Misfit Mage

by Michael Taggart

  Three excited mages and leftover purple bomb particles made this easy to follow, so I picked up the pace. There was another alley leading off of this one. It was much narrower and probably only used by local merchants. I followed their trail down it until it hit Third street, which was one of the major roads out of the city.

  “Annabeth, I need your help. We have to cross the street and I can’t see the traffic,” I yelled.

  Annabeth came up and took my hand. It felt nice to have someone there. I’d felt alone up to this point. She let me know when it was safe and we sprinted across the road. The alley picked up on the other side. Annabeth fell back and I kept going. I couldn’t see much about the neighborhood, but I passed a lot of large loading doors. We were obviously on the back side of small warehouses or retail stores.

  I saw the trail leading through a metal door up ahead, when suddenly a spell flashed into view and hit me. It was angled down, like it came from the roof. With only twenty feet of warning, I didn’t have time to dodge.

  Sparks danced over my body and I shook and fell to the ground. I heard a boom and a cry. I knew that sound. John had thrown one of his rocks. Based on the cry, he’d scored a hit. One enemy mage down. I’d followed three mages, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more in the building.

  I shook off the spell and stood up. I was surprisingly unharmed. I guess the spell had targeted me directly and my magic density had protected me. I was about to suggest we proceed slowly and see what we were up against first, when John ran past me.

  With a battle roar, he kicked the metal door and it flew off its hinges into the building. So much for going slowly. The mages knew we were here now. He dove into the building with Annabeth right behind him, shield up and ready. I didn’t have a shield, but I wasn’t staying out of this fight. Sandy needed me. I dove through the door too.

  I was in some sort of open space. It looked like it had been a warehouse or storage room at one point. It was empty now, except for steel beams that dotted the space, holding up the ceiling.

  I ran over to a beam and got behind it. It would hopefully provide some protection while I figured out what was happening. I could hear John’s battle roar. He sounded like a primal force of nature that was pissed off. I was so glad he was on our side. I could also hear Isobel. That was seriously bad news.

  It would probably take everything John had to beat Isobel. That means the star players of both teams were out. So who else were we fighting? Annabeth was in my radius and I could see spells coming at her from two directions. She had ducked behind a steel beam too. They weren’t that big so it wasn’t a lot of cover. Her shield was working, so she was ok so far, and firing back. Annabeth was short, dumpy, and a grandmother, but she was tough!

  I wasn’t feeling tough and there was another mage sprinting toward me. His spell bounced off my beam as I tried to be as skinny as possible. What the heck could I do? I didn’t have any offensive spells. I didn’t have any defensive ones either. I had my wits and my fists. Oh! And my shillelagh! I hadn’t been hauling that around for nothing.

  I pulled it out of my pants and the dang wrist strap was still tied to my sweatpants. The knot was tight and I had to pick it apart. I did not have time for this! They never show stuff like this in the movies.

  The mage was circling the beam, trying to get a shot in. I didn’t need to look at him to see him, though, so I was circling with him, still trying to unpick the knot. Finally I got it. I looped the strap around my wrist and gripped it in my right hand. It felt good. It felt solid. It was going to do some damage today.

  Now I just needed to close the distance between us without getting spelled.

  It occurred to me, I didn’t have any offensive magic, but he didn’t know that. That gave me an idea.

  I cupped my left hand, and imagined a firefly in my palm. He had wings, of course, and a glowy butt. I put the rune for light on his chest. Hopefully that would be enough. This was a rush job.

  I need you to fly toward the enemy, I thought, shining the whole way. If he dodges, just circle around and come back at him again. If it looks like you are going to get hit by a spell, then just vanish. If you do get hit, I hope it doesn’t hurt.

  I felt bad making a little guy that was probably going to get blasted out of the sky. I didn’t know how something like this occurred to them. I didn’t want to hurt any of my creations. I liked to think they just vanished and reformed when I needed them again.

  “Thanks bud!” I thought to my firefly and got a flash in return.

