“A basic charm is made up of a power source and a rune. It’s up to you to give the result shape and focus. Using this charm as an example, it will be up to you to set where the light appears, how big it is, how bright it is, and how long it lasts for.
“As far as how to use it, everyone is a bit different so you will have to find what works for you. I think of it like squeezing. The squeeze lets it know I want it to turn on and I cast the magic just like I would my own. Annabeth said she can always hear her charms a little bit and she just imagines turning up the sound. I don’t know what it will be for you. You’ll just have to try and see how it happens.”
Sandy looked at me expectantly. I felt nervous. This is what I had wanted and now it was here. This was my first charm. The start of my journey. I felt like there should be a drum roll or something.
I touched the charm with my right hand. It felt small but solid. I gave it a small squeeze and imagined light flowing out of it.
Nothing happened.
I tried it again. Still nothing. I was squeezing it physically. Maybe I needed to squeeze it mentally. I released it and let it dangle from its chain. I wrapped my awareness around the charm and squeezed. Nothing. Not even a little flash.
I sunk my awareness into the charm. I could see the rune I’d just learned etched inside it. The rune itself was hollow in the lines. It looked like the edges of the lines were magical. The rune itself connected to a hollow chamber and that was filled with neutral magic. The magic was bright, like a tiny star. This was one of the charms that had been extra filled in the park.
It looked like the charm was primed and ready to go, just like Sandy said. I just had to figure out how to work it.
For the next several minutes I tried just about everything I knew. I squeezed the neutral magic. I tried to pull it through the tubes. I tried to listen to it like Annabeth did. I tried shaking it. I tried just letting it happen naturally.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Big fat zero.
Sandy watched me struggle the whole time and she finally stepped in.
“I think you are going to have to work at this for a bit. Don’t get frustrated. You’ve had so much magic come easily to you. It won’t hurt you to take some time to figure this out. What you are going through now is what most beginning mages go through.
“Enjoy the learning process. You’ll master it before long, I’m sure and won’t think twice about it anymore. For now, let’s stick with just this one charm. Once you know how to activate it, then we can look at adding a few more.
“I’m going to clean up here. I’m heading to the grocery store soon with John, so why don’t you meet me later for supper and we can see how you are doing then.”
It looked like I was being dismissed. I didn’t want to keep trying and failing with her watching so I was only too glad to head back to my apartment. I’d originally planned on going to Annabeth’s and talking about the assessment and my new charms. Since I couldn’t actually use my charm, that didn’t seem like fun anymore.
When I got back to my apartment Bermuda was waiting for me. He was ready for a snack. I was ready to work on my charm skills. We compromised by giving him a snack.
He was just too darn cute to resist. Post snack time, we curled up on my couch together and I started working on the charm again.
It was so frustrating. Nothing I did was working. There had to be a way for me to make this happen, but I couldn’t figure it out.
Bermuda wanted some belly love, so I tickled his soft white tummy as I thought about it. Nothing new occurred to me. Bermuda took a nap. I snuggled him and tried to come up with new ideas. It felt nice laying there so I decided to take a nap too. Maybe my mind just needed time to process it for a while.
I woke up to the sound of someone hammering on my door. I thought it was going to fly off its hinges. Bermuda shot off into the bedroom to hide. I wanted to do that too, but instead I went to the door to see what was up.
It was John, looking frantic.
“Sandy’s been kidnapped,” he exclaimed.
23 Busting Shields
I was shocked. That was the last thing I thought I would hear.
Sandy is the most powerful person I know. How on earth did she get kidnapped?
“How did this happen?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you on the way. Grab your things. I need you or Annabeth to track her,” John said firmly.
I hoped Annabeth knew something about tracking because I didn’t. I also didn’t know what things I needed to grab. I didn’t have any charms or weapons. Well, I had one charm but I didn’t know how to use it. I had on sweatpants and a t-shirt. That seemed good enough to fight in.
I felt very unprepared for whatever we were getting into. John was my friend, though, and Sandy was my teacher. I was going and I’d figure it out as we went.
I hollered at Bermuda to stay put. No more broken bones for him if I could help it. I don’t know if he heard me or if he could understand me in some magical way. He was pretty extraordinary, even for a cat. Then I left with John.
We went to pick up Annabeth and she had the same reaction I did. Shock followed by disbelief that Sandy could be taken. I told John I needed a weapon and while Annabeth was changing into something more battle appropriate he ran to his place to get me one.
He returned quickly. He must have run the whole way. Annabeth was dressed like me, sweatpants and a t-shirt. She was putting on her charm bracelet when he handed me the strangest looking club I’ve seen.
“What the heck is this?” I asked. It looked like a long wooden hammer, but the hammer part was at an angle.
“It’s a shillelagh. They use them in Ireland, near my homeland. This one is made of blackthorn wood, which is very resistant to magic. Most mages won’t be able to target this with a spell and rip it out of your hands. The end is capped with silver. That gives it extra heft as well as some additional anti magic properties. You should be able to crack a fine skull with this thing.”
“Why is the end shaped like that? That seems strange,” I said. If I was going to use a weapon, I wanted to know what it could do.
