Betrayal: An Urban Fantasy Academy Series

by Bob Dattolo

  “You still getting hammered by rumors?”

  “Oh yeah. They’re getting weaker. Or at least less frequent. I think whoever’s doing it is trying to reassess and focus on where they think it’ll do more. No more spitting out dozens of them. We’ve made them mess up by spreading the word about various things that I wasn’t really going to do, so people are catching on more that whoever is doing it is full of shit. At least somewhat.”

  “I hope you find them.”

  “Me too.”

  She gave Alicia a hug too, “Why’re you both here?”

  Alicia hugged me from the side, “Well, Maddie here has some spells that she thinks may help her with the mortmagi? Assuming anyone would want to volunteer to be the guinea pig?”

  Soooo much screaming.

  I got them to quiet down by pushing my voice with magic, “Hold up! I have four spells that will hopefully help me do this. I don’t know if they’ll work. I’ll be honest here; I can’t afford to be damaged for another week again. So if this is heading in that direction, I can’t do it. Maybe during breaks between the years, but not mid-year. That could mean that whoever we try it with today faces a ton of pain and no benefit. Zero benefit. I don’t want to paint this like it’ll be easy. If everything works, then maybe, but these are new spells that I can’t really test well. So, whoever goes first? I apologize from the bottom of my heart if this doesn’t work or causes more pain or something. We just won’t know until we try it.”

  More yelling. More talking. More crying. Finally, one guy is pushed forward, with Alicia taking his hand, “Okay, Leon has been here the longest. 15 years.”

  He didn’t smile, although I think he wants to. “Can you really do this?”

  “I can do it, I’m just not sure I’m going to be able to do it today. I don’t want to paint this as being easy, because it’s not. And, I hate to say it, but my life hangs in the balance if I fuck something up and damage my magic again. I’m not willing to risk that.”

  “I understand. I’ve waited 15 years for something that I never expected to even be possible, so even the hope of it happening is what’s keeping me going. Everyone else from my year? They’ve been gone for more than five years.”

  Fuck. “I can believe it. People just don’t understand what it’s like.”

  “No, they really, really don’t.”

  We didn’t quite break up this time. Instead, we headed to the great room and people sat in various places. He moved to the couch, with Jenny next to him holding his hand. Alicia sat on the next chair over and looked across everyone there to listen in on what’s happening. “How do you want to do this?”

  “I’m honestly not sure. Part of the issue is the pain.”

  “I get that, but why do I think you mean more than what I’m picturing?”

  “It’s like this? I don’t seem to feel pain like a normal person does. It’s…muted, maybe. Yet what I felt when I pushed the mortmagi out of myself was horrifying levels of pain. If that is true, then what Jenny went through is a fucking nightmare.”

  “It was. Worth it, but it really was.” She sounds slightly haunted by the memory.

  “See? So let me fire up the charms. I’ll test with…maybe a pinch or something before doing the ring. Then afterwards. See if the pain is lessened. Then we’ll go from there. The others kinda need me to attempt to do what needs to be done to see if they’ll work.”

  Leon spoke up, “Just go for it. I understand if something happens and you can’t do it. I really do.”

  “Okay. Hold on.” I put the two rings on and held the rods. My nerves are kinda fraying as I stepped in and pinched his arm until he responded.

  ”Ouch!”

  “Okay, let me try that again.” I activated the charm with a thought and focused it on his arm, then pinched him again.

  No reaction even when I went harder.

  Then I turned it off and tried again and got the same reaction at about the same point.

  “Did it work?” Jenny sounds so hopeful.

  “It seemed to? Did you feel any pain from the second one?”

  He felt his arm, “Umm, pressure, but that’s it. No pain. Just like something was happening.”

  “Okay, that’s a good sign. Like I said? I’m so sorry if this causes some sort of lasting thing. It shouldn’t, but…”

  “Just go for it. Like I said? I’m willing to take a bullet through the side of the head on any given day, so this in comparison?”

