by Pam Uphoff
Jiol walked back in, looking much more like herself. "Inso, did any of the cams get a picture of me?"
"Do you hope so or hope not? I thought you looked a charming frog."
She glared. "I'm not sure. I don't think the boss will believe without pictures."
"I don't think he'll believe with pictures." Inso looked over at Deena. "Got to say I was impressed by the combination of spells and sword work you used to take that fellow down. I'm going to have to take lessons in sword fighting."
She nodded. "I expect that we'll work out mixing lasers or bullets with magic eventually. The thing about swords is that they're slow enough to put a shield piercing spell on as you swing or thrust. I wish I'd been a bit faster, or Dominic a bit slower, though."
Q stalked in, looking irritated. "We couldn't take the gates down fast enough. There weren't enough cones within easy reach to bump loose seven gates in quick order. They got out through the three gates that were below the pastures. Two of those are new since yesterday. They didn't even try for the higher ones. I've closed all the gates. I know where they went and I'll see if they open gates to get further away. Whether I'll be fast enough to stop them, I don't know."
"And then there's the question of finding them on those Worlds." Chris Hanger, the Bogota Nuke Cop, shifted his ice bag to the other side of his head. Xen said it was just a simple stun spell by a very powerful magic user in a hurry. The swat team had recovered and were sitting around the patio with ice bags in hand. Q had turned on the outside lights, and the pleasant evening was . . . mostly not being enjoyed.
Garit walked out to the center of the patio and captured everyone's attention. "This is the first time we've attacked through a gate. We've found all the things we've done wrong, but we've also captured or killed roughly two thirds of the adult members of the gang. The leaders got away, and a few more gang members, but the majority that escaped appeared to be teenagers and children. We'll be reviewing all the recordings, and I'm sure we'll all be coming up with what we have to change the next time we do this.
"Now. Agent Albrecht has returned to check with her FBI superiors. They may want to take over the scene and especially look over any jewelry here. With that in mind we need to move out without disturbing things worse than they already are. They will probably take the prisoners off our hands as quickly as we figure out some extradition requirements. Xen has removed their ability to make magic, so they can be securely constrained by non-magic users."
Those recovering from stunning—and few other spells—reluctantly abandoned their seats to follow the rest of them up the hill. Lon, Julianne, Karl and Xian were moving the almost-walking wounded back through Q's gate to Embassy.
As Garit had expected, the FBI wanted the scene. "Fuchsia? Are you well enough to go with them and check for bubbles? Open them, carefully. Any children . . . bubble them back up and bring them to Embassy. The rest the FBI can deal with."
"Right." She turned to the newly arrived batch of . . . what had they called them? Forensics and scene analysis experts or something like that.
Garit left it to them and went to check up on the rest of his troops. My charge down the hill was barely useful. They set a trap . . . probably when they spotted Fuchsia . . . even Pyrite says he nearly tripped over a low shield. So the observers will have to be much further back. Mantigo didn't fire a shot, too confused down below, he said. I must think about whether that sort of thing is useful, in these circumstances.
Some of the women, the non magical Auralian whores, had had poisoned weapons. Easterly looked awful, and Yellow not much better. Inso had killed the woman, while Peter dumped wine down Easterly's throat. Yellow had used a spell to counteract her poisoning, and jumped right back into the fight in time to catch a stun spell from the goat.
He'd tasked Xen with clearing the house. Possibly he should have turned him loose to attack at will.
Maybe he should have recruited some more magicians. But damn it, at better than three to one . . . which had instantly turned into nearly even odds with his troops ambushed and the SWAT team down. The poor fellows felt they'd failed. Somehow Magic Central and his troops on smart horses, with forty men to deal with escapees, and twenty-four Action Teamers to back up Xen for the house fight had sounded reasonable. Xen and Q had both warned him that all the anti-spell charms were single spell only, and the opposition would get around to using unusual spells quickly.
Next best thing to instantly, as far as I could see.
Uncle Rufi always said the commander had more internal recriminations than anyone else. How true.
"Don't look so grim, Q. If you'd closed the gates, or if they'd stood and fought we'd have been in deep shit. Half of the witches were evacuating the kids, or we'd have been in trouble anyway. Even with the wine flowing freely, I can't believe we had just a single fatality. Next time I'll not be shy about asking your father for help."
Inso snorted. "After they hear about this, half the One in the military are going to want in on the next action. Three full teams. Twenty-four men. Seven serious burns, six stunned, four spinning around in little circles, three frogs, and the rest shocked by how close some slices came to getting through their shields. Oh, and all of them chugging boosters and moaning about their nearly- drained headaches. All done by six wizards, and the Teamers only took out three of them. They're going to be training like you wouldn't believe."
Q nodded, reluctantly. "I shouldn't have bothered with the gates once it went to pot. I should have helped fight."
"It was over before you could have gotten down here." Garit pointed out. "You might try, next time, to see if you can tell which gates are being used. If you could, you could prioritize which gates to take down first. Although they kind of went through in clumps."
Q nodded. "That I can already do. That's when I switched to the downhill gates. But I'd used up the easily available cones and had to hunt for ones to close the other two, and by then they were all gone."
