A tale of Magic

Chapter 07

Kyng looked at the girl with a little smile on his face as he said “Quinn, you can at least say a greeting first before you ignore the rest of us you know?”

The girl paused on hearing that, finally deciding to spare Kyng a glance as she replied, “Announcing my return from school is my form of greeting Kyng.”

He laughed a bit and shook his head in response while Donald was the one who spoke up instead with a teasing smile on his face, “The way she calls your name every time I hear it is so saucy Kyng, way beyond her age. Can’t you be like a cute little sister and act adorable for once even if you can never be one?”

The young girl as if triggered seemed about to erupt on hearing what Donald said, only for her to cut short by her mom with a rap on her head. “Alright sweetie, that’s enough. Go upstairs to your room and freshen up, I’ll bring your food up there as well, but only after you’ve freshened up.”

Quinn was reluctant but she couldn’t argue any more. Pouting to show her displeasure, she mumbled something inaudible under her breath before turning around to leave the kitchen. Donald grinned triumphantly to himself as he watched her walk out of the kitchen.

“You seem rather complacent having gained the upper hand in an arguement with a little girl...”

Dayo spoke up after a while, taking note of the expression on Donald’s face.

Donald waited shortly till Ayeesha, Kyng’s mom, had also left the kitchen before turning to reply to dayo.

“She’s already almost sixteen, she’s probably already gotten her first supposed boyfriend already and you still want to keep calling her little?”

Kyng raised an eyebrow questioningly as dayo paused a bit due to the question before replying, “Ignoring the statement you just made, you should be more focused on what’s currently at hand for us to talk about...”

“Fine, what are we talking about anyways?”

“Well i don’t know what you guys want to talk about, but i think we should try to get started on that economics project Mr. Matthew breifly talked about in class...” Dayo suggested at the side.

On hearing the name of the subject that he viewed as his nemesis and archenemy being mentioned, Donald slumped his back slightly, holding the side of his face with his right hand and his elbow placed on the countertop. “I don’t know about that, how about we do something else instead. It’s only the frst day of the semester and we’re already back to writing long notes and recieving loads of assignments...”

“...Alright, fine. Let’s do something else instead. Though i get the feeling you’d rather just laze around doing nothing else.”

“Not to lie, but i’d rather laze around as well, maybe head to a party or something...” Kyng chipped in at the side, copying Donald with his hand on the counter top holding his chin up.

Dayo felt speechless.

“Speaking of heading to a party... Isaac said he’s holding a party this Friday night.”

“He’s inviting us?” Dayo asked with surprise while Kyng looked on with interest as well, showing he was also surprised.

“Yeah he did...” Donald said as he grinned mishievously and turned to look at Kyng as he continued, “He said to make sure we persuade the king to grace his humble party with his presence.”

“Ughh...” Kyng let out a long groan, “I don’t think i want to go now that i remember...”

“Come on now. You know for him to tell Donald and mention your name, he means to make things up.”

Sighing, Kyng replied “Yeah i know that, you know i’m not or something. I just don’t want that awkwardness.”

“What silly awkwardness are you talking about. It was a misunderstanding that got cleared eventuaally, and he only wants to smooth things out. You’ll be the one making it awkward if you don’t smooth things out now.”

“...When did you say it was again?”

“This Friday, from about 6 till 10pm.”

“Alright fine...”

“Okay, so now that that’s been settled, can we get back to the project work please?” Dayo spoke up again with a pleading expression on his face, to which Donald replied,

“Dayo, i steered us away from that topic not for us to go back to it again, okay?”

“Actually, i do also think we should go ahead and start something on the project.”

Donald turned his head slowly to glance at Kyng again, “You’re doing this to get back at me for forcing you to the party right?”

“Precisely.”

A=>>>=

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

Adrian walked forward with quick brisk steps, pulling on his coat tighter as the cool night breeze seeped through the opening in his clothes and came into contact with his skin. Just getting off from set, he was feeling rather tired out. He was anticipating the warmth of his apartment and the comfort of his bed, but first, he had to keep to his promises and hang out with friends whom he hadn’t seen in a while and couldn’t deny he quite missed. He couldn’t help it though, being an actor wasn’t as easy as it seemed, not that he was complaining though.

His phone rang at this point and he reached into the pocket of his coat as he pulled it out. Taking a quick glance at the caller ID, a smile curved a side of his lips up as he raised the phone up placing it against his ear.

“Hey friend.”

“Where the heck are you bro? We’ve been waiting so long for you. You’re not planning to stand us up again now are you?”

“Nah bro, i’m already on my way. I just got off from set so spare me from the scolding please? I’ll be there soon.”

“You’d better be. Everybody’s been waiting over here for you, even Jenny’s here.”

“Jenny? Your sister? How come Jenny’s here. She came all the way from San francisco to see me?”

