Mage of Shadows (6 page)

We had been standing near the doors of the library and I barely noticed him as he lightly bumped into my shoulder, an easy accident. If not for the moment his finger deliberately tapped against mine as he went to enter the library, I would not have given him a second thought.

That single tap sent a fierce jolt running up my arm, flooding into my brain and against my central processes in a very familiar way.

It was like the moment when you suddenly remember the name of a long forgotten friend, my mind flooded with a sparking sensation of recollection. I didn't know him but this person was familiar to me in a way that few could intimately grasp.

Another mage. I sharply looked at him again, really seeing him for the first time.

His black shirt was what I noticed, long-sleeved with bolded white words emblazoned across the front that read, THERE ARE 10 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND BINARY AND THOSE WHO DON'T.

Hah. I got it after a second. Nerd jokes.

He had a few inches of height on me which made him relatively tall, but much like me he was slight of build. Deep green eyes behind wired frames struck out, meeting my own without reservation or excuse. His easy smile was a half-turn of the lips that seemed to play out naturally on his features. With a slightly peaked nose and a shock of brown hair, it was a face that seemed made to smile. A face that set people at ease.

It made me nervous.

"Sorry." The apology matched the grin, cheerful and not a bit of regret.

"No problem." I replied automatically, and he continued into the library without pause.

Eliza was staring at me with furrowed eyebrows. I must have looked decidedly stupid, staring open mouthed after a random stranger who had innocuously bumped into me.

"Are you alright?" She asked slowly, as if talking to a particularly stupid child.

"Fine." I said, my thoughts racing as I faced her for a moment. "Look, Eliza, I really appreciate the help but I have to go. I… just saw someone I need to catch up with. I'll see you soon!"

A very rude farewell to part with, but no one would ever call me the most conscientious person alive. I dashed into the library through the glass paned doors, my eyes never leaving the back of the other mage's head. The lobby was sparsely filled, some students walking the opposite way and exiting, but it was easy to move past them. I saw him head past the library sensors set up to make sure no one walked out with a book and towards the stairs, his pace never changing.

Although my heart thudded with anticipation, my slow-taken steps betrayed my caution. I could still see the disconcerting smirk of the User I had met last night, and remembered how easily he had disarmed me. Not only that, he had known my name as well.

For a moment I wondered if they were the same guy, but I dismissed it. Different voice, different height and size… there was no way. I continued after him with new resolve, a thousand questions buzzing like tiny bees in my skull. I didn't know who he was, but I was damned if I was going to let him walk away with only that weak introduction.

I only had to dodge a few patrons in my way, nearly jogging to catch up with the other User. He was already halfway up the steps to the second floor; I needed to reach-

The resounding crack split the air and deafened me. I froze in place as if I was the one who had been shot. For a moment, I didn't understand what had just happened.

Comprehension was accompanied by fear. The terror cruelly seized my heart and I grasped at my chest, as if gripping at it would make the rapid beating slow. I whirled around, away from the stairs. It was time enough to catch a glimpse of the victim collapsing to the ground not far from the doors I had just walked through.

Blood began to pool slowly as my ringing ears began to process terrified screams and shouts of the other students as they made wild gestures towards the body. Many cowered behind whatever they could find, no doubt in fear of being shot next.

However, no further shots came. There was no villain standing around with a smoking gun. Whoever had done this was gone, and gone very quickly.

I numbly began to walk closer towards the body, as others peeked out from their improvised hiding spots. I was among the first of those creeping forward to reach the body, but observed it from a cautious distance. A beautiful face marred by the single unnatural impression dead center in her forehead.

She had been about my age, with wispy blonde hair and pale skin from a lack of time in the sun even with summer just passing. Her hazel eyes, only a few shades darker than my own, stared unseeing into space. I would have found her attractive in life, but in death all I could find for her was remorse.

And anger.

My jaw tightened as I watched her blood pool around her head. The bullet had hit just above the eyes, a deliberate killing blow from someone who had skill with a gun and obvious motive. This was a decisive job that had been planned. This girl who didn't look more than nineteen or twenty had been murdered less than ten feet away from me, and I had been able to do nothing to stop it.

Where was magic then? When this girl needed it more than anything else?

I couldn't know. There had been nothing I could have done. But it didn't matter; I still felt the weight of guilt. A life was gone before it ever really had a chance to begin.

I wanted to know why.

A shoulder bumped me, and it reminded me that I wasn't the only one crowding around the unfortunate corpse. My fellow students had begun to gather. Many looked shocked or fearful, and more than one were talking in rapid breathless tones into their phones. No doubt they were spreading the news, it would be all over campus in less than a minute and everyone would know what had happened here.

I saw one man in his mid-twenties recording the still body with his smartphone, a look of horrified awe plastered on his face.

My temper returned in full force at the sight of it.

"Hey," I snapped at him, "Show a little respect!"

He had the decency to look guilty and lower the phone. He wasn't the only one guilty of it though. I saw at least one other recording and a couple were even snapping pictures. What was the world coming to, if this is how a poor girl's death was treated? Just another thing to be shared on social media. A terrible event measured only in the popularity it would garner for the spectators.

More and more people were crowding around. I locked eyes with Eliza, who was standing on the opposite side of the body with the crowd that had begun to gather by the glass doors of the library. She was staring in numbed shock; I could only imagine what she was thinking at the moment. This was probably her first brush with violent death. I wished I could say that it had been mine, as well.

The crime in front of me wasn't so far from what I had done myself last night. Admittedly, I hadn't meant to nearly kill Two-Bit… but I could still hear his screams. A life was a life, and I had almost taken one last night.

Power could be a beautiful gift, but reflect it in the mirror. See it from another perspective, and I guarantee you will see an equally terrible curse.

