Mage of Shadows (24 page)

Or maybe that was the problem with involving yourself with one conspiracy. You start to see them popping up everywhere.

"All of you have been called here today because you've all expressed interest in joining Alpha Phi Alpha, easily the most elite frat on campus." Larry's gaze traveled up and down the line, as if sizing us all up, "If you're lucky, maybe three or four of you will make the cut."

Vik stepped up now, "We know that's not a lot. We realize that you're all good guys," He paused, and even in the dark I could easily see the smirk, "But joining up isn't just about being good, it's about being better than… Normal."

Subtle, I thought sarcastically. Maybe Vik had a future as a comedian specializing in terrible puns that no one understood. If he got booed of the stage, he could put the entire audience in the hospital as his closing act.

"Let's get down to business." Larry said briskly, "First test. Clothes off."

Now the line stirred, a guy a few places down from me muttered something under his breath that I couldn't quite make out. No one moved to follow the surprising order, including myself and Swann.

"Did he stutter? Do you all fail already?" Vik yelled, clapping at us, "Clothes. OFF. I want to see everyone in their boxers and nothing else, right now!"

A flurry of hasty movement followed, jackets were unzipped and tossed to the floor, shirts and pants following only seconds later. I finished and stood ramrod straight, very glad I hadn't decided to go with my beloved ducky boxers today. If only I didn't look like a pale twig. I would hit the gym soon, one hundred percent promise.

Several down the line didn't comply, I couldn't see how many from my position, but I heard one whine near the very end of the row, "You can't do this! Hazing is illegal, you're not allowed-"

Vik seemed to be there instantly, right in the protestor's face before he could even finish his sentence, "Go on," His voice was deceptively soft, "Leave."

The objector didn't move.

Vik shoved him hard out of the line, "LEAVE!" The muscular senior screamed at the fallen student, "All of you still dressed get the hell out of here! I dare you to tell anyone, I dare you! Especially you, Johnson, you dumb bastard!"

Johnson scrambled to his feet and all but ran for the exit of the roof. He was followed by four other hastily retreating backs that were also still fully clothed. They all forsook the elevator for the quicker route of the stairs, and after another moment it was dead silent again. Vik stared after them, rage seemingly boiled away in an instant, and he was smirking again.

"Idiots." Larry Chen rolled his eyes, "Anyone else wanna to join them? This is only the beginning. You still have time…"

No one else left, though the guy to my immediate right was shivering fiercely. The harsh wind was an unforgiving reminder that December was next week and we were all but naked. I did my best not to tremble, not to show weakness. I remembered Carmen saying being a mage automatically meant you were accepted- apparently not really true.

The dark eyed girl had pleaded with me not to come tonight; I couldn't blame her for anything. This was all on me.

"Good." Vik said, returning to his position in front, hands locked behind his back. Larry Chen walked up and down the line slowly. At times he would stop and scowl at one of the pledges, staring them down for what felt like hours in the biting cold.

Finally, when I had lost nearly all feeling in my numbed toes, Larry stopped to return to Vik's side again. In my mind I was just begging for it to be over already. This was enough, wasn't it?

"Congratulations." Vik gave us all a cheerful smile, "You've passed the first test."

"The easy test." Larry added evilly.

This had been the easy test?

I saw Vik wave his hand, and out of the darkness from apparently nowhere at all, three slim figures suddenly coalesced.

It had been shockingly subtle- like silk only just grazing the contoured edge of my senses- but I felt the whispered trace of power. There was far more to their sudden appearance than lack of attention on our part. I couldn't help but feel intrigued- and afraid… this was yet another side of magic that I hadn't encountered yet.

All three were girls, eyes alive even in the dark of the night. I recognized Carmen and Danae, but not the third. Each stalked by the line, and in our undressed state, it was as if we were savages being judged by the divine. There was a power in this ritual- not exactly magic, but something older, something I couldn't readily comprehend. Older than a mere hazing for rushing a fraternity… it was a whispering voice in the night that grew from feeding on our lives, our fear, our pain… our sacrifice.

