Mage Catalyst (21 page)

I rummaged through my pockets pulling out several phones. I was having trouble determining in the dark exactly which one was mine.
“How many phones do you have?” Renee asked with a quizzical expression as the mobile phones played hide and seek in my coat pockets.

“Long story,” I replied as I finally found mine and programmed in her number.
“Well, I should really get going,” Renee announced. “Keep practicing that shield spell. If you get good enough you’ll find yourself using it without realising it when you’re in danger. It’s quite useful.”
I promised her I would.
“How are you going to get down?” Renee asked.
“Same way I got up,” I replied. “You?”
“I’ll just teleport home,” Renee replied dryly, as if this wasn’t a big deal.
“Teleport?”
“I don’t do it that often, it’s really difficult.” Renee shrugged. “My grandfather showed me how to do it last time he was here. I can show you one day when you’re a bit better with fields.”
“Definitely.”
“Night, Twitch.” She smiled and gave me a casual salute.
“Good night Renee.” I really wanted to kiss her but forced myself to smile casually.
I watched as she closed her eyes and concentrated, sending forth that strange mana thread over to her apartment and then with a clap of thunderous noise and a slight rush of air she was gone. I took a more traditional route back to Dad’s, by jumping off the roof.

“Ello. You ring Golden Dragon Restaurant. You order now?”
“Wrong number,” I replied dryly, hanging up. Somehow I was less than surprised. I couldn’t help chuckling as I realised that Sarah would now have a new restaurant to try out. She quite liked the Italian restaurant that Renee had used in her last prank number.
Still, it wasn’t like this was a complete dead end. I now knew where she lived in Carlton. I didn’t know which flat, but that wouldn’t take mana to find out.
I hadn’t had a chance to drop the additional phones and wallets to the police station last night, so I took the opportunity in the morning. It was a strange feeling walking into the Melbourne City Police Station attempting to return property that had been stolen at knife point.
The police man at the desk looked a little bored as I approached and in a dull voice intoned, “How can I help you?”
“Yeah, hi, um, I found these in a trash bin on Latrobe Street and I wanted to turn them in.”
He perked up a little as I dropped the phones and wallets on the desk.

“Where did you say you found them?” he asked as he began his inspection.
“In a bin,” I repeated, a little confused. I hadn’t been prepared to be interrogated on that part.
“That’s a little odd, there’s still money in these,” he commented as he placed the items into a zip lock bag. “Can we get your personal details for our records?”
“Sure,” I nodded.
I filled in the paperwork and passed it through to the cop on the other side of the desk. He looked quickly over them and nodded.
“Thanks,” the cop mumbled, “you may be contacted if there are any problems.”
I returned to Dad’s after I left the police station. I had ducked out early before Dad had gotten up concluding that he’d assume I’d gone out to get supplies for breakfast. I stopped in at the supermarket to get some bacon, eggs and the other stuff for our morning ritual. I’d just walked in the front door of the apartment when Dad grumpily emerged from his bedroom.
“You were gone awhile” Dad said as I dumped the shopping on the bench. He’d obviously already been awake for some time.
“Yeah, the line at the supermarket was hell,” I said. I didn’t much relish the thought of explaining to him that I’d been to the police station. Fortunately he let it go at that.

“Right, so what do you have planned for the day?”
I knew that when Dad asked that, it meant he’d have to go into work.
“An essay for English,” I replied.
He nodded but didn’t say anything as I began to cook breakfast.
“So when are you going to tell me about how you got that black eye?” asked Dad.
I tenderly probed the bruising under my eye. It had gotten worse overnight.
“Yeah, had a little disagreement with someone.” I chuckled, trying to play the incident down.
“Problems at school?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, it’s all under control,” I confirmed, not wanting to go into more detail.
“As long as you’re sure,” Dad said.
“Yeah, I’m sure, everything’s fine,” I lied with more confidence than I actually felt.
“Does your mother know?” Dad asked sternly.
“Sure,” I said. The last thing I wanted was another discussion between my parents about me. Dad didn’t pursue the subject and we lapsed into a stilted silence.
I texted Tina on the weekend – out of duty more than anything – and the conversation was stilted and awkward. She had asked me about my Friday night and I had lied about having an early night. I didn’t want her to see the black eye on Monday, but there was nothing for it. I don’t know what she was thinking of me right now anyway.
My thoughts of Tina inevitably led me back to thoughts of Renee. It was strange how that happened. It shouldn’t be happening. I was haunted by the look of rejection on Renee’s face when she had moved to kiss me. What the hell did that mean? In a  million years I doubted I’d ever understand women.
I wanted to go and try to find her flat today, but I wasn’t sure she would see me or what her response would be. In the end I determined that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I should probably just finish my homework.
Although I really wanted to see her again, a number of excuses raged through my head as to why it wasn’t a good idea. I’m such a coward sometimes.

