Magi Saga 2: Shadows of Darkness

by Andrew Dobell

  Amanda she stood up and concentrated once more. She sent out her senses and counted maybe half a dozen more girls along this corridor, just like this one. Stairs halfway along led upstairs, the room they led to sat empty of life, just a few bits of furniture scattered about the bare floorboards.

  Another door up there stood closed, with another Aegis surrounding the room it led too, blocking her magical sight.

  ‘Upstairs, there’s another room that’s shielded from me,’ Amanda said as she walked from the cell and along the corridor. She walked upstairs and caught up with her senses which she cancelled as she reached the closed floor.

  Wasting no time, Amanda used her Magic to shape and blast the weak and hastily erected Aegis with Essentia, it fell in a matter of seconds. Her own Aegis made as strong as she could, Amanda stepped forward and kicked open the door. The lock broke as it swung open, slamming into the wall revealing the room beyond. Beds lined each side of the long room, covered in dirty unwashed sheets, on each bed, anywhere from one to four children, sat, eyes wide with fear, chained to the metal frames. The feeling of horror and sickness that washed over her nearly dropped her to the floor, young girls was one thing, but kids? Amanda could barely process what she could see before her. Some of these children looked to be as young as three or four years old.

  ‘Amanda,’ yelped a voice from the back of the room.

  Amanda looked up and saw Liz, she sat on a chair, her hands tied behind her. She looked at Amanda, a look of relief on her face.

  The man who stood beside her lashed out and punched her hard across the face. Amanda took a step forward as anger flooded her body.

  But Liz, her head bowed to her side from the hit, spat blood to the floor and looked back up, looking defiant and strong. Amanda felt proud of her apprentices’ defiance. She might be held captive, but she clearly wasn’t going to be playing the victim.

  The man stood beside her looked back at Amanda, his stance ready and waiting for Amanda to act. She’d never seen this man before either, but just like Joaquin, she assumed he worked for Lucian in some capacity. He had black slicked back hair, pale skin and dark eyes, he wore all black, apart from the priestly white dog collar he wore on his neck. He held a young boy of maybe five or six years old in front of him by the neck, his grip clearly a powerful one.

  Amanda could see from the Essentia he had stored within him, the Aegis that protected him and the lifelessness of his body that this man also happened to be a Scion, a Vampire like Maya and Yoh.

  ‘Amanda I presume?’ he asked. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, your apprentice here has told me so much about you, not least of which that you are coming to save her and kill me.’

  Amanda smiled, and worked a bit of Magic, creating and then strengthening an Aegis around this room. This Scion would not be leaving here, not today.

  ‘Maybe,’ Amanda said.

  ‘I take it, from the presence of Celest, that you have dealt with Joaquin? Shame, I did so enjoy my little visits here.’ He crouched down next to the boy, placed his right hand on Liz’s leg and caressed up her inner thigh while pulling the boy’s face close to his and licking it, from the boys jaw right up the side of his face.

  Amanda moved a step closer, adrenalin pumping hard through her body now and wanting nothing more than to pummel this pervert into a bloody mess, but the moment she moved, the man gripped the boy’s neck tighter and started to throttle him. Claws suddenly grew on his fingers too, pinching into Liz’s flesh where he held her bare leg.

  ‘A-a-ah, careful ladies, you wouldn’t want me to break these precious things would you?’

  Amanda stepped back and took a breath.

  ‘You’re right, I wouldn’t, by my action, want you to kill anyone in here,’ she said.

  But Amanda didn’t need to physically move to do what she needed to do. She worked her Magic, making use of the Multitasking effect to work a couple of uses of Magic at the same time. Amanda grabbed both Liz and the Boy in her Magical embrace and Ported them across the room next to where she had been standing. Simultaneously she Ported herself directly in front of the Vampire, and blasted his Aegis with a shock of powerful Magical and Kinetic energy as she tried to break through his Aegis.

  The man dropped to the floor from the force of the attack, a look of shock on his face.

