Synopsis: Grandma may be dead, but she doesn't sleep, and now Terri won't either. Something in the note about avoiding a trash can, and roller blading?
Accidental Magic

By
Allystra Krane
edited by Sephrena Miller
Chapter Eighteen

World Tour

---

Terri's father, a fourth generation Italian immigrant named Mike, returned to the ground floor of his empty home. With a hole through the front door and singe marks on various walls and frames, he was certain a battle had occurred.

In his examination of the various burn patterns, he failed to notice three figures sitting in the large armchairs until after he had entered the room.

"So nice to see they left us with something that we could use," came an old and slithering voice from the center chair.

Mike straightened up, adjusted his tie and politely asked, "I am curious as to what you meant by that statement?"

The two figures on either side stood up. Mike hadn't seen real magic in years, but he recognized the flames now cradled in two sets of hands. He grinned.

"I see that my mother-in-law was right after all. You nuts wouldn't be able to leave us alone," he said triumphantly. "I don't know what you're after, but you are not facing an unarmed man."

He lifted his left hand, as if he was holding a ball so that he could see it. He then took a step to the left before clenching his hand tight.

His seemingly mesmerizing actions had captivated his would-be attackers until they heard the sickening thunk and the man on Mike's right fell forward with a large ornate knife stuck in the back of his head.

Mike didn't wait for them to react. He pulled two weapons from the insides of his suit.

They were strangely configured guns. The barrel's bores were easily larger than a golf ball and they were both on target.

His opponents made the worst mistake anyone could make in a battle: they took their eyes off of him!

Mike grinned.

The ends of his guns erupted with a metallic swoosh and a small flash. The woman to his left crumpled to the ground but the old man stood as the shell bounced off a seemingly invisible wall in between the two men.

Mike didn't even flinch. Instead, he returned one pistol back to its hiding place and pulled out a small black ball.

"A bomb?" The old man hissed. "I will not be harmed."

"But you'll still need to breathe..." Mike said as he lightly tossed it underhand between them.

Mike was in motion before it hit the ground and exploded in a brilliant flash. The gas it produced, however left the old man coughing and gasping for air.

The hooded man bolted for the front door and, once outside, was able to catch his breath. He had however been unable to follow where the Mike had gone. He had lost two of his followers. They had been weak and, as such, deserved their fate.

The old man looked back towards the house, looking for any sign that the one who had beaten him without magic was indeed long gone.

"Well done carnival fool! You have amused me this night and I will let you live. But you tipped your hand too early and gave enough information up. Now I know that she continues to fight me, even from the grave!"

With a wave of his hand, he was gone.
 
 
Mike climbed up out of hole in the front lawn where he had somehow changed into a Gullies suit, complete with camouflage face paint and holding blades at least a foot long each.

"And they both laughed when I dug these holes," Mike said. "I was sure that he had spotted me though."

Mike, replacing the lid over the hole, mused aloud. "So he wants either Christy or Terry. But what for?"
 
 

~*~
 
 
Terri unfolded the letter.
 
 
"Don't worry dear, for all the years your father spent as a magician will serve him well. I will warn you, however, that the next time that you see him, you will get ribbed about the hole that he had dug in his front yard that saved his life."
 
 
"Which one Grandma?" Terri asked out loud. "He dug five of them!"

"Who dug five of what?"

"Dad, Ambush holes in our front yard and don't ask."

The letter went on with the words,
 
 
"You deserve a break. Get Susan to take you shopping tomorrow. PS: Check the inside of this envelope."
 
 
Terri looked back down inside the envelope which was now filled with money where it had been empty before.

"Whoa!" was all that Terri could say as her fingers flipped through the twenties.

After counting, there was fourteen-hundred dollars there.

Terri counted off a hundred and offered it to Susan. "For room and board," she said, "and maybe a ride into town tomorrow?"

"You buy the gas and I'll go," Susan replied.

Terri nodded. "I wonder if Grandma gave me all this money thinking I'd spend it on girly clothes?"

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Susan warned. "Buy what you want, but just think about it before you go to bed."

"Oh okay," Terri responded in a tone hinting at defiance. In truth, now that all the people with mana sinks were no longer in range, she wasn't tired anymore.

Susan caught onto this and waved her off as she got up off the couch. "Okay, but don't be whining about it when I get up in five hours to start the ninety-minute ride into town."

"I'll have breakfast ready," Terri calmly replied back as she picked up her controller.

Susan disappeared into the bedroom, while Terri intently looked on.
 
 
Terri felt as though an hour had passed before she set the controller down and slowly peeked into the bedroom.

Susan was sleeping soundly, wearing nothing but her socks. Not having bothered to pull back the covers, she lay spread eagle on top. Terri was glad that the bed faced off to the side, else she would have likely had a horrible image to get out of her head.

She picked up the letter and continued reading.
 
 
"DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS ALOUD!!" it said in bold print, but with a strange flickering to the letters themselves that gave Terri the impression that the next part was for her eyes only.
 
