The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (34 page)

Run.

The scent’s still there. Too strong to resist.

I stop. Turn. And feel the darkness overwhelm me. She’s still close. Easy to take. Her power is no match for
mine. I could feed on my first pure source of magic, and she’d be helpless to stop me.

Pain in my hand surprises me, drawing all of my attention. When I look down, I’m s
hocked to see blood. My own. And then I notice the pile of garbage beside me. Broken glass sticks out from the pile and my fresh blood is smeared along its edge.

I must have grabbed it.
But why would I have? My magic flows to my hand to seal the cut. I watch it travel up my arm beneath my skin with fascination. How does it move? It’s as though it has a life of its own.

A life inside me. How uncomfortable. I need it out. I need to pull it from my veins. Bleed it out of me. But the moment I reach for the glass, my body rebels against me and stops inches from the
sharp edge.

Tsk
tsk tsk. Can’t be damaging myself. A waste of magic to be constantly fixing accidents. I need all I can get if I’m going to succeed.

Succeed. At what?

There’s an image somewhere in my mind. Hard to find among the black, but I know it’s there. A girl. Pretty. Young. And so vulnerable.

Loraine.

I have to help her. She’s been taken by The Sword. They’re going to use her for experiments as they’ve been using other sleeping sorceresses. I need to protect her. I can’t fail again.

Finding her is the probl
em. Other wizards are easy. The city stinks of their magic. The scent of a sleeping sorceress is impossible to separate from the thousands of other magic-less humans in this world. If she were awake, her magic would call to me, taunt me. Just as Lou’s does.

Lou.

I’d seen her. Hadn’t I? She’d been so close. Too close.

Panic rips through me as images of her face and blood and fear and magic all mix in my mind. I hadn’t…I couldn’t have… Why can’t I remember?

My fist smashes into the closest wall and a blast of magic follows the blow. A crack snakes up the side of the building, spreading from my fist and causing the entire building to shift. I shove more magic out through my arm to seal the crack as quickly as I made it.

The release of
power forces the darkness away from the thoughts of Lou, and I remember. She’s all right. I attacked her, but she’d been able to defend herself. Barely. But she isn’t hurt.

I should never have gotten so close. Sin was right to keep us apart. My childish desire to see her nearly cost her life.

But what I don’t understand is what The Sword was doing there. Were they watching her? Following her? Or was it me they were after?

The darkness claws at my mind, trying to consume it entirely once more. Fighting it is pointless, and only ever ends with me losing what little control
over my body I have. Last time I tried to fight the darkness I ended up with missing time. Hours, days, weeks. I have no idea. And I don’t know what damage I caused during the period either.

To avoid the loss of control and memory I need to work with the magic rather than against it. Although I know this to be true, I also can’t let the darkness corrupt my memory of Lou. I tuck her image, along with Loraine’s, tight within the last untainted bubble of consciousness I have within myself.

And I let the darkness swallow the rest.

Wizards. Five at least. I can taste their magic. Sweet and sour wrapped in a light layer of agony. They’re not far. With a boost of magic I could reach them in
minutes. No. I can’t waste my magic. Walking without the boost will be fast enough. I’ll reach them by sunrise. No wasted magic. No being noticed.

Walking is easy. Safe. I can give over most control of
my body to the darkness when I’m walking. And I can rest. It’s the closest to sleep I get anymore.

Waking is more difficult. The darkness has crept up around me a little more as I rested. I have to use all of my inner strength to pull myself out and regain some sense of what’s happening around me.

I’ve reached them. The building is at least thirty stories high, and they’re near the top. I don’t like the idea of entering without seeing them first. This could be a trap. Walking in without any solid information is foolish.

And yet, that’s exactly what I do. I’m more powerful right now than five or ten
of them. There’s no way I will be defeated easily. Walk in swinging and their magic will be mine.

Information too. I need to find Loraine.

They will tell me. When their lives are in my hands, they’ll tell me anything. And then I can swallow their magic and be more powerful than anyone within The Sword. More powerful than headmaster Victor.

I shove the door to the building open and stroll through with more confidence than I’ve felt in my life. More than I think I should have in this situation. A s
olitary man sits behind a desk in the first room I enter. There’s little else in the large open space beyond a couple of plants for decoration. His chubby arms cross when he sees me and he sits up a little straighter.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

I ignore him and head for a door marked ‘stairs.’ He stands up, his hand going to something at his hip.

“You need permission to go up there,” he says. “
Everyone needs to sign in. And you’ve got to let me know where you’re headed.”

I shove the door open to the stairwell and take them two at a time.
I need to move fast. The people of this world have ways of communicating with each other over great distances which don’t require magic. I’d prefer if I reached the wizards before he warned them of my arrival. I start climbing faster.

He follows me, puffing harder with each step until he gives up and starts to communicate with someone through his phone.

They know I’m here. I still have two floors to go, but I can feel them scuttling around like mice who sense a cat. The man from the desk stopped shouting at me, though I can’t recall when. Where he’s gone, I’m not sure either.

A couple of the
wizards disappear. Not killed and not leaving by some other stairway in the building. Simply vanished. They must have teleported. The amount of magic needed to complete such a large spell would drain the average wizard dry. No one would choose to use so much magic unless it was life or death. Or if they were sure they could get more magic right away.

If they have a source, I
need to know what it is. I can use it for myself. Become more powerful than ever.