  I stepped out from behind the beam, and threw him at the mage, like I was throwing a spell. He lit up and must have looked threatening enough. I sprinted toward the mage as he threw himself out of the way of the firefly. It wasn’t a big distance and I made it to him before he could cast a counter spell.

  I swung the shillelagh at his head and it landed with a hard thunk, on his personal shield.

  Well crap. Now I was out in the open and it was too far to sprint back to the beam. He could hit me with a spell any time he wanted. The mage looked rattled, though. A club almost landing on your face will do that to you I’m sure.

  He went to make a gesture at me and I hit his hand with my club. Well, I hit the shield around his hand, but it was still enough to jerk his arm around. So, his shield blocked things, but it didn’t make him indestructible. I could knock him around and throw off his aim. That was something.

  The next few moments were close and very intense. I could swing that shillelagh quickly and I used it to pound him. I also tried to stay to the side or behind him as much as possible. He kept trying to spin around and hit me with a spell.

  Shields took power and at some point, his shield would run out. It was a race then. I had to wear his shield down before I eventually slipped up and he tagged me with a spell.

  I knew I had to win this. If this mage won our fight then he was free to join the fight with Annabeth. She couldn’t handle three on one so she would go down too. Then it would be Isobel and three more spell-slingers on John. John was good but I wasn’t sure he was that good. If I lost, then we could all end up being Isobel’s prisoners. Somehow, I had to own this spell-slinger.

  A few moments later he made a mistake. He stumbled and reached out to steady himself. It was an instinctual motion, and he reached out to me. I grabbed his arm to steady him, and I was through his shield! I held on and whacked at his head again. The shield was still there.

  This shield was a puzzle I needed to solve now. There had to be a way to get through it, but not by hammering at him. I had his hand so I went up his arm with my other hand. That got through just fine. Our battle quickly turned into a wrestling matching.

  He was still trying to fire off a spell and I was trying to get him on the ground and put him in some sort of arm lock. I’m not a wrestler, but I was bullied a lot as a kid. I knew the basics. Take an arm, twist it behind the guy, trip him, and keep twisting.

  Tyler was right. If you’re a mage then everything looks like it needs a spell. If the mage would have just focused on wrestling with me, he might have won. Instead, he focused on trying to cast a spell and I took him down.

  He landed hard on his front, and I quickly straddled his back. He was still trying to cast with his other hand so I needed to finish this off quickly.

  It felt cruel to keep twisting while he was hollering in pain. I hate bullies and this felt just like that. I wanted to stop and let the guy surrender, but I was pretty sure that wouldn’t work. He was trying to take me down. If he won, we were all dead. That just could not happen.

  I twisted, pulled, and finally felt a pop as his shoulder gave out. He screamed in pain, but he was an immortal. He would heal just like I did. Nothing I was doing to him would kill him.

  He could still cast with one hand, so I grabbed his other arm and twisted again. As I was busy wrenching it out of its socket, I noticed my shillelagh was dangling from my wrist and touching him. It was through the shield too.

  With both arms
out and me on top, I had a moment to test this shield spell. I grabbed the shillelagh, pulled it back and whacked at his head again. It bounced off his shield. I let it sit on his shield. It flared for a moment, then the club fell through. Maybe the shield recognized the force of the blow? Or maybe the speed?

  The shield had to let some stuff through or you wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom or touch anything. I swung the club slower and lighter. The shield flared again. I slowed it way down, like I was gently tapping him. This time the shield spell stayed off.

  This was some good stuff to know! I could use this to defeat one of the mages Annabeth was fighting.

  I wish there was some way to knock him out. I didn’t need my hands to cast spells and he might still be dangerous. I needed him out of the fight without killing him.

  I didn’t know how to do a sleeper hold, so I used the bar part of the shillelagh to choke him until he passed out. Sucks for him, but better than getting punched in the face by a golem. His throat would be sore, but he could recover from that pretty quickly.

