Confessions of the Magpie Wizard Book 3: Dissolution (Chapter 43 & 44) (Patreon)

Art by Yoghurt Stripper! 🍉YoghurtStripper🍉 (@YoghurtStripper) / Twitter 

Chapter 43

“Ruhspont?” asked Mariko.

“Rough Spout, a demonic acid spell.” The same one I had given to Maggie to keep her busy. I decided to cut off the obvious question. “I’ve seen it in action before, in England. Nasty business. You’re lucky to still have your arm.”

She glanced down to where I was still ministering to her hand. “Are you done yet?”

I didn’t answer right away as I checked to make sure I hadn’t missed a spot. With the fresh burns healed, her hand was delightfully soft, except for some calluses I took to be from hours of holding a drawing pen. It made her marred forearm stand out all the more. That was definitely the work of Rough Spout; demonic magic has a way of staying in the tissue long after any physical mark ought to have faded, like the curse mark we had left on Haru’s face.

I must have stared longer than I intended, since she didn’t wait for my go ahead before she broke my grip and hastily rolled up her sleeve. “You see why I keep it hidden.” She scratched her ruined forearm through her jacket, looking utterly crestfallen.

I tried my winningest smile. “I was wondering why you wore long sleeves all summer. I was starting to think you were coldblooded.”

She had never really stopped crying, but my attempt at humor turned the spigot to full blast. She hid her face in her hands as she tried to regain control of herself.

“Mariko?” I wished I’d had the fortitude to just walk out of there. If I’d been able to feel sympathy for Haru, it was so much worse for somebody I gave a damn about. I didn’t want to be there, feeling her misery as my own. This wasn’t my fight. It wasn’t my fault either, since she had spilled the tea and hurt herself. Hell, I’d done enough by healing her.

I found that I couldn’t. I told myself it was awkward to get out of the beanbag chair, and that I slung a comforting arm over her shoulders to steady myself, so I didn’t fall over. I didn’t quite believe it, but it was a concession to my devilhood.

“Does it hurt?’

“Sometimes,” she said. “It itches most of the time. Sometimes it burns like the night it happened.” She bit her lip and winced. “Like now. I think some of your healing magic hit the scar tissue.”

“My apologies.”

“No, don’t. That was a nicely done Minor Heal.”

“You’ve taught me well,” I said.

She put on a brave face for me. “Could you get something from my purse? You’ll find a bottle in the outside pocket.”

I nodded, forgetting my earlier self-excuse that I couldn’t stand easily. I couldn’t make out the label; the letters were English, but it was mostly technical jargon. All I could understand was, ‘for muscle spasms. Take two to four per day, as needed.’ I retrieved a bottle of water from a minifridge in the corner while I was at it.

“You’re always so thoughtful,” she said, nodding gratefully. She took her pill and let out a relaxed sigh, settling into the beanbag chair.

I stayed standing, offended by her lies and slander. “It’s nothing special.” I was simply currying favor, of course. Of course.

“No, I’m serious.” She gulped, which seemed to get her tears under control. “Paul saw my arm once, when we...” She trailed off, before shaking her head. “I think it disappointed or disgusted him.” She looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “He never asked where it came from.”

“It didn’t stop him from admiring your pastries.”

She winced. “No, no it didn’t. I figured he would come around eventually, and we hadn’t been dating for long. It was a lot to dump on somebody.”

“Did you try to explain about your arm?”

She held up a single finger. “Once, and I was relieved when he said no. I didn’t want to tell, and I could tell he didn’t want to hear it.”

“Strange, I’ve never known you to suffer in silence.”

“You make me sound like some sort of a basket case.” She puffed her cheeks out in a pout. “You do always see me at my worst.”

“At your worst? Chin up, my dear. There’s no shame in having a few scars.” I rolled up the sleeve on my left arm, revealing old wounds left by the spells of some lucky Wizard Corpsman. Well, not lucky enough to survive, but he left his mark. The school had given me some treatment for the scar tissue, but they were still plainly visible. “You see? We match.”

“I’m not that vain,” she said. “I don’t like it, but that isn’t the problem.”

