Old World Magic Ch. 19

Life and death, light and dark, on and off. It seems that my whole life had become a series of trials, rewards, successes and failures. There was always a balance to these things, wasn't there? For every up, a down, every high, there was a low. For every choice I made, there were reactions, but some of them, I never would have expected to be so drastic. I certainly wouldn't have expected to have a pistol pointed at me as I lay in a motel room, nude, with Erin, my lover, laying next to me. But the actions I took with Francis Solaris, Erin's father, led directly to this.

No one remembers being born, but that's balanced out by their death usually being the last thing they do know. I 'died' once already. I faked my death, faked the death of Michael Gray, an overweight, middle aged, unemployed, unhappily married, teacher. I remember the actions of that, and I remember my 'rebirth' as a young twenty year old stud with a refreshed body, magic in my veins, and a new life ahead of him as Mike Naughton. But did that mean that I was out of balance? Should I be able to see my own death coming as I stared down the barrel of the handgun in this stranger's hand? There would be a certain cosmic uncertainty, an imbalance, if that were true, wouldn't there be? To remember your rebirth, and also two deaths? Somehow I doubted that would be fair. It seemed like the universe didn't work that way.

The skinny man pulled back the hammer on his pistol, making a loud click in the quiet room. It was a purposeful gesture, one designed to terrify. I must admit it had it's intended purpose. Beside me Erin drew in a great lungful of air, her perky breasts rising upwards as she did. But the skinny gunman turned the gun towards her and growled, "Don't even think about screaming bitch!"

Then something snapped inside of me. That whole fight or flight response that everyone talks about? Yeah, it was that, but I had no weapon at hand. At least none that was immediately obvious. I didn't even rationally think about my magic, I just reacted.

Ruby had drilled me for days on the ability to use a spell that was instinctive to her. She called it her 'glamour' and had taught me how to do it. With it, I'd been able to stun people, just make them sort of 'lock up' for a few moments. That's what I did. When I saw the gun swing towards Erin, I instinctively released the mana inside me into a burst of glamour. The skinny gunman, his shorter colleague, and Erin all froze in place, their heads slowly turning to look at me, their eyes dull and glassy as all thought left their minds.

It gave me enough time to jump up out of the bed and begin to weave the makings of a proper spell. Once I'd tied the threads of mana together in the proper pattern, I cast the net across all three of them, letting them fall under my suggestion. "Ok, no one wants to get hurt here." I said, and all three nodded as if half asleep, agreeing with my statement. It was a simple statement, no one wanted to be hurt obviously. "So here's what we're going to do. You're going to let her get up and go take a nice long shower and get dressed, and the three of us men are going to sit down and talk peacefully, without guns, and we can figure out how to get you everything you want. Does that sound good?"

Erin and the shorter man nodded, but the skinny man slowly put the hammer on his pistol down and clicked the safety on. Then tucking it into his waistband he moved to the table near the window and said, "That sounds like the best thing." His voice was still soft and dreamlike, the one two punch of my glamour and the mental suggestion spell were hitting everyone hard. Since I'd just had a wonderful fuck with Erin, my mana was nice and high and I didn't worry about running out of energy to fuel my spells. Not right now at least.

"Go ahead Tim," the skinny man said to the shorter one, "Put the gun up, he's going to co-operate and get us our money."

"Ok James," the stout man, Tim I guess, said in response as he put his pistol away and moved to the table to sit down as well.

I sat back down on the bed, facing the two gunman and said softly, so as not to break the mood, "Erin go take a nice long shower and get dressed, I'm going to talk to these men here."

"Ok baby," she said in a dreamlike voice as she rolled off the bed and walked towards the bathroom, my spunk running in tiny rivulets down her thighs.

Then turning to the gunmen I said, "Now why don't you two tell me very carefully and in detail, what it is you want, and what I can do to make that happen?"

Their personalities began to re-assert themselves as I let up on the mental pressure of the glamour and the suggestion spell. I couldn't keep those two running forever and had to hope that they didn't want to have to kill us, or at least till they got whatever money they were looking for. The shorter, muscular man, Tim, leaned back in his chair and looked at the skinny one. The skinny one, James apparently, pulled the cigarette from his mouth and butted it out right on the table. Then he leaned forwards and asked, "What's your name son?"

