Mage Catalyst (15 page)

“I said you were covered,” the older man stated.

I nodded agreeably as Tony recovered the money from the table. “You still owe us one hundred and eighty dollars,” he said.
I noticed that the older man cringed slightly as he heard the amount.
“Good luck getting it, ladies,” he said.
“You have to pay!” I insisted.
He nodded, almost eagerly. “Money’s in me van,” he said.
Tony and I escorted him out into the car park towards a van parked on the far side of the car park. It had gotten quite dark by this time and I realised with some degree of concern that I had no idea what time it was. I hadn’t intended to stay out this late.
Our opponent pulled the keys from his pocket and turned the keys into the back sliding door of the van. Tony and I stood several metres away from the car nervously watching as we heard the rummaging noise. We both took a step back as he returned with a crowbar held firmly in his meaty fist.
The apprentice cursed to himself and took several steps back, a look of fear and slight disgust on his face. Any thoughts I had harboured of him being in on this were instantly dispelled. He looked positively sick at the thought. In fact he looked more scared than Tony or I did.
“You’re going to turn around and walk away now,” the tradesman commanded slowly, gesturing at us with the crowbar.

Tony looked at me nervously and then back to the loutish tradie. There were two of us and one of him. We could probably take him but that crowbar looked like it would take either of us down without too much trouble.
“Sure,” I replied, stalling for time. “But after you pay us what you owe us.”
“You’ve got balls kid, I’ll give you that.” He laughed and for once I heard genuine amusement in his laugh.

There was something strange in his eyes, almost like grudging respect. This statement had fortunately given me the chance to throw a mana thread out and wrap it around the crowbar. The crowbar was no longer a threat. Unfortunately our opponent didn’t know this.
“Just pay us,” I entreated nervously, walking forward with my hand outstretched.
“Sorry kid,” he snarled, “it’s not personal.”
“Don’t,” I whispered.
I was aware that it was already too late though. He had pulled the crowbar back, ready to bring it smashing down onto my skull. They say in times of stress and terror the mind shuts down all higher activity allowing you to assess and act far quicker than your rational mind would allow.

I remember seeing the crowbar descend and a look of rage cross the tradesman’s face. There was a hurried shriek from the apprentice behind us and Tony leaped forward to pull me back out of the way.
Then I reacted. In a swift motion of my arm I used the mana thread to sweep the crowbar from his grasp. I tore the crowbar easily from his fingers as if he were no more than a baby and sent the crowbar sliding across the car park.
A gasp of pain escaped my attacker’s lips as he turned to look with stunned shock at his weapon now sliding from his reach. The look was replaced by one of stark horror as my backswing sent a thread into his torso catching him just under the ribs on his right side. I heard a sickening crunch.
Time seemed to slow down even more as the reality of this sunk in. The impact hit him hard and lifted him off the ground for a few seconds. I saw his face scrunch up and grimace in pain. His eyes clenched shut and his teeth clamped down as the air was forcibly expelled from his body.
He fell down to his knees holding his stomach. With each cough he winced in pain as the cough racked across his shattered chest. Blood oozed from the corner of his mouth as he fell to his knees before me. He made no attempt to flee – in fact I doubt he even could have. He simply blinked twice and looked up at me, his eyes widening with horror and fear.
I knew he couldn’t have seen the mana thread that downed him. But I also knew that he would have seen my eyes staring unmercifully down at him. He would have seen my irises alight with the mana and seen my face turn into the cruel stranger.
I knew this because I could see my small pupils centred in a cruel and merciless face, reflected in the whites of his eyes. I was ready to end this. I wanted to end this. I wanted it with every fibre of my soul. It scared me how much I wanted to complete my dominion over this wretched man.
Fortunately for both my victim and myself I never had the chance to complete the act.

