Infinities' Edge

by Andrew Dobell

  - London

  Hearing the front door get broken open upstairs, Matt checked his computer screen again and the instant messaging conversation he had been having with this “Father Time”. He guessed he was linked to his online friend Chronos who had gone missing, somehow, but he wasn’t sure how they were related or linked.

  He’d just messaged to ask Father Time for help on hearing the first crunch from upstairs and seeing the figures outside his door on the Security Camera Footage. As he watched, the two figures, a young girl and a grown woman who was the one kicking the door in, were joined by a third, who appeared from thin air apparently.

  But he recognised this third person, this was Angel, or Seraphim as he knew her.

  She raised her hands and with a moment of flickering light and static on the video, the signal from the camera died.

  Matt looked back at the message thread.

  ‘Come on, come on…’ he muttered to himself.

  The little icon next to his messaged had changed, indicating that it had been seen, and then, a second later, a reply.

  “Help is on its way,” it read.

  ‘Yes!’ he said and picked up the decorative Samurai sword he kept beside his computer desk and with one hand, tapped a reply into the keyboard.

  House invasion

  London

  Jan 17th

  Amanda appeared on the dark London street outside the address that Shaun had given her. It was the early hours, the street appeared quiet, and apart from the broken in front door of the house before her, nothing seemed out of place.

  A crunch came from within the residence before her, a small house in the middle of a row of terrace houses on this street. Looking at the building through her Magic sight, she could see a curious Aegis around the building. It wasn’t very powerful, but it felt strange to her, not quite the same as most Aegises that she had come across before. There was also a gap in it where the door had been broken in.

  Not wanting to waste any time, Amanda quickly made for the door and looked inside, finding herself in a hallway. Before her stairs went up to the first floor, while here on the ground floor, she could see a living room through a door to her right, and three doors further on down the corridor that continued on beside the stairs.

  The three doors further along sat on three sides of the hallway. One on the left, leading under the stairs, one to her right leading to whatever room was behind the living room and one facing her, which stood partially open and clearly led to the somewhat messy kitchen.

  Amanda stepped inside, looking about her, and suddenly sensed movement and Magic from above her in time to see a woman with wavy Auburn hair leap at her from the top of the stairs, her fist ready to punch her.

  Amanda stepped to one side and used her Magic to take hold of the downward momentum the woman had and increased it tenfold. The female Magus panicked and lost her balance as she slammed into the floor with a bang.

  Multitasking, Amanda set all of her minds to breaking down the woman’s Aegis with an overwhelming Essentia attack. The girl groaned from the fall as Amanda’s Magic broke down her skilfully made Aegis, and two seconds later the Aegis fractured and disintegrated.

  With a quick follow-up effect, Amanda Magically knocked the woman out, causing her to go limp as she fell unconscious.

  Amanda felt sure that this level and the floor above her empty, but with a quick glance into the living room she both confirmed the lack of people in there, but also saw an ornament on the coffee table that glowed with Magic. The Aegis on the house was generated by this Artefact which explained it’s strange feeling. Who was this Edge?

  Sensing life and movement below her, Amanda sent her senses down to scan the room and check for the best place to Port, and saw Angel and one of her Coven in here with Edge. In the second that Amanda watched, she saw Angel bat a Katana from Edge’s grip that he had been brandishing at her. Angels Magic knocked the blade across the room while she simultaneously lunged and grabbed him by the throat.

  ‘There’s a traitor in your Coven,’ Edge said as Amanda pulled on the threads of Magic once again and Ported into the room, catching the Katana blade from mid-air as it passed her.

  ‘What!’ shouted Angel to Edge, before quickly turning to Amanda, having no doubt sensed her appearance in the room. Angel’s Coven mate, a young girl who looked no older than about seven, stood in the room with her hair in pigtails, wearing a floral dress. She also turned to face Amanda with a look of pure hatred on her face.

