Mage Catalyst (14 page)

“You’re still down mate, but I’m not going to say no to taking your money though.” Tony grinned back, deciding the matter for both of us.
“Each,” he snapped. He cut off the last word with menace, gesturing towards me.
“Take your shot,” Tony stated as I nodded the affirmative.
Something definitely wasn’t right here. Perhaps my intuition was wrong as over the next few rounds he did indeed pot a few more balls and close the gap. The final round saw him two balls down and us sitting on an easy shot for the black.
“And that would be…” Tony started as he leaned forward. In one fell swoop he adroitly tapped the black, sending it ever so gracefully rolling towards the pocket. “…Game,” he finished as the black dropped gently into the pocket.
There was a stunned silence around the table, partially thanks to Tony’s obvious show boating. I stood offside, watching our opponent and trying to gauge his reaction. He was a cool one though as the smile never left his face. I had expected some form of abusive or insulting outburst; however, he remained quite still, the smile frozen on his face.
His eyes, however, glittered with unexpressed violence.
“Seems you boys can play after all,” he said. “Another game,” he commanded. He wasn’t asking. This was an order.
“Money upfront!” I demanded. “You guys owe us twenty bucks.”

My demand was perhaps delivered somewhat undiplomatically as even Tony turned to give me a strange look.
“Small change boy, we’ll settle up when we’re finished,” he grunted at me, deftly putting more coins into the table and racking up a new table.
“Since you boys obviously know your stuff – let’s make this one count,” he continued, laughing.  “See how you handle yourself under some real pressure.”
“What did you have in mind?” Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.
I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. This definitely wasn’t going to end well.

“One hundred,” the sot grunted.
“Each?” I balked – if we lost I wouldn’t be able to cover it I only had about fifty dollars on me, which included the ten I was now owed.
“Each,” he confirmed with a nod. “What’s the matter, princess, too rich for you?”

“I can’t cover that,” a soft voice interjected. I turned with interest to note that it was the voice of the apprentice.
“You’re covered,” our opponent interjected, gruffly cutting off whatever the poor guy was going to say next.
Tony looked at me with a quizzical expression and then with a devilish smile that I knew all too well shrugged and smiled. “It’s your money.”
“It’s your break,” the older man grunted.
“You go.” Tony nodded to me.
I’ve never been overly fond of breaking. There’s a smaller chance of actually being able to sink anything as nothing is setup for an easy shot. I didn’t embarrass myself too badly as my shot broke the balls from their formation at the centre of the table into a wide arc. It was a decent break but I didn’t manage to sink anything, which was a little disappointing.
Smiling broadly our opponent stepped up to the table and leaned forward to take his shot, casually potting one ball and setting two others up for an easy sink later in the game.
I breathed in a deep breath and heard Tony mutter under his breath. He took his next shot to set up another two balls into place. He now had four of his balls in positions where they would be easy to sink. It seemed pretty obvious he was trying to go for a trick shot, setting up the shot and then sinking all the balls in one fluid motion.
“Your turn, ladies.” He smiled.
Tony looked somewhere between worried and angry. I wasn’t sure what his finances were like at the moment but I doubt he could afford the hundred dollars any more than I could.
“We’re being sharked,” he hissed into my ear as he passed to take his shot. “The bastard set us up.”
In hindsight it seemed pretty obvious that that’s what he was doing. He had been preying upon a couple of young and obviously inexperienced pool players. He’d been building us up to up the ante.