  Truer words, you know? “Okay, I’m going to pull power first. Let’s see what we can do.”

  Power flowed out of me as my little secondary spell activated the light in my hair. I’ve gotten even better over the past few months at doing it. No one has called me on it, not even any of the people that know that I can do spells without that showing. I’m not sure if they’ve forgotten the ability, but I’m sorta hoping they have.

  I let the power build and build for long, aching minutes, before activating the charms. The anesthesia was focused on his face, obviously. The turbocharger is ready and waiting. The healing was focused on his face as well. Then the mortmagi assistance charm was triggered as I formed the spell.

  It built block by block over a long, long time, and I worked hard not to strain myself. I want to stay away from burning myself out or becoming prey if I can help it. What can I say? I’m selfish that way.

  At least two hours passed that I could track before things felt ready. “Here goes. Scream if it’s too much for you and I’ll stop.”

  “Just do it, Maddie. Thank you for even trying.”

  I didn’t respond as the spell triggered and power ramped into his face. As it did, I felt the turbocharger kick into gear. It really does feel like a turbo like the descriptions of how one works in an engine. It’s like it’s spinning up, compressing the power on the other side. That’s such an odd feeling, yet I can tell that it’s doing something.

  The spell anchored in his head and connected with the spots the charm is helping to pinpoint. The center. The screws. The spikes. As the magic latched on, it began to build more, increasing the pressure and beginning to try to get these things out of him.

  At the same time, I fought hard to watch how much power I’m spending. It’s a lot, but I’ve done more without straining myself, so let’s keep going.

  The mortmagi trembled under my hands as the power continued to climb. He didn’t react at all from what I knew had to be pure agony. I’m so shocked by that, which gets another prayer that this doesn’t cause issues.

  Then I can feel the magic focused on the spikes finish wrapping them. They’re coated entirely in the spell. It had to fight a vicious battle to get that far, yet now they’re separated from the bone and meat and then the pushing pressure starts to really go to town.

  As it does on the screws and the center point.

  More power flowed out as the mortmagi began to tremble more. I swear they’re vibrating much more violently than they did on Jenny. Far faster, too.

  I think the focus is the key here. I really do. I really…

  A high-pitched squeal filled the air, and I was shocked as shit to feel the hated metal eyepatches push back against my hand.

  Far, far faster than the last three times, the mortmagi pushed against my hand…until they came away and I was left holding them as my spell changed. Jenny, Alicia, and I watched his sockets move and adjust, then we were witness to very nearly a miracle as the third person ever had their eyes restored.

  Ten minutes later, he blinked owlishly against the light and looked down, “Son of a bitch, I’m black?”

  Crying and laughter and more crying.

  And more laughter.

  It seems his response was an inside joke from however many years ago.

  Alicia stayed with me as they celebrated. “How are you feeling? How’s your magic?”

  Hmm, “Good? Worn, feeling. Not strained, which is good. I can still move it just fine. Just like…doing it again? I’m thinking I can’t do it again toda
y.”

  “That sucks, but it’s understandable.”

  “Do you want to try? Maybe you can get it to work?”

  She blinked a few times, then looked down at the glass rings, “You’d let me try? Your charms? I mean…you just used them to do things that should have been impossible. I could sell those for billions. Easily.”

  “True. Then again, I’m hoping you won’t try to steal them from me.”

  She pushed back on the couch, “Oh my God, no! That’s not what I meant! I just…no one would typically let someone else even use a charm worth that much!”

  “Alicia? It’s all relative. Other than the attempts to create the spells, these charms took me maybe 20 hours to create across all four of them. I get that they can do some cool things, I just…the anesthesia one is pretty sweet. I can see that one being worthwhile trying to sell. The turbo one? Maybe if you feel it, you can see what I mean. It’s potentially dangerous. It really is.”

  “I guess. What about the other two?”

  “The healing help one? That’s another one that might do well out there. The mortmagi one? No, people would destroy it if they knew about it. It’s specific to mortmagi, so it’s not like it’ll help anywhere else.”

