Rich Boy: Awakening - 26. Chapter 26

Thanks to his rapport with Jamie the night before, Worthington was more attuned to the subdued attitude at school that day. For his own part, he felt more like a prisoner than anything else, stuck in class listening to boring lectures, and taking boring tests when he should be out there handling preparations. Stacy and Elizabeth had both been firm though, insisting that all of them attend school that day.

The rest of the meeting had been fairly anti-climatic after the Davenports had left. After an hour, everyone had gathered back on the patio, and each of the candidates had spoken for three minutes about why they wanted to be on the Council. Roger’s speech had been inflammatory, and full of accusations against Worthington and the others, as well as promises to ‘keep on them’. When it came time to vote, and each candidate stepped forward while mages lifted balls of light up for each, Roger had only received a handful, and had stormed out of the meeting without waiting for the official declaration.

Madam Calhoun had received the most votes of any candidate, with only Roger not voting for her. Elizabeth and Stacy had both received enough votes that they were on the council. The lawyer, Larry Ohlman was also on the Council, as was Lily Parker as the sole Dark mage candidate. Walter Grassley was the other man elected to the Council. After a few more words, the mages had departed, although they’d all been given instructions for later in the day, and had agreed to play their parts.

At lunch that day, Worthington treated the rest of Mike’s Riders to lunch, and went over their part in that evening’s activities. They weren’t quite sure of what would happen, but it was best to be ready for almost anything. All of the guys were quite excited about the night’s possibilities, and had all managed to get the word from Barry that Worthington had agreed to what they’d asked. By the end of lunch, talk had shifted to when everything would be ‘made real’, at the abandoned mine once the three week period the dwarves had set was ended.

That was something for Worthington to worry about later though, by the time the last class of the day rolled around. Today was a scrimmage day on the mats, so he got into his singlet, albeit with a jock and cup, and headed out to the gym without saying anything. Most of his teammates were also subdued, lost in their own worries, and Coach Vanderbilt seemed determined to snap them out of their funk.

“Okay boys.” The Coach said in a derisive tone. “I’ve been letting you get fat and lazy, but that’s over. Today we’re pairing you up out of your weight class, so you’re going to have to all be on your toes. Sinclair, you’re up against Mitchellson. Garvey, you’re taking on Baker…”

“Have fun.” Jeremy said with a snort as Worthington headed to the indicated mat and waited for his opponent. Tim Mitchellson was almost six foot tall, but slender as a reed putting him in a lower weight class with guys who were usually closer to 5’9 than 6’0. As they grappled starting from a standing position, Worthington found Mitchellson to be a lot faster than he was used to facing, and his heavier weight wasn’t as much of an advantage as he’d expected. Thoughts about squaring off against Demon Lords fled his mind as the slender kid with curly auburn hair almost pinned him after dropping him to the mat with a well-placed foot.

“Now that’s more like it, Mitchellson!” Vanderbilt roared. Worthington had to struggle to keep from being pinned, and the slender boy’s body seemed slick as grease as he tried to get a hold on him. They rolled on the mat for a bit, and Worthington felt something stiff poke him. He managed a grope as they shifted, and Tim smiled at him with a leer as his hand gripped a cock that was not stuffed into a jock. Tim was free-balling it, and had a dick that wasn’t much longer than average, but was thick. It was damn thick.

“Gotcha.” Tim muttered as a distracted Worthington failed to react fast enough to his move and ended up being pinned for two counts. He finally managed to bring his better weight into play though, and escaped, if barely. Now he was cursing the fact that he was wearing a cup, because his dick was growing hard, and the cup was making it painful.

“You’ll have to do better than that to get me.” Worthington taunted Tim as he scrambled to his feet in his escape. The guy frowned, but darted in quickly. This time Worthington was ready, and grabbed the guy’s waist before taking him to the mat, being sure to land squarely on him, with a knee perfectly placed in Tim’s groin. Those brown eyes rolled back into the guy’s head and Worthington pinned him easily.

“That’s more like it, Sinclair!” Vanderbilt sounded pleased. “Oh, and Mitchellson, that’s why you wear a cup.”

“You owe me for that.” Tim murmured after Worthington had offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. He was limping slightly, but seemed to be recovering better.

“Let’s wait for Coach to get interested in something else and we’ll go somewhere I can kiss it and make it feel better.” Worthington suggested. Jamie knew of a great little closet that wasn’t too far away.

