14

Not unexpectedly, we were early. I’d budgeted a bit too much time for traffic, and there hadn’t been that much of it. The beep of the motion detector drew Bill’s eyes to us, but he was busy with a couple of skinny boys who were purchasing some sort of gaming cards. He waved at us, pointed at our room, and took a moment to stare at Chris.

“You shouldn’t have removed quite so many freckles, sweet,” I whispered to her, not entirely jokingly.

“Ooops,” she didn’t sound too repentant. “What do we tell them?”

“Uhmmm… you found an expensive treatment on the web, checked it out, and ‘convinced’ me to finance it. If they’re laughing about me being pussy whipped, they won’t consider it too deeply. For all I know, such a treatment might actually exist. As a convenient side effect, your complexion is perfect. No, say ‘improving’.”

She advanced on me, pressing herself against me, an unfamiliar twinkle in her eyes, and whispered breathily in my ear, “And are you?”

With Chris nuzzling into my neck, teeth nipping, soft breasts and erect nipples crushing against my arm, I had trouble replying for a moment.

“This might not be the best time and place to try out your feminine wiles,” I managed to whisper back, as a cough sounded out from behind. I repressed the instinctual swivel, and Christine, to my surprise, did not disengage. She merely took her mouth away from my skin and looked sideways, so she could see, standing to my side as I turned.

Jon and Veronica had entered the room, and their attempts to stifle their smiles were less than successful. Veronica started complimenting Chris on her clothes, and they started the ‘girl talk’ ritual, not so subtly excluding anything male. I nudged Jon over to a corner, and mentioned the need to talk business.

I drew out the list I’d prepared, and asked him if he could get his hands on gemstones of the exact specifications noted therein. He looked at it, and with my nodded permission made notations on the side of the paper.

“Yes, I can probably manage it all. It’ll be very expensive,” he warned me after a couple of minutes, deliberately not looking at the laughter emanating from the women. “What I can’t see is why you’d need just the gems,” he seemed puzzled.

“Now that would be telling tales,” I smiled, drew out a billfold and handed it to him. “That should serve as an advance. How soon can I have them? Send a courier to my place with the stones, and I’ll pay you the balance on the following Saturday. If that’s all right with you?”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” he smiled graciously, already thinking about dodging the tax. Cash opens many doors. “I’m not sure about the turnaround for the order, for something like this. Nobody’s ever ordered pure gems. Maximum is around fifteen days, if they have them in stock, I can probably send them over on Wednesday. Send them where?”

I wrote my address down on the paper.

Jon started counting the bills, and lost his place when Matt and Trina entered the room, surreptitiously stuffing the billfold in a pocket as he greeted them. “How much is it?” he asked me sotto voce.

“Twenty kay. Let’s sit down, I need to start setting up,” I nodded at my laptop.

People were starting to trickle in, and shortly everyone was present. Surreptitiously, I activated Wizard Sight, and we began.

It was different. I felt a great deal more confident and much calmer. Being able to see their auras, while not true telepathy or empathy, allowed me some hint of whether they were enjoying the play, bored, thoughtful or merely pretending. The flow of words, counters and dice was somehow smoother, and everyone noticed that when Chris and I spoke, there was a sort of synchronicity. We didn’t stumble over each other’s words, stopping and speaking in a subtle choreography that drew admiring glances. I hadn’t noticed, before, how much truly in tune we were. Matt looked flabbergasted, still shaking his head ten minutes after the inadvertent display.

Then it was Matt’s turn to run our Exalted game, and he was slightly distracted, which allowed us to double and triple-team him, getting a bit more out of the session than he’d probably planned. The fill ins for extras and enemies, courtesy of Trina’s group, were pressed rather hard, but managed to acquit themselves in an admirable fashion.

The traditional after-game lunch was somewhat subdued, even more so after Chris and I ordered triple our usual intake.

“He’s working you that hard?” David laughed awkwardly at Chris. I wondered how it was that no one had thought to mention the change in Christine’s appearance.

“Oh, is he ever,” Chris groaned in an obvious bid for sympathy. “The maniac is trying to cram ten years’ of instruction into a month. He decided we needed to learn how to kick ass, so…”

“We?” Kevin asked, pointedly.

“Oh, me and Kristen, my best friend. She was sort of molested, and they probably know where she lives, so I convinced him to let her move in. His place is just enormous! And so nice,” Chris gushed ever so enthusiastically, and started describing my parents’ place, pausing every now and then to spear a bit out of her salad.

