Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection Read online

  A woman screamed from a few hundred feet down the street. The flames were spreading up the man’s leg, despite his best efforts to extinguish them. Victor hesitated for only a second before jumping up and lending his aid.

  “What did you do to me?” The man took a step back from him as he approached, and then immediately dropped to the ground and began rolling from side to side.

  “Nothing,” said Victor. “I mean, I don’t think.”

  “Someone call 911!” The woman screamed from down the street. The man had managed to get the flames out and was still inching backward from Victor.

  “You fucking psycho!”

  “Hey, hey, let’s not jump to conclusions.” Victor held up his hands. “See, I’m just as harmless as I look. I swear."

  He tried to take another step forward toward the man and got the same reaction.

  “He tried to kill me! He tried to light me on fire!”

  Victor cringed as a small crowd of tavern patrons and pedestrians began to coalesce around them. A cop car, lights flashing and siren on, pulled up to the scene. Victor sighed and held his hands up.

  What the hell just happened?

  CHAPTER 3

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

  Victor stared at the shiny hood of the police car as the cuffs went on. He blinked, and tried to focus on what was happening.

  “I thought that was just something out of the movies,” he said, still dumbfounded. “I didn’t realize you said that in real life.”

  The police officer, a short woman, was actually somewhat attractive. She was on the plumper side of voluptuous, and had listened to Victor and the other man’s stories before coming to a decision on what to do.

  I told her the truth. I don’t know what the hell happened.

  Unfortunately, she was now searching Victor for weapons with rough, unforgiving movements. A couple of people were still watching, including the supposed victim.

  “He tried to kill me, and before that, he was sexually harassing my girlfriend!”

  “That’s… well, it’s an exaggeration, at the least,” replied Victor.

  “Where is it?” asked the female officer. “This would go a lot easier if you just cooperated.”

  “Where is what?”

  She pulled on his cuffs so that Victor was fully upright and then turned him around to face her.

  “The lighter.” She locked eyes with him, and Victor tried to take the situation as seriously as everyone else was. “None of the witnesses saw you drop anything, or try to ditch it.”

  Victor started to answer when a blindingly hot headache exploded into his temples. He gritted his teeth and cursed in pain.

  “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” said the cop. Victor chuckled through his pain and forced out a response.

  “Okay, now that’s definitely something you ganked from a movie.”

  The cop looked as though she was about to hit him. Victor regretted his words for only the briefest of instants before red light filled his vision again, and the heat moved out of him.

  The same ringing filled his ears, as though he’d been standing next a powerful speaker crackling with feedback. The cop’s expression looked totally different, and yet still focused on him. She was blushing slightly and waved a dismissive hand at the people watching.

  “Nothing to see here, folks. Head on back to whatever you were doing. I’m taking this one down to the station.”

  She led Victor into the back of the squad car, the lighter apparently forgotten, and closed him in. With a strange urgency, she took her place behind the wheel, started the car up, and began driving down the street.

  “Uh…” Victor felt a strange tension in the car and spoke mainly just to break through it. “What exactly am I being charged with?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” said the officer. Her voice had a suspicious, flirtatious tone to it.

  The cop pulled the car down a one-way street, and then into an alleyway. Victor raised an eyebrow as she killed the engine and the lights and then climbed out. He watched as she walked around to the other back seat door, opened it, and then climbed inside.

  “You’re an interesting fellow,” said the officer. “Clearly, you’re guilty, but it seems a shame that we can’t find some way to work all of this out.”

  Victor stared at the woman blankly.

  I’m reading this situation wrong. I have to be.

  Victor still saw a red glow in his peripheral vision. He opened his mouth to speak, and it spread to the rest of his field of view, flashing as though he’d just put on a pair of colored lens glasses.

  The female police officer inhaled sharply and then licked her lips.

  “You’ve been bad tonight,” she said, her voice soft and filled with lust. “I think you need to be punished.”

  She leaned into him, letting her lips rub across Victor’s cheek. An electric thrill of excitement ran through his body, along with the growing suspicion that he was in a dream.

  “I don’t even know your name,” he said.

  “You can call me Officer Matthews.” The woman ran a hand over his crotch. Victor was instantly hard.

  “Okay, uh, Officer Matthews. I think we might be moving a little fast.”

  Victor didn’t exactly have sexual experience in spades. His escapades stretched a single summer of romance he’d had with Ella, the girl next door. Even just thinking about how it had ended brought back painful memories and emotions.

  His vision flashed brighter red, and the cop let out a sharp gasp, as though Victor had just turned on a vibrator inside of her. She pressed herself against him, rubbing his hardness slowly as she pulled open the buttons of her uniform.

  “Stop resisting,” she whispered.

  I don’t think it’s supposed to sound like that when a cop say those words.

  Victor opened his mouth to object one final time when Officer Matthews managed to pull her breasts free from the confines of her shirt. She was wearing a sports bra that looked fit for an Olympic athlete, but discarded it almost immediately, letting two large, shapely breasts fall into view. Despite himself, Victor began to stare.

