Page 6 of Outlaw Witch

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The next morning, I’mup bright and early once again. I stare at my puffy, tired eyes in the bathroom mirror and practice masking my appearance once again.

Today, I’m going for a stronger glamor than yesterday since things didn’t go quite as planned. My dark brown hair is lightened to a dirty dishwater color and my eyes are brown instead of their usual deep blue with the weird, almost yellow ring around the pupil. I’ve also flattened out my features and have ensured that part of the glamor means that I shouldn’t be recognisable.

My face should now belong to someone you wouldn't notice. I should blend into the crowd as someone faceless and forgotten.

That’s the idea, anyway.

This particular trick is one I absorbed from a vamp I met a few years back. They’d spent decades perfecting it, so that no one in their very human, very supernatural-unfriendly town noticed that they never aged.

Instead, people never noticed they existed at all. Which is a pretty sad existence, if you ask me. But he seemed happy enough, sucking blood and luring in sweet virgins. Or whatever else it is that vamps do in their spare time.

It seems to work well enough, anyway. I head out of the warehouse unnoticed. That’s despite the fact I walk straight past Luna and Rook while they’re eating breakfast.

Tucking away the lockpicking kit Rook gave me last night, I head outside to start the trek into the city. It’s another overcast day, so I pull my leather jacket around me tightly and tuck my chin down as I head through the old industrial district, past the rubble and the wastelands. Twenty minutes later and I’m back in the city center, avoiding the bustling crowds and the steady stream of traffic.

As is my ritual when I’m in this part of the city, my eyes are drawn to my left. Up on the hill, looking down their noses at all the rest of us schlubs, stands Arcanum Heights. Gated communities with their vast estates and gardens right in the middle of the city. In the daylight, you can see the runes etched into the walls and onto the iron gates. When it gets dark, there are crystals that glow non-stop, lighting up the area. Supposedly, it’s a defense system, stopping the riff-raff from the rest of the city from breaking in and stealing all their artifacts.

I reckon it’s so the rest of us can’t forget their presence, or that they’re lording over us.

Arcanum Heights is where the most powerful magic users in the city—the Archarcans—reside and work. It also happens to be where I was born.

Where I was cast out from.

As powerful as they might be, it turns out the Archarcans absolutely shit their pants when a twelve-year-old suddenly displays powers of necromancy.

Imagine turning twelve years old and missing your recently passed nanna, wishing she could come to your birthday party.

Imagine then coming face to face with your zombie grandmother after you accidentally absorbed the power of necromancy and unknowingly drew her out of her grave.

Then, in the same afternoon being accused of performing illegal magic, your mother crying and screaming and calling you an abomination. Being dragged out of your home in your party dress and winding up in a cell to await your execution.

It sucked. I can tell you that much. To make things worse, I never did work out where I absorbed that particular power from. And because of that, I might have a teeny chip on my shoulder about the elitist assholes that live in this area of town.

Right below Arcanum Heights, at the base of the hill, is the Luminary District. The people here aren’t quite so high class as the Archarcans up in their ivory tower, but they come a close second. The area is made up of seven towers made of pure crystal, glittering with almost blinding intensity in the sunlight. This is where the Arcanum Magical Institute is held, along with the magistrates building. The place where I was sentenced for my crimes.

They thought that bringing the dead back to life was all I could do. The funny thing about necromancy, though, is I can bring people back to life, but I can also make them appear dead. Which is something I used to my advantage. I was shoved into the same cell as Rook and the two of us quickly bonded since we were both sentenced to death for merely existing.

But they underestimated us. I used my powers, made us both appear dead and our bodies were both thrown out with the trash.

A fitting start to our new lives as outcasts.

I was lucky that no one cottoned on to where my true powers lie back when I was a kid, or they’d have kept a closer eye on me while I awaited my execution.

I can absorb the powers of almost any creature. So long as I witness them being used, I can draw the power into myself, into my already brimming toolbox of tricks.

Glamor, necromancy, telepathy, blowing stuff up with fireballs, to name just a few.

And still my magic craves more. I suck in others’ abilities without them realizing, without them losing anything, either.

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