The Revenge of Magic

by James Riley

  “If you won’t tell me about Sierra, then why isn’t Jia tutoring me anymore? Dr. Ambrose’s test is tomorrow, and there’s no way I’m going to pass it without her.”

  “I can’t imagine you will, no,” Dr. Opps said, no longer even hiding the fact he wanted Fort gone. “I’ve given her permission to get back to her studies, so if I find out that you’re keeping her from them in any way, I’ll have no choice but to send you home, Forsythe. Do you understand me?”

  Fort’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

  “Good day, then, Forsythe,” Dr. Opps said, and made his way into the officers’ mess. The doors closed behind him, and two soldiers guarding the entrance gave Fort a close look. Fort backed away with his hands up, then turned and made his way back to the Training Hall.

  There was no way he was going home now, not before he found out what was actually happening at this school.

  If only he didn’t have to master three spells by tomorrow in order to do that.

  - TWENTY-THREE -

  FORT HELD THE MAGIC OF Recuperation, and Restoring What Has Been on his lap as he sat on the floor of the Viewing Room. Just twenty-four hours earlier in the same room, a bunch of military officers had mocked and criticized him—at least in their heads. Fort didn’t want to think about how close they’d all come to that horror showing up even earlier in the day, considering how the lights had flickered then, too.

  “Thanks for that, Sierra,” he whispered to himself before pricking his finger, then healing it. Drop of blood, cool healing energy, over and over, so many times he’d lost track long ago. And still he hadn’t mastered the first spell.

  Did it matter, though, considering how much Dr. Opps and Dr. Ambrose both wanted him gone? He might not make it to the test, at the rate things were going. Not to mention that Cyrus saw him in a hospital bed later that day too, which was just great news. Even if it wasn’t true, Fort didn’t exactly need another thing to worry about.

  Why did there have to be so many secrets at the Oppenheimer School? Why couldn’t people just be up front? Dr. Opps had even lied about never lying!

  “Why is everyone hiding things?” he shouted into the empty room, then slammed the book of Healing down onto the floor next to him.

  “You know, they don’t really like it when you mistreat the books,” a voice said behind him, and Fort felt a cold, sinking feeling. He whirled around to find Rachel watching him with a curious expression on her face.

  He immediately blushed and turned away. “Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was there.”

  “So you just beat up on books in private, then?”

  His blush got deeper. “No . . . no! I just meant, um, about what I said.”

  Rachel walked around to face him. “You seem upset, New Kid. Did those Chads all steal your uniforms? Is that what you mean by ‘everyone hiding things’?”

  Fort opened his mouth to tell Rachel what was happening, then reconsidered. Every time he shared, he lost another friend. Maybe it was time to just keep his mouth shut for once. “It’s nothing. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m always here,” Rachel said, coming over to grab The Magic of Destruction, and Its Many Uses, before sitting down next to him. “Whenever I’m not in class or training, I’m here. Colonel Charles gave me special permission.” She stopped and then raised an eyebrow. “How exactly did you get in? Your badge shouldn’t have worked. Only a few of us have permission to come in here.”

  Fort turned even brighter red, not wanting to reveal that when he’d been turned away, he’d had to track Cyrus down to badge him in. “Oh, you know, I’ve got my ways.”

  “Oh, so you’re hiding things now too?” She flipped open the book of Destruction and paged about a fifth of the way in. “Being mysterious is a lot less cute than people think, New Kid. And I know you had Cyrus get you in. I saw him do it. That was a test, and you failed at not being lame.”

  “Call me Fort, okay?” he said. “New Kid just reminds me of Bryce and his friends.”

  “Right, the Chads,” Rachel said. “If you stay long enough, Fort, you’re going to see there are two types of students here: the ones who work hard, and the ones whose parents got them in. Like that Sebastian guy in your classes, his mom’s a congresswoman. And the Chads’ parents are all rich, and donated to Sebastian’s mom and the other members of the congressional committee that really runs this place.”

  “You seem more like a hard worker, if you’re always here,” Fort said, pricking his finger again. “Where did you come from?”

