Nemesis Wanted

The wizard’s alarm cloud was raining on her head. She batted the enchanted alarm clock away, but the cloud merely floated out of reach before returning to douse her once more. It was going to be a very long day.

Brita hauled herself out of bed, the cloud following dutifully behind her. She fished inside her top desk drawer for some ash – the somatic component required to banish the cloud – but she discovered an empty Ziplock.

Today, of all days, the wizard complained.

Last night's train wreck of a ransom exchange was dampening her mood more effectively than the rain, and all she wanted to do was to crawl back into bed for five more minutes.

Brita squelched her way to the kitchen in sodden slippers as she savoured the small victory of remembering where the rest of her ash was stored. The wizard was trying to figure out which pocket of her somatic duffle she would have stuffed it in when she stopped dead in the doorway.

There was a man leaning on her kitchen island. Holding a staff and... was that one of her coffee mugs?! Hell no.

It was Alvin. Last night was supposed to be so simple: some gemstones as payment for the return of an SD card. The SD card his team stole. Only someone had outbid her client, and she’d been caught in the crossfire.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Brita,” he said. “Your real face suits you much better than Ms. Todd’s did.”

He wasn't supposed to know her name, much less her clients'. Something was very wrong, outside of the fact that Alvin had broken into her house at an ungodly hour of the morning.

The wizard dove for the pile on the counter where she'd dumped her duffle. She threw her jacket aside, but her somatic components were nowhere to be seen.

“I took the liberty of relocating a few of your more hazardous belongings to your car while we chat.”

She frantically ducked under the counter and resurfaced holding chilli powder and a glass. They would have to do in a pinch.

“What in the Nine Hells are you doing in my house! You better not have hurt Ms. Todd,” Brita threatened. She was fuming, which was hard with her alarm cloud still raining on her.

“Quite the contrary. Ms. Todd and I had a sit-down around 3:00 this morning and came to the very mutual decision for her to give us your address. Where’s the SD card Brita?”

Us.

The wizard caught footsteps creeping down the hall behind her. She wasted no time in chucking the glass at Alvin’s head and charging. He ducked, spilling her coffee and flinching when the glass shattered on the cabinet above his head.

Brita unscrewed the chili powder shaker as she darted around the counter only to slip on some combination of her soaked slippers, coffee-soaked floors and the tiny shards of glass.

The shaker flew out of hands and she flailed. The wizard righted herself just in time to be sucker punched by the butt of the zircon staff. It pulsed with the blow as Brita gasped – unsuccessfully – for breath. Alvin pushed the staff gently against her sternum to guide her into the nearest corner as she wheezed, and Perry - Alvin's probably-brother - crashed through the inside door. The outside door, to her car and her components and her weapons, sat behind Alvin’s shoulder. The wizard was trapped.

***

Alvin and Perry kindly waited for Brita to catch her breath before asking any questions.

She leaned on the counter and tried to think strategically, but every time she came to the same damning conclusion and her breathing would accelerate again.

It felt surprisingly vulnerable to be herself in this moment. She was used to hiding behind a client’s disguise and priorities. But someone had found her. At her house. It was deeply unsettling.

“First things first," Alvin said when her wheezing slowed. "Where did you hide the SD card?”

“In my car. So I could drop it off at Ms. Todd’s this morning.”

“Liar,” he chuckled. “We checked your car, and your duffle. Where is it really?”

The staff was still sitting on her chest. The wizard swallowed dryly.

“Why don’t I show you.”

Brita pushed the staff away lightly and tried to walk past, but something seized her ribs and shoved her back where she’d been. It wasn’t Alvin, he was still a few paces away, and Perry wasn’t even looking at her, only guarding the door. What?

“Next time you should announce where you’re going to move.” Alvin slowly moved the staff back towards himself, and the moment it was a meter away from her, Brita took an involuntary step towards it. Shit.

“Nifty piece of combat magic, eh? Got it for a steal on EBay.”

“More like you stole it from someone on EBay.”

