Confessions of the Magpie Wizard Book 3: Dissolution (Chapter 96, 97 & 98)

Art of Rei by the amazing Rianne! 🦉rianne | COMMISSIONS OPEN (@RianneComms) / Twitter

Chapter 96

I was hesitant to leave the elevator as the doors slid open. A quick scan with Mimic Sight was fruitless, as expected. Ditto for my Mimic Scent, since my nose was so full of Rose’s lavender that I nearly sneezed. I’d have to find Maggie and Rei the old-fashioned way. I decided to go right for the AV Club’s room. Rei was a muscular girl, but I didn’t think she’d have the leverage to move Tachibana easily. He was still their ace in the hole, and they weren’t about to leave him behind.

I padded into the library as quietly as I could. The vast space seemed more sinister than it had before. Last time, I’d had the advantage of catching anybody I ran across by surprise. Now everybody was wise to me, and I was in danger of an ambush.

I arrived in the hallway leading to the club rooms without incident. I hesitated in the threshold, weighing my best approach. If Maggie was there, I would need to go in spells blazing. If it was just Rei, I was sure I could talk her down. A little bit of the old Malthus charm would be just the trick. She was a tad intense, but I didn’t think she was actually malicious. She was simply misled.

Misled by me, to be honest, but I was there to rectify that.

“Svalinn’s Mercy.” This one I shaped like a disc about the width of my head. I willed energy into my scarf, since the overly broad blade had come in handy a few times before. It still bore a few indents from my teeth, but I didn’t think that hurt the weapon’s structural integrity. After all, the scarf had held up to Kiyo’s barrage of icicles without so much as a scratch when it was enchanted.

Gluing myself to the wall in the hallway, I slowly, ever so slowly turned the handle and pushed it inwards. I held my breath, waiting for a response. When none came, I willed the Svalinn’s Mercy into the doorway at around chest height.

I thought I was being overly cautious, but an iron sphere shot straight through the barrier, shattering the complex energy structure into so much dust. Knowing that Rei would need time to load another ball, I darted through the doorway, my enchanted, woolen blade ready to snap up to defend me at a moment’s notice.

The AV room wasn’t the ideal spot for a battle. Most of the space was dominated by rows of computers and storage for lights, microphones, and other gear I didn’t understand the use of. The clearest space was in the broadcasting area towards the back of the room. The bound and gagged Tachibana sat at the center of the small set, still stuck behind the presenter’s desk. I didn’t recall leaving him with a black eye, making me wonder how Maggie had been amusing herself.

Despite everything he had suffered, he was still fully awake. His eyes bore into me as I entered. I ignored him; he was still trapped by the gimmicked handcuffs, and he’d be hurting himself more if he tried to cast any spells.

“Traitor! Demonkin!” Rei was fishing another bullet out of her pocket.

I had bigger fish to fry, after all. “Cut it out, Rei,” I cried. “It’s all over. The only Holy Brothers left are you and Ms. Edwards, and reinforcements are on the way.” It wasn’t technically a lie, as long as everything went well for Hiro and Rose.

“I’m not Rei anymore,” she said, another metal ball levitating between her hands. “I am Holy Sister Shoebill, savior of mankind and bringer of justice to traitors like you!”

“You sound like one of Hiro’s bad comics,” I said, rolling out of the way of another shot. “Be reasonable, my dear.”

“Shut up!” There were three rows of computers between Tachibana and I. I had just rounded the first, while Rei used the second for cover. “I’m not your dear, you weirdo! You betrayed us all, and I hope you like an audience, because the world is going to see you die in real time! To Me!” The telekinetic cantrip swiveled the camera away from Tachibana, training it right on me.

“Rei-”

“Sister Shoebill!” She reached into her pocket again.

I let my attention drift over to the camera. While I thought myself a doomed man, I didn’t want to broadcast my guilt to the world. No, it was time to earn a possible plea bargain. I looked into the camera, imagining what Hiro would have said.

“This is Soren Marlowe speaking. To those outside the Tower, the siege is nearly broken. There aren’t many of the Holy Brothers left, and they’ll be dealt with soon enough. The Headmaster is as good as freed, and it’s only a matter of time until we shut off the Peace Bond and free everyone!”

