I liked poker tournaments. I was good at them and made a lot of money. Right now that didn’t seem like enough reason to live, though.
Maybe the universe was doing me a favor, stopping me before I killed someone else.
There was yelling. Thing One was back and he was yelling at Thing Two for ruining his Death Experience.
Even though my eyes were closed, I could still see the room. Thing One was glowing a bright red in anger.
I looked at myself, something I hadn’t done in a long time. My light was dim and dirty, with small cracks of dark blue and black running throughout. As I watched, my glow faded a bit, the cracks got a bit bigger.
Thing One stomped off to the bathroom and came back with the ice bucket filled with cold water.
He dumped it on me and went back for more.
Around the third bucket the world started to come back into focus. It wasn’t so funny or existential anymore.
In fact, it sucked. Waves of pain crashed against my mind. I felt broken on a fundamental level. I just wasn’t working any more.
One thing clearly came into focus, though.
I wanted to live.
Now that the alternative felt so close, I was very clear. I wanted life. I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, I felt way too fuzzy to have a plan, but my light was not going to die out.
I must have given some sign I was thinking again, because Thing One stopped and knelt beside me.
“This isn’t exactly how I would have wanted it, but we are going to skip to the end of this evening’s activities.”
“It is now time for you to drown.”
He laid me on my back and began pressing on my lowest right rib.
“I’m sure you’re wondering how that is going to happen, seeing as we aren’t near a pool or anything like that.”
He pressed, relaxed, pressed again, and then—SNAP.
“Drowning isn’t so much about water, although that is the most common way it happens.”
He began pressing on the next rib.
“People drown in their own blood. Sometimes, they get too drunk to turn over and drown in their own bile.”
Press. Press. SNAP.
Oh god, please stop.
Next rib.
“The thing about drowning, though, is that you just can’t get air. Breath is our greatest need, more than food or water, and so it is also our greatest fear.”
SNAP.
Stop! Please! Stop!
“You are going to face that fear tonight.”
I don’t want to die.
SNAP.
“The basis of breathing is being able to expand and contract your chest. The muscles open your rib cage, forcing your lungs to fill with air.”
SNAP. He switched to my left side.
“Then your muscles contract, pulling in your rib cage, and the smaller space causes your lungs to exhale.”
Stop! Stop!
SNAP.
I can’t draw a full breath. I don’t want to die.
“Without your ribs being strong and sound your muscles will have to work very hard to get any oxygen.”
SNAP.
“You will experience the sensation of drowning.”
SNAP
I DON’T WANT TO DIE!
“Eventually your muscles will tire.”
SNAP
“You will stop breathing.”
SNAP
“You will die”
I DON’T WANT TO DIE!
For the first time in my life I fully embraced my power. It has always felt like a different side of me. There was this part of me I didn’t understand, hadn’t wanted to understand until now. It only caused pain, anger, loss.
For the first time I truly accepted myself, power and all.
My mind expanded.
I felt and saw with extreme clarity.
I could define every loop in the carpet, the dust in the air, the texture of the walls.
I could feel the moisture in his skin, the fabric of the suit, the hairs on his arm.
It was like I had never seen before. Now I could see everything.
He also glowed with light—healthy, powerful life.
My light was small, pale almost out.
I needed his light.
I would have his light.
So I took it.
All of it.
I didn’t just take his life. I took the warmth of his body, dried the liquids that gave him tone and shape, drained the energy of his mind, and sucked every bit of useful power out of him.
He hit the floor, a dried-up withered husk that looked like it had been dead for years.
Thing Two cried out in alarm and reached for his gun.
With my added power, I reached and drained him too.
My light was brighter, but less than I hoped. I struggled to breath. I could feel the darkness closing in on me.
I reached again, draining Shaggy and The Villain. Then I drained everything in the room. I left the walls and door alone, but everything else was fair game.
The wood of the desk and table warped and splintered. The bedding crumbled to dust. The wallpaper faded and peeled. I even drained the spores and microbes in the air.
It still wasn’t enough.
I had life, but the darkness was coming faster.
I didn’t have long. I had to fix this. Now.
In desperation I tried to imagine something, anything, in front of me.
My mother appeared.
She was only about 12 inches tall and strangely dressed in a brown robe, but it was her. She looked young, healthy, even happy in a solemn way.
I knew she was dead, I knew this was just an image, but I was so glad to see her. My Mom was here. She could fix this.
I filled her with energy.
“Help me,” I begged.
“Heal me. Save me. Make me better.”
I realized my Mom’s feet were bare, then they changed into roots and sunk into the ground.
“Heal Me.”
Beautiful green leaves grew out of her robes.
She extended her arms to me. Vines shot out of her hands.
“Save Me.”
The Vines reached me, took root, started growing around my chest.
“Make me better.”
I felt roots inside me, burrowing, meshing, supporting.
“Heal Me.”
The darkness closed in. The vines grew, encasing me.
“Save Me.”
I drew a breath. It felt just a little bit easier than the one before.
“Make me better.”
