by Logan Jacobs
I finally collapsed next to her, and my breath came out in ragged gasps. I trailed my fingers along her stomach, and it felt as if someone had done the same thing to me.
“Wow.” I pulled back for a moment, and Sorcha laid perfectly still as worry clouded her eyes.
“Is it--” she started to ask.
“It’s wonderful.” I rolled onto my back and pulled Sorcha on top of me. Then I ran my fingers along her shoulders experimentally and felt the same ghostly response along my own body. I smiled at the mage, then laughed. The fear faded from her eyes, and she leaned in for a long, slow kiss.
I thought I had enjoyed the feel of someone’s mouth before, but it had nothing on this kiss. It was deep and wet, and I could experience not only what I was feeling but what Sorcha was feeling as well. When we finally came up for air, I started to roll her back onto the carpet, but she placed a hand on my chest and pushed me back.
“Let me ride you this time,” she insisted in a husky voice.
“I would never deny a lady,” I replied with a smile.
She started to rub my balls and sent ripples of pleasure up my spine. I heard myself groan and caught the devilish smile she gave me in response. She soon had my erection at full mast again, and the friction of her body as she rode me nearly drove me wild. I bucked against her, driving to the spots I knew so well. She guided me like an expert, and I felt the strange, tangled sensation of our mutual pleasure fill me until I thought I would burst.
But she kept me going, her fingers and tongue finding new areas to tease on my body. By the time she was ready to hit another climax, I thought I would go cross-eyed from the sensations that pulsed throughout my body.
I lost track of the hours, but I did track the number of times I filled her tunnel with my seed and that the sky was gray after the fifth time. We went once more after that, and then both collapsed.
“That was amazing.” Sorcha snuggled against me. “I never… it was just wonderful, Hex.”
“Beyond amazing.” I gently kissed her on the forehead before I felt myself drift away into blissful oblivion.
It would have been nice if we could have stayed there, but a life filled with guns and mages could never stay quiet for long.
Chapter 12
The sun was nearing its zenith by the time we managed to add more ointment to our wounds, get dressed, and eat breakfast. No one had disturbed us during the night, but we could still see a trail of smoke drifting lazily skyward. We spotted a few curious onlookers heading toward the Home Depot, but we managed to avoid any actual contact.
The road we had followed petered out near a defunct playground where the only piece of functional equipment was a teeter-totter that moved in the wind. An angry mutt stood guard near the remnants of a swing set, so we followed a footpath that led back toward the canal. We passed more people than we had in a while, and I noticed most of them carried baskets filled with fresh vegetables. No one paid us any mind, and as we reached the edge of the canal again, it soon became clear why. Several barges had drawn up to the bank, laden with farm goods.
“Let’s just take a look, maybe see if there’s any news,” I suggested when we stopped to watch the market.
“This does seem to be a more lively stretch,” Sorcha noted as we watched people arrive from every direction. “We won’t look so out of place.”
“Well,” I replied as I glanced at our matching shirts and dark pants. Even with the jackets on, it was hard to miss the purple fabric. Sorcha zipped her jacket nearly closed, though I could still see the collar poking out.
“Isn’t it some sort of cute couple thing to have matching clothes?” I teased as we started toward the barges.
“Not if they say Kwik Copy King,” she replied. “What is a Kwik Copy King, anyway?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted, “But it must have something to do with all those strange machines.”
We walked slowly toward the barges as we contemplated what was required to be a Kwik Copy King and occasionally exchanged nods with one of the other visitors to the market. As we got closer, the voices grew louder. Most were locked in intense negotiations as buyers and sellers tried to work out the best deals. But every so often, we would overhear a comment about the fire that still burned further up the canal. Apparently, it had been quite the show, and drew quite a few nearby residents who wanted to watch the destruction despite orders from the fire team to stay back. There was no official word yet, but the consensus was that vagrants had somehow set fire to the building when they tried to stay there during the night.
“Clearly not local,” one woman was saying as she examined a head of cabbage, “or they would know not to stay there.”
“Probably set the fire thinking it would keep the rats away,” the woman next to her noted.
“Well, I suppose the good news is that they managed to burn up quite a few of the rats,” the first woman sniffed. “Still, the fire team had a hard time bringing it under control. It could very easily have spread and taken out half the neighborhood.”
“Just goes to show you how dangerous those old buildings are,” her friend asserted. “Little better than kindling.”
We walked on slowly until we’d passed the last barge. The other walkers slowly trickled away, and soon we were the only ones on the canal path again. We hadn’t talked much when we were in the market, so when we found a shady place beneath a tangle of young trees, we stopped for water and a review of what we had heard.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like anyone was following us,” I said.
“Maybe not from the fire team,” Sorcha pointed out. “But if they spot the trail of blood we must have left, they’ll probably send for the sheriff.”
I glanced back down the trail as if I expected several deputies to appear suddenly with a posse of leashed bloodhounds that would bay as they found our scent. I pictured us running along the canal in a vain attempt to escape, and I had to shiver at the thought of being caught and brought before the Magesterium.
