Binds (16 page)

“Okay, I want you to focus on just my legs. I’m going to walk to you slowly and I want you to push your will out towards them. Imagine you are encasing them in cement. Just picture that in your mind and send the image towards me. Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

He rubs the tip of his pointer finger across my cheek as he says it, and I’m thankful he’s wearing those goofy gloves. I’ve tried to avoid touching him or anyone (except for Spencer when we work on the roof … ugh) since having the Bind removed that allows me to feel other people’s spark. I still shudder when I think of the power that Spencer shoots through me every time and I want to dodge that feeling if at all possible. I guess that’s one reason to be happy that no one else wants anything to do with me here. I felt Cass’s spark the other day on accident when she handed me a bottle of detergent in the laundry room, and although her spark wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Spencer’s, it’s going to take me some time to get used to the feeling without giving my dislike away with each touch.

Reece begins to come at me. He raises his arms up and narrows his eyes in a maniacal manner. I’m having a hard time not laughing at him, let alone concentrating on his legs.

“Stop with the look, please, Reece! This is serious. I can’t focus with you doing that. You’re going to wind up with two stumps of ice for legs if you keep it up.”

He smirks at my comment and then clears his expression to give me a serious, yet positive eye. I concentrate my gaze on his legs as instructed. I have found that it is not necessary for me to verbalize my Binds, however I feel more confident when I do so and with his appendages on the line, I decide that I will need all the confidence I can get. I put my will behind my tongue as I open my mouth and utter, “
Suspend
.” I can’t explain how the word comes to me, but along with every other one I have conjured while trying to cast a Bind, it seems like the monster within just knows the right one to use. The word seems to have worked, and too well. Instead of just stopping Reece’s legs, his whole body has become immobilized. I feel horrible because I know how it feels to lose all operation of your body, but at the same time, elated that I was able to pull off the Bind with little difficulty on my part.

The somewhat bewildered look that has been frozen on Reece’s face seems to display his shock at my ability. I reach out and grab his gloved hand, giving it a squeeze. Phew, he is not cold to the touch, no ice at all. “Okay, how to get you unstuck now,” I say to myself. We really didn’t get into the logistics of what to do if the Bind worked. I try to concentrate on removing it, but begin to worry when the magic doesn’t flow as easily to my lips this time. I push my will onto him to move and attempt to connect with the Mage part of myself that would be able to solve this problem, but nothing happens.

Five minutes later and I am beginning to really sweat. The expression on Reece’s face is not helping the circumstance at all. I feel like the surprised look has now morphed into a fearful one that has been there all along. Was he worried when he felt the Bind coming over him that this was going to happen? Ugh. Why didn’t I ask him what to do before attempting it? Maybe I have gotten too cocky with the ease of abilities I have learned.

Just as I am about to give up and ask Spencer for help with my tail between my legs, I decide to give it one more go. I close my eyes as I did that first day that I consciously performed a Bind and asked my mother for her help. This time, I just repeat the desire over and over in my mind: You can do this, move, move, move, Reece. I want you to move.

I open my eyes as the Bind pops into my mouth, I open my lips to let it out, “
Animate
.” Reece swiftly regains motion like a paused movie once the play button is hit. He looks as if his eyes are going to bulge out of his skull; he is staring at me as if I am a foreign being.

“Ophelia … you just performed a reawakening Bind.” He sounds like he can hardly believe the words.

“Yeah, it took me a couple minutes to figure that one out. I was worried that you were going to be stuck like that until I could go fetch Spencer to fix it. So happy I didn’t have to bring him into this, huh?” I’m smiling at him, but his face is alarming me. He still has that look of terrified admiration in his eyes and it is starting to give me the creeps.

“You don’t understand … it’s an extremely rare ability. Normally, if someone performs a freezing Bind, they have to just wait it out until the Bind wears off. Stopping someone else’s will takes an extremely strong Mage as it is. I can’t do it, I just know the theory behind performing it—but reanimating someone once they are like that—it’s almost impossible, Ophelia. I only know of one other Mage capable of it.”

