End Stage

by S A Magnusson

  As I did, the sense of it came to me: a burst of energy. I drew the rune in the air. This time, there came a sizzling feel to it. It was almost as if I were placing the rune myself. I didn’t have any rune knowledge, not the same way the other mages did, but having worked with the spell coins long enough, there was something about the shapes which was familiar to me. It was almost as if in triggering them, I could tell the way they were supposed to form, and I was able to create them in the air so they could be effectively triggered. I could practically feel the shape, the way it needed to form.

  “That one would cause an explosion.”

  I smiled to myself, and triggered it. As I did, I braced for the explosion, but there was nothing.

  Maybe I’d been wrong. Or I hadn’t triggered it as well as I thought I had. As I focused on it, I sent more power through the rune, and it triggered.

  A blast erupted around us. This time, the blast thundered outward, and it slammed into the street behind us.

  I looked outward, watching to see if Ariel was going to get up, but she remained on the ground.

  I held my breath, hoping she was going to stay down. I didn’t want to kill her. I didn’t think she deserved that, and I wasn’t even sure if we would be able to kill her anyway. She was powerful, and as a shifter, she would be able to heal herself quickly enough it was unlikely to be possible, but I did want her to stop attacking us.

  “That might have – “

  Ariel leaped to her feet, roaring.

  “I guess not,” I muttered.

  I focused on the spells on the car, and worked through them one by one, showing each of them to the chauffeur. There were some he didn’t recognize, but of those he did, about half of them were essentially protective spells designed to ensure we were safe within the vehicle. Some of them kept the glass from breaking, and others made it so the car would reform when struck. Some of them were more layers of power, all designed to ensure we were able to withstand an attack.

  I continued to hold onto my sense of power and worked through the spells. When I found more attacking spells, I triggered them. Only a few of them reacted the same way as the other one had. A few sent Ariel staggering back, knocking her to the ground.

  I needed to find a way to trigger more than one spell at a time. If I could do that, I might be able to delay her long enough to get into the warehouse. I worked my way through the spells, demonstrating a few at a time, saving them rather than triggering them. As I did, I focused on the results, thinking that if nothing else, I could find a way to use what I uncovered. And as I did, I found about a dozen different spells. Each of them seemed like they could benefit us, and so rather than using them and spending them, I held onto them. And when I reached the point where there were enough, I triggered them.

  The effect was an explosion of considerable power. By doing so, I looked outside the window, waiting to see if Ariel would be harmed. The sudden burst of power threw her back, sending her crashing into the side one of the nearest warehouses. I waited for a moment, and then I nodded to Jean-Pierre.

  We jumped out of the car and raced away, reaching the warehouse. I triggered the door.

  “Dr. Stone,” Jean-Pierre said.

  The sense of power built behind me. Ariel was back up. It was a cold burst of magic. Having been inside the town car, we had been protected from it, but now we were outside, I could feel its energy rolling off of her.

  She was getting close, and I didn’t have any way of protecting us here. But the car was between us, so I had to hope she didn’t yet realize we were outside. The moment she realized we weren’t inside the car, she would come for us.

  I focused on the door. Jean-Pierre watched me, and then turned his back to me. I sent a surge of power into the door.

  Barden had been working on increasing his protection, preparing for the possibility he might need to be able to prevent anyone else from breaking in, and he had learned enough that he could prevent even me from opening the door. If he had done that, then there was a real possibility that we were going to be trapped outside. I focused on it, thinking about that power, the way he’d set the doorway. As I did, I thought about what we needed to do, and sent a surge of power through it. It was different from what I’d drawn before, and I added the strength I was able to draw from Jean-Pierre. Something about it shifted. I could feel it flowing through me, flowing through the door, and flowing through the lock.

  It triggered. And then the door opened. I grabbed Jean-Pierre, and we stumbled inside. The chauffeur staggered behind us, and I slammed the door closed. I took a deep breath, relief sweeping over me.

  “I’m not sure that is going to be effective against her,” Jean-Pierre said.

  “Why not? The lock is stout. I doubt she’d be able to –“

  Something was happening, and I could feel it. She was attempting to open the door. Well, bumblefuck. I hadn’t thought shifters would be able to open every door, but then Barden had warned me that shifters’ talents might extend to something like that. I raced through the warehouse, looking over at the bank of computers, worried there would be people here who might suffer from the attack, but there was no one.

  Thankfully, Barden’s people weren’t here. I had no idea where they were, and now it didn’t matter.

  I reached the door leading to the back offices, focused again on it, and triggered it. This one wasn’t nearly as difficult for me, but that was partly because I had worked on it often enough to recognize it. There came a jolt of pain as I triggered it, though the pain was temporary, and I was expecting it because I was the one who had helped Barden find a way to use it. In doing so, I threw the door open, and Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur came racing behind us.

  I slammed the door closed, and ran toward Barden’s office, ignoring the other doors along the hallway. When I reached his private office, I pressed on the door, sending a surge of power into it again, and opened it.