“If they decided to write it off as vagrants, will they even bother?” I asked. “It’s not like anyone owned the land.”
“If it was a threat to the surrounding areas they might,” the mage mused. “You know, to set an example. And then there’s the Magesterium. They’re still tracking us. If they send someone to look at the fire, they’ll know it was us.”
“Then I guess we should keep our water break short,” I replied as I took another sip, then hauled myself back to my feet.
“I might have to try some of those aspirin,” Sorcha sighed as she struggled to stand. “I’m sore all over.”
“Not all of that is my fault,” I reminded her with a smile.
“Uh-huh,” she muttered as she smirked.
We did a quick check for more pedestrians, but the path remained people-free. We set off again, though I found myself checking over my shoulders every so often to see if a deputy had found our trail and set off in pursuit. I was so concerned about who might be behind us that I almost missed what was in front of us.
“Where did all those children come from?” Sorcha asked.
I turned around to see what had caught her attention. We had just picked our way through an overgrown hedgerow and stumbled back onto the path. I could have sworn I heard someone moving around in the shrubs, and I tried to pick out any confirming signals as soon as we were free. As I gave up on the greenery and turned to look at the path, I had to agree with the mage. There were nearly twenty kids scattered along the footpath, and the oldest looked to be no older than twelve.
“Looks like they ran away from whoever was supposed to be watching them,” I commented. “I imagine they’ll be in a good deal of trouble for that and for playing near the canal.”
“Hex,” Sorcha said quietly as we took a few steps forward. “This is really strange. They all have magic.”
“Oh?” I commented, not sure what was strange about kids with magic.
“Think about it,” she whispered. “How many
kids with magic did you know when you were a kid? To find this many kids with magic all playing together, and no ordinary kids nearby, you’d have to go to a mage academy.”
“That’s true,” I admitted as we stopped in unison to watch the mini mages play some complicated version of tag. “Maybe there’s a mage school around here?”
Even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t right. The area we were in was still on the shabby side, with few signs of any government authority. Schools and academies for magical children were in areas with plenty of protection, which meant close to a local Magesterium office at least. And no mage school would ever allow any of their charges to leave the school grounds unaccompanied. Children with magic were too valuable to the Magesterium to risk letting them roam free.
“Should we just keep going and ignore them?” Sorcha asked though I could tell she was intrigued by the mystery.
“I think we need to,” I said. “If the authorities are on our trail, then we don’t want to lead them to a secret society of magical children.”
Sorcha sighed but nodded. We started forward again and tried to stick to the part of the path that would give us the widest berth around the kids. The children, for their part, didn’t pay much attention to us. They laughed and screamed as they ran happily through the field, clearly happy to be free of whatever adult supervision they were supposed to have.
I was sure we were in the clear until the oldest child stopped in front of us. She looked both of us square in the eye without saying anything and refused to move. When we tried to step around her, several other children joined her.
“Now what?” I asked my companion as I looked at the kids. I had no desire to knock any of them down, but then again, after Benny and June, I wasn’t so sure that this brood of youngsters wasn’t about to launch an attack of their own.
“Do you live near here?” Sorcha asked the pack of kids that had gathered around us.
“We live with Evan,” the oldest girl replied.
She had straight brown hair cut in an oddly precise shape. In fact, as I looked around, I realized all of the children had the same haircut. I turned back to the leader, as I now thought of her, and took a closer look. She had a dusting of freckles across a flat nose and limbs that looked too long for her torso. Her bangs stopped just short of two hazel eyes that stared at us with an unnerving intensity.
“And who is Evan?” Sorcha continued as she tried to dislodge a toddler that had latched onto her leg.
“He protects us,” the girl stated. “Just like you’re going to protect him.”
“Erm…Wha--What?” Sorcha stuttered.
“Ah, I think you have us confused with someone else,” I finally contributed.
The girl looked behind us, and both Sorcha and I turned to look as well. Another child emerged from the hedgerow, a girl about the same age as the one in front of us, though she had skin as black as night and hair that floated around her head like a cloud.
“She had a vision,” the leader explained. “The Magesterium is sending people to kill Evan, but if you’re there, he’ll escape.”
“Shouldn’t you share that vision with Evan?” I suggested as the kid I’d heard in the hedgerow joined our group.
“We’ve told him,” the ebony-skinned seer said with a shrug. She had a very quiet voice, and Sorcha and I both leaned in to hear her. “He said events will unfold as they unfold. But we decided that we had to make sure you come to the home. To save Evan.”
“The home?” Sorcha asked as she finally swept the toddler into her arms in order to free up her legs.
“It’s where we live,” the hazel-eyed girl explained, “with all the other children Evan has saved.”
“How did he save you?” I asked.
The two girls looked at each other, as if they debated how best to explain what Evan did.
“He came to my house,” a boy of about eight volunteered. “My parents were crying, and they told me I had to go with Evan or the bad mages would come and take me away.”
“The bad mages?” Sorcha pressed.