“That’s enough!” The muotwyn scent tickled my nose again. I had been so caught up in my performance that I had forgotten all about Rei. Thankfully, she had decided to silence the camera, rather than me. She thrust her hand in Tachibana’s direction, and that spiced wine scent overpowered the lavender for a moment. The computers between her and the camera sparked and smoked, and the camera and microphone died with a sudden screech of static.

“There,” she said. “You won’t be spreading any more of your lies.”

“I only speak the truth, my d-” I ducked under another bullet. “You can stop wasting your time with that technique; the windup gives you away. You need teammates to cover for you.”

“That’s your job!” Rei shouted. Her stoic face rarely didn’t show much emotion, but her voice quavered. “You’re my teammate. You helped me control my Faraday Wave, and you brought me into the Holy Brotherhood. You were there for me. Then Sister Shrike told me you tried to kill her. Is that true?”

“That witch fired the first shot,” I replied, lowering my weapon as I rounded the corner of her row. “Rei, I should have never gotten you involved in this.”

She drew her sword, the rapier I had fancied before. “No, that was the best thing you could have done for me. You should have kept your oath to the Brotherhood.”

“Don’t do this,” I said. “Paul saw the light, too. Ms. Edwards is a manipulator. She used you.”

“No, I wanted to join!” She lunged forward, forcing me on the defensive. I stepped back, nearly tripping over an extension cord. “The world is going to burn unless something changes! We barely have thirty years left until we don’t have any energy. You gave me hope, that somebody cared.”

“Didn’t mean a word of it,” I said, blocking another strike.

That stopped her short. “What?”

I lowered my blade, sure I had gotten through to her. “Do you know how I joined the Holy Brotherhood?”

“Sister Shrike told me,” she snapped, striking without warning. A few strands of black hair drifted across my vision.

“Oh? What story did she tell you?” I nearly responded in kind, but I restrained my reflexes. She wasn’t going to end up like Paul, especially not by my hand. I wasn’t going to let my guard down again, though. She was damn dangerous with that rapier.

“That you were the worst student at the Merlin Academy,” she said, launching an attack kata that I could have predicted in my sleep. “That you’re a horndog who followed her around like a little puppy, and then she found out you were a demonkin.” Tachibana grunted at that. I kept my focus on Rei. That was a problem for later, but I let her gain ground so we could get out of earshot. “You had learned better after your experience with the Horde and wanted to make amends. So, she forgave you and you became Brother Mockingbird. Then you betrayed us all!”

“She was slightly more honest than I expected,” I said. Our path took us out of the club room, which was fine by me. I towered over her, and I had a longer blade. I needed more room to work with. “Try instead that she blackmailed me into the service, torturing me every step of the way for her own amusement. She even made me kill her little boy toy, Haru, to save her own skin. She didn’t even have the common courtesy to look him in the eye, when he loved her more than anything. And what did she do? Turned right around and came on to me!”

A blush spread across Rei’s face. “That can’t be true. Sister Shrike is a patriot!”

“No, she simply wears that façade when it suits her. She uses the people around her like pawns, and she’ll toss you aside if you stop being useful. Please, see reason! Don’t let the same thing happen to you.”

Rei slowed her attacks as she processed my own half-truths. She was lucky I wasn’t looking to press the advantage. My defense had led us into the library proper, into a large reading area with a dozen circular tables that dominated the center of the library’s first floor.

I couldn’t read the inscrutable woman’s expression as she finally lowered her blade, panting lightly from her exertions. “This isn’t the first time you told me about Haru Obe.”

“It isn’t, is it?” I kept my sword at the ready, ready for another sneak attack. “He’s what happens to Holy Brothers who outlive their usefulness.”

“No, he’s what happens to loose ends. That’s what you told me before.” My sheathed sword jerked forward as though seized by an invisible hand, spinning me around. “And you’re the only loose end here!”

