Save for the Kung Fu Chicken, I plowed through the remainder of the food. Shortly after that, Dale arrived at my apartment. We sat around the kitchen table as he gave me a rundown of everything that happened after I passed out.

Apparently, I slept through the entire weekend. He said that besides the news crew, only the police had come. That was a bit of a disappointment. I had hoped clients would be swarming the place. At least Dale had deterred the coppers from hauling me away. He used the tried-and-true, “Do you have a warrant?” shtick. By his description, it was Detective Take-Me-To-Jail-If-It’s-The-Last-Thing-He-Does. His mother must have hated him to come up with a name like that. The judges had become wise to his vendetta against me, so the warrant should take a while.

Dale was eager to hear about my adventure, or more accurately – misadventure, performing Cara’s second chance ceremony. I told him about Shawn screwing up, pooping his pants, and crying like a little boy that got spanked for stealing cookies. The tale was liberal with embellishments and the amount of excrement spewed from Shawn’s body, but what’s a good story without a little storytelling?

After I finished regaling them, I started unwrapping the bandages and went to put clothes on. Leah tried to stop me, but I showed her that even the bruising had almost fully healed. As soon as I left the room, Dale tried to appeal to Leah. He was acting like a big shot about his appearance on the news. I re-entered the room wearing a plain green t-shirt and jeans; arguably a better fashion choice than mummy-caught-with-his-pants-down chic. Dale was still gloating about being a TV star.

“Yeah, your ability to stop people at the door is impressive. You’re like Alfred and I’m Batman.” I mocked. He eyed me appraisingly.

“No, you’re more like Aquaman. You’re strong and talk to dead people like he talks to fish, but besides that, you’re useless.” He countered. I scoffed, Aquaman was the worst hero to be compared to.

“I don’t talk to dead people.” I said defensively. “I summon them from the great beyond. Like a sweet necromancer.”

“Aquaman summons fish.” He stated.

“I know about what you did at the hospital, but this Cara story just isn’t believable.” Leah chimed, blocking, what would have been, a very impressive retort to Dale’s quip.

The food had already started becoming energy. The healing had continued more rapidly once I’d gotten some food in me. In an attempt to prove my power, I lifted my shirt to reveal that all the bruising was gone now too. Dale averted his gaze with an embarrassed quirk to his lips. I felt bad; obviously, he was ashamed, comparing himself to me. Considering the display of my perfectly crafted torso, it came as a surprise that Leah didn’t look impressed.

“I’ve already seen your skinny-fat stomach.” She said. Her harsh critique was clearly biased by her husband being in the room. It appeared she’d need further demonstration of my power.

I thought about how I could make her jaw drop with awe when I remembered Jeff’s love energy. It was still quarantined from my untainted kind as if my soul had completely forgotten about converting it. I didn’t want to waste it, but I couldn’t resist showing off. Walking over to the kitchen island, I turned the sink on and pushed the tip of my finger through the stream. With a mild effort, the flow stopped, frozen solid.

She leaned forward to look; her eyes widened and her skeptical lips parted for just a moment. Her brow quirked. “Your finger’s stuck isn’t it.” She pointed out. It was my turn to have my lips part when I looked down at my finger held tightly in the ice. I tugged it gently; it was stuck.

“No…?” I defended. A sharp yank shattered the illusion just as it did the ice. Water trickled from the faucet, then flowed freely. I turned it off then looked up to see that she was looking down on me, metaphorically, with the recognition of bravado. I coughed and defiantly added, “What? I didn’t want to have to explain burst pipes to the landlord.” After touching the power of love to show off my mastery over ice, I’d had a thought. Leah really had been impressed; I wasn’t imagining it. That created an opportunity.

“You still can’t date my sister.” Leah said flatly, her expression brooked no argument. How did she…nevermind. Dale knew me pretty well and probably figured Leah and my personalities would clash. He was smiling at the prospect of more drama, but there wouldn’t be any. I wouldn’t be goaded into conflict. I thought too soon, however; the doorbell rang. I went to answer it and there was Shawn.

“You forgot your phone in my car.” He said, pushing himself past me. I sighed.

“It’s about time you returned it.” I complained, snatching it from his hand. He looked at me with challenge.

“I tried to turn around and drop it off right away, but no one was at the front desk. I wasn’t going to stand around waiting, so I left.” He complained back. Then he haughtily added to his dissatisfaction with a grimace of disgust. “And thanks to you, my car was filthy. I had to get it cleaned. Don’t worry about it, I’ll cover the bill.”

“You’ll cover the – you know what? Nevermind. You still could have dropped it off any other time.” I admonished. “I probably lost business because of you.” He wouldn’t get the satisfaction of knowing I’d been unconscious the whole time.

