Chapter 19

Demonkin? On the one hand, it was a slightly less dangerous accusation than the truth. Better to be a collaborator than a devil, after all. On the other, once again the idea that I was a demon had not crossed somebody’s mind. It was a real blow to my devilhood.

Then again, if Heida followed through on the Magic Bolt, I’d be dealing with holes in more than my pride.

“S-start talking,” she said. “Where’d you learn that demonic magic?”

“Well, you see, that is…” I must have still been jittery from my England flashback; the words wouldn’t come.

Mariko surprised us both, jumping in between us, he arms spread wide. “Wait, wait! It is not what you think. It is his affinity!”

Heida lowered her hands. She wasn’t so enraged that she’d fire through an innocent. “His affinity is demon magic?”

Mariko shook her head. “No, no. His Mimic copies spells, yes? Like your spell before. He must have copied it when he was in England.”

“Oh, yeah. What’d that guy call him? The last man out of England?”

“What guy?” asked Mariko.

Heida’s brow furrowed as she ignored the question. “I thought the spells only lasted a little while?”

“It must work differently for demonic magic,” said Mariko. “Right?”

“Absolutely right, my dear,” I said. Letting Mariko and my other friends in on my so-called demonkin past had proven to be a lifesaver. “It’s a bit embarrassing; you could say that I have an affinity for their dark magic. It saved me a few times when I escaped their foul clutches, though.”

The blonde wizard studied me closely, and I was worried she might just shoot through Mariko to end the threat.

Heida lowered her hands to her sign, letting out a ragged sigh. “Jesus, you scared me, Magpie. I thought you were… never mind. Sorry.”

I reached out, removing a twig from her hair. “You can see why I keep that little wrinkle of my powers under wraps. Somebody as thoughtful as you wanted to perforate me; imagine if a real hardliner found out.”

“This is why I do not like violence,” said Mariko. “If I had not intervened, you might have done something permanent.”

“I apologized already!” snapped Heida. “What happened with that spell, anyway? Your Fireball just exploded!”

“I… I can’t rightly say. Maybe I’m not used to casting that variant?” The Fireball spell was formed by making an energy bubble and igniting the air inside of it. I couldn’t think of anything that could have destabilized the envelope, but something had made it release all of its energy at once. “I don’t think I’ll try it again, though.”

“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Kowalski came into view, his hand lit up with a Merlin’s Lantern. “I saw a flash of light and when I came over, everybody was shouting!”

“We had a bit of an incident,” I said. “Magical misfire.”

“Oh,” said Kowalski. Buddy came into view, holding up his board of tick marks. “Buddy lost count around two hundred paces.”

“That’s what, a hundred fifty meters?” Heida gave Kowalski a once over. “Maybe two hundred; he’s a big boy.”

“How close were you to the edge?” I asked.

“I was about halfway there, I think.”

I cursed under my breath. “So this field is nearly a half kilometer on a side, and I imagine it’s square. If this was all grass, it’d be one thing, but there’s garbage, stumps, and brush all through it! We’ll be here for days without any tools! Maybe we should try and burn it.”

“I think we have had enough Fireballs for one day,” said Mariko, giving me a meaningful look. “We got very lucky there, Soren.”

I nodded. For somebody who claims to not be comfortable with English, Ms. Yamada loves her double meanings.

“If Mr. Maki was here, he’d say we’re burning daylight,” said Kowalski.

I peered at the sun, which had finally breached the horizon. “Very technically.”

Heida sighed and began stretching out. “I guess we do this the hard way. Reaper’s Scythe isn’t going to cut it.”

“Excuse the pun,” I piped in.

Heida chuckled. “Thanks, I needed that. Things got way too real back there. Either way, I just don’t know the right spell to make this happen.”

“Perhaps we do not need a spell at all?” Mariko pointed at Buddy. “Buddy can make just about any shape; could he be our scythe?”

“Um, Buddy? How’d you feel about that?” Kowalski’s voice was halting.

Buddy’s eyes narrowed and he planted his still goatlike butt on the ground. His jagged, shadowy mouth twisted into a defiant smirk.

“Kowalski, can I speak with you alone for a moment?” I winked at Mariko and pulled Kowalski along without waiting for a response.

Mariko caught on and, as we vanished into the tall grass, she reached into a backpack she’d brought. “Buddy, do you know what a huffkin is?”

And she doesn’t think she ever helps me out. Silly girl.

“What’s up, Magpie?” asked Kowalski.

“I’ve got a suggestion for you,” I said. I couldn’t exactly share my golem theory, but I could skate around it. “Buddy responds well to confidence, but he responds even better if you make what you want him to do seem like a game.”

“He’s my magic, though,” said Kowalski. “He should do what I say. Heck, he shouldn’t even be a ‘he’ I’m talking to, right?” He shuddered. “This is why I don't like thinking about this. I’m not crazy, am I?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “If your mind was really cracked, there’s be more signs of it.”

