“What kind of power?” I asked. Though I couldn’t speak, she somehow heard me anyway.
“The blood of your ancestors that flows in your veins holds power unimaginable. From one, you could reach out and take the power of the celestial realms, heal yourself with magic fire, kick in this boy’s kneecap, take the bat and crack a few skulls. Or from another, you could find the power of raw magic and unleash bolts of force upon them. The power of your destiny might offer you a chance, or maybe the music that flows through your ancestral line could offer an option. Or perhaps, if you had an ancestor who walked among the stars and in the deepest voids of space, their blood would empower you to summon either tiny flaming meteors or the cold of the airless void. Oh, right, you do.”
That was a lot to take in. One of my ancestors had ties to heaven? And another was a wizard? And what of this destiny? And would music be my power? Burning meteors would be a fitting response to what had been done to me, but seemed likely to be a bit permanent, assuming I could even aim them. Force bolts seemed optimal, but if I had to aim them, I wasn’t sure I could.
No, the more I considered it, the more the cold of space seemed the best option. Convection would mean I wouldn’t have to aim too hard, and it was unlikely to do anything fatal, but it would be painful. “How do I harness the void?” I asked.
She gave me a toothy grin from beneath her hood and placed her hand upon my brow. “Clear your mind. Concentrate on the vast emptiness beyond, and the yearning emptiness within, the desire to fill your life with experience and encounter. The dark places know you, and you know them. You are as one, touched by the void. Do you feel it?”
I could feel it! “Yes!”
“Good! Continue to draw it in. Focus on my words, the words of your forebears. ‘Soul of the mind, key to life’s ether. Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel. Let strength be granted, that the world might be mended.” Before the final line, I felt a connection to the cold darkness. It coalesced in me. The woman smiled. “Speak the final words once more with conviction and strike at those who would harm you.” Then she was gone.
Time resumed and I felt the power welling inside of me, begging to be let out as I shouted, “That the world might be mended!” Motes of darkness materialized in a massive pillar around the girl with the bat, the girlfriend of the boy I had rejected. They swarmed about and began sticking to her. She cried out in pain at the bitter cold that enveloped her and collapsed to the floor.
Before the others could react, I called on the power again, this time striking one of the boys. He too could not escape and succumbed to the bitter cold. I struggled and rose to me feet. The others looked at me in horror. I turned to another target, but he screamed and ran immediately. The others who were still standing followed his lead.
I hobbled over to the wall, desperate to retain consciousness, but it was a losing battle. As I fell, my last thought was the realization that I had smeared my blood all over the wall.
I awoke in the school’s infirmary. That isn’t to say my wounds hadn’t been serious. Our school had the finest team of on-site physicians money could buy and, between the infirmaries for each section of the school, was well supplied enough to put most small town hospitals to shame.
I was on an EKG. In fact, that was the first thing I noticed, the “Beep. Beep. Beep.” of the EKG. The second thing I noticed was the pain. Everything ached. I had never been in that much pain, not even the time I had broken my arm.
The third thing I noticed was that I couldn’t move or speak. I had been bound and gagged. I looked around and realized I had been handcuffed and the cuffs had been chained to the bed. The curtains had been drawn around my bed, but I could hear low voices nearby.
I must have made some noise looking around, because I heard footsteps. A man and a woman in black business suits entered the curtained off area. “Good,” the woman said, “you’re awake.”
“I hope you’re aware of what kind of trouble you’re in,” the man added. “Tell us who trained you or you’re facing mandatory life in jail without parole.”
I tried to come up with a way to convey to them that it would be difficult to answer any questions while bound and gagged, but I couldn’t think of anything. Instead, I just gave them a blank stare.
“You’re just making this harder on yourself,” the woman said. “Just tell us a name.”
Silence hung in the room for several moments before another voice spoke. “Are you two bloody stupid?” I recognized the voice of Doctor Knightley, the head of the school’s girl’s wing. She was looking at the other two with disdain.
“Don’t you dare take that tone with us,” the man said. “We’re agents for the Bureau of Magic. You will respect us.”
“You’re also a pair of bleeding idiots. I can’t imagine you two got the ‘student wizards’ beat because you had the highest qualifications. Or perhaps you’d care to tell me how you expect a girl with her mouth gagged is supposed to answer you?”
They looked like they were about to respond and thought better of it. The woman came and removed my gag. “If you attempt to cast a spell, we won’t hesitate to shoot you. We saw what you did to those poor kids. We know you can cast offensive spells. Now tell us who trained you.”
I tried to speak, to tell them that I was just as confused as they were, but my throat was dry and I couldn’t speak. Doctor Knightley caught on and offered me a drink of water. “No one trained me,” I said, after gulping down the water greedily. “I have no idea what I did or how I did it. I just did.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Like we haven’t heard that story before. Put the gag back on her. We’ll drag her over to her parents and have them answer us.”
