Reclusive Mage (Paranoid Mage Book 4)

Paranoid Mage Book Four: Reclusive Mage The Guild of Arcane Regulation has fractured, and new forces move on the board. Callum cannot quite declare victory, for even a weakened GAR still forces him to hide from the world at large, yet he is no longer prepared to run. Instead he builds his own strengths to stand against those who wish to do him harm. Change, once started, is hard to stop. Callum’s actions have brought change to the world of the supernatural, but that can bring chaos and destruction even as he eliminates tyranny and corruption. He has to move beyond being one man against the world, and stand in the world he’s made. Foreword This book would not have been made without the tireless work of my editor, Kaorin, and the support of my many patrons and readers. Visit me on the web at: http://www.inadvisablycompelled.com If you feel like supporting me, you can check out my Patreon at: patreon.com/inadvisablycompelled. Reclusive Mage Copyright © 2023 by InadvisablyCompelled Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Moving Chapter 2 – Déjà vu Chapter 3 – Reassess Chapter 4 – Time Chapter 5 – Threats Chapter 6 – Direction Chapter 7 – Steps Chapter 8 – Lies Chapter 9 – Misdirection Chapter 10 – Reap Chapter 11 – Beginnings Chapter 12 – Follow-through Chapter 13 – Trap Chapter 14 – Goals Chapter 15 – Progress Chapter 16 – Distractions Chapter 17 - Breakthrough Chapter 18 – Assault Chapter 19 – Sever Chapter 20 – Staunch Chapter 1 – Moving Callum and Lucy had spent a lot of time in the Texas trailer, and even with the bunker nearly complete they weren’t entirely moved out. Callum’s teleportation and gravitykinesis, or even telekinesis focus, made things a lot easier physically, but did nothing on the side of organization. Nor could his magic speed up how fast concrete or paint dried, so the move to the bunker was a slow and piecemeal affair, something they were still working on a week after dealing with Ravaeb. At least until events conspired to force the issue. Callum jolted into full wakefulness when a mage bubble brushed across the edge of his perception. Under most circumstances waking up with someone snuggled in against him was a pleasant thing, but the hammer blow of adrenaline ruined it. He was up and out of bed before he realized he didn’t really need to be, since grabbing everything and leaving was purely a function of magic. “Whuzzah?” Lucy said, stirring sleepily as he reached out with his vis and started transferring everything that was left. The mage bubbles were moving quickly somewhere overhead, and while not headed directly at his trailer he had to assume they’d notice something if they’d gotten so close. “We gotta go,” he told her. The food in the fridge, the clothes in the dresser, the grill outside. Some of the furniture had come with the trailer, so he didn’t take that, but he grabbed everything else he could in the first few seconds. A handful of the cleaner beads got distributed over the whole house, and a more powerful one put on a small plate that he dropped on the floor of the room. The mage bubbles were still several seconds away, and while he couldn’t tell whether they’d seen him directly or not he had to assume they knew. Besides, they could launch attacks from that far away, so he wrapped both himself and Lucy in a teleportation matrix – tube based, so it wouldn’t be so hard on her – and pulled them into the cave. Only then did he feel like he could breathe, heart still hammering. Lucy squeaked as she dropped a few inches onto the cot he had set up before propping herself up and squinting into the darkness of the cave. Callum reached out with his perception sphere and teleported an LED lamp into his hand, flicking it on and lofting it over toward Lucy. She squinted and snagged it out of the air, shivering in the cool cave atmosphere. “The heck?” She demanded. “I sensed mages overflying the trailer,” Callum explained. “I wasn’t going to hang around and hope they passed by.” “Oh.” Lucy said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Well, damn. How’d they find us? Not through the portal anchors I wouldn’t think?” “Timing is weird too,” Callum said, pulling clothes out from the piles he’d teleported and handing Lucy hers. Even if he’d gotten around to heating the cave, which he hadn’t, it was still bare stone and concrete. “I would have figured it’d be earlier, if it were some magical scrying.” “I’ll have to doublecheck the server, though it’s not like I ever even accessed it from the trailer house…” Lucy shrugged and hastily dressed, sitting on the cot to put on her shoes and socks. “What about the bunker? Do you think it’s safe?” “Not if they can trace us directly, but otherwise I think so.” The bunker didn’t even have a mailing address as such. Even if some mundane organization found out about it from Miguel, the town councilman who was handling the local businesses, that didn’t imply any supernatural activity. The greatest risk was that his bunker house would attract the interest of a cartel, and he had thoughts on how to deal with that, but for the most part he suspected the bunker was invisible to state-level actors. That wasn’t a certainty, though, which was why one of the portal nexus links was to another safehouse, a little campsite with supplies that wasn’t too far from civilization. Lucy had a teleportation setup for it made of anchors and obsidian tiles, just in case she needed to escape while he wasn’t around for some reason. Considering what had just happened, that seemed more likely than it had before. “Well, at least we’ve got power here now,” Lucy said in resignation. Callum still had to wait for the last of the construction equipment to be cleared