I leave the stairwell to another room with a single desk. This one is made from an odd reflective material, similar to metal, but different than any material used in my world for building. The floors are polished to shine, and the glassed in offices behind the front desk are all as overly bright and shining as this first room.

A woman leaps from her seat the moment I barge through the door and says, “Can I help you? Do you have an appointment?”

“Leave.”

She hesitates long enough to get a proper look at me, including the sword at my hip, and then she nods once. She steps around her desk and leaves through a sliding mirrored door across from her desk.

I focus on the glass door standing between the wizards and me
. I don’t waste time trying to open it. It will probably be locked. Instead, I gather just a speck of magic and flick it onto the center of the door. The magic begins to vibrate, faster and faster. The glass shatters, falling to the floor in tiny shards.

I step through the space and look around. At least ten people, none of them
have magic. They’ve leapt from their desks at my entrance and stare at me as though afraid to move in case it provokes me into action. I draw my sword. A woman screams.

“Leave.” I barely recognize the
sinister version of my voice.

Most of the people
need no more encouragement. They stream by, keeping to the walls as far from me as they can, and race for the exit. Two stay. Not wizards, though I can smell a touch of magic on them. They must be defenders of The Sword. They dedicate their lives to protecting and serving wizards in hopes of getting a few scraps of magic as reward.

Killing them is unnecessary. But it could be fun.

No. I can’t. I won’t let myself.

The magic I grab is difficult to control as it tries to turn every spell into something more deadly. When I manage to shape the magic into a sleeping spell, I toss it at them quickly before it can develop into something else. The two men drop. And I move past. No checking to see if they’re okay. I can’t. I’v
e exhausted what little conscience I have left in the minor battle over my magic. The darkness is completely in control now.

All I can do is watch and hope no other defenseless people get in my way.

The wizards are behind one more door. This one is wooden and I can feel the magic flowing through the grains to create something meant to keep out just about anyone.

But I’m not anyone.

The door splinters in an instant, and I walk through. Three swords are directed at my throat and chest. What fun.

My
blade clashes against each in turn. They aren’t bad fighters. Normally, they would have been able to beat me individually let alone as a unified force such as they are. But things are different now. I’ve become so much better than them.

Killing them is too easy. It’s more fun to drag it out a bit. Let them think
they’re winning. I dodge and parry and work up a bit of a sweat.

Pain.

Not much, but enough to bring me out of my ever thickening fog. One of their swords managed to slip through my guard and cut into both my shirt and thick leather vest. Blood trickles down my side, falling to the floor in small droplets.

One of them lunges at me from the side, hoping to catch me while I’m distracted by the cut. I lean back to allow his blade to pass only inches from my chest. His motion forward is his undoing as I catch hold of him and use his body to s
hield against an attack from in front of me. I force his weight forward, further onto the blade running through him and onto the surprised wizard who made the kill.

My attention is already on the third wizard. His swings are calculated and careful. He never moves his blade an inch more than necessary. An excellent strategy for such a tight spot. Shame he was paying more attention to my sword th
an my magic. His eyes widen as my spell wraps around him, tightening until he can no longer move, and then I toss him. One wall of the room is windows, or it was, before they shatter from his weight and my magic. His body falls to the sidewalk many feet below.

The final wizard still struggl
es to free his blade from his friend when I press the tip of my sword to his throat.

“Where is my sister?” My voice is shaky. Not from fear
, but from anger. The darkness in me is furious at myself for letting two wizards die without taking their magic. The small part of me not tainted, on the other hand, feels stronger for taking charge like I did. I press the sword a little harder against his throat and revel in the fact I can control myself enough not to kill him outright. “Where is Loraine?”

His eyes widen at her name and for the first time since coming to this world, I know I’m finally getting close.

The initial surprise he showed quickly turns to amusement. He’s so bold as to laugh outright, despite his dead companions and the blade at his throat.

“You must be
Aldric.”

My turn to be surprised. The only reason I don’t take a step back from him is because the darkness takes a hold of my body and forces me to stay pu
t. I can no longer talk and I know soon I’ll no longer be able to hold back the blade. The darkness uses my body to laugh at my weakness.

“He knew you’d come,” the wizard continues, oblivious to my inner struggle. “He’s been waiting for you.”

“Who?” The darkness allows me to ask.

“Fitzroy.”

The darkness laughs again, this time enjoying my horror at hearing the name. My best friend and the only person the true me would enjoy cutting to shreds. Slowly and painfully. He betrayed me, and Loraine paid the price.

“I can take you to him,” the wizard says. “He’d be happy to see you. And so would Loraine.”

My sword slices into his skin deep enough to draw blood. It’s the darkness’ way of reminding me who’s in control.

“If you kill me, you’ll never find him.”

He attempts to use his own magic to harden his skin beneath the sword to something a normal blade couldn’t cut. Unfortunately for him, this isn’t a normal blade. It cuts deeper, and once again the darkness laughs, both at my frustration and his agony.

I need him. He knows where Loraine is.

And I need his magic to become stronger. His death means nothing.

He will lead us to more wizards. More wizards mean more magic.

The sword dips down and my opposite hand reaches up to grab the wizard’s face. My magic oozes from my fingertips and through his skin. It easily passes through the magical defenses he tries to place in front of me and dives directly into his memories. Images of Loraine alive and, more miraculously, awake are pulled from his mind and shoved into mine. The images fade almost as soon as they enter my mind, absorbed by the darkness.