Dark Wizard's Case

by Kirill Klevanski

  “A fairy tale the magic races keep feeding to humanity.” It was Leia’s turn to frown. “She can’t possibly be so incompetent she wouldn’t know that.”

  “And now,” the guide continued, “the Magic Lenses have made the lands concealed by the magic of other races visible to everyone. Entering them is still difficult though. What they told you at school about Earth expanding in size isn’t exactly true—it’s just that we’re now able to see the third of our planet that used to be hidden from us.”

  “But what about researchers and scientists? Does that mean none of them ever—”

  “No,” the lady interrupted again. “But those scientists were all labelled as crazy or just misunderstood. Take Nikola Tesla, the best example. Read his biography, dear, and you’ll see all the things he invented that we now use in our daily life.”

  The little girl was silent. With relief on her face, the guide clapped her hands and was about to open her mouth and wrap things up when the girl jumped in with yet another question.

  “What about espers, ma’am? They’re not human, but they aren’t non-human either.”

  “Non-human is a rude word, miss. And the esper issue is too complicated to discuss today.”

  Alex glanced over at Leia. For a moment, her face was darker than a thundercloud, but then she relaxed and even smiled.

  “Nothing complicated about it at all,” she said loudly. The kids all looked at her and gasped. At the same time, the guide tensed up and reached for her tablet, probably in search of the SOS button she had on it. “The wizards looked down on espers as second-rate creatures. Mortals didn’t believe in us. So, there we were, half-wizard, half-mortal, and never reckoned with.”

  “Is that why you made most of the attempts to break the orb?”

  “Yes,” Leia nodded with some pride. “Now let me walk you and your teacher to the exit to make sure you don’t get lost.”

  A few moments later, Alex was alone with the museum guide.

  “Was that your girlfriend?” she asked.

  “Whose, mine?” It took Alex a second to realize she was talking to him. “No, she isn’t. I was with you the whole time, and—”

  “I saw you,” the guide said with a tired smile as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

  “Well, I just wanted to say that the tip of your nose is insanely beaut—”

  The last word was drowned out by a deafening alarm signal. All along the walls of the hall, which the first-graders hadn’t yet left, steel grates slammed down.

  Doom looked up. There were deep, winding cracks crisscrossing the ceiling with all its stars and nebulas.

  He could smell sulfur and ashes.

  “Demons of hell,” Alex swore.

  How right he was.

  With a thundering roar, the ceiling shattered to send stone raining down. A giant, terrifying monster burst in through the hole.

  Chapter 26

  Tearing the clouds of dust and pulverizing stone into tiny pieces, a roar—not even a bestial roar, but one far more powerful and ancient—resounded through the hall.

  Tongues of searing heat licked at Alex’s face, and he staggered backward a few steps. Although his ArmaniMagico suit and brogues were made out of fire-proof materials and protective charms, they weren’t going to be able to withstand the lava flow summoned by the monster for long.

  Doom retrieved the pack of cigarettes from an inner pocket, his hand steady.

  “No smoking in here,” the guide whispered. She had apparently taken the magic P.E. lessons to heart, the ones where students were taught what to do if a magic beast appeared in the streets or, even worse, there was an underground magic breakout. She hid behind a fountain hanging in the air near Poseidon’s Pearl or whatever the useless old piece of trash was called.

  “Seriously?” Alex arched his right eyebrow. “My cigarette is the problem right now?”

  “It’s not allowed,” the guide insisted.

  “So that big gorilla with all its fucking armor is allowed to smash whatever it wants in here, and I’m not even allowed to smoke.” Alex pointed his already lit cigarette at the source of the lava flooding the hall.

  There, right in the middle and beneath the brand-new roof access hole, stood a giant gorilla. Some ten feet tall and probably as heavy as ten tons, it was clad head to paw in black, grotesque-looking armor.

