It was his job to handle this type of situation. Unfortunately, the doorman also had a job, and he stood blocking the hallway as Lee came out of the women’s bathroom. Eliza had already disappeared into the crowded taproom, leaving him to bear the consequences of what would have normally been an amusing misunderstanding.
“You little bastard,” said the doorman. “Get the fuck out of here before I break your nose!”
He was a pretty big guy, and he grabbed Lee before he had a chance to slip by, manhandling him out of the tavern’s back door and through the fence’s door, which only opened from the inside.
“Hold on!” shouted Lee. “I just need to talk to somebody. It’ll only take a second.”
“Fuck off.”
Lee gritted his teeth and sprinted around to the front of the tavern, hoping that he might be able to push his way in before the doorman got back to his post. He realized as soon as he caught sight of the taproom’s interior through the window that it wouldn’t be necessary.
Eliza was making a scene. This was understandable to Lee, as he’d run into very few specters who knew how to play nice upon assuming ownership of a new body. One of the other female initiates was trying to lead her back toward the bathrooms, but Eliza was flailing about with her arms and yelling abuse at everyone within sight loud enough for Lee to hear from outside.
“Unhand me, you little wench!” Eliza shouted. “Out of my way!”
Kristoff stood up and took a step toward her. Eliza slapped him across the face hard enough to spin him at a ninety-degree angle. Lee tried to balance his amusement with the seriousness of the situation as his possessed classmate continued forward on her violent tirade, punching and kicking as she made her way to the tavern’s door and out into the cold.
Lee reached for her, but she took off at a sprint, heading back toward Primhaven. He was more than a little curious about what the specter had in store for her, but his primary concern was for Eliza, namely the fact that she’d left her jacket inside and was dressed in a cute blouse woefully unsuited for the freezing weather.
What separated specters from ghosts, at least by Lee’s definition, was their willingness to cause pain and death. A possessed body to a specter was like a stolen car to an escaping criminal. Eliza would be run into the ground by the entity, heedless of her personal health and well-being.
Lee sprinted after her at full speed, using his longer legs to close the gap. The icy windchill made his face feel like it was about to freeze and crack into shards. Spots of treacherous ice were hidden underneath the top layer of snow that covered the road back to Primhaven, and every few steps Lee would nearly slip and be forced to throw his arms every which way to keep his balance.
They were almost within sight of the gate when Lee caught up with her. He’d already shouted her name a couple of times, but it was clear that the specter had taken full control, leaving little to no room for her to fight back against it or even hear him to respond.
“Sorry about this, Eliza!” shouted Lee. “I promise to make it up to you.”
As crude of a method as it was, the easiest way to get a specter out of a body was to deliver a sharp, concussive blow to the head. Lee threw himself into a tackle that would have made a high school football coach proud. He slammed into Eliza at the waist, his shoulder striking her full force, and held her tight as they went down.
Her head hit the road at an angle Lee had tried to ensure wouldn’t create too many issues for her. A cold chill passed through him as he saw the specter go tumbling out of her body, again similar to the way a criminal driving a stolen car might be ejected in a crash, sans seat belt.
He shifted her onto her back. She was unconscious, and Lee hoped it was a reaction to possession rather than from the head bonk he’d engineered. He stood up slowly and turned to face the specter through the haze of falling snow.
“You should be careful who you possess,” said Lee. “It’s an easy way to make enemies.”
The specter had once been a tall, muscular man with a smooth shaved head. His size would have been intimidating if not for the fact that it made no difference when it came to ghosts. What was intimidating was the specter’s general aura, the tingling sensation of cold and unease that Lee knew had nothing to do with the weather. It was stronger than it should been, strong enough to make him question whether he could win against it.
“One of the sighted,” said the specter. “How unexpected. Unfortunately, you are not a part of my master’s plan. I can only hope you have already made peace with your path in life.”
Lee smiled and reached down to draw his kris dagger and grasped at nothing, only then remembering an obvious and relevant fact that he should have taken into account much earlier.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
He took a step to the left, putting himself more directly in between the specter and Eliza’s unconscious form. She still didn’t have a jacket to insulate her against the cold, which was made even more serious by the fact that the fight was going to take a lot longer for Lee to win than he’d been expecting, if he could win at all.
Lesser specters and ghosts were still fair game for Lee even when he wasn’t wielding a silver weapon. He could pull them into his mystic stream, bludgeon them around in a normal fight, and then absorb them once they went down through a technique that he had ever-creatively termed “ghost absorption.”
It wasn’t his preferred method. Each ghost was created from a different type of innate essence, usually arcane essence for sorcerers, blood essence for vampire ghosts, and so forth. There was a flavor or character to each essence that would stick with him for a while after, occasionally increasing his strength or vitality for a few days but always shifting his personality as a drawback. He would also have nightmares related to the entity he’d absorbed, but he’d never figured out whether those were a true side effect or just an unfortunate coincidence of his subconscious.
“Fall to your knees, and I will make it quick,” said the specter.
“How about ‘no’?” said Lee.