Her hands were clasped together, but I could just make out the constant movement. The pills had done their work, but the tremor was still there. “It’s your art.”

She nodded. “The doctors don’t know much about demonic magic, but the prognosis isn’t good. It’s been more than six months, and there hasn’t been much improvement. It just burns less often.”

“What happened?”

She shook her head. “It’s a horrible story that you don’t need to-”

“Out of the question,” I said. “None of this evasion. Nothing you can say will shock me. Not after what I’ve seen.”

“I suppose you deserve to know,” she said. “What have you heard about the Taiwan Incident?”

“Is that really what everybody calls it?”

She shrugged. “That’s what they call it in the news.”

Such a creative name. “Kiyo gave me a summary of what happened there,” I said. “You were sent there during the invasion of England, since there simply weren’t enough teachers around to teach the regular classes for a few weeks. They made it a field trip.”

She smiled more fully than she had in ages. “It was such a lovely vacation. I love travelling, and Taiwan had been on my to do list for a long time. I was convinced that that was when Hiro would notice me, or I would finally work up the courage to confess. Kiyo and Yukiko thought the same thing.”

“That clearly didn’t happen, or else one of you would have been engaged to him before I even arrived.”

“It might have. It was going so well, and then…” She flopped back on the beanbag chair and stared up at the ceiling. Seeing that it was going to be a longer story than I’d expected, I grabbed a chair and turned it backwards so I could lean forward. “We were assigned to work with a local Wizard Corpsman, Tan Che Wei. We didn’t know he was Holy Brother Gyrfalcon. He had a terrible limp after Madagascar, so they wouldn’t send him to England to fight there. He taught all of us in Class 3-B. He wasn’t… enthusiastic about me being a pacifist, but he respected my arrangement with the Headmaster. He was such a breath of fresh air after my classes with Mr. Maki.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

“Yukiko got drafted into helping Tan with some office work.”

“Of course they would use the CEO’s daughter for that,” I said.

She nodded. “She noticed a file hidden under a desk. It detailed incoming shipments of grains, ore and something only labelled ‘curios,’ with livestock being sent as payment.” She gripped her wrist as it began to tremble again. I had overlooked her troubles for months, but it was plain as day once I knew what to look for. “Except it wasn’t pigs or cattle.”

“We can skip ahead a little,” I said, noticing her anxiety. “Kiyo told me about this. The Holy Brotherhood was trading British refugees to the Far East Horde for demonic fabricata, and you lot uncovered it. It sounds like you foiled their whole operation.”

She nodded. “Tan Che Wei needed a leg brace to get around, but he was a skilled wizard. It took all of us working together to bring him down.”

That phrasing struck me as odd, coming from her. “Was? Past tense? I can’t imagine you condoning an execution.”

Mariko looked aghast. “No, absolutely not! They wanted to, after we saw those poor wretches in their cells, but we would be no better than him and his men if we killed him.”

“What went wrong?”

Her face fell again. “Hiro listened to me. I caught Gyrfalcon in a Spectral Web and Hiro punched him out. While our attention was turned towards helping those poor people, he woke up and grabbed a demonic fabricata wand.” Her eyes lost focus as she sat back up, clasping her trembling hands tightly in front of her. “He shouted, ‘Humanity First! Death to demonkin!’ and sprayed me with a horrible green liquid. I got a Svalinn’s Mercy up, but some splattered around the sides. I was never whole again after that. I barely talked Hiro out of killing him then and there. He’s in a prison somewhere now.”

“Wait, you were able to argue with Hiro after you got hit by a Rough Spout?”

She nodded.

“You’re tougher than I gave you credit for.” Thank the Dark Lord she was too foolish to fight back, or she would have been a force to be reckoned with.

“You aren’t the first person to say that.” She gulped, clearly struggling to go on. “The Wizard Corps s-said I was brave, too. We all received a medal for valor.”

“It sounds like you all deserved it.”

She snorted derisively. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I keep mine in a sock drawer. I’d throw the darn thing away if I thought I could get away with it.” She closed her eyes and the tears flowed again. “I never wanted to fight anybody. It isn’t my place to decide who lives and dies. I sp-spent all those years learning how to draw. Before the corps drafted me, I took third place in a magazine contest. They said I was promising, but still rough. I know I could have made it, b-but now my hand is shot.”