* * * *

School that week took a decidedly frantic turn as our mid-year exams began the following week and the pressure was on to try and cram as much knowledge into our heads as possible. It was even starting to affect me and I normally didn’t pay too much attention to exam pressures. I normally didn’t even care about good grades. The last good grade that I had received was in primary school. 
My attention to my studies was probably due to my relationship with Tina. For Tina getting good results was a necessity due to her strict parents. I guess I was trying to keep pace with her and several teachers noted the increased attention to my studies. I don’t think the extra study was helping much as I didn’t feel any smarter. I privately wondered why people went to the effort, but I kept this musing to myself.
“How does it feel to be the guy who got punched in the face?” Mark sneered as he walked past us in the halls before my morning class.
“At least Devon didn’t run away from a guy who just got punched in the face,” Tony called back, which had the effect of causing Mark to shut the hell up for the rest of the day. That alone was almost worth the punch to the face, I reflected with some mirth – but only just.
“Thanks man, that’s very helpful.” I grinned sarcastically as we both watched Mark storm off. “How’s the study going? I’ve actually finished the English assignment,” I said, almost proudly, eager to change the subject. “Where are you up to?”
“Don’t ask.” Tony sighed. “I guess we’re just not cut out to be academics.”
That was nice of Tony. I knew his grades were fine – they always had been. Tony had an annoying ability to get fantastic grades without putting in much effort.
“No, I guess not,” I concluded with mock sorrow. “So what are we cut out to be?”
“Dole bludgers?” Tony replied glibly.
“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “Do you know how much work those guys have to do now to keep the payments coming in? It would be almost easier just to get a job.”
“So you’re basically saying that we’re too lazy to lie about working?”
“Yep,” I concluded with a grin.
“That’s practically Zen.”
“I thought you’d like it.” I grinned as we moved towards our lockers.

I watched with some degree of caution as Mark stormed past us and out of the locker bay. I hurriedly moved to one side to allow him passage past. I didn’t particularly want to annoy Mark any further. I didn’t really know how best to handle him right now.
The shielding spell that Renee had taught me was all very well and good. I just couldn’t really see how it offered me any long-term solution. I wanted Mark humbled and humiliated to the point that he’d leave me alone. This was the only way to deal with this kind of bully. The problem was that I had no idea how to do it without giving myself away and doing something magical that would be very hard to hide. I hadn’t even considered that I might be able to resolve this without using my powers.
School was its usual monotonous drone for the remainder of the day. The only ray of hope in my otherwise grey and hopeless world was that Sarah had announced that her parents had allowed her to have a party after the exams. I was really looking forward to it. Sarah didn’t throw too many parties but when she did they were always fun. Sarah had a large pool in her backyard, but it would probably be too cold to use at this time of year. There had been several pool parties over the summer and I’d had quite a good time at each of them. I’d cleared the event with Dad so he wasn’t expecting me until the following morning. I planned to get drunk and crash at Sarah’s. Tina had also announced that her parents had grudgingly let her go too – but not to stay the night. All in all it was looking to be a good night.
It had been some time since I’d let my hair down and with everything else going on in my life I was really looking forward to letting off some steam. Fortunately, the rest of the week went by pretty quickly. I had gotten the best mark I had ever received in English class for the essay too. Saunders had written “Well done, Devon” but then proceeded to tear it to pieces of course. Still, I think he liked it. I got a D+, and considering all the marks taken off, that was a damn good result.
I had shown Tina the essay and she had liked it. “The thoughts are there,” she had told me, “you’re just expressing them really clumsily.”

