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

by Daniel Ruth

  "I'm touched," I mumbled to myself as I reset the password. I had to enter the old password but it was only '1234'. It seems the e-mail account was a gift too.

  Since I was mucking around in the e-mail system, I created another account for business purposes. I would give that one out to the boys. Then I spent an hour going over the built-in documentation on the security settings and changed everything from its Basic Security settings to its Advanced Security settings. The advanced setting was far more difficult and inconvenient but since I seemed to have an admirer who was able to blow through the simple settings it seemed the obvious step. Frankly, I would have run an intruder protocol that included a firmware reset if it hadn't meant leaving all the drones already sent out basically bricked into non-functionality. All of this was learned in one frantic hour of curses and muttering as I flipped back and forth through the documentation, the saved wiki database, and the security settings. Three times I thought I had locked myself out of the drones' account. Fortunately, I was able to recover each time.

  It was frustrating but somewhat edifying. Personally, I think magic made more sense than software but I was probably simply wired that way. Figuratively speaking.

  I decided to push this whole episode to the back of my mind. I already had Maribel and had no need to attempt another romantic relationship. Dragons mate for life and even if we were simply dating to feel each other out, I didn't intend to explore other options. Let alone a secret pen pal.

  Once I was reasonably sure I wasn't going to have my homemade drone army stolen away, I turned my attention to the building renovation. Although last night was perhaps one of the true low points in my life, I did actually finish imbuing my trinkets with energy drawn from the node.

  This meant that I went through the building room by room casting Clean and Repair in a maniacal frenzy. Four hours later I came out of my fugue state panting from the effort to maintain a continuous state of concentration. True these weren't really more than cantrips but I may have gone a bit overboard.

  Never the less, the building was no longer on the brink of collapse. There were still missing appliances, missing patches of paint and several holes in the wall. Compared to what it was before it almost a brand-new building. Most of the paint was back. Likewise, most of the cracks and holes were filled in. Mildew, mold and... whatever that quivering sludge thing was, were gone. The hairs on the back of my neck finally relaxed and tension flowed out of me as some odd part me relaxed. Jeremy had teased me on occasion on me being borderline OCD. He was wrong of course but I am particular about my lair... um, home.

  This begged the question about how I was going to refill all that energy I had just used. More than ten times my own reserves. Ah. That's what regret feels like.

  I shook my head and steeled my nerves. It had to be done. Living in filth was like constantly hearing nails on a chalkboard. Now I could concentrate on the important things. Looking at the time I placed the final gemstones in the K-Mart bag I had found in the closet and put it by the door.

  Minutes later I heard footsteps on the stairs. "What the hell happened?" a startled voice echoed through the hall. "Did someone set off a clean bomb? It looks like a cleaning crew the size of a marching band came through here. And did repairs."

  "Don't bother asking," another muffled voice replied. "You know the boss likes the whole mystery man thing."

  As I opened the door I gestured to Jim and Joe to come in. "Let's hurry this up." The two men entered and took a seat on opposite couches.

  "Did you contact the PR company?"

  "Yep, they can come over tomorrow."

  "Are they aware of the supernatural?"

  "Kind of," Joe said reluctantly. "My fourth aunt is a secretary there. It's the way I know a bit about them but I don't think the upper management is in the know."

  "Well it will be an interesting meeting then," I said with a shrug. We had to start somewhere. "Would you happen to know where the permanent portals are?" They gazed blankly at me. Yeah, it was a longshot but I would have felt really stupid it was common knowledge and I simply never asked.

  "You mean a portal like where the little demons gather and the dinosaurs fall through except permanent?" Jim asked.

  "Yes. Like that," I grunted morosely.

  "There's rumors," Joe started hesitantly. "And of course, the National Enquirer runs articles. It's mostly stories about government conspiracies."

  My lipped quirked. If there wasn't anything in the papers then there most likely was a government cover-up. Unfortunately, my only 'in' to the conspiracy was put on hold until I dealt with Dash.

