Moral Compass

The Before

Whenever Evie Wicker asked something of him, Seth the tracker had this awful tendency to say yes. Every time. Without question. Let's say, for instance, this included the turning of one's eye to the kidnapping of a Princess— then he was down. Fist to the face or not. So long as his perfect nose wasn't broken at the end of it then Seth could cope. If this meant meddling, he was there, whatever the time whatever the place. And most recently, his one-time only dibble dabble with dark magic.

If Evie needed something from him, then it had to come with a good reason. And even if it didn't, Seth was game.

Like most witches, Seth looked down on that dark magic shit. It came with its own difficulties. Punishments, for example. And Seth simply wasn't for that life. Well, unless the punishment was on his own terms, of course. Spankings were a different story.

Alas, since he wasn't the caster of this particular brand of magic, he'd be immune to the consequences.

Not too shabby.

Amidst a highly official competition, he blasted an enchanted set of doors to kingdom come. A purple haze came out the other end of his blaster. A sky full of diamonds and dolphins, death, life and music, mushrooms and magic shone through the chamber of the tournament.

Then came the darkness.

A green and blue came next. Like a supernova. An explosion of colours. He felt the ripple of the blaster in his hands.

The vampires on the other side of those blasted doors hit the floor in one dramatic bang. And in the nick of time too. They'd been nano seconds away from killing themselves to spare the lives of each other.

Which would've been more entertaining than this.

Pathetic. But Seth got to use a cool gun, so he wasn't complaining.

Daggers clattered to the floor, still clanging when the colours stopped.

What a rush.

No really, if Evie ever needed that done again, Seth was for sure her guy.

"Well I'll be damned," Seth said with a low wolf whistle. "This shit actually works."

He watched the vampires blink, struggling to come back to their senses. The blast had knocked them back a fair bit.

Pity—but so worth it.

Dark magic.

Seth had gotten his hands dirty with dark magic.

Or maybe not his hands.

Seth couldn't invent something of this nature, of course. He was a tracker. And whatever that thing was certainly didn't track. He didn't so much as know what the dark version of his magic would entail. Someone else had made this nifty little blasting gun for him.

My hands are clean.

"What have—" The female vampire, Reagan, started to speak. Only the words died in her throat.

She couldn't breathe. A consequence of this gun throwing her about, no doubt.

"What's this bad boy?" The tracker asked, catching on all the same. "This is my new one-of-a-kind barrier blaster. I call it the shlong-a-tron 3000. I mean would you look at the girth on this thing. I can barely hold it. Wait till you hear how I got it."

"Wha—"

"You wouldn't believe the bull crap day I'm having," Seth pressed, lobbing the weapon aside. Too carelessly. Dark magic was unpredictable. What if that thing malfunctioned? Just hitting the doors it had managed to throw two powerful immortals across the room. If its blast were to hit one of them square in the chest, then there was no denying the fact that they'd die. "Work this, work that. Can't a man just take a five-minute break, y'know?" As Reagan struggled to sit up, Seth looked from her to the other side of the room. To Killian, the other vampire. "Don't worry about the guards. I knocked their furry balls out with silver, specially heated to a permanent 3924 degrees."