“You can’t move her,” the doctor said. “I need more time to properly assess her condition.”
“You said it wasn’t life threatening. She’ll be fine. And don’t go thinking you can call her parents as soon as we leave. We’ll have you arrested for interfering with an active investigation if you allow them time to destroy evidence.”
They marched me out to a black BoM car and shoved me in the back. My ribs cried out in agony as they shoved me. I blacked out most of the trip. I’m still not sure how they got my address, but I’d have to guess they pulled it up from school records.
After entering the estate grounds, the agents spent the rest of the trip muttering about “damn rich people”. The more they talked, the more I got the feeling they had an agenda. They seemed to feel that people with money acted like they were above the law and got a sense of satisfaction for punishing them.
We were met at the door by one of the maids. Upon seeing me, she gasped. “Young miss! Are you okay? What happened?” I did my best to shrug. One of the agents demanded to be taken to my parents. “The Mistress isn’t home right now, but I will lead you to the Master. Please remove your shoes and put on some slippers.”
“Listen, maid. We’re government agents. We will not be dictated to by you. Now take us to your master.”
She looked like she was going to argue, but noticed that I was shaking my head, letting her know that it wasn’t worth it, so she decided against it. I still kicked my shoes off, though at great effort due to my injuries and bindings. It was only prudent.
Let me explain. My father has this thing about shoes in the house. It borders on obsession. It doesn’t matter who you are, you remove shoes when you enter the house. This applies to servants, workmen, guests and friends. Even the last president of the US had to take of his shoes when his family came over, as did the Secret Service agents with him. The media found out about that and had a field day with it. I didn’t hear much about it, since I was only eight at the time. I just knew that some girls around my age had come over and we had played some games. I knew that their dad was the President, but famous people came over fairly often, so I didn’t really worry about it. Didn’t hurt that I rarely watched the news back then.
We were on the way to my father’s study when we heard a voice coming from a stairwell. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The agents turned with a start. My father was standing at the top of the stairs, dressed in fairly casual clothing. He looked at me. I caught his eyes widen momentarily before narrowing once more as he returned his attention to the agents. “Are you this girl’s father?” the female agent demanded.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Father seemed really angry.
The male agent flashed his badge. “We’re from the Bureau of Magic and we’re here to investigate this girl’s use of offensive magic.”
Father’s deep baritone voice roared. “YOU’RE ALSO TRACKING DIRT ALL OVER MY CARPET!” Both agents jumped. “Are you not aware how disrespectful that is?” The latter sentence came as a low, but dangerous whisper.
The agents drew their guns. “You will moderate your tone or we will put you in cuffs!” the man ordered.
In one moment, my father was at the top of the stairs. In the next, he was next to us and one of the agents had gone flying. I’ve never seen anyone move that quickly. The female agent tried to shoot him, but he somehow managed to dodge. With a flick of his wrist, he slapped her hand away, then spun and kicked her in the abdomen, sending her flying into the wall so hard that the marble cracked. She slumped to the floor, unconscious.
The second agent tried to aim at him, but was brought down instantly by a stun gun I didn’t realize the maid, Megan, had been carrying. “I’ll go get the medic,” she offered.
“Juiz has already taken care of it,” my father responded. He removed my gag and bindings. “Juiz, please contact Director Sinclair.” I knew that name. That was the name of the head of the Bureau of Magic!
“Director Sinclair on line one,” the AI’s voice responded.
“Project it on the wall behind me.”
The image of a man with gray hair appeared on the wall behind my father. His hair was dripping with shampoo. “O’Halloran, this better be important. I’m going to be upset if you called me out of the shower for something inane.”
“Apologies, John. I’ve been forced to injure a couple of your agents. They dragged my injured daughter home in chains and pulled guns on me.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s good enough. Give me thirty seconds to rinse the soap from my hair, it’s starting to drip into my eyes.” The image faded for a moment, then came back on. “Okay, show me.” Father picked up the unconscious male. The director rolled his eyes. “Simmons. Of course. The woman will likely be his partner, Jackson. A senator pulled some strings to get them in. Hated it. Those two are incompetent. I’ll have a real team at your house within the hour. Feel free to restrain those two so they don’t hurt themselves.”
Our on-staff doctor tended to my wounds, then to those of the agents. He gave me something for the pain, but not as much as I would have liked since they wanted me coherent when the agents got there.
True to the director’s word, two agents arrived just shy of an hour later. They entered our infirmary, shoes off. “Mister O’Halloran,” one of the men said, shaking my father’s hand. “The director wants you to know that we’re very sorry about all of this. We’ll get to the bottom of this immediately. Please wake them.”
The last was addressed to the doc, who gave them an injection of some kind. The pair groaned in pain as they began coming to. Their eyes focused after several moments and they focused on the agent in charge. His scowl told them that he was not happy.
