Zero Sum (15 page)

Sheila spun her staff like a top on the cold grey tiles. “Dieter has the best extraction ability I’ve ever seen, but the talent is still limited to three elements.” Catching the staff as it fell, she pointed it at my face and gave me a warm gust of air.

“Thanks,” I said, teeth chattering. “But what does that mean?”

“That we just discovered your opposing element. Like Alguacil Spinoza said before, each mage has a strong, weak, neutral, and opposing element. We can both attack and defend using our strong element, defend with our weak, repel our neutral, but are overcome by our opposing.”

“So I should avoid ice cubes at all costs?”

“Exactly.”

“Hey, Shiela, so that makes me like a fire mage, right? Is that super rare and awesome?”

Sheila shook her head. “Fire is the most common.”

“Oh.”

“Common does not mean bad, diablillo. A fire-wind preference is ideal for combat…and forest fires.”

“Hey, that wasn’t on purpose.”

“One wonders,” Spinoza replied. “So, Mordred, what is the best way to kill this boy?”

“He blocked your slug. That means he must be neutral to earth. But he was purely opposed by water. He couldn’t even deflect the flow.” Sheila strummed her chin in thought. “Neutral to earth and opposed by water…thus, Dieter’s defense would be weakest to an attack with ice.”

“Correct,” Spinoza replied. “Ice is the fusion of strong water with weak earth. It is also the least common offensive style. I don’t even know who we could use to train him.”

“So I’ve got this thing the bag?” I headed towards the door. “If you need me, I’ll be on my cot.”

“No, diablillo, your reliance on extraction fields is almost as unacceptable as Ms. Mordred’s refusal to integrate her weak element into her air spells.”

“But—“ Sheila began.

“Yes, yes, you wish to become a cataphract, you have no need for offensive spells, you need but some hard forged steel and armor…but what has this attitude gotten you? Nothing but a firm crack on the head. The two of you have trained the opposite ends of the same strengths. Now you will mend one another.”

“Wait, so what you’re saying is you want me to teach Sheila how to set me on fire?”

Spinoza grinned. “Exactly, Diablillo.”

Chapter 8

KING LEER

Time passes quickly when a six-foot tall cataphract in training is firebombing the hell out of you. By the time I limped out of Central’s basement, the sun had already slid over the horizon. I had six more weeks of this to look forward to…and then we had to start fighting for real. Stars above, what a mess. I brushed out a few singed hairs. At least Sheila’s terrible aim had saved me a haircut.
 

Exiting Central’s big double doors, I found the entire campus abuzz. Since the dorms had been destroyed, students had been sleeping anywhere they could find heat. Classrooms, hallways, and broom closets were all fair game. The faculty didn’t dare let them off campus. With Talmax thugs roving the countryside, they’d decided it was time to hit the mattresses. The students had made the most of it. They were building mattress forts everywhere.

Outside of Central, dump trucks were carting off the remains of the dorms. The process was going to take weeks. Rebuilding the dorms, perhaps a year or more. Floodlights blared down on the workers assembling large white tents on Elliot’s lawn. They’d serve as semi-temporary replacements. Watching all the action was fun, but a full five hours of drills had left me starving. I headed over to the cafeteria for a hot meal and some coffee.
 

At Elliot, we eat lunch in the late afternoon and dinner around 10:30. Magic doesn’t mix well with daylight, so our entire schedule is shifted nightward. I got to the cafeteria a little early, so they only had out the cold stuff. (Not that I was complaining. Free food was free food.) I slapped together some PB and J’s, grabbed two cups of pudding, and poured myself a cup of the crappy cafeteria coffee. Then, dodging all the sleeping bags strewn across floor, I made my way to one of the burgundy booths by the window. I didn’t eat in the cafeteria that often. Jules had me on a strict training schedule. We usually grabbed dinner on the go and ate it as we walked into the woods. But since visiting New Haven, Jules had been giving me the cold shoulder. She hadn’t even watched Sheila and I train. She just sat over there on the cots reading magic crud. What made this spat so special was beyond me. We were basically arguing all the time. I was still mulling that over when two large shadows fell over my booth.
 

“Mind if we join you?”
 