“You think you’re that important already? Come on. She and her team came over to LA to have a meeting with some new partners they were assigned to co-operate with. She called me and heard you were around and meeting up with us, so she forced me to tell her where we’re meeting and here she is with us.”

“Hmm, Can’t say i’m excited but it’ll be nice seeing her i guess...”

“...You could always tell her you’re not interested, you know.”

“Yeah i know, but I don’t know how to do that without making things awkward.”

*Sigh* “Whatever, just get over here quickly.”

“Sure will.”

Hearing the beep signifying the call being ended, Adrian sighed lightly as he placed the phone back in his coat pocket, moving without stopping.

“Damn, the wind this night is rather chilly...” Adrian said with exasperation even after he folded his arms together to retain the little heat his body gave off.

The next moment, he unfolded his two arms, holding them out in front of him with his palms facing the sky. Two seconds later, a flicker of light like a spark of flame appeared intermittently above his hand. Then the spark began to spread across his palms over the wool gloves he had on. At this point, someone taking a glance at his direction what he was doing would see what looked like a flame floating above his hand, spread out across his palms. Only a few seconds had passed, following which he then put his palms togetehr in front of him before waving it out in a semi-circle from his front to his sides. Following the movements of his hands, a screen of light seemed to spread out from where his palms moved across space, forming a half spherical shield of orange light in front of him that then turned colorless as if cooling down.

Looking at things now, it might look like nothing had changed and was different from before, but a specal kind of someone would be able to see past the ordinary and notice the colorless wind moving toward the guy drifting away from him in a curve as it meeting with a barrier and diverging to get across to the other side.

“Hm, that’s much better...” Adrian mumbled with satisfaction as he kept on walking as if nothing special had just occured.

He took a few steps further when a shsadow came out from an alleyway ahead of his path, causing him to pause subconsciously. He furrowed his brows slightly upon seeing the figure that came out from the alleyway wearing a mask on his face, his face hidden behind that and a baseball cap on his head. He had a bad feeling suddenly.

“Who are you?” he called out to the figure as he tried to look through the mask and baseball cap and discern the features of the figure’s face. ‘Maybe a little magic would help me see be-‘

As soon as the thought flashed through his mind, he noticed the figure rasie his hand and he was immediately frozen in place the next instant.

‘What the hell?’ Adrian immediately felt a chill run across his skin as fear creeped into his mind refllecting in his eyes.

Why would someone target him, an amateur magic user? The moment the thought ran through his mind, the answer appeared almost instantly when he recalled some news he had picked up from the last coven meeting he attended.

On realizing the level of the situation at hand, he widened his eyes and the fear he felt turned into panic as his mind gears immediately started spinning to come up with a way out of this, he couldn’t have been any more desperate at this point.

The orange screen of light that had earlier seemed to disappear suddenly flickered into view again before immediately displaying cracks on its surface and blowing up immediately after.

BOOM!

The explosion managed to give Adrian a moment of breathing space as he directed the force of the explosion towards the direction where the figure in the shadows stood. He felt relief for a moment before his expression changed again.

In the direction of where the figure stood, he could see silhouette walking through flames that had erupted, parting them aside with a wave of his hand as he approached Adrian.

The force of the explosion pushed Adrian to the floor, causing him to land heavily on the ground. Pain surged up his body from his butt but he could hardly care any less about that now. Shock filled his eyes even though he already expected results like this.

‘Is this going to be it for me. Heck i’m only in my early twenties!’

That was the last thought he had with the last thing he saw being the silhouette in front of him drawing ever closer. From beginning to the end, he failed to catch even a glimpse of the unknown yet known figure’s face.

Following a flash of light, the scene of a rushed but intense battle was nowhere to be found anymore as everything returned to normal, to how it was before anything had happenened. The only thing being different was the lack of presence of the two characters that crossed each other’s path only just a few minutes ago.

A short few minutes passed, and another figure walked past along the walkway, oblivious of anything that had happened as well as the group of people that were also standing around the area like they were invisible.

A few seconds passed and the group of five seemingly hidden suddenly appeared surrounding the area where a battle had just occured, appearing suddenly like they were stepping out from the void, occupying the initially empty space.

“Damn it, how could we be late again” Someone from the group spoke out, frustration obvious in his tone.

“Who confirmed that it was the same magic wave signature that was detected?” Another voice from someone else was heard asking a question.

“I did that.” The third voice rang out at this point, “I spellchecked three times to be sure...”

“Three times... then it can’t be a mistake. It’s the same person we’ve been looking for.” The same voice from before spoke up again.

“This is the fourth time in a single month already. He seems to intend to speed whatever he’s doing up.”

“...Or he’s simply getting less wary of us and taking us for granted since he’s managed to escape every time without us even spotting his shadow all this while...” the fourth and fifth voice contemplated the situation at hand as they sported frowning expressions.

The situation seemed rather grim.