“Anyway, about the need to kick ass?” Ronald interrupted. He didn’t seem too entranced with hearing about yet another dream home.

“Oh, yes, he brought in a girl from his martial arts class, and they’re drilling us incessantly. No mercy. I hurt all over, what with the sheer brutality. I don’t want to think about how much weight I’ve lost.”

The main course was on its way to our table, and everyone started to dig into the sinful masses of dead cow flesh, after a brief look of disbelief thrown at the last portion of Chris’ statement. A teenaged girl, complaining about losing weight?

“Why so brutal?” Veronica asked me.

“Well, I think it’s a military saying, but the best way to go about it is to train like it’s real, and treat the real thing like it’s practice. Training is supposed to be as much worse than the real thing as we can make it without actual injuries, so that when it comes to actual fighting, it’ll be a breeze.”

“Sounds logical,” she nodded, “but not very nice.”

“Neither is ‘molestation’,” I could feel my lips curl as I looked her in the eye, “and if more girls were trained, there might not be room for any.”

That put a damper on conversation for a while.

“You know,” Kevin turned to look at me, “you were much better today, than usual. Did you put some extra time into the preparations?”

That set Chris to giggling, and she answered the question for me, “No, he didn’t. We didn’t give him any time to prepare, and he’s teaching Mickey, the girl from martial arts I told you about, how to run his business, on top of his classes. He spent the morning cooking, actually baking some cakes. Real good ones, too! I just think he’s more relaxed, so it went through more smoothly. He already remembers everything, since he wrote it all originally, and he’s got enough stuff prepared for the next fifteen years, so,” she shrugged, “there wasn’t any actual need to prepare anything.”

The conversation went in another direction, politics this time, and since I’d barely kept up with events, there was time to eat. Christine likewise kept busy with the excellent food. It wasn’t long before we were replete, leaning back in our seats.

“So, does he cook better than this?” Veronica inquired of Chris.

“Oh, lots better,” Chris replied instantly. “This is good, but plain. There’s nothing special about it, other than the quality of the meat. Logan cooks more exotic, Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, some really hot stuff, some pretty weird looking stuff, but so, so good. Mickey’s also pretty hot in the kitchen, you should have seen how they worked together yesterday. I’d feel like unskilled labor, except I didn’t have to do any work,” she sounded smug about it.

“I’m sure I could find some grunt labor just for you,” I responded. “Weeding the garden, cleaning the pool,” I ducked the toothpick she tossed my way, “spit shining the floor and the toilet with a toothbrush,” I added to general laughter.

To everyone’s surprise, Christine was the one to sign the check this time, casually tossing her spanking brand new credit card onto the tray, looking cool as can be.

“I don’t remember,” Matt said slowly, “you having a credit card. Or am I missing something, dear daughter?”

“Nope, you’re still as sharp as a spoon,” Chris beamed at him. “Logan got me a card, for incidentals. And a bike like his, so I could go looking for incidentals. He doesn’t seem to like shopping,” she added just the right note of amazement to her voice, cracking everyone up. Even I had to laugh at that.

“So he’s wining and dining you properly?” Veronica nodded in comradely fashion.

“Actually, no wining. The only alcohol I’ve seen is for cooking. When I asked what’s a girl to do for a drink, he offered me some awful smelling cleaning supplies.”

“Poison is poison,” I said. “In chemistry for 5^th grade, we drew up the molecule for alcohol. Look it up. Alcohol poisoning is simply a kinder name for a drug overdose. In fact, the term alcohol poisoning is redundant because the drug, ethyl alcohol or ethanol, is a toxic substance in and of itself. A more accurate name is alcohol overdose.”

“Now, that seems a bit extreme,” David frowned at me.

“No, it’s merely accurate. The liver can detoxify most of it, depending on quantities, but it’s still a poison and a drug. But then again, oxygen is also poisonous, in a way,” I smiled at him, “so don’t worry about imbibing, as long as you moderate the intake. Everyone dies eventually, so you might as well enjoy what time you have. I simply abhor the taste, so I don’t keep any. I think my parents have a few bottles of champagne or something of the sort, but raiding their stores is out of the question.”

“And everyone’s always moaning about how awful teenagers are today,” David shook his head, and the older folk exchanged looks, as did Chris and I. Very different looks.

“Logan is not a typical teenager,” Matt remarked, “and I’m pleased to say that neither is Chris.”