“You sure?” Tim asked with an excited look on his face. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to piss you know who off.”

“You’re right.” Worthington said with a frown. “We’ll wait for him to finish his match and then we’ll all go off together. He’ll fuck you while I suck you.”

“Get real.” Tim snorted. “Everyone knows the two of you are an item. I’m not into that shit. I was just playing to…”

“Yes, you are into that shit.” Worthington growled, touching the guy’s arm and exerting just a bit of influence. He hated being played, and the guy struck him as playing with him. Tim fell silent and just nodded. When Jeremy finished mopping the floor with his opponent, he came over to where Worthington was waiting with Tim.

“What’s up?” He asked Worthington with a little smile.

“I got some fun for us.” Worthington smiled. Jeremy looked confused, but followed him as he led Tim out into the hallway and into the small little room. He’d had to magic the lock open, but that was easy enough.

“What’s going on?” Jeremy asked Worthington over Tim, who was sandwiched between them.

“Fuckwit thought he would play me.” Worthington growled as he reached up and lowered the straps of Tim’s singlet. The guy groaned softly.

“What?” Jeremy exclaimed and Worthington explained.

“I’m not going to do this, Worthington, and neither are you.” Jeremy growled.

“Why not?” Worthington asked. “If you don’t want to fine, I’ll fuck him myself and teach him not to fuck with me.”

“No, you won’t.” Jeremy growled again. “You’re going to make him forget about you doing your little thing to him, and that’s that. Then he’s going to leave, and you’re going to fuck me.”

“I don’t want to fuck you right now.” Worthington growled even as he prepared to make the adjustments to Tim’s mind.

“Fine.” Jeremy growled as Tim left the closet, shutting the door behind him on his way out. Worthington was surprised when Jeremy grabbed his shoulders and spun him around so his back was to him. Then Jeremy was pulling his singlet down. “If you don’t want to fuck me, I’ll fuck you, you asshole. You’ve fucking pissed me off with this shit.”

“What if I don’t want to be…” Worthington’s retort cut off as Jeremy pulled Worthington’s singlet past his butt, and licked a finger before sticking it against Worthington’s hole.

“Don’t clench.” Jeremy advised as his finger slid inside, and Worthington let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

PE was nearly over by the time they reentered the gym. Jeremy was strutting, Worthington was walking very carefully, but both of them were smiling. Tim was standing off to the side, talking to a couple of guys and acting normally.

“You’re going to pay for this.” Worthington growled in mock anger as he kept his butt clenched. He didn’t need evidence of what they’d been up to leaking out and staining the rear of his singlet.

“You enjoyed it.” Jeremy replied with his silly grin. “Don’t tell me you didn’t.”

“I did.” Worthington growled, but had to admit, he had enjoyed the roughness and the way Jeremy had handled him. It was what he’d needed after everything so far today, and as soon as he reached the bathroom, he relaxed a bit.

“I need to speak with you both.” Elizabeth said as soon as they were in the door of the house after school. They’d ridden their bikes home right away, both quite well aware that there was still a lot to be taken care of before the sun set in a few hours.

“How’s Colin?” Jamie asked right away as they followed her into the living room.

“He’s downstairs in the play room.” Elizabeth said with a frown. “His mother, or rather Grandmother stopped by with a few bags of his things and to give me a piece of her mind before they left town. I almost had to challenge her to a duel to get her to leave. Before she left I had her sign some papers giving Stacy guardianship powers over Colin. That’s just for the legal paperwork though. He is your responsibility, Jamie, from beginning to end. If you want to take on adult responsibility, you better damn well expect I’m going to hold you to it. He’s only fifteen, and needs firm guidance. You’re going to have to provide that.”

“I can do it.” Jamie said defensively, and she stared at him until he lowered his eyes.

“I know you can.” She said more gently. “I think it’s best if he finished his school year at Arcadia, where he goes now. He can transfer to your school next fall. He’ll be a junior then.”

“Okay.” Jamie said softly. “I’m sorry if this is a burden on you.”

“It’s okay.” Elizabeth said with a small smile. “You did the right thing, I think, although the Light will be sorry to lose him. He’s a lot more powerful than we were led to believe, and he’s been very poorly trained. Stacy says you are to take him to the workroom right away and start him on the basics. He leaks like a sieve, and it’s damn uncomfortable. Colin can’t even center properly from what we can tell.”

“I’ll do that.” Jamie promised.