  “Army brat, my whole life,” Rachel said. “My mother and father both worked their way up to sergeant major from private. Could have gone further, but they enlisted and never got a chance to go to officer school.” She half smiled as she formed a small icicle in the palm of her hand. “It’s the way the world is for enlisted folk. Most never get a chance to go any higher. Even if you work as hard as you can, there’ll always be someone who gets a head start.”

  “Yet here you are, training after class,” Fort said.

  “Gotta make Mom and Dad proud, don’t I?” she said, making a dancing flame in her other hand. She brought her palms together, and the flame melted the ice. “And what better way to do that than be the best?”

  Fort nodded. He healed his finger, then read the words to the spell again. “If you’re the best, have you figured out any faster way to master a spell?”

  “Most people do it in a week,” she told him, glancing at his book. “I’ve got it down to, like, three days at this point. Why?”

  Fort snorted. “Dr. Ambrose gave me three days to master my first three spells. The test is tomorrow, and I haven’t mastered one yet.”

  Rachel gasped. “No way! That’s completely impossible, even for me.”

  Fort nodded. “That’s the general opinion. Doesn’t matter. I’m going to do it anyway.”

  “You can try, but trust me, I know how this works. You’d have to stay up all night practicing, even if you had three full days left.”

  “I don’t care.” He tried to hold back, but for some reason, the words just kept coming. “All I know is I can’t go home, Rachel. There’s too much here that I . . . I need to find out. And there’s nothing waiting for me back there, other than just being a burden to my aunt. Not to mention, who knows if it’s even safe, considering . . . anyway. I can’t go home. I can’t.” He realized he’d clenched his fists at some point, and the needle was poking into his palm.

  “Whoa, okay,” she said, putting a hand out to calm him down. “Don’t hurt the book again. I get it. Well, I can’t help you master a spell faster, but there is one thing I could do.”

  He cast his spell over his bleeding palm, letting the cool energy heal the wound. “Convince Dr. Opps to give me three weeks instead? I’ll take it.”

  Rachel snorted. “No, but I can meet you here after class, before dinner, and let you in. If Cyrus does it again, someone’s going to ask questions, but they see me here every night. It’d only be for, like, an hour before they lock the whole thing down at dinnertime, but at least you’d have more study time.”

  Fort gave her a confused look. “You’d do that? Why?”

  Rachel laughed. “Wow, you really have had a tough couple of days if you question someone being nice. Remind me to talk to the Chads again. I’ll make sure they don’t bother you anymore.”

  Fort felt his shoulders tighten up, and he shook his head. “That’s . . . thanks, but it’s okay. I can handle myself.”

  “Not really. Not without magic to back you up.”

  He felt the frustration begin to rise, and not wanting to turn it on her, he took a deep breath instead, then let it out slowly. “Listen. The whole reason I’m even here is to learn to fight back. I couldn’t do anything against that creature in D.C., and it makes me crazy every time I think about how . . . about my father. So whenever someone comes along and saves me, protects me, it just . . . I don’t know, reminds me of how useless I am.”

  She gave him a sy
mpathetic look, then patted him on the shoulder. “That makes zero sense,” she said. “Is this a boy thing, like you can’t have a girl show you up? Because trust me, I’ve humiliated every guy here, and I’m going to do it again tonight in training.”

  “No,” Fort said. “I was just as annoyed when Sebastian protected me from the Chads too.”

  “Oh, that would’ve been fun to see!”

  “I just . . . I want to be able to stand up for myself, okay? I don’t know how to explain it any better.”

  “Fair enough,” she said, standing up. “I promise that if I see you getting ganged up on, I’ll just keep walking. Happy to do it.”

  Fort groaned, dropping his head into his hands. Why did he have to make enemies of everyone who was trying to help him? Why did it have to be so hard to explain what he was thinking? “I’m sorry, I think that all came out wrong.”

  “Yeah, you could use some work, but that’s no different from anyone else here. Don’t worry, Fort. Just be glad I’m a great person and am still going to let you in here later. But be here before dinner, or you’re out of luck.”

