by Pam Uphoff
"Native? Nah. With a Oner around and possibly available, who wants a Native?"
"Yeah, well, I figured I ought to mention her. In the interests of fairness and all that."
"Fair enough. Get him! Get him! Don't give him time to find another. . . arg!"
Eldon shook his head. "Houston always has the worst football teams. Why is that?"
***
Still no comm. Jim paced uneasily. In this lousy weather they were just making spot checks around the far side of the other wing. The Animals were apparently sports fans, most of them watching the Friday night Houston-Miami game. Their kids were all in bed by 20:00, and the adults had all wandered off themselves after the game ended. They'd been careless about curtains, so they knew where each of them slept.
The Black Wolf, Rior or whatever his name was, had the two rooms on the second floor, this side at the end of the hallway, one with bookshelves and a desk. The other two rooms were apparently empty.
The four women had the ground level rooms, this side.
On the far side, the infants and toddlers were in the first ground floor room, with cribs for all four. The older kids slept in the next room, three boys in one bed, the four girls in the other. The next room was set up for play. The end room had recliners and a big screen TV. Upstairs, the Warthog and the Deer had the two end rooms on the far side, the others looked unused. It seemed odd that none of them had paired up. He wondered what DNA tests on all those kids might show. If the three men weren't the fathers, who was?
Arnold Bellemiso had a total of eight bodyguards, half on duty at all times, including a pair outside, even in this blizzard. They were all in this wing, in a block on the ground floor, the end three on the outside and the end two on the inside. The family whose father had recognized Rior were also downstairs in four rooms on the outside. The four couples who wanted to ski were in the four rooms across from them. The seven Feds and the Park Ranger had the second floor of this wing to themselves.
Jim sent his people off to their rest. The Animals wouldn't be leaving tonight. Martha tapped on his door a moment later.
She held up an evidence bag. "Sorry, I forgot to say that I nabbed this earlier today. Those four women, the snobby ones? They went off with the Deer and came back two hours later looking half drunk and their hair all messed up. One of them left this behind, and I thought maybe it should be checked for drugs. The files I have on my comp all came up negative for Betelgeuse, Betty, or Jade Black or even anything close, nor did Rhyour, spelled anyway I could think of, bring up anything."
"And being FBI, our access to both domestic and foreign files is limited to specific, warranted cases, which we can't do until we have communications."
He examined the bagged wine glass. It had perhaps a cc of red fluid left in it. "We need to get the names of every person here, and run them through the comp. Except we have neither communications, nor warrant. I have a horrible urge to start sneaking fingerprints from glasses after dinner. Maybe DNA swipes too."
"While you do that, I'll hack the reception desk comp and get those names for you."
They grinned at each other, and Martha gave him a friendly wave as she left.
He wasn't sure what was more tempting, Martha or the reception desk comp. The lights flickered, and he shrugged and turned them out and crawled into bed. Maybe it would get so cold Martha would need company. In his dreams.
Chapter Six
Saturday 12 November 2015
Dice Creek
Ajha dressed hastily in the dim morning light. Not that he was a wimp, but most of his other close encounters with cold and snow had also included fireplaces. A modern hotel room simply wasn't designed for winters with no power. Opening himself a bit, he could feel his team, all still asleep, and the Princess, a magical bonfire glow across the patio, and the bright glows of all her companions. Rior was awake. Maybe she would be open to reason, now that she'd had a night to think his report over. And maybe not. It was an unfortunate fact that the Priest had had orders from the One to sacrifice anyone, so long as he got the One World back in the Amma's good graces.
Rior's glow was on the move. He could meet her at breakfast . . . his inner attention returned unwillingly to the room in the other wing. Empty now, everyone around sound asleep. He pulled on his jacket and headed for the door at the end of the wing. Time to collect information. The outside doors weren't locked, a fire safety measure, and the door lock yielded easily. They must have frequent power outages here, they used mechanical locks, a pain to manipulate magically but not complicated.
Rior’s bedroom had been slightly redecorated, personalized. The adjoining room had had all the furniture removed and bookshelves installed. A desk and comfortable chairs. It was tasteful, and not a bit feminine. Two shelves of bottles caught his eye. A crisscross rack holding twelve bottles of red wine, four of which had been opened. Above it, a collection of small bottles with labels.
Blonde. Ultra blonde. Brunette. Redhead. Anti-Bald. Blue eyes. Green eyes. Brown eyes. Increased intelligence. Long life. Health boost. Female to male. Male to female. Taller. Broad shoulders. Witch. Wizard. Mage. One. Goat. Badger. Fox. Warthog. Cat. Wolf