Old World Magic

- - -

Author's Note: First off, to any fans who have waited patiently for over a year for this chapter, thank you. The fact of the matter is I just lost Mike's "voice" inside my head. A month or two ago, he started speaking to me again and I knew it was time to pick up the pen again, as it were. Sorry to make you wait so long.

Secondly, this chapter is decidedly non-erotic. It's a lot of plot and it is all things needed to set up the next 'phase' in Mike's story. If you only want to read for titillation, you're going to have to wait for chapter 23. I promise there's going to be sex in that one.

- - -

*thock*

The satisfying feel of the gloves hitting the bag, that sound, it was so familiar and so satisfying.

*THOCK thock thock THOCK*

"Good, good," Vincenzo encouraged.

*thock thock thock THOCK*

"Watch it, you're drawing left when you jab right," He chided, "you could swerve right into a hook."

*thock thock thock thock thock thock THOCK*

"Better, now give me the double with a right cross again. This time keep your head up."

*thock thock thock THOCK*

"Good, better, but that's enough for today. Go hit the showers kid."

I nodded, my breath coming fast from the workout. I held my hands out and he unlaced the gloves quickly despite the knobby joints of his fingers, Age may have taken his body out of the game, but not his head. Guys like me, they didn't get a chance to work with Vincenzo unless they got lucky, had a lot of potential, or they had connections, powerful connections. Me, I had all three. Vincenzo was going to take me to the bigs, there was no better trainer in all of Brooklyn.

He cut the tape from my fists with blunt tipped scissors and then waved me off, "Go on, you know who is waitin' for you, an I don't think you wanna keep him waiting."

"No," I heard myself saying, "Not a good idea. I'll catch ya tomorrow V." Why did my voice sound so different? It was higher pitched than usual, and younger, it wasn't my voice. I saw my hand reach out and slap the heavy bag I'd been beating on for the last hour under Vincenzo's trained eye, then turned and made my way through the gym. There were other boxers here, other guys training, but none of them could beat me. I was the star of the gym and everyone knew it. I was going to the big time. Scouts had already been talking to my family, and I'd been approached by a few agents. No one important though, the street rats, the bums, the guys who'd take on anyone. I needed one good fight, one good win, then the big boys would show up.

"Timmy," I heard the voice as I entered the locker room, and turned to see him. Everyone knew James the neck, he worked for Paul. If you fucked with James, you fucked with Paul, and if you fucked with Paul, bad things tended to happen. "Lookin good little man," he said as he crushed a cigarette butt beneath his shoe.

"Don't call me little man," I said as I looked up at the taller skinny man with defiance on my face. I didn't say anything else, but I'm sure my expression said it.

"Relax Tim, relax. Look, Paul wanted me to talk to you. He knows about the fight coming up, and there's a lot of heat on you. No one thinks you're going to lose." He paused and I saw his fingers twitch, almost as if they already missed the cigarette he'd just stubbed out. "But you're going too. You're going to take a fall in the fourth round. You do this, and Paul will be very grateful."

I gasped, I didn't take a fall! But I didn't say anything. James leaned in, "Very grateful, this is your chance in Timmy. How long boxing gonna take care of you at best? But you know Paul and the family can. Plus it's not like it's going to end your career, it's just one fight."

My jaw clenched so hard I felt like my teeth were going to snap. I felt my fists clench in anger, even though I didn't want to hit the tall man in front of me. I knew I really had no choice. But I couldn't say anything. I just stood there staring.

"Good, good," James said slapping my shoulder and walking past me. "He knew you'd understand."

I heard the hard soles of his shoes as he left the locker room. I felt like I heard them for far longer than possible, then I could finally move. Take a fall? I'd never taken a dive. I didn't have a perfect record, but it was damn good, and the scouts were watching. But could I dare to defy Paul?

I went to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. Wait, that wasn't my face was it? I didn't look like that, did I? I gripped the sink edge and shook it as my rage flowed through my powerful arms. This wasn't fair, why now? Why did this happen to me? And what was that mark on my temple?

I turned my head to the side and looked at the mark on my head in the mirror. Round, black edges. I leaned in and looked closely, it was a hole. Blood began to pour from it and run down the side of my face. Oh, right, it was a bullet hole, that was where I'd been shot. I forgot I was dead.