I was cocooned in darkness. I could sense nothing but my mother and the vines. I knew if I stopped giving my Mom power then her image would fade.
The darkness would win. I would never know life again.
So I hung onto my Mom.
Ignoring the pain.
Ignoring the panic that wanted to creep in.
Ignoring the darkness.
I looped the chant.
“Heal Me.”
“Save Me.”
“Make me better.”
03 Cocoon
Going into shock is nature’s way of easing the transition from life to death. It takes the edge off the pain and keeps the mind from focusing on how mangled the body is.
I didn’t want to transition, so I couldn’t let the peaceful oblivion take me away. Instead I stayed as alert as possible, pouring magic into the enchantment. The darkness was soft, subtle, inviting. It kept asking to come in. It promised peace and rest.
Ironically, I found the best way to resist was to focus on the pain, to focus on what was wrong with me. The vines and roots continued to grow through me, supporting my broken bones. It wasn’t just my bones that were affected, though. They were somehow helping to renew every part of me.
I wasn’t sure exactly how the enchantment was working—it was born more from a cry for desperation rather than a clear plan. The magic was working, though, so I let it continue and hoped it would
be enough.
The vines broke out in leaves. Little white flowers bloomed. Then it all withered and died, leaving behind a rich dark soil. The second generation of vines were smaller but much more prolific. They filled up every part of me like a thick dense spider web. These vines flowered constantly with large yellow blossoms which gave off a pungent musty smell. The shock was long gone by this point and the pain was overwhelming. The smell of the blossoms somehow helped dull the intensity, so I just breathed in life and held on.
Finally, the little vines died too, and a heavy thick moss took its place. It was soft, peaceful, and quiet—like I was wrapped in the coziest blanket in the world. Lavender plants sprung up all around me; the beautiful smell reminded me of home.
It was at that point I noticed I wasn’t in the hotel anymore. Instead, I seemed to be in a graveyard on the top of a hill. This world was a bit different than I was used to; everything just seemed more dramatic. The colors were more saturated, the smells more powerful, even the sound of the breeze in the tall grass sounded high definition. It was like I had been transported into a film maker’s fantasy world. I knew I was still in the hotel room and this was some sort of hallucination, but it seemed so real.
In contrast with the beautiful trees and waving grass, the graveyard itself was gray and lifeless. The earth looked scorched. A few shattered headstones littered the ground and four dried husks marked where men used to be.
As I used my sight to look around, I noticed I had a headstone behind me. It read:
“Here lies Jason Cole
He’s still alive, bitches!”
The epitaph had a lot more bravado than I was feeling at the moment—but it was still pretty cool. It looked like my sarcastic humor had crossed over into fantasyland just fine.
The moss was leaching away the pain, and for the first time I felt like I could start to relax a bit. The sweet lavender, the soft warm moss, and the murmur of the wind, lulled me into a peaceful trance. I felt the warmth when the sun came up, and it gradually faded away as the sound of the evening crickets rose.
I could have stayed here forever, until I heard the wind singing. It was a haunting melody that spoke of loss and hope. There weren’t any words, but somehow I knew it was singing, searching, calling, just for me.
The wind rolled over me, seeking everywhere. It kept calling and calling; finally I whispered a reply.
I didn’t have the strength to do more than whisper, but it heard me and swept my words away. The melody changed from loss to cautious excitement, and after a long time I heard the sounds of someone approaching.
It ended up being two someones—they looked a bit familiar. The lady was dressed in a travel cloak that shimmered and glowed in the night. She was adorned with a silver necklace strung with charms. There were so many I could hear them rustle as she walked. Her hands sparkled with rings, most of them set with precious stones that glowed with power. She was either an enthusiastic spokesperson for Tiffanies, or a well-equipped magical badass.
My vote was on badass.
She was also quite beautiful, with flowing dark hair, smooth pale skin, and long lashes. She looked a lot like my landlady, Sandy—if my landlady had undergone a fantasy makeover.
Hoping for a hot shirtless warrior, I checked out her companion. He was huge, easily seven feet tall, with rough craggy features and skin that looked like stone. If I had to guess I’d say he was some sort of mountain troll. He wasn’t a hottie, but he sure fit the role of warrior. Even warriors have to do manual labor, though, as I noticed he was pulling a small wooden cart behind him.
He also looked a lot like the maintenance man, John. We called him Big John, or sometimes just Big. Mr. Big if you’re nasty. He was that big in real life but he wasn’t made of stone.
It occurred to me that if he hit me, I could consider myself “stoned.” That seemed so funny and I just laughed and laughed inside. I’m not sure what kind of moss this was, but it was making me feel good! Oh, wait, I could see some mushrooms growing on me. I probably really was stoned.
“Oh my goodness! What happened here?” Sandy looked around at the blackened grass and shattered headstones that made up the graveyard.
“It looks like a hell of a fight—four on one.” John left the cart and started taking a look around.
Sandy came straight over to me.
“He’s alive, John. He’s alive!” She sounded so happy.
