The Divine Gambit Ch. 01

Despite her sultry clothing choices, she was still relatively plain and forgettable. Her eyes were bright and would've been quite pretty in another face, but her lean, gaunt features gave her the appearance of a recovering drug addict instead of one of the fair sex. She was undeniably young, but as I took a second look at her, I realized that nights like tonight couldn't be that far out of her routine. I knew I had grown up well, but the evidence of others' hardships stood before me. It made my heart ache.

In opening the door, I had finally gotten my hand back from her. I returned it by offering a handshake, "Sorry, I never gave you my name. I'm James."

She tentatively shook my hand and whispered back, "Beth."

"So, the bathrooms there. The kitchen's there. Let me know if you're hungry or thirsty. I'm not a great cook, but I make do. My bedroom's on the other side of the bathroom. I'll grab a couple of things out and then leave it for you."

She looked at me like I had started speaking tongues. "But where will you sleep?"

"On the couch. You're a gue--"

For the first time all evening, she managed something assertively by interrupting me, "I'm not kicking you out of your own bed." With her hands on her hips and a scowl adorning her face, she reminded me of the cartoon depictions of Tinkerbell. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but I couldn't undermine her first action.

"Of course you aren't. I'm lending it to you for tonight. We can talk in the morning about this mess."

"No. I'm not going to take it."

"Beth, my bed will be there for me tomorrow, it was there for me yesterday, and it'll be there next week. It doesn't seem like you know that. You'll sleep there tonight."

She looked away from me and muttered something quietly, unable to speak to me but remaining standing there defiantly.

"You've gotta speak to me, not the floor."

She screwed her face up, clamped her eyes shut, and pushed out, "Thenwe'llshareit."

That's not what I expected. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. I'd feel like I'm taking advantage of you."

Beth guffawed at that. She actually laughed out loud, her sudden assertiveness bordering on sounding aggressive. "You give me a place to sleep and are worried that you're taking advantage of me. Oh, that's rich." For the first time since I had met her, she seemed to return to Earth from the shadow plane she had tried to hide her personality on. "Are you actually that pure? C'mon, white knight, we're going to bed. Put your horse away first."

"Beth, how old are you?"

She tilted her head as she looked back at me, and her bangs adorably flitted across her forehead, "Oh, is that why you're so scared of me now? I turned 19 last month. You can look at my ID tomorrow if you're still concerned -- it's time for bed now. You need to go to sleep; you stumbled several times on the steps outside." I had hoped she hadn't noticed that, but my entire body ached and was only superficially under my control at this point.

She took my hand for the third time that night and pulled me to bed. Before I knew it, most of our clothes were on the ground, the lights were off, and I was lying in bed with a girl I had just met pressed against me. I desperately tried to suppress how cherubic she had looked in her matching lacy pink undergarments. I didn't feel right about this, but maybe it was what she wanted. I had no idea. I had barely spoken a dozen words to her, and everything I said seemed unpleasant to her in one way or another. I was too tired to navigate the conversation I wanted with her -- getting her to eat, shower, and sleep alone. I wondered when the last time any of those had happened.

After a few minutes, she leaned on her arms to look into my face. "James, you cuddle like a skeleton. Take a deep breath, accept that I want this, and then hold me."

I guessed that I should respond to her request. I had nothing to lose by doing it anyway. The sarcastic part of my mind wanted to tell her I cuddled like a skeleton because I was cuddling with a skeleton. I could count her ribs just from the contact of her lying on me. I was genuinely concerned about breaking her if I rolled over while we slept. She was the size of a pet dog and clung to me like we were longtime lovers.

I took a deep breath to clear my mind and replied, "Sorry. My alarm's set for 9:30. Is that too early, or do you have anything you need to be up earlier for?"

"You got me out of all of my obligations earlier."

I just held her as she asked me to. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes, I felt her shake. When I felt the moistness on my chest, I realized she was crying again. She didn't smell like fear anymore, just guilt, grief, and loss. I just held her and rubbed her back, feeling each bump in her spine whenever I crossed it. I had no answers, and we hadn't talked enough for me even to know the questions. Eventually, she stopped and melted into me as she fell asleep. I wasn't far behind.

