Adrien leaned forward, resting his arms on the mahogany desk and staring at him.
Voice quivering, Doyle continued, “It's the engineers, sir. Today’s report was, well, troubling."
"Troubling?" Adrien asked, his voice soft.
Despite his love for the Chancellor, he found himself griped by terror. "Quite troubling, sir. Things are moving slower than expected. The lead engineer is saying that the first weapon won't be ready for another four months."
Adrien stood up and bent forward to tower over his assistant. “Four months is unacceptable!” His voice grew louder, anger flavoring his reply. “Tell Elon that I can get them extra workers, but if he believes I’m going to wait another four months he's an idiot. Do I need to remind him what happened to the last head engineer who tried my patience?"
Doyle shook his head before stammering, "No, sir. I think that will be crystal clear."
"What else?" Adrien's voice boomed. Doyle’s presence became irksome.
He looked down at his notes and back to Adrien. “Oh, it's nothing. Just…there was an attack today. Three Hunters. Apparently, they found a girl from Queen’s Boulevard using magic in public. Unlawful, of course. They chased her down and attempted to make a passive capture."
"And?"
"Well, something went wrong. Only one of them is currently conscious."
Adrien knew the power his Hunters could assert. They weren’t the brightest graduates of the Academy, but they were gifted in magic and were also given magitech weapons to assist in capturing or killing Unlawfuls. It was more power than necessary, but Adrien believed in being thorough.
Most Unlawfuls quietly developed their magic behind closed doors where they would never be found. As far as the Capitol knew, most of these folks could do little more than glorified card tricks. But allowing even the simplest magic to be practiced unchecked could lead to disaster.
There hadn't been a serious issue during a capture for over a decade.
Adrien’s voice lowered. "Unconscious, you say? What happened?"
Doyle wiped his hands on his pants. "Apparently, sir, they were attacked by a demon that could control the weather.”
Adrien dropped back into his chair and laughed. "A demon? Do they take me for an idiot? I'm guessing those three got drunk and were jumped by beggars or something. Once they're released from the hospital, make sure they’re put to work in the factory for a week…no, make it two. That will teach them to shirk their responsibilities."
Doyle continued his report, but Adrien had stopped paying attention. Something about the Hunters’ story reminded him of a memory long since buried—a trick that his old teacher Ezekiel liked to use.
His mentor was powerful in ways that Adrien could never match, but Ezekiel was a fool. His notions of justice were always clouding better judgment—Adrien’s better judgment. And that foolishness that had sent Ezekiel on his final quest.
The quest that would claim his life.
Despite what the halfwit priests on the street preached, Adrien knew that the Founder would never return.
And yet...
He put up his hand, stopping Doyle’s recitation. "Actually, Doyle, I’ll go talk to those Hunters myself. I might have some questions for them."
Doyle nodded. “Of course, sir. Anything else?”
Adrien waved him off. “That’s enough for today. Thank you for your work.”
The assistant nodded and turned for the door.
“And, Doyle?” Adrien called as the man grabbed the knob.
“If I ever hear of you speaking to anyone about this demon, you’ll wish that it had been you in that alley today. You understand?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Adrien could hear his assistant swallow from across the room. He smiled, pleased by the extent of his power.
Hannah paused on the step outside her house. She listened for any sign of her father. The day had already gone sideways, and the last thing she needed was a shit-show confrontation with the drunk head of the house. Hearing nothing, she turned the knob and stepped across the threshold.
The room was nearly bare, whether out of poverty or sheer laziness she wasn't sure. But since her mother had passed, their house was anything but a home.
Tiptoeing through the living room, she turned for the bedroom she and William had shared since her brother came into the world born. Although inconvenient at times, she didn’t mind the arrangement, and knew that it was part of the reason they had grown so close.
She and Will had spent hours lying in their beds deep in conversation about what life would be like if they ever broke out of Queen Bitch Boulevard—what the locals called Queen’s Boulevard, the slums of Arcadia.
“What the hell happened to you?" the voice said from behind her.
Hannah spun on her heel and faced her second adversary of the day. Her fingers moved to her nose and felt the bump. She hadn't seen her face, but she realized it looked bad enough for him to notice.
The Hunter had tagged her in more ways than one. Of course, she wouldn't get sympathy from her father. Instead, she brushed more hair in front of her face and hung her head. "Nothing. Just… Nothing."
Her father's right hand formed into a fist, and she wondered if she would get a second beating. The man was aging, and his sedentary life, split between sleeping and getting hammered at Sully’s, did nothing for his physical abilities. But he had height and weight on her, and he could still do some damage.
Hannah expected the day would come when she finally fought back, but that would be a day of maximal commitment.
The day that she would take Will away from this town forever.
"Where's your take for today? With my…disability, you know I can't work. That's why you and your brother need to be out there hustling. And what the hell happened to your nose?"
As her father's rank whiskey breath spread over her, she considered lashing back. But she had learned her lesson before, and it was always better to just keep her head down.
"I'm sorry. I'll get twice as much tomorrow,” she mumbled.