  “Do you like what you see?” Officer Mathew cupped one arm under her bosom, framing them as though posing for an erotic picture.

  Victor nodded slowly, feeling his cock staging a coup.

  It’s not really like I can stop her anyway. I’m handcuffed. Better to have fun now and sort it all out later.

  “Can you uncuff me so that we can do this properly?” he asked.

  Officer Matthews laughed and pushed her breasts in his face.

  “Oh, now you know I can’t do that.” Her perfume smelled rugged, with a hint of cinnamon mixed in.

  She let her hands run down Victor’s chest and stomach, pausing for a second before unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans. Victor’s cock strained against his boxers, and she pulled those down, too. His cock was painfully hard. Officer Matthews looked at him with playful seduction in her eyes as she wrapped a firm hand around it.

  “Oh.” Victor felt a smile creeping onto his face. “That feels nice.”

  For a moment, he became paranoid that someone might walk down the alleyway and peer into the car through one of the windows.

  She’s a cop, and we’re in her squad car. I think that gives us impunity.

  “Mmmm,” moaned Officer Matthews. “You’ve been a bad, bad boy.”

  She stroked Victor off slowly, kneading his stiff cock with her soft fingers. Victor felt more aroused than he ever remembered being, to the point where it was impossible to think about anything other than cumming. His issues and his pain were forgotten, outside of the issue of his erection, and the pain of its hardness.

  “Oh yeah,” he whispered.

  Officer Matthews ran a hand across her hair, still pulled back into a ponytail, and then leaned forward. She paused to flash him a temptress�
�s smile before pressing her soft, luscious lips against the head of his cock and giving it a kiss.

  “Oh wow!” Victor’s hips bucked up of their own accord, pushing the tip of his erection into the warm, wet confines of her mouth. Officer Matthews pushed him back into a flattened sitting position and shot him an authoritative look.

  “Easy there. Don’t forget who is in control, here.”

  Victor opened his mouth to respond and saw his vision flash red. Officer Matthews responded as though she was an actor who’d just received encouragement from her director. She dropped her lips down onto Victor’s cock and began sucking him off with gentle intensity and focus.

  Victor shook his head slowly, unable to think straight through the pleasure, but at the same time sure that he needed to try.

  I’m doing something to her, without meaning to. The pain, the hot flashes, they fade out whenever I see red.

  He felt Officer Matthews swirling her tongue against the bottom side of his hard, sensitive shaft and let out a moan. She pulled her mouth off his cock, making a small popping noise as her lips broke the seal, and then began pleasuring it with long, sensual licks, from the base to the tip.

  “Mmmmm.” She paused for a second and smiled at him before pulling her breasts into position on either side of Victor’s erection.

  They were big, soft, and gratuitously satisfying. Victor felt a different kind of pleasure wave through his cock as Officer Matthews squeezed and stroked him off with her cleavage. She brought her lips down so that she was suckling on the head of it and began to bounce against him, her boobs pleasuring him and offering visual eye candy at the same time.

  “Whoa…” Victor shook his head. It was too much. “Hold on, I’m about to—”

  Three things happened at once. Officer Matthews sucked hard and gave the tip of his cock a soft lick. Somebody knocked on the car’s backseat window, from outside. And Victor lost control.

  The door pulled open as he began to cum. Officer Matthews turned her head to look at the interruption, and Victor’s hot, sticky load blasted against her cheeks and chest. Semen spurted onto her lips, dribbled down her chin, and defiled her breasts. More of it splashed out than Victor had ever been able to produce before, double or triple as much, at least, but his attention was elsewhere.

  “Get out of the car.” A new voice, female, even toned, and professional, spilled into the car. Victor could only see the silhouette of the woman in the darkness of the alleyway. He looked from her to Officer Matthews.

  “What?” She shook her head. “This man is under arrest!”

  “I’ll take it from here,” said the woman. “You should go home, take a shower, and forget about this.”

  Officer Matthews scrambled to wipe herself clean and cover her breasts. Victor inched his way out of the car and then waited as a familiar looking woman reached inside and took the keys to his handcuffs from the cop.

  Wait a second. It’s her.

  Lucy Wilson, his father’s former assistant and the woman in the photo, turned to face him with a smile on her face.

  “Looks like I arrived just in time.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Victor stared at her with a surprised and somewhat stupid expression on her face as he made himself decent. She looked older than her younger self in the photo, but not by much, even though by now she was in her early thirties. Her blonde hair was tied back into a neat ponytail, and she watched him with suspicious eyes.

  “You’re going to tell me your name, how you came into possession of the nanites, and everything else I need to know. Understood?”

  Victor blinked. Lucy had her arms folded across her chest. She was wearing a gray woman’s blazer over a tight white blouse with a matching gray pencil skirt. She had ample breasts, toned legs, and hips that had the perfect amount of curve to them.

  “What are you talking about? Don’t you—”

  He started to take a step toward her. A pistol appeared in Lucy’s hand, aimed at him. Even in the darkness of the alleyway, he could see the grave expression on her face.

  Officer Matthew’s car roared to life and rolled down and out through the alley’s other side. Victor held up his hands passively.

