Chicago, Illinois / October 25th / 1:33 A.M.


‘It shouldn’t be this easy,’ the trespassing sorcerer thought. ‘It’s almost too easy.'

“No sign of intrusion…on the upper level. Over,” the armed guard spoke into his earpiece. Like his other two associates, the enforcer was a muscular canine in a three-piece suit.

‘There it is again. The way he speaks. The way they all do. It doesn’t sound right.’

The irony of such a remark was not entirely lost on the purple-furred cougar as he hid from view. For a young man of eighteen, Piers Renoir stood out of place within the confines of the Native Altars building on South Clark Street in downtown Chicago. For an extraterrestrial sorcerer, who until several years ago spoke no English, Piers knew he had no place to speak on such matters with any real authority. However, even he of all people was able to detect a slight variance in the trio’s speaking patterns which appeared affected by inexplicable pauses and stresses.

“Continue to sweep the lower level. If an intruder is detected…shoot on sight. Over.”

Once the canine departed, the sorcerer unveiled his position. The purple-furred cougar had used what little occult energies he could still channel and control to conceal his body behind a sphere of distorted light. Plenty of luck had gotten him this far, but with his magical reserve soon depleted, Piers would have little left to spare an escape.

‘It must be an antimagic field. That would explain why it’s so hard to conjure anything. I can’t stay then. Not with them here,’ Piers pondered as he shadowed the armed man. ‘I don’t know how they saw me, but that doesn’t matter now. I’ll come back for the book in a couple days. That’s if it’s even here.’

As the cougar silently slid from one row of library books to the next, he knew full well that his next move could quite literally be his last. Piers kept one eye out for the patrolling assailants as he tried, yet again, to conjure a spell that would make a difference and tip the balance in his favor. Ultimately, much more would be lost if he failed to circumvent the restrictions limiting the scope and application of his magic. What first began one week ago as a simple matter of intelligence gathering now far exceeded the parameters of mere reconnaissance.

Without warning, the man paused before the stairs as he received a communique.

“Yes. The Bruder boy takes precedent. If we don’t find sign of any intruder in fifteen minutes time…we’ll return en route to our proposed destination. If the boy continues to prove himself unreceptive…dispose of him at your discretion. Over.”

Stifling a gasp, the cougar suddenly understood who was most at risk tonight. He recognized the boy in question from his own surveillance. He was none other than a Siamese cat named Baron. Baron Bruder was the youngest son of the renowned Bruder family of celebrated scientists and fabled industrialists. Residing inside a posh brownstone on Chicago’s illustrious Gold Coast, it could be said that Bruder clan was inherently wealthy. A more honest estimation amounted them to be richer than most their affluent neighbors on Dearborn Street who easily earned six-figure salaries. The considerable wealth hidden behind the palatial townhouse’s stately exterior was not, however, the primary reason Baron and his family were targeted. While Piers was here to pilfer but one item, he originally believed the treasure he sought to be stored in that most atypical alcove on Dearborn Street. Shrouded by the wispy, verdant branches of elm trees, the house retained the substance of old truths catalogued from stalwartly accumulated research into the paranormal. If that last dispatch was any indication, the time for action was now.

If Piers didn’t manage to sidestep these restrictions soon, the boy would die.

‘C’mon! I have to make this work,’ he thought, perceiving the synchronistic pathways laid out before him. ‘It shouldn’t take this much energy, I know, but I’ve got no choice.’

Piers almost lamented the fact that he wasn’t here under the most ideal or noble of circumstances. Although, seeing no other alternatives, Piers was still relieved that his magical prowess was only subdued and not utterly stifled.

‘I can’t burn through my reserve, but that’s all I can do.’

As the cougar passed shelf after shelf of books embellished with a language he only slightly understood, he considered the one course of action which had taken him so far from home. One solitary decision had sent him on an errand bridging more than seven thousand lightyears from his home planet to Earth. Only now had the apparent peril of his current situation made itself so incredibly explicit. It wasn’t so much his own life that Piers had risked in coming here. In spiriting away from Ereas to Earth, the purple-furred cougar not only endangered his own life and that of the one who sent him, but he’d also potentially jeopardized the safety of the woman who saved his life all those years ago.

‘She can’t know I’m here,’ he presumed, emerging from behind a reinforced display case. Attempting to interact with the surrounding stochastic fields, the sorcerer ruminated, ‘She’s already done so much. I won’t put her through more trouble just to save me. Not again.’

Much like the many private sector assets they held in secret, the Bruder family also concealed a clandestine facet of their nature from the public eye. It was one aspect most would deem thoroughly fanciful if not absurdly conspiratorial. Yet the proof was all here in the myriad esoteric tomes Piers passed in his search for the captive boy. While English was not yet a language he properly understood, the purple-furred cougar knew that only a select few families would possess a collection of curios pertaining to the arcane and supernatural. The longer the nascent sorcerer looked around, the more resentful he became.