  Silence as we watched the others hug and talk. Finally, she spoke again, “I’m willing to try it. I’m very powerful, but not up to where you are. What’re the chances that it’ll work?”

  “No clue. Let’s give it a shot when they’re calm enough to try. I just need to be clear to them that I can’t do another right now. I’m not sure I can even do one every day. It requires a ton of power. One every other day? One a week? Still better than nothing.”

  “Truth. Okay, let’s wait.”

  Chapter 33

  It’s harder to hide my grimace than I would have hoped as I put my phone down. Eva and Tiffany are on the couch, and I know they’re both paying attention to me even though they’re making it seem like they’re not.

  I just can’t figure out why.

  No, that sounds kinda stupid. They’re doing it because this place breeds fear and the expectation that everyone is trying to set you up to kill you. Unless that’s just me? No, no, that can’t be right. You’ve seen that, right?

  It’s the end of March, and the weather’s starting to warm up a bit. It’s rainy as hell and I don’t feel like getting soaked to go fly somewhere, so I’m just sitting here wondering what I should be doing. With the two of them talking under a silence spell I haven’t bothered trying to bypass, all the while they’re watching everything I do without making it too obvious that they’re doing that.

  Yet it’s damn obvious.

  After all, everyone’s doing it, so it’s not like it’d just be them.

  The rumors…God, the things I’ve heard in the past month. I swear whoever’s doing it is just trying to fuck with me now. Too many that are getting back to me are just ridiculous. Like they were before, just more ridiculous. If that’s even possible. The problem, though, is that some of them are pretty freaking good. And that’s making people sit up and take notice. The ones that are good are kinda nefarious. I’m still keeping to my lone wolf status, so to speak, but whoever’s spreading them has started hints and things about the people that I talk to. Some rumors have gone out about me meeting people outside of here. Nothing that’s taken place with the girls in other towns, but plenty of other things that I’ve done have been picked up on and spread.

  Which means I’ve had to pull back even more. At this point I don’t even talk to Levi at meals. He’s back to sitting with me, although he’s also in an odd position. He’s made it clear that he’s heard the rumors and doesn’t believe them, as have my other hidden allies, yet it’s still having an impact.

  I don’t mind being alone, but fuck me hard if I don’t want to have friends. Obvious friends. While I’m capable of doing this alone, this is a long fucking time to basically be by myself. I spent way too much of my life like that to be sitting here now surrounded by people and not be able to connect with them because of some stupid bastard that needs to be hurt. Or to shut the fuck up. One of the two.

  As for my grimace?

  Leon was healed more than a month ago. When I tried to pull the mortmagi out of someone the next day, I had to stop because it was draining too much power. I managed to do that before hurting myself, so that’s good. That’s not why I wanted to make a face, though. I did that because Alicia still can’t get the charms to help her enough to pull mortmagi out.

  She did try that first weekend, and the turbocharger fucked her. It drained her hard before she could stop it and she went down. She strained herself and it took most of a week to get back on her feet.

  We hoped that I’d get to do another person the next week, yet that wasn’t to be. I have to be doing something wrong or different, because I couldn’t get the next set out without heading into straining territory.

  We think I built more before trying the spell, so we’re going to work on that, too. At least the people there are willing to wait. They’ve had two people helped, so they’re pretty hopeful that they’ll get their turn to be able to see again.

  Alicia’s text was letting me know that she just tried again this morning and couldn’t get it done. She’s still shocked that I’m letting her hold onto the charms I made. She’s aware that I’m willing to start the blood flying if I feel someone fucked me, so she doesn’t seem to want to mess with me that way. Which I can appreciate.

  Which leaves me in my chair staring at my desk and trying to ignore the girls not even 15 feet from me.

