Hunter: Age of Magic #1
Stranger Than Fiction (Part One)
"Mightier Than The Sword"
by
She has been waiting for this day for weeks, trudging through the monotonous school days and enduring the endlessly disarming pestering of her classmates, knowing that all the suffering would be worth it when this day had finally come. She had slipped into her 'ghost mode', content that people normally didn't take mind of her unless there she was the nearest choice for hapless victim. She didn't mind that she had no friends, no true acquaintances to spend her days with, and usually, she would just absorb herself in a good book or a doodle pad. But then, as the days drew closer, it became harder to wait for her birthday to arrive, harder to remain patient for the one thing she had wanted for as long as she could remember.
She closes the door behind her, the old hinges creaking and screaming as they turn after years of disuse. As the tumblers click into their places within the doorframe, she pauses to rest, her chest heaving with bated breath as fights to calm her own excitement. As her pulse remains fervent, she clutches tightly to the parcel pressed against her bossom, and she smiles, content to finally hold that that one treasure after so long, the most wonderful birthday present that she could have received. And for a few seconds, the curiosity is almost too much to bear.
She drops to her knees, curling her feet underneath her body as her trembling fingers fight with the twine that binds the package, a knot tied tightly since longer than she can remember. The old rope refuses to unwind, tightening further as she tugs at its edges, attempting to pull the knot out. Finally, the twine gives beneath her desperation, the loose pieces of string fall away from the parcel and against her legs, and her heart leaps in victory.
Pausing for a moment to think, she recalls its place high atop the old cherry bookshelf, tucked away from curious hands and eyes, but within view such that her grandmother was assured that it had not wandered off in the wrong hands. Her grandmother had said it was a family heirloom, a minor memento passed between the women of the family, but it was also a package that was never opened, never seen with the naked eye. She had been told to make sure that it stayed as such, that the contents were never exposed to open air. She remembers her grandmother saying, "Darla, there are promises in life that we make and never intend to keep, but you must promise me this, and you must abide by this promise. Inside that package is a great and powerful secret. I can not describe it for you, because I have never seen it. It has been passed down through our family for generations, as has the warning to never open it. I only know of its danger, and the need to keep it out of curious hands..."
Now, the time-withered brown wrapping crumbles to the ground in tatters, rustling as it slips to a rest atop the pile of paper. And then it is laid out in the open, the secret that her grandmother had kept, and her great-grandmother before that. And yet, somehow, she does not feel as if the true secret has yet been revealed, as if something more awaits for those adventurous enough to continue further. The volume in her hands is heavy and thick, its pages pressed tightly together between the binding of its leather cover and the golden clasp that secures the book at the side.
Darla turns the book over in her hands, examining the clasp. Impossibly, the lock remains shiny and bright. Unfettered by fingerprints, oils, or dusts, the clasp shows each of the lines of its original forging, accentuating the woman's face in a flawless working of bright gold and polished ivory. However, unlike any lock she has ever seen, there is no keyhole, no sliding latch, no spinning dials. Instead, it is just the woman's face, calmly reflecting a silent lucidity, both sad and content at the same time. She stares unto the woman's face and begins to feel a slight empathy with the carved figure, begins to think that she understands the woman's pains, her concerns.
But suddenly, Darla feels a great sadness come over her, a rumble of melancholy churning in her stomach and sweeping like a sky of grey clouds across her soul. She rests the book in her lap, freeing up her hands as the tears begin to meander down her cheeks, tracing a glistening trail against her snow-white skin. It is an expected response, and for the life of her, she's unsure if these are tears of relief or tears of utter sorrow. Then the tears spill to the edge of her jaw, catching in a slight bead before they fall into the open air, splashing down against the leather in her lap, and she lets loose with her tears, her hands falling defeatedly to her sides and her head hanging low.
And as the first tears impact against the clasp, the carved woman's eyes snap open, light sparkling off the revealed amethysts, and a sharp click breaks the silence.
He hears the oncoming thud of quickened footsteps, but has no time to react, no time to brace himself before the impact crashes into the small of his back and sends him sprawling off his feet. The pavement burns against his knee, despite the thick khaki that wraps his legs, as he collides with the ground. School papers flutter through the air in front of him, a cacophony of notes and homework rocking back and forth on the subtlest of breezes as he reaches up to straighten the glasses upon his face and takes note of his tormentors.
