When I woke up, my entire body felt like a single pulsing bruise.

  My mouth tasted like iron and cigarette butts; my arm throbbed in time with the slow drip of last night’s regrets. Sunlight stabbed through the cracked blinds, slicing the room into strips of filthy beige. I groaned, tried to roll over, and immediately regretted it.

  My left forearm must have been replaced with a hot, angry lump of concrete.

  The phone alarm was going off, the same synthetic bells as always, and it took me three tries to silence it. A crust of dried blood and gauze wrapped my hand, and the fingers had started to puff up like Vienna sausages. I peeled off the tape and inspected the stitches.

  They’d held, sort of.

  Dark threads tugged the wound together, the flesh around them already gone grey-yellow. I washed it in the bathroom, dabbed at the edges with peroxide, and re-wrapped it with paper towels and duct tape. The rest of my outfit smelled like low tide.

  I debated showering, deemed it unskippable, so I did undergo a short shower, and then dressed in my last clean shirt, a white Oxford with a stain on the collar, but it passed for business casual if you didn’t look close.

  Since I didn’t have any really good suits, I took a mostly clean one.

  I slugged down a mug of black coffee, chewed two Advil, and left the apartment. The League Couple were already up, hunched in front of their dual monitors, debating something that sounded like a war crime.

  I gave them a nod, got one in return, and I navigated the stairs with as much dignity as I could muster.

  The car was where I left it, but some asshole had keyed a smiley face into the hood. Fitting, really. The drive to work turned into an hour of slow bleeding and existential dread.

  The building itself screamed money, made of glass, steel, and a three-story waterfall in the atrium that made the air taste like chlorine.

  The parking deck was full, again, so I had to leave the car in the depths of the underground garage, again.

  At least the garage elevator led all the way to the top floor.

  On the twelfth floor, the carpet changed from industrial gray to Lucielle Legal white, with black stripes every ten feet. No one roamed the hallway, its walls lined with abstract art that probably cost more than my car.

  The door to Director Jackson’s office loomed open.

  He sat at a desk the size of a pool table, every inch of it covered with neatly stacked files and gadgets.

  Jackson himself was a big man, tall, built, and so perfectly tanned he looked like he’d been assembled by a team of Italian designers. His hair had silvered at the temples, but a youthful energy still emanated from him.

  He smiled when he saw me, and for a moment, I understood why no one ever complained about him. “Mr. O’Connor,” he said, rising from his chair. “Come in. Sit. Coffee?”

  I nodded, and he poured me a cup from a French press. He pushed it across the desk, then steepled his fingers and looked me over.

  “I see you had an eventful night.”

  I glanced down at the bandaged arm and tried to hide it under the desk. “Workplace injury,” I said. “Hazard of the field.”

  He laughed, voice deep. “I suspected as much. But to the matter at hand. A VIP, the global head of interventions, is visiting our lovely branch today. By the corporate protocols, the VIP must be picked up at the airport by a member of her service line, and you are the only member we have.”

  The global head of interventions… he had to be a high-level mage. I planned to quit, but a chance to talk to a top-tier mage could help me a lot with stat allocation and build planning. And I could quit in the afternoon, anyway.

  Director Jackson reached into a drawer and pulled out a small, black envelope and put it on the table in front of me. “Now, to represent our branch requires certain resources which you obviously do not have. While my assistant still isn’t back with the new suit I sent her to get for you, this envelope contains keys to your new company car, parked on the deck, and a company debit card. There’s a hundred thousand dollars on it, which should cover all the expenses of the visit.”

  I opened the envelope, and found in it car keys and a credit card. The keys had the Mercedes symbol on them, but the card hit like a truck.

  A simple black card with Lucielle Legal written in white on the face, and nothing on its back. I had seen a card like this, and it was a reason I applied to a position at this corporation in the first place.

  My mother never worked here, but I did find a card just like this at our home. I inferred that it had to have belonged to my father, so my father must have once worked here.

  The font, the weight, the style, everything matched perfectly.

  “I understand it’s a lot to take in,” the director said, tone warm and friendly, “But life often puts in front of us challenges that we simply must rise up to.”

  I nodded, trying to process the whole thing. “Is there anything I need to know about the VIP?”

  “Yes. The VIP is a woman in her forties, her name is Isabella Maria di Castilla, and she will arrive in her jet at the coordinates from the note in the envelope. I have never met her in person, but from what I have heard in watercooler talk at the C-level, she is rather eccentric, and she must absolutely not be called or referred to as chihuahua.”

  Isabella Maria di Castilla…. IMDC. Adrenaline flooded my veins, all pain and tiredness, and doubts gone. This was the person on the other side of the email who communicated with me. “I’ll be fine.” I got up and pocketed the envelope. “And I don’t need the suit.”

  Director Jackson raised an eyebrow, but smiled at the same time. “That is encouraging to hear. Should I take it that you have spoken before?”