“Run,” Tony hissed in my ear pulling me away. At first I fought against him but the red haze lifted from my vision and I realised that he was right.
I turned to the apprentice who had backed away in fear against the far side of the van.
“You saw nothing!” I commanded harshly.
I took a half step towards the poor guy who flinched in terror.
I heard the muffled thump as the body of the tradesman finally collapsed to the ground behind me.
“I saw nothing!” the poor guy uttered, his voice quaking with fear as his eyes darted down to the fallen body of his employer.
“He was hit by a car!” Tony hissed at the apprentice as he pulled me away.
My last image of that night was a horrible one. The body of the tradesman collapsed in on itself. The apprentice was staring at our retreating figures with terror in his eyes. The worst part was the wild look on Tony’s face as we ran from the car park.

* * * *

“I can’t forget the look on his face,” I murmured into my hands.
“Don’t think about it,” Tony advised as he passed me a bottle of whisky.

It was about twenty minutes later. We were sitting at one of the local parks as neither of us really wanted to go home just yet. Tony had stopped in at his place on the way here to collect a couple of jackets and the booze from his brother’s stash. There’d be hell to pay later but I don’t think he cared at this point in time.
“This can’t have been the first fight you ever got into, is it?” Tony asked.
“The only other fight I’ve been in was when I was ten! And I lost that one!” I retorted mournfully.
“Well you’re now at a 50 percent batting average now.” Tony grinned cheekily.
I couldn’t help but chuckle even though I didn’t really want to. “It’s not really the same,” I replied darkly.
“I know.” He nodded. “Still, if it’s any consolation, you probably saved both our lives. He was going to hit us with that crowbar. He wasn’t messing about.”
“We wouldn’t have even been there if it weren’t for me,” I objected.
“Well, by that argument we wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me either!” Tony retorted.
As much as I hated it I couldn’t fault his logic.
“I felt it,” I mumbled, taking a swig of the bottle as it came past again. I cringed as the liquid slid down my throat. It burned uncomfortably.
“What?”

“I felt it, you know, when I hit him,” I repeated.
“You can do that?” Tony’s eyes were wide.
“I didn’t think it was possible, but I definitely felt something, there was a crunching kind of feeling when I hit him.”
“There would have been more than a crunching feeling if he had whacked me over the head with that crowbar,” Tony retorted.
It was an obvious point. Except that the crowbar wasn’t aimed at Tony. It was aimed at me.
I was the one standing to the front. I was the one who didn’t back down. I really had goaded the tradie into it. I was so confident in my ability to handle the situation. I handled the situation just brilliantly – the poor wretch was probably lying in a morgue somewhere right now. I shivered at the realisation.
I may have just killed someone.
Tony saw the look on my face and nodded slightly. He obviously saw what was going on in my head. He had a habit of being able to do that.
“You’re an arrogant bastard. You do know that, don’t you?” he hissed angrily at me.
“What?” I turned, slightly alarmed.
“You’re going to take responsibility for his actions, aren’t you?” he accused, his eyes narrowed. “He’s an adult and responsible for his own actions. He chose to start something he couldn’t finish. End of story.”
The accusation hit me hard and fast and what’s more, it was true. But I also knew without a doubt that I was responsible. There was no shirking that responsibility.

“What the hell!” I snapped back. “That’s supposed to cheer me up?”
“You want to be cheered up – go to a woman!” He snickered cheekily, dropping out of his angry routine.
“I’m all about tough love,” he continued, grinning at me in the darkness.
“Yes, I’ve heard you’re into that kind of thing,” I snapped, then chuckled.
“That’s better. Now gimme that bottle.”
“You think he’s alive?” I tentatively asked after a few seconds.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Tony muttered nonchalantly.
But he was lying, I could tell that he did care. It was all he was thinking about, it was clear from his expression on his face. you didn’t have to be a mind reader to see the events playing again over and over behind his eyes. I knew this because the same events were going over in my mind.
“I think I’d like to find out,” I whispered.
“I know.” He nodded and got up. “Come on, it’s getting late. We should go.”
It was a cold and lonely walk home alone. I didn’t get any sleep that night and I doubted Tony did either.

