Chapter 3 – Unwind

There were no supernatural traces at all near Callum’s trailer in Texas, even after he swept in a spiral three or so miles around it, so he felt he was fairly safe putting Lucy in the bed there. He wanted to crash himself, even as uncomfortable as the sofa was, but instead he forced himself to make some kind of brunch and hydrate. Hopefully Lucy would wake up soon, and if not, he’d have to get in contact with Chester again.

He’d assured himself there were no other lingering bits of magic or technological trackers, even though he was a little uncomfortable peering at Lucy that intimately. It was invasive, but he had to be sure for both their sakes. If anything, though, her own personal vis seemed stronger than it had been before.

Sitting in the bedroom waiting for Lucy to stir seemed a little bit creepy, spatial perceptions aside, so he moved a card table close to the door and set up with his laptop. Partly to get some of his thoughts down and partly just to have something to distract himself with. As well as the rescue had gone, he figured that the next time they’d have more mana jammers or something even larger and more powerful to deny his abilities. Or just more mages, since he really couldn’t go against them. Not directly.

Though, with Lucy safe, he had hopes he wouldn’t need to do anything for a while.

Callum was giving his usual sites a desultory look-through when Lucy stirred. Immediately he got up and knocked on the door to her room, making a conscious effort to act like a normal person rather than teleporting. He was pretty sure after the day she had, him appearing out of nowhere would be an unnecessary stress. While he tried not to peek too much, he sensed her jump when the sound came of his knocking, and she levered herself partly upright, her head focused on the door.

“What? Who is it?” She said, shrinking back in the bed. Callum didn’t blame her.

“It’s me,” he told her through the door. “The big man.”

“Oh!” She took a moment to survey herself before throwing back the covers and turning sideways on the bed. “Come in!”

He turned the doorknob and crossed over to her. She hesitated a moment and then stood up, half reaching out to him.

“Is it⁠— are we safe?”

“Yes,” he said. “We’re safe.” That wasn’t entirely true; if nothing else they’d have to get rid of Lucy’s tattoo. But it was close enough for the moment.

Lucy studied his face for a second and then practically toppled forward against him. Callum caught and steadied her in his arms as she sobbed into his chest. He didn’t say anything, just held her, knowing that there were times to cry and considering what she’d gone through this was certainly one of them.

It was a little odd having another woman in his arms, when he hadn’t even dated for years. Actually he was quite glad that Lucy was nothing like Selene; he’d mourned his wife and buried her, and he didn’t want to feel like he was trying to find a replacement. Fortunately, Lucy was Lucy and there was no mistaking her for anyone else. After a while she pulled back a bit and wiped at her eyes, still keeping one hand on his arm.

“Sorry about that, big man. Usually I’m more put together.”

“Hey, I understand completely,” Callum told her, giving her as good a smile as he could manage. “It’s been a rough couple of days for you, I’m sure.”

“You can say that again,” Lucy said.

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” Callum repeated, deadpan. Lucy burst into shaky laughter, punctuated by a hiccup.

“Oof, that was terrible. I needed that.”

“Glad I could help.” He reached out his hand and teleported a box of tissues into it, offering them to her. She blinked at him and then laughed as she took the box from him. “Wow, that is going to take some getting used to. I guess, I mean.” She peered up at him, though she was only a few inches shorter than he was. “Am I going to be staying here or…?”

“I’d certainly like you to,” he told her. “I never wanted you to get involved in my mess, but now that you are I’m hardly going to abandon you.”

“Good,” she said, head still tilted back to look at him. “You know, you’re shorter than I expected,” she added, squeezing experimentally at the arm she had her hand on. She seemed surprised by the muscle there.

“That’s exactly what Danika Connors said,” Callum told her with a laugh. “I guess my reputation creates some unrealistic expectations.”

“Danika who? Oh, them!” Lucy blinked. “Huh, I can remember their names now. I wonder why.”

“Well, I did take you into a portal world long enough to purge any fae magic lingering around,” Callum said. “So how are you feeling?”

“Absolutely rotten,” Lucy replied. “But that’s not your fault. It’s better than before when I had that thing in my head!”

“Do you want to lie down again? Or get something to eat?”

“Oh, I’m absolutely ravenous, big man,” Lucy said, snuffling into the tissues. “Why don’t you show me around?”

“To be honest, there’s not much here,” Callum said, escorting her out into the small common room. It was actually a little embarrassing. He’d had a much nicer house before, and was building a nice one for later, but for the moment he was stuck in an aging double-wide. “But this is only a temporary base. I’m still getting something better built.”

“Yeah?” Lucy looked around with interest as he showed her to the couch. “Glad you said that because this place is kind of a dump. I mean, clean yeah, but. You know.”

“It’s not my favorite place either,” Callum said, turning on the small electric stove to start some soup heating. Then he teleported a bottle of water from the fridge to the table in front of Lucy.

