Chapter 39 — Like My Dad

  I redoubled my efforts to sense the area around me and felt a slime like resistance pressed against my aura, as if something was locked off and hidden from my perception. It was like a bubble in still water or a shadow in a room otherwise lit with light, I wouldn’t have noticed it without refining my control. The presence actively sought to hide from my broad senses. I carefully probed further and gained the faintest hints of its intention. Its own aura was fueled by darkness and anger which masterfully shoved mine aside, but I didn’t get the sense that it was aware that I had spotted it. Its own control was an inherent trait, not something forged and refined by practice like my own. Normally something so sinister and close would have set of my aura off like a gong in my head… this creature was stealthy. While my full efforts were rebuffed, I gained one other crucial detail. It was hunting.

  “I cooked hotdogs in the oven, and grabbed a bag of chips,” Lana said, as she exited the house. The old screen door screeched as it swung shut and slapped loudly in the door frame. A gunshot couldn’t have broken the stillness of the night air more. “I know it’s not the healthiest meal, but it’s all I had on hand.”

  I tensed, waiting for the entity to attack, but it didn’t move, didn’t change, didn’t twitch. I couldn’t sense exactly where it was, only that it was. I stood from my chair, gaining my feet while feigning the need to stretch lightly as I stared into the dark shadows around the yard. I saw only bushes, which given their size could conceal anything behind them. The trees were still full of leaves which could hide a predator above.

  “Are you alright with that?” Lana asked again, stepping around and running a free hand across my back. She stiffened, catching my alertness and instantly assuming her own. No questions, no details needed. She dropped the food onto her chair without a second glance. I couldn’t risk telling her anything out loud, the creature might simply attack.

  “I could use a drink, mind running inside and getting me one.” I asked, risking a glance at Lana but she was studying the yard as intensely as I was.

  “Yeah, in a minute.”

  I hardened my will and focused my power. I was exhausted and wounded but I had some juice if it came to a fight. I fueled my potential spells with the emotions raging through my mind which would lend an added measure of strength to the magic. Passion, fear, desire-—all enhanced the use of magic, but each ran the risk of lost control, or a spell twisting and doing something I didn’t intend. But as weak as I was, I needed them for help, or I’d be an easy target. I was exhausted, but I would burn myself to a cinder before I let something happen to Lana.

  “I-could-really-use-that-drink,” I said, in a rush.

  “No need to be shy, you can go get it yourself.” Lana answered confidently. I could tell from her tone she knew I was trying to get her to safety and wasn’t going to take it.

  “Somethings here,” I whispered, voice low and pitched for her ears alone.

  We discovered then that the creature had excellent hearing, I’d barely mouthed the words, but it instantly stirred, and we both jumped as branches broke in the far corner of the yard. I felt anger and hatred bleed from its aura as stealth was discarded, they felt like the burning heat from a fire. I sensed its strength and knew instinctively that my power would be insufficient to stop this beast.

  “Lana, run!” I yelled.

  “I’m not leaving you—”

  “—It’s wants me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” I said, throwing an arm up to block her from whatever was out there as more branches cracked and the creature rushed forward.

  “—Then were going down together,” From somewhere Lana drew a concealed pistol. It was small but lethal. In a smooth quick motion that did indicate she was much better with firearms than I was she pulled back the slide, racking a round into the chamber. Depending on what we were facing the gun might not be effective at all, but it was better than nothing. Regardless, I didn’t have time to argue.

  I readied my will, drawing energy through my core like few times I had before. I pulled from the earth and the fire before us, those powers most familiar and useful to me.

  The fire dimmed and the earth beneath my feet began to wilt.

  The creature didn’t hesitate or give a moments pause as it raced across the yard. A row of thick roses, which would have stopped me, were as grass to the creature the size of a guerrilla who barreled through them without a care. Lana’s gun snapped quickly at its rapid lumbering advance. The muzzle flash and remaining firelight were enough to reveal a creature of blackness and hard lines. Jutting points like bones protruded from its asymmetrical body giving it a menacing presence. It stood on all fours and had faint red eyes, barely distinguishable from the dark, as if lit internally by a dying battery.

  The creature didn’t howl or cry out but raced forward in utter silence, the bullets I was sure were rending its flesh didn’t dissuade it. Lana screamed as it rampaged to within a dozen feet of us. In a moment of clarity—I knew what I needed to do. I focused my will, my intention for my spell never so clear as it was now. My shield sprang up around us. I put enough power into it that it hummed with green energy, visible to the naked eye, something it had never been before unless struck. The creature hit it like a train—and it stopped it cold. I grimaced as the energy demand skyrocketed, green flashing light blinding us to the creature’s subsequent attacks against my shield.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I fell to my knees, my next actions completed in a haze as my mental force was bent on resisting the creature’s physical will through my spell. My shaking hand reached into my bag, feeling for the first iron weapon I could find. My fingers met the plastic of the Ziplock filled with iron filings, clutching it tightly. My mana reserves began faltering and the vibrant green of the dome around us faltered, growing pale. I clenched my teeth, tasting blood. My next attack was one Fren had used against me, and I hoped it would be enough, or this would be the end of each of our stories.

  I tore the bag, dumping iron into my hand. I’d never do this at home so uncontrolled, the little filings would act like landmines to Fren and most Fae. The bag was literally an ecological disaster to the magically infused creatures. I only hoped I was right about the nature of this beast. I stood and faced it, its writhing arms slammed down relentlessly on my shield, each strike strong enough to crack a stone. Lana was screaming something at me but I couldn’t find the wherewithal to comprehend as each bash sent a lance of pain through my mind. My weapon felt meager, but I hoped it would hurt like hell. It deserved that for killing Phillis. My shaking hand grew firm, and I threw the iron filings as hard as I could through the shield.

