Kim slipped out from behind the van. “I’m actually gonna go with pastor Harris here.” She seemed rather nervous for some reason. “We know him from church, my aunt’s good friends with the choir, and I don’t think? he’d do anything bad to us? Can you unfreeze my mom?”

“Sure.” He replied. She had said it all very quickly and he’d be lying if he said his head wasn’t spinning as he tried to figure out why.

He sort of spiked his magic blob at her—he really needed a better name for that—and he could practically feel Kims breath of relief on his back as Mr. Torres seemed to visibly relax, then slowly pull herself up from the front seats.

She seemed to look around in confusion for a couple seconds as Kim rushed to her side. “Pastor Harris?” She frowned, pulling Kim into a hug. “Why are you…” Her eyes passed over Mr. Garry. “You! You were on the side of the road.”

Suddenly Ed felt a small cough in his ear, as if someone was clearing their throat and if he had a functioning leg Ed was pretty sure he would have jumped.

“Can you drop the bubble now?” Mr. Garry’s voice said. Ed snapped his gaze onto him but he was perfectly still, mouth shut. “I don’t want to play any more cards and these guys have seen enough for one day. Don’t want to deal with any more of uh…

Mr. Garrys seemed to quietly shake his head at the increasingly panicked Mrs. Torres. His mouth was still shut. “That. They’ll be safe. If you can trust Mittel for anything it would probably be this.”

In hindsight, Ed should have expected a self proclaimed archmage illusionist to be able to do this sort of voice throw thing. Couldn’t even stage magicians do that? Not that it made it any less awkward.

Ed wiggled his shoulders to try to get his breath out of his ear. It didn’t work very well. Though maybe that was because he’d hid the motion with retrieving the bubble cube. It had fallen onto the floor of the van and he’d almost panicked a little before realizing it was there.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He pushed the switch into the off position and contrary to his expectations Mr. Garry, Mittel, and even the soldiers just kind of stood around for a bit. Warily eying each other for a couple seconds before Mr. Garry simply sighed and nodded to Cham who almost immediately rushed over to his side.

“Hey!” He said, his voice was rather hushed as he knelt into the van. He pulled out a knife and Ed was just about ready to kick him in the face before realizing what he was doing. He slipped it down his palm with a wince and a bit of blood trickled into a vial he’d prepared. “Here, drink that.”

Ed blinked at him. “You want me to drink your blood.”

Cham cracked a smile, glancing back at the soldiers again, they seemed to be escorting Kim as Mittel tried to gently reason with a now very incredulous sounding Mrs. Torres. “I’ll put it on your tab.”

Ed looked at the vial again.

“Well?” Cham prodded, before rather abruptly appearing to realize something. He struggled with the belt a little before pulling off the tourniquet. Then he sliced his palm again, it had somehow healed in the time it took to do that and before Ed could stop him he’d sort of sprinkled some blood onto the bullet wound.

“Please tell me you’re O negative.”

Cham looked up. “What’s O negative? Also you should really be drinking that. Don’t say I never did you any favors.”

Right. Magical unicorn, it was probably healing powers or something. He downed the vial. It felt a little like warm eggnog as it trickled down his throat. It also tasted like butterflies, for whatever that meant.

“Not gonna lie, my parents are gonna be snorting dustclouds over this but you’re like a baby or something, right? I actually put some money down they’re just gonna be mad at the G man back there. Seth wouldn’t take my money though. Hey.” He stuck his hand over his leg. “You don’t want to look at that.”

Ed hissed a breath through his teeth. It felt like a swarm of fire ants were crawling over it and it was taking all he had to not itch it.

“Is it supposed to feel like this?” Ed was pretty sure he knew the answer but he still felt compelled to ask.

“That’s what I’ve heard. You won’t find much in the books though. The details are kinda a secret.” He made a zipping motion over his lips, then he turned to shout over his shoulder. “Aight Mr. Garry! We’re good here!” He turned back expectantly. “Probably want a shower huh.”