I should have started on these advanced spells weeks earlier, but I had been in a kind of weird denial - playing stupid games with Lydia, drowning in schoolboy grief over Judy and Denise. But now it was time to get serious, and I had to make up for lost time.
I converted five hundred dollars to anonymous currency and paid ‘cash’ for a bulletproof jacket from a guy Veazey vouched for. I wanted to get one in Bluestar blue, but all they had was black.
I spent the day gathering parts for my next training session, and quickly realized there was no way I could do this alone. I tried a dozen ways to get around it, but finally broke down and called Veazey. The next step in my training was going to be crazy and dangerous, and he was the only one I could trust.
“Veazey, are you willing to meet me in the Zone? I need to shoot some things.”
Veazey laughed. “You finally gonna let me teach you to shoot?”
“I already know how to shoot!”
“No, dude, you really don’t. But I can fix you. What caliber you want?”
Veazey showed up in his famous red truck, an ancient rumbling ground vehicle that still used rubber tires. He got the wrong idea over the phone, so he showed up with a truck bed full of his own guns.
Even homeless people had abandoned the Zone by this point. By 2058, I didn’t even see rats or cockroaches anymore. The weird miasma left behind after Nergal’s destruction was slowly getting stronger, consuming anything that crawled or slithered inside. I shuddered when I realized, I might be the only living thing still safe in this place after dark.
Henry had made this building a kind of shrine to Old America, putting up weathered paper photos of men in suits. Veazey told me they were presidents, but the names meant nothing to me.
“America really elected a president named Dwight?” I asked.
“You seriously don’t know who Dwight Eisenhower was? I thought you went to a fancy corporate school.”
“Just for a few years, and the corporations that run shit aren’t gonna teach kids about the system they replaced. We might grow up and decide to try it again.”
One wall was unfinished, so Henry had built his own backstop to shoot his collection of highly illegal vintage firearms: a Browning Hi-Power, a rusted AK-47, and some kind of civilian knockoff M16. But today, all that had been cleared away to make room for three HDI Autoguns, in various states of disrepair.
I led Veazey into the building and realized I couldn’t put this off anymore.
“Okay, this is gonna get weird, but I guess the easiest way to start this is to just say, I got powers. Something happened on my birthday, and I got powers. I asked you out here to help me train. This thing I’m about to try, it’s really dangerous, and I need a friend here, in case I have to go to the hospital.”
“You’re not fucking with me, you really got powers?”
I nodded.
“That’s awesome! What can you do?”
“I got magic.”
“So, just like…”
“Just like I always wanted, yeah, but there’s a catch. Quite a few catches, actually. Look, when I tell you this, if you stop me every time I say something that sounds like bullshit, we’re gonna be here all day. So could you let me go through the whole thing real quick, and just say bullshit once, at the end?”
He shrugged.
“Okay, the night of my birthday, I met this chick named Lydia…”
* * *
“Well,” Veazey said, putting a pinch of contraband between his cheek and gum. “If you really are training for a fight, how much do you know about the bad guy?”
“I can show you.” I pulled up Jacob’s anatomical drawings and blew them up on an interior wall. “This is the demon prince… BZ. He’s nine feet tall, super strong, with all kinds of built in magic powers and skin like armor plate.”
Veazey gaped at me. “So, what are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna kill him.”
* * *
“How the fuck do you train for that?” Veazey asked.
“I got these old automatic guns left behind from the Nergal attack. I brought back two more for parts, and I finally got one working. But I need you to check my work, before I start shooting myself.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am absolutely serious. I got these protection wards from one of my ancestors. I know they can stop black powder balls, and maybe even cannon fire, but nobody’s ever tested these against modern rounds. I have to make sure they hold up, and I have to train myself to keep these spells going, even when I’m distracted and scared shitless.”
Veazey nodded like he understood, then he walked up, and punched me in the face. I went down like a sack of potatoes. I had been slapped in the face quite a few times, as a kid, but I’d spent my whole life avoiding fights with grown men. I fell flat on my ass and looked up at him, red-faced and sweating.
“How are you gonna take a bullet when you can’t even take a punch?”
“Goddammit, I wasn’t ready!”
“Yeah, no shit. You think demons are gonna wait until you’re ready? You think demons are gonna use guns?”