I looked up from pudding #1 (a fine tapioca-light) to find Susan Collins, daughter of Section Chief Ralph Collins, staring down at me with a smirk.
 

Susan Collins wasn’t much to look at. She was built like a long distance runner and wore her cardboard brown hair cropped short and tight. You’d never notice her in a crowd if it weren’t for that mismatched pair of arms. The ebony left had been grafted onto her torso a few months back. She’d lost the original in our first fight with Talmax. Aside from Rei and I, Susan was the only other student to survive. She’d done it all alone too. She didn’t have some uber-vampire backing her. But as I was saying, Susan wasn’t much to look at. It was her two huge buddies that were blotting out the sun. I knew them only by their nicknames, ‘Tank’ and ‘Truck’.

And no, they weren’t professional quilters.

“Do you know the five S’s of pudding?” I asked.

Susan’s eyebrow quirked. “The five S’s?”

“Yea. See it. Swirl it. Sniff it. Taste it. Savor it. To truly appreciate the partially hydrogenated oils arranged in one of these tiny plastic cups, you’ve gotta be sure to do each and every one.”

Susan frowned. “But ‘taste’ doesn’t start with an S.”

“And the ‘seeing’ part doesn’t work without light.” I gestured to the two lugs.

Susan rolled her eyes and told her muscle to get lost.

The two cataphracts gave me looks of great constipation, but headed over to the crowded student lounge.
 

“I’m still not sure which one is Tank and which one was Truck.”

“Tank is the one with the tattoo of a tank on his shoulder. Truck is the one with the rose.”

“Oh.” I blinked a few times. “You’re the captain of Iota, right?”
 

“And you’re Dieter Resnick.” She extended her white right hand. “I don’t think we’ve officially met.”

Because Susan had interrupted me in the middle of pudding time, I decided to be a prick. I extended my left hand instead. Frowning slightly, Susan switched. The replacement felt clumsy in my fingers—but worked well enough to form a death grip. She traced the scars lining my palm as she pulled away.

“Wow. Electrical burn?”

I raised an eyebrow. That was one hell of a guess.
 

“Compliments of New York.” Any additional detail would be nothing but trouble. I didn’t care to explain how Rei mended it (swapping blood with a vampire was generally frowned upon), and glanced over at the lounge instead. The group of cataphracts arranged around the TV looked like they could be playing in the football game they were watching. One glared at me before muttering something to his friends. “Those guys always so protective?”
 

Susan shrugged. “Only when they think I’m doing something stupid.”

Honesty won her a chair. I gestured for her to sit.
 

Susan unbuttoned her Elliot robe and slid in opposite me. My eyes lingered on her low cut v-neck for only a second. (Okay, maybe Susan wasn’t
totally
forgettable.)

“Why the concern?” I asked.

“I think you know.” Filching pudding #2, Iota’s captain peeled off the wrapper and stuck it on my plate. It was a chocolate vanilla marble. The delicate dance between light and dark was intended to contrast with the airy levity of the tapioca-light. But that dream was lost now. I fidgeted with my spoon.

“Enlighten me, captain. What have I done to arouse them?”

“Well, Initiate Resnick, word is you’re that hell spawn’s pincushion.”

My jaw tightened. So Susan was a straightforward gal. I could do straightforward.

“And word is you’re a fame-seeking missile.”
 

The burgundy false-leather bench squeaked under Susan’s spine. But that’s the funny thing about America. You’re expected to achieve great things, but heaven forbid you look like you’re trying hard to achieve them. That’s the kiss of death. The veritable scarlet letter of doom. And it was a well-known fact that Iota’s captain was obsessed with achieving many great things in her life. Right now, she wanted to be considered the big witch on campus. In the future, it was pretty obvious she was gunning for the DEA Council. I didn’t really give a shit about all of that. I didn’t care about people with goals that didn’t concern me. But Susan looked none too pleased with that assertion, and even less happy that she was showing it. I took a deep breath and sighed. She’d dumped her bodyguards and absorbed quite a bit of my snark. Even I could see I was being an asshole.
 

“Listen, all I’m saying is that some rumors are—as the Druid would say—utter bollocks. The hell spawn and I are just friends. No one is swapping any blood.”

Susan’s eyes narrowed. “Then why did you look so angry, Resnick?”