I sat up in bed, gasping. My sheets were coated in sweat. Another fucking nightmare.

"I'm not Tim," I said to myself softly as I gripped the bed sheets, "My name is Mike. It was just another nightmare, it wasn't real. My name is Mike, not Tim."

Sunlight streamed in through the window of the hotel room that had been my home for the better part of the month and lit the room brightly. I'd forgotten to close the shades when I'd gone to bed last night and the dossier of papers about my new life was sitting on the bed near me. Open, the name read out to me, 'James Michael Wheeler.'

"Ok," I said shaking my head as I let reality begin to seep back into my existence, "Maybe it's not even Mike anymore."

- - -

The soft sibilant sound of air being pumped through a tube into the man's nose was a pleasant counterpoint to the insistent beeping of the machines in the room. Critical Care room 7, it wasn't the emergency room, but it was about one step away. I waited, knowing Hector was going to use his healing magic on this man. He was a hair's breadth away from death. Hector was going to use his healing magic on this man. Nothing dramatic or even obvious would happen, but I'd seen him do it dozens of times over the last few days. He'd give the man a gentle nudge back towards convalescence. Repair some internal damage, stimulate the man's healing, ease his pain, put the man into a deeper sleep than the medicine in his system was allowing. They were all little things, but they added up, and it would mean the man would one day walk out of the hospital and not be taken out in a hearse.

"You do it now Mike," he said to me as we stood over the man's bed.

I did a double take as I looked at the kindly older black man. He was a healer, a mage who focused on healing magic, and I'd been shadowing him trying to learn how to heal just by watching. I was an arch mage, and I had been practicing in secret, but I didn't think he knew. Emily, a luck mage, had told me that being discovered as an arch mage, someone who could cast spells outside of their discipline, could be dangerous. So I'd been careful not to let anyone else know. "What?" I asked after a few moments of silence between us, "I can't, I'm an eros mage."

He chuckled softly. It was a deep and low chuckle that seemed to come from deep in his old chest. "Ah,Mike," he said stretching out my name long and slow, "we both know that's not true. You tink I'da shown you e'rethin I had if I didn't tink you could use it? Didn't know you could use it?"

I opened my mouth to protest, but I caught something in Hector's eyes. Old, wise eyes, I'd always thought. They were eyes that had seen and experienced a lot and hid away many secrets. But not right now, now they looked at me hard. They bore into me, not angry, but ready, waiting, watching. This was a test and I knew it, Hector was testing me. But for what I didn't know. Maybe he wanted to see if I'd do what he said. Maybe he suspected I was an archmage. Maybe he just wanted to see if I could heal as well as he could.

Fuck it, I was supposed to be learning from him. If he found out what I was and turned me into the Silence, I'd deal with it when the time came. I closed my eyes and thought about the various patterns and intricate paths of mana I'd seen him weave over the last few days. I started small, letting mana trickle into a lattice of arcane paths, creating the spell that he always started with. Then I opened my eyes.

I wasn't looking at a sick man anymore. Not exactly at least. The spell had given me a new type of sight, and I was looking at this man not only as he was now, broken and barely clinging to life, but as he was and could be. I saw him healthy, in the prime of his life, I saw him as a child full of potential, I saw him as a decrepit old man, I saw him in every state of being he could be in all at once.

I slammed my eyes shut, my head pounding as if someone had driven a spike into the side of it. I stumbled back away from the bed, but felt Hector's hands catch me and hold me with a gentle strength. "Easy dere," he muttered, "Don't look at it all, jus' look at what 'e might be in de next breath, and t'en de one after that. Jus' focus on findin' a version of him that's healthier, safer."

I swallowed and tried to push away the pain in my head, knowing it was feedback from the spell, and realizing I couldn't do anything about it right now. I opened my eyes and just thought about the man as he was before I'd cast the spell. There, he was 'back to normal' in my sight, but not really. There was a shimmer around him, like the way something looks out of the corner of your eye, not fully there. I looked at it and focused on it and his body changed to my eyes. I saw him give up on even that last spark of life and watched his body cease. I'd gone the wrong way and blinked, resetting my view of him. He was as he had been, and I 'looked' the other way. Slowly I saw his form appear to grow healthier and more hale, I let the images spin across my field of vision, two or three at a time till he was healthy enough to stand up and dance out of the hospital.