  "Fine. Tell me where this homeless man you've tagged as a vampire is and the location of Purgatory," I directed him. "I'll check out the locations tonight."

  "Both of them?" Joe asked.

  "Well, at least one of them," I said thoughtfully. "If there isn't anything to see it should be quick. If not, I can visit the other one tomorrow night."

  "Grendle agreed to meet at Purgatory's old casino tomorrow night," Jim interjected. I stared at him in surprise.

  "Yes. Good job." I blinked and gathered my thoughts. "Okay. Tonight, might be a long night."

  "Do you need us to come with you?" Joe asked reluctantly.

  "No," I quickly replied. Shifters were sturdier than humans but in a worst-case scenario, they would prevent me from getting the heck away. "I should be fine, it's just recon." I suspiciously gave Joe a sidelong look. "Is there any particular reason I have to find vampire candidate number one tonight?"

  "Tonight?" the direwolf leader asked in surprise. "No. Not at all. I mean you could, he is almost always at the edge of Central Park. I don't see why that would be different tonight but it not like he's going to pack up and leave."

  "Great. I guess I'll do that one second if I have time. Let's talk renovation. Jim, the bag by the door is the diamonds. Go sell them so we can get our plans moving."

  "Sure thing," he said distractedly, his eyes drawn magnetically to the bag. "Whatever you've done with the building makes things easier. I don't have to bribe anyone now, I can just pay to have it re-inspected and say the records were incorrect. I may have to bribe someone to have it done fast though." He glanced back to the diamonds. His casual act finally broke down. "Is that thing really full of diamonds? Shit man! How am I going to unload pounds of diamonds? The people I know can't handle that many!"

  "Idiot." Joe murmured, drawing the others ire. "Look it up! Your fences may not be able to handle it but all those blood diamond mines sell way more volume than that every day. Go to the suppliers. You can use your goons... I mean pack to threaten yourself into the supply chain."

  "You already looked it up?" I asked, pleased.

  "You said you had pounds of diamonds," he shrugged. "I was curious. I mean the suppliers are hardcore and may be crazy like those drug lords, but either they're human, in which case they can't do much to us or they are were clans. If they are weres, then we call into the Arbitrator to get them to calm their shit down."

  "Okay, I can do that," Jim said reluctantly, obviously displeased that Joe had seemed more worldly wise than himself. Frankly, I didn't know if Joe was correct but it was a plan to start with.

  "Good job, Joe." I smiled and encouraged him. "Work with Jim to get it done." Instantly both young men were glaring at each other. I slammed the floor with my foot, careful not to accidentally crash through it. It made a nicely intimidating sound. "Get. It. Done."

  That intimidated them enough to get stop the glaring and pay attention to me. We went over some details on the real estate purchasing of the building I was in, as well as Purgatory. Jim tried to go into details on the contractors doing the repairs but I just laid out the minimum changes I wanted to the floorplans and told him to deal with it.

  The paperwork for Purgatory was very scarce. It was mostly preliminary. The real estate people had given up trying to sell the property almost two decades ago. Humans couldn't get near it and supernaturals had bad things happen
to them. Jim told me that the agents had jumped on the vague promise of an offer but they needed time to dig up the documentation.

  I frowned to myself as I went over the overview. "This doesn't make sense," I pointed out a section to Jim. "Here it says the property is a house. Over on this page, it describes the land to be an entire block. Which is it?"

  From my own experience, I was guessing it would be at least a block. Sulayman had bought up and renovated an entire neighborhood in Arc. It was even the most notorious, rundown, gang-riddled cesspit. Most of the rest of the city had considered it a den of inequity, home to the mentally ill who would rather live in their own squalor and violence than join the modern era.

  Sulayman hadn't cared. He bought the area, razed it to the ground and had it filled with prefab building that looked like it been built as the lovechild between Disneyworld and the Las Vegas strip.