Veazey tried to kick me while I was down, but now I had wards up, and his foot just kind of slowed down as it got closer to my ribs. I waited until he was off-balance, then I grabbed his leg and yanked him off his feet.
Now we were both on the ground. Veazey tried to throw himself across my body and pin me, but the wards seemed to push him away, every time he tried to grab me or get closer.
“Thanks,” I said, slowly rising to my feet. “I should have thought about melee first. I need to see if these are strong enough to deflect a whole— “
But Veazey was way ahead of me. He got a running start and tried to knock me over, using his whole body. I felt the strain as the wards deflected his weight. He didn’t knock me over, but repelling the full weight of a human body took more power than I expected, and I was having to concentrate harder to keep the wards solid. If the power requirements were based on weight, bullets should be easy, right?
Veazey got within a couple inches of me and started swinging for real, but his hands were slowing down as they drove into something invisible in front of me. He almost got close enough to tag me a few times, before the wards seemed to firm up and push him further away.
“Okay, okay!” I said, trying to wave him off. “Truce. But now you gotta tell me, how does it feel when you try and punch me?”
“At first it was like trying to hit a guy wrapped in a blanket. Then it was like punching a rubber tire. Then at the end, it actually hurt my hand a little. But Tim, you can’t walk around with half-assed armor. And what happens if you get surprised? By the time you got that spell up, you were already on the ground!”
“I didn’t cast the whole spell while I was on the ground. I cast it from scratch an hour ago and then I just kind of… kept it going, in the back of my head. I didn’t have the wards going at full power, just standing here with you, but I wasn’t completely defenseless. My wards weren’t strong enough to keep me on my feet, since you put your weight into it, but it didn’t hurt like a full punch, either. I wasn’t invulnerable, but I don’t think you could cut me, even if I just had them going in the background.”
“I didn’t hit you that hard.”
“Well then, you need to. Try it now.”
“I can’t even get close enough to swing, now that you’re ready for me.”
“Exactly. You were able to get close because you’re a friend, and I had my guard down. I had my wards at maybe twenty percent. But I would never be that relaxed around strangers. I think I would have them at forty percent just walking down the street. And if I’m expecting a threat, like if I know demons could be around the corner somewhere? I’ll be channeling enough magic to keep them at eighty percent, or even full power.”
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“And what if some sneaky demon fucker pops in and stabs you while you’re nice and relaxed, talking to me?”
“It would bruise, but I don’t think it would cut me. Having wards in the background, it’s like wearing leather or Kevlar, and when I’m really cranking them up, they can be as solid as steel plates. I guess I’m at risk of being tackled or knocked down by something bigger than me, but I don’t think they could crush me, and I don’t think they could get their claws in.”
Veazey shook his head. “Too many goddamn ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ in that sentence, Tim. And I don’t think you realize how fast or how hard you went down.”
“Fine! I admit, I dropped my guard around you. But you can bet I won’t make that mistake again. I won’t make that mistake when I’m walking alone, and certainly not when I’m expecting trouble.”
“But you won’t be expecting it. That’s my point! What happens if a giant fuck-off demon pops out of nowhere and bodies you when you think you’re safe?”
“I think I can smell them now, when magical creatures pop in. I still have to concentrate to see auras and tethers, but magic has a smell to it, copper and ozone like electric blood. Even Lydia smells like that, for a second, whenever she pops into real space. And you bet your ass that smell is gonna get my wards up to full strength, any time I catch the scent.
“And this prince, he’s not gonna start a fight with me on a random city street. That would attract a Bluestar team, maybe even an angel. And once Gabriel or a hero team saves my ass, I’ll end up in prison or a safe house, and the Big Guy will lose me, just like he lost my grandpa.
“He can only really attack when I’m alone, and a demon can’t pop out of nowhere as long as we’re in the Zone. That’s another reason I was too damn relaxed. Nergal doesn’t let them pop in and out of astral space in his territory, and he doesn’t let anything fly. He might even try to eat demons who come in here without permission, so even if they run in long enough to fight, they won’t be able to stick around. That’s why this whole plan depends on baiting Baalphezar to fight me in the Zone.
“Yes, I’ll have to keep my wards up any time I leave my place, but remember, these demons don’t want to straight up kill me. They want to pin me down or capture me, but if they kill me, this whole project is done, and they’re totally fucked. I know it’s a gamble, but I think I can pull this off, especially if you help me test bullets.”