“Simmons? Jackson? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Sir!” the female – Jackson, I think – gave a startled shout. “This girl attacked several classmates with offensive magic. Her father has proven belligerent. We need to take them into custody.”
“Of course he’s belligerent. Can you not see the state his little girl is in? Was it really necessary to drag home Colonel O’Halloran’s daughter in chains?” Colonel O’Halloran? Daddy wasn’t in the military… wait. Mama?
The agents’ eyes went wide. “The Colonel?!” Simmons exclaimed. “Oh, god.” His eyes lowered immediately. “Oh, god. Oh, god.” He was visibly shaking.
Jackson seemed more in control of her shock. “Sir, allow us to apologize. If she’s Colonel O’Halloran’s daughter, then there’s no way she’s an unlicensed wizard. It’s obvious we over-stepped our authority without taking the time to look into what was going on. We did do enough looking into matters, however, to state without reservation that if faced with the situation your daughter faced, a licensed wizard would be fully justified in using attack magic to defend herself.”
Father raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for that, but I must confess that she is not a licensed wizard and I was unaware that she had learned to cast any spells.” The agents looked surprised at that, but my father held up his hand to stop them from responding. “Lyriana, tell me everything.”
So I did. I told him everything that happened in as great detail as I could, leaving out only the account of the woman in black. For some reason, a part of me felt that I shouldn’t mention it. Every once in a while, he would stop me to ask specific questions before allowing me to continue. “…and that’s pretty much it,” I finished.
Father nodded. “I see. Alright, then. One final question. Tell me, Lyr, has anyone ever trained you in magic?”
I shook my head. “No. I took classes on identifying magical effects, but I’ve never been taught how to use magic. I really don’t know how I did it. I swear to you, that’s the honest truth.”
He nodded. “I believe you. Juiz has already called for Megan, who will help you up to bed. Be sure to take the pain pills she gives you. I’ll be up to check on you in a few minutes.” As I was leaving, he was talking to the agents. “Mark this matter for Level Ten clearance only. File your preliminary reports with the Director. For now, I need to run some tests. I have a suspicion as to what’s going on, but I’ll need proof.” I would have tarried and listened longer, but Megan gently pulled me away and led me upstairs to my bedroom.
By the time I changed clothes and reached my bed, the second dose of pain pills were really beginning to kick in and I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The next day is a bit of a blur, since our family doctor came by and prescribed me even stronger pain medication. I went through a battery of tests. I don’t remember exactly what I had to do other than give a blood sample, but there was enough to take up my morning.
That afternoon saw us at the school before a panel to determine my fate for using magic to defend myself against my attackers. Thanks to testimony from Director Sinclair and in no small part due to my father’s domination of the proceedings, I was given two weeks of suspension for fighting. The others were expelled for a year for using weapons to attack me.
The parents of the other students threatened to press charges against me, but my father pointed out that he would have no choice but to do the same to each of their children. He went on to state that if I was declared a natural talent and was found to have called on inherent magic, that charges against me would likely be dismissed on the grounds of self-defense. Their children, however, would not likely have the same excuse. In the end, they decided to let the matter drop.
After that, we went home and I slept.
As I recovered over the next few days, I watched a lot of TV. On the third day, while browsing through the menu, a title caught my eye. “The Devil’s Whore” sounded like a horror movie with a fair amount of basic nudity, so I decided to check it out. I couldn’t believe what it really was.
My first clue should have been that it was on a current events channel. The second was that I didn’t have to bypass any child-locks. I was still a bit loopy from the meds, despite the fact that my dose had been stepped down, so it’s understandable that I missed those. What I didn’t miss was that it was one of those roundtable debate shows and that they were talking about magic.
It sounded fairly interesting, so I kept watching. I almost wish I hadn’t. They were talking about me and many of the speakers weren’t being kind. People had started coming to terms with magic as a power unlocked through study. They weren’t prepared for someone to just be born with it. The title referred to me as some saw me. They said that I must have the power I did because I had sold my soul or something like that.
The less Arcanophobic of the panel weren’t much better. They speculated on more reasonable avenues, but they were still hurtful. Some thought that perhaps my mother had an affair with the Fairy Blacksmith – who had shown the ability to become male magically – or that perhaps she had been raped by the wizard that had called himself Merlin. Others suggested that since my father had been involved with several black projects for the government, that I was a genetically engineered child infused with magic to make a living weapon.
I rather liked that last one, since it was the only option that didn’t mean I wasn’t my father’s daughter. And I couldn’t help but think about my mutation. Were they products of the same cause? Was it random chance that I had spontaneously been born with this kind of power as well as the ability to see in the dark? Or was there some more sinister reason for it? Was I who my parents said I was?
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