“Of course, Logan can be just awful. Awfully annoying,” Chris added helpfully.

“Right. I’ll just do the polite thing, and let y’all talk about me behind my back,” I stood and walked away for a visit to the bathroom, still astonished that I’d more or less managed the southern accent on the y’all. At least, it hadn’t sounded ridiculous to my ear. All the practice with twisting my vocal chords around unpronounceable incantations was paying unexpected dividends.

I took my time in the bathroom, and as anticipated, only Matt and Chris were waiting for me, outside the restaurant. Chris was chattering away about the upcoming shopping trip and the stores she was going to raid. A wonderful deflecting tactic. Joining them, I just nodded and let my eyes glaze as Chris discussed fabrics and sizes, and the best colours for a redhead or what would fit Kristen’s skin tone.

“So, ahem,” Matt broke in. “Are you taking proper precautions?” he blurted out.

My mouth just hung open, but Chris came to the rescue. “Daddy, we haven’t had sex. Not yet,” she managed a faint smile.

“And you won’t be a grandfather until and unless Chris wishes it so,” I managed to add.

Matt managed to collect himself. “What are your plans?”

“Well, I’m committed to another year of highschool, and I’ll make sure I’m not alone there. Chris is much too smart to waste more than another year in that institution. We’ll finish our degrees, using remote study, rather quickly. After that?”

“In regard to each other?” Matt clarified.

Oh. A sticky subject. I’d sort of planned on never getting married, but… “What do you think of marriage, Chris?”

“Marriage?” she bit her lower lip, eyes downcast for a moment. Raising her head, she looked resolute. “I don’t,” she shrugged.

“I quite agree. Religious or civil ceremonies just don’t mean anything to me. We don’t need anyone or anything chaining us together. We are together, and that’s not going to change.”

Christine’s reaction and the complete lack of mention of her mother were glaring warnings that something was not right there. I’d noticed the matter before, but not really paid attention. Perhaps Kristen would have something to contribute on the subject, before bearding Chris.

Matt opened his mouth, but Chris preempted him, “And now it’s your turn to tell us how we’re just 15, and we can’t possibly understand what we’re saying, we’re too young to commit… right?”

Doing a remarkable fish impersonation, Matt closed his mouth, opened it again, and breathed out audibly. “Ahem… yes. You are, you know.”

“Possibly,” I admitted without, for once, insisting on accuracy and mentioning my actual age of 16, “but we feel like ‘home’ when we’re together. And you never know what you’re really getting when you commit, right?” I shot him a piercing look.

He clutched his hair, turned his face away, and sighed deeply. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” he shook his head.

“That makes two of us,” I admitted, “but do you really think Chris is going to regret anything about this? That’s the question you need to answer.”

Chris opened her mouth to speak, but I motioned her to silence, and we let him think, standing there in stillness.

Finally, he spoke.

“No, I don’t think I’m going to stand in your way. Whatever your chronological age, you’re more adult than most adults, Logan. And I want Chris to be happy, and I’ve never seen her happier. Of course,” he smiled at us, “I’m sure your parents might have something to say on the subject. And really, Chris, why so much makeup?”

She rolled her eyes at the non-sequitur, and invited him to touch her face to see if there was any makeup there, whatsoever.

“See?” she crowed at his expression, “It’s all painted on, and I lost quite a few of those awful freckles. It’s a new treatment I found on the net, they…”

Chris fed him the line I’d given her, and he seemed to swallow it whole. Matt wasn’t quite metrosexual, and his interest in skin smoothing techniques and face paint was subzero. Fortunately for us.

The fact that he was so willing to have his fifteen year old daughter move in with me for the foreseeable future raised the stink factor of her home situation to a new level. I hadn’t really considered the matter, last week, not thinking to look a gift horse in the mouth – but the magical influence theory held no water here, and it was more than just unusual. I was no longer sure that sticking my nose into the matter was wise – having Chris with me was all I really cared about. Investigating might stir up wasps. If her mother wanted to deal drugs, or whatever, it was no longer any of our business. Later, when we had real power, I’d nudge Chris into ‘rescuing’ her father – if I learned that things were as I presently assumed them to be, and he deserved rescuing. I’d learned enough by now, the hard way, to be wary of acting on assumptions and impressions. Taking an extra effort to learn for certain was important.

