by Ben Reeder
TRUE COLORS
Ben Reeder
True Colors
Copyright © 2018 Ben Reeder
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons or entities is strictly coincidental.
Cover art by Diogo Lando
Published through Wolfe & Stewart Press
Visit my website: www.bensreeder.com
Other books by Ben Reeder:
The Demon’s Apprentice series:
The Demon’s Apprentice
(Also in Audiobook)
Page of Swords
Vision Quest
Charm School
In Absentia: An Anthology
Prom Knight
The Zompoc Survivor series:
Zompoc Survivor: Exodus
Zompoc Survivor: Inferno
Zompoc Survivor: Odyssey
Verge Walker series:
The Long Walk
For Roanen and Angie.
The truest friends anyone could ask for.
Acknowledgements:
As always, thank you Randi, for listening to me talk about this story for the past few months. You keep me sane and grounded.
My beta reading team, Gwyneth, Paul, and Aquil. You did masterful work in record time.
My cover artist, Diogo Lando. You kept the theme of the series alive with this one and came through like a champ.
My weekend gaming group, Greg, Mike, Lacee, Wookiee, Tiffany, Billy, Lily and Roanen. You guys are my tribe.
My Mom, thank you for being proud of me, no matter what.
And for Angie and Roanen. My truest and oldest friends, even when I’m not the best friend I can be back. You keep me honest, and you’ve helped me keep my integrity as a creative through the times when I wanted to give up.
Chapter 1
~ Life is a fatal condition. There is no cure. But everyone still acts surprised at the end… ~
Paracelcus, physician and wizard.
Love hadn’t chilled Dr. Corwin out nearly as much as I’d hoped. In fact, things had only gotten worse since his girlfriend Kim had come back into his life. Now I not only had to train as a mage, I had to get myself to the point that I could use the fighting skills that Kim had stuck in my head without hurting myself. Not that I wasn’t grateful for knowing how to kill or disable most things with my bare hands, but days like today, I could have done with a little less to be thankful for. A lot of the things my brain knew how to do, my body wasn’t up to, and some would injure me if I even tried. My head was pounding after three hours of non-stop casting with Dr. C, and then he’d sent me to train in the dojo two hours ago. After busting my ass for a couple of hours, we were finishing with stretching, and it hurt almost as much as the workout did.
“You are fighting it,” Kim told me in that infinitely serene way she had. With my legs stretched as far to either side as they could go, I felt my eyes start to roll, then quickly suppressed the urge. One did not roll the eye at a Yakuza trained assassin. She stood behind me, her hands a steady downward pressure on my shoulders, pushing me deeper and deeper into a sideways split on the wood floor of the dojo we’d built in Dr. Corwin’s backyard.
“I’m trying not to,” I said. “But it feels like I’m about to strain something here.” My feet slid a fraction of an inch further apart, but it felt like they’d moved half a mile.
“You won’t,” Kim said. “Trust me, you can get another few inches before there is any danger of injury.” As much as I trusted her, my legs weren’t getting the message. The burn along the inside of my thighs wasn’t letting up no matter what my brain tried to tell my legs.
“It is simple mind over body,” Kim said. “You must learn to control your muscles, not let them control you.”
“His groin controls too much of his thinking,” Amanda said from beside me. She walked around in front of me, her white gi fitting much better than my black one did. Her belt was black, with a single red line near the end. Mine, on the other hand, was still white. She had her brown hair pulled back into a long ponytail that managed to highlight the white streak that ran through it. She stood in front of me, brought her hands together, slid down to the floor in a sideways split, then turned her pale gray eyes on me and smiled. Several biting remarks came to mind, but aside from the fact that I wasn’t that kind of asshole, I knew better than to piss off Kim’s daughter. The belt she wore meant she was a martial arts instructor in training, at least in Kim’s style, which made her more lethal than cyanide. Besides, she was right, and I was at least self-aware enough to know that.
“Amanda,” Kim said, her tone sharp enough to cut steel.
“He knows I’m right,” Amanda said. Her hands moved so that her right fist rested on her left palm, then she rose into a crouching stance in one smooth motion.
“Being right is not an excuse for being cruel,” she said. “What is the first morality of deed?”
“Qian,” Amanda recited. “Humility.”
“Exactly. Mocking Chance will not help him, will it?” Kim took her hands off my shoulders and walked between us.
“No, sensei,” Amanda said. Her tone was flat, and even if the right words were coming out of her mouth, I knew she wasn’t going to stop giving me shit. Kim stepped in front of me and leaned forward so she could put her hands on my shoulders again.
“Now, let us use your resistance to help you relax,” she said, pressing down again, the pressure building little by little. “Use your legs to press against my hands, but not too hard.” I flexed the muscles along the inside of my thighs, and felt myself rise a little against her hands. After a few seconds, she nodded. “Cleansing breath, in through the nose…” I inhaled slowly, letting my chest expand with the breath and with qi. “and out through your mouth and relax your legs.” I exhaled, and Kim pushed down harder. My feet slid a couple of inches further apart, then a few more.