  Once inside, I waited. There was no one here. The entire warehouse was empty. I went to Barden’s desk, and began searching, looking for coins. He had to have some. But I couldn’t find anything.

  This was a mistake. By coming here, by not having Barden here, not only were we without any power, but we were also trapped. There was only one way in and one way out, and I doubted there would be anyone coming.

  I reached for my phone, but I must have left in the car. In all the upheaval, I’d lost it. If Barden had responded, I wouldn’t even know.

  Power built, slamming behind us. We wouldn’t have time. I looked around the inside of the office, searching for someplace to go, though other than the comfortable couches which sat in front of his fireplace, there wasn’t anything for us.

  I had to find something. There had to be a way for us to get out of here. This was Barden, after all. He had to have some protections, and a way for him to escape if it were coming down to it. If he did, I didn’t know it. I’d always gone out of the main entrance with Barden. Even when there were significant dangers, he had led us through there. Which meant there wasn’t another way.

  But there was something else here. I looked along the wall, searching for it.

  “Dr. Stone, what are you looking for?” Jean-Pierre asked.

  “Quiet,” I said.

  The sense of power continued to build, surging along the hallway. Ariel was getting close, which meant she had passed through all of the doors. Barden was right. Even shifters were able to make it past most of these locks, regardless of everything I had taught him, and everything he’d been working on to prevent the shifters from being able to do so. And if they were able to move past them, it would be unlikely there’d be any way to prevent Ariel from getting to us.

  What we needed to do was to get to a place of safety, but I could think of only one. And yet, I didn’t know where it was.

  “Dr. Stone. We need to keep moving.”

  “There’s something else here.”

  “What do you hope to find?”

  “Barden’s panic room
.”

  “I’m not so certain finding a panic room will be beneficial to us.”

  I didn’t know about that either, but if we could find it, if we could use it to hide, we could stay there until Barden arrived. It was sealed off, protected from the outside world. With it, I had to believe we could stay inside the panic room until Barden showed up and then he could keep us safe.

  Eventually, I found it. It was a section of the wall a little different to the rest. I focused on it, searching, sending a hint of magic through it, and then triggered it. The wall opened. A concrete room on the other side opened in front of us, and I motioned for the other two to join me. When they did, we stepped into the room, and pulled the door closed.

  I backed up against the concrete, staring at the wall. Jean-Pierre slipped a massive bar in front of the door, blocking it. Now we were locked in here.

  It was solid enough I doubted even a shifter would be able to pull it open, though I had no idea whether or not she would have such power. I had no idea about any of her power. All I knew was we were now at the mercy of the room keeping us safe.

  Where was Barden? When he showed up, then we had to believe we could get the answers for what was taking place.

  Power slammed into the wall. It came again and again, and with each burst of energy, cold worked through me, washing over me, and I winced when it did.

  And then the power stopped. I started to breathe again, leaning back. For a moment, I thought we might be able to escape.

  And then the bar blocking the door to the panic room slid open.

  6

  I braced for the attack that was going to come as soon as the door opened. I had a little bit of magic of my own, and I didn’t need to use only the spell coins. The problem was that stopping an attack would take every last bit of energy out of me. I might be connected to Jean-Pierre, and I might have access to his power, but that was not unlimited power.

  Reaching for the bar, I tried to hold it in place. It was sliding against me, moving, despite everything I was doing to hold it in place. I had to draw power from the spell, but what could I use?

  I had to seal the bar to the door. I stared at the metal, thinking about how I wanted to do it, and wishing I had trained more on the spells themselves. I didn’t have the necessary experience to use such magic, and had been forced to use anything I could of the spell coins, but I didn’t know how to create my own spells. That knowledge gap was going to be a problem. Despite everything I wanted to do and wanting to find a way of trapping the spell to the door, I didn’t know if I was going to be strong enough.

  I sent more power into it. I focused on trying to create a barrier around it. That was a simple spell, and if I could hold onto a barrier, I could use it to trap the bar to the door. As I pushed more power into the door, sending as much energy as I could into it, I could feel Jean-Pierre standing behind me. I ignored him, but there was a sense of power flowing out from him and into me. The way we were connected allowed me to know him.

  That power flowed outward and then burst around the door. I sagged backward. It had taken all the strength I had, but I wasn’t nearly as tired as I normally would be after using such magic. That came from borrowing from Jean-Pierre.

  “Will it hold?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. If I were a full mage, it might, but as it is…”

  He stared at the door, and then he grabbed the bar with his hands, squeezing it and forcing it up against the concrete with incredible strength. He warped the bar itself.

  Surprisingly, my spell was maintained. Whatever he had done hadn’t changed anything to what I had done. How long would it hold out against someone like Ariel? If she had the power to fight through the door and tear it open with her magic, there might not be anything that could withstand her.

  We waited. There was no resistance to my power, and the door remained closed. Occasionally, there came a burst of power from the other side of the door. Cold washed through me and I shivered against it.

