Tales from the Magitech Lounge

by Saje Williams

  “Things are starting to roll,” she said. “C’mon, Sirius hates it when people are late.”

  Rio

  It was about a quarter to midnight as the row of cars began making their way up the twisting, turning road leading to the compound. Stormchild had insisted on leading the pack, grinning like a damn fool as he tried to figure out the controls for the lights and siren.

  Sometimes he’s like the world’s oldest kid and I love him for it. Even though sometimes it also gets on my nerves.

  I moved away to stand with the other mages and stared up the crest of the hill in the direction of our target. Our timing had to be perfect or the advantage of surprise would be ruined.

  The air was uncannily still, the air warm, and the scent of the salty brine of the sea mingled with the breathy green air of the hillside. It didn’t feel as though we were heading into a fight. It felt like a night for a party.

  I rubbed my thumbs against the mage gems embedded in my palms, the source of my unprecedented level of magical power. They were our ace-in-the-hole, the unknown quanity that would give us some chance of dealing with Sirius and his mageship master.

  I hoped.

  Jack

  The room in which we gathered wasn’t quite what I expected, reminding me more of a college lecture hall than anything one might find in the average home. It didn’t even have the atmosphere of a church, well-lit throughout and being composed of a set of five tiers of sixteen padded chairs broken into sections of four. Only the first two rows were filled, a total of thirty-two people waiting expectantly for the arrival of their guru onto the slightly raised stage with its burnished mahogany lectern and wide projection screen pulled down against the back wall.

  Dylan and I settled into a couple of seats in the middle of the third row. The silence in the room struck me as eerie. There was none of the chatter one might have expected. The sense of anticipation was palpable, the attendees’ eyes affixed on the stage as if already viewing the greatest wonder they’d ever seen.

  This place was starting to give me the serious creeps.

  Then, suddenly Sirius was standing behind the podium. A murmur ran through the audience, and I could see a few of them looking at others as if to say “see, I told you so”.

  There were no clocks in this room, I noticed, and I began to regret not having picked up a cheap wristwatch after ditching my PCD. If timing was integral to the plan, I was condemned to being out of the loop. Then again, the best I could offer was an attempt to jump the djinn and pummel him with fists and feet while the mages unleashed the real assault.

  Did I mention that I felt terribly useless at that moment?

  The distant wail slid in between his words as he started to speak and I don’t think anyone noticed for the first few moments. His voice was cool, cadenced, and almost hypnotic in its rhythms. I didn’t catch his opening line, since I actually heard the sirens.

  “—enemies all around us. We think they’re on our side, but the very philosophies by which they live have been manipulated into existence by the enemy. What’s even worse is that there are those among them who know it—who serve willingly because of promises made to them…that they’d rule after this world is torn asunder and re-made in their image.

  “But what they’d be, unbeknownst to them, are rulers of the stockyard. Petty tyrants who may command the human cattle, but with no power to do more than decide who gets fed to the monsters.”

  The messed up thing here was that he was telling them the unvarnished truth. For the first time since this began, I felt doubts begin to creep into my consciousness. What if we were doing the wrong thing here? What if Sirius and his ‘ship were trying to save this Earth, this world that didn’t have Loki or the other immortals to protect it from being ravaged by the Cen.

  He had the power. I was almost certain of it. By himself he could change humanity, give it the ability to fight back the monsters before they could claim this Earth as their own.

  Shit. It wasn’t really their goal I had issue with, it was their methods. They had no right to manipulate people, to alter their brains to make them more susceptible to their influence. As they’d done to Dylan. It made them little better than the Cen themselves.

  And why were they so desperately seeking to save this Earth? For the good of the people? Somehow I didn’t believe that was their ultimate purpose. They wanted something else. But what?

  Sirius broke off his monologue, lifting his head and cocking it to one side. He’d heard the sirens. They were finally growing loud enough to slice through the sound of his voice. He frowned and held up a hand, then turned slightly, facing the back wall. I had the uncanny sense that he could see straight through all the things in the way to view the road snaking up the hill and the cars even now approaching via that twisting, winding route.

