Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #17 August 2015 | Page 53

much, she doesn’t talk a lot about it.” Jake drank half
the water from his bottle. “But I can say this. I have
trained with her a lot of times, and seen her fight lots
more. She always wins, not because she’s stronger,
or faster, or because of the fireballs or daggers, those
I can get around. She’s determined, incredibly skilful
and pain doesn’t slow her down. Her type of ferocity
doesn’t come from training like this.” Jake stretched
and put the bottle and towel down. “Now let’s fight,
before she sees us slacking.”

kitchen table looking at Jake dismantling a piece of
technology and combining it with magic, a talent no
one had heard about. He could remotely cast a spell
from a computer, which was no easy feat, since magic energy tended to short circuit technology. He also
had a habit to randomly switch from English to any of
the demonic languages he was teaching Lucas, which
meant they sometimes wound up spending an hour
clicking at each other.

Jake didn’t just train him. He also helped Patrick teach him about advanced witchcraft, and taught
Lucas demonic languages, a field Lucas turned out to
be particularly skilful at. It was another thing Lucas
had to learn, but he didn’t mind. His mind and body
were alive for the first time in his life. He was able to
live and learn, develop every part of him. While others
would scream underneath the weight of the work,
Lucas was smiling ear to ear and whistling.
Summer had come fast. Lucas barely even
realised he had been here for several months. His
mother didn’t quite understand what he was doing, but
she could feel he was happy. He still refused to tell her
where he was staying. It wasn’t because he thought
she wouldn’t approve. He didn’t want to be forced to
define his relationship with Margo before he knew
where they stood.
Patrick was easy to get along with, and the
one he knew most about. When they weren’t studying, they would sit in the kitchen and Patrick would
tell him about his life in the coven, how he had met
Jake, and usually stopped around the time they bonded
their essences. He only talked about his death once,
and the strong signs of anger and sadness were more
than enough for Lucas not to pry. When they weren’t
talking, Lucas had his nose in a book, learning complicated runes and potion ingredients.
Jake was more closed off about his past. But
he was honest about not wanting to talk about it. The
only one who knew almost every detail about his life
was Patrick. Jake was fun to be around, he knew how
to take and tell a joke, and had a lot of sage advice
if one would listen. Lucas spent hours sitting on the

Margo was a whole different speed. She was
not cold to him, if she was he would not be confused.
She listened to him talk and made jokes. But he never
ever saw her without a full body morph, and he never
found out anything about her. It was as if he was staring at a wall hiding a door, and if he could find it and
open it he would reach the treasure inside. But at times
the wall seemed enormous.
In mid-July he had settled in a routine, and had
almost given up on trying to decipher her, when one
day he caught her off guard. He had just finished target
practice with Jake and came down to the gym to get an
early start when he ran into Margo working out. She
was in her Vuur form, lifting a 3000 kilo weight in a
manner Lucas could only describe as ‘slightly faster
than frozen’. Judging from the fact she was completely drenched and no other equipment was disturbed,
she has been doing this particular exercise since she
came here in the morning, roughly five hours ago. Her
expression was one of concentrated boredom. That
was when Lucas saw she wasn’t morphed. He could
see a bunch of thin scars all up her arms, various small
ones on her legs, a thick curved scar on her knee, a
burn that was half covered by her shorts, a thin scar
across her shoulder, and some bullet wounds across
her torso. She noticed him, and put the weight down
with a clank.
His expression showed he had been observing
her for a while, he had surely noticed the scars. All her
life, Margo had been around people who would never
respect her no matter what she did. But they could fear
her. She wore her scars with pride around them, they
were reminders of the many times someone had tried
to kill her and failed. They were proof that she was
sticking around no matter what they did. It was easy

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