Magic Girls of Multiverse Inn: A Reverse Portal Fantasy, page 29
With one more intense glare at the individuals in the crowd, they finally began to disperse, and I turned back to my booth.
Nothing was out of place or missing from my display of clothing, but I was done for the day. I actually had made a lot of good sales, and I didn’t think lingering around would be a good idea.
Kaz took my lead and began to pack up our things as the white-blonde witch lingered nearby.
“They will despise me even more now,” Prinna muttered to herself, and she eyed the crowd warily.
“The people here don’t take kindly to magic users, do they?” I asked softly.
“They fear anyone with magic,” Prinna confirmed, and her voice cracked like she was barely hanging onto her composure. “They blame us all for the Consumption.”
“Should they?” Kaz asked with an expression between concern and wariness.
“We do not know why the Consumption happened,” Prinna sighed with despondency. “I was not involved. That doesn’t matter to them, though. They see any witch or sorcerer, and the hatred they have for magic rules them. This is not a safe realm for people like me.”
The suspicions in my mind faded away as I started to get a better picture of Prinna and what her life must be like. Our casual conversation must have been a pleasant, if fleeting, reprieve from the hatred she must endure on a daily basis.
“The pots and pans merchant told me you’re a witch,” I said in a soft voice. “Is your magic really powerful?”
“No,” Prinna laughed in a crazed sort of way before she cleared her throat. “No. My magic is small and selective. I can assess a person’s true desires and intentions. It’s how I knew the thief was going to steal something.”
“What do I desire?” Kaz asked like it was a parlor trick.
“Sam,” Prinna said simply, and a small blush colored her tan cheeks.
“Accurate,” Kaz giggled. “What about him?”
Prinna looked at me with that same Sherlock Holmes mind palace expression for a long moment before she shook her head in frustration. “I cannot read you.”
“What?” I asked with confusion.
“Normally, with people, I can feel their true desires and intentions,” Prinna explained. “It’s like a…”
The beautiful witch paused for a moment and swirled her hands in the air like she was trying to wave away a fog.
“Like a scent,” Prinna said, but the look on her face told me that wasn’t exactly what it was like. “That is the best way I can think to describe it, though I don’t use my nose at all. I just can sense them with my whole being. It comes over me like a wave, but with you…”
Prinna stared hard at me again like she could will my intentions and desires to present themself to her, and I tried to give her something to see if she could catch it.
“There’s just nothing there,” Prinna sighed. “It’s as though I were trying to read a statue.”
Another magical woman whose powers didn’t work on me? What was I? Defective or something?
I silently scoffed at the thought. No, it was great to be safe from the magical wiles of these women. It meant I knew exactly where I stood with them, and it meant I could trust them.
“Do you have somewhere you can go?” I asked as sudden concern for the beauty’s safety filled my chest.
“I have nowhere that is truly mine.” Prinna shook her head. Then she took a deep breath and stuck her chin in the air. “I often stay in some of the abandoned homes that once belonged to the victims of the Consumption. That will not be an option for long, they are crumbling or being bought… But I will survive. I always have.”
“Sam…” Kaz murmured softly, and her violet eyes were filled with concern.
The Enchanted woman glanced at Prinna like she was an abandoned puppy we’d found on the side of the road. Then I took another glance around at the people in the crowd who continued to linger nearby. Several of them shot angry glances at Kaz, but it seemed clear enough to them that she had me to protect her. They turned their angry and spiteful eyes to Prinna next, and they let her be the target of their disgust.
She didn’t seem oblivious to their hatred, either.
I knew we couldn’t just leave Prinna to fend for herself. The chances that something horrible would happen to her after we left burned like acid in my brain, and I shared a long glance with Kaz.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“It is up to you,” Kaz replied with a little shrug.
Prinna seemed to notice the increasingly ugly looks she was getting, and she straightened her shoulders.
“It was a pleasure to meet you both,” Prinna said like she was about to leave. “Perhaps we will meet again. Safe travels.”