I raised my woolen blade, but her fabricata-enhanced sword glowed brightly as she pumped more energy into it. It punched right through my sword, and I felt a sharp pain in my cheek, my momentum carrying me out of the way of her strike.

“You stubborn idiot,” I said, tossing aside the ruined scarf. “I’m trying to save you!”

“You did, Brother Mockingbird,” she replied, slashing at me again. Her attacks were wilder as I backed away on my hands and feet. “You gave me hope for tomorrow, and now you’re trying to take it away.”

“I didn’t even believe in it!” I shouted. My desperate retreat ended as I bumped into a bookshelf.

Fire burned in her eyes, looking more alive than I had ever seen her before. “Well I did, and I still do! Why should I care what some demonkin says?”

“Rei, stop or I’ll-”

She raised her sword, ready to slice me in half. “Humanity First!”

“Bahadour!”

The spell came automatically. My killer’s instinct had dulled after so many training battles, but my tongue and fingers knew a death blow when they saw one. My aim was true, I realized with dawning horror.

The rapier clattered to the ground, slipping through numb fingers. I caught Rei before she could join it, sinking to my knees with her.

“Rei?” She was cold in my arms, her masked eyes completely glazed over.

“Why did you make me do it?” I demanded. She didn’t answer. “Alheln!” I didn’t feel the familiar pull of my magic against hers. “Alheln! Alheln, damn it! Alheln!”

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

“I know how to wake you up,” I croaked. I knew she was gone, but my heart hadn’t caught up with my head yet. “Here’s that song song about the duck that you hated.” I tried to sing a few bars of Plyve Kacha po Tysyni, but I couldn’t carry the tune to save my life. There was something stuck in my throat.

“Magic Bolt!” A blue flash filled my vision. Rei did me a final favor, absorbing most of the impact. I was still knocked from my knees, my back slamming into the bookshelf where I’d made my last stand. Stars danced in my vision as I took in my assailant.

“Your singing stinks, Magpie.”

Chapter 97

“You!” Once I had set Rei gently aside, I leapt to my feet, staring down my assailant.

“Don’t you take that tone with me,” snarled Maggie. “Not after what you did to poor little Rei.”

“What I did? You’re the one who doomed her!”

She looked down at the body, tsking with disapproval. “I’m not the one who shot her straight through the heart.”

“She wouldn’t listen to reason. Your poison ran too deep; her last words were even Humanity First. You should be proud of her!”

Maggie kept her hands at her sides, ready to start casting. “At least I had one loyal follower. Though there’s barely a mark on you! How useless.”

“Useless?” I had to stop myself from charging in, sword swinging. Maggie had positioned herself well, standing on the opposite side of the cluster of circular tables. If I tried to rush in, I’d be an easy target.

The same was true for her, of course. We were both playing it cautiously. For all our bluster, we were both starting to hit our limits. I had cast more spells, but she had just walked up dozens of flights of stairs. We were stuck in a classic wizard’s standoff. The human (or even the demonic) body can’t absorb the raw punishment of magic designed to split the hull of a tank. Wizard duels are won by-split second decisions, so we waited for the other to reveal their hand.

I decided to keep her talking, since as far as I knew, she hadn’t mastered Tachibana’s technique for silent casting. “You should really consider throwing yourself on the mercy of the League. The good… no, hang it all, the Dark Lord knows they’ll have more than me.”

Maggie flinched as though slapped at the mention of the master of the Grim Horde. “So your true colors come out, demonkin.”

“No sense hiding it now, though I don’t see why you’re surprised. Did you actually start believing the lies you told the other brothers? After everything you pulled? All the torture, all the threats, all the-”

“Ruhspont!”

She had caught me mid-rant, much like I had hoped to do to her. I was saved by her desire to make me suffer; a Magic Bolt would have caught me, but I was just able to avoid the splatter from the demonic spell.

The same couldn’t be said for the towering bookshelf behind me. Dozens of magical tomes vanished in a heartbeat, and I just avoided being crushed as the smoking remains pitched forward.