  While I am not sure how he dealt with the original denizens, it sounded like he hired a massive supernatural force comprised of vampires and shifters. Either way, the previous owners... or squatters were gone almost overnight. I had suspicions that the vampires had 'encouraged' the local humans to join the undead club. With the hypnotic abilities that bordered on mind control, it was impossible to know if it was all voluntary.

  Maybe Conrad would have investigated it with his AEGIS task force but then the end of the world happened and no one cared much. Hmm. I should stop calling it the end of the world. Most of the city was still intact and less than ten percent of the population... in Arc at least... had died. I wonder if I could call it the 'Little Death". Mini Apocalypse? Death's Speed Bump?

  I shook my head in an attempt to focus. Anyway, Sulayman's latest project had been large. It was hard to believe that this world's equivalent was a single building. Even a block was rather small.

  "I don't know," the were hyena shrugged helplessly. "It was years before my time. Even the elders don't talk about it much. When I asked, they started contradicting themselves. The agents are humans. They can't even go there. I talk to them and they turn white as a ghost and start shivering and stammering."

  "Its fine. I'll look at it tonight," I dismissed it. "Looks like this is a good stopping point. Send up a big meal and we'll talk again about the Purgatory meeting. Even if we can't buy it on such short notice it sounds like no one is using it, so let's go forward on the meeting plans."

  "Okay, see you tomorrow morning with the Sterling company," Joe said as he looked up from where he was arguing with someone on the phone. He was helping track down the right contacts to get rid of the diamonds. He wasn't happy about working with Jim and was obviously frustrated with what he was hearing over the phone but he seemed mostly copacetic about his new partner.

  "By the way," Jim asked as he left the apartment. "Why tonight? Wouldn't it be better to explore it during the day? It's still light outside."

  I paused. Honestly, it was just reflex. The world's authorities were after me so it seemed natural to sneak around at night. However, when I actually thought about it, wouldn't it be easier to blend in with a crowd. I shrugged. "I wanted to read some things before I head out."

  This was true. As they left, I pulled out my spell tome and dug into the first of the temporal spells, Slow. I had already looked over the theory and was eager to try some practical applications. I was just about to start when I muttered a curse under my breath. I had used up all my magical energy on Cleaning and Repairing the darn building. I didn't have nearly enough to do anything except a few of the low-level spells the school taught.

  All of the spells I had gotten from Duke Ponzi were massive mana sinks except the Ley line Merge spell. It was more like meditation and becoming one with the energy. That meant I had to change up my research priorities.

  So, for the next two hours, I focused on becoming one with the world. It was relaxing, even energizing. I was able to recover as much energy as if I had been meditating. Still, I was thankful when the food arrived. Since my building wasn't actually on a ley line, I had reached a bottleneck in my practice.

  Once I was done, I looked out. It was just getting dark. It was earlier than I was expecting but I found myself eager to get started. Maybe it would be satisfying to feel like I was making progress. So many things were in the planning stage I was starting to feel like I was simply treading water.

  An hour later I still had that feeling. The address Jim had given me was on the waterfront. A ley line went through it, so I was feeling very peppy. Yet I couldn't actually find the building. There wasn't a house at the address. There wasn't even a lawn. There was a short alley. A short filthy alley, with mounds of dirt, rotten organic refuse, and rats. Lots of rats. It made my skin crawl. Here I had thought I had delayed a romp through the sewers trying to find the elusive vampire and yet the sewer seemed to come to me.

  Figuratively girding my loins, I squared my shoulders and stepped into the alley. The further I went the dirtier the place seemed. A quiver from a patch of fungus ejected a cloud of spores and I reflexively spat out a mouthful of fire into the haze. They immediately ignited and filled the tiny street with glorious fire.

  The short-term surge of satisfaction was quickly replaced by a feeling of panic. Not from the fire itself but if I accidentally burnt down my own property in a fit of manic cleanliness, I would be incredibly embarrassed. It might also draw unwanted attention from... well everyone. At least I hadn't officially bought it yet.