Tina had obviously decided that I couldn’t be trusted with my own studies and had had insisted that we study together at my place. To be fair she was probably right – if she hadn’t insisted I doubted I’d be studying right now. 
“You’re not even trying!” Tina exclaimed, throwing her book down.
“It’s hard!” I disagreed. “I can’t focus.”
“I don’t see how I can explain it any other way,” Tina stated impatiently, tapping her finger on the section of text that we’d just gone over.
“I’m just not motivated enough,” I sighed.
Tina nodded darkly.
“You could motivate me?” I grinned. “You know, make a game of it.”

“What? Strip-studying?” Tina laughed back. “I don’t see it taking off.”
“Hah!” I chuckled. “I was only after a kiss, but nice joke!”
“What joke?” she smiled, looking a little confused.

“Not seeing strip-studying taking off,” I prompted.
“Oh, that was unintentional,” she stated, adjusting her glasses in a businesslike fashion.

“Now, where did we land on that kiss?” I pursued with a smile.
“Not until you at least finish the chapter,” Tina scolded with a smile.
“Okay, now I’m motivated,” I concluded dryly.
“Shut up and study!” Tina grinned as she leaned forward to plant a tender kiss on the end of my nose before sitting back down and resuming study.
“This can’t be good for your studies,” I argued. “I must be slowing you down.”
“You won’t be if you’ll just be quiet for ten minutes!” Tina shot back.
“My mouth is sealed, milady,” I uttered solemnly, attempting to focus back on my work. This worked for a little while.

* * * *

I didn’t end up going to Dad’s the following weekend. I had originally intended to but had gotten side tracked by all the studying that I was supposed to be doing. It’s time-consuming work pretending to be busy. It takes even more effort than the actual studying would have been in the first place. I’d come to the conclusion that it didn’t make much difference if I studied or not. There was no way I’d need all this pointless knowledge that we were cramming into our heads. In truth I was getting a little annoyed at the way everyone was acting about these tests. These exams surely can’t be as important as everyone was treating them.
I was an exception anyway. If Renee’s grandfather was to be believed, only one in a multitude had the skills I possessed. If that didn’t exclude me from having to participate in certain mundane activities such as study then I don’t know what does. The exams when they arrived were as anti-climactic as I’d feared they would be. We were hustled into the main gym where they had set up row upon row of tables and chairs. Mr Saunders was monitoring the exam and had given a stern lecture about how we were not to bring any notes or electronic devices into the exam. We were assigned seating and I was seated next to Sarah, which made me feel a little better.
Flicking briefly through the exam paper I was struck again by the single overwhelming thought. What good was any of this going to do me? There was nothing in here that was even remotely practical for everyday use.
I struggled through the three hour-long session. Mr Saunders spent his time marching up and down the rows of tables with his hand clasped behind him like a commandant of a prisoner of war camp. He’d occasionally loom over an unfortunate student, peering down at them.
“Move along, nothing to see here,” I whispered as he tried the same trick on me.
I grinned at him cheekily.

“No talking!” he hissed back, but to my relief he did move on.

For three long hours I stared alternatively between the paper on my desk and the clock on the wall. When I did attempt to answer a question I wasn’t sure that my answer was accurate – or even sane.
When Mr Saunders finally announced that our time was up, I gleefully placed my pencil on the table and rose to my feet along with the herd of other students heading towards the door. I can’t speak for the other students as they shuffled from the gym but I was feeling quite relieved that the exam was finally over.
“How’d you do?” Sarah asked once we were far enough away where we could talk without Mr Saunders telling us to be quiet.
“Not bad,” I concluded with a slight grin. “It was easier than I thought.”
“Right.” Sarah smiled, seeing straight through my lies, “only you seemed to be doing quite a lot of watching the clock and not much writing.”

“You noticed that, eh?” I grinned.
“Yeah.” Sarah nodded, concerned.
“It’s a Zen kind of thing, working myself up into the right mood for it.” I chuckled, discounting her concern.
“What? Hypnotise yourself into being a better student?” Sarah scoffed.
“Yep.” I grinned back.
“You’d better get really good at it then,” Sarah concluded. “You’d better get really good, and really quickly too.”
“Thanks.” I smiled as Tina darted through the crowd and launched herself into my arms.