Old World Magic Ch. 21

Ruby nodded, "He had been watching you for years, and even as an unawakened mage, you were showing signs, subconscious magical spells. He almost didn't tap you, because he was afraid he couldn't control someone that would grow into someone with the ability to cast cross discipline."

"Well," I muttered, "Assaulting me the way he did to 'punish' me was the wrong choice. It only made me resolve to leave."

Ruby examined her fingernails, and the color changed to a deep red before my eyes, "Oh Mike, you were going to leave anyways. Maybe not as soon as you did, but you wouldn't have been happy staying there. I knew it, Cheyenne knew it, but I don't think you or Adam knew it."

"So why didn't you say anything?"

She shrugged, "I figured it would be the best way to get free. You weren't growing under Adam. Not like you did when you first got there at least. I know he wouldn't have been able to teach you demonology at least. So yeah, it was in my best interests not to tell you. If you figured it out on your own, if you suffered under Adam's yoke long enough, you'd break off or die trying. I figured having you and Adam stay 'friends' wouldn't work to my purposes. You had to come to hate him, to want to hurt him, in order to fulfill your end of the bargain. Because when you free me, oh brother, is it going to hurt." She paused and grinned at me again, conspiratorially, as she added, "Then a few days after your 'death' when a certain red headed prostitute showed up on the stairs of the hideaway, begging for work, I knew my plan had worked. I could smell her on you, your scent, your magical aura, even a hint of it in her voice... she brought along a bit of your accent somehow, though I don't think she realized it. I thought it might have been just that you had a type at first. Slender, petite yet curvy, red hair, pretty, young. But then I realized that it was actually Erin herself that you'd sent to me. I wasn't sure why at first, and you can imagine my surprise when I tried to glamour her and make her tell me, only to find that it had no effect."

"I put mental shielding on her," I said, "I couldn't risk Adam finding out what she was up too."

"Smart," Ruby admitted, "at first I thought she was just one of those people that was resistant to glamour. They aren't common, but it happens from time to time, so I didn't think too much of it."

I leaned forwards, elbows on my knees, "If you figured out who she was, do you think Adam will?"

Ruby shook her head, then shrugged her shoulders, "It's possible. But maybe not. The first few days after your death, he was simply in a rage. Angry at himself, at you, at the guy who'd killed you and escaped without a trace. Then he went into seclusion for a few days and wouldn't come out of his basement workshop. That was when Erin, going by the name Kia incase you're wondering, showed up at the door. Adam doesn't deal with the working girls, that's my job. He just fucks them occasionally. But by the time he noticed we had a new girl on campus, he was already making plans to fly out. Some old woman in Atlanta that he claimed he's related too. Apparently he's been watching her literally for her whole life from afar. Well, was diagnosed with cancer, and he's going to figure out if she has the potential to be awakened. He's been gone for weeks, which I'm going to assume is a sign that she does. If she was hopeless, he'd have been back already."

I nodded, chewing on my thumbnail as I processed all this information. Ruby stood up and began walking towards the door. "Where are you going?" I asked.

"Work Mike." she said over her shoulder as she collected her suit jacket. "I'm not just here for a fuck, I have to interview new girls this month, same as always. You know how high the attrition rate is."

"Wait!" I called out, "I haven't heard from Erin in weeks. Can you tell me what's going on with her?"

Ruby leaned against the wall near the door and looked at me. Then she did something decidedly human and vulnerable, she bit her lip and chewed on it for a moment before answering. "She's been sleeping with Cheyenne. I mean that in every sense too. They share a bedroom in the house and they are inseparable. Cheyenne was low Mike, really low. When she heard you died she took it bad. Not like, kill herself bad, but like withdrawing from the world. I think the guilt of that caused Kia... I mean Erin, to reach out to Cheyenne. I think Erin's afraid to tell you, and I think she's afraid that she's going to fail when Adam returns."

"She told you the plan?" I gasped.

Ruby rolled her eyes and then opened the door and walked into the hall, "Of course Mike, I told you, I know so much more than you realize."

The door swung shut behind her, and I rubbed the bridge of my nose. How was it that I was free from Adam, and yet I felt even more manipulated than ever? I stood up and grabbed the packet of information detailing my new life. It would be best if I started to memorize it.