  This was my mantra as I swept and stomped on the fire. The fire didn't bother me much. It wasn't even magical flames. I used a bit of telekinesis to sweep up the burning refuse away from the buildings and it soon burned itself out. Oddly enough there were no alarms, shouts or any noise from the adjoining buildings. They were empty.

  I was thinking about this as I waved my hand and cast a Clean cantrip. Now that there was mostly just a pile of ash it was enough to clear the majority of the alley. I was about to move in deeper when I felt a tingle from my senses. I peered closer to the walls. Reaching out I smoothed some of the remaining ash away.

  Wards. I glanced to the side and then behind me. The walls were covered in wards. Mostly fear wards. Well, that explained why humans couldn't even come close. Chances were excellent that the adjacent houses were empty. Unless there were counter wards on the other side of the wall, any humans made to live here would likely slowly go insane. They were weak though. Even minor supernaturals would shrug them off.

  This was promising. I mean there was no house here, but the wards definitely showed I was on the right track. Moving forward I started to sway a bit. The fabric of space was slightly twisted and the effect got worse as I approached the dead end. A smile gradually bloomed on my face.

  Spacial warping would definitely explain the discrepancies in the land description. I hadn't thought Sulayman had any expertise in such enchantments, let alone that he was so advanced that he could fold space enough to create a pocket dimension. None the less, I was betting that was what was in front of me.

  I was slightly worried that the dimensional barriers the Demon Lord had set up to prevent unauthorized dimensional travel would severe the entrance to the artificial dimension. If that was the case the dimension would be set adrift to float in between dimensions until a god or other power noticed it. But it was likely in one piece. Except for the sheer magnitude, it wasn't any different from my storage bag. A trick of the local space, just twisted like a pretzel. Heck, even the astral plane hadn't been affected by Vatapi's trap.

  I tapped the end wall a few times and was rewarded by an echo of enchantment. I frowned. That wasn't a ward or a circle. That felt completely different. I was pondering the feeling when I heard tinkling laughter behind me.

  Hovering in the air behind me was a female pixie. You know. A foot-high human looking creature with insect wings. I briefly thought of Faramond. The first rumors I had heard of him had attributed his powers to the fae. That was ridiculous of course. The fae race includes the likes of fairies, pixies, boggarts and brownies. Al
l mischievous little beggars with a twisted sense of humor and barely enough individual magic to blow their nose.

  "Hello," I offered neutrally. No need to be hostile, even if they did have a wretched reputation. "Is this your magic hiding the entrance? I can feel it there."

  "Are you one of the wild ones?" The creature cocked her head and abruptly flitted a few feet closer. I snorted. If I was, flying this close to a shifter's mouth was incredibly stupid. I had a low opinion of teenage shifters. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried something stupid, like eating a fae. Stupid for a shifter but still deadly for a fae.

  "You could say that," I replied. "I need to get inside. If you could dispel the illusion it would be very convenient."

  "What would you want to do that for?" she asked in confusion. "There's nothing inside but the lords and ladies of darkness. They hate visitors." She paused in thought, her tiny face puckered in contemplation. "Actually, that may not be true. They love visitors. I think. Then again considering what they do to them, perhaps they do hate them..."

  "Lords and ladies," I asked in interest. It appears the place had squatters. From the description, they were well-dressed ones. Could be vampires. They loved dress-up.

  "...then again they always seem so happy to have guests. Eh? Oh yes. They love their fancy dresses. Every day is a party and you can't have a party without dresses."

  "Right. Got to love the parties," I said in encouragement. She didn't seem malicious, just dim-witted. "Can you dispel the illusion?"

  "If I could do that, I would be in there having fun with the big ones," the tiny fae said. "Only the ones they let in, get to play."

  "Well, that's awkward," I muttered to myself. What would happen if I set the meeting at Purgatory and no one could get inside? Would we all huddle out here in the alleyway?