by Adam Thielen
“I’ve heard of them,” said Taq. “I spent years trying to get a set of global standards established for mage treatment in universities. My success was very limited, my failures, expansive.”
“Hey, Taq, I’m sorry about earlier.”
“Good.”
Cho waited for more, but Taq closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.
“Right, good,” she said, swiveling her body away from him and unfolding her legs.
“But you were right, at least partially,” he admitted after making her wait.
“I didn’t tell you about the blood. I was too chickenshit to ask you straight up,” said Tsenka, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“I should have expected it.”
“Because that’s who I am,” said Tsenka.
“You always did find a way… or make one,” recalled Jones.
“Ya…”
“You eat any lunch?” asked Taq.
“It is already after noon, isn’t it,” realized Cho. “I feel tired. I think I will down a blood pack and take a short nap. You going to be alright?”
“I’ve got some work I can do remotely, and I may order some food.” Taq rolled to his knees, then stood. He moved to a chair and sat, then pulled out his com and placed it on the table. “If I get too bored I’ll just shitpost for a while.”
Cho flashed a look of amusement as she pulled a plastic blood pack from her bag. She pulled the cap off and a small straw extended from the top. She used her neural interface to switch her nanites to slowly distribute incoming blood, then sucked on the tube. It filled with red and the bag narrowed, then shriveled, then flattened as she swallowed it down. Tsenka rarely drank blood straight but knew she would need the packs if she were to lose her own plasma due to injury.
The vampire put the cap back on and tossed the pouch next to her bag on the floor. She pulled off her bloody and torn shirt, revealing a black bra. Taq’s eyes snapped to her undergarment as the rational part of his brain shut down. The lapse of control passed and he realized what he was doing, but it was too late. Cho was already looking at his eyes. He looked up to meet her gaze, then back to her chest. Both stayed silent as Tsenka dropped the shirt at her feet and reached behind her back. Her fingers unhooked the bra, letting the rear straps fall to her sides before the top straps slipped over her shoulders and down her arms.
Taq knew he should look away, kept thinking he should look away, but could not actually look away. Her body was perfect, and the improvements made to her skin over the years removed the eeriness it had once possessed. Tsenka continued looking at him as her hands moved to her waist and unbuttoned her pants. She shoved her hands into her back pockets, pushing the belt line past her buttocks and exposing her matching black panties. The nocturnal bent over, freeing Taq from her stare. She crumpled the pants at her ankles then casually stepped out of them and walked to her bed.
The elder mage tracked her movement, convinced she was teasing him on purpose. But she did not give him a final look before crawling under the covers. Taq sighed, then cursed himself, then apologized to his wife in thought. He stood and entered the bathroom, closed the door behind him, and turned on the shower.
After three hours of slumber, Tsenka Cho’s internal alarm sounded. She opened her eyes, casting them at the drapes where the light filtering through UV barriers indicated it was still day. The sheets had proved too warm and now lay at the foot of the bed with her bare body sprawled across the mattress.
What’s gotten into me? she thought, looking over at Taq, who diligently engrossed himself in work. His com projected the workspace onto his retinas, and small eye movements, gestures, and occasional typing on a virtual keyboard allowed him to read, file, and edit various documents.
Cho pulled the sheet up and around her. The noise attracted Jones’s attention, but he turned back to his work space before his eyes could lock on to her again. The nocturnal briskly moved to her bag and made for the bathroom. She turned on the faucet and scooped water into her mouth, gargling and spitting, then drinking. She hopped into the shower, intending to quickly rinse off, but found the large droplets comforting unlike her mist blaster back home.
After finishing and donning a new outfit consisting of a white button-down blouse and jean shorts, she emerged to find Taq lying on his bed.
“You aren’t going to sleep now, are you?” she asked him.
“I think I fell asleep a couple times while working… with my eyes open,” he said. “No, not sleeping, but I do have a reason to lie here if you’re still willing.”
The agent’s eyebrows rose. “Willing… to do what?”
“Give me blood.”
Cho’s mouth turned up. “You will try it?”
“If Somer is out there, I should do what I can,” he replied. “I don’t like the idea. I spent years in drug therapy restoring my serotonin levels and other imbalances. Even so, I know this isn’t the same. It’s just the principle of the thing, of avoiding the mistakes I had made before.”
“Were they mistakes, though?” asked Cho. “She’s still alive, probably because of what you did.”
“It’s yet to be determined if that’s a good thing,” Jones asserted. “Right then, how do we do this? From your wrist maybe?”
“No need,” said Cho, hurrying to her bag. She pulled out a wide auto-syringe and brought it back to the bed.
“You planned ahead,” Taq inferred.
Tsenka nodded. “Our blood is valuable, and sometimes not the easiest thing to replenish in the field. But this should still be fresh.”
“It expires?”
“Indeed it does,” said Cho. “Specifics are sketchy. Freezing human blood works fine for vampires, but not sure if it works with vampire blood and mages.”
Taq stared at the long needle attached to the syringe as Cho popped the cover off. “Are you going to jab me with that thing?”
“I thought maybe that would be easier than—”
“Shit no,” said Taq. “That’s about the worst thing I can imagine right now.”
