Emergence: Return of Magic book 1 (15 page)

She agreed, and they packed up.  They let Hendricks
ride Bria’s horse for now, until she got back from her hunting trip.  Then
she could just double up with John again…

They rode the horses hard for most of the day, she felt like
the schedule was getting a little tight, there was more urgency for her to get
where they were going.  It was too hard to judge exactly, maybe with more
experience she will in the future, but for now it was mostly guess work.

It was early afternoon when they ran into a large group of
people coming the other way.  She could tell right away they weren’t
raiders, they were families, men, women, and children.  The… refugees
stopped when they saw them coming down the road, and got out of the way. 
They looked terrified, and she wondered what happened, to her surprise, Kurien
rode towards them.

Kurien said, “Hello again folks, how come you abandoned your
town?”

Arielle said softly at her look of confusion, “Their town
was being raided when we went by, we helped, killed some of the raiders and ran
the rest of them off.”

One of the men said, “The raiders came back, with more than
last time.  We’d set up a couple of lookouts after you left us, and were
able to leave before they got there.”

Kurien nodded, “There’s a farm community you can join near
here, old man owns the place and he’ll need help with things and getting in the
crops.  I don’t know how you feel about farming, but at least you’ll have
food.”

The man grunted and discussed it with the others there for a
while, finally the man asked for directions.  Kurien told them how to get
there, and they moved on.

They were just a few more miles down the road, when they ran
into another group, this one had to be the raiders.  At a quick glancing
count, there were close to twenty-five of them.  She felt suddenly naked
not being able to do magic.  John pulled his sword, and she gripped her
staff tighter.  Hendricks, Arielle, and Kurien drew their swords as well.

Although outnumbered, the men they were facing were hardly
true warriors.  And although her own instruction hadn’t been going on very
long, even she was more capable with weapons than the raiders, who did nothing
more than swing the bats like… they were swinging a bat for a home run. 
There was no subtlety to their attacks and they telegraphed their actions as
they charged with twisted grins.

They might have been able to avoid them, and outrun them on
the horses, but none of them even suggested such a course.  Men like these
needed to be stopped, else that farm community Kurien had sent them too would
be put in danger.  Kurien, Arielle, and Nim took point and moved like the
wind, and cut them down left and right.

She braced herself though, as by benefit of sheer numbers a
few of them got through and charged her, John, and Hendricks.  She
resisted the urge to do magic as she parried the first blow, and then stabbed
out with the end of her staff, slamming the guy in the chest and then the
head.  John and Hendricks seemed to be holding their own as well as they
cut into the enemy’s flesh.

She looked down at the one she’d struck, as he seemed caught
by a seizure of some kind before going still.  She’d hit him rather hard
in the temple.  She’d never killed anyone before, and her hands were
shaking.  She knew it was the right thing to do, there were no police, or
courts, or anything to deal with people like that anymore.  The man was a
rabid animal preying on others, and had to be put down.  She looked
around, they were all dead, the battle was over.  None of them looked
hurt.

She leaned far to the side, away her horse, and lost what
remained of her lunch.

Hendricks asked compassionately, “Are you alright?  The
first time is…”

She nodded but still felt unsteady when she straightened up
in the saddle.  She had a job to do, and was determined to do it, although
a small part of her died in that moment, and she missed it keenly.

“We should go,” she said softly, and started her horse
moving…

Sean stared up at the ceiling, a sleeping Cassie burrowed
into his left side.  Her body was warm and soft, but he felt nothing but a
burning anger inside of him.  The last day hadn’t been good for him, and
he’d had several nightmares, as he watched Cynthia die again and again, and he
was helpless to stop it.  If only he’d known magic could destroy that
bond, he could have guarded against it somehow.

He hadn’t been able to really grieve yet, each time that
emotion started to rise within him, the anger consumed it, and grew like a ball
of acid in his chest, eating away at him.

He hadn’t wanted much, he’d just wanted to live his life in
peace with Cynthia, but one thing after another and he found himself the
guardian of others.  Simply because he hadn’t had the heart to turn them
away, or leave them to such a horrible fate as the women in Walmart had
faced.  He didn’t blame Cassie for Cynthia’s final death, no, the
perpetrator of that crime had already died, painfully.  Just not painfully
enough. 

Right at the moment he didn’t feel anything for Cassie at
all.  He knew he’d been starting to like her, and getting used to her
presence, but now he felt nothing but anger.  Worse, it was anger without
a target, an impotent anger.  His enemies were dead, and so was his
love.  He wondered if he would ever be safe, simply allowed to live his
life.  He’d been… happy, but not any longer.

He’d started to believe it might be the three of them, now
it was him and Cassie.  He wasn’t even sure what she was thinking, would
she stay with him now?  Did he even care?  Would he ever get used to
Cynthia being gone?

He closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep, but each
time his eyes shut, all he could see was her face.  Her tanned skin, dark
brown hair, and large doe eyes.  Those full lips that felt… he cut off
that line of thinking, he tried to turn his heart to stone, but it burned.

