Chapter 26 #2
“I think it was a power drain. It siphoned your glamour away as soon as you touched him. Like iron does,” Erika said. “Interesting. Thanks for indulging my curiosity. How goes the glamour lessons?”
“I can do it, although barely,” Vesta said.
“She will master it in time,” Eirwen said, eyeing me, not in a side of meat way but more of a potential problem way. “It will help her to hide. I do not think it will help him.”
“Because of the drain?” Erika asked. “That’s too bad. We’ll have to make do. Craig, can you come with me for a moment? I need to update you on Agent Jensen.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said, putting my shirts back on.
We stepped out of the room, leaving Vesta still working on creating a glamour. I don’t care what she said; Vesta had picked up the basics in five minutes. I couldn’t make heads or tails, but she understood it from the get-go.
Erika led me down the hall for a way, then pulled me into another empty classroom.
“Okay, that was very interesting,” she said. “Omega, can you replay that?”
A hologram of my torso appeared in midair with no legs or head.
Eirwen was just represented by a disembodied hand.
The index finger touched my hand and a streak of something raced up my arm and around to my back, where it hit a rhinocodium symbol over my right kidney. The symbol flared and then faded.
“That’s one of the symbols we can’t identify, right?” Erika asked.
“Correct. It appears to be an energy sink or perhaps a sort of capacitor,” Omega answered, appearing in avatar form.
“Like electrical capacitor?” I asked.
“Yes, but it operates with magic… particularly the magic of Fairie,” Omega said.
“You think it might actively store captured energy?” Erika asked.
“I predict a sixty-two percent likelihood that is the case. This symbol is likely provided by the Adversary, as the Vorsook had fought with Fairie for centuries. I also think that like most of Craig’s rhinocodium tattoos, there is an element of will involved.”
“Meaning?” Erika asked.
“Eirwen’s glamour would not affect Craig unless he willed it to. Vesta would likely have a much better result if she applied glamour to Craig. This tattoo might even help power it.”
“Hmm. The honeybunny factor. Interesting,” Erika mused.
I glanced sideways at her and her expression was rigid… for a second or two, and then she laughed. “You’re pretty easy to punk,” she said, pointing at the expression on my face.
“Are teachers supposed to punk students?”
“Required to, in fact,” she said, dead serious.
“Who’s a punk?” Vesta asked from the doorway.
“Your boytoy,” Erika said. “We have an Omega presentation for you to watch.”
Omega replayed the same hologram and Vesta’s eyes got huge.
“Your mom built in protection from elves?”
“Actually, the Adversary seems to have had a hand in that,” Omega said, then explained about the capacitor nature of the tattoo.
“So if I cast the glamour I built for Craig on him, it might actually work and the tattoo might lend power to it?”
“Yes, because of the honeybunny factor,” Erika said, expression serious.
“’Cause you’re my honeybunny,” Vesta said and booped my nose.
“Actually, because you’re his honeybunny. He might accept from you what he wouldn’t from her.”
“Let’s try,” Vesta said, her grin slipping away as she got serious. She moved around me, her hands moving, and she spoke words in Elvish, a language I had only just heard for the first time when Eirwen had been teaching her. Apparently, Vesta had at least a working vocabulary in it.
Two minutes of casting and suddenly I felt a tingle all over my skin, starting at my right kidney and then spreading across my whole body. “Whoa,” I said, kinda involuntary.
“Whoa is right,” Erika said stepping back and lowering her gaze to about my chest. Vesta turned me toward the window and I saw my reflection in the glass.
“I’m a little kid,” I said. “I’m me, but like twelve or thirteen. Oh! You copied the crap photo.”
Vesta had a huge snarky grin, clearly both pleased at her casting and very amused by my new image.
“It’s good. No one will notice me at all,” I said, looking myself over. I was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a t-shirt.
“Um, that’s not exactly true,” Erika said.
“No, it’s perfect. He’s perfect. Little punk me can go anywhere, anytime, and nobody will give him a second glance.”
“Except middle school girls and pedophiles,” Erika said. “How do we explain middle school Craig on campus?”
“Easy… his dad… or mom works here,” Vesta said, with a side glance at our teacher.
“What? No one’s gonna believe I have a thirteen-year-old,” Erika protested. “Plus, I’m blonde and he’s brown-haired.”
“Maybe I’m just a child genius going to school here,” I suggested.
Vesta snorted.
“Hey,” I said.
“Wait, I’m still holding iron,” Erika said, opening her hand to reveal an antique square nail.
“How are you still seeing it then?” Vesta asked.
“The capacitor tattoo?” I offered.
“Can you turn off the image, Craig?” Erika asked.
I thought about the word off, but nothing seemed to happen. Then I thought about the tingle, imagining it going in reverse, like it was being sucked into the tattoo. I felt it for real and the two of them both blinked.
“There’s my guy,” Vesta said.
“Craig, can you turn it back on?” Erika asked.
I reversed the thought again and immediately felt the tingle spread out.
“He’s storing it in the tattoo or something,” Vesta said.
“So it would seem,” Erika said.
Just then Freia, Reagan, and Geniveve walked by the open doorway.
“Yo yo yo, it’s babelicious witch chicks,” I said in a slightly higher voice.
“Step off, punk,” Geneiveve said instantly, her face slightly disgusted. “Who let a kid in here?”
“I’m a boy genius,” I yelled out in my fake voice.
All three girls snorted. Then Freia stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly to look at me. “Hey, Gen, does he not look familiar?”
“What?”
“Imagine him coated in white lizard crap,” Freia said.
“Holy shit!” Genieve said. Reagan just looked confused.
“Holy lizard shit,” I corrected.
“Hmm, maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Vesta said.
“Heheheheheh,” I chortled.
“I better not get calls from irate professors and campus police,” Erika said.
“I’ll behave… Mom,” I said.
The look of horror on her face was priceless.