 
"Cathryn trusts in old acquaintances far too much. Susan stands nothing to gain by keeping you and, unfortunately, she has someone she can call. Go into her bedroom and unplug her clock. The outlet is just inside the door and poses little risk. This will let her sleep in and you'll get a head start.

After you do this, leave her the hundred you promised and take the rest. Leave by going out through the window in the kitchen, it's an old fire escape. The bottom step is loose and you'll make too much noise plowing your face into the trash cans."
 
 
The rest of the instructions seemed to blur in Terri's eyes, so she pocketed the letter and did as she had been instructed, first pulling the power cord from the outlet.
 
 

~*~
 
 
Two hours later she was standing inside a bus stop in a town twelve miles away from Susan's and she was still reading the letter.

She looked around to make sure no one was watching her, which was entirely pointless since the only person there at that hour was a janitor, sweeping up the floor behind the counter.

Terri walked into the women's toilet, strolled down to the last stall, traced the crack on one of the wall tiles with her pinky, and the tile cracked further, seperated and fell to the floor, leaving a small hole.

Terri removed a key and another letter from within the hole.

The second letter told her which locker at the bus station the key would open and what she would find there. It also told her to leave the bus station via the window in the men's bathroom as the boys who had been so eager to give her a ride were waiting outside for her.

She looked up again, looking at the tiny opening where the women's bathroom window used to be and realizing it had been mostly bricked up.

"Geez Grandma, you don't make this easy, do you?" she quietly thought.
 
 

~*~
 
 
Having donned the roller blades and gloves from the bag inside the locker and grabbed some food from the all-night convenience store and hitched a ride on the bumper of the truck pulling out, she figured she had to be at least sixty miles away by now and it wasn't even sunrise.

Her feet hurt from the skates and her knees hurt from having crouched down below the level of the pickup's tailgate, but she didn't care.

Another hour had passed before the truck decided to take a turn away from another small town and Terri took the road in the opposite direction.

It was only a mile into town, but getting used to roller blades plus two hours of highway travel on them while in a crouched position had already taken their toll on her. She was thankful that her suit had kept her warm the entire time and had reassured her that if her grip slipped, it would protect her from injuries.

She had bought a small flashlight along with the food she picked up, so she used it to read the next section of the letter.
 
 
"Go through town using the alleyway left of main street. Don't let anyone in cars see you crossing the street."
 
 
The alleyway was dark and quiet. She could see enough of the poor quality of the road ahead to see that her the roller blades would only give her grief, so they went back into her bag.

The suit masked her in black per her request, leaving only eye-holes. She watched in the shadows as a lone vehicle passed in front of her on one of the streets. After it was several blocks ahead, she darted across the street.

The alleyway stopped at a road better maintained and she turned left as she had been instructed. The road led out of town, but it was the open prairie again. Terri took to the ditch, still masked like a ninja.

She saw the tree easily once she got close enough. It's branches reached like tendrils up towards the light of the moon. She climbed up onto a large branch facing away from the road and saw the small bluish stone that the letter stated would be there. She touched it and disappeared.
 
 

~*~
 
 
Terri thought she had been used to teleporting by now; she had expected the stone to relay some sort of instruction, but instead, it had been pre-programmed to send her off to another location, far from where she had started.

She landed in a heap on the floor of a store.

Along one wall, sat bins full of plastic bags with leaves, twigs and other plant-like material in them. Another wall was covered in bottles with labels written in a strange language.

The man behind the counter, a dark-haired man with bronze skin wearing flowing khaki robes, rushed around and tried to help Terri to her feet. Something was wrong! Terri couldn't manage to stand up on her own!

He helped her over to a bench behind the counter, not speaking a word, until he had slipped off her shoes and put his hands on her ankle. She instructed the suit to leave a shoelace touching so they would appear to be separate.

"Hmm, your ankles appear to be broken. Both of your legs are swollen around each ankle. What have you been doing?"

"Hitched a ride on the back of a truck using roller blades, then ran for a few miles, and finally got teleported here," Terri answered.

"The strain on your ankles should be severe already. How did you not notice the pain?"

"I've felt worse, much much worse. I've learned to ignore it."

"Well, you've come to the right place," The man said, standing up. "This is the finest Apocothery in all of India."

"India?" Terri questioned. "As in New Delhi, India?" Terri was less concerned with the what and more of the where.

"Bombay, actually," he corrected. "I use magic to keep the sea air out of my shop. The moisture ruins labels on the bottles."

Terri sighed.

"Dammit Grandma, what are you doing to me?"

"I am sorry, but what does your Grandmother have to do with this?"

"My Grandmother is dead, yet she haunts me."

"Ahh, I think I have a potion here for that."

"Not literally. I'm sorry. My grandmother could see the future, really well in fact. She has made the last ten days of my life miserable, despite being dead for almost eight years now."

"You.. aren't Aggie's granddaugther, are you?"

"Aggie?" Terri asked.

"Agatha Winston."

Terri could feel the blood draining from her face. She knew that the shocked expression she was displaying only served to answer the man's question and he smiled.

