Mado tugged at his collar, resentful of the fact that he had been made to wear a tie. But his master's lapdog—a pretty Asian woman whom he had never met before—had insisted. The blazer and long trousers he had welcomed though; the weather here annoyed him almost as much as the tie did. And the less he thought about the language, the better. His English was subpar, to the surprise of no one, but at the very least he had thought that he had learned enough to get by. That idiotic idea came apart the moment he was forced to stand in a foyer listening to a fat man go on and on, with Mado able to catch every third or fourth word. He was, thankfully, part of a big class, and so he was able to get away with not having to answer a question. That was until they got to Magic Society 1A, where a different fat man pointed at him and asked, "Mr Houde, please tell us which faction aligned with the Plantagenet family during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundreds Year War?"
Mado had heard about there being a war that had lasted over a century, but knew nothing about who the participants were or that there were even phases. He cleared his throat after being asked the question again and said, "I don't know… Professor."
He had his fingers crossed that he would not be pressed on the matter, and, thankfully he was not.
"That is okay, Mr Houde. During the Edwardian phase, the House of Lefebvre were firmly entrenched on the side of the Rochechouart until they did nothing when Louis of Orleans had been assassinated by their puppet, John the Fearless."
Despite the call-out, Mado actually liked Magic Society 1A. He barely understood what the hell was going on of course but he really did enjoy listening to the professor go on about history and stories. It reminded him of the time spent sat around a fire, either his mother or brother taking the chance to tell him a story of days past. If it were up to him that would be the only lecture he attended. The others ranged from fine to unbearable, and one might actually have been a lecture he liked had restrictions not been placed on his power.
"If they find out how strong you are," his master warned him. "I will make it a point to tear your heart out, and eat it in front of you."
That restriction meant that he spent most Bodily Magic lecture feigning weakness and losing fights to children he could destroy in minutes.
It was the last time he would see his master—for a while, at least—and it showed because he had never been so kind to Mado before. Usually, the threat was that he would make Mado eat the heart.
The task was simple enough. To attend the college as a student, get to know the professors and his peers, and then cause an act of terrorism that causes a third Great War. And—if Mado were lucky—he would get the chance to try McDonald's for the first time.
Apparently, there were others among the student body that had been given the same task. But to curb the chance of total discovery, they were not told who exactly. They were each gifted a magical medallion that they were supposed to wear on the day, as a way to differentiate their allies from the rest of the sheep. He had that medallion in the palm of his hand, and put it in his pocket. He never felt comfortable without it. Mado had sighed that first night of his arrival as he stared up at the ceiling, certain that this would be another night spent where he only got a few hours of sleep.
Thankfully Mado had never been one who needed much sleep. A good night's rest or a super long nap, neither ever made much difference to him. He often spent his nights staring at the same spot of his dorm's ceiling, wondering how the hell he was going to achieve this task. His master's instructions had been simple enough: find those among his peers who were of no known heritage, and kill them in the name of the Pragmatist faction. Mado had not met a member of that faction, but his master had briefed him on them and their belief, and that apparently, they were growing. Theirs was the way of things as they already were, but more accelerated, more scientific, kinder in their approach. They vouched for a more regulated, humane form of culling, believing that only those without Grimoires should be killed like the Source-Touched and insane, only ever killed after capture, so that they may be put to a sleep that would allow them to dream a lifetime. This seemed actually reasonable to Mado at first, but his master was of a different opinion. "They think that they are being moral and ethical," his master said. "Killing off the Source-Touched and the insane, allowing those among us who are already up to pull the ladder with them. The haves concentrating the wealth, the ultimate riches the world has to offer—onto themselves and themselves alone.
That would mean no new magicians would be allowed, Mado, only those from the existing bloodlines. Never mind the potential in a Source-Touched to come in and change their own lives, to take what is owed to them. Who are they to say who should or should not have access to magic?"
Mado had not realised the implication of their creed until his master had so bluntly stated it. If they had their way of things, he would have never been allowed to unshackle himself from his old life, and instead die as a slave in a diamond mine. "I hate many things, Mado," his master said, his frown giving way to a wry smile. "You know this more than anyone. But above all, I hate the hypocritical and self-righteous. And these pricks," his master spat. "Are as self-righteous as they come. We will make the world see them for the dogs they are."