“We don’t have time for a full discussion on how it works,” John said shortly. “Quick version is it’s a club. Swing it and hit someone. The end that curves back toward you forms a hook. You can use that to hook your opponent’s weapon and yank it out of his hands. The angle of the club part also makes a bit of a point, so it does extra damage regardless of how you use it. You can lunge with it, like a spear. It doesn’t pierce like a sword, but that hurts more than you think it would.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I couldn’t very well walk down the street with a club in my hand. Maybe they did that where John grew up, but that wouldn’t work in this city. It was about two feet long so it wasn’t going to fit in my pocket either.
I ended up sticking it down my pants. The shillelagh had a strap to put around your wrist, so I tied that to the string on the waistband. The sweatpants were pretty loose so it wasn’t super obvious. It did sort of look like I had a very long and very thick penis, though. Hopefully not too many people would notice.
“Ready?” he asked Annabeth.
“Ready,” she said firmly. We headed out.
There was a grocery store, Kroger, only three blocks away from the House, and that is where we were headed. John filled us in on what happened while we walked quickly. Actually, John walked quickly, Annabeth and I both jogged to keep up. He was both furious and worried at the same time. His hands kept clutching like he was wringing someone’s neck.
“We have this routine when we are shopping. Sandy gets the cart and looks for the main items. She is particular about her fruits and vegetables and I hate waiting around, so I’ll go and get some of the easier canned goods. It’s a nice system and speeds up the whole grocery shopping process.”
John did not look like someone who enjoyed picking up groceries. I’m sure anything he could do to make the time shorter was a bonus in his
books.
“I was gone on a second run. It was a longer one and I picked up several items. When I got back, Sandy was gone. I thought maybe she had moved on to another part of the store so I went looking for her. I couldn’t find her easily so I put my stuff down and did a thorough search. She’s not in there and that could only mean something has happened to her. I ran back to get you two. I’m not a spell-slinger but there has to be some way to track her.”
I looked at Annabeth who looked at me worriedly. I’m guessing she had no clue how to track Sandy either.
“I’m sure we can figure something out,” I said. John was going so fast I was panting a bit. I didn’t have any air to say anything else. I saved it for the running.
This was the first time I’d been outside the House with just my magic sight. It felt very strange. I could see everything in a 20-foot sphere around me. It hadn’t been too bad inside the House. Most rooms are not bigger than twenty feet so I had a sense of space. I could see the ceiling and walls. Outside felt very different. I could see part of the road, but not across the street. I could see the air above me, but not the sky. The sidewalk would appear in front of me and disappear behind me.
I felt like I was living in a strange bubble world. It wasn’t helping that we were running. Without any sort of perspective, it felt like I we were going so fast.
When we got to Kroger it was a bit better. There were so many people, though, that it got weird again. I would just see an elbow or half of a person in my vision, then they would disappear. Or someone would walk into my view, pick up something, and walk back out again. Without any visual context it seemed like something out of a creepy movie.
John took us to the produce area. “This is where I last saw Sandy,” he said. He looked at us expectantly.
I looked at Annabeth.
She looked at me.
“Do you have any charms that might help?” I asked. I was pretty sure there wasn’t. If there was a good tracking charm them Sandy would have used it to find Jennifer when she was taken. It never hurt to ask, though. Maybe there was one that could be used in a new creative way to do what we needed.
We went through her charms together. She had one for heat, one for force, one for a shield, one for healing, and, of course, one for light. She couldn’t think of any new way to use them, and neither could I. John wasn’t really participating in our conversation. He was just pacing and looking like he could kill someone. We were getting some strange looks. At least people were leaving us alone.
“You can see all the way down to the cellular level with your sight.” Annabeth said. “Maybe Sandy left a cell or a trace of her magic somehow. There had to have been a fight at some point. Maybe you can pick it up where we can’t.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said. This seemed like the only option we had. I had to make it work.
“See if you can get John away from here. He’s messing with my vision.”
My sight recorded the world in textures and grays. I only saw color if it was magic, and John was throwing off a crazy amount of magic as he paced. John’s color was gray, like stone, but it seemed more real than non-magic items.
Annabeth left my side in a swirl of pink and went to John. She talked with him for a moment and then pulled him out of range. I was now alone in my bubble. The only magical creature here.
I relaxed, took a deep breath and shook out my nerves. I felt like the world was riding on my shoulders. I didn’t want to be the lead, but I was here and Sandy was counting on me. I could see in amazing detail. There had to be something I could use.
I stood there and took in all the details around me. My sight really was amazing. I could tell how many oranges were on display, whether they were on the top of the pile or not. There was an endcap of packages of nuts. I could feel every nut in every package if I wanted. I could even see inside the nuts. The problem was one of focus. With so much data, how did I know where to look?
When I looked at something naturally, I usually don’t see everything in my view. My mind filters out all the normal stuff and I just see and process what I wanted to see. This was a lot like that, except that with a view all around me there was so much more information. I was still used to looking at everything like it was my normal line of sight. I wasn’t limited to that any more. I could see everything. I just needed to get better at processing it.
