A Shuffling of Planets (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 3)

by Daniel Ruth

  Sighing, I looked out towards where I could sense the unbridled energy. About a mile away, perhaps a bit more, was the familiar wall of blue energy rising into the air, into the clouds. In another direction, I could see another one approaching at an angle. Looks like there was a node a few miles off. I mulled over this as I flew back to the room. A thought struck me and I checked the map in my terminal. Sure enough, it had been updated to show the nearby ley lines. That was convenient.

  I could tap into the ley line to cast spells and energize wards and circles. However, it didn't do much good that far away. The Imbue spell I was studying was good at storing magical energy into objects. I needed to work on that in order to use all the copious energy just a few miles away.

  I would also have to see if that was a normal nexus or one of the portals set up by the demon lord. Chances are it wasn't. There were only ten in each world.

  I checked the progress of the buoys. They weren't amazingly fast but they moved faster than I could fly. They had actually scouted the node for me. No portal there, just energy. And of course, the typical small random temporary portals. Maybe I would get lucky and snag a dinosaur.

  I spend a good portion of the night studying the storage spell. By early morning I had gotten the theory down but hadn't gotten the casting perfected. Still, that progress cheered me up as I looked at the run down, but presently clean, pit I was staying in.

  There wasn't a real bed, but the second couch folded out into a bed. It had no sheets but it was cleaner than it had been since it was bought. Or stolen, or however, it was acquired.

  Satisfied at accomplishing something that day I drifted off to sleep.

  The knocking at the door woke me up. "Come in!" I called out. I hadn't bothered locking the door. I was more of a deterrent than a lock. The wreckage that was the actual building would likewise keep most intrepid scavengers away.

  Joe stepped through the door. "I found a carpenter that is willing to do some repairs. This place isn't supposed to be lived in, so it's all under the table stuff..." his voice trailed off as he looked around. "What the hell? What happened in here? Did the Keebler elves invade and repair everything?"

  "Need to know stuff," I said as I looked at my terminal. Almost exactly noon. He had either been waiting outside or was extremely punctual. "Hopefully Jim gets here with the food."

  "Hungry?" Joe asked. I hadn't been hungry since the demon lord unleashed the ley lines on the world. I just enjoyed eating. Who wants to live on just air and magic?

  "Sure, starving," I replied laconically.

  "I wanted," Joe started and stopped. "I wanted to thank you."

  "For the cleaning," I asked gesturing to the newly refinished apartment. "Not a big deal."

  "No, I mean for stepping in," Joe said hesitantly.

  "Why," I asked, somewhat confused. "I only watched a little bit, but you were winning."

  "If you call that winning," Joe spat. "We only formed a gang because we had no choice if we wanted to stay in the city. If we'd been driven out who knows how things would have gone. There are shifters all over America and they won't be happy to see troublemakers move in. Not to mention that our parents and elders have to live in the human world. If they lost their jobs what are we going to do? Live feral in the park?"

  "I know packs that have staked out parks as their territory," I mentioned. It wasn't a suggestion but back in Arc, there were indeed packs that reveled in that.

  "I'd give odds that they run around at night, howl at the moon but in the morning, they put their claws away and go to their nine to five jobs. A park isn't a real home for wolves... or other shifters unless you live in a national park," a wistful look entered his eyes. "Maybe you could live like that in a national park."

  "Point," I acknowledged. I hadn't paid much attention to the packs wandering the woods. They left me alone every time I visited the portal. I didn't know if it was me or the fact that the military had locked it up tight.

  "But more importantly," he continued. "You saved Harry. I didn't even know he was there until afterward. I can't believe he chased that damned dog into the fight. Jim and his assholes don't target kids but that doesn't help when your blood's up and you can't think straight."

  I nodded in acknowledgment. I didn't get angry that often but I knew how the details faded away as you focused. Another knocking came from the door.

