Arcane Dropout 4

by Edmund Hughes

  “I doubt that very much,” she said. “Oh, and please. Call me Gen.”

  Jack stepped down from the podium and walked slowly across the chamber. The silence had returned, and each of his footsteps struck the stone like a hammer putting the last few nails into a coffin. He came to a stop ten paces from her, eyes boring into the red-haired woman, who smiled and held his gaze without flinching.

  “Say your piece, murderer,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Now, now, there is no need for such hostility,” said Gen. “This is no trick. I come simply because this is the most convenient means through which my Order can convey its message. Will the room listen for long enough for me to share such tidings?”

  She opened her arms, as though offering Jack a hug. Her gaze did shift then, slowly moving through the space, settling on each of the faction leaders in turn. Lee’s focus was on Harper, rather than Gen.

  He wanted to pull off his disguise and let her see him, but there was too much risk, too much uncertainty about what was going on. He missed her so much, but seeing her now, like this, only made his heart pound and his thoughts race.

  “The idea of an Independent Coalition, as I believe you called it, pleases the Prime Magister and the council greatly,” said Gen. “We would be open to a soft agreement with such an entity, given what a wide swath of North American supernatural factions it would represent.

  “Of course, there would be a few small conditions. We would require all practicing mages and supernaturally imbued persons to submit to an interview and pay a reasonable license fee to continue using their abilities. We would also require a full cessation of any operations considered illegal by mundane authorities.”

  The chamber reacted to the apparent offer in silence. It sounded almost reasonable, though Lee suspected that there was some hidden catch. He also doubted that a few of the factions would be willing to sign onto such an agreement if it meant giving up their income streams.

  “Extortion, plain and fucking simple,” shouted Prophet. He stood up, chair scraping against stone. “How about I give you a counteroffer! You can suck my dick while the blonde bimbo licks my balls.”

  The leader of 88Purity came to a stop next to the two women and made a grab for Harper’s shoulder. Her retaliation was swift and unforgiving. She twisted his wrist and spun, snapping his arm at the elbow. Bloody bone poked through Prophet’s tattooed skin as he collapsed to the floor in a sobbing heap.

  “I’m not unreasonable,” said Gen. “I’d be willing to make separate deals with separate factions, if it came to it. All I ask for is to open the dialogue. A simple handshake in the name of peace and cooperation.”

  She smiled then and extended her hand toward Jack. Lee felt his stomach turn over as a true understanding of why the Order’s second-in-command was at the meeting and what she hoped to accomplish dawned on him. Her offer was never meant to be accepted. She was there to generate a justification for a war that the instigators on both sides wanted, and she’d played it perfectly.

  “I will never shake your hand,” said Jack, eyes simmering with uncontrolled fury.

  “Would you like to know what we did to Katherine White before we executed her, then?” asked Gen. “It went on for quite a long time. Torture, mostly, but one of my Arcane Strikers at the time had a… certain appetite.”

  Jack roared and swung his arm forward. A curved sword of dark, supernatural energy appeared in his hand, trailing wispy shadows in its wake. He struck at Gen’s neck. She drew her own weapon, blocking his strike with an effortless movement with her enchanted saber.

  “Jack!” screamed Mira. “Don’t play into her hands like this! Think this through!”

  Jack’s sword was locked against Gen’s, who was still smirking and making her defense look effortless. He took a breath and stopped pushing forward, bowing his head slightly. For a moment, it seemed as though the situation had been pulled back from the brink of disaster.

  “Fuck this!” screamed Prophet. He was still on the ground, surrounded by the other members of 88Purity, and he hurled a very non-magical weapon into the center of the room. A grenade, Lee realized, barely in time to duck his head.

  The explosion was far stronger than he’d been expecting, shattering stone and flinging people and furniture across the floor. The edge of the table struck Lee hard in the chest, knocking him backward. He hit the floor hard enough to feel disoriented, ears ringing, coughing from the stone and dust ejected in the wake of the blast.