Cassie sighed and he felt her waken.  She kissed his
chest and caressed it.  He felt his body respond as she moved her hand
down his torso and between his legs, wrapping him in her soft hand.  She
made a soft noise of approval as he grew at her soft touch, and started to kiss
her way down.  He felt… a biological response, his body was responding to
the input, but the tenderness and lust that he would normally feel wasn’t
there.  He also felt angry because Cynthia wasn’t there to join them.

That… made the anger grow even more.  Frustrated and
impotent anger.  He reached down and grabbed her by the hair, and pulled
up and to the side.

He got up as he growled, “Hands and knees.”

The old him would have been surprised by her immediate
obedience, just like when he’d ordered her to burn the mansion, she got on her
hands and knees and arched her back, and invited him to take her by lifting her
ass up high and swaying it alluringly as he moved up behind her.  There’d
been no hesitation in her movements.  He reached down and touched her, she
was hot, moist, and her labia were puffy, ready to be taken.

He rubbed himself up and down her wet silken pleasure, and
then thrust in hard.  She cried out as he grunted, and her core tightened
around him, fluttered, stretched, and conformed to his shape.  The intense
pleasure of it incited his bodies reactions, but still had not evoked any
emotions.

Still, he could feel nothing but anger.

He started to take her fast then, sliding in and out while
holding her hips firmly.  He did full long hard strokes, punishingly hard,
as he used her for an outlet for his impotent anger.  He fucked her
without thought to her pleasure or comfort.  Not that it mattered, she
took pleasure in it, pushing back and bucking against him, fucking back against
him just as hard as she gasped his name.

She encouraged him to take her harder, and he did.  He
spanked her ass hard, and she asked for more, and when he reached forward and
violently pulled her head back by her beautiful light blonde hair she came hard
around his invader.  She screamed out his name and then trembled under his
continued and unabated assault. 

He would have felt grateful, if he had been capable of the
emotion in that moment.  The one thing he didn’t want to do was truly hurt
her, and she was so into it, that it was easy to allow himself to get out his
anger in this way.  She seemed to welcome it, enjoy it, and get off on it.

Her body milked his past his endurance, and he slammed into
her three more times, and emptied himself into her with a growl.  For a
blessed moment, his mind and body were overcome with bliss, the anger
completely gone in that short eternal moment of pleasure, but then he came
down, and the anger, grief, and now guilt for how he’d used Cassie, crashed
into him mercilessly.

The power of the grief and guilt scared him, paralyzed his
mind with regret, he couldn’t deal with it, so the anger rose up from deep
within him and took over once more.

He pulled out and laid on his back.  Cassie put her
arms around him and kissed his shoulder.  He knew what she was saying
without words, she was saying she was here for him, and that she wasn’t mad at
him, but he also didn’t care at the moment, he couldn’t care.  He knew he
should be ashamed, Cassie deserved better, but he was broken.

His own voice disturbed him, it was frighteningly empty,
“You need to be careful with magic.”

Cassie frowned, “What do you mean?”

He sighed, “I should have told you right away, but you don’t
use it much so…  Nathaniel, he wasn’t fifty, when I read him I learned he
was only twenty-six.”

“How is that possible?”

He shrugged, “Do you remember you telling me you could sense
my magic, even though to me it’s only the forces of life and death?  Well
for me it’s the other way around.  His life force was bright, but not as
bright as yours.  I think when you use magic, it consumes your life force,
which recovers after a time.  The lower your life force, the faster you’ll
age.  It’s kind of ironic, because as a sorceress you have an amazingly
large life force, which means you’ll probably live for hundreds of years,
unless you abuse your magic that is, then…”

She nodded against his arm and said in a thoughtful voice,
“Okay, I’ll be careful.”

“I think your fine doing what you’ve been doing.  He
used magic constantly to control the people around him.  He also used it
to create the armor, shields, and swords.  A thin layer of iron was added
to it at the end, he had a metallurgist do that.”

They both looked at each other when they heard a scream of
pain.  He got up, and felt the tingles of her magic, cleaning their
combined juices off of their bodies.  He grunted in thanks and pulled on
his pants and a shirt.  He walked out as two zombies from outside reached
his door and he started searching in the direction of the scream, although the
sound acoustics in the old school made that difficult.

As they moved deeper into the school they heard a berating
man’s voice, he grimaced as he heard the man deride and yell at his wife,
dropping a few choice curse words better left unsaid in the process.  When
they barged in the room, the man turned with an angry red face, a woman was on
the floor, a bruise growing on her right cheek with tears in her eyes.

The man growled, “This is none of your business, get…”

He didn’t wait for him to finish his pathetic macho act, and
merely reached out and squeezed the man’s life force, doing no true damage, but
imparting pain.  It was a good trick, now killing wasn’t the only way he
had to stop someone.  The screams were rather horrible though, and he
released the man after a couple of seconds.

The man’s wife looked at him in horror.  Right, of
course, because that made sense.  He held up his hand to prevent her from
talking, if he heard her defend the asshole, or say it was her fault, he might
just kill both of them.

“You are banished, get your stuff, get the fuck out, and
don’t come back,” he turned toward the woman, “You can stay, or go, I don’t
care.  But if you want to stay with this fuck who will one-day kill you,
you can do it away from me.  I didn’t start this safe haven so wife
beaters could do it in safety.”