“You will.” She agreed and she looked over at Worthington. “As for you, Mr. First Councilor, we’ve got a meeting that starts in fifteen minutes. It’s the first meeting of your new Council. Have you thought about where you’re going to hold it?”

“I thought we could hold it here…” Worthington said and she nodded.

“But you will need to pick a location that we can hold future meetings at.” She said with a shake of her head. “This time its fine to hold it here, but people will feel uncomfortable coming here all the time, or to your house when it’s finished. I have a few suggestions on where, but you’re going to have to provide the money.”

“I understand.” Worthington said and she nodded.

“Now, both of you have things to do, so get to them.” She snapped.

“I’ll go see Colin.” Jamie said with a small smile.

“I’ve got to see Brandon and Rob.” Worthington added. When they went downstairs, they found all three of them, along with Barry and Dave from MR in the game room. Richie and Jamie had a wall painted a glossy white, and used a video projector hanging from the ceiling to watch television in the room, complete with surround sound speakers. Brandon had taken that system, and managed to hook his laptop up to it and was now projecting a digital map of the Phoenix area, zoomed in on the Scottsdale area. He’d used a sophisticated mapping program to chart out patrol patterns that Barry was reviewing with him. Colin was in the back of the room, with Rob, and Worthington was alarmed to see the two of them juggling balls of light back and forth.

“Are you having fun?” Jamie asked the two of them who barely looked up.

“He was just showing me some stuff that Worthington taught him.” Colin said in a very slightly defensive tone, and half the balls of light disappeared as he stood up. “It’s okay, isn’t it? You said I would need to learn things, and well, he said he could show me.”

“Rob, you aren’t even half-trained yet.” Worthington said in a firm voice, and the tall blond hung his head at the tone. “You don’t know enough to be teaching anyone anything.”

“I wasn’t.” Rob said defensively. “We were just practicing something he’s already learned.”

“I’m sorry if it’s causing trouble.” Colin said as he lowered his eyes to the ground.

“You need a lot of practice before you’re ready to do things outside of a shielded workroom.” Jamie said to him in a reassuring tone.

“And you should know that by now.” Worthington said to Rob. “You have only recently reached the point where I told you that you could work magic outside of a warded workroom without supervision present.”

“Brandon is here.” Rob said defensively, but he lowered his eyes when Worthington just stared at him with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s better.” He told him sternly. “Now, come with me.”

While Worthington and Rob went to talk with Brandon and Barry, Jamie took Colin down to the workroom. Worthington was busy with Brandon and the others for nearly an hour before Stacy came downstairs to tell him that the Council was ready to meet. She had no sooner turned to leave than Jamie reappeared with a Colin who looked like he had sweated a bucket or two in the last hour. The kid was smiling though, and Jamie looked satisfied with whatever he’d tried to teach the guy.

“He’s going to be an Adept, if he keeps like he’s going.” Jamie said with pride. “Mom won’t teach him of course, and neither one of us is really qualified to be a teacher, but I think between us we can give him a good grounding in the basics. We can find a teacher for him after that?”

“We?” Worthington asked with a little surprise. “You sure you want me around him? The way you keep me away from Carl, I’d have thought…”

“He’s not Carl.” Jamie snapped. “You haven’t done to him the things you did to Carl and… damn it all. After this meeting we might as well hash this out.”

“Hash what out?” Worthington asked.

“You need to understand what I did with him, and that’s why I’ve not let you link with him, or with me when I’m already linked to him.” Jamie said with a sigh. “Before tonight, well, if things go wrong tonight you might need to link with him and that means you should know what to protect him from.”

“You’re not making much sense.” Worthington told his brother.

“It will make sense once I tell you everything.” Jamie assured him as they reached the top of the stairs. The Council was assembled in the living room, and the two young men joined the others. Elizabeth had rearranged some of the living room furniture for this meeting, putting two couches so that they angled towards each other, with a small table at the narrow point that they met, and two chairs with another small table between them at the wider end.

Stacy and Elizabeth sat with Lily Parker on the couch that was to Worthington and Jamie’s left as they both sat down in the two chairs. Jamie sat in the chair that was closest to them, while Worthington sat in the chair that was closest to the couch were Madam Calhoun sat between Walter Grassley and Larry Ohlman. For his part, Worthington was glad he’d worn slacks and a dress shirt to school that day, because he and Jamie were the two most casually dressed people in the room.

