I stood in a dark space. I could see a little girl with blue eyes and dark brown hair walking on a dim path. Along the path, a man and a woman with matching eyes watched her. The woman had burn scars on her arms and neck. They wore false smiles that reached past their eyes and up to quivering eyebrows.
As the girl walked, a slight breeze started to cause her hair to gently wave behind her. She seemed to be a bit bigger now. Kids stood to the side, staring at her with a playground behind them. Some of the kids bore bruises with faces filled with anger. A few adults stood beside them with matching expressions.
The breeze grew stronger, the girl’s hair began to flutter, but she continued forward. She was older now, kids played on the path in front of her, but as she got closer, their parents appeared and shooed them out of her way while their eyes remained glued on her. Other adults whispered to one another off to the side. The wind picked up.
The girl was forced to push through the resistance now. Her auburn hair was longer and flapped with the turbulence as she kept moving. Kids standing in front of lockers eyed her with haughty expressions. Girls pointed and gossiped; boys stared at her appraisingly. The gusts became wild.
The girl no longer bore just a resemblance, it was clear that she was Al. She was a teenager with hardened eyes and a clenched jaw. She fought against the wind, glowed against its onslaught. The school hallway was full of guys and girls with pock-marked faces; clutching books; holding footballs, basketballs, and volleyballs; wearing glasses and braces. Teachers stood among them. They all had expressions that ranged from hunger, staring at her like she was a piece of meat, to concern, as if she was a feral animal that had to be put down. Desire, envy, jealousy, fear, and disdain drove the gale force winds that pummeled her.
She was an adult now and every step she took was a challenge, a battle. The number of people around her grew, crowding her. They stood in her path but her flames forced them to part as she approached. She snarled and struggled to keep her footing. She was buffeted from side to side but kept pushing.
A shadowy figure appeared, standing at the end of the road. Tears fell from her eyes, but she kept moving toward the figure. His shape became clearer as she burst with light, but shadows still obscured him from view. The only things visible were a wide smile and a gold band around his ring finger.
With every step, more people were around her, but now, there were also tombstones in the crowd. Al was forced to the ground by the battering wind and dug her fingers into the path to keep from blowing away. She dragged herself forward hand over hand.
Rage boiled off her and she screamed at the wind. Gouts of flame started to propel her forward. The shadowed man dropped to one knee and spread his arms out to her. A bright smile shone through his indecipherable façade. She tried to smile back, but her eyes were desperate, and sobs overtook her. Her tears burned away before they got further than her cheekbones.
The wind stopped suddenly, and she charged, reaching out to hug him. The shadow man dissipated and the ring he wore fell to the ground. Her defeated expression pulled at my heartstrings as she knelt and picked it up with a quivering lip. After staring at it a moment, she let out a haunting scream. I was rocketed out of the dream.
The whole apartment shook when my back struck something hard. I coughed blood, but air didn’t rush to replace it. In front of me, Al was clutching the arm I’d grabbed. She looked like she’d just been bitten by a childhood pet. Her chin and eyebrows quivered in confusion, as if unsure whether to be angry, afraid, or in pain. Her eyes drifted up to me and her uncertainty was replaced with guilt and concern.
In slow motion, she lifted an arm as if trying to catch me from falling, mouthing my name. All I heard was ringing. The world was dimming until it lacked color altogether. My head shook involuntarily as I weakly tried to look down at myself.
My entire torso was caved in as if I’d been struck by a meteor. No bones jutted out of my skin and no blood came from the wound. It was a charred crater and everything inside was crushed or pulped, but I couldn’t feel it.
All my senses were muted, I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t panicked or afraid. I stared at the damage with cold detachment, then looked up. Dale and Leah rushed to my side like they were running through water. Their mouths were moving frantically, but I heard nothing. There was a moment of clarity and the fog cleared from my mind, but the dull world didn’t change. I was dying.
