The professor, McSomething, Conryu couldn’t remember the rest, hustled into the apartment and looked around like he’d never seen one before.
“Looking for something in particular?” Conryu asked.
“Sorry. I was just trying to understand how the most amazing person ever born could come from such an ordinary place. This might be any one of ten thousand apartments in this city. It’s inexplicable.”
“Yeah. I won’t tell my mom you said that as she’s quite proud of her decorating.” Conryu plopped down into the recliner. “So what do you want, Professor?”
“Angus, please.” The professor sat beside the book on the couch. “I’ve been doing genealogical research on both sides of your family and you know, there isn’t a single wizard on either side as far back as I could find records. Would you be willing to give me a blood sample so I can check your DNA for anomalies?”
“No.” Angus blinked at his abrupt answer. Conryu didn’t especially care. He had no intention of being poked, prodded or tested any more if he could avoid it. “What does my family history have to do with it?”
“Don’t you know anything about magic?” Angus pressed on before he could say the sarcastic remark that popped into his head. “Wizards tend to run in families. Not always as directly as your friend Maria, with daughter following mother, but all wizards can find another wizard somewhere in their ancestry, except you.”
“How far back did you go?” Conryu asked. He didn’t really want to get in to this, but now his curiosity had been roused.
“Things become murky after ten generations on your mother’s side, but I traced your father’s family all the way back to the second generation after the Elf War, and not a speck of magic could be found. It’s absolutely astonishing.”
“Huh. Well, was there anything else?”
“Could you tell me what it felt like when you touched the testing device? Did you get a thrill of power when you learned you were a wizard?”
Thrill of power? This guy read too many comic books. “I didn’t feel anything, Professor, except my dreams dying. You seem to be the one getting a thrill out of my problems, but for me they’re nothing but a pain in the ass. I have to delay starting my job for four years, study a subject that doesn’t interest me in the least, all while hopefully not getting killed by any of the nuts that object to my existence. Mr. Kane said that once I finish my training at the academy I’ll be free to do what I want. And what I want is to have as little to do with magic as possible.”
“No! Don’t you see? You have a great destiny ahead of you. You can’t simply fade into obscurity. You’ll be famous the world over, the most powerful wizard ever. You’ll consult with kings and emperors just like your predecessor, Merlin. You’ll be a living legend and I’ll be vindicated.”
Conryu leapt to his feet, marched to the door and yanked it open. “You and Merlin can both take a flying leap. Now get out before I throw you out.”
“Please, I have many more questions.”
“I’m going to count to five and if you’re still here I’ll make you wish you weren’t. And I promise you I won’t need magic to do it. One!”
Angus scrambled to his feet.
“Two!”
He rushed across the living room, out the door, and stopped in the hall. “If you change your—”
Conryu slammed the door in his face and leaned against it. He didn’t know what was worse, the people that wanted to kill him or the ones that wanted to use him. At least the killers didn’t try and pretend it was for his benefit.
Consult with kings and emperors. Ha! What in the world would he have to tell a king? Maybe if something broke on the royal motorcycle he could help, but his expertise ended there.
A knock sounded on the door. Stubborn old fart couldn’t take a hint.
He yanked the door open and found Maria standing there stunning as ever, in a pale blue dress.
“Everything okay?” She shied away from him and Conryu realized he was still scowling like he expected the professor.
He smoothed his expression and stepped aside to let her enter. “Sorry. I had an unpleasant visitor and I was afraid he’d come back.”
“Oh?”
He recounted what the professor had to say. When he finished he added, “I wasn’t eager to renew the conversation.”
“You really don’t want to have anything to do with magic?”
Conryu groaned. Not Maria too.
6
The Black Skulls
Terra sat in her cramped office surrounded by books of magic both new and old. Despite its small size she was most at home tucked away out of sight. Terra wasn’t good with people. She knew she tended to be abrupt and to assume others were as informed about magical matters as her. She’d fought the problem since her time at the academy and still hadn’t beaten it.
Lin said he’d call around midmorning and she was anxious to hear what he’d come up with. Who was she kidding? Terra just wanted to talk to him again. She felt like a teenager waiting for some boy to call after their first date.
Two days had passed since she last spoke to the detective though it seemed like longer. Unlike most people she dealt with outside the Department, Terra found the good detective easy to talk to.
For her part, she and Clair had figured out what the ring did: it was a power suppressor. Mercia wasn’t a weak wizard after all. Unfortunately, they had no idea how great her true power was. Though based on the trap she set at her fake apartment Terra guessed she was at least as strong as Shizuku and perhaps a little stronger.
They also had no idea why she decided to hide her power in the first place. Clearly she wanted access to the Department without drawing any attention. As a tester Mercia would have known the names of every new student going to the academy, but that wasn’t exactly secret information. The academy made enrolled students’ names public. The government had determined that regular citizens had a right to know if they were dealing with a wizard.
Terra had made her report to Chief Kane yesterday and he had someone searching the academy records to try and find Mercia’s true power level, but so far they’d found nothing, not even her name. The government kept meticulous records when it came to wizards, so the fact that they found nothing about Mercia was odd if not downright sinister. It seemed like every time they took a step forward it was followed by two more back.