“Anyway, daddy, we really have to scoot and rescue Kristen. She’s with her parents, and the poor thing must be a nervous wreck by now.”

“Right,” he answered, bemused, “go ahead and ‘scoot’.”

We took him at his word and hurried over to the car, Chris digging out her phone and calling Kristen. She spoke with her all through the ride, chattering away. I didn’t truly listen in, but I got the sense that she was quite relieved at gaining what was tantamount to open permission for an indefinite stay. Which presented yet another problem – how were we going to get the same for Kristen? I couldn’t think of anything short of blackmail or threats of physical violence, and I wasn’t sure even that would work. Simple words wouldn’t be enough, and I didn’t think there was any chance of ‘buying’ her away. Parents tend to cling – at least, the good ones do – and I’d seen nothing to make me think there was anything wrong with Kristen’s pair. Getting them used to the idea of Kristen staying with us, in the interim, was a good first step, but it wasn’t enough. Changing her school to mine – ours, with Chris – might help. With bureaucratic inertia and a bit of pressure, they’d never manage to change schools back, however loud they screamed. Perhaps my parents, assuming they were brought up to speed, could help?

Certainly, we’d have to discuss the matter, but there were too many things to deal with. It would simply have to wait. Actually, perhaps signs of stalking by the soon to be non-existent rapists would work. If they had to send her away for her own safety… it should work.

We picked Kristen up – she was waiting for us on the street, perhaps betraying her ‘role’ of supposedly scared. She was hyped, as her greeting kisses showed – plenty of passion.

“The folks didn’t even recognize me, at first!” she just about shouted into my ear. “It was so great! My brother, Curt, is visiting from college, and he actually whistled when he saw me!” she preened.

I held her close, and tilted her chin, making a show of examining her face. “Well…,” I delayed the verdict, “you do look wonderful. And Kris, you’ll only get better. Best get used to whistles and lewd proposals, as you’ll be getting a lot of both.”

Appearances are such a big deal, that a lecture concerning how they no longer mattered to us was out of place, and insulting besides. It would take her decades, if not centuries, to learn that how she looked didn’t matter when she could assume any appearance she fancied. Social conditioning couldn’t be shed so easily. I felt that the outside nowadays mattered more than the contents, in almost every field. Nor was I immune to the disease – ugly and fat was repulsive, beauty and style attractive. Looking beyond the surface was very difficult, requiring both discipline and motivation. Or possibly, a good nature.

Kris opened her mouth to demur, but stopped before saying anything. “Oh, right. You know, every girl wants to be beautiful, to be noticed. But it’s sort of scary, coming true like that.”

“Really, Kris, you’re being ridiculous,” Christine laughed softly. “Scary is elementals trying to rip you apart. Don’t forget that you don’t have to be more beautiful than you’re comfortable with – we’ll be regular shapechangers in a few short months.”

“Easily,” I nodded, “you’ll see. It’s going to come to us much more quickly. Our progress won’t be geometric, I assure you, if not quite logarithmic. Today, you’re breaking the first circle of life. After the shopping – and this time I’m budgeting five hours for that, so you should be able to get most anything you need – I’ll cast two second circle spells for the first time. One is the basic healing spell, which will allow me to draw on all your energies. The second is the spell that affects the intellect. It doesn’t make one smarter, per se, just faster. Much, much faster, and aids in recollection. I’ll maintain it for the entire evening, and we’ll start learning really, really fast. Tomorrow, we’ll take a short vacation from study, rest and let our bodies heal. We’ve been putting some serious stress on the system, and Chris, you really have lost some weight, and not to exercise. We can’t allow ourselves to fall apart. Once we’re a bit more settled, after we deal with my parents on Monday, we’ll start a routine of study, exercise, martial arts and magical work.”

“And sex. We need lots of sex,” Chris added, and Kristen choked out a gasp.

“Right, I’ll be sure to schedule that in,” I responded drily.

“Well, you do need to practice that spell,” Chris replied smoothly.

“Spell? What does that have to do with anything?” Kristen asked, bewildered. “I thought we were waiting for the ritual?”

“Oral sex is still sex, Kris,” Chris grinned, “and Logan needs looooots of blowjobs. He needs to master spellcasting when fucking,” she was being deliberately crude, I could see by cast of her face. “You see, when he’s got it buried deep and begins to…,” I swerved sharply, as a crazy driver tried to cut me off.

“Christ, Chris, shut the fuck up!” Kristen wailed. “He obviously can’t concentrate on driving when you’re talking sexy. All the blood goes to the other head, or something. Just don’t!”