* * * *

It had been several days since my encounter in the pub car park. I hadn’t realised it or consciously made the decision, but I’d stopped using the mana and it was beginning to show. I had become nervous and jittery again. My eyes darted nervously and I jumped at any sudden noise or movement.
I’d returned to a pattern of not sleeping properly again. I became more and more anxious and impatient with those around me. Once again I’d alienated those closest to me. Tina in particular was quite upset by this. I couldn’t really blame her either as I wasn’t trying with her at all, but this was something I needed to work through on my own. I hadn’t gone to Dad’s last weekend. I feigned sickness to get out of it although it wasn’t really all that much of a lie. The night of the incident I didn’t sleep at all. I simply went home and sat in my room gazing out of the window into the darkness of the backyard all night. I didn’t sleep the following night, although I did try. I lay in bed cursing at myself to sleep but sleep eluded me. Eventually I gave it up and got up.
School the next day wasn’t much better either. Tony and I met before school and he told me that the guy was alive. I nearly cried with relief. I wasn’t a murderer. Then Tony said he was in hospital in a coma and I felt lousy again. I’d calmly and coldly told him to remain true to his promise to me and never talk about this again.

True to his word he didn’t bring the subject up again but he did place a newspaper cutting in my hands the next day. The article was about a hit and run accident at the local pub car park and that police were making inquiries, urging anyone who had seen anything to come forward. Obviously the police hadn’t made any progress with the case or were treating it as a road accident.
This didn’t have the desired goal of calming me, in actual fact it agitated me further. It wasn’t that I was worried about the police finding me. It was kind of reassuring to note that the man’s apprentice had kept his mouth shut about what had actually happened. Then again when you examine it in the cold light of reality – the poor guy didn’t really have much choice. He couldn’t very well tell them the truth.
Tony’s brilliant spur-of-the-moment excuse about the man being hit by a car had explained everything. I was still a little in awe about how he had come up with that so fast. I’m certain that I wouldn’t have been able to lie as well in his position. I would probably just have made more of a mess of the situation than I already did.
The logic behind this did little to comfort me. It simply drew me towards one inescapable fact. It had been so easy to do this and there would be no repercussions of my attack. My guilt was the only thing preventing me from losing complete control.
I cannot logically explain the strange sense of dread that this thought invoked in me. There is truly nothing scarier than knowing that there is no safety net and I realised then that there would be nothing to stop me should I lose control completely. It would be so easy to believe myself effectively above the law now.
Actually this wasn’t entirely true: there was something or rather someone who could stop me – Renee.

I should probably come clean and tell her everything that had happened. The only problem with that was that I still had no way of contacting her apart from using that spell and roaming all around Melbourne. Even worse, I would then have to explain the situation to her which would reveal yet another of my lies. I had told Tony about the mana and any retelling of the events in the car park would obviously include Tony.
This meant that I had either used mana in front of someone or worse yet betrayed Renee’s trust. She would be furious with me in either scenario.
No, I couldn’t go to Renee. In this, I was alone.
I’d been sitting at the cafeteria looking out over the oval. My thoughts were miles away. I wasn’t even totally sure if it was recess or lunchtime. In actual fact I would have been hard pressed to tell anyone what day it was.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” a small voice said from behind me.
I turned to look at the newcomer, already well aware of who it was.
“No Tina,” I replied resignedly. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

She had a defiant look on her face as she sat down next to me. We both looked at the oval where kids were playing and running around. I was jealous that they could live their lives being perfectly normal. They didn’t have to put up with being like me. They’d never have to deal with this. I had a sudden sense of loss for that. I couldn’t explain it. It seemed wrong. I needed normal. I needed to make it work with Tina. She could be my link to the normal and I really felt that I needed normal right now. My life was spinning out of control and I had no idea how to stop it.