  I jumped up and ran over to where I’d last seen Annabeth. The fight had shifted but not by much. The two of them had pinned her down. She couldn’t fire through her own shield so the best she could do is try and avoid the blasts. Since she wasn’t on the offensive, the other two felt safe to chase her down and hammer her with spells.

  I looked around for my little firefly. “Upgrade time little buddy,” I thought as I absorbed him and started over. This time I made his butt big. He wasn’t just going to shine and distract, he was going to go on the offensive.

  I made it so his tail was made up of lots of spotlights, then added the light rune to each one. He was going to shine very brightly, in one direction. He was going to be my flasher, so I added a trench coat. It seemed appropriate.

  I whispered instructions to him and then he was off. This time there wasn’t any light to give him away. He flew slowly and passed right through the mage’s shield. He got right in front of the mage’s right eye, flared his trench coat, pointed his tail, and let loose.

  I’m not sure what it looked like in the natural world, but in the magical one there was a beam of pure magic injected into his eye. The mage screamed and staggered back, holding his right eye. The second mage looked over, concerned, but didn’t stop hammering Annabeth. He completely missed me hiding behind a beam and my little flasher in the air. The second mage also had some rotten in his aura. This guy was part of Isobel’s inner posse.

  The second mage went back to focusing completely on Annabeth. The flasher lined up with the first mages left eye. When he opened it, he got another eyeful.

  Meanwhile, I’d come up behind him and pointed my club at his head like a spear. I moved slowly, until part of the head of the shillelagh was through his shield. Then I thrust it at him with everything I had. Since it was already through his defense, his shield couldn’t stop me.

  Blinded and stunned, he stumbled forward. I followed him, keeping the club head inside his shield and battering him with short thrusts. The head of the shillelagh was weighted and solid. Even without a big windup, getting hit was no joke, and I gave him no time to recover.

  I must have hit him more than ten times before he went down. When he did, I grabbed first one arm and then the other and popped them out of their sockets. I was set to choke him out when I saw a flat disk on the ground by his head. It was on a cord around his neck and looked like it had some sort of tribal marking on it. It also had a small glow of power.

  I pulled it off over his head. Was this the shield amulet? I swung the shillelagh at his head as an experiment. It hit with a solid thunk and the mage slumped, unconscious.

  Annabeth was now up and giving as good as she got. The rotten mage’s shield was flashing as much as hers was. Go Annabeth!

  The other mage must have been keeping an eye on me because as soon as I got up, he hit me with a force spell. I’d been lucky so far. I’d managed to stay damage free. This time, though, he hit me dead on.

  It was powerful enough to pick me up off my feet and fling me through the air. It felt more like a shove, rather than a blow, so it didn’t actually damage me too much.

  I hit the ground and rolled. It wasn’t a graceful roll. It was more like I went ass over tea kettle until I slammed into the wall of the warehouse. I was a little stunned and a little sick. When I’d rolled, my magic sight had rolled with me. It had been like being in a theme park ride that spins you around really fast. Not good.

  I staggered to my feet and fell over again. Note to self, more vision meant faster dizziness. I was all set to head back to Annabeth, even if I had to crawl, when I noticed Sandy. She was on the floor, curled up on her side and she wasn’t moving. There was a rune etched on the floor below her and a circle around her. From the circle, a dome of red magic arched up and covered her. There was another rune, a much smaller one, overlaying the circle on one side. Out of that rune I could see Sandy’s orange magic heading in a stream somewhere. Based on the battle sounds, it was heading toward Isobel and John’s fight.

  Isobel was using Sandy for fuel! She had bragged at the park how she had drained Jennifer until she was dust. She was doing that to Sandy. I had to get her out of there.

  I was torn between working on it right away or heading back to Annabeth. If I worked on it now, I could solve it faster. On the other hand, Annabeth might lose. The final mage she was fighting was part of Isobel’s group so he must be powerful. If he won, I’d be in a pickle. If Annabeth was free, she could help John or help me. That decided it. Help Annabeth it was.