“Ohhh, is wittle Kwisten embawassed?” Chris mocked her.

“Hey, no cat fighting in the car!” I said sharply, as I was sure that Kristen’s reaction would be physical. “That’s likely to result in an accident, for certain.” I suddenly recalled all the times I’d fought with my sister, mostly good naturedly, before her bitch from beyond the pole phase, in the back seat of the car. Feeling like the parent was… distinctly odd. Especially considering the circumstances.

I left the girls bickering in the garage, and went to my room to store the laptop and change. Looking for the others, I automatically headed for the kitchen. It had become something of a gathering place, however much more comfortable the living room was. Our priorities were different. Armies marched on their stomachs, and wizards thought of theirs first thing. At least we were likely to get our logistics right.

Criss and Cross were there, having chosen not to change, but Mickey and Trish were absent.

“Any idea where…?” I walked over to them, but before I could frame the question, Chris pushed me into a chair. I was so surprised, she managed it easily.

Without uttering a word, she dropped a towel on the floor, knelt, and opened my pants. Her warm hands cradled my balls and cock, soft as it was, and pulled them out into the air. Kristen whistled sharply, as Chris bent down and took it all in her moist mouth, red curls covering my crotch from view. Soft, so soft, her hair as my hands closed on it convulsively, her mouth as it sought to swallow. I groaned, fighting the urge to hold her head fast, the pleasure mounting as I grew erect with startling speed, wet squelching sounds coming from below as Chris withdrew when I grew too large for her mouth to contain.

I wasn’t sure if she’d gotten better, but she was plenty good enough to have me squirming in the chair, lush lips going up and down about the circumference of my cock, sucking, licking, swallowing.

“Oral sex,” I gasped at Kristen, standing there watching the show, her eyes narrowed, “definitely in the schedule.”

“Ahhh!” fingers scrapped below my balls as her mouth held the very tip inside, tongue reaching beneath. One of her hands went between her legs, and I decided to exercise some willpower. It was the most difficult thing I’d done in my life, bar none, but I sharpened my wizard sight on what her fingers were doing to herself, distancing the liquid pleasure that threatened to erupt any second by biting hard on my lower lip, and cast a first circle telekinesis spell, manipulating her pleasure button remotely.

The hot breath she released as it touched her nearly brought me over the edge, but she stopped her work for long enough that I managed to clench and hold in. “Stamina,” I croaked, and the pleasure mounted, Chris going wild on me, sucking, tonguing and working her fingers with abandon as she caught up with my arousal. I caught Kristen fingering herself and told her, “Lick her!”

Just like that, she caught and lowered Chris’ trousers and panties in a single forceful tug, and dove in from behind. The pressure and intensity increased, and I moved my concentration from Chris to Kristen’s sex, invisible fingers manipulating her with remote expertise, the three of us locked in a triangle of mounting lust.

Then I made the mistake of looking at what Kris was doing, seeing the blissful expression on her face, eyes closed, above Christine’s surging buttocks, mouth fastened below, moaning and tonguing. It was such an erotic vision, I lost control, seeing golden stars on black as I erupted and the spell I maintained shattered. I felt empty when I managed to open my eyes and raise my head from the chair’s headrest, gasping for air, looking straight into Mickey’s blue eyes.

Trish, standing next to her, seemed frozen in shock, mouth stuck half-open. Chris was buttoning my pants, and since things didn’t feel moist, she must have used a cleanup spell. Kristen was adjusting her best friend’s tiny panties in place, licking her shining lips, and raised Chris’ trousers up with obvious reluctance.

I stretched a hand out and helped Chris up onto my lap, and Kris joined her on, leaning against my chest. “Gods, Mickey, you wouldn’t believe how draining it is to cast spells during sex. Be a dear and fetch me some… make that, a lot of cake,” I asked after I managed to regulate my breath, curious to see how Trish would take it.

Her blond head moved this way and that, turning from the tangle of the three of us, to Mickey’s movements in the kitchen. When Mickey came up behind me and started to feed me bite-sized pieces of chocolate cake, and I licked her fingers clean, Trish’s eyes nearly bugged out, and she shook her head violently.

“What is this?” she nearly shrieked. “You’re all… together?”