“Buddy’s a pretty big sign.”

“Maybe. Perhaps you shouldn’t have to negotiate with him, but let’s take things as they are, and not the way they should be. So, let me ask you this: what would make you want to listen to you?”

“I dunno?”

“Well, pretend Buddy has a point of view,” I said. “Just for argument’s sake, of course. Have you ever had a pet before?”

He shook his head. “No, the apartment was always too small for that. One of my sisters had a goldfish she won at a festival, but he didn’t last long.”

“Well, let me tell you about how to win over animals.” I considered my own experience with riding mackies, but I decided to tell a story where I wouldn’t have to remember to substitute the word ‘horse’ in all the time. “Did I ever tell you about Yukiko and the dogs?”

“Ms. Sato? No, you didn’t. You and I haven’t talked a lot on this trip, unless it involved work.” There was a bit of a rebuke in his words. Just a bit, but noticeable.

“Well, back before they locked the school down because of the first Holy Brother attack I was there for, Yukiko volunteered at a dog pound in the city on Saturdays. You know how she can be with us.”

“Ms. Sato’s kind of… intense.”

“That’s a diplomatic word for it,” I said. “Do you know how she managed a whole pack of dogs by herself? She moved them around with her Gravity Shift. They didn’t take well to that, as you can imagine. They were deathly afraid of her, which was a tragedy, since she must have volunteered because she liked dogs. She didn’t approach them the right way and lost their trust. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Kowalski fidgeted nervously. “But Buddy’s the one that pushes me around!”

“True enough, unfortunately,” I replied. “It’s not exactly the same situation, but what I’m saying is you need some buy in. Again, assume he has a perspective; you lock him up with that magical disruptor most every night, then everybody shouts at him when he gets out.”

“That… yeah, that wouldn’t be fun. What can I do about it?”

“Change the way you approach Buddy. Every time I see you try, you already assume he’ll say no and attack something. He is part of you, and I think he reacts to your cues.”

“I guess that’s why he listens to you and Ms. Yamada more than anyone else,” he said. “You asked what’d make me want to listen to me? Heck if I know. Nobody ever does.”

I felt just a hint of guilt for contributing to that lack of self-esteem. Only a tiny bit; I’d never known him to be anything else but needy and self-conscious. The damage had been done long before we’d met.

“Then you’re in charge,” I said.

“Huh?” You’d think I’d just told him the sky was pink.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to do… for this mission, of course.” I didn’t want him getting too big a head.

“I’m not an idea man, though,” he protested. “Are you teasing me again? It isn’t funny.”

“I’m not joking,” I said. “You think up the plan, and I’ll do my best to help you execute it. Mariko and Heida will go along with it too.”

“Why are you doing this?”

I attempted to sling an arm around his shoulder. Easier said than done, with the height difference and his bulk. I settled for ribbing him with my elbow. “Because the three of us are stumped, and you might have a fresh perspective. I don’t want to have to go back to Mr. Maki and explain why I couldn’t figure out how to carry out our job. We’re counting on you, K… Rafal.”

He finally relaxed a smiled thinly. “I’ll give it a shot.”

Good; being the morose man’s cheerleader was exhausting. I didn’t want to do too good of a job. After all, it wasn’t like I wanted to build up the brute; after all, he was my future enemy, and a fully controlled Buddy could only…

“Magpie? You alright? You stopped all of a sudden.”

“It’s nothing.” That was a line of thought I hadn’t indulged in for a while. Thinking like Malthus, determined to help the humans around me as little as possible. I’d always feared making Rose or Hiro too powerful, because then I’d just have to meet them on the battlefield. That wasn’t true anymore, was it? What a depressing thought. I needed a drink.

When Kowalski and I returned to where we’d left our companions, Brandur had returned with some metal cups and a steaming thermos full of brown liquid. Not what I meant, but I won’t say no.

“Mind telling me what that bright flash and bang was?” asked Brandur as he poured me a glass. “It spooked the sheep something fierce.”

“Magic misfire,” I said, accepting my cup. I took a sip, and only my gentledevil’s etiquette kept me from spitting it out. “This coffee has an… interesting taste.”

“Coffee?” barked Brandur. “The wife gets me that for my birthday sometimes. That’s powdered acorn. Almost as good, even if there’s no caffeine.”

Mariko grinned at her cup. “I like it! Is this a traditional Icelandic drink?”

“Pfft, no,” said Heida. “It’s probably the imported stuff from Japan.”

“No, this is a treat,” said Brandur. “This is from my last shipment from England.”

“Acorn?” I eyed the drink suspiciously. I tried it again, concluding that it wasn’t entirely unlike coffee. It also wasn’t entirely appetizing, but it was warm, at least.

“Once you process it right, it’s pretty much drinkable,” said the farmer.

“How interesting! I have never heard of drinking acorn before,” said Mariko.

Brandur shook his head. “I can see which ones of you grew up with money.”

Mariko blushed and looked at the ground.

