The Supreme Mage in a Loser's Body

Ch 10 - The Warehouse Debt

Kael folded the cloth around the empty ring and put it in his pocket. He would not get another useful reading by sitting beside the window, and trying would waste the little power his new core contained.

He lay back until he heard movement in the passage. His ribs hurt whenever he turned, but the energy inside him remained steady. For the first time since entering Ethan's body, he did not have to keep holding it in place himself.

Thomas found him sitting on the edge of the bed with his shoes on.

“Where are you going?” his father asked.

“To see Marcus,” Kael replied. “Before the deadline.”

Thomas rested his hand against the doorframe. “Then wait while I get ready,” he said.

Kael looked at his father's left leg. The brace was back in place, but Thomas had needed the wall to reach the room.

“I need you here with Mom and Maya,” Kael said. “Rafe won't be the only person Marcus can send.”

“And who stays with you?” Thomas asked.

Kael could not answer without making a promise his body might not keep. Instead, he held out Ethan's phone with the warehouse address on the screen.

“You'll know where I am,” he replied. “I'm going for the records. We can't keep paying whatever number they choose.”

Elena appeared behind Thomas before he could answer. She had heard enough to take the phone from Kael and read the address herself.

“You were feverish last night,” she said.

“The fever is gone,” Kael replied. “The debt isn't, and they won't leave Maya alone because we stay inside.”

Elena kept the phone for another moment. Then she handed it back and made him wait while she brought his food and medicine. Thomas sat beside him while he ate, going through the payments they could remember.

Some had receipts. Others had been cash handed over when collectors came to the shop. The family account book contained dates and amounts, but no reliable balance from the lender.

Kael photographed those pages before leaving. He took no money beyond what he needed for the journey.

“Call when you arrive,” Elena said at the door. “And answer if I call you.”

“I will,” Kael replied.

Across the street, Evelyn Shaw watched him leave alone. She had spent the remaining hours of the night checking the broken detection coin and finding no ordinary fault that explained it.

Now Ethan Cole was going somewhere with an injured side and a steady pace he had not managed the day before.

She let him get ahead before following. If he had a connection to the Circle of Ash, he might finally lead her to it. Approaching him again would give him another chance to deny everything.

The warehouse stood behind a fenced loading yard. Kael recognized the entrance from Ethan's memories, though those visits had carried more fear than useful detail. He called home outside the gate, then put the phone away before approaching the man beside it.

“Ethan Cole,” Kael said. “Marcus is expecting payment.”

The guard looked him over and made a call. A minute later, he opened the gate without asking to see any money.

Inside, stacked cartons divided the warehouse into long aisles. An office occupied one corner, its window overlooking the main floor. Kael felt the stronger magic beneath the building as soon as he crossed the threshold, but he kept his attention on the two men waiting outside the office.

His new core could sense it. That did not mean he could reach it through concrete or use it in a fight.

Marcus Vale sat behind a desk with a folder open in front of him. He was neatly dressed, with his sleeves rolled above his wrists. Nothing about him suggested he had spent the previous evening worrying about the men Rafe brought back.

“Sit down, Ethan,” Marcus said. “You've made a simple matter expensive.”

Kael took the chair opposite him. The two guards remained near the door.

“Show me what I owe,” he replied.

Marcus turned the folder around. “Two hundred thousand, as you were told,” he said. “Your family signs over its interest in the shop and home. You keep working until the rest is paid.”

Kael read the first page, then lifted it to examine the one beneath.

“We pay rent on the shop,” he said. “You know that.”

“Your tools have value. So does the stock,” Marcus replied. “My people will decide what else can be recovered.”

The next page carried Ethan's signature beneath several paragraphs of conditions. Kael recognized the shape of it from his memories, but the words above it were wrong. A line referred to property that had never been discussed when Ethan took the loan.

As he read farther, his stomach tightened.

A familiar certainty pressed into his thoughts: he had caused this, there was no way out, and agreeing now was the only way to keep his family safe.

Kael stopped reading.

The feeling continued for another moment before weakening. He lowered his gaze toward the bottom corner instead of returning to the text. A small printed mark sat beside the signature, almost hidden in the border.

Magic moved through it whenever his attention passed over the page.

“Read all of it,” Marcus said. “I don't want another argument about what you understood.”

Kael laid his finger beside the mark without touching it. The spell encouraged fear, then attached relief to obeying the document. An ordinary debtor would think the panic was his own.

“These pages were replaced,” Kael said.

Marcus leaned back. “That's your signature,” he replied.

“Copied from the original,” Kael said. He lifted the sheets toward the light. “The old staple holes don't match. The page with the loan amount was attached to something else.”

Marcus's gaze shifted toward the door. Kael set the folder down and kept his hands visible.

“Bring the collection record,” Kael said. “Every payment, including cash.”

“You don't give instructions here,” Marcus replied.

One guard approached the chair from behind. Kael heard his shoe stop beside its rear leg, then felt a hand close on his shoulder.

