Magi Saga 2: Shadows of Darkness (23 page)

‘Enjoy it? Enjoy what?’ Amanda asked, attempting to keep him occupied.

The killing blow never came though, instead Amanda heard what sounded like a very angry and very large dog growling and barking while things, like maybe bodies, slammed into each other.

‘Oh, sounds like you might be busy,’ Amanda joked. Something had happened to distract Joaquin from Amanda, so she took this time to fully concentrate on fixing herself up.

As the seconds passed, she pulled her thoughts back together, finally getting a hold of herself. Quickly she restarted her Multitasking effect, setting one mind to healing her broken body.

Her right arm had been crushed and broken in several places while cuts and bruises called for her attention, but with a powerful wash of Essentia through her body, the bruises faded, the cuts closed and with some stomach turning sounds, her bones knitted back together and popped back into place.

She used the rest of her minds to pull in and solidify the Essentia around her, recreating the Aegis and Force Shield she had lost.

Opening her eyes and feeling much better, she sat up and surveyed the room about her. A little way off to her left, the body of Joaquin lay upon the floor, his torso ripped open and crushed while a look of wide eyed surprise sat frozen upon his face.

The thing responsible stood before her, back lit by the light streaming through the windows beyond, its huge size brought the memory of the thing that attacked her in the alleyway in New York flooding back. Suddenly she wasn’t a Magi anymore and she remembered the fear and terror as the Scion Horlack tried to kill her. She hadn’t known of Scions or Magi or Magic back then, she’d just been a girl trying to make her way on the streets of New York.

She jumped and shuffled back in fear at seeing the half human, half wolf thing that towered over 8 foot tall before her, but quickly got a grip of herself.

It shrank then, shifting forms and changing back into the dark haired girl that Amanda had found in the cage. She stepped forward, her face moving into some light allowing Amanda to see the smile on her face as she offered Amanda a hand.

‘Here, let me help you up,’ she said in an American Accent.

Amanda hesitated for a moment and then took it, allowing the girl to pull her off the pile of wood and metal and back to her feet. She had a surprising amount of strength.

‘I’m Celest,’ the girl offered.

‘Amanda,’ she replied, and shook the hand she already had hold of in greeting.

‘Sorry for attacking you, I… I had no idea who you were, or what you were going to do to me.’

‘Not a bother. I’m just grateful you came to my aid when you did,’ she said, looking down at the remains of Joaquin. ‘That could have ended much worse for me.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘The Nomads who use this place, they have my friend,’ Amanda said.

‘They bring people here all the time, if she’s here, she’ll be somewhere in the rest of this wing of the house, through that door,’ Celest indicated the open door that Joaquin had burst through moments ago.

‘Thank you Celest, you have done more than enough for me.’

‘You think I’m going to run and leave you here?’ Celest asked.

‘Well…’

‘I’m coming with you, these men have held me captive and tortured me for weeks, I want some revenge.’

Amanda looked at the heavily muscled girl stood before her, she stood a good half foot taller than Amanda making her an imposing opponent even before she shifted forms. The determination on Celest’s face was enough to show that she knew there would be no changing her mind. Her clothing had been reduced to little more than rags though, and did nothing to cover her up.

‘Then, may I suggest...’ Amanda said as she walked to a table, hovered her hand over the top of it, and suddenly a pile of clothes appeared just under her hand.

Celest walked over, and smiled. She looked at Amanda and pulled her in for a powerful hug.

‘Thank you,’ she said as she pulled off the dirty rags and quickly got dressed in the newly created clothes that fit her perfectly.

Moments later, the pair approached the door that led deeper into the East Wing. The door stood open, and although the Aegis remained in effect, the door created a way through, a portal through the Aegis.

Beyond the door they found a long corridor lined with more doors on either side. Each door had a barred window set into it, so Amanda looked through the first one, seeing a small room with a single bed, a basic toilet and a wash basin. They were cells. This one looked empty, but Amanda wasted no time in walking up the corridor, looking in each one. She only walked three doors up before she found an occupied one. A girl in her mid to late teens lay on the bed inside, she wore only a dirty vest and knickers, and her left wrist was chained to the wall. She could see marks on her arm where they’d injected her with drugs, the effects of which were clearly etched on her face.

‘Jeysus,’ Amanda said, and with a swift use of Magical force and enhanced strength, pulled the door from its frame and stepped into the room, crouching next to the girl.

‘We have to get them out of here,’ Amanda said to Celest. She had never seen anyone treated like this before and it made her sick to her stomach. If this is how Lucian runs his business, it became just one more reason to shut him down. This girl needed their help. She grabbed and pulled the chain from the wall and started to move to lift the girl from the bed.

‘Amanda, you have a friend here? Probably held by the remains of Joaquin’s men?’

‘Yes,’ Amanda answered.

‘She, and any others in these cells can wait until we have swept the rest of the building and made sure they’re safe. We must finish the job first.’

Amanda deflated slightly, took a breath and looked up at Celest.

‘You’re right, let’s finish this,’ she said. She looked back to the girl on the bed and took her hand in her own. ‘We’ll be back, I promise,’ she said, the girl’s eyes swam about the room, and Amanda wasn’t sure she’d heard her.

Amanda she stood up and concentrated once more. She sent out her senses and counted maybe half a dozen more girls along this corridor, just like this one. Stairs halfway along led upstairs, the room they led to sat empty of life, just a few bits of furniture scattered about the bare floorboards.

Another door up there stood closed, with another Aegis surrounding the room it led too, blocking her magical sight.

‘Upstairs, there’s another room that’s shielded from me,’ Amanda said as she walked from the cell and along the corridor. She walked upstairs and caught up with her senses which she cancelled as she reached the closed floor.

