Awethology Light

by The Awethors

  * * *

  The tiny town’s main street had definitely seen better days. The buildings around them were rundown. The shop windows weren’t cracked, but that was about the best thing that could be said for them. The glass was as filthy as the buildings, and the few people who mulled around in the shops seemed like zombies. Even the sign that read Main Street was chipped on the corners and hung a little crooked. No wonder Stone had chosen this for their human interaction drill.

  “Coldwater,” Stone said, calling on his favorite first, “what is the biggest risk that comes with solving a magical problem in a human populated area?”

  “Humans can never be allowed to see magic,” Coldwater said, regurgitating the same thing every witch and wizard was taught before they were even allowed to begin learning magic.

  “Why?” Stone rounded on Belfry.

  “If humans found out about magic, it would destroy our way of life,” Belfry said. Larkin glanced sideways to see Belfry’s face. His chin was tucked so far in he looked like a duck. Larkin tried not to smile.

  “How would our way of life be destroyed?” Stone asked Benard.

  “At best,” Benard responded, “they would want magic solutions to their human problems. At worst, they would attack us, forcing us to fight back.”

  Stone nodded.

  “Tonight’s exercise,” Stone said, turning to look at the street, “stop the incident. Do what you have to do. Work as one unit. Your primary objective is?” Stone glanced over his shoulder at Larkin.

  “Keeping the humans safe,” Larkin said. She knew it was wrong, knew she shouldn’t have said it even as the words escaped her lips. But she stared defiantly back at Stone.

  “Coldwater?” Stone said.

  “The primary objective is to ensure that all magic goes unnoticed and to protect our team.”

  “Excellent, Coldwater,” Stone said. “You’ll be the unit leader. Find someplace safe to blend in. When the incident occurs, take action. If any of you are indentified as magical by a human, you’re out.” Without a further word Stone turned and walked away.

  Unnoticed my ass, Larkin thought. Stone was dressed in his black MAGI uniform. He looked terrifying walking down the cracked sidewalk. The humans inside of the shops were gaping out the window at him as he rounded the corner.

  Larkin glanced down at her own clothes. Stone had told them to dress for interaction with humans but not where they would be. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a button-down blouse. Coldwater was wearing a suit that probably cost more than most of the people in this town made in a week.

  Benard was wearing a sundress and heels. Belfry looked like he was going to a funeral. Larkin raised a very blond eyebrow as Coldwater began scanning the buildings.

  “We need to find a place to wait out of sight,” he said, glancing down at the sidewalk.

  “We’re already in sight,” Larkin said. “All those people have seen us, and if seven strangers dressed like they’re either going to a funeral or a gala disappear down an alley, people are going to start wondering. We can’t hide.”

  “Then what do you suggest, Gray?” Coldwater sneered. “Are you going to whip up a clever little spell so the humans just forget they’ve ever seen us? Changing fifty memories should be easy for a Gray, shouldn’t it?”

  Benard and Belfry laughed.

  “Actually,” Larkin said through gritted teeth, “I was going to suggest treating all of us to homemade pie.” Larkin pointed across the street at the rundown little diner who’s sign flickered pathetically “O en. Hom mad Pie!”

  “You really think that going into that rat hole is going to help us achieve our mission—”

  “Which you so graciously pointed out is primarily not to be noticed.” Larkin started across the street. “Come on folks! Who wants pie?” she called back, daring the others not to follow.

  Coldwater wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t, but if she could just get a few of the others to eat some damn pie she might have her own team to deal with whatever this incident was going to be.

  Larkin stopped with her hand on the grimy diner door and sent a silent wish back to the Gray’s cook Molly. Please be right. If you’ve ever told me a true thing, let it be this one.

  Larkin looked back. Three of the group were right behind her. Pudgy Pillion was already licking his lips. Coldwater, Benard, and Belfry were glaring at her from across the way.

  Molly had been right. The best way to lead a wizard is with his stomach. Offer him good food, and he’ll listen to whatever you have to say. If Larkin survived this mission, she would send Molly a pie from every country that made pie. All the best. Molly would like that.

  Larkin swung the diner door open. A bell on the inside tinkled. Larkin smiled. It was just like the diners back home. Well, her human, non-magical home. Really, the diners back home were cleaner and smelled less like old grease. But after the past month, Larkin would take old bacon grease stench if there was pie in the bargain.

