The Supreme Mage in a Loser's Body

Ch 6 - The Woman in the Black Car

Kael felt a faint pull of magic from across the street as Daniel wheeled the heater toward his vehicle.

He kept his eyes on the business card. The feeling was weak, almost lost beneath the ache in his ribs, but it came again when he shifted the small amount of power left inside him.

An object was responding to his magic.

Kael let the power settle and glanced through the gap beside the plastic covering the window. A black car stood opposite the shop. Behind its rain-streaked glass, a woman lowered a phone and reached toward the passenger seat.

He could not see her face clearly. He could sense the object beside her, however, and the brief movement of power within it told him what it did. Someone had built it to find magic.

“Ethan?” Maya asked.

Kael turned the card over as she came beside him.

“Did you hear me?” she asked. “How did you know where to look inside that thing?”

Outside, the black car pulled away. Kael remained seated while he followed its faint magical trace toward the corner. The signal weakened with distance and disappeared when the car turned out of the street.

He could not follow it farther. Trying would spend power he needed to keep this body functioning.

Maya folded her arms.

“You did hear me,” she said. “You just didn't answer.”

“I studied engineering,” Kael replied. “Before I left college.”

“I know what you studied,” Maya said. “I used to carry your books when you came home with groceries.”

Kael set the card down. She was watching his hands again, just as she had after the fight.

“Dad found the fault once you showed him,” Maya continued. “But three other people missed it. How did you spot it so quickly?”

“They had already changed several parts,” Kael replied. “I looked at what they hadn't changed.”

She considered that while picking a scrap of tape from her sleeve.

“You used to say you couldn't help Dad with the difficult jobs,” she said.

Ethan's memories supplied evenings spent avoiding the workbench because another failure would leave him feeling worse. Kael could use the knowledge Ethan had abandoned, but he could not explain the rest without raising questions he was not ready to answer.

“I stopped using too much of what I learned,” Kael replied. “That doesn't mean I forgot all of it.”

Maya's arms loosened. “Then keep using it,” she said. “Dad needs help.”

Thomas came back inside, limping more noticeably after helping Daniel. He stopped beside a box of returned parts and bent to lift it onto a shelf.

“Leave that,” Kael said. “I'll sort it here.”

He drew the box closer with his foot and began separating the pieces while seated. Maya carried the filled trays to the shelves. Thomas tried to protest until Kael held up a part he did not recognize and asked which drawer it belonged in.

Giving instructions seemed easier for Thomas than accepting help. He sat beside them and explained the labels, correcting Kael twice without noticing when Elena stopped in the doorway.

She watched until the last tray was put away.

“You three should have done it like this months ago,” Elena said.

Thomas glanced up, but she was looking at Kael. Her eyes were wet, and she rubbed them with the heel of her hand before he could speak.

“I'm helping now,” Kael replied.

“I can see that,” Elena said. She pulled his sleeve down over the edge of his bandage. “I'm glad. But don't give us one good evening and disappear into yourself tomorrow.”

Kael remembered Ethan lying awake while his mother knocked on his bedroom door. There had been other promises, made when he wanted her to stop worrying. Some had lasted a day. Others had never become more than words.

“You don't have to believe another promise,” Kael said.

Elena studied him, then nodded.

“Good,” she replied. “Keep helping. Tell us where you're going. Answer when we call. That's how I know.”

He picked up Daniel's card and held it out to her.

“Then I want to call him about tomorrow,” Kael said. “You'll have the address and his number.”

Elena accepted the card, though her expression did not soften.

“First, we get your injuries checked,” she replied. “I'm not letting you spend tomorrow pretending they don't hurt.”

Kael wanted to argue that a doctor could not replace the magic he needed. Instead, he looked at the bandage she had helped put on him and agreed.

By the time they returned from the clinic that evening, his wounds had been cleaned again and his family had heard enough instructions about rest to repeat them all the way home. The examination had found the cracked ribs, but nothing that required him to remain there. Kael was grateful that the little energy he had used on his heartbeat had held.

He called Daniel with Elena beside him and arranged a short visit for the following morning. He would inspect the equipment while seated. Hotel staff would do the lifting.

Daniel agreed before Kael finished explaining.

“If you can tell me which machines are worth saving, that alone will help,” Daniel said. “The heater's still running, by the way.”

Kael slept badly, waking whenever he turned onto his injured side. By morning, the bruises looked worse, although his heartbeat remained steady. He left the ring in his pocket and took only the tools Thomas selected for him.

The Crown Meridian Hotel stood several streets away from the small shops Ethan knew. A doorman directed him toward the service entrance after Daniel's name was mentioned. Kael called home before going inside, then followed a member of staff to a ground-floor storage room.

Daniel met him beside a row of covered machines.

“You look as though you should be in bed,” Daniel said.

“I can sit here instead,” Kael replied, indicating the chair beside a worktable.

Daniel pulled it out for him. “You tell me when you've had enough,” he said. “I'm not having you collapse over a coffee machine.”

He handed Kael a list showing the equipment, its reported faults, and the amounts the hotel had approved for successful repairs. Kael read it carefully. Several jobs together would pay far more than the small appliances in the family shop, but only if he could finish them.

