Maker

Chapter: 3-1

Chapter: 3

I sighed, getting lost in my own head again. “Only the present,” I said out loud to an empty room. It was a rule I had and almost never followed. Only the present moment mattered. Reliving the past was destructive. That didn’t stop me from doing it, but I could at least remind myself that the goal was to stop eventually.

By now the sun had sunk below the horizon, and that left me sitting in the dark alternately growling at Rollo and trying not to think about it. I didn’t know what time it was and didn’t bother to pull my phone out of my pocket to check. It was dark, and my day was done. I also didn’t bother to lock the door. I wanted people to come in when I wasn’t around to return bottles and see that I kept nothing of value in my labs.

Sighing, I grabbed my black leather backpack and headed down the stairs. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, which sucked for someone who usually knew what they wanted to do.

The first floor of all of my labs were homeless shelters; one giant concrete room with about thirty cots set up on the far wall. There was a table near the stairs that went up to my office, and on it was a large pot, some dirty plastic bowls, spoons, a water cooler and an overflowing trashcan with more of the same.

The cots were all empty, which was odd, but not unheard of this time of year. If it were winter they would all be full, with folks on the floor beside them. This time of year, people mostly came for the free food.

Only one person was around. I’d never seen her before, but that wasn’t odd. People came, stayed for a while, and left; she was new. She was also hunched over filling a cheap plastic bowl with Miles’ stew from last night. I finished the stairs and headed past her towards the back door.

“You must be Maker,” she said as I passed.

“That was a nasty rumor for a while. Most folks are decent enough not to repeat it.”

Her nose had been broken, and her shining blonde hair hid most of a nasty bruise on her forehead. When she smiled, she showed a mouth that was missing a couple teeth. Life had been hard lately. She was young though, younger than me. Still had time to recover and make something of herself. We should all be so lucky.

“What’s your real name? It can’t be Maker, can it?”

“No, that isn’t my real name, and I’m not gonna tell you what my real name is. To know something’s name is to know its nature. Gives you the power to get its attention.” She nodded like she understood.

Everyone here knew I was a wizard, though most thought I did kid parties and card tricks. That, or they thought I was a few blades short of a m******e.

“If someone knew your full name, they could do all sorts of nasty things to you, and I’ve only got one. No last name, no middle name, no hyphened-on additions. Most people have at least three. It’s horribly unfair.” That wasn’t entirely true. I knew I had a full name because most people did, but hell if I knew what it was.

I didn’t teach magic 101 to the masses or anything. It’s just the people that came here were far more likely than average to have a brush with something big, mean, and supernatural in a dark alley. It certainly didn’t hurt to spread a little knowledge.

“Do you know Myer?”

“Met him once in passing. I know a couple of Merlin’s crew. Wait, how do you know Myer?”

There are moments in life when your brain suddenly registers a million facts at once. This girl was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. The jeans were ripped but not worn. The shirt wasn’t threadbare, in fact, there wasn’t a loose thread to be seen. Her hair was white, which meant she bleached it. Not impossible to do in a gas station sink, but highly unlikely it would look that good. Lastly, she was clean. Her broken nose and scars no longer convinced me she belonged here, as she had likely showered more recently than I had.

“Raken Symtam Tiala,” she yelled and grabbed my arm. I felt the chill of the magic in the air just before I screamed. I’ve been hit by a Taser before; compared to that, this wasn’t that bad. High voltage. Low amperage. Still hurt though… a lot.

“Breezy,” I grunted. Pretty sure it was just a grunt. No one listening would’ve known I spoke, but my pack always knew what I meant. The tiny vial would’ve come to my hand except my hand was clenched in pain. Instead, it fell between us and shattered. The gust was enough to blow her back to the wall. A few dozen cubic feet of air, violently expanding in the presence of suspended gravity, will tend to do that. I was blown the opposite direction, but I knew it was coming so I landed on my feet, more or less.

She was rising. I had a million questions, but I’m not the type of man that can bet on winning a fair fight. I can light candles with magic, and I can make a gust of wind that would make Marilyn Monroe blush, but not much more than that. My magical abilities are minimal, but fighting for my life—I knew how to do that.

“Expelliamus!” The spell made my blood feel like it was being served on the rocks. Trillions of photons gathered at the command. I c****d two fingers on both hands and fired from the hip like I was in an old western. The good ones that are black & white and feature six-shooters with infinite bullets. The shots hit her and did nothing; it was just bright light and nothing more. Theoretically, she would be fine—even if I hit her a million times. That was before she opened her eyes. A scream tore from her throat as her retinas burned and the light sent her into permanent darkness.

Wizards were not supposed to kill with magic; it was frowned upon to kill at all. Any wizard that used magic to kill a human would wake up facing down one of the Martinet. Or worse, never see the Martinet and not wake up at all. I had never broken that law on purpose, but Merlin and his crew didn’t care much for the ‘it was an accident’ excuse or ‘he’s just a child.’ Amazing they let me live this long.

Because I tried hard to follow that rule, I pulled out of my jacket the one thing no wizard should ever go without: a pistol.

