Magicae Terra - Episode 1 - Part 7

Chapter Seven

Warlock? What had I stumbled across? Magic was real? I guess that explained the ghosts and the whole lightning shooting out of my fingers thing. Does everyone have magic? If so, why doesn’t everyone know about it? I guess that means only certain people have it? Is that why no one noticed the ghosts? How did I all of a sudden come into power?

In the middle of my flood of questions, I was grabbed from my crouching position at the door and pulled into the room.

Evidently I had been talking out loud again instead of thinking. I really needed to work on that.

“Yes, you do.”

Steve moved around the desk and joined the man, both standing in front of me, both frowning down at me.
“Who’s this?”

“Just some woman. I was showing her a ring when the constructs came in; she doesn’t know anything.”

“That’s not true! I saw the ghosts steal everything! Lightning! Fingers! Warlock!”

So my brain didn’t deal with the addition of magic very well. I ended up just shouting out words. I’m pretty sure I saw the man put his head in his hands again. I really needed to find out his name; as much as I loved thinking about him as the man, it was becoming exhausting to think in italics.

I didn’t like the way Steve started staring at me and backed away from him.

“She knows too much.”

I couldn’t help myself—I snorted and then started laughing. “I know too much! How ominous; is this were you whack me and throw my body into the river to sleep with the fishes?” I continued to laugh until I saw the serious look on Steve’s face that seemed to say that was exactly what they were going to do. The man was pursing his lips and shaking his head violently. I got the message and shut up, backing toward the doorway.

Steve stepped forward and grabbed my arm, “You aren’t going anywhere.” He shoved me into a chair that was against the wall and turned away from me. “Are you going to take care of her, or do I need to?”

Take care of me? I didn’t like the sound of that unless the man was going to volunteer.

“There’s nothing to take care of; she doesn’t know anything.” He frowned at me and this time I could clearly read what he was thinking and none of it was flattering. I crossed my arms and glared back.

“Bull. She may not know everything, but she knows enough that he’ll feel the need to get rid of her. She either goes with you or you leave her with me. And I can tell you right now, I have no issue turning her over to him.”

I was really beginning to dislike Steve. I didn’t know who they were talking about, the evilest warlock on this side of the Barrier wasn’t someone they featured in People or Time, but whoever he was, he didn’t sound like someone I wanted to meet. Especially since I killed one of his ghosts or constructs or whatever you wanted to call them.

“I have to cross the Barrier. It’s going to be hard enough by myself; I can’t bring her along. Who knows if she’d even survive the journey?” He gave me a quick, appraising look and it was obvious he wasn’t impressed.

That did it—italics would no longer be used when referring to him. There are only so many disappointed looks a woman can receive before a man is permanently barred from stylized characters.

This was originally published in the book Magicae Terra Episode One. The full story is currently available on Amazon.
The image was created using canva.com