“Whoa,” I said. There was a little bit of a burn along the inside of my leg, but nothing painful.
“The muscles forget, sometimes, how to turn off,” Kim said. “By flexing them, you remind them that they are on, or tense, and show them where the switch is. In a manner of speaking. Now, horse stance!”
I scrambled to get to my feet and take up the stance. By the time I had my hands in place and my knees bent, Amanda had been holding her stance for a few seconds. Kim held out a padded square a foot above her head, and Amanda’s right foot came up, snapped out and hit the pad three times in quick succession. She moved to hold the pad above my head and nodded to me. I pivoted and brought my foot up. The first kick hit the pad, but the second fell short. I leaned back a little more and got it the third time, but the blow was off center. My feet ended up next to each other, horse stance resumed. I knew how to do the kick in my head, but my body didn’t have the capabilities to match what my mind knew.
“Again,” Kim said, and I pivoted again. The first kick missed, the second and third hit. I dropped back into the stance and waited for the inevitable.
“Again.”
“Again.”
“Again.” Finally, I got all three kicks on the target, though it took longer between kicks. My legs were shaking and I felt like I was walking on jelly when Kim bowed and declared practice at an end.
“Thank you, teacher,” I said when I straightened from my bow. She
smiled, and I caught the slightest shift in her eyes and an all but imperceptible change in her center of balance. It was all the warning I had.
I dropped and rolled to the side just as I heard the cough of a paintball gun going off. From the floor, I could see Lucas in the doorway with his paintball marker, the barrel tracking toward me for another shot.
“Obex minior!” I said, and a smaller version of my shield spell popped up in front of me. The second ball left a black splat mark on the shield. “Ictus mollis,” I added, and the half strength telekinesis bolt knocked Lucas away from the doorway. As he flew backward, I could see he had put on heavy sparring pads, so I didn’t feel so bad about tossing him around with a low-level TK bolt.
“Wow!” I heard Dee’s voice from my left. I turned to see her crouched by one of the support posts, her eyes wide and a wide grin on her face. She stepped out and pointed behind me. “How did you catch it without breaking the paintball?” I looked to where she was pointing and saw Amanda shimmer into view with a black paintball suspended in the air in front of her. She had her left hand up, index and middle finger extended, and her thumb touching her ring finger. It was a gesture I had seen Dr. Corwin use a lot, and she used it as if it was genetically programmed into her
“By robbing it off its kinetic force instead of trying to ‘block’ it,” Amanda said. She put her right hand out underneath the ball and opened her left hand, letting the little black sphere drop into her hand. Dee ran up to her, and I saw that she had her curly black hair pulled back into a thick ponytail.
“Showoff,” I said, getting to my feet and heading for the door.
“Chance,” Kim said. I stopped and turned to face her, an eye roll ready. “You are still in the dojo.”
My feet came together, and I sketched a quick bow. “Yes, teacher,” I said. The eye roll was forgotten. In the dojo, there were two things that were always demanded: discipline and respect.
“What is the third morality of deed?”
“Respect, teacher,” I said.
“And the second morality of mind?” she asked, her expression softening into a smile.
“Patience.”
“Correct. Patience with self is as important as patience with others.”
“Yes, teacher,” I said. I struggled to keep myself from frowning. None of what she was saying made sense to me, but, like most things Kim said, I figured it would make perfect sense later. But instead of asking questions that would lead to more questions, I bowed and headed out into the August heat.
Dr. Corwin had Lucas up and was helping him unstrap the thick padded body armor. Lucas had a big smile on his face as he pulled the arm covering off and dropped it.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Dude, that was great,” he laughed. “Better than the roller coasters down in Branson.”
“Lucas, there are hills downtown that are more exciting than some of those roller coasters,” I said while I undid my gi top and pulled it off. I headed inside to change into my favorite Suicidal Jester t-shirt, cargo pants, and boots and grab a cold soda from the refrigerator. I grabbed one of the bottles from beside the fridge, too.
Dr. Corwin was waiting when I came back out of the kitchen. “Your control is improving,” he said.
“But?” I asked.
“You could do better,” he said. “You’ve already made great progress in working past the setbacks Dulka’s training created, but...you’re capable of so much more, Chance. You could do what Amanda did, with a little work.” I bit the inside of my lip to keep my mouth under control, but that only lasted a few seconds.
“Not really my style, sir.”
“Chance,” Dr. C shook his head, “You don’t need to do it all the time, you just need to be able to do it.” He turned and looked away for a moment, then brought his attention back to me. “Do you realize how close you are to your mage trials?” His brows collided over his nose as he said that and his mouth tightened up.
“I thought I was years away from that.” Beside me, Lucas backed away, his movements slow and smooth.
Dr. C shook his head again and brought his hands up for a moment. His face took on a pinched look, then he dropped his hands. “No, we...you don’t have that kind of luxury. Every attempt to bring Mammon back weakens the seals on his prison. Even if the attempt fails, it still helps him.”
“Sir, I’m just one guy,” I said. “With some badass friends, maybe, but still, only one dude in a big room that’s full of badasses.”