“Uh-huh,” the boy continued. “They came to the house before Evan. They told my mum and dad that I had to go to their school, and if mum and dad tried to stop them, they would take me anyway. We were all crying when they left, but then Evan came.”
“The Magesterium?” I guessed.
“Sounds like it,” Sorcha said with a frown. “Though I didn’t think they were forcibly removing children from their parents.”
“They took you,” I pointed out as I looked at the swarm of children that now had us surrounded. More had emerged from the tall grasses, and I realized it was closer to thirty kids.
“I’m not sure we can help you,” Sorcha stated. “The bad men are looking for us as well.”
“But you can fight them,” the quiet seer insisted. “Evan is too old. They’ll kill him and take us all away.”
“Don’t let them kill Evan,” a boy of about six pleaded.
“I don’t want to go with the bad mages,” the eight-year-old added. “They scare me.”
The rest of the children started to chime in with their own pleas for Evan’s life.
“Talia’s visions are always right,” the hazel-eyed leader asserted over the growing din of the other children’s voices.
“Maybe we should meet Evan,” I suggested as I looked at Sorcha, “and at least figure out what the hell is going on here.”
“Are you sure?” I could tell she was intrigued by the idea that someone was hiding children with magic from the Magesterium, but she was also as aware as I was that those bad mages were close behind us. Neither of us wanted to be the one who led them to these kids.
“They’ll come to the home whether you do or not,” the seer proclaimed in the loudest voice I had heard her muster. “But Evan only lives if you help him. Please?”
“Come on,” the pack leader ordered impatiently as she grabbed my hand and started to pull me toward the field.
The rest of the kids joined in and pushed and pulled the two of us across the field. The toddler in Sorcha’s arms happily wrapped his own chubby arms around her neck and started to sing an old nursery rhyme that I had learned at my mother’s knee. I gave in and let the noisy wave guide me to the home and the mysterious Evan.
At the far side of the field, we found ourselves in the middle of a row of derelict warehouses. The children barreled onwards, oblivious to the pack of wild dogs that watched us from a distance and the flock of pigeons that took wing after the children’s shouts startled them. Just past the last crumbling storage facility, we found ourselves standing in front of another one of the strange, lopped-off buildings, though this one looked to be made of stone rather than glass.
At first glance, it appeared to be as empty as its neighbors, but on closer inspection, I could see the signs of habitation. The doors stood straight on their hinges, the windows were whole, and hidden between rows of empty crates was a thriving garden. Our escort led us past the garden and a carefully concealed well to a massive set of double doors.
The hazel-eyed girl held up a crystal and whispered a spell. After a moment, the doors clanked, and then they slowly opened. The kids all cheered as if they had just discovered some long-lost treasure, and half of our escort abandoned us to charge inside. I glanced at Sorcha and raised my eyebrows. She understood my question and shook her head. Having come this far, she wasn’t going to back away from this mystery now.
Once the last of the kids had stepped inside, the doors swung shut and locked behind us. It wasn’t a sound I was thrilled to hear, but the seer and the leader tugged us onwards, deeper into the depths of the building. I started to pat my pocket again, then remembered the gun wasn’t there. It was not a good time to realize that we didn’t have much in the way of weapons, and given how all our other meetings had ended since we’d started on this trek, I could be forgiven for wishing for something more useful than the three small knives that were tucked into one of the bags.
“Is this home?” Sorcha asked as the toddler squirmed free and tottered after the rest of the children. At least the blonde mage appeared unconcerned about our current circumstances, though I wasn’t sure how she managed to sound so calm.
“It is,” the seer replied shyly.
We were led down a wide hallway with a marble floor, past rooms whose doors had a pane of glass so you could see inside, and three sets of silver colored doors that led to something called the elevator. We climbed up two flights of stairs and marched down another hallway toward a half-open door. It wasn’t hard to guess where the rest of the kids had gone, as their voices blared out from the room.
Before we could step inside, the door was flung open, and the oldest man I think I had ever seen stood in the doorframe. His skin was blotched from years in the sun and held more wrinkles than I would have believed possible. He was bald on top, but wispy strands of white hair rimmed the sides of his head. He squinted at us from two gray eyes that were covered by two pieces of glass held on his nose with a wire frame.
“Gemma! Talia!” the man bellowed. “What did I tell you about trying to direct the future?”
The seer and the leader froze in place. Talia looked at the tips of her shoes, though she kept a firm grip on Sorcha’s hand. Gemma refused to look away and even stuck her chin out further. Despite the fact that we were locked inside a building with complete strangers, I had to admit that I really liked Gemma.
“They’re here now,” Gemma replied. “What does it matter how they got here?”
The old man looked as if he were prepared to argue, but then he threw his hands up in the air and retreated back into the room. Gemma and Talia kept a firm grasp on our hands, and I looked at Sorcha as I tried to decide whether we should stay with the girls, follow the old man, or simply leave. Sorcha looked as uncertain as I did, and we both looked toward our escorts. Gemma and Talia didn’t move, just stared at the door as if awaiting further instructions.