  There was almost a tragic efficiency to how much chaos a grenade could birth into a room full of people who’d been relatively civil a few brief moments earlier. Lee was in the middle of a supernatural warzone when he stood up, and the combatants were anything but straightforward with their tactics.

  Trevor Barksdale’s gang were fending off members of 88Purity, not just with fireballs and spell shields as would be expected from independent sorcerers, but with pistols and machine gun fire.

  Jack and Gen were locked in a vicious sword duel, Gen’s bright enchanted saber clashing silently against a blade of distilled darkness. Tess was screaming something in Lee’s ear that he wouldn’t have been able to hear over the melee even if he hadn’t still been partially deafened from the explosion.

  He looked for his sister and found her standing on the other side of the room, across from Harper. He breathed a premature sigh of relief at seeing them both safe. They both had their hands up in casting stances and were slowly circling each other, lost to the insanity of sudden violence like so many others within the chamber.

  Was he the only one above it? He considered that, as he spotted Shannara struggling to pull herself loose from a heap of rubble. She was surrounded by a few of the bonded animals that’d been accompanying her, along with one lycanthrope in shorts and a t-shirt who’d apparently been shocked out of his transformation.

  Attacking Shannara had been an outlandish idea earlier, but the circumstances had practically handed him this chance on a silver platter. The Melting Pack had infiltrated Primhaven, holding the school and its students hostage like a boa constrictor around its prey. What would happen if he cut off the snake’s head?

  “Tess,” he said. “Essence check?”

  “I have enough for a full three spells,” she said. “Mira was easy enough to siphon from while she was distracted with feeding off you. Wait… hold on!”

  She knew him well enough to know what he was doing as soon as he’d taken the first step toward the Melting Pack’s distracted leader. Lee ignored the ethereal hand she set on his shoulder, running forward at full speed. He didn’t have a weapon, but a force spell or even a fireball would work well enough.

  He slid to a stop in front of the Melting Pack’s now-destroyed table. Two wolves stared him down, growling and moving to stand in front of Shannara. She stood up slowly, her dress torn across the chest in a manner that left a plain white bra partially exposed underneath.

  “You…” she said, recognition entering her voice.

  Lee slowly took the sunglasses off and pulled the hood down. The disguise had reached the end of its usefulness. Shannara waved a hand and the two wolves charged, along with a bear that lumbered loose from the remnants of the shattered table.

  He flexed his fingers, controlling the initial burst of panic that his instincts sent surging through him. Tess had essence, and he had options. If the Midterm Trial had done one thing beyond completely alter the course of his life, it had given him much more confidence in his range of casting ability.

  He settled on his tried-and-true force spell, gripping his wrist in the conjuration casting stance and flinging his palm forward. Three dangerous predators necessitated the strongest arcane working he could manage, and he poured his will and essence into casting it.

  A rushing, invisible force struck the animals, sending the wolves flying and knocking the bear prone. It had a secondary effect, as was often the case—a new flavor born from the properties of the essence Tess had taken from Mira. Bits
of blood and fur also flew from the animals, as though they’d been pecked by a flock of invisible birds, or rather, bitten by invisible vampires.

  “Impressive,” said Shannara. “Though not nearly as impressive as the fact that you’re even here to begin with. I vastly underestimated you, Lee Amaranth.”

  Her bonded beasts, along with the injured lycanthrope in human form, moved to surround her. Lee swore under his breath, realizing that the narrow window in which he could have made a move against her had just closed. Another explosion went off on the far side of the chamber, shaking the Emerald Keep’s foundation and knocking debris loose from the walls and roof in various places.

  “It’s not a mistake I’ll make again,” said Shannara.

  “You might not get a chance to make it again,” said Lee.

  “Is that so?” She gave him a brittle smile. “I’m sure you have childish fantasies about striking me down and saving your friends back at the college, but it’s already too late.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he shouted.

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Lee was tempted to fling another spell at Shannara and her bonded animals, but King Mora and his faction were already moving to combine their strength with the Melting Pack. He didn’t have any choice but to fall back.