  Shoulder pads shaped like skulls and studded with sharp spikes. Steel gauntlets wound around with chains. A breastplate with another skull, this one belonging to a goat. And a terrifying horned helmet with two yellow eyes glowing on the other side of the slit.

  [DANGER! Race: Demon. Level: Unknown. Mana level: Unknown. The neutralization authorities have been summoned.]

  Unknown, sure. No, it’s really just secret.

  By the time the authorities arrived, there wasn’t going to be anything left of the hall or the visitors hiding behind the ancient displays.

  Sure, it was just a bottom-legion soldier demon. But even it was powerful enough to slaughter everyone there before the Guards could arrive.

  Looking past the monster, Doom saw Miss Perriot shielding a bunch of kids with her own body. She didn’t make for the best shield given how slender her body was, though she deserved a few brownie points for her bravery. The stupidity canceled them out, however.

  A D-ranked esper was not about to stop a soldier demon.

  As he smoked, Alex stepped calmly toward the monster breathing nervously and noisily, puffing out clouds of sulfur and ash. Alex was positive it had just been summoned. Probably in the apartment he’d visited with Gribovsky.

  “I won’t disturb your hunt,” Doom said. He didn’t think anyone there would understand him—the demonic language wasn’t popular with anyone but a very few mortals. “You hunt. I’ll leave.”

  The gorilla slowly turned to Alex, then covered the distance between them (no less than 30 feet) in a single giant leap.

  “My hunt,” the monster growled, “is you.”

  “Wha—”

  A steel-gauntleted paw smashed into Alex’s chest. Even with the protection provided by his suit, the impact was strong enough to reduce human flesh…not even to a bloody mess. It would have just swept his torso clean off, leaving two stumps of legs standing where they were.

  But Alex was a black wizard. That meant smoking, drinking, and whoring, with the ability to defend himself a pleasant bonus on top.

  His cigarette smoke turned violet and formed a thick veil that blocked the monster’s paw a moment before it would have sent Alex to hell. Black wizards don’t go to heaven, after all.

  Soaring hundreds of feet up over the museum displays, Alex wheeled around in mid-flight and directed the magic energy from his source into his shoes. They each instantly grew a pair of smoky, raven-black wings. Gliding through the air like a hockey player across an icy field, Alex landed lightly on his feet just a few inches away from some insanely expensive painting. He could tell how expensive it was by the horrified look on the museum guide’s face.

  Spitting, Alex dispelled the magic, took a deep breath, and thrust his hands in his pockets.

  “I may not have a banana, but…”

  The demon reared up and pounded its chest with gauntleted hands. Each hit triggered a powerful sound wave that shook the glass cubes encasing the ancient artifacts.

  “…I’m no stranger to dancing with gorillas. Obesity is a big problem in Myers City.”

  Alex used his right hand to crack his neck. His emerald eyes glittered with excitement and anticipation.

  It had been far too long since he’d been able to put his gift through its paces.

  The only proper use for a black wizard’s gift was to destroy.

  In front of his open palm, a seal formed instantly. It had so many different figures and symbols that the hostages in the room who dared look at it felt their head spin.

  Magic energy obeyed Alex’s will to rush from his source to the palm, soak the seal’s ley lines, and gush out, fo
rming a legally prohibited spell that blended blood magic with the darkest of magic arts: necromancy.

  [ATTENTION! Prohibited spell used: THE LICH KING SCOURGE of the Blood and Darkness School. Mana consumption: N/A.]

  The Guards could deal with the consequences of Alex using the prohibited art. He couldn’t have cared less about what was going to happen afterwards, busy as he was making sure there was an afterwards for him to worry about. If there was ever a time for one of his most powerful spells, it was then.

  The scourge shooting out of the seal seemed made of blood, only with a tinge of ash-gray. Unfolding through the air to become hundreds of feet long, it hit the gorilla right in the middle of its chest.

  Doom waited for the demon’s green blood to arc through the air. Instead, with a soft clink, the scourge crumbled. Alex lurched backward with the recoil of his destroyed spell. It had left just a tiny scratch on the monster’s armor.

