She intends to rent her body to you, Harrow said. The ancient sorceress seemed vastly amused. Right now, she is assessing you, trying to gage how best to raise the issue of sex for money. You should be blunt, for she will make a suitable sacrifice.
“Oh,” Calvin subvocalised. “How do I do that?”
Harrow’s advice made him smile. “Tell me,” he said, “how much money do you regularly collect from customers?”
Jewels gave him a sharp, calculating look. “Maybe a hundred dollars per session,” she said, finally. The flirty exterior was gone. “I’m clean and I hope you’re clean too.”
Calvin nodded, absently. Two months ago, he would never have dared walk into such a room, let alone bargain for sex. He wouldn't even have known where to look for a prostitute, or whatever the going rate was for sex on the streets. And for all of Moe’s bragging, Calvin would have been surprised if he'd known where to go either.
“Yes,” he said. A hundred dollars? He’d barely managed to scrape up a thousand dollars through mind control spells, followed by memory charms. The trail he’d left wouldn't be immediately noticeable, but it would be noticed eventually. He smiled a moment later. It wasn't as if he was going to pay. “A hundred dollars for the entire night.”
Jewels agreed at once, suggesting that he was massively overpaying her. “I’ll just get my coat,” she said. “Wait for me at the door.”
She walked off towards the rear of the room, behind the stage. Despite the drink, she walked steadily, without even swaying her hips. Calvin watched her hungrily until she vanished, and then turned back to his lemonade, finishing it in a single swig. When Jewels returned, he had already paid for the drinks and was waiting by the door. She smiled at him, took his hand, and led him out into the darkness, back to the motel. They entered through a rear door that Calvin had missed when he’d been shown his room, but it was easy to find his compartment. Jewels had him wrapped in an embrace the moment the door closed behind them, opening her coat to reveal that she wore nothing else underneath. Suddenly, Calvin just couldn't get his clothes off fast enough.
Jewels leaned forward. “Your first time?”
“Sort of,” Calvin mumbled. He had a feeling that Marie didn't count. “I...”
“Don't worry,” Jewels said. “I know just what I’m doing.”
Afterwards, Calvin lay on the bed as she showered, no longer feeling like a virgin. Jewels had used her mouth in ways he hadn't seen outside of pornographic videos he’d downloaded from the internet, before mounting him and pressing down on his penis. The memories rose up in front of his eyes and he smirked. Moe would have been jealous if he’d ever realised just how far Calvin had gone, if he’d still been alive. It was almost a pity one couldn't resurrect the dead properly, at least according to Harrow. He would have liked a chance to gloat to Moe before killing him for the second time.
He sat up, nibbling chocolate as Jewels used the shower. It was the one thing in the room that was actually working, for obvious reasons. She'd told him that she wasn't really expected to go back to the dancing hall until the following evening, allowing him to wonder if she could stay with him all day. It would cost more, but he could afford it.
No time, Harrow said. She’d been banished from his mind while he’d been having sex with Jewels. You know what you have to do.
Jewels stepped back into the room, naked and lovely. “I’m sorry,” Calvin said, and threw the control spell at her. Jewels stopped, instantly, her hands falling to her sides as she waited for orders. He saw the shock and betrayal in her eyes and winced, inwardly. She’d thought he was safe, not like some of the others who patronised strip clubs. “I'm very sorry.”
He ordered her to lie down in position for the sacrifice as he recovered the knife from his belt. Thankfully, he hadn't lost that. Harrow had told him that the knife would grow more powerful with every sacrifice. Shaking his head, he started to carve the runes onto her body, noticing – for the first time – the ill-concealed needle marks. Jewels would have to be an addict of some kind, working to earn money for her supplies...
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
Quite calmly, he plunged the knife into her chest.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Washington DC, USA
Day 36
Mindy Jackson was smarter than anyone, including her parents, ever gave her credit for being. At eight years old, she had read more books than anyone else in her class, even though some of the more adult concepts still puzzled her. After one of her teachers had reproved her for reading ahead, she’d kept that to herself and just pretended to follow the class. There was no point in holding herself back just because no one else could keep up with her.
She’d also been the only one to realise that something was wrong with Calvin. Her elder brother had been responsible for taking care of her ever since their mother had decided to go back to work, escorting her to school every morning and often picking her up before she could walk home. Mindy suspected that he resented it as much as she resented it – she was eight, not a baby any longer – but their mother had been very firm on that point. Yes, she knew Calvin well, better than his parents. And she'd sensed it when something had started to go badly wrong.
It hadn't started with magic, she knew, whatever the television claimed. His personality had changed over several years, becoming more bitter and withdrawn, while he’d been isolated among his friends. It hadn't taken her long to find out why he was so isolated, but she hadn't been able to work out what to do about it. Being eight years old sucked. All she could really do was be more outgoing herself and develop plenty of friends, just so she couldn't fall the same way. And then Calvin had started doing something...
