Guardian Glass

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I don’t know,” I said, dryly. I placed the book in the safe – I pitied anyone who tried to open it without my permission – and turned to walk upstairs to bed. She was right; bed sounded mighty good right now. “I’m going now, ok? I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I stumbled upstairs and threw myself into bed.

  I was asleep before I even turned out the lights.

  Chapter Four

  Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible.

  The Phantom Stranger

  When they were trying to decide where the Department of Magic – and the Guardians – should be based, the result was a compromise. One faction wanted the Department to be recognised as equal to State, or Defence, and therefore insisted that the headquarters had to be in Washington, near the centre of power. The other faction pointed to the dangers of unleashing something really dangerous on the politicians in Washington – and the citizens as well, I’m sure – and wanted the base to be somewhere out in the countryside, well away from civilisation. They compromised. The building was placed on the outskirts of Washington. Like all political compromises, of course, it pleased no one.

  I couldn’t teleport right into the building, of course. The Circle, as we call it when there are no politicians around to hear, is surrounded by wards intended to prevent anyone from doing that, just in case they had hostile motives. With the exception of the centre of Washington, including the White House and the Pentagon, it was the most heavily warded site in the country. The research labs out in the desert – Area 52 and Area 53 – weren't as protected. I materialised on the landing pad close to the outer wall and took a moment to catch my breath. I don’t like teleporting. It feels as if you’re racing towards an unbreakable wall at an impossible speed, yet you barely move at all.

  The noise of protesters hit me at once as I glanced around, vacating the pad before someone else tried to teleport into the Circle. I couldn’t tell, offhand, if they were the Sons of Liberty or the Fairy Children. The Sons of Liberty believe that the United States – and the rest of the world – has been effectively invaded and we have to fight back. The Fairy Children, whose leaders claim to have been abducted into Faerie, believe that we should accept and embrace the changes to the world and the human race. In my view, they’re both equally stupid. We cannot fight the more powerful creatures directly, no matter how we might try, and we cannot accept the changes without a fight. Our mission – the Guardians, that is – is to keep the balance between the human race and the creatures that spilled out of Faerie as best as we can. It’s not an easy task.

  I shook my head and marched briskly towards the inner wall. The outer wards had already verified my identity – or else I would never have gotten off the landing pad before the security spells took effect – but I felt the inner wards probing away at my mind, checking and rechecking their results. It’s not impossible to fool a single ward, even with only a limited amount of magical power, but it’s much harder to defeat several wards acting in concert. The protesters wouldn’t be able to touch the outer wall, let alone break into the Circle. The wards started with aversion spells and got nastier from there. There’s supposed to be a small family of frogs in the pond that are descended from a handful of anarchists who tried to break in a few years ago. That’s something else that most people most people consider common knowledge. They don’t know the half of it.

  The Circle rose up in front of me as the wards finished their probing and allowed me through. It’s a massive grey building, thrown up by the Army Corps of Engineers – this was back when human labourers were demanding danger money to work anywhere connected to magic – and holds most of our support staff. The Guardians tend to prefer to operate alone, like me, but even we need support staff from time to time. When we need something researched, or the correct strings to be pulled at a high level, our support staff will oblige. A handful even possesses specialised magics that we use in our work, although taking them out in the field is always chancy. It’s a war zone out there.

  In theory, the building could stand off anything from sniper fire to magical probes and direct attacks, perhaps even a manifested demon. In practice…well, no one wants to put it to the test, apart from a handful of theoretical magicians who want to test their theories. We get a lot of really odd – or demented – theorists here, most of whom use drugs or spells to alter their mind and mental patterns, and they all have their pet theories. I don’t want to even think about the guy who wanted to use Zombie brain matter as a biological weapon. He got eaten by one of his own subjects and good riddance to bad rubbish.

  The interior of the Circle looks like any normal office reception, although the statues of two Roman centurions beside the receptionist – with muscles on their muscles, naturally – were spelled to spring to life if someone somehow managed to break through the wards and gain admittance to the building. Animated statues make formidable foes, although my fellow Guardians have a pool going on just how long they’ll last against any magician powerful enough to break through the defences without being injured, transfigured, hypnotised or killed outright. I don’t think the idea was that bad. As far as any outsider knows, the defences stop at the entrance to the Circle. Any more wards would make it harder for our researchers to do their job.

  I studied the painting above the desk and waited patiently for Mrs Pringle to notice me. Mrs Pringle was one of the most formidable women I’d ever met, with stern features and a stare that rivalled a medusa. Her hair was steel-grey and, it was whispered, she’d once bitten a werewolf to death. I wouldn’t have bet on the werewolf. The painting, a depiction of the first dragon to fly alongside Concorde fourteen years ago, was a far more attractive sight. I wondered, sometimes, how the crew and passengers must have felt, watching a creature out of myth effortlessly pacing them. No one believed their frantic calls for assistance until the films were developed. It prompted the then-President to admit that we had a crisis on our hands.

