And then he walked out the front doors, slowly maneuvering down the cold concrete steps.
“Ah, that will do,” he muttered when he spotted the stone statue out in front.
The statue allowed him to create a portal, returning the bedpan to the hospital room. Another one took him to the bedroom of his rental house, where he fell into bed and was fast asleep in seconds.
TWENTY-THREE
Chicago, Illinois
North Lawndale
West 18th Street
March
Sunday, 5:58 p.m. CST
The street was empty and poorly lit. The brick buildings were dark, their windows covered over with steel plates, their metal doors padlocked and secure. Paul stood in an adjacent parking lot, small spots of ice and snow still on the asphalt from the storm early the previous week.
Beside him in his deerstalker cap and long gray coat stood Sherlock Holmes.
This part of the city was dirty and very poorly maintained. It depressed Paul just to be here, to see the squalor.
Shivering, partly from the cold and partly from a state of excitement, Paul nodded toward the building across the street. “They are in there?”
Holmes nodded in return and said, “In a conference room on this side. The owner of this business is a relative of one of the gang leaders, and he lets them use this place sometimes after hours.”
Gangs. Paul shuddered, glancing down at the three-pound wristband of 24-karat gold he wore, a replacement to the one that had been stolen from him in the mugging. This gold band should be enough of an amulet to allow him to deal with a large group of Normals, even if they were armed. He had been smart to keep some gold in a safe-deposit box for emergencies. It had been relatively easy to retrieve the gold and then use it to fashion this band—far easier than making another trip to Nevada, considering his fragile physical state.
“How many are in there?” he asked the detective.
Holmes squinted. “Seven. One is on guard near the side door. Everyone else is in the meeting.” He glanced at Paul. “Merlin insists that you do not overly exert yourself.”
Angry at the men inside the building, Paul ground his teeth for a moment. “This will only take a few minutes, and then we will go home.”
• • • •
A portal took him directly into the conference room. Six young men in various shoddy, but brightly colored items of clothing were in the room, four of them seated around the small table and two others standing. The ones that were standing were shouting at each other.
Paul’s appearance sent all six into a frantic scramble. Shanks, machetes, and one handgun instantly materialized.
“Who are you?” screamed one of the men, the man Holmes had described to Paul as the local gang leader, Carlos Salazar. “How did you get in here?”
“Jeffe!” shouted one of the other gang members. “He’s the un with the gold and muny!”
Paul looked over and confirmed that the speaker was indeed one of his assailants, the one who had stabbed him, Mateo Fuentes. His cohort in crime, Armando Ortego, was also in the room.
Carlos relaxed a little and started to laugh in a sinister manner. “Is that so?”
“I want my money back, you bloody thieves!” Paul hissed, his face a scowling mask.
The rest of the men in the room laughed.
Carlos pointed to one of the gang members. “Federico, go make sure that no one came with this retard.”
Federico went out the door. Now there were only five of them left to deal with. They really didn’t understand how badly outnumbered they were.
“I thought you said you killed him,” Salazar remarked to Fuentes.
Fuentes shrugged. “Let me do ‘im again. This time fur sure!”
Salazar nodded. “Yes, we have more important things to do. Throw the body in a crate, and later we’ll haul it over to the river and dump it.”
Ortego and Fuentes started in Paul’s direction, but he raised his right hand and cast a spell, blocking all voluntary nerve impulses from everyone else’s brains. Now, all the thugs in the room were locked into position, unable to move a single muscle. Oh, their hearts still beat, their lungs still breathed, and they could still blink and move their eyes. But that was it. It was an idea Paul had lifted from the Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name.”
Stepping over to Fuentes, Paul slapped him hard in the face. He could see the confusion in the man’s eyes as he strained to move without effect.
With a wave of Paul’s hand, folded money and wallets appeared from the pants and shirt pockets of all the gang members. The wallets fell away, and all the money floated over to him. He counted it.
“Only a few hundred,” he muttered.
Pocketing the money, Paul stretched out his right hand. A baseball bat with a red halo appeared in his grip.
“It’s time some justice was dispensed,” Paul said with sadistic pleasure as he hefted the bat.
Stepping around Fuentes, Paul lined it up. And he swung it hard, hitting the gang member in the back, level with his left kidney.
The jailbird folded up like a rag doll, hitting the floor with a dull thud, where he lay unmoving and unconscious.
“It’ll take you a few days to recover from that, you degenerate bag of fecal matter!” Paul thundered.
Then Paul stepped over to Ortego.
The felon’s forehead was beaded with sweat, his eyes full of fear.
Paul smiled sweetly at him. “Your turn!” he told him pleasantly.
He swung his bat a second time, this time impacting Ortego’s nose. Blood splattered all over the man’s face and down his shirt, the force of the bat knocking him to the floor, where he also lay unconscious and unmoving.
The bat faded away, and Paul moved to stand in front of Salazar, looking him over for the first time.
He was lanky, with long, curly black hair, brown eyes touched with fear, and a thin face with a large Adam’s apple.
