by Logan Byrne
I burned the image of the girl in my head, scanning every person who walked by. Charlie shifted only his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse, but it was no use. If we had a scent to go by, he could find her in an instant, but all we had was a small picture and light description. It wasn’t going to be easy.
“Wait,” I said, nudging Charlie. “That kind of looks like her, in the eyes.”
“Yeah, it kind of does,” he muttered. The girl was a hundred or two feet away, her head and face masked by a scarf, only her eyes peeking out. She looked paranoid, constantly watching her surroundings, as she walked cautiously down the road.
“I think she’s being followed,” I said.
“You don’t think she realizes we’re watching her, do you?” he asked.
“No, look,” I said, pointing to two men behind her who looked awfully suspicious. They gained a little distance on her, sticking to the sides of the buildings. “I think we need to intervene.”
“Of course we do,” Charlie said, shifting. “I’ll take the rooftops, you work down here.” He scaled the sandstone wall, using his thick, sharp claws to dig into the crumbling stone. I took out my wand and joined the hunt.
One of the men’s hands shifted, an obvious werewolf, as the other pulled out a wand. His was black, a smooth design with a notch at the bottom. I jumped in front of the girl. “Arma Maximus!” I yelled, barricading us both in behind my shield.
“W-what? Who are you?” she asked, panicked.
“I’m here to help you,” I said, as she stumbled backwards.
“Eruptico!” the wizard yelled, his spell battering my shield. He incanted it again, and a third time, before my shield started to crack and break. With a new breath, he said it once more, smiling, and the spell shattered my shield, the bright flash making me shield my eyes as it blinded me for a quick second.
“Not my partner!” Charlie roared, before jumping off the rooftop and tackling the werewolf. He shifted, though his werewolf form was different from Blake’s, with mangy black fur and slightly yellowed teeth. He was snarling, spit sticking to his fangs, as he tried to bite Charlie, who was overpowering him for now, at least.
“Get the girl!” the werewolf shouted at the wizard.
“It will be okay,” I said, turning around, but the girl was gone. I saw her running away, looking back in panic, stumbling as she tried to get as far away from the situation as possible.
“Dormio!” the wizard yelled, but my wand quickly moved and defended me on its own, slapping the spell away. “Rigormorio!” he yelled, but the wand protected me once again before I could react.
“Nice work,” I muttered, smiling, before looking at the ground in front of him. “Eruptico!” I yelled, blasting the ground, and a whirlwind of sand exploded in front of him. I ran after the girl, yelling for her to stop, before looking back and seeing the wizard run through the dust cloud after me.
He shot off bolts, each one whizzing past my head, as my side started to hurt from the sudden exercise after my meal earlier. “I need to hit the gym more,” I mumbled to myself, before gaining distance on the girl.
She turned a corner, into an alleyway, and I ran in after. “Obscurio,” I said, masking myself, as she hit a dead end and turned around. I could see the panic in her eyes as she clawed the wall, trying to climb it, but to no avail.
“Well, it looks like you hit the end of the road,” the wizard said, huffing and puffing as he came around the corner and blocked her exit from the alley.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, starting to cry.
“Your abilities are required by our master, and what he wishes is my command,” he said, inching closer with a dastardly grin on his smug face.
“Please, no,” she begged, as he came closer.
“Rigormorio!” I yelled, my Obscurio fading away as my bolt hit him straight in the chest. He seized up, his eyes wide, as he gasped for air before falling to the ground. I turned around, seeing the girl crying, huddled up in a ball against the sandstone wall. “Come with me.”
“Who are you?” she asked, as I walked her out of the alleyway. She sniffled, her hands trembling, before Charlie ran up and shifted back into his human form.
“We’re with the resistance,” I whispered to her. “They’re coming to take you to safety,” I said, patting her back.
“Thank you,” she said, grabbing me and hugging me. She sobbed, squeezing harder, and we walked away. The Rigormorio on that wizard wasn’t going to last forever.