  She rubbed his head, messing up his hair, then left, laughing to herself. Fort sighed deeply, then turned back to the book of Healing, ready to learn Heal Minor Wounds again.

  This wasn’t going to work. If someone as talented as Rachel took three days for one spell, what hope did he have? He ground his teeth together in frustration. Why can’t I even just learn the pathetic Heal Minor Wounds spell?! he screamed silently in his head.

  But screaming wasn’t going to help anything. He picked up the book and started to open it to the first spell, only to stop.

  The page was blank. But he’d just cast the spell a minute or two ago, so it should have reappeared already.

  Just for kicks, he looked into his mind to see if the words were—

  Mon d’cor. He still had the spell in his head.

  “Are you kidding me?” he whispered, slowly pricking his finger, then concentrating on his other hand. A familiar cool energy flowed out from his palm, making the drop of blood on his finger disappear completely.

  Almost too scared to try again, he pricked his finger one more time, and again, the words were there in his head. He’d actually mastered a spell, and faster than anyone else.

  Maybe this wasn’t as impossible as they all thought! Could it be that things were beginning to go his way for once?

  - TWENTY-FOUR -

  AFTER HIS SMALL VICTORY IN mastering the first Healing spell, Fort strode across the base feeling hopeful for once.

  Look at my boy! his father would have said. Mastering spells in one day when it takes other people a week? Make him King Wizard already, people. Otherwise you’re just wasting all of our time!

  The sadness flowed over him, just like it always did when he thought about his father, but with it now came determination. Even if it was just Healing, at least Fort was learning magic, and that was the first step to getting justice for his father. And while it might . . . not . . .

  Fort stopped in place, noticing for the first time that the various guards nearby were all staring at him nervously. What was going on?

  A shadow appeared on his left, and almost without thinking about it, Fort jumped out of the way, right before a ball of fire struck the ground where he’d been standing.

  “Whoops!” Trey said, snickering as he, Bryce, and Chad came up behind Fort. “Sorry about that. My fireball got away from me.”

  Fort looked around to see if there were any teachers or school officials to notice what was happening, but of course the Destruction boys had checked first. “No Sebastian or Rachel to save you this time,” Chad whispered, his hand glowing too.

  Bryce’s hands pulsed with red energy, and Fort’s feet froze in place, ice forming on the ground around his boots. He struggled to pull them free, but the ice was too thick. “Don’t worry,” Bryce said quietly. “You can just blame whatever happens on another monster attack.”

  The other boys laughed as anger filled Fort’s mind. He swung his fist out wildly but only succeeded in almost falling over his stuck boots. “Let me go,” he hissed.

  “Was it a big monster this time?” Chad said, and set the edge of Fort’s shirt on fire.

  “Were you scared?” Trey asked, sending a magic missile slamming into Fort’s shoulder even as Fort tried to slap out the fire.

  “Did you cry?” Bryce whispered, shaking his hands back and forth, sending tremors through the ground below Fort’s feet.

  “I wasn’t lying about what I saw!” Fort shouted, and swung for the nearest boy again, this time missing only by inches. The shaking increased below his feet, and the ice around his boots cracked enough for him to kick his way free. He straightened up to face the three boys, then fell to his knees as the earth began to quake more violently.

  “Are you doing this?” he shouted up at Bryce.

  But the three boys just laughed at him. “He can’t even stand up!” Trey said. “This must be the worst monster attack yet!”

  Fort tried to stand, but the tremors were so intense, he just fell back to the ground. This just made the boys laugh even harder, which was all the more frustrating since they seemed to have no trouble standing.

  “What are you three doing to him?” a soldier asked, striding over toward them.

  “They’re shaking the ground so hard I can’t stand up!” Fort shouted.

  The soldier just looked at him in confusion. “Try to get to your feet, kid. It’s okay.”

  Fort slowly pushed himself to his knees again, making the three boys laugh hysterically. Then a massive jolt sent him flat onto the tiled floor, where he braced himself as items on tables began to shake all around him.