  Just as Fren’s attack earlier that day had passed through my shield, this attack did as well. The iron flakes were enough to disturb my spell, which sputtered and collapsed around us in a motes of green energy. Our only defense vanished into the night. I dropped my direct control of the spell just before the flux would have caused spell feedback that might otherwise have incapacitated me.

  The creature’s silent attack turned into a blood curdling screech as blue ethereal flames burst out across its body. One of its massive arms swiped across its own flesh and skin but the flakes burrowed in like hot coals. Another sweeping clawed arm arced at us. Lana moved more quickly than I did, tackling me forward and towards the ground. It still hit, the strike far too fast to fully avoid and the arm much longer than what should be possible for a creature that size.

  Instead of being cut by the sword like claws, its forearm hit us after Lana’s quick movement and we both summersaulted away. I went spiraling through the chairs, cracking wood, and flipping onto the grass. Similarly, Lana tumbled away but one of her legs went through the fire, kicking up coals and sparks which were strewn out across the entire lawn with the residual force of the blow.

  I groaned, luckily the hit had been on the opposite side of my body than my injury side from fighting Fren. The direct blow had caught me on the hip. Otherwise, my guts might have been spilled out over the lawn or a rib would have punctured something vital. I tried to hop up immediately, but I felt the frenetic aura of the beast, now tinged with a personal bone deep hatred for me, fleeing into the night. It was injured, the iron still burning its body and weakening its ability to move and use magic.

  I had struck Fren with a large piece of iron. That was bad enough to tear control of half his body from him. That contact had been short, and over a small if crucial part of his body. This attack of iron fragments had dusted the front of the creature entirely. I’d tossed a massive handful of cold iron all over its being. Each flake stuck and rent flesh, perpetually burning, severing its soul’s connection to its physical body. I’d basically covered it in magical burning napalm and it might burn alive.

  I grinned at the creature’s pain.

  It made me feel a little better about my own. Knowing we were safe, I got unsteadily to my feet, noting my hip might be broken, but that didn’t matter, I needed to check on Lana. By the time I limped to her she was getting up as well, dazed.

  “You alright?” I managed, a stitch making me cough and spit up a ball of bloody phlegm.

  “Yeah,” she said, while wincing and shaking her head. She was gingerly holding one of her arms. The limb wasn’t broken, but the skin was split, and she was bleeding from a deep gash. We could only see it because the sleeve on her jacket had also been severed away by the creatures’ claws, the rocks around the fire, or something else. It had all happened so fast. The creature hadn’t even been aiming at her and its strike had done this. She already had purpling skin around the wound from the force of the blow.

  We were both lucky to be alive.

  “Thanks for saving our lives there… quick thinking,” she said, letting out a single huffing adrenalin fueled laugh as we surveyed the other shadowed recesses in the yard. Despite the season and the cold, the coals were more than up to the task of lighting things on fire, spots of lawn and one of the nearby bushes were already beginning to blaze alight.

  “I’ll get water,” Lana said, gingerly walking towards the house.

  I caught her good arm to stop her, “I can take care of most of it.”

  I gathered my will, using a familiar spell I used to put out the candles in my home. With a word, the fires extinguished. That worked for ninety percent of the flames, those too large for my unaltered spell took a little earth moving to quench the flames with dirt and wet loamy soil. I still had some mana, but I would be hard pressed to do anything significant with it.

  Lana’s arms were in no condition to move the stones around the fire back into place, so I bent over to do it. That act caused a muscle spasms across my back, spine and left hip. The injuries were almost enough to lock me into place.

  “Tier two body my ass,” I groaned as I stood upright and switched to using my foot to push the stones back enough to encircle the fire again.

  “What was that?” Lana said from nearby, still evaluating her own wounds.

  “I’ll tell you about it later, let’s get inside. I don’t think it’s coming back, and it’s getting cold.”

  We limped up to the house together.

  “Did you kill it?” Lana asked, breathless as she pulled up a pant leg on the first step up her back porch. A straight edge bruise was forming with a small gash on its lower edge making a straight line across the side of her lower leg and calf, probably from one of the large cinderblock stones she’d hit with her leg after it passed through the fire. The ankle was swollen and bruised.

  “No,” I said. “It’s injured—badly. It won’t be back tonight. But it got away.”

  “What did you throw at it?”

  “Iron powder. It’s basically anathema to the Fae and a lot of magical beings.” I gave her an arm to help her up the first steps. She could still put weight on her ankle, which was a good sign.

  “So, that was some sort of fairy,” She hissed painfully, switching to hopping up the steps with her good leg and support from me.

  “Yup. The bad kind.”

  “Are you attacked every day by fairies?”

  “Not even close,” I mumbled. "Usually, I get the weekends off." We stumbled up towards the back door. I turned to look down at the yard in shambles. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been near you with this creature being loose. It’s hunting me.”

  “Hunting you?”

  “Yeah…I’ll tell you about it inside,” I could hear sirens in the distance and knew the police would be here any minute.

  “Just like my dad,” Lana said, her voice pitched low. “No wonder he was so paranoid. Creatures like this shouldn’t exist.”

  “This one sure as hell won’t soon. We know its weakness.”

  Lana’s grin shouldn’t have been frightening or eager, not after the night we’d had, but it was.