by Sean Stone
‘Sinair!’ I cried, setting the phantom garments ablaze and freeing myself from their enchanted grips. I pulled the last of the burning fabric from me and stood to face my cousin who was now just outside the shattered window. ‘And what did I do to deserve this punishment?’ I panted.
‘What did you do?’ he repeated as if I’d asked him the most ludicrous question in the world. ‘Oh, nothing much, Jake. You just stole my life and my father whilst I got banished from my home and sent alone into the big wide world to make my own way. You stayed here with my father and created the perfect little life. Look at everything you’ve got. Everything that should have been mine. You should have been forced to flee with nothing. Not me.’
I looked at Sam with true sorrow in my eyes. He’d been carrying this nonsense in his heart for so long. It had fuelled his anger and perverted him into the twisted monster that now stood in front of me. ‘If you really believe that then you are a cretin without equal. Everything that happened is a result of your own actions.’ I flung a spell whilst he wasn’t expecting it. He brought his arms up and repelled my attack just in time. The spell bounced off his shield and came hurtling back at me. I narrowly managed to avoid it by pulling my shoulder out of the way in the nick of time.
‘And what actions would those be?’
‘You performed that forbidden ritual. That was your choice. You got yourself banished. Everything that happened after that point is on you.’
Sam screamed in fury and threw himself through the window at me. I was not expecting that. His shoulder thumped into my midsection and we both tumbled into the shop. My back smacked into something hard and I heard the wood break beneath our mutual weight. Jumpers went flying and scattered around us as we trashed the display and slammed to the ground.
‘You think I had a choice!’ Sam spluttered as he clambered into the dominant position on top of me. He swung a fist but I was already preparing my counter attack.
‘Flucinpuls,’ I said and a shock wave of magical energy flew out of me and carried Sam right off me. He released a surprised yelp as he was tossed toward the corner, his fist falling impotently to his side.
‘Are you going to say you were forced to do it? Will you make out you were forced to perform that ritual countless more times over the last decade and a half. Did somebody force you to turn yourself into this… this…’
‘Come on, Jakey. Finish it. You know what I’ve become,’ Sam said, smirking as he pulled himself into a sitting position. ‘I’m what you claim to be. I am a wraith. And yes, I was forced by destiny to become what I am today.’
‘A monster,’ I said.
His smirk faded and he restored himself to his feet. ‘If you think about it, you’re more of a monster than I am. Sure, my image may have been mutilated by dark magic, but the majority of my victims remain alive. Can you say the same for yours?’ The thin remnants of his eyebrows flicked up inquisitively.
‘My victims all deserve death. They’re people who need to be removed.’
‘Of course,’ he pouted. ‘And the big bank balance is just a happy bonus, right? In fact, whilst we’re on the subject, most of my victims since coming home have been Dorian’s henchmen. So, I’m not worse than you really. I’m taking out the people who poison this city. You’re helping them.’
I shook my head in pity. ‘Do you really believe that? If you really believe that then there is nothing of my cousin left.’
Sam turned and glanced out of the window as if he was looking back at a happier time. I wouldn’t blame him. I wanted to go back to when we were kids, before all the petty jealousy and the arguing, before the dark ritual, before we wanted to kill one another.
‘Destiny stole your cousin and she put me in his place,’ Sam said mournfully. He looked back at me and his silver eyes looked moist. Was some emotion other than anger forcing its way out of him?
‘Destiny… and destiny made you do the first ritual, right?’
Sam nodded his head. ‘Destiny stole my magic and forced me to become this. Who was I to deny her?’
Before I could take a second to contemplate just how insane he sounded, a hard plastic hand landed on my forearm. I followed the hand up the grey plastic arm to the rest of the mannequin which had come to life to attack me. I hadn’t even noticed Sam casting the spell. Was that his own skill, or was Thor’s belt responsible for this incredible and subtle piece of magic? It must’ve been the belt because I’d seen first-hand that Sam relied on mass power over intricate skill. His own skill was shabby at best.
I tore the plastic digits from my person and as I pushed the mannequin back several more hands grabbed me from behind. We were in the clothing department so I could expect a lot more mannequins to back up the ones currently trying to claim me. I opened my mouth and quickly had a wad of folded socks shoved down my throat. I spluttered and choked as the mannequins pulled me to the ground. Their cold hands dug into me, tearing at my clothing and decorating my body with fresh bruises. More and more were added to their number and soon I was being held down by a vast quantity of plastic people. There were even little mannequin children with cartoon animals on their clothes joining in.
Sam let loose what can only be described as a villainous laugh. My cousin was truly inhabiting the role of the bad guy.
Hands found my throat and squeezed. It was impossible to count how many hands were groping for my neck intent on crushing the air from me. Other hands held down my arms and legs. Their strength was incredible and try as I might, I could not knock even a single mannequin off of me. I tried to manoeuvre my tongue underneath the socks so I could push them out, but it was impossible, the socks were pinning my tongue to the bottom of my mouth.