“We’ll take it from here,” two mages said an hour later, as we stood outside the hut that led to the oasis.
“Will I see you again?” she asked, turning back to me.
“If you stay with the resistance, then yes, you will. We can talk more then,” I said, smiling.
“Thank you, thank you both for helping me. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you,” she said, a tear running down her cheek, before all three of them teleported back to the camp.
“Well, that was nice,” Charlie said.
“We need to make sure the duskhowlers are taken care of,” I said, tapping my wand to go back through the wooden door to the oasis.
“You’d think they’d know to just pack it in and give up. After all, we’re the very best team out there. Who do they think they are, challenging us?” Charlie asked, laughing, as we walked into the portal.
“We’re definitely a storm they need to take shelter from, that’s for sure,” I said, smiling.
4
The plane wobbled as the gnome drove it out from the shelter it hid under. The sun shimmered on the sparse chrome pieces, the engine making a slight knocking sound, before it came to a creaking stop on the dirt runway.
“And you’re sure you want to do this? I bet we can find some other way to get down there,” Charlie said, twiddling his thumbs. He was nervous, sure, and so was I, a little, but I didn’t see any other way. We needed to get to Nairobi, and we couldn’t take mortal planes or transportation without their money. Our only option was this rinky-dink little plane, and well, we had to take what we could get in the middle of a vast desert.
“We’ll be fine, I promise. If anything happens, I’ll Levio us down to safety,” I said, smiling, before patting him on the shoulder.
“Wait, if anything goes wrong? Oh, god,” he moaned, trembling. Charlie brought the term scaredy-cat a whole new meaning.
“We’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes. Don’t mind the knocking noise, it always does that,” the gnome said, after hopping out of the cockpit and walking to her little hut.
“Do you hear that, Lexa? It always does that,” Charlie said, as we walked towards the plane.
“Stop being a sissy and get yourself ready. We have a long trip ahead of us,” I said.
“A long trip is seven hours. This is fourteen. This is a voyage, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, with his arms crossed. “I don’t get why you can’t teleport us there.”
“Because I don’t know where I’m going, and that isn’t safe. Without a portal, which I can’t conjure by myself, we’re stuck taking a plane. You’re a big boy, you can deal with it,” I said.
Ten minutes passed before the gnome walked back over, opening her cockpit door and climbing inside. “You guys can get in, there’s nobody else coming.”
The door squeaked as I opened it. The interior was cracked and tattered and the seats were narrow and hard. I got inside, taking a seat up front, before tossing my pack beside me. Charlie came after, closing the door behind him, struggling to close it as the latch didn’t catch and he nervously tried to slam it shut a couple of times.
“Yeah, it does that. Just use this,” the gnome said, reaching back and sliding a thin metal lock in place to hold it together.
Charlie stared at me, completely un-amused, before I giggled a little as beads of sweat ran down my forehead. I fanned myself with my hand, trying to cool down. The plane was a beacon for the desert sun’s punishing rays. “Are we ready back there? Time for ta
keoff,” the gnome said.
“Ready,” I said, as Charlie fumbled to sit down. He panicked, grabbing the seat belt and struggling to clasp it in, so I reached over and did it for him.
“Thank you,” he said, before putting the back of his head against the headrest and breathing heavily.
“Wait!” a man yelled, running onto the runway. “Here, am I too late?” He handed the gnome two silver coins and she looked back at us before nodding for him to get in. She reached back, unlocking the door, and the plane squeaked as the massive man, maybe four hundred pounds, pushed his way inside.
“Whoa, what?” Charlie asked, perking up in his seat as the ogre stuffed himself into the plane like a sardine in a can. “Uh, what’s going on?”
“Sorry, guys, I need to get down to Nairobi to see my girlfriend. It’s our anniversary,” he said, smiling gleefully. I breathed in, gagging a little. The smell of decades-old onions and cheese wafting off him was pungent enough to kill a healthy horse. He grunted, and I did a double-take because I was sure I saw yellow fumes coming off him, but that might have just been the smell hitting me.