I closed my mind to focus entirely on the damage. It was an unrecognizable mess of shattered bone, blackened blood, and shredded organs. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rebuild it all from scratch.
An image of my body appeared with a deep understanding of its inner workings as if I’d just been handed an anatomy textbook. Through my mind’s eye, a three-dimensional blueprint overlayed my body.
I started at the top. Circulating energy to reposition muscle, fat, and veins. Ventricles, atriums, and heart valves formed. Nerves descended from my brain to create a link and a spark of electricity caused the heart to beat once. With it, arteries of light spread through my body like a tree growing roots. They connected to limbs and another beat caused veins to expand from the arteries. A third beat caused capillaries to fill in the network of roots further. Blood started to flow like water through the system.
Around the core, I shaped lungs. The basic form was sculpted and when done, they expanded to take a breath, but they were weak and shriveled and barely a puff made it in. I tried to force them to grow further, but the light sputtered and died. I searched for the cause and saw that the beam of light within my soul had shrunk to a thread.
My senses were weakening further. The monochrome world had darkened. I willed an arm to reach out, but it didn’t listen to me. I mouthed a word and forced a tiny breath through my vocal cords. Somehow it worked, and my senses desperately pushed to feel and hear.
“En—er—gy.” The syllables came out raspy and I barely recognized my voice. I’d been so detached that I hadn’t realized I was working on my own body.
The couple nodded frantically, and they grabbed my hands as if introducing themselves. With a final surge of effort, I pulled.
Light of varying colors flooded into me like water through a dam. I’d been drowning, but my head burst through the surface, the waves no longer pushing me down, and I took a life-saving breath. With renewed vigor, I focused on the task at hand.
I was forced to split my focus. Within my soul, I imagined little workers receiving energy on assembly lines. They were separating the colors as best they could. Some of it was diverted directly to the technicians to increase my constitution and focus, while the rest went to the engineers to strengthen the flow of my life force. From my bolstered core, medical staff grabbed glowing instruments to fix the damage to my body.
My lungs expanded; my stomach, liver, intestines, and other organs formed; muscles, fat, and sinew filled the gaps; bones fused together; veins supplied everything with precious blood; nerves reconnected; and layers of skin grew like moss to cover it all.
A smile spread across my face and I looked up to my friends to give thanks. By their weary expressions and pale complexions, the whole process could have taken several minutes or several days. Even Shawn was there touching my leg. I pulled my hands away from them, and they drooped, barely able to keep themselves from falling to the floor.
A sudden nausea overtook me, as if I’d just drunk a dozen coffees on an empty stomach. Having pulled energy from Leah, Dale, and Shawn, my face twitched with emotional strain. All the conflicting colors frantically fought for control over my feelings. I pushed it down, but my mind was spent. My power would reign it all in soon, so I focused on my friends—and Shawn.
Dale fell back on his butt and started laughing. Leah shakily stood with resolve. She spun to glare at Al, but my mentor was gone. I didn’t blame her. She’d relaxed her guard; opened herself and I betrayed her trust.
I wanted to lay on the couch and forget about the whole thing, but I knew Cara had to be dealt with. Maybe I really should have left it to Al. I wasn’t a fighter; I had no interest in monster slaying. She loved fighting and could probably handle it on her own anyway. I couldn’t though. I didn’t want her to kill Cara and the teenager’s possession was partly my fault; mostly Shawn’s, but some of the blame, just a little, barely any at all really, was mine.
We ordered more pizza.
“Teach me,” Shawn said.
“You’re not ready,” I replied. “You’ll just make things worse and hurt yourself in the process.”
“I don’t need anyone cleaning up after me. I want to be useful,” he said.
“No,” I repeated.
“Alright, fine. I won’t do anything this time. I’ll stay in the car. Just tell me how to do it so I’m not sitting there doing nothing, then I can help in the future,” he said. I shook my head and he gritted his teeth. “Aren’t you supposed to be my teacher?”