“You want to drink it?” asked Cho. “Like, mixed with something?”
“Just hand it over,” he said, holding out his hand. “Take that damn stabber off first.”
Cho obeyed, eyeing the mage skeptically. To her surprise, Taq held the tip to his lips and pulled the plunger toward him. His eyes widened for a moment and he let a groan escape. His throat quivered then moved in a swallowing rhythm. He continued plunging until the barrel was spent, then lowered the syringe and stared at the floor.
“You okay?” asked Cho.
“Wow… that is much nastier than I remember.”
He looked up at Cho to offer her the empty syringe. The color in his irises had faded and veins had invaded the whites. Tsenka took it and stepped back while Jones lay on his back again.
“This is a large continent,” he said. “But I will search as far as I can. Aura colors fade and the Ethereal plane turns formless the further out I go.”
“How far is that?”
“Depends on the strength of my brain’s connection to my aura, and a lot of other factors,” explained Taq, his breathing becoming shallow and quick. He closed his eyes. “Here goes nothing.”
The mage’s mind went through the exercises, visualizing shapes arranged in specific patterns. He imagined his body submerging in water, and the darkness of his eyelids gave way to the shadows and lights of the Ethereal plane. A chill swept over Tsenka’s skin and she took another step back.
Taq felt a surge of energy flow through him as he transitioned into his Ethereal form. Light coming from his own aura, bright and diffused, blinded him. He focused, pulling himself together. A world full of glowing forms greeted him. The east held the most activity, and he could see distinct auras in the distance with a clarity he had not had for a long time.
As before, he looked around at the closest forms first and again spotted the aura shifter. This time it appeared to be sitting in the upper level of an adjacent building.
He considered manifesting his physical sight to try to look at the person but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of wearing himself out. He instead chose to focus his efforts on searching for any trace of Desre Somer. Her aura would be distinctive, and this was no seer.
Taq visualized the map he had studied of the city’s layout. He looked in the direction of his destination but did not see a clumping of awakened like he expected. He flew through the Ether, through the walls of the hotel, hovering above the ground. It did not take him long to travel south across the city. In less than a minute he reached the Mumbai university. Inside he saw six mundane auras and two evocation mages like himself.
Where are the rest? he wondered. He cautiously moved inside the building. Neither of the two mages was moving, and their auras glowed faintly. Two of the mundanes seemed to be conversing. Others were seated inside of a room on the ground floor. This is no university. But what is it?
He went from room to room, knowing that not all inanimate objects in the facade would mirror in the Ethereal plane. If there were bloodstains on the wall, he wouldn’t be able to tell. If a human body was lying on the floor of one of the rooms, it would not appear in the plane for several days. He returned to one of the two mages and reached his hand out, connecting their auras. Jones felt intense despair and suffering. Torture, he assumed, pulling his hand away.
Jones decided he could spend no more time investigating the building. He scanned around him, looking for the red color of psionic energy. He willed himself northeast as fast as he could. Black shadows of buildings and cars flew by him. He entered a wasteland sparsely decorated with structures inhabited by only handfuls of people and realized he must be well outside the city.
I feel incredible, he thought, experiencing no fatigue. But despite his success at projection, he still saw no seer auras. He turned around and faced the city. For a brief moment, the mage caught sight of a pink smudge in the distance. He immediately flew toward it as it dissipated. It was just here, he thought, floating in the middle of the spot where the anomaly had been.
Taq reached his hands out. He could feel the energy and knew it belonged to Desre. Somehow he felt her in the fabric of the Ethereal plane. Where did you go? he wondered. Jones looked around but saw no other nearby auras. He had lost his bearings and decided he needed to get a solid address. He phased through the walls, then hovered outside the building. The mage took a deep breath, then pulled open the veil, allowing the light of the facade to enter. A plain stone building three stories tall stood in front of him. It had no numbers, names, or other identifiers posted on its exterior. Jones flew to a nearby street sign. Laxmi Nagar, read Taq.
Peering into the facade taxed him. Feeling his strength begin to wane, he shut out the physical world and traveled further east again, pushing himself as far as he could go, searching the horizon for any more red blotches. For what seemed like several minutes, the mage flew, eventually finding a large grouping of auras. Another city, he realized. Failing to spot any trace of his quarry, he continued past. Further and further he went until he felt his aura begin to thin and the shapes of the physical world fade into black. In the distance, he could see specks of light like stars in space. He was too far out to learn anything more.
For a few minutes, Taq floated in the void, drifting in an unseen current toward the direction of his body. He soaked up the feeling that he was young and powerful again, that this was still his world. As his aura began to fade into the darkness, the elder knew his jaunt was over. He willed himself back into the city, then into the hotel, then into his body, snapping back into place like a rubber band.
Jones opened his eyes. He sucked in air and coughed, clearing his throat. The taste of Tsenka’s blood still lingered in his mouth. He sat up and looked around. “Damn it, what was the name of that street,” he muttered to himself. “Laxmi something.”
“I’ll look it up,” said Cho. Her eyes pointed at the mattress and juddered left and right, then locked on to Taq. “Laxmi Nagar?”