“I hate you,” Charlie mouthed, staring me down.
“Okay, ready for takeoff,” the gnome said, before starting the propeller engine. It stalled a couple times before coughing and starting to spin. You’d need a degree just to operate the array of buttons and dials in front of the pilot. I peered forward, noticing some of the meters were missing glass, and one was even missing a needle, before I focused outside the window and tried to stay calm. If I were this nervous, Charlie must have been about to burst.
The plane began to move and we bounced up and down like a seesaw out of control on the shot shocks as the plane picked up speed. The gnome pulled back on the handles, the plane lifting clumsily off the dirt runway as we ascended into the sky. A light breeze rolled in through the poor windows, which would normally scare me, but this time they provided a much-needed breeze.
“See, this is fine,” I said to Charlie, who was sitting with his eyes closed, his brain not letting him look out the window.
•••
“Well, this is a problem,” the gnome said.
I woke abruptly, gasping for air as I was pulled out of a rather nice dream about Blake taking me out on a romantic date, as the plane began to shake, a small plume of smoke rising from the front engine.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as Charlie began to shake.
“It looks like we’re having some light engine trouble,” she said.
“Light? There’s smoke coming out, lady!” the ogre grunted.
“We’re going to have to take a detour and stop outside Juba,” she said, after looking at her map and compasses.
“Where’s that?” Charlie asked, looking out the window.
“South Sudan. It’s an hour-and-a-half-long flight from Nairobi,” the gnome said.
“We make it this far and then this happens. Only to me,” Charlie sighed, pressing his head against the glass window.
“Hey, it’s okay, kid. We’ll get there,” the ogre said, patting Charlie on the shoulder.
“Thanks,” Charlie replied, with a somber tone.
“This is the Huntress requesting permission to begin an emergency landing,” the gnome said over her radio. “Got it, thank you for your help. Okay, guys, we’re going to be fine. They said we could land here.”
“I think we have different definitions of fine,” Charlie said.
The plane coasted downwards, circling around the airport, as thick columns of black smoke started to billow out of the engine. I gripped the ends of my armrests, my knuckles turning white, until the plane made contact with the paved runway and we skidded along until eventually stopping. “See, not so bad,” she said, from up front.
Not amused by her antics, Charlie was the first one off, hopping out of the cabin with his bag before stretching himself in every direction. “At least I get to stretch my legs,” he said.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked the ogre, as I went to get out.
“This ain’t a magical outpost, so I have to stay put. The mortals can’t see me like this,” he said, pointing to his green skin and massive size.
“Maybe this will help,” I said, pulling out a tin of the disguise pills that Faus had made for me.
“What’s this?” he asked, holding a pill, which looked about the size of a speck of dust between his giant fingers.
“It will make you look different for a while. Have fun,” I said, before hopping out of the plane. As Charlie and I walked away, I heard him laugh and yell happily, before I turned around and saw a man about six feet tall walk out of the plane. He looked mortal, and I thought he was happy that he did.
“That was a nice thing you did,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, it was,” I replied.
Our pilot told us to stay tight for a while, refusing to let us explore the town even though we were stranded. I wanted to find a café or park, but she was explicit that we didn’t want to go outside, for whatever reason.
“How much longer?” I asked, after thirty minutes had passed and we were getting just as stir-crazy as we had in the cabin.
“Well, we might need to stay the night here. The plane needs repair, and they can’t get the parts until the morning. Sorry, folks,” she said, before walking off.
“Lexa,” Charlie said, exasperated. “We cannot sit here for another night. I have to get back to work soon.”
“I know, Charlie. Maybe there’s some way for us to get there through other means of transportation,” I said, before getting up and grabbing a travel brochure on a rack in the corner.
