Chapter 25
Raphael
My head hurt. Something like a hangover, as I remember them. I haven’t had a hangover since I burned my healing tat. I triggered the tat and waited for the relief…which didn’t come. I tried to rub my forehead and found my wrists were bound at my back.
Uh-oh. That brought back memories. I opened my eyes. I was in a dark room. I knew I wasn’t outside because the temperature had been in the low forties when…oh, yeah.
I activated my senses tat, and a faint glow came from in front of me, near the floor. I stared at it and realized it must be the bottom of a door.
Damn few things could make my senses tat and my healing tat fail to work properly. The most obvious one was a circle. That wasn’t good. I had expected mundanes and had figured that if the gas hadn’t killed me, I would be free to wreak a little vengeance on the miscreants.
My headache was beginning to ease. That was something, anyway. My tats were inside my flesh and not affected by much, running water, and someone else’s circle being about the limit I could think of.
I ran my fingers across the material that bound my hands at my back. It was metal. Handcuffs? I tried to stand, but found that my cuffs had also been attached to the chair I sat in. Okay, I’d take the chair with me. I lifted. The chair didn’t move.
Well, that was a disappointment.
I turned my head from side to side, checking out my cage. I began to detect a slight glow in the air around me. Looking down, I saw it emanated from a circle in the floor. It was a small circle, not more than three or four feet across. With any luck, that meant that the magic user who created it had trouble with larger circles. Of course, it might also mean that the mage was conserving his energy and not wasting it on my prison.
Well, I figured it was high time I got busy escaping. Couldn’t just sit there waiting on my apprentice to bail me out.
I focused and pushed more energy into my senses tat. The room brightened noticeably. That tat didn’t usually require but a minimal amount of energy to function, but while the mage who had imprisoned me could build a good circle, he couldn’t totally block out my magic. Circles will hold most creatures that rely on magic, but the ones with inherent magic are more difficult to restrain that way. Wanderers aren’t really inherently magical, but since we can draw on our own life force to power spells, we are similarly hard to restrain.
I canceled my healing tat. The headache was tolerable, and I needed to conserve my power until I cracked open this circle.
What I needed was to first get my hands free, and then I’d see about breaching the circle. I could generate great strength when necessary, but not enough to break steel handcuffs. I didn’t want to try an energy blast on the steel, it might work, but it required a lot of energy. No, I needed something subtle. I briefly considered dislocating one of my thumbs to be able to slide off the cuffs. I could handle the pain well enough, and once out of the circle, my healing spell would make quick work of a minor injury.
I’d save that for later.
I remembered the tattoo I’d used yesterday to dissolve rock. That spell was easy on energy and only worked over short distances. The tattoo warmed beneath my skin. I pinched the steel of the handcuff between my thumb and right index finger. Nothing happened, but I hadn’t expected immediate results.
I pushed more power into the spell, and after a few seconds, my fingertips felt warmer. There, now to wait.
I heard footsteps, at least two sets, and a moment later the door opened, filling the room with light. I squinted into the sudden glare, and my eyes took a few seconds to focus on the silhouetted pair in the doorway.
Not too surprisingly, both figures were female. I knew the head of Swamp Posse was a woman, Jennifer Armstrong, so I guessed if someone went through all this to capture me then the CEO would be present to see the work done. The other woman was probably the mage who had set the circle.
The woman on my left moved her hand, there was a soft click, and overhead fluorescent lights flared to life.
I squinted again and stared. Neither woman looked at all familiar, but I don’t usually encounter that many mages except when they start dealing in night magic. Heh, look at me call the kettle black. I’d already starting using it myself.
“Good day, ladies. You could have just sent an invite if you wanted to meet. Or did my invite get lost in the mail?”
Neither had a sense of humor.
“He doesn’t look like much,” said the younger one, a dark-haired woman of maybe forty-five or fifty. Jenifer Armstrong was tall, at least five eleven, and muscular beneath a business suit that could have cost a small fortune. However, I wouldn’t recognize an expensive suit unless Paul Newman was wearing it. Wait, didn’t he die? I shook my head. Why was I thinking of dead celebrities?
The other woman, then, must be the mage. She looked to be in her fifties, but strong witches often look decades younger than their actual age. She wore a dress of gold and black, with the emphasis on the black. It was mid-calf in length, and she stood well in three-inch heels that were more ornate than I would thought appropriate for this time of day. Maybe they’d been barhopping before I spoiled their night.
“Don’t let his apparent youth fool you. Wanderers age very slowly. He’s probably older than either of us,” the mage said.
“Ladies, I believe introductions are in order. Since you are the
