Magicae Terra - Episode 1 - Part 9

Chapter Nine

“Plane? What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere with you.” I reached for my clothes and started pulling them on; before, I would have been all for being in the same room with him, naked, but I wasn’t sure anymore if I even liked him, let alone wanted to get naked and have lots of fun.

“If you want to live, you’ll come with me. Julius knows about you. He will come after you. He has no problem killing to get out of a traffic ticket, so taking you out because of an insurance scam is pretty much a given.”

I gawked at him. Yes, gawked, as in my eyes got large and my mouth hung open. “Kill me! I didn’t do anything! Why would he kill me? Also, the evilest warlock is named Julius? Not exactly a name that oozes scary.”

He looked over his shoulder at me and when he saw that I was dressed, he turned back around. “You’re the one who decided to run after something you didn’t understand. You are also the one who eavesdropped on a conversation you shouldn’t have. You might have survived the first, but the second sealed your fate as far as Julius is concerned. Now pack; we have to leave.”

I just stood there, my feet again frozen. This was the second time in my entire life that my existence had been threatened and I was finding out my feet didn’t handle the pressure well.

That’s when he decided to take the direct approach and got right in my face. “Would you like to know what he will do when he finds you? I can go into excruciating detail about his preferred torture methods. Maybe you’ll get lucky though and he’ll only pass you around to all his men. It’s your choice—I can leave you here to be killed or you can come with me. Your odds are only slightly better where I’m headed, but if you prefer certain death to possible death, I understand. I’ll give you two minutes to make up your mind and pack a carry-on.”

He stood there, looking at his watch, tapping his foot. I couldn’t believe I had at one point used italics for him. He was forcing me to choose between options I didn’t understand. On one hand, I could stay here and face an evil warlock, assuming I even believed in warlocks. At this point, I had only heard reference to one. What if this was all some big, elaborate hoax? Some hidden-camera show? On the other hand, if this was real, if everything he and Steve had said were true, then staying would mean I would be murdered. I could go with him to some barrier and maybe die. My options weren’t looking too bright, but if this was all real, and looking down at my fingers and remembering the lightning shooting out of them led me to believe this was, my best course of action was to go with him.

He was staring at me, no longer tapping his foot or looking at his watch. I still couldn’t read what he was thinking, but at least this time he wasn’t looking at me with disdain, it was more like curiosity. “Fine, I’ll go with you.” I packed my carry-on bag quickly, taking just another change of clothes and my bathroom travel bottles; I also packed the one book I’d brought with me. I could see he wanted to say something about the book, but the look I gave him dared him to make a comment. When I was done I stood in front of him, waiting; he looked me up and down.

“Do you have any other shoes? We’ll be doing a lot of hiking.”

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