by Devon Monk
“And so you threw up a wall of magic strong enough to stop a full impact.”
I nodded. My mouth was too dry to say anything and the pizza in my stomach suddenly seemed like a bad idea. Was this going to happen at every tryout? Was it so weird for a wizard to have accidentally-on-purpose used magic to save a guy?
“You do understand that using magic in that way, a physical manifestation, is extremely unusual.”
No, I did not know that. But then I didn’t keep up with Magical Instachat or however people shared facts and tidbits like that.
Coach tried a different tactic. “I understand you didn’t lose consciousness?”
“They gave me a sport drink. And a bar.”
He waited. I thought he might be holding his breath. I was right. He let it out in a soft puff then leaned back in his chair. His gaze slid back to Sean.
“Water and a bar, and he’s good to go,” Coach said, picking up one of the little red-cap guys and turning the round body in his palm like a worry stone.
I didn’t know why he was repeating what I’d just said.
“He’s a hell of a player,” Sean said. “He has grit and soft hands, and a keen ice sense, and speed. He’s good-hearted all the way through. If you don’t pick him up for your team, Mr. Clay, I assure you it will be a mistake. You aren’t the only team in the WHHL who could benefit from a wizard on their ice.”
Wow. And what? My brain couldn’t quite catch up to him going to bat for me like that. Not that I should have been surprised. He had always been my biggest supporter. He was just usually a lot more quiet-librarian about it.
“That’s good to hear,” Coach Clay said. “I’d like to offer you a place on the Thunderheads, Mr. Hazard.”
My heartbeat shot off the chart. “But?”
Coach Clay frowned. “But…I’d like to know if you’ll accept the offer?”
Oh. Oh! There was no but. Not really. If I wanted it, I could have it. It wasn’t the NHL, but it was hockey. Professional, competitive.
I could play.
All my muscles unlocked at the same time and I went a little light-headed.
I opened my mouth to accept. Instead, this fell out: “Are you sure?”
Sean sighed. “Random.”
“It’s going to mean extra work for you,” I pushed on. “There aren’t rules for wizards who want to play hockey. The league will have to approve how and if wizards can use magic on the ice. I don’t know how long that will take. You might have to bench me for the whole season.”
“There are already rules in place for wizards.” He placed the little rock down and leaned his forearms on his desk. “We drew them up when we revised our approach to the league five years ago. The commission signed off on it. But since there haven’t been any wizards playing, those rules have never been put into practice.”
His mouth quirked at the corner. “You are a test case, Mr. Hazard, one I am very interested in. The league, the world, will be watching you. What you do will influence how wizards play hockey in the future. You should understand that before you decide to join the team.
“I am curious as to what it will mean to have a man with your powers on our team. But what the Thunderheads need more than anything you, as a wizard, can offer us is your hockey skills. We need our fourth line shored up. If you can give me your best as a hockey player, you can be a part of that. Can you do that, Mr. Hazard? Give me your best as a hockey player?”
“Yes, Coach. I can.”
He smiled and pointed a finger at me. “Just keep saying that, and we’ll get along fine.”
“Yes, Coach.” And this time, I couldn’t hide my grin.
Eight
“Hey.” Duncan slapped my arm and sat next to me on the front step of the house. It was sunny out. Hot, with just enough wind to keep the sweat off my face.
Down at the end of the block a kid stood next to a cooler. He had a handwritten sign that advertised Huckle-aid 50 cents. I was trying to decide if he was selling huckleberry lemonade or if huckle-aid was some kind of charity the cool kids were collecting for now.
“You still worried?”
I was. I didn’t tell him that. “You’ll get in,” I said. I’d been saying it for a week now. I refused to believe that I’d be the one who made the Thunderheads and my best friend got left behind.
“I don’t suppose seeing the future is in your wizardly bag of tricks?”
“No.”
“It’s been a week.”
“I know. They haven’t announced their final picks yet, Dunc. You’re too good to pass up. They want you.”
“But what if they pass me up? It’s too late to try out for another team.”
“You don’t know that.” I glanced over at him. “Why are you smiling?”
“Comfort me, Random.” He batted his eyelashes. “Tell me I’m the best player ever to play. Tell me if I don’t make the team you’ll sob for days and beg the coach to let me in. Tell me you’ll give up your place for me and start a protest movement with a sassy slogan and a viral video of sexy dancers. Tell me life is worth living. That I’ll somehow go on.”
He tossed his phone at me. I looked at the screen. Read the text there.
“You got in, didn’t you? Did you get in? Is this real? Really from Coach Clay?”
“Text and a phone call. You are looking at the Thunderheads’ newest, and best, left winger.”
“Yes!” I grabbed him and patted his back, while he slapped at mine.
When we pulled apart, Duncan grinned like he was getting Christmas, his birthday, and the Stanley Cup all in one big cardboard box. “We are going to set the hockey world on fire, my brother.”
“Damn right we are!”
“We must consume pizza! Victory pizza!” He stabbed a finger at me. “And you’re buying.”