  “We have been in contact. Thanks.” I almost ran out of the office.

  The walk back to the lobby felt different. Every step was lighter, like the ground itself had shifted under me.

  I could barely stop myself from running.

  In the parking lot, the new Mercedes was easy to spot. Jet black, spotless, and almost comically out of place among the Civics and Subarus.

  I got in, adjusted the seat, and stared at the dashboard. The interior was all leather and brushed metal, the kind of car that made one feel like he’d finally made it, even if he were bleeding through the sleeve.

  I started the engine, and it came on with a smooth, deep purr, like a cat who’d just eaten the neighbor’s pet. The touch screen lit up with my name, and a little notification flashed: “Welcome, Peter.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I snorted and pulled out of the lot, careful not to hit any of the other cars on the way out.

  On the street, I realized I forgot to put in the coordinates, so I stopped by the pavement, fished the note, and entered the GPS coordinates into the car’s navigation.

  The drive towards the destination was easy. The Mercedes practically did the thinking for me, gliding over potholes and accelerating with the faintest touch of the pedal.

  I played with the buttons, found the heated seats, the autopilot, and the fancy sunroof. It was better than anything I’d ever owned, or ever would own. I probably shouldn’t have gotten too attached.

  Nah, I was going to keep this one.

  The navigation took me off the main road, then off the side road, then onto a dirt road, and then into a patch of forest in the middle of absolute nowhere.

  No way an airport hid in here.

  The forest turned out to be shallow, and I drove on a forest path and stopped at the exact coordinate, at the edge of a large meadow.

  The stitched wound on my arm itched. I flexed my fingers, felt the tug of the skin, and smiled.

  Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for the hero stuff. Maybe I was just another loser with a nice car and a corporate card, driving in circles and waiting for the next assignment to kill me.

  But for the first time in a long time, I felt great.

  I killed the time by scrolling through the System’s skill trees, planning out hypothetical builds, and wondering how much trouble I could get in with a hundred grand and a Mercedes.

  Meh, before picking classes, I had to figure out stats.

  Choosing an allocation from among seven stats should have been infinitely easier than choosing from over a hundred specializations.

  Well, six stats, because endurance was the worst of them, so there was no way I would spec any points into it.

  The roar of plane engines interrupted me, and I looked up through the windshield.

  The sun dimmed. A fighter jet was descending into the clearing. My jaw dropped. From below, it looked like a mixture of an F-35 and a B-52 bomber. I had no idea how it was descending, as its engines were pointing straight backwards.

  I blinked and pinched myself, but nothing changed. Mother of God…

  I got out of the car and watched it descend.

  The fighter jet landed on the meadow and powered down.

  Its cockpit opened, and Isabella jumped out.

  Everyone I’d met in the secret societies, so far, had looked normal. They worked in corporations, wore regular suits and dresses, and were indistinguishable from other corporate employees.

  Isabella Maria di Castilla seemed to be in her late twenties, wore a black blazer and pants, a white blouse, and high designer heels. A large wooden cross hung around her neck, and instead of a belt, she had a rusty chain that clanked as she landed.

  Her face looked young, with absurdly long hair that flowed down to her ankles, and her tanned skin made her bright blue eyes practically glow.

  But it wasn’t just the look. The air around her felt oppressive, as if every molecule suddenly weighed a pound.

  She jumped down from the jet and waved at it.

  A side compartment opened, revealing her luggage. She opened her mouth, and about forty words shot out in two seconds.

  Was that… Spanish?

  I just stared blankly at her, so she tried English. “I guess the little shits in IT put an auto-translate on the emails already.”

  Little shits? Even in heels, she was at least a foot shorter than I, and she had a very petite frame, so she looked even smaller. No way she measured five feet without heels. “Errr… I guess,” I stammered in my native English.

  “Take my luggage and load it into the car. We’re going to check out the gate.”

  Tiny and snappy.

  Chihuahua.

  I walked over to the jet and pulled out two heavy suitcases.

  Isabella stood next to the car, glaring at me. “Could you move any slower? You’re so fast that I’m getting dizzy.”

  Heat rose to my cheeks, and I picked up the pace. I brought the suitcases, ignoring the pain shooting through my left arm, set them next to the car, unlocked it with the key in my pocket, and popped the trunk. It slowly started opening by itself.

  “This car suits you perfectly,” Isabella noted. “If the trunk opened any slower, it’d travel back in time.”

  I loaded the suitcases, let the trunk close itself, and got in behind the wheel. Isabella had already taken the passenger seat. When I got in, she was tapping her fingers impatiently on the door.

  I buckled up and started the engine. The car started beeping, as Isabella didn’t have her seat belt on. I glanced at her, and the look she gave me convinced me to keep my mouth shut.

  I shifted into gear and started driving. Slowly and carefully, because the forest path ahead looked even narrower.