  The waitress looked up from behind the counter, seeming almost afraid at the sudden flood of four customers.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked, her words dragging lazily.

  “We need four cups of coffee and four pieces of your best pie,” Larkin said. The bell behind her dinged. “Make that seven.”

  They all sat at the bar, eating as much pie as they could and drinking heartily from the bottomless cups of coffee the waitress kept pouring. It had been an hour, almost two. The sun had set, and the streetlights had flickered feebly on.

  Larkin kept chatting with the others. Christmas plans, did it matter if Christmas was five months away? It’s never too early to start shopping. Clothing designers, cars. Anything that sounded human and kept the unit from falling into another dreadfully tense silence.

  Every round of pie, Larkin placed more money on the counter. If the street suddenly exploded, she didn’t want the waitress to be stiffed. Why was she worrying about a waitress’s paycheck when whatever hell Stone could think up was about to let loose on the street?

  “Honey,” a man said, walking up behind Larkin and draping a meaty arm over her shoulder, “you gonna keep payin’ for all these boys? ‘Cause a real man would treat you to more than just a cheap piece of pie.”

  Larkin gagged on the foul onion stench coming from the man’s armpits as soon as she opened her mouth to speak.

  “Are you calling my pie cheap, Bobby?” the waitress said to the man, glaring at him with such ferocity that Stone might have shied away.

  “Now, Eva, for the last time—” Bobby began. But he didn’t have the chance to rationalize his insult of Eva’s pie. Instead, he let out a terrible squeak as, simultaneously, all the lights in the diner went out and a noise like a freight train echoed down the street.

  “We’ll just get out of your way,” Larkin said, heading toward the door as Coldwater shouted, “It’s time!”

  He ran to the front door and pulled it open.

  “It’s time,” Larkin muttered to herself as she tossed money for a tip onto the counter before following the other six. “It’s time. ‘Cause that’s real casual.”

  Wind pounded down, slamming Larkin into the diner window as soon as she reached the streets. The rest of the team were struggling to find their footing as well, each of them searching the shadows. Larkin gazed into the darkness, half-expecting to see a giant fan Stone had magicked up at the end of the street. But there was nothing. Only wind and a sense of terrible cold that was creeping closer with every breath.

  “There!” Belfry shouted, pointing up into the sky. A dark cloud was blocking the stars above the street.

  “Kids,” Eva called, pushing her way out onto the street. “I don’t think you should be out here if we got a storm coming.”

  “Get inside!” Coldwater shouted at her.

  “You get inside, young man,” Eva said, not moving from her spot. “Storms come up quick around here, and I don’t want you stuck out on the street.”

&n
bsp; A crackling roar sounded from above.

  “We’re right behind you, Eva,” Larkin said, using all her strength to wrench the door open for the woman.

  “Smart girl,” Eva said as she struggled back inside.

  As soon as the waitress was back through the door Larkin slammed it shut, pressed her palm to the door, and muttered, “Compingere.”

  Another roar sounded from above. Larkin looked up at the cloud. Something was silhouetted in the blackness now, sparks crackling from the tips of its wings.

  A scream came from down the team line. “What is that thing?”

  “Wyvern!” The word had barely escaped Larkin’s throat when another terrible roar rent the night. Air so cold she couldn’t breathe surrounded them. She tried to take a step, but her feet had frozen to the ground.

  Larkin looked at the others. Benard was clawing at her throat. Coldwater’s arms flailed as he tried to free his legs from the ice that was forming around his ankles and growing quickly up his legs. Belfry was pounding his chest, his eyes wide with panic. None of the others could move their legs or breathe either. Larkin’s mind raced. The ice had begun to grow up her ankles too. She would not die here. She would not be frozen by a wyvern outside a rundown diner. Her head was starting to pound. She needed air. “Alavarus,” she whispered with the last trickle of breath from her lungs.

  The air around her warmed, and Larkin gulped it in. Pulling with all her might, she wrenched her legs from the ground, shattering the ice that had surrounded her feet. She heard the whooshing of the wyvern’s wings coming closer before she could see the beast himself.

