When Marcus came to, he was being dragged, ankles locked together, toes of his boots squeaking on the tile floor behind him. His first instinct was to struggle, which he learned quickly was the wrong one. Whatever had electrified him was still embedded in his back and after calling him something to the effect of “fucking idiot,” the man to his right waved a hand-held controller in his face with a single switch on it.
He flipped it.
When Marcus woke up this time, it was solely from the scorching pain of his arms being wrenched behind his back to lock his arms to the back of the chair they’d thrown him in. He let out a slow breath, biting into the side of his cheek to keep the scream of pain at bay.
“You’re one stupid fucking guy, you know that? Could have just come to the gate if you wanted a beating that bad.” One of his captors rounded the chair to look down at him. The big, corn-fed boy couldn’t have been any older than his twin brothers, but leaned down with the smug arrogance of a man who might actually know what he was doing.
“I prefer the hard way,” Marcus said before his head snapped back with the force of his captor’s ham-sized fist colliding with his nose.
“You talk, maybe we’ll just drop you off outside the hospital and not bother the boss with this.” The hand slapped the back of Marcus’ head to get him to look up again before Mr. Corn-fed continued. “Who’s Kane? You got another buddy out there?”
“Buddy? Nah, Kane’s my dog.” Marcus blinked a few times as blood poured from his broken nose into his mouth.
“I don’t give a shit what you call him.” The brute snapped as his meaty fingers gripped what little was left of Marcus’ hair, threatening to rip it right out of his scalp. “Why are you trying to get into the press conference? Your friend coming back?”
“I really like the local news.” Marcus squinted up at the man, only for his face to be met with the brick-like fist yet again. Dazed, it took him a moment to distinguish between floor and ceiling. Once the world oriented properly, Marcus spat blood in his attacker’s face and started to laugh. “Oh, you fucked up now.”
Mr. Corn-fed’s eyebrows went up as he wiped the blood slowly from his face. “You think this is funny?”
One.
Two.
Three quick successive strikes drove into his gut, sending the chair tumbling backwards and new found pain sparking through his shoulders and down his elbows when he landed on his tucked back arms. Even so, after the grunt of pain, Marcus’ laughter continued.
“This guy is fucking nuts.” Mr. Corn-fed grabbed him by the collar and ripped him up off the floor with one arm, chair and all. “What’s so goddamned funny?”
“My blood…” Marcus wheezed between grunts of pain and admittedly over the top laughter. “If he couldn’t smell me before, he’s going to now?”
“Oh? Your buddy Kane’s gonna rush through the door and save you?”
“Door?” He shook his head. “Nope. Kane’s way too cool for doors. Should be here right about….now.” Eyes shifting side to side, Marcus frowned after a few seconds of silence passed. No Kane. As good as it felt the glimmerfang actually listened to him, the rescue would have been nice. “Well…this is awkward.”
Mr. Corn-fed blinked at him a couple of times before nodding to the second man behind him. Two hands gripped his shoulders, and the mountain of a country boy went to work. The first blow sent stars exploding through his vision before the second one turned out the lights.
“Fucking shit!”
Corn-fed was yelling? Marcus tried to open his eyes, but the light in the room was nearly blinding. He heard metal scrape along tile, and then a howl of pain followed by a deep, resonant growl. With a grumble, he moved his head enough to see the underside of glimmerfang coat, his nether region dangling far too close to his face for his liking.
Marcus snapped his fingers, the action sending pain rocketing up his arms. “Kane, my hands.”
The growl turned into a warning bark answered by a very human, very afraid squeal. It took a second, and both of his hands going basically all the way into the dog’s mouth, but Kane was eventually able to bite through the zip ties holding his wrists together. Marcus popped the ties off his ankles and rolled to his feet.
The world spun for a second as his fingers probed at his broken nose. It wasn’t the first, and assuming he lived through this, would not be the last broken nose he’d ever had. Cosmetically, it was an issue, but for now…he just needed to be able to breathe. He gripped with two fingers, pinched the bridge with two more, and quickly snapped it back into place.
Tears streamed from his eyes, mixing with the blood that coated his hand. His eyes lingered on the ring on his middle finger for a moment, its runes giving off a soft crimson glow. Shaking his head he turned to the two meatheads that dragged him in here, Kane bearing down over them.
“Better late than never.” Marcus stepped around the chair and scratched behind the glimmerfangs ears. “I see you boys met Kane.”
Marcus snatched the remainder of the zipties off the idiots, and anything they could use to cut themselves free, before giving them the same treatment he’d gotten. Ankles locked. Wrists locked. And just for good measure, he ziptied them to each other. Once he was finished, he hovered over Corn-fed for a moment and shook his head. “Consider yourself lucky. The last close encounter with Arcanex security you guys ended up dead.”