  At least I have a nice lavender essential oil smell filling the room. It’s really nice, honestly, and I’m kinda sad I didn’t have anything like this last year. Tiffany put it on when she came in. They’re still not really talking to me and all of that, but they continue to use it. Mixed blessings? Or no, not really blessings, but mixed…messages, maybe? That’s probably closer to the truth.

  I’m so tempted to pull out some of the dozens and dozens of random glass things I’ve purchased and hidden away in my desk drawers and see if I can get some charms built, I just don’t know what to work on and don’t want people to realize that I can work in glass if I can help it. Levi knows, yet he seemingly hasn’t told anyone.

  Speaking of…huh. Okay, I have an idea.

  My hair stays dark as I lean back and let my power flow. My eyes are mostly closed as I try to make it look like I’m bored and simply at a loss for something to do. My magic, on the other hand, is spreading through the room and meshing with my protections. I’ve been trying to tweak them lately, yet most things haven’t worked. This time I want to try something a little different.

  My concentration builds as I focus on what I’m envisioning. I’ve tried to do a time delay sort of beating thing, yet that didn’t work. I’ve tried to adjust the beating going out to make it more obvious. That didn’t work. I tried to make it cut the person’s hair off. Nope. So many freaking attempts. I can get the beating to stay there, yet I can’t tell who it’s going after. At all.

  This time I just want it to hold them. Lock them in place wherever they are. That would mean that I can then simply look for whoever doesn’t show up and that should be them.

  That combined with the rumors of my own I’m about to spread, and we’ll see if anything happens.

  It takes more than a half hour, but the spell settles in and I believe it’ll work. I kept the beating and electricity there, just in a sort of off mode for now.

  My roomie and her ally react like I screamed as I sat forward without warning.

  “Uhh, okay? You two okay over there? I’m just sitting up.”

  Tiffany’s mouth moves, but no sound reaches me. Without thinking, I raised my hand and make a clenching motion and crush their silence spell, making Eva push back against the couch, grabbing her head as she moaned.

  “Fuck. I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking about blowback from that.”

  Tiffany stood, fists clenched, “What di
d you do!”

  “Jesus, chill! I shut down the silence spell. I wasn’t thinking that it’d hurt, so I’m sorry about that.”

  She took a step closer, “You attacked her!”

  You have to be kidding me. “I did not attack her. She got hurt by accident. You tried to talk to me, but your silence spell…”

  “How did you know we had a silence spell up?!?”

  Even Eva looked up with a question in her eyes at that.

  “Umm, seriously? You guys have been sitting there for hours talking without me being able to hear you? Even Eva doesn’t get why you’d ask that.”

  She looked over and her shoulders slumped at seeing the curiosity in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry that hurt you. I just wasn’t thinking through that.”

  Eva rubbed her temples and shook her head, “I should have dropped it. I just never…I forgot. It’s been up for a while. I keep forgetting you’re a freak.” There wasn’t any animosity in her voice, so I let it pass.

  “Sit down and comfort her, Tiffany. Seriously. I wasn’t trying to attack her. Now, you were saying? You guys freaked when I sat forward?”

  The somewhat scared dragon sat down and leaned into Eva. Oddly enough, that makes me wonder where Brody is today. She didn’t start talking again immediately, “You, umm, you just sort of startled us?”

  “Why, though? I get that everyone is hearing the dozen rumors a day out there about me, I just don’t get why you two are always on edge. I barely talk to either of you. I barely talk to anyone, yet out of the entire school, you two and Brody are the ones that act like I’m a nuke waiting to explode.”

  “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Fucking hell. “C’mon, Tiffany, really? I can smell you’re lying. I bet Eva could smell it too!”

  My roomie chuckled, making me think the pain is going down a ton, “She’s right, that was pretty bad. Not that I can smell it.”

  More slumping on Tiffany’s part.

  At that, Eva pulled her into her side and looked over at me, “Why were we startled?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I get some of it, we haven’t exactly had a great relationship so far, but everyone else is calming down. Why not you two? Three? Beside scaring you that night and the various threats from all of us, why the jumpiness?”