I was brainstorming ways to make this as big and violent as possible. I wanted it to be theatrical, I wanted it to be grand. It should be a spectacle—one that would say confidently, loudly, with trumpets and fanfare and the roar of an invincible war machine: we were here, we were ready, and our victory was assured.

I closed the door to the basement where Loybol and Bell were gently, as though there was anyone left alive in this facility to be bothered by a slamming door. There was probably a back door that led to the other side of the facility, but I was uncomfortable wandering around the place on my own, so I left through the entrance I knew. Not like I had anything to be afraid of. Not like I could be stopped by anything here.

Even though I was only the third-strongest person in the room down there. In the cell where Petri was held, I was on the bottom side of the power scale—and if we took a table of who’d win in a fight among everyone there, I doubted I could even beat him.

I was weak down there. In abstract, powerful—in context, the weakest link.

Thinking about it made my feet numb; it made me not feel where I was walking. Trudging along through overgrown grass along the road—an endless cornfield to my left, the imposing city-wall of the industrial barn to my right. It made me acutely aware of the cold moonlight, a few shades yellower than the white floodlights that dotted the wall like archers’-holes.

It was quiet out there, quieter than any world I’d ever known. There was no distant whir of air-conditioning unit, no Doppler-whoosh of passing traffic. It was still. Dead.

And all around me were the cornstalks, black in the dark. Unmoving, unfeeling. Curving outward into a dull blur in the distance—melding with the tree-line. A vertical pool of emptiness on all sides.

I walked.

I figured I’d see the oncoming car before they saw me; and then I re-thought that and realized I wouldn’t be able to tell if it was the target or just a random passer-by. Not that I could imagine anyone having a legitimate reason to be out at this time of night.

If I couldn’t see the car—trying to suffocate the pit opening in my stomach at the thought of it, knowing that nobody would really be able to see the specific make and model of a vehicle at night from as far away as I wanted to, voided future or not—then I could at least feel the car.

I’d never really gotten a sense for how far I could manipulate water from, but given what I knew about myself, it was probably both further than I thought, and further than anyone else thought.

So I tiptoed into the corn—as if anyone would see me go in—just far enough to not be visible from the road, which, given the darkness, was only a handful of feet. Then, I stole the water from several scattered stalks of corn—picked at random from deep in the field—and formed a ball of water about the size of a volleyball in front of me. I pushed it out into the road and scattered it into a fog—holding it as a single, swollen mass with no distinct points. It was big enough where it wasn’t strictly visible—but I could feel it as a shape. I’d be able to tell when something drove into it.

I didn’t know exactly what the car they were coming in looked like, but I knew it was a pickup truck with four people in it, and I figured it was so still and dead out where that the next passing truck would have to be them. If it wasn’t, well, I could never be held accountable. Nobody would ever know.

I pushed the fog down the road. It was a bigger effort than I was expecting it to be—concentrating on it with leaves brushing the back of my neck and phantom insects landing on my legs was enough to make my breathing heavy and labored.

Once I figured it was far enough, I stopped trying to move it and just let it hang there. I could keep it relatively still with minimal effort, although it would slowly dissipate, and be too scattered to be useful within about half an hour.

So I crossed my fingers and hoped they’d come soon.

And crouching in the dark, hidden by stalks, I got to thinking—

Loybol had shown what she was capable of. It was a mighty and terrible thing, and as much as I never wanted to admit it, it scared me. How easily she was able to take control of that man and leave his magic intact.

How was anyone supposed to stop Loybol if she decided she wanted the whole world?

Bell, too—the way she played Randy for a fool, and snapped his life in half at a second’s notice as soon as the moment was right. Bell and Loybol were on the same page on everything—instantly they knew what the other wanted, and how the other was planning to go about it.

And I was just there.

So I swallowed. I had to make this good.

It had to be something mighty and terrible. Something to make even Loybol quake.

Everything I had.

I had to nuke them from orbit.

0 0 0

It wasn’t all that late, but it had been a stressful past hour or two, and being hidden in the corn made me a little sleepy.

Sometime less than thirty minutes—if I had to guess—later, the cloud popped. Something large drove through it, going fast. It was only in the cloud for a half-second, but it was taller than a regular car, and it was longer, too.

I shook the sleep out of my head, rubbed my temples a few times and sat up.

Telling myself: make this good, make this good.

I took a deep breath, and the corn withered.

All around me rose the fog of water leaving the stalks like souls leaving bodies. Everything shriveled.

Everything died.

The truck slowed to a stop.