“Then why are you still here? If you’re an invalid, they should send you home! Even the Horde would do that.”

“I tried that,” she said, holding her head in her hands. “I c-can’t hold a pen straight, but I can cast a spell.”

“Can you?” I asked. “If you twitch like you did the other day in class, you could be a danger to everyone around you.”

“It usually isn’t too hard to cast. I just forgot to take my pill that morning,” she said. “I forgot today, too. Even then, wizards are so rare that they say can’t even spare a conscientious objector with a tremor.” She stood up and began to pace. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. They won’t let me leave. I can’t graduate if I don’t learn combat magic and fight in the war games.”

“Seems to me they don’t have much leverage. If they’re so insistent on having on you, what can they do? Throw you in a real prison?”

“They can’t spare me, remember? I’m in their system, and I won’t get out until I get with their program, which I refuse to do.”

“Why? I assure you that there isn’t a devil in the Grim Horde who would hesitate to kill you.” They might have had some fun with her first, but she would inevitably meet her maker, since I doubted Our Father Below would want anything to do with her.

That stopped her in her tracks. “You sound so familiar with devil magic and the Horde,” she said, her voice tinged with suspicion.

“I barely got out of England alive,” I said, hastily. “The island’s swarming with their soldiers. I’m here because I figured out how they think. Maybe it’s time for you to give in. It’s nice that you have your morals, but things would be much easier if you just went with the flow.”

“No!” She stomped over and jabbed a finger in my face. “The right things aren’t easy!”

“Doing what you think is right hasn’t profited you any,” I said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Everybody deserves a chance to turn themselves around, even a Holy Brother or a devil. It is not my place to murder anybody and cut off that chance, so I won’t learn to kill. Right isn’t about gain, it’s good for its own sake.”

I wondered if she was in the Enemy’s camp. She sounded sanctimonious enough. That traitorous voice in the back of my head pointed out that seeking the easy path had gotten me enmeshed with Maggie’s schemes. The devilish path could trap you just as much as her morals. I told that voice to go kiss a mammoth. If I would end up trapped regardless, I’d rather have my fun first.

“Everybody, huh?”

“Absolutely everybody,” she said.

What nonsense. She’d never say that if she really knew who she was talking to. Then again, Mariko had never been a practical woman. She might have been that idiotic.

“It fits you. You love doing things the hard way,” I said. “You want to find a nice man without letting him know you’re interested, you want to befriend merciless devils, and you would rather wear sweaters in August than let anybody know you’re miserable.”

The righteous fire that had animated her was snuffed out in an instant. She scratched at her ruined forearm. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“They were there,” I said. “They must know about your arm.”

“Yes, but I haven’t told them about my shakes. Hiro already thinks he failed me. He doesn’t need to know; it won’t make my hands any steadier.”

“I suppose we all have our secrets,” I said. “I can keep yours.”

Her brow raised, but if my little Freudian slip raised her suspicions, she didn’t comment. “Don’t keep too many, Soren. If you need to unburden yourself, I’m here for you.”

That almost sounded nice. A shame that it was impossible. “Here’s how you can repay me,” I said. “When you come to class tomorrow, braid your hair and look like you slept more than a few minutes. If anybody asks what’s the matter, just bloody tell them about Paul. You can leave out the part about me finding you in the woods, of course.” I paused. “In fact, I would consider it a personal favor if you did.” I didn’t need more scrutiny about where I was the night of Haru’s death.

She smiled thinly. “I think I can manage that.”

Thank Our Father Below for small favors.

Mariko hesitated a moment before taking my hand in both of hers. The tremor was still there, naturally. “Thank you, Soren. This has been an enormous load off of my shoulders.”

“Anybody would have done it,” I said. “Please, don’t mention it.” Please.

She shook her head, spilling her hair over her face. I could see why she usually kept it tied. “You’re one of the only people at this school who doesn’t make me feel like a bother or a decoration. The man I thought I loved wasn’t interested. So no, not anybody would have done it. I appreciate you.”