And Mado was here because when his master said 'we', he had really meant 'him', and seven other students who may be doing as he was, looking into a mirror, pulling at a collar that felt like it was trying to choke him. He slipped on his blazer and decided to go do and eat at the cafeteria. Mado usually was the last to enter the cafeteria, as he did not wish to sit alone like a loser. Instead, he enjoyed coming in just as the bell was about to ring to take things that he could put into a plastic bag or container and slip into his bag. An apple, an orange, several sandwiches, and sometimes even partaking in the meal of the day, the spaghetti and pastas, pizzas and burgers, chips and salads. The food was always good, although he was never one to overly complain about what was on the plate. This morning, however, he had found himself arriving a few minutes too soon to justify walking in-and-out.
Damn…
He looked around the cafeteria and saw little in the way of free space. Mado had hoped for an empty table—hell, a table with even one or two people would have been entirely acceptable. But today, there were none.
Mado went to take a tray to fill up with food—if he was doomed to be here, might as well fill up his empty stomach—and decided to take the table with a seat in the right corner, the place where he felt most would allow him to melt in with the environment and noise. He slipped in at the end next to a small boy who was in the middle of listening to something on his phone. He bobbed his head up and down, and so Mado surmised that it was music coming out of his earbuds. He was lean and short—no, not short, I am just tall, with tanned skin and shaggy brown hair.
He had only glanced at the boy, but it seemed that he had been noticed, and the boy pulled out an earbud and smiled. "Can I help you?"
Damn it. "Sorry," was all he said, but the boy was not about to let him off so easily.
"It's cool man," he said, in an accent that was not at all like their English professors. Mado had heard accents like this before, over the radio and on some TV shows he got to watch whenever his master's wanderings took them to a place with a decent hotel room with a TV in it. "It's Bob Dylan, do you know him?"
Mado almost choked on his Muesli. "No," he finally said, after a few seconds spent coughing. "I don't know him."
The boy whistled and shook his head. "This place, man, has trash weather and hasn't had good music come out since the Beatles. You know what I mean?"
Mado had no clue what he meant, but he smiled in reply. He turned to his bowl of cereal, hoping that the smile was enough to put an end to this conversation, but Mado's god was a brutal one, a violent one, and one entirely without mercy.
"Yeah man, it's kinda crazy because you're thinking 'Oh, this man rocks, of course everybody knows him!' but not a soul--a damn shame man…"
Mado did not know who Bob Dylan was before this conversation, but after his trip to McDonald's, he swore to find Bob Dylan and throw him off a bridge out of spite.
"Is he... that good?" Mado asked, deciding that it was better to be polite than tell him that he had plans of ending Mr. Dylan.
The boy's brown eyes lit up and Mado was thankful for the ringing of the bell that signified the end of breakfast. He got up, picked up his bag, nodded a goodbye and left out the door. Liam barely got a chance to ask for his name, and never got one to give his own. He sighed, having failed to convert another wayward fool to the glorious path of Bob Dylan.
Liam picked up his bag and left to go and find his sister, nodding his head to the few acquaintances he had made over his time there. The college had been an adjustment, to say the least. The accents were an adjustment, the school uniforms were an adjustment, and he had never gone this long before without seeing a cow or a tractor. But such were the sacrifices one had to make to not piss off their master. Liam trusted his master as far as he could throw him, and Tiberius Nerva was possibly the largest man he had ever seen. On the day that this man showed up to their farm, he had no idea what to make of him. He did not know whether the man was Native American or African-American; he had the makings of both. He had expected his daddy to be hostile, as Olivia had when they came out to see what all the commotion was about. Their father shut that down immediately, which was new because Oliver was a daddy's girl through and through.
The man stood ominously on their dusty driveway. He had on cowboy boots and a cowboy hat on either side of a black suit that made more sense on a man on his way to a funeral. Looking back and knowing what he knows now, Liam had no idea how right he was.
