#i need everyone to get into this book immediately and feed my awful maw with fic

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Today I read all of Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, and lads, it fucks

[tigerrobot]

Not sure what I ex-Spectre-d

Magic wasn't Latin. Nor vice-versa. The only reason Latin is used so often is because the last civilization that knew how to use magic, also spoke Latin. The thing about magic wasn’t the simple act of tracing some runes, or speaking some words. It was how you did those things.

Latin was generally maintained when casting because new-age magic-users had no idea what they were doing. Most of them stumbled into it, finding a book. The majority of the time, they’d read the words, nothing would happen, and they’d move along. Curious about it, maybe even believing it was real, but never knowing how to step into it.

Then there are those that accidentally get it right. Those are the worst. They think they’ve found some long lost art and are now master’s of the universe, bending matter to their will. They, inevitably, end up over their heads.

Those of us with training, we can feel the imperfections in the magical fields. When someone is stumbling their way through powerful spells, it sends out ripples. You can follow those right back to the source of the magic. Sometimes, I get there first. Sometimes, I don’t.

The pentagram on the floor was drawn in what had to be pig’s blood. Or cow or whatever. It certainly wasn’t human, at least this kid hadn’t fucked up that much. Two things about this bothered me. One, it wasn’t the pentagram that provided the power, it was the circle encompassing it. And two, blood was almost never necessary in the casting of spells. All it had served to do in this case was lure something here that shouldn’t have come.

The wannabe mage was floating about 3 feet off the ground, his arms limp at his sides, his head tilted back and up, his eyes dull. I couldn’t tell from the doorway if he was already dead or just well on his way to it. The spectre holding him hadn’t noticed me yet. I took a couple steps into the room and traced one of the runes tattooed on my left forearm, speaking clearly and loudly the name of the spell as I did. A wave of energy burst out from my mouth, pushing the spectre back and causing the body to waver and lower slightly. With a smile, I continued toward the centre of the room.

“Good morning, Frank. What in the world are you doing here and with that boy’s sweet soul so close to your mouth?” Frank wasn’t the spectre’s name, but I had met it before and it stuck, mostly because it pissed off spirits when you refused to acknowledge who they were.

His voice was raspy, like the last gasp of a dying person. No matter how many times I heard it, it always sent a chill up my spine. “Pen, how nice of you to drop by. I was beginning to think you didn’t care anymore. Care for a sip?” The floating body dipped toward me, in a mock gesture of offering.

“Frank, why are you here? I thought we had an understanding. You leave people alone, and I leave you alone.” Spectres ate the souls of the living. Generally, they preferred the soul of any creature of the race they had been in their former life. Human, Elf, Giant, Faery. They could consume animal spirits but it was like living on a diet of nothing but unflavoured tofu. Once in awhile, a spectre would get an irresistible whiff of a person and they just followed their ethereal nose.

“This boy, as you called him, was playing with powers beyond his understanding, Pen! If I let him keep going he could have ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. I know you wouldn’t want to deal with the things from the other-side. I thought I’d do you a favour. He was going to die anyway, and it’s not fair to ask me to do something for free, so I was just going to take him as payment and be on my merry way.” Normally spectres were of a singular mind. Apparently I had been rubbing off on Frank though, because he liked to talk more now. I couldn’t exactly disagree with what he was doing but just because he was right doesn’t mean I can let him start killing people.

“Aw, that’s sweet. Thanks for thinking of me, Frank. But this has gone far enough. He doesn’t have enough life in him to finish the spell and I’m here anyway. We’re safe. You can let him go.” Frank’s eyes, or at least the holes in the vague, blue shape of a man, flared red. I interrupted his only real meal in probably 2 years. I was worried about this before I walked in but that just made me more ready.

“Sorry, Pen. A guy needs to eat…” With a shriek, he lunged through the air, the body of the fledgeling mage dropping the last 2 feet and falling to the floor with a thud. I’d deal with him later.

Fighting a spectre isn’t like battling something physical, such as a vampire or a demon. The form of a spectre is a negative energy aura. Living creatures are filled with, and live on, positive energy. When the two meet, a normalization process begins to occur. This brings the spectre closer to living and the living thing closer to being dead. Not ideal for those of us who like being not dead.

Snapping my fingers on both hands activated the pair of negative runes I had tattooed onto my thumbs. Dull purple-ish shields of energy flew up in front of me and Frank slammed into them, hissing his displeasure of being rebuked so forcefully. Before he could get his proverbial footing, I was moving forward. The shields kept him floating backward as I worked through the next spell.

There were two ways to deal with a spectre; allow them to absorb enough positive energy that they become semi-corporeal and then give them a final death, or trap them in a negative energy cage and watch them dissipate as all of the negative energy tries to get away from each other. Believe it or not, the first one is the more humane of the two.

Since the fool who had started this mess couldn’t offer any help, I touched a hand to my chest, just below the collarbone, and pulled out a sliver of my own life. Humans are amazingly resilient and I could recoup this in other ways so I wasn’t overly worried. I allowed the energy to flow over my right arm, encasing it like a gauntlet, before dropping the pair of shields. Frank saw an opportunity to feed on undefended positive energy and surged forward.

Always a bit dramatic, I threw a punch that forced my protected hand into the gaping maw that signified the mouth of Frank. With a screech, he ripped the energy from me, greedily sucking it down. I had only fractions of a second to capitalize but being this close it was nearly impossible to miss the small part of the spectre that started to change colour from blue to a more life-like pink. The fingers of my right hand dragged down the length of my forearm, from elbow to wrist, tracing a long series of runes that lit up with blazing fury as I did. With my left palm facing Frank, as my fingers finished tracing the spell, a bolt of flame burst from my wrist, the fire along my forearm immediately sputtering out.

So entranced by the intoxicating flavour of human life-force, Frank didn’t even move as the searing bolt engulfed the newly living piece of him. He simply looked at me and smiled, licked his lips, and dispersed.

Most dead things were happy once the time came to move on. They were just as afraid of “what comes next?” as the living are but, just like the living, they are pretty accepting when it comes. Frank had been a decent spectre since I met him but it isn’t my job to make friends. To call this a job at all is a bit of a stretch, given that I don’t actually get paid for it. I mean, Batman at least owned a company to keep the money coming in.

I went to the boy and ran a quick scanning spell to see how badly injured he might be. For me to call him a boy was probably unfair. He looked about 20, which was older than me, but this guy was clearly thinking way too highly of himself. Very childish behaviour to go set out and try to summon Cthulu or some other dark entity from the other-side. It’s unlikely he would have posed a real threat to the city but he definitely would have gotten himself killed one way or another.

His ankle was broken from the short fall, so I straightened him out and wrapped it up. A tap of a rune on the back of my right-hand had the area swept of the blood (a simple cleaning spell kept my Mom off my back, even if she didn’t know I used magic to clean my room), and I left. He’d wake up sometime soon and use his cell phone to call his daddy to come pick him up. I hated trust-fund kids almost as much as I hate vampires. Entitled, pompous, think they are better than everyone…

It was almost 2 a.m. and I had a chemistry test tomorrow that I hadn’t studied for. I figured chemistry was close to potion making so I’d probably be fine. That said, I had to get home anyway. Mom would be up in 4 hours, which meant I’d be expected to be up in 5. Ugh, I can’t wait to get my own place after high school.