“What are you doing with that?” Charlie asked.
“They have one here for Nairobi,” I said, grinning.
“Yeah, and?” he asked, not getting what I was hinting at.
“If I know where I’m going, I can try to get us there,” I said, flipping through the brochure.
“I thought you had to have been there before,” he said.
“I do, but maybe being this close with these pictures will help me get us there anyway,” I said.
“And what are the consequences if you can’t?” he asked.
“Well, you know, limbs torn off or maybe your torso the other way around when we get there,” I said, shrugging and smiling awkwardly.
“Why not? This trip is already out of control, so why not walk the opposite way of where I’m looking all the time. Why not?” he asked, getting up to pace around, mumbling to himself like a maniac.
“Surely this is good enough,” I said, seeing a picture of a sprawling park in town. “Nairobi National Park,” I pointed it out to Charlie, who seemed unimpressed to say the least.
“If you want to take the risk, I will. I won’t love it, but I’ll do it,” he said, picking up his pack.
“What about the ogre?” I asked.
“What about him? He’s fine, he’ll get to leave tomorrow morning and get out of here,” Charlie said.
“Well, ready to go?” I asked, and he grabbed onto me. I looked one last time at the picture of the park before putting my wand above our heads and teleporting us out of Sudan.
The journey happened in the blink of an eye, but it felt like several uneasy seconds passed. Not knowing where I was going, our bodies were twisted all around, like wet towels being ringed out, before we slammed back down to earth. I stood up, looking forward, seeing the city in the background looking exactly like what I’d seen in the brochure. “See, no problems,” I said, smiling.
“Lexa,” Charlie said.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Look behind you,” he said, and I slowly turned around.
Four. There were four female lions, growling, as they began to stalk us, slowly circling around us and trapping us in.
“I don’t want to shift, I think it will make them panic and attack,” Charlie said softly.
“I’ll protect us, don’t worry,” I said, my wand still in my hand. I slowly moved it upward
s, gulping, before trying to keep my breathing calm. “Arma Maximus,” I said, before swirling the wand around Charlie and me in a quick, fluid motion.
The lions pounced, the bubble just barely connecting, as they bounced off the translucent barrier and hopped back. They clawed at it, trying to clench us in their massive jaws, as the barrier took punishment after punishment while the two of us, huddled together, stayed safe.
“Okay, now what?” he asked, his arms wrapped around me.
“We need to teleport out of here,” I said, looking around. “Maybe into the city there.”
“Are you sure you can do it? It’s far away, and you haven’t exactly seen it before,” he said.
“Would you rather be eaten by a pride of hungry lionesses?” I asked.
“Good point,” he said, and I raised my wand above us.
We popped out into the city, stumbling a bit, before I fell to my knees. I slipped my wand back inside my jacket, standing up and watching the pedestrians around us look at us strangely as they walked past. I smiled, nodding hello, even though I knew they didn’t understand anything that had just happened.
“Why aren’t they freaking out more?” Charlie asked. “We just appeared out of thin air.”
“It’s a trick Mirian taught me. I used a special spell to basically make us invisible as we came in. They never noticed us pop in out of thin air, they thought we were there the entire time. I think they’re just looking at us weirdly because we were on the ground,” I said, dusting myself off.
“It’s starting to get late,” Charlie said, looking at the setting sun. “We need to find somewhere to stay before going to the lake.”
Luckily Nairobi had a magical scene, though it wasn’t exactly the type we were used to. Even smaller than the oasis, it was mainly comprised of beings who traditional shamanistic magic and not the kind I’d practiced and learned about in M.A.G.I.C. and in the camp. Still, they were magical, and we didn’t scoff at creatures who offered to take us in—for a price, of course.
We rented a small room in the back of a building, and walked in to see two mattresses, no sheets on either of them, with some pieces of straw falling out of one. “Maybe we should’ve just stayed in the airport for the night,” Charlie said, swallowing his pride.
