Mage of Shadows (26 page)

"I wanted to tell you," Carmen pressed, hesitating for a moment before admitting, "I wanted to talk to you."

I stopped walking when we reached a relatively private area near the Engineering building, and perched against a dry grey ledge, gesturing to the spot beside me, "Okay, talk."

Carmen sighed and sat on the aforementioned spot on the ledge, "Nick, I'm sorry about freaking out last time when I grabbed your arm. The last person that I felt that with was Emily, and… I just freaked out, okay? Trust isn't something that should be given lightly amongst our kind."

Some of my anger was slowly diffusing away now that I was away from Eliza and my new stupid problems with her and the rest of my Normal friends. Now it was just me, Carmen, and relative silence. My mind felt like it could breathe freely again.

"It wouldn't have worked if I didn't trust you back," I responded quietly, and after a moment I reached over and put my hand on top of hers. I saw her flinch for an second and then relax to the touch, no doubt enjoying the tingling buzz that still accompanied it.

I wasn't sure how much of the euphoria was real or just derived from the emotional catharsis of actually being able to trust another User, but it was addicting just to be in contact with her. It felt like I had been missing something for too long in my life. I found it here with this quiet, scared and scarred girl who had received a lot in life that she didn't deserve.

I always felt like I was standing at the edge of veiled death, taunting me with the uncertainty of when it would come… but not if. Humans, even mages, are such frail creatures. Maybe that was why we always felt like we had an unrelenting urge to seek comfort in the form of other people. No man is an island, nor does he really wish to be. That was how I felt about life, at least. That was why I wanted to hold onto this moment forever. Maybe it was my calm before the storm, a storm that was waiting just beyond my horizons, just out of sight.

I didn't know how long we sat there, minutes, maybe longer. Carmen finally pulled her hand away reluctantly, as if we had been magnetized together at the touch. I wanted to pull her hand back the moment it left mine, but restrained myself. My anger had evaporated, and now I just felt guilt and irritation at myself for getting into that stupid argument with Eliza, and then with Carmen. For someone who hated arguing with people, I really had a short fuse sometimes.

She shuffled nearer to me, "I wasn't sure if you still trusted me." Carmen admitted, "You shouldn't, you know."

"Why not?"

Carmen shivered, but I wasn't sure it was from the cold, "There's an inherent flaw in the Magus Touch." The girl said quietly, "It shows you who you trust, and who trusts you back… but it doesn't tell you if you should trust them."

A memory uncoiled from deep within me like a roused serpent. It was a ringing shout, ugly and tinny, an echo from the past that would never stop reverberating against the cavernous walls of my mind for as long as I lived. A voice I had desperately tried for months to leave behind me.

"Just because you think you know me, Stratus, doesn't mean you actually do! You, Reggie and Alyssa can play your stupid little games by yourselves from now on. I'm going to really do something with my power, with my life! You're all nothing to me now!"

Nat…

I visibly winced and tried to shake the memory away. That hit way too close, too deep. We all have things that we keep hidden, that we don't think about, that we're afraid to bring back to the surface. Hidden pains, truths and untruths, things we would much rather forget.

"Are you alright?" Carmen asked, concerned. She attempted to touch my hand now, but I quickly pulled away from her and stood up from the ledge we were resting on. I suddenly felt how chilly it was, as if we had been shielded in our own little private bubble away from the rest of the world. I saw Carmen still seated, still looking at me with large, anxious eyes.

"Fine," I managed to say, "I'm fine… just… remembered something. That's all."

"Okay." Carmen nodded, although she didn't sound very assured. She checked her phone for the time and cursed quietly, "I have to go soon; Danae will be out of her final in like ten minutes." The witch stood up from the ledge and glanced towards General Lectures a ways away across the street from where we were.

I stared at her hands which were wringed together, clasping her smartphone tightly, "Master/servant relationship?"

Carmen followed my gaze and smiled sadly, "It's not as bad as it seems… she just… gets angry sometimes. Vik would never let it get really bad."

"But he condones it." I responded hotly.