I stood there, just letting it all in. I told myself over and over “I want to see. I want to see.” It was a mantra, focusing me. Gradually the world came into focus in a new way. It was sharper, clearer. I wasn’t just seeing it, I was feeling it too. Maybe even tasting it. I could tell one of the packages of nuts had been left in the warehouse too long. The oil in the nuts had gone off. I could taste the difference.
I normally couldn’t sense to this degree, but I’d been living with nothing but my magical sight for days now. I’d been relying on it just like I would my regular sight and my ability to use it had sharpened.
I was annoyed that John had been here. His pacing had messed up the magical spectrum. I could still see traces of his magic floating around in the air. I was looking for something magical, and I kept noting his presence. Annabeth was worse, though. Her pink particles of worry stood out a lot more than John’s, even though she hadn’t been throwing them off like he had. I tried to ignore them and search for Sandy.
I let my focus go, and just scanned everything. I thought it might be like finding a familiar face in a crowd. Even though there are a lot of people, your mind can still pick out someone you know. I was now processing what felt like a lot of data, but still the only thing magical I could see was that John and Annabeth had been here.
Then it hit me. That was it!! John and Annabeth were out of my view, but I could still see they had been here! If I was tracking them, I’d have their trail. I was onto something. They were worried, though, and that must be what was causing them to emit extra magic. Sandy was here according to John, but she hadn’t been worried yet. Since she wasn’t in the store, she had to have left at some point. Something had to have made her do that and she would have been worried, curious, upset, or something at that point. If I was right, that would mean she had left a magic trail for me to follow.
“Annabeth, you and John stay behind me,” I said loudly. “I’m going to circle the store. I think I might be onto something.”
“Sure thing,” Annabeth said distantly.
I walked forward slowly, processing the new space as it came into view. “Come on Sandy orange magic,” I said to myself. “Give me some orange.” I made it to the main aisle that ran around the outside of the store. We were at the front, so I turned and slowly walked toward the back.
I got distracted because one woman noticed my shillelagh and did a double take. It was funny as hell. Is that a Shillelagh in your pants or are you just happy to see me? I thought. It took me a moment to focus again and move forward.
Then I saw it. A tiny spec of magic orange. It wasn’t where I thought it would be, though. It was about ten feet in the air, just sitting there. I guess all the movement in the aisle had wafted it that high into the air? That’s the only thing I could think of. Sandy wasn’t ten feet tall, or flying through the grocery store.
I examined it in detail. It was certainly Sandy’s magic. As I watched, it was fading ever so slowly. A few hours from now it would be gone. John had been smart to get me and Annabeth right away. I couldn’t have done this tomorrow.
Now I had hope, I kept walking the aisle. I made it to the rear of the store and turned to walk along the back. They had all their meats, cheeses, and yogurts here. Sandy would have shopped back here for sure.
Suddenly I walked into a flurry of orange particles. They were everywhere. Stuck in a crack on the floor, on the underside of the display, hovering up in the air. Something had happened right here. Sandy had been alarmed somehow.
“Something happened here,” I said loudly. “I can see traces of Sandy’s magic. I’m going to follow it.” I heard John g
rowl. “Be sure and stay back,” I added.
I kept moving forward and saw a shower of dark particles. They were a dark purple in color. Obviously whatever the purple represented had been the cause of Sandy’s alarm. I kept moving forward. The purple ended, but Sandy’s magic kept going. About halfway down the back of the store I saw the imprint of her hand, it was on the swinging doors leading back to the stockroom.
I made a mental note that touching something left more of an impression. I kept walking along the back aisle a bit more, just to make sure Sandy’s trail stopped at the door. For all I knew, she’d touched the door for some reason and kept walking.
She hadn’t, though. Her magic clearly led through the doors and back into the warehouse. I wasn’t sure what any employees were going to think, but I pushed through the doors and kept going. I had Sandy’s trail and I wasn’t stopping for anything.
There were metal racks filled with product stretching up to the ceiling. The aisles were wide enough for pallets of stuff to move down them and my trail led down the second aisle. I was almost to the end of that aisle, way on the side of the store, when I saw the purple again. This time it wasn’t just a shower of particles. It looked like a purple bomb had gone off. Sandy’s orange motes where everywhere, but they ended here.
“This is where it happened,” I said. “They lured her back here somehow and then hit her with a trap of some sort. There is purple magic everywhere. They had to have moved her so I’m going to follow the purple trail now.”
The purple wasn’t personal magic so it wasn’t bonded to her. She was covered in it when they moved her so it was very easy to follow. I picked up other traces of magic too. Based on the colors, there were three mages involved in this. Some of the particles had that rotten feel I’d come to associate with Isobel and her crew.
I passed that info along to John and followed the trail to the main loading dock and out of the warehouse. I was afraid they would take a car at this point but they didn’t. I wasn’t sure how I would follow a car. It looks like they stayed on foot, though. The alley along the back of Kroger was wide enough for a truck, and they stayed to the middle of it. I guess they weren’t worried about being seen.
Misfit Mage Page 31