  “Watch out!” Isabella shouted. “There’s a snail passing you on the right! Careful, so it doesn’t scratch the paint.”

  I blushed even more. But I was not breaking the Mercedes.

  “Stop.”

  I slammed the brakes.

  Isabella pointed at my door. “Out.”

  I unbuckled, opened the door, and got out. Isabella slid over from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat, buckling an empty seatbelt along the way, then sat down properly. She slammed the door in my face.

  I hurried around the car and opened the passenger door just as she started the engine.

  She shifted into gear. I jumped in and shut the door right as she started moving.

  “There you go. Turns out you can move fast,” Isabella said smugly and slammed the accelerator.

  The car rocketed forward, and the G-force pinned me to the seat.

  We burst out of the forest onto the road, Isabella laughing wildly. Before I even realized what was happening, we were going ninety miles per hour on a dirt road.

  The car was registered under my name at the company, so the tickets would come to me. But that was tomorrow’s problem.

  First, I had to survive today.

  And Isabella was only speeding up.

  She missed a turn, and I wanted to tell her.

  But the words died in my mouth. I opened my lips, and nothing came out.

  I drew a breath, yet couldn’t.

  My lungs burned as I tried to breathe again.

  To no avail.

  The air in the car felt thicker than water. I gasped for air, but got nothing, as if I were drowning in a deep lake.

  Shadow?

  Nothing.

  I turned towards Isabella, opening and closing my mouth uselessly like a carp out of water, desperately trying to get some air.

  She spared me an annoyed glance. “Forgot how to use your lungs?”

  The burn in my lungs had turned into a fire that spread through my veins. Stars danced on the edges of my vision, the entire world dimming.

  Lungs. I had to breathe.

  I pulled on my power. Yesterday, I drained myself, but I got a good night’s sleep, so I had something back in my reserve.

  Normally, I simply pushed the little magical strength I had through my entire body, and somewhat empowered myself through that.

  That wouldn't work now though.

  I had to focus on it more. The system could give me skills and stats, but it didn’t erase what I could do without it.

  Since my ability to see started fading, I closed my eyes, focused all my thoughts on my lungs, and tried to force them to contract with my mind.

  They did. Okay, now expand.

  I drew breath.

  Contract. Expand. Contract. Expand.

  My vision slowly returned, and breathing slowly became natural again.

  Isabella gave no reaction, only just missed another turning.

  Only now, I realized what happened.

  Isabella was a mage so powerful that the power she unconsciously emitted made it impossible for commoners to breathe. Even I, a low-level mage, needed to focus to overcome that.

  I had to ask her about what build she had and why. How she allocated her stats and what skills she prioritized, and how it worked for her.

  But right now, breathing in her presence was all I could achieve.

  Isabella missed about four turns, so we ended up arriving later than if we’d just driven thirty the whole way.

  She didn’t seem bothered. She stopped in front of the warehouse with such a hard slam on the brakes that the seatbelt locked and saved me from hitting the dashboard.

  She leapt out of the car, muttered “Slow-ass junk,” and slammed the door so hard the whole car shook.

  I sat for a few seconds catching my breath, then got out too.

  Finally, open air.

  I drew in a deep breath, life returning to my veins. A ding echoed through my mind, a level up.

  Seriously?

  Well, nice, I guessed. But now, I had to move.

  Isabella was surveying the warehouse, tapping her heel against the ground.

  Yes, yes, she was waiting for me, I got that.

  I walked over to her, once again unsure of what to say. I probably should have apologized, but I’d have to do that after every other breath around her.

  We walked around the gate barrier, her heels clicking on the ground in a perfect rhythm.

  While I approached the warehouse entrance warily, Isabella showed no sign of caution. She stopped at the door and waited for me to open it, probably so as to not get her hands dirty.

  I beeped my access card, pulled the door open, and slowly peeked inside.

  Isabella brushed past me.

  “There could be another monster in there,” I warned.

  “And you forgot your diaper?” Isabella kept walking into the warehouse.

  And… nothing. I followed her. I would’ve walked closer to her, but I didn’t want to get tangled in her flowing hair.

  She went down the stairs, completely ignoring the dead monster, and stopped at the bottom floor, straight in front of the portal.

  I joined her and looked at the portal. It looked just like before, a steel ring filled with an orange glow.

  Isabella shook her head. “Well, fuck me dead.” She stepped toward the portal.

  I stayed put. That felt safer. Much safer.

  She approached the portal and touched it with her hand. The orange glow stopped her like a solid wall. “Come here.”

  Nope. I really didn’t want to. But I forced myself, walked around the dead demon, and reached the portal. I couldn’t feel anything from it now. No sound, no sensation, just the glowing sight.

  “Put your hand through it.”

  I shook my head. “What if I can’t pull it back? What if I lose it?”

  Isabella glanced at me from the corner of her eye and smirked. Her hair turned into chains, which moved of their own accord, wrapped around me, lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and threw me into the portal.