"He has to." Carmen insisted, looking troubled, "He's more limited than you think. Technically, he's not even a full member of Archanos yet. The master and apprentice relationship far predates Alpha Phi Alpha, or even Archanos itself. It's the master's decision to decide what discipline means. Danae is just teaching me the way that she was taught."

"The way that I'll be taught?"

Carmen hesitated, and then admitted, "I don't know. I wanted to tell you that too, they've paired you up with Les."

"Who?" I asked blankly, the name meaning nothing to me.

"You haven't met him yet, he's a junior like David and Raj." Carmen replied quickly, "But you will- soon. He was Larry's apprentice, and Larry was tough on him. But you'll learn a lot from him; apprentices always learn a lot… we've never really talked much; he hangs out with Larry's crew and I've never been close to them. Ruark would probably know more, Ruark knows everything about everyone."

The dark haired girl looked to Gen Lectures again where people were beginning to trickle from the building, and her eyes widened, "Oh! Danae's getting out, I have to go! Bye Nick!" Carmen wrapped me up in a quick hug, and then dashed across the street.

I watched her go, half bemused and half concerned. I looked back to where Starbucks was, considering returning to study with Eliza. But although I felt bad about arguing with her, I also didn't feel like apologizing to her or trying to explain myself- mostly because I didn't know how to explain why joining APA was so important to me.

I didn't go back to the coffee shop, but I also didn't want to sit still and wait for Danae to come out of Gen Lectures with Carmen and see me standing across the street. Knowing my smart mouth I'd just end up picking a fight with her about the scars across Carmen's hands and getting my tentative friend in more trouble. So instead I decided to head back to my dorm, which would be empty and quiet to get some studying done at the small desk I stole from Raj to put in my room in case I ever wanted to study isolated completely from the rest of the world. Raj didn't mind, he never used it anyways.

UT was eerily quiet, most people retreating to the libraries for finals week, often times sleeping there overnight. This was the time in the semester when the UGL was the busiest, and even our sacred Corner had been overrun with other students that we had never even seen before. It was still very possible to study there because as a whole, the library's volume had been practically muted by the fear and trepidation that accompanied finals. Even the laziest student took them seriously; often it was their last chance to eke out a passing grade in a class.

Currently, I had very little to fear in terms of failing. I was sitting pretty atop almost guaranteed A's in Classics, Bio Lab, and English. Just Bio lecture to go, Professor Thomas promised the final wouldn't be too tough- but professors never understood how really difficult a test was for their students; they had been teaching and relearning the material for years. They could pass their own exams with their eyes closed. The rest of us regular people weren't so lucky.

To my surprise, the apartment wasn't empty, but was playing host to Raj and something that looked suspiciously like a self-wrapped cigarette. He took a long drag from it from his spot in front of the TV on the worn blue beanbag chair, when he saw me walk into the living room, the brown boy smiled and gave me a lazy dazed wave.

I stared at him, dumbfounded, "Its finals week and you're getting high?"

My roommate waved off my concerns like he was trying to swat flies, "Dude, don't worry so much… I study better when relaxed."

"I bet." I replied sarcastically, shaking my head in disbelief, though I supposed I shouldn't have been as surprised by it as I was. This was typical Raj.

"Relax," Raj yawned, "I don't have another final until Monday. And I'm pretty sure I just failed my Physio final…" He offered me the joint, "You want a drag or two? You need it man, you're too stressed."

"Pass." I replied stiffly, walking towards my room. I thought about bringing up the fact that he and David were using Eliza as a obvious cat's paw to try and dissuade me from continuing on with APA, but as stoned as Raj was I doubted he would register any of it. I was halfway down the hall and my room when I heard the heavy knock on the door.

Curious, I turned around and walked back, wondering who it was. I opened it just as they began to knock again, and stared right into the eyes of Officer Rodriguez, my nemesis that appeared to just love to pop up at the worst possible times in my life. This time was different, however, because she wasn't chasing me now. It was worse, because somehow, someway, she had caught up with me.

I gaped at her, my mind suddenly working on all cylinders wondering what the hell I had done wrong for her to have finally cornered me. I had long since thought I had gotten away with what had happened with Two-Bit… what the hell was she doing here?

