by Pam Uphoff
"Do you throw like a girl?"
"No! Absolutely not!" Which of course ended up with them both outdoors tossing a lightweight foam football around. ///check all kids names for updates///When Chaos and Richardy came out they played a game, three against one, then with a careful check to avoid watchers, Eldon changed into a pony and gave the victorious team pony rides up and down some hills. The weather was looking stormy, big nasty thunderheads getting closer. Some cars drove up the steep driveway, and disgorged a bunch of people. Eldon wasn't very good at counting when he was in an animal form. The women were pretty, in a snooty high class sort of fashion. He came as close to grinning as a horse is capable of, and went back to playing with the kids. Could get fun later, although Rior probably wouldn't want him to do anything here where they were living. Besides, I'm not the God of Perverts and I'm not a rapist.
He delivered the riders to their room and transformed back into his usual self. Hmm, surely with morphing he should have been able to change the female characteristics. But he only knew how to change bones and muscles, and the digestive system. And he rather suspected that his horse had a rather goatish gut at that. And sex wasn't just physical, there were hormones and glandular things. He found his clothes and dressed, and went shopping. When he got back, his noble leader was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at a split of wine. He pointed at one on the table. Eldon took it, left the rest and slid back out.
"Just in time for the arrival of more women." He kicked back in his recliner, and tried to not bitch at his friend's tastes in sports.
"Women?" That got Heso's attention.
"New guests, just checked in. Some men too. I suppose I should behave."
"Yeah, we're not ready to leave yet. Going to let me have any of that?"
"Nah, not unless you've got some embarrassing female parts you haven't told me about." Eldon memorized the spell, in case he needed it again, screwed the cap back on and heaved himself out of the recliner. A rummage in the desk turned up a thick black pen, and he wrote carefully over the label before putting the bottle up on the shelf above the little fridge. He scooped up a couple of beers and tossed one to Heso, before kicking back to pick a team to cheer for.
"You know, we ought to speed bubble another boy, so Richardy, Roddy, and Chaos have a fourth mage for a minor compass once they grasp power."
Heso grunted. "Or three so we can do a full compass of eight. But all the bubbled boys are . . . well, probably not orphans, but their mothers aren't here to raise them. You going to do it?"
Eldon grunted back. "Not right now."
Maybe if he just kept practicing what he knew, and grabbed every spell Rior created, analyzed the stuff he had, and watched when Falchion opened gates, he'd pick up enough to . . . do what? Go away on his own? Find a world where he wasn't already a wanted criminal and start all over? Maybe. He was so highly magical—so highly genetically engineered—that he was not just in touch with the collective subconscious, he was helplessly influenced by it. That last world—he'd started out stuck in the form of a really nasty goat—and the collective had stereotyped him as a pervert. And he'd danced to their tune. In this world he seemed to have dodged that little kink. No rape, no bestiality. Yet. He wondered a bit about Heso, always groping and kissing women at the banks . . . Maybe it was Heso's turn to be the pervert, and Eldon could be the regular guy.
Chapter Four
Thursday 10 November 2015
Dice Creek
"Yesterday the first serial numbered bill was caught by a bank in California. They're going through all their bills right now. It came to them from a source with frequent cash receipts, but the rest of the money looks clean."
Jim tapped impatiently at his notes.
"So, one of our Animals, or maybe a clerk at the store where he shops, took a California vacation, and paid their hotel bill with some of their loot. Well. As soon as we've finished up here, we'll head out there and flash these pictures around. We should be able to subpoena their records, and we'll trace every single guest down and ask him or her if they've seen any of these people.
"We'll check out that hotel—actually a ski lodge, but no snow yet—before we go public with the pictures. So finish everything possible, or hand it off to someone staying here. We'll leave for California tomorrow."
***
Ajha finished his report and queued it for transmission. This 'North American Union' was done, and he was ready to head home. He really preferred the more primitive Worlds, if for no other reason than the smaller populations. And they were more useful, too. These modern civs thought they were the One's equal, and wouldn't accept a subservient role.