If this really was Sandy and John—and it seemed to be—then I was really happy to see them too! I’d been concentrating so much on staying alive, I hadn’t thought about what came next. To have someone here to take me to a safe place sounded like the best thing in the world.
“He’s wrapped in some sort of spell, and it looks like he’s hurt pretty bad, but he’s alive.” Then she burst into tears.
I was surprised by that. We had always had a good time together, but we didn’t hang out a lot, and we weren’t what I would have called close. I didn’t let anyone get close.
John hurried over and wrapped her in a hug.
“It’s ok. It’s ok. He’s not Jennifer. This is not going to end up that way. This time it will be ok.”
She nodded. “I know. It’s just so much like last time. It still hurts.”
“I miss her.”
John just hugged her and didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t long before Sandy regained her composure and dried her eyes. A weepy maiden Sandy is not. With a final sniff, she stepped back, smoothed the front of her outfit, and adjusted her charms. The strong confident woman was now back in control.
“Let me see what I can do here, and then we’ll take him back to the House.” I think she was talking more to herself than John as she sorted through her charms.
Selecting one, she unhooked it from her necklace and waved it over me.
Nothing happened.
She frowned, unhooked a second one, and waved them both. I felt a small bit of heat, and the air between us glowed red for a moment.
The heat must have felt a lot more powerful to her, because she yelped and jumped back.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned.” She hooked both charms back on her necklace again.
“Whatever he’s cocooned in is very defensive and certainly not ready to let me help. If I push too hard, it might hurt him even more, and that’s not what I want to do. I guess at this point let’s just do a general camouflage and head back to the House.”
“John, see if you can pick him up without hurting him or disturbing his cocoon and load him onto the cart.”
John nodded but he had already moved away and started examining one of the bodies. “Before we go, let’s have a look around first. We won’t come back here again and this situation is so similar to what happened with Jennifer, but with a very different ending. Maybe there is something here that will help us figure out who was behind all this.”
Sandy obviously didn’t want to stick around, but she agreed anyway. John poked around at the bodies and then began to walk the graveyard. He was quick and thorough, occasionally stopping to pick at the ground or look at something closer.
Sandy was also trying something, although I couldn’t see any obvious results. She’d selected another charm and was pacing the edge of the graveyard.
After a couple laps she stopped.
“What are you finding out, John? I don’t want to stay in this realm any longer than we have too. It’s not safe for us.”
“Well, it looks like all four of the stiffs are mundanes. I can’t find any supernatural involvement at all. There are no marks for a containment circle, no magical constructs, nothing like there was with Jennifer. The only thing I came across was this small charm.”
He handed it over to Sandy.
“I’m not an expert on those things, but it seems a bit mangled and out of juice.”
Sandy held it in her hand and concentrated for a moment.
“Yes, it’s completely drained. And not just drained like it’s too low to function�
��I’m talking drained like the original magical construct is gone. Without that, this isn’t a charm any more. It’s just a piece of metal.”
“Can you tell what it did?” John asked.
“Not reliably. If I had to guess, it was primarily a tracking charm, but it seems like it had a couple other layers as well. I just can’t tell anymore.”
“This also matches what I’m sensing with the rest of the graveyard. With the exception of Jason and the small patch of ground around him, this whole place is magically dead. There isn’t the smallest bit of power anywhere.”
“This is only somewhat similar to Jennifer’s scene. It had a containment circle and everything inside of it, including Jennifer, was drained. Someone went to a lot of time and trouble to get her power. This seems raw, unfocused, like wild magic.”
John looked around and sighed. “This place is depressing. I’ll get Jason and we can discuss this on the way home.” He came over and gently scooped me up with his two massive hands. I was afraid my cocoon would somehow react with him like it had with Sandy’s charm and they wouldn’t be able to move me. That didn’t happen, and he easily picked me up and carried me over to the cart.
I also was afraid my bones would rub together, or I’d fall apart, or something like that, but nothing of the sort happened either. The mushrooms were still making me feel wonderful and trippy and my body seemed to be holding up ok.
When John set me into the cart my enchantment took over. Vines quickly grew out from me and covered the inside of the cart. Yellow blossoms unfurled and their earthy smell mingled with the lavender. I’m sure John hadn’t planned on pulling home an injured man covered in potpourri.
The vines anchored me to the cart, though, and I felt safe.
“That was unexpected.” Sandy looked at John who just shrugged. “Do you have any idea what kind of supernatural he is? I’m not even sure if he is a natural or a spell-slinger.”
“I don’t know. He always seemed like a mundane at the House. I never saw him use any spells or abilities. If the House hadn’t put out the welcome sign, I would have thought he was just a normal person. This cocoon thing he’s got going on is really powerful and complex. That seems more like a natural ability to me.”
“I’m not so sure," Sandy said thoughtfully. “What if this is his Waker Moment? First castings are often instinctive and very powerful. It’s true what they say: power is born from necessity and necessity is born from tragedy. My guess is he’s a slinger.”
Misfit Mage Page 3