A cold dread filled my stomach. I didn’t have the money to pay my debt and he didn’t look like the type to extend credit. There was nothing for it, I’d have to cheat. I could see Tony’s eyes narrow with anger as he leaned forward over the table to take his shot. A narrow bead of sweat slowly made its way down his brow. It was obvious that he was nervous.
This would be difficult. I’d never been able to summon my power without some form of hand motion but I didn’t want our opponent to have any idea that something untoward was going on. I’d have to be careful.
I’d heard of a technique called misdirection that stage magicians use to draw the audience’s attention away from what their other hand is doing. I’d have to look into these techniques, but for now I’d have to wing it and hope for the best. I could see the shot Tony was trying to go for. It was a delicate and difficult shot and normally I had faith that Tony could pull it off, but under these circumstances I had my doubts. Fortunately for Tony, however, I had other ideas.
I built up a mana thread and gently intercepted the white ball as Tony took his shot. I’d been forced to keep my back against the bench to keep what I was doing hidden from sight. This had the quite unintentional effect of looking as if Tony had clipped the white ball rather than hitting it directly on.
This caused a loud guffaw from our opponent who charmingly sprayed beer out of his mouth mid laugh as he watched the event unfold.
“Nice one, sunshine.” He chuckled, moving forward to take his shot watching as the ball took off in a direction other than the one Tony had intended.
Tony had a look of confusion on his face that quickly turned into anger. He must have been sure that he’d hit the white ball dead on. His look of anger turned into one of bewilderment and then shock as the white ball casually careened into another of our balls gently potting it. Tony now had a second shot.
It had taken all my skill to do this and even I was amazed at the results. It hadn’t taken more than gentle pressure to break Tony’s shot and send it in the direction I wanted to go. Timing had been paramount but it was well within my skill level. My only concern was subtlety.
Our opponent stood slack jawed, his eyes glued to the table as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. His pool cue was still in hand as he had moved forward to take his shot.
“You might want to wait to the end of his shot before you make further comments.” I smiled disarmingly back at him.
“Luck!” He cursed back at me, his look turning cold and for once the patronising amusement had finally disappeared from his face.
“Take your shot,” he snarled at Tony.
“Hey, Tony, whack that blue one in at the far end of the table as hard as you can,” I advised.
Tony looked at me quizzically as this type of shot would normally have resulted in one of two things. Either both balls would be knocked out or the opponent’s ball would be knocked in. Neither result was too appealing to Tony. He shook his head briefly as if to disagree but then I winked and he smiled in understanding.
Tony moved to the other end of the table. With what could only be described as exaggerated showmanship he took his shot, sending the white ball  off at high speed. This was pretty much what I’d expected and I gently placed a mana thread around my opponent’s ball to steady it and prevent it from being knocked in by the impact.
It only took a quick flick of the wrist to arrest the motion of the white ball, sending it knocking into the blue ball and causing it to flick deftly into the pocket with a satisfying clunk.
The white ball was sent ricocheting off the padding, knocking our opponent’s ball out of the way and sending it sliding across the table knocking another of his balls out of position. This had the effect of leaving our opponent with only one ball still set up for an easy sink.
Tony nodded professionally as if this had been his desired outcome. Our opponent simply stared daggers into the back of Tony’s head.
“What do you recommend now?” Tony drawled as he walked past me grinning in a mocking fashion. Our opponent was getting a little red in the face and looked worried. His eyes darted nervously from side to side. He obviously couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I think maybe the red ball in the middle pocket,” I called to him with a smile.
“Okay.” Tony nodded back, spinning the cue in his fingers with ninja-like skill.
Tony would have probably been able to handle this shot without my assistance but I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste. Tony didn’t even take the time to aim. He simply leant forward and took his shot. Unfortunately this caught me off guard as I’d expected more show boating from Tony. Fortunately the white ball was at least heading in the right direction. It didn’t take too much correction for me to guide it towards our desired location.
With a subtle clink it bounced against the red ball, sending it tumbling down into the pocket.
I took this moment to walk past Tony, pretending to get a better view.
“At least look like you’re trying,” I hissed to him as I passed.
Tony just chuckled to himself and moved to the other side of the table to assess the remaining balls on the table. I’m pretty sure that I saw our opponent’s eyes narrow in anger at our display, though I doubt he heard us, especially over the bar room noise.
It didn’t look good; even using mana it was unlikely we were going to be able to pot another ball this round. I think Tony knew that too or he had counted on me to alter events. I had decided, however, that it might perhaps be more fun to sabotage our opponent’s shots rather than sink more of our own balls.