I blinked once at the reference. James looked like he was middle aged, or what I sometimes still felt was my age. I forgot quite often that I was, for all intents and purposes, in the body of a twenty one year old. But that might play to my advantage. Since mental manipulation worked best when it was at it's most subtle, maybe I could get these two to play along. Make them feel in charge, then only use nudges and suggestions. They'd feel like this was all their own idea. I knew from experience what happened when you tried to force someone to do something they didn't want, and it wasn't pretty. "Mike," I said seeing no reason to lie, "What's this all about?"

"Mike," James said reaching into the inside pocket on his tan colored suit coat jacket, "We been waiting for someone to show up and meet with miss Solaris for a while now." From inside his jacket he pulled a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and showed it to me. I wasn't surprised, it was a picture of my face. I recognized the background as well, it was Francis Solaris's office space. It was a picture taken by a security camera the day I'd gone to meet Erin's father. "See, your little whore's father was stealing a lot of money from people who don't take kindly to that kind of thing. Then he gives this guy," he tapped the picture of me, then let it go, drifting to the floor, "A lot of money that wasn't his to give out. Then what's he do? He disappears for a few days, holes up in a motel, goes on a coke bender, then swallows a pistol. It's not bad enough that he gives our money to some stranger, you. But he also decides he's going to steal a little bit more before he takes his dirt nap, and leave it to his family. So we get sent to find out why our money is gone, and find out if you're going to be a problem. If so, we make an example out of you, your whore, her mom, and her step family."

Tim chuckled, his arms folded across his chest. I sensed there was something else I wasn't being told, but instead focused back on James, who appeared to be in charge. The skinny man was lighting another cigarette as I watched. I sat there, still nude, my cock still coated in Erin and my combined juices drying in the motel air conditioning. "Look, I met with Francis Solaris that day that picture was taken. I don't know who he thought I was, but he misread the situation and wrote me a check out of fear. I shouldn't have cashed it, I realize that now, I'll get you your money back. Erin too, her mom and her father's other family, we'll get you your money back, ok? So we get you the money back, the money he stole, then everything's cool?" I was letting some fear creep into my voice, hoping it would put them at ease. Oh who was I kidding? I was afraid. These goons obviously were ready to kill me, Erin, and her family. I was just hoping that the money would be worth more than our lives.

James took a long draw on the cigarette, and then blew it out. "Yeah, everything's cool if you can get all of the money. But you understand that our boss doesn't like being made a fool of. He said he'd rather have you dead once he gets his money, so unless you can make a compelling argument...." He let the threat hang there in the wind. I heard the shower shut off and Erin came back into the room wrapped in a towel. She began to get dressed in front of us, choosing a sundress and a set of lacy undergarments.

I noticed how both men leered at her nude form as she got dressed and I shook my head, "No, she's not a part of the bargain. Forget it, just tell me how much."

Tim licked his lips, leering at Erin, but James answered, "Three hundred large."

Erin, who was getting dressed gasped at this, "Dad only left me around fifty thousand, where..."

I held up my hand and sighed, "He wrote me a check for a hundred. That means he probably left you, your mother, your step sister, and his wife fifty each." Then turning to James I asked, "can I talk to Erin privately for a minute?"

James shook his head, "No you may not. I don't know what you think this is, but we're here to collect our money, end of story."

"Look," I said, I'm going to just go talk to her on the other side of the room, ok?"

James grimaced, but then nodded and took a long drag on his cigarette. Then he pulled his pistol from his waistband and set it on the table. He kept one hand on it and said, "No running, I hate running."

I stood, my muscular nude form on display to these two and I nodded, "No running, I swear."

I snagged my boxers as I walked Erin to the other side of the room and slid them on, feeling a little less vulnerable with the underwear on. I pulled her tight against me and whispered to her, "Look, these guys are going to kill us, kill your mother, kill your stepmother and stepsister if they don't get their money. Can you call them and..."