“I was too busy. I missed golf with my buddies, so I had to make it up to them.” He shrugged. I bet he made it up to them real good, I thought to myself. “What’s this?” Shawn quirked, leering in Leah’s direction. A predatory grin slithered onto his face. He reached a hand toward her like a prince fawning over a princess. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

Dale slapped his hand away like a viper striking its prey. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.” A burning fury emanated from the beastly man. Shawn backed down with the fear of being torn in half but masked it as quickly as it appeared. Dale glared at him.

The temptation of watching Dale cold-cock Shawn was somehow overshadowed by my eagerness to check my messages, but my phone was dead. “Alright children,” I said with a clap. “Daddy has to charge his phone and listen to his voicemails, so be good while I’m gone.”

Ignoring whatever they said to me or each other, I walked into my bedroom to the cable draped over the side table. Plugging in my phone, I mashed the power button eagerly. The manufacturer logo appeared on the screen.

I never really listened to my voicemails; instead, letting them get transcribed so they could be skimmed. After reading, I’d leave them undeleted to pile up. I’m only forced to play them if the conversion is unintelligible. When my phone finally turned on and the voicemail icon pinged at the top of the screen, I pulled up the menu.

There were only three messages. The first, Mrs. Hasbrook refusing to pay and demanding recompense for her hardship; one from that reporter looking to get comments for the story and wanting an interview; and another from Mrs. Hasbrook, telling me that Cara was fine and didn’t need further care. That was all of them and the hopeful elatio of new business was dead, but quickly replaced by curiosity.

I remembered my revelation about Cara and decided to investigate. The second of Mrs. Hasbrook’s messages was in line with the way she’d acted on television. I decided to listen to it. The voice wasn’t monotone, necessarily, but with the drawl she spoke in, it may as well have been.

“Good morning, Mr. Gil. This is Mrs. Hasbrook. I am sorry for the way I treated you. Cara is feeling much better. In fact, she’s feeling better than ever. Thank you for your help. We will no longer be requiring your services. Thanks again. Goodbye.” The way she spoke was eerie, like she was under some kind of spell.

“For the sake death and all the death it leaves in its wake.” I muttered to myself. Leaving my phone on the side table, I walked back into the living room with my chin in my hand contemplative.

“So?” Leah asked me, interrupting whatever death threat Dale was giving Shawn. “Are you overwhelmed with business?” She continued sarcastically. I didn’t respond. The attention of the room turned to me. They stared silently, most likely in awe by my majesty, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

Shawn poured energy into Cara, bringing her body back to life. I called back her consciousness with more energy and constructed a barrier to contain it. Could I have overfilled it? I did use a lot of power, but she had been very ill before dying and I normally used pure energy, so using contempt instead would have been significantly more inefficient. Both were valid reasons to use that much power. Could it have been because I used energy filled with hate? That shouldn’t have made a difference… I don’t think.

Al taught me how to use energy. It could be moved and utilized in different ways. We figured out that healing was my forte and that’s when the experiments to test my healing limits started. Bringing back the dead was kind of an accident. My healing had come moments too late, but I discovered that the life-returning process was similar-ish to healing. It was intuitive, for me at least. Al told me that the magic community frowned upon raising the dead and told me not to, but clearly, I ignored the warning.

Something had gone wrong with Cara’s second chance, but the cause didn’t really matter. It didn’t change what had to happen next. During Al’s mentorship, we’d encountered people with black eyes and there was only one way to deal with them. My expression hardened.

As usual, Shawn was the first to speak, interrupting my thoughts. “Did you just realize that you left your action figure in my car?” When I looked up at him, the gravity of my demeaner took him by surprise. “What?”

“We have to kill Cara.” I said gravely.

Shawn was stunned for a moment, then vomited questions rapidly. “What? What are you talking about? We just brought her back. Why would we need to kill her? And since when do you kill people?”

“Cara’s mom was right. We didn’t bring her daughter back.” I replied. Confusion and concern were plastered on Shawn’s face.

“Stop trying to be vague to build suspense. Explain it like a normal person.” He exasperated.

I shook my head aghast. “I would never speak cryptically on purpose to hold an audience’s rapt attention.” I continued to do just that. “Mrs. Hasbrook said we brought a monster into her house, and she was right.” I looked over at Dale. At least he could appreciate my build-ups. He was gushing with excitement. Leah smacked his arm.

“Just tell us.” She said sighing at me.

“Fine. Fun killers.” I complained, then put up two fingers in Shawn’s direction. “Lesson two, foolish student!” Leaning against a wall, I adjusted invisible glasses. “As I tried to instill in your tiny brain during the previous lesson, there is a science to resurrecting corpsified people. The requirements vary based on the concoction and your measurements must be precise if you hope to produce adequate results.”