Wise of them. Bad news for the One World.
He stretched. "Right, that's this nice little world done."
"Nice? Ugly pale people, for the most part." Fean sniffed, looking around. "At least the mountains are pretty, can we take a drive up there? I haven't seen snow in years."
Obji—Hob—perked up. "Yeah, catch some scenery, get out of the smog for a few days. Pickup is two weeks away."
Ajha nodded. "Sounds like a good plan, check the weather though, wasn't there something about a storm on the news this morning?"
Fean sighed. "Umm, snowed in for the winter. Maybe with some handsome men."
Hob took offense. Of course. "I'm handsome."
"Oh yes. Now if you were a man . . . "
"Can't you two at least be civil?" Baik walked in from the kitchen. "Whose turn is it to cook? There's nothing in the fridge. Hob who-was-supposed-to-shop."
It was enough to make Ajha miss the Old Days, when women had very limited roles in Intel. Generally seducing targeted Natives. Not that Fean wasn't smart, but the tongue! "Pick a route, let's get out of here right now. We'll stop when we feel like it." He'd been in Exploration and Intel for a generation. These three hadn't even been born when he'd had his first field deployment. Speaking of disasters. Thank the One none of these three knew he'd ever set foot on the infamous Comet Fall. Even now he was occasionally dragged in to give an opinion, always disregarded, on how the powerful magicians might react to this or that.
He folded his comp and pocketed it, tossed some of his native clothes into a case designed to look like these people's luggage, and headed for the door, the youngsters scrambling to grab their stuff.
***
Dirk was driving, and Martha navigating when they found the turn off and followed the directions, getting to the rustic lodge scant minutes before the rain hit.
Jim snatched his bag out of the trunk and headed for the lobby. It was furnished like a hunting lodge, with deer heads on the wall and a bear skin rug beside the big round stone fireplace in the middle of the room. Two women were sitting in front of the fire, each with a baby on her shoulder. The blonde giggled at something the redhead said, their long straight hair rippling as they moved. Jim put his bag down quietly and stepped back out, as if to assist the others.
"Put your most innocent tourist faces on, people. Two of the cats are sitting in the lobby."
That got them moving quicker than the incipient storm. The receptionist had their reservations and rooms ready and they carted their own luggage up the single flight of stairs, without too much ogling of the two women. The security cameras hadn't flattered them a bit. On camera they had looked good. In person they were goddesses. They dodged some other guests, complete strangers, and dumped their luggage to meet in Jim's room for a quick conference.
"So, was that them, or is it a chance resemblance?" Jim looked around at all the bright predatory eyes. Cops with Perps in sight.
"It's got to be them. We should stagger our going down for dinner, so we can see if the rest of them are here." One of the new MI guys, Harwin McClouskey was bouncing on his toes. "This is going to be short and sweet, isn't it?"
"We can hope." Jim set up their dinner schedule, and then wandered to the end of the hallway. Sliding doors gave onto a covered balcony with stairs down to the ground. He could see the treeless ski sl
opes to the left, and the wide path that presumably led to the base of the slope and whatever sort of lift the tiny resort town had.
The Lodge's two wings stuck out the back, angled away from each other, this wing longer than the other. Back in his room he could look across at the other wing . . . and see the young badger girl flipping on the light in her room and rummaging for something in her dresser. Two toddlers followed her into the room and climbed up on the bed. Then an small avalanche of bodies came running and wrestling through the door. Half of them maybe as much as six years old, but three younger ones as well, possibly three or four years old.
Counting the babies out in the lobby, that made ten kids, no, eleven. Hard to count kids when they were all in motion . . . "Must be robbing banks to keep them in diapers." Jim muttered. At a tap, he stepped to the door, and opened it.
Marge and Norm stepped in and closed the door behind them. "We took a walk outside. With the lights on inside . . . "
Jim pointed to the opposite wing. "Badger and eight kids. Who'd you see?"
