Withdrawl

I didn't dream that night, which for me was unusual. I woke up feeling just as stressed and confused as the night before. Buck's house smelled like bacon. I pushed myself out of the down comforter, hoping that Buck was actually making breakfast and that the house hadn’t been set on fire while I was asleep.

 

            As luck would have it, Buck was indeed in the kitchen, busying himself over more than one skillet. Several, in fact. Delicious smells mixed with the constant presence of strong herbs, resulting in an aroma greater than the sum of its parts.

"You're just what the doctor ordered," I said sitting down at the table. "I keep forgetting how much I have to eat now."

            “I feel like a proud, confused mommy,” Buck said in answer, grinning. “So hey, did you come to your senses overnight, or do you still want those things tattooed on your arms? Cause my guy opens his shop around lunchtime.”

            I regarded the already-graying Glyphs on my forearms. “I have to think about it. Either way, I need to run to the bank first, I’ve got very little in the way of liquid assets right now, and I sort of suspect Conclave will be freezing my checks.” If they’re actually after me, I silently finished.

            “Good plan. Need a ride?” Buck slid a wide, square plate in front of me, loaded with the weird combination of foods that only Buck would call a balanced breakfast: Scrambled eggs over wheat toast, (good) Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, (excellent,) orange juice and coffee, (just fine) and bamboo stir-fry. (Because why not?) And of course, bacon.

            “If you don’t mind. The less I show my face, the better.” I looked down at my plate and took a deep breath. “Listen, I really appreciate what you’re doing for me-”

            “I know, man,” he said, waving me off. “This’ll all blow over in a couple of days. You’ll see. And until it does, you need a place to crash, you come here. Simple.”

            I kept my eyes firmly on my eggs until I was sure they could be trusted. My eyes. Not the eggs, they seemed on the level. “Thanks.”

            “Don’t mention it.”

            “Oh, I won’t. If anyone knew where I was, it’d probably wind up as a parking lot.” I wasn’t trying to be morbid, but it had a way of forcing itself out.

            Before I knew it, I had finished my half of the weird breakfast, and volunteered to do the dishes. Buck graciously allowed it, and I passed a little time in relaxing, repetitive activity at the sink while he loaded up and then unloaded what was probably not the first bong of the day. The house began to take on its customary hazy atmosphere.

            “I figure we can swing by the bank right away, find somewhere to chill near your tattoo guy, and I’ll try to call Lee. Sound good?”

            “Works for me, man,” Buck coughed from the couch. “Nice and simple.”

            Something about that idea just seemed wrong.

            Like anything could go simply.

 

***

 

            I borrowed one of Buck’s colorful hooded sweaters, one of those loose-weave, baggy jobs you see stoners wearing. I figured if anyone was looking for Trick, they’d be looking for a guy wearing black as usual. It wasn’t much in the way of camouflage, but it was something, and I was reluctant to use any magic to conceal myself better. I still wasn’t sure if I could be tracked by Reading, and until I came up with a safe way to figure it out, I wasn’t taking any chances.

            We drove to my bank, listening to a Sublime album. A tape, actually. Buck was the only person I knew who still used his tape player, claiming that the CD generation’s ability to easily cycle through songs had diminished peoples’ attention span and appreciation for the flow and composition of albums.

            I just thought it sounded scratchy.

            I tried to look casual as we pulled up in front of the bank. There were other cars in the lot, people just going about their business as usual. Nobody suspicious. The only other person I could see was a blonde guy in a suit, leaning against his car and doing something on an extremely expensive-looking phone. Nobody in Conclave blacks, and if Lee had been telling the truth, my brand made me immune to concealing spells. If someone was hiding, I’d see them.

            It all looked okay.

            “All right, I’ll be right back. Keep the car running.”

            “Can’t listen to my music if it’s not,” Buck replied cheerfully, reclining his chair. “Take it easy.”

            “I’ll try,” I muttered, and walked into the bank.

            Probably-Courtney was working today, and I got into her line, returning her little wave and waiting for her current customer to finish up. I flinched when the door opened again, but it was just the businessman from the parking lot, still lost in his phone with a frown on his downturned face.

            Probably-Courtney’s customer thanked her and left, and I moved up to the counter.

            “Hey Tyler, you’re colorful today,” she said by way of greeting, beaming. “Is there some kind of music festival, or…?”

            “Huh? Oh, the shirt. No, I crashed at my friend’s place last night, this is his. Glad you like it, though. So hey-“

            Click.