Garit shrugged. "I'd have liked to have gotten this Rior and Jade. But we got ten of the original assassin gang and Thomu Iron is dead." He stepped out of the way of a pair of soldiers with a pallet, and watched silently as they carried Lieutenant Lord Dominic March away. "Dammit."
***
Rael eyed Xen's sister cautiously as the girl—Dear One! She looks like she might, maybe, be sixteen—stopped and looked her up and down.
"Interesting, how the Gods of Spies found a woman the collective subconscious won't try to kill." Q nodded approvingly.
Rael boggled. "How many women has the collective subconscious killed?"
"None. He knows the risk. And you know the stereotype. You have the stories, the vids. The super spy's girlfriend, lover, wife or whatever always gets killed in revenge or kidnapped to use as a lever . . . she never survives very long. You came close to dying once, but that might have just been a coincidence. But the role of Femme Fatale, now, that's got potential."
Xen loomed over her shoulder.
She glanced back, then turned back to Rael. "You should be safe, so long as you keep a strong adversarial streak in your relationship."
"Q!" Astonished betrayal from Xen.
She ignored him. "Just remember to use him, abuse him, and occasionally betray him and you should be just fine." She nodded calmly, and walked away.
Leaving her facing Xen.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I . . . don't really think the collective has enough control over ordinary people to do that. I mean, I know it has a fair amount of control over me, but most people are less connected."
"Like us to the One." Rael bit her lip. "But that's what our relationship is going to be like, isn't it? Adversarial, utilitarian . . . and occasionally on the same side."
"Well, yes."
Rael thought it through. Batted her eyelashes and giggled. "You're in trouble. I'm trained for this kind of warfare."
His grin flashed. "And I'm experienced. We'll see who wins."
Chapter Forty-nine
Embassy
They all jumped at a shriek, echoing up from below.
Q trotted down to the jail cells and eyed the incarcerated carefully. Xen had worked essential transformations on six of them, then added chain spells. Reversed two purple bunny morphs. Q had had to do some hasty remodeling of the basement as their first arrests overwhelmed the two original cells. Five small cells. Adequate, but not roomy. A nicer, larger, cell for the three servants. Non-magical and badly abused, both mentally and physically. The frog woman was slowly reverting to normal, with the long term spell broken.
It looked like Sunset was going to survive her wounds. They'd move her down here, probably tomorrow. Xen's girlfriend is good at getting through shields. Her slice spell shattered a bit, but still killed Dawn and came close to killing Sunset. I need to see if any of Napoleon's cams caught that bit of action, especially where the third member of the triad went.
"What have you done to me? What have you done!" Teri glared, all the while shrinking back away from her.
"I suspect you know very well. Your ability to collect power has been removed. And a chain spell has been placed on you. You will be extradited to stand trial. If you are found innocent, or when your punishment is complete, we will return your power." Q looked over her shoulder at the people trotting down the stairs. "I regret to say it looks like some lawyers have arrived. Perhaps they will enjoy talking to you."
"You took my witch gene? You just took it? Quicksilver! I thought you were my friend!"
Q walked away without speaking. No, I pitied you. I tried to help you, but you followed Richardo.
There were plenty of lawyers and more FBI agents. The groggy prisoners were told their rights, with the lawyers protesting the condition of their clients. Garit retreated and made a quick circuit of the other embassies. Extradition was an uncomfortable subject, and they wound up with a couple dozen lawyers and politicians talking at each other in the huge forum room.
Garit finally put his foot down. "The World locally referred to as Earth Bogota Nuke has presented recorded evidence of the involvement of six of our twelve prisoners in a serious criminal matter. Two of them are convicted escaped prisoners from Comet Fall. Three are wanted on capital charges. The Comet Fall ambassador has passed on the government's decision to defer to the claims of Earth Bogota Nuke in this matter. Therefore Disco approves the extradition of those six accused to that World. Albatross Zenithdaut, AKA Teri, Smokey, Sunset, Arrow Albdaut, Zap Dosson, Mag of Gendo. Lida of Arbolia will be returned to Comet Fall to complete her sentence. The two minors, Nimbus and Dusk, will be remanded to the custody of the Elder sister of the Mount Frost Pyramid. The seven toddlers and infants will also be returned to Comet Fall and placed for adoption." Hope I got all the terms right and they understand that. "Most of the female prisoners are pregnant. The disposition of those babies will be left to their jailors. Again, they can be adopted on Comet Fall, as we haven't the prejudices against genetic engineering that many other worlds have."
One of the lawyers jumped straight in. "How long were the Comet Fall sentences? For what crimes?"
"They were all sentenced to death for aiding and abetting murder for hire. Their execution was held indefinitely. It is a point of our laws that hired assassins cannot be punished more harshly than the person who hired them. The king held the execution of his son, Prince Mirk, therefore the hired assassins were also not executed."
"So if that woman goes back, if Earth Bogota Nuke returns the others to Comet Fall you could execute them?"
