Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Skulduggery

It took longer to return to camp than it did to walk out to the cabin. The reason for that was the fish they were holding.

Toby had convinced Norman that it was in their best interest to hide what occurred today from Anna. Norman hated to agree with Toby, but he knew Toby was right. As for how they caught the fish, well let's just say Toby was down a dozen more bullets for the three fish they were carrying and leave it at that.

The oversized fire was the first thing Norman saw as they neared the campsite. Toby must have thought something was wrong as he sprinted the remaining distance. Norman kept pace with the man but didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary until he heard Anna’s deranged chuckling.

“You think you can defeat me!” Anna giggled malevolently, “but now you BURN!”

As the two burst into the clearing, Anna squeaked in surprise. “Gah! You scared me.” Anna put a hand on her chest, “next time call out or something before barging out of the woods like a couple of crazies.”

“What?” Toby asked, looking around the clearing in confusion. “What were you screaming about?”

Anna’s face turned beet red in embarrassment, “Uh, nothing. Just bored is all.”

Norman glanced at the massive fire Anna had going in the little fire pit. He was pretty sure the girl had been screaming at the wood. Or more accurately the massive log she somehow managed to drag into the fire pit from the nearby forest.

Toby rubbed his temples. “Why did you make such a large fire? You know what, never mind, I don’t want to know. It'll take hours to burn down before we can even use it to cook with.”

Anna deflected the question by asking one of her own. “Toby, what happened to your hand?” Anna started to approach to take a look at his wound.

Toby waved her off. “It’s nothing, just hooked it while fishing. See, not even any blood.” Toby turned the hand for her to see.

Anna glared at Toby, “Well there’s a medical kit in the van. Get that filthy rag off it and get the wound cleaned.”

“Yes, Mother,” Toby drawled as he walked toward the van.

Norman was impressed with how the girl had completely turned the conversation around on Toby. Then again, knowing Toby as he did now, it was likely Toby had allowed it to happen so he didn’t have to get into a shouting match with his sister.

“Oh, is that our supper?” Anna looked at the fish Norman was carrying, then frowned. “Why do they have bullet holes in them?”

Norman shrugged. “The fishing was harder than we thought.”

“Ok… Well, I’m not cleaning them.” She crossed her arms and glared at Norman, daring him to argue with her.

“Oh, uh… I guess I can clean them.” Norman walked over to a nearby picnic table and plopped the fish down on it.

Norman paused after pulling out his trusty pocket knife. It was still covered in dried rycor blood. Stuffing it back in his shorts for later cleaning, he turned to Anna. “You don’t happen to have a filet knife do you?”

She shook her head. “No, but I got this.” She pulled out a six-inch switchblade and handed it to Norman. “You best clean it well afterward. I don’t want to walk around smelling like fish guts.”

Norman smiled and gave her a faux serious salute. “Yes, Mam!”

That earned an eye roll and a giggle from the girl.

Norman smiled as he cut into the fish.

It was good to blow off some steam and relieve some of the stress of the last few days. Lord knows the entire group needed it. Toby had been a ball of tension since the day they left. And that was only exacerbated by his waking up and finding out that he died. And there was tension between him and Toby due to Toby’s poor judgment.

Anna, well, she was being Anna. She seemed less affected by having to flee from a gang of criminals than Norman would have imagined. The only thing she seemed concerned about was Toby’s health.

As for Norman, he was taking it as well as he could. It was surprisingly less stressful than he thought it would be. He was beginning to suspect his state of mind was a side effect of the powder. Normal Norman would have been stressing out to the point where he just said fuck it and left. When times got tough, Norman usually bailed. It was what he did when he was with the scavengers and they were attacked by the Jorik.

It was safe to say that Norman didn’t handle stressful situations well. But there was also the rycor attack. When Norman thought back on that day, he had just acted. He had attributed it to survival instinct at the time but he was starting to doubt that assumption now.

Now that he had time to just think about it and wasn’t self-medicated, he noticed other things were changing about him as well. His ability to focus on a single task for more than a few minutes at a time was new. He always struggled with paying attention in school. His teachers said he had ADHD, but Norman didn’t agree with their assessment. He just never found school all that stimulating.

There was also the singular drive he seemed to possess now. Ever since he started doing magic, everything else just seemed arbitrary and meaningless to the point he didn’t realize or ignored what was going on around him.

A cold trickle of fear ran through Norman. What if this all went away and he reverted to his old self when he ran out of powder?

Maybe he should have let Toby take down that jorik. He shook his head. No, Norman didn’t want to go down the path of senseless slaughter just to sate a need he might not even have. Besides, going around killing was a good way to get killed yourself.

Eventually, he finished fileting the fish. He was no master chef, and the straight blade didn’t help with the process but he got it done. It looked like shit but it was better than canned food again.

When Norman looked up, he saw Anna giggling quietly and poking the fire with a stick. He decided not to interrupt as he looked for something to set the fish on. They didn’t have any pans, but Norman found some tin foil. He added some seasoning to the fish, wrapped them in foil, and stuck them as close to the fire as he could get without lighting his hair on fire.