Maybe it was because the day had taken its toll or it may have been reconnecting with Al, but I didn’t have the energy to argue further.
“You know what? Whatever—but don’t blame me if you kill yourself.”
He smiled excitedly, but he also flinched, there was a little bit of fear and apprehension hidden behind a mask.
I sighed. “So, remember when you moved energy from the Hasbrook family, you felt it right? You said it felt different,” I explained. “That’s because it was tainted with their emotions. They probably weren’t feeling contempt or fear, so the energy was incompatible with you.” I paused for that to sink in. He gave me a look, but he didn’t say anything—for once.
“I taught you how to feel your energy. It can be transferred, moved, and contained. The next step is to condense it. You isolate only what you want to use and focus on it. You’ll feel the corresponding emotion bubble to the surface. You’ll either hate or fear your target. Lean into it.
“If you try to use power that doesn’t align with your personality, it will be significantly weaker and probably won’t even manifest. Never use more than one type of energy at a time. If you try to combine two different types or you don’t separate them properly, the magic will backfire.”
He stared at me intently. “What happens if it backfires?”
“The power won’t condense. The elements and emotions will fight each other. The conflicting types will violently bounce around and try to escape your hold. They’ll tear through your body and damage your soul,” I replied. His eyes widened with the description. “Also, you have to make sure not to use all of your energy or you’ll die,” I added as if it were an afterthought. Then, encouraging him with an exaggerated smile and a thumbs up I said, “Good luck!”
His eyes showed worry and fear. That’s what I wanted him to feel.
Back when I was learning, Al was a terrible teacher. She didn’t expand my knowledge of magic and mostly focused on physical combat. Sure, she would answer my questions, but for the most part, I had to teach myself through experimentation. I wished I had been given more guidance and I didn’t want Shawn to make any major mistakes, but, honestly, it was mostly because I’d probably be the one to suffer from his actions, so I decided to assuage Shawn’s concerns.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Don’t worry.” I sighed. “You know your limits, I made sure of that, and if you accidentally try to condense energy that isn’t a single type, you’ll feel it resist you. As long as you ease off the pressure, it won’t explode. Just take it slow. You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
He relaxed slightly.
“Can anyone do this?” Leah chimed in. She and Dale had apparently also been listening to my explanation. I eyed them speculatively.
“No. Only mages,” I said.
“How can you tell if someone’s a mage?” she asked.
“Mages are like a forest, with animals that have blood and trees that have leaves and roots. Their soul is the shadow of the canopy, but the animals and trees were never actually there.”
“I—don’t get it.”
I scoffed. “What do you mean? I can’t be any clearer than that.”
“Don’t bother. You’ll never understand his analogies,” Shawn said.
“Psh,” I said. “Anyway, if a regular person tried to use magic, they’d use up their life force and probably wouldn’t even get a shot off before dying.”
“Can someone become a mage?” she asked. I quirked my mouth to the side in thought. She looked excited. I didn’t want to get her hopes up, but I didn’t want to lie to her either.
“Well, Shawn gained the ability to use magic after dying, but I don’t think it’s very common. It’s been only him of the dozens I’ve brought back, so don’t even think that it’s worth trying. You’re not the same when you come back. It dulls your senses, like you feel them through someone else.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Shawn asked. “I don’t feel any different than before I died, except for the whole energy thing.”
“That’s because you’re not in touch with your body,” I replied. “You’ve just gotten used to it.” He gave me a suspicious look, but I could have been mistaking it for constipation. I ignored it as I looked back to Leah. “Anyway, I suppose, with enough time and focus, it’s possible to increase your energy generation. It might allow someone to become a really weak mage, but the process would take years, possibly decades.”
“Ok, but don’t you put energy into people to bring them back to life?” Dale asked. “Couldn’t you just put more into someone that’s alive? Then they would have enough to use magic.”
