Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (24 page)

I pulled my knife from my
pocket it. It’s a SAK—I mean, it’s a Swiss Army Knife. Blade
enthusiasts use the acronym SAK, but I had sworn off using it years
ago. As I’m a diehard computer and gadget type, the inherent
utility of a Swiss Army knife or a Leatherman type multi-tool
deeply appeals to my inner geek. But when I was fourteen, I had
spent the better part of ten minutes lecturing a cute girl at a
science fair about my SAK. My SAK could do this and my SAK could do
that. She disappeared as fast as she could and my friend Rory had
quoted some of my sentences back to me so I could hear how it
sounded. “Dude, the only thing worse was if you had a multi-tool;
then you’d have been going on about how your
tool
could screw things,” he’d
laughed. Lesson learned.

My particular carry knife has a sharp can
opener blade, and I used that to score straight lines down the
inner length of both bracelets. A simple but concentrated use of
Earth power caused the metal to separate along the lines, and I was
left with five hinged pieces of bronze. I had cut one bracelet into
equal thirds, the other into one third, two-thirds sized pieces.
Two for legs, two for arms, and half of one wider one for the
torso. I found a small bundle of roots from a sapling that had
never grown much and used that to bind the five pieces together.
The other half of the wide piece flowed and molded under my
fingers, becoming a bronze sword.

Using the same can opener, I scribed some
basic runes into the metal and pushed a bit of power into them.
Then I packed muddy dirt around each limb and the body, pulling
heat from around me to bake it hard. I left the lower arm and leg
on each side just as bare bronze, the edges forming a makeshift
built-in blade for climbing or even fighting. I did fasten a small
piece of stick to each forearm to give me fuel for the fire runes I
carved underneath the sticks, and scribed runes of binding that
would let my avatar hold things like his sword or other
artifacts.

My aunt approached, leading Delwood of all
people, as I was finishing up. “Almost done, are ye? Good. I’m
having each of the shifters partner up with an avatar driver to see
what they can add to the team. You two will work together or you
both will lose,” she said, her tone brooking no argument.

I looked at him, he looked at me, we both
frowned and nodded. A temporary forced truce as it were.

She left and I worked the final touches.
Delwood said nothing, leaving me free to ponder why she would pair
up weres and witches. A though occurred to me. I had a little pad
of paper in my back pocket and I used it to write him a
question.

You want to observe or participate?

His frown got deeper. “I’m not the spectator
type. I’d rather do something then watch you play with dolls.”

Give me a hair from your head.

“What? Why?” he asked.

I just held out one hand and waited. Finally,
he plucked a hair from the thick mass of black on his head and gave
it to me with more frowns.

I stuck the hair on the blank face on my dirt
dude and cemented it there with a thought. Then I carefully drew
some tiny runes around it in the hardened mud.

“Whoa! What the fuck did you do? I smell dirt
and metal,” he said suddenly, rubbing his nose. “And my hearing is
all fucked up.”

I set my dude onto the backside of the course
and powered him up. Delwood shifted beside me to see what I wrote
on my pad of paper.

Linked your sense of smell to where his nose
would be and your hearing as well. You can use it to warn us of
danger… like, say, the smell of plastic or the creaking of Barbie
joints.

“No shit? Yeah, I’m getting all the wet
ground smells that I would if I had my nose pressed down there. So
you want me to smell for the dolls and listen?”

I nodded, strapping the last of the tangle of
roots like an assault vest around dirt dude. Using pebbles and
pieces of stick, I made some surprises and stuck them in the vest,
finally weaving the little sword in as well so that it hung down
his back. We were ready. Just in time.

“Alrighty then. We begin the hunt,” my aunt
called from the other side of the mountain range, where the rest of
the class was.

A quick glance at Delwood showed he was
watching me cautiously. I turned back and set my dude to walking,
heading up the escarpment that divided us from the rest of the
course. Time to hunt Barbies.

Chapter 23

On this side of the ridge, the incline went
steep pretty fast. Dirt dude had to go to all fours, digging his
exposed brass-bladed feet and hands into the soil to climb. I took
him toward my left, approaching the ridge nearest the back wall of
the long room.

Excited voices from the rest of the class
drowned out any sounds I might have picked up from the doll crowd,
leaving me to guess where my prey might be.

Delwood suddenly grunted. I glanced at his
puzzled expression.

“I smell plastic,” he said, looking mildly
surprised, like he hadn’t expected my spell to work. I raised both
eyebrows and pointed at various parts of the hill.

“There’s like three separate sets of odors.
Two back by this side and one over where you’re headed,” he
said.

Closing my eyes, I extended myself into the
avatar, hearing sounds at his level and seeing what he might see if
he had eyes. My aunt explained once that this was like far viewing,
casting oneself into the avatar and experiencing its
perspective.

At double D’s level, the voices of my
classmates faded to a dull background roar, the sounds of soil and
rock tumbling around me filling my ears, mixed with the crunch of
each brass limb as it dug into the ground. There was nothing to see
yet, just dirt and, as I got higher, the exposed concrete of the
ridgeline.

About ten inches from the top, I stopped. The
ridge cut side to side across the whole width of the model like a
continental divide. The concrete above me probably came from a curb
or something, the molded angles still fairly defined although it
was chipped in places.

In the real world, I would extend my senses
through the ground to scout the other side, but here in Wytchwar,
that was a breach of the rules. I could use magic on my dude and on
anything he carried, but not on the model itself. The telepaths
would be looking for that kind of breach.

But I had prepared for this.
Holding a brass spatula-shaped hand up to my vest of roots, I
forced a rune marked
stone
to pop off and stick to the hand. A thought
activated the stone and I tossed it, grenade style, over the
concrete outcrop above me, hoping its clatter would be lost in the
confusion of the far side.