Kowalski drank without complaint, his focus fixed on the tall grass. He seemed to have taken my advice to heart. I also noticed that Buddy had vanished back in his shadow; even the disobedient golem knew better than to spook civilians.

Once we were finished, Brandur wished us luck and was on his way.

I clapped the blond boy on the back. “Now then. Kowalski, what’s the plan?”

“Well… you said something earlier about grass being easy to deal with. Makes sense to me; you’d just need a lawnmower or something. Maybe we need to remove everything that isn’t grass? Then the sheep could probably handle that.”

We hashed out the details quickly; we would walk shoulder to shoulder slowly, scanning the ground ahead for trash, thick brush, or the like. Mariko could vaporize any rubbish with her affinity, Buddy could uproot any stubborn plants, and Heida and I would help where we could.

Things went according to plan for the first half hour. Dreadfully dull, but nothing unexpected.

“Mariko, what do you call your affinity?” asked Heida. She must have been bored to try and engage with Mariko.

The brunette stopped in the middle of vaporizing an old metal pipe. “Hm? Oh, I have not named it.”

“Really? That’s weird. Why not? Everyone else does.”

Mariko frowned. “I am not fond of my magic. It is more a burden than anything else.”

Heida stopped her slow march. “Wait, what?”

“When I was found to be a wizard, it interrupted my life plans,” she replied. “My dream was to be an artist and start a family. Being drafted by the Wizard Corps did nothing to help with that.”

“It helped your family out, though,” said Kowalski. “Right? It got us Kowalskis some extra money from the League and a bigger home.”

“Brandur was right before; I was fortunate enough that the extra stipend does not mean much to Dad and Mom. Can we please change topics?”

Heida nodded. “I hear you. I didn’t think it was going to be so heavy. Though hey, you can always do all that stuff when your five years of service are up. You have that to look forward to.”

Mariko flinched as though Heida had slapped her. “Y-yes, of course.” Her voice caught in her throat, but she tried to put on a brave face. She focused her magic again, destroying the rest of the pipe.

“I agree that your magical talents need a name,” I said. “If only so we can refer to it; after all, what if we need you to disintegrate something? If I said, ‘Ms. Yamada, do that thing you do, please’, you’d be liable to show up with a plate of huffkins as anything else. Hardly practical in a battle scenario.”

Mariko shook her head ruefully. “You are ridiculous, Kasasagi.”

“Hm, what would a good name be… what is it good for…” I pretended to think; like a great curlmeister, I’d thought several moves ahead. “I’ve got it! We can call it Bike Remover!”

That brought Mariko up short again. “Bike what?”

“You heard me. After all, there was a bike, and now there is not. You removed it most definitively. I think the name fits perfectly.”

“I… I…” Mariko’s brow knit in consternation as she contemplated how to respond to my nonsense. Good; that means I accomplished my mission. She doesn’t have the brainpower left over to be miserable.

Heida picked up another rusted pipe, which might have been the mate of the first one. “Yamada, mind using your Bike Remover again?”

She crossed her arms under her chest and turned her head aside, puffing her cheeks out in a pout. “No, I am not responding to that name!”

“Then you’d best come up with a name you do like, or it’ll stick. I’m still Magpie after all this time.”

“Well…” Mariko took the pipe and focused her magic on it. “The problem is that all I can do with it is destroy. Naming it feels like I am acknowledging that side of myself. Does that make sense?”

“Nope,” said Heida without pausing to think.

“I’m sure you’ll come up with…” There was a wet thump as Kowalski’s foot hit something in the tall grass. His eyes bulged out a moment before he let out an ear-splitting scream.

I was at his side in a moment. Those damn protective instincts again!

I needn’t have worried; the ram’s decaying corpse wasn’t assaulting anything except my sense of smell. “Don’t do that! You nearly scared me to death, Kowalski!”

“S-sorry,” he said, looking utterly shamefaced.

I called to the girls. “Nothing to worry about; you’d be best off not seeing. It’s a bit grisly.” The poor animal had died recently; he almost looked like he was asleep, but the buzzing flies told the whole tale.

Mariko nodded, but Heida strolled over. “Nothing I haven’t seen before. Though…” Her hands flew to cover her mouth, muffling her own surprised cry. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“What do you mean?” I moved to her side. “It’s right… what?” From where Kowalski stood, nothing seemed amiss, aside from the obvious. However, the grass obscured where its hindquarters should have been.

“Buddy, go find the rest of it!” Kowalski’s words tumbled out of his mouth, and the normally disobedient golem responded without question. Buddy shot straight up, looking like a totem pole. More eyes opened across his body, which was simultaneously impressive and a sight that would haunt my dreams. They slid about for a moment before all settling on a spot about ten meters distant.

Sure enough, there was the rest of the ram. The hindquarters had been picked mostly clean. That did wonders for the stench, but not for our peace of mind.

At least Kowalski’s plan had ended our day’s work early, even if it wasn’t the way we had intended.