  “It seems as if it’s holding,” Jean-Pierre said.

  He took a step back, and when he did, the door exploded.

  I hurriedly traced my foot in a circle around me. I pushed power through that circle. Then, I realized that if I did so, I’d be trapping Jean-Pierre on the other side of the circle.

  Grabbing Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur, I pulled them close, tracing a circle around me. Power flowed out from me. I wouldn’t be able to hold onto it long, and with the way Jean-Pierre tensed, he must have been aware of it as well. “This isn’t going to hold for long,” I whispered.

  “Hold it as long as you can, and I’ll prepare for what I must do.”

  “And what must you do?”

  “Against a single shifter, I should be able to…”

  I looked over to him to see why he had trailed off, before turning my attention back to the haze that was clearing. Then I realized why he had trailed off. Ariel stood there, but she wasn’t alone.

  Barden stood next to her. His arms were crossed over his chest, rage filled his eyes, and power crackled from him.

  “Hey, Barden,” I said.

  “Dr. Stone. I am a little surprised to see you here.”

  “Yeah, I just thought we might need a place to hide out.”

  “And you brought a shifter – along with an elder vampire – to my warehouse.”

  “I thought I’d find you,” I said. It was a mistake for me to sound like that. It was almost an accusation, and when it came to Barden, and the way he’d always helped me, I had no interest in accusing him of not helping me now.

  “You can release your barrier, Dr. Stone.”

  “Not until I know she’s not going to attack.”

  Barden glared at her, and power continued to build from him, more than I would have been able to hold. “If she attacks, she will have the wrath of the dark mage council behind her.”

  Ariel glanced at him, and something crossed over her eyes. I wondered if she worried about Barden. It was different to dealing with someone like myself who was dependent upon the spell coins. “You have my word I won’t attack,” she said.

  “See?” Barden said. He took a step back, motioning for me.

  I hesitated, before glancing over at Jean-Pierre. “I think we need to go along with this,” I said.

  “I concur,” he said.

  “Barden will help.”

  Jean-Pierre cocked his head to the side. “I’m sure you believe so.”

  Something was taking place, and it was more than Jean-Pierre had let on to me about. And for Barden to be here, with the rage filling him, the power he was displaying, I had to worry that I had made a mistake.

  I lowered the barrier. Jean-Pierre stepped forward, drawing himself up, and I could feel the energy coming from him. It was almost as if he were trying to steel himself for what he must do. It was possible he was. I had no idea what Jean-Pierre thought he might need to do, only that with everything we’d encountered so far, there was a real possibility he would have to fight on our behalf to stop Ariel from continuing her attack.

  Jean-Pierre reached the door and stepped out into Barden’s home. I followed him, and the chauffeur came behind me. When we reached the main part of his room, the remnants of magic were obvious. There was power that remained within here, and it held over the room, almost enough that I worried it would have destroyed everything here.

  Barden stood in front of the fireplace with crackling flames heating the room. “Would you care to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Who do you want to answer?”

  “All of you. Any of you.” He glanced at me for a moment. “Why don’t you tell me why you are here?” He turned to Ariel, holding her with a dark gaze, and power radiated from him. It was enormous energy, and I thought I understood why he was doing it. The nature of the spell he was holding onto was a threat. It was a warning to Ariel that Barden was prepared for whatever she might do.

  “You can release your power,” she said.

 
“I don’t think so. You launched an attack in my place. How would you react if I went to the Northwoods and attacked?”

  “I seem to recall you have been a part of such an attack.”

  “I’ve been a part of nothing. Tell me why you’re here.”

  “She has information about John Adams.”

  “Of course she does,” Barden said, waving his hand.

  Ariel turned to him. “You knew? You who sit on the mage council should have recognized your obligation to reveal that to the other parties.”

  “I have no obligation to reveal that information to anyone. What happened with John Adams was not business of the council.”

  “If that’s the stance the council takes –“

  “It’s the stance I take, not the council. Do not conflate the two.”

  Ariel snarled. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”

  “Why do you have to attack my people?”

  “Your people? I’ve attacked none of your people.”

  “You attacked Dr. Stone.”

  “Is she one of your people? I was under the understanding she was a vampire familiar. That places her firmly in the vampire realm.”

  “And she’s a dark hedge mage. That places her in my camp.”

  I noticed Barden was glancing from me to Jean-Pierre, and I could see the irritation flashing in his eyes. He reserved most of that irritation for Jean-Pierre, though he held onto a little bit for me. I understood the reasoning. Barden was not thrilled I had agreed to take on the role of vampire familiar, though I knew if I had not, I would not have been able to survive on the other side of the Veil. In that case, I thought Barden should be thankful for what I had been willing to do for him.

  “You offer her your protection?”

  “I would take it as a personal insult if you attacked Dr. Stone,” Barden said.

  I looked over at him, thankful for his protection, and thankful he would do anything to keep me safe.

  “You can release your power,” Ariel said again.

  “As I said, I’m not releasing anything until I understand what’s taking place.”