The stone, an object of Earth, became a kind
of sensor for me, reporting back the vibrations of the ground
around it. It had rolled almost halfway down the slope but was
still able to pick up the vibrations of four above it. The Barbies,
who numbered about a dozen, had split their forces and sent at
least four to guard the far left end of the ridge. Delwood’s
warning was right on point. Hmm, mixing werewolf senses into the
game might be a big factor in future games. Next time I tossed a
stone, the other kids would know my whereabouts, so it might be
better to rely on wolf senses. I tucked that thought away and
proceeded on. Beside me I could feel Deldip stretching up to his
full height to watch the action.

Moving quickly, I pushed my dude to the end
of the ridge and around the steep end. Immediately, my mental
vision changed, showing four figures struggling with the sharp
incline and more figures back toward the other end while large
blobs of color that marked actual students crowded the perimeter of
the model.

Crablike, I rushed the closest four, spinning
on bladed feet and lashing out with both hands. The nearest Barbie,
a brunette doll, was flung away, falling down the slope and off the
model. The next doll caught a bronze edge right in a knee joint and
fell, flopping about in the dirt.

The last two stood upright and attempted to
hold me. Wrong move on a sharp slope. I put all four limbs into the
dirt and pushed through them on all fours. They both fell back down
the hillside, one of them hanging on long enough to almost pull me
with her. Almost, but not quite.

Ignoring them, I moved toward the next group
of figures positioned near the middle of the mountain range. This
group copied my motions, digging their avatars’ feet and hands into
the soil. I got four inches away, the equivalent of about four feet
in the real world, and extended one arm. The piece of wood strapped
to the bronze smoldered for a second, then burst into a jet of
flame that washed over all four dolls, catching the long strands of
plastic hair on fire and igniting synthetic skin.

They panicked and fell, leaving strands of
melted plastic behind. The last group had come closer but now held
their distance, about ten inches or so away. A couple manhandled
long sticks taken from the debris of the model.

Good idea, poking me with the sticks till I
fell, keeping just out of flame distance. The fuel on my avatar’s
left hand was gone, the bronze blackened. But the righthand piece
was still there and I had a couple of chips of rune-carved wood on
my root vest. Activating a chip, I tossed it left handed into the
pack of improbably proportioned female figures while pulling the
little bronze sword. The chip exploded in a puff of fire,
scattering the Barbizoids. One was burned outright, one fell, and
the two highest up the hill held their positions and their sticks.
But they were now off balance and I was close enough to rush them,
my sword hitting their sticks hard enough to break them, my
backswings knocking them off their plastic feet. I grabbed two
seismic stones from my vest and prepared to throw them into the
dirt just above the fallen dolls. Avalanche time.

“Enough. I’m calling it for the mud kid,” my
aunt said before I could fire off my rock grenades.

“But he cheated! He used magic,” Erika
immediately protested. Back on the other side of the course, I
stood up and moved toward the class, Delwood following behind,
looking thoughtful.

“Nothing wrong with magic, as long as it’s
just used on yer avatar or on anything the avatar carries. He made
little Molotovs is all. But look at his figure, will you. Made of
fire resistant mud over a metal frame. Is that your bracelets, is
it?” she asked me.

I nodded, walking the dirt dude closer to the
class so they could see him.

“Brass feet and hands for digging, climbing,
and even fighting. Nice. Even a wee little sword and a vest of
roots to carry his bombs and… rocks?” Aunt Ash looked to me for an
explanation.

I pulled pen and paper and
wrote.
Seismic sensors or to cause
avalanches.

“Ah, ye see. He can’t use magic on the course
but he can on a stone what his fella there was carrying.”

“But he’s been playing this his whole life,”
Paige protested.

“Course he has, dear. I
expected him to clean ye all up. But more to the point, he used
material that worked for
him
to build a player that was much better suited to
the game then a plastic bimbo, now didn’t he?” Ashling answered.
“So here’s the thing. I want you all to design something between
now and next Monday that uses
your
strengths and shields your weaknesses. I expect a
much different outcome when next we play, and I expect that yon
laddie will help you with yer ideas and such. Afterall, he’s always
been wanting skilled opponents, he has. Ye can also be thinking up
some better tactics. Ye’ve got a tactical expert in Caeco here, and
I think ye could be employing yer classmates skills better, as
well. Think like a team, not individual heroes. Use the remaining
time to study the game pitch and ask questions.”

A hand shot up, Michelle’s.

“Yes dear?” my aunt asked.

“Okay, I get that Declan is freaky strong,
especially for a boy, but how can any one witch hold enough power
to make all that dirt take a form and walk like a puppy—I don’t
think my entire circle at home could do that.”

“Ah, that’s an excellent question, dear,
something I meant to discuss but it slipped me mind. Okay, so how
did me boy work so much power? Any guesses?” Aunt Ash asked.

“Human sacrifice?” Erika joked. At least I
think she was joking, but then, I hadn’t thought she had much of a
sense of humor before this.

“Actually, that’s one way to do it,
harvesting the life energy of a ritually murdered human. Is that
what ye did, boy?” she asked me. I shook my head. “No? I guess
not.”

She put her hands on her hips and pursed her
lips. “What Declan did was a bit of a trade secret to me clan.
Ex-clan, that is. The main method for using the power, as ye all
know, is to absorb energy and hold it inside yourself. You psychics
do that, too. Consider it a reservoir, a pool of magic, or for you
modern thinkers, a battery of sorts. The amount of power each witch
can hold is part of her individual strength. The other part of
magical strength is how much ye can channel, like the difference
between a drinking straw and a fire hose, ye see?