Read Mage Catalyst for Free Online

could have been life threatening.”
This wasn’t exactly the answer I was looking for. I looked down at the particles of light pulsing throughout my skin and noticed that they had lessened. Before they were very bright and jittery, but now they were lighter and sluggishly pulsated across my skin.
“You absorbed the worst of my attack,” she commented. “How long you have been a…?”
“I’ve been seeing blue lights all week if that’s what you’re asking,” I answered, holding my head back in my hands. I had a pounding headache again – though that probably had more to do with the concussion.
“A week? One week!” she said.
“Keep your voice down,” I grumbled as her shrill voice rang through my throbbing skull.
“One week,” she finished glumly.
“Is that bad?”
“No, not bad, just unusual, you’re what… seventeen, sixteen?”
    “No, I’m eighteen,” I corrected somewhat defensively.
“I was five when it first happened to me. Fortunately my grandfather was there to tell me what was going on.”
“Your grandfather?”
“Yeah, he’s like us too.”
    I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. There was something she wasn’t telling me. What does that mean?
    “Why did you attack me?” I asked, not quite sure I wanted to know the answer.
“I wasn’t sure what you were doing and our kind don’t normally get along too well.” Her face went dark. “I thought it might have been an attack,” she confessed.
“You thought I was going to attack you?” I pressed, confused.
I’d never been called threatening in my life. It was a complete shock that anyone would consider me dangerous. I didn’t know how to respond.
“I didn’t realise you were simply out of control,” she said sharply, as if in some form of reprimand.
I didn’t have an answer to that either. I wasn’t even sure what it meant. How was I not in control? I wasn’t surprised by the accusation, I’d been accused of being out of control by a string of high school teachers for years.
I was pondering the implications of this when I had a sudden feeling that someone was standing right behind me. I’ve always had a nervous twitch in my shoulders, especially when someone is standing behind me. My nervous shudder was unusually strong this time, causing my whole body to jump, which in turn caused me to shudder in pain as my ribs shrieked in complaint.
The person turned out to be a busboy who just wanted to collect the empties.
“Smooth,” the girl said, once the guy had left. “What’s with the twitch?”
“Always had it,” I replied. “Dunno why.”
“My name is Renee by the way,” she said, offering a handshake across the table.
“Devon,” I replied, flipping her hand over and kissing it lightly. I did this gingerly as every movement on my left side felt like a knife in my ribs.
“Wow! You are a smooth one, aren’t you?” Her eyes softened for the first time since we’d met. The change made a huge difference to her whole face. If I thought she was beautiful when she was mad – well, when she was smiling she was breathtaking.
“It’s a pity you’re not older,” Renee continued.
Renee was twenty-four, had her own apartment in the city and was studying Film Studies at Melbourne University. Her grandfather apparently came in from time to time to check on her, but other than that she was pretty much her own boss. I learnt all this by asking direct questions and receiving very short answers. Renee wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information. She was really making me work for any personal information. I had the feeling that she walked away knowing a lot more about me than I did about her.
I could feel her eyes drilling into me during our conversation. It was like she was taking me apart and learning how I worked – taking my secrets and making them hers. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling as such but it was a little confronting. Most of her questions seemed related to the blue particles