  He started to turn, eyes filling with an unearthly rage, and I suddenly noticed that Dylan was standing beside me. I’d been so riveted on Sirius I hadn’t even noticed as she pushed herself to her feet.

  She flung a hand toward him and something sizzled across the space between them. He threw up a hand, seemingly batting it aside, and then he was no longer by himself on the stage. Rio leaped at him, a blur of motion, and backhanded him into the white projection screen.

  Some of the acolytes shrieked and some surged to their feet. To flee or leap to his aid, I could not be certain.

  Rio’s blow did nothing to subdue him, though. As quick as a wink, he was back on his feet, and, rather than attempt to continue the physical confrontation, he simply stood in the midst and raised his arms.

  The lights winked out.

  For a brief moment it felt like I was standing on the edge of a tornado, within the radius of a whirling mass of something that wasn’t quite physical, yet wielding enough energy to raise every hair on my body. I caught the scent of ozone and jagged lightning tore through the room, illuminating everything just long enough to reveal Dylan running along the chair backs from row to row in an attempt to reach the stage.

  Radiance! Help us!

  ::I cannot:: came the ship’s mental voice, sounding almost strained. ::It’s all I can do to keep Ranger from getting involved directly. You are on your own, I’m afraid::

  “I’m afraid too,” I muttered aloud. More lightning rent the air, casting fractured images against my eyes. I stood and felt my way toward the end of the row, to the stairs leading down to the stage only a few feet away.

  Someone screamed.

  Rio

  This creature astounded me. He was as quick as a vampire and as sturdy as a lycanthrope. And powerful beyond any measure I had. He caught and wove threads with a capacity far beyond either Hades or myself. We managed to keep him off-balance for a brief instant, but he learned so quickly we were back on the defensive before we could press our advantage.

  The human mages might as well have been mice hurling themselves at a bobcat. He smashed them down without missing a beat, countering their spells seemingly without effort and blasting them away with fierce, blazing lances of light and fire.

  Hades’s tattoos rose from his skin in a wave, smashing through Sirius’s outer defenses, but were swallowed by the mass of threads that seem to flow from his very core. I pushed my gems to their utmost, hurling everything I had at him.

  I may as well have blown him a kiss.

  “It’s a fucking spirit!” Hades yelled to me. I don’t think I’d ever heard him curse before. A spirit? How was that possible? I’d never even heard of a spirit with this kind of power.

  We were hopelessly out-classed. Just acknowledging that pissed me off. No spirit out-classed me, dammit!

  I reached into the core of my being, drawing from my reservoir of psychic power. I rarely used this gift these days, but I was counted among the most powerful of psis for a good reason. Even Stormchild, whose psychic creativity was considered particularly potent, was dwarfed before my gifts in this arena.

  I let my will pour forth and time shuddered to a halt. I met
eyes with Hades and, combining the power of my symsuit with my own knowledge and power, created two more mage gems in my hand. “Here!” I called to him, and tossed the stones in his direction.

  I felt a great wrenching sensation and Sirius began to move again, freeing himself from the temporal inertia I’d imposed. Hades caught the gems and screamed as they burned their way into his flesh. I released my hold on time and it began to flow for all of us once more.

  I felt the mortals toppling around us and swore under my breath. I knew that a quarter of them might not rise again. The effects of stopping and re-starting time would send many into cardiac arrest. I didn’t know why this happened, but it did. It was a talent I rarely used for this very reason.

  I dared not turn and see the effects of this power on the mortals in the room.

  His puissance effectively doubled, Hades lashed out at Sirius once more, and, after a second to catch my breath, I rejoined the fray myself. We pounded at Sirius with fire, ice, lightning, and mono-molecular blades of light. We tried to turn the floor beneath his feet into mud and then lava. We hammered him with everything we had and still he stood, looking a little ragged, but unhurt.