Marcus’ fist crashed against the man’s jaw.
Still in a significant amount of pain, he started to run again. The press conference had no doubt already started. If he was going to expose Arcanex, expose Walter Harris, what better place then on live television? Getting onto the stage with him was likely to be an even bigger shit show than getting into the school itself was. One thing he could count on, or at least he hoped he could count on, was his ability to move through chaos better than Walter’s. There wasn’t a being on earth that he trusted to create more chaos than Kane the glimmerfang.
“So you’re saying that Arcanex leaked its own research to the press? Why? Wouldn’t it be simpler just to release it with the cure to other companies so they could assist in making more?”
Marcus slid to a stop outside the massive double doors at the question and held out a hand to stop Kane from barreling in.
“It was an unorthodox move, I agree, but this is the land of the free. We could have issued it to a select few companies to allow for limited use of the formula, but it seemed more prudent to make it publicly available. Releasing it to the press was phase one. We are looking into releasing it to the public via the web, but there are some regulatory issues with that we’re still navigating.”
“Isn’t that a little irresponsible? Releasing a chemical formula to a bunch of home-chemists seems like a recipe for disaster.”
“Those concerns were weighed before the decision became final. It was more important to us that Arcanex remain completely transparent than…”
Bursting through the closed gymnasium doors, Walter’s eyes snapped to him immediately from the podium up on the raised stage.
“Kane! New friends!”
Security was already filing out from behind the curtain, rifles raised. When the world’s friendliest glimmerfang blinked into a group of reporters all wagging tail slobbery jowls, Walter held a hand up to stop them.
Marcus froze as the gym doors slammed behind him. Standing beside Walter in a bright yellow dress, Ophelia’s eyes were wide as saucers. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Why? Why was she here? It didn’t matter. He needed to focus. This wasn’t about Ophelia. It was about exposing her father. His hands tightened into fists and his feet were slamming into the hardwood floor before his brain communicated what was coming next.
Having already proved his jumping prowess, there was no fear in his eyes as Marcus leapt from halfway across the gym, soaring directly for the man. The initial thought hadn’t been to hit him, but that was definitely what was about to happen. He pulled his fist back, and then something strange caught his eye.
The guards behind him had lifted their carbines, ready to fire, but a translucent golden wall rose from the floor to shield their fire. In the split second he turned to Ophelia, expecting the shield to have come from her, but she was frozen in utter horror. Then he looked at Walter.
The middle-aged man watched him flying in his direction, head cocked like a curious dog. One hand extended behind him, the other currently raising in his direction. His momentum stopped on a dime, jostling his body back and forth from the anchor points created by tight golden rings of light that pulled his arms into his torso and clamped his legs together.
The rings of magic got tighter, pinning his elbows to his torso and wrists to his legs. There was a jolt of pain that took him a moment to realize was not coming from his constraints. Or anything physical. Humiliation rocked through. He was the coyote and the road runner led him right off a cliff.
Walter twirled his fingers in a motion that was somehow equal parts utterly dismissive and self-aggrandizing. His body hovered in one smooth movement until his feet floated just inches off the stage a few feet from the man.
“Marcus Atticus Tenneson.” His eyes flicked to the side, where his daughter would have been had he not turned to face him, then back to Marcus. “I was led to believe you’d departed this mortal coil. I’m so pleased to see that’s not the case.”
“Yeah? How about you let me down and we see how pleased you are?” The flashes of light only served to increase his embarrassment. This was certainly live television. Maybe they couldn’t hear what was being said, but they certainly watched him fail miserably.
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Walter shook his head. “We’ll just have a nice little chat before we turn you over to the authorities.” He let the wall blocking his goon squad fall and squeezed an Arcanex logo button on his lapel. A wave of semi-transparent energy spread around them, encasing the two of them in a sphere of privacy, much like his father once had. “Now that’s better.”
“Don’t want the press to hear all your sins?” Marcus’ lip curled slightly as he stared down at the man, still hovering helplessly off the ground.
“Mr. Tenneson, I don’t know what else I can do to stress just how outmatched you are.” Walter gestured to the room in a semicircle motion. “I know you leaked our research. I know you broke your contract. I know you broke into our facility and stole your friend’s NDA’s. I even know you were behind the little terrorist attack on my mining project. And yet I am still a step ahead of you at every turn.”
The muscles outside Marcus’ jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. The urge to reach out and strangle the pompous prick was boiling to the surface, but even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. He was right. Every move he’d made, Walter had covered up or turned into an advantage. Biting his lip, Marcus glanced past him at Ophelia.
“I can appreciate a man of conviction. Honest. I’m one myself. But you’ve been dead for several weeks and I’m still outwitting you, dear boy. It’s time to hang it up.” Walter closed the distance just to reach up and pat his cheek twice.
