“Kyle!” Jones rushed forward knowing that he was going to be too late to do anything. It felt like he was moving in slow motion. By sheer reflex he unholstered his wand and prepared to fire off the basic fireball spell that he’d been trained to use, because…when in doubt, burn it. But he wasn’t going to be in time to protect Kyle.

The monster was moving too fast. And though Kyle was clearly trying to defend himself, his hand was raising so slowly. It was moving mere inches while the metal wolf monster the size of a large sedan was traveling feet. Blood thundered through Jones’ ears and the words Kyle spoke felt distorted by time dilation even if they were quiet and soft.

‘Nooooooo,’ followed what felt like an eternity later by, ‘Shield of Aeneas.’ Jones recoiled hard as he choked off his spell mid summon. Because he’d been pouring everything he had into in a last ditch effort to save someone who…clearly didn’t need to be saved.

Lines of fire blossomed outward from Kyle’s raised hand tracing swiftly out to form an intricate and ornate shield of images. Scenes out of history and myth drew themselves into existence in the wall of magical light sprouting from the warlock’s hand. The two babes suckling on a female wolf were Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers who founded Rome. There were several depictions of battles, Rome under siege, ancient peoples and events set against epic landscapes and buildings from times long past.

“Holy shit.” Jones breathed out an appreciative sigh. The spell was known. It was famous. But it gobbled magic limiting those who could cast it to those with naturally high reserves of innate magic, or those who could channel and focus high levels of ambient magic. The second wasn’t recommended. Taking in and channeling that amount of ambient magic had a tendency to make a human sick.

The monster impacted hard.

It yelped and howled with a sizzling hiss as the fiery shield of solid magic burned the metal shell of the monster straight down to its gooey mutant insides. It landed with a whump, twitching a few times before it struggled to stand and limp away. The shield stayed up for as long as Kyle chose to hold it, burning down the arcanes in the immediate area every second it was active. Even so, the notoriously power-hungry spell was hardly making a dent in the Prometheus purple levels of AMD. But it was having an effect on Kyle. He staggered under the weight of the massive shield.

“Okay.” He grunted as he released the spell. “That’s enough of that.” Turning to the awed swat members he rolled his shoulders. “Right.” It was casual, nonchalant even and he sighed sadly before continuing. “There’s between sixty to eighty students, faculty, and security guards trapped in the New York Preparatory Academy, with active monster incursions of at least four different levels and no shielding except a fourteen-year-old cryomancer.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He stopped for a breath and before anyone could speak, he held up his hand to forestall questions. A gust of wind blew his hair dramatically and a ray of bright sunlight shone off his blonde highlights. Was that just super coincidental or had Kyle actually made the effort to make that happen, Jones wondered. Taking another breath, the young warlock continued.

“That is just confirmed in the school. I’m not even taking into account the hundreds of people trapped in the buildings surrounding the herd that has formed there. People who aren’t getting any assistance because the buildings they are in are being used to contain the monster herd manifestation. I need to get there and get those people out. Preferably without any casualties.”

“I’m sorry, son.” The head S.W.A.T. officer interrupted apologetically. “But we can’t do that. None of my men are trained for this kind of combat. We don’t have the magic for it.” Kyle’s expression turned thunderous.

“You don’t have the magic for it.” His tone was furious as he hissed vitriolically back at the speaker. “There is more than enough magic to go around if you are willing to use it.” But he visibly restrained himself and tempered his tone. “I’m not asking you to help me. Just let me through and keep quiet about it later.”

“If you die, we’ll need to explain to somebody what happened to you.” Another S.W.A.T. officer added unhelpfully. Jones rolled his eyes at that.

“I’m not going to die.”

“Right.” Someone scoffed and it wasn’t the same asshole who had previously protested.

“I’m not going to die.” Kyle assured the police. “And I’m not asking you to come with me. I’m a warlock from the museum. I know what I’m doing.” Jones had to admit that just hearing those words, ‘from the museum’, did make nerdy dorky unthreatening Kyle seem like maybe he knew what he was doing, that was how strong the belief and faith in the magical knowledge curated by the museum was to citizens.

“Annnd…” the young warlock hesitated nervously as he spoke, “I’m about to do something that is only possible because of the extremely high levels of arcanes around us right now. Any other time, I’m just an average warlock. Right now?” He shrugged self-deprecatingly and gave a quick nervous grin.

Specialist Jones felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Yeah, there had been that rumor about Kyle’s ‘real’ job running around the military personnel who were assigned as guards at the museum. But Jones hadn’t put any credence in it. It was just a rumor…

And sure, Jones had been pretty sure that he was going to be in deep shit for the shenanigans that Kyle and Sam had gotten up to earlier. However, it was just shenanigans. Poking dragon corpses that were only safe to be around because of portable magic collectors was dangerous. Driving across town during a high magic event before monster formation started, dangerous but doable. That was quantifiable deep shit. He was aware of exactly how much trouble he would be in for that.

Letting Kyle drive through herds of actively evolving monsters with the intention of fighting monsters? Not great for his career. What Kyle was saying now?

He was going to die. The Last Line was going to hunt down one Specialist Jones if he managed to survive this. Because, he hadn’t even dreamed of stopping Kyle when they found out that little Anna was trapped in her school under active monster attack.