  ‘Amanda, such a pleasure to see you again, come to save your friend perhaps?’ she said as she quickly extended her Aegis around Edge as she spoke.

  ‘Something like that yes, so give him up, and I promise to go easy on you,’ she said, standing, sword in hand in the basement of this house.

  ‘Really? You’re threatening me?’ Angel said. ‘Cherub…’

  Clearly already Multitasking, the girl let off a flurry of simultaneous Magical attacks at Amanda. Essentia strikes slammed home into Amanda’s Aegis, followed by Arc’s of lightning and searing blasts of fire that played over her Aegis which fluoresced as the attacks hit.

  Amanda had raised her arm to shield her eyes from the flares of light and energy as Cherub attacked. Gathering her Magic to her Amanda lashed out with a wave of Magical energy that brushed the bulk of Cherub’s attacks to one side as Amanda closed the gap between them and flooded the sword she held with Essentia, causing it to crackle with golden energy from her Magic as she swung it at Cherub. The enhanced blade cracked Cherub’s Aegis letting the blade breach her defences in a shower of sparks as her Aegis tried to right itself and seal the rift. With her arm raised in an instinctual act of defence, the Blade cut right through her forearm, severing her hand from her body in a clean cut that sprayed blood over her floral dress as she screamed and dropped to the floor.

  Before the rift in Cherub’s Aegis could seal, Amanda shoved her own Essentia into the crack and with a force of will that made Amanda shout with the effort, she pulled apart the Aegis with her Magical crowbar.

  Cherubs Shield faltered and cracked wide open, leaving her defenceless for the moment. Stepping in, Amanda kicked Cherub in the head as hard as she could, knocking her out cold on the floor.

  Amanda looked up to see Angel looking at her with a look of surprise on her face. She glanced down at Cherub and then back up at Amanda.

  ‘You’ve come a long way these past few years Amanda,’ Angel said, as she manoeuvred Edge to stand in front of her, her arm around his neck.

  The situation before her looked almost ridiculous with Angel looking like some glorified secretary in high heels and a mini skirt holding this thirty-year-old man in a head lock. But that was just how Angel wanted it. She wanted others to underestimate her, to see her appearance and to only think of her in one way and to forget that she could actually be very dangerous.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Amanda said as she stepped steadily closer to Angel.

  ‘Stay where you are, and don’t even think of trying anything, or this little man dies right now,’ she said.

  Angel had brought him into her Aegis, meaning that even if she were powerful enough to break through Angel’s shield, Angel would have precious seconds to do what she wanted to Edge before Amanda could reach him. Amanda stopped moving forward and actually took a step back in a show of trust.

  Inside Amanda’s head, Shaun opened a Mental Link to her, which she quickly accepted.

  ‘Let her take him,’ he sent through the telepathic link.

  ‘What?’ she sent back.

  ‘If you fight her it could get messy, and I know you want him alive. Also, we have leverage,’ Shaun said.

  ‘You’re sure? What leverage?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. Just let her go.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Amanda replied and shut off the Link.

  ‘Go then,’ Amanda said.

  Angel raised her eyebrows in mild surprise.

  ‘Go, I won’t stop y
ou,’ Amanda repeated.

  ‘Very well,’ Angel smiled, and with a quick working of Magic, Ported from the room, taking her two Coven mates in the house with her.

  Amanda immediately opened the Link back up to Shaun. ‘She’s gone,’ she sent.

  ‘Okay, great.’

  ‘This better be good Shaun,’ Amanda warned.

  ‘Oh, it is,’ Shaun sent back. ‘There’s something in that room that you need to find, though.’

  ‘Tell me more…’

  - Nowhere

  Kez stalked into one of the Portal Rooms, a dark and cave-like space and waited for a few seconds until, with a bright flare of light, a tall oval disk of light appeared before her. Through this Portal, the lithe form of Yasmin stepped through and into the room, the portal closing behind her.

  Kez bowed her head in greeting to her mistress and waited for Yasmin to speak first.