‘I’ve got Clausateum,’ Sam confessed, his voice so quiet that I barely heard it over the struggling with the mannequins. ‘It first presented when I was a teenager. I could either let it take my magic and settle down for a pathetic Nocult life. Or, I could find a way around it. There was no chance I was ever going to let that disease rip through me and rob me of my birthright. There was no way in hell that I was going to sit by and watch you flourish whilst I wilted and died. My dad already loved you more than me.’
Each word he spoke only served to annoy me more. Bad things happened to people all the time. It wasn’t a targeted attack by destiny, and it certainly wasn’t my fault. To use me as part of an excuse for why he’d turned himself into a beast was just too much to listen to. I felt the buzzing inside me before I found out what it meant. Although I was willing the sensation to grow within me I had no idea what it was or how to control it. The air around me suddenly grew incredibly hot, so much so that my clothing quickly grew heavy with sweat. Sam was oblivious to the storm being whipped up inside me, he was too indulged in his own soliloquy. With a massive boom of thunder several bolts of lightning charged out of my body. The lightning struck the mannequins simultaneously and blackened plastic was flung in every direction across the clothing department.
That was the second time I’d accidentally summoned lightning, only this time it had come out of me and last time it had come down from the sky. What was this power and where did it come from, because I’d heard it first-hand from Thor that it didn’t come from him? Plus, he was dead so there really was no chance that it had come from him.
‘How?’ Sam said, mouth agape in surprise. I used his surprise to capitalise.
Kneeling on the floor, I touched my fingers to the surface of the worn carpet. ‘Sabide,’ I said in a whisper so Sam wouldn’t know what I was doing. Before the spell could take effect I pushed off from the floor and leapt onto a nearby display table, knocking the piles of jeans down to the floor.
Sam looked at me in confusion before jerking forward involuntarily as his feet began to sink into the quickly liquifying floor. He attempted to pull one foot, but gooey strands of the floor clung onto his shoe and pulled him back down. The floor that stood beneath my table was carpeted and separated from the linoleum that was now consuming my cousin. I ha
dn’t been certain that the spell wouldn’t affect the carpet too, but I was relieved to find my gamble had paid off.
‘Impressive,’ Sam said under his breath as he watched his feet vanish beneath the floor. He stopped moving altogether, obviously hoping that by staying calm and still the spell would let him go. That wasn’t how it worked. I released my magical hold on the floor and it immediately solidified. The carpet was once again solid and soft and Sam was completely trapped within it. He cried out in pain, no doubt as the floor tried to reclaim the space that his legs now occupied.
‘So, you got Clausateum when we were still kids?’ I asked. I slid off the table and walked toward my currently subdued cousin. He’d sunk into the floor almost up to the knee so he had to look up to look at me. He flicked his hair back over his head so he could see me clearly.
‘Yes, why?’ I could see in his expression that he was only half concentrating on me, the other half of his mind was working on a way out of my spell.
‘It’s just odd that a father and son both got the disease. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it behaving like that. It’s usually once in five generations, or the relatives are usually so distant they’re almost not related at all.’ I was thinking out loud, trying to figure out what was wrong with the information I’d been given. I was so embedded in the mystery of it that I forgot my priority task.
‘Well, Dad didn’t exactly get Clausateum, despite what he told everyone,’ Sam said with a mischievous grin.
‘What do you mean?’ I grabbed fistful of his hair and yanked his head back so that his neck was totally exposed.
‘I travelled the whole world looking for a cure for this rotten disease. I researched every kind of magic I could get my hands on and I utterly failed. I found ways around the disease, but no way to get rid of it.’
‘This is a really fascinating story, but is there a point on the horizon?’ I said, pulling his hair a little harder. He winced and then carried on.
‘Dad found me in Hereford.’
‘Yes, and he brought back whoever it was who you’d made look like your corpse. How did you do that?’
‘I enchanted my mother’s necklace to act as a glamour.’
‘Just like I thought.’ This was no time to congratulate myself. ‘What happened to Drew’s magic then?’
‘A couple of days before my supposed death was the night he finally found me. He followed me for a couple of hours waiting to get me on my own. He finally got me when I was walking through the woods.’
‘He never told me about this,’ I said. As far as I could remember, Drew had never mentioned having seen Sam before he’d died. According to the story, by the time Drew got to Hereford Sam had already died in the duel.
‘No, I imagine he didn’t. We talked. He asked me to come home. He said I could never perform the ritual again. He told me I would have to accept my disease and learn to live with it.’
‘Obviously you declined.’
‘Obviously,’ he agreed. Then that devilish smile returned. ‘You see, in all my studies I couldn’t find a way to cure Clausateum, but I did find a way to replicate it.’
‘What?’ And just like that I knew why Drew had never told me this story.
‘A curse that achieves the same results. Only it happens instantly. Not like the disease which steals your ability bit by bit. I defeated Dad in a duel. You should’ve seen how surprised he was,’ Sam said, suddenly excited like a kid again. ‘I was even more surprised than he was. That was the day the student became the master. To remind him of that day I put that curse on him. I robbed him of his ability to create magic. I thought that after searching for a cure and never finding one, he’d finally succumb to my way of life and steal the power from others, and then he would understand how I felt. Then he would know that he was too harsh on me.’ He paused for a second to convey his displeasure. ‘I was wrong.’