“Svalinn’s Wrath!” Being mindful of my diminishing magic reserves, I made a broader blade in a similar shape as the lost scarf. The glittering red energy structure would have to act as both sword and shield. Now that she had taken her shot, I decided I was better off closing. I leapt onto the nearest table, thankful for the Headmaster’s lavish spending when it held my weight.

Maggie backpedaled, runes swirling around her fingers. “Ice Spear!” A narrow projectile as long as my arm flew out, shattering uselessly against the Svalinn’s Wrath.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I crowed as I landed on the other side of the tables.

“You overuse that spell,” she said, drawing her own fabricata-enhanced sword to block my slash. The force drove her back further, but the magical protection saved the weapon. “A proper wizard needs to be flexible.”

“I must have had an awful teacher,” I said, probing at her defenses with the sword’s tip, finding the weightless weapon was a bit too broad for the task. It was time to use my free hand. “Spectral Web!”

She dipped out of the way of the blue net, but a few stray strands trailed from her sword. “Flashbang!”

I briefly wondered what kind of an idiot would use that sort of utility spell at short range, an instant before my eyes and ears were rendered useless. I spat a curse in High Demonic, glad that I could finally express myself.

I focused inward, trying to see if I could make her out with my Mimic Sight. No such luck; this close to the roof, the discharging batteries still completely scrambled my senses.

Instead, my focus let me feel Maggie’s footsteps as she approached from my left. I released the sword to free up my hands. “Diamond Shower!” I had almost used a Fireball Barrage, before remembering that libraries tend to be rather flammable.

I could barely hear the feminine grunt of pain over my ringing ears, but my attack hadn’t dissuaded Maggie one bit. A shadowy figure rushed forward in the sea of whiteness, and an arcing slash opened a shallow wound on my chest. Not deep enough to hit anything important, but that didn’t make it any less painful.

I grabbed onto that pain, using it to supplement my flagging magic. “Bahadour!” This blast wasn’t anywhere near what I had used to vaporize Ratte, since I was fighting blind. I didn’t want to accidentally give Tachibana the same fate. That would have been a dud of a rescue mission.

“You shouldn’t have abandoned your uniform,” said Maggie, more clearly than before. I could finally make out her smug face as she pressed the attack. Her blade bit into my forearm, but didn’t stop me from drawing my regular blade. “The mask protects you from effects like that.”

“Isn’t that just special,” I grunted, finally finding my footing. “Does it protect you from demonic magic?”

“No, your bad aim does that,” she snapped.

“I missed these little heart-to-hearts,” I said. “From back before I had to pretend to give a kobold’s ass about you!” Our blades crossed, flashing yellow as our magic reinforced them. Once I wasn’t half blind, it was my fight to win. Maggie was taller than Rei, but I still had an advantage in weight and reach.

“So much for your nonsense about being my only friend in the world,” she spat.

“What nonsense? I was!” I replied. “Just not for the reasons you thought. You were useful for my goals.”

“Then explain!” I slashed at her as she withdrew, my sword hitting her metallic chest plate. We both winced at the impact. “You demanded we attack today, and then you betrayed us just as we were about to triumph.”

“Kiyo and the others were off limits,” I said, not wanting to get into my mission from Fera. “That was always my price.”

She put her free hand on her hip. “Jones, Jones, Jones! It always comes back to her! What does she have that I don’t?”

“A soul, for one,” I said.

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” she said. “She’s cute and innocent now, but once you throw Jones and Cooper and all the rest into real combat, they’ll see how hopeless the war is.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, flashing her a smirk. “She’s fought the Brotherhood three times and she seems okay so far. Perhaps you’re just too sensitive?”

“Yes, because stabbing your boyfriend is so normal,” she said.

My free hand traced the newest scar on my stomach. Healing magic has a way of making life-threatening injuries slip your mind. “You’re the one who drove her to it!”

Maggie’s cackle almost made me break our momentary truce. “It was so easy, too! I always knew there was something off about Kiyo. She was a school shooting waiting to happen.”

“You keep her name out of your mouth,” I snapped, surging forward. I decided I was too close to cast a spell without risking being stabbed while my hands were occupied.

Or, perhaps I wanted to be up close and personal when I ended her. Probably a mixture of both.

