Havoc Rising

by Brian S. Leon

  Fakhri also confirmed my suspicions that Medea had an army of Phonoi and Androktasiai and Jinn at her disposal, as well as an army of fanatical human zealots dedicated to or duped into her cause. As a result, when Athena offered her Spartoi this time, I gladly accepted them to augment my small squad.

  The last item we discussed was the metal disk Fakhri had brought us along with her Way Stone. According to Athena, the disk was some sort of magic-based incendiary device that drew energy from anything that generated an electrical charge within a given radius and then used that energy to create a kind of gravitational singularity. In essence, the disk created a small, short-lived black hole. Athena said this type of device was activated by reversing its polarity, using a strong magnet, but that it would need to be isolated from human contact to become live. Fortunately, the one Fakhri had stolen was now deactivated.

  Athena said that, overall, Fakhri was doing well but that she was physically and emotionally worn-out and concerned about her mother and sister, so—in an uncharacteristic display of empathy—Athena didn’t push the girl to give us the layout of Medea’s base of operations. Instead, she used her government contacts to get me full access to satellite imagery, spectral analysis, geology, and topography of Mt. Alvand and its surroundings. She promised to keep me updated on any additions Fakhri could help with while the operation was underway.

  With the intelligence in hand, I loaded the gear I’d requested. Of all the stuff Geek wanted, the only thing I recognized was an updated version of the satellite communications system we used in the Teams—an AN/PSC-5 Spitfire SATCOM and its KY encryption set. There were also two things that I assumed were heavy-duty laptop computers encased in metal housings, but they might have been used for carrying important documents for all I knew.

  Among all the other thoughts that raced through my brain, something about the constantly moving location of the chain struck a familiar chord, but it sat at the back of my mind and gnawed at me like a rat chewing through wood. Screw it. It would have to join the club of other details that bothered me about this whole frigging mess.

  As I pulled into my garage back at my house in Roseville, Duma met me with an expression that jumped from confusion to amusement to concern. “We got a problem, D,” he said softly. He had his karambit in his hand. “I was thinking I should kill her, but…”

  “Kill who?” I asked, totally confused.

  “Her.” He pointed through the garage into the house to a woman seated in my living room.

  All I could make out from the doorway was her shoulder-length dark hair, which was wreathed in a haze of some sort of greasy magic that gave off a sinister gray energy.

  “She’s hot, and she says she’s a friend of yours and that you worked together recently in New York on the bombing thing, you dog,” he said wryly. “Showed me her DHS badge. Looked real enough to me… but she ain’t exactly dressed for business, if you know what I mean,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.

  Sarah. Holy shit.

  “Something’s not right.” Several odd things about the situation raced through my mind, including the fact that she was clearly under some sort of spell and probably, thanks to me, in danger. Even so, I could feel my pulse quicken and my palms began to sweat.

  “No shit, Sherlock. She’s a hot chick, and she’s interested in you,” Duma smirked.

  “Fuck you. I mean, she’s been touched by magic. Did she say why she was here?” I couldn’t help jumping back and forth between being excited that she’d come out here to see me and dismayed that she wasn’t here under her own volition. My world sucked sometimes.

  “She just said she’s here to see you, and she insisted on waiting till you got home. Tell me you tapped that, please.”

  “Would you control yourself for a minute?” I snapped. “If she’s being manipulated, we have to help her.” I caught myself running a hand through my hair and brushing dirt off my long-sleeved T-shirt. Another second, and I probably would have checked my breath.

  “Oh, so you do have the hots for her.” Duma smirked again as he watched me.

  “Would you grow up?” I quietly said over my shoulder, embarrassed as hell, as I walked cautiously into the house. “But if she attacks me, and it seems like it’s going badly for me, just make sure I’m dead, okay?” I whispered through clenched teeth, trying to make a joke. Then it dawned on me to whom I’d just said that. Duma might take me seriously. “Or maybe just knock her out, instead,” I said out of the side of my mouth.

  She got up and spun around to see me. It was definitely Sarah Wright, and she was definitely under some sort of spell. And she was definitely not dressed for work.

  I had to pick my jaw up off the floor before I tripped. I found myself unable to say much. “H-H—uh, hi,” I finally managed.

  She was dressed in a low-cut, tight-fitting blue minidress that set off her hair, her gray eyes, and her long, lean legs. She was in shape. She hadn’t said a word, and I was already distracted with blood flowing to parts other than my brain.

  It took me a second to get past her physical appearance and notice the murk around her head. It was reminiscent of the haze on the mole people down in the caverns under Central Park, only much stronger and far more focused. It also didn’t turn her into a listless zombii, but I could see she wasn’t entirely herself. Medea had to be behind this, which immediately put me on guard. I couldn’t fathom a single scenario in which the old witch would send Sarah here for a less-than-nefarious purpose.

  “Steve,” she said, smoothing out her dress. The name practically poured out of her mouth. “Sorry for just dropping in like this, but”—she started to walk over toward me—“I’ve missed you.”