I laughed and didn’t even argue. Because getting the chance to be on the same team as my best friend felt like getting Christmas, my birthday, and the Stanley Cup all in one big cardboard box.
Nine
Coach told me that getting my magic tested was one of the requirements for a wizard who wanted to play hockey.
He’d given me a copy of the rules. There was no using magic during the game to alter or enhance any player, the ice, the equipment, the refs. Of course there was a lot more to it, but basically that’s what the magic rules boiled down to.
Wizards couldn’t use magic on the ice. The rules did say minor magic could be used to enhance the wizards themselves. It was a little fuzzy on what constituted minor magic, but since the marked all carried extra strength or speed or faster reflexes because of how magic infected them, the league thought it was only fair for wizards to have that advantage too.
The magic test was just to set my abilities in a category. Of which there were apparently many. They wanted to find out how I used magic so there would be no surprises.
Some wizards could mess with a person’s thoughts or mind. They were pretty rare, but were seen as a possible complication to playing the game.
I wasn’t one of those.
I didn’t think.
So, yeah, I was hoping the testing would answer some of my own questions that had been buried for too long.
My knee shook as I bounced my foot. The walls of the small reception area were decorated with aggressively calm mountains, in-your-face ocean waves, belligerent nesting birds, and a grumpy little log cabin beneath autumn colored trees. I liked nature as much as the next guy, but those paintings were all “calm your shit down.”
“Random Haz…” A dark-haired woman about my age with the prettiest green eyes I’d ever seen frowned at the screen in her hand.
“Hazard,” I said. “Random Hazard.” Great. I sounded like a James Bond villain.
Her gaze lifted to meet mine, and her mouth, no lipstick but oh so soft-looking, quirked at one corner. “Really?”
All the air knocked out of my lungs. She was beautiful. Heat washed down my chest to pool in my belly. My skin felt kind of tin
gly, like I wasn’t getting enough air.
Those eyes. That smile. How was a guy supposed to act normal in front of all that?
“My parents thought they were hilarious.”
That got more of a smile out of her, revealing straight white teeth and a dimple in her cheek. The wrinkle in her nose was adorable and made me want to rub my thumb over it to smooth it out.
I’d just met her, but I was already wondering when I could see her again. If she would want to see me again.
The loud thumping in my chest was a signal. Not a warning. It was recognition. Attraction.
“Well, if you’d just follow me, Random.”
“Ran. Uh, you can call me that. My name. Short name. Ran.”
Who had taken over my mouth and why were they so stupid?
“All right. Ran, I’m Genevieve, Doctor Phelps’s assistant.” She started down the narrow hall and I followed. “You can call me Gen.”
Her perfume smelled like wildflowers and cinnamon, her hair was glossy and swung below her shoulders.
She was about my height, and I snuck a look at her feet to see if she was wearing heels. Black boots with buckles, and yep, at least an inch of heels. That meant she’d be a little shorter than me barefoot.
Good hugging height. Great hugging height. Not that we were at the hugging stage. We weren’t even at the “hey, you want a cup of coffee?” stage.
“Just step right in here.”
The room didn’t have an exam table. Two office chairs and a desk took up one side, leaving the rest open except for some shelves and a projector screen against the far wall.
Small black cameras hung in the ceiling corners.
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, how are you feeling today?” Genevieve asked.
“Maybe nine? Well, physically, ten.”
Her eyebrow quirked up, stylus poised over the screen in her hand. “Why nine?”
“I’m a little nervous. I guess. So…that.” I sat and wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.
“You have nothing to worry about. It’s just the standard tests. Any kindergartner can pass them. When was the last time you were tested?”
“Never.”
She grinned. “Right. So when was the last time?”
“I’ve never been tested.”
“Sure you have.”
“Nope.”
“Everyone gets tested.”
“Not me.”
Her gaze stilled on my face and I fell into the rich soft green of her eyes like I was finally coming home. Like I could breathe.
“Are you serious?”
I nodded.
“Not even as a kid? Or in middle school?”
Magic pushed extra hard during puberty. Middle school was that oh-so-awkward time of crazy hormones and weird hair in weird places. If you were a Canidae shifter you got to add fangs and claws and fur, plus crap coordination to that list.
Felidae shifters got the claws, fangs and fur, and migraines.
If you were a sensitive, it was all about being so distracted or jumpy people thought you were high or stoned or blind.
Being a wizard in middle school? For me it was the same as always: body aches, nightmares, and exhaustion that never went away.
“Never tested as a kid. Never tested in middle school.”
“That’s…unusual. But okay. All right.” She jotted notes then put the tablet down on the table and pulled out a blood pressure cuff and finger clip.
I wanted to talk to her, to get to know her better. But her touch was professional and all business. It would be weird to flirt and would make the appointment awkward.
She released the pressure on the cuff and turned to me with a smile. And oh my God, that dimple and wrinkled nose.
I also might have been staring. A lot. Too much.
“So…you good here? Still nine/ten?”
“Still good.”