‘Not everybody is a monster like you. I can’t believe that after everything you went through after getting that disease, you actually inflicted the same thing on your own father.’ As I spoke I realised I’d never been more disgusted with anybody in my life and I’d encountered some truly despicable people.
‘A father that banished and abandoned me, Jacob!’ Sam shouted, his eyes alive with anger.
‘You ran away,’ I said dismissively. It was time to stop chatting and relieve him of his belt. I reached out for the belt’s strap and that was when I noticed that Sam’s feet were no longer restrained within the floor. He was kneeling so his height hadn’t changed but his legs were as free as mine.
‘Yeah, I broke your spell a while ago,’ Sam told me. Then the fighting resumed.
Chapter Thirty-Five
What Sam’s attack lacked in lethality it more than made up for in potency. It shattered the half-formed shield I’d been projecting and sent me careening across the department store. The clothing department vanished and I suddenly found myself crash-landing into the kitchen department. I guessed it was the kitchen department when an entire display of saucepans showered down on my head. A lone saucepan falling on you wouldn’t cause much bother, but fifty of them coming at you in quick succession packed a bit of a punch.
I shoved my way free from beneath the pile of pans. Pretty much everything above my chest was aching from Sam’s blast combined with the kitchenware assault, but there was no critical damage. I’d only managed to climb to one knee when Sam reached me.
‘I always resented you, you know? I always hated that you were better at magic than me,’ he said.
‘Yeah, you made that pretty clear,’ I replied. My fingers closed on a nearby saucepan and I swung it in an upward arch. Sam wasn’t expecting it and thus had no defence. The flat underside of the utensil smashed into his chin and sent him stumbling backward. ‘Rather than spending twenty years bitching about it, why didn’t you just practice and get better?’
‘I did.’ His hand swung around, clutched in his grip was a… cheese grater. I was too surprised to even erect a shield. The metal hit my cheek and the sharpened holes sliced my skin leaving shallow but stinging cuts across my face.
‘Plutepetum,’ I muttered as I backed away quickly. Sam yelled as the shelf to his left launched itself across the shop at him. Boxed microwaves, food processors, and kettles tumbled down at him and then the metal shelving unit itself seemed almost to belly flop him.
For just a second there was absolute silence. We were far enough from the battle to no longer be able to hear it, and with it being the early hours of the morning and the entire city being locked down, there was nobody else about. The silence was disturbed when the shelving unit and kitchen appliances all exploded in a cloud of vicious fragments that all flew my way.
‘Obidio!’ I screamed, crouching down as if that would help. My shield bubbled around me and the fragments of metal and blades that Sam had sent for me, battered harmlessly off its walls, though not without leaving a little crack in my defence. The rest simply shot by me to trash the parts of the store that we hadn’t yet visited.
I dropped my shield and Sam and I came to face each other once more. Fifteen feet of empty space stood between us. Around us was the rest of the store’s contents, ready to be used as weapons. But I had a stash of weapons on my person as well. As I was considering my next attack I noticed the corners of Sam’s lips were ever-so-slightly curled into the tiniest smile.
‘Are you enjoying this?’ I demanded, my anger apparent. His faint smile blossomed.
‘Oh come on, Jakey. Are you seriously saying you’re not? How many times a week would we sneak out at night just to do this? The only reason we never went at each other fully was because we knew Dad’d kick our arses from the Dregs to Gray Manor and then back again. We are literally reliving our childhood only on the biggest scale imaginable. Why wouldn’t I enjoy it?’
He was right about our childhood. Drew gave us two free nights every week and on those nights we would always sneak out for a friendly duel. It was the highlight of our weeks. But we
always had to hold back. Any lasting damage would alert Drew to what we were up to and we were forbidden to duel unsupervised. To this day, Drew was still unaware of our friendly little duels. And, of course, the keyword there is friendly. What was happening now couldn’t have been further from what happened back then. This was a fight to the death and nothing less.
‘This fight will go the same way all the others did. Except this time you won’t get up again.’ Even as I delivered the threat I doubted my own conviction. Fighting my cousin was one thing, but killing him was entirely different. I didn’t need to worry about that right now. Until I got Thor’s belt off him, I didn’t stand a chance of fighting him magically or physically. The belt was doubling his strength. I could wrestle my conscience after I’d wrestled that belt from Sam’s waist.
I considered the ring filled with Thor’s last remnants of power. I felt it like a weight on my finger. God power might be enough to destroy the belt but if it wasn’t and I blew my load on a failed scheme then I’d have to wait until the ring recharged before being able to use it again. The god magic was vital for putting Sam down and I couldn’t risk wasting it on a gamble. I knew plenty of destructive spells that could destroy the belt, the problem was having enough magic to power the spell. I might be a little cocky at times, but I was under no delusion that I was strong enough to destroy an object made by a god.
That left only one option. I was going to have tear the belt from him with my hands. I’d need to get in close. I had to turn the fight from magical to physical and I knew how to get him to close the gap between us.
