Mage Catalyst by Christopher George Read Free Book Online

down.
“How are your ribs?” he asked. He gawked when I pulled up my shirt to show him the bruises.
“Shit,” he breathed out.
I stared at him.
“What happened?” he asked. “Did you fall down a flight of stairs like you said?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. It was obvious I was lying.
Tony slowly nodded. It was the first time I had kept anything from him and I felt a little sick at the idea of starting now. I’d have loved to be able to tell him what was going on, but that required something I didn’t have – an understanding of what was going on.
“Well, see you, dude. I’ll see you at school.”
I’d usually go wander around the city for a while when I was bored. But I couldn’t really leave the apartment in my current condition. I’d already seen all of Dad’s movies on numerous occasions so I didn’t really feel like watching a movie.
And I was too distracted anyway to focus on a movie. I couldn’t stop thinking about Renee. Every train of thought led me back to her. I imagined her when I closed my eyes and I could almost still smell her fragrance on me. I remembered her lips on mine, the way it felt to hold her against me.
I pictured her standing there outside the club smiling at me. Then I remembered her in the alley with her hands held forth and blue particles whipping out to strike me down.
    Could I do that?
Surely not?
Why not?
I wouldn’t want to attack anyone with it, but surely it could do other stuff, move things? Lift things? That sounded pretty cool. My face twisted into a curled grin at the thought of all the fun I could have with that kind of power.
My sprained wrist disrupted my train of thought with a violent throb. I looked down and began to lightly stroke it, trying to massage away the discomfort. That only partially worked, but it did make me feel a little better.
Once the pain subsided in my wrist I began to contemplate the lifting stuff concept more. Renee had technically lifted me when she had attacked me – so therefore it must be possible.
With my logic figured out, I tried to visualise how she had actually got the particles to come from her hand like she had. I went over the scene in my mind again and again until I could almost see the scene on the inside of my eyelids.
She had flexed her fingers and the particles had run down her arm to her hand. The more I thought about this the more I could feel the particles buzzing up and down my arm. It was as if they were preparing for something.
Time to give it a go.
I reached out and wiggled my fingers – nothing happened. Okay, I hadn’t seriously expected that to work anyway. I tried pointing my forefinger and said, “Abracadabra”, half thinking something might happen. I felt very foolish but no-one was around so I concentrated and tried something else I had seen in movies. There was an empty glass on the table about two metres away. I focused on it and thought about it moving as hard as I could.
Nothing, not even a twitch.
It took me a good hour before I could even get the blue particles to move with any degree of control, and even then I had to calm myself and breathe steadily. Fortunately I had plenty of time to practice.
I kept focusing on my breath while observing the particles of light.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Eventually, I could feel the particles begin to move in a pattern of sorts, with a degree of control. I could force them to slowly slide down my arm and then back up. It took about another hour before I felt I had it. Yet no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get them to leap from my hand into that whip-like thing that Renee had used.
Okay, this was getting frustrating. I reached out my hand, straining against the couch, focusing intently on the glass. Zip. Nothing. Infuriating.
I strained with my fingers stretched to their apex. I could see the particles swirling down my hand and across my fingers. Try as hard as I could, I just couldn’t get them to leap from it.
Then it happened. On the out