“Thank you all for being here.” Worthington said after taking a moment to look everyone in the eye. He noticed every person had a drink in front of them, or in their hands, and the table between Jamie and him had a cup of coffee for him, and bottled water for Jamie. “I asked for us to meet, because with the formation of this Council, I believed it best for us to review and approve the plans that have been made for tonight.”

“That’s right.” Madam Calhoun said with a nod. “It’s only proper to run things by us before you go off half-cocked.”

“Quite,” Worthington agreed with a tight smile. This Council was a compromise, he knew, and it would be a while before they developed a good, strong working relationship. Putting issues of age and experience aside, there would always be some level of conflict between Jamie and Worthington and the other members of the Council. That was inimical to what they were trying to do: adapt solutions of the Medieval era to the modern concept of democracy.

“As soon as this crisis is past, we should arrange for a series of regular meetings to establish how we will operate, what customs should be created, and similar things.” Larry Ohlman said and Worthington was interested to note how Elizabeth nodded her head in agreement. “Protocol is important to establishing a good working relationship. We need to understand how we relate to one another, and protocol can keep things from getting ugly, or feelings hurt.”

“Absolutely.” Elizabeth agreed. “I imagine at first we will need to meet quite a bit, until we get things all ironed out. For the first few months we will probably need to meet at least once a week, and after that we can decide how frequently we need to get together.”

“At least once a month.” Walter Grassley said with a frown. “I certainly hope not more than that.”

“One of our first practical issues will have to be establishing boundary wards to mark and protect our territory.” Stacy added. “They should inform us whenever strange mages cross into or leave our area of influence, and of course any magical creatures as well. This way we would have known about the demon summoners earlier.”

“Yes, a good idea.” Madam Calhoun said emphatically. “We all ward our houses and property that way, so we should ward our territory as well. Maybe we should require outside mages to register if they stay for more than a day or are doing more than just passing through?”

“If we set them right, we could even use them to identify untrained mages when they pass our borders.” Walter Grassley said thoughtfully. “Imagine the impact that could have for us – finding more mages, and training them in our ways instead of letting them go unaware of their abilities, or untrained in them.”

“I am sure we will have many good ideas in the weeks, months, and years ahead of us.” Worthington said firmly. “Many of these we will have to address, and while some may not exactly be within our mandate, I am sure we will discuss the pros and cons of each. If it does not lie within our mandate, we will not pursue it, or we will ask the mages of the valley to decide if we should be granted the authority on that matter. What we are here, now, to discuss though is tonight’s meeting with the Demon Lord.”

“Are we even sure it’s going to be tonight?” Larry Ohlman asked with a frown. “Aren’t you just guessing where they will show?”

“I am quite certain it will be tonight.” Worthington said firmly. “Madam Calhoun, has your granddaughter reported in yet?”

“Yes, she called me about a half-hour ago as I was on my way here.” The older woman said with a sad shake of her head. “Your suspicions about Roger were correct. She found traces of blood magic at his house.”

“That’s impossible.” Larry Ohlman said. “I’ll admit Roger has been acting strangely lately, but he’s been to all of our homes! He’s helped most of us with our defenses. If he was working with the demons, they could have taken all of us already! What’s more, if he was working with demons, we would have sensed his rejection by the Light. The Light will not accept someone who works for or with demons, and we would be able to sense that in him.”

“There are ways around that.” Jamie said sourly without looking at Worthington. “A human can be broken in such a way that they will do things and not even know that they did them afterwards. It requires skill, and cruelty, something I believe demons have in plenty of quantity.”

“How do you know about this?” Larry Ohlman asked Jamie suspiciously. “What exactly have you been learning since you forsook the Light?”

“If you really wish to know that, Mister Ohlman, you can forsake the Light yourself and ask to be trained in other methods.” Jamie said with a hard smile for the man, who shivered before shaking his head violently.

“Let us stay focused, please, on the task at hand.” Worthington redirected everyone back to the topic. “Are there any questions or objections to the plans I have laid out, with the parameters?”

“Are you really certain of the location?” Walter Grassley asked nervously.

“It is the Demon Lord’s best chance to have a sword at my throat.” Worthington shrugged with a casual attitude. “No offense, but none of you seems to have really concerned him. It is me, and possibly Jamie that he worries about.”

“Why are we even talking about negotiating with a demon?” Walter Grassley asked with a frown on his face. “Can we even trust them?”

“No, we cannot trust them.” Worthington said quickly. “I do not believe that even if we get everything we want that it will be enough to guarantee our safety.”