~*~*~

I was awoken by banging on my front door, violent enough to shake the entire apartment. The fog of sleep was still clinging firmly to me, and I was confused about what was lying on me in that delirium. Slowly, I realized it was a terrified girl. The events of the previous night started returning to me. This morning? Semantics.

Beth was babbling nearly incoherently, her eyes bloodshot and puffy. Frankly, she looked like hell. In the morning light, I could see her face well. Her skin was rough and leathery, several teeth were clearly out of alignment, and her otherwise cute nose had a bend where she must've broken it at some point.

Between her sobs, she eked out, "I'm sorry, I didn't think about you. I'll leave, I'll go. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry." Her fear, and her guilt, filled the room. I wondered if opening a window would let it out or if it was all in my head and didn't work like that. Something to figure out later.

I just held her with one arm. I didn't have any real solutions for her, but it certainly wouldn't do any good for her to fly out of my apartment, wailing and terrified she'd wronged me for something I asked her to do. "Beth, do you know who is at my door?"

"It's gotta be him. I'm sorry, I'll leave. I didn't mean for him to come here. I'm sorry."

"You don't know who's there then? I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Stay in here; I'll go see who's raising hell." I tried to exude an air of confidence, but I wasn't exactly convinced myself. Her fear was pouring into the room, making her irrational and inconsolable, and it was starting to affect me.

"Please don't get hurt. I'm sorry, I'll just leave. It'll be easier that way."

"You're not going anywhere until we have a chance to talk. You're definitely not going anywhere with him, especially since it almost certainly isn't him out there. Please try to relax. Take a deep breath and close your eyes for a minute." She held the blanket on my bed with a death grip and nodded, the only response she was capable of. That was the best I was going to get at the moment. It would have to do.

I grabbed my bathrobe and cell phone and walked to my front door. As I opened the door, I could hear the woman on the other side begin to admonish me. "Alright, asshole, you'd better have a good reason for lighting up the sky all -- James? What are you doing here?"

Oh boy. This was a confusing blast from the past. Standing in front of me was Samantha O'Brien. She had gone to grade school with Kyle and me and was friendly with us then. I had thought she was cute then, but she never really responded to any advances from anyone at all, and after a couple of light but firm rebuffs, I gave up my pipe dream of catching her. She was a loner, though, never really getting to be more than acquaintances with anyone. She didn't seem interested the last couple of times I talked to her a few years ago.

I had assumed that was what she wanted. As we were graduating high school and sharing plans with each other, she had carefully avoided giving anything concrete or defined in her answers. Maybe she would be going to school, or perhaps she would spend some time backpacking in an undecided central European country; who could know? Not the people she was avoiding with her non-answers, that's for sure.

She had certainly grown up in the time passed -- cute before, she was stunning now. Her strawberry blonde hair framed her blue eyes and flowed into her curvy body. She had grown up from the unflinching tomboy into the soft, beautiful woman standing before me, at least physically. Her assertive reinsertion into my life had me very confident that the tomboy remained. I hadn't expected to see Sam ever again; circumstances notwithstanding, I was relatively happy to have been wrong. I let my eyes linger for a second to drink in just how much she had visually changed before responding to her. I realized that I was staring, and she must've been trying to get in for a reason.

"Hi, Sam. This is my home while I'm here at school. Why don't you come inside instead of trying to break my door down, and we can talk about whatever's got you riled up?"

She watched me like she had seen a ghost, the color drained from her face and her eyes as wide open as possible. I guess I wasn't what she expected. She certainly wasn't who I expected to be woken up by. I walked to my kitchen and turned on my coffee pot as she entered my apartment. After last night I was barely awake. She must have a good reason to be banging on what she thought was a stranger's door at -- what time was it anyway? 7:13 am. Oh, look at that; I didn't plug my phone in last night.

Hopefully, the coffee would be ready soon, and maybe my brain would catch up at some point. I noticed that I felt surprisingly well, given the previous night. I was still fatigued, but given that when I went to sleep, all of my joints ached and I struggled with the simple act of climbing up the stairs, I was astonishingly refreshed. I was tired and foggy from my interrupted sleep, not physically destroyed by the fight I had been in.

