The last magician, p.14
The Last Magician, page 14
A snap of bullets, another explosion and my body twisted.
I landed hard. I felt searing pain, and blood trickled from my arm. A bullet had grazed me. I took the handkerchief, tied it around the arm and kept moving forward. The attacks never slowed for even a second. The staccato of gunfire was deafening. I concentrated on thick posts of concrete outside a nearby building. I brought them crashing down into the street behind me. Metal crunched like the sound of a tree breaking in half. Glass shattered and men were crushed beneath. There was no time for pity, or concern for human life. This was pure survival. It was them or me. I finally cleared the road and made it to the café. I burst through the door, and grabbed the watch off the table, holding it high, panting, out of breath.
“I did it!”
23
In an instant the city disappeared and I was back in the coliseum. Aeron and I locked eyes. I saw his lip curl. Was he pleased, or enjoying the punishment I’d endured? I looked over to Zac, Lara and the others. Finn looked ecstatic as if witnessing the Super Bowl. Zac scowled. Kira offered a concerned expression.
“On to the next,” one of the council members declared.
Don’t I get a breather? I thought. Obviously not. I laid my hands on my knees and sucked air in deeply. I glanced at my arm expecting the wounds to have disappeared but they were still there, and still as painful as ever.
“For the third trial, you must discern and anticipate who will kill before they kill you. You have five minutes and get only one attempt. Begin.”
“What? But I never had the chance…”
Before I could finish my question, the air warped and everything vanished. I was now inside what looked like an airport hangar. In front of me, inches away, stood an aggressive-looking man holding a knife. He wore a thin black jacket, jeans and a white T-shirt. His was face unshaven and he wasn’t moving. Had he been the only one in front of me, I could have concluded I had my killer. The problem was he’d been multiplied, at least three hundred times. I turned, my eyes widening. I was standing at the center of a group of men who all looked the same. No movement on my part changed their focus. They stared ahead, frozen. I began to move between the lines. Anticipate who will kill before they kill you. There had to be something different about one of them. This could take forever. I had to use precognition, the act of determining what would happen before it happened. It was new, but no different than anticipating which card a person would select. My uncle had taken me through a few scenarios several times and I’d sucked at it even back then. Still. It was either that or kill all of them. Within minutes of using precognition I was convinced I knew which man it was. As I hurried down the line, heading for him, all the men shifted and moved into a new position. I halted and blinked. What the heck? No, no, no. That wasn’t what I saw. Which one was he now? There had to be something else. Another way of telling. Or maybe, I was going about it the wrong way. In a split second I made the decision. Beginning to use mind control, I forced all of them to lift the knife to their neck. As they did, I watched. Sure enough, one of them could be seen trying to resist. That was the one. In the next second, I made him slit his own throat and he collapsed to the floor. Blood pooled around his body. Immediately they vanished and I was back.
The council stared down like gods determining my fate.
There were no congratulations. No pat on the back.
“You will now complete trials four, five and six together.”
“What? But it was meant to be separate.”
Gasps spread throughout the crowd. I glanced at Braden. He looked concerned and quickly moved through the crowd towards the council. Lara’s eyes darted back and forth. Braden reached them and whispered into one council member’s ears but they dismissed him. Refusing to be ignored he attempted to get them to listen to reason by raising his voice but instead they removed him.
The council member continued, “You will be held captive. You must escape, and retrieve a sacred symbol of magic. Begin!”
I barely managed to take a breath.
Again everything blurred and then solidified. I now found myself upside down in a tank of ice-cold water. The sudden onset of my new reality was disorienting. I gasped and swallowed liquid fast. I tried to free myself but found that I was completely restrained by chains. It was like the Houdini act in the famous Chinese Water Torture Cell escape. Seconds ticked over as panic set in. The water made it virtually impossible to think. I gulped again, swallowing more liquid. Any air that I held released in large bubbles. Immediately I felt darkness creeping in at the corner of my eyes. I knew that any moment, I was about to pass out. Quickly, I tried to focus my mind while struggling violently in the grasp of metal chains. My body went into spasms, gasping for air. Without a second to lose, I concentrated on freezing the water. It would encase me but at least it might buy me time. Ice formed and the sound of cracking could be heard. The cold shook me to the core. I so badly wanted to close my eyes and sleep. I was shivering, and my mind screamed. Focus, focus. Seconds passed and then the glass and ice that encased me cracked, fractures spreading out like a spider’s web, slowly at first and then rapidly. Then in an instant, an explosion sent me rolling out on top of large chunks of ice. I gasped for air, gulping fast. The frozen chains broke as soon as I hit the ground. It was then I saw where I was. On a building, high above the city streets of Manhattan. Farther down, a metal door to the stairwell burst open and several men came out with automatic assault rifles. I struggled, the cold numbing my limbs. But there was nowhere to run. I staggered to my feet, balancing on the edge of the building, fifty-two stories high. This was it, nowhere to go. I turned to face my attackers. If these men were avatars in a 3D game, they seemed very real. My body was still cold from the ice, making it virtually impossible to think clearly. That was part of why they placed me in water. They knew I would freeze it, they knew the cold would slow down my ability to focus. It was about pressure, working under extreme conditions. Maybe this was why Braden seemed against combining the trials or maybe this was all part of Aeron’s plan. Could he have broken through into my mind, known who I was and what I would do? This would make his job of killing me easy.