“Then why all this rigmarole?” Larry Ohlman asked with a bit of anger.

“Because we cannot keep fighting them like this.” Jamie answered. “Have none of you seen what our cover story is doing to the general population? Our cover story is creating a panic, and instilling a sense of fear in the mundanes. That is not good for them, and in the long run it is not good for us.”

“The Light demands we worry about them as well as our own people.” Stacy added emphatically. “We must protect the secret of magic, that is a given, but a full-blown mage war between us and demons as will happen eventually will only threaten all of us in the long-term. In order for us to fulfill all our obligations, we must end this now, for a time period however temporary. The demons will not keep their word, but we can at least give ourselves time to prepare for when they break it.”

“But they’ll be preparing as well.” Walter Grassley stated. “I’ve faced the demons, and despite all our preparations they almost got me and my family. What if we don’t prepare enough? What if all our preparations do nothing to protect us in the end?”

“If we continue this fight now, we are in just as bad of a situation.” Madam Calhoun stated. “I will do my part, both tonight and in the future. That is why this Council is needed, not just for tonight. If we are to pull through this, and eventually win a long-term victory, it will be because of what we do as a group.”

“I disagree, but I will be guided by the majority.” Larry Ohlman said with a frown. “I will do my part.”

“As will I.” Walter said grimly. “It is not the first time I will have found myself in this situation.”

“Nor I.” Calhoun reminded him and he nodded at her.

“We will all play our part.” Stacy said. “In so doing we will prove to everyone in our community that while we will require everyone to take part in the risk, we will shoulder the highest level of risk on our ourselves.”

“It sets the right example, the right tone.” Elizabeth added.

“Are you sure about me?” Lily asked with a nervous glance at Worthington. “I mean, my husband has agreed to do it, but maybe I should do it myself. He’s nowhere near as well-trained as I am.”

“You are pregnant, young lady.” Madam Calhoun said with a frown. “No one will blame you for not doing this. Just the opposite. The fact that you put the life of your unborn babe in danger would be looked at badly. Showing good sense by letting your husband take your place shows that you are capable of making good decisions.”

“If you’re sure, okay.” Lily said with a frown.

“I am sure.” Worthington said in a voice that brooked no argument. “We all have a lot to do before sunset, and afterwards. I doubt the Demon Lord will make his move before midnight at the earliest, and my guardians insist that unless I am mortally wounded tonight, I will be at school in the morning.”

“I have a case due in court tomorrow morning too.” Larry said with chuckle. “For some reason I doubt the demons would just give us until the weekend to take care of our normal business.”

That more than anything else set Worthington at ease while everyone laughed. It was a statement about the complicated life that a mage must lead in this modern day. They all had obligations in the regular, mundane world as well as the magical. Most of the time, for most mages, there was rarely conflict between the two. Worthington doubted that would always be the case for him, and for this group. The impending sense of something on the horizon was still there, and he believed that there would be more days, and nights like this one ahead of them all.

“I will see you all tonight.” Worthington said as he stood, with Jamie right behind him. Together they left the living room and headed downstairs. Jamie wanted to talk, and wanted privacy. That much was clear from his brother, and they went into Worthington’s bedroom. The closet door was still open, and there were things in the closet that hadn’t been there before, as well as other things around the room, things that belonged to Jamie.

“I told the moms they could help Colin move my stuff out of the room.” Jamie said with a slight little smile on his face. “You really don’t mind, do you?”

“If you say he needs his own room, he needs his own room.” Worthington shrugged. “Besides you already sleep in here most nights anyway.”

“But do you mind?” Jamie asked in a tense voice. “It’ll only be for a few months, anyway, until the new house is done.”

“No, I don’t mind.” Worthington answered with a smile of his own. Sometimes his face still felt odd, smiling instead of always remaining expressionless, or sneering at something. Other times it felt as natural as could be, returning a smile with a smile. This was one of those uncomfortable times, for some reason.

“You know I did not like what I had to do with Carl.” Jamie said as the smile slid off his face, and he walked over to stare out the windows while he talked. The sun was low over the western horizon, and would be setting in an hour or so. “Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit. The fact that I could be excited enough to do what I had to do makes me sick.”

“You did it though, and the boy does seem happy again.” Worthington said in what he hoped was a comforting tone as he stood in the middle of the room. Every muscle in Jamie’s body looked tense. “Isn’t that what’s important.”

