by Tao Wong
“Bah,” Alexa said softly, drumming her fingers on the wheel. A few minutes later, the door opened.
“About time,” the woman said, standing. For a second, she left our field of vision, rustling and crinkling the only sound reaching us. “This looks more than double.”
“Just a little extra, for our favorite customer.”
“Your only customer,” the woman said, a hint of aggression in her voice. The speaker just grunted in reply. A few moments later, we saw her back in our field of vision again, pulling the door open to drop a couple of brown paper bags inside.
I grunted and, as the two started exchanging goodbyes, released the spell. When Alexa turned to look at me, she noticed me breathing deeply, with sweat staining my brow, and rubbing my sore temples.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Just couldn’t hold it any longer,” I replied. “Give me a few hours. Once my mana’s back, we can Scry it again.”
“Okay,” Alexa said simply. After a second’s consideration, she started the car.
“I can’t Track her…” I said, squinting at the house.
“I know. I was thinking we hadn’t had lunch.” Alexa offered me a half smile. “With your spell, we should get you fed and then come back to look again.”
“Okay.” I was sure there was something off about leaving the place unwatched, but considering she was doing this in consideration of my headache, I was not going to complain. And anyway, my spell was probably going to get us more information than sitting there, watching.
***
A couple hours and one plate of curried pineapple rice later, we were back at the same hill. This time around, with nearly half the likely locations already investigated, I decided I’d check out the basement level. A part of me had considered just jumping the Scry to that floor to begin with, but going below ground level actually pulled a lot more mana than staying above it. Even though the basement was technically hollowed out, the draw on my mana was still much higher than I’d care to use to start. Thus, the earlier testing.
Unfortunately, after casting the spell, I realized the biggest problem with a spell targeted to a basement that is reliant on sight: If no one turns on the lights, all you were seeing was darkness as well.
“Nothing?”
“You tell me,” I said grumpily. For a brief moment, I considered if it’d be possible to cast a Light spell within the basement. It was theoretically possible. I had the spatial coordinates and even a way to see where I was casting. However, theory ran up against reality really fast. Not only would it be incredibly draining on my limited mana, it would also potentially alert our prey of our presence.
“Next?”
“Yup.” I killed the spell before moving onward.
Eventually, by process of elimination, we located our targets. They were upstairs, three individuals seated watching TV in the second floor living room. Now that we had them in view, we took our time staring at the trio. Sprawled as they were on their chairs with discarded remnants of various takeout joints and snack foods, they looked almost normal. A pair of Hispanic-looking men and a shorter, Vietnamese-looking gentleman were sprawled, idly watching the idiot box. I frowned, wanting to know which had been the speaker, but all three were silent, content to damage their minds with the drivel of afternoon TV. It was a very domestic scene if you ignored the weapons in easy reach of the three: a pair of handguns and a shotgun, with a machete also laid beside them.
“How long can you hold this?” Alexa asked softly.
“Now that it’s established?” I considered, judging my mana. “Twenty minutes safely. If I meditate and focus on drawing in more mana, maybe thirty. But I’d be useless for anything—”
“Do it,” Alexa said firmly. “I’ll watch and take notes. At the least, I want to know who their leader is.”
“All right,” I said in agreement while Alexa pulled a sketchbook from her supplies within the car. She immediately started sketching while I closed my eyes and focused. My breathing deepened as I reached and opened myself at the same time, allowing the mana that surrounded us to absorb into my body even as more mana flooded out while I channeled my spell. Time lost meaning as I held the two opposing concepts in mind, focused as they were within my body.
“Time,” I said softly after a while. I received a grunted agreement from Alexa, so I cut the flow of power. The spell flickered, running for a few moments more on the stored power before it wound down. As I opened my eyes, I frowned as a crunch of gravel occurred a moment later, making me turn to look at a police car rolling to a stop next to us.
“Crap,” Alexa said. She quickly pursed her lips and then suddenly leaned over, grabbing my shirt by the side and pulling me close.
A moment later, I found myself lip-locked with the blonde as she held me tight. At first, I struggled, then my brain caught up with me. Why exactly was I struggling against the pretty blonde who was kissing me? Wait. Why was I even thinking about anything but how soft her lips were? As my brain finally caught up, I relaxed slightly only to tense again when a rapping occurred on the window. Almost immediately, Alexa released me and adjusted her blouse, her cheeks flushed.
“Wha—”
The rapping came again, my uttered exclamation not finishing.
“Window,” Alexa said slightly breathlessly and then rolled hers down to smile demurely at the policeman. “Yes, Officer?”
“We received a report there was a vehicle parked here suspiciously,” the officer said. I saw his eyes dart from my to Alexa’s slightly flushed faces, a slight frown creasing his face.
“Oh… I didn’t know that was illegal, sir!” Alexa exclaimed artlessly. She then paused, giving him big, innocent eyes as she continued. “It isn’t, is it?”
“It’s not illegal, miss. We’re just checking that there’s nothing suspicious going on,” the officer replied. His attention shifted to the mirror propped up on the dashboard, the binoculars and then to the wooden warding blocks that spilled out of my backpack in the backseat. “What are you doing up here?”