  Having done no other damage, a spell strong enough to kill a battle Mystic was entirely destroyed.

  Gripping a glass cube, Doom pointed his cigarette at the gorilla.

  “Want a minute to catch your breath, buddy boy?”

  The gorilla just roared again, clenched its mighty fists overhead, and took a running leap toward him.

  “Oh, you’re good to go.”

  He had enough mana left to cast another powerful spell, but Alex had a feeling it would share the fate of the scourge.

  Hell’s bells. Never before had he seen a soldier demon with armor like that. What kind of hellish creature was it?

  The Vase of Ten Thousand Warriors, the writing on a jade vase dating back to the Three Kingdoms period read.

  His spells may not have been enough to break through the monster’s armor, but there was no reason they couldn’t shatter a glass cube.

  “No, not the vase!” the guide screamed. Too late.

  Demolishing the glass cover with a bolt of black lightning, Alex grabbed the vase, leaped away from the mighty paws leaving two-foot craters in the floor, and hurled the artifact at the gorilla’s head.

  He looked around as he landed and rolled away from the potential line of fire.

  Damn, I’m right in the middle of an incredible magic arsenal, he thought to himself suddenly.

  “Well, my dear, shall we tango?”

  While the demon was fighting off the dozens of fallen Chinese warrior spirits attacking it, Alex rushed over to the next item.

  “Oh no,” the guide whimpered.

  Chapter 27

  “Not the Piercing Spear!” the museum guide shouted. She was hiding inside the fountain by that point, the water soaking her white blouse to reveal firm, springy breasts through the fabric.

  Girl’s got a little fire in her. She doesn’t wear a bra.

  It may have been those thoughts and his suddenly tight pants, or it may have been his prison experience (not so much a four-year period of sexual abstinence for a young black wizard’s hormonal body as it was lots of physical exercise and an endless struggle to stay alive). Either way, Alex was able to slide nimbly past the stand that held a bronze spear topped with a very prominent bone head.

  The ape roared again and…slid past it just as nimbly.

  The water splashing out of the fountain had made the marble floor as slippery as ice. That created just enough of a miscalculation that a blow capable of shattering Alex’s spine instead smashed the protective cap over the spear. It was a lucky break—Alex would have had a hard time with the same given how little mana he had left in his source.

  Throwing his back against one of the pillars supporting the much lighter dome, Alex shifted his gaze from the guide’s alluring curves to yet another cloud of dust and crushed stone left by the demonic ape. The monster had hit the very painting that had barely escaped a collision with Doom.

  “I hope it—”

  “Reinforced partitions filled with adamantius,” the girl with the amazing curves whined.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Alex hissed.

  Another bellow. Dusting itself off and shredding the huge painted canvas, the gorilla peeled itself off the reinforced partition and pulled itself out of the cave that had been created when its body hitting the wall.

  “Hey, any other wizards here?” Alex shouted. Jumping to his feet, he activated the levitation spell in his shoes.

  [LEVITATION recharging in 2s]

  He glided through the air like Hermes, grabbed the spear, and rolled over the broken pedestal to find himself right in front of the giant demon.

  “Apparently not,” Doom said as the hundreds of visitors remained behind cover, trembling with fear. They probably knew that the monster would destroy everything in sight once it took out its target. The problem was that having a few drops of magic and knowing a couple spells didn’t make you a wizard.

  “Come on!”

  The gorilla brought both fists down on its prey’s head. But instead of reducing Alex to a bloody mess, the blow only carved out another crater in the floor.

  Using the last split-second his levitation spell was active, Doom had jumped away, hurling the spear at the demon at the same time.

  The ease with which Alex had dispatched the street gangsters in High Garden didn’t mean he was a warrior wizard. Far from it—he was and always had been just a bookworm.

  But missing an enormous beast that’s eager to kill you and just a few feet away when you have a big sharpened stick was not something even Alex was about to do.