  Medea’s intentions be damned. The thinking part of my brain got stuck in neutral, but luckily, Duma bumped me from behind and snapped me back to reality. His presence stopped Sarah in her tracks, too.

  “Uh, oh, did you meet my friend Duma?” I asked, trying to regain control over my brain.

  “Yeah, we met earlier,” said Duma as he walked around me and stood roughly between us within arm’s reach of both of us. He had his hands behind his back, and his eyes were locked on Sarah, but he still had the same shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Is there some place we can go that’s… a bit more private?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.

  “Um, now is not really a good time,” I said, trying to defuse the situation a bit despite the protestation of a few body parts.

  “But I have information about the bombing.” She ran her middle finger along the neckline of her dress.

  “Is it hot in here?” I could feel the sweat dripping down the side of my face and hear my heart pounding in my ears. I didn’t recall being this nervous my first time in battle.

  Duma just grinned back at me, enjoying my predicament entirely too much.

  “We ID’d those shooters from Brooklyn,” Sarah said. “I’m just not at liberty to discuss things in public.” Her eyes traveled quickly from me to Duma and back to me again.

  My brain kicked back in again, and I shook my head to clear it. Obviously, she wasn’t herself because she wasn’t even fazed by Duma’s pure-white eyes. The Sarah I knew would have noticed that trait from twenty yards off.

  “Are you feeling okay, Sarah?” I asked, stepping closer to her. I stopped just outside of what I estimated to be her reach. If she had a gun, I reasoned, she would have used it by now. Besides, I had no idea where she could hide one in that dress.

  She stepped closer in response to my movement, and I freaked out.

  “Now!” I shouted to Duma and backed up.

  Duma’s hand flashed so fast I didn’t see his blow to the back of her head. She just collapsed on the floor.

  “Jeez, man. Did you have to hit her so hard?” I asked, kneeling down at her side to cradle her head, ch
ecking for blood.

  Despite the fact that she was unconscious, the fog surrounding her head remained intact. I felt bad about having Duma knock her out, but despite panicking, I really did think it was the safest thing for her. At least, that way, she couldn’t do anything to hurt herself or me.

  “Wow, you really do like her,” Duma said, kneeling down to search her.

  I slapped his hands away. “Knock it off, would ya? Hey, Ab, get in here!” I was sure Ab was engrossed in some video game on the TV in my bedroom. The plinking and beeping noises down the hall stopped.

  “Is that babe gone?” he called back. “She was hot, man. Oh…” He stopped when he saw us both kneeling over her prone body. “So, we had to kill her?”

  “She’s not dead,” Duma replied. “I just smacked her on the back of the head and knocked her out cold. And from what I can see up close, she’s clean. She’s got nothing dangerous—” He stopped himself, examining her rear end as I tried to maneuver her to pick her up. “Well, nothing that looks like a weapon, anyway. Mmmh, and she ain’t even my species.”

  “Holy crap!” I shouted. “Can’t you control yourself at all? Ab, help me get her into the chair, and Duma, go get the rope from the garage.” I pushed Duma away from Sarah.

  While I knew all too well that Duma was a real Lothario when it came to females of virtually any humanoid species, I also knew he was playing his attraction to Sarah just to get my goat. And while I normally didn’t let his antics get to me, in this case he was succeeding.

  “Ooh, bondage, I’m all over it, D,” said Duma.

  “Just get me the damned rope.” I shook my head as I lifted her.

  Her hair was incredibly soft as it fell across my arm, and I couldn’t help but notice how smooth and silky her legs were.

  Though I didn’t really need his help, Ab bent over and grabbed her feet and helped me set her down in my leather easy chair. Duma came back in with a length of rope, and I tied Sarah’s arms and legs securely then noticed that the pendant on her necklace was all too familiar—it was one of those implosive disks. I hesitantly poked at it. I tried to grab the pendant nestled in her cleavage without being too ham-handed before Duma impatiently stepped in.

  “Oh, for the love of all that’s normal.” He reached down to grab the pendant.

  I slapped his hand away, glared at him, and snatched it before he could grab it, keeping it wrapped in my hand, remembering what Athena had said about the device and human contact.

  “I need one of you to search her thoroughly for magnets of some kind.” I glanced between Ab and Duma.

  Duma was amused by the entire situation, standing with his arms crossed and a wide grin etched across his face, while Ab was serious and concerned about what I was doing.

  “Ab, you do it. Be respectful, please.”

  “Magnets? What for?” he asked, holding his hands up as if surrendering. “I mean, I’d rather not, D. That means using metal.”

  “See this?” I held up the necklace with the pendant in my palm. “According to Athena, it’s an incendiary device created to go off in the presence of magnets when not in contact with human skin. I don’t know if Peri skin will suffice, and it’s a bad idea for me to chance getting this thing close to the magnets. She has to be carrying them. Just use your gloves, and go get a nail out of the garage.”

  “Makes sense.” Ab shrugged. He walked back down the hall toward my bedroom. He reappeared pulling his dragon-skin gloves into place, flexing his fingers, and then walked into the garage.