Some of the pledges looked down as they passed, embarrassed and uncomfortable to be dressed in next to nothing in front of the girls. After two agonizing passes, the girls began to pick up our clothes, collecting them in disheveled bundles. They did it slowly, unrushed by the shivers, pleading eyes, or downtrodden looks. Every few seconds they would stop to catch one of the pledges' gazes, as if daring them to look courageous, even mostly naked and trembling.

Swann and I didn't flinch, though we could not hide our shivers after so long. Carmen passed me by each time without a second glance, as if she didn't recognize me. Danae came next, and her crystalline stare was particularly icy as it focused on my own eyes. The frosty queen most certainly hadn't lost the distaste she had held for me in the coffee shop, that morning so long ago.

I didn't know the third, but she was pretty in a pointed sort of way. She stood half a head shorter than me with large unblinking irises seemingly made of some onyx that had been stubbornly trapped by the contrasting white of her eyes. Her sharply edged cheekbones were ghostly white even in the lack of light. It only served to enhance her harrowing gaze. Most of the pledges couldn't help but look away from those eyes.

I didn't blink, I couldn't blink. Weakness here would be weakness remembered by them for my entire life. A life that I hoped to be particularly long and enjoyable… eventually. I had to be strong here.

I won't lie to you, I was afraid, and I felt shamed by their tactics. I desperately didn't want them to see how much their sinister manipulations actually threw me off. I wanted to leave, to follow the pledges smart enough to run while they could. Vik wouldn't have been able to stop me then; I could go home, first to UT and then back to Virginia. Maybe I would be safe there… probably not, but in that moment I was desperate enough to believe it.

So focused on the girls, I didn't notice Vik muttering into his cell phone until he clicked it shut. With clothes bundled high in their arms, the three girls walked past the frat leader and stolid Larry Chen. They stopped and stood behind them. His secretive conversation done, Vik calmly slide his phone back into a baggy pocket of his dark jeans.

"Well done thus far, boys." He looked pleased, "We don't have much time, so I'll hurry through this."

A nod to Larry sent him down the line of those who had remained, handing small slips of paper to each frozen boy. When the Asian president reached me, I clenched onto the paper he handed to me with cruelly desensitized fingers. There was only one thing written… the number 42. I didn't have long to wonder about the meaning, as Chen finished passing the papers out only seconds later.

Vik spoke again, "You've each been given a number. Your third task is to… amuse us. You have a week to do something particularly public and funny with your number involved. When you finish, turn in the number to myself or Larry, then wait. Don't try trading, we'll know. Very easy! All of you remaining should be able to accomplish this, right?"

"I think you forgot to tell them about the second task, Shah." Larry said, looking amused, "Don't forget about that."

He laughed, "Of course, how could I forget?" Vik gave us the widest smile of the night, and it made my heart rate to rise again, "Your second task… is to escape." A long moment hung in the air, and I noticed the three girls moving towards the edge of the roof, our clothes still in their arms.

"Escape." Vik repeated, "Go, pledges. Run home. You see, I've called the police about a minute ago and told them there was a disturbance at structure five. Even at 2 AM it shouldn't take them long to check it out… they love to catch silly vandals and taggers. If you get caught and give up what happened here tonight… you lose, don't even bother with the third task."

Shah raised his hand, and more than one of the pledges shouted in dismay as the three girls tossed their bundles of clothes off of the roof of the structure. We all stared in shock as they fluttered freely in the wind for a long, frozen moment, before beginning their forlorn descent.

"We've given you the gift of shoes." Vik said gleefully, "Use it well."

A moment of stunned silence, then chaos erupted.

Swann and I dived along with the rest for our sneakers, scraping them roughly against our frozen protesting feet and joined the mad desperate dash for the stairwell's door. None of the APA members had followed us. I was last leaving the roof, and I couldn't help but turn to look back at them.

Five shades in the dark, five powerhouses that I aspired to become like. I watched them travel together in a casual march, aligned as if they progressed with a common goal. They all ignored me; though I'm sure they saw me watching. All five walked to climb atop the short, walled edge of the structure, watching our retreat with various degrees of amusement. Vik nodded at me cheerfully and offered a playful salute.

