MalloS

The engine purred gently beneath his fingertips, a tiger masquerading as a kitten. At the touch of the throttle it could bound forward, snarling, throwing its occupants back against their cushy leather seats.

Mallos kept the hand-break up and lowered his foot against the throttle, feeling the Lamborghini growl, aching to pounce. This was his last Italian supercar. He was going to make it count.

‘Darling.’ A female voice, concerned and making an effort to curb its usual sharpness, clawed at the edge of his mind. ‘Please stop this.’

There was no stopping this. Not since Mallos had found the moment when he smashed his helicopter into a mountain in the Andes the other week. It was all he could think about, now: how to manipulate that snapshot of a second into the thing he wanted most.

Sperantia’s voice came again, distant beyond the fog of hyperfocus. Mallos dropped the hand-break, gunned the engine and felt the pressure thrust him back into his racing bowl seat as the car leapt forward. It was faster than he remembered, climbing to sixty miles per hour in under six seconds. Within tens seconds he was exceeding a hundred miles per hour. A hundred and twenty. A hundred and forty.

The terrain on either side of him was nothing more than an amber-green blur. Mallos kept his eyes focused on the abandoned stone building at the end of the end of his self-designated track. Spain was full of these disused buildings, many crumbling away at the foundations. They’d come in useful many times over as a way of alleviating stress. Now they were going to help him enact the spell he’d spent he last week drafting obsessively. All he had to do was find the moment.

A hundred and sixty miles per hour.

The building loomed. Mallos took a final breath, holding it, dark eyes fixed on the rapidly nearing stonework. Golden magic sparked at the end of his fingertips, coiled, waiting.

However many millions of euros in overpriced luxury vehicles Mallos smashed up, he never quite got used to the impact. Adrenaline pounded through his veins, appearing to slow everything down. The bonnet of the car crumpled instantly and the chasse screeched in protest. There was a jerking motion and Mallos, who had deliberately not put on his safety belt, was thrown forward towards the windscreen. This was it. The moment. He released the golden sparks, trusting in the pre-prepared spell to save him from being shredded by glass, metal and stone shards.

He hit the ground hard, chest first, but in one piece. Winded, Mallos lay there for couple of seconds, staring at the floor. There were tiny particles of loose grey sediment everywhere, like cement dust. It had billowed him around him when he hit the floor and it clung to his clothes and skin when he did eventually push himself into a kneeling position. He ran a hand through his dark hair, feeling the grey dust dislodge against his fingers. He must’ve looked like he’d aged a hundred years in a few seconds.

The floor wasn’t the only thing which was grey. A cursory glance around showed that nothing was visible except a thick grey mist which was barely distinguishable from the grond. It was like an arctic whiteout except it was more of a greyout. Had he… done it?

Pushing himself up fully onto his feet, Mallos twisted round, hoping to get a glimpse of… something. Anything. A solitary figure was the only break in the monotonous monochrome, standing an indeterminate distance behind him. His heart jumped to his throat, quickening its beat, as he took a couple of steps in the right direction. He was about to say something when the shadowy person called out, voice echoing in the empty abyss. Mallos’ heart dropped line a stone back to his feet. The voice was female.

Not only female, he reflected after a moment, but familiar. A couple more steps rendered the outline more distinct. Mallos rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Oh, it’s you.” He grunted. “I thought you were dead.” There was a pause while he considered his own words, before adding with a spark of hope, “Are you dead?”