Chapter 242 Hazard.

Chapter 242: 242 Hazard.

You get a lot of freaks in this industry. It is a known occupational hazard.

Well-adjusted members of society do not bleach their skin, put on tailored clown suits, and threaten the mayor with weaponized laughing gas they cooked up in a bathtub.

I do not care how many bad days you string together; you were fundamentally broken long before you decided to put on a mask.

Villains are particularly egregious offenders. Maybe it is the flamboyant theatricality of the underworld, or the general appeal of unchecked sociopathy.

Or maybe it is just human nature that the first thing a guy does when he gains the ability to grow thirty feet tall is step on anyone who ever handed him a parking ticket.

But all of that is manageable. You can plan for crazy. If a guy looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and shoots concussive lasers out of his webbed hands, he is probably the Mighty Mallard, sworn guardian of local ponds. You bring breadcrumbs and a heavy net.

Magic, however, throws a massive, flaming wrench into the fundamental laws of physics.

I group demons, warlocks, and whatever crawled out of Lovecraft’s fever dreams into the exact same broad, frustrating category: esoteric bullshit.

And hey, that is fine. I have absolutely no problem with people pulling their abilities from haunted amulets or blood pacts. Do whatever works for your career.

But the second that kind of nonsense gets shoved onto my plate, I am going to have a massive problem.

Because magic does not play by the rules.

With mythic heroes, you have a solid baseline of what they are about. Most of them operate on pure, unadulterated wrath.

You know exactly what happens when you piss off a thunder god—you get a lightning bolt to the chest. It is theological dispute resolution 101. Gods tend to stick to their lanes.

Magic users? You never know what you are dealing with.

Maybe you accidentally step into a circle of mushrooms on a Tuesday, and you wake up surrounded by angry elves holding wooden clubs.

Maybe your favorite pop song happens to feature the exact sequence of notes required to summon Irgoleth, the ancient lord of night terrors and misplaced car keys.

Or maybe a passing fairy overhears you complaining about your ex, and suddenly you have a literal donkey head.

Magic is entirely unpredictable. The absolute last thing I need is to take a piss on the wrong patch of clover and end up cursed by a cartel of leprechauns.

Fortunately, most magic practitioners do not involve themselves in the cape business, and the magic heroes who do usually try to keep the weirdest stuff under wraps.

Maintaining cosmic balance is their whole deal. Personally, I prefer scientific rogues. And not just because manipulating metal is my specialty.

With science-based capes, the power set is defined, usually advertised by a giant atom logo on the chest of their spandex.

You can draft a tactical plan around that. With magic, literally anything is on the table. Give me a guy who fell into a vat of radioactive waste over a guy waving a wand any day of the week.

Sadly, it was looking like Legion was not going to leave me alone, no matter how many bridges the demon burned. I was going to have to deal with the fallout.

While Lilith was back at the chalet digging through her infernal contacts to figure out a countermeasure, it was a good idea to bring Vanessa up to speed.

If anyone ever tells you running an evil league is easy, they are a flat-out liar.

I picked up my burner phone. Fortunately, Vanessa answered on the second ring. Once I explained I needed to discuss the staging for the next act, she agreed to meet up.

It took me a lot longer to get downtown than usual. According to the police scanner on the radio, Sister Serpenta was currently tied up fighting the Fantastic Fighters right in the middle of the financial district.

I could see the flash of energy blasts reflecting off the high-rises from the interstate, which backed up traffic on the off-ramps for miles. Progress was agonizingly slow, but I eventually pulled the Cruiser into the lot of the Hero’s Slice.

Vanessa was already waiting in a booth when I walked through the doors. She had ditched the dramatic, high-collared magical-girl cloak for civilian clothes, and honestly, the casual look worked incredibly well for her.

She wore a fitted white tank top that was fighting a losing battle, layered under a rugged denim jacket, paired with jeans that hugged her hips in a way I would need a medical excuse to ignore.

She still wore a ton of jewelry. Heavy silver bangles stacked up her forearms, layered charm necklaces, and massive hoop earrings that would have looked more appropriate at a warehouse rave in the nineties, but they suited her perfectly.

From a tactical standpoint, her outfit also worked entirely in my favor.

I am sure every single one of those bangles was loaded with protective wards and offensive hexes, but she was wearing a solid five pounds of refined metal.

That meant she either trusted our temporary truce, or she fundamentally misunderstood how the Master of Magnetism operated.

If things went south, I could pin her arms to the booth before she even finished the first syllable of a spell.

She also brought Mystic along, which was entirely fair. I was still the bad guy, and I had burned her in the past.

I didn’t begrudge her bringing a chaperone. Besides, having Mystic at the table provided a handy, level-headed mediator.

"Miles," Vanessa said.

Her tone was a few degrees warmer than our initial sit-down—she didn’t sound like she was addressing something scraped off the bottom of her boot—but there was a distinct wariness in the way her hand subtly tightened on the strap of her purse. She still wasn’t my biggest fan.

Once again, fair enough. I didn’t need her to like me. I just needed her to hit her marks.

"Vanessa. Mystic. Great to see you both. Shall we?" I asked, gesturing to the open bench.

I slid into the vinyl booth opposite them. We skipped the usual small talk. A waitress dropped off a couple of laminated menus, and I flagged her down for a black coffee.

"You wished to discuss the logistics for the next encounter in your... scheme?" Vanessa asked, leaning forward once the waitress vanished back toward the grill.

"Yeah. Among other things," I said, resting my hands flat on the table and keeping my voice low. "But first, there’s been a complication."