  ‘Kez,’ Yasmin said in brief acknowledgement of her presence.

  ‘Greetings my Baal, I trust that your trip was successful?’

  Yasmin lifted her hand to show a rolled up scroll of ancient looking papyrus.

  ‘The Lazarus Scroll?’ Kez asked.

  ‘Correct my dear, and it really wasn’t all that difficult to find on the Atoll in the end.’

  ‘That’s excellent news my Baal. Also, may I be so bold as to ask how things went with Amanda? Did your plan go as expected?’ she asked. She had a pang of jealousy as she said the words. She loved her mistress and the idea of Yasmin indulging herself with someone else always made her anxious. Even though it was part of a plan and did happen from time to time, Kez always disliked the idea.

  ‘Everything went as planned, including the Magi Legion spy,’ she said.

  Resistance

  Milan, Italy.

  Jan 17th

  The flash of light and the feeling of dislocation as Angel, with her arm still around his neck, teleported him from his house to, where ever this was, made his stomach do a back flip. He felt incredibly nauseous, so he clamped his mouth shut and attempted to keep the contents of his stomach where it was.

  They appeared in a modern but fairly bare looking grey room. There were a few chairs in here and a table, but that was about all.

  As they appeared, he barely had time to take anything in before Angel released his neck and threw him down with a shove on his back that told him she was a lot stronger than she looked.

  He clattered to the floor.

  For a few moments, he chose to just lay there, glad for the familiar feeling of a solid floor and the cool temperature of the metallic ground he rested his cheek on.

  These safe feelings didn’t last, though, as he suddenly had a curious sensation wash over him that he had felt a couple of times in his basement. The solid floor suddenly felt unreal and paper thin, even though he knew it wasn’t. Opening his eyes, he felt sure that some of the shadows in the corners of his vision were moving, but on closer inspection clearly hadn’t.

  He pushed himself up into a sitting position as the sensation of unreality came and went to see that Angel stood over her two friends who suddenly came too and sat up.

  Matt watched in fascination as the bruises and cuts on their faces and elsewhere faded and disappeared in a matter for a few seconds.

  Magic. That must be the unreal sensations he had experienced today and before. It was the only explanation for it. Seeing the effects of this usually invisible force at work reviving the young girl and the older red-head and bring them back to full health felt wondrous. He’d seen Magic at work a few times now on his mission to find out more about the Magi and what they did.

  But this was the closest he’d ever come to it.

  As Angel’s two Coven mates got up, Angel herself straightened her mini skirt and blouse while still facing away from him. If it weren’t for the fact that he felt sure she was about to hurt him, he’d be sat here admiring Angel quite happily. She was a real beauty of a woman with her long golden hair and slim physique.

  Enjoy it while you can Matty, he thought to himself, because her attention would soon be on him again.

  There seemed to be only one doorway into this room, which was on the other side of Angel to him, not that he had any illusions that he would be able to escape the clutches of a clearly capable Magus such as Angel.

  As her two friends made their way to the door, Angel closed it after them and then turned to face him where he sat on the floor.

  Suddenly he felt himself being hauled up from the floor by an invisible force and unceremoniously dumped into a chair that hadn’t been behind him a moment before.

  ‘So, Edge, or should I call you Matt Walker?’

  ‘Either is fine,’ he said a little defiantly.

  ‘Really? Okay, Matt, you’re alive only because you, very quick-wittedly, said you knew of a traitor in my Coven. But depending on the outcome of this, that is a very temporary situation.

  ‘You know, I really don’t understand all this. What’s changed? You contacted me originally and helped me find the Magi, why do you suddenly want to kill me, it doesn’t make any sense?’

  ‘That is unimportant. What is important is what’s in your head. So let’s see what we can find so we can all move on with our lives.’

  Matt knew where this was going, but, he felt quietly confident, providing everything had worked as it should. So he closed his eyes and waited for the Magic.