“All right hang tight and Dr. Phelps will be right in.”
“You don’t want me to take my clothes off? For the doctor. Do I need to…” I waved at my shirt and jeans.
“No. Unless you can only use magic in the nude?”
She looked me up and down, checking me out.
“Yeah. No. That’s not… I don’t have to be naked.”
“Too bad.” She winked. Then she walked out of the room.
Holy shit. She was flirting. Maybe she was kind of into me? Or maybe she was just joking around.
I rubbed my face, so glad Duncan hadn’t come along. He would have tortured me with that conversation for a year.
A polite knock tapped on the door and the doctor walked in.
He was tall, maybe six-three, skinny as a stick, and somewhere in his fifties or sixties. His gray hair was swept back and cut just beneath his ears and his wide, thin mouth turned down in the corners so it looked like his face had frozen in the middle of a hummed letter “M.”
Really, with those chipped blue eyes, he reminded me of the Love Actually actor who played Davy Jones in that pirate movie.
He was also a wizard.
Yes, I could tell. The magic sort of rolled off him.
“Mr. Hazard? I am Doctor Phelps. I’ll be handling your tests today. I understand you are a wizard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And a…” he checked the screen in his hand “…hockey player?”
“Yes, sir.”
Something shiny kindled in his eyes.“Oh. And you’ve never been tested. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat in the other chair and set the screen down. “I understand why your team wants you tested. But may I ask why you’ve never been curious as to the limits to your abilities?”
“I just… I’ve never used it. So it never really mattered to me.”
“Did you suffer a magic-related trauma when you were a child? Perhaps saw a family member injured or killed due to magic?”
“No.”
“Did you see a family member or friend use magic in a way that injured themselves or another person or otherwise frightened you?”
“No. Nobody in my family is a wizard. None of my friends are wizards. I just don’t use magic.”
Those sharp eyes seemed to puncture right into my brain.
“Was it a professional goal, then? Perhaps you wanted to play in the National Hockey League and knew a wizard wouldn’t be allowed to play pro hockey?”
He leaned toward me conspiratorially. “I saw the clip on the sports channel. That was an impressive full-physical barrier you cast to save that young man’s life.”
“Thank you.”
“What other types of spells have you cast?”
I filled him in on my impressive three magical jobs, one of which he already knew.
He blinked a couple times. “That’s it?”
“I don’t use magic.” Having to repeat myself was getting old. Maybe I should just get it printed across my forehead.
“Today you will, Mr. Hazard.” He glanced at his watch, then tapped the screen again. “We have exactly one hour, so we’d better move through this quickly. We’ll assume you have the basics, since you handled the four F’s and were able to find magic, filter it, focus it, and form it to your will.
“We will test how you use your mind and body to cast, and shape magic. We’ll look at your endurance and control, your discipline and range.”
“Range as in distance?”
“No, that’s tested under strength. A wizard’s range is his skill set, his natural tool box, if you will.
“Place an ice cube in a wizard’s palm, and he can filter magic through many aspects of it. Ice is cold, he could make it snow. Ice is hard, he could create a physical force, ice is melting, he could create a fluid motion. Stack those aspects and magic could become many things. It is up to the wizard and his focus to decide what magic will create.”
“What about music?” I asked.
“Can it be used to create a spell? Yes, of course. Have you?”
“No. I don’t think so. You said a wizard can use an ice cube to make snow. Like a blizzard?”
His thin, wide mouth moved toward a smile. “No. A single ice cube wouldn’t offer enough “frozen” aspect for a wizard to fuel a storm. A spell that large would take a great toll on the wizard’s body and mind. Could even be deadly. Larger magics are built with many wizards casting small parts of a larger spell. There is always ample recovery time needed between magic use.”
“How much recovery time is normal?”
“Hours. Days. Sometimes weeks, depending on the wizard and the magic.”
Coach’s comment about my quick recovery time made a little more sense.
“How long did it take you to recover from throwing the full-physical barrier?”
“A couple hours.”
“Hours?”
“Well, I was sort of getting kicked out of the majors. That was, um…stressful? Yeah. Stressful. So I felt pretty sick for most of the night after that. But the weakness and stuff that hit me after the spell faded pretty quick after I ate and drank.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Is this part of the test?” The sooner I could hold an ice cube and check off the magic boxes, the sooner I could leave.
“Not part of the test, but it is history, which your records are seriously lacking. Since our time is short, let’s fill in your history at another appointment. I want you to do a small magic for me.”
He opened the desk drawer and pulled out a box. He picked a rubber ball out of the box and placed it in my palm. “Spell from that. Nothing large. I just want to see how you cast.”
A rubber ball. I rolled it in my hand. This was the first time I’d try to cast magic on purpose that wasn’t to stop a life-or-death situation.
That alone made it weird. Like now that I had every possibility in front of me, I wasn’t sure what to pick. What to do.
Something small like the ball. Something simple. I could focus on the bouncy aspect of the ball, or the smoothness, or the compactness of the rubber.
He wanted simple, so I went with the bounce.