  Tess shouted something in his ear. Lee turned in time to see her pointing across the room, toward Harper and Zoe. They weren’t fighting each other, but they were as close to it as two people could get, judging from their body language. The ambient chaos drowned out the sound of their argument, but he didn’t need to hear what was being said.

  Lee wasn’t sure if the latest explosion had been a grenade or a spell, but it had done serious damage to the castle’s roof. Chunks of stone fell through the air like gigantic hailstones, shattering against the floor as often as striking people’s heads. A piece of debris the size and shape of an ironing board missed him at a proximity that ruffled his shirt sleeve and let out a tremendous crack as it landed.

  To get to Harper and Zoe meant getting past Jack and Gen, who were still engaged in their sword fight, oblivious to, or at least unconcerned by, the catastrophic circumstances surrounding them. Their movements were blurred beyond the speed Lee’s eyes could easily track, only slowing in the empty seconds between blade exchanges.

  Jack’s black sweatshirt had several slashes across it, with red blood welling up in perfect lines underneath. Gen’s hair seemed markedly more ruffled than it had before and a thin layer of sweat clung to her face, but she seemed to be the one in control of the intense fight.

  They flew toward each other again at a speed faster than his eye could follow, turning into a mass of blurred color and movement. Lee looked beyond them and saw Harper and Zoe falling into casting stances. He broke into a sprint, passing Jack and Gen and coughing as he inhaled a plume of fine dust.

  Just as the two women were about to release the first spells of their own simmering conflict, a massive chunk of stone fell between them. Harper took an awkward step as she pulled out of the way of it, but the stone chunk was easily the size of a minivan, and half of it broke and jumped, coming at her again. Lee was there in time, but only just.

  He grabbed Harper by the shoulders and yanked, probably harder than he needed to. She let out a gasp and spun, hands drawing up into the elemental casting stance Lee knew so well. She was about to throw a fireball in his face. He flashed a smile at her.

  “Eldon…” Her voice shook as she said his name. It was the first time he’d ever seen her with an expression like that, eyes wide and blinking rapidly, mouth agape and trying to form additional words like a fish reacting to being wrenched into open air.

  “It’s a long story,” he said. “No time right now. We have to—”

  A rough set of hands shoved Lee. He fell forward with the motion, assuming that it was someone pushing him out of the way of another impending cave-in. He hit the ground hard enough to dispel that line of thinking. Harper let out a sharp grunt, and when Lee looked back at her, Trevor Barksdale was standing over her.

  “That neo-Nazi was right about one thing.” Trevor was holding Harper’s braid in a firm fist. “I bet you’d suck a mean dick. Might as well get confirmation on that. You’re coming with me and my boys.”

  Maybe he didn’t see Lee coming, or perhaps he just wasn’t used to people standing up to him. Nevertheless, Trevor Barksdale wasn’t afforded the opportunity to dodge out of the way of Lee’s punch. He caught Trevor square on the jaw, spinning him halfway around. He threw an elbow into Trevor’s teeth for good measure, knocking out at least one of them.

  “I had that under control,” said Harper. “But thanks.”

  She dusted herself off as she stood up, a faint echo of the disbelieving expression still clear in her countenance. She pulled Lee into a tight embrace, and he hugged her back fiercely. Then, she held him at shoulder length, and slapped him. Hard.

  “Jesus, Harper,” he snapped. “This is neither the time, nor the—”

  “Come on,” she said, taking his hand.

  They moved together, searching through the tumult, gazes following the same thought. Zoe was safe, standing with a few of the lower-ranked members of the House of Shadows. The fight between Gen and Jack appeared to be reaching a conclusion, one that had been decided when the Vice Magister had first drawn her powerful enchanted sabre.

  Jack’s face was twisted in abject fury, and his body was crisscrossed with ugly cuts and slashes. He was down on one knee, still gripping his spectral sword in his right hand, glaring at Gen as though he could bore through her with his eyes. The red-haired woman was smiling coldly, sabre tip pointed at Jack. She glanced over at Harper, eyes darting back and forth between her and Lee.

