Chapter 9

I was suspended for three days, the school had a no-tolerance policy for fighting. Sure, I could have made it go away with some well-placed suggestions, but I kinda felt I deserved it. Besides, it would look really odd if I didn’t get suspended like anyone else would have. I didn’t want to have to change the whole school’s minds!

That evening, I contacted Shishō Ieyasu in Japan and asked for his thoughts. He was the master of spirit and mental disciplines, and he would know, if anyone did, the long-term effects of what I had done.

Master Ieyasu was patient and walked me through all of my interactions with Little Willy, all the way back to school registration last August. He examined my feelings and my motivations, then had me tell him what I was feeling and thinking when I hammered the commands home into the boy’s brain.

When we were done, I felt as though I had gone to confession or something. Master Ieyasu absolved me, if that is even possible, of my guilt for the incident, saying that in the larger scheme of things, the kid was a punk who was unlikely to matter much. Now, at least, he had a purpose in life. While he suggested I try to work on my temper, he seemed remarkably sanguine about the whole affair.

‘Look, Hank, we are Mages. More importantly, we are Wizards. Yes, that sounds egotistical, but we have the power to be and do so much more than the mundanes, that it sets us apart. We live by a different code, a different set of moral values and, frankly, that is as it should be,’ he paused and I could feel him shifting mental gears, considering his words carefully.

‘In our history, every time some Mage has gotten the idea that we should be open and aboveboard with the mundane population, that we should treat them as equals and ask for equal treatment from them, there has been a pogrom. Every single time, the mundanes set on us and killed us in wholesale lots. We are powerful, but we are mortal. An arrow from a distance or a bullet from afar is just as deadly to us if we are not ready. You may be able to hold multiple shields but so far, no one else has been able to do this without artifacts. Eventually, they would even find a way to get you, my young friend.

‘So, we feel justified in doing things they can’t, that they wouldn’t approve of, because of how they would treat us if they knew. Something about that sounds twisted!’ I said, letting my confusion show through our link.

‘It is, but it is something you have to learn to live with. Try not to let it make you into something you are not, Hank. Try to live your life as morally and honestly as you did before you found out about magic. That is what most of us strive for. If nothing else, that Anders woman was useful as a bad example. She had more than a hundred slaves in Atlanta, Hank, another reason your Council wants someone to take over the city.

‘You did nothing wrong here, Hank. The young man was incorrigible and headed for a lifetime of abusive behavior towards others. If nothing else, you will keep him alive and out of prison so he can support his child. You did a good thing. What you did is what our predecessors would have called a geas. It is a set of mental instructions forcefully imprinted, permanently, on his psyche. You did it to prevent more harm, to make him take responsibility, not to enslave, and intent, my young friend, is everything.’

Looking at it like that, I could pretend it was okay, and hopefully, put it from my mind. I made a decision to be much more careful in the future though, should a similar situation ever come up again. I didn’t want to ever get to the point where things like that were commonplace.

When I returned to school, Alicia stopped me between first and second periods, catching me at my locker. When I closed the door and turned to find her standing there, she was staring me in the eyes, a slight smile on her face.

“I don’t know how, and I don’t care, but thank you, Hank.” She said softly, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. With that done, she turned and walked away, leaving a trail of silence in her wake. People were staring at me like I had just sprouted a second nose or something!

At lunch the girls, knowing I would refuse to listen to rumors, made it a point to discuss current events at the table, talking only to each other. This was, at best, a weak deception of course, but since I was dying to know what had happened, I only pretended not to listen. I am not a saint, after all!

“Did you hear that Little Willy tried to drop out of school? He wanted to get a job to pay for Alicia’s prenatal care. Her father convinced him to stay and get his diploma, and even think about college if he had the grades, because babies are expensive and a college graduate makes more than a dropout flipping burgers.” Lynn said cattily, grinning at Bernie.