“It is important, and the only reason I even think it might be worth what he went through, and what I went through doing it to him.” Jamie’s voice was barely above a whisper. “If there was ever a moment when I regretted sacrificing myself for you, it was there, in that fucking building, doing that.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Worthington said softly. “You don’t deserve it, and neither does Carl. I wish I could take back what happened to him, but I can’t.”

“You can’t.” Jamie said softly. “I did.”

“What?” Worthington was surprised now, and flinched when Jamie spun around, held out his hand and the familiar dark light appeared there, soaking in the dying rays of the afternoon sun. For a moment, it seemed like Jamie was pointing a dagger at Worthington, and his skin tingled with apprehension, both at the image of Jamie threatening him, and from an intense desire for the oneness that came with joining. It took several breaths to calm himself as Jamie strode over to him, and then there was a ball of dark light in his own hand, and the two balls were merging together even as Jamie and Worthington’s minds merged together, creating one living being.

Astonishment rolled through the part of him that was Worthington. As much as he knew mages liked to pretend there were vast, insurmountable differences between Light and Dark, the truth was that magic was magic and the two paths of magic had many similarities. Who could understand that better than he? He was a combination of two, one born and raised in Light and one born and raised in Dark that had come together, to form him.

Magic was raw force, raw power that a mage had the aptitude to tap into, to touch, and to shape into various things. Either you were born with the ability, or you did not possess it. Strength was variable, but even the weakest of mages could draw enough of the power to do simple things. The power a mage used, the power of magic was created by all living things, and permeated the earth, the air, the water, and everything.

Early magical theory had focused on the four elements, and the oral histories of both paths had taught that the earliest of mages had classed magical power into the four elements. Mages back then learned fire spells, water spells, air spells, and earth spells. They believed that magic itself had four natures that governed how a mage could or could not use the power.

Later, mages add a fifth nature, the nature of “Ether” or “Spirit”. For most of the time known to the mundanes as the middle ages, mages taught these principles to their apprentices. Mage-craft was never easy, and the medieval era proved a time of great persecution for many groups of mages that had once lived in relative peace with their mundane neighbors.

The Renaissance brought new thinking to the world of mage-craft even as the mundane world experienced a rebirth of science and thought. While the old ways persisted, they began to change, and new ways of doing things with magic became more commonplace. When the Industrial Revolution really took root in the mundane world, magic was ready and able to change with the world around it. What only magic had been able to accomplish before, now science could duplicate in many circumstances.

With the new way of thinking came new ways of doing magic. No longer were Adepts the only ones to realize that the old perceptions of magic were flawed in many fundamental ways. Magical power was magical power. The power itself was no different no matter which mage used it. The difference lay in the mages, not in the spells or the magic. A Healer was different from an Artificer because he was a different person, not because the magic they both used was any different.

Spells, which had once been complicated pieces of old, dead languages with archaic gestures, components, and the like also changed. It became understood that the power was not in the spell, but rather in the magic intrinsic to all mages, and to all life. All the spell did was provide a path for a mage to shape the magic, an outline of what the mage wanted magic to do, how it was to look, what effect it was to have, and so forth.

Basic spells required a basic level of concentration. Creating a ball of light was little more than creating the image in your head, envisioning how the ball was to look, how big it was to be, how bright, what color it was to give off, how it would behave when touched or dropped, or juggled with another mage, whether it would be warm, cold, or have no heat at all. All those details went into the thought about what the ball of light would be when it formed, and then the mage willed the magic to take that shape, to take on those properties.

That was the core essence of a spell. What a mage could or could not do was largely determined by his ability to shape the ‘spell’ in his mind. A mage with no imagination, or who paid little attention to detail could have the most powerful gift in the world, but would be nearly useless. That was why Rob would never amount to much in the world of magecraft. He lacked the mental acuity to perform truly powerful magic.

Some spells had to be layered, because their effects were so numerous, or so carefully balanced that they required careful precision. The most powerful of spells took a long time to prepare, and often took layer upon layer of casting to achieve the right end. That was part of the Sinclair ability to reshape a person through the use of pain, torture, and sexual domination. Worthington had learned it at the hands of his father, and Jamie from Worthington’s memories, but when it had been used on Carl, the part of him that was Jamie had hated it, hated every aspect of it as much as Carl hated what was being done to him.