  "Come in," I called out. Jim walked in. He wasn't carrying anything. Instead, the two people behind him were loaded up with to go boxes. Chinese takeout if my nose was correct. Back when the ley lines weren't flowing as much, I avoided Chinese, it simply wasn't filling enough. Now flavor was the main factor so it worked.

  I grabbed a few boxes and the disposable sporks and sat down the chair. The four gang members sat in the couches and reached for the food. I glared at them. They took the hint and backed away from my food.

  "How's the ID going," I asked around the food in my mouth.

  "You care about the details?" Jim asked.

  "As long as it isn't wanted by the police and can take a fairly deep background check it should be fine."

  "I'm surprised the Euro packs don't have the resources to do this," the hyena leader said. "I can have it ready in a few days."

  "It was a rush job," I said complacently. "The situation seemed to be in the middle of going critical. They gave me other resources. Anyway. Any vampires around?"

  "Vampires?" Joe asked, looking puzzled. He glanced sideways at Jim and shrugged. "They exist?"

  "Stupid," Jim snorted back, earning a glare from his rival. "Of course, they exist. The humans don't believe in them but don't your elders say anything? They're a big deal over in Europe. I hear there's an all-out war with them starting a few months ago. They were staying low key and then bang! They start killing people left and right. Happened about the time the portals came."

  "Didn't Diego say something about them?" Joe asked thoughtfully as he digested the information.

  "Yeah, the fruitcake at least got that right," Jim nodded. "He was always going on about his mission to fight the undead and demons. I thought it was a gag. Like his Zorro costume and the joke name!"

  "But you said he was right about vampires," I interjected.

  "Well sure," Jim nodded easily. "Of course, vampires exist. At least overseas. But then he'd go on about some vampire god as if it was some Cthulhu monster."

  "You didn't see him fight the big octopus on the news before he went through the portal?" I asked. I was fishing since I didn't actually know what they showed, but it was a good guess.

  The shifters were silent as they glanced at each other uncomfortably. After a moment Joe asked, "Diego was right? There's a vampire god?"

  "I wouldn't call it a god," I replied thoughtfully. "Think of it as a supernatural leach. Or a magical tick. So, no local vampires?" I really did not want to have to go to Europe just to find a few bloodsuckers.

  "There's been rumors of people disappearing," Jim said quietly. "There's a lot of shit going on so we thought it could be anything. Since the portals opened up there's been rumors of people getting eaten by demons. There's dinosaurs loose on the streets almost every day..."

  The other pack members smiled and grinned at this. Apparently, the packs over here enjoyed the dinosaur bounty too.

  "There's even rumors of fairies. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not, especially with groups of supers fighting in the streets. People say that’s why the leopards started acting up."

  "Okay, let's talk about the leopards a bit," I segued into another relevant topic. "Let me guess, a new leader no one ever saw before?"

  "No, Grendle has been around for ages," Joe countered.

  "Sudden personality change," I fished. "Estranged from the people he used to know and love?"

  "That much is right," Jim said. "I knew the guy. I mean he was a different pack so we didn't hang out but I met him. Used to be real laid back. Typical cat."

  "When did that change?"

  "Right a
fter the portals," the pack leader said. "We all changed. Felt like the end of the world."

  Okay, he wasn't making this easy for me. I may have to meet the man and see what happened. Hopefully, he wasn't another lieutenant like Baron Kerns was. I mean it was a combination of gargoyles and the Rakshasa that made it such a pain in the butt, however, any Rakshasa is a still a major demon.

  "So, you have a plan to get us out of the limelight," Joe asked. "I mean you came over from Europe so you must know what to do. Is there a spell you can do to make people forget?"

  I glared at him. Oh my god was that a bad idea. Even if I didn't have a horrible example of that exact thing happening in Jeremy's world, I would still know it was a terrible idea. Probably. "There will be no mass mind control! It never ends well."

  Of course, that still left the question of what to do. I glanced down at my terminal and looked at the archived internet entries Beth put there. The other analog earth actually had the vampires come out first. The method they had used was to capitalize on the popularity of vampires in literature as well as a huge propaganda movement to encourage humans to see vampires as benign.