She hadn't realised that it was magic, but he’d started to change again less than a month ago, growing more confident and, at the same time, more...uneasy. Mindy hadn't been able to imagine what could make him act like that – she had the strangest feeling that he’d become less caring – but he was definitely changing. It didn't take much imagination to wonder if it was linked to the deaths at his school. She hadn’t said anything to their parents because they wouldn't have believed her. Mindy had no idea why her parents had to keep working, or why their father sometimes came home very late, worn to a nub. And so she’d kept her silence, right up until the moment the police had come to pick them up from home. It would have been exciting, if Calvin hadn't been in serious trouble...
The military base wasn't exactly designed for children and she’d been warned, very firmly, not to leave the accommodation block without an escort. Mindy had watched television, read several books she’d found in the room she’d been assigned, and answered questions from a dozen different people as patiently as she could. Some of the military officers were stupid, she considered; they asked the same question time and time again, as if they expected the answer to be different each time. They were almost as bad as some of the social workers who asked kids questions that made absolutely no sense. She’d gone to bed still rolling her eyes at the stupidity of some of the officers...
...And immediately plunged into nightmare. She could see her brother, but he wasn't her brother, not entirely. A strange woman, with eyes as cold as ice, was standing behind him, her hand somehow buried within her brother’s head. No, she corrected herself, as the nightmare grew stronger. She was a puppet-mistress, with her strings attached firmly to her brother’s body, controlling his every move. Mindy shivered in the dream, feeling absolute terror...
...Her brother was looking down at a naked girl. Mindy had known that he had a collection of pictures of naked ladies, even if she’d never been able to understand why. But this was different. The girl was dying and something inside her was flowing into her brother, a wave of energy that seemed endless. Calvin was surrounded by a reddish haze of light that only grew stronger as the energy surged, before the girl let out a sound and died. Mindy sensed a strange, almost creepy sensation from Calvin, right before he stepped back and collapsed onto the b
ed. The woman behind him smiled, in a fashion that sent shivers rippling down Mindy’s spine, and then settled down beside him. There was something about her face that reminded Mindy of a cartoon character, an evil sorceress...
...The woman looked up. Coldly inhuman eyes met Mindy’s eyes and, for a long moment, they just stared at each other. There was something about her body that terrified Mindy, something that wasn't entirely right. It was almost as if there was something else under her skin. And an image of hundreds of gravestones. Mindy tried to peer closer...
And then the woman made a gesture...
Mindy screamed, her eyes snapping open, as fire blazed around her. Her bed was on fire; no, the entire room was on fire. Somehow, she managed to roll out of bed, only to discover that the flames were licking away at her skin. A second later, the pain struck and she screamed again, feeling the fire burning its way through her entire body. And then she plunged down into blackness.
***
“Is she going to be all right?”
Misty had been at something of a loose end after the incident at Fairview High School. Her body had been healed – apart from the runes, which refused to fade – but the shock of almost being killed so easily had made it hard for her to return to her studies. Instead, she’d spent time with Kaleen, trying to learn how she healed people so easily. Besides, they were the only two civilian women of similar age on the base.
“I think so,” Kaleen said. A soldier, thankfully, had been on duty outside Mindy Jackson’s room. When he’d heard the screams, he'd run inside, dragged her out of the blazing room and rolled her on the ground until the fires had died. Mindy had been unconscious when Kaleen had healed her, which was probably for the best. The brief medical examination the EMT had done before healing her had suggested massive trauma. “Physically, at least. Mentally...?”
Misty shivered. One of the reasons the Jackson family had been kept on the base was because Mindy, who shared the same DNA as Calvin, might well be a magician herself. Calvin had killed three of his tormentors, Misty had lashed out at her would-be muggers...but was there any reason why Mindy couldn't have accidentally triggered her magic and burned herself? She'd sent a messenger to Golem to ask, but she’d refused to leave Mindy’s side. If the girl had come into her magic, she would need advice from someone with better training.
“I saw the bodies from the first incident at Fairview,” Kaleen said, “and I read the autopsy report very carefully. Their bodies were incinerated at terrifying speed, as if the entire body had caught fire at the same instant. This looks similar, but more limited, as if the spell didn't work quite right. I think that Miss Jackson should be very relieved.”
“True,” Misty agreed. Normally, someone with such savage burns would be scarred for life, assuming they survived the fire. Mindy had recovered completely, thanks to Kaleen’s treatment, but no one knew how the pain would have affected her mind. “Assuming she remembers enough to tell us what happened.”
Kaleen shot her a sharp glance, and then nodded. She’d been working as a healer almost since the day she’d been discovered, either helping the science team research her powers or healing sick and wounded people who had been brought to her. One father had offered her a great deal of money if she cured his daughter, who suffered from a mental disability. The cure, for no reason that anyone could understand, hadn't worked. Nor had her attempt to cure either the vampire or the werewolves.