For hours, Jamie had gritted his teeth and inflicted the worst of physical and mental pains on Carl, casting spells as he did so, layering the spells one on top of the other. The process was a long one, and essentially stripped away everything that Carl had been, and put Carl back together so that by the end, when the culmination of the casting and torture was reached, he would have taken Carl’s psyche apart and reassembled it. The way Worthington had learned it and shared it with him, it was intended to so subtly alter the person that not even they realized what had been done to them. They would carry out the directions, the wishes of the Sinclair who had done it to them without fully realizing what they were doing.

Their Uncle had managed to do this to Carl before his family relocated to Phoenix, and they had been right that only a similar treatment could override what their Uncle had done. Jamie understood that when he reached the culmination, the cusp of the procedure. This was what had to be done to allow them to give Carl some modicum of a free life.

What Worthington had never considered was what Jamie had realized as he’d reached his orgasm inside the boy, crying as he did so for it was the most horrible thing he’d ever imagined doing. Carl was completely open, his mind more like that of a newborn child in those moments as the parts of him that were stripped away were held inside the layers of spells, waiting to be reassembled in a pattern of Jamie’s choosing. It was easy to tell which parts had been inflicted by their Uncle, what their Uncle had intended using Carl for, and to reassemble Carl in a different way, that left him mostly intact.

But Jamie understood Carl intimately in that moment, understood what torture life had been for the boy ever since he’d first received his scholarship. The boy had not been like Brandon, totally hopeless in a life where everyone hated him. His parents certainly did not care overly much for him. He was not the jock his father wanted, and he was not the momma’s boy his mother yearned to have. Carl was too independent for them both. He’d loved the boarding school at first, until he was summoned for the midnight session on magic. Magic had excited him, until he learned he would never be more than a middling mage, and that he was expected to live his life bound to one of his classmates, a particularly dislikeable guy he had tried his best to steer clear of all year.

When Carl had rejected the ultimatum of the school, to accept the future they had planned for him, he’d resigned himself to being kicked out. He was certain they would not let him remember magic, or what they’d taught him. What he’d never expected was that last day, and his rape by Worthington. Nor had he expected the tortuous spells that had been laid on him that allowed him to remember, but never tell anyone what had happened, nor had he expected his parents losing their jobs. Rightly, they had blamed him for their misfortunes, and a barely tolerable home life had become completely intolerable.

He had almost given in; prepared himself to beg the men who came each and every week. Carl was ready to beg them to tell the school he would go back. He would accept being the plaything, the soul-bound servant of Anthony Zacharias Wilmington the Third. The boy was an arrogant prick, always with his nose in the air and a disdainful word for Carl, but even being bound to him for the rest of his life would’ve been better than he was enduring.

Then Worthington had come back into his life, the bastard who had done much of the things he hated, the things that left him in tears every night and most of every day. Only it was a different Worthington than the one he knew. He’d seen that as soon as he looked into the older teenager’s eyes, and saw something wonderful had happened. For a short while, life became livable again, and he began to hope for a decent future for himself.

Then had come the other Sinclair, the Uncle, and what he’d done made the worst Worthington and the school had done to him like a walk in the park. Worse, when he’d put Carl back together, he’d let the worst of the experiences stay a part of his memory, letting it fuel his hatred for everything Sinclair. Now he was going through it again, hanging on the cusp, waiting to be reshaped by this other Sinclair, this one he’d never even known was a Sinclair before, and if he was still capable of rational thought, he’d have hated even more.

There were fundamental truths of magic that everyone understood. Thoughts shaped magic, and were called spells. Any mage could tweak a spell to cause a slightly different effect. A frost bolt was different from a fire bolt, but the beginning of the spell that created them was the same. Most of the time the mage was taught all these differences as students. Creating new spells, or significantly altering learned spells on your own was dangerous for anyone, including an Adept, regardless of the experience level.

What separated Adepts from all other mages was a matter of lore and opinions. Some things all agreed on. An Adept was powerful, among the most powerful of mages born. Adepts were intelligent, and they were cunning, able to understand spells and magic on an almost instinctual level. Other attributes people disagreed on, but those were the most common. Jamie and Worthington were both of those things, but what they lacked was the quality everyone acknowledged was necessary for a full Adept: experience.

It was experience that taught an Adept what was within his reach, and what was not. New spells were dangerous for many reasons, but primary among those were unintended affects from not fully analyzing what you were telling the magic to do, and the magic requiring more power to do what you wanted than you possessed. The drain from a new spell could be so great that it drained all of your power, and your life as it tried to do what you wanted it to do.

