura down to reduce the radius. I needed to do that multiple times until I stopped being a beacon. The result was that my compressed aura made me seem even more powerful than I was, but it required someone to be close to me to feel it.
At least, that was the theory. I gripped the amulet, slid it over my head, and drew a deep breath before activating the amulet. I felt a cold wind run across my body, making me shiver, then felt the wind brush over me again and again, each time compressing my aura further and further. I felt the way my ward worked for what seemed to be hours but was only long minutes before my aura stabilized.
“What did you do?” Alexa said when I refocused on her.
“I concentrated my aura and hid the ring underneath it,” I explained. “What does it feel like?”
Alexa regarded me with her head cocked before she answered. “Like I’m standing in the clear on a hot sunny day, feeling the sun beating down on me. Like a warm wind is blowing across my skin, but it’s not really a wind.”
“Huh. Almost poetic.”
Alexa sniffed, then looked around before she asked softly, “Lily?”
“She’s fine.” I laughed bitterly. “An explosion would do nothing to her. She’s already back in the ring, but we can’t have her out.”
“Why?”
“Her aura, when she’s out. It’d tear through these wards,” I said, gesturing about. “I’m going to have to inlay some proper wards and craft some suppression material to keep her hidden.”
Alexa nodded then made a face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think they’d act so fast.”
“Not your fault. You warned me. Not to rely on them. Not to keep putting things off. I just… I didn’t want to believe they’d give up on me, on us, that easily.”
Alexa flashed a sad smile, and I couldn’t help but remember that she had been discarded. Perhaps I should have listened to her. Too late. Too damn late.
And now here we were, hunkered in a storage space, hoping the artifacts I’d created would work. Would be enough. But even now, I felt the strain placed on the wood around my neck, the way it had already begun to crumble. It wouldn’t give away immediately, but eventually. Eventually…
“Now what?” Alexa said.
I closed my eyes before opening them again. “Let’s grab what’s useful here. Then we should get moving. I’ll cast a dispersal spell, try to hide our exit. But we should get moving across water and fast. Out of this city preferably.”
Alexa nodded. “I’ve got a place. And some funds set aside. We’ll just need to make a quick stop.”
By this point, I was too tired to be surprised by her words. In the end, all I felt was gratitude that at least one of us had planned for this. Planned to be betrayed.
***
“A bowling alley?” I said, raising an eyebrow at Alexa.
Once we left the storage center, we’d wandered around for a few hours, taking a ferry ride across the bay then back again, muddying our trail. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing. After that, Alexa had taken the lead, first to a co-working space where we chilled for a few hours in a rented office before we finally arrived at the bowling alley as it opened.
“This way,” Alexa said, leading me straight to the storage lockers.
I twigged onto the concept fast enough and followed, casting glances around to make sure we weren’t watched. Unsurprisingly, the staff—made up of horny and bored teenagers—had little care for us.
Alexa pulled a large duffel bag from the storage locker and changed out her jacket for one that was within before she pushed the duffel at me. I frowned, opening it, before my jaw dropped.
“Where’d you get that?” I said.
“Took it,” Alexa said.
Within the now-open bag was a casting wand, a smaller version of the staff I’d been forced to leave behind. I blinked, staring at the wand, and remembered how I’d tossed it aside due to my dissatisfaction with the placement of the wards and then couldn’t find it. I’d lost nearly an hour searching the house for it before finally giving up, figuring I’d find it hidden beneath a couch cushion or stuck underneath my bed. Or on top of the bookcase, because that made sense when I put it there. But now, here it was.
I picked up the wand, frowning in consternation as I noticed numerous flaws. I’d made this nearly half a year ago, and I’d grown in ability and skill since then. Enough so that the mistakes I’d made were clearly evident with even a simple perusal. My fingers itched to fix them, but I pushed it aside and slipped the wand into my jacket. Not that I needed it, but like my staff, the wand could take over casting aspects—just not as many my staff.
I also took a bundle of cash, sliding it into my jacket after peeling off a few bills for my wallet. I didn’t ask how Alexa had managed to squirrel away this much. It really wasn’t my business. I was just grateful that she had done so. What was surprising was the set of fake IDs within, all in a Ziploc bag.
“Fake IDs?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. Change them out quickly. We should leave the city when we can,” Alexa replied.
“About that… how?” I said. “I don’t think public transportation is smart, and it’s not as if we can get a rideshare. Not without our phones.”
“Got it sorted,” Alexa said. “Relax.”
I frowned but took her word for it, taking the proffered baseball cap and sliding it onto my head. Well, she was the expert in this. My expertise with disguise mostly consisted of pixels, rooftops, and killing the guards who found you sneaking by.
***
Three hours later, we were seated in the luxurious comfort of polyester cushions, colored a dirty grey and green, a black plastic divider between us and a LCD screen to entertain us in front. Cold air blew from overhead, doing little to drown out the loud grey-haired retirees making new friends and speaking of the next “attraction” they were going to see.
I muttered to Alexa, “A tour bus? Your great plan is a tour bus filled with retirees?”
“Yes,” Alexa said, looking all kinds of smug. “Public transportation, but not really. The windows are all shaded, so there’s no way for people to see inside. Tours like these run every day of the week, going to multiple locations. And unless they’re doing full checks of the bus, even traffic stops won’t matter.”
I had to admit, the woman was right. Most traffic stops would never board a bus, especially not on any of the major highways. The kind of delay that would create would only happen in the worst-case scenarios, and I didn’t think our opponents had that kind of influence.
Which meant…
“I’m assuming we’re not going to stay for the whole tour?” I said.
“No. We’ll change out three cities out, but for tonight…” She waved around the bus. “We’ll sleep through the night here and be out of the city.”
“As if I could sleep,” I said, which made Alexa smile slightly.
“Well, I can. So if you’re going to stay awake…”
I gestured, to which the blonde smiled and rolled up her jacket to rest her head against the window. In moments, the ex-Initiate was asleep, dead to the world, though I knew she would wake fully alert if necessary. I envied her ability sometimes.
“Might as well get to work,” I muttered and fished in my bag for the crafting material. Nothing special, but with only the equipment I was wearing, I needed more tools. The carving knife and blocks of wood would get me that.
Our attackers might have driven us out of my house and nearly killed us, but that nearly would cost them. I might not know who had attacked us or why, but it didn’t matter. We’d survived, and so long as we lived, we could get stronger. We could get better.
As the bus finally pulled away from the curb, its passengers fully loaded, I promised myself that I’d be back. Back to my home. Returned not in ignominious defeat but in triumph. One day.
I’d be back.