  “Guardian Glass,” Mrs Pringle said, as if she were pronouncing my death sentence. She ran the receptionist post with a rod of iron and no one dared to defy her. To be fair, she was very good at her job. “You are late. You were expected to report here yesterday.”

  “Yes, Mrs Pringle,” I agreed, carefully. No matter their age, everyone facing her seemed to revert to grade school level, meeting their teacher for the first time. “I had a bad case of Demon Shock.”

  She snorted, effortlessly conveying her opinion of that excuse, before looking up at me. Somehow, despite her petite height – and the fact she was sitting in front of a desk where a computer and a crystal ball battled it out for supremacy – she managed to give the impression that she was looking down her nose at me. I’d seen some of the Faerie Court present such conflicting impressions, but they were magical creatures using magic, not ordinary humans.

  “Director Wilkinson wants to see you urgently,” she said, finally. I suspected that it wasn't that urgent, but nothing short of a war breaking out would encourage the Director to call a Guardian – any Guardian – in from the field. If he wanted to brief me personally, it was either important or political. “I will inform him that you are waiting here to see him.”

  I would have preferred to have visited the Situation Room, or perhaps made small talk with one of the younger and prettier secretaries, but there was no saying that to Mrs Pringle. She would have just walked all over me. I sat back down in one of the chairs – sinfully comfortable, as they were intended for political visitors – and tried to relax. I might have been feeling much better after two nights of uninterrupted sleep, but it would have been easy to doze off again. I watched as Mrs Pringle murmured into her intercom and smiled to myself. Rumour had it that her daughter was named Iodine and was being brought up to be just as much a harridan as her mother. I just hoped that she was on our side.

  “The Director will
see you now,” Mrs Pringle said, finally. “Go along the corridor and turn left.”

  “Of course,” I said, hoping to get a rise out of her. I’d been to the Director’s office before, many times, but she still insisted on providing me with directions. She ignored my sally as I pushed open the secure door and closed it gentle behind me, before walking down the long corridor, feeling the presence of other spells surrounding me. The interior of the office section crawled with spells intended to prevent surveillance by our enemies. The Russians and Europeans had their own spell-casters and magic was a useful tool for spying. The CIA had hated it when their Magical Research Division was transferred to us. They just hadn’t had a clue how to use them, or how to treat them.

  I knocked on the door and waited for the invitation, finally stepping inside the office. It wasn't actually a large room, although the presence of so many spells hanging in the air made it seem smaller, somehow. There are times when I wished I didn’t have such a strong magical gift. It was like walking into hundreds of cobwebs in a darkened room, wondering where the spiders were hiding. The spiders attached to those spells were really nasty.

  “Guardian Glass,” Director Wilkinson said. “Please take a seat.”

  Geoffrey Bradford Wilkinson was a grey man in a grey suit. The higher-up positions in Washington were normally given to political appointees, or cronies of the President. The Director of the Department of Magic was less lucky, not least because no one who had a clue about political realities in Washington wanted the job. They suspected, not without reason, that it would become a disaster. Their poor careers might be blighted. Wilkinson, to be fair, did a pretty good job, most of the time. We respected him, even though we didn’t all like him.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. The seat felt less comfortable than the ones in the Reception Area. I wondered, vaguely, if that were Mrs Pringle’s influence. “Did you read my report about the…incident in the school?”

  “Yes,” Wilkinson said. I had wondered if he intended to discuss that, either to commend me or to chew me out, but he seemed distracted by another, weightier matter. I couldn’t understand what that might be. The media hadn’t given up the story yet, with interviews from the parents and the surviving pupils dominating the news. The bastards had even mentioned me by name. “You did a good job, despite the…collateral damage.”

  I said nothing. If Wilkinson had wanted to chew me out over it, he would have done so. He always trusted us to work in the field without supervision, not least because he didn’t have the ability to supervise us all. Guardians who get careless or sloppy don’t tend to last very long. The media might be calling for my head – seeing they hadn’t realised that the girls had summoned the demon yet – but Wilkinson would support me. He'd done it before, for others.

  “Look,” he said, pointing one long finger towards the map on the wall. “What do you make of that?”

  I’d seen the map before. It was North America, but with a crucial difference. Where the National Parks had been, there were now splodges of red, marking an infested area. Smaller conical symbols marked the presence of known Faerie Courts, from the Mounds that had appeared in the Arizona Desert, near the Grand Canyon, to the one that had replaced Central Park in New York. A third set of symbols marked smaller areas of infestation, where other creatures from Faerie had made their homes. It was an invasion on a grand scale.