“No way,” Veazey said. “I don’t trust this magic shit at all. No way I’m gonna sit here and let you shoot yourself.”
“I have to. These demons are gonna hit a lot harder than you do, and that big fucker is gonna hit me with everything he has. I’ve got to be ready for it. I’ve got to build my confidence, I’ve got to choke this fear down, and that process starts right here. This jacket has hard plates, and I’ve been testing the wards with little stuff. If I can keep my guard up, I won’t even feel the impacts. I’ve been hitting myself with a hammer all day.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Veazey, I’ve got to do this, so the only question is, are you gonna spot me, or do I have to do it alone?”
I never really talked him into it, but he stayed.
“I need you to check my calibration to make sure the bullet goes exactly where this laser dot is without drifting. I took the brain out and rigged a remote switch so I can fire with gesture controls, but this thing is so old, I might have missed something.”
Veazey checked my work and made a few adjustments. Then he said he didn’t trust the old ammo and brought in his own NATO rounds.
I was pretty confident in my wards after hitting myself with progressively larger and sharper objects all day, but nothing can prepare you for staring down the barrel of a gun. I wondered if this was the last thing Mister Braddock saw before one of these cut him down.
I carefully recast Anson’s wards, planted my feet, and pulled the trigger.
The gun was way, way too loud inside the three walls, even with earplugs in. The noise made me jump and my wards failed. The bullet didn’t pierce my jacket, but the impact knocked me back against the ballistic blocks.
Veazey was already vaulting over the counter when I held up my hand. “I’m fine! I’m fine! Just wasn’t ready for the noise. That won’t surprise me again.”
“This is dumb as fuck, Timmy. Next level stupid.”
“I know. But it’s the only way.”
I squeezed the trigger again, and this time the wards held. I still felt an impact, but the bullet flattened against something invisible and dropped straight to the floor. I shot myself in the chest ten more times, until the bullets were bouncing off. I had to be careful not to use too much power, or the shield would become too solid and cause a ricochet. I had to keep it kind of soft on the surface, so the bullets would slow and stop instead of bouncing.
I took a break to wash the gunpowder out of my throat and pulled up video for Veazey, so he could understand the model I was working from. I pulled up a video of Captain Cobalt in 1947, doing this exact trick in front of a German machine gun. Then I showed him five more clips of the Captain facing different kinds of gunfire, until I saw one that made me curse.
“Fuck! It’s not enough. Fuck! I have to do it again.”
Veazey was frowning. He couldn’t see what had upset me.
“This is Captain Cobalt in Honduras - Operation Golden Pheasant in 1988. You see all these guys shooting him? Those bullets are hitting him everywhere, not just in the chest. Fuck! They’re even shooting his feet. It’s not enough to bounce bullets off my chest. I have to shoot myself from a bunch of different angles, in all kinds of different body parts.”
Veazey crossed his arms and started shaking his head. “Please, stop this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I really do appreciate you being here.”
I picked up the autogun and moved it to a different position, angled down to hit my legs now. I worked out a pattern, until I had successfully bounced a bullet off all my limbs, hands and feet. But there was one test I just could not do.
I squinted my eyes and positioned my thumb over the remote trigger, but no matter how much I tried to force it, I couldn’t make myself push the button.
“Veazey, can you hit the manual trigger just one time? I can’t shoot myself in the back.”
Veazey said “No,” so I did it myself, screaming as I forced my thumb down. The gun went thump, and the round hit me dead center in the back. My wards flickered, but they were enough, so I hit the trigger ten more times, listening to the bullets change pitch as my confidence caught up with them.
“I need to shoot myself in the face once or twice, but I should probably get some sleep first.”
“Jesus Christ, Timmy. Can we finally stop this?”
“Not yet.” I said, hearing my voice crack. “I have to keep shooting until I don’t flinch anymore.”
Half an hour later, I coughed and started cleaning up. “If you hate what I did with the bullets, you’re really gonna hate what I do with the lighter fluid.”
* * *
I shook his hand as he packed up to leave. “Can you come back tomorrow? Early as you can? No more gun stuff, no more ward tests. Just fun shit tomorrow, I promise. I had an ancestor who specialized in combat spells, and he left me all kinds of Captain Cobalt stuff.”
