Authors: Christopher George
And you know what? I almost made it, I really did. I was so close. I could see the doors in sight just before me and was getting ready to hit them with a mana thread to smash them open and disappear through them. I never got the chance. This isn’t to say that I didn’t end up breaking through the doors. I did – just not the way I’d expected to.
If I hadn’t still had my shield around me, I think the strike that hit me probably would have killed me. It struck me on my lower right side and lifted me into the air, propelling me through the glass doors. I felt the impact of the doors and I felt them give way. The impact shattered my shield and the impact with the ground left me dazed and hurt. I felt my legs jar as I hit the cold concrete surface of the car park floor outside and felt a click in my ankle as I landed.
In shock I turned to look at the remains of a doorway that I’d just flown through. It was a mess: both doors were twisted wrecks hanging off their railings and Vin was walking calmly down the stairs behind them. He walked across the floor with a self-satisfied grin on his face.
I tried to get to my feet and gasped as it felt like a brand of fire had been shoved into my ankle. With a strangled cry my legs gave way and I tumbled back to the ground. Vin gently pushed the wrecked doors to one side as he moved through them. His face was twisted into a savage smirk and his eyes glittered with barely concealed hate.
“So it comes to this,” he snarled. “You should have just told me where she’d gone.”
I pulled myself onto my side and gazed at him. There was no hint of anything remotely recognisable in his eyes as he gazed down on me. There were no traces of humanity or morality. There was only that damned evil smirk. Vin shrugged and pulled off his trench coat, which was mostly in shreds now anyway. I noticed he had several cuts along the left side of his face that bled freely.
“I’ve given a lot of thought as to how I’m going to kill you,” he explained, taking his time to enunciate each syllable.
I sighed wistfully. There was very little I could do to prevent him with my ankle like this. I couldn’t very well run and he would most certainly be able to defend himself from any attack I launched now. Perhaps it would be easier to just lie back and await the inevitable. I was tired of fighting anyway, tired of the constant struggle. Perhaps it would be better to just bow down and await the end.
“I’m going to make you suffer,” Vin hissed as he stepped away from his fallen trench coat.
“Just do it already!” I snapped angrily. I figured if I made him angry enough he’d finish it quickly. He was probably the type that this would work on if the action movies were to be believed.
Vin smiled again and his face took on a twisted smirk as he tilted his head back. He brought his hands up in front of him and I watched as the mana ran down his arms and into the palms of his hands. Two jets of flame burst from each palm and engulfed his hand. The flame was running like quicksilver up over his wrists and across his forearms. Vin’s face took on an ecstatic tilt as the magical euphoria overtook him.
His dark eyes glittered as they reflected the hell fire now contained within his grasp.
With a small gesture he sent a jet of flame jetting in my direction. It caught my right foot before I could pull it away. I gasped with pain as I felt my foot blister and burn within my shoe. I watched as the leather on my shoe blackened and burned and the pain was unbearable. I pulled my foot from the jet and clambered onto my side and painfully began to pull myself away. Crawling away wasn’t really going to do that much, but I couldn’t endure a death like this. I had to get away.
“Yes! Run away!” Vin shouted, his voice breaking off into a fit of maniacal laughter.
“Not like this,” I whispered quietly to myself as I looked for something, anything that could prevent what appeared to be the inevitable.
There were no cars I could hide behind. This would have only granted me a temporary reprieve in any event. There was no-one to interfere or stop him. Not that Vin wouldn’t have been able to deal with anyone who attempted to try. No. I was completely on my own.
Vin sent several more jets of flame bursting into my direction. I had raised my shield by now, but I could still feel the heat scalding my back and causing me to gasp and roll over. This was pointless. He’d won. I turned onto my side and faced him.
If I was going to die, then I was going to die facing him and accepting my fate. He wouldn’t find me snivelling and begging him. I’d face him down and when he finished it, god damn it, at least he’d respect me for it.
“You’re nothing,” Vin hissed as he stepped forward again. The flame was now billowing across his arms and upper torso almost as if it were a liquid. Under any other circumstances it would have been beautiful, however under my current position I was less than objective about its beauty. The look on Vin’s face hardened and I realised that he was through playing.
This was it.
I needed something to protect myself, anything. I began to frantically look around for something, anything to protect myself when I noticed that near the entrance to the shopping centre were two industrial sized garbage skips that were used by the shopping centre for waste disposal. I couldn’t envisage a way in which they could be used as a weapon, but I might be able to use them as a shield.