  No, it wasn't really an invasion. It was an immigration and refugee crisis, tinted by magic and driven by fear. The Faerie said very little about it – they didn’t often recognise us as being worthy of respect – but they’d been driven out of Faerie by their enemies, back into our world. They’d brought with them hundreds of thousands of other creatures as well. Some of them were mundane, although there was little mundane about a unicorn, but others were extremely dangerous. The Fairy Children should try going hand-to-hand with a werewolf. It might convince them that their cause was doomed.

  “It’s spreading,” I said, grimly. The last time I’d seen the map, I was sure, there had been fewer red marks. It was still an intimidating sight. I could see why the Sons of Liberty believed that we were at war.

  “Yes,” Wilkinson said, flatly. He pointed at another map, showing the world. Europe and Russia were covered with red splodges of their own, while Africa and China were marked with symbols suggesting that the people living there were facing extinction. Something – no one knew what – had gotten loose in Tibet and slaughtered thousands of Chinese settlers. The Free Tibet crowd had considered that good news…until news leaked out that the Tibetans were being slaughtered as well. The entire area is now a vast no-go zone. I wouldn’t go into it, even if I were paid enough to buy my own country, or lunar settlement. “There have been several more Reality Storms over the past couple of months. The results have…not been good.”

  I shivered. The fundamental core of magic is altering the base reality of the mundane world. That takes a lot of power and, sooner or later, most spells wear off as reality reasserts itself. Reality Storms, on the other hand, change reality permanently. A person caught within affected area would be very lucky if they were only transformed into a monster. A reality storm blew through New Orleans a year ago. When it had faded, half the city had been replaced by a massive swamp. They say that anyone who listens carefully under moonlight can still hear the screaming. No one knows how to stop a reality storm, or even to predict them. If the Faerie know, they’re not telling.

  “And Congress is getting worried,” he added. I managed to stop myself from pointing out that Congress had been worried ever since the arrival of the supernatural had become common knowledge. “There are calls for more…direct action against the invaders.” He paused. “That’s the term they’re using, Glass; invaders.”

  “Direct action?” I asked. “Like what?”

  He smiled, without humour. “I was hoping that you might have some idea,” he said, darkly. “Congress merely wants us to do something about the spread of supernatural creatures and unrestricted magic users.”

  I shook my head. Congress had had a serious hate for unrestricted magic users for years, ever since a magician – never identified – managed to sneak into a public session and cast a spell binding all of the congressmen in the area to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing, but the truth. To add insult to injury, the spell also prevented them from refusing to speak. If they were asked a question, they had to reply – truthfully. The mystery magician had become a folk hero and that session of Congress had ended quickly, with over two-thirds retiring and refusing to remain in politics.

  “It won’t work,” I said. “We can barely keep a lid on the worst of the magicians here, boss, and as for the Faerie…well, the Russians tried and look what happened to them.”

  “I know,” Wilkinson said. The Russians had decided that they weren't going to tolerate the presence of a Faerie Mound in their country and they’d attacked it with nuclear weapons, unleashing enough force to flatten a city the size of Washington. The Mound had been unaffected and, as far as anyone could tell afterwards, the Faerie hadn’t even noticed! A week later, however, a reality storm had blown through Moscow…and when it had faded away, the city had been replaced by something out of a nightmare. No one was sure if the Faerie had retaliated finally for the attack, but no one wanted to find out the hard way. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He sat up and I forced myself to pay attention. “I had intended to assign you to a particular task,” Wilkinson said, “but something else has come up. There’s a vampire loose in Washington and the local Police want us to handle it. Apparently a Company of Marines from Quantico searched for the creature, but they didn’t have any luck. You’re still going to do that, but…”

  He hesitated. “A day ago,” he added, “we had an emissary from the dragons. One of them wants to talk to a Guardian. Specifically…he wants to talk to you.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Me?”

  “Yes,” Wilkinson said. “They asked for you by name.”
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br />   “But I don’t know any dragons,” I said, trying to avoid showing just how surprised I was. Dragons rarely talk to humans. Like the legendary Puff, they live so long that the lives of humans – and, for all we knew, the Faerie as well – were mayflies. “Why do they want to talk to me?”

  “I don’t know, but the State Department isn’t going to take no for an answer,” he said. “They’ve already cleared your journey with the Norwegian Government. I think they expect that this could lead to formal diplomatic relationships with the dragons and so…”

  I doubted it. A year ago, one of the dragons had sought out a person in England – apparently the direct descendent of someone who had asked a dragon a question back when dragons had last walked in our world – to deliver the answer. It would be difficult to hold any kind of relations with the dragons, not least because it would take them centuries to respond to any serious question.

  But they wanted to see me. Why? I was only a Guardian.

  “I’ll leave immediately,” I promised. If nothing else, it would provide a distraction from Vampire hunting. “I’m sure it won’t be anything serious.”

  I was out the door before he could get the last word.

  Chapter Five