"C'mon Hunter, did you forget that the townie feebs are supposed to walk on the grass? Get a clue and learn your place, chump." He hears, staring straight into the face of Zack Kellogg, Harminster Academy's choice for the dumb-jock-leader-of-the-pack role. Perfect in every way that society deemed for their role-models, Zack was definitely the voice of everything popular at Harminster, and everything that Tim was not. He was part of the student population that attended Harminster because his parents had money, and Tim, unfortunately, was just a local trying to fit in with the prep-school snobs. Laughing at his own pranks, Zack turns and jogs up ahead, slinging his arms over the tweed jacketed shoulders of two friends, and walking away.
Pushing himself up to his knees, Tim begins to gather his schoolwork together, stuffing the rifled clump of papers inside the worn front cover of his Literature textbook. He shakes his head, scowling beneath his breath, conveying his contempt and wondering why he takes so much punishment from his peers, why he doesn't just show them all that he's something more than just one more kid to push around. And then he remembers the magic, not that he could ever truly forget it, and he pushes the anger away, forcing himself to think about the consequences before he leaps to action. It's something that he has repeatedly reminded himself of, thinking back to the results of his magical forays in the past, primarily the loss of his family and everyone he has ever cared for.
He wants nothing more than to forget about anything connected to magic, promise-stealing demons, and Faerie, but he's been down that road before, gave up his magic and almost pronounced the end of several worlds that he, himself, had opened. But now, the magic is back, his family is gone, and there is nothing but a new life to look forward to.
A soft hand lands against his shoulder, and Tim smiles up at Chloe, one of the few friends he has made since his arrival at Harminster. Her orange-red hair is pulled back into a pony-tail as she smiles brightly back at him, and asks, "Are you okay, Tim? I saw them rushing at you, but I didn't want to yell, because then you'd turn around and get hit from the front, fall on your back and that would just hurt a whole lot more and..."
"It's okay, Chloe. I'm not hurt. In fact, everything's downright pucker, even if it's going to take me ten extra minutes to get my homework together before class." He responds, cutting her off and brushing the dirt from his slacks and thankful that there are no tears in the material - his foster mother would have a field day if there was. Walking up the steps into the main assembly hall, he keeps pace with Chloe, turning to her and saying, "Sometimes I just wish they'd find some other way to get their wanks. I'm tired of being their sodding target."
"Understandable, but if it wasn't you then they'd certainly be laying into another chum of mine, and that's no good either." She says, shaking her head as they come to a stop in front of the lockers. Reaching into her satchel, Chloe pulls out a small bag, passing it over to Tim. "Here, my mum made these for you, remembered how much you liked her biscuits last time you were over to supper."
"Thanks. Your mum is the greatest." Tim replies, slipping the biscuits into his locker next to his lunch bag. He pauses for a moment, thinking about the thin sandwich and bag of figs awaiting him at lunch, or whatever his foster parent has chosen to throw together for him this morning. Closing the locker, he turns to see Chloe giggling at him and says, "Okay, maybe not the greatest, but she sure is good to me."
Their conversation is cut off as the noisy discord of the corridor is eclipsed in silence, and the crowds begin to part. Glancing down the walkway, Tim fights to look over the heads of his fellow students, to see through the thick crowds, but it's only as the girl is passing that Tim finally notices her, her steps carrying him confidently past him, and he turns to Chloe and says, "Please tell me that wasn't..."
"Darla Newell. Hard to believe, but yeah it was." Chloe says, catching Tim's statement in mid-thought and continuing it. She blinks twice, trying to figure out if her eyes are showing her the truth or not. "But I don't think I've ever seen her look that good. Health-spa, make-over, plastic surgery, whatever she got for her birthday, I want two for mine."
She feels his warm breath against his neck, and she can't help but giggle, her chest bouncing with the bubbles of laughter escaping. She knows that he means well, knows that he wants to move forward in their relationship, but she'd rather take things slow, rather let them run their course. Catching her breath, she manages to say, "No, Zack. Not here. We're going to get caught."
"Oh c'mon, gel, live dangerously. Where's your sense of adventure?" Zack asks back, sneaking a kiss to the girl's neck. He had pulled her into a back stairwell on purpose, hoping for some privacy before class started. "You know how much I fancy you, Julie, and it's not like we're doing anything different than what everyone else is doing. One quick kiss. No one will be the wiser."
"You're incorrigible, Zachary Kellogg. Maybe that's why I've taken after you so much." She replies, relenting to his prodding and leaning in for a kiss. Their lips crash against one another passionately, feeding off of their adolescent hungers and living only for the moment. Pulling away, Julie struggles to gain her breath and whispers, "Okay, that's enough for now. We both need to get to class."