He growled, "Damn right you will.” He pointed to the back room. “And talk to your brother. He’s been crying in there since he got back. That damn boy is worthless."
She choked down a laugh at the irony of his words. The man in front of her was literally a waste of space. She couldn’t hate him more if he were the Hunter that attacked her today.
Hannah sidestepped her father and headed toward the back of the house. It didn't take long; the place was small enough to fit on a merchant's cart. Cracking her bedroom door, she peeked inside. William levered up onto his elbows and smiled. The boy’s color had waned again; black circles surrounded his eyes.
He spoke as she stepped in and closed the door. "Hey, glad you’re back. I was nervous those men had gotten you."
"Yeah, you know me. I’m untouchable." Hannah smirked as she crossed the room and sat on his bed. "How you doing, anyway?"
The boy shrugged. "Not sure. I guess I feel almost normal. But something still isn't quite right. I know it’s not, but I feel like my entire body is still shaking."
She knew nothing about medicine, but Hannah was sure that the onset of seizures was serious. Arcadia was known for some of the best medical services in all of Irth, which was great for those who could afford it. Instead, people in their quarter were forced to rely on home remedies and, at times, black-market potions, to try to cure the most serious ailments.
William had always been sickly, but today’s seizure marked something worse, and it terrified her.
She once overheard a trader say that people in other regions looked on Arcadia with covetous eyes. But they didn’t know the nature of life in the QBB. With her mother dead and her father a drunk, her little brother was nearly the only thing that made her give a damn about life.
"Listen, when I hit the streets tomorrow, I'm gonna ask around. See if I can find out something about what happened to you. If I can, I'll get some medicine. But for now,
get some rest."
He nodded to her. “OK. But what about what happened to you? That green light?”
Hannah subconsciously raised a hand to the tag under her hair. Whatever had happened back there in the streets still freaked her out. “That’s nothing for you to worry about.” She ruffled his hair. “Go to sleep.”
Moments later, Hannah laid in bed listening to the uneven breaths of her brother’s labored slumber. Sleep never came easily for her, and after a day like this it might not come at all.
The Boulevard had come to life outside her window. Her quarter was safe for locals during the day; they were a group down on their luck with no hope on the horizon, yet they were all in it together.
But at night everything changed. The neighborhood transformed into a den of prostitutes, drunks, and thieves. The only protection for someone like her or her brother was to stay in after sundown.
She thought about William and their miserable conditions. If she had a sure shot she’d take them both away from it all. Away from her father. Away from Queen Bitch Boulevard. Away from Arcadia. Hannah didn’t know where they would go, but that didn’t matter. Anywhere would be better than here.
As dreams of a better place danced in her head, sleep started to take over. Just as she slipped away, a scratch on the shutters drew her back to consciousness.
She jumped, reaching for the dull knife on her bedside table. Really, it was less of a knife, more of a glorified toothpick, but it was better than nothing. Hannah held the point toward the window.
After a moment of quiet, her heart beating hard enough to split open her ribs, she figured it was just her mind playing tricks. She considered dropping back into bed when the scratching returned.
Keeping the knife extended before her, she slowly reached forward and pulled open the shutters.
Hannah fully expected to find a burglar lurking outside her window, or some drunk vomiting his mead into their rain barrel below. But what she saw shocked her. Two eyes stared at her from the window sill just inches away.
She stepped back in surprise, half-expecting the eyes vanish, but they didn’t.
From her vantage point she could see the entire creature. It was that spiny green lizard she had seen transform in the market square. With all that had occurred, she had almost forgotten about that peculiar event. If she had remembered, she would have marked it up to optical illusion or maybe even delusion from the fear of losing her brother.
But there it sat on her very own windowsill gazing back at her in the moonlight. It didn’t look anything like the lizards that lurked around the cobblestoned streets of Arcadia. It was big; bigger than her old cat Thomas. Its skin wasn’t pale like Arcadian newts; it was darker, the color of the waving boughs of the pine trees that grew outside the city gates.
If all of that wasn’t strange enough, the creature had a dozen or so spines running down the narrow ridge of its back. Their points were silhouetted in the light of the full moon.
She stepped forward to get a closer look. When she did, the lizard leapt from its station on the sill directly at her. Hannah shrieked and swatted the thing away from her body. William wrestled around in his bed, obviously disturbed by the outburst but still asleep.
The lizard landed harmlessly on her pillow. It stared up at her without blinking, and she wondered if it had planned its next attack.
With its tongue shooting out and back in, it walked off her pillow and started trotting around in circles on her bed, wagging its long tail before finally curling up into a ball on her quilt—just like old Thomas had before settling in for the night.
She lowered the knife and relaxed.
“You’re cute. But you’ve got to go,” she said, wondering how she would get the thing off her bed and out of the house. She approached it tentatively, having no idea what it was and if it were dangerous. She waved her hands at it. “Shoo! Get!”
It blinked and laid its head on the threadbare quilt, keeping its reptilian eyes fastened on her. As Hannah drew close, she felt the hum of energy run through her body, just as she had in the market square. She reached out for the lizard, and its tongue lashed out and licked her hand.