“Oh, did I strike a nerve?” She parried my strike, and the melee began again.

“I’ll strike more than your nerves!”

Maggie wasn’t the most technically proficient swordfighter I had ever faced, but she was a wily one. She was hard to bait, and I nearly fell for at least three of her feints.

The back and forth had to end at some point, though. My sword’s tip slashed across her stomach. The runes traced the path in yellow, but either the suit or her magic was overstressed, leaving a reddening slash.

Her sword fell out of her grip, and I used the opening to follow up with a gut punch with my left hand. She toppled over with a pained grunt.

I was tempted to deliver some bon mot to see her off to Our Father Below’s loving embrace, but my heartbeat roared in my ears. I leveled my sword at her, ready to deliver the coup de grâce instead.

A shooting pain in my thigh brought me up short. “What the Hell?” An unseen spear pierced through to my knee, sending me to the floor.

“Thanks for bringing your smartphone,” she said. “Everybody always underestimates Glassblower as an affinity.”

“Of course you would have an affinity for blowing,” I said, trying to focus on something besides the blinding pain. It didn’t work; the bitch had reshaped the glass into a barbed hook. I didn’t have the focus to keep both eyes open, much less cast a spell.

Maggie rose to her feet, leveling her hand at me. “Fitting last words for you, you traitorous little pervert.”

My retort was interrupted by a deafening boom. Maggie was knocked prone again, her metal breastplate glowing so brightly it hurt my eyes.

Kiyo stepped into view, loading another bullet into Lucile’s chamber. “You’re lucky that was rubber.”

“And you wonder why I called you Angel,” I said.

Kiyo fixed me with a steely side-eye. “Yeah well… if you hadn’t tried to talk Rei down, that bullet might have been for you.”

“Just how long were you watching? Why didn’t you help?”

She shrugged. “It was a Holy Brother fighting another Holy Brother. No matter who lost, I won. But I still like you more than her. Sorta.”

A grit my teeth, remembering just what Maggie had cost me. It was time to extract my pound of flesh.

Chapter 98

The shot had knocked the breath out of Maggie, and she lay there in shock. She was completely at our mercy, in theory. I say in theory because I was bleeding out from my hip. The blood drained from Kiyo’s pale face when she noticed the growing puddle of red, which I took as a sign of solidarity.

It was just an involuntary reaction, of course, but I was feeling a tad faint. It made sense at the time.

“Soren!” Kiyo knelt next to me, cradling Lucile. “What did she do?”

“I always knew smartphones were from Our Father Below,” I murmured. “I’ll be fine. Give me a handkerchief and I’ll be right as rain. Go, finish her off!”

“How’s a handkerchief going to help?” she demanded, though she complied with the request.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” I said.

“Uh, dude, we’re at a school for magic. We’ve got textbooks of spells. Magicians don’t have a lot of secrets.” It almost felt like our normal banter, until her face hardened. “Except you, I guess.”

I jammed the cloth into my mouth. To prepare for what was to come next, of course. Not because I had no response to her.

“Slow Barrier!” Maggie had regained her senses and quickly thickened the air to prevent a repeat performance from Lucile.

The Jones family heirloom had other ways to do her work, though. Kiyo had fixed a fabricata bayonet to Lucile’s barrel, and she charged around the shifting barrier with a guttural battle cry.

I didn’t have long to watch the fight. Kiyo was awful in close combat, and Maggie would take her to pieces. She needed me, which meant… which meant…

I bit down on the handkerchief, closing my eyes. “Alheln.”

No sooner had the muffled spell left my throat than I was hit with a wave of blinding agony. “Don’t pass out,” came my muffled order, almost sounding like somebody else’s voice to me. “Don’t pass out. She needs you.”

When the world came back into focus, my pantleg was torn to shreds. What had once been my smartphone lay at my side, the blood-slicked screen twisted and branching like a Christmas tree designed by Our Father Below. “You don’t do anything halfway, Edwards,” I muttered, spitting out the handkerchief. I would have found it pretty, if it hadn’t just been inside of me.