"I'll see ya later then," Zach says, delivering one last kiss to Julie's cheek and skipping off down the stairwell and heading to his next lesson. And she watches his go, smiling at her luck to have Zach hanging on her every word.
Humming a tune to herself, Julie fetches her lipstick from her pocket and begins to tidy her make-up, sure that it's been mussed in the display of passion. A shadow falls on her from above and she drops the lipstick, shocked that someone else has joined her in the stairwell. Looking up , she sighs softly and says, "I'm sorry, Darla, but you just startled me. I thought you might have been a teacher."
"You would have liked that, wouldn't you?" Darla says, her heels clicking as she steps slowly down the staircase. Her hair, once black and bodiless, now flows gently down her shoulders in a slight wave, a rich and lustrous raven. "Then it would be all over campus how you got caught in a liplock with the most wanted boy in school. Your darling image would be shattered but at least you'd win some bonus popularity points."
Julie pauses in mid-kneel, leaving the fallen lipstick on the floor. She has never known Darla to be confrontational. She can't even remember the last time she heard the girl speak. Sounding curious, Julie asks, "What are you trying to say, Darla?"
"You've always been Little Miss Perfect, the innocent bird that every boy dreamed of. Sure, it's easy being a bloody princess, waving your hand through the air and commanding everyone's attention. You've never once known what it's like to be ridiculed, to go unnoticed. How about now? Wanna know how it feels to be ugly?"
The bell rings, and Tim Hunter gathers up his books from chemistry, preparing to move onto the next hour of boring rhetoric that he could care less about. He wonders for a moment how they expect him to use thermodynamics or the principles of litmus paper. Sighing, he tells himself that he wanted a normal life, and this is what passes for normal in the real world. Could be worse, he almost thinks...
Tucking his books under his arm, he steps out from between the rows of desks just as Chloe pokes her head in the door. Nearly out of breath and bent at the knees, she slowly says, "Tim....gotta come....quick....something....happening....in the....quad...."
She grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him along behind her, but their effort is slowed to a crawl as they reach the corridor, where it becomes apparent to Tim that most of the student body has quite the same idea. Tapping Chloe on the shoulder, he asks, "What in the bloody hell is happening? You'd think we were in a football riot."
"Don't know, but I'm not waiting for this to be on the tele."
Tim fights to keep up with her, keeping his books close to his chest so he doesn't lose them in the ruckus. Maybe it's just something new, but he didn't think these private institutions were supposed to give in to wild impulses. He thought they were supposed to be more refined. Busting out into the gray-skied afternoon, he sees it, and finally understands what's so amiss. "Oh. why can't anything be normal?"
His eyes follow the gazes of his fellow students up the side of brick-walled Assembly Hall, squinting against the haze that reflects off his lenses as he struggles to see what's going on. Framed against the white dome and standing beneath the school flags, Julie Murdock leans back against the cold, white rock. Yelling out from above and pulling clumps of blond hair from the roots, she screams, "Why is everyone looking at me?"
The whispers rise over the common as students begin to chatter, wondering what Julie is talking about, what drove her to climb the school's main building. The confusion mounts, and Tim is finding it hard to think, a feeling rising in his gut, despite his efforts to push it back. Chloe turns to Tim, and fighting to be heard, asks, "Isn't she the arm-decoration for your favorite schoolyard jock?"
Tim's answer is cut-off as Julie yells out again, her voice frantic and teetering on the edge of reason, "Why is everyone looking at me? I'm ugly. Ugly, can't you understand?!"
And as her last words escape her mouth, her footing slips and she tumbles headfirst into the void. Turning away, Tim's vision blurs and he thinks that he sees a cascading trail of color behind the girl, and his mind begins to turn with the thoughts that there is magic involved in this. Seconds later, his thoughts are interrupted by the sound of bones cracking against the pavement, and a collective scream sweeping over the crowd.
Next Issue: Tim is forced to realize that despite his desire to leave his life of magic behind, that sometimes, the magic has a way of catching up to you. But now, something ancient and evil has seized control of his school, and with a new life building around him, can Tim afford to throw himself into the middle of this?
Just a quick note. As you can tell, I've taken the series from the end of Books of Magic and moved it forward an unspecified expanse of time. You won't see anything from Names of Magic or the current Hunter: Age of Magic issues in this series.
My goals? Simple. Move Tim forward as a character while still preserving him from his previous incarnations. Also, there is an intent to bring in a darker element to the series, although there will certainly be some light-hearted fare as well.
So bear with me, let me find my footing, and hopefully, I'll make this one worth reading.
Michael