Did I look angry? I wasn’t too certain.
 

“Because you stole my pudding,” I managed. I started scooting out of the booth. “And it was nice to meet you.”
 

If I was going to survive Spinoza’s daily drubbings, I needed to avoid any extracurricular ones. Next time I’d get my food to go. I was a terrible liar. Conversations like this could only lead to trouble. I’d nearly escaped when Susan grabbed my arm. It was hard to describe, but the room suddenly felt warm. The magic oozing off Susan…I was nearly certain that we favored the same elements…and I was nearly certain that she was the stronger.

“Resnick, she’s going to betray us.”

“Excuse me?” I tried to pull away.

“Sit.”

I sat.

“‘We’re all the same on the inside.’ I know that’s what you Imperiti children learn. But, Resnick, those words are intended for mankind.”

Egads. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“That a hug means one thing to you and another thing to a snake.” Susan looked at me with pitying eyes. “That creature you’ve befriended is not a mage, Resnick. She’s not even a human. And no matter how pretty you boys think she is, no matter how enamored you become, you’d all do well to remember that.”

“Enamored…I’m not…I mean, we’re not…”
 

“Don’t play dumb, Resnick. I caught Roger with another copy of that photo just last week.”

That comment threw me.
 

“What photo?”

Now it was Susan’s turn to look surprised.

“You didn’t hear?”

“Captain, I’m being trained by a Druid. If you want to know where the squirrels are hiding their nuts, I’m your man. Otherwise, I’m in the dark.”

“Oh, man…” Susan got the pre-gossip glow. “It happened last year. Theodus’ little princess had just gotten here, and she decided to go for a dip in the pond.” Susan chuckled. “Get this. She thought it was for swimming. Claimed it looked like her ‘swimming pond’ back home.”

“They have those?”

“Who knows.” Susan shrugged. “Anyways, some idiots started taking photos. She caught one and punched him in the nose.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“She fractured his skull, Resnick.”

“Oh.” Okay, not great.

“And then she tried to drowned him. Lucas had to drag her off him.”

“Oh.” Okay, somewhat psycho.

“Lucas was always getting her out of trouble—and look what he got for his efforts!”

“Hold on, what do you mean by that?” Lucas was the previous captain of Lambda. He’d died during the attacks over the summer.

“Lucas was supposed to pick you up, but that other initiate’s parents threw a fit about Rei Acerba escorting him to campus.” Susan shook her head. “If the two of you had been together…”

“You think I…” Okay, wow. “Captain Collins, I only managed to get myself electrocuted in New York. Rei saved me.”

Susan granted me a genuine look of approval.

“You’re being modest, Resnick. We both know that the attack happened in the middle of the day.”

“What does that…” I shook my head. Rei could tolerate sunlight; it just made her act like a drunken sailor on Valium. “Listen, I never knew Lucas, but if he watched out for Rei, he was doing a damn good thing. Rei is the only reason the faculty is still breathing. Dante and I couldn’t have stopped those bombers alone.”

“Or the only reason they were in trouble in the first place.” Susan looked at the workers assembling the giant tents. “You’ve considered it, haven’t you?”

I clenched my fists. No wonder Jules never bothered with the social scene.
 

“No, I most definitely have not.”
 

“Think about it, you idiot.”

“I don’t need to, captain. I was there.”

“Someone let those Talmax thugs in!” she shouted.
 

In the lounge, the cataphract posse quieted. She’d managed to get the attention of every student in the place.

Susan looked down at her replacement arm and sighed.

“The new arm…it’s not the same…it’s not right.” She turned to look out the darkened window. “I wake up every morning thinking I’m captured again. I have to check. I have to check my arms and legs to make sure I’m not chained to my freakin’ bedposts. Can you believe that? Then I remember I’m back at Elliot. Safe old Elliot. But then someone lets them in, Resnick. Someone lets them into my bloody dorm!”
 

Susan was right, of course. Without an ID card or an escort, you’d be turned around by the wards or toasted by Elliot’s defenses. But Talmax had managed to get men in past the wards. And that meant someone had been a very naughty mage. Even Albright thought so. But fingering Rei? I rubbed at the scars burnt into my palms. There was a reason I wasn’t afraid at night. Susan had it all wrong.