  ‘Hi there,’ Amanda said brightly as she stepped forward, relishing this moment of revenge. ‘You were saying?’

  The Man moved quickly and sprung to his feet, his body started to shift quickly, growing and bulking out. Seeing this change, and not wanting to fight him in any way fairly, Amanda called on her magic once more and threw him up against the wall. His Aegis sparked and rippled with energy as it strained against the attack, but Amanda focused hard and held him back against the wall while her Magic tore at his Aegis.

  The kids were screaming, panicking as they tried to get off the beds and move away from the fight at the back of the room. Amanda could hear the voices of Liz and Celest trying to calm them down, and break the chains that held them in place.

  The man had shifted into a half man half wolf form, similar to Celest, but smaller. Amanda had heard of the legends of Vampires able to shift into werewolves and such, she’d seen the films of it too, but seeing it in real life turned out to be a great deal more unsettling, even with the knowledge of Magic.

  Moments later as the man struggled in vain against the wall, his Aegis finally gave way, popping like a bubble.

  As she held him up against the wall still, Amanda pulled on the Essentia inside him, ripping it out from him, and a few seconds later, as the energy that fuelled his shift seeped away, his body shifted back to human once more.

  Amanda stepped up to him, used her magic to lower him to the floor and took his neck in her left hand, gripping him hard.

  ‘Go on, do it. I don’t care. Kill me, torture me, I want you too.’

  She didn’t speak to him, she couldn’t. She couldn’t listen either, she just blocked it out. That would humanise him and she didn’t want to have any sympathy for this thing. Scion or not, anyone that did that to kids gave up their right to life.

  Instead, she hit him, hard, again and again, taking out her anger and frustration and horror at the things these people did. She had no idea how long she’d been hitting him for, but he wasn’t making coherent sentences anymore and his face had been reduced to a bloody mess.

  Amanda let his limp, but still living body drop to the floor and stepped back. Her fists were grazed and covered in his blood, they hurt a bit as well.

  ‘Hey,’ said Celest who had somehow managed to end up standing right next to her and she hadn’t noticed. ‘Liz could do with your help. There’s a lot of children in here.’

  Amanda looked up, she’d heard what Celest had said, but for a moment it didn’t register. The realisation of what some of these Nomad’s did had utterly consumed her, but now, with her reverie broken, she looked back at Liz and the kids. Most of them stared back at her, their eyes wide, their mouths agape at the violence she had displayed. Even though she couldn’t think of any one more deserving then this paedophile, despite even the horrors that these children had faced at the hands of their captors, seeing these children looking at her like that made her feel ashamed.

  By beating this man half to death, had she lowered herself to the Nomads standards, using violence as the answer to this situation? She wanted to save these kids, she needed them to trust her and feel safe while she got them to some help. Being covered in blood would not help that.

  She’d done enough, she’d spent that anger, she’d found the payback she wanted, now she needed to do some good.

  Liz had been trying to release the kids, but had been finding it difficult.

  Amanda looked back to Celest.

  ‘Sure, I can help. Will you… take out the trash?’ She gestured at the Scion.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him,’ Celest said, ‘you just worry about these kids and the girls downstairs. Get
them out of here and do not worry about me. I can take care of myself.’

  Amanda nodded at the taller woman.

  ‘Will I see you again sometime?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Celest.

  ‘Well, if you’re ever in the New York Area, stop by,’ Amanda said, offering her hand.

  Celest shook it.

  ‘I will.’

  Amanda and Liz made short work of freeing the children and quickly took them out of the room before Celest shifted form to take her own revenge.

  It seems that a rival gang raided a house on the outskirts of Medellin last night, killing one of the Cartel Bosses and freeing more than 20 children and teenagers, effectively ending one of the most shocking cases of human trafficking law enforcement has ever seen.

  Some local good Samaritans found the children out on the streets and dropped them off at the local police station.

  - Columbian News Report.