I gasped as I pulled myself forward onto my knees, gritting my teeth and ignoring the searing pain from my injured foot. I wrapped a mana thread around the skip. Vin, obviously assuming that this was an attack of some sort, sent a volley of flame my way. Through either fate or perhaps incredibly motivated self-interest I managed to bring the dumpster directly into the path of the volley of flame.
I could hear Vin’s laughter over the sound of the flame hitting the side of the skip. The strong stench of burning paper and plastic assaulted my senses as I held the skip before me. I dropped my shield as it wouldn’t have helped me that much anyway and rallied my strength into holding this simple object in front of me.
“Oh well done!” Vin called as he burst into laughter once more. “You’re quite inventive!”
I didn’t respond. I could see that Vin had increased the ferocity of his attack. The plastic lids to the skip were warping and melting and beginning to slowly slide down the side of the skip. He obviously intended to burn his way through the skip.
“Do you really think this will save your life?”
I gazed at the disintegrating structure of the garbage skip before me and saw the metal turn bright with the heat poured against it. I saw the skip sag as the integrity of the construction finally gave way and I was now holding no more than several chunks of intensely hot burning metal.
“You’re just delaying the inevitable!” Vin called as segments of the metal structure burst into flame. Each piece was glowing red hot with the force that Vin was applying.
“I’m strong enough to burn straight through this,” he called mockingly.
I’m not exactly sure when I became the villain of my story, but I am sure when I became a murderer. When I looked into the darkest depths of my soul and knew without a doubt that this was something I could do – that this was something I had within me to do.
I could use terms like self-defence and justifiable cause, but I know those for what they are. They are validations that people use to get them through the horror that they inflict upon themselves in their most honest moments.
I glimpsed at the heart of darkness beating within my own breast and I whispered, “No more.”
Vin didn’t hear me of course. He couldn’t have heard me. All sound was obliterated by the noise generated by the burning of the garbage skip and the rushing howl of intense flame. I could see him now, through the tattered remains of the dumpster. I looked into the madness that was his eyes and I softly sighed. His face took on a quizzical look as I let the magic do its grim work.
With a flick of my hands I sent the twisted wreck of semi-molten metal that was the remains of the garbage skip flying towards my foe. He could see me and I could see him. I looked into his eyes as the metal hit him. I saw the mirth on his face turn to concern and then to fear as he saw his death approach.
At the last moment he had raised a shield and he began laughing again, his laughter cackling as his shield repelled the burning oblivion that was bearing down on him. His face then twisted and took on a strange expression and the laughs turned to a strangled yelp.
With bands of mana stronger than steel, I wrapped my magic around him and tightened my grip. With an audible crash akin to thunder I squeezed the metal around him and his shield collapsed under the pressure.
I looked into his eyes as I wrapped the molten metal around him, using bands of mana to twist his death against him like a python’s embrace. His screams became cries, and his cries became shattered unintelligible moans.
I held him in the air before me with the power of my magic. I kept him there, held tight and firm. The metallic complaint of smouldering steel and the smell of his own burnt flesh were his only companions and mute witnesses to his end.
It was long after he stopped screaming that I came to my senses and released the shattered wreck. A misshapen and horrid mixture of human remains and twisted metal fell to the ground with a resounding thump. As the magic fled me I turned to limp away. I didn’t look back. I didn’t even feel the urge to look back. I cannot say with any truth that I held any remorse nor regret for Vin. He was a monster and perhaps some might say that he deserved the end to which he had wrought.
I’m not sure if it was fate or perhaps it was chance that I was the one who walked away from our encounter and not he. I’m still not even certain, in the darker moments of my recollection, if I even give thanks to be the one that did walk away.
In a strange way I owe Vincent my life; had he not taught me the harsh lessons I learned that day then I never would have survived my own trial through fire. Though I passed mine, I was scarred and forever changed by it. The dark lessons that Vincent had taught me about power and its corruption kept me pure when those around me fell.
When the temptation beckoned and the whispering seduction of power and prestige became too much, I only had to look back at this day and look at the lessons I learned from Vincent and whisper quietly to myself.
“Yes, I’m a villain … but I’m not a monster.”
To be continued.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As an avid science fiction and fantasy reader Christopher George has been immersing himself in books from a young age. In 2004 Christopher completed his Bachelor of Multimedia at Monash University and has been working as an IT professional ever since. He currently lives in Melbourne with his partner, her daughter and three cats.
Mage Catalyst is his first completed novel and was written in a variety of hotel rooms and airports across Australia. Catalyst is his first non-technical piece and he finds it much easier to write fiction than software documentation.
It’s also very recently come to light that he is simply awful at talking about himself in the third person.
For more information about the book and the series go to
www.christophergeorgenovels.com
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