Chapter 79

“Get in the car!” yelled Josh, shoving the shivering woman in the back of the vehicle. “And shut your damn mouth!”

He raised his hand, ready to deliver yet another slap when a shiver ran through his body and had him clutch his chest in pain. Cursing, he turned to see the Bulgarians drag the older woman out of the building and into the second car of the convoy. Others had cut the traffic, but a crowd was gathering. He quickly blurred, snatching the phones out of the watchers’ hands and shattering them before they could record video of the grab, then went into the car with the young woman. Tires screeched, and soon he was on the road.

“Please, please, please,” cried the woman even as the two Bulgarians who were seated around her yelled obscenities at her in a language she couldn’t understand.

“You better shut up and stop screaming like that,” he looked at her from the front seat, twisting his body as a lascivious smile appeared on his face, “it would be a shame if they ruined your beautiful face. But trust me, if you keep screaming they will do it.”

It didn’t seem to be enough, and one of the two men slapped her hard enough to make even Josh wince. He saw her head snap back and forth, but she seemed to still be breathing afterwards, which made him heave a sigh of relief. He blurred, snapping the Bulgarian’s neck in retribution, and shot a glare to the other before coughing blood into a tissue.

The man muttered something at him that he couldn’t understand, but sounded very much like a threat. He was about to respond in kind when even more convulsions hit him, and he felt bile rise up in his throat. He swallowed a heavy lump that tasted vaguely like blood.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He watched the landscape pass him by for a while, feeling like utter shit, cursing his luck and planning ways to make Michael hurt. He was responsible for his suffering, but now he had the asshole’s sister, and who said he couldn’t have some fun with her before he delivered her to Carmela?

She deserved it for being that prick’s sibling. Michael, who was the root of all Josh’s problems, would pay.

The night deepened as they left the city. There was barely any light in the car when Maggie stirred, and it took her a while to notice, through the haze of the concussion, that she was sitting beside a dead man.

“Oh shit!” she screamed again, tears running down her face, “He’s dead! why is he dead! He’s dead! Oh God!”

Josh turned around again, “yeah he’s dead, idiot. Do you want to join him? Huh? You know what? Fuck you and your brother and that asshole woman as well. Strip.”

“W-what?” the girl stammered, more tears running down her face.

“I said, strip. Remove your clothes, entertain me. Come on. Or do you want me to hurt your mother, eh? We already have your dear, dear Michael,” he lied, “you’re going to join him if you don’t do what I say.”

She reacted to Michael’s name, which made Josh shiver in pleasure as his smile widened. He reveled in the feeling of power, his superior abilities making him king among vermin. He felt like this was his destiny, if only just a little appetizer, a look into what was coming once he managed to free himself from the bitch.

That’s it, he decided. He was going to kill Carmela in her sleep. She might be scary, but even she had to sleep at night, and sleeping people were defenseless against him. He knew where she lived, she never left the compound, and he was too fast for any trap she might have put in place to snare him. Bullets and the such did not scare him, as long as he saw them coming. It was her who would be in for a rude awakening: death.

He looked at the shivering teenager. She seemed to be making up her mind about complying to his request, which made him lick his lips in anticipation.

“That’s right,” he said, “you can decide his fate. You just need to—”

“What the fuck is that?” screamed the driver all of a sudden.

Josh turned around to see a flickering light, like an intangible spirit hovering on the road ahead. They were going to run it through, he thought, before he realized that he had already seen it before.

“It’s Michael’s—”

His words never finished leaving his mouth when suddenly the world started spinning. There was a sudden light and a thunderous sound, then the car was spinning and he couldn’t tell up from down. People were screaming, and then another explosion and he saw that the other car had joined his in whatever was happening. He tried to blur, to escape, and it didn’t work.

It took many seconds, which passed in an instant, for the car to stop spinning. He finally was able to blur out of the car, ending up on the pavement that was still scalding hot from the day’s heat, but he was concussed and barely holding his dinner. The air smelled of dry asphalt, smoke and gasoline. Burnt rubber. Everything spun, more than normal, and he felt bile and vomit rise up his throat. He doubled over, seeing blurry lights and nothing more, feeling his chest hurt and constrict.

“Feeling a bit ill?” came a voice. He knew this voice. “Did you like my Foul Water gift? I knew it would stay with you.”

“Michael,” Josh muttered, suddenly blurring and casting fireballs. Each cast and each super-speed step sent jolts of pain through his body, like it was eating itself alive, and he felt blood vessels burst and give. He absorbed the last of the coins Carmela had given him in allowance, and then he was out of mana. The fucking woman.

He stumbled, falling to the ground. Michael was on him, a dark orb floating around him, more fucking water bullets ready, fire coming from his hands, a spirit on his shoulder. Josh tried to move, but the pain was too much. Michael did not move either, instead looking at him with contempt.

Then there was an explosion of light and a boom of static, lightning arcing all around. From it came a man Josh had never seen before. Or perhaps he had, milling around the dungeon, a man Josh had dismissed as useless because he was powerless back then. Or was he? Josh thought he was sure Michael was the only one with powers, but perhaps…

Michael turned to him, dismissing Josh. How dared he? He tried to blur again, but felt a presence press upon him so hard he felt his ribs break from the metaphysical force. He felt like he was about to pass out.

The two men talked for a moment. Josh could hear bits and pieces, struggling to make out meaning in his delirious state. Ah, how dare Carmela send him out on a mission in this state. It was so unfair, that Michael could heal from any damage, while a mere car crash was doing him in. His leg was probably broken, he realized as the adrenaline was spent and its numbing effect vanished, leaving him to wonder if he could ever recover from this state. Perhaps he could beg, trick Michael into healing him, and then kill him.