"Too much, you'd kill you'self tryin' ta heal that much." Hector whispered softly, "No one could explain that kind'a recovery.

Hector was right and I let the visions slide back to a sick and broken man laying in the hospital bed. But not so far as he had been before the spell.

"Ya, that's good, right there," He said softly, "Now do th' spell. Make reality match that vision."

I'd been watching him for days and I now understood much better how he did what he did. Healing wasn't brute force magic, or at least it wasn't the way Hector did it. This was no command to another person to get what I wanted. This wasn't forcing mana into a pattern to multiply cum production like Brookesbend's gift. This wasn't body shaping, which was the molding of flesh. This was different than what I was used too, it was more like a gentle coaxing. I began the intricate patterns that I'd seen Hector use, letting mana trickle into them. I felt the man's body shifting slightly, towards that image of him I was picturing. Microscopic capillaries that had been damaged and blocked cleared and repaired. Muscles that were bruised deep inside his body flushed with blood and began to pull together. White blood cells flooded his system rushing along their pathways.

I stepped back gasping. I felt weak, it was my first truly successful healing. It was different then the self practice I'd been trying in secret and now I understood. A successful healing, at least the way Hector taught me, was a gentle guiding of the body to simply do what it would do normally, simply at an accelerated pace. I tried to draw air into my lungs, but Hector pat me on the shoulder and chuckled, "Good start Mike. Sit down and I'll finish 'er off."

Not willing to argue, I leaned against the wall, gripping the hard plastic chair that sat against it. I watched as Hector effortlessly weaved spells and continued where I'd left off. Bones knit infections vanished, pain was soothed. When he was done the man didn't look much different, but I knew that he was not going to die. In fact with some time and physical recovery he would walk out of the hospital completely recovered. His family and doctors would say that he was lucky, that he made great progress. Religious people in his life would talk about how God was watching over him.

But it had been me. Hector and I had taken this man from the very edge of death to a place where he would eventually recover. I felt a rush of power, of self satisfaction, of...

I gasped again, looking at Hector, "I just felt an infusion of mana into my system." He nodded at me and I felt I had to explain. "I normally only get flush with mana like that from having sex."

"C'mon with me Mike," he said, "We're going to talk somewhere quiet I tink."

Hector led me to the stairs and upwards. We went to the very top of the staircase to a heavy door with a warning sign in large bold letters. WARNING - IF DOOR IS OPENED ALARM WILL SOUND. As he reached for the door I grabbed his elbow, "Wait," I pointed at the sign, "The alarm."

"Don'chu worry, is not goin' off." He said with a smile before pushing the door open and leading us out onto the roof of the hospital. It was hot out, but it didn't seem to bother the older man at all. In fact he drew in a great lungfull of the hot pre-noon air and turned to smile at me.

"Did you use some sort of magic?" I asked, confused because I didn't see him cast any spells to silence the alarm. "To make it so the alarm didn't go off, I mean."

He chuckled, a long and low and deep chuckle, "No," he said shaking his head, "Someone on maintenance. Tey cut a few wires some years ago so that they could come up to smoke." He nodded towards one edge of the roof and I followed his gaze. Near the edge of the roof I saw two nurses holding cups of coffee and smoking cigarettes as they chatted. I couldn't help but laugh. "Less go over there, have a chat." He motioned towards the other edge of the roof where we'd have some privacy.

I followed him, feeling both weak and empowered, confused and clear headed. I didn't know if Hector was going to turn me into the Silence for being an archmage, but he clearly knew. I didn't say anything, just followed him to the edge of the roof. He leaned on the low wall at the edge, 'parapet' my mind supplied to me defining it from some far off memory. I mirrored him and looked down. Just a hot parking lot and sidewalk, nothing much to speak of, and beyond that a road with traffic flowing at a normal pace. If I craned my head I could see a park off to my left, and the vegas strip in the distance.

"So," I said simply after a long period of silence when I felt sweat beginning to build up, "You know, huh?"