"Warthog and Deer, drinking beer and watching a basketball game." Marge flinched as lightning flashed, with thunder loud and close.
"Right. No point in waiting, I'll call in the troops." Jim sat down and picked up his comm, tapped it as he heard nothing but crackles of static. "No signal. You guys? Well, I'll keep trying. This storm will keep these guys in place without a problem."
"Right we can watch them, make sure they don't go anywhere. Arrest them ourselves at need. They probably don't have their paralysis field ready to go at a moment's notice, so it should be a snap."
He sent them off to an early dinner, then left them watching the rooms opposite while he walked down to eat.
The restaurant was obviously popular locally, and specialized in game. Either that or there were more people stuffed into the place than he'd realized.
Four couples had pushed three tables together. A large man with an emaciated yet full breasted woman ate in a corner, with two large men lurking just to the sides. Bodyguards set off Jim's alarms. Damn few honest people had them. A man in a sheriff's uniform sat with a woman in a park ranger's uniform. They sat stiffly and argued in undertones. Jim sat where he could see the whole dining room. The menu took a lot of his attention, though. Finally he took the dive and ordered the medallions of wild boar. Probably not truly wild, and probably a hybridized Russian boar and domestic pig combination. Of course they always said feral hogs were a nuisance everywhere, so perhaps he was wrong.
Half way through the salad, the Black Wolf and the Black Cat were escorted to the table just in front of his. Yep. The whole Animal Gang was here. The lights flickered, but stayed on, and the sporadic rain turned into a torrential downpour.
The noise increased briefly. Looking out the restaurant's entry he saw people rushing to get their gear in the front door.
"I wouldn't have thought you'd be so busy, without snow on the ground." His casual comment brought a smile and nod from the young waitress.
"This is usually our slack season, between the start of school and the first good snow. And as much as I'd like snow on the slopes, I hope it doesn't freeze all the way down to here tonight, or all this water will turn to solid ice."
Jim bit his lip and turned his attention to the wild boar. What little he could hear of Wolf and Cat's conversation made it clear that they were both fantasy fans, probably gamers, as they discussed the construction of magic spells, the making of potions, and what sort of spells they might need. They sounded ridiculously serious about it.
The Fox and the White Cat strolled in, and took a table by themselves. Had the Badger been left alone to take care of the children? His wasn't the only male eye to be drawn to their spectacular beauty. The large man with the bodyguards paused by their table on his way out. "Such rare beauties! You must be sisters."
The trio looked him up and down and smiled enigmatically and turned back to their dinners without saying a word. The big man scowled, uncertain whether he'd just been snubbed. His waif thin, enhanced breasted mistress pouted. Jim stopped with his fork halfway to his open mouth as the man's identity clicked. Arnold Bellemiso. Drug kingpin, and general all around expediter, from Brazil. What the hell was he doing here? Jim's eyes slid to the other pair of Animals. Other than, perhaps, meeting with some people who'd stolen close to five million dollars in ten bank heists? The Brazilian walked on, scowling. The Animals all ignored him.
Jim nodded to himself. No wonder the cash isn't showing up anywhere. They must be buying drugs, or even just swapping cash with each other. Buying and selling various commodities. Like as not the stolen money would resurface in the Middle East or China. What were they buying? Illicit new tech, obviously. The invisibility and the paralysis . . . those almost sound more like Japan than China. Or Russia. Well, the MI guys would probably know. Fascinating. He looked down at his plate and realized he'd eaten everything, and hadn't a clue what it had tasted like.
He was about to decline desert when the late arriving foursome walked in. A middle aged man with receding hair, and three youngsters; two girls in their late teens and a young man in his early twenties. They were all olive skinned with similarities to their facial structure, they had varied shades of brown hair. Dad and three kids? Dad looked around the room with open curiosity, then did a double take at the Black Wolf.
"Rhyour? By the . . . what happened to you? I heard you changed but I didn't think . . . Princess?" The man was staring in disbelief.
The Black Wolf was pretty stiff himself. Jim wished he could see the man's face.
