Harper had acquired a car years ago. She exchanged real money for it at a dealership and everything. That was over a decade ago, when she was seeing Gabe and used to do weird normie stuff like that all the time.
Well the car still started up when she tried it, she had been skeptical that it would, and before long both Harper and Cicero were on the road back to Toronto.
Not all the way back. They were going to swing up to Scugog island first to see Jackie.
"Look it's the Great Blue Heron Casino," said Cicero, pointing as they drove towards it. "We're getting close."
"That would be the landmark you'd use, wouldn't it?" said Harper.
"Hey," said Cicero, "you can gather a lot of puissance at a casino."
They drove past the magnificent casino, heading even further north, until they came to the much less magnificent Scugog Island Gift Shop.
Harper pulled her car into the parking lot and the two mages walked into the lonely building.
The gift shop was filled with high quality Mississauga handicrafts on orderly wooden shelves. Cicero knew from experience that some of them would be genuine magical fetishes but most them were exactly what they looked like; souvenirs. He resisted the urge the fondle any of them to check for signs of puissance.
Sitting in a rough chair just behind the counter was a middle aged first nations woman. It was Jackie Goose, who apparently forgotten to age over the past decade. The braids of her long black hair were hidden slightly by the gift shop branded hoodie she wore.
Jackie rose slowly and deliberately as soon as she saw her friends enter.
"Hey Jackie," said Cicero, waving weakly.
Jackie pulled Cicero into a bear hug immediately. Once she had squeezed the breath out of him she did the same to Harper.
"It has been too long," she said "It is good to see you both. What wonderful happenstance brings you both here?"
* * *
High in the sky, a crow caught a thermal updraft and rode it as high as it could. At the apex of the thermal it glided away, slowly lowering itself without needing to flap until it came to a landing atop the gift shop.
It shook some snow from its feathers.
* * *
"Simon has his memories back," said Cicero. "He's on the hunt for all of us. We need your help to fight him."
"Well that is disappointing," said Jackie, "I thought you had come to catch up with an old friend."
"I wish that's why we were here," said Harper. She made a helpless gesture with her hands.
"We wouldn't ask if it wasn't an emergency, Jackie," said Cicero.
Jackie crossed her arms.
"Simon Isengrim is not my problem," she said. "I have nothing to do with Toronto any longer. My place is here."
"But Jackie, if not the three of us then who is going to stop him?" asked Harper.
"What if Simon comes here looking for me? Who is going to protect my people? I have my own responsibilities just as you have yours. Toronto is Aubrey's city now. If it needs defending go talk to her."
"I already tried," said Cicero, "She's lost in her own ego. Doesn't recognize Simon as a legitimate threat."
"That is unfortunate, but it is what it is," said Jackie. "If Aubrey has forsaken her people that is her failing. Don't ask me to do that same."
Cicero sighed.
"I'm sorry that the first time we met again after all these years was like this, Jackie, I really am. I won't try to talk you out of your decision."
"I appreciate that, Cicero," said Jackie. "I hope-"
Jackie turned her head suddenly, as though she heard a distant noise.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed.
The wooden roof overhead exploded in a hail storm of splinters and a nightmare creature whose physiology should not even be possible came crashing through. This unfathomable beast was unlike anything the three mages had seen before, yet they all instantly knew it could only be Simon.
Jackie took only a second to shield her face from falling debris with her hand. Moments later she was already weaving a spell.
Jackie reached down into the Earth with her spiritual awareness and connected with the unbroken tree of life that unites all living beings. She claimed the whole of the world as her body and then began to manipulate it with Body Magic. Puissance flowed from her body like water into the soil of the Earth.
The spell touched each of the thirty or so people in the general area of Scugog Island. Magic power flowed into them and altered the molecular structure of their bodies. One by one they crumbled in on themselves and transformed into sparrows.
The makeshift flock immediately took flight, spreading out in a dozen directions. The spell wouldn't last much longer than an hour but Jackie figured that might just be long enough for them to get away.
