She didn’t remove the hand. What girl wouldn’t remove her hand when the guy said something like that?
Instead she answered, “Who is it, then?”
“My wife,” he said.
“But you’re not married.”
Now, at last, he took her by the wrist. He couldn’t understand why he felt so reluctant to move her hand away. Or why, in the moment that he took her wrist, what he really wanted to do, what he almost did, was move her hand lower, to a place that was already eager to welcome her touch.
But he didn’t do it. He pushed her hand away, more roughly than he originally meant to, because it was so hard to do it at all. “I’m not married,” he said. “That’s the point.” And then he walked away. Which wasn’t all that easy. He needed to reach a hand inside his crotch to readjust himself, and couldn’t really do that in a crowded corridor.
Instead he ducked into an empty classroom and, not caring whether she followed him and found an empty room, gated himself to the spot on the hill where he and his friends regularly met.
And there they were.
“Well, hello,” said Laurette. “Where were you all day?”
“And what’s her name?” asked Sin.
“Whose name?” asked Xena.
Sin just rolled her eyes, looking at his bulging jeans, and laughed. Xena looked, too, and laughed.
Danny sat down at once. “You guys are twisted,” he said.
“Name,” said Sin. “Say who, or we’ll cut it off.”
“I was walking through the halls at school,” said Danny.
“Always a dangerous place,” said Hal, who clearly had no idea what they were talking about.
“When I ran into Nicki Lieder,” said Danny.
“Apparently very slowly,” said Sin.
“The coach’s daughter?” said Wheeler. “What about her?”
“She’s kind of a nothing person,” said Hal. “She never seems connected to anything.”
“She was at the point of death when she suddenly got better,” said Laurette. “Maybe it takes a while to rejoin the world.”
“She’s all for joining Danny, apparently,” said Sin.
He closed his eyes. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.” And, to forestall Sin’s inevitable lurid assumptions, he told them what had happened. And what it meant. War.
Everyone in the Families understood that Danny had made all the gates that anyone had used; everyone knew that if they offended him, Danny could gate anyone to anywhere.
That had always been true of any war that involved gatemages. “We’re like kickers in football,” Danny said to his friends. “We wear the uniform, but we’re not really part of the team. We play a completely different game.”
“Just beware of roughing the kicker,” said Hal.
“Do you even know what ‘roughing the kicker’ means?” asked Laurette.
“Just because I look like a goal post doesn’t mean I don’t understand the game,” said Hal.
Pat was the one who moved the discussion to a practical level. “How can you even think about high school when you know that the whole world is about to change?”
“I can’t,” said Danny. “But it’s the only thing I can think of to do. If I go to the Family, they’ll be all about how I can move the enemy mages all over the place, which I’m not going to do.”
“Why not?” asked Sin. “I mean, they’re your family.”
“I kind of thought you guys were my family,” said Danny. “You didn’t spend my whole childhood despising me and threatening to kill me if I couldn’t raise a clant.”
“The question isn’t whether you want to fight in a war,” said Wheeler. “It’s going to happen, and it’s going to involve you.”
“Why?” asked Xena. “Why does he have to get involved? Why can’t he just study for the SAT like everybody else?”
“First,” said Hal, “Danny doesn’t study for anything, ever.”
They all nodded their agreement.
“I study,” said Danny.
“Like, never,” said Laurette.
“I studied. When I was home schooled,” said Danny. “High school just hasn’t caught up to what I already learned.”
“Second,” said Hal.
“Thus proving that Hal can count all the way to two without losing his place,” said Sin.
“Second, and this is the actual point: When people start getting hurt, Danny’s going to get involved. Because he’s the only combat medical officer in the whole war.”
Danny remembered how carefully the family always avoided discussing why casualties had been so much higher in the wars since 632 A.D. Everyone’s powers were reduced, but there were no gatemages to heal people. Now there was Danny. And the North Family undoubtedly expected that Danny would use his healing gates only for the good-guy team.
“That’s why I don’t want to talk to my family about anything,” said Danny. “Because sooner or later they’re going to catch on that I intend to use gates to heal everybody.”
“On both sides,” said Pat, as if to make sure he really meant it.
“On all three sides,” said Danny. “Because whenever there’s a war among the gods, they end up using drowthers as surrogates. Mage-to-mage combat is rare and potentially destructive. So they’re going to get the Danae to come attack the Trojans.”
“‘Danae’ is what the Greeks in the Iliad called each other,” Wheeler explained to Xena.
“And where did you learn that?” asked Xena.
“From a role-playing game in fourth grade,” said Wheeler.
“I’m so tired I could die,” said Danny. “That’s one thing that passing through a gate doesn’t fix. I’m fit, I could run for miles right now and hardly feel it, but my brain needs to sleep. I think if I did run I’d fall asleep doing it.”
“What do you think these guys will do now that they’re, like, really powerful?” asked Wheeler.
“Is this going to be like NASCAR, Wheels?” asked Hal. “Are you going to pick your favorite Family and root for them in the wizard war finals?”
“My whole life, when I wanted a taste of something magical, I had to play a videogame or roll a bunch of dice in an RPG,” said Wheeler. “But Danny’s given us rides around the world. Or at least to places around here, but instantly. And that was cool, don’t get me wrong. But that’s, like, a transportation spell. Very convenient, but I want to see some really major combat spells.”
“There are no ‘spells,’” said Danny. “Just persuasion.”
“Yeah, well, I want to see a windmage persuade him a tornado,” said Wheeler. “And clants. I want to see a stonemage turn stone into a walking monster, like the Incredible Hulk.”
“A tornado’s a terrible thing no matter how it comes into existence,” said Danny. “And your stone clant isn’t going to care who it tramples.”
“I know that,” said Wheeler. “And I deplore it, abhor it, I roar it-”
“As you bore us,” said Hal.
“And we ignore you,” added Laurette.
“I didn’t make the magic come back into the world,” said Wheeler. “Can I help it if it’s exciting? All those extras in the movies who run screaming from Godzilla or wave like idiots when the aliens come to blow them up in Independence Day-sure, they get squished, they get barbecued, but they were there.”
“You’d buy tickets to anything,” said Sin.
“I would,” said Wheeler. “Once.”
Danny sighed. “I just wanted to go to high school.”
“Why?” said Laurette. “I mean, we’re glad you’re here, but why would anybody in his right mind choose to spend your days like this?”
“Sitting in the woods?” asked Pat.
“Down there in Parry McCluer,” said Laurette.
“Come on, Rette, you’ve got the system sussed,” said Xena. “You’ve got the teachers and the principal eating out of your hand, the office staff loves you, your grades are good, and you’ve got a great body. There is just no reason why you should be allowed to hate high school.”