He gritted his teeth and reluctantly extended his mystic stream to include the ghost. The man coalesced into form, turning from an ethereal blue to an albino white. He wore shorts, no shoes or shirt, and was still completely bald. His eyes were red in color, which was rather unnerving.
The specter didn’t seem at all disconcerted by Lee’s trick, which was a bad sign. The man strode forward, falling into a clean martial arts stance as he drew within range. Lee put his guard up, wincing as he thought about the last time he’d been in an actual, weaponless fistfight.
Lee attacked first, throwing a quick jab. The specter surprised him by both dodging and moving forward. Lee didn’t have time to avoid the knee his opponent brought up against his chest, so he did his best to block it with the side of one arm.
The force of the blow threw him a good ten feet into the air, high enough to flip him over before dropping back down. He landed on his chest and stomach in the snow, which was the only thing that kept several of his ribs from snapping on impact.
The strength of a ghost or specter within Lee’s mystic stream was a somewhat random combination of their original physical prowess in life and their lingering power as an entity in death. In this specter’s case, it was more than Lee could handle unarmed. He knew that he was going to lose the fight, but he wasn’t stupid. If he ran, Eliza’s body would belong to the specter, and he would still eventually come after him.
Lee pulled himself up and threw himself back into the fray. This time, he managed to dodge a side kick from the specter and countered with a punch that collided with his jaw at a satisfying angle. The specter staggered back but spun, whipping an elbow into Lee’s shoulder with enough force to send him flying again. He could already feel the bruising and swelling as he landed in the snow, rolling a few times before coming to a stop.
“You show great bravery, and great foolishness,” said the specter. “From here on out, I will use my full strength as I—”
/> “Initiate Amaranth?” Lead Instructor Mattis’s voice cut the specter off. She was heading down the road from the college gates, staring at Lee and Eliza’s fallen forms with a deep frown.
It was the moment of truth. Lee sat up and held the specter’s gaze for an instant before watching him turn and walk off, leaving the range of his mystic stream and disappearing into the falling snow. A fight against a mystic and a mage were apparently not odds he was interested in taking.
“What happened here?” asked Mattis.
He carefully considered his answer, doubting there was any way to convince Mattis of the truth, given how she’d already expressed her lack of belief in mystics earlier that very same day.
“Something happened at the tavern in town, and Eliza was running back to the college,” said Lee. “She slipped and hit her head. I think she might have a concussion. Someone should definitely stay near her for the rest of the day.”
Having someone near Eliza would also discourage the specter from trying to possess her a second time, or at least, Lee hoped it would.
“She’s unconscious,” said Mattis. “No doubt she has a concussion. Let’s hope it’s not more than just that. Help her up onto its back.”
“Onto... what?”
He jumped as something brushed against him from behind. Turning around, Lee stared full into the eyes of the largest reindeer he’d ever seen. He helped Eliza up onto it and walked alongside Mattis as the animal began transporting her back into the college.
CHAPTER 17
As much as Lee wanted to follow up on Eliza’s condition, he knew that he had more pressing issues to deal with. He dropped off the bag of goodies he’d picked up for Tess at his dorm room and headed to the Seruna Center, intent on finding Instructor Harper.
He was defenseless without his kris dagger, which wouldn’t have been an issue normally. Powerful specters were rare. Powerful specters with plans of action were even rarer. The words the entity had spoken about serving his master had left Lee with deep concerns about how the next few days might play out.
Lee would be his first target. There was too much that he could do to disrupt the specter’s machinations, simply because of the fact that he could see and interact with him. He’d been attacked by a specter in his sleep before, and it would have probably cost him his life had his kris dagger not been within easy reach.
It was early evening, which meant that most classes would be finished for the day. Lee found a map of where the instructors’ offices were at the front desk and considered his argument as he headed down the hallway.
He could always tell Instructor Harper the truth. He almost laughed at the thought, despite everything. He could count the number of people he’d successfully convinced of the truth about mystics and ghosts on the fingers of one hand, outside of his clients who were always already believers.
How would that conversation even go? Lee supposed he could find Tess and have her contribute as much as she could to demonstrate her power, but there wasn’t anything she could do that couldn’t also be explained away as some sort of spell, cast by him or some other unseen, living accomplice.
The door to Harper’s office was locked. A note on the front read “At the gym. Back by 7.” It was 6:30, so Lee headed outside and into the Ewix Center.
The gym’s interior was brightly lit and smelled of sweat and disinfectant. The floor was made up of interlocking foam tiles, and there were foot trays near the entrance for people to leave their outdoor shoes on to avoid tracking dirt. Lee kicked his sneakers off and made his way forward.
He was a little surprised by how few people there were taking advantage of the large, well-equipped space, but it made sense as he considered it. Physical fitness seemed secondary to the concerns of most mages. Power, to them, came in the form of their magic, which had a far higher ceiling of potential, no pun intended, than the limits of the human body.
