“What do you mean there was a complication!” I shouted at him in a whisper really trying to avoid the crazy person who was wetting forest fires. I would have to fix this all when I was done with this current problem.
“We found the bodies but we can’t touch them.” He said and I was wondering why nothing could be easy.
“What do you mean?” I asked as I was crouching close to the ground and letting the trees hide me while trying not to inhale any of the smoke around me.
“We found the bodies but we were too late to stop them from being sacrificed.” He said and I was shocked so apparently he had turned on Geoffrey. Wondered if he regretted not taking our warning seriously.
“Alright so what do you mean you can’t touch the bodies?” I asked as I began to improvise a new plan. It is true plans never survive contact with the enemy but this was too much. We were too late he had sacrificed both vampires already. That probably explained why he was so strong and fast and was casting sells so strong and quickly that I couldn’t even hear his chanting.
Magic was generated by the universe and the things that existed within it but that was still only a finite amount of power for each person or thing. The more spells you cast the more energy would be lost. People would need time to regain the energy they had lost. To deal with this others sources were created to hold magic so that when you needed to cast you could tap into these places to amplify your power without wasting your own energy.
The magic Bryan was using let him increase his power by the sacrifices that were made and how magically powerful they were. Bryan had been killing people left and right to increase his strength to subdue the vampire that was his target. The fact that he got another vampire out of the deal to make him even stronger was probably a nice bonus. What I didn’t get is how sacrificing Geoffrey or his girl would let him become immortal.
There was only one way to get my answers and that was to bring Bryan to the ground and question him.
“Manus Terrae” I watched as from the earth rose giant hands that tried to grasp at Bryan. He began to fly around as the hands tried to capture him. It was like watching a fly trapped in a jar.
I was enjoying seeing him struggle. After being threatened with electrocution and almost being set on fire like a hamburger on a barbecue I found his pain to be soothing to all the bruises and aches I had gotten since I was first tasked with Finding Ethan earlier this week.
“Hurry up and do something.” Ethan commanded me. I was really tempted to send him back into the necklace and enjoy this for a little bit more but I had to get to get serious when he crushed the hands that were chasing him with a stream of lightning coming from his hands.
“Calm down it’s not like you are in any danger.” I was not about to be rushed by a ghost who was in relatively little danger of death. Shaking out my hand and twirling my wand I jumped into the open.
“You finally decided to stop hiding.” Bryan said as he landed on the ground. He was panting in exhaustion so I felt a little bit better. If he was exhausted that meant my chances had just gotten better.
“Sure I mean it wouldn’t be interesting if I beat you while hiding behind a rock.” I said as I pointed my wand at him. Now that I knew he was immortal I could go all out without worrying about him dying.
I would get paid whether he was alive or dead but if he was dead then I wouldn’t be able to make his life miserable and gloat about it. And if you couldn’t do that to your enemy than what was the point of this in the first place.
“You sound like you truly believe that you are capable of doing that.” He mocked me curving his hand outwards and just like before there were two fireballs that looked like they were just waiting to come flying at me.
“Come on man, you are using fire again. Don’t you have any other tricks” I complained at him. I was really getting tired of fire. Couldn’t he throw boulders at me again or even trees.
“It’s not broke so I won’t fix it.” He said shooting one hand at me at me which I had to duck and roll and when I unfurled I shouted “Ventus turbinis vasti.” And a huge tornado began to surround him. If he was going to use fire, I was going to use wind. Either combustion would make him explode or the tornado would suck away all of his oxygen.
“Is this all you got!” he shouted at me as he flew above my tornado. It only took a glance for him to set the wind on fire and send it after me. If that wasn’t trying to kill me I would appreciate how cool that looked.
“That is not cool!” I shouted at him and cast “Nunc tellus murum.” And watched as layers of earth rose up to protect me from the flaming tornado that promised only death and pain.
Looking at the devastation that was being caused I winced. There were scorch marks were the fire was spreading and scars created by the movement of the wind. I really had to fix this when we were done.
“Where is all your boasting now!” He shouted down at me the glee in his eyes visible only by the low light given by the fire as it danced around us.
“Do you have a plan?” Ethan asked me. He was staying close and acting as an extra pair of eyes for me and given that he could not be hurt by normal means I felt pretty safe leaving that job to him.
“Don’t worry more is coming!” I shouted and waved my wand conjuring twenty swords that flew right at my target.