“Hey! I paid asking price, regardless if that happened to be about 10% the going market rate,” Alvin was genuinely excited about the deal he’d gotten. And it was an amazing deal. The craftsmanship was impressive, and the weapon suited him well, and that was totally not the point.

“Fine. Follow me.” Brita grabbed the Zircon between her thumb and index finger to hold the staff in the least threatening way possible – there was no way she was stealing it away from him with her current leverage – and stalked out of the room, Alvin in tow.

Perry was wise enough to move out of her way as they passed through the hall and into the living room. She guided Alvin over to a spot in the middle of the room where she’d be within the staff’s range.

“Stay put,” she counselled him, then glared at Perry when he sat on her couch.

“Someone’s grumpy this not-so-very-early-morning.”

“Someone drank my coffee.”

The wizard approached a large portrait on the wall. It was a larger-than-life candid photograph of her making an aurora borealis dance over her older brother and his fiancé’s heads at their engagement party. Her younger brother had taken the snapshot that she now removed from the wall to reveal a large safe.

Brita held one hand over the dial to shield it from view as she twirled in the combination.

“How do we know that isn’t her gun safe or something?” Perry said to no one in particular. She heard Alvin gulp.

“Maybe I ought to open that,” Alvin said, moving the staff back to pull her away as the safe clicked.

“Be my guest,” Brita smirked as he pulled open the thick safe door to reveal five separate locked compartments.

The wizard loved her safe. It was impossible to move – the whole house could come crashing down and it would remain a lone beacon suspended in space – and each of the five compartments could be set to a different combination. She’d paid a small fortune for it, but it was worth every penny.

“Which drawer is it?”

“The bottom. Combination's 17-32-9-21-4.”

Alvin paused. “How do you put in a five-digit combination?”

“Ugh. Will you just let me just do it!” He blocked her with the staff, which released another magical ripple.

Brita rolled her eyes. “I promise there is nothing in there that could hurt you. I’ll even pinky swear.” Pinky swears, when done correctly, were legally binding contracts.

“Fine. Not necessary.” Alvin lowered the staff, still eyeing her suspiciously.

Brita entered the combination with exacting precision and a small flourish. The door swung open to reveal an SD card and sheaf of paper. The wizard dutifully removed the SD card, then immediately torched the papers with some conjured fire.

“Nine Hells!” Alvin snatched the card from Brita's hand and cringed back, shielding his face. “What was that for?!”

“Client confidentiality?” It was the first excuse she could come up with. The files weren’t important. The ash was. She just hopped it was worth it; that small trick cost her a lot of stored magic without her quartz focus.

“No, it wasn’t. What did you do?”

Brita backed away slowly. Out of the range of the staff. They both paused as Alvin realised the mistake the wizard had suspected. He’d – by the laws of magic – delivered a strike when he’s blocked her from the safe, accidently disengaging the staff’s hold.

Brita gusted the ash towards the damned cloud still raining on her head. Alvin lunged with the staff and she twisted out of the way as ash met cloud and they began to transform.

Everyone cringed back as a bright, hot sun began to replace the dreariness above her head. Brita shielded her eyes, blinded. She heard crashing as Perry called out.

“You go it?”

“Yeah,” Alvin responded from somewhere by the door. “Let’s go before we get ambushed again. It’s not worth the fight.”

More stumbling followed them out to the front door as the mini sun chased them. Brita waited until she heard a car screech out of the driveway before creeping around her own damn house with her sun and a paperweight from the couch’s side table.

She cleared every room, locked every window, and finally ventured outside. She retrieved her duffle furtively from her car. She felt better with the full extent of her magic within arm's reach.

Inside, she locked, then double checked the front door. Nine Hells, she was paranoid. Good thing the beginnings of a plan were brewing in her mind. She backtracked to her bedroom, grabbed her phone, and dialled.

“Hey bro... Long time no see, but I think we should change that. By the way, do you still have those ultra long-range lenses you were going to give away? I might need to borrow one.”

The End of Part 2