by Renée Jaggér
“Sitting is preferred when one is a beginner at illusion magic. It requires tremendous amounts of control and mastery, which is why we’re teaching you this first. Should you feel that conjuring illusions is of little value in and of itself, be aware that the effort that goes into learning it will improve your overall latent divine abilities and condition you to accept extra physical and magical strain.”
Bailey nodded. Fenris had adopted a similar philosophy in his many lessons with her.
Carl looked more skeptical. “I’m a shapeshifter,” he pointed out. “My body can take on most any appearance I want. This seems redundant, in all honesty.”
“As I said,” Deona repeated, her tone growing harder-edged, “the exercise itself will be beneficial. The ability to alter your form is not the same thing as being able to create external images and sounds.”
He scowled but offered no further protest.
The trainer went on, “Neither of you is in immediate danger, yet the godly magical ability lying within you and not subject to discipline can eat away at you like a cancer. In rare cases, it may burst like an overfilled balloon. With power like yours, the results of that would be much like an atomic explosion. I hardly need to add that this is best avoided.”
“Yeah,” Bailey conceded, “sounds about right.”
They began with Deona walking them through the gradual process of creating mental images, then projecting them into the outside world. First they did easy stuff like spheres and cubes, and the trainees found that even simple shapes required constant mental attention to maintain.
Bailey kept her mind on the act of controlling the holograph, but her eyes drifted to the sphere. It was convincing, like a real object. She hadn’t quite nailed the lighting, though, since it was illuminated as if it floated in a white room with panoramic illumination rather than a shadowy thicket.
Then Deona commanded them to mirror the image. To replicate it exactly, creating a second while maintaining the first.
They did, though it took a moment, and Bailey felt the strain increasing. It was a workout, taxing her mental and magical capabilities in the same way her arms would be strained by holding a heavy suitcase at chest height.
“Double them,” said the trainer. “Turn the two into four. Think of the pair as a single dual unit that must be replicated once. That is far more efficient than trying to create more than one at a time.”
It was easier than Bailey had thought it would be, though she grew tired and had to concentrate hard.
Deona continued to supervise them as they doubled the doubles, the number of shapes multiplying at an exponential rate until the clearing was crowded with phantom spheres and cubes.
“Good,” the trainer praised them. “Now dismiss them. This concludes the first part of the lesson.”
The shapes vanished and Bailey and Carl reeled in place, breathing heavily and rubbing their eyes.
The scion looked up. “Did you say, ‘first part?’”
Deona smirked. “Yes.”
Next they repeated the same procedure, but with illusory images of themselves. Carl seemed mildly unnerved by having his doppelganger hover before him, but Bailey shrugged it off. During her exercises in the Other, she’d been forced to confront malevolent mirror images of herself on at least three different occasions.
Their trainer showed them how to bind the illusions to themselves and control their movements and speech. There was no way to automate the process; it required active effort on the students’ part.
Deona waved a hand at their handiwork. “In doing this, you are using your abilities in creatively subtle ways while controlling a large amount of powerful magic. It bleeds off excess arcane energy while acclimating you to the use of what you possess.”
The trainer ordered them to stand up and face their doubles. She instructed them in the process of “programming” the illusions to go through certain rote motions and then routines or combinations of activities, essentially turning them into sparring robots.
“Well,” the werewitch murmured under her breath, “guess I won’t need a partner anymore.” Her illusory clone swung a series of punches at her and she blocked them and struck back, punching her double in the gut and shoving her away.
Carl shook his head. “This is uncanny, isn’t it? I’m used to being someone else, but never while leaving an extra copy of myself behind.”
Deona had them set their illusions against each other in a mock battle, each trainee sitting at the edge of the circle and acting as puppet master to their doppelganger. The mental and magical strain increased. Each caster struggled to exert a finer level of control over their conjuration, translating their personal combat skills into talent at manipulating the double.
To Bailey’s irritation, Carl won four out of five matches. “We’ll need a rematch, you realize,” she told him.
He shrugged. “I suppose this comes naturally after getting past the initial weirdness.”
The sunlight faded, and near dusk, Deonna finally called a halt.
“Good,” she said. “You would both benefit from further practice, but you’ve done well and made significant progress. Return to your quarters and rest. Today’s lesson is concluded.”
They thanked her and walked back through the trees, crossing the grassy moor toward the castle as day gave way to night.
Bailey chuckled to herself. “It’s weird; we spent most of our time sitting, aside from the part where we fought the illusions ourselves, but I feel like I spent the whole damn day running and lifting weights.”
“Me too,” Carl agreed. “Nothing quite like that feeling of being done with an extensive workout and getting to relax.”
“Yeah.” Bailey looked into the distance, her face wistful. “It’d be nice if the mess hall served cold beer, though.”
Chapter Twelve
As he sat in the incredibly comfortable backseat of the Maybach, Roland sighed, “I have to admit, I’m impressed. Not only with the ride, but with the rest of the hardware. I didn’t think Americans paid enough taxes to finance all of this.”
