“And your ‘Senior Agent’ gave you a week to close the case?”
“That’s all the time he could buy for me,” Maya said, taking another sip of her tea — authentic Mage brew really was as good as people said. From the same balcony overlooking the river, she could see a few more mages still mourned at the riverbed, though the ceremony ended long ago.
“Dang. You weren’t kidding when you said you have to pick your next move carefully.”
“I have a few options, but I need to figure out her pattern, first.” Maya flipped to a different page in her notepad. “On July 27th, Steelstorm, the thirty-fifth was found dead after being challenged and defeated by Electrohead. After that, on August 4th, Prophetoid, the thirty-fourth, was found dead after his challenge. Apex has killed a new Fighter every week, and every time, her puppet challenger doesn’t tend to have much of a history before their battle with a Fifty. So, sometime in the next few days…”
Maya swiped her wrist menu open, heading to the top rankings and scrolling down a bit. “Rosen’s next. She’s a zoner that relies on wormholes, so Apex would probably find someone who counters her, like…a Rushdown that uses some kinds of traps to punish her movement. If Rosen gets challenged by someone like that, and found dead afterwards, that confirms the pattern.”
“And so then you’ll know she’s heading to the Fighter above Rosen.”
Maya nodded. “Simple to figure that out, but Decker’s team hasn’t even got it in their notes yet. But, that will be our time to strike. Once I get enough evidence on the connections between Apex, her allies, and Arise Health, I can get my Senior Agent to get the SRB to spring a surprise attack.”
“Have you been to the original site of her disappearance?”
“The old Monsoon Arts building in Japan?” Maya shook her head. “It was demolished. Arise Health put their international headquarters there, instead, but yeah, it’s on my list. I could still try interrogating another one of her allies, but…” Maya bit the tip of her pen. “Maybe…no, nevermind.”
“What?”
“If I can get access to the record for the day of Haruki’s ‘death’,” Maya said, making air quotes. “I can find out who the coroner was and see if he has anything to say about her totally real dead body.”
“I don’t see where the ‘nevermind’ came from,” Avanti said. “This sounds perfect.”
“Haruki ‘died’ in Japan,” Maya said, making air quotes. “If I flew there and the coroner didn’t have anything to say, I’d be wasting time.”
“Maya, you’re in Mage Country. Do you really think transportation is a problem?”
“Uh, yeah? There’s no way you guys are capable of instant international travel. I mean, we don’t have records saying that’s even possible, from what we know about magic, and that would break—”
An explosion boomed through one of the treehouses hire up, flinging a man covered in soot through the hole. He screamed as he fell, grasping desperately at glass beakers falling around him.
One of the mages at the river extended her arms upwards. Two flat disks of blackness shot from her hands. The one with a blue ring along the outside settled below the falling man, while the second with an orange ring paused facing the hole he came from.
The man fell through one portal and flew out of the other, crashing back into his own home. As the portals dissipated, the reckless mage shouted something in a different language — likely a thanks — before a hand of flames raised a thumbs up.
Maya scoffed. “Right. The laws of physics don’t apply here. You have a portal room, don’t you?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
----------------------------------------
Avanti gave Maya the proper name for the Portal Room as they descended underground, but she butchered the pronunciation so badly, she stuck to calling it the Portal Room.
Yet, such a simple title didn’t fit the grandiose, magical basement Avanti led her to. The Portal Room was like a massive theater, with an audience of towering bookshelves sloping down towards the central portal on the stage. Mages in orange cloaks paced back and forth, floating books from shelves and tinkering with the portal’s circular metal frame.
Overhead, another mage in orange spun ten feet in the air, immersed in a dense book with a cover of wooden static, relaxing in a zero gravity bubble. When they reached the stage, Avanti greeted the other spatial mages with the same finger gesture form earlier.
“I told you, Maya. Instant international travel,” Avanti said, gesturing. “If we give them latitude and longitude, they can open a portal there.”
“Anywhere? Can I even use this without getting cursed?” Maya asked. “I’m an outsider. I could barely get in here without the guy taking my gun.”
“By Avanti’s words, you’re an outsider sworn to secrecy who’s promised to avenge West Gale,” an older mage beside the portal frame said. “We have faith in our ancestors that you’ll uphold that. After all, if you didn’t, we could always teleport you to a cavern and close the portal, leaving you to—”
“Cavill!” Avanti exclaimed. “Sorry. Where do we need to go?”
“Well…” Maya cleared her throat. “If I’m gonna check the records, I have to look it up. On my phone.”