Veazey reluctantly agreed and I went home to Lydia, reeking of sweat and gunpowder.
* * *
Crazy Henry’s shooting range was part of an impromptu junkyard the military had set up to dump cars whose drivers had been consumed by miasma or brought back as zombies during the attack. The hovercars had all been steered away from the scene or crashed in dramatic fireballs, but there were still dozens of ground vehicles to clear off the main roads, as the military had been forced to abandon the project early.
There were still six old, wrecked ground vehicles scattered around as rusted hulks, dropped randomly instead of joining the neat stacks of crushed cars behind them. You could tell two of the vehicles had been personally smashed by Nergal’s feet.
I found a heavy one that was buried in mud and singled it out for my first experiment.
Veazey was still scowling and suspicious, but he showed up bright and early on Sunday morning with coffee and sandwiches for us. I assured him the scary part was over, and he was about to see some cool shit.
I was getting my new toys from Kovach Mage No. 5, Anson Kovach, who had assembled a neat little collection of combat spells that he had refined and improved over the years. The wards that had started as protection from arrows and swords could now turn away bullets and cannonballs, and the simple strength spell Laurence had used to help with shipboard work was now a full-on fortitude spell.
Anson realized it wasn’t enough to make yourself stronger. The existing spell would let you lift something far beyond human capacity, but if you didn’t fortify your bones and protect your tendons, you could easily rip yourself apart.
Anson used variations on healing magic from Tobias and turned them into a kind of preventive medicine, strengthening every tissue in his body to handle the demands of enhanced strength. Fortitude wouldn’t make your body bulletproof by itself, but you had a much better chance of surviving if you had it up, even if something pierced your skin.
The wards and strength spells were fiendishly complicated and took a long time to cast, so I had to be able to prepare myself in advance and keep them going in the back of my head, no matter how much pain or fear I was in. But first, I had to see if the damn thing even worked.
I cast fortitude and grabbed the bumper of this old car, now buried in a decade of mud. I took a deep breath and tried to yank it free, but I was clearly only using my normal human strength. The spell still protected me from straining or pulling muscles, but I wasn’t getting any stronger.
I kicked the bumper and yelled, “Fuck! Why doesn’t anything work the first time?” crouching to try again.
I was bringing in more and more magic to try and force it, lighting up my aura until Veazey started taking involuntary steps back. I was straining and surging, bringing in enough magic to make a little corona around myself, when Veazey gave an involuntary cough from the dust.
Something about that sound distracted me, and the moment I turned my attention away from it, the car popped up out of the ground, showering us both with dirt clods as it soared high in the air, flipping three or four times until it crashed back to Earth.
Veazey looked at me, then looked at the car to see how close it came to going over the fence. “Hang on a minute,” he said. “I gotta move my truck.”
We spent the rest of the day playing with it, seeing how far I could throw an engine block, and seeing if I could lift more than one vehicle at a time. I managed to move the rusted hulk of a school bus by using levitation in conjunction with the strength, but I quickly discovered the real limit was bulk, not weight. I might be able to lift three or four car frames at once, but I couldn’t balance them or keep them stable enough to do the experiment.
I learned with a combination of wards and fortitude, I could punch things really hard and crush them like my fists were made of something stronger than just bones and skin. And if I used a touch of levitation to lift my target off the ground before I punched it, I could break the inertia and make it fly. That part felt really good. A little too good, as I felt a lifetime of pent-up frustration surging into each punch. I sent a crushed Toyota soaring across the yard, delighted with myself, until I saw the look on Veazey’s face.
He had obviously been scared of the airborne car before, afraid of what I might do by accident, but when I glanced over after those first few rounds of punching practice, I realized that my best friend was afraid of me.
I dropped everything and grabbed a bottle of water from his cooler, trying to reassure him that I was still me.
“The wizards in that tower,” I said, “they walk around all day like magic is some kind of burden, like it’s all so serious they’re never allowed to enjoy anything. It feels like they’re intentionally giving scholarships to people who hate magic. I really don’t get it. If I could do that stuff, I’d be the happiest guy in the world."
“You can,” Veazey said. “You can do that stuff. You’re doing it right now.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, staring blankly at my water bottle. "So, I guess I’m the happiest guy in the world.”