A feminine shriek snapped me out of my musings. Maggie had knocked Kiyo to the ground, her sword raised high for a killing blow. Kiyo’s body was wreathed in the blue strands of a Spectral Web, but her rifle’s barrel was still clear. Lucile’s report was deadened a bit by the wall of dense air, but it still got my long-suffering ears ringing again.

Kiyo’s aim was off, the bullet only grazing Maggie’s hip. Even deadened by her fabricata armor, the impact spun her about, plunging the sword right into her Slow Barrier.

“Glitter Bomb!” I had copied the spell from Frettchen before, and it was the first attack that came to mind that I could arc over Maggie’s protective wall. She must have foreseen my strategy, though, as it hit a sloped portion above the wall proper. The blob sank into the Slow Barrier, not hitting with enough force to explode.

Just as well. I had Maggie in the horns of a dilemma. If she dismissed the Slow Barrier to free her sword, the Glitter Bomb would fall right on her head. Kiyo’s glittering blue cocoon was already breaking down, and Kiyo didn’t have to be the best with her bayonet to have an advantage over an unarmed woman. Besides, I was already making my way around to tag her from the side. A sensible opponent would withdraw.

“You ruined everything for me! Burn for it!” Sometimes an unsensible opponent is the most dangerous sort you can have. I recognized the demonic runes whirling about her fingers and leapt to the other side of the Slow Barrier.

“Water Orb!”

“Firbolg!”

The demonic version of Fireball flew from her fingers, but I was a hair faster. The condensed ball of water met the flames, producing a cloud of steam that obscured the redheaded teacher from sight. There was something ironic about a spell Maggie had created cancelling out the demonic spell I’d taught her, but I was too focused on pulling Kiyo to safety to dwell on it. I threw up a Svalinn’s Mercy in front of us for cover.

“That was a demon spell,” said Kiyo, her voice flat as I sliced through the remaining strands with my backup knife. The holster had been revealed when Maggie had destroyed my pant leg, so there was no point in hiding it any longer.

“And who do you think taught me that?” crowed Maggie, the sunlight streaming from above setting off her red locks beautifully. “You’re fighting for a demonkin, girl!”

“There’s worse things to be,” I said.

“Yeah, there are,” groused Kiyo, shading her eyes with her hand. “Like a cheater.”

“Kiyo, I…” I trailed off, blinking away the blinding sunlight. Wait, sunlight? The library was completely sealed off from natural light, except for…

The enormous stained-glass window showing the school’s location on a map of Japan was completely gone. Even with the background signal from the magical batteries above scrambling my Mimic Sight, I could sense that Maggie was using an absurd amount of magic.
 The window had been just another one of Tachibana’s follies, oversized and ostentatious. Now it was a wave of liquefied glass that flowed towards us, the crest nearly as tall as Kiyo.
 She let out a surprised squeak, vanishing with The Death of Light an instant before I was caught in the multicolored flood. The glass flowed up and around me, solidifying as it went.

“Iron Skin!” The spell surrounded me in a barrier of black energy shaped like medieval armor covered in inch thick spikes. Iron Skin chewed through magical reserves, but I needed to make sure the molten glass touched as little of me as possible. I wasn’t a moment too soon; first my left hand was caught in the viscous liquid, and then my right. I took a deep breath an instant before I was completely swallowed up, closing my eyes to keep out the molten glass.
 I chanced opening my eyes when the glass around me stopped shifting, dispelling the expensive spell. That left me surrounded by a thin pocket of air the same thickness as the Iron Skin had been. I could just see Maggie through the chaotic kaleidoscope, standing triumphantly before me. Her voice was a bit muffled by my glassy tomb, but she was gloating loud enough to be heard in Osaka.

“I was planning to melt you with that wonderful Rough Spout spell you taught me, but I think I like this better. That would be over much too fast. Besides, you get to die slowly, knowing that I got your little girl, too.” She tapped her earpiece. “I must be off; it sounds like Brother Maus just about has your other friends dealt with. It’s too bad it had to end like this, not-Soren. But… not too bad.” She blew me a cheeky kiss before she sauntered off, leaving me to my fate.

***********

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