  Expecting another ding, he was pleasantly surprised by how easily the spear broke through the dark armor to bury itself in the monster’s flesh.

  It screamed and spun on its hind legs, frantically waving its front paws like windmill blades.

  Struggling to pull the spear out of the wound and oozing green blood, the demon smashed everything around it.

  In the meantime, a strategy was forming in Alex’s mind. What he cared about was rescuing the most valuable thing in the whole museum: himself. But he had to test out his theory.

  Backing off to a very respectful distance, Alex, his cigarette still in his mouth, peered out of his cover and called over to the guide.

  “Hey, mermaid!”

  “What? Don’t call me that! It’s sex—”

  “Agreed,” Alex interrupted, inhaling and appreciating once again her wet blouse and the absence of a bra beneath it. “Do you have anything else like that spear?”

  “Why do you ask—”

  Her idiotic phrase was drowned out by the demon’s roar. In addition to its bestial fury and might, it now had ancient magic on its side. And its magic was far more ancient than what fairies or any of the other magic races could wield.

  That kind of magic came from the depths of history, reaching back to the beginning of time.

  Out of the demon’s jaws burst a horizontal tornado of red fire with black stars sparkling inside it, their dark glow so bright it outshone the bright afternoon sun.

  No human-made thing could withstand that magic.

  Nothing but adamantius.

  No longer supported by the levitation spell in his shoes, Alex retrieved a cigarette and tossed it on the ground at his feet.

  [ATTENTION! Prohibited spell used: RUPTURE of the Chaos School. Mana consumption: N/A.]

  Two seals flashed in front of Alex’s palms, one red and the other bloody. Overlapping, they flashed a multi-colored chaos, the glowing symbols and signs inside it completely foreign to ordinary wizards.

  It was demonic magic.

  One of the oldest of the world’s arts.

  The only ones who had more ancient (if not necessarily better, as much progress had been made in magic since then) knowledge were the angels. May the Abyss devour them.

  The rupture spell would have easily destroyed a Mystic up to the 30th level. Alex targeted it at the smoldering cigarette butt and, when it flashed with bright black fire, waved a hand to re-direct it at the ape.

  The strip of black fire looked pathetic against the backdr
op of the raging fiery tornado. But at that very moment, shocking everyone who knew anything about magic, Alex raised his other hand.

  His ability to create magic seals mentally rather than tracing a model projected by his lenses put him on par with military wizards.

  But the ability to do so with both palms…

  A second row of seals flashed over his left wrist.

  Into the hall burst a dark-blue fog. It felt like wet autumn sweeping over a swampy graveyard.

  Suddenly, the people in the room could see their breath hanging in the air. The graveyard wind fanned the black strip of fire until it was almost as high as the demon’s.

  The black and red flames collided in the middle of the hall with a powerful explosion, fire melting a hole in the floor that bared water pipes and electrical cables.

  The demon was sent flying backward. Alex was almost killed by a collapsing pillar.

  “Hurry, miss!” Alex yelled in a voice that didn’t sound like him at all.

  “The axe of Olaf the Northern!” The guide tapped something on her tablet, and the protective cover encasing one of the farther items in the museum was drawn into the pedestal.

  Without waiting for the ape to regain its senses, Doom dashed over in that direction.

  But it appeared that he had underestimated how resilient soldier demons were—even bottom-legion soldier demons.

  The gorilla came to and, picking up a large chunk of the stone dome, hurled it at Doom. The latter called on his inner rock star, fell to his knees on the run, and slid across the wet floor.

  The boulder hurtled past Doom’s head, nicking his skin as it went.

  On it flew, right at the huddled children.

  “Shit!” Alex held out his palm, calling on his source. He only had mana for a single spell, and not a powerful one, but the bigger problem was that the boulder was flying much faster than anything he could have thrown at it.

  Doom could already see blood splattering the wall in his head when the giant stone suddenly stopped. It hovered in place, hanging in the air.