“Let me guess. Spencer, right?” I know the answer to this already. Spencer performed the Bind on me after our scuffle and it seemed effortless at the time. I never would have known that he was using some extreme Mage superpower.

Reece nods and lowers his head as if in thought. “Look, I knew you were strong, heck, anyone who has touched you knows that. It’s just surprising to see how strong now that you have those Binds off and can really show what you can do.” He sighs and his tone takes on a serious edge, “I didn’t mean to freak you out. Listen, Ophelia, some of this stuff … the more power that you show … it could get you into trouble. I don’t know what Spencer’s plans are for you, and, honestly, I don’t think he does either. However, if he finds out about some ability that he can use against the NWO, I know that he is going to try and use it. I think it might be best if we keep some things between just the two of us for now. Okay?”

His warning doesn’t come as a surprise to me, but at the same time, I feel really sneaky and underhanded when I nod my agreement back to him. Spencer has helped me remove the Binds that allow me to harness this power. He has kept me here, sheltered from the Brands and asked nothing of me in return … so far.

“All right,” I say as he reaches out and grabs my hand with his gloved one. “I won’t tell anyone, but you have to promise that you will keep working with me. Even if the abilities aren’t something you can do, just hearing you tell me I can do it … it goes a long way in boosting my confidence. I appreciate that, Reece. I really do.”

“Of course,” he says as he gives my hand a squeeze. There is amusement in his voice as he continues, “Helping you is what I’m here for.” He gets a mischievous glint in his eye. “After all, when shit finally goes down with the NWO, it’ll be nice to have someone I can run and hide behind to protect me.”

“Oh, I see.” I join him, laughing at his last statement. “So, I’m like your insurance policy. Is that how it is? Train me to use my abilities so that I can save your ass.”

He moves in closer to me. “You know I’m just joking, Phee. I told you before and I will say it as many times as I have to. I’m going to be the one that saves you … every time.” His forehead is nearly pressed against mine when he says this. I can feel the solemnity in his eyes, however, I can’t help but listen to that nagging voice in the back of my mind, the one that sounds an awful lot like Spencer Donnelly telling me I don’t need a savior because I can save myself.

I pull back and try to lighten the mood. “You know, I wonder how the first Mage found out about their abilities. I mean, one day you’re just walking along and decide to make something move with your mind? How does the thought even occur to someone?”

I grab my water bottle off of the coffee table and take a swig, setting myself down on the rug and resting against a wingback chair. Reece follows suit, plopping down on the sofa facing me and laying back against the stiff cushions.

“I should tell you the legend of how our people began. I sometimes forget with how quickly you pick up everything that you didn’t grow up in the regular Mage lifestyle so you wouldn’t already know of our legends.”

I say nothing; only prod him on with the interest in my eyes. Reece is a born public speaker and storyteller. I think that is the reason Spencer conceded with him to train me and teach me about Mages to begin with. The way he has told me stories this week about the times he and Cass were in hiding, to one time when Jinx found him on one of the computers in the ops room and had a conniption fit, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he weaves a little Mage magic into his words and Binds the listener to become enthralled.

“All right, where should I begin? I guess I should tell you first that there is no exact history of our people. Some of the stories have been written down by older generations, but Mages don’t have historians, and we don’t have scientists studying our genes, trying to figure us out. It’s an unspoken law of our community that we don’t bring any outsiders, or commons, into the fold because we don’t want to be treated as science experiments. Most of our written history is done so as fairytales, even though the older generations swear that they are true. Mages have passed down their history through bedtime stories to their children and sharing with family around the fire in their living rooms. In this way, if any of it leaks out to the ordinary people, and it has, they won’t take it as anything but silly tales.