“I thought so. I doubt you’ll be able to get much signal, but perhaps—”
Maya pulled out her phone and accessed the SRB’s secure portal, to the immediate surprise and disdain of the entire room. Footsteps paused. Pages stopped flapping. She felt eyes on her back, and from her peripheral vision, spotted a mage near a bookshelf crossing his arms.
They were the ones choosing to live behind the times. But, their land, their rules. Even if she was justified, the shame was unbearable. Maya worked quickly. Access to the record was above her access level, but after a quick message to Hale, he sent her the location.
Maya turned her phone back off as quickly as she could. “We’re looking for Yusuke Watanabe, a man that lives in Kyoto.”
After she read his exact address aloud, the spatial mages got to work, cross referencing his address and Tokyo’s maps with their own. It was no wonder the portal was rarely used. They narrowed the latitude and longitude down to seconds, to not make a single mistake on where they could enter his house from. A single error could destroy the wrong wall and crumble a house, or split an innocent person in two that happened to be walking past.
Soon, Cavill, the oldest mage in the room, called Avanti and Maya in front of the portal frame. As they crossed the stage, Avanti gestured her hands a few times and pulled Maya’s pistol from thin air.
“What? How did you get this?” Maya asked.
“The guard that took it from you, of course.”
“But I never saw him give it to you. We’ve been talking the whole time.”
“You’ll find it wise to not question an Illusion Mage’s slight of hand. It’s just self protecion,” Avanti winked, handing it back.
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Cavill chanted and shouted, waving his arms wide before the portal frame came alive with the crackle and hum of energy. Smoke spun and settled into a view of a small yet typical living room. Yusuke Watanabe himself sat in a recliner chair several feet away.
His jaw dropped and he shot out of his seat in surprise, tripping and falling back-first onto his run as Maya and Avanti stepped through the portal. Maya confirmed the lack of traps or threats before nodding back to Cavill, who shrunk the portal down to the size of a dime in the air.
“You don’t speak Japanese, do you, Maya?” Avanti asked. “Don’t worry. I’ll cast a spell to give us the illusion of all speaking the same language.”
Avanti summoned a thick book in a flash of pink light, chanting an otherworldly tongue as her eyes shimmered. A bubble expanded in the air, surrounding all three of them.
“…holy shit, holy shit! What did you just do?! Am I dead? Are you an angel?! No, you’re one of those Fighters on TV! On the news!” Watanabe exclaimed, hiding behind his recliner.
“Sir, please calm down. We aren’t here to hurt you,” Maya said.
Watanabe paused. “You speak Japanese? But you’re American!”
“I noticed. I apologize for our sudden entrance, but time is short, Watanabe-san,” Maya said, flashing her badge. “I’m Agent Maya Wolfe with the Supernatural Investigation Unit, and I need to speak with you regarding the death of Haruki Takahara, ten years ago. Please have a seat.”
As Maya pulled out her notepad and recorded the audio from her phone, Watanabe warily circled around his recliner. He sat back down, his unrelenting glare trained on Avanti. “Is this an arrest?”
“No, sir. Questions.”
“What questions?” Watanabe said. “It’s been so many years, there’s nothing I can say that isn’t in the original report.”
“And what did that report say? Please. Refresh my memory.”
“More than I can! I had to assume it was her body by process of elimination. Every other student, I could confirm their identities, but for her, it was so bad, I…” Watanabe shook his head.
“I see. Walk me through that,” Maya said, taking notes. “What state was her body in?”
“I just told you! I couldn’t tell if I was looking at a mummy, or a teenage girl. I couldn’t even recover teeth.”
Maya nodded, tapping her pen against her lip.
“Do I need to say it a third time for you to get out of my house?”
“Maybe. You sure are set on the fact that the body was too damaged to confirm it was Haruki by DNA, but…there wasn’t a body, Watanabe.”
Watanabe’s expression went blank.
“Sorry, do I need to say it a second time? By the official record of the explosion at the Monsoon Arts Academy, Haruki’s body was never found. The other students were, sure, but…I’m confused because I don’t understand which body you’re talking about.”
Watanabe wet his lips, eyes darting between Maya and Avanti, to the shrunken portal behind her, and back to Maya. “That’s…well, I told you, it’s been so long my memory ain’t what it is. I know Haruki died that day.”
“Do you?” Maya asked. “Do you really know? Are you really misremembering what happened? Or, are you mixing up the story that she gave you to tell, in case anyone asked you about this day.”
At the mention of ‘her’, Watanabe went stiff, like he’d seen a ghost. “You…you don’t have evidence of that.”
“Nope. At least, not until your reaction confirmed it. Stuff muscles. Rapid eye movements. Lack of eye contact. I’ll give you one last chance, Watanabe, before you have to deal with my friend instead of my words.”