- - -

The next few days were pretty uneventful. Emily stopped by each day to check on me, but no sex. I wasn't sure if she was trying to give me the bums rush to get out of her hotel now that I had my new identity, or if she was sad that I'd be leaving soon. There was a new, comfortable, friendship between us. It was almost like the sex between us had put us on a new level. I still owed her, and owed her big, but giving her a good mind blowing lay had sort of given me a bit of respect in her eyes. When she stopped in, we chatted about nothing important, the weather, the casino, things of no real consequence. Whenever I did try to bring up my future plans, she would cut me off. "You're going to keep in touch with me, keep me up to date with a current phone number for whenever I decide to call in my marker," she'd said more than once, "But other than that, it's probably better if I don't know where you're going or what you're doing."

I shadowed Hector during the days, and at night practiced some of the healing magic I'd witnessed. It was a lot tougher than mind magic only because of the passive nature of learning I was doing. I wished I could try using magic to heal with Hector watching, but it wasn't worth letting him know I was an archmage. So with a small pen knife with a wood handle, I practiced on my own. A small cut on my own flesh, then mana poured into the proper weave to knit the wound. Over and over till I became too tired and drawn on mana to continue.

I could have practiced all night, and tried larger spells, if I'd been getting laid. But somehow I felt a little worn out. The break in the everyday sex had changed my attitude. When Adam had awakened my magical abilities, I'd become a sexual compulsive. I fucked every day, every night, and usually multiple times in each. I began to think of how I'd been treating Cheyenne and Erin. I'd fucked them passionately, but without any emotion. I'd fucked them as if they were a battery charger, not considering the feelings they'd been sharing with me. I knew there was more to their feelings than simply good sex. I don't know if it was my personality, their needs, or some magical glamour that I was enthralling them with without even being aware of it. But I hadn't been fair to them.

I'd told both of them that they were special to me, and that was the truth. But they'd both expressed deeper feelings, feelings of love, and I hadn't returned those feelings. I thought about my wife from my first life. Renee Gray, the woman who'd I'd chosen to marry back when I was just a normal guy. She'd been a good enough woman I suppose, and our relationship had started passionately. But eventually, after years of failing to have a child, then giving up, we'd lost our spark. We'd no longer had that passion that we'd had early on, and honestly I think we both resented each other because our lives had been less than perfect.

I hadn't thought much about Renee in the months since I'd awakened, but in the last few weeks, I'd had a lot of time to think about a lot of things. I thought about how distant we'd grown in the last few years, and understood why she'd chosen to step out on me. I thought about how betrayed I'd felt, and how it had finalized my decision to go with Adam. How it had been the final catalyst to abandon my old life, abandon the life of Michael Gray, unemployed high school teacher, married man, overweight and middle aged. How knowledge of that betrayal had let me put that behind and become the mage, Mike Naughton.

I thought about how that life was gone now too. Mike Naughton had to die to free myself from the yoke of Adam Saks, my once mentor. I understood that he was from an older generation, much older. The idea of the apprentice being disciplined by the master was not wrong to him, it was unquestioned. But he didn't realize that I had been a teacher as well in my life. While he may have been a few hundred years older than me, I considered us both teachers. For him to betray my trust, for him to ... discipline ... me the way he did. It was a violation, and I knew that it had created a rift between us. That rift would never be healed, because there was no longer trust between us. Thus he would continue to punish me and no doubt the punishments would become harsher. That was something I was not willing to accept. But I could not fight him straight on. He was too strong, too experienced, his magic too great for me to try to go toe to toe with.

So Mike Naughton had to die and now here I was, James Michael Wheeler. I forgave Renee for her duplicity, for cheating on me. I suspected that I might, in the future, even forgive Adam. Not now of course, but maybe by the time I was ready for my fourth life. Fourth life? Was I really already considering that? I'd only started my third a few days ago, and I was considering a fourth? Here I was, one man, less than forty years old, though I appeared half that age, who was already on his third life. I'd died on two people already that were important in my previous lives, Renee and Adam. Who would I have to die to get away from in the future?

- - -

to be continued