The man who had suddenly appeared finished speaking, then disappeared again.

Josh saw Michael turn to him. “Your plan failed, of course. You didn’t consider that magic is hardly fair.”

“This is not right,” Josh was delirious, but he had not forgotten the dreams he had been sold. What he had forgotten, in this moment as he looked upon Michael’s face with nothing but hatred, was his plan to plead.

“I was supposed to be the king. The ruler. You! You were supposed to die.”

Michael hummed in mock surprise. “Was I? Who told you that?”

“She did,” Josh said, but he had the impression that perhaps Michael was taking advantage of him, that he was mocking him. “The bitch. She lied to me.”

Michael kneeled to face him, and Josh tried to jerk away, only for his body to light up in pain. “What—are you doing to me?”

Michael looked puzzled but Josh knew, he knew, that his former friend was enjoying it.

***

Michael wasn’t enjoying what was happening one bit, but Josh was too far gone to realize it. Michael studied the man with his [Healing Aura] and knew Josh did not have much time left. The Foul Water had done its course, and now Josh’s organs were literally melting into goo. He could heal him, but…

He turned around and saw the state his sister, his dear Maggie was in. He had healed her body from the spinal damage and the concussion, of course, but it did nothing to soothe her mind. Michael hoped Candle Light had already started to draft psychiatrists they could trust to treat their personnel.

No. Josh did not deserve a second chance. Michael was not one to make his enemies suffer, however, even those who dared kidnap his family. He readied a gun, choosing to kill Josh with a bullet, a real bullet, to the head.

“How? It was supposed to be… easy.” Josh whispered.

“It’s never easy,” Michael said as he looked at the dying man, “there was no way for her to know about our full resources. About Candle Light. About the power farming we did on the second floor. About the fact that I could just take people in the dungeon and emerge ten minute later with a team of powerhouses.”

“She said it was… impossible. I could barely do… a few runs before food… ran out. Before I was too tired… to go on. Monster. You lie. You could never have spent so much time in there. You went in and out, didn’t you? Many times. But that’s not right. I would have seen you.”

“Yeah,” said Michael, “unfair, is it? But that’s just how it is.”

To be fair, seeing his friend like this was depressing. It would have been stupidly easy to just grab him. Travis teleported inside the car and got the people out thanks to his card, he could have done the same to Josh. Instead, they left him to his devices, to struggle. Michael though that perhaps he did it so he could justify killing him, because he was a threat, because he was resisting. It didn’t work much.

The rest had been like stomping ants. It really got to your head if you didn’t tread very carefully. They managed to completely disable a convoy of armored cars filled with armed goons without even breaking a sweat. They could have done it even easier.

Josh prepared a fireball, a last ditch attempt, his dying move, ready to take Michael with him as he died. Realizing he couldn’t kill his former friend, his gaze went to the cars. He could blow them up, at the very least, kill everyone in them. He didn’t know they were empty. He thought he could kill Michael’s sister, the one person in his family he cared about.

Michael saw him, and snorted. “Pathetic,” he said, pulling the very magic and elemental fire from the growing fireball, which was snuffed out like a candle. The sound of a gunshot, and Josh died not even knowing how things had managed to slip out of his grasp like this.

***

A similar, even more pathetic scene had unfolded at the other convoy. Johanne watched Jennifer make the wreckage of the destroyed cars, now nothing more than warped steel and burning gasoline, disappear with the Unmaking Flame summoned from her tome. Trevor had done a similar thing to the other convoy with his [Ghost Market].

She saw Old Dave nod at his phone. He had successfully used Unity’s resources to buy the scrap metal from the other convoy back from the market before anyone else could snatch it. Now all that was left was see how the skill would handle the delivery, which was guaranteed to happen within two business days at one of the many warehouses they bought for things like this.

She could have done it all by herself, she thought. All minus taking care of the wreck, perhaps, but maybe even that. She had magic to move the earth, she could bury the proof. It wouldn’t be as effective as Jennifer’s flame, of course, or Trevor’s market: the tome burning and the skill putting for sale even the scorched ground they created with their magic and chemical fire so that all that was left was a slight depression in the ground where the mess had gone down. A depression she quickly filled with magic.

The place was filling up with Candle Light operators handling the aftermath, and she quickly removed herself from the scene. They smelled of Travis, the lot of them, unlike the scientists of the Science division who all shared her own view of things.

The real problem was going be Carmela, she thought, but then shook her head.

“This…”

“Jennifer, did you take care of Michael’s father?”

“Ah,” the woman said, shaken back to the present, “Old Dave is. I’m more than happy to let the old man take care of the asshole, to be honest. I can see why Michael got out of that household as soon as he could.”

“He was kicked out. His family claimed he didn’t contribute economically, that he was a burden and so he had to go.”

“…anyway,” said Jennifer after taking a moment to recover, “this is crazy. I thought this was an emergency. What we did was bullying children.”

“We technically killed people who threatened my lord—I mean Michael’s family. As for the emergency? It very well could have been,” Johanne cast a spell, illusions popping up. “Consider just a single Copper enemy in their midst and remove my ability to counter magic.”

The scene unfolded. “A bloodbath,” said Jennifer in the end, her tone much more somber. “What about the others?”

“Josh was out of it before they even engaged. Plus, he’s stupid. Was stupid.” Johanne corrected herself with a smirk.

“Now what?”

“Now they end things,” she said. “Travis swore to me he’ll make sure Michael understands. Or else…”

“I see,” said Jennifer. “Then it’s over?”

“It’s far from over,” said the mage, “a chapter ends. Another begins. This, my lord would say, barely qualifies as the tutorial.”