Helen

Yes, it’s an extremely frustrating truth: if my Provincial magic gets screwed, my inter-planer powers go kaput.  “You accepted your State and the powers it conferred,” my older brother Qayin says.  “Now you must live with the restrictions.  But remember that you command the primal powers of the universe and sooner or later you will overcome any Provincial limitations.  Just be patient.”  What a load of crap!  That’s easy to say for a guy who does nothing all day but accumulate worthless grains of wisdom in mindless, violent wanderings.  But most of us have actual lives and things to do and being stuck in this State counted as a crisis.  

“I need you to meet me in the woods behind the school at four,” I said to Eric the Creep.  “You know the ruins of that rotted-out schoolhouse?  That’s where.”

“Why should I?” he said, his pimply face sneering.  Eric the Creep, an exciting combination of geek, pervert, and asshole, and flunkie (I’d heard he failed a year so he was nineteen) who had been permanently excluded from my social list until now that I needed him.  I had found him near the yearbook room, cradling his precious camera protectively as if it were his only friend because it probably was.  Gavin’s luck may have been helping me; I caught him alone and no one saw me taking to him.  Thank God, because my social life would be permanently blotted if they had. 

“Be there,” I said.  “Bring your camera.”

“I don’t trust you,” he said.  “You’re probably pulling a stunt.”

“No stunt,” I said. 

“I don’t trust you,” he said.

I fiddled with the first button of my blouse.  “I promise if you come, I’ll take off my shirt for you,” I whispered.  “In fact, if I’m not standing there without a shirt, you can just pass on by.  I’ll be in plain sight.  But please, please be there in an hour.”

“This is definitely a trick,” he said.  He ran bony hand through jagged brown hair in serious need of a stylist. 

“Why would you care?  You’ll get a few photos of me topless and then you can just slink away.”

“Maybe if you were completely naked,” he said, licking his lips.

Oh, I would have throttled him if I had my powers back!  But I noticed the clock.  School had just finished and I had but an hour before four.  Twenty-five minutes to get home and back.  I could just make it, especially if I got a ride from my meat boy.  I had no time and somehow this little rodent sensed that.

“Fine.  Naked.  But one hour.”

“What do you want, anyway?” he asked, still suspicious.  

“You can help me get this ring off.  I have a plan.  But I need a guy who can use a camera and cast a spell.  That’s you.  I’m helpless so you know I can’t do anything to you.”

“Oh, yea, power suspension ring.  That sucks.  All right.  But if you’re not in the buff I’m walkin’.”

“I’m sure a little creep like you can get there without being seen.  Make sure you do, otherwise the deal is off.”

And with that, I sauntered away, hoping I could find Jack and coax that ride out of him.  Time was running out.