Her phone rang, jarring Terra out of her contemplations. She could do nothing about the records so she needed to focus on things within her control, like figuring out who had attacked Conryu.
She picked up the receiver. “Terra Pane.”
“This is Detective Chang, Terra. We’ve made some progress in our investigation. I tracked the person chatting with Mort Call to an internet cafe. It seems a gang called the Black Skulls was using it as a meeting place. Since he hasn’t woken up yet, is there any way you can extract information from Mr. Call’s mind? Our wizard says it’s possible, but beyond her ability.”
“A psychic probe, it’s not something I have any skill with, but my boss’s wife might be able to do it. I’ll ask him and let you know. Now, who are the Black Skulls and what do they have to do with Conryu and Mercia?”
“The Skulls are a biker gang that’s into drugs and guns. They’ve also moved into illicit magical items. We have them on tape collecting mundane-looking items from an unknown individual. Our wizard found traces of magical energy at the cafe.”
Terra frowned. She knew a little about the underground trade in magical items, but it tended to be narrow and limited to collectors. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would interest a gang. “Would it be possible for me to have a look at the cafe? We have an amplification device that can give more information about those trace energies you found.”
“Certainly. I’d prefer to speak to you in person anyway. Can you meet me there in an hour?” Lin gave her the address.
“I’ll be there.” She hung up and left her office.
It was a short
walk down to the secure storage room. She’d been taking the stairs for the last two days to get a little exercise. Studying the energy patterns and chatting with Lin should be simple enough, no need to bring Clair along.
She reached the thick steel door and placed her hand on a metal plate beside it. Terra spoke a brief incantation, deactivating the wards and unlocking the door. Inside the store room dozens of shelves held hundreds of items: books, scrolls, and other magical paraphernalia.
Terra selected a set of glasses held together with silver wire. They would magnify the aura of any residual magic a hundred times. She reached for a silver ring, paused, then grabbed it. A little extra protection was never a bad idea. She slipped the ring on and headed for her car, locking the door behind her.
Terra found Lin leaning against his car waiting for her when she arrived. The internet cafe was a rundown dump sealed off with yellow police tape. She’d never had much use for technology. It tended to be more of a distraction than anything as far as she was concerned anyway.
Terra parked her beat-up car behind Lin’s equally beat-up sedan. She didn’t know where all her tax dollars were spent, but it wasn’t on vehicles for public servants.
Lin opened her door for her, prompting a smile. “Thanks. Did your wizard mention what sort of magic she found?”
Lin opened his notebook. “Fire and darkness, both extremely weak.”
“The residual aura might be weak, but whatever left them had to be reasonably strong or she would have found no trace at all.” Terra strode toward the cafe door. “I’ll know more shortly.”
“Do you need the area clear or can I join you?”
“Join me, by all means. Your presence will make no difference one way or the other.” She smiled and opened the door. “For the spell. I’ll be glad for the company.”
He smiled back and her heart did a little flutter. What was wrong with her? She was acting like a silly girl. When the door closed behind Lin she slipped the glasses on and chanted.
“Reveal all things hidden.”
Three dark trails appeared between the dingy rows of computers. “Darkness magic for sure.”
Terra followed the trails toward the back of the cafe, bumping into chairs as she focused on the magic instead of where she was walking. Lin gently took her elbow and guided her around the various obstacles. The trails led to a blank wall. She touched the smooth, painted surface.
“There’s something hidden behind here.”
“Are you sure? Our wizard didn’t mention even seeing anything in this part of the building.”
Terra traced a square on the wall, leaving a glowing path behind. “Right here. I can’t say what, but something was here, something powerful.”
“Step back.” Lin pulled a folding knife out of a coat pocket.
Terra moved aside and Lin stabbed the wall, cutting the wall board around the square she marked. When he finished he pulled the chunk of material out and tossed it on the floor. On the other side was a small niche built into the framing. Runes had been burned into the wood. The whole thing seethed with residual dark energy.
“Something potent was stored here at one time. Those are runes of containment and binding. Whoever used this hiding place didn’t want whatever they put here leaking out.”
“Can you tell what it was?” Lin asked.
Terra shook her head. “The residual energy doesn’t have any real shape. Where did your wizard detect the auras?”
“In the back room where they held their secret meetings. Through the door on your left.”
Terra slipped through the door. The filthy office lit up with lines of darkness and fire. The dark magic was the same as whatever was in the niche. She scanned the walls and found a faint aura on the wall that was opposite the hole they just cut in the wall.
“Someone used magic to reach through the wall and retrieve whatever was stored there. The magic looks very similar to what we found at the carnival, only stronger. I can’t tell much about the fire magic, but given what you said about the people gathered here I feel pretty confident it was a weapon. What sort of items were they trading?”
Lin consulted the ever-present notebook. “Five boxes and what looked like a glove.”
“The glove is almost certainly the weapon, probably a Flame Hand Gauntlet, very dangerous. The five boxes I’m not sure about. The lines continue out the back door.” Terra followed the dark energy outside. “They split up here, going in five different directions. The trail dissipates after a hundred yards or so.”