Agent Park, in the front passenger seat, laughed out loud, but Velasquez just shook his head. “There are ways,” the senior agent muttered. “You don’t want to know.”
“You’re right,” agreed Roland instantly. “I don’t.”
Next to him, Dante had been allowed to man the tracking device. It looked like a tablet with a couple of odd protrusions on it, one of which glowed bright green when they picked up a signal.
It was glowing again.
Dante exclaimed, “We’re getting something! It’s pretty close, too. Didn’t creep up on us, so either it dropped straight down out of the sky or came up from the sewers. Or it might have teleported out of an alternate dimension.”
The agents had a small display screen on their dashboard that mirrored the results on the tracker, so they were able to see the pertinent information without having to rely on Dante to describe it to them.
“Good,” said Velasquez. He spun the wheel to the left, taking them down a side street off the major road they’d been cruising on. The businesses and residences of Portland fell away in the electric glare that dispelled much of nighttime’s gloom.
Roland leaned over the device in Dante’s hands, watching the interactive map move on the screen as the green dot they were following made its way through the city.
Dante blinked. “Whoa, yeah, she’s moving faster but also getting closer to street level. And…wait, she’s slowing down again.”
Glancing up, Roland saw that the agents were following a faint blue trail in the air, not unlike the tracking spell he’d once cast on a vehicle to help Bailey follow it.
“Hey,” he asked, “are we supposed to be able to see where the spirit-thing went? I thought you said it was invisible. Or is this some trickery of yours?”
“Trickery,” Park answered him. “When I heard this thing would be my wheels, I looked into it. Turns out we’ve got an advanced HUD in the windo
ws that picks up on spectral energy and otherworldly entities. Cool, right?”
The wizard nodded. “Let me know when it hits the civilian market. Need I remind you that this particular spectral entity used to stalk me personally?”
Velasquez muttered, “You mentioned it eight or nine times. Shit, she’s heading toward the caster nightclubs. Why am I not surprised?”
Dante offered, “Well, that’s where the witches are. She needs to go where the food will be.”
Another three or four minutes of driving brought them near one of the clubs Roland and Dante had visited in their search for Megan’s New Age supply shop. A crowd of young witches split almost evenly between males and females was gathered outside the front entrance.
Velasquez brought the Maybach to a stop across the street and perhaps four hundred feet away. “The scanner,” he said, and Park opened a compartment to pull out another handheld device that looked like a clear flat square screen about 8” in all dimensions mounted on a pistol handle.
Everyone piled out of the vehicle, Dante reminding them that the phantasmal entity had come to a stop slightly above the club.
As the wizards watched, Agent Park held up the scanner, revealing a translucent blob of blue light floating in midair over the heads of the oblivious clubgoers. Roland shuddered. The ghost-thing looked an awful lot like a withered crone dressed in wispy rags, yet strangely, it was still recognizable as Callie.
“Okay,” Roland began, as he and Dante prepared spells, “this is a witch district anyway, so we’ll—”
Velasquez cut him off. “No, you won’t. Regardless of what type of district it is, it’s still too goddamn public to go throwing magic around. Let us handle this.”
Roland watched the scene before them. He could see little tendrils of arcane power wafting up from the young men and women by the entrance like steam, being absorbed by the ravenous apparition. It seemed that Callie, as revealed by the scanner, grew brighter and more substantial, and the witches beneath her began to stumble or wipe their brows or lean against lampposts.
“Shit,” he heard one girl say, “I feel really weak all of a sudden.”
Velasquez and Park grabbed weapons from another compartment within the car. They reminded Roland of pump-action squirt guns plated in chrome, paired with small opaque wrist-mounted tanks.
Dante snorted. “So we can’t use magic in a place where lots of magic-users hang out, but you guys can fire guns? ‘Murica.”
Park bit down on a laugh. Velasquez replied, “Yeah, yeah, cute. These things fire invisible beams that disrupt the static fields that hold arcanoplasmic masses together, meaning they’ll paralyze our floating undead friend there long enough for us to vacuum up her halves.”
Roland shuddered. “Halves? You guys are making me feel like a dumbass. How is it that there’s all this supernatural shit I’d never heard about? Ugh.”
“Life force in one tank,” said Park, “arcane energy in the other.”
“That way,” Velasquez added, “she can’t reconstitute herself in any capacity—living, undead, corporeal, or spectral—and will be helpless until we can dissipate the energy and destroy her life essence for good.”
Roland waved a hand. “Sounds awesome. Do your thing, boys.”
The agents took aim.
“Wait,” blurted Dante, who was watching through the scanner, but he was too late. Callie had noticed them at the last instant, and she shot upwards. Roland saw tiny lights flash on the sides of the agents’ guns, but nothing appeared to happen in the real world. Seen through the scanner, though, two blazing bolts of green light streaked toward the specter but passed harmlessly through the empty air where it had been.
“Dammit!” Velasquez exclaimed. Callie was halfway down the street and gaining speed.
Roland put a hand over his eyes. They should have let us blast her. We’re used to containing our enemies while we fight so we don’t have to bother with leading the target.
The senior agent waved an arm and jumped into the driver’s seat. “Back in the car.”