Then in tandem… they leapt from the roof.

They didn't just drop off the side, they leapt. I felt the immense magical power behind it as they telekinetically shoved against the cemented edge so hard that the resulting force sent them flying into the starless black sky to hang nearly fifty meters above the already high building. The projection of their path had sent them so far that they had already cleared the street in front of the structure when their synchronized arc finally ended and they somehow landed softly near the school's Admin building.

It had been impossible. I had never seen it done before, and once again I was left feeling severely outclassed. How they had done it…

At that time I had been proud to be able to garner enough power to hit someone with the force of a small car, and that would have taken me ten times as long as they took to do it. That might have gotten me a quarter of the way they had jumped. Landing… the gradually applied counterforce they would need to provide? Far beyond any skill of mine.

If Jimmy hadn't tugged desperately on my arm, I might have stayed on the roof for God knows how long, but instead I turned to join the desperate clamber in the stairwell, fairly flying down the steps and out of the structure and into the street below.

Much like the mad dash to throw on shoes, there was a similar scramble for the clothes and jackets that had fluttered down to the street. After a quick moment of searching, I noticed a slight Indian guy who I vaguely recognized from my English class. However, that wasn't the important thing. What was important was that he was wearing my jacket.

"Hands off, asshole!" I physically tackled him to the ground. To an outsider, it would have looked comedic to see two gangly teenagers rolling around on the street in near-winter for just a jacket. Neither of us had any obvious fighting experience, so our efforts were both woefully pathetic.

While it was a nice jacket, I mostly wanted my damned phone (hopefully unbroken by the fall) and wallet back.

After a few more minutes of rolling around, Swann was finally there to offer me his help. However my bespectacled friend was more of a hindrance, shouting unnecessarily in my ear, "Let's go, Nick, let's go!" My friend was half dressed in a pilfered white tee, his faded jeans bunched in one hand. His other appendage was attempting to assist me in my pathetic bout.

Just when I thought I had my jacket won, I felt my thin opponent growl and gather magic to him, ready to transform it into telekinetic force to hit me with. In numbed shock that had nothing to do with the weather, I automatically called upon my own power and pushed my will against his. Now it was his turn to look surprised, the power he held faded away to nothing as he recognized me as another User.

"You're-" The guy started, but the ominous sound of sirens cut him off even as Jimmy finally helped pull my jacket away from him. I got off the other mage, and he stood up next to us. He didn't look at us; however, he was momentarily distracted by something in the near distance.

I followed his stare and with growing horror, matched the menacing wails with the multi-glow flashing lights of the police cruisers as they sped towards us. There were three squad cars at least. I wondered what the hell Vik told them we were actually doing at the structure, for them to send so many.

I didn't have time to wonder any further, however. With my jacket tossed over one shoulder, Swann and I dashed away from the scene on the street and lawn of the structure like madmen. The screech of wheels signaled the full arrival of the cops, not that I turned to look. Shouts to free followed us, and I could hear vague pleas as my fellow pledges that hadn't run fast enough to get away or were still scrambling to find their clothes.

Swann had matched my heady pace, but I was surprised to find the other mage had matched us as well.

"We can go to RT!" He gasped at me, obviously not used to physically straining himself, "My dorm- it's closest!"

Jimmy nodded silently to me when I looked at him, giving his assent to the plan. Idly and unnecessarily, I felt satisfaction that our best friend telekinesis was making gains- it definitely hadn't been the time for that, but my brain barely listened to me on the best of days.

"Alright!" I hurriedly replied, glancing back and saw at least two or three flashlights bobbing after us in the distance. RT was definitely our best chance, with Jimmy's dorm nearly half a mile away, and my own being even further.

I didn't look back again, and we turned a sharp corner to see the very welcome sight of RT's double glass doors. We ran inside and our new mage friend fumbled with the pants he had in his hands. Despite shaking horribly, he managed to tug out his wallet and ID card, swiping it nervously three agonizing times before the doors finally buzzed open.