Chapter 2

New characters introduced in this chapter:

Calisa

Jill’s friend, Magic user, 5’-4’’ tall, a bit chunky, 40 years old, brown hair, blue eyes

Melany

Jill’s friend, Magic user, 5’-5’’ tall, thinner than Calisa, 39 years old, blond hair, hazel eyes

Jillian’s kiss startled me more than I can say. I had lost my wife and children only some four weeks or so ago, and I hadn’t even thought of women in more than a general way. Of course, I had been upset by the abuse of several young women by the pimps, the drug dealers, and the judge, but it had been because it was wrong and not something that I found sexual in nature, plus I wasn’t sure how to respond to her.

“Jill, I can’t... , “ I started, and all of the suppressed grief, sorrow, loneliness, and anger came out all at once, as the tears rolled down my cheeks at the loss of my family. It had affected me more than I realized, and I had been suppressing it in my quest for vengeance and justice.

“Go ahead and let it out,” Jill whispered as my body shook in grief and the tears continued. I hadn’t felt this upset since my mother had died some eight years ago.

“You have to grieve for them. You have been holding it back for too long. I know how you feel,” Jill whispered, as she settled on to the large chair next to me. I’m unsure how long we sat there like that, but I eventually recovered and noticed how warm and soft Jill was sitting there next to me.

“Thank you for understanding,” I said after a time, having wiped the tears from my face with my t-shirt.

“It’s okay, I’ve been there,” she told me in a sad voice, and I remembered that she had mentioned losing two brothers.

Something else occurred to me then. I remembered our team being recalled from Afghanistan after the ambush, or at least what was left of it. We were all placed on medical leave after filing our reports of what had happened, and I had spent about six weeks in our quarters at Ft. Bragg with Sara. She had been very glad to see me after hearing reports of the ambush. She was so glad in fact that we spent a lot of time enjoying each other after a separation of eleven months.

Sara had just discovered that she was pregnant with our first child, when I was ordered to report to the Pentagon for further debriefing. I now remember arriving there, but things went blank following that. The next thing that I remember was returning to Ft. Bragg and being retired. Sara was in her eighth month of pregnancy then, and she wanted to move closer to her family. Her brother, Bob, lived outside of Atlanta, and we moved down there and soon found a house about ten miles from him, and an hour or so from her mother and sister. Our first son was born shortly after we moved into our new house.

“Damn!” I shouted in a loud voice on realizing what had happened.

“What’s wrong?” Jill asked, startled by my outburst.

“I just realized that those bastards at the Pentagon stole more than six months of my life while they brainwashed me,” I told her before explaining what I had realized.

“We have heard of others being brainwashed, as you put it, to forget about the use of Magic, but none of them were ever reported to have taken that long,” she told me.

“It must be because you are so powerful,” she added after a few seconds.

I considered what she had said, but it did no good, as I couldn’t remember anything at all from that period of my life. It was extremely frustrating, but it didn’t appear that there was anything that I could do about it presently.

“We should retire for the night, it’s late,” Jill said shortly after that. On looking at my watch, I discovered that it was 2330 already. I must have sat here for longer than I thought.

“Tomorrow, you need to practice moving the book some more,” she told me, as she rose from beside me. “It gets easier as you become more comfortable with doing it,” she added, before going to check the doors and windows of the house. I checked the ward that I still had around the house, but it was fine, no one had disturbed it.

Upstairs, I allowed Jill to shower first, it was her house after all. My own was fairly short and I was in bed in short order to sleep very well again that night. In the morning I was up by 0720. I needed to shave but didn’t have a razor. I would ask Jill about the beard removal spell, and see about a razor and shaving cream later today, after the haircut that I also needed.

Jill was making breakfast when I arrived in the kitchen after taking care of my morning preparations.

“Eggs?” she asked as I entered.

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Make some toast. There’s jam out,” she told me. There was bread and a bottle of jam there by the toaster.

“Okay,” I acknowledged, before adding, “I’ll get some apple butter today.” I had already put bread in the toaster.

“Apple butter?” she asked.

“It’s made from apple cider and apples. The best takes a lot of cooking but will last for years without refrigeration. The commercial product isn’t as good or as thick as the homemade variety,” I told her. The toaster soon popped and I replaced the bread and started it again before spreading jam on the finished slices.

Breakfast following that was as good as the one yesterday had been. Over coffee, Jill asked about today.

“So a haircut, apple butter, and a storage chest,” she said before asking, “Anything else?”