“Not exactly. Pushing excess mana into someone can be dangerous. Everyone is different and if you tried to force someone’s soul to expand too quickly, you could damage it. It would depend on if they’re more like a basketball or a snow globe,” I said. “You also have to worry about compatibility. Put in the wrong stuff and a person would have all sorts of problems. Mood swings, nausea, illness, and possibly death.”
The gears were still turning in their heads, clearly trying to conjure some other ideas, then I had one of my own. It was possible, I supposed, to give them my energy to slowly increase their ability. I could bring the dead back to life. Was it possible for me to turn people into mages? I didn’t have a chance to think on it further because Shawn butted in.
“Now that you mention it, Cara’s family members’ souls felt less—stretchy, than mine.” Shawn said. “Does that mean I could fill my soul with more energy to become more powerful.”
“Well, technically yes, but there’s still a limit to that too, and before you ask, the process is the same as it is for any other person. The difference is, you’re not like a basketball or snow globe, you’re more like a balloon. It’s harder to feel how far your soul can stretch and if you go too far: Pop.” Shawn paled, then he furrowed his brow.
“When I moved energy into Cara, I didn’t feel any limit. There was no resistance at all,” he said.
“That’s because dead people don’t have souls. You have to make a container to hold the energy in. You just poured it into her body. That’s why we call them husks. She was energy in a body without a soul.”
He stared with a flat expression.
“So… couldn’t you kill someone and turn them into a mage by creating a bigger container?” Leah asked.
“No!” I shouted and they jumped. I cleared my throat and spoke more calmly. “I mean, no. One, I said that you have to make a container, but it’s more like—I don’t know.” I tried to come up with the right words to convey the process in a clear and concise manner that anyone could understand. “It’s like… calling a chunk of plastic long distance with a stranger’s phone and telling it to mold into a container specifically to hold yesterday’s leftover spaghetti.”
“That doesn’t make sense at all,” Leah replied. Shawn pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Can you just stop making metaphors?” Shawn asked. “They never make sense.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “How could you say that? Metaphors breathe life into this dreary, uncultured world. And yes, they do. You’re just stupid. Let’s get back to my explanation. Wait.Was I using numbers or letters to list things? Whatever, I’ll use numbers. Two, giving someone a second chance—" I emphasized the term and nodded with a smirk because it was brilliant and I’m brilliant, “—isn’t just plopping a bunch of energy into a dead body and putting a lid on it. Every person is different. You need to exceed a minimum energy threshold to overcome death, then fix the thing that caused them to die. After that, you have to give them enough power to sustain their life and jumpstart their energy generation system,” I explained. I directed my mirth at Shawn while gesturing at him.
“Sir Scaredy-Cat-That-Pees-On-Himself-A-Lot didn’t know any of that, and almost got everyone killed.” He scrunched his face but averted his eyes. I continued, “Even though they’re dead, and you form a soul around the energy, as you do so, it hardens, preventing more in. There’s also a limit to the amount their body can hold, which also varies. If you cross either line, any additional power won’t be contained, and it either bleeds out or explodes them. Don’t ask me how I know.”
There was a long pause as I thought.
“Come to think of it… I probably gave Cara too much, but… she should have just… or maybe…” I shook my head giving up. “I don’t know. Now she’s possessed.”
“How do you know she’s possessed?” Shawn asked. “I mean. I heard what you said before, but couldn’t you be wrong?”
“We saw her on the news.” I replied. “You and I have gray eyes, a sign that we were dead and have come back to life. She has black eyes.”
“So – if what you say is true, from what I’m gathering, if we tried to hold too much energy, we could become possessed like her?” he asked with concern.
“Nah, I don’t think so. You’d pop.”
“Yeah, but you just said—"
“Dude, I don’t know. It’s not like we’re doing science here.”
“I thought you were a chemist?” Shawn said smugly. I glared at him.