The Fox looked back and forth between the new arrival and the Black Wolf. She straightened abruptly. "I think you have mistaken me for someone else. I have certainly never allowed anyone to call me Princess."
The new man blinked at her, then flushed. "Oh. Sorry, I was just so surprised . . . excuse me." He made an awkward retreat, and allowed a waitress to seat them as far away as possible from the Wolf and Fox.
Jim looked back at the waitress hovering over him. "On second thought, I'll have the death-by-chocolate."
But dawdle as much as he could, nothing broke the thick silence between the Black Wolf and the man who had named him Rhyour.
***
Ajha frowned at the Princess. "We've found out a lot about the Fallen, since they opened up the Embassy Planet. They not only change genders, they can morph into animals. A lot of their spells involve nano scale biological machines. Artificial ribozymes—half RNA, half enzyme. You must have gotten dosed with one of their potions."
"Yes. I know that now. In fact I was dosed with a spell dump, a garbage pail mixture of a large number of potions with a wide variety of effects. Very annoying, but as a refugee I've found being male advantageous, and so have kept it up."
"Yes. I heard you'd escaped the Disco raid, but I guess I still think about you the way I first saw you."
"The Amma of Auralia's bride?" The man snorted. "But I never did get a good report on what happened after I . . . I did hear that the Amma, his friends and family, his army that we'd trained . . . disappeared?"
"Well, after the . . . disruption, that priest, Ygti, got back on the Amma's sweet side. I heard he stopped supplying the troops with ammunition and then the Amma came round. Anyway, they worked a deal with the Amma, and a native by the name of Pax. Oh, you remember him? He was able to teleport the Earther's entire gate Anchor to Fascia. The next time it opened, Pax drove through and charmed the operators into keeping the gate open and the Amma's army came through, with Oner backup. But instead of redirecting the gate to One for the invasion, Pax and the Amma routed it to one of Earth's mining worlds and retreated, themselves. We think the Oners in the party—Ygti with them—got out as well, before the gate was destroyed, but we haven't found them."
"Earth's gate was destroyed?"
"Oh, yes. Took them years to rebuild it. Then they had to start over, finding their lost colonies and mining worlds. When the Earthers finally got back to Comet Fall, well,
the Comet had been diverted, mostly, and the Earth decided it was time to take over. The Natives defeated them easily, showed that they'd developed magic gate tech in the meantime, and destroyed the Earth's gate again . . . Why aren't you surprised?" Ajha broke off as he realized how little of this was news to the Princess.
"The young lady I was dining with is a Comet Fall Witch, perfectly capable of opening a gate, if not all by herself, then at least with minimal assistance."
Ajha's eyes widened. "Incredible. Do you think you can lure her and her gate team to the One World? Our inability to duplicate the Fallen gates is infuriating to the One."
The Princess . . . he had to get over thinking of her, him, that way. Rior curled a sarcastic lip. "Let me make this perfectly clear. The One abandoned me, and I've abandoned it. I am free of all constraints, and do as I please. And I do not please to return home where I'll be considered either an unnatural, engineered person, or returned to my natural state and treated like a whore. Again. You go tell whoever is in charge these days that they can bugger themselves. And don't tempt me to kill you. Got it?"
The Princesses of the One were among the most powerful magic users on the One World. They glowed in the dark and attracted men like moths. Or, like this one, repelled. Ajha was already pressed back as far as he could go in his chair, and wondered if he could get away with scooting the chair away.
A Mad Princess. What could he do? What should he do?
"Now. I would like the rest of that detailed report, Exploration Leader."
Besides tell her everything.
Chapter Five
Friday 11 November 2015
Dice Creek
The Wine of the Gods, among other things, accelerated other spells. Through his hangover, Eldon studied the view in the mirror with satisfaction. Pecs, not boobs. No waist, no butt, and best yet, no hole where there ought not to be one. Heck, he kinda thought he'd even lost weight. He downed two aspirin, and stood in the shower for about an hour. Then he shaved and walked down for breakfast.