“Thank, big man,” she said. “So. Wow. I guess I’m a criminal or something? An outlaw, on the run? Dammit! All my stuff is gone!” Callum glanced over his shoulder sympathetically, seeing her face running through expressions on fast-forward.

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a shock, I know. Takes a while to sink in.” It’d been over a year since he’d gone through the same process himself, but he remembered how he’d felt like he was drowning. Hopefully he’d be able to save Lucy some of that, though he wasn’t sure where the line was between helping her and telling her what to do.

“I would kill for a soda,” Lucy said, sipping at the water.

“We can pick some up when we go shopping,” Callum told her. “I mean, we’re going to need to. I don’t have any clothes for you or anything.”

“Oof. Wow, way to drive it home, big man.” Lucy rubbed at her eyes again. “You gotta give me something to take my mind off of this. What was the plan after breaking me outta there?”

“To be honest, that depends on you.” Callum left the soup to heat and went to sit in the overstuffed armchair on the other side of the coffee table. “I didn’t want to assume you were going to join me in being, you know, a vigilante on the run or whatever I am.”

“Eh, what else could I do?” Lucy waved it away with what was, to Callum, a rather forced casualness. “Go into mundane IT? Supernatural IT was boring enough!”

“I think you’d do really well as a security consultant, but I’m not going to be arguing that you change your mind.”

“You’d better not, big man, or I’ll start to think you don’t want me around.”

“Heaven forbid you should ever think that.”

“So, spill,” Lucy said, leaning back in the battered old couch and studying him. “How is it that you do what you do?”

Callum didn’t bother warning her again about how knowing all this stuff meant she was stuck with him. While he was worried she was still too shaken to make the best choices, it would just be insulting if he kept poking her about it. So he just started talking.

Sort of.

He’d thought it’d be cathartic to finally share everything, but he found himself battling his instinct to keep things vague. To leave out details. To obscure and obfuscate what he could really do. It actually took a concerted effort of will to be specific.

“Wait a minute, big man,” Lucy said after a bit. “You’re saying that this spatial perception lets you see everything in a six hundred-ish yard radius?”

“I do,” he confirmed. “Or at least, I can. If I really want to I can pull it back, like squinting or closing my eyes, but at this point I’ve pretty much gotten used to using it.”

“So that means you can sense right through people’s clothes?” She persisted.

“…yes,” Callum said, not liking where this was going.

“So that means you can sense through my clothes?”

“…yes.”

“You could at least buy me a drink first, big man,” Lucy said, flashing a grin. Callum laughed, a knot of tension easing.

“I try not to actually peek,” he said. “It does take some focus to really make out details and I usually reserve that for setting up teleports or getting through wards.”

“Which you can do because you have that tiny thread thing.”

“Which I can do because I have that tiny thread thing.”

“Crazy. You sure you’re just a mage, big man?”

“I’m not even a good mage! I can do like four things? Portals, teleports, gravitykinesis, and the sensory thing. Oh, and the spatial compression which is not very useful, so five.”

“Good enough for me,” Lucy said. “So what’s the plan now?”

“For the moment? Take a good long rest. My new house still isn’t done, and I have a bunch of magic practice to do. Some enchanting too.” Callum ticked off items on his fingers. “I also gotta figure out how to deal with the people who abused you.”

“Oh.” Lucy shifted on the couch, rubbing at her temples. “Can’t we just hang out somewhere? I don’t really want to think about running up against them again.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m intending to go on a rampage right away. I have in the past, but I think a more measured response is necessary.” Callum shook his head. “But can you imagine that they’ll let us – well, me, mostly – exist at this point? Though I wouldn’t ask you to come along on any of these projects. I mean, you could basically be Moneypenny, right?”

“Hah!” Lucy shook her head. “Honestly most of what I could do was ‘cause I already had access to the GAR system. I mean, I was admin! Not sure how well I’d be able to infiltrate things without that. At the very least I’d be more likely to get caught.”

“What about that nifty phone redirect thing?”

“Oh! Yeah, that. Sure, I could probably make another one of those,” Lucy said, looking thoughtful.

“Things like that, I could really use your help with. Plus, figuring out a good way to get internet in the bunker. I mean, don’t want them to trace us.”

“Right, right.” Lucy seemed more animated as she thought about it. “Sure, you’ll want to set up all kinds of security and harden things up. Plus you’re going to want to make yourself all anonymous for orders and things.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“All of that. Now, so far as I know the only supernatural connections I still have are basically to Alpha Chester, but I think we have to assume that at the very least we have state actors looking for us the normal way. We can’t be caught on camera and we’ll need to get fake glasses or putty for our noses when we go out, and of course avoid anywhere that checks ID. If we have to take risks like that, we do so far away from anywhere we’re actually staying.”