Erin cut me off with a shake of her head, "They won't believe it. Well, my mother would, but she doesn't talk to me anymore. Says she never raised no whores. Hasn't spoken more than ten words to me since the funeral. As for ... as for my dad's new family, they'd probably go to the cops, if they'd even take my call in the first place."

I sighed, "Erin, this is serious, if they don't get their money back, they are going to kill us."

Erin's eyes welled up with tears, "What if I give them the fifty grand I have? Would they leave me alone?"

I shook my head, "Somehow I doubt it, I think this is an all or nothing scenario." A tear rolled down Erin's face and I pulled her body tight against mine in a hug. Using the physical contact as a easy channel to weave my mental magic, I opened the door inside my mind and reached out to touch her thoughts.

Her thoughts were a jumble of emotions and memories. She felt like her father, the man who'd abused her and her mother when she was young had betrayed her again. She felt desperation and hopelessness at her current situation. She raged in anger after having felt such joy over our reunion being ruined by this potentially life ending encounter. But there was also pleading. She'd never been religious, but anyone who knew what she was going through inside her head would have recognized the obvious prayer. She was pleading, begging for some way out of this. I knew she didn't have much of a relationship with her mother, and none with her step family, but that didn't mean she wanted to see them hurt. In fact she wanted to spare them any pain she could, including involvement in this.

I kissed her forehead then, as a plan began to form in my mind, "Erin, I might be able to get us out of this. But it's going to cost me greatly, I need to know that you meant what you said earlier. You really do have feelings for me, you can accept me the way I am."

Erin's mind exploded with relief, grasping at any potential shred of hope. She didn't just love me, she was hoping that I would be her white knight in shining armor. She was praying for salvation, and I'd just offered her a lifeline. I knew her thoughts before her words escaped her lips. If I could get her out of this, get her family out of this, without involving them, she'd be more grateful than words alone would describe. But still, I couldn't help but smile when she gasped and said, "Yes Mike, anything. I understand, if you can accept me as a prostitute, I'd be stupid to question you. I love you Mike and..."

Her lips closed quickly and she blushed, her pale freckled face staining a deep embarrassing crimson as she realized that she'd let slip her true feelings. I kissed her forehead again and hugged her tightly. Two drop dead gorgeous prostitutes in love with me and as far as the world knew, Mike Naughton was barely older than twenty one. This was shaping up to be quite a life I was leading. "Shhh," I whispered into her coppery tresses as I held her, "It's ok, but I'm going to need your help for this plan to work. I think I may have a way of getting us out of the situation we're in. But it's going to mean giving up everything and coming with me... are you willing to do that?"

Erin began crying, soft tears falling from her eyes, "Mike... I... I can't even... There's nothing left for me here. My mother won't speak to me, my plans for revenge on my father are gone. I have nothing. The only thing I've been able to think about for the last few days is calling you and begging you to come find me. Come take me away from all of this. To hear you say that..."

She sobbed quietly, once, and I hugged her body to mine. "Ok, things are going to get very strange and you're going to have to trust me completely and follow my directions exactly. First you're going to get your phone and....."

- - -

One of the great things about driving into Las Vegas at night was that you knew you were almost there before you could even see it. The lights of the city lit up the desert sky on the horizon as the thruway rolled beneath you. Lake Havasu wasn't a terribly long drive, about two and a half hours, but I was glad to see the lights in the distance. The drive certainly seemed a lot longer since I was driving Tim, the quiet thug, who refused to speak for most of the way. Erin was in the car behind me with the other hitman, the skinny one named James. He was driving their rental car and following me. They'd been quiet, but not openly hostile, as I said I could get them their money. Above all else, I knew that was what they wanted, they wanted to recover the money they'd been sent, more than a third of a million dollars.

Unfortunately, the car ride had given me plenty of time to cast my spells and mentally sift through Tim's thoughts. They meant to kill us either way. But of course, I wasn't going to let that happen, thankfully, I had a plan.

"So," I said, trying to strike up a conversation with the man riding next to me, "We'll put up at a suite for the night while I get my man to transfer money to the casino. Then I can withdraw it as cash, no problem."