            I froze as something cold, hard, and menacing pressed into the base of my skull.

            “Good morning, Mr. McAllister of Conclave,” a mild and familiar voice said from behind me. “I thought you might turn up here.”

            “So I take it this isn’t a robbery, then,” I replied, as Probably-Courtney screamed and covered her mouth with both hands.

            “We’ll see where things go. Hey, turn around if you like. I want to talk to you.”

            I rotated on the spot, watching bank employees and customers ducking and scampering behind desks, silently cursing them all. One of you dolts needs to call the police, damn it. After a bizarrely long two seconds, I faced my captor.

            Nick Tripp, the Necromancer. I still had his business card in my wallet. And unfortunately, he still had his gun, a large and shiny pistol, in my face.

            “You’re supposed to gasp and say, you!” he said, grinning. “It’s kind of a tradition in these situations.”

            “I’ll keep it in mind. So what’s the gun about?” I was smart-talking because the alternative was to piss my pants, scream, and cry, which is actually a very appropriate response to being held at gunpoint by a guy who carries business cards. “I always thought Necromancers would have a magic wand, or a fetish doll or something. A skull on an amulet. Maybe a Marilyn Manson T-shirt?”

            He grinned a boyish, charming grin. “Stereotypes don’t make friends. Anyway, magic wands are cool, but in my profession,” he mused, angling the weapon off to the side of my head, “there are much more practical options.”

            I realized what was about to happen just in time to wish I could stop it.

            The trigger clicked, the gun roared with deafening fury in my right ear, and I whirled to face the counter "

            -where Probably-Courtney was still standing, hands falling from her face, where a neat and horrible hole had appeared in the center of her forehead. The large bank poster behind her station (All-Time Low Interest Rates!) was splattered with gore. Her money-colored eyes were wide and surprised.

            For half an instant, I had the crazy thought that maybe she was going to pull through, but then she crumpled like a marionette and I thought, of course, she was dead the second he fired.

            I realized people were screaming. Not just the panicked, get-me-out-of-here screams of a moment before, but the deep and piercing screams of people who realize their lives are about to end and they’ve really got nothing else to do but shriek out the anguish of their helplessness. Stuck-in-a-plummeting-elevator screams. The screams of the fucked.

            “Why?!” I squealed, spinning around to face Nick, finding myself again at the end of the smoking gun. He had a smirk on his face. “Why would you do that? She has nothing to do with me!”

            “You’re wrong,” he had to shout over the panicked sounds of the bank. “Look.”

            He held out his left hand, where an elaborate and unusual piece of jewelry was anchored by fine chains to the center of his palm. A bone-white gem of some sort was nestled among angular, spiky silver settings.

            As I watched, a flowing, shimmering light snaked out from behind the bank counter, pearly-white and radiant, drawn towards the jewel as though it was being vacuumed. I realized the Necromancer was pulling something out of Probably-Courtney’s corpse. Something ethereal, but important.

            Nick met my eyes, and his own were a milky, cataract white. “Fascinating,” he said, and his voice bounced off of itself, as though ten men were speaking in unison, “She really liked you.”

            “What?”

            “Oh, the girl. She was very attracted to you. Sorry, I should explain,” he said, somehow even more disturbing for the offhand way he was discussing the madness taking place, “I’ve captured her essence. The life-energy that powers us. Usually when someone expires, it all just dissolves back into the Universe, but in the presence of a Phylactery, it can be… withheld.”

            He gestured towards me with the jewelry-and-light covered hand. “And used.”

            A tiny wisp of the shining ‘essence’ drifted towards me, and if it hadn’t been for the gun barrel in my face, I would probably have tried to move away. I flinched as the light touched Buck’s sweater and passed instantly through, making searing cold contact with my skin-

            -always seems nice when he comes in here-

            -pain, but not pain, a pressure, impossible-

            -never seen him with anyone-

            -opened my eyes, stared down the barrel of a gun and past it, a world of lights-

            -love his hair, oh, if I could run my fingers through that black hair, mmm…-

            -“F**k!” I screamed, stumbling back, leaning against the counter, panting. No, hyperventilating. My heartbeat was a frantic, galloping hum, blood pounding beneath ultra-sensitive skin. A hyper-awareness drew my eyes wildly around the room, tiny details as obvious as the color of the walls, and all of it shot through with weaving, tangling, magnificent streams of every-colored light.