  He wasn’t that large, no bigger than a mastiff. His scales were dark and shone brightly in the dim street light. His face was black and rimmed in horns. The giant wings that beat the air crackled with a strange blue light. If the wyvern hadn’t been trying to kill them, it might have been beautiful.

  The beast snapped his sharp, black teeth, tossing his head from side to side as though trying to catch the whole team in his sight at once.

  “Perectus!” Coldwater cried. The shimmering spell shot toward the wyvern, hitting him in the flank.

  The beast let out a roar that pounded through the air.

  “Primurgo!” Larkin shouted just in time as a shimmering sheet of ice flew toward her. Shards of ice shattered against her shield. The sound of their tinkling to the ground was lost as the beast roared again. The sound echoed between the buildings, shaking the glass in the windows.

  “We have to surround it!” Larkin shouted.

  “No.” Coldwater shook his head, his own shield trembling in front of him as the wyvern roared again. “We take it head on. Kill the thing.”

  “We could trap it!” Pillion shouted.

  Larkin felt a sudden rush of gratitude toward the pug face boy.

  “We kill it!” Coldwater shouted. “We all attack on three, aim for the heart. Whoever gets the kill shot gets a drink from me tonight.”

  Larkin wanted to argue, to shout that wyverns were a rare and dying breed. But something else caught her eye. Three people at the other end of the street were frozen with fear, staring at the backside of the wyvern. Humans.

  As though the wyvern had read Larkin’s thoughts, the beast turned, tilting his head back and forth, sniffing the air as he searched for the humans. He let out another roaring breath, and one of the three screamed for a moment before the cold hit her. She was young, not even a teenager. And now she would suffocate surrounded by the wyvern’s deadly cold.

  “We have to help them!” Larkin shouted, starting to run forward, but Belfry grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

  “They just provided the distraction we need to win this thing,” Belfry growled.

  “On three!” Coldwater called. The wyvern was stalking closer to the humans now.

  “It will kill them!” Larkin said, turning to Coldwater. But the light in his eyes made her stomach disappear. He didn’t care if the wyvern killed the humans. Not even a little.

  “One!” Coldwater shouted. The team raised their hands and wands, preparing to strike.

  “We have to help them!” Larkin screamed over the new howl that filled the wind.

  “Two!” Coldwater continued.

  With a curse that was swallowed by the night, Larkin turned and ran toward the wyvern. The thing had its back to her. “Fulguratus!” she shouted as she approached, watching the crackling silver bolt form in her hand before she threw it at the beast, hitting it in the back of the neck. The beast howled and turned to search for whatever had caused the pain, but Larkin had already run past.

  The beast growled, and Larkin screamed “Primurgo!” casting a shield behind her. She heard the echoing crunch of the beast’s fury hit her shield, but she didn’t look behind. She was close to the humans now. A screech that stung Larkin’s ears reached her a moment before something hard and frozen struck her in the back. Larkin landed on the pavement, skidding forward before crashing into something hard. Blood oozed from her shoulder, freezing the moment it touched the air.

  Larkin looked up. She had been stopped by the legs of one of the humans, which were hard as a wall and frozen to the ground.

  “Alavarus!” Larkin coughed. She could feel the air around her warming as she pushed herself to her feet. “Run,” she said to the humans who stood still, frozen by fear. “Run!” Larkin shouted.

  The young girl grabbed the two others and ran down an alley and out of sight.

  Larkin turned back to face the wyvern. He was closer now, only twenty feet away, sniffing the air as he crept closer. Larkin knew better than to look for her team. They had wanted to use the humans as bait. She had saved them, and now she would take their place.

  “Better to die fighting than to live complacent,” Larkin muttered, raising her hand as the wyvern reared back on his hind legs.

  He towered taller than seemed possible. His snarling, dark-fanged muzzle was seven feet in the air as the beast balanced on well-muscled hind legs, his talons cutting easily into the pavement.

  “Manuvis!” A shimmering ball of red light glowed in Larkin’s hands for a moment before she launched it at the beast’s chest.

  The wyvern howled in pain as her spell struck. Larkin ran for the side of the street. There was a dumpster ten feet away. If she could get to cover—

  Icy air hit her in the back. She felt it flow to the very tips of her fingers, freezing them in place, before everything went black.