Paul regarded him thoughtfully. “In the name of Spock, Lyta Alexander, and My Favorite Martian, may an avatar of this man be created, one who will tell me his innermost thoughts.”
A familiar ball of light appeared, growing in size until an exact duplicate of Salazar stood beside him. The real Salazar stared at the apparition in complete shock.
Paul turned to the avatar.
“Do you swear to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” he asked amiably.
The avatar of Salazar appeared totally indifferent to the question. “Yes,” it answered without emotional inflection of any kind.
Paul nodded and grimly smiled in satisfaction. “Your gang stole nearly $3,500 and a gold wristband from me. Where is the rest of my money? And where is my gold?”
“We sold the gold and spent the money,” it responded. “On various items. Booze, gambling, girls—that sort of thing.”
“Too bad,” Paul muttered in disappointment. “Tell me something. If I left now, what would you do about me? After all, I have shown you that I am no ordinary man. In the future, would you leave me alone?”
The avatar looked Paul in the face and said, again without emotion, “I would hunt you down like a dirty dog. I would flay you with a very dull knife and leave your carcass in the street for the birds to chew on.”
Paul nodded, not surprised. “Yes, I’ve embarrassed you in front of your men. You can’t afford to let me walk the streets unharmed. Very well, let what is about to happen to you be on your shoulders.”
The real Salazar was staring at Paul as if he were some sort of bug-eyed alien. With a wave of the wizard’s hand, a small handgun tugged free of the gang leader’s waistband behind his back and floated around him, headed in Paul’s direction.
Sherlock Holmes materialized nearby. Paul let the gun float into the hologram’s hands instead.
Holmes studied it.
“Hi-Point CF-380, polymer frame, 8-round magazine, thumb safety, rear peep sight, 3.5-inch barrel, weighs 29 oz. Inex
pensive, but very reliable.” He took a whiff of the barrel. “And recently fired.”
Salazar now stared at Holmes in complete stupefaction.
“You can’t kill him,” Holmes remarked, passing the gun to Paul. “He may be a psychotic low-life, but you can’t kill him.”
“‘And I think calling him that is an insult to the psychotic low-life community,’” Paul said, quoting Mal of Firefly. “But I can’t just let him go, either.”
Paul considered the avatar again. “Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Yes, of course,” the avatar responded tonelessly.
Paul nodded at the shank that was still in the real Salazar’s left hand. “With that?”
The avatar shrugged. “Yes. Two people, of other gangs. I’ve cut up a few others with it, too.”
“How about the gun? Have you ever killed anyone with the gun?”
“Yes. One person, a store owner in North Lawndale. I shot a cop with it, but he lived.”
“That should do it,” Holmes breathed with a sigh of relief. “I’ll leave it in your capable hands now.” And the British detective faded from sight.
Paul flicked a finger, and a smartphone came out of the real Salazar’s pants pocket, floating through the air until it landed in the hands of the avatar.
“Make the call,” Paul told it, an evil gleam in his eye.
The avatar pressed 911 and held the phone up to one ear. “Hello? My name is Carlos Salazar. I am the leader of the Tormenta Gang, and I am wanted by the police for murder, armed robbery, and grand theft. I’m sitting here in Crain’s Shipping Company on West 18th Street, and I’m armed. You’d better send lots of cops and a SWAT team too, ‘cause I’m going to kill every cop I see, just like I shot that cop over in Douglas Park six months ago. Bring ‘em on, suckers; I’ll kill ‘em all.”
The avatar faded away, the phone falling to the carpeted floor and bouncing once.
Salazar looked like he was going to faint dead away.
Paul grinned at him and took him by the right arm. “‘Now let’s just turn right around. We’re going to walk this way. You just sit right down right there and have a little nap,’” he said, borrowing the words from Gary Seven in the Star Trek episode “Assignment: Earth.”
Salazar did as he was bid, curling up on the carpet near a wall, falling instantly to sleep. Paul leaned over and tucked the gun into Salazar’s right hand.
Paul straightened up and gazed at the other two men still standing in the room, their eyes as big as saucers.
“‘You’re tired. Go to sleep,’” Paul quoted from the same Star Trek episode. They too dropped to the floor and were soon fast asleep.
He waited for a few minutes until he could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. The two gang members who had been acting as sentries burst into the room, and with a wave of his hand, Paul immediately put them to sleep too.
When he heard the screech of tires outside, he opened a portal and stepped through.
Deeply content with his performance, Paul knew that Salazar and his pathetic gang would never bother anyone ever again.
• • • •
When he returned to the house on South Kildare Avenue, Paul climbed into bed and slept peacefully for the rest of the night. Upon getting up the next morning, he felt much better, both physically and mentally.
Paul knew that he had just done the world a small favor and made it a little safer of a place to live in. That familiar warm glow in his heart was back.
He didn’t feel like eating breakfast, so he just skipped it. Instead, he sat on the sofa in the living room. It was now time for him to take total control of his life, to be more than he had ever been before.