  We could not win this battle.

  He hammered us back. As I took a hit from a blunt-nosed thread, I fell to my knees, skull ringing like a bell. Hades staggered back, a torrent of blood staining the blackness of his shirt. The air was suddenly filled with whipping strands of razor sharpness, a whirling mass of silvery death.

  Then, abruptly, a chair came sailing out of the seats and caught Sirius on the side of the head. He stumbled sideways, nearly falling over the edge of his lectern.

  Hades stabbed at him with his hand and I caught sight of a mass of threads lancing for the center of his body. They plunged through his skin and he howled. Hades closed his eyes and yanked. Sirius literally exploded.

  Jack

  I opened my eyes to darkness. Had I been blinded? I reached for my face and felt something dark clinging to my head. I pulled it away and coughed as I inhaled a mouthful of soot and ash. I levered myself up into a sitting position and blinked at the carnage and destruction that surrounded me. What the hell?

  A body lay a few feet away and, feeling my heart lurch upward into my throat, I crawled over and inspected it. I gasped as I realized who it was. Kevin. I clawed my way around him, pressing my fingers into the side of his neck. No pulse greeted my questing fingertips.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Dammit, Radiance! No one was supposed to die! I leaned back and screamed my rage at the sky.

  I shakily pulled myself to my feet. Stars peered through a jagged hole in the roof above my head and I stumbled through the debris, trying to find someone else who’d survived the conflagration.

  ::I tried:: came the belated response from the ‘ship. ::I managed to wound Ranger, but that will not last long::

  I tried to bring myself to care and failed miserably. Toward the front I stumbled over another body and leaned down to pull scraps of wood off of it. I saw the face and the wide, staring eyes and wanted to weep. Dylan. Oh, god.

  ::No!:: Apparently that revelation had touched a nerve in the mageship. I heard its—her—anger echo through my head with all the force of a volley of cannon-fire. And suddenly something impinged itself on my consciences. A wheeling canopy of stars and a huge, disk-shaped object against the backdrop of an endless expanse of night. I felt something like acceleration and I was suddenly racing toward the vessel.

  My mind snapped into my body with a sudden, wrenching sensation and I fell to my knees, tears pouring from my eyes as great, wracking sobs tore their way out of my chest. We’d destroyed Sirius, but at what price?

  Then a blast of searing pain speared through my skull and I fell backward, clawing at my face and hair. Then, as suddenly as it had come, it vanished. I sat up, aching both physically and emotionally, and glanced around the room once again.

  And did a double-take. Standing in the doorway at the very top of the chamber I saw Dylan staring down at me, her face displaying a startling bleakness. I glanced back at the body in front of me and felt my heart lurch in my chest. They were both Dylan.

  Revelation swept over me and I gasped aloud. The living one—or the one still capable of movement, rather—descended the stairs toward me. I heard a groan from somewhere in the rubble and glanced over reflexively. Hades was standing and reaching down to help Rio to her feet. Stunned relief flooded me. At least some of us had survived.

  I was glad Anya wasn’t part of this attack, though I was certain she wanted to be. I rose to my own feet somewhat unsteadily. “Where’s Steph?” I asked aloud. Hades looked around.

  Dylan’s doppelganger came to my side and took my arm to steady me. I met her gaze and nodded, telling her silently that we would talk when the time came, but for now we had more important things to do. Like find survivors. She seemed to understand this unspoken communication, and nodded in reply.

  We dug through the wreckage, my heart growing heavier with the discovery of each new body. So many dead. It didn’t make me feel any better to realize that most of them were Sirius’s hapless recruits. Slowly, carefully, and without speaking, Hades, Dylan, Rio and I sifted through the debris.

