Everything Included

Lead, Platinum, Gold

We waited. Seconds passed. Minutes. We were standing outside Potter Oaks by the sign that welcomed visitors. 3,000 Strong, it read.

Goodness, I'd hoped that was the truth.

*

Crispen smoked the same cigarette for what seemed like ages, smoke serpents turning into mighty smoke dragons that floated overhead. My father stood silent with a grimace on his face that he'd worn ever since he rummaged around in his pockets and realized he'd forgotten his flask.

An umbrella of woven blue hung over us like a magical awning, keeping Gideon's storm at bay. Chant was at my feet, claws out and running them along the asphalt. Traffic had stopped. Even the ill-informed seemed to be able to sense what was about to land in their town and everyone had returned to their homes in hopes of weathering out the storm.

I looked toward the grey; it rolled toward us like a ferocious sea, waiting to lap us up and drag us to the bottom where we'd suffocate and drown. The rain fell en masse, flooding our little hamlet, storm drains working double time to keep up with the rush of debris that piled on top of their grates.

The air had grown heavy and hung over us like a soggy wool blanket. My breaths had been short and erratic but thanks to my father's magic, I could finally take a few deep breaths. I did so to calm my nerves but nothing worked.

I didn't want to meet Gideon on such extreme terms. Him or us. Save the town, destroy Gideon. I always hated black and white and now that was exactly where I stood, between two absolutes. What happened to the moral grey? Surely, there was more of it then what hung above our heads.

Gideon had saved me when I'd been little. Given me his heart to protect and treasure. He'd been my first friend. Our meeting had been so important to me then that despite my father's magic, I conjured him up and wrote my first story about him.

And when he'd first come to town, before I'd buggered things up, there'd been glimpses of that boy still. He rescued me from that nightmare. Held me as though I were his rare treasure, as if I were his notebook.

I wouldn't give up on him. Not yet.

A gush of wind swept up around us, shaking my dad's magic. Tree limbs broke and were forced to the ground. Entire trees--no, entire forests-- were made to bow, their canopies brushing against the ground, nature's peasants made to welcome their new king.

Through a mess of hair, I saw him, the boy of clear eyes who'd saved me, my first friend, my first story, the boy whose heart was in my back pocket. Gideon was standing a few yards away, the eye of the storm, cloaked in absolute darkness.

He carried the void on his shoulders. The slithering mass draped over him like a cape, billowing out around his ankles. As Gideon walked toward us, I saw the edge of the cape brush against the road, turning asphalt into smoking piles of red hot ash.

My father pulled his magic downward, encasing us in a dome that burned with the symbols for platinum. Gideon smiled.

"Ah, guests," he called. He didn't have to yell for us to hear him. Gideon commanded the wind to carry his voice over to us, his magic dropping his words off right before my father's magic.

The magic Gideon commanded, the festering black that reminded me of charred flesh, grew talons and clawed at the shield, clamoring to be let in. My father's magic swelled, the symbols pulsing, until a draw was decided, Gideon's magic popping and turning into smoke, a pin hole made in my father's defenses.