"Mmmm." Tim grunted noncommittally. For not the first time I wondered if his silence was motivated by a lack of intelligence, or a genuine sense of tact and strategy. I was ok with the silence, it would let me lay some magical spells upon him without trying to focus on what he was saying.

I'd learned a lot about him by sifting through his thoughts on this car ride. Unfortunately little of it was very useable. But the one thing I did learn, that I thought would be very useful is that Tim based a lot of his personality on the fact that he wished he was a ladies man, and wasn't. That was why he looked like a boxer, his short stature led him to the gym in his teens, and by 'bulking up' and getting into 'fighting shape' he felt much better about his height. Women didn't generally go for short guys, but when they were athletes, the way Tim considered himself, it was a different story.

I also learned that Tim had strong suspicions about James's sexual preferences. James always seemed a little gay to Tim, and Tim wondered if the older man's predilection to constantly have a cigarette in his mouth might not mean something more.

I had tried to use the car ride to read James's mind, but the distance between the two cars as they drove down the highway was too great. I could get a sense of him, but the drain on my mana was too great and I didn't want to risk getting into an accident as I focused on the spellwork. So instead I split my consciousness again, letting my intellect drive back towards vegas as my creative mind began laying an intricate web of spellwork upon the thuggish passenger sitting next to me. I wondered if he noticed the smile on my face as I slid through his mind, tweaking, reading, and laying dependent spells upon him with an ease that had come from weeks of grueling practice against far stronger men than he.

- - -

"What the hell Mike?" Emily Whitefeld said, jumping to her feet as I entered her office. "I thought you were clearing out of Vegas, and who's this?"

She pointed at Tim, who'd come with me to the meeting with Emily. We were back at her hotel and casino, because I needed some place I could pull off the plan, and I didn't know where else to turn. "Relax Emily," Watching as Tim entered behind me and shut the door. "We're just here to discuss..."

Then Tim relaxed subtly. It was what I was waiting for, he had entered the room and decided there was nothing immediately dangerous in here for him, so he was settling in to watch me. He couldn't have been more wrong about how dangerous it was. With a massive load of my remaining mana, I turned on the glamour that Ruby had taught me. Tim's eyes widened slightly and his face went slack as his brain was overwhelmed by the sheer presence of will I was feeding him via the glamour spell. It wasn't mind control, and it wasn't mental magic the way that Adam had taught me, I knew that now. No, it was more a sheer contest of persona, and mine, aided with the magical force known as mana, completely subsumed every conscious aspect of Tim's will. It put him into a sort of a 'pause' or 'holding pattern.' He wasn't even conscious of anything going on around him as his brain simply struggled to deal with the awesome power of the glamour spell, unable to focus on anything else. He was an unthinking deer in the headlights.

Knowing that the thug was under control for a little while, at least till I ran out of mana, I turned back to Emily and explained. "Look, there's two men here that want to kill me, the prostitute you hired to stay with me for a week, and at least three other innocent women. I can't just kill them, if they disappear, too many questions will be asked and it's only a matter of time before someone else comes to take their place. But I can make them go away, it's just going to cost me some of my," I paused and chuckled, "hard earned money."

Emily leaned forwards, pressing her fists into her desk. She spat out the next few words slowly, one at a time, "But... why... are... you... here?"

I smiled, hopefully I was still at least a little charming to her, "Because I need to fool them, and you're help. I have a plan to get out from under their debt. But it's going to be messy and it's a longshot at best. Without your help, I've got no chance."

Emily outright laughed at me, "What makes you think I'd help you with something like that?"

My grin grew downright feral, I was going to appeal to her business side, and I knew she'd go for it. "Would you do it for half a million?"

Her frown stole my thunder. I'd overestimated her value on a dollar, "It depends, what's the plan?"

I checked to make sure Tim was still under the glamour and then said, "Ok, we're going to need a body shaper's services again..."

- - -

I opened the door to the hotel suite and let Erin proceed me in, then went in myself followed by James and Tim. They didn't bother making threats anymore, they thought they had us right where they wanted us, and it appeared for all intents and purposes that we were cooperating and doing exactly as they said.