“Where will you go?” I asked before she could walk away from the relative safety of my company.
“I am not sure,” Prinna admitted, and there was an intense look of fear in her hazel eyes. “My magic will not protect me from these people, though it will keep me aware of the most dangerous of them.”
“You could come with us,” I offered.
“I… I– uh…” Prinna stuttered and shook her head in disbelief, but hope burned like supernovas in her eyes. “I don’t want to burden you.”
“We have plenty of room,” Kaz said.
“We do,” I agreed. “You wouldn’t be a burden, but I have to tell you… What I said about being from very far away? It’s true. My realm is way different than this.”
“It is far different from the Grymm as a whole,” Kaz added with a light-hearted grimace. “It is unlike anything I have seen or heard of before.”
Prinna seemed more nervous than hopeful now, and I offered her a friendly smile.
Kaz finished packing the last of our clothing into the rucksack, and then she flipped the little lever that made the booth fold up on itself.
“My realm is safe, though,” I said. “There isn’t magic there, so no one would just inherently hate you. They wouldn’t suspect anything of you, really. You’d just… be another person walking along the road. No one would bother you.”
Prinna sighed as she glanced around.
A group of old women with brightly-colored hair scowled at the white-blonde witch, and a nasty-looking man with orange skin watched her like a hawk from a few booths away. Disgust rolled off them in visceral waves, and I got a feeling like fire ants crawling up my legs.
“I suppose anything would be better than here,” Prinna finally said.
“Do you have anything you want to get before we go?” I asked, and I gestured that we were about to leave.
“I have no possessions other than what I carry on me now,” Prinna admitted with an embarrassed shrug. She patted the satchel on her shoulder with one hand. “I can never stay in any one place for long, so I keep my belongings in here.”
I nodded slowly, and I noticed the thick layer of dirt around the hem of her dress. It had probably been a long time since she’d been able to wash her clothes, and I wondered if she had another change in that bag.
Well, I could fix that problem easily enough.
“Alright, let’s go, then,” I said, and I glanced at Kaz.
“To the inn?” Kaz asked with a knowing smirk.
“The inn?” Prinna asked with hesitancy. “Do you have more things to gather before we travel?”
“Not exactly,” I chuckled.
Kaz and I started walking, and I waved for Prinna to keep up with us as we headed back toward the circular road that led around the innermost ring of the city. I was curious about the condition of this realm, and I wanted to have a look at some other areas on our way back.
“Oh, do you have a caravan at the inn?” Prinna guessed. “Or some kind of steed?”
“No,” I said.
The bit of crowd that had lingered behind us grumbled in dissenting tones, and I felt the nasty, orange-skinned man stalking slowly behind us.
Prinna glanced over her shoulder twice as we made our way past the Ny Avin Lane, and the way her feet tried to move faster told me just how afraid of the man she was. I didn’t have to have magic like the white-blonde witch to know he would hurt her if given the chance.
The buildings along this route were just as damaged and destroyed as the other parts of Amirma we’d seen already. Every once in a while, we’d pass a house that looked like it was being rebuilt, and there would be sad little attempts at gardens out front. The strange acid-colored puddles filled ruts in the roads occasionally, and as we passed Gloiversby Road, I caught the scent of something that smelled like burning plastic. I wondered how toxic the air was in various parts of this realm, and I figured the people might all be living in other sections of the pie-shaped city. Either that, or they were surviving in these crumbling buildings that didn’t look fit for habitation.
Amirma was certainly a realm still in ruins, despite the fact that the Consumption was passed.
“Sam’s realm is called Earth,” Kaz explained in a soft tone as we walked down the road. “It’s a strange land, and I do not understand most of it.”
“Earth?” Prinna repeated like it was the oddest name she’d ever heard, but there was a nervous shiver under her voice. “A realm called dirt? How strange.”
If I hadn’t been so focused on blindly tracking the orange-skinned man’s pursuit of us, I might have laughed at Prinna’s comment.