  Of course, there were some commercials that were infamous and are still mocked decades after the vampires had mostly succeeded in their efforts. It had gone a bit overboard on portraying the vampires as fluffy and harmless. However, as humiliating as it had been, and still was to a certain extent, it had worked.

  Since I had taken advantage of the opportunity to take on the identity of an Arbitrator and hijack their resources, I was now left with the responsibility of dealing with the crisis. This identity gave me a bit of support in the new world. The support was tied with trying to ensure that the shifters weren't demonized and subsequently killed off by the humans.

  As strong as shifters were in comparison to baseline humans their numbers were also extremely limited. A racial war would be debilitating to both sides but would likely lead to their demise.

  "Is that an iWatch," Joe asked curiously as I fiddled with the terminal, trying to find parallels I could use. The main problem was that all the werewolf media was largely negative. The first thing people thought of when they thought 'shifters' were werewolves. Werewolves are a very small minority within a very small minority. The second thing people thought of when they thought of werewolves were 'OMG I hope they don't eat my face'.

  "No, MI6 made it for me," I said. The other people in the room looked at me in confusion. Joe was the only one that seemed to recognize the term.

  "Like in James Bond," he tentatively asked. "Isn't that fiction?"

  "Can't say," I replied as I turned on the holographic projection. Last night the buoy's very limited AI finally accessed the public internet. Now I had access to the internet as well. I wasn't sure how. I pictured one of the buoys camped above a Starbuck's and leeching off of their connection for everyone else. It was probably wrong, but since it amused me and I since was too lazy to examine their logs I decided to keep that image.

  Between us sprang into view a compiled list of articles combed from the net about combat between supers and shifters. They ranged from unverified stories to fully photographed and detailed descriptions of combat between Diego's group and shifters in animal or hybrid forms.

  "Holy cow," Joe exclaimed as he stared at the projection. "It's real?"

  "Who the fuck is MI6," Jim asked in annoyance. "It’s a dumbass name. This looks like Balkeez shit!"

  "Pay attention," I said, ignoring their comments. "From what I see here, most of the verified shifter events are from the leopards."

  "Dumbasses," muttered Jim darkly. Apparently, even though he was motivated by being exposed he wasn't happy about it.

  "Still, unless we kill all the leopards and say they are the entire shifter population, this still implicates the everyone else."

  "We can't do that," Joe spat in horror. Jim was looking thoughtfully at the articles, nodding in consideration. It wasn't something I planned to do either unless the entire leopard pack had been replaced by Rakshasa. That was a horrible thought. One major demon I could deal with. Ten or more and I would have to go with plan B. I was still making up plan B.

  "It's going to be the last-ditch option," I nodded wisely. "I'll meet with them and as long as I can convince them to follow my lead or beat them into submission, we'll avoid that option."

  "But..." Jim objected. I think he liked that option a bit too much.

  "Last ditch," I interrupted. "The good news is that werewolves, were-hyenas, and were-rabbits are still tentatively in the land of myth."

  "There's no such things as were rabbits," one of Jim's nameless companions said.

  "True," I agreed. They were probably eaten by a werehyena tribe. I didn't think I had heard of any non-predator type shifters existing. From what I knew, fighting between packs generally weren't to extinction but I had noticed that a lot of breeds weren't represented.

  "Let's assume you can get the leopards to fall into line," the wolf pack leader prompted. "Do you have a plan?"

  I turned off the projection. It had been small but I didn't have a very fast way to recharge the battery. "I think we may need to hire a PR firm. If we can't use the leopard pack as a scapegoat then the cat's out of the bag. We'll have to concentrate on damage control."

  "You mean to tell the humans about us on purpose? That’s against the rules," Joe said indignantly. Beside him Jim was silent but he obviously wasn't happy about it either. "Are you sure we can't find a mage to..."