What an absolute fool. No wonder she had gone looking for a lasting romance with a man who only wanted a quick fling. She was an awful judge of character.

Chapter 44

Mariko and I didn’t stay together long after that. I didn’t end up eating my dinner; it had long since gone cold, and the wave of tea had completely soaked through the bottom of the container. That was fine, since I wasn’t hungry anymore. Mariko’s injury had seen to that.

I was no stranger to hideous injuries. I had been able to diagnose Mariko’s scars at a glance because I had seen many devils walking around with scars that matched Mariko’s arm. Rough Spout gets used in particularly nasty duels regularly back home, and there are even sayings among devils that use it as a darkly humorous punchline. They don’t translate well, but the gist is, “If you keep that up, you are begging for a Ruhspont.”

The difference was that I gave a damn about this injured party. I can’t properly say that I had friends back in Pandemonium. Devils don’t make friends. Social standing is about making allies of convenience at your same social level, keeping those beneath you in line, or toadying to those who outrank you. I always struggled with the last part, since my lips are a tad loose. If one of my fellow aides de camp had shown up with a ruined arm, I would have filed that away as useful information, but I wouldn’t have shed a tear over it.

Mariko was different. After months of banter and learning about her inner life, my stomach churned as I imagined the pain she must have felt. It was much the same instinct that made my heart break at Kiyo’s loneliness, or Rose’s angst about her powers. I didn’t see why it should bother me so. One of the key tenets of classical Demonic philosophy is that others are not you, and thus only matter insofar as they are of use to you. I could lie to myself that Kiyo was simply a convenient lover, or that I helped Rose to preserve my false identity as Soren Marlowe, but Mariko was more extraneous to my purposes than that. Technically, the knowledge that this woman had lost her dream and been permanently maimed should have fallen under the same heading of useful information.

Yet, my stomach churned on. She had been burned by a Holy Brother using demonic technology. It was irrational to feel guilt, since I hadn’t done it, but I felt connected to the act.

That was another thing. Guilt? What the Hell was wrong with me? A devil doesn’t feel guilt at any act itself, only regret for being caught! Right and wrong were the Enemy’s deception. Despite a few close calls during our chat, I hadn’t been exposed. I should have left the club room with a spring in my step and gratitude that I wasn’t her. Yet, I walked away deeply unsettled.

I was forced to the one conclusion that I had resisted for months. I wasn’t merely going soft, I had gone soft. I had always rationalized it, but my excuses had increasingly rung hollow in my ears, and now had no power to comfort me. That only affirmed the need to get back home as soon as possible, before I was completely ruined. If I took my growing weakness back to Pandemonium, the other devils would sniff it out and my life would be measured in days or weeks.

What about treason, then? I could stick around and just slide into Soren Marlowe’s life.

I smacked myself in the face, and I deserved it for such nonsense. “Get yourself together! You’re a devil and a Holy Brother, you idiot! If they don’t hang you as one, they’ll hang you as the other!”

I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, thinking in circles in my room. I went to check my mail again out of the desire for some guidance. I found nothing, but I couldn’t say I was surprised. Word got around slowly in the Grim Horde. We had magical fabricata that worked similarly to the old telegraph networks past centuries, but they weren’t especially common. I couldn’t be sure that Grand General Beez even knew about his loss yet. If he didn’t know, then Fera wouldn’t know, and Harriet Oswald in Australia wouldn’t know. I was a week away from hearing if the intel I had delivered to Maggie was really my ticket home.

I ran into Rose on the elevator on my way back up. She wore a jogging outfit that could have doubled as a two-piece swimsuit, accompanied by a thin sheen of perspiration. I didn’t feel much enthusiasm for giving her a good ogle, since I was still in a funk.

I still gave her a once over, mind you. That side of me hadn’t been eroded by contact with the humans. I just didn’t enjoy myself as much as usual.

“Magpie, fancy running into you here!”

“You seem to be in good spirits.” I returned her bright smile, despite myself. Rose had a way of lighting up a room.

She nodded, beaming proudly. “I beat my all-time best for a 5K run!” She put her hands on her hips in a pose that reminded me of one of Hiro’s superhero comics. “A wonderful end to a wonderful day!”