  It felt like the world tipped, fell over sideways and felt suddenly unreal, like an illusion, until a split second later when it felt like something was pushing into his mind or brain. He got the distinct impression of a presence, of someone else being in his head and found himself gripping the sides of his chair with a death grip while the mother of all headaches blossomed inside his skull.

  He’d read on the Dark Web in one of the Initiated forums on there that if the Magi wasn’t being careful with their mind reads, it felt very painful.

  He knew they could read your mind unnoticed if they wanted, but clearly, Angel didn’t care about finesse. There was information that she wanted and being careful wasn’t high on her agenda.

  Suddenly the intense pressure he’d felt in his head withdrew and disappeared, leaving behind a painful and powerful headache from the stress of it.

  ‘You little shit, what have you done?’ Angel asked.

  Through the pain and fog of the Migraine, Matt looked up at Angel, a smile starting to play over his face as he now realised that his plan had worked.

  ‘Think of it as a little insurance,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘You fucker. So where is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Where’s what, the Machine to get them back, or the memories that I have removed from my head?’ he said, knowing it had worked and worked well.

  ‘Both,’ Angel answered.

  Matt cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. Knowing he had the upper hand now, he felt no reason to voluntarily cooperate with her and wanted to make Angel’s life as difficult for her as he could.

  ‘Very well,’ she said and as another violent mind read took hold of his head. His whole body suddenly locked up, becoming ridged as he gripped the chair again.

  It didn’t last as long this time, and within moments Angel had withdrawn her Magic from him again.

  ‘Right you little shit, let’s see if your guardian angel took the device from your place,’ she said as she walked over to sit on a nearby chair. Matt watched her as she went. He got the curious feeling of unreality again, guessing that Magic had been used, but that was all. Angel sat calmly crossing her arms and legs, waiting. She closed her eyes after a few moments and remained still.

  Matt glanced around the room. He wasn’t tied down or restrained in any way and he had not heard the door being locked either. He wondered if he might be able to make a break for it.

  ‘If you do, I will break both of your legs,’ Angel said.

  Matt’s eyes snapped back to Angel, but she hadn’t moved, apart from to speak. Seeing what her Ma
gic was capable of, he had little doubt that she could do it with just a thought, so he relaxed back into his chair and crossed his own arms.

  He did his best to keep his mind clear and not to think too much about anything he didn’t need too, the less information that he passed onto Angel the better.

  Minutes passed, until with a whip crack of displaced air, Cherub suddenly appeared in the room having teleported back in.

  Angel opened her eyes and looked at the girl, who shook her head.

  ‘Very well, you may go,’ Angel said and looked back to Matt. ‘Well played, there aren’t many Mortals that can do what you have done, she said as she stood and walked towards him. ‘Of course, it doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you,’ she said and punched him hard across the face.

  - The Vatican, Rome.

  Assunta walked into the office of Mary and approached her desk, stopping a short distance from it and waited. After a moment, Mary looked up.

  ‘Greetings Assunta, thank you for coming at this late hour. I have made my final choice,’ she said as she picked up a sheet of paper and passed it to her.

  Assunta looked down the list of men and women and had no objections to the choice of team members at all.

  ‘Very good, Inquisitor,’ Assunta said.

  ‘Prep them, we leave tomorrow,’ Mary said. ‘Thank you, Assunta.’

  Italian Hunt

  New York

  Jan 17th

  Amanda placed the crazy looking headset on the table in Shaun’s Ops room. It looked like something out of Bladerunner with the wires attached to a skull cap that strapped to your head. The wires ran to a black box with buttons and readouts on it which was powered down for the moment.

  ‘That’s it?’ Shaun asked.

  ‘That’s what you directed me to so you did. Any idea what it is?’

  ‘According to Edge, it’s a Magical device that removes and stores memories, until you want them back. In this case, the memory of who the traitor in Angels Coven is.’

  ‘Leverage,’ Amanda said to herself. ‘I have to give it to him, he’s been very clever about this.’