Impetus Gladiorum was a spell I didn’t get to use on people often as unless you were immortal being stabbed by a swarm of swords usually resulted in the death of regular people. Bryan even if he wasn’t immortal was a person that I believe I could use this on and I wouldn’t feel bad at all.
He didn’t even look troubled he just stopped flying and let himself fall to the ground but stopped before he crashed into the ground. He gave me a grin as he thought he had escaped my spell and showing me how smarter he was than me.
I just shook my head and pointed up and as he looked up at all my swords that were pointed down towards him. I let out a laugh at his face. As the swords fell down at him he used the earth to create a shield to protect himself from the swords falling down and piercing him and turning him into a game of pin the tail on the donkey that when it was done would spray blood instead of candy.
I was already moving towards him when he was doing that. His attention was divided and he was focusing on what he assumed was the more important threat.
When he turned to me to brag he was shocked at how close I was to him and even more shocked when I thrusted a sword I had conjured into his stomach.
The blood was running down to the ground and both from his stomach and his mouth. Given the fact that he was immortal however that meant that the injury I gave him wouldn’t put him down so I had to back up to a distance that I was comfortable with.
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“I will kill you in the most painful way that is possible.” He growled at me. I could tell that if he beat me that it was a promise that he was not going to break. He was no longer in any mood to play around.
“Really because you were going to let me off so easy before?” I gave him a dubious glance to show how much of that I actually bought. Maybe being set on fire would have been a better death than whatever he was planning now but I wasn’t a fan of any death of mine that wasn’t old age.
“You are really depressing you know that?” I questioned him and watched as he pulled the sword out of his chest. The wound on his stomach was sealing up and healing quite nicely now that there was no longer a weapon sticking out of it.
“You want to have a sword fight?” I asked him as I conjured another sword in my hand. We were even now in my opinion, he had a sword and so did I.
He did not take that suggestion well. I had to duck a telekinetically flung sword. I looked behind me and saw that the sword was embedded very deep in a tree. I frowned at him.
“That was close you could have taken my head off.” I complained at him rubbing my neck.
“That was the idea!” He shouted at me and began tossing more of my sword at me. It wasn’t enough that he had stolen my tornado he was now trying to kill me with my own weapons that I threw at him. There had to be a limit to how rude a person could be. When I asked him that he didn’t take it so well. With a scream of frustration, he charged right at me with a sword in hand.
“See all you had to do was agree not throw my own swords at me.” I told him and had to jump back as he took a wide swing at me. There was a lot of rage in this one.
“Do you ever shut up!” he raged against me and took a few wild swings that were closer yet so obvious that I was truly in no danger.
“You need to calm down and maybe talk to a therapist about your issues.” I commented and was rewarded with a swipe at my throat.
“Before I kill you I am going to sew your mouth shut!” he shouted at me. I could tell that he was close to exploding. I was really glad that he hadn’t gotten used to the speed and power of the vampires he was absorbing. If he had truly mastered their power, I would have been dead before I even got down three feet away from the cabin’s door.
“I have never met someone as annoying as you!” he was now having a temper tantrum. He was clearly losing control and was lashing out due to it. I wondered how long it would take before it happened. When I saw his house and the pictures in the album I realized that the man had major control issues and when you take the control away from someone like that they could only go so far before they began to have a mental breakdown and go on a rampage.
“What is your problem?” I asked him as I swung my sword at him. I wished that we could have done this on a pirate ship but conjuring something that big would have led me to being exhausted and then dead. He was on the defensive now blocking and moving back with each strike.
“My problem is you!” he shouted his rage was giving him extra strength but it was also slowing him down.
“Do you know how long I have been working on this! I won’t be stopped by some man-child with the personality of a five-year-old!” he charged at me and was surprised when the sword he was using shattered in his arm and was even more surprised when I punched him in the face and since it was strengthened with magic it hurt more than it normally would have.
“Well I say that you have to accept that it is happening.” The look on his face was something that I hoped would last for a long time. He fell back on the ground knocked off balance and in a daze. It was time to get some payback for earlier.
“What are you doing?’ Ethan asked me as I put my wand into my coat and approached Bryan’s body.
“Getting some revenge.” I will admit that I enjoyed the idea of revenge. The petty part in me found something therapeutic about it. And after the week that I have had because of Bryan I felt that I was entitled to it.
“Fulgur manus.” I sent streams of lightning from my hands and watched as he began to twitch as he was shocked with the voltage equivalent of a taser. I wasn’t fond of using lightning from a wand it just looked weird in my opinion.