“I did hear about that! In fact, Alicia told me that he came over and spent two days begging her to talk to him, then proposed in front of her whole family and all the neighbors who had been watching. She turned him down, of course, but did tell him that maybe, just maybe, if he looked out for his baby and could show he would be a good husband and provider, that she might reconsider.” Bernie told her, shaking her head as though she were scandalized.

“I heard he dropped his friends, the ones that were saying they slept with Alicia. He threatened to beat them all to a pulp if they didn’t shut their mouths and retract their lies! How about that for a turn-around?”

Their little single act play came to a screeching halt when Big Willy, Little Willy’s much larger and scarier brother, slid his tray onto the table and sat down across from me.

“Hank, Bernie, Lynn.” He said slowly, nodding a greeting to each of us. We all said Hi and waited to see what would happen.

Big Willy gave me a look, then looked at the girls as if to ask if he could talk in front of them. I nodded and he returned it. I love guy communication; it is so succinct!

“William Avery seems to be a changed man, Hank. He tells me that you made him see the light.” Big Willy, whose name was really William Jefferson James, said quietly. All of the men in their family were William <something> James, so they tended to refer to each other by first and middle names. At school, there were only two of them, so it was Big and Little.

“He does? That’s interesting. Well, whatever the cause, I am glad to see him treating Alicia better. He told me he is going to be a father soon.” I replied, concentrating on getting just the right amount of catsup on my French fry.

“Yes, he is, and he seems to be looking forward to it, though he fears he is not ready for fatherhood.” Big Willy said, taking a bite of his salad.

“I bet all first-time fathers feel that way. I am sure yours did, mine too. I can’t even imagine the awesome responsibility of bringing a life into the world today. It is a scary world, and there are so many ways for stuff to go wrong.” I said thoughtfully, carefully cutting my hamburger in half to make it less messy to eat.

“You and William Avery have made peace? He seems to think that the less he has to do with you, the better his life will be.” Big Willy said, picking up his soda.

“We have no beefs, William Jefferson. He and I have different ... destinies.” I said slowly, shrugging. “Believe it or not, I wish him well. Alicia is a great girl, and he could do much worse.”

Big Willy looked surprised at that, but nodded his head after a moment. “Your sister thinks the world of you, and I think the world of your sister. I am glad that there are no hard feelings between our families. I’ll see you around, Hank.” He said, and stood, taking his tray with him.

The whole time we had been talking, I had been concentrating solely on him, blocking out the rest of the world. It seems that everyone else had been concentrating on our table, because the silence I heard was not because I wasn’t paying attention, it was because everyone else was! He was half-a-dozen steps away when people started talking again, and the rush of sound was an almost physical sensation!

Huh ... wonder what the rumor mill was going to make of that!

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Maggie and Carrie plopped down at the table.

“So, you all good with the James boys?” Maggie asked lightly, but I could feel her very real concern through our mental link.

‘Everything is peachy, gorgeous. You send Big Willy over to try and save me again?‘ I sent mentally, while saying “Everything is cool, sis,” out loud.

‘No, he came to me. Little Willy has been acting really weird, and he is terrified of you. I guess that mental thing you did really worked on him!‘ Maggie sent back, grinning at me, and stealing a French fry.

I think that was a signal of some kind, some unwritten, but universally known, code among women. Before I knew it, there were three more hands on my tray, stealing fries! Sheesh ... I guess I should know by now to get extras.,

At the end of March, Doctor Atkinson transported me out to the hospital where he worked in San Francisco, so we could practice a bit with the nerve regeneration therapy ahead of any attempt we made for Pat’s bad back. He wanted us to work a few cases and get used to working as a team.

The Doc was all smiles when I arrived at his apartment, and he gave me a little tour. The place was beautiful, and it had a great view of the Golden Gate bridge! How epic was that? It was in a section of town he called Russian Hill, whatever that meant, but it wasn’t all that far from some of the iconic tourist locations either.

He worked out of his own office off Lombard Street, but he said he had privileges at St. Francis. That meant he could work there too, perform surgeries and what not as if he was a staff doctor. I wasn’t real clear on how that worked, but he said it did, and that’s all that really mattered.