  “I’m not messing around,” said Lucy. “Give me the answers to my questions and we’ll go from there.”

  “Lucy.” Victor almost felt like he was rattling off a code word. “Your name is Lucy. I remember you.”

  “Who are you?” The gun didn’t waver in Lucy’s hand.

  “I’m Victor Anders,” said Victor. “John Anders was my father.”

  The alleyway went silent, the kind of silent that’s rare and unnerving in a big city. Slowly, Lucy lowered the gun.

  “Victor…” she said, softly. “Oh my god.”

  She took a step closer to him, and it was Victor’s turn to put his guard up.

  “I’ve only been in the city for a couple of hours. How’d you find me?”

  “I didn’t know it was you. The police call us whenever they encounter any unusual suspects or run into a crime scene that they can’t explain.”

  “Us?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “Monteiro Corporation. Your father’s old company. I still work for them, Victor.”

  Victor felt a flare of anger in his chest, along with a spike of suspicion. He remembered back when his father still worked at Monteiro. He remembered how his father, as a co-founder of the company, had been manipulated into giving up his shares and then ousted. He remembered the path it had set his dad on, the way his obsession into nanotechnology had darkened and deepened in the years after.

  “I’m only here to figure out what’s wrong with me,” said Victor. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  Lucy didn’t say anything for several long seconds. Victor remembered her well enough, too. She’d always been kind to him. As his father’s assistant, she’d taken on responsibilities that ranged from helping with secretarial duties, to picking up Victor from school, babysitting him, or making him dinner.

  “I’m sorry Victor,” she said. “But I didn’t come here to give you a choice.”

  She pulled a different weapon out of her blazer, a smaller one that sparked to life in the manner of a stun gun.

  “You don’t want me to have to use this one you.” Lucy’s mouth turned up into a faintly sad smile. “It’s designed to do drop anyone with a single touch.”

  Victor let out a long breath. The Lucy that he remembered had been an entirely different woman. He’d been an only child growing up in a motherless household, and for the last few years of his father’s employment at Monteiro, Lucy had been like a caring older sister to him.

  Maybe she hasn’t changed. Maybe I just didn’t know the real her. She was working with my father back then, after all.

  “Fine.” Victor nodded slowly. “I’ll go with you.”

  Lucy watched him for a second more, and then gestured for him to walk in front of her.

  “My car is parked on the street to the right of the alley,” she said. “The doors are unlocked. Get into the passenger seat. And please, don’t try anything.”

  A painful hot flash spiked into Victor’s temples and he gritted his teeth. For a second, he did consider making a move, trying to use his strange new ability to do the same thing to Lucy that he did Officer Matthews by accident. He decided against it.

  She’s the only one who can help me, even if her motives are suspect. And she’s probably still got something up her sleeve.

  He walked out of the alleyway and toward Lucy’s red sedan, pausing to look back at her before climbing in. Lucy got into the driver’s seat, buckled her seat belt, and then wordlessly started the car up. She pulled onto the road and began driving in the direction of the tall buildings in the distance. Neither of them said anything for a minute.

  “What happened to your father, Victor?” Lucy asked the question while keeping her eyes on the road, but her tone of voice told him just as much as her eyes and facial expression would hav
e.

  She cared for him.

  “He’s dead,” said Victor.

  “How did it happen?”

  Victor closed his eyes, remembering the fire, and the intensity of both it and his own anger. The image faded into static after a moment, like an old fashioned TV losing a station’s signal.

  “Does it matter?” The question came out harsh and blunt, more than he’d intended.

  Lucy went quiet for a minute.

  “I guess not,” she finally said. “…And the nanites?”

  “The what?”

  “The nanites,” she said. “Nanotechnology that we develop at Monteiro Corp. Your father was the brainchild of them, and of nano auras in general. It’s what’s behind the strangeness you’ve probably been experiencing over the past few days.”

  “Oh,” said Victor. “I guess that explains it.”

  “How did you end up with them, Victor? Your father must have continued his research, but it’s hard for me to believe that he’d give them to you, unless…”

  She trailed off, but Victor knew what she was going to say.

  “He didn’t give them to me. I found them after he died. Decided to see what they’d do.”

  And now I get to find out if Lucy is any good on picking up on little white lies.

  To her credit, Lucy did shoot a curious glance in his direction. But she didn’t call him on his flimsy explanation, and as far as Victor was concerned, it was for the best.

  “You didn’t keep in touch with my father after he split from the company, did you?”

  Lucy sighed, the sound of it wavering slightly as it left her.

  “No. It’s been ten years since I last talked to John, or heard anything from him.” She shook her head and squeezed the steering wheel a little more tightly. “I’d given up hope of ever seeing him again. I guess it was the right thing to do.”

  A twinge of guilt stabbed into Victor’s stomach. He looked over at Lucy and felt an urge to comfort her, to say something about how his father talked about her often, about how he missed her. It would have all been lies, however, and to that felt crueler to Victor than to stay silent.

  I’m not here to give her closure. I’m here to get fixed.