“No. No, dammit! There is no her, and you’re not getting me to say anything further without a lawyer! This isn’t even your country, you American!”
“I noticed.” Maya shrugged. “I gave you a chance. Avanti?”
“Skelpt.”
Avanti whispered harshly as she thrusted a hand towards the man. He screamed and flailed in his recliner, pupils dilating. His gaze honed in on the floor before he stumbled out of his own seat, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“He’s seeing himself falling into a hole of darkness,” Avanti said, her eyes shimmering pink. “Three more seconds.”
Watanabe convulsed on the ground hard one last time. He rubbed his back and felt the floor, ensuring that he was on the ground. But, when he made eye contact with Avanti, his eyes glazed over like a TV screen of magenta. His face relaxed, haunted, a snapshot of those meeting death.
“Forgive me, ancestors. It is against your rule for us to use our Illision Magic outside of self defense, but…” Avanti seethed. “This isn’t for him. It’s for her. For taking him away from me.”
Her tone became a harsh, villainous snarl as she choked the air. Watanabe grasped his own neck, gasping for breath. A sick feeling grew in Maya’s stomach. Avanti wasn’t even seeing Watanabe anymore. With every passing second, if she was continuing this torture, she couldn’t have been seeing the pain on the old man’s face.
She saw West Gale. She saw Haruki. Her anger controlled whatever mental horrors she subjected him to, but Maya wouldn’t stop her. Sure, she should have. It was against code to torture a civilian for information, let alone without a Senior Agent present — let alone without confirmation that he was connected.
She could lose her job for this. But, for a chance at another lead on Apex, it was worth it. For justice, light torture was necessary.
“Please…! I’ll talk!” Watanabe squeaked, going purple in the face.
For her grandfather, anything was necessary. Maya gave it a few more seconds, and then placed a hand on Avanti’s shoulder.
Her eyes stopped glowing, and the man gasped for air.
“Please…! Please not again…” he murmured softly.
Maya helped him to his feet and forced him into his recliner. “If you don’t want to see that again, I need you to talk, Watanabe. I won’t stop her next time.”
Watanabe grit his teeth, like a deer pleading in the eyes of a wolf. “She’ll kill me if I tell you.”
“Haruki isn’t dead, is she?”
“If I say anything, she’ll kill me.”
“You’ve already confirmed enough. Tell me more, and I can promise you that the SRB will place you in witness protection.”
“And I won’t see that again?” He glanced at Avanti.
“Not at all. You’re dealing with me, now.”
Watanabe gulped. “It wasn’t a gas explosion, but they paid me to say it was — the suits from Arise Health. I signed a contract that still pays for my home, just because I confirmed the last body they gave me wasn’t Haruki’s. I took the money. I watched them sign off on my report. I watched them mourn a soul that was never resting.
“And then, she appeared in my house that night. They promised me money, but she promised me my life as long as I didn’t tell anyone. And just to make sure I got the message—” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a jagged, healed scar along his upper arm.
Maya winced, but took note. “She worked with Arise Health to swear you to secrecy?”
He nodded quickly. “Please. I don’t want to see her again. She knows where my grandkids are. I don’t know how. I received a letter in the mail two days ago with pictures of them and a note from her.”
“She won’t lay a hand on you. I’m the one making sure that she won’t lay a hand on anyone, anymore,” Maya said. “You’ve done good, Watanabe-san. This is everything I needed.”
Everything came down to Arise Health. She had proof.
“Are we ready to leave, now?” Avanti asked. “They can’t suspend this portal for much longer.”
Maya nodded and scribbled on a piece of paper. “Take this, Watanabe-san. Call this number and say you were guaranteed witness protection by Senior Agent Hale. They’ll take care of you. You don’t have to live in fear anymore.”
“Thank you. Thank you,” Watanabe said, tears leaking from his eyes, likely relief to be released from two horrors: Apex, and whatever Avanti showed him.
Avanti dispelled the language bubble, and Watanabe continued to mutter in Japanese as they faced the miniature portal.
“What did you show him, anyway?” Maya said.
“Something I don’t even want to see again.”
Avanti tented her fingers at the dime-sized portal, and her ring shimmered green. A breath later, it expanded to the same size they came through, returning their view to the portal room back in Mage Country.
The portal room where Apex herself smiled at them.
Maya couldn’t even reach for her gun before Apex disappeared. A sudden force shoved them both through the portal, and Maya landed on her shoulder, flipping over immediately.
Apex stepped through the portal behind them. A river of crimson leaked from Watanabe’s throat, knife planted in his own hands as the portal closed.