The guy we were going to work on that afternoon had a pinched nerve in his lower back where two disks had shifted. He was going to open the guy up and shift the disks back, pinning them in place. He wanted me to walk him through identifying the nerves that were affected and then encouraging them to reconnect.

It was ... gruesome. I don’t know if you have ever watched a surgery or seen what a human body looks like cut open, but I am surprised as hell I didn’t lose my lunch. Doctor Atkinson had me in the surgery as an observer, and I had to stand back from the patient while he did all of the early stuff.

Let me tell you something else that is totally nauseating. A drill cutting into a human bone sounds like a dentist drill, smells like one too with something else thrown in, and I swear, I swear that I could feel it. It just sent major chills down my spine, and my respect for the doctors and nurses went up a thousand percent. Not to mention my respect for their cast-iron stomachs!

When he was almost done, he had his team step back and waved me forward. We talked only mentally, and he pointed out exactly where the bone had been impinging on the spinal cord.

I was able to see that some of the nerves had turned dark instead of having power flowing through them naturally. Keeping the image in my mind, I showed the spot to the doctor. He took a scalpel and pretended to be doing something in the wound, but instead, used his telekinesis to make tiny, microscopic cuts and clear out the dead tissue. Then he applied pressure to bring the severed and cleaned nerve endings together.

‘This is where I have failed every time. Everything we know about nerves says that they do not heal like this. We have had new nerves grow around a break, but never had the broken or damaged nerves heal. Can you do it, Hank?’

I concentrated, and it was as if I could see the body wanting to be whole again. It was as if it had a memory of how things should be, and by feeding it enough power, it could make things whole again. We both watched, fascinated, as the nerves began to twitch, then move. They were like tiny, tiny snakes, searching for prey. When the ends of a nerve hit its counterpart, there was the tiniest of sparks, and they latched on, quickly healing and becoming whole again.

This was an extremely power-intensive job, but I had brought the twenty-five carat CZ stone, filled with an unreal six hundred and twenty-five joules of power. It was more than enough, as I used about two hundred joules in all.

Doctor Atkinson was so excited by watching it work that he was almost dancing, even as his hands moved slowly and purposefully, closing up the wound and suturing it closed.

‘We have to let this part heal normally to deflect questions, but I can’t wait for him to wake up so we can see what happens!’

After we cleaned up, we stepped into the elevator together, and I shook his hand before transporting out using my watch. I wonder if there was a camera in the halls ... and what the reaction would be of me getting on the elevator with the Doctor on one floor and never getting off again!

He called me the next day and told me that the patient was without pain and the numbness he had been feeling in his left leg was gone! It was a success!!

I made one more trip at the end of April, a similar case, but higher up and more severe. The young girl was paralyzed from the waist down, and it took every bit of power in the big gem and most of my personal reserves as well, leaving only the watch until I could get home again. While the damage the girl had suffered was still not as much as Pat had, it was a much closer test, and made all of us feel much better about Pat’s upcoming surgery.

I did contact my fellow Wizard in Taiwan, Chen Zhìwěi, and let him know all about the gem and how it performed. I told him also about the test we did, and that I wanted to order another gem that size to be delivered as soon as humanly possible. I told him why I needed it and got a welcome surprise.

‘I have two more stones that size that I had made for my own use here. I will loan you one and create a second for you to keep in exchange for filling these for my use,’ he offered.

‘But I already told you, my friend, that I will fill gems for you for free. Wizards have to work together!’

‘Yes, and if they were for me personally, I would gladly take you up on that. These, however, are for my duty as a protector of my homeland. Normally I would charge this against the treasury who would happily pay, but if I can do a trade that is fair for everyone and save some money?’

Worked for me! I accepted, and he sent the two stones for me to fill and send back. He would return one of the stones to me when I needed it for the surgery before the new stone was complete in two weeks.

Finals were coming up and so was my birthday. I was ready for the tests, thank heavens, because my mind was on cars! Wheels! Freedom!

