Despite the rather gloomy atmosphere and literal bullet in his leg, Ed ended up talking to, or maybe at, Kim as much as he could about the mall; Mr. Garry; his apparent, if very miniscule, ability to do magic. And while he did still end up omitting anything to do with his system, something Kim definitely appeared to catch on to, when he got to the part about the various factions at the mall and his suspicions on how they were actually just ordinary humans, she appeared to perk up quite a bit.
“Wait wait, hold on. So you're saying they’ve got like these talisman things and you suspect they hold some sort of magic shit? So like mortals - as Mr. Garry would call them - can actually uh, use them… or something?”
“Probably? I wasn’t there for very long, Mr. Garry said that in passing, I think his exact words were; ‘uncirculated obfuscation talismans.’” Ed tried to imitate Mr. Garry’s voice. It didn’t work very well; but between staring at traffic and talking to Kim, Ed was running out of ways to distract himself. "I suppose the chances of that being just some super advanced tech lingo are close to none, huh.”
“Yeah.” Kim shrugged. “Look, we’re almost here. Do you want a hand out of the car?”
“That. Would be amazing.”
Ed grimaced as Kim reached over him to unlock the door.
“Sorry,” She winced. “It froze up in a storm and my dad always forgets to grease it.”
Ed tested his weight as she jogged around to help him out.
“Ok yeah.” That wasn’t going to work. “You don’t have like a walking stick or anything do you? Kim? Uh, Kim? You alright?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Kim had stopped halfway around the car and was now staring a hole into the front window. Ed tilted his head around the seat to maybe see what she was trying to look at.
Mrs. Torres was collapsed into the shotgun, a large hypodermic dart sticking out of her left shoulder. There was a small hole in the window and a bit of shattered glass over her jeans.
Ed scrambled for the bubble cube. He’d tucked it into his shirt but for the life of him he couldn’t remember if it was the right pocket or left. He felt it poke against his chest in the scramble. Right pocket, of course. There was a soft whap, then as if someone’d slugged him in the arm he was sent tumbling into the right seat.
His eyes started to flicker. He just felt so… tired.
He flicked the switch.
The last thing Ed saw before he passed out was Kim struggling to check on her mom and what he was having a hard time not describing as a white horse overlayed over some guy he couldn't quite make out the silhouette for hastily jogging towards them out from the officers building.
Ed couldn’t believe he’d passed out not once, but an entire twice that day. Or so he thought to himself as he groggily peeled himself off the carseat he’d found himself attached to.
He wasn’t quite sure how long it had been but he was now surrounded by dark blurry shapes, that as his eyes gradually refocused Ed realized were actually a squad of more of those darkly visored soldiers from before, an old pale priest in a habbit, and of course, Mr. Garry. Though, he did have a rather nervous looking Cham behind him now.
“Hey!” Mr. Garry said and Cham gave him a curt wave.
“Me and my new best bud - say hi Mitty!”
“Mittel.”
“Yeah Mitty over here have joined hands, sung our kumbayas and worked out our differences. We got you out of here Ed, they won’t shoot, so you can drop the barrier now. Compromise, isn’t it great?”
“This is not a compromise, this is a tactical transaction.” The priest said stiffly. “Extraction of mortals from supernatural endangerment has always been our highest priority.”
“Good thing I’m not mortal then, eh?”
Mittel’s mouth twitched. He wasn’t smiling.
Ed frowned, glancing around the car. “Where’s Kim.”