"I owe your grandmother a great favor and I intend to pay it back," he said resolutely.

He began moving back and forth about his shop, picking up bags of plant leaves and a bottle here and there. He commented, "Your grandmother saved both my wife and my sons from death. If not for her, I would not be the happiest man alive. I would be a lonely shell if not for my love. This is the least I can do to repay her."

He brought the ingredients to the counter where he began crushing the dried leaves, and pouring small amounts of several of the bottles into a bowl. After mixing everything together, he brought the bowl over and set it at Terri's feet.

"I don't drink that, do I?"

"Nonsense, it is topical form, spread right onto the skin, but first..." and his hand swept over the bowl as he chanted something strong and powerful that Terri couldn't begin to understand and the liquid began bubbling from it's depths to the surface in colors that defied the brackishness of the mixture itself.

"Okay, this will hurt for a moment, okay?" he stated before dipping a small cloth into the bowl and rubbing it on her ankle.

Terri winced only slightly before she felt the numbness and pain vanish. She looked down to see that her broken ankle looked normal and he was repeating the process on the other.

"There you go," he sad as he stood up with a triumph. "All is better now, but please stay seated for a few more minutes before trying to walk. Let the medicine soak in. I will apply more in a minute."

The man took a seat on the bench next to her and Terri swore that he looked visibly tired compared to just a few seconds before.

She looked down at the bubbling bowl and could almost feel the magic radiating from it.

"He must have used up most of his mana for the day just on that one spell," she thought. "And still... he needed to use all that stuff."

Terri sat through three more applications of the brew before it was all used up. The stuff seemed to soak right into the skin, leaving the cloth dry and nearly stain free.

She mimicked putting her shoes back on, while letting the suit reform her shoes, then stood up.

"Thank you very much. How can I pay you?"

"I will not take any payment, not from you. I do this as a favor."

He took one of her hands and held it aloft to kiss it when Terri saw her chance. No sooner than his lips touched her skin then she forced mana back into him.

He acted as though he couldn't break away, but she let him go and he straightened back up gasping for breath.

"I don't know any magic," Terri said, "but I do know how to give my mana to others."

He smiled, bowing to her again. "Then I cannot turn that down, as it is a gift from the heart."

"Speaking of gifts," she said as she spied a barrel near the door, "Are storing stones more valuable when they are full?"

"Oh yes, many times more valuable," he replied.

"Good," said Terri, plunging her hand into the barrel.

As the glow from the barrel itself became too bright for her to stare at it, she could see that the man was nearly becoming weak at the knees.

"Please don't tell anyone that there is a new vortex in town, okay?" Terri said with a smile as she opened the door. "It's part of the reason I'm on the run."

Then she left.
 
 

~*~
 
 
Although navigating the sidewalk markets and having to resist the urgings of the salesmen to buy every little thing, she was quite content to wander about a foreign city. The clouds were already becoming shades of pink and reds. She knew nighttime wasn't far behind.

She was slowly getting used to the idea of not seeing much daylight, but despite having witnessed the fourth sunset now, between all of her teleporting around, her sense of time was skewed just a bit.

Terri's stomach forcibly reminded her that it had been many hours since her last real meal, a bag of cheese puffs and cookies not withstanding.
 
 
Thinking that she was in the clear for a short while, she decided that she deserved a decent meal when her nose picked up the wonderful aroma of curry. Knowing what was assaulting her senses, combined with where she was and how hungry, she was licking her lips already.

Stepping into the entry area, an Indian man in more modern clothing approached her. "Welcome to the Hindi Garden. You are American, yes?" he asked.

She nodded. "I didn't think so many people spoke English here."

"You forget that until the twentieth century, we were a British colony. English was taught in schools."

"Well, I am hungry and was drawn in by the wonderful smells coming from inside," she said. "I have not had been able to convert my money yet. Do you take American dollars?"

"Certainly," he replied and showed her inside to a table.
 
 

~*~
 
 
Terri was having trouble trying to move from having eaten such a great deal of lamb curry, when the waiter who had showed her in, set a letter in front of her. It was nearly as beaten up as the one she had gotten from Susan.

"You are Terri, I assume?" he asked.

Fear gripped her.

"I am," she cautiously replied. "What is this?"

"I was hoping you could enlighten us," he said. "This letter has been on a shelf in the kitchen for the last ten years with specific instructions to present it to a girl matching your description, sitting at this table, at this time, who went by the name of Terri."

Terri took the letter and looked it over.

The man continued. "There was some speculation and wagering on if you would grace us with your presence, I guess I lost."

"Not much, I hope?" Terri ventured.

"I guess I need to straighten out the bill. How much do I owe you, in American dollars?"

"Fifteen should do. It includes a little extra to encourage the owner to get it changed over himself."

She handed him two twenties and stood up. "Hope that covers your bet."

He bowed, "Thank you. May you have a blessed evening."

"I certainly hope so."
 
 

~*~
 
 
To Be Continued...
 
 
End of Chapter Eighteen