Okay, so I didn’t need a car to date, and I probably wouldn’t spend much time parking in out-of-the-way places, just so I could make out with a girl from school. But damn ... I hated having to ask for rides, and I wanted my own wheels in the worst way.

I had started shopping for a Buick GNX at the beginning of April, and there wasn’t one for sale within a hundred miles of me! None of the auto trader magazines for this area and none of the newspapers had a single Grand National in them, much less a GNX.

A poor second choice, but rumored to be a solid car, was the Monte Carlo SS. It had a 350ci V8 and was being discontinued after this year so it would be collectible after a while, not that I thought it would ever be a real collector car. Too many were made.

Another car that I liked was the 88 Mustang LX with the 5.0L engine. I had read that with a few mods, they were monsters. The Georgia Highway Patrol already had some 5.0L Mustangs out on the highway to chase down speeders, so you could bet they were pretty stout.

That got me to thinking about my dirt bike, and maybe getting a street bike. I might want something to haul around dirt bikes with. The Jeep dealer where we bought Maggie’s Grand Wagoneer and Mom’s Wrangler, had a really cool looking J10 with the Honcho setup, all gloss black with stripes. Pretty darn cool for a pickup!

Heck, half the fun here was the shopping and comparing. I wondered if I would be as happy after I actually got some wheels as I was planning for the event.

Insurance was going to be high on any of those, but I really didn’t care all that much. Even after paying off Mom and Dad’s mortgage, I still had a half a million dollars in investments! I was Richy Rich, without the butler or the mansion or ... well, you get the picture.

Reggie, of all people, had a stellar idea that put him in the top ten of my most favorite people. I could offer a reward to the various Mages across the country, paying out if they could find a car on my list!

How cool is that? Nationwide searches! Man, if anyone ever comes up with a way to do that easily in the mundane world, they will make a fortune! As it is, I offered up free charging up to five joules for the location of a reasonably priced (meaning I was not about to get rooked for the car) Buick Grand National Experimental (GNX). I knew I would have to pay a premium since there were only about five hundred made, but I wasn’t paying more than fifty percent over original retail unless it was immaculate with, like, no miles on it.

I hadn’t put my nation-wide alert plan in action yet because, as my birthday grew closer, real world events took precedence, and I spent more and more time meeting with Pat as he worked his way through his misgivings about taking Atlanta. We learned more about the things that Abigail Anders had done there, including the more than one hundred and twenty slaves she had kept, and I thought Pat was going to weep.

Anders had run that city, from behind the scenes, as her personal kingdom. She had her fingers in everything from drug running to prostitution, from the political graft to outright fraud on a massive scale. It would take a lot of work and years to untangle her filthy plots and schemes, and make Atlanta whole again.

Pat wasn’t going to try and make it into a paradise, he reasoned that people were people, and they could deal with their own problems, but he was not going to let anyone make it worse than it had to be. I think the slaves are what finally pushed him over the edge. He knew that we, as Mages, had a responsibility to those people, and he felt, right or wrong, that he was the one to do it. He felt guilty because he was so close and hadn’t even looked in that direction.

That Anders would have screamed to the Council if he had didn’t seem to matter.

I made sure Pat knew that I would still consider Augusta to be his hometown, and I would make no changes that I didn’t think he would choose himself. He would keep his penthouse, even continue living there for a year or so while he had a place built in Atlanta. Even afterwards, the penthouse was his, and he was welcome to live and visit as he saw fit.

We both agreed that my apprenticeship to him was over. His favor was already set, a date with Doctor Nathan Atkinson, the neurosurgeon, for the work on his back. Dr. Atkinson had set the date for July 29^th, a Friday, as the soonest he could do it. He was donating his time and the hospital was as well, hoping that the groundbreaking surgery would attract more donors, grants, and publicity.

We were all pretty excited about it, though none as excited or as scared as Pat, of course. It was his back, his ability to someday walk again, and his future on the line.

