Ross blinked to let his eyes adjust.This just got more and more confusing.“I like to think I’m only mean to the people who deserve it.A kind of vigilant bitch.Maybe a bitchilante is a better way to put it.”
“As expected of Glenn,” the wizard (?) responded, smile widening to reveal yellowing teeth.“You have a great deal of spirit to you.And fight.He’s never one to like the docile ones, is he.”
Well, that sort of answered the question.Ross was here because of his connection to Glenn, which only made sense.He hadn’t actually expected anything different.The why was semi-answered.“And who are you?”
The smile faltered.“You know who I am.”
“I really have no fucking clue, hence why I’m asking.Your henchman—”
Hairy had a hand clamped over his bleeding nose but still protested, “I’m not a henchman!”
“—said something about you being a master, and your name was Man-Shik?Still have no clue who you are.And why take me?”
Drawing himself up haughtily, the man intoned with self-righteous importance, “I am the High Wizard Man-Shik—”
High wizard rang a few bells.“Wait, didn’t you call like a week or so ago?”
Man-Shik faltered.“Yes, I did.Didn’t you tell Glenn?”
“I did, yeah, but you didn’t leave a name or number.He couldn’t figure out who it was that called.”
Outraged, Man-Shik spluttered, “I am a high wizard!”
“I don’t know what to tell you, man, he apparently knows more than one high wizard.You should have left a name, at least.I told you, without a number, he doesn’t really call people back.”
Man-Shik turned so red in the face he started changing colors like a chameleon high on weed.He looked on the verge of bursting an artery or three.
Ross eyed around him furtively, trying to find the door.The main cargo door looked closed, and he didn’t see an obvious gear box for it.He’d make a break for it if he thought he stood a chance of getting outside, but that wand changed things.It was like standing around with a loaded gun.
Only worse, because a gun could only shoot you.With a wand, there were endless possibilities.
“Well.Glenn had best think hard and remember.”Man-Shik shook hard enough that he seemed to vibrate in his own skin, his eyes not quite sane.“Otherwise there will be no one to rescue you.”
“So, I’m bait?I kinda figured.”
“You’d do well to remember your role and wait quietly,” Man-Shik advised all snootily.
If Mr.Full-of-Himself thought Ross was just going to lie about, waiting on a rescue, he was sadly mistaken.
Incident 6: Wizards Gone Wild
Ross longed for his bitch cave.It was his happy place, where he could wear comfy pajamas, consume alcohol, and have no interaction with shifty, rude, mannerless high wizards who thought kidnapping people was a perfectly sound method of resolving disputes.
No, seriously, kidnapping Ross?Extremely poor life decision.Weren’t high wizards supposed to be smart?Was it too much to ask that Man-Shik aim for above criminally stupid?
This was obviously not the man’s lair.Ross took in the new hangar bay as he was marched through it, noting the lack of anything airplane still inside.It had been in use at some point—he saw stacks of boxes here and there, the traces of treads on the cement floor—but it clearly wasn’t in use now.Why a hangar bay, of all places?To make it harder for Glenn to find him?
Unfortunately, it might just be effective.
Man-Shik followed Hairy, the henchman with the still bleeding nose, and oversaw Ross being thrown into a room.Ross went quietly.There was no point in wasting strength fighting.The wand still in Man-Shik’s hand was a pretty good deterrent.
It wasn’t much of a room, really.A single twin bed made up with bland sheets and a blue blanket and nothing else.Ross went in, then immediately turned.The idea of leaving his back to Man-Shik creeped him right the hell out.Just, no.
“Look, before you leave me in here, can you at least explain what Glenn did?Or didn’t do?All I got from your phone call was that he broke some kind of oath with you.”
“He failed to give me what was promised!”Man-Shik snapped, lip curled to reveal his stained yellow teeth.He seemed all too eager to have a new listening ear, as he immediately expounded, “I have waited over a century now for him to fulfill the terms of the bargain.I gave him the assistance he needed to travel to the Americas—”
Ross blinked.Huh, come to think of it, he’d never heard the story of how everyone had immigrated over here.Man-Shik had helped them with that?Wild, just how old was this guy?Because Ross knew the clan had been over here since almost the founding of the country.