“Bird-watching!” Alexa said, then flushed slightly and looked down, biting her lip.
“Bird-watching,” the officer replied dryly. “Well, I’m a bit of an ornithologist myself. See anything interesting?”
I opened and shut it. Hell, I could barely tell the difference between a crow and a raven. But Alexa replied without hesitation. “Nothing rare. A couple of thrushes, a chestnut-backed chickadee, and a goldfinch.”
The officer nodded his head along to Alexa’s words but relaxed slightly. “Nice to see some young people taking an interest in the hobby.”
“My uncle introduced me to it,” Alexa said happily and smiled.
“Well, if you’re just bird-watching, you have a nice day.” The officer flashed a glance at the wooden blocks and then smiled at Alexa before he shot me a much frostier look. I gave him a weak grin which made the officer snort as he walked away. With the expanded senses I had, I heard him mutter as he walked off. “I know what bird he’s watching…”
I coughed slightly, shaking my head, and then looked at Alexa who continued to provide a smiling demeanor until the officer had pulled off.
“What was the kiss about?” I asked quietly, touching my lips unconsciously after I finished speaking.
“Isn’t that what they do in the movies?” Alexa shrugged. “I doubt he’d take the bird-watching excuse entirely, so I added to it. It worked, didn’t it?”
“I thought you weren’t good at lying,” I said.
“I’m not. And I wasn’t,” Alexa said and pointed. “Thrush. Chickadee. Oooh, that’s a northern fulmar.”
I stared at the sudden burst of happiness on Alexa’s face and then sighed. “You had the weirdest childhood.”
“Uh huh.” Alexa sniffed. “I’m just enjoying the beauty of His work.”
Without a rejoinder, I shifted my gaze toward her sketchbook that she had dropped down the side of her seat, o
ut of sight of the policeman. “Anything?”
“Just sketches. They didn’t really talk much, but I’m pretty sure the Asian looker was our speaker.”
“Ah…” I said with a nod. Well, at least we got something from this.
“We should keep watch for a little while more before we leave,” Alexa said finally and flashed me a smile.
I nodded dumbly, staring at the blonde who seemed to have forgotten the kiss already. After a moment, I could do nothing more than push it aside. As they said, don’t shit where you eat. And really, I doubted the initiate had any thoughts about me like that.
Chapter 10
Dinner that evening was Greek. I grabbed an order of moussaka and a double order of calamari for everyone to share, while Alexa went the roast lamb route and Lily did them all. Which, when I realized how much food that was, was a bit much. Sometimes I had the feeling Lily ate for the experience of eating more than for the physical need. I’d certainly never have to worry about kicking her out of the washroom—which was, perhaps, the only reason the three of us had survived in my old apartment.
“Right, so where are we?” I asked as I speared another deep-fried squiddy goodness. Wait, did leviathans exist? Or squiddy Cthulhu monsters?
Rather than directly answer me, Lily popped a notification in front of my eyes. I growled, swatting the box to make it smaller so I could eat and read. I had to smile that she had even added little notations of what we had managed.
Help Alexa Complete Her Squire Trial (Chained Quest)
This is a chained quest. You must complete the sub-quests to complete the major quest.
Sub-quests:
- Investigate and deal with the sudden influx of Leprechaun’s Foot (Investigated)
- Collect fifty specimens of Spotted Wynn Mushrooms (28/50 collected)
- Help solve the Brixton Orphanage issues (Have you really even started?)
“One out of three ain’t bad?” Alexa said, pointing at air and what I assumed to be the second quest line. With the scavenger working for us, we had that one covered. I might even have figured out a way to generate additional, ongoing income in the future if this worked out well.
“But two out of three would be better,” I said. When there was no immediate reaction, I looked between the two ladies and then sighed. Obviously classic eighties’ rock was not a selling point with this group. “Right, so we know where they’re storing the Foot. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re manufacturing in the city. Otherwise, we’d probably spot it on the map.”
“If you say so,” Alexa said before she frowned. “But if they’re not manufacturing them here…”
“How do we stop it from coming in?” I said, finishing for her. “It’s all about supply and demand, but demand isn’t something we can affect, so we got to cut off the supply. Makes me feel like the little Dutch boy and the dam.”
Again, silence from the pair.
“You know, trying to stem the tide with a finger? It’s not possible. Even if we burn all the product, they’ll just send more.”
Alexa slowly nodded, chewing on the meat-juice-soaked rice in thought. “But we don’t need to stop it completely. Our job is just to reduce it, for the time being.”
“And the orphanage?” Lily asked.
“We’re stuck there too. We can’t really make the fines go away…” I paused, considering. Well, I could wipe their files possibly. I was sure there was a spell for that somewhere. Potentially just a small electrical surge in the offices and it’d fix the issue. As for the paper records—
“Henry?”
“Ah, just thinking I might be able to erase the fines, but it’s a temporary solution, isn’t it?” I asked, and the pair nodded. Still, it was worth thinking about if we needed to buy ourselves some time. Time was the major problem. We had just over a week left, and we still had not found a solution. “But maybe we could con them.”