He chose three machines with parts already available in storage.

The first was a commercial coffee machine that leaked whenever it heated. Kael examined the seal around a pipe, then asked for the replacement listed on the repair sheet. Someone had bought the right part and left the job unfinished. With a staff member holding the casing steady, he changed it without using magic.

The second was a warming cabinet with a damaged door catch. Its safety switch kept stopping the heater because the door would not stay shut. He adjusted the catch and replaced a worn piece from the hotel's stock, leaving every safety control working.

Daniel returned while the cabinet was being tested.

“That one was marked for disposal,” he said.

“The heater wasn't the problem,” Kael replied. “The door was.”

Daniel crouched to inspect the catch, then drew a line through an entry on his list.

“I'll have someone check the other cabinets,” he said.

By the third job, Kael's back ached from holding himself upright. He paused to drink water before removing the cover from a small refrigeration unit used beneath a serving counter.

Its fan started when tested, but stopped whenever the casing was put back. Kael checked the wiring and found a loose connection shifting beneath the cover. He repaired it with ordinary tools, taking longer than Thomas would have because his fingers needed frequent rest.

He could have finished faster with magic. He did not use it.

The woman in the black car had found one small repair. Until he knew who she was, every unnecessary spell risked bringing her closer to his family.

While the refrigeration unit ran through its test, a faint pressure rose through the soles of his shoes.

Kael stopped turning the screwdriver.

This was not the detector from the car. The power beneath him moved steadily, flowing along a narrow route below the floor.

He lowered the tool beside his chair and let his senses follow the movement. It passed beneath the storage room toward a service corridor, then continued deeper into the building. He could not tell where it began or ended, but its course was too straight to be natural.

Someone had laid a hidden line of magic beneath the hotel.

“Is there another fault?” Daniel asked.

Kael looked up. The manager stood beside a staff member, both waiting for him to finish the test.

“No,” Kael replied. “I was listening to it.”

The refrigeration unit made a sound behind him. Daniel checked the temperature display and nodded.

Kael could see a closed door farther down the corridor. Pipes ran toward it along the ceiling, but the magical line went beneath it. Asking to go through would require an explanation. Searching with more power might also alert whoever had placed the line there.

He put the screwdriver back in its case.

“Those three are finished,” Kael said. “The others will have to wait.”

Daniel glanced at his list. “There are six more,” he replied.

“And I'll make mistakes if I keep going today,” Kael said.

For a moment, he thought Daniel might bargain. Instead, the manager folded the list and stepped aside so Kael could stand.

“Then we'll arrange another visit,” Daniel replied. “I'd rather have three working machines than nine promises.”

After the final checks, the hotel paid the agreed repair fees. Kael watched the transfer arrive in the shop's account, then called Thomas to confirm it.

His father did not answer immediately after hearing the amount.

“Dad?” Kael asked.

“I'm here,” Thomas replied. “I'm looking at it.”

The payment was enough to put aside several thousand dollars toward the original loan. It did not settle Marcus's demand, and Kael would not hand it to a collector who refused to record what had been paid. But the money existed now. It had not come from borrowing against another week of the family's life.

“Don't use it all for the debt,” Kael said. “Keep what the shop needs to finish its jobs.”

“I will,” Thomas replied. “Are you coming home?”

Kael looked once toward the service corridor. The current beneath it kept moving, carrying more power than the ring had held.

“I'm leaving now,” he said.

Daniel walked him to the service entrance and asked him to call before his next visit. Kael agreed, then stepped into the street with the tool bag held in his good hand.

He checked the parked vehicles without stopping. He saw no black car, but that no longer meant he was alone.

Two streets away, Evelyn Shaw sat behind the wheel with a copy of Ethan Cole's public details open on her phone. Beside it lay the photograph she had taken outside the repair shop.

She called her superior and waited for the line to connect.

“Report,” a man's voice said.

“His name is Ethan Cole,” Evelyn replied. “Twenty-three. Works at his family's appliance shop. He went to the Crown Meridian this morning and completed several repairs.”

“Did he use magic there?” the man asked.

“I couldn't confirm it,” Evelyn replied. “The reading near the hotel wasn't clear enough to separate him from other sources. The reading at the shop was different. It rose when he worked on the heating unit.”

She placed the photograph beside the small detector. The needle lay still now, but the instrument had left her with little doubt about what it had measured.

“Check his registration,” the man said.

“I already did,” Evelyn replied. “There is no registered inner core under his name.”

The man remained silent for a moment. Evelyn waited, looking at the bruises visible in the photograph.

“That doesn't mean he has no core,” he said.

“No,” Evelyn replied. “But someone who can use magic without appearing in our records needs a closer look.”

“Has he noticed you?” the man asked.

Evelyn remembered the young man's brief glance toward her car. He had not come outside or tried to follow her, but she could not be certain what he had seen.

“Possibly,” she replied. “I kept my distance today.”

“Keep doing that,” the man said. “Don't approach him yet.”

Evelyn reached for her notebook. “What am I looking for?” she asked.

“Find out whether Ethan Cole is connected to the Circle of Ash,” her superior replied.