Wasting no time, Amanda used her Magic to shape and blast the weak and hastily erected Aegis with Essentia, it fell in a matter of seconds. Her own Aegis made as strong as she could, Amanda stepped forward and kicked open the door. The lock broke as it swung open, slamming into the wall revealing the room beyond. Beds lined each side of the long room, covered in dirty unwashed sheets, on each bed, anywhere from one to four children, sat, eyes wide with fear, chained to the metal frames. The feeling of horror and sickness that washed over her nearly dropped her to the floor, young girls was one thing, but kids? Amanda could barely process what she could see before her. Some of these children looked to be as young as three or four years old.

‘Amanda,’ yelped a voice from the back of the room.

Amanda looked up and saw Liz, she sat on a chair, her hands tied behind her. She looked at Amanda, a look of relief on her face.

The man who stood beside her lashed out and punched her hard across the face. Amanda took a step forward as anger flooded her body.

But Liz, her head bowed to her side from the hit, spat blood to the floor and looked back up, looking defiant and strong. Amanda felt proud of her apprentices’ defiance. She might be held captive, but she clearly wasn’t going to be playing the victim.

The man stood beside her looked back at Amanda, his stance ready and waiting for Amanda to act. She’d never seen this man before either, but just like Joaquin, she assumed he worked for Lucian in some capacity. He had black slicked back hair, pale skin and dark eyes, he wore all black, apart from the priestly white dog collar he wore on his neck. He held a young boy of maybe five or six years old in front of him by the neck, his grip clearly a powerful one.

Amanda could see from the Essentia he had stored within him, the Aegis that protected him and the lifelessness of his body that this man also happened to be a Scion, a Vampire like Maya and Yoh.

‘Amanda I presume?’ he asked. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, your apprentice here has told me so much about you, not least of which that you are coming to save her and kill me.’

Amanda smiled, and worked a bit of Magic, creating and then strengthening an Aegis around this room. This Scion would not be leaving here, not today.

‘Maybe,’ Amanda said.

‘I take it, from the presence of Celest, that you have dealt with Joaquin? Shame, I did so enjoy my little visits here.’ He crouched down next to the boy, placed his right hand on Liz’s leg and caressed up her inner thigh while pulling the boy’s face close to his and licking it, from the boys jaw right up the side of his face.

Amanda moved a step closer, adrenalin pumping hard through her body now and wanting nothing more than to pummel this pervert into a bloody mess, but the moment she moved, the man gripped the boy’s neck tighter and started to throttle him. Claws suddenly grew on his fingers too, pinching into Liz’s flesh where he held her bare leg.

‘A-a-ah, careful ladies, you wouldn’t want me to break these precious things would you?’

Amanda stepped back and took a breath.

‘You’re right, I wouldn’t, by my action, want you to kill anyone in here,’ she said.

But Amanda didn’t need to physically move to do what she needed to do. She worked her Magic, making use of the Multitasking effect to work a couple of uses of Magic at the same time. Amanda grabbed both Liz and the Boy in her Magical embrace and Ported them across the room next to where she had been standing. Simultaneously she Ported herself directly in front of the Vampire, and blasted his Aegis with a shock of powerful Magical and Kinetic energy as she tried to break through his Aegis.

The man dropped to the floor from the force of the attack, a look of shock on his face.

‘Hi there,’ Amanda said brightly as she stepped forward, relishing this moment of revenge. ‘You were saying?’

The Man moved quickly and sprung to his feet, his body started to shift quickly, growing and bulking out. Seeing this change, and not wanting to fight him in any way fairly, Amanda called on her magic once more and threw him up against the wall. His Aegis sparked and rippled with energy as it strained against the attack, but Amanda focused hard and held him back against the wall while her Magic tore at his Aegis.

The kids were screaming, panicking as they tried to get off the beds and move away from the fight at the back of the room. Amanda could hear the voices of Liz and Celest trying to calm them down, and break the chains that held them in place.

The man had shifted into a half man half wolf form, similar to Celest, but smaller. Amanda had heard of the legends of Vampires able to shift into werewolves and such, she’d seen the films of it too, but seeing it in real life turned out to be a great deal more unsettling, even with the knowledge of Magic.

Moments later as the man struggled in vain against the wall, his Aegis finally gave way, popping like a bubble.

As she held him up against the wall still, Amanda pulled on the Essentia inside him, ripping it out from him, and a few seconds later, as the energy that fuelled his shift seeped away, his body shifted back to human once more.

Amanda stepped up to him, used her magic to lower him to the floor and took his neck in her left hand, gripping him hard.

‘Go on, do it. I don’t care. Kill me, torture me, I want you too.’

She didn’t speak to him, she couldn’t. She couldn’t listen either, she just blocked it out. That would humanise him and she didn’t want to have any sympathy for this thing. Scion or not, anyone that did that to kids gave up their right to life.

Instead, she hit him, hard, again and again, taking out her anger and frustration and horror at the things these people did. She had no idea how long she’d been hitting him for, but he wasn’t making coherent sentences anymore and his face had been reduced to a bloody mess.

Amanda let his limp, but still living body drop to the floor and stepped back. Her fists were grazed and covered in his blood, they hurt a bit as well.

‘Hey,’ said Celest who had somehow managed to end up standing right next to her and she hadn’t noticed. ‘Liz could do with your help. There’s a lot of children in here.’

Amanda looked up, she’d heard what Celest had said, but for a moment it didn’t register. The realisation of what some of these Nomad’s did had utterly consumed her, but now, with her reverie broken, she looked back at Liz and the kids. Most of them stared back at her, their eyes wide, their mouths agape at the violence she had displayed. Even though she couldn’t think of any one more deserving then this paedophile, despite even the horrors that these children had faced at the hands of their captors, seeing these children looking at her like that made her feel ashamed.