It also allowed more opportunity as he had almost twice the number of balls left on the table than we did. Tony’s next shot went wild and I suppose in some way I should have informed him of my intentions as his ball went fiercely into a cluster of balls. Tony had obviously counted upon me controlling the course of the ball into a desired direction. A slow hiss escaped his mouth and he glared up at me in anger.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. It was obvious that Tony had looked at me when his shot went wild. I now had both tradesman and apprentice looking quizzically at me. I shrugged nervously and gestured towards the apprentice to take his shot.
“That would be two shots,” our antagonist commented dryly, not taking the opportunity for a cheap shot. Something was definitely wrong here.
I wasn’t interested in embarrassing the apprentice so I left his shots alone. He was obviously nervous and I could tell that the pressure was getting to him. It was at this point that I realised that he probably couldn’t afford the money any more than Tony or I could. This was unfortunate but better it be his problem than ours.
The apprentice took aim at the remaining ball that was setup and with a casual skill that undermined his nervousness calmly potted the ball into the pocket. This wasn’t a great loss as we were still far ahead. His next shot went wild as he used too much force and bounced his desired target from a good position into the centre of the table.
I nodded to him and went to take my place. I had some doubts that I would be able to use mana and focus on the pool game as well. Fortunately I didn’t need to, as the white ball had been placed in a fortuitous place almost directly in the path of one of the balls we had set up earlier.

With a deep breath I attempted to take the easy shot, but misjudged the force required. I hit the ball but all I did was simply move the ball closer to the corner pocket. This wasn’t a bad outcome all things considered as the ball would be easily potted later.
Again our antagonist chose not to say a word, merely moving into position to take his shot. It was pretty obvious from the outset what he intended to do. He was going to attempt to knock my newly placed ball out of position and sink his own in its place.
I had no doubt that with his degree of skill he would be able to accomplish this feat. Unfortunately for him I had another outcome in mind. Slowly wrapping a mana tendril around my ball, I strengthened it against the table.
When the inevitable impact occurred, even I was slightly surprised by the noise. The noise of the two balls crashing together created a loud “thwock” that reverberated around the table. As expected my ball didn’t budge an inch. Our opponent’s ball, however, was sent ricocheting across the table and it didn’t require too much modification from me to cause it to accidently knock another one of our balls into a convenient pocket.
“That would be two shots,” I commented dryly. I had matched my mannerisms to his comment from before. I had expected him to curse and swear at me.

He jerked himself up from his leaning position over the table his fingers curling into fists and I seriously thought he was going to throw a punch at me. This stunned me slightly. I hadn’t expected him to actually resort to physical violence. I was more than capable of defending myself if he actually punched me but I just hadn’t expected it. I had no doubt he would have been able to catch me with a sucker punch that would have floored me. Fortunately he must have spotted the bouncer. He took several deep breaths and appeared to be in control of his anger.
“Your turn,” he snarled at Tony, turning away from me.
It was at this point that I’d decided enough was enough. You can only push someone so far. It was time to end this. Better to end this quick. We had only two balls and the black left to pot. One of these balls was already set up so it wouldn’t be too hard to finish this.
Tony seemed to have the same idea as he took aim at the more difficult shot. The shot required a rebound off the far cushion to hit our desired target. This was fortunate as it was quite easy to redirect the ball from the cushion and send it rolling towards its target. This left the ball balanced delicately against the edge of the pocket.
I thought about tipping it in; however, I quickly realised that this wouldn’t be necessary. Tony had a second shot and possessed the skills necessary to pot both balls.
All I needed to do was make certain that the white didn’t disappear down the pocket with it. No further meddling was required, as with accustomed skill Tony sent the white smacking into its target and rebounded to place itself within easy reach of its next target, setting him up for an easy sink. The sound of the last coloured ball dropping into the pocket was greeted with silence as the four of us acknowledged the end of the game was near. We had only the black ball and they still had five balls on the table.
Tony moved into position and I noticed with some degree of relief the look of weary resignation cross our opponent’s face. With a noticeable ‘thunk’ it hit the black, sending it arching towards the far pocket. Tony’s aim was true. The black ball dropped into the pocket leaving the white to bounce harmlessly against the side cushion.
“That would be game, gentlemen,” Tony drawled, looking up and grinning slightly.
The apprentice looked helplessly at his elder and threw down a couple of twenties on the table.
“That’s all I’ve got,” he said helplessly, looking at us.