With Tiberius Nerva, the makings of a funeral were always a badly selected sentence away, and they were usually due to his own actions. His father, a big and sturdy man himself, looked like a high-school football coach—which he actually was—standing next to an All-Pro defensive linemen. The two could not be more unlike if you tried. Daddy's head hadn't known a strand of hair in a decade now, whilst this man's hair looked as if someone dumped black paint on his head, long, dripping, and straight. Their father's nose was pug-like, and his round jaw was covered with five o'clock shade. The strange gentle man's sharp jawline dared not grow a hair without his permission. Their daddy's hazel eyes were doe-shaped and were bloodshot; like his irises were the sea and the veins of red several streams of a river delta. The man's eyes were darker than sin, and belonged more on an evil painting of a psychopathic aristocrat rather than a living, breathing man. But all that was not what shook Liam; he had seen his Daddy give hell to men twice his size before, but it was the meekness in which his father went about things that had Liam—Olivia especially—confused.
The two were having a conversation underneath the large Oak tree with the tyre-swing—the one where Liam had kissed Betty Frensburg back in the fifth grade—far away from Olivia and Liam.
"What you think they got to talk about?" Olivia asked, her eyebrows furrowed.
Liam sighed. "Your guess is as good as mine, Liv. One thing's for sure though, he ain't no ordinary man."
Olivia's expression loosened somewhat, before she blew her lips. "I don't care none how extraordinary the man is. I don't like how he showed up here all high and mighty like he is the king of the Indians or something."
"Native Americans," Liam said, rolling his eyes. "but I agree. Something's off about the man… I just can't put my finger on it."
Their father looked back at them and Liam could see the distress in them from the porch of their old, wooden farm house.
He turned back to the giant one last time, before his shoulders gave out and he approached them, his head hung low.
He took a knee at the bottom of the wooden stairs, a sign that he wanted them to come to him and give him their full attention. Liam and Olivia shared a look, before they walked down to stand before their father.
"Now I need y'all to listen up and listen good," Daddy said. "This here gentleman is going to take y'all on as his students."
Liam was shocked and Olivia was out-right disgusted by the notion. "Students? Daddy, ain't nothing that man there has to teach us that we can't learn from you!"
His daddy cut her off with a raised hand. "Liv, now I done told y'all that this magic thing… well, I just as good at it as I used to be, he is. He's gonna take y'all and make y'all strong."
He grabbed both their arms and squeezed at their biceps. "Y'all could do with some strengthening, too."
That made Liam smile, and Olivia smirked, flexing her other arm. "Shoot, who you talking to, old man? I'm stronger than ten men."
She was strong, Liam knew, due to the fact that Olivia's magical reserves and control of her shrouding were above-average even before their master took them on.
Liam looked up at the man, who was looking down at his watch, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he then appeared in front of them. "Baker," he had said to their father, and his voice was an evil thing to hear. "I have a man to meet and no time to lose. Will you give me your children as tribute?"
Olivia—who was never of good temperament at the best of times—had enough and turned to deliver a punch into the man's midsection. The blow blew his hair back, and would've sent her fist through a normal man's abdomen. But on Tiberius, all she had accomplished was ruining his white shirt. The man looked down at her with a blank expression, before raising a hand to slowly move their father out the way. "Forgive her now!", their father exclaimed. "She's just a girl."
Olivia took a step back, an ocean's worth of fear hidden beneath a thin sheet of courage. "I ain't afraid of you!"
He looked down at her and seemed set to punch her lights out, but instead reached for his phone in his jacket's inner pocket. "I will call for the car to fetch us here. Both of you should take that chance to run along and pack your things."
If Olivia had tried something then, Liam was sure that he would not be standing here today, in some far-off college in England.
"There you are," he turned at the sound of his sister's voice. She looked at him with an annoyance he had long come to ignore, and folded her arms over her chest. "I spent the longest time tryna find you."
"Sorry," he said, joining her on her walk toward their first lecture of the morning.
"So," she said with a raised eyebrow. "Any luck finding one of our partners?"
"Yep," he said with a grin. "Found one, stunk of a medallion's magic. Good news is, he seems strong."
Olivia's raised eyebrow pointed downward in a furrow. "Bad news?"
Liam pouted and shook his head. "He ain't a fan of Bob Dylan."