“True,” Kaleen said. “Perhaps we should be glad if she manages to block it all out. Such trauma at her age...”
Her voice trailed off as Mindy’s eyes opened and the girl looked up at them. “I saw him,” she said. “I saw my brother!”
***
“We’ve had some problems building a device to actually measure the level of mana,” Jorlem said. It wasn't his real name. Like many of the other researchers who’d become involved in the Mage Force, he had taken a nickname to prevent any rogue magician from casting spells on him. “So far, most advanced equipment isn't really registering mana in its natural state.”
Caitlyn nodded, sourly. It was possible to detect a spell being cast, but only at very close range, which made it useless as a tracking device. If that hadn't been enough of a problem, a spell could still work without triggering the sensor, something that puzzled the scientists as it seemed to defy their understanding of science. Indeed, given that magic did cause very faint glitches on some advanced equipment, one of them had even speculated that the reason mankind had never encountered an alien race was because high technology simply didn't work out in very deep space. It hadn't stopped them researching how to use mana for space travel.
“But we did come up with this,” Jorlem added, holding out a metal stick about twenty centimetres long. “It's our Weird Activity Natural Detector, or WAND.”
“Clever,” Caitlyn said, sarcastically. “How long did it take you to find a suitable acronym?”
“Only a few minutes,” Jorlem said. He waved the WAND in the air. “From what we have deduced through studying Golem, we know that it is possible to preserve a spell in a structure, even if the spell itself doesn’t work without mana. Golem would shut down if the mana level grew too low and simply wait in stasis until the mana level flows back to levels that can restore him to life. We came up with a simple lighting spell, attached to the WAND, that lights up whenever the mana level passes a suitable point.”
He grinned. “This actually allows us a chance to measure the ebb and flow of the mana field,” he added. “Given time, we might even be able to locate the source – if there is a source. Golem’s society seems never to have actually questioned the origin of mana, just as most humans don’t think to question the origin of gravity – which, by the way, is still a poorly understood force in any case.”
Grinning, he put the WAND down and picked up a single silver disc, barely larger than the palm of his hand. “This is our first working model of Niven’s Wheel,” he explained. “The basic concept is simple enough; there are two different spells on the wheel, one to keep it spinning and one to keep it intact, as it will spin faster and faster until the mana runs out. For reasons we have not been able to determine, the actual use of the wheel may not be so easy in the field as we thought; the spells holding it together are not always stable.”
“Because the shortage of mana might stop them working, or interfere with their operations,” Caitlyn said. She’d read the reports produced by the researchers, even if some of their stranger theories sounded insane. But then, the early reports of magic had sounded insane too, until the first werewolf had appeared. “What does this actually produce?”
“An area, several metres in diameter, that has a very low level of mana,” Jorlem explained. “We’ve done tests and discovered that it can take up to seven hours for the mana level in the affected zone to return to normal. Right now, we can't expand the area very much, even if we scale up the Wheel. However, it does have some interesting uses. We could probably confine a black magician, at least for some time, without access to mana.”
Caitlyn frowned. “What about his internal reserves?”
“We convinced one of the magicians to help us with our experiments,” Jorlem said, proudly. “When in a very low mana zone, the mana actually leeches out of his body unless he keeps it under very tight control. We have a theory that suggests that mana is actually entangled in the soul and so not all of it can be leeched, but we should be able to render a magician helpless. Furthermore, any magic forced on a person tends to lose its potency in the zone. A simple mind control spell failed utterly when the victim walked through the zone and emerged on the other side, completely free of its influence.”
“Clever,” Caitlyn said. Golem had insisted that she learn how to recognise mind control spells – and how to resist them. It hadn't been a very pleasant experience, even with her strange talents. Someone without talents would be almost helpless against a simple control spell. “And you can't cast spells through it?”
“It would seem n
ot,” Jorlem agreed. “We have yet to discover most of the limits, but the real problem is maintaining the field constantly. Eventually, the spells destabilise and the Wheel tears itself apart. And then the mana flows back.”
He scowled. “There’s another problem,” he added. “If you create...a magic rocket, for want of a better term, the kinetic spell powering it will collapse the moment it enters the mana-free zone and it will fall out of the sky. But if you use magic to throw something into the field, it will keep going on a ballistic trajectory even after it enters the zone. A smart magician might just be able to take out the Wheel without ever entering its sphere of influence.”
“Nothing ever works perfectly,” Caitlyn said. Typical. Every piece of new technology from the researchers, no matter what it was, would never work properly in the field. There were always glitches that somehow never appeared in the labs. It looked as if the same was true of magic too. “Keep working on it.”
“I intend to,” Jorlem assured her. “And I believe that I may have a theory for developing a magician-detector, based on the WAND. There seems to be a slightly higher level of background mana surrounding magicians, at least once they come into their powers. With some fiddling, we might be able to identify them and convince them to join the Mage Force.”
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