The Price of Power

Chapter 54 Michael faced off with the Brother of the Order of the Black Rose as he shoved his chair out of the way. He could feel the man calling power up around himself, his aura burnt with a dark reddish glare tinged with hints of vile green. “You need to learn some manners, boy.” Brother Timothy grunted. Michael could tell he was the sort of person who liked to wield his authority like a whip on those who had no chance to stand up to him. “You are to come with me; the Order will sort you out in no time.” “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Michael said flatly. Brother Timothy blinked. He was not used to anyone refusing to do his bidding. Michael felt him using his powers, trying to force his will on Michael. He could feel the command to obey bearing down on him like a lead weight. Talia looked on in horrified silence. “You will obey.” Brother Timothy said. He pressed down with his power. No person had ever withstood his talents. It was one of the reasons he was chosen to serve in the Order. He had a talent for getting his way. “You will come with me now.” Michael squirmed. The words seemed to wrap around his mind like a heavy, wet blanket, trying to smother his will. “Please, Brother Timothy!” Talia gasped. She could see the magic as well, though the Brother of the Order had no idea she could. She was afraid he would hurt Michael if Michael fought back. She was afraid, but fighting free of the spells, Michael’s danger jolted her in to active resistance against it. “Shut up bitch!” Brother Timothy snapped angrily at Talia. With his mental power he lashed out at her violently. She screamed in agony as imaginary fires consumed her flesh and fell to the floor in a writhing heap. “That’s it.” Michael snarled as his anger boiled over his restraint. He dropped his mental shields and let the power that flowed through air flow through him. He reveled in its warmth and wrapped it around him like a cloak of bluish white fire. He crushed Brother Timothy’s magics with his own and shoved the shattered energies right back into the Brothers head. “Fuck you, you fat asshole.” Brother Timothy convulsed, wobbled on his feet for but a moment then fell to the floor twitching violently. Blood ran from his eyes and ears as his bladder and bowels let loose and he soiled his robes. His eyes stared vacantly at the floor as soft gurgling noises bubbled up from his mouth, along with a large volume of drool. Michael went around the table and helped Talia up off the floor. “Are you ok?” He asked, even though he could see she was. “Yah,” Talia’s voice shook a little as she got to her feet. “He didn’t really let loose on me. I had my shield up.” At that moment Arthur popped in through a portal that only Michael saw appear and disappear. It was a masterful bit of magic. The old wizard looked down at the Brother of the Order going through his death spasms on the floor with a shocked expression on his craggy face. “Did I come at a bad time?” He asked. “No, this is a perfect time.” Talia said pointing at Brother Timothy. “We need to get him out of here before others of the Order come looking for him.” Michael grunted, but said nothing else. He was feeling a bit winded, he wasn’t used to channeling energy like that and it had cost him. “So what happened to dear Brother Timothy?” Arthur asked, nudging the downed man with the toe of his boot. “Did his fat finally squeeze his brain to jelly?” “Michael did it,” Talia said in tightlipped anger. Her delicate healers senses told her that Brother Timothy was pretty much a meat puppet. “Brother Timothy tried to force Michael to obey him, and he slapped the Brother’s attack right back at him. Timothy fried his own brain.” “The fat fuck started it.” Michael grunted, then added in a small voice. “I didn’t kill him, did I?” “Not to be too blunt,” Talia replied sharply, as she was thinking furiously. Attacking a Brother could get the whole village punished. “Yes, you did kill him. He won’t be breathing long with the amount of brain damage he sustained, and I can‘t fix it. Arthur, can you open a portal under him, so he’ll fall through? I don’t think I can lift him.” “I don’t think the three of us together could lift dear Brother Timothy,” Arthur replied slowly. “Opening a portal under him is brilliant, Talia. I should have thought of that one.” “Drop him deep in the forest.” Talia said. “Do it quick, then you two get out of here.” Talia looked at Michael. He looked a little green. “Are you okay?” She asked. With a barely audible sigh Brother Timothy stopped breathing. “I didn’t mean to kill him.” Michael said weakly. “That is why I have been telling you that you need to learn to control your powers.” Arthur said. “If you had a better understanding of things, of how magic worked,” Arthur waved his wand in a circle around Timothy’s corpse and soon a portal opened up beneath it and it dropped out of sight. “You might not have had to mash poor Timothy’s brains to defeat him. This puts everyone in the village in jeopardy. The Lord only knows what the Brotherhood will do when this slob doesn’t report back…” “Will you train me?” Michael asked Arthur. The old wizard seemed to stoop a little, but he turned and smiled at Michael. “Of course I will.” Chapter 55 Since her public appearance schedule was still light Heather spent a lot of her free time wandering around and exploring the Palace. When Lord Reginald didn’t have her out doing some publicity gig or practicing her British accent she was pretty much on her own. There were still areas of Buckingham Palace that were off limits to her, but those were places Heather wasn’t interested in seeing any way, and during one days wanderings she happened upon Queen Katherine’s old apartments. She knew that they were the Queen’s rooms as there was a large, polished brass plate mounted on the wall outside the doors stating so. The two soldiers standing honor guard on either side of the huge double doors leading in to the apartments had looked surprised but had not tried to stop Heather from going inside. She was the Queen, as far as they were concerned, and she had the right to go anywhere in the Palace she chose. The rooms had been kept up immaculately by the housekeeping staff, no dust and cobwebs like in the Black Tower. The familiarity and the strangeness of being again in her doubles personal space struck Heather hard. She wondered briefly why Lord Reginald had put her in a different set of rooms, but it was not really important. Curious, Heather closed the doors behind her and started snooping around Katherine’s apartment. The first thing Heather noticed was the bits of magical energies that emanated from different spots around the room. The longer she was in this world the more attuned to it she was growing. Subtleties in the patterns of power she might have missed before had become evident to her. Heather had not told anyone about her abilities, not even Reginald, so she really had no one to talk to about it anyway. She studied Queen Katherine’s spells and learned from them. There was an ornate teak desk in one corner of the living room, and there was more spells lain upon it that on any other thing or place in the room. The magic made the desk impossible to open, of course, unless you knew the key. Heather watched the magic carefully, learning the interplay of the energies till she deduced the patterns. The consequences of getting it wrong were lethal, Queen Katherine didn’t mess around. With a word and a gesture Heather was able to open the desk. In the center drawer she found a lot of papers that were of no interest, things having to do with Katherine’s plans for the British Empire. Most of the other drawers yielded up the same sort of things, except for the last drawer on the bottom. Far back on the bottom of th