“That’s what it was.”
“Did you find her?”
“No,” he replied, looking at his knees. “But she was there, in a building along that road. I could feel it, as if she had left a marker for us.”
Tsenka considered this. “Have you seen that sort of thing before? Can you tell how long ago she would have left it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how she did it. In fact, if this corp, Cepheid, figured out a way to mask an aura, what I saw could be a result.”
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, Tsenka.”
Cho released a short sigh. “Well, would polonium do it?”
“Polonium is visible through the Ether,” explained Taq. “I would have seen it, probably.”
The nocturnal stood. “I have to go check it out.”
“Wouldn’t it be wise to wait until nightfall?”
Tsenka moved to her bag and pulled out her combat suit. The thin, flexible outfit covered her from wrists to chest to ankles. Sandwiched in between the protective layers were sensors and nanite stores that linked with her neural interface implant.
“If somehow she’s being held there and her captors get wind of our presence, Desre may not have much time,” reasoned Cho. “I can’t risk showing up too late.”
“You risk a lot charging into a building potentially run by the government in broad daylight,” countered Taq.
“I know that, and I’m still going. I have to. I don’t plan on starting any fires though. How many other auras did you see in the building?”
Jones’s face brightened. “Actually, there were none.” He lowered his feet to the floor and leaned forward to stand up. “I’ll come, too.”
“You’ve done your job,” said Cho. “There’s no need.”
“I want to see this place for myself. We sneak in, investigate, then get out.”
“And what if somehow the building is shielded from the Ethereal plane?” posed Tsenka. “You’d be walking into a potential trap. Just stay here.”
“I’m way too jacked up to sit around a hotel room,” argued Taq. “Just let me come. You’ve already got some vampire hunter after you. You need my help.”
“I have bulletproof skin. If we get into a firefight, you’ll become a distraction, a liability.”
“That isn’t fair,” said Taq, moving close to Cho. “I’m old, but I’m still capable. I packed some decent gear. Here, I’ll show you.”
He walked over to his duffel and pulled out a deep blue shirt and pants that Cho recognized as a set of pricey g-silk garments that provided no blunt force protection but would stop some small arms fire from reaching vital organs. He held them up as if to prove he was prepared.
“And…” he said, “I’m also a fuckin’ mage.”
He marched into the bathroom with his threads and closed the door. Tsenka rolled her eyes, then pulled out her bottle of skin lubricant. She disrobed completely and began to apply a thin layer to her skin, rubbing it over most of her body. The lube allowed her suit, tailored for her exact measurements, to slide on with ease. It also allowed her to move freely without chafing.
Jones opened the bathroom door and stepped out, now dressed in his fine adventuring silks with a flannel shirt over the top. He looked over at the naked Cho, who was in the middle of rubbing her glistening skin.
“Oh, come on!” he moaned, throwing his arms up, then turned around and stepped back into the bathroom.
Tsenka sighed. “But I thought you wanted to come.”
“What?” called Jones from the other side of the door.
“Nothing.”
Episode 5: Mage Affairs
A cab drove Tsenka Cho and Taq Jones east. The city proper faded behind them and the wastes of greater India emerged. Decades of fighting, natural disasters, drought, and famine had devastated the landscape. Most of the area had never been properly developed but instead had seen impromptu cities rise and fall. What construction remained consisted of
light materials, corrugated panels, and a lot of brightly colored paint.
While scraps and artifacts from a more fruitful time littered the dirt plains, only a few old-world structures had remained standing. Wind kicked dust into the air, and as the vampire and mage duo looked out further eastward, they could see clouds of dull brown roll across the horizon, all but obscuring rolling hills and rock formations in the distance.
The car stopped a half klick from the building that Taq had seen during his Ether travel. Normally that would be a safe distance to approach from, but the area was so sparse that if anyone was on the lookout, they would easily spot the car and the emergence of its two occupants. Despite that danger, Tsenka saw no other means of approach.
The air was warm and dry, and Taq realized his clothing was very good at retaining warmth as his skin became clammy within moments of stepping out of the vehicle. Cho’s more advanced suit used thermoelectric strips to keep her body cool. As the car sped away, Tsenka moved to Taq’s side.
“I don’t see a way to avoid cameras,” she said.
“Got a stealth generator?” asked Taq.
“My suit can camouflage me,” she replied. “But it’s not very good while moving.”
“We should have passed by in the car.”
“We would have been vulnerable,” said Cho. “Get on the other side of me and stay close.”
Taq nodded and moved to Tsenka’s right side, opposite the building. They walked down the compacted dirt and gravel road, continuing past it. Cho looked over, her electric eye zooming in on each of the exposed windows.
They continued walking until they reached an abandoned rust-bucket slumping on the side of the road. They leaned against the car corpse. Cho turned to Taq.
“I didn’t see anyone inside.”
“Let me take a quick look,” said Taq. He closed his eyes and pushed his sight into the Ethereal plane. He wasn’t projecting like before, but merely peering past the veil, a much less strenuous task. To his surprise, he spotted a mundane aura inside the building on the second floor.