“Ahh, so you screwed up because you’re a terrible baker.” Shawn cocked a smile.

“No. What are you talking about? Baker? I’m a scientist – a chemist if you will.” I exaggerated my expression as if that were obvious. “You see, I showed up for my shift, and you handed me a beaker with an unknown substance swirling inside. I’d never condone animal testing, but it’s not an issue for a vile creature such as yourself. You injected the substance into a – monkey, let’s say, then took off your pants and peed on the floor.” He scoffed. All of us, including Leah, shot him a chastising look. I cleared my throat to continue. “Clearly, you had no idea what you were doing. Thanks to your incompetence, the monkey escaped and tore up the lab.”

“So, your solution is to kill the monkey?” Shawn interrupted.

“Of course.” I answered simply. “That monkey has gained super strength and intelligence. Now it wants to enslave humanity.”

Leah chimed in, not allowing me to bask in my own brilliance, “So, if I’ve followed your analogy, which was convoluted, and you’re not nearly as smart or impressive as you think you are, Shawn caused a planet of the apes scenario.”

I made a tut-tut sound, shaking a finger and head in unison. “Oh Leah, bless your heart. You didn’t let me finish. When Shawn wasn’t looking, something jumped into the beaker before he administered the concoction. Cara is just the host, and an evil parasite controls her now.” Closing out the metaphor with a flourish, I could tell she was impressed by the way she rolled her eyes.

“You’re an idiot.” Leah said. “Can’t you just remove the remove the parasite or kill that instead?” The truth was, I wasn’t sure if you could or not.

“Alright, real talk: the parasite is more like a demon. Al said that they come from somewhere else, like a different plane or something. I’ve only had to deal with them twice, and it didn’t end well.”

“Al?” Leah asked.

“What do you mean by, didn’t end well?” Shawn interjected.

“Al is my mentor.” I said to Leah, then I turned to Shawn. “I haven’t taught you much about magic, but these demons don’t exactly fall within the normal realm of what’s possible by our standards.” I explained. The specifics were hard to describe without giving examples, so that’s what I did. “You saw me using normal magic. Super strength, lightning, ice – energy can be used to supplement the body’s natural functions and use elemental powers. Fire, water, wind, earth, and everything in between.” Shawn nodded along. “Well, the two demons I encountered, were different. One of them could walk through walls and the other was a werewolf. Al blew up the first one and we took the second one on together.” Before I could elaborate on my monster hunting adventures, Leah interrupted.

“Wait, werewolves are real?” She asked.

“I don’t know, but this one was. Al threw a car at it and I – helped.” I replied.

“You – helped.” Shawn said with a smirk. “Wait, he threw a car at it?!”

Leah looked between Shawn and I. “Al… there was an emergency contact number in your wallet.” She said. Terror struck my heart.

“Please tell me you didn’t...” I pleaded desperately.

“Should I not have? You were out for three days.” She replied. My stomach sank in a way that felt worse than when it had been filling with blood. I dropped my face into my hands.

“Three days?” Shawn asked incredulous. Then the doorbell rang, and I groaned. I looked up to see Shawn’s face change from confusion to evil glee. I’d told him snippets of some the torturous methods that had been used to ‘teach’ me. “I can’t wait to meet him.” Shawn said. Before I could stop him, he was prancing to the door. However, unlike his jovial tone a moment earlier, Leah, Dale, and I heard Shawn say, “Well, hello there.” In a sultry voice.

“Is Jesse here?” A woman’s voice asked.

“The more important question is whether or not I’m here. And you’re in luck, I am.” He purred.

“Ok…? I’m here to see Jesse.” She insisted.

“Well, anything he can do; I can do better.” Shawn replied.

“Not interested. Is Jesse here or not?” Frustration evident in her tone.

“Is it hot in here or is it just me?” Cheesiness oozed off his statement and as if it were playing his wingman, my air conditioner kicked on automatically.

“You have ten seconds to get out of my way. One…” The woman’s voice was coated in anger at this point, but Shawn still did not get the hint.

“Ten? Baby, you’re a solid nine, but don’t worry, I’m the one you need.” Dale, Leah, and I all groaned at that one.

“…Ten.” The woman growled, then we heard a crash and drywall dust burst from the wall adjoining my bedroom. A wave of heat blew into the apartment. The temperature increased as did the volume of heels clacking on the floor as the woman approached. My arm rose in an introducing gesture, and I sighed.

“Everyone. I’d like you to meet my emergency contact and mentor, Al. The Rage Mage.”