  After about a half an hour, I straightened, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand. I’d been quietly sobbing throughout the whole ordeal, moving chunks of wood and stone and sorting the dead from the injured and dying. It was difficult for all of us, but the strain on Hades was tremendous. I could tell it was all he could do not to simply hurl all the wreckage aside with his magic, but if Steph was alive somewhere underneath all of it, such an act could potentially kill her.

  And he knew it.

  A shadowy shape descending from the vaulted ceiling caused us all to look up, but it was merely Stormchild. He bore Anya in his arms.

  “She doesn’t need to be here,” I told him angrily, but the girl shook her head.

  “I’ve seen worse, Jack.” He set her down and her soft gaze roamed the room. “Where’s Steph? And Kev…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed the row of dead bodies laid against the back wall. What was left of it, anyway. She walked slowly over to them and I could see her gaze tracing along until it reached Kevin’s body.

  A lump formed in my throat and I fought to swallow. It wasn’t easy. I almost felt as if it would be easier to die myself than deal with the aftermath of this battle.

  “We were lucky this wasn’t worse,” Dylan murmured in my ear. I shot her an icy look but said nothing. What was there to say, really? She was right. Didn’t mean I wanted to hear it. “How are we going to get home?”

  “I can get us there,” she told me.

  Anya had found Dylan’s body and was standing there looking from one to the other, face twisted in confusion and tears streaking her face. She was willing to ask the question I was afraid to ask myself. “How are you here but there too?” she asked Dylan, jabbing a finger at the broken body lying with the others.

  “Radiance sacrificed herself to destroy Ranger, but at the same time responded to Jack’s silent cry that told her I was dead. She caught my soul in a net of magic and wove it into a pattern of energy so complex that it could never hope to escape.

  “I am now what Sirius was.”

  “He was evil,” she spat.

  Dylan shook her head. “I don’t know if he was so much evil as simply misguided. Sirius was the product of the being that created him, as, to a certain extent, the mageship was a product of him.” She glanced around the room, then her gaze settled on the survivors, most of whom were injured. Perhaps the pilot was initially imbalanced and infected the ‘ship with it, who then passed it on to the djinn he created using his pilot’s essence.

  She passed her hands over me and abruptly the aches and pains simply vanished. “We were so very lucky. Had Sirius truly understood the scope of his power, you—we—would never have been able to defeat him.”

  “And you understand?” I asked her pointedly. I agreed with her for the mo
st part about the motivation behind their actions, at least to some extent. The danger he’d been outlining had been quite real. Sirius had been more forthcoming with these people than the immortals had been with the government on Prime…at first.

  There was something to be said for that. But I had as many questions as answers at this point, and knew those answers weren’t likely to be forthcoming. Dylan might be the only one who knew any of it, and it was anyone’s guess whether she’d tell me or not.

  Stormchild went to Rio and swept her into his arms. She accepted this with obvious reluctance, but, after a moment, levered herself free again. “We need to clean up the scene,” she said, “and return all the police cars.”

  “Consider it done,” said Dylan, and the scene seemed to blink before us. Literally a heartbeat later, the bodies were gone, the room was repaired, and the rest of the group that had been waiting outside were standing in our midst.

  “What the hell?” Hydra looked around, found Hope sitting against a wall, applying a bandage to a wound on her leg, and rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”

  She looked up at him and smiled grimly. “Better than some,” she answered in a small voice.

  “Bigby and Kaleel stayed behind to protect and serve,” Stormchild told her. “The big guy didn’t like the idea of leaving the town completely unprotected when we trapped the cops in their headquarters building.”

  Dylan nodded. “I’ll see if I can bring them here too.” She wavered a second, then groaned. “No. Their draconic nature makes it difficult to get a handle on them. We’ll have to contact them and get them to join us on their own.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” I told her. “Just need a PCD…we connected them to our mini-network.”

  “I’ll take care of it, boss,” Boneyard told me. He quickly activated his PCD and was soon murmuring into the vocal pickup. I heard what I assumed was Bigby’s voice, sounding much too thin and tinny over the connection, in what I could only assume was assent.