“You’re ready, Chance,” Dr. C said. The words fell like a bomb between us. The kind that doesn’t go off right away, and just sits there while you look at it.
“No, I’m not.” It was my turn to shake my head. “I’ve got another three and a half years or so before I’m even old enough to take the mage trials. And I’m pretty sure Amanda or even Lucas are better prepared for that than I am.”
“No way you’re dragging me into this,” Lucas said from ten feet away. “I’m never going to be a full on mage. Anything beyond Siegfried and Roy is above my weight class, remember?”
“He’s right,” Dr. C gestured at him. “He’s an apprentice on a waiver. Hard earned and well deserved, but his talent isn’t as strong as ours. And Amanda is half-kitsune. Hers is a different kind of power, too. Neither comparison is fair to them or you.”
“Expecting me to take the mage trials early isn’t fair, either,” I growled. “So, if the lesson is over for now, I’m outta here.”
“Just be back before five. And tell Shade hi for everyone, okay?” he said. I grunted something I hoped sounded positive, then whistled for Junkyard. His head came up from his favorite napping spot on the big wicker seat that he wasn’t supposed to be on. A hundred pounds of mutt hit the porch with all four paws, and he came trotting across the yard to fall in beside me. The wards at the gate barely shimmered when we passed through them, and Junkyard hopped through the open window of my black 67 Shelby Mustang to take his customary place in the passenger seat. Eight cylinders rumbled to life along with the radio when I turned the key, and I pulled away from the curb.
My trusty steed didn’t have air conditioning, but I didn’t mind so much, even in the ninety-five degree Missouri heat. Unlike newer vehicles, my beautiful beast was designed without AC in mind, with a couple of small sections at the front of the windows that swung open to bring in more air. Junkyard put one paw on the door and stuck his head out the window, and I leaned back in the seat to enjoy the drive to the Mark Twain Forest north of town. Heat rippled the air in front of us as the Mustang devoured the miles, Alice In Chains played on the radio and for a few minutes, life was okay. Hell, it even resembled normal if you looked at it from a distance and squinted a little...in the right light. For those few minutes, I wasn’t a mage-in-training, I wasn’t worrying about a prince of Hell trying to make a comeback, and I wasn’t a former demon’s slave with more issues than a comic shop. I was just a guy in a cool car, listening to the radio, heading out to meet my girlfriend. Diamond Lake lived up to its name, sparkling in the sun on my right, its surface dotted with the white triangles of regal sailboats and streaked with the wakes of their faster, motorized cousins.
Before long, I was past the lake, and following a winding road into the forest that eventually led me to a shaded drive with a red gate across the gravel road. I got out and unlocked the chain that held the gate closed, pulled through, then locked the gate behind me before I got back in the car. Another five minutes, and I was where I wanted to be most in the world. Shade’s Ninja was parked near the trailhead, and I pulled in beside it, got out, and grabbed my backpack before I took off down the trail. A hundred yards in, I emerged in a clearing to the sound of a waterfall, and the sight of a goddess.
Shade rose up from the water, a vision of alabaster skin, red hair and gray eyes. Her green bikini left just enough to my memory and imagination to make me stop and stare for a moment or three while she walked across the clearing toward me.
“Hey, handsome,” she
said, putting her hand on my chest.
I leaned in and kissed her. “Mmm, hello, yourself, beautiful.” I put my arm around her waist and pulled her to me, not caring if she got my clothes wet. Up close, I could see the light brown freckles across the bridge of her nose and below her eyes, and I wanted to kiss every single one of them. Instead, I went for her lips, and for a few minutes, the world went away.
“Did you miss me?” she asked when our lips finally parted.
“Every second we were apart.”
“Every second?” she giggled. “That must have been a lot of seconds.”
“Seventy-two thousand of ‘em,” I said as I picked her up. “I counted.”
She wrapped her legs around my waist and smiled down at me with a twinkle in her eye. “Then I better not keep you waiting.” She tilted her head to one side, and I grazed the side of her neck with my teeth, nipping at the base of her throat. Her body melted against mine for a few seconds, then I felt a sharp nip at my ear.
“Hey!” I protested. Shade arched her back so that she fell away from me into a handspring that brought her to her feet a few feet away. A wicked grin crossed her face, and she turned, then scampered back into the water. A few steps in, she dove forward and disappeared, only to emerge in the middle of the creek.
“Come on in,” she called. “The water’s fine!”
“I’ll say!” I stripped my shirt off, pulled off my boots and shucked my pants in record time. Shade put her hand to her mouth, looking at her bikini top as it floated in front of her.
“The water’s not the only thing that’s fine,” she said, her voice husky. “Damn, you just make my clothes fall off.” More green fabric floated to the surface. “Get in here.”
I mimicked her entrance into the water and came up in front of her, taking her in my arms and pulling her to me. We didn’t say much after that.
I didn’t do time very well when I was with Shade. All I knew for sure was that the sun had moved a good ways across the sky when I became aware of anything but her eyes, her voice and her body. We lay next to each other in a dreamy state of bliss for a few minutes. Finally, Shade put her hand on my chest and propped herself up beside me.