  “That’s your apprentice,” she said slowly. “Interesting. He was a captive of the House of Shadows. I saw him at their table earlier, in disguise, and it was clear from the way he was being treated that he’s not a member.”

  Harper raised an eyebrow. Lee was impressed by the speed with which Gen had worked her theory out, even if it was inaccurate.

  “Get him out of here, Harper,” said Gen. “I’ll deal with the cleanup.”

  “You can’t possibly fight all these factions by yourself,” protested Harper.

  “No need. The collapsing building will do that for us.”

  “No!” The shout came from behind Jack, toward where the rest of the House of Shadows had gathered. Ryoko ran forward at a sprint, sliding to a stop a few feet from the suspended fight.

  “Stay back, girl,” said Gen. “There’s nothing for you to do here.”

  Ryoko dropped down to one knee. It almost seemed as though she was lowering herself to Jack’s level to comfort him, until Lee saw the way her fingers were splayed across the stone. The ground began to rumble, shaking the castle in a manner that seemed an unnecessary overkill on an already ruined, collapsing structure.

  A massive gout of water erupted from the ground in the space between Jack and Gen, flinging chunks of stone into the air and rising upward like the blast released from a broken fire hydrant, except multiplied by a thousand.

  Mira and another member of the House of Shadows moved in to lift Jack by the shoulders, and then the entire group was moving, fleeing from the Emerald Keep. Lee pulled Harper along after them.

  “Wait,” said Harper. “I have no wish to follow along with them.”

  “We don’t have a choice!” snapped Lee. Ryoko’s hydromancy had churned through the castle’s floor in the other direction, leaving a gaping chasm that stretched down to the lower levels in its wake.

  “I twisted my ankle,” said Harper, grimacing. “I can’t run, regardless.”

  “Here.” Lee put his arm under her shoulder, supporting her as they hobbled away. The fighting continued behind them, 88Purity versus Trevor Barksdale’s gang, and now the Melting Pack and Shannara versus Genevieve. So much fighting, and yet somehow he knew it was just a glimpse o
f what was to come.

  They made it outside through a helpful hole in the wall of the Emerald Keep. The ground was frozen, and Lee’s breath came out in plumes of white as he and Harper hobbled away from the chaos. He wasn’t sure where he was carrying her to, but he soon realized that it wasn’t up to him.

  Mira had doubled back with a few members of the House of Shadows, who intercepted the two of them. He was surprised when Harper didn’t put up a fight. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was aware of how useless it would be on an ankle that prevented her from walking on her own, or if she was just biding her time and waiting for a better moment.

  The Emerald Keep let out a loud rumble as the last of its roof and a large part of the castle’s upper walls collapsed inward, sending a cloud of stone dust into the air overhead. The surrounding area was rural, composed mostly of dense forest. Mira led them down a path through the trees, which ended in a small clearing where the rest of the House of Shadows had gathered. A restored well sat in the center, next to a similarly rebuilt barn.

  Jack was sitting against the well with Ryoko and Zoe nearby fussing over him. Most of the rest of the members of the faction were patrolling the perimeter. Mira stayed near Lee and Harper, though not within earshot, which let her ask the question that he knew she’d ask first.

  “How?” whispered Harper. “Mattis told me that you had failed the Midterm Trial and undergone the Cropping. How are you…?”

  “Still me?” Lee chuckled. “I wish I could say that I just have a stubborn mind, but I had help. I didn’t fail the Midterm Trial, either. Mattis is working for the Melting Pack. So is Constantine, and so was Gabby, the prisoner we brought to Primhaven. Mattis assumed Gabby had told me something and was forced by Shannara to tie up the loose end.”

  Harper stared at him, taking his words in silent analysis. She held up a finger after a moment.

  “So Mattis forced you to undergo the Cropping, but there was a way to reverse it? The House of Shadows is capable of that?”