‘Why did it take me so long to see it? They’re not scientists. They’re huntsmen.’ the cougar internally concluded as he silently leaped onto the library’s upper level railing. ‘They’re so much like the ones back on Ereas, too. They gather all this research for a purpose. They take what isn’t theirs—so many relics and spell books—and hang them on their walls like trophies. I wonder how many people like me they’ve hunted—this family. How many lives have they destroyed?’

The cougar clenched a fist as he observed from on high the apparent ring leader direct his men to cancel their search for the proposed intruder and rejoin him in the center. While Piers knew full well that he shouldn’t be here, and that the wisest move to make would be to evade capture at any cost, he suppressed the urge to escape. The way the men moved had intrigued him. Piers didn’t notice it so much when the three men arrived on scene, but now that he’d since obtained a better view, he could not help but perceive the peculiar means by which the trio of armed guards moved about the library. Each had the same gait: lurching about the space they inhabited with an unmistakably wooden inelegance. Eyes widening from surprise, a staggering revelation registered for Piers in that moment. Now that he’d could see them from above, Piers saw all three striding across the lower level as if they were skillfully controlled by some unseen marionettist pulling their strings from above a stage.

‘They’re being mind-controlled,’ the sorcerer surmised. ‘The way they talk. The way they move. It all makes sense now. They’re hypnotized. By whom though, and why?’

“The premises appear empty,” the ring leader said into his commlink receiver. “Whatever the sentry identified near the roof likely didn’t enter the property some time thereafter. If this stranger and the interloper are one in the same, we should expect resistance."

‘I knew the risk in coming here,’ he contemplated, slowly building magical discharge between the fingers of his clenched left fist. 'It may be dangerous for somebody like me to be here, but this was no mistake. Despite all the dangers and all the risk, coming here was the right choice to make.'

“Regardless, the three of us will rendezvous with the detail at St. Stephen’s to commence the extraction at zero two hundred."

‘As much as Shane needs my help, so does Baron. It doesn’t matter if he’s the son of a hunter, I won’t let them kill him.’

With steeled resolve, the purple-furred cougar drew in one last breath, hurled the energy he’d mustered between his fingers and vaulted over the metal railing. Before both his feet hit the ground, the magical discharge Piers threw landed just behind the trio and surged with green light. The energy released short-circuited each commlink receiver and every other electronic device they held. The moment he deftly came to rest less than ten feet from the trio in the shadow of Willis Tower, Piers adroitly gestured a protective spell which efficiently modified the stochastic fields around his person. By the time he rose to a standing position, he’d all but guaranteed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the three men would prove no threat. At least not with their firearms.

All three had drawn their guns before they even knew what to make of their new arrival. Once the ring leader had shed his malfunctioning hardware, the man glowered at the cougar, and before leveling the barrel squarely at Piers’ chest, shouted with wide-eyed realization.

“A witch! Shoot him!”

An eruption of fear burst within Piers as the commander’s compatriots raised their firearms in kind and all three fired simultaneously. Like breaking and entering the library tonight, there was hardly any guarantee the plan he’d set into motion would yield the result he expected. This was not just a risk the young man needed to take. This plan was but a wild gamble.

Thankfully, luck was on his side.

“That’s not possible,” the ring leader hoarsely asserted, nonplussed. “The antimagic field is still in place. It can’t be overcome.”

Smirking, he purple-furred cougar breathed a sigh of relief as each bullet failed to strike their target even at point-blank range. Not only that, but every bullet fired simply curved around the sorcerer and struck the ornate mullioned window behind him as the young man stood his ground unharmed. The ammunition ricocheted off the ballistic glass as a lively, volatile swirl of green light engulfed Piers' left fist. The ever-changing colorful hues seemed to stem from a pair of iridescently tinted knucks. In days past, they’d suited Piers in tychokinetic combat on his home world of Ereas, and now they would serve their same purpose here on Earth.

“So before we take this a step further,” he said, assuming a fighting stance, “tell me a little more about this St. Stephen’s.”

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As always, I want to use this opportunity to thank  aerokat for all the hard work and effort she poured into this newest piece! She's a phenomenal artist, and I'm always grateful to have the chance to work with her on bringing my characters to life. Through her incredible talent, I was able to have Piers fully realized! He's a character I've long sought to realize for about a year now, so having this opportunity here was a big blessing.

I know for a fact that's she got plenty of great art on her page, but if anyone is interested in supporting her craft, here's the link to her Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/poecatcomix/posts


art is ©  aerokat

Piers Renoir is ©  nazcapilot