chapter nineish

 I sat on the small toilet behind me and stared at the blood as it pooled in my palm and dripped down my arm, the hypnotic way it would collect in the the circles that lay across each other. My head hurt and I could feel my heartbeat in my brain, stress made me shake and I collected myself with a series of breathing exercises.

 

If I couldn't get it together it would mean I was beat before the fight even started, someone tried to kill me three times, that same someone put a frightened wizard in my path and rolled the dice to see who would die first, and after all that I was still doing what they wanted. The doors were slamming shut in my face, the locks clicking behind them, I was running out of ideas.

 

"Think, think, think."

 

I shook my head and ran my fingers through my scalp, too late I realized what hand I did it with. Blood ran down my forehead and the warm stuff congealed in my hair. The scream built inside of me and I almost cut loose out of anger and fear, instead I choked it down and let the power swirl inside of me like a hurricane in a bottle.

 

"Come on man you're a wizard, remember the training."

 

Events that seemed like a lifetime ago came into scratchy focus, running up and down a dusty hill with a log strapped to my back, standing in knee deep water while rats scurried around me, hungry for flesh, alive or dead. My uncle and his riddles and hidden meanings, all the lies and bullshit that him and my father subscribed to. All those things meant less than nothing now, this wasn't some stupid monster or unprepared human it was a wizard like me, only so much older and stronger.

 

Kneeling in the familiar barn, my uncle sitting across from me, his flannel coat and long black beard, I had just killed a deer with my magic and it was being bled out in the corner, the constant drip of the thick black blood as it pooled in the rusted metal bucket set the hair at the back of my neck on end.

"You've killed Justin, for the first time you have ended something with your magic. How did that feel?"

 

His voice was low and deep, I could only look into his shining blue eyes and tell the truth,

"Easy uncle, very easy."

 

He nodded in his solemn way and I knew I had given the right answer, his next question confused me,

 

"Could you kill me?"

 

"I don't know uncle, I don't want to."

 

His eyes narrowed and it was clear that wasn't the answer he wanted,

"If I was like that deer, stupid and weak could you kill me?"

 

I didn't dare look around, he would probably beat me or set my skin afire with his magic,

"If you were like that deer, than yes I could. But you aren't like that deer, I have seen you fly and take fire into your body and release it. I couldn't kill you with my magic."

 

I watched his eyes and waited for the flare of light and the sudden pain, instead they softened for a moment,

"But you can Justin, the whole world is a deer, soft and stupid, every person and animal, every demon and angel is a wounded man waiting for you to put your boot to his throat. The only difference is where you stand and whether you have the strength to watch the light fade."

 

The cracked mirror showed my bloody face in a dozen different segments and I looked into my own blue eyes and looked for the strength I needed.

 

A little red light came on above the mirror and someone knocked on the plastic door,

"Sir, we are about to land, please come out and take your seat. Thank you."

 

I took a handfull of  melting snow and washed my face, my knuckles had stopped bleeding but the glass had cut them pretty good, I would need some bandages when we landed. My smile returned as I opened the door and before the old woman could ask about the broken mirror or the blood in the sink I told her everything was all right and someone else must have broken the mirror.

She smiled and agreed with me, like a good little deer.