He released a small amount of power into his legs and right arm. His muscles steadied, but the pain in his ribs remained. He could support the damaged body briefly; he could not pretend it was healed.

Kael caught the guard's wrist and stood close enough to stop him pulling free. He turned the trapped arm across the chair back, forcing the man to bend with it, then drove his knee into the man's thigh. The guard fell against the seat with a cry.

The second man came around the desk with a short baton.

Kael pushed the chair into his path. The man struck at his head over it, and Kael ducked close to the desk, letting the baton hit its edge. He caught the man's sleeve and pulled him forward across the corner.

His injured side protested. The strengthening flow had already taken more than he wanted to spend.

At the office entrance, the gate guard appeared with a gun halfway out of his jacket.

Kael used his one force push immediately.

He directed it at the man's upper body, driving him backward into the doorframe before he could raise the weapon. The gun fell from his hand. Kael kicked it beneath a heavy filing cabinet, then shoved the second guard down beside the desk while the man struggled to breathe.

The first guard tried to stand. Kael took the fallen baton and held it across the man's trapped arm.

“Stay down,” he said.

The guard stopped moving.

Kael's core was empty. He could feel the hollow place where the reserve had been, and his hand began to shake around the baton. He rested it against the chair so Marcus would not see.

All three men were alive. They could describe the orders they had received, and the records in this room could tell him far more than killing them would.

Marcus had risen halfway from his chair. Kael pointed the baton toward the desk.

“Sit,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Marcus obeyed slowly. “Rafe said you did something,” he replied. “I thought he was making excuses.”

Kael drew the marked contract closer with his free hand. There was power stored in its ink, enough to make a frightened borrower accept terms that should have made him walk away.

He touched the small mark and opened the new core to it.

The first trace brought Ethan's remembered panic with it. Kael let the fear pass without following it, separating the stored energy from the command the mark carried. He had done the same with Rafe's ring, but this time there was a place inside him where the reclaimed power could remain.

He took only what the tiny core could hold. It was less than the reserve he had brought here.

Then he dragged the metal tip of the baton through the mark, breaking the connected lines. Its pressure vanished as the remaining magic escaped.

Marcus stared at the damaged page.

“Who makes these?” Kael asked.

“I don't know what you mean,” Marcus replied.

Kael placed Rafe's empty ring beside the folder. “Who gives you the contracts and the rings?” he asked.

Marcus's mouth tightened. He glanced at his guards, but none made an attempt to rise.

“Silas Trent,” he said at last. “He prepares them. I handle collections.”

“And the real account book?” Kael asked.

Marcus hesitated until Kael moved the baton away from the chair.

“Bottom drawer,” he replied. “The blue one.”

Kael made him open it and bring out the book with two fingers. He had Marcus turn to Ethan Cole's account, then pushed the other papers out of reach before examining the entries.

There were two running totals. One recorded the original loan and agreed interest. The other kept adding charges for collection visits, delays, and penalties applied after those new charges went unpaid.

Kael compared the dates with the photographs on his phone. Every payment Thomas had written down appeared here. There were others Ethan remembered making alone, along with cash handed to collectors without a receipt.

He entered the amounts into the calculator and checked them again.

The original loan and its agreed interest had already been paid.

Kael turned the book toward Marcus, keeping one hand firmly on it.

“This entry cleared the original balance,” he said. “Everything after it went toward fees you kept inventing.”

Marcus looked at the page without answering.

“You sent men to our shop after this,” Kael continued. “You took money we needed for food and medicine. Then you sent someone after my sister.”

“Collection costs are part of the agreement,” Marcus replied.

Kael laid the altered contract beside the book. “The agreement you replaced,” he said.

He photographed the account, including the pages on either side so Marcus could not later claim the figures belonged to someone else. Then he sent the images to Thomas with a short message telling him to keep copies.

His father's reply arrived while he was gathering the original book.

Does this mean we already paid it?

Kael stared at those words for a moment before answering.

Yes. The original loan and interest. I'm bringing the record.

Outside the loading yard, Evelyn remained behind a parked delivery vehicle. She had heard the struggle but no gunshot. Through the office window, she could see Ethan standing over Marcus's desk with a book in his hand.

Then a man entered the yard from the far side.

He did not stop at the gate or call for a guard. Evelyn lowered her phone enough to watch him cross directly toward the warehouse entrance. She kept recording as he went inside.

Kael heard the approaching footsteps while Marcus was still looking at the damaged contract.

The man who appeared in the office doorway wore a plain gray coat. He stepped around the fallen guard without surprise, but stopped when he saw Kael. His gaze moved from Ethan's face to the space below his chest, then returned to his eyes.

Marcus pushed his chair back.

“Silas, he took the book,” Marcus said. “He broke your mark.”

Silas ignored him. Kael felt the little power in his core stir as the man's attention settled on him.

“That soul doesn't belong in Ethan Cole's body,” Silas said.