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Right, you made me do it... here's the first two pages of it. Sigh. If anyone is bothered about reading more, please pm me or reply here or SOMETHING!!!!!


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Running down a dark alleyway at night, hacking up half a lung because of a not so much ‘recovered from’ as ‘I can walk so its gone’ bout of bronchitis, I shaped a small fire hex; it’s a neat little trick which I made up myself – it sets their fingers alight and won’t go out till they stop moving. Well, it’s a neat trick if they have fingers.

Luckily, this one did. There was a yelp of pain, the thudding footsteps faltered, and that was enough time for my backup – late, as ever – to leap out toting little green lights and a crossbow. Thank you, Weapons-R-Us.

Maya – with the green lights – shoved me behind a dumpster, which made my eyes water as the wound in my arm caught against ow ow ow brick. I curled up around my arm and sent a very small Healing spell into it, enough to stop the bleeding and reduce the pain a little, and enough that I could function, but not using a drop more magic than necessary.

The sounds of crossbow bolts thudding into Otherworldly flesh disturbed my spell-imposed concentration, and I was forced to let the spell go before it had finished its work. Which meant my arm still throbbed, though the bleeding had slowed.

Peering round the dumpster, I flinched as several of Maya’s green lights attacked the thing chasing me and it screamed such a high, piercing scream that my ears reverberated and the roaring from the pain switched to a ridiculously irritating ringing. Unfortunately, the pain remained.

The bolts from Tom’s crossbow were accurate, but he couldn’t reload anywhere near fast enough to stop the hideous, four legged creature advancing up the alleyway, its fingers still flickering with Worked flame. Maya’s lights were hurting it – the grey skin bubbled and seethed an angry red in every spot the green glow touched – but the creature was still moving forwards.

Idiots that we were, we had run into a dead end. Actually, it was only a dead end if you didn’t have time to climb over the eight foot fence at the end, which was what we had originally planned to do, but which was impossible when we were so distracted by the creature. Hey, it had seemed like a good idea, but then that was before the creature turned out to be about three times more powerful than we thought it would be, and we were too busy holding it off to run away far enough to set off a Blast Work.

It wouldn’t have been so bad had Pete been there, but the loup-garou was off for some big meeting – a family thing – until early tomorrow. So, we were left without our really vicious weapon, which meant we had to use… me.

Now, using my magic is a little hazardous. Not only because it can be picked up by the High Council if I haven’t warded the area properly – which I haven’t – but because it’s maybe a little too strong for me at the moment. It’s the time of year.

I haven’t ever had proper instruction – I learnt the basics from a book I picked up years ago, and then a little more from various spell books and almanacs. It’s not so hard to find these things, once you know where to look and who to talk to. But to control magic of the strength I have… you need certain books, books which aren’t exactly mainstream. The High Council withholds them to stop wizards being able to use more power than they should have, by using Necromancy or other really, really bad tricks to get that power. Of course, they’re always the fact that it helps them to keep track of stronger – and so more dangerous – wizards. Only registered instructors have the book – being totally adverse to the High Council finding out about us, I don’t really want to go to a registered instructor, and so I tend to just throw my power at the bad guys and hope I don’t cause too much collateral damage.

As Maya and Tom held the thing off, I pulled my wand out of my pocket – don’t look at me like that, it helps me focus – and muttered the first phrases of a Banishing Work. If we can’t kill it, banishing it at least sends it to the Otherworld and stops it from ever coming back through.

Pale violet light gathered in a sphere around the small rune at the end of the wand, slowly building into a more intense light – not bigger, or brighter, but just more – which made the creature howl and turn its eyes away, as it held out one of its clawed arms, where a dirty green light began to form.

Maya swore, and began to retreat, pulling Tom with her, until they were level with the dumpster, until they could throw themselves behind it as I said the last phrases of the Working.

The spell was complete – now I had to hold it steady until the right time, until Maya and Tom were safe. I paused, a split second where I could check on them – they gave me thumbs up and tucked themselves as close to the wall and the dumpster as they could. I could see the vague outline of a chalked Ward circle, probably (please) Maya’s work.

I looked back at the creature, and cried, my voice harsh from pain and the bronchitis and the very power in the spell, “pello pepulli pulsum!” Luckily you only need one phrase to complete the spell – if there’s such thing as a Latin accent, I haven’t got it.

With a roar and a vicious crackle of energy, the pale sphere expanded to envelop the creature, Maya, Tom and I – along with any animals in the vicinity. I hoped Maya’s Ward around the two of them was strong, because once this was done I would be in no state to Heal them if they got caught in the backlash. The poor animals would be fried.

I could already feel the power rattling through my wand. There was a high whistling sound, perhaps of wind through some small corridor, which clashed horribly with the ringing in my ears, but was somehow reassuring. The sound of my magic – no one else can hear it, but if it started sounding different I would know I had screwed up. Not that knowing would do me much good – once it got that far, the damage would already have been done.

The whistling gained in volume, as the creature howled at me and prepared to unleash its own casting, but before it could, there was a flash of nothingness, and it was gone. Papers in the alleyway swept forwards, carried by the wind to fill the vacuum left by the creature’s absence. Very Doctor Who.

I heard my own breathing, and the rustle of Maya rubbing away her protective circle – the sounds were strangely loud in the aftermath of the fight, and they chased me down into nothingness.


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Well.... there ya go. Hope you bothered with all that. Just... comment on it, somehow, somewhere, ok? Please?

Or the ninjas WILL come after you. ninja