The beast that was Simon looked like a shaggy mass of hair-covered tentacles and tooth-lined mouths. The tentacles bulged with snake-like muscles and the monster rose up on several of them like legs, dripping ichor. One of these tentacles lashed out towards Jackie and knocked her to the ground. She was hit just a moment too late to interrupt her spell.
The tip of the tentacle pulsated and then swelled into a human face and about half of the accompanying head. Simon looked down at the prone figure of Jackie with crazy eyes.
"What an interesting trick," said Simon. "I always wondered if something like that was possible with Body Magic. I don't know how you did that but now that I know it's possible it's only a matter of time before I figure it out."
He grinned and pushed his face in closer.
"Thanks for the lesson, Jackie."
"SIMON ISENGRIM!" came the voice of Cicero "WITH YOUR TRUE NAME I BIND YOUR SOUL!"
The face-tipped tentacle spun around to regard Cicero. He stood among the debris from the roof and gestured powerfully towards the Simon-beast with two fingers. The various pockets of his jacket were stuffed with magical trinkets and now they all glowed white hot, visible through the fabric.
Simon's face laughed as he resisted the spell, and easily burned all of Cicero's puissance away like a drop of water evaporating on the sun. All of the tiny magical fetishes he was carrying caught fire. Blood ran from his ears and nose as he struggled to keep his footing.
Simon was so pleased by his utter magical domination of Cicero that he let his attention wane as he basked in the moment.
Jackie was transforming her body even as she rolled to her feet, so that by the time she charged full force into the unsuspecting Simon she had already morphed into a 9-foot-tall woman-bear hybrid. She snarled with bestial rage.
The Jackie bear pushed herself and Simon into the wooden front door of the gift shop, which was torn from its hinges as the two tumbled outside. Harper and Cicero ran out after them. Cicero stumbled over the threshold of the door before falling to his knees and vomiting blood. His life force was weak, nearly burnt out.
Jackie tore at Simon with her giant claws, but he merely grew several more tentacles and overwhelmed her. Simon's many mouths bit into her. Jackie was the stronger Body mage but she had used most of her power casting the spell earlier, and she couldn't transform herself to keep up with Simon. He quickly gained the upper hand.
Harper looked at Cicero; he was passed out in a pool of his own blood. Jackie was in the throes of a bloody melee with the Simon-faced monster and she was losing. Harper had to think of something fast.
"HEY SIMON!" she screamed through the wet sounds of combat, and she must have gained his attention because he grew himself a second head to look at her while he continued to fight.
Harper defiantly looked Simon's new face directly in the eyes.
Simon took what he assumed to be advantage of an error born from fear. He immediately attempted to invade Harper's thoughts with Mind Magic.
Harper had been planning on this, and resisted the attempt with everything she had. Every mote of puissance she gathered after a decade of using a community of 20,000 as her personal mana battery.
Simon was unrelenting. He continued to press the spell as all of Harper's energy was gobbled up.
Once her puissance was gone Harper burned her emotions, then down to her core beliefs and finally her very soul. Harper committed her life's last spark to the task of resisting Simon.
Inevitably she failed. When the last mote of power was burned away she was left an empty husk. She was already a corpse before she started to fall.
It all went exactly according to her plan.
Jackie used the opportunity created by Simon's momentary distraction to struggle free of his grip. Expending the last of her puissance she sank down into the tree of life once more and drew up a great hand made of grass, roots and earth from the ground. The hand reached out and grasped Simon, crumbling into a ball as it did so and surrounding the mage with dirt.
Jackie didn't waste a second. She transformed the bottom of the ball into a bio-chemical rocket. The second the chemicals came into being they reacted with one-another and the ball of earth was send shooting into the upper atmosphere.
Jackie knew that wouldn't hold Simon for long but it was the best she could do. She ran over to Harper and checked for a pulse. There was none. Suppressing tears she checked Cicero for signs of life. He was still breathing so she slapped him awake.
Burning her last magical fetish, a simple looking necklace, Jackie transformed them both into waxwings. They fled into the sky.