Clearing his throat, Paul uncomfortably muttered, “Uncle Sam, would you like to join me? I would like to talk to you.”
The image of the tall, bearded man with the odd top hat returned. Once again, the hologram doffed his hat and sat in a holographic chair, this time in front of the sofa.
Feigning a half-smile, Paul said. “I’ve thought about what you told me in the hospital room. And I accept your challenge—and the words of my parents.”
A fire was lit in Paul’s belly, and he straightened his back. “I am tired of being chased,” he snarled with grim determination. “I am tired of being a victim, and I am tired of being manipulated.” He looked up into Uncle Sam’s eyes, his own full of flames.
“All of that changes now!” he declared firmly. “I want a plan, a brilliant plan, a plan with the maximum chance of success. I want...no, I demand a plan that will stop the other wizards from chasing me and trying to kill me. A plan that will let me use my powers to help others. Tell me, Uncle Sam, what are my options? All my options this time, if you please.”
The strategist nodded slowly. “In general, you have very few options that will accomplish the goals that you have just specified. For instance, you cannot remain in hiding, even if you were to upgrade your...accommodations, since the other wizards will continue to look for you. And you can’t be of assistance to very many people while you are constantly looking over your shoulder. You cannot join forces with another wizard, because eventually, their inflated ego will tire of your philanthropy and they will kill you for it. Or you will have to align yourself with their goals, which means that you will not be able to help the Normals.”
Uncle Sam returned Paul’s steely-eyed glare. “I can think of no other viable option open to you. You must take on the wizards of Errabêlu. Once they are out of your way, you will be free to provide aid and succor to the poor and needy.
“The brilliance of any plan,” the apparition continued, “is to take care of all the details, no matter how small, and to do so in a timely matter. At the moment, you are still weak from the stabbing and your arm still needs to finish its healing process. Therefore, we will concentrate on creating the plan first and leave any action for later.”
Thoughtfully, Paul nodded in agreement. “That sounds logical.”
“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”
Paul cocked his head to one side in curiosity. “That sounds like a quote.”
Uncle Sam nodded. “Sun Tzu, The Art of War. The problem here is that you know neither yourself nor your enemy. You don’t have any weapons, nor do you know what weapons you are capable of building. You have no tactics yet. You don’t know where your enemy is or how to find him, nor do you know how to maneuver him to your advantage. You know nothing about his organization, his leadership, or how he will respond to your attacks.”
“You make it sound hopeless,” Paul pointed out hesitantly.
“As things stand right now, it is,” Uncle Sam agreed with him. “Therefore, you must change the equation. First you need to do research. A lot of research. You must develop yourself, get to know your magical abilities.” He held up a hand. “Yes, I know that the other wizards combined have many thousands of years of experience with magical spells. But I believe Sherlock Holmes to be correct. Their magic lacks the influence of modern science. Exploit this advantage. Turn it into your strength and their weakness.
“Second, you must gather intelligence on them. Find out how they are organized, learn who their leaders are, and study their battles, their lines of communication, and their logistical strengths. Probe carefully but gather all the data you can.”
Paul nodded, understanding what the other was driving at. “So, research first. And I can guess where I’ll need to start. On a talisman, right? I can’t be an effective wizard without one.”
Uncle Sam grimly smiled. “Yes, that is a good idea. You’ve learned from other wizards that your first talisman was inferior. But the physical sciences have progressed significantly in the last 400 years. I am sure that modern science can bring many new improvements to the process
of fabricating a talisman. And you will need those advancements. You will need enough power behind you to withstand a small army of Oni, at least, and to go up against several wizards—and win.”
“That’s a tall order,” Paul observed dryly.
“Yes.”
“How do I...ah, yes, the Internet, of course,” Paul said, answering his own question.
“That is a very good place to start,” Uncle Sam agreed.
• • • •
As much as Paul wanted to get out and do something, it just wasn’t justified yet. No road trips, at least not until his injuries had had more time to heal.
On the other hand, he was chafing at the bit to do something. Being cooped up in a small house in South Lawndale could do that to a guy.
So he sat in his living room, using his gold wristband as an amulet, creating a virtual display in midair, and started surfing the Internet.
Like Paul had told Uncle Sam earlier, he would start with the talisman.
Ruggiero had faulted his use of obsidian and the ceremony he used to create his first talisman. Logically, his research on fabricating a new talisman should be a two-pronged affair: 1) how to improve on the rarest of materials from the four special classes and 2) how to enhance the ceremony.
Yes, there were several elements, like tantalum, that were better than gold. Paul already knew that much. Too bad radioactive materials were not useable, for obvious reasons.
There seemed to be millions of web pages devoted to the physical sciences and the relative abundance of elements. Paul surfed through dozens of such sites, not really knowing what he was looking for, his mood one of a growing degree of frustration.
Most of an hour was gone when Paul stumbled onto a website that contained a reference to the element xenon—with nine stable isotopes, one very long lived isotope, and twenty known radioactive isotopes, the second most of any element in the periodic table.
Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard Page 25