“And now we wait.”

“I’m bored,” Anna complained as she stepped away from the fire.

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“Oh, I got something you could do.” He realized by the mischievous grin that formed on the girl's face, that he probably should have phrased that better. “Don’t make me spray you with water like some unruly cat.”

“Ugh, fine. You’re no fun.”

“Uh, huh. Anyway.” Norman unclipped one of the Orb of Decay skulls from his belt and handed it to Anna.

Anna examined the skull, “what’s this?”

“That, my dear, is a stored spell.” Norman glanced around but Toby was still hiding in the van. “It’s sort of like the necklace I gave you, but it’s a different spell. It’s called Orb of Decay.

“Ooh… what’s it do?”

“Well, that’s what you’re about to find out. I want to see if other people can activate it.”

Norman cleaned off the knife, using a rag soaked in vodka. Yup, they had taken all the liquor from the mansion as well.

Norman handed her the cleaned knife back. Just add a drop of your blood against the skull and throw it towards the woodline over there. Norman pointed away from the van and all their stuff.

“It won’t hurt me will it?”

Norman shook his head. “No, although you might feel a bit tired afterward.”

That seemed to be enough reassurance for the girl as she poked the tip of her finger with the sharp knife. She didn’t even wince from the pain. She glanced once more toward Norman before she touched the blood to the skull.

Norman had to catch her as she started to wobble and almost fall over. “Shit! You okay?”

She nodded, “Yeah, I just wasn’t prepared.”

He helped her to stand as Anna weakly tossed the pulsing skull toward the woodline. Everything from there was the same as his previous tests. Norman smiled and clapped Anna on the back.

“How’s it feel to do your first magic?”

Instead of answering, Anna embraced Norman in a tight hug. Norman locked up, not sure of what to do. He was uncomfortably aware of Anna’s breasts pressing up against his chest. When had she grown breasts? Thankfully, the creaking of the van got Anna to release him and hurry back toward the fire.

Soon Toby stepped out. His hand was now wrapped in clean gauze. The man looked troubled but he went to sit at the table in silence. Norman left him to it as he walked toward the woods.

There was another test to perform, and while Norman was loath to drain his reserve of energy, he needed to know.

He quickly walked past the area where Anna’s skull had landed and he made sure to rough up the spot with his foot in case Toby got curious. At the moment, the man was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t even glance in Norman’s direction as he vanished into the trees. Toby would probably figure out what Norman was up to eventually, but he didn’t have to make it easy for him.

Not wanting to be caught off-guard again, Norman activated his bone armor. The cost was already paid for when he made the spell and the spell anchor that he had rattling around in his pocket. So it wouldn’t drain anything from him today. Norman had forgotten that he remade the armor using the discarded bone wall that the rycor had been chewing on. As such it contained all the parts from the wall and not just bones.

He examined the new form the armor had taken as much as he could without a mirror. White tendons wrapped over his hands, forming gloves of pulsing muscle. It would have been terribly disconcerting if it didn’t feel completely natural. It felt like his normal skin when he touched it. And unlike gloves, Norman didn’t suffer any reduction in mobility. It just felt like he had slightly bigger hands. And you know what they say about a man with big hands… A big personality, yup.

Ahem… Back to the armor. The same muscle and tendon-like appearance ran between all of the bone plates. It reminded Norman of those super soldier suits from video games. Only instead of high-tech materials like carbon and Kevlar, it was made from some poor dead asshole. At least Norman was giving the man a second life as it were. And one where he could be a productive member of society.

Norman found a tree that would work for his purposes. Unclipping the orb from his belt, he clipped it to a branch and activated it by poking his thumb with the pocket knife. He really needed to clean the knife.

Then Norman stepped back and waited. He needed to see if the spell would go off after a set amount of time, or if it would just remain active until it touched something. There was another test Norman could perform, now that Toby was undead… but he assumed Toby wouldn’t consent to be used as a weapon test dummy.

It took more time than Norman thought it would for the spell to activate. During this time, Toby must have noticed his absence because Norman heard the man calling for him. There was a slight bit of panic in the man’s tone making Norman feel slightly happy. He would hide those feelings from Toby, and maybe give the man a shrug of indifference when he wandered back.

The spell took around a minute before it finally activated. Norman wasn’t sure of the exact timeframe as he was counting Mississippis in his head since he didn’t have a watch and his phone was dead.

Seeing as the test was a success, Norman removed his armor, unzipped his shorts, and started taking a piss, just before Toby stumbled onto the area.

“Why are you way out here?” the man asked accusatorily.

“What, I can’t take a piss in private?”

“…Well, hurry it up. The food is ready.”

Norman quickly finished up, noticing that Toby hadn’t gone far. It seemed that neither former friend much trusted the other anymore. It was probably for the best. The two had nothing in common, considering everything that Toby had pretended to be was a complete lie. For all Norman knew, Toby wasn’t even his real name.

He wondered how much Anna knew about what her brother had been up to. He hoped she hadn’t been aware of his activities the entire time.