My birthday turned out to be a hell of a lot bigger than I had expected. My family doesn’t do birthdays like most folks. It is always a very low-key thing at home with just family, but I guess the rest of the girls, and quite a few people I had met this year, thought differently.

We had just finished our family dinner, just Mom and Dad, Maggie, and me, when the doorbell rang.

Dad waved to me, signaling that I should get it, and I didn’t think twice about getting up and opening the front door.

“SURPRISE!” A chorus of voices shouted out, loud enough that our nearest neighbor, a block away, probably wondered what was happening.

Outside the front door were Carrie, Lyn, and Bernie in the front row, and clustered behind them were Pat and his ladies, the entire Council and their own wives or husbands or covey of supporters. Also looking on and grinning were the Wizard crew plus spouses, and the biggest surprise, Wendy and her mentor Melissa!

“Holy cow, folks! Um ... I don’t know if we even have space for this many people in here but come on in anyway and let’s find out!”

I came to find out, Reggie had contacted Mom and Dad earlier, and he came forward followed by Pat and a man I didn’t know.

“Hank, this is Chief Arnold Hotawa, the transportation specialist Pat engaged to make those links on your watch.” Reggie explained, and I stepped up and shook the man’s hand.

“Hope you do not mind me coming to your celebration, but they wanted something special, something I wasn’t sure I could do with an artifact.” The Chief said, shrugging his shoulders. “Plus, I have to admit, I like cake.”

I just laughed and welcomed him.

With everyone watching, he stepped into the house and looked first at the door into the kitchen, then at the arched opening into the living room before nodding. From a weathered leather satchel over his shoulder, he pulled a stick of charcoal and a bunch of twigs, bundled together so the leaves were at all one end.

He began at one side of the arch near the floor, and began inscribing symbols that glowed briefly, then disappeared. When he reached the far side of the arch, he connected the two ends with a solid line drawn on the floor.

When that was done, he put the charcoal back in his pouch and used the leafy brush around the interior circumference of the arch, its movement leaving behind a bright streak of light. When the movement was complete, the scene in the center of the arch changed. It was no longer looking into our living room. Instead, the scene was that of a large room with hardwood floors.

At the far side of the room was a banner that read “Happy Birthday Hank!”, and it hung over a table laden with cake, food, and presents!

“Come, step through, Hank.” Chief Hotawa instructed, smiling at me.

There was no sensation at all when I stepped through, though the quality of the air and sound changed. You know what I mean, like stepping into an empty gym from a loud school hallway? Like that!

The silence didn’t last long at all as everyone poured through the arch and spread out, laughing and talking, slapping me on the back as they passed. This was truly epic!

Mom and Dad pulled me aside for a moment, into a corner where we could have a private chat.

“Son, your mother and I have been talking, and well, while we know you can,” he paused to wiggle his fingers at me, “make us agree to about anything if you wanted, we are not comfortable with you owning a muscle car for your first car. Yes, yes, we know about your shields, and if the scratches and bent bits on your dirt bike are any evidence, they work very well. But son, you won’t be on a trail where you only have to worry about trees, and maybe, a deer. You will be on the road with other people, and as mature as you are, you are still sixteen.”

I didn’t like it, and I didn’t want to agree with his point, but I couldn’t say I didn’t understand it. They were still my parents, and magic aside, I loved and respected them.

“So, what are you saying, Dad? No car?” I asked, holding my breath and praying that I was wrong.

“Yeah, right! Like we thought that would work,” Mom chipped in, laughing and shaking her head. “Hank, sweetheart, we wouldn’t do that. This is not a punishment; it’s ... well, it is kind of a bribe and a guilt trip all in one. We, your father and I, have listened to you talking about your possible choices for months. At this point, we know as much about them as you do.”

I blushed a bit, knowing I sometimes tended to get a bit maniacal about things.

“We will buy you the Jeep truck and pay for your insurance for a year. If you don’t have any accident and no tickets, then we will remove our objections to you having whatever car you think you can get away with without raising too many questions. So, what do you think?”