Hannah yanked her hand back, but it didn’t hurt so she moved it forward again. Hannah laughed as the next lick tickled her wrist. It felt good, both to be tickled by the little creature and to laugh.
It had been far too long.
She smiled and whispered after a moment, “OK, friend. You can stay. But just for tonight.”
Hannah closed the shutters and crawled back into her bed, shaping her body around the lump of creature that had become her second roommate in the tiny space she and William shared. As she drifted off to sleep, Hannah felt the lizard lay its head across her thigh.
3
Sunshine cut through the slats in the shutters, drawing Hannah out of her slumber. Years ago, beautiful tapestries had kept the rays at bay. The window dressings were their only precious heirloom, a treasure passed down through generations. Somehow they had made it with her mother through the Age of Madness.
Soon after her passing, they disappeared. Hannah never asked, but she assumed they were sold by her father or given to some Queen Bitch Boulevard whore for the sake of a few thrusts and grunts in her poor mother’s bed. The tapestries weren’t the greatest loss, but their absence proved that nothing was sacred. And it spoke to what kind of animal her father was.
The lizard curled between her legs and cracked an eye when she rolled over, then immediately went back to sleep.
“Lazy ass,” she chuckled. It didn’t seem to mind the insult.
She half assumed the thing would be gone when she woke, just another wisp of a dream destroyed by the morning light. But whatever it was—and wherever it came from—the thing was flesh and blood, and it seemed to have made itself at home here.
“Well, if you’re going to stay, I might as well give you a name.” She tilted her head to the side and thought for a second. “How about Sal?”
As she said the name, the lizard curled itself tighter into a ball. With a little imagination, she pictured the thing smiling. Sal would work just fine.
Getting out of bed took work. Her muscles and joints protested while her face throbbed. The Hunters had done more of a number on her than she thought, but not as much as they could have. If the demon magician hadn’t appeared, her body would likely be growing cold in the woods beyond the Arcadian walls.
Hatred boiled in her blood, and she promised that they would get theirs someday.
She’d take extra time on Scarface.
Thinking of the Hunters reminded her of the demon from the alley. If she hadn’t already been terrified, seeing it would have scared the hell out of her. But the more she thought about it, the less frightening it seemed.
She had heard about magic users that had the ability to alter their appearance. In the light of a new day, with some time and sleep between her and the attack, she was convinced that the demon face was only some sort of tactic to scare the living piss out of her attackers.
If so, it certainly worked. The last thing she saw before escaping down the alley was the demon with its staff raised high in one hand and the other pointed toward the Hunters in rebuke.
Perhaps they had already gotten what they deserved? She smiled at the thought, before frowning a moment later.
She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead; the Hunters’ tag remained. It was not only a reminder of the Hunters’ cruelty but worse, it would tell all in Arcadia that she was an Unlawful, or at least she stood accused as one.
But being accused and being guilty were basically one and the same on the streets. At least, that’s how the other Hunters would see it.
Hannah dressed and pulled on a wool hat to cover the mark. By the time she got to the kitchen the wool already itched. She would have to find a way to remove the tag.
William had already gone, which was good. Two years ago, they still worked the streets together, but since she had grown older,
panhandling wasn’t quite the return on investment that it once was.
In Arcadia, begging was a child’s chore. And despite her thin frame, she was definitely no longer a kid. She wondered about William’s sickness and prayed that the seizures wouldn’t return while he was out working on his own.
She didn’t believe in the gods. If they ever existed, the Patriarch and the Matriarch had abandoned this world long ago.
But when it came to her brother? She open to giving even faith a try.
The woman’s voice called out in the little rundown apartment. “Parker. Parker, get your lazy butt out of bed! Your shift is starting soon.”
“Coming.” Parker stumbled out of bed as he rolled his eyes. His mother was sweet and conveniently naive. Many women along Queen’s Boulevard became this way. He wasn’t sure if she actually believed that a kid from the slums could land a job at the factory, or if she just fooled herself into believing he had the life she wanted for him.
Either way, Parker was glad she could brag to her friends over a late-night game of Wicken and a bottle of cheap wine. She had lived a hard life, and any pleasure he could afford her was worth the deceit. He slid into his clothes and pulled tight the laces of his boots.
One snapped from too many days of wear.
“Shit,” he hissed, tying another knot in the already tangled laces. He could scrape together enough for them working the streets of Arcadia. Although he couldn’t get a more respectable job like his mother thought, conning shoppers provided a steady enough income.
The coming of summer drew more and more outsiders through the city gates, providing plenty of work. But money was still precious, and some would have to be stashed away for the off season. Arcadia was cruel to the poor, in the winter, it was downright devilish.
Grabbing his bag of tools, he left his little room and headed for the kitchen.
“Here you are, lovely,” his mother said, sliding a plate of eggs with a single strip of bacon across the table to the spot where his dad had always sat. She smiled with her arms crossed.
Welcome To The Age of Magic Page 3