A single, rail-thin teenager was using the weights, and Harper was in the back corner, dressed in the same yoga pants and loose sleeveless shirt he’d seen her wearing earlier. She was stretched out on a yoga mat, butt pushed up in the air, legs at an angle, back straight, like two connecting lines of a triangle. Her breathing was deliberate and audible, and she didn’t look up as Lee approached.
“Instructor Harper,” said Lee. “I wouldn’t have figured you for a yogi.”
Harper exhaled slowly and took her time rising to her feet. Her face was flushed, and she smelled of sweat and deodorant in a way that captured Lee’s attention, whether he wanted it to or not.
“Initiate Amaranth,” said Harper. “Is there something you need?”
Her blonde hair was in a simple ponytail, and her pale blue eyes seemed to look through Lee, almost like she already knew what he was about to say.
“Yeah,” he said. “My knife back. You had no reason to take it from me.”
“In fact, I did. It’s a weapon, and this is a school.”
“A school for mages,” said Lee. “Even an initiate can cast a handful of spells more dangerous than a simple knife, let alone the kind of power you were throwing around in your duel this morning.”
He’d hoped that the fact that he’d seen her fighting the two mages in the Spell Range might be enough to throw her off somehow. Harper simply bent over to pick up her towel, giving Lee a reminder of what yoga pants did to an athletic woman’s butt. She wiped her face off and, surprisingly, smiled at him.
“Do you know what the fundamental requirement of casting high-level arcane magic is?” asked Harper.
“The Potential. Having enough arcane essence. Training.”
Harper shook her head and pointed at the yoga mat.
“It’s the same as wielding any weapon,” she said. “Control over the self, over emotion.”
“I get the sense that’s something you personally struggle with?” said Lee. Needling Harper was dangerous, and he wasn’t sure if it had been the right move or not as he saw her jaw tighten and her eyes narrow for an instant.
“You ask for the reason why I took your knife,” said Harper. “Perhaps it’s because I think you’re a danger—to yourself, to others.”
“That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I was there during your admissions test. I saw your face when you thought you’d have to undergo the Cropping. So much desperation. So much anger. You looked like an animal that had been backed into a corner.”
It was Lee’s turn to master his frustration. He pursed his lips, knowing that Harper was simply continuing what he’d initiated.
“I passed the test, didn’t I?” he asked.
Harper bent over again, this time leaning forward and letting her loose sleeveless shirt billow downward enough to expose the sports bra barely containing her large breasts. She picked up a small tension ball from the floor nearby and, in a smooth motion, flung it at Lee’s face. He hadn’t seen it coming, but his reflexes had already been primed by the earlier fight and he easily dodged out of the way.
“Most initiates with the type of telekinesis ability that you have would have caught that, or at least diverted it,” said Harper.
“I don’t like to show off.”
Harper drew closer to Lee and lowered her voice. “You’re dangerous, Initiate Amaranth. If only because nothing about you seems to add up.”
“Instructor Harper, there are dangers on this campus justified by more than your gut instinct,” said Lee, leaning his face closer to hers. “I’ll ask one more time. Give me my knife back.”
“Or what?” Harper’s voice was barely a whisper, and she had a tiny smile on her face that made it seem like she was begging him to try something. Lee didn’t look away. He could feel his heart beating, and he felt like he could almost hear hers.
A phone’s vibration came from near the wall. Harper let it buzz twice before pulling back from Lee, and he felt himself let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, relaxing his shoulders. She picked up her phon
e and looked down at it.
“We’re done here,” said Harper. “You’re dismissed, initiate.”
CHAPTER 18
Lee knew that Harper had no intention of giving him his kris dagger back. It’d been a long shot to begin with, but that didn’t make it feel like any less of a defeat to let it drop. He resolved to find something else made of silver as he left the gym. Even something as simple as a piece of actual silverware or an antique candlestick would do in a pinch.
In fact, Harper’s attitude irritated him more than the actual confiscation of his property. She represented everything he hated about mages. She was arrogant regarding both her own power and her confidence in her worldview. She was beautiful, which wasn’t really a reason to dislike her in itself, but when combined with her arcane talent, it made it easy to see why her ego was so inflated. She’d probably gone through life getting whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it.
And yet, something about her words still stuck with him. He hadn’t considered what he actually would have done had Tess not stepped in during his admissions test when she did. It wasn’t as though he would have surrendered. In all likelihood, he would have fought, possibly even hurt, people who were only trying to do their jobs, all because of a rash, impulsive decision that rested solely on his shoulders.
Lee was hungry, so he headed to the dining hall on his way across campus. There didn’t seem to be any restriction against taking food off the premises, so he loaded up a tray with a roast beef sandwich, chips, carrot sticks, and celery and headed back to his dorm room.
“Lee!” said Tess, as soon as he stepped through the door. “Finally! I was starting to worry.”
Toma wasn’t back yet, so Lee didn’t hesitate to pull Tess into his mystic stream. She was wearing a different outfit than usual, a flirty yellow and blue sundress that left her arms and upper chest bare. It wasn’t abnormal for ghosts to have multiple outfits, though most were busy with concerns other than manifesting in a new style.
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