Mage Catalyst by Christopher George Read Free Book Online Page B

hands. I felt the plastic flex beneath my fingers but it was nowhere near breaking limit. I simply could not apply the necessary pressure with my fingers to get the mug to even crack, let alone shatter like the other one had.
    How much pressure had I been able to exert before?
The sound of keys in the door brought me back to reality. Damn, Dad was home. He walked in with his usual after-work expression: slight annoyance and tiredness.
“I trust you didn’t forget dinner tonight,” he grumbled as he saw me on the couch, then his eyes narrowed with curiosity. He didn’t say anything but I’m sure he was wondering what I was doing with four mugs and a smashed one, lined up in a row on the coffee table.
“Nope,” I said, getting to my feet to clear up the mess. ”Give me five minutes to get changed and I’m ready to go.”
“Okay. Wait a minute though, I want to talk to you first,” he called before I could head into my room.
Great, this was definitely a pre-meet-the-woman-I’m-dating speech. I was a little sick of these – they never went well and the women Dad dated never seemed to hang around that long anyway.
“Have you given any thought to what you’re doing next year yet?” he started, taking me a little off balance at the unexpected direction. “Your mother says you are only just scraping by in all of your subjects this year.”
Thanks Mum. Of course both my parents and the school were adamant that I’d go to university. “I’ve looked at a few courses,” I grumbled.
    That was true at least. I had looked at a few courses, but couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for any of them. All of my friends had a calling. Garry was kind of a jerk and was failing a lot of subjects even worse than me, but he was brilliant on the guitar and aced Music class – both theory and practice. Tony could play at being the fool but his grades were better than mine in every class, apart from Art. Sarah got the best grades in English and had won the year level’s poetry prize. I didn’t seem to be very good at anything much at all and certainly had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. 
“That’s what you said last time,” Dad reminded me grimly. “Life is not a free ride, Devon. You have to earn what you want. You’re going to have to take some responsibility and make some serious plans for the future.”
“I know, Dad,” I groaned. If this was the preamble before the dinner then the actual dinner was sure to be as fun as a root canal.
“I’ve arranged for you to meet with a friend of mine. He works for a graphic design company. He’s got a proposition for you.”
This was unexpected – and I wasn’t sure that I liked where this was going.
“Well, even if you’re not interested, at least be polite. I’ve known Martin for a long time and I will not have you being rude to him,” Dad finished.
Dinner turned out to be a pleasant surprise, causing me to re-evaluate the powers of perception my old man possessed. Martin Boyd ran a small graphic design company that my father regularly used. The offer was to work for a year after I finished my finals, and get some real work experience. I don’t know what favours Dad had called in for this offer, but this sounded like a much better offer than studying for three or four years at a university.
Martin was very sure of himself but friendly enough. He and Dad got along very well, which surprised me as I had never heard of Martin before and I thought I knew all of Dad’s close friends. I suppose thinking about it, I didn’t have that much to do with Dad’s professional life. I guess I never asked.
After a light dinner and some after-dinner drinks I was feeling like things had just fallen into place. I finally knew what I was going to do with myself after high school. I was going to work for a year and not even think about university.
I was gazing out of the restaurant window feeling excited when I saw Renee. Her bright blue light particles caught my