“Is he going to be okay?” Ethan asked with little to no sympathy. That was understandable given the man who killed him he would probably like revenge for it.
I watched as he began to try to get up. His skin and bruises were starting to heal. I was not going to torture the dude because that was way too much even for this guy and I had other things to worry about.
Grabbing his body and dragged him to a tree and a sword. Like he did earlier I buried the sword through him and into the tree. If he tried to get out it would probably take a while and hurt a lot so I was content.
“Come let’s go.” I told Ethan as we walked back to the cabin.
“Duck!” Ethan shouted and instead of following his instruction I jumped out of the way and saw a fireball hit the area where I would have been. Turning around I saw Bryan trying to pull the sword out of his stomach.
“Really accept that you lost man.” I complained. I had beaten him fair and square so why couldn’t he just accept the fact that he was going to have to spend the rest of his life in a cell.
“Let’s go.” I called to Ethan and Teleported us back to the cabin. It was a stereotypical log cabin on the outside. It looked really cramped so I wondered what was the point of hiding out here.
“Is this it.” I complained. It had been clear that Bryan was an overachiever so why was he hiding in a cabin like that. It was kind of disappointing. I saw the grin on the Ethan’s face and wondered what he had found so funny and why Marcus couldn’t have come and helped me. I knew he could hear what was happening with those vampire senses of his.
Entering the cabin, I could say that this was more like what I was expecting. While on the outside the cabin looked small and unassuming if you got past the illusion magic on the inside however was something much different.
The space on the inside was much bigger than what would have been allowed by normal physics. The building inside was as large as a townhouse. It was like he had combined two building. One was huge and towering and another was small and cramped. This was powerful space warping magic on a scale I had never seen before. I really wanted to read his magic books now.
“Marcus we’re here!” Ethan shouted and the echoes travelled a long way before they began to die down.
It took somewhere between ten to fifteen minutes before Marcus appeared. He looked exhausted and angry. Like he had been trying to punch one of those blow up clowns that people beat up for helping with stress but no matter how much he had tried to hurt it the thing would still be okay.
“What happened to you?” so naturally I asked about it. I was too tired to tired make jokes and due to the fact that Bryan was probably following us and heading back here meant that we were on a timetable.
“What took you so long.” He demanded of me like I wasn’t in a fight for my life while all he had to do was look around a house for two undead bodies.
“Distracting a powerful immortal wizard isn’t easy.” I was in no mood for any of this I gave them one job. Prevent Bryan from becoming immortal and they had failed so as backup they were to rob him of his immortality and they failed at that too.
“Whatever we need your help.” He said and went down into the basement. I turned to Ethan only to find him already phasing through the floor leaving me alone in the room that probably in a normal house would be the dining room.
Walking down a door that led underground I found the problem the bodies of Geoffrey and the girl that shot me were surrounded by a magic circle. It was spray painted on the wooden floor. They both had the markings but the blade was sticking out of Geoffrey’s chest. Marcus tried to cross the circle but just like at the door at his house he was bounced back and crashed against the wall. I understood the problem immediately. In case we had managed to track him down Bryan had set up a boundary circle to prevent us from moving his sacrifices.
It was a type of barrier spell and it was the opposite of a ward. Wards were created to keep things out that were dangerous and you considered unfriendly. Boundary spells were created to keep something trapped inside the circle so that it could not leave.
“How are we going to get past this?” Ethan asked and all I did was conjure a chair and sit down and took a deep breath.
The adrenaline from earlier was wearing off and I could feel myself getting tired and when I felt my eyes closing I wanted to make sure that if I did fall asleep it wasn’t goting to be on the floor.
I needed just five minutes of rest. This single case required more effort than any other case I have worked on so far.
“Wake up!” Marcus said shouting at me and not letting me get any sleep and for that I felt no regret as I waved my hand and watched him crash into the wall. He was grumbling but I wasn’t interested in anything but getting my rest.
“If you don’t help I promise to knock you out and let you wake up in a nightclub again!” Marcus shouted at me and that made me jerk up and glare at him. He promised that he would never do anything like that again.
“Yes I will so stop being lazy and help.” Apparently he wasn’t going to let me get any peaceful sleep until I helped him. Pulling out my laser pointer I aimed it at the circle and watched as the light traveled along the path and as it past the part of the circle it was at the paint began to disappear and the spell began to weaken.