I felt my jaw go slack, before I collected myself. “Come again? A wonderful day? After that bloodbath before?”

Rose shifted nervously at that reminder. “It’s horrible that all of those sailors were lost, but the Horde came out of it worse.” She chuckled to herself. “Did you see the look on that stupid orc’s face when the shark got it? The only way they could have made it better was if it was a devil, since they’re calling the shots.”

“My, aren’t we bloodthirsty?” I said, forcing my tone to stay neutral. She wasn’t wrong about orcs, but I couldn’t help but take her comments personally.

“Are you alright, Soren?” We arrived at the floor for the boy’s dorms, but she tapped a few buttons to close the door again and take us to another level. “I’d have thought you’d be happier.”

Soren Marlowe would be without reservation, which meant I had to act like it. “Oh, of course. If we can stop them there, we have a real shot at walking on English soil again. I’m more disturbed that the Holy Brotherhood was able to hack the feed.”

She snorted derisively. “Those losers?”

I was a reluctant Holy Brother, but I did have some pride. “Those ‘losers’ impersonated you, you’ll recall. If things had gone differently at the Serving Wizard’s House, you might have been blamed for the assassination of Asahi Maki. You should take them a little seriously.”

She gave me a warm smile. “You did save me there, didn’t you?” The elevator dinged again, and she prompted me to follow her. “Come on, I have even better news for you.”

The Nagoya Tower’s shopping levels swarmed with students from all grades. After a day of confinement, they were as starved for entertainment as I was. At first, I thought that Rose was ignorant of the looks that she got in her exercise attire. One second-year boy got a slap from his girlfriend when his gaze lingered a bit too long. Then, I saw the satisfied smirk on her face.

“Showing off, are we?”

“Maybe a little. I swear, I was going to go back and get changed first, but you looked like you needed some company and I got distracted.”

“That’s awfully cruel of you, considering your powers keep you off the market.”

She giggled. “Not anymore! I can start dating again. That’s something else I can thank you for.”

“I’m flattered, but my heart belongs to another,” I said.

“Not you, you goof.” She scanned the area. “That reminds me, where is Kiyo? You two are usually inseparable.”

“Buried face first in a video game, from what I hear,” I grumbled. I didn’t dwell on that irritation. “Now, what’s this about dating? Are you sure that’s safe? Things always got stormy when I… made some hasty moves before.”

“I wasn’t just out for a run,” she replied. “I visited the Headmaster’s workshop to bleed off my excess magic.”

“Oh? I’d think that he would be much too busy to be out there tinkering, after the uproar this morning.”

She shook her head, sending a ripple through her blonde locks. “He wasn’t there, but he gave me a key to his shed. I’ve been going in there to drain off magic the last couple of days, and it’s changed everything! I feel like I used to, before Stormbringer woke up and derailed my life. I don’t have to manage my emotions every last second. Here, watch this.”

She stopped in place and cast a Merlin’s Lantern against a plaster wall between shops. “See? No wind!”

“I’m sure the headmaster doesn’t mind the extra energy for his projects,” I murmured to myself. That Tachibana was a shrewd one. “And nope, not so much as a breeze.”

“Use your affinity, please,” she said. “Just to be sure.”

“It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?”

She put her hands together. “Please, just one more time. I think it’s fixed, but I have to be sure.”

I was glad to help her, blast it, if only to stop her from looking imploring at me. I closed my eyes and sure enough, Rose’s outline in my own affinity’s vision was far more muted than normal, even as she cast the spell twice more. She almost blended in with the other wizards milling about. I couldn’t look for too long, though. With the sheer number of wizards milling about, my Mimic was taxed tracking all of them. I set my next goal as learning to filter out the background magic.

When I opened my eyes, she was looking at me expectantly. “You’re getting better at slipping in and out of… I guess we could call it Mimic Vision?”

“I hadn’t come up with a name, but I suppose that works well enough. How long was I out?”

“Not more than a minute,” she said. “Which is good, since I was thinking about waking you up with a little rainstorm.”

“That’s never once worked,” I said. “I think you just enjoy tormenting me!”

She giggled again. “Can you blame me? The way your eyes sparkle when you’re cross is adorable.”