“Don’t look,” I whispered to Kaz, “but we have a follower, and I don’t think he means to try and buy some clothes from us.”
“It is true,” Prinna whispered on Kaz’s other side. “His thoughts are filled with my blood.”
Kaz pretended to laugh at something I’d said, laid a hand on my shoulder, and leaned in to whisper so she could catch a glimpse at the guy who was following us.
“We can’t let him hurt Prinna,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
“Shall I charm him into abandoning such pursuits?” Kaz asked in a barely audible voice.
“If he tries anything,” I said as I thought on my feet, “charm him into standing still, but nothing else. I want him to be aware of what I say when I say it.”
Kaz was quiet for a moment as we turned onto Old Road Pyge, and I caught sight of someone moving at a weirdly slow pace down the alley behind the front row of destroyed buildings. He wore a deep red coat that I’d spotted a few blocks back, and I abruptly realized he was following us.
“Orange-guy isn’t alone,” I whispered to Kaz.
We walked in uncomfortable silence for another block before Prinna leaned in with a false smile on her face.
“There’s another.” Her words came out through a tense smile that didn’t reach her hazel eyes.
“That makes three,” I ground out with an equally tight smirk.
“That’s a great idea!” Kaz laughed to continue the ruse of our flirting, then added in a softer voice, “What do we do?”
“I doubt we’re going to make it back without incident,” I muttered. “Stay together. I’ll fight them off if I have to.”
My hand slowly shifted to the handle of my dagger, and I felt my muscles tense as adrenaline started to trickle into my veins.
“How?” Prinna asked in a horrified whisper.
“Sam was suggesting what we should have to eat later,” Kaz lied easily as she tried to strengthen our flirtatious and unsuspecting ruse. “Are you hungry?”
Prinna stared at Kaz for a moment with disbelief before she must have read the Enchanted woman’s intentions, and she smiled nervously.
“Yes, I am,” Prinna admitted with a shy look. “Food has been hard to come by since the Consumption. Many people have starved.”
“Yeah!” the orange-skinned man shouted suddenly, and he hurried his footsteps to catch up with us. “And whose fault is that, witch?”
He spat the word witch like an insult, and he glowered at Prinna like she was a disgusting pile of rotting trash that was offensive to his very existence.
“It was your kind who started the Consumption,” the orange-skinned man growled, and he pointed an accusing finger at Prinna. “You think just ‘cause you found yourself a venturer you can do what you like? You’re a filthy whore, and it’s your fault this realm’s gone straight to shit.”
The man in the red coat strode out from the back alley, and he had the same kind of orange skin as the first man. His thin lips were pulled back in a disgusted snarl, and he eyed Prinna with hatred before he turned his brown eyes on Kaz. After a quick assessment, he must have decided that she was a witch, too, and he leveled the Enchanted woman with an equally hateful stare. My eyes focused on the short sword belted at his hip, and I shuddered involuntarily.
Prinna shied away from the orange man’s venomous words, and Kaz shifted her small frame in front of our new friend. If the situation wasn’t so dangerous, I might have laughed at the five-foot-three woman trying to hide the much taller woman behind her. Prinna’s whole head came above Kaz’s, and her white-blonde hair shone like a beacon.
“I suggest you shut the fuck up,” I ground the words out through clenched teeth, and I gave Red-coat a nasty stare as well.
Then the third man Prinna must have sensed joined his friends. He had peach-toned skin that made him look human, but his eyes were a strange shape that turned down at the corners like Droopy Dog. His expression was one of pure, seething hatred, though, and he held a serrated dagger in one meaty hand.
Silently, I hoped they went a bit further.
Fencing club had been tons of fun, and while I’d learned a lot about defensive stances and offensive strikes, I’d never thought I’d be able to put any of it to the test. I always felt super cool wearing my practice sword on my hip as I walked to club meetings, but it wasn’t like I could just walk around campus like that all the time.
Or down Main Street in Arcton. Fuck, the soccer moms would probably shit themselves at a sight like that.