  “Man, that toolbox is a fae’s nightmare,” Ab said upon returning, shivering as if he were cold. “It’s like a portable torture chamber. If I didn’t have my gloves on…”

  I stood up and stepped back while Ab walked over to Sarah with the nail in his gloved fist. Duma just lounged on the couch behind me.

  “Just use it like a wand,” I said, rubbing at my beard nervously. “Wave it over every part of her, and see if anything reacts.”

  It took less than a minute to identify her earrings as magnets—strong ones, too. They practically pulled free from her ears as Ab passed the nail near one of them.

  “Grab those, and make sure they’re the only ones. I’ll figure out what to do with this.” I shook the necklace in my hand.

  The scenario these were supposed to work under suddenly played through my head. Maybe the necklace and earrings would come off as we climbed into bed together, or perhaps it would fall away from her body as we rolled around. Either way, talk about going out with a bang. Then it dawned on me: I might be able to use this thing to my advantage.

  I walked out to the garage and got the nonsticky, self-adhering tape I used for wrapping the arbors of my fly-fishing reels and some lead tape with which I occasionally covered my knuckles. I wrapped the necklace around my wrist, bound it with the tape, wrapped over the pendant with the lead tape, and then added more tape to secure it. My hope was the lead would keep the pendant from reacting to anything magnetic I might run into. When I was done, I walked back into the house.

  Ab was standing next to Sarah, taking off his gloves, while Duma remained reclined across my couch, eyes closed as if napping. I knew better.

  “That’s all I found,” Ab reported, pointing to the nail on my kitchen counter. “You can put that away if you don’t mind.”

  “And not for a lack of looking.” Duma sat up, waggling his eyebrows and smiling.

  I grabbed the nail off the counter and tossed it at Duma, who easily dodged it and laughed. “Man, you’re going the right way for an ass kicking. Give me those magnets.”

  Ab brought them over to me, cradling them in his left hand, bundled inside his removed gloves. I took them and passed them over the wrappings on my wrist at full arm’s length, cringing just in case, but nothing happened. “Good. It works.”

  “What the hell?” Duma demanded. “Were you just testing to see if those things would go off? Man, that’s not cool, D. You coulda blown us all up.”

  I took as much pleasure in his concern as he was taking in ribbing me about Sarah. I considered it a bit of payback. “Nah. It’s actually not an explosive; it’s an implosive. It creates a gravitational singularity. We’d get sucked into it,” I responded, smiling, probably smugly, at him.

  Duma just shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think it was safe. Besides, it’s in contact with my skin.” I brandished my lead-covered wrist. “And I might be able to use this in our favor when we run into Medea.”

  “Great. Now what about her?” he asked, pointing at Sarah.

  I shoved the magnetic earrings into my pocket and walked back over to Sarah, where she was tied in the chair. She was still out, but the magical haze around her head persisted just as intensely. I thought that most spells to control or manipulate dissipated if either the target or caster was knocked unconscious. I was great with battlefield tactics, a whiz at reading the water when fishing, and I even understood a little about combat magic, but what I knew about this kind of magic would fit in a thimble and roll around like a BB in a boxcar. Even so, I knew I had to help her.

  The only magic user I was on anything close to good terms with worked at the Metis Foundation. I was pretty sure his name was Voerig, and he was a Magister Templi of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which meant he was a powerful innate.

  “I need to make a quick call,” I said, pulling my cell phone out of my pocket.

  After a few minutes of careful pleading, I convinced Voerig to come over, and more importantly, not to tell Athena where he was going. I was going to owe him, not only for his help but also for his discretion. I couldn’t even imagine what this was going to cost me. Wizards and witches were as devious at deal making as the fae, but despite the potential cost, I thought it prudent to keep my boss out of this since her reaction to the si
tuation might be a little harsh and more strategic than humane. I waited and watched as the wizard arrived in less than thirty minutes in one of those odd little hybrid cars. It figured.

  I’d never really spoken with Voerig much, and I remembered him reminding me of Walter Huston in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, smelling like prunes, and having the personality of a dead fish—pure milquetoast. His appearance as he walked up to my front door didn’t surprise me at all.

  He couldn’t have been taller than five-foot-two at best. He was dressed in pink Bermuda shorts and a white Cuban shirt with black knee socks and Birkenstocks. He was mostly bald, but his ratty gray beard reached down to his waist. He carried only an old-fashioned leather doctor’s bag that required him to use both hands, like a small child carrying something too heavy. I shook my head as I watched him lurch up my front walk, lugging the bag.

  I had no doubt that Athena surrounded herself with the most competent people she could find, but his physical appearance was uninspiring. His magical aura, on the other hand, was downright intimidating. It appeared as an intense, coruscating green glow that surrounded and permeated his entire being, with tendrils reaching out toward every surface he approached. His aura acted like a living creature rather than a passive veil of energy. I couldn’t help but be impressed as he reached my door. If anyone could help Sarah, it was this tiny little wisp of a man.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly, Magister Voerig. Please, come in.” I watched as the tendrils of his aura entered first, reaching out to the various surfaces inside as if testing them before he entered.