  Pit Fight

  May 20th

  New York

  Amanda stood in her main living room in front of the fire place, facing the men and women who all sat or stood before her. She’d gathered her friends here this morning after a busy night in Columbia and a few hours’ sleep on her return before people started to arrive. Getting a shower after the events in Columbia had been bliss, and she felt much more at home now she wore her ripped bootcut jeans, trainers and fitted white top.

  ‘…and that brings us up to this morning. So, as you can see, we’ve had a fairly eventful few weeks here in New York with Lucian and his Coven,’ Amanda said.

  They were all friends in here, and now all of them knew everything that had happened with Lucian while they had been here, as well as any useful background information.

  Yoh and Maya sat next to each other on a Sofa to her left, Yoh sat forward, his elbows on his knees looking nervous in his white suit and black shirt, while Maya sat back, relaxed and calm wearing black jeans and a black turtle neck jumper. She always looked beautiful to Amanda, her Dark hair cascading in waves down over her shoulders, framing her alabaster face and deep dark eyes. She could see why Yoh had taken a shine to her recently. Her beauty mixed with her also being a Scion had proved compelling to him.

  Gentle Water stood behind the sofa directly in front of her in his customary jeans and shirt, his posture formal, but Amanda knew him to be relaxed. In front of him sat Raven, in Combats and vest top, his long black hair tied back, looking thoughtful and relaxed. Liz sat next to him in cream leggings and a baggy jumper, she had her feet up on the sofa, her knees tucked up tight to her body so she could wrap her arms around them. All of them looked more than a little shocked from Amanda’s description of the operation she took on alone in Columbia.

  ‘Are you crazy? You could have gotten yourself killed,’ said Yoh.

  Amanda acknowledged the comment, giving him a nod and pursing her lips for a moment. Yoh spoke the truth, but what’s done is done, the mission had been a success and she stood before them now in the peak of physical health and unscathed, so she didn’t feel too bad.

  ‘That’s great Mandy, that’s a job well done,’ said Xain from where he sat next to Orion to Amanda’s right. Both wore black clothing that wouldn’t be out of place on a SWAT officer and both of them looked quite relaxed as they listened.

  ‘Thank you,’ What I did, needed doing, not least because I needed to bring back Liz, but also because I now understand the depths of depravity that Lucian will sink too. I always knew the Nomads were bad news, but these ones, they need to be stopped. It has gone on long enough and if we don’t take a stand now, who knows how many more lives they will ruin.’

  ‘That’s all fine Amanda, and I agree with you that he needs stopping, but the American Arcadians have tried time and again to stop him, and every time they try, they have failed,’ Yoh said.

  ‘And why have they failed?’ Amanda asked, putting emphasis on the why.

  Yoh twisted to speak more to the group than to just Amanda, taking it as an opportunity to get everyone up to speed on this.

  ‘Lucian is part of a larger network of Nomads. His ultimate master is Nymira, also known as the Voodoo Queen. She controls much of Central America and the Islands there, Haiti and Jamaica etc. Nymira has her own Coven and several Coven’s of Nomads she directly sponsors. Beyond them, numerous Nomad Covens reside in the area and swear loyalty to her. Lucian’s Coven is one of the Sponsored ones and is probably the most remote one that Nymira has her claws into. Whenever we have tried to take out Lucian, he simply calls in Nymira and the other Covens who come to their aid. Within moments of us attacking, we’re swarmed with Nomads who don’t care about innocent lives.’

  I agree, we cannot fight the full might of Nymira’s army. But we won’t,’ Amanda said.

  ‘And what make you think that?’ Yoh asked.

  ‘Look. Everything you have said to me since arriving about how he deals with Arcadians has suggested that he’s been ruthless with them. He kills them quickly at the first chance he has, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Yoh answered.

  ‘So why not me? He’s had plenty of chances. I’ve even tried to provoke him but he won’t do it, he won’t hurt me. Why?’

  ‘Yasmin,’ said Gentle Water calmly.

  ‘What?’ said Liz.

  ‘Yasmin?’ said Yoh.