"Nicholas Stratus?" Her voice was stiff, the question sounded more like a statement. She knew exactly who I was. "My name is Officer Rodriguez, and we'd like to ask you a few questions-"

She suddenly stopped and sniffed, the officer with her, whom I recognized as the fair-haired Officer Wilson, gave a snorting laugh.

"Are you smoking in here?" Rodriguez accused me, pushing me aside and walking into the apartment to stare at Raj, who blinked at her in surprise, like he couldn't comprehend why a cop had invaded his humble abode.

"Uh… shit." Raj managed to say, "Hi Officer… how is your day?"

She didn't respond, but muttered something under her breath that might've been Spanish, and pulled out her cuffs, "Okay, you're both coming with us."

"He didn't do anything!" I protested, "Leave him alone."

Surprisingly, Wilson was on my side as well, putting a comforting hand on his partner's shoulder, "Come on, Carla. Leave the kid alone, if we arrested every student who liked to smoke a little pot, we would be chasing after half of the campus. We're here for Stratus, anyways.

"Move your hand if you don't want to lose it." Rodriguez responded coldly, but she turned away from Raj, handcuffs still in her hands but now pointed at me.

I shook my head numbly, "You don't need those, I'll come… but I didn't do anything." I added quickly at the end, there was no way they had anything on me, whatever this was.

"Easy," Wilson advised, but wisely kept his hands to himself this time, "We just want to question him, remember? We don't know he did anything, yet."

I could tell that his partner didn't believe that, her steely gaze locked harshly onto mine, "We'll see about that."

111

Interrogation rooms were depressing little places. They stuffed me inside one with nothing but a few hard metal chairs, a table made out of the same dull material, and the one-way glass that showed my nervous reflection. I was glad that they had at least honored my request not to cuff me on the way out of UT; it looked bad enough for my fellow students to see me being escorted into the back of a police cruiser.

I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything… I kept repeating it in my head like a desperate mantra. If I said it enough, maybe it would be true. But they had nothing on me, they couldn't have, if they did I would've been in here months ago.

They kept me isolated for nearly an hour, a tactic that only served to make me uncomfortable and annoyed. It might have been done to scare me, make me worried, something like that. Unfortunately for them, the longer they kept me in here the more certain I became that they had nothing on me. My fear was whittled away by logic, marching steadily against it and calming my thumping heartbeat to something that resembled normal.

By the time Rodriguez pushed the boring brown door open and stalked inside, I had regained a fair deal of my confidence. Wilson followed her, and I idly realized that he never seemed to lose that little half-smile, and I wondered if he practiced it in the mirror every day.

"What took you so long?" I complained, "I have a Bio final tomorrow, you know."

"This won't take long." Wilson assured.

"Yes," His female partner added, "Soon you won't have to worry about Biology, just about your cellmates."

"I didn't do anything." I said immediately, my mental mantra brought to life. It sounded lamer out loud, and a bit of my regained confidence faded. Rodriguez took the seat across from me, a twin of my own. Wilson stayed standing a little ways back. My primary interrogator pulled out a small recording device and clicked it on, setting it down in front of me. I stared at the bright dot of red that signified it was recording, rather than look Rodriguez in the eye.

"For the record, is your name Nicholas Stratus?"

"Yes."

"You are a student at University of Detroit, a freshman, correct?"

"Yes."

If only my final exams were this easy, I thought nervously.

Rodriguez leaned forward, "Where were you on the night of September the 5th of this year?" That was the night I had my misadventure with the thugs and alerted the cops and Kraven to my presence in his territory.

Time to see how well I could lie my ass off.

"I'm not sure, could you be more specific?" I asked politely, "School days all kind of blur together."

The female cop stiffened in her seat, as if she already knew I was lying to her, "It was the night that two men were found in an alley just off of Rooter Street. They had been brutally beaten, and one had severe burns." Her eyes bored into mine, "My partner and I that night attempted to give chase to a suspect. A suspect that matches your height, build, and voice, Mr. Stratus. Now, can you tell me where you were that night?"