“So whatever was in those boxes could be anywhere.”
Terra took her glasses off and returned them to their case. “I’m afraid so. When was the tape made?”
“Four nights before the attack on Conryu.”
“That’s a day before anyone even knew the boy had wizard potential. Whatever we’ve stumbled into is about far more than Conryu. That’s a long time for such potent magical items to be in the hands of people who have no idea how to use them properly.”
“We need to find the Skulls and learn what they did with them.”
“Absolutely.” Terra chewed her thumbnail and frowned. “The real question is: What, if anything, does all this have to do with Conryu and Mercia?”
“Even if it has nothing to do with them, I can’t risk criminals having access to dangerous magic. The threat to the city is too great.”
The deep roar of Iron Skull’s bike fell silent when he pulled into a parking spot outside Sentinel Central Hospital. He took off his helmet and hung it on the handlebars. The bone-white skull-shaped helmet always made him smile. It was a gift from Mistress Raven. She said it was an actual demon skull and it did always make him feel powerful when he wore it, though not as powerful as his new toy. He clenched his right fist, making the heavy leather of his gauntlet crunch. The pentagram on the back of his hand glowed with an inner fire.
When she first gave him the magic glove Iron Skull couldn’t believe it. He’d owned and used all sorts of weapons, but a magic flamethrower, how fuckin’ awesome was that? There had been a time when he could never have imagined calling anyone master, but serving Mistress Raven had become the single most fulfilling thing he’d ever done. The fact that she usually wanted him to do all the things he liked best anyway helped.
Take this morning. He got a message telling him to off Mort Call. Skull had no idea who the fuck Mort Call was and he didn’t care. She wanted him dead and Skull liked nothing better than killing people, especially now that he had his flamethrower. He’d already come up with a handful of new ways to kill people with it and he was eager to try out his most recent idea. He’d burned that fat prick that ran the computer place to ashes, but that had ended too quick for him to really enjoy it.
Skull straightened his mohawk and adjusted his black leather jacket, trying in vain to look less intimidating. Not that he had anything against killing everyone in the hospital if that’s what it took to get Call, but Mistress Raven had made it clear that when she sent him to kill someone, ideally, he would only kill that one person. A massacre drew more attention than she wanted just now.
He checked his appearance in his bike’s polished chrome gas cap. Not bad. He smiled, revealing a jumble of crooked yellow teeth. Skull gave his bike an affectionate pat and headed toward the main entrance. The huge, sprawling complex covered half a square mile if you counted the grounds. He’d need directions if he wanted to avoid searching all day for his mark.
Halfway to the door Skull spotted a man in his late fifties carrying a bouquet of flowers coming from his left. That was handy. Skull had almost reached him when the guy looked his way. The suit’s eyes went wide then closed the instant Skull’s fist sank into his gut. The guy slumped and Skull helped himself to the flowers.
Perfect. Now he really looked like a proper friend making a visit to his ailing buddy. Skull left the barely conscious man curled up in the fetal position and groaning on the sidewalk. What a wuss. Couldn’t even take one punch to the gut.
The automatic doors opened at his approach. Inside was a waiting room filled with sick or injured people. A row of nurses sat behind a long desk, each at her own computer station. All but one was helping someone already. Skull ambled up to the free nurse, a dusky-skinned woman with cornrows and too much eye shadow. She flinched when she noticed Skull looking down at her.
He smiled, trying to set her at ease. The way her eyes widened suggested he failed. “I’m here to visit an old friend of mine, Mort Call. Can you tell me which room he’s in?”
“One moment, sir.” The nurse typed, frowned at her screen, and typed something else. At last she looked up. “I’m sorry, Mr. Call is in police custody and isn’t allowed any visitors. If it’s any consolation he woke from his coma this morning. The doctors think his chances of recovering are good.”
Skull didn’t think his chances were so good, and a pair of cops wasn’t going to improve them much. At least now he knew why Mistress Raven wanted him dead. If he knew something and had woken up it was only a matter of time before he spilled his guts.
“Maybe I could just go up and drop his flowers off. The cops could look them over and take them into the room. That wouldn’t hurt, right?”
The nurse finally smiled. “I suppose not. He’s in room 560 in building C.”
She gave Skull directions and he set off drawing the gazes of everyone in the waiting room. Building C waited a five-minute walk from the main entrance. He passed doctors, nurses, janitors, and other visitors on his way and without fail they all did a double take when he strode past.
Skull shook his head and stepped into the elevator that would take him to the fifth floor. He didn’t look that unusual, did he? He knew a lot of guys with a mohawk and leather jacket. Maybe it was the tattoos. He had a shattered skull pierced with a dagger inked on the side of his neck. It was pretty hardcore. Though he had a trio of nastier ones on his chest.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. An older couple took a step back when they saw him inside the elevator. Of all the people he encountered, the elderly seemed to react like that the most consistently. He held the door for them and they scurried in without a word of thanks. So much for the older generation having better manners.
The Impossible Wizard: The Aegis of Merlin Book 1 Page 13
