Kyle the Apprentice Warlock

11:14 AM September 16^th 2026

Museum of Unnatural Science and History Employee Housing

Oh no, the golems. Kyle and Jones were surrounded. Through his blurry eyes, Kyle watched in helpless terror struggling to do something, anything, as fireballs were raining down. Like an idiot, Kyle had used the wrong spell for the situation. Not just that, he’d tried to call on his own pathetic reserves of magic. Of course, this was how he was going to die.

And his idiotic mistake was going to cost Jones his life too.

The golems were approaching, and Kyle wasn’t able to move let alone fight. He hadn’t channeled the ambient magic effectively and now he was paying for it. Which he really thought he hadn’t done. But then Kyle had reached for help from the codex. And it was gone.

Not disappeared. He fumbled slowly with weak burned arms for the magical tome of his warlock pact and found it snugly secure in its holster. It had shifted when he collapsed and was poking his shoulder at an unpleasant angle. Oh. So, some of that pain wasn’t from draining his magic and surviving artillery fireballs.

No. Focus. His codex was there. Kyle could even sense it magically. He just couldn’t interface with it. No. Not that either. He could interface. The flow of magic was just throttled and... weak.

It didn’t matter.

The golems were coming.

The golems were coming, and Kyle’s field of vision was growing narrower and narrower. The sunny autumn morning was dim and shades of gray and red-brown to Kyle. That might have been blood, though? Something was running down his face. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Closer.

Closer.

Darker.

Darker.

Thump.

Thump.

Tha-thump.

Tha-thump.

Kyle groaned in pain.

Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

Kyle groan as he tried to roll over. Everything hurt! What?

Why?Tha-thump. Tha-thump. His pain seemed to intensify with each thump and he realized it was like the beating of a heart. No. Idiot!  Not like. It was the beating of a heart, his heart. Why was he hurting again?

Then he laid there and thought about it a bit and his scattered nightmares resolved themselves into memories. Right. The jackass golems had tried to fry his ass.

“This sucks,” he moaned in self-pity. “Also, not fair. I helped save a city. I feel like I should get to skip out on being in pain for a few weeks at least.” The young warlock wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. Maybe a little bit to his pact item, though it wasn’t sentient like Gleipnir. Few pact items were.

Familiars on the other hand –.

No. Focus.  Kyle scolded himself and he started assessing his body. Opening his eyes, he recognized the familiar flat ceiling of his bedroom. Realizing he was safe, he then decided that it was safe to return to sleep. Which was exactly when he heard the door to his bedroom open and a familiar voice called out to him.

“Who you talking to shorty? There’s nobody in here. I guess I might be talking to myself also if I got hit on the noggin as hard as you had.” Was…? Could Sam just not be rude and Sam all the time? Like, could there be five minutes after waking up when she wasn’t allowed to deliberately provoke people?

“I was complaining to myself.” He groaned at his older sister. “Can I have a healing potion now?” His voice cracked from dryness, and he licked cracked and blistered lips, wincing as he did so. Sam’s response was a low almost malicious chuckle.

“No can-do baby brother. Doctor’s orders. You’ve got magic saturation poisoning.” Though she was laughing her voice also had the slightest hint of empathy. Probably. Maybe. Stupid Gleipnir. It was clearly her pact item’s fault in some way.

“I’ll risk it,” Kyle whispered as his body throbbed in time with each heartbeat.

“What did I tell you?” A second voice pipped up. Lower, more arrogant, with an assumed British accent. “You must know young man that this is exactly how you got into this situation. You’re too reckless.” Suddenly the throbbing pain he felt got much worse.

“Stuff it, Gleip. I’m not in the mood.” Summoning his strength, Kyle managed to get his hands under his pillow and pull it around his ears mostly ineffectually.

“Says the guy who killed a dragon-monster from the inside,” Sam added under her breath.

“All I’m saying,” the pontificating Gleipnir continued in his characteristically tone-deaf way, “is that maybe if you were a little more cautious with your use of magic you wouldn’t currently be in this state.” An angry growl emanated from within Kyle’s pillow taco. It was followed closely by a moan of agony.

“That’s enough Gleip. Let him be.” Sam being nice? And not prickly Sam-ish? Sweet! Kyle would take old-Sam any day over post-Gleipnir Sam.

“I was just trying to educat –” But his sister blissfully cut off her pact item before he could be even more annoying.

“I said leave it Gleip!” Her forceful instruction was met with some mumbled grumbling that faded off into the distance. Kyle supposed that his pseudo-nemesis had wandered off to go offend someone else. But also, the spike of pain he’d felt when Gleipnir had first entered the room subsided a bit and he uncurled from the fetal position he had unconsciously assumed.

“Thank the Gods.” His voice rasped his dry tortured throat.

“Eh. Yeah. Probably feels better to not have a living source of magic so close to you.” Sam’s voice floated closer to the bed as she approached. There was a clunk of something being set on his bedside table “I brought you some water. Adrian and Mom gave you as much first aid as they could, and Mom – in a rare display of motherly affection – pulled strings to get a surprisingly high-level healer to take a look at you and Jones.”

“Adrian?” Cautiously, Kyle opened first one eye and then the other. He was relieved that there was only a slight blurring of his vision.

“Nobody said anything about you having a concussion. Did you forget what your boss’s first name is?” Concern tinted the biting quip, which Kyle ignored as he was determinedly working on stretching a shaky hand out for the glass which was tantalizingly out of reach. Kyle paused in his efforts to fix his sister with a baleful stare.

“Not concussed. Just hating that you call him by his first name. I know your type. It will start by calling him by his first name then next thing you know Gleip and I are commiserating at the wedding reception that my stupidly sexy boss who is followed around the museum by vampire groupies is now our brother-in-law.”

“Not if I tie him to a lamp post first like I did to the last asshole who broke Sammy’s heart,” Gleip called from the living room. Kyle and Sam laughed at that. Then something occurred to Sam, and she stopped abruptly.

“Wait! Someone did actually tie that last prick I dated to a streetlight post. The cops thought it was the boyfriend of one of the chicks he was trying to hook up with at the bar that night.” Gleipnir poked his googly-eyed ‘head’ around the door frame for a second and Sam narrowed her eyes at him.

“Welp, that’s my queue to make myself scarce.”

Kyle smiled and then groaned and rubbed his aching chest. That was good. At least Gleipnir was always looking out for his sis even if it meant Kyle had to share his former best friend with the pact item. Then he went back to reaching for the delicious water that was just out of reach. After a bit, his sister took pity on him and helped him get something to drink. Moments later, he had laid back down and was asleep once again.