“So, you want to know where the first Mages came from. Well, hundreds of years ago in the old countries in what is now Europe; people were aware of the fact that they weren’t the only beings around. They lived amongst all kinds of fabled creatures, giants, elves, and selkies. The occasional Cyclops here and there—”

I stop him because this is too much, “Cyclops, elves … really? I appreciate the humor, but if you don’t really know how Mages came to be, you can just say so. I like fairy tales just as much as any girl, but I live in the real world. None of these mythical creatures have ever existed. There is just no proof of it anywhere.”

“Phee, a couple of weeks ago, you probably would have said the same thing about Mages. If one fantastical group of people exists, why can’t you try to believe that there have been more? Now, I’m not saying that these creatures are still around. No one, not even any of our people that I’m aware of, have reported seeing them for a long time, but our oral history shows that they were very much in existence centuries ago.”

His reproachful tone on the subject silences my protests any further, but my reservations on the issue still stand. This sounds like a large load of phooey, if you ask me.

“Okay, along with these other mythical creatures, there were the Fae.” He gives me a questioning eye as if waiting for me to complain again. I raise my brows at this latest being added to his list. What could Tinker Bell have to do with me and the other Mages occupying the space of this building? Whatever, I’m going to just sit back and take this little story for exactly what it seems to be, a fairytale, nothing more. I give him a go on nod and hope that my eyes convey to him that I won’t make fun of his tall tale again.

When it seems he is sure that I am going to keep my mouth shut, he continues, “The Fae, it is said, used to roam this world as freely as humans did back in the old country. Mind you, we aren’t talking about tiny little sprites with wings, although those were around back then too, evil little things they were, no, the Fae could pass as a human being undetected—unless you were to focus on their lack of human emotions. This is not to say that humans and Fae didn’t share any of the same emotions or thoughts. The Fae had long been known to have a tendency towards lust and envy. But, when it came to love, compassion, kindness, anger, or regret, those were all singularly human traits.

“Now, the Fae enjoyed people watching. They watched for centuries and witnessed these human emotions that they did not possess on display. Most of them were feelings that the Fae didn’t understand or care to understand … most of them, except for one. Love. Love was the one thing that they saw and they wanted. They developed feelings of jealousy towards the humans for having such a wonderful thing that they never could. So, after decades of coveting it, they decided to try and steal love for themselves.

“The only problem with their plan was that they didn’t understand love. They saw that it went hand in hand with coupling and with that, sex, but they didn’t grasp the concept of giving someone else all of yourself with nothing expected back in return. They thought that if they masqueraded around as humans and found themselves human partners and lovers, the love would come to them. They were right. Fairies were exceptionally beautiful creatures. There was an allure to them that most humans found hard to resist... most humans didn’t really try to resist for that matter. Once the Fae had their human partner ensnared, the human would become enraptured by them and give them their undying devotion. Only … after the Fae received this love that they had so coveted, they found that it wasn’t as worthwhile as the humans made it out to be. What is the point of being loved and adored if you don’t have the capacity to return the feelings? They got bored of their humans and systematically decided—after decades of trying, mind you—to leave them. By this time, all of the couples had engaged in intercourse and most of them produced many offspring. When the fairies decided they were done with their human lovers, they left them and their half-Fae, half-human children behind with no regret, as the Fae don’t know what it is to regret either.

“The humans left behind, as scorned lovers sometimes do, became enraged at their fairy counterparts. Massive search parties were organized to bring their loves back to them, but no matter how hard the humans tried to regain their lost loves, it was never to be. Fae magic was so strong, the humans could never hold them for long and they would slip away again and hide out with the other fairies, wherever it is fairies go. Many of the humans, infuriated by their losses, took to murdering any of the Fae they could find as revenge. The king and queen of the Fae decided that it wasn’t safe for their people in our world. They began to see humans as volatile, possessive creatures, as the Fae never lay claim to any lovers, even the king and queen themselves are not mutually exclusive to each other. With no love comes no responsibility to another being, and that is the way they had lived for untold millennia. It’s how they still probably live if they are out there.”