He was a man of conviction. Walter had made that very clear. Besides his money, there was one thing that Walter loved more than anything in the world. “You don’t want your daughter to hear about all your sins.” Marcus’ eyes left Ophelia and landed on Walter’s again.
Walter’s gaze narrowed on him. “Excuse me?”
“Are you intentionally ignoring the facts, or are you actually that dense? Do you think she doesn’t know what you’re doing?” Marcus asked, lips tightening into a smile as his inner brow raised in amusement.
“I suggest you mind your tongue, Boy.” Walter’s face curled into a sneer as his previously flourishing fingers tightened into a fist, which caused his binds to bite tighter against his skin.
“She’s been wading through your greed and lies for months now. Never said a word to you, did she? Paints a pretty clear picture of your relationship.”
“You’ll close your fucking mouth, or I will close it for you.” Walter swiftly closed the short distance between them, spittle firing from his mouth.
“You don’t have the balls.” Marcus wheezed out. “You weren’t even man enough to raise your own daughter. She spent more time with my family than you.”
Walter grabbed the front of his hoodie and, with strength he’d genuinely not expected, slammed him face first into the ground. Pain rocketed from his nose down his spine just before the older man flipped him over and dropped a knee already on his struggling lungs. Marcus had the wherewithal to roll slightly to dodge the first punch headed for his face, but the next hook connected clean with his cheekbone.
“If you ever speak about my daughter again, I’ll beat you to death with my bare hands.” Walter put all his weight on the knee in his chest, posturing over him like a predator.
Marcus sucked in what air he could and squeezed his hand into a fist. James had told him it wouldn’t be anymore than a few feet, but the anti-magic ring should be able to reach the lapel. The rings constricting him fell away instantly. There was still a knee in his chest and he wasn’t ready to give away the game yet, so the air in his lungs was still at a premium. The veil around them fell, but if Walter noticed, his sneer didn’t give away anything. Now it was time to give this bear a couple more pokes.
“She knows everything.” Marcus barely needed to fake the wheeze with the weight balancing on the center of his chest. “You’re in denial if you think she doesn’t. The blightshrews. How many people has your greed killed? You think she’ll forgive you for that?”
Walter shook with rage. “I knew sending her to America was a mistake. No matter how good the school was, I should have never allowed my girl to befoul herself with scum like you.” Another strike sent blood flying from his nose. Not good. No matter how distracted Kane was with the reporters… This needed to end fast.
“You’re a fucking monster.” Blood spurted from Marcus’ mouth with the last word.
“And she’ll forgive me for everyone of those people that died.” Walter leaned in close, his breath hot on Marcus’ swelling face. “Because everything I do is for my family.”
The prelude to the chaos that followed came in the form of barking from twenty or so yards away. Marcus brought both legs up, slamming his thighs into Walter’s ass and sending him lurching forward. With a quick twist of his hips, he flipped the man over, effectively saving him from the five hundred pound muscled fur ball careening through a pink smoke cloud in their direction. Then the carbines started firing…but not at him.
By the time Marcus was hovering over Walter’s shocked face, another golden wall of magic had risen in front of the guards who were trying to find their way around it. The stage shook as something heavy fell. The quiet whine should have been completely imperceptible, but he looked over his shoulder in its direction.
Kane curled into a ball on the floor, patches of fur still smoking from where carbine shots pierced through him. Marcus’ blood ran cold, eyes going wide. Time seemed to drag as he shifted his gaze to Ophelia, who had stopped the shots with a perfect duplicate of her father’s spell, her face still horror-stricken, staring past him at Kane. Then he felt the silk shirt gripped between his fingers.
This was his fault.
Nora.
The blightshrews.
All of these people that died.
His father.
James.
Now Kane.
The lights went out after Marcus’ first strike. The light blue eyes that looked strikingly like his daughter’s rolled into the back of his head as Marcus laid into the man who had caused so much destruction. So much pain. He felt Ophelia pull at his shoulders, but he didn’t stop.
His punches only came to a stop after her fingernails stopped digging into his shoulders. After her pleas for him to stop ceased. He’d only just registered her absence from behind him when the wooden stage splintered a foot above her father’s head and a thin pillar of stone rocketed directly at his face.
When his eyes cracked open again, camera flashes were still firing. The roar of reporters who had crowded the stage, firing off questions, made making anything specific out impossible. A dark blue blob in his still blurry vision grabbed him by the shoulders and rolled him onto his stomach. The familiar click and electrical buzz of magic handcuffs sounded as his already messed up shoulders cried out for mercy.
As he was pulled to his feet, he blinked through the fuzz and his gaze landed on the dark lump of fur and Ophelia kneeling beside it. Kane. He had to be okay. She glanced up at him as the officers started hauling him off, tucked her bottom lip into her mouth, and gave him a slight nod.