“Kill him.”
Rifles were raised, rounds erupted and bullets seemed to move in slow motion as they came towards me. It was so strange. Was I slowing them with my mind? If I were, they weren’t moving slow enough as each one continued its trajectory. I tried to wield the air but I was too damn cold. The very little I could do wasn’t enough. It had taken everything I had to freeze the water.
“When the sun comes up, you’ll either be a part of the Inner Circle, in the same boat as us, or dead.” Finn’s words echoed in my mind.
Is this where it would end? Dead? Would I really die?
This was no elaborate magic act. Hell, I would have liked to think that the ledge I was balancing on fifty-two stories up above Manhattan was just a dream.
But it wasn’t.
In that moment as I stared death in the face, unable to react, frozen from the cold, every moment of my life played out before my eyes in rapid succession.
No, it was very real, but then so was the ability to do the impossible. It didn’t matter if what I was seeing was real or not. The only thing that was important was the realization that I could perform the impossible. Whether that was before a crowd on a street, under the stress of a gun or before I drew my last breath. Reality had to bow unequivocally to magic.
But was the goal to stop the bullets or avoid them?
I lifted my arms and fell backwards. The building fell away. The wind whipped against my skin, my clothes flapped as the ground rose up to meet me. Was the cold really preventing me from thinking, or was I allowing it? Suddenly, as if compartmentalizing what I feared from what I knew I must do to survive, a flip switched in my mind. Instantly the cold vanished. A knowing, a deep inner knowing that I could do this came over me. Magic was real, available, and I was enveloped by its power. Like a base jumper, pulling his parachute at the last second, I flipped into gear and used the very air itself to create a cushion. From high velocity to slow in a fraction of a second, I came to a halt, suspended by what others might have believed was an invisible thread. There was none. My body lowered until the tips of my fingers touched the ground. I rolled and stood, gazing up, barely able to comprehend what I had managed to do. Or what magic had bestowed.
I pressed forward, breaking into a sprint. Ahead in the distance impaled in the ground was a golden scepter, on the top, a symbol of magic. The seven-pointed star. I focused and found myself moving without having walked. I was doing it — teleporting, moving from one location to the next like an illusionist disappearing from one area and reappearing in another. So caught up in the moment, looking at where I’d been, I wasn’t aware of the ten men who appeared ahead of me. Turning back I moved just in time to avoid a ball of fire. Then another, then another. Manhole covers exploded upwards as water gushed forth, arching over and rushing towards me. I darted left, then right in an instant, sporadically moving along the street, at times slamming into the sides of cars or buildings. Clearly, I was still new to this kind of sudden movement. What mattered more was it was working and keeping me from being killed. I counterattacked with fire, then water. I used the air to create a field around me as I rushed towards them, throwing everything I had at them. Windows mirrored the intensity of the battle. The ground cracked and fissured as I used the earth as a weapon. Soil, concrete and tarmac tore. Who needed guns, the earth was far more deadly. As my attackers dropped, I noticed confidence, and clarity filled my being with the knowledge that there was nothing impossible — only the limitations I allowed. As the last man fell, I stepped over his body and pulled the scepter out and held it high above my head.
Finally, I was back. I had done it. The crowd roared, chanting my name. Ethan, Ethan, Ethan. I turned slowly soaking it all in. A smile broke through my stern expression, and a weight lifted from my shoulders if but for a few seconds before the noise was silenced.
“Quiet. Silence!” A hush fell over the spectators. “That was a very impressive display of your ability. Tomorrow we will see if you are worthy to wear the ring, when you face the seventh trial.”
The crowd went wild. Fists pumped, and many hopped over the barrier to meet me at the center. Covered in blood, I fell to my knees. Three of them lifted me high, carrying me to the exit. I saw Finn grinning beside Kira. Lara gave a brief thumbs-up. Braden tipped his bowler hat, but Zac was nowhere to be found. My forehead wrinkled as I scanned the crowd for his face.
24
After getting out of a healing chamber I was feeling more like myself again. Making my way along the corridors, I was overcome by the sheer number of candidates that stopped to congratulate me. For the first time in a long while I felt like someone. Pulling myself away from the million and one questions, I retreated to the solace of my room.
“Ah, the victor arrives. What’s it feel like to be a hero?”
I chuckled. “If you consider getting your ass whopped heroic, then — painful!”
Finn laughed and made his way over. “When you flipped back off that roof, oh my God that was good.” He reenacted the flip landing onto his king-size bed.
Lara nudged him. “Yeah, I actually thought they had you there.”
“You and me both.”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “Did you get a load of the reaction?”
Finn got real serious placing a hand on my shoulder. “Few make it, Ethan. You are one of the first in years to have made it through to the seventh trial. When one gets this far, it spreads hope among the others. You inspire them. All of us.”
Lara and Kira agreed.
I raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Yeah, there have only been two others who have made it this far in the past three years. One of them died in the seventh, the other was Zac.”
I looked around. “Where is he, anyway?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Beats me. He disappeared halfway through.”
“Probably licking his wounds,” Kira said in jest, folding her arms behind her head and kicking her boots up on the footboard.
“Kira,” Lara said in an admonishing tone.
“C’mon, he needs to get over that. He’ll get his chance again, like all of us. Does he think he’s the only one that’s been disappointed?”
“He made it further than us.”
“So?” she replied.
Right then Zac walked in. It went silent. He must have known we were talking about him as he scuffed his boots, muttered something under his breath and crossed to his bed.
Lara went over, took his hand and drew it to her face for a kiss.
“Get a room, guys,” Kira said lying back on a bed while surfing videos on her phone. I smiled. Jokes aside, I had to admit Zac was taking it hard. Though having gone through what I had so far, I could see why he’d be pissed. Who in their right mind would want to go through that four times to gain a ring?
Still pumped from the evening’s events, I walked outside onto the balcony. Seeing Lara and Zac together made me think of Chloe. I checked the messages on my phone but there was nothing. Probably a good sign, I thought. I shot her a quick text as I leaned against the stone and breathed in the night. Seconds later, my phone buzzed.
You staying out of trouble?
I smiled.
I texted back. Always.
It buzzed again. Always in trouble?
I snorted. I wanted to share the night’s events with her but after what she went through, I decided not.
Want to meet up tomorrow?
I sighed and tapped back a reply. I can’t.
She left an emoji frown.
How about the following day? Say, one-thirty at the café?
I bit down on my lower lip, unsure of how things would play out. I didn’t want to promise anything as who knew what would happen but then on the other hand, I didn’t want to disappoint her. Sure, look forward to it.
I signed off, feeling better knowing she was safe.
“So, you think you’re hot?”
I twisted to see Zac seated on the ledge of the roof above. He held a bottle of beer in hand. He stared down blowing out a cloud of smoke that created swirls in the moon’s light. He chugged it back, then wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve.
I straightened, looking up at him. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“No? Then what would you call it?”
I shrugged. “Luck?”
He laughed, then shook his head. “The irony is you perform the impossible and yet you still doubt your ability even though you survived against odds that were stacked against you.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He took another hit on his cigarette. “You weren’t meant to come out of that alive. You know that, right?” He waited for a response. When I didn’t give it, he continued. “You’re the first person in this place to have had trials combined together, with no break between. Someone on the council wants you dead.”
“Well—” I said before he cut me off.
“You know this whole thing is going to blow up in your face tomorrow? It’s what they do. They lead you with a carrot and then—” Zac swigged back on the bottle, then tossed it into the darkness. A second later it smashed. “Obliterate you.”
Zac wasn’t kidding.
“I don’t follow.”
He chuckled, blowing more smoke out. “Do I need to spell it out for you?” He went silent then stared down. “They’re playing you, kid.”
I exhaled deeply looking out across the rolling meadows.
“Well I guess we’ll see tomorrow.” I glanced at him before heading in.
The next morning, I awoke before the sun was fully up. The others were still sleeping. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling as the previous day played out in my mind. The only consolation was knowing that this was the last trial. I rolled out of bed and curled my toes feeling the cold floor. A shiver ran up my spine, a mix of early morning temperature and the previous night’s uneasy conversation. If it were true, maybe this would be the last sunrise I’d see. I took a few minutes to head out to the balcony and take it in. Was this what my uncle referred to as destiny?
A few hours later, the mansion was alive with activity. The sound of chatter filled the hallways. The smell of toast dominated. I didn’t eat much that morning. Half a banana, the rest I gave to Zac who appeared to have the appetite of a lion.
“This is it,” Finn said, scooping cereal down his throat and washing it away with coffee. “I have faith in you. There’s something about you, kid.”
“But…” Zac said biting into his second piece of toast.
“No buts,” Finn said cutting him off. “There are always buts with you.”
My brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
“He was going to ask if he could keep your belongings if you didn’t make it out today,” Kira said.
“No I wasn’t.” He paused. “Well, I mean, can I?” Zac then grinned.
Finn tossed a half-chewed piece of toast at him. “Don’t make me come over there.”
I laughed, these two deserved each other.
“Zac, you are welcome to my belongings if I don’t make it.”
I felt my phone vibrate inside my pocket.
“There you go,” Zac said. “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
“Oh no, now you’ve done it,” Finn said.
They continued their banter as I reached for my phone. Someone cleared his throat behind us. I looked to see Aeron standing in the doorway. I pushed the phone back into my pocket, I would check later.
“Wrap it up, folks,” he said before looking at me. “Ethan, can I have a word?”
I nodded. “Certainly.”
I tossed a dirty napkin at Finn and screeched my chair back.
Outside we walked in silence for a few seconds.
“You’ve shown great promise, Ethan,” Aeron said. I walked beside him trying to keep up, as he walked faster. “It’s been a while since we’ve had someone who has not only demonstrated strong abilities but decisiveness in situations where most would falter.”