With the coffee going, I pulled out a chair for Sam and then returned to my bedroom. Beth was still in the exact same spot she was when I got up. I figured the blanket would have a permanent crease where she had gripped it. "Hey, Beth. An old friend of mine was at the door. She didn't know this was my place, so I'm unsure why she's here. We're going to talk in the kitchen. Are you okay here?" She nodded but made no move to relax as I put shorts on. Yeah, I didn't think that would help, but it was worth a shot. I returned to the kitchen, grabbed my now full hot cup of coffee, and sat at the table. Before I could say anything, Sam asked a question with a level of sincerity I hadn't been expecting.

"Do you have a girlfriend? Were you showing off last night?"

That caught me off guard. She had just been beating down my door like the building was on fire, and now she was intently questioning my love life. She looked earnest about getting an answer, though. And how could she know about last night?

"Neither," I answered tentatively, "It's a complicated situation to which I don't have all the answers. She's a friend, I think, crashing here for the night. Sam, you just woke up the entire complex and didn't know I was here. Surely that's not what you want to talk about."

She took a breath and then looked deadly serious at me, her brow furrowed and eyes focused on my soul. The intensity she had always exuded returned. "Why have you been broadcasting your spark like a bonfire to the entire city all night? Are you just showing off for the girl, or what? The normies are going to start feeling it soon. Can you turn it down? Did you have anything to do with the massive surge just after midnight last night? How about the rumor that someone used their gift in front of a pair of humans?" As she asked the questions, I realized she had worn a backpack here, had taken out a notebook and pen when I checked on Beth, and was preparing to take notes of my answers. She clicked the pen nervously several times.

I understood most of the words she said individually. "Sam, you'll have to run that by me again. I have no idea what you even asked me."

"When did you awaken? You didn't have anything like this in high school. And can you turn your spark down? It's kinda hard to talk to you like this. Feels like I need a pair of sunglasses for my soul."

"Like five minutes ago when you were beating down my door. I don't know what you mean by 'spark.' Do you want me to close the blinds? It is kinda bright in here in the mornings."

She set her pen down and sighed, annoyed with my answers. "Why are you making this hard? When did you awaken awaken? Like, when did you find your spark, gift, beast, source -- whatever you want to call it? Who brought it out of you?"

"Sam, you're kinda scaring me right now. I don't know what you're saying."

She groaned and visibly rolled her eyes before responding. "You are being such a dork. When did you discover you could use magic, James?"

"What are you playing at, Sam? Magic isn't real. What do you want from me?"

She looked at me like I had just bluntly told her that she should cut back on sweets because she was putting on weight. Insulted and upset, she quipped back at me, "James! I know I'm not overflowing and filling the room like you are, but that's no reason to pretend you can't tell."

Somehow, without understanding the question, I had stuck my foot in it and insulted her. Not exactly what I wanted to do when someone was insisting magic was real after basically breaking into my house. Either they were crazy, and I would really prefer to have them calm, or they weren't crazy, and magic was real, and I had just aggravated them. That was probably a scarier possibility.

"I can see I've offended you somehow. That wasn't my intent. I don't know how to answer your questions, Sam." I swallowed and tried to answer what she had said. "I don't have any spark, magic, or gift, and I have no idea why you're here or what any of your other questions mean."

Now she looked less angry and insulted and a lot more confused. She turned, shuffled through her backpack, and pulled out a ball. It looked like a weird light bulb. Small enough to fit in a hand, with a metal base and a filament connection behind a glass cover. She held it out to me.

"Sam, you've woken me up out of the blue after not talking to me for years, you're asking me strange questions, and now you're handing me a strange device of some kind, and I don't know what it is or what it does. Can you explain some more? I'm willing to give you a little benefit of the doubt, but you're acting crazy and kinda freaking me out."

"It's a test of sorts. I want you to hold it, try to relax, and then I'll give you the rest of the instructions. It won't hurt you. It's like a lightbulb, but it's powered by magical differentials. It glows when you push energy into it. Just hold it in your hands for now." She held it more insistently towards me. I guess I was obligated to take it. As I looked at it, I could indeed see it glowing faintly.