But here in the multiverse? A sword on my hip was exactly what this place called for.
“This bitch has some nerve showing up at the markets,” the orange-skinned man shouted at me. “You’re a fucking imbecile if you think she’s not hexed you with her magic!”
“Last chance,” I hissed, and I slid my dagger from its sheath.
“She’s a damn dirty skroon,” Red-coat said slowly and clearly so every word was enunciated.
I had no idea what a skroon was, but the tone of his voice and the hatred in his eyes made it clear it was something vile and probably racist.
Before Kaz could step in to charm them into paralysis, Droopy Eyes lunged at me with his serrated dagger.
Four years of twice-a-week fencing club practices came in clutch in a flash as my body reacted without any directions from my brain. The clang of metal on metal seemed to knock my brain back into action, and my eyes went wide as I realized what I’d done without thinking.
Droopy Eyes snarled at me as he twisted his serrated dagger around and took a half-step back. He side-eyed his two companions, and in the next heartbeat, the three of them lunged forward at us.
The first orange-skinned guy lunged at Prinna, but thankfully, he didn’t seem to have a weapon in his hand. He went for her slender throat with his grubby hands, but she must have sensed his intentions first, because the white-blonde witch threw her hands up defensively.
She managed to wedge her fingers between her throat and the orange-skinned asshole’s hands before he could clamp them around her windpipe.
At the same instant, on my other side, Red-coat drew his short sword and started to lunge forward. Kaz used our collapsible booth as a sort of shield, and she hauled it up to protect her chest.
Simultaneously, Droopy Eyes came at me again with his dagger, and it all happened so fast, I could barely register everything.
Somewhere in the back of my head, my brain heard the crack of our foldable booth as Red-coat’s short sword landed on the front panel. I couldn’t bring myself to care about the wooden contraption so long as it kept Kaz safe.
I shoved my worry about the women’s safety as deep down into my gut as I could manage. I didn’t have time or space for it while Droopy Eyes was going for my throat.
“Ugh!” he grunted as he stabbed at me in short, almost awkward bursts.
I blocked and parried his less-than-skilled moves as I looked for my moment, and I shifted backward in a slight curve toward one of the crumbling buildings. I knew I had to use the environment to my advantage, so I stepped back until I felt the edge of the stone foundation’s remain behind my heel. Then I gave a good lunge at Droopy Eyes ribcage with my dagger, and I was rewarded with the satisfying sound of torn fabric.
No blood spurted from under the guy’s thick shirt, but I’d caught his attention.
Which was exactly what I wanted.
Droopy Eyes growled at me through clenched teeth, and I watched the muscles in his shoulder bunch as he prepared for another strike. Turns out watching my opponent’s shoulders instead of their arms had been the best advice our fencing group leaders had come up with.
The movement originated from Droopy Eyes’ shoulder, and I saw it with enough time to duck out of the way. He’d thrown so much force into the single strike that his blade dug right into the crumbling stones and mortar of the building, and his fingers smashed into the hard wall.
“Aaah!” Droopy Eyes cried out in pain, and he clutched his hand to his chest.
His blade was buried in the mortar of the wall, and he glared at me. With the knowledge that Kaz and Prinna were still fighting for their lives without real weapons, I didn’t waste a second. I curled my hand into a tight fist and threw my best sucker punch right at Droopy Eyes’ jaw.
The bones in my hand screamed with pain from the impact, but it was enough of a strike to land Droopy Eyes on his ass with his head spinning.
I turned around in a flash and assessed which woman needed my help more urgently.
Kaz was still defending herself with the wooden booth that now bore several long surface-level marks from Red-coat’s short sword. They looked like minor scratches on a stainless-steel appliance, and it was clear the booth hadn’t lost a bit of structural integrity. If anything, the marks gave it a totally badass venturer aesthetic that would only add to the reputation I was trying to build. The wood was either much sturdier than I’d originally thought or the wood carver was also some sort of magical being who’d enchanted the booth.