“You could say that,” Mickey replied, as my mouth was full. “You see,” Mickey’s voice was pitched in an almost obsequious ‘reasonable’ tone, almost making me choke up on laughter and cake, “it’s wizardry. Wizards’ sex drives are… shall we say, heightened? Together with all other faculties, once we get a handle on real magic. I mean, did you ever wonder about Superman, or all those other costumed cutesies? Could they go all night and day, for a week? Wizards can. It’s like,” she paused, looking up as though searching for words, “well,” she feigned embarrassment, before looking Trish straight in the eye, “we’re all nymphos. Or in males, it’s satyriasis,” she corrected herself.

Criss and Cross were trembling on me, just barely holding on. “Kiss,” I whispered, and they did. Focusing on the sight of them, lip to lip, made laughter a very distant concern, and I couldn’t help but join in. The three-way kiss was a very interesting experience.

“Yum, chocolate,” Chris commented once she withdrew her tongue from my mouth and we stopped to regain our breath.

I snuck a look at Trish, and saw her staring at us, cheeks flushed.

“That’s why you’re completely safe from molestation here,” I embellished, “we wizards generally stick to our own kind. I mean, you probably can’t last for sixteen straight hours of sex, right? You’d need to stop and eat, drink, rest. And there’s something extra about sorceresses,” I licked my lips lasciviously, turning burning eyes from Mickey to Criss and Cross.

“You’re overdoing it,” Mickey leaned closer to my ear and whispered, before sticking her tongue in.

I jerked back and clapped my hands. “Girls, please! Sex is on the schedule for tomorrow. We’re going to take Kristen and turn her into liquid mush,” I put a hand on one of her breasts, squeezing lightly, “but today it’s shopping and advanced spells. Five hours of shopping at Westcross mall, then I’ll use the second circle intellect spell to boost us all up, and you’ll break the first circle of life. So get dressed if you’re not already, and we’ll go. Yes, Trish, that includes you,” I added at her hesitant expression, “you’re a guest, and you need some new duds. Or whatever.”

“I’m ready,” Criss and Cross said together, and Mickey nodded, “I’m all set.”

“Trish?” I looked at her.

“Ah,” she stuttered, “I, ah, just let me get ready. It won’t be a moment,” she turned a fled.

“She can be useful,” Mickey said once she was out of sight, “really. Setting her up and tossing her out would be wasteful.”

I raised a brow in silent query, mouth full of cake.

“She’s not stupid, even if she is blond,” Kristen interrupted her with a giggle, and Chris wore a smirk.

“Not funny,” Mickey admonished them. “Quite seriously, we have someone here who’s aware of magic, but hasn’t completely freaked out, and she’s got nowhere to go. I forgot to mention that her grandmother died. I mean, she’s really in trouble, and we can use a secretary. And before you say she can’t be trusted,” Mickey raised an hand at me, a full stop sign, “we can take care of that with magic, later, once we really have things to hide. It’s not as if she can contact elementals or demons,” she looked at me expectantly.

“What do you think?” I asked Criss and Cross.

Chris frowned and bit her lip, too cute for words, and said, “Concur.” Kris nodded a moment later, “Just throwing her out like that would be too cruel.”

“Done, then.”

For a few silent minutes we all nibbled on cakes and drank our fill, waiting on Trish. She wasn’t gone long, and returned looking freshly scrubbed, in makeup, jeans and red t-shirt. I didn’t miss the nod Mickey gave her, and the way her bearing straightened thereafter. I tossed Mickey the car license, “I’ll take a bike. Might be some mods for it,” I lied with a straight face.

In gloves and leather jacket, with the items I’d prepared in the pockets, I followed the car to the mall. A very big mall, I soon found out, and quite crowded as well. Serving as escort from car to the nearest clothing store didn’t steal too much time away, seeing as the girls were moving with enough speed and intent to snap reins atwain.

A little trip to the bathroom, a few seconds spent practicing the malicious, psychopathic killer, villain laugh and the illusion of Richard’s face superimposed on mine in front of a mirror, and I was burning rubber on the way to the hospital. Dad’s Fireblade was now painted matte black, license numbers suitably doctored.