“Look, Al didn’t teach me very much about monsters. She had some theories, and we fought a couple, but that’s it. I’m just going off what she told me and what I’ve experienced with my own ability and extrapolated from there. She did mention that summoning demons violates some mage table law or something, but then again, apparently, bringing people back to life is illegal too.”
“What is this mage table thing? You’ve never mentioned anything about it,” Shawn asked. “Why are you teaching me how to bring people back to life if it breaks their laws? What happens if you break their rules?”
“I’m not teaching you how to bring people back,” I said between clenched teeth. “I was only teaching you how to not kill yourself. You begged me to let you come along on a couple jobs and I told you specifically not to do it. Of course, you didn’t listen.
“And Al didn’t tell me much about the table either. I assume it’s a group of magi and they’re some sort of governing body for mages. Also, apparently, Al is part of it.”
My phone chimed, pulling me away from the conversation. It was Al; she was on her way back.
The notification made me anxious. She just exploded my insides like a grenade, but I somehow stayed in one piece. Even if that hadn’t happened, I didn’t want to be around her any longer than I had to. Also, I was going to have to fight again, and I knew she was probably going to critique me the whole time. I sighed and gestured to Shawn distractedly.
“Just try to do what I said and don’t kill yourself. Al is on her way back. You can come with, but this time you stay in the car. You can practice in the back seat.”
“We’re coming too!” Leah said excitedly.
“What?” I said. “No."
“There’s nothing you can do to stop us; we’ll just follow you there.”
I exhaled, exasperated. “For death’s sake, what is wrong with you people? Nobody listens when I talk. It’s not a game, there’s real danger out there. You could die.”
“You people?” she said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” My unconscious reaction was to make a warding gesture, but I caught myself and gave her my best you’re-really-going-to-go-there face.
“You know I’m Mexican, right?” I countered incredulously. She quirked an eyebrow. “Well, half Mexican,” I corrected. “My mom was Mexican, but my dad was Canadian. Well, he was kind of Canadian,” I said, correcting myself again.
“We’re coming,” Leah said with finality. I looked to Dale, but he just shrugged. A lot of help you are, I thought, shaking my head. Shawn wasn’t listening to the conversation at all. He was already practicing with his palms facing each other like he was trying to form a ball of ki in an anime.
We made it down to the street and I called shotgun as Al’s luxury sedan drove up.
Al eyed me. I inspected myself. I wore my signature white dress shirt, black tie, and black pants.
“What? These are my work clothes,” I told her. “I have an image to uphold.”
Shawn snorted from the backseat, still trying to focus on his ki generation jutsu. We started driving, and not to be deterred, Leah and Dale followed close behind. The ride was silent, Al didn’t bring up what had happened at my apartment, so neither did I.
We pulled onto Cherrywood Drive, but as we drove down the street, we saw something we hadn’t expected. It appeared that the neighborhood decided to have a block party in the cul-de-sac just past the Hasbrook home. Every guest’s head turned at the same time as our vehicle approached. With perfect synchronicity, they all stopped what they were doing to face us.
“That doesn’t bode well,” I said. Al pulled the vehicle to the side of the road, and we watched for a moment. All the neighbors just stared at us expressionlessly. “I’m gonna assume they’re not going to invite us to their barbecue.”
Al presented her wrist to me, but never took her eyes off the gathering. “Take some more energy and be ready.”
I remembered the odd look Mrs. Hasbrook had during the news interview. She’d been acting strange, unnatural. Her half blank stare coupled with her comments about our encounter made me feel uneasy. Understanding the precaution, I hesitantly gripped my mentor’s wrist and inhaled with the core of my being. This time I stopped myself from getting too close to her soul.
Siphoning energy had become second nature, but I was already full from Leah, Dale, and Shawn. It had been a long time since I’d pulled power beyond my normal reserves.