I watched them watch me, and I had to smile. I was making as much as the pair of them combined now. I had a chance to see their taxes when we both went to the same tax guy this year. Mom made just over three hundred and forty from her novels and Dad made a hundred and a half. That they would do this, knowing I was matching their earnings and then some, was telling to me.

“Tell you what. You know how much I am making, and I will buy my own truck and insurance, but I am getting a street bike too, okay? Even if I hit that hypothetical station wagon full of nuns, I am less likely to hurt anyone else on a bike. And no, it won’t be some two-hundred mile an hour crotch rocket either, Dad.” My father had an unreasoning dislike at the plastic-clad superbikes, strangely enough a dislike that didn’t extend to the standard or cruiser types. I had asked, but he would just go off on a rant about donor-cycles and so on.

I watched as they exchanged a look, doing that parent thing, or maybe it is a long-time-married-couple thing, of communicating silently without magic. You know, maybe it is magic, but a different kind? Anyway, it didn’t take long.

“Deal.” Dad said, holding out his hand. Mom wasn’t having it though and gave me a big hug with a kiss for good measure.

“While we have you here,” Mom said, still with her arm around my waist, “Reggie and Pat talked to us about this Augusta slash Atlanta thing. You are our underaged son, and you will be living in our house until you graduate high school and turn eighteen. THAT is final. Now, having said that, I do understand you will have responsibilities in Augusta, and you will have to travel there pretty often. That is another reason we wanted you to have the truck! City people drive like idiots.”

“We might even consider letting you have a small studio apartment or something there for weekends or if you have to spend the night, but you will not be spending more time there than necessary. You will still be going to school and living in this house, or we will do what we can to put a stop to the whole thing. This Reggie guy, the president of the Council for the Americas, said he would follow our wishes so don’t push us on this, Hank.” Dad told me, his tone letting me know there was no wiggle room here.

I didn’t have a problem with any of it, really. Eventually, I would be out on my own, and I could envision a huge garage full of cool cars, but that could wait a bit. I just smiled at them and nodded, hugging Mom again.

“No problem.”

In keeping with our traditions of low-key birthdays, Mom and Dad had asked everyone not to bring gifts, and for the most part, they all played along. That was totally cool with me, I just thought it was really cool that they all came!

I spent the next two hours just chatting with people, having a great time. I got invites from several people to come and visit with them.

Peter Gill asked me to come and train with him some. He admitted it was because he hoped I could teach him how to hold multiple shields without artifacts, but he was sure he could teach me a lot as well.

Sir David and Lady Elizabeth had brought along their third, Lady Elaine who had her two-year-old daughter with her. I could see that she was very much in love with and in awe of both Sir David and Lady Elizabeth! He renewed his invite and told me that, if I agreed, he had planned a two-week holiday for me this summer. I would spend a week in Scotland with him and then a week in London, seeing the sights. The invite included all of my girls and my parents as well!

Kathy Peele, the Mage from Vancouver and Vice-President of the council, invited me up to attend the Canadian Mage Convocation, a yearly get-together of Canadian magic users. She admitted that there were only sixteen at the moment, but it was usually fun and several of them had asked about me.

Last, but certainly not least, was Chief Hotawa. He invited me out to see how his people lived. He had been working for years to better the lot of his tribe and was still struggling with the dual demons of addiction and unemployment. He said he thought he might have a handle on education, with the new schools he had built and teachers he had hired, but he had a long way to go with the adults.

Specifically, he was facing a healthcare crisis, and part of it was industrial in nature. He wanted my input on a possible solution he had found but had lacked the power to implement. It was thought that the power simply didn’t exist without finding a way to harness hundreds of Mages at once!

We talked to my parents and set up a date for mid-June, so I could spend a weekend or even a little more with him. I had the second gem from Taiwan now, and that gave me more than enough power if his calculations were correct. I had no real opinion on how good an idea it was, I wasn’t even sure I understood the premise! Hopefully, he would be able to lay it all out for me when I got there.