I parked at the entrance, chained the helmet to the bike’s rear wheel, and activated the illusion. A look at the bike’s mirror (objects are closer than they appear) showed that I bore a passing semblance to the deceased. Passing the shrubbery, resisting the urge to Ni, I went straight past the reception area, where a bored looking young woman was gazing raptly at a computer, probably playing hearts or solitaire, and climbed up to the third floor. The security was purely laughable – the guards had completely ignored me. Granted, I wasn’t carrying so much as a purse, and didn’t look suspicious, but still…

Offended professionalism aside, finding their rooms was child’s play. I nodded courteously at passing nurses, and received no more than a few sidelong glances. Walking steadily, I pondered the how, for repeated instances of spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage would likely engender overmuch suspicion. The healing spell! It was, first and foremost, a draining spell, taking vitality from others. I stopped and sat down on a chair next to a water fountain, and opened the book that appeared on my lap.

The draining touch enables a wizard not merely to heal but to cast spells beyond his own capacity for power. The spell carries significant dangers for the person drained. Student wizards and wizards used stables of mortals as self-regenerating batteries. Few such mortals survived more than a few weeks of such use.

Ergo, it would work. There were more advanced variations on the spell that allowed a wizard to drain vitality at a distance, or even from an entire crowd. The information was unsettling, but enormously useful. Here were the means to cast many spells of power without delaying to recover, providing there were people to drain. If ordinary people suddenly became nothing more than a source of power, we’d be no better than the mythical vampires. Yet another incentive to losing all moral restraint, one that might well prove necessary for survival. I shook my head, and considered how I was to approach the three. First, to see if they were awake.

Only one of the rapists was not somnolent, I saw, concentrating on the view of things beyond the wall. With wizard sight, you could see past solid stuff, if you put enough concentration into it, depending on the density of the intervening material. Presumably, the more advanced versions of the spell allowed for more. The thin, hollow walls did not present much of an obstruction. Most of the difficulty lay in interpreting what I saw through the haze presented by the wall.

Summer, afternoon, Saturday. There were not many people about, and I picked a moment when there were none. Walking up to the door, my heart was thudding rapidly, but I resisted the urge to look around. I opened the door smoothly, and closed it behind me. A murmured spell, and it was locked.

“Hey Rich, what’s up?” he whispered, looking up from the magazine he was reading.

I couldn’t imitate the voice, and I didn’t attempt to answer, merely walked towards the bed, smooth but fast, a smile on my face. There must have been something reflected in my eyes and smile, because he frowned and raised his head, “Hey, man, what’s up?”

I cast the spell as soon as he was within reach, putting all the oomph I had behind it, and touched his arm.

I could hear his body convulsing on the bed, but had to shut my eyes to weather the sudden brightness of power. It all flowed into me, and it was… extasy, a joy beyond mere physical feeling, an impossible sensation of power. My skin was tingling like mad, my innards hot and somehow swollen. I felt strong enough to send my fist through a wall, I felt like I could fly, like I could tear a counter from the floor and throw it across a room, one-handed.

I opened my eyes slowly, and tried as best as I could to look at myself. The power was congruent with my skin, my aura fluctuating and trembling bright. I could see that little bits of it were flowing away, and opened the book.

External power accessed by such means may only be retained for short periods. It bleeds off quickly.

I’d studied the intellect upper spell extensively, and took another look at it here and now. As precisely as I could, I cast it.

The world turned sharper, as if I’d tuned the textures more finely. I was still full and overfull of power. With a shrug, I cast the grace spell. Not enough. I though of what else, and suddenly noted that I recalled perfectly what I’d merely looked at and skimmed, knew exactly how to cast the entire power up suite, the spells I’d only glanced at, which would allow me to regenerate much quickly, increase my awareness of my surroundings, and enhance muscular strength and bone density. Almost the full effect of the ritual I was waiting for, with what felt akin to martyr-like patience.

It took no time to make a decision. I was casting with fluid ease and greatly increased speed and precision, and snuffed another two lives, one in the same room, the other in the adjacent one, with not the slightest pang of conscious, powering up. I was left with too much power inside, even considering the casting of nine second circle spells. I was astonished to discover that there was an efficiency gradient for spell casting – it was not just a matter of gaining experience in using your power, getting used to subsuming your own strength for magical energy, but also in the actual spell casting itself. The book had informed me that hidden casting techniques existed. I now learned that a true wizard barely needed to voice incantations, and had no need to twist his body into permutations that would snap a snake’s spine, once he learned the spell and cast it a few times. An archwizard only truly required the mental process once he was familiar with a spell, using his magic and shaping the power by will alone.