They all obeyed, and the chase continued.
* * *
Fenris hadn’t budged, but he had not made much progress either, since each time he tried to turn the discussion to Freya’s competence, the other gods twisted it back to the subject of Bailey’s competence.
Freya shouted, “Look at all the chaos that’s followed her. There’s no peace around the girl, even at the training grounds, where such things are not supposed to happen! She must have done something to antagonize Ragnar.”
Fenris struggled to control his temper. “Utter nonsense. Self-control has been the focus of her instruction since I first met her.”
Thoth raised a hand to silence them both. “How has she fared thus far, aside from the incident with the berserker? Has she in truth demonstrated proper behavior and restraint? We’ve not yet heard back from the trainers.”
“That,” Fenris grated, “is because they’re too busy cleaning up the mess left by Freya’s agent, who Bailey was able to subdue with help from Carl, the scion. At present, she’s chosen to remain to further her training for the safety of all, and out of respect for this council’s wishes. Is that respect returned to her?”
Balder cleared his throat. “That is a specious comparison,” he stated in his soft, pleasant voice, “since she is merely—”
“A goddess,” Fenris finished. “In power, and soon to be one in wisdom and discipline as well. When that day comes, as it soon shall, will she be acknowledged?” He paused, absorbing the stares of the others. “What awaits her? How shall she be received when she’s cleared every hurdle placed before her? She’s cleared most of them already.”
Coyote scratched behind a pointed ear. “Hmm. It depends on many things, Fenris, but I understand what you mean. Ultimately, the girl must be given the same chance as anyone else.”
The wolf-father raised a fist into the air. “So you say, Coyote, but will the council’s actions reflect your sentiment? From day one, Bailey has been treated as a threat, a presumed loose cannon or potential usurper of some sort, yet her actions have contradicted that presumption time and again. After she’s completed her training, will she receive recognition of her full godhood? Will she get a mantle, a portfolio? Will she be offered a seat in this conclave?”
The council deities fidgeted, averted their eyes, or glared. Conversation drew to a close as all of them contemplated the implications of what Fenris had said.
He was not shocked to see that Freya was the most upset of the six. She looked like she might launch herself from her chair and lock her fingers around his throat, but she did not.
“So,” she said instead, “you’ve been training her to take my place? Is that it?”
“No,” he replied, keeping his voice calm, “but now that you bring it up, perhaps it demonstrates that the question has been on your mind. Since I’ve proposed that you should temporarily retire from presiding here, why not a test? A challenge to see who sits in that chair?”
Thor leaned forward. “What? What kind of a test, Fenris?”
“Yes,” Thoth added, “what are you suggesting?”
The wolf-god breathed deep as his sister’s eyes bored holes through his heart.
“I suggest a contest or a trial be put before Bailey after she’s graduated, the prize being that seat, at least for a time. If Bailey wins, Freya must step down, and my protege must be mantled with the divine dignity she has earned and have a say in how things are run to go with her newfound responsibilities as well as her powers. This is how such things have always been done. Will the council agree to a fair shot, or are you only heckling her because you can and resent the ascension of a mortal?”
Everyone tried to speak at once, and the pandemonium lasted several heartbeats. Finally, Thor leapt up on his chair and bellowed, “Silence! Shut up, all of you!”
Since his voice was the loudest, the others’ protestations fell off.
Thoth stood up. “We shall put
it to a vote.”
Freya scoffed. “You’re seriously considering listening to him?” She swept a hand toward Fenris. “He wants his apprentice to sit on this council as a foot in the door to advance whatever his agenda is. You all know it!”
Balder frowned but agreed with Thoth. “Yes, let us vote. Reason should win out at the end, dear sister.”
Watching the six council members, Fenris tried not to smile. “We shall see.”
* * *
The mall would be closing in less than an hour, but it was surprisingly busy.
“Turn right,” Dante shouted, still holding the tracking device in his hands. He kept his eyes on it most of the time and only snapped up his gaze every few seconds to make sure he wasn’t about to run into a person or a potted tree.
He, along with Roland and Agents Velasquez and Park, jogged through the halls of a vast shopping establishment that lay only three blocks from the nightclub where they’d failed to capture Callie.
The eldritch crone, desperate for power and sustenance, had vanished into the nearest place where large numbers of witches could be expected to gather. At first, Velasquez had cursed their poor luck. They couldn’t drive into the mall, obviously, and it was big enough for the specter to cross to the other side and be gone before the Maybach could drive around the periphery.
But Dante had noticed something as he’d followed the tracking screen. Callie seemed to be staying within the confines of the walls, even when it would have made more sense for her to cut through them.
Park snapped his fingers. “She’s solidifying. The reaction must have been delayed, but I bet she absorbed enough magic and life force from those witches by the club that she’s beginning to take physical form again.”
As they chased her through the structure, they decided Park was right. She couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, not exactly. What they saw was a vague cloud of dust, combined with patches of air where the light and shadows didn’t seem quite right. Viewed through the scanner, though, she was a shambling skeletal form dressed in rags made of dirt and moss.