As she passed the orb to me, it lit up brightly. It started getting warm as I pulled it closer to my other hand. As I put my second hand around the base, it popped, the glass shattered, and the base started heating up even more. I set it down on my table, where it left a little burn mark, and a puff of smoke filtered out of the crack. Sam took it back, glanced at it, and then pulled out her phone in a robotic, rehearsed manner. I saw another movement from the corner of my eye and turned to look.

Beth was standing in the hallway with terror receding from her eyes. She was wearing one of my shirts like a dress, and I could see her bony shoulders holding it up as a hanger would. I guess she had calmed down enough to hide in my room and wait for me to figure out what was happening, but then a sudden sharp noise from another room made her concerned enough to join us. I pushed the chair next to me out and raised my hand, which she appreciatively took when she joined me at the table. We both sat in silence and heard one half of Sam's phone conversation.

"Hi, Mom, it's Sam. Hi. Yeah. I need you to come up here, like now. An hour ago would be nice. No, I'm not joking. If you can't make it here today, I'm calling Aunt Jean. Yes, I know that's dirty, but this is huge. There's a big one here who just awakened, and he needs a lot of help. Maybe Class B, I dunno. He burned through the meter before I even gave him instructions on pushing, couldn't get an accurate reading. You can feel him from the other side of town while he was asleep, though." Sam looked up for a moment and realized that Beth had joined us. Her eyes focussed on the now frozen-in-the-headlights Beth as she continued talking to her mother. "Uhh, there's also a human here as well, but I can't feel her behind some very heavy enchantment. That's crazy, would've taken months to do on an object. So, when are you coming? Uh-huh. Okay. For brunch, then? Nice, the regular? Perfect. Okay. Buh bye. Yes, I love you too. Okay. See you soon."

Sam hung up the phone and stared daggers into my soul. "Who is she, why is she here, and why can't I feel her? Are her enchantments registered? How did she even get enchanted like that?"

"This is Beth. She didn't have a place to sleep last night because the guy she was staying with was a massive dick. We haven't talked about it completely because we just went to bed last night, and you kinda got us up early today. I don't know about the other questions, and I doubt she does either."

Beth nearly imperceptibly shook her head.

Sam nodded. "Well, I hope she has more clothes. We're having brunch with my mother at 10. This whole situation is above my pay grade. Oh!" She ruffled through her backpack and pulled out a ring. "Put this on, please. It will dampen your output until we get you to a safehouse and a trainer."

"Excuse me? Safehouse? Am I being kidnapped? Does this have anything to do with the fight I got into last night?" Even just bringing it up, I could feel Beth tense next to me. I glanced at the ring, which seemed benign enough, and slipped it onto my finger. It didn't seem to be metal, some kind of dark natural stone, and completely smooth. I didn't notice anything different when I put it on.

Sam sighed audibly and visibly slumped into her chair. "Oh, that's so much better. You were in a fight last night? Huh. Alright. Save it for my mother, though; I'm making her handle this. No, look, I'm not supposed to be telling you this, but it looks like you discovered some kind of magic recently, and frankly, you've got enough in there to break part of the city. At least. The safehouse is just as much to keep you safe from others as it is to keep the outside safe from you until you learn to control yourself. My mother will explain more. Oooooh, she will have such a fit when she sees you. She will be the center of gossip for weeks when this gets out. She's going to love it."

~*~*~

That is how I found myself sitting in Sam's old beat-up sedan outside Jenny's Diner at 9:30. Beth had taken a shower and then dressed in the same clothes she wore yesterday. She was adamant that she was okay with them; I was more convinced that she was terrified about trying to reclaim any of her actual belongings. Although, when we left my place, it was interesting to notice that she was wearing one of my sweatshirts. It was large enough to hold three of her and long enough that it nearly came down to her knees. The sleeves were entirely too long, and she struggled to pull them back up every couple of minutes. It would've been endearing if I had any real say in the matter. I hoped I could get a chance to sort out what she wanted, assuming I could get to that conversation without pushing her back into her shell.