"Yep. But we won't. You can keep on arguing. We do want some agreement on things like this. As you've all noticed it would be easy for a bunch of magicians to turn into tyrants. That's why we started by building this room. And I think we need to not leap to hasty actions—such as executing people—until we've beaten something into shape.
"The last three prisoners were the servants of the gang, with major mental influences on them. We need to determine if they are dangerous, and if there is anything we can or should do about the mental modeling. They are not specifically implicated in any crimes."
"What about those babies? Can you actually take all parental rights from the mothers?"
"Yes. Two mothers are dead, four are or will be in jail, and one is one of the servant's. That last, depending on psychological evaluation, may keep her baby."
"Of immediate concern." One of the Warmonger Earth lawyers jumped in. "Is the medical treatment of prisoners."
"I understand that you are concerned because of their unconscious or semi-conscious state. That is due to magical stunning spells, and they can wear off as easily in there as in a hospital. They're pretty much back to normal already. The one seriously injured witch will be well enough to be jailed shortly. If you wish, I suppose a committee of doctors from three or four embassies could examine them, and give their opinions as to the prisoners' condition, and conditions of incarceration. Their physical injuries are healing quickly, and in some cases, are already completely healed." Garit wondered how long this would go on.
"And you are keeping male and female prisoners in sight of each other. They must have privacy for hygienic functions."
"Oh. The buckets? Hmm, well I wouldn't worry about this bunch, they've all been very friendly. However I suppose this is something we'll need to address."
He left them arguing and hunted down Q. Hiding in her office, meditating.
"The only useful thing they've said so far is that the male and female prisoners need to have privacy from each other for peeing."
"And I need some sound insulation between the jail cells and everywhere else." Q said, not opening her eyes. "I'll make a solid barrier between the cells. There's no sign of gate action in any of the Worlds they had connections to. I think I closed the established gate after one group went through. Then some got through the next gate, one of the new ones, just before I closed it. I had to go off and hunt for a cone, and the rest of them, if there were any more, were gone."
"So the survivors are split into at least two groups, possibly three. Excellent. Now tell me, can you make a huge suite of charms that would ward off the spells that took down the SWAT team?"
"Umm, the best I could do is make the witches search harder for something not warded against. They all had six, two each for different mental, physical, and energy spells. We're lucky that the first one that got through was some sort of stun, a Oner spell, according to Inso, just enough difference from ours that it got through. But with enough charms, we might manage to get the troops enough time to get to the wizards. Next time."
Xen sauntered in. "How about more sword training? I can charm their swords to pierce the most common shield spells. It wouldn't be as good as having wizard soldiers, but it's a place to start. We—Disco—need our own magical cavalry. Beats me where we'll find the men . . . smart horses, on the other hand . . . "
Q perked up. "Oh. Good thought. We're going to need even more horses . . . "
Garit grinned. "Smart horses. And even so they had trouble. That low shield was brutal. Again, thank the Gods for that wine. We need a lot more training about traps like that on a magical battlefield. And getting through shields. The horses protected us, but we didn't do nearly enough damage. Hell, we mostly wound up trying to block them, shield against shield. Slowed them down a bit, but not enough to matter. They just turned and went through a different gate."
"Maybe I should talk to Harry about a military stud farm up near the Crossroads. Then train them here." Xen glanced out the door. The rest of the floor seemed quiet. "Everyone go home?"
Q nodded. "They figured you could deal with the diplomats. Deena hauled Easterly, Fuchsia, and Yellow home to rest; she said she'd bring Ultra or Answer back to take Nimbus and Dusk away. Jiol's down keeping an eye on the prisoners, she said she wasn't going home until her boss had gotten over her turning into a frog princess. Inso's gone to One to report. He took a copy of all their recordings with him. Lon's prowling about, kee
ping an eye on things, and Julianne's going to spell him in a couple of hours."
Garit grinned. "I wonder what the Action Team reports were like. And that observer's."
A trace of smirk crossed her face. "They thought it would be a walkover. And wound up with all but two Oners wounded or bespelled. I need to work up some nets of really exotic spells. That ought to get something through their shields. I suppose I could make them non-lethal."
"For police work. Wars, don't even think about being nice. I hope we don't have to switch back and forth very often. Messes with the reflexes." He sighed. "Everyone is going to have to learn sword work. And you might think about some spell webs that we poor average magicians can throw, to capture criminals. We should have them on hand."
Xen nodded. "The problem with this gang is the sheer numbers of children that were present. I . . . ought to have hit Eldon harder, but all the kids on his far side, that he was trying to protect from me was . . . off putting."
Garit sighed. "I hate police work."
Q nodded. "Next time, I can have a crew ready to bump loose the gates from safety, while I dive in and beat up witches."
"No!" He and Xen spoke as one.
"I have got to get more people trained. I don't understand why they can’t see what's out there."
Xen grinned. "So, we need more sword and horseback fighting training, recruit smart horses, charms, and spell webs."
"And don't forget the tech. Lasers in various frequencies. Shield piercing on bullets. There must be a way to make that work."
The prince sighed. "Next time, they'll be in trouble."
Xen snorted. "They were in trouble. Just . . . not as much as we'd hoped."