  I staggered back toward her fight, gradually feeling better along the way. I called the flasher to me. He had worked out even better than I’d hoped. I filled him up with more magic and sent him off again. I had just gotten to her fight when I saw the first flash. The mage screamed and flailed around. That light must be seriously bright. Go flasher!

  A second flash happened and now the mage was blind. Annabeth stepping in close and really hammered at his shields.

  “Try a slow spell,” I hollered. She looked at me like I was crazy, but she sent a slow wave of red toward the mage. His shield flared. She could almost touch him now, so she sent a very slow wave. This time it got through.

  The result was spectacular as his clothes burst into flames. Annabeth was shocked. I don’t think she had really thought through what would happen if her heat spell actually landed.

  Neither one of us wanted him to die so we tackled him, shield and all, and rolled him around on the floor. This got most of the flames out. I ripped off his shield amulet and we stamped on the remaining flames until they died out.

  Then I thunked him over the head with my club. No sense in letting the guy suffer. I felt weird popping his shoulder out since he was unconscious, so I settled on clubbing both of his shoulders. Hopefully he wouldn’t be able to still come after us if he woke up.

  I gave Annabeth a quick high five. I wasn’t sure how the rest of the battle was going to go, but it felt good to celebrate the success we’d had so far. We had taken down three mages! Annabeth was breathing hard but she looked ok. I was banged up a bit from my tumble but it was nothing compared to the broken bones of last time.

  I felt strong and full of energy. Thank goodness I had my matrix and had powered through my healing. This fight would have turned out very different if I still had half-healed ribs. One of these days I’d be able to transform my body like Tyler. Until then, I’d take this hybrid of healing and transformation any day.

  “I found Sandy,” I said. “She’s in some sort of rune circle and it’s draining her magic. I think it’s going to Isobel. She’s actually using Sandy’s magic to fight John. We need to beat Isobel and stop the fight with John but we also need to get Sandy out of the circle. What do you think we should do?”

  Both options had risk. If we helped John and the fight still went on for a long time then Sandy might get fully drained. Isobel was tough, so there was no guarantee we could beat her. On the
other hand, if we tried to free Sandy, but couldn’t do it, then Isobel would be draining her the whole time.

  “I’ll help John,” Annabeth said. “And you work on the circle with Sandy. I can distract Isobel a bit and give John an edge. You are good at unconventional magic so maybe you can defeat the circle like you did the golem.”

  That sounded like a good plan to me. I’d much rather tackle the circle than try and deal with Isobel. She’d really done a number on me last time. I’m not too proud to say I’m scared of her. If Annabeth and John could bring her down then that would be great. Annabeth dashed off toward the sound of battle and I headed back to Sandy.

  When I got to Sandy, I took a good look at what I was dealing with. The circle was actually etched into the concrete floor as were the runes. I had hoped it was just drawn there. If so, I might have been able to disrupt the drawing.

  I tried to get through the bubble and get to Sandy, but it was solid. I even whacked it a few times with my shillelagh to see if a good knock or the silver cap would make any difference. There was no noticeable change. Thinking it might be like the shield charm, I attempted to go through it very slowly. That didn’t work either.

  There had to be a way to turn the smaller rune on and off. I’m sure Isobel planned on drawing this out as long as possible and that meant she couldn’t be pulling from Sandy the whole time. I probed it with my sight and my magic, but nothing jumped out at me. There wasn’t any sort of switch that I could see.

  I went back to the red dome. It wasn’t that thick. There had to be a way to bring it down. I focused on a small section of it and saw something interesting. It wasn’t a solid red, there were black jagged lines running through it and they were moving.

  They were moving fast too, I could barely distinguish them before they were gone. I zoomed in and realized they were everywhere. This thing was riddled with some sort of black magic. They were moving quickly, though, spinning around the surface of the dome. I waited for a few moments and finally got a good look at one. The black was strange. It felt empty. It wasn’t like the one mage I’d seen with a black aura. This didn’t seem to have anything.