At the motel

You spent much of the day in your motel hoom, jotting down notes on a pad of legal paper from your phone. There were descriptions of older spells, ways to harness innate magic from the world around you. As you understood it, magic was like radiation; there was always a low level of it hanging about at acceptable levels, but some places, certain objects, and even individuals contained an amount that could be harnessed and used to generate abilities. The artefact you obtained from Smith was cold right now, but it could be recharged with the right spell or ritual.

Things were messier when it came to your ring. From what little was available to you, it was bound to one master at a time. Since your grandfather was currently alive and active, the ring was useless to you, which would complicate how you went about things going forward. You couldn’t count on it to bail you out of dangerous situations again.

Taking a deep breath, you sat back and tried to focus your own innate mana. The ancient texts described it as a dark fire burning at the heart of every sorcerer, and you tried to picture that. Your mind locked onto it, imagined that flame flicker and grow, so hot and furious that it was a mini sun. The air around you felt warm, your fingers began to tingle with energy. It was almost there…

A sharp rap on the door to your room startled you from the trance, breaking concentration and allowing the mana to sink back into your being. You swallowed back a curse. “Who is it?”

“It’s Channel,” the voice answered. “Can we talk? It’s about your father.”

It took you a half second to remember that she was referring to your grandfather, but when you did you got up and opened the door. Channel stood there with wide eyes, slightly out of breath. “Thank god you’re still here…”

“Why, what happened?”

Something sharp hit you in the neck, and at first you had thought it was a wasp or a bee stinging you. But then your eyes focused, and you saw a syringe and a hand plunging the contents into your body. “Whaaa…”

You collapsed, but before you could hit the ground a pair of hands grabbed you. Things became blurry, but through the mess of colour a voice cut through. Deep, commanding, and terribly familiar.

“My son, eh?” There was a rumble of dark laughter. “I think not.”

All went dark.