The man growled, “Fuck you, what gives you the right to…”

The man’s words cut off as he was lifted into the air and
slammed against the concrete wall.  He winced, that had looked
painful.  He guessed Cassie felt about the same as he did then.

He shook his head as the woman got up and checked on him and
looked up at them with tears in her eyes.

“The zombies will guard him, and escort him out in one hour
and keep him away from here.  You have that long to decide to be free of
his abuse, or go pack up your things, and join him.  You will be welcomed
back if you change your mind later, he can never come back.”

Cassie added, “He’s not worth it, you should stay.”

He turned around and walked out with Cassie in his wake.

Word of the confrontation got out fast, and some few seemed
disturbed by his judgment but no one objected.  He didn’t care, the one group
that seemed grateful for it were the Walmart victims, and those ladies didn’t
bother trying to hide their opinion.

It was after lunch when he got another outside warning from
his zombie guards.  He went outside warily, and had to stop himself from
ordering Cassie back inside.  There was a man coming up in a sheriff’s
uniform, he was alone.

He asked, “What can I do for you?”

The Sheriff said, “I’m Sheriff Todd Daniels.  You can’t
squat here, this is government property.”

He gaped.

Cassie chuckled, “Are you serious?  The government is
gone, dead in the cities.”

Todd shook his head, “Yes, but there are plenty of city
workers and police left in the suburbs, we got a council going, and were trying
to get things organized.”

He frowned, “Good, go after the raiders, and organize other
farms.  Why are you messing with us?  We’re peaceful, we gathered for
protection, we planted fields for food.  Is it your intention to break up
the only functional and long term viable group in the L.A. area?  Isn’t
that kind of insane?”

Todd cleared his throat, “Listen here boy, the law is the
law.  Why didn’t you set up in some houses?  This land belongs…”

Cassie’s sharp tongue cut him off as she accused, “You just
want our work, you want our food, and the farm that’s starting to grow. 
Just another raider group, except you’re cloaking yourselves in the mantle of
legitimate government.  Your actions make no sense otherwise, you should
be assisting and defending the people who need it, not prosecuting the peaceful
people that don’t need your help.  I’d advise you move along, and find a
more likely target Sheriff.”

Todd narrowed his eyes, but seemed to take notice of the men
gathering behind him and Cassie.  It seemed unclear if the sheriff knew
those men were unnatural or not, but Sean kind of doubted it.

Todd drawled, “We are organizing many things, and going
after the raiders.  That doesn’t mean we can ignore your flagrant
violation of the laws.”

He snorted and said angrily, “I see, so when will you be by
to collect taxes, and where can we sign up for welfare, and all the other
government programs.  Seems to me we have a new world, a new older kind of
world.  We need to watch out for each other, and depend on each
other.  The old laws don’t mean shit right now.  We need to focus on
survival, farming, how were going to make clothes, soap, candles, and many
other items.  Squatting?  The one thing this new world has in
abundance is old empty buildings and shelters, so leave now.  When you’re
ready to talk sense, come back.

Todd shook his head as if he were the crazy one, “Don’t say
I didn’t warn you boy,” and turned to leave.

When he was out of sight Cassie said, “He’ll be back, with
others.”

He frowned, his anger burning, and said coldly, “We’ll be
ready, we are ready, and we warned him too.  I’m sorry I’m being so cold,
it’s not you.”

She took his hand, it felt warm, “I know, it will take
time.”

They went back inside to grab a bite to eat.

Cassie seduced him again that night.  She laid out for
him, her legs spread invitingly, a look of absolute trust and burning lust in
her eyes.  He took her hard and fast again, pouring his anger into the
actions, but this time he wasn’t looking at the back of her head, they were
face to face.  The look in Cassie’s eyes as he fucked her mercilessly was
one of acceptance, and pleasure.  She more than didn’t mind being used
like he was doing, she wanted to be used, wanted to be needed by him… for
something, anything.

He could see it in her eyes, she felt safe in the middle of
his raging storm of anger, giving herself to it, to him, because she loved
him.  It was so clear on her face, that his rage faltered.  A mixture
of tenderness and grief rose over him like a tidal wave.  He drowned in it
and it tore a sob from deep inside as he finally let the grief out.

Cynthia was gone, and he’d never see her again.

Cassie held him as he collapsed on top of her, and caressed
his back and hair, whispering nonsense phrases in his ear as he broke into
pieces, and she held him together.  When he could draw a steady breath
again, after he wasn’t sure how long, he started to grow inside of her again,
and this time, he moved gently and teasingly inside Cassie.  The grief and
anger were still there, he felt fragile, and wrung out, but he also felt warmed
by her body, her smile, and the look in her eyes as they moved against each
other in soft loving movements.

They made love for a long time.  He kissed her softly,
and filled her when she reached blissful completion beneath him, her body
demanding his seed in a way he could no longer resist.  Her orgasms had
been getting stronger and stronger, and this last one just set him off. 
They kissed for a while, and then cuddled, and she slowly fell asleep in his
arms as he looked up at the ceiling, this time with curiosity, and light feelings.