“What do you mean?” Alexa asked, and I smiled slightly.
“Well, if they do all the retrofitting in every other location first, I can look it over and cast an illusion to make the storeroom look like it’s been done. It won’t be, but it should last the inspection, no?”
“But what about the contractors?” Alexa asked, looking troubled. “They’d know. And we’d be lying.”
“Yeah, not sure about the contractors. Maybe we could lie to them and let them go after they’re done because they won’t finish the work? After all, they won’t be able to articulate why they don’t want to go in beyond it’s a bad feeling, right?” I said.
Alexa protested. “But it’s not their fault!”
“No, it’s the orphanage’s,” I said. “Who hires blinds to work on a magical building? Also. Nope. That is not a word I want to use.”
“They had a limited budget.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “And look where being cheap has gotten them. In fact, I’m not even sure having them work on the rest of the building is a good idea.” I paused, considering the matter. “In fact, scrap the idea. Our next job is finding a supernatural and magically sensitive construction group to work on this.”
“I don’t think the Abbess will like that…”
I just stared at Alexa, letting her work out the issues herself. In the end, the blonde let out an angry huff. “You’ll want me to speak with the abbess and the contractors, right?’
“Of course. It’s your quest. Maybe they could do a workaround—fortify it magically and make it look like they’ve done the work mundanely or something,” I said. “I’ll hit class with Caleb tomorrow and then I’d like to do some research on the building itself.”
“And the jackals?” Alexa asked, tapping her plate as she looked at me.
“You tell me.”
At my words, Alexa’s eyes tightened as she considered the matter. We both had the same information. In the end, Alexa said simply, “I’m going to get clarification. If all we need to do is put a temporary hold on the supply, it can be achieved by hitting the house. If they’re looking for something more permanent…” Alexa trailed off, and I nodded.
Yeah. I didn’t exactly have an answer to that one either. Then again, I didn’t feel too bad. It wasn’t as if governments hadn’t been trying and failing to solve the drug problem for the last couple hundred years.
***
“Did you finish your project?” Caleb asked the next day when I arrived.
With a slight smile, I brought out a few of the failures and some pre-prepped blocks. Caleb raised an eyebrow, while I smiled at the master mage. “I thought you could take a look at my work. See if you had any comments.”
Caleb tapped his lips in thought before he waved his hand, gesturing for me to start. Once I had the blocks and my equipment set aside—after a slight coughing fit by Caleb when I first pulled out my tools—I focused and started working. In a mere fifteen minutes, I had another modular compass and mana battery made. Thankfully, once I actually had the plans developed, it was easy enough to finish the work. I even threw in a new twist to some of the sigils, which seemed to increase the effectiveness of the enchanted equipment ever so slightly.
“Well, it’s not the most elegant of equipment,” Caleb said as he turned the block around in his hand. He tapped the batteries, a wry smile on his lips. “And it does rebuild the wheel with these batteries. But there are some interesting twists to the spells you’ve used, some of which I might even call genius.” I began to grow pleased at Caleb’s words before he added. “But then, you did pull them from your ‘downloaded’ spells, so it is no surprise.” Caleb fished in his pockets and pulled out his wallet, drawing out four crisp bills before he handed them to me. “I will purchase this contraption from you.”
“Really?” I said, my eyes wide.
“Of course. As I said, some of the mana formulas you have interlaced in the block is quite ingenious. It is much simpler to study the spells that your jinn has implanted in your mind through something like
this”—Caleb tapped the mana compass—“than attempting to transcribe your explanations.”
“Oh…” I exhaled disappointedly. It didn’t stop me from taking the bills though and sliding them into my back pocket. “Well, if it was so bad, could you—”
“List your many failures? Of course,” Caleb said. “It is what I am here for. Now, let us begin with the obvious. Your carving and handling of your tools is at best subpar. I would say it is an insult to your tools, but considering you spent all of five dollars on them, it would be too great a compliment to the tools themselves. You do realize that any self-respecting mage spends significant funds on purchasing proper equipment?”
I sighed as I pulled out a notebook, getting ready to listen to Caleb preach about the greatness and magnificence of mages once more. Proper mages. Not weird, sorcerer-mage wish hybrids like me. Because, as bad as this might be for my self-respect, the man knew his work. And—I had to admit—was probably right.
And I did kind of want a self-immolating, inscription wand.
***
“And that should be sufficient to help you improve your design by at least threefold,” Caleb said, finishing his lecture.
I stared at the multiples pages of notes I had taken, of which I understood maybe a fifth of and might only be able to afford a quarter of, and could not help but nod. The sad fact was I knew Caleb had even more knowledge to impart on this matter, but considering the sheer difference in knowledge between the two of us, he’d dumbed it down.
“Once again, you have managed to distract me from the planned lesson.”
“Sorry, not sorry?” I said with a smirk and a shrug of my shoulders. “I actually had another request.”
“Of course you do. What is it now?”
“Rituals. I’m on a quest with Alexa, and we’re dealing with a containment ritual and enchantment. It’s been damaged though, so I need to restore it,” I said.