“Nothing that I can think of presently. We’ll need to play it by ear,” I told her, before remembering what I wanted to ask her.

“Any news from Atlanta?”

“Atlanta was fairly quiet last night according to the news earlier this morning. However, there was trouble in Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, and Macon overnight. There is speculation that the Governor may ask for help from the Army at Ft. Benning near Columbus, Ft. Stewart near Savannah, and Ft. Gordon near Augusta as well as Warner- Robins Air Base near Macon. There were also some reports of minor problems in some of the smaller towns throughout Georgia,” she told me.

“Anything local?” I asked before commenting.

“Nothing last night, but I wouldn’t hold my breath,” she told me.

“I never anticipated anything like what has occurred,” I told her.

“It appears that the Governor is trying to keep some of what happened last night under wraps, but it must have been pretty bad for him to call on the Army for help,” she told me.

“Let’s get out and get what we need done as quickly as possible, before anything happens here. We should also stock up on food. This thing could spread, and we don’t need to be caught short,” I told her.

“We’ll need to spend some of your money then. I’m on a budget, and it is strained already with the trip and both of us eating,” she told me.

“Not a problem, I still have a lot of the money that I picked up from some of the houses that I visited plus there is all of the small bills that we didn’t count yesterday,” I told her with a smile.

We left in Jill’s SUV shortly after that. Our first stop was at a surplus store where we acquired backpacks, MREs, and other camping items plus camouflage clothing. There was also a medium size lockable container for some kind of instrument or equipment that I purchased to keep the gold and money in.

The barber was open when we reached his shop, but I needed to drop my facial glamour while he cut my hair. I got it cut high and tight, military fashion. He was an older man and smiled when I told him what I wanted.

Jill knew which grocery store to visit, and we loaded up on non-perishable things as well as some perishable items. I picked up shaving equipment and dental items also. The back of the SUV was pretty full when we returned to the house. The remainder of the day was very quiet. We loaded all of the counted money and the gold into the lockable box, and I cast my wards around it. We packed the backpacks, and Jill had a pistol and a rifle that I checked out and got ready. Later there was more practice moving the book and other things. By that evening, I was fairly proficient at moving them.

We watched the news that evening while eating dinner. The situation in Atlanta and the rest of Georgia was the first item on the program, but there wasn’t much new to report.

“Officials report that Atlanta was fairly quiet today, and that more of the workforce had shown up for work following a fairly quiet night last night,” the news commentator told us. ‘The Governor’s office stated that reports of unrest in other parts of the state had been greatly exaggerated,” was his following comment.

“Do you believe that?” Jill asked when he had gone on to other news.

“It’s hard to know what to believe,” I told her. “But my mind keeps going back to what that activist that I hanged said about removing the guns from the citizens but not from their people. Some of this trouble may be caused by members of his organization inciting others to create trouble. Without access to their organization and what they are thinking, it is difficult to tell, but I don’t think that the criminals and the gangbangers are doing all of this on their own. Someone is definitely behind them,” I finished.

“How can we find out who is behind this?” she asked.

“In Atlanta, I was lucky to find a group of homeless veterans who helped me gather information. Even with their help, it took weeks to learn what we did and to collate it into a cohesive picture and a plan. We don’t have the contacts or the time here,” I told her to a disappointed look.

“What can we do then?”

“Leave if it gets too bad. I can ward the house so nothing will happen to it, and you will be able to return later,” I told her.

“That’s not likely to happen as everyone would know that a Magic user lived here. What about the other Magic users here in Charleston?” she asked.

“How many are there?”

“Another four or five, but they don’t have strong Talents,” she told me.

“That could present a problem. I could ward their houses also, but then they wouldn’t be able to get through the wards or cancel them, and once canceled, they couldn’t recreate them,” I told her to a disappointed look from her, but I had another thought.

“You don’t think that the government is behind this do you, or the Magic Haters? It could be part of a plot to find and identify Magic users. Of course, I could just be paranoid,” I finished with a grin.

“Do you really think so?” she asked in a concerned voice.

“I don’t know, I’m just theorizing,” I told her.

“Perhaps I should alert our leaders to this?” she said next.

“Are you sure that you haven’t been identified? You went to Atlanta. Someone could have seen you there and recognized you. They could be waiting for you to do just that,” I told her.

“Grrrrr! ... you are so maddening, Max Hardtrick,” she told me in an exasperated voice. “What can we do?”

“Sometime it’s better to do nothing, and to wait until the situation is clearer before acting,” I told her. Jill exhaled loudly and flopped down on the couch beside me.