            I couldn’t handle it. Tearing back my left sleeve, I forced my eyes to settle on a Glyph and screamed out a burst of syllables. Red light flared from my brand, followed instantly by the roar of flames filling my open, mechanically clenching hands. Both hands. I let the spell draw energy out of me, pouring more and more power into the fires, until my fists and forearms shone like suns.

            And through it all, Nick stood back and grinned, watching me with the eyes of the dead.

            “You m**********r!” I snarled, bringing my weaponized arms up, lunging at the Necromancer, completely ignoring the gun. With a wordless roar, I released streams of fire from both hands, bathing the a*****e in plasma, carving lines across my vision that I had to blink away.

            I knew it wasn’t working, though. I could see him through the torrent, shielding himself with the same shimmering white ‘essence’, and somehow I knew that Probably-Courtney’s life force was not the only one at his disposal.

            He’d come to show me this… whatever it was. He knew I couldn’t threaten him. Screaming out in frustration, I allowed the spell to end. The fire went out. The lattice of energy lines had faded, and my heart slowed to something like normal.

            I was panting again, from fatigue rather than the insane rush of a moment before. Nick waited calmly while I composed myself. I noticed that, during the explosion of power, most of the bank patrons had cleared out. Good.

            “What… what was that?” I panted, feeling ready to collapse. Nick held up the Phylactery, his sickening little jewelry. I wanted to vomit at the sight of it, knowing what it was.

            “That,” he said, in a normal voice now, “was nothing more than an extra charge of life energy. The same power you draw on to use your Glyphs, in fact. Only this time, you had someone else’s life force to stand between you and the spell. You see? Instead of draining yourself, converting calories to energy and so on, your spell was powered by pure, readily-available essence.”

            Something clicked in my head, but I couldn’t say just what. A question had been answered. “I felt like I was going to explode.”

            “Of course you did. A human body isn’t a battery. Now, what have you learned?”

            “That you’re one sick puppy,” Buck said from next to Nick, and brought a metal sign (Please Wait For The Next Available Teller) crashing down on the Necromancer’s skull. Pale eyes rolled back into his head, Nick Tripp collapsed to the floor, blood seeping out from his stylish blonde hair.

            “Jesus, Buck,” I said, impossibly relieved. “What are you doing in here, you could have been killed!”

            He regarded me with his usual calm expression, looking around at the wrecked bank counter with raised eyebrows. “You were taking awhile, and I’m hungry. Are you okay?”

            “I think so,” I said, sitting down hard. “S**t, man, this guy just killed Courtney. The bank teller. He just shot her, man… just… just to show me something neat.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice, and really, why would I? I was concentrating on not picturing the ruined body just on the other side of the counter I was leaning against. “He’s f*****g insane.”

            Buck glared down at the unconscious Necromancer. “What do you think we should do with him?”

            I thought for a second before I realized what Buck was implying. “Dude… I don’t know if I can… ugh, f**k-“ I leaned to the side and vomited explosively into the small bin for receipts.

            Buck picked up Nick’s gun with a hand wrapped in the end of his sleeve, careful not to leave fingerprints. “Obviously we can’t leave his stuff here with him. The cops are definitely coming, and if he wakes up he could probably hurt them, right?”

            I coughed into the bin again and nodded. “He could have taken me out whenever he decided to. I wouldn’t stand a chance against him. Grab his gun, and that… thing, on his left hand.”

            I flipped the b*****d over and started rummaging in his pockets, taking everything. The intensely expensive phone, a leather wallet, a keychain with several keys, a crystal pendant similar to one of my own, and a pack of gum. Buck finished unclasping the weird jewel from Nick’s hand, and we both stood up. “Now what?” he asked, gesturing with the weapons.

            “Now we bail,” I muttered, shaking up my sleeves. I put an arm around Buck’s shoulders and spoke words of escape, and we whirled into one madness, leaving another behind.

Reviews

[UponATyme]

Buck saves the day again! This chapter was a bit confusing. That Necromancer bit seemed to come from out of the blue. It didn't seem realistic for him to pop into a bank and shoot people in the head just to show Tyler something cool. If he was trying to help him, that was a weird and awful way to do it. And if he wasn't trying to help him, I'm not sure it was really clear exactly what he was trying to do. I'd work on this one a little.

Well written though. Courtney was a pretty minor character and you managed to make me feel for her. There was a lot of "what if" and "if only" in this chapter; really heartbreaking.