  "No mind control," I said slowly and clearly. "However, mages might be able to supply other services. Ask your elders if they have any local contacts who we can discuss things with," I innocently suggested.

  This was before there was an invasion from a god, leading to the Moscow Event. That, in turn, lead to the Announcement where the mages fouled things up by casting a worldwide geas and thereafter crawled into a hole. Then they pulled the hole in after them. I might be able to dig up some contacts and do a little bit of research while I waited for the buoys to do their thing.

  "I don't see how exposing our existence is going to help," Joe said. "It's one of the reasons that some packs have gone insane." He stared at Jim. The hyena leader gave him an uncaring grin.

  "If we can show that shifters are just regular humans that can shift shape and romp around in animal form while living in harmony with nature, we can show an aspect that humans can coexist with."

  The others stared at me in confusion. After a few more seconds, the hyena subordinates broke out in cackles. I looked at them and it was enough to shut them up.

  "That... seems pretty farfetched," Joe said cautiously.

  "Well we can't go back to hiding," I said. I mean I could, but I have found it to be a lot more fun not hiding than when I was lurking around Arc city. I also had proof that this approach worked. Admittedly it had ruined the vampire's reputations as big bad supernaturals. Since they weren't around to take one for the team it would likely not be so good for the local shifters. Never the less, it sounded like a lot more fun than going back into hiding.

  "Find out the best PR company available," I commanded. "I'd rather not randomly select one from the internet. We have supers, faeries, vampires, and aliens. Hopefully, we can be less scary than them."

  "Wait, fairies are real too?" Joe said. He earned a look of disgust from the hyena leader. However, Jim's followers looked as surprised as the wolf. This told me that either Jim was faking it or he had access to better information than other shifters. Hopefully, he had access to better information. The shifters were presently my only 'in' with the supernatural community. I was only able to pretend to be an Arbitrator due to how massively fragmented the various groups were, however, it was a bit inconvenient for my plans.

  "Okay, those are my orders for now," I said. "Find a PR agency. The best. Pretend your life depends on it." This elicited nervous groans from the minions. "Let's get this place fixed up and the paperwork for buying it under my new identity. At least when it exis
ts."

  "A few days," the hyena leader assured me again.

  "Can you buy a condemned building," Joe asked, earning a look of disgust from the other thugs. "Right. Never mind."

  "Contact the leopards," I continued. "I want to meet them. Someplace private but with a lot of space if I have to... er... demonstrate my credentials." This earned a grin from everyone in the room. "I will need access to the area beforehand."

  If they were demons, I wanted to lock down the area with wards and circles. In the best case, if there were one or two, I could prevent them from leaving. In the worst case, if there were ten or more, I could prevent them from following me if I had to make a strategic retreat. It hurt my pride to even think of that possibility but with an army of demons at large, it was something I had to consider.

  "Talk to your elders about possible leads on vampires and mages," I continued. "I would ideally like to make peaceful contact with them. Worst case, with the vampires, I would like to have a better lead than 'somewhere in the sewer'."

  "That'll be tough," muttered the lead hyena. "I haven't heard squat since they went nuts overseas."

  "That’s why they pay you the big bucks," I said with an uncaring smile. This earned me a glare.

  Chapter 20

  I gave Jim a bag of diamonds to convert to money. They were the lifeless ones of course. I still had tons of the stuff around. After the shifters left, I went back to studying how to store energy and spells. By the time night was rolling in I was fairly confident I could create the mana batteries. The spell storage aspect still needed a bit of practice.

  At this point, my terminal chimed again. I eagerly looked at it but there was no portal. Or rather no permanent one. One of the buoys had marked another node, slightly larger than the last, in a local park. Central Park. I could give the humans kudos for an imaginative name... but I wouldn't. Apparently, it was in the middle of Manhattan.

  My brow furrowed a bit. It wasn't that far away as the dragonflies. Just over the river. Or inland sea. Eh, they call it a river, let's go with that. East River. This city seemed more colorful in the movies.