  ‘That’s right, and yes, I do mean that Yasmin. She visited here yesterday, she told us where to find you,’ Amanda said, looking at Liz, ‘and as good as confirmed that she was stopping Lucian hurting me.’

  ‘But, why would she do that?’ Yoh asked.

  ‘That’s a good question, and honestly I don’t know. But, I think that this gives up an unprecedented opportunity so it does,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Because he won’t call for back up, Xain said.

  ‘That’s right. He will be forced to deal with us on his own, for the first time ever as Coven master here in New York. Which means he’s vulnerable.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Yoh said.

  ‘I’m as sure as I can be, but ultimately there’s only one way to really be sure.’

  ‘We’re in,’ said Xain, jumping in, Orion nodded next to him.

  Amanda smiled, she liked their enthusiasm.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘The target is the PIT Club, his base of operations, and using a contact I have made I can get into the Club by a back door. We’ll be able to bypass his Aegis and take him by surprise.’

  ‘Unless it’s a trap,’ said Yoh.

  ‘Unless it’s a trap,’ said Amanda. ‘Yasmin is a Nomad after all and we all know how much they lie. But, I’m going. After seeing all that in Columbia, seeing those innocent lives being ruined by their depravity, to me, the risk is worth it. I can’t guarantee your safety, but I am asking for your help on this. You don’t have to come. I know the risks involved, this will be a dangerous mission, so please, think about your answer. Who wants to come with me?’

  Orion and Xain raised their hands, to which Amanda nodded, acknowledging them. Yoh sat back and looked at everyone else.

  ‘I’ll be there for you,’ said Gentle Water, ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Me too,’ said Raven.

  ‘Count me in,’ said Liz.

  ‘Are you sure Liz, with what you have been through you might want to…’

  ‘No! I’m going. I need to do this, she said.

  Amanda looked at her for a moment. She seemed basically unscathed by her kidnapping, in fact she seemed stronger, more determined than ever before to forge ahead. Amanda felt proud of her, she’d come a long way this past year and a half, and the fact that she wanted to head right back into the Lion’s den after her kidnapping, spoke volumes.

  Amanda smiled at her apprentice.

  ‘Then you’re in,’ she said to Liz.

  Maya raised her hand and nodded, to which Amanda smiled, before her gaze came to a rest on Yoh. He’d sat back in his chair and looked at Amanda and then around t
he room at the others. Most of them looked back at him, waiting for his answer.

  He sighed and sat forward.

  ‘OK, I’m in. Let’s do this.’ Yoh said finally.

  Amanda walked ahead as they passed in single file through one of the cities sewers.

  Beneath New York lay a maze of tunnels, sewers, subway tunnels and their attendant service passageways. People lived down here. A whole community of the forgotten had found a life and even friends in the darkness which hadn’t existed for them above ground. Over the decades, they had made their own changes and modifications, adding connecting tunnels, walkways and more.

  In a world where the supernatural existed, this subterranean world became a natural home. Shaun, as disfigured as he was, probably found a better life down here, away from the revealing light of the sun.

  Shaun had given Amanda directions, and they walked along a connecting stretch of sewer with a makeshift walkway that kept you out of the raw sewage that bobbed along beneath you.

  ‘Had I known we’d be walking through shit Amanda, I might have had second thoughts about this,’ said Liz.

  ‘Well, fair play to ya. But I had no idea that the directions would lead through here either.’

  The tunnel stank, nearly making Amanda retch with the stench. She’d already heard a couple of the others nearly bringing up their breakfast.

  Moments later they stepped through a hole in a brick wall and dropped down into a tunnel that looked like some sunken factory or service tunnel. Amanda walked along here for a little while with everyone following behind her before coming to an iron door. She looked at it for a moment, and eventually found the small distinguishing mark that Shaun had told her about.

  ‘This is it,’ she said, and stepped up to the door. She knocked a few times and waited. Nearly a minute later the sound of heavy metal bolts sliding from their locks could be heard as someone unlocked the door. It swung wide and from the shadows Shaun’s face appeared.