I took aim at her chest and was about to fire when she screamed.

You don’t need words or gestures to work a spell; they just insulate your mind from the forces ripping through it and help shape all that energy into the form you want. She didn’t use any words this time, she just screamed.

Whips of fire lashed out from her in every direction. There were enough that I didn’t bother to shoot, I just dove to the floor and started scrambling away towards the back door. The fire licked the walls behind her and triggered one of my traps.

Plastic tubes sprung from the wall and tore into her. There were more than fifty, and each had a low gauge needle that stabbed into her body. They wrapped her up and burrowed beneath her skin. I designed it to drain someone of blood but not kill them; the trap would even put blood back if that’s what it took to keep her alive.

It didn’t work well. In fact, it had killed everyone that had ever tripped it. Nothing I made worked well—except potions.

The fire stopped almost instantly, but I wasn’t taking chances today. I couldn’t channel that level of evocation on my best day, she’d panicked and done it by reflex. My pistol barked twice, but she was already gone. That level of mental strain was fatal.

Maybe I could tell the Martinet that she’d died from mental strain. I’d already talked them into letting me slide on traps.

“As I was saying, I know Myer,” I said getting up from the floor. I kept the gun on her and searched for any movement as I crossed the room. “I know a few of the Martinet, and while Myer and I have only met in passing, we seem to have one thing in common, but I digress.”

I looked down at the lump of flesh that used to be a living breathing woman. That had been one of the more obvious magical traps I’d set around my lab. I guess she couldn’t feel it coming. The tubes and needles unwound and disappeared back into the wall. They could only respond to something alive. I sighed. It had been an all-around crappy day.

I turned her over in the growing pool of blood. Death was always so messy. Blood has a metallic smell, with all the minerals in the human bloodstream. It stunk, but at least she hadn’t let go of her bowels yet.

She wasn’t blonde anymore. Her hair was stained with streaks of red already oozing onto the floor. Normally blood would gush from the body with two shots in the chest, but not if it’s mostly frozen. I could feel the cold standing over her and see patches of frost on her skin. Even if there were no mental strain, she would’ve died from the cold. Amateur.

I holstered my pistol and sat down against a wall to rest for a minute. If she activated a trap, that meant my wards were down. My wards appeared formidable, but they were quite weak—just like anything else I did. Instead of being a defense that could fry anyone that walked in, they held back the power that flowed to my traps.

I made them like that so they could only be triggered by wizards who knew enough to tear down someone’s wards before they attacked. No one that knew of this place—and had a reason to be here—would take down my wards. She must’ve ripped them apart and got all confident, not knowing she was arming all my traps in the process.

I worked hard to make the mistakes of my enemies fatal, since I could never rely on overpowering them. Half of that was setting things up in advance, and the other half was figuring out ways to do maximum damage at minimal power. Good strategy was the only reason I was still alive. I ambushed, set traps, and ran like hell the moment things stopped going my way. I was a student of Sun Tzu, and I like to think he’d be proud.

This particular wizard wasn’t big on tactics; that’s why she lay dead on the floor. I would never come for a wizard’s life alone—unless I had blood, hair, true name or some other overwhelming advantage. Even then, I’d rather shoot them from as far away as possible. Then again, I had no proof that she’d come alone.

I wanted to search her body, but I wanted to get the hell out of there even more, so I got to my feet.

“Coroner.” Summoning something from my pack was never cold like a powerful spell. It was more like someone with cold hands rubbing a few hairs on the back of your neck.

A perfectly plain, impossibly white sheet appeared in my hand. I laid it over her and spoke the word, “Disappear.” Space was not an easy thing to manipulate; it greatly resisted folding in on itself. Any spell that created an extra dimensional space was exceedingly complicated, but it wasn’t impossible with a little finesse.

The shroud collapsed. I picked it up and began to fold it. The body was gone, and there was not even a drop of blood to say that it had been there at all.

I couldn’t do much about the scorch marks, but homeless people tended not to ask questions when they had a warm bed and a hot meal.

I would’ve liked to put the sheet back in my pack, but that would take a few hours I didn’t have. I shoved it in the pocket of my black canvas jacket, and headed for the back door. I wanted to be out of here. It was too dangerous to stay until my wards restored themselves, and that would take a few days.

“Staff.” Most wizards used made-up words or dead languages for their spells. I didn’t know why; something to do with proper visualization. English had always worked fine for me.

My staff appeared in my hand. It was a collapsible kevlar stick almost six feet long and a couple inches thick. Right now, it was folded up to be the size of a small baton, but that could change with a thought. I could fight with it as a staff even if I didn’t have magic. I practiced with Zora for the day when I’d need to. I left through the back door hoping that wasn’t today.

The alley outside was dark, and I rushed out. I got to the end of the alley and into the pale, dead glow of streetlights. I slowed to a walk, which occasionally trespassed into the realm of slow jog. The street was curiously empty, even for evening, and that put me on edge. This wasn’t a busy street by any means, but there was normally the occasional car or pedestrian to be seen. I started moving towards a main thoroughfare a few blocks over.