“I thought I wasn’t on the market,” I said.

She winked playfully. “Fair’s fair, the way you keep sneaking peeks.” She hesitated a moment before continuing. “You aren’t firing back like normal. What’s the matter?”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” I said.

“My mom always said everything looks better on a full stomach,” said Rose. She opened the door to the ice cream shop we had stopped in front of.

“I can’t say I’m too hungry tonight,” I said.

“That bullocks, there’s always room for ice cream.” She pulled my arm and, seeing that she wouldn’t take no for an answer, I acquiesced.

Of all the rotten luck, who should be there but Paul Wilson, sitting with a group of friends I didn’t recognize. I expected him to say something, but he just gave me the stink eye.

Rose didn’t notice and soon enough we had some dishes of a fruity ice cream. I wanted to leave quickly to prevent an encounter with Paul, but I also didn’t want to tell Rose what the matter was. I figured that was Mariko’s job. If she didn’t talk after the coaching I’d given her, then she was truly a lost cause.

Rose devoured hers quickly, while I nursed mine slowly as we chatted. It was always refreshing to talk with Rose, compared with the rest of my little circle of friends. She was always much more up front about her feelings. I almost forgot I was putting on an act, which was itself dangerous.

After a while, Rose began to shiver and rub her bare arms. “Could you eat a little faster? I’m starting to get cold.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have wolfed your ice cream down so quickly,” I said with a smirk.

“Come on, Magpie,” she said. “I’m dying.”

“Fireball,” I said, casting Kiyo’s stationary variant. It had left my short-term memory the day before, but it wasn’t much different than the regular version, so I had memorized it quickly.

Rose’s green eyes went wide, and a few of the other patrons scooted away from me. “You really aren’t ready to go, are you?”

“Who knows when we’ll be able to relax like this again? Before you know it, I’ll… we’ll be out of school and out on the front lines.”

She blinked a few times. “That’s heavier than I expected from you. Since when do you think about the big picture.”

I thought back to Mariko’s arm. “That’s the lesson we should take from the fall of England. The good things in life can always be taken away.”

Rose didn’t have a response to that. I think she rather preferred the unexamined life. She settled back into her chair and warmed her hands by my fireball. A playful grin split her face. “Oh, cousin Andrew sent me a good one this morning. How do you teach a devil to swim?”

I rolled my eyes. I forced a smile to my face. “I don’t know, how do you teach a devil to swim?”

“Have the Alabama blow his boat away.” Really, it wasn’t quite worth laughing for a minute straight. “What’s the matter?”

“I guess I don’t have as much of a sense of humor about the Horde,” I said.

She deflated a bit. “Oh. I see why you wouldn’t, after seeing them up close.”

“That’s it exactly,” I said. So much for my good mood, and I could tell I was bringing her down too. I snapped my fingers, dispelling the fireball and finished my ice cream. “Rose, thank you for being the highlight of my day.” It wasn’t a lie, all things considered.

She grinned. “Careful, don’t let Kiyo hear you say that. She’s bound to be jealous.”

“I won’t if you won’t,” I replied.

Rose had helped me more than she could know. Beyond raising my morale, that conversation had convinced me of a few things. The first was that if I couldn’t take a soft spirit back to the Horde, a demon like me also had no future with the Anti-Demonic League. Rose was a sweet girl, but her attitude towards my race was plain as day. Her friendship was as risky as Maggie’s lack of care towards me.

The next was that I couldn’t wait on Fera’s say-so to start plotting. I needed to get away from these humans before they poisoned me completely. I couldn’t rely on anybody but myself. I had been told to make a lasting blow against the humans as my ticket back home, and now I knew where I could get canisters bursting with magical energy to help me. All I needed was a way to use them.

When we parted ways in the elevator, she gave me a brief, chaste hug. “I hope you feel more cheerful soon,” she said. “You’re my piece of home, and I hate seeing you down.”

“That’s so funny,” I said. “Talking with you always makes me think of home, too.”

*************

Thanks for reading. That little break gave me time to recharge.

Next Chapter: Confessions of the Magpie Wizard Book 3 (Chapters 45 + 46) | D. B. Fassbinder on Patreon