As Jamie held Carl in that cusp, that moment when the spell he’d learned from Worthington required him to set the structure of how Carl would be reshaped, molded into a Sinclair tool, Jamie did what only a true Adept could do. He took the spell that he had learned, the spell needed at this point and he threw it out. That spell he rejected so utterly, so completely, that he might as well never have learned it at all.

He took up instead the layers of pain and humiliation that he had inflicted on Carl, and the spells that held everything that was the sum total of Carl’s life, and he sifted through all of them. Jamie had a good home life, with a brother and parents that loved him. There was never any doubt in him about the love others had for him, or that he had for others. As he shifted through all the spells that held the essence of Carl, he looked for similarities in the boy.

What he found were dreams.

The lives of Carl and Jamie could not have been more different, but their dreams were not so different. Most of all, Carl wanted to be loved. Sex was not a part of that, for Carl sex was about pain, and abuse, not love. When Carl thought of love, he thought of hugs, of people smiling at him when he came home, of being praised for earning a good grade, or for helping a neighbor bring in their groceries.

It was in those dreams that Jamie found the similarities he was looking for, and he found the course of what he wanted, what he needed to do now. The goal of the Sinclair ritual he had started was to take everything that was a person, peel it away and put it back together with some changes so that when it was done, there was no appreciable difference except for those hidden changes. Jamie didn’t want that.

He wanted to give those dreams back to Carl, so at the cusp of the ritual, at that one brief moment where the world of possibility was opened, Jamie acted. His thought formed a new spell, not the one a Sinclair would have cast. This spell was Dark, and it was Light, mixed together and wound about all the essences of Carl.

The boy screamed in agony one last time as the spell sank into him, and this time Jamie screamed as well because he felt all of Carl’s pain at that moment. When it was done, there was a new Carl before him, albeit one very like the old. Jamie had done what he set out to do, and overcame the effects of his Uncle on the boy, but he’d also created something new, something only an Adept could have done.

Carl was no longer the same boy he had been. The spell had taken him, and altered him at a fundamental level. The seed Jamie had spilled inside of him fused within him, joining with what was already there and altering it slightly. In a sense, Carl was a child of Jamie’s production.

What the long-term effects of what that would be, Jamie did not know, and still was not sure. The short-term effects were immediately obvious. The bad experiences Carl had lived through were like a bad dream, and he was the boy he could have been. Part of Jamie’s personality, formed by his upbringing in a house full of love was a part of Carl now. It was a blending, a melding that was both more subtle and more prominent than what Jamie and Worthington experienced when joined as they were now.

There was one more thing, a thing that scared Jamie to his core, even now when he was just part of a new whole. When he had created and cast the new spell that had healed Carl of the bad things in his life, the bad experiences of his childhood, he had created a bond between them, and a commitment. Jamie had committed himself to caring for Carl, and making sure that Carl’s life was as full of the love and caring as what Jamie had experienced.

Worthington gasped as the joining ended abruptly, and their hands fell apart. He understood now, why Jamie had held this back from him. In his own way, Worthington was just as damaged as Carl had been, had come from a home that was in many ways worse than what Carl had experienced. How could he help Jamie provide to Carl what Worthington had never had in his own life?

“God that hurt.” Jamie muttered as they both staggered with the force of their joining breaking. They had never been quite so joined before, not to the point where they felt like one being. It had reminded Worthington of when he had finally integrated all of himself into one being, and now he felt like he’d been sundered apart again. Except he knew that he and Jamie had never been one person.

“I understand, though.” Worthington said softly as he gasped for breath. His body hurt. “I do know why you are so worried. If he sees my memories of what he’s been through before, he’ll understand they are more than a bad dream and that will affect his happiness. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they’re protected, so he won’t easily see them in a link. He’ll have to search for them past shields to find them.”

“Good.” Jamie murmured. “Why does it hurt this time?”

“I don’t know.” Worthington said softly. “Maybe we’ve done it too much.”

“That would make sense.” Jamie said as he finally caught his breath. “At least we weren’t planning on using it tonight.”

“It’s dark.” Worthington said as he looked out the window.

“We better get a move on.” Jamie added, and they nodded at each other before walking out of the room. They were still connected at a subliminal level by the recent joining, but already their minds were moving again in slightly different directions. Tonight they both had important tasks to fulfill, and they would do that at any cost.

Well, Worthington thought to himself as he thought about Carl. Almost any cost.