I couldn’t see it from where I was, but the sharp rise in humidity near it gave me superhuman awareness.

It seeped into the car. It permeated all surfaces.

I became omniscient.

For a quarter-mile down the road, water rose into the air.

For that quarter-mile stretch of road, it began to rain.

Gently at first—barely more than a drizzle—but then I stepped out from my hiding-place, and the rain turned harder.

I implemented an easy cycle—the water would fall, accelerated, and then it would run along the ground to the sides of the road and rise up again. That movement mirrored along the whole street.

A torrential downpour along a quarter-mile stretch of country road.

I began to walk toward the car. The water did not touch me.

Someone called out—opened the door. Stepped into the rain with an umbrella, as if that would stop anything.

But just to be sure—and partially because I could—I changed the rain.

Without any delay, the rain stopped falling vertically, and accelerated horizontally. A million tiny water-bullets.

The woman’s scream died in her throat. She was shredded into paste where she stood.

And then the rain was vertical again.

One of them reached to close the door—and I acted faster than they could swing the metal; the rain swerved into the truck, blasting each person in a dozen places, and in four seconds they were all gone. A raging typhoon confined by the cabin—there was no escape, and no time to scream.

And then the rain stopped.

I turned around, and Bell and Loybol were there. Behind where the rain stopped, so they were both still dry.

Bell was smiling—she casted a quick look at Loybol, who, despite herself, returned the gesture.

“Told you,” Bell said to her, smirking.

And then the great and powerful Loybol, defender of Massachusetts, came up to me. Stuck her fingertips in her pockets.

I sort of wished I knew her first name. That would’ve been a good time to use it.

“Your talents are wasted on him,” Loybol said to me.

I turned red. It hadn’t really hit me how much I was craving Loybol’s praise until I got it.

But once it was mine, I cherished it. Held it in the crux of my memory.

I was not a pawn—I was their equal.

“I would never headhunt someone from Prochazka,” Loybol went on, quietly. “Quietly” was her default tone. Even in a deafening room she would still speak low, and her voice would still be heard. “But if something ever happens to him—if this war we’ve started goes south—I want you to know: you’re not going to be out of a job if you want it.”

I was warm in the cool, still air.

“Thank you,” I said. I tried to meet her eyes and found them too piercing. I couldn’t do it. She didn’t seem to mind, though.

“We should head back,” Bell said. “I’m sure Prochazka is going to be thrilled about how this went down.”

I felt like she was being sarcastic, but given Prochazka’s stance on war, I wasn’t so sure.

Loybol nodded. “I wouldn’t expect them to act immediately. But this is not over. I can guarantee you that the city will see this exactly the same way we have.”

She looked at the two of us. Her head was illuminated by the moon.

I became aware of a great and terrible presence. The creatures she controlled, and the woman there, combined their powers to create a force I could only compare to something truly superhuman—more than the keys, more than the magic we all knew. A goddess among heroes.

A black liquid dripped from her fingertips.

It made me want to bow.

But I did not.

“Prepare yourselves,” Loybol said to us.

0 0 0

Prochazka asked us, when we returned, what took us so long. It was supposed to be quick, he said. Easy. Maybe fun.

We told him who was there. What happened.

Bell said to him, “The war you wanted is here. It’s happening. It’s now.”

And I watched Prochazka’s face swell into a smile. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him look truly happy—and one of them was before me. Finally, his chance had come. One last war for an old scarred veteran who knew nothing else. Who wanted nothing else.

“It’s time,” Prochazka said. “Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not for months. But they will come—and when they do, we’ll be ready.”

“Loybol promised she would support us,” I said. “She swore it. We were the only thing standing between them and complete control of the state, she said. And with that kind of territory and that many magical people to draw on—it would be bad.”

That was the best summary I had.

“Bad, sure,” Prochazka chuckled. “Bad.”

“What do you want us to do?” Bell asked him.

“Nothing yet,” Prochazka replied. “Until we know more. I’ll be talking with Benji, and probably you, about what our preparations will be. For the most part, we’re defending until given the opportunity to do otherwise. I’ll be speaking with Melissa as well about this. We’ve got—a lot to talk about.”

“Melissa?” I asked.

“Loybol,” he replied. “That’s her first name.”

“Melissa Loybol,” I echoed. Her first and last name sat in my brain like arcane knowledge.

Bell and I left the office after a bit more discussion with Prochazka. For a bit, we walked in silence, and then Bell said to me: “First-names, huh?”

And that was enough to make me smile again.