  “What is happening?” he heard someone shout, a familiar voice. Sierra’s voice.

  This was another dream? Another memory?

  And then Dr. Opps was there, looking terrified but still in control, and suddenly Fort wasn’t so sure. “We need to get out of the building!” the headmaster shouted, and moved toward Fort to help him to his feet. But the shaking was so intense, it knocked Dr. Opps against a nearby wall before he could reach Fort.

  “It’s another attack!” Fort shouted as loudly as he could, but somehow couldn’t hear himself over the rumbling. Even as terror filled his body, he realized that this couldn’t be real: A moment before, he’d been outside getting bullied by Bryce, Chad, and Trey, not inside some strange room with Dr. Opps. So the shaking hadn’t been real either, just the beginnings of this . . . this daydream?

  “You need to send it back!” Dr. Opps shouted from across the room as parts of the ceiling began to collapse, sending showers of dust and materials down all around them. “Close the portal and send it back to wherever it came from!”

  “What?” Fort shouted, still not hearing himself, and definitely not understanding. What portal? Who was Dr. Opps talking to?

  “He can’t hear you!” Sierra shouted, and now it made sense why she sounded so close: He was seeing everything from inside her mind, her memory of what had happened. “Damian’s completely gone!”

  And that was when Fort saw Damian and almost stopped breathing completely. The creature from the officers’ mess had Damian’s head in its tentacle hands, grabbing him through a glowing green portal. Damian was shuddering beneath the creature’s touch, and opaque armor was growing over his chest.

  “Jia!” Dr. Opps shouted. “See if you can use your magic to revert his mind to a past version!”

  “On it!” Jia shouted, and Fort was surprised to see her in the room with them. She slid toward Damian on the ground and threw a hand out to grab his ankle. Blue light began to glow from her hand, and the creature in the portal pulled back abruptly from Damian.

  And then the room shook so hard they all lost their footing, and a massive clawed finger burst through the floor right below him, sending Fort flying against the wall. He landed hard, and the room began to spin, this time not from the quaking.

 
“It’s here!” Dr. Opps shouted. “Jia, you need to free his mind now!”

  “I’m trying!” Jia shouted from just on the other side of the creature’s massive claw. “But whatever that thing is, it’s fighting back, negating my spells. I don’t know what to . . . wait, I can feel it . . . NO!” She screamed then, loud and terrified, pulling her hands away from Damian and holding her head like it was going to fly apart.

  Then her scream cut off abruptly, and a much deeper voice emerged from her mouth. “YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME FURTHER, HUMAN.”

  Fort felt his blood go even colder at her words, and he looked over to see the same terror on Dr Opps’s face.

  “This can’t be happening,” the headmaster whispered, only to turn to Fort, or really, Sierra. “It’s up to you. It’s taken over her mind. You need to free them both!”

  Before Sierra could respond, though, another scaled finger broke through the floor, and Fort found himself frantically rolling away before a third claw exploded through the floor below him.

  “Free their minds, now!” Dr. Opps shouted, his voice filled with panic. “If you don’t, we’re all going to die here!”

  “I’ll try!” Sierra shouted, and a strange feeling overtook Fort. Somehow, he felt his consciousness reaching up out of his body and floating through the air to enter Jia’s mind. Instantly Fort cringed at the absolute darkness he found within, completely repulsed by the awful, oily feeling of whatever it was that had taken over Jia’s consciousness. He felt himself slowly pushing his own mind through hers, yanking the other creature off Jia’s brain like ivy from a wall.

  Then Fort/Sierra floated back across the room and collapsed against the wall.

  “Jia’s free,” Sierra said. “But I . . . I saw something in the Old One’s mind. . . .”

  An image played through Fort’s perceptions, one that he’d had nightmares about for the past six months.

  The National Mall, and a monster just like the one below them attacking the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

  “It summoned a second monster,” Sierra whispered. “Using Damian’s powers. It sent it to the Mall. There are people there!”