Relief like chugging a cold glass of water on a hot day came over me. It changed into satisfaction after settling in a recliner after Thanksgiving dinner. Next, it was the rush of elation from someone agreeing to go out with you. Then it matured into ecstasy like—I won’t go into that. Before things got any further, Al snatched her arm away with a look of consternation.
Embarrassment churned in my stomach from the look she gave me. I’d gotten caught up in the feeling and it appeared that I’d taken more than she intended. She tempered her expression, but I saw a mix of guilt, confusion, anger, and concern hidden beneath her skin. After a moment, she went back to watching the people that still stared in our direction. I looked away from her in shame.
When Al was teaching me, we experimented with my ability, but there was a limit to what she felt was safe for me to hold. This time, I’d far exceeded that prior maximum. I knew Al was strong, but once again, I had no idea that she was this powerful, and what’s more, she still had plenty to spare. It made sense why she always exerted her strength. How could she have this much power and not use it? I wanted more.
Fury demanded to be released, but I was confident that it was completely under my control. It would be set free when I decided to let it out. Staring through the window at all those people sent a jolt of anger through me. They reminded me of who I was when I got in the car, the old me; the past me; the weak me. There was an image of someone reflected in the window that caught my attention.
It was that of a man with a powerful face accentuated by strong lines, but it was contorted with rage. He stared at me with gray eyes, but they weren’t the light color of an overcast sky or one of rain on the horizon; they were the angry gray of clouds filled with thunder and lightning, ready to smite anyone with the audacity to linger in their presence. Then I had a moment of realization, and I touched my cheek; the man mirrored the motion. It wasn’t the face of a man I didn’t know. The reflection in the window was me.
It could have been the battle with Cara that had strained me to my limit, the slow healing that starved my soul for days, the reminder of my weakness with Al’s return, or my near brush with death as she left my apartment; I couldn’t be sure. The clear lack of power that I felt caused me to lose control and I lost myself to the temptation of drawing from the overflowing well of energy that Al had at her disposal. But the power wasn’t mine; I was only borrowing it.
I hadn’t gotten any stronger; I was still just me. I wanted to get more powerful so I wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else, but as they say, you can’t always get what you want. The expression that I saw in my reflection was Al’s anger infecting me, but now all I saw in the window was the sad realization of my weakness.
Shaking away the emotion, I collected myself. I looked into the back seat. Shawn was still focused intently on the space between his palms.
“Stay in the car,” I commanded; he nodded absent-mindedly. “I repeat, do not leave the car.”
“Got it, stay in the car,” he parroted without looking up. I had no illusions that he was listening.
“Do you have child locks or something?” I asked Al.
“How the hell should I know? I don’t have any kids,” she growled.
I sighed, drawing out the word. “Language.”
She and I stepped out of the vehicle. Shawn pulled his attention away from his task long enough to appreciate Al’s butt. You would have never guessed she’d beaten him within an inch of his life by the wide grin that appeared on his face. I rolled my eyes.
We approached the crowd in front of the house.
“Hey everybody!” I announced with a wave. “Nice party you’re having. We’re just here to see the Hasbrooks.”
“There he is! I knew he’d come,” one of the neighbors yelled. It was the guy that had rambled religious nonsense on the news. “The devil has returned to reap our souls! Turn away demon!” he shouted, then he warned the others. “He’ll lure you in with temptation. Don’t look into his cold, dead eyes.”
“Whoa… coming on a bit strong there. I’m not here to reap any souls. I just came to talk.”
“I don’t know,” Al said, looking over at me with a smirk. “You do have cold, dead eyes.”
“Not helping,” I said under my breath. Three of the people from the party approached us.
“Now, now, Carl,” a woman that looked to be in her seventies admonished. “Don’t be rude.” Her reassuring smile eased some of my tension. When our two groups met, we came to a halt to greet one another. The woman made a welcoming gesture to me. “Please, join us. I’ll make you a plate,” she said with a gentle smile.
Without warning, Al hit her with a right cross that sent the old woman cartwheeling into the yard next door.