I could feel someone entering the corridor outside. I wasn’t sure if it was an auditory recognition or some other sense, but I knew someone was walking by. Spending more time in a room with a corpse was contra-indicated. The drained corpses looked wrong somehow, almost starved, with hollow cheeks and flattened muscles. There was another patient in the room, hidden behind a green curtain, but he was safe from me. The police wouldn’t be as polite, I was quite certain.

I waited for a minute, until the surroundings were empty, and began retracing my steps. The receptionist was talking to an elderly woman, and the guards were as attentive as they’d been. One thing I’d forgotten to do was tell the girls what to do in case I was hurt. I’d have to remedy that, I thought as I stepped outside, having to concentrate to avoid walking too smoothly, too gracefully.

I looked for my bike, took a step forward, and froze. I could feel them above, and action came before thought. Bounding over the rail, clearing the stairway in a single jump, I only just avoided the… was it a coke can? … that went in a blur past the space my head had occupied a scant moment past. I looked up only long enough to identify them, running, leaping, and tumbling, avoiding a flurry of objects tossed my way.

Sylphs, looking like attenuated, elfin-featured, child-sized women. Thin, small, and inhuman looking, hauntingly beautiful for all of that, with transparent butterfly wings, there were three hunting me. They were powerful, but it was not hopeless. I leaped over another fence, the crack of a tile slamming into a nearby wall thundering in my ears, needles laying a burning track on my arm, and looked for people. I couldn’t keep running and dodging – the sylphs were both faster and more maneuverable. All I was doing was providing them with entertainment.

At the turn of the street, I nearly trampled a pair of teenaged girls walking out of a stylist, and cast the draining spell, taking from both, but not taking enough to kill. They swooned, and I was past, dropping into a roll to avoid another hurled object, changing direction and jumping over a parked car. Something hit my side with considerable force, and I dropped, the breath knocked out of me.

Unable to utter so much as a croak, I couldn’t cast a spell. I rolled aside, wincing at the sound that erupted behind me, twisted and dodged again. Then the spell was ready, and a bolt of spell flames blotted a sylph out of existence.

The pause in the assault, as the stunned pair of sylphs regrouped, allowed me to drain three men in jeans, leaving them gasping on the ground, and back into a side street.

Out of their line of sight for just long enough, I raised a shield of air, spending power with profligate desperation.

It worked. I saw one of the sylphs, moving in a blur, and ignored the spinning discs of CDs it sent to decapitate me. The wounds had never actually started to hurt, but I could feel flesh and blood vessels knitting back together. Flooded with power, the regeneration spell was working true magic.

The old cutting spell, used with a delicate touch that was lacking before, brought the sylph fluttering down, one wing sliced neatly away. This was no minor zephyr, her internal connections of living air too complex and thick to cut or unravel with such a minor magic, however much power I put behind it.

Falling, the sylph expended most of her power, and a jagged stroke of electricity cleaved the air, aimed with unerring precision straight at me. Air would not stop it, solid or not, and it carried enough charge to fry a dozen men.

Stupid sylph. A first circle transmutation spell gave a nearby parked car a magnetic charge, and the bolt of lightning swerved and struck it with a dreadful blast of sound. Another blast of sound rocked the street, as the firebolt I threw caught the sylph before she touched the ground, leaving nothing of her… or the wall behind her. Screams, shouts, the crackle of electricity, a rising plume of smoke. It was a scene from a war movie.

I winced, hoping I’d not killed anyone by accident, and looked for the last of the three.

She came in on an evasion course it would take a supercomputer to predict. Even enhanced, I wasn’t willing to take a chance on a firebolt of mine taking her down. As she blurred closer, a charge of electric energy and pure power grew about her, and I realized that I was in even worse trouble. The sylph was headed in for a straight on collision, trying to take me out kamikaze style. As I drew in breath, my barrier of air shattered, and I looked around in desperation. No time!

Summoning all the power I had taken, everything I had, I tried to do the impossible, casting with every bit of efficient grace I could, annunciating each phoneme and syllable with the utmost crispness, directing all of my will behind the spell construct, working with barely credible speed.

A sylph is not an ant, but she had exhausted her life energy almost completely, and I had a significant reservoir of power. This shouldn’t kill me. Or at least, so I distinctly hoped, as I tried to snuff her life in the most brute force fashion I had, the only thing that had a chance of working.

My knees turned to water and I fell face first onto… something hard. I couldn’t see, there were tears in my eyes. Somehow, I held on to all my spells, even the little illusion of Richard’s face.

An interminable length of time later, someone touched me.