"We've always known." He said simply, turning to me. His deep brown eyes meeting mine and offering no judgement or accusation, just a statement. Just a fact. But in that simple three word sentence he told me so much. I didn't have to worry about whoever the Silence were or if they'd find me. Because whoever, whatever, they were, Hector was one of them. Not only that, I didn't have to keep it a secret anymore. I no longer had to hide that I was an archmage. But it did mean that this was coming to a head.

"Why didn't you say anything until today?" I asked, wondering how powerful he could be. I couldn't 'read' his thoughts, but I always had trouble with other mages, so I hadn't thought about it. I still didn't know if he was a 'simple healer' as he claimed, or if he was an archmage as well.

"Because, we made a deal a long time ago with the man you tink of as Adam Saks. We leave him alone, he follows the rules." Hector shrugged, "There aren't that many of us you know," I somehow felt like he wasn't just talking about mages, but what he and I specifically were, Archmages. "An' we don't like to get too involved in others business. For a long time he behaved. He lived his life, an' we kept an eye on him from afar. But we think he's gotten bored, and that's why he's done... well... what he's done."

Hector turned his head away from me, gazing out into the hot Las Vegas air and sighed. We did'n know if we shoul' approach you or watch you. But he' tricked another person to followin' him the same way he did you."

"Tricked?" I asked, "What do you mean tricked?

Hector shook his head, "That's something you gonna tink upon yerself. Not my place."

We stood for a long while, "So what does this mean for me?"

He looked at me and rubbed an old gnarled hand across his chin, "I ain't sure yet. I need ta talk to some of the others. But for right now it means you go back to the hotel, an you wait there. You stay there till I show up, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But don't tink that you can run, cause I won't be the one to come find you. An' I don't tink you'd like the person who does as much as you'd like me."

I swallowed, my mouth going dry as he casually offered the threat while not even bothering to look at me. "Right now? Our shift only..."

"You juss a volunteer Mike. Don' you worry about it. You go back to your hotel, don' talk to lovely Ms. Whitefeld, you jus' wait." He looked at me then and there was a fierceness in his gaze. An unspoken command. It was the everyday magic that a man could hold when he was charismatic, powerful, and had not a hint of mana to it. I knew that it was in my best interests to follow his directions.

"Ok, I'll do as you say Hector. I promise."

- - -

All I wanted as I trudged down the hall to the hotel room that had become my defacto home for the last few weeks was a hot shower and time to think about everything. But as I opened the door to my hotel room I heard talking, suddenly cut off when the door opened. I wasn't sure what I was expecting but the sight that greeted me wasn't it.

Sitting on the couch was a raven haired woman with her back to me, and standing in front of her, Erin. The raven haired woman turned and my heart skipped a beat, it was Cheyenne. But the reason I was so blown away was that the both of them looked horrible. They'd been crying, as ruined makeup and puffy eyes showed me. But beyond that, it looked like they'd been in a fight. Both of their faces had some deep scratches, Erin's face was swollen up on one entire side, and Cheyenne had a broken nose. Dried blood around the edge of her nostrils, an obvious bend that wasn't there before, and two eyes already starting to go black made that clear.

"What... Kia," I said shutting the door and moving into the room quickly remembering to use the fake name she was going by, "What the hell happened?"

"This is the doctor that can help us?" Cheyenne asked Erin, not recognizing me in my new form. Her voice sounded terrible and I had no doubt that it was because of the broken nose.

"Yes," she answered Cheyenne, "This is... uh...a friend." She obviously hadn't let the native american woman know who I was. "But he's not just a doctor, he's a mage like Adam is."

Cheyenne stood up and backed away from me, "No... no no no... I wouldn't have agreed to this if I'd known. No more magic, not after what he did to us... I'm out of here!" She leaned down to scoop up a backpack.

Erin hissed at me, "Do something!"

I reacted instinctively, just as I had when confronted by the two gunmen, and let loose a blast of mana into the glamour spell that Ruby had taught me. Cheyenne froze in her tracks and turned slowly, with vacant eyes to stare at me in a trance. I turned to Erin, "What the hell happened?"

Erin sighed, "Mike, you need to call that guy. The one who fixed us up, made us look different. We've got to fix Cheyenne's nose. We're never going back to the Hideaway, and that means girls like us hit the streets. It's already tough enough for a girl to watch out for johns that want to hit us, but if you have a broken nose, it's like the violent ones think it's an invitation."