I held it in my grasp, and it was real… I had power over others. So many times over the years I wondered if it would be better if I didn't have it. I had fled across the country, seeking more power at the same time.

It was a hunger, a thirst that couldn't be sated. I needed more, so I struck out at people whom I thought deserved it, if only to further my skills. That was exactly what had happened with the thugs the night before whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not.

It felt very much like a slippery slope, and one that I couldn't climb out of. Whether I wanted it or not, magic was mine to use.

With all the people shuffling around me, the buzzing conversations clamoring for the attention of my ears, I suddenly felt very claustrophobic. I began to turn away and felt like I was going to be sick just from that brief motion. It was only the sudden shouts of disbelief that made me stop to look at the girl- at her corpse- again.

Her blood was moving, not just pooling around her, but moving.

From the spreading well of blood, thin lines dashed away, scurrying across the ground as if they were bloody serpents. They wriggled together in ways that were inconceivable in the purely physical realm. In seconds where there had only been blood, words had formed. I stared at them along with the other spectators of the phenomenon, almost as confused as they must have been.

ET IN FRATERNITATIS EGO

Magic. Deep and deliberately controlled magic.

Written in blood, it was a sinister taunt. My eyes scanned quickly for the source, but I couldn't pick out the person making a spectacle of a girl's death. It was a measured taunt… the killer, or someone they were working with, was here with me.

The party responsible was in my presence. My eyes swiped across the students, looking for any sign of them. I couldn't stop her from dying, but maybe I could avenge this girl's death.

So distracted by everything that had happened, I had long missed the significant entrance of the two blue uniformed officers, who had finally pushed past the crowd to get to the body, and had been staring at the unnatural words along with the rest.

Just as I remembered exactly why it was important to get as far away as possible from the cops and the obvious crime scene, Officer Rodriguez waved her hands at the crowd and shouted for the students back away from the body.

Her dark eyes tracked through the crowd with a practiced ease.

Then they locked onto mine, and my fiery anger gave way to icy fear.

Everyone makes mistakes.

That is an absolute certainty that you can count on in life. Your friends make mistakes, your teachers make mistakes, and you make mistakes. Even your parents, maybe even especially your parents, make mistakes all the time. Maybe you were one of them.

No one is perfect.

There are things in my life that I wished I could change. Things I would have given almost anything to go back and fix. The frustrating thing about living in the present is that none of us could go back to change the past. I seriously doubted that it was just me that thought about this stuff. What could I have done differently to change my life? Make it better?

Hell, there was a whole sub-genre of movies and shows that dealt with this exact trope. Traversing time and space is a fascinating mystery to us and even as the times change, that unfulfilled need to answer what if I had done this? That never varied. Doctor Who has been around for half a century, and was still popular around the world for that exact reason.

I've made mistakes. I was far from perfect. I deeply regretted the events of the night before, regretted it with every ache brought on by the constant throbbing that plucked at my nerves, thrumming like a badly tuned violin. I would never forget my mistakes- they were a part of me. They made me who I am, even if I was ashamed of them. Maybe especially because of my shame.

I knew I could do better; I knew I could learn from my errors and do so much more.

I desperately felt every mistake, every decision that had brought me to where I was. Standing several feet from the body of a girl who couldn't have been much older than me, my own hazel eyes locked in a seemingly eternal moment with an officer of Normal law. An officer who had chased me from an unfortunately similar scene just the night before.

This girl had been murdered with a gun, but she died because of magic. The bloody epithet that had been left behind would live in my memories forever, marking her death unnatural. One-Bit and Two-Bit, the thugs I had tossed around for 'practice,' also had received their wounds because of magic. Two-Bit nearly died.

So what made me different from the person- or people- that killed the fair-haired girl sprawled out in front of me now?

Maybe nothing.

In that moment, the desperate need to run was balanced out by the sudden realization… and the sense of responsibility that came with it.

Maybe it was better this way, I decided wearily, and my aching body agreed with yet another painful throb. Maybe I couldn't run from what I had done last night… it was one mistake too many. Officer Rodriguez and her cadre of uniformed justice had been on my tail since they cornered me in the alley. It was a sign… it was time to stop running.

I wasn't meant to get away.

In the light of that split-second epiphany, I was surprised how relieved I was… I had done wrong, now I would have to face it. But I could face it directly, no more running away from my prob-

She looked away.

She looked away.

It was as if the world suddenly started to spin again. In that long moment I had known nothing but those sharp brown eyes locked on my own, judging me… innocent?

Rodriguez hadn't recognized me. She couldn't pick me out from any other student, even when looking for a criminal… I had escaped once more, right under her nose at another crime scene.

I didn't feel elated to get away once more, instead… the anguish of everything returned. Physical pain welcomed the mental guilt that accompanied my actions once more. The weight of it crashed down on my shoulders once more and I felt my knees buckle, as if they threatened to give out.

I should have been happy- relieved to escape a crime that I had committed yes, but only out of youthful naiveté and necessity… didn't I already suffer enough for my actions? My body rebelled with every step, and my mind plagued with the replay of the flames engulfing Two-Bit, the hideous cracking sound of One-Bit's emaciated body hitting the unforgiving brick wall of the alley.

There was no relief in escaping justice this time. I had been forced in that split-second to reconcile that I was at fault, my actions were criminal, and I deserved to be punished. What had I been thinking? Attacking thugs in the dead of night… The age old adage of 'two wrongs didn't made a right,' had never sounded so true.

I could do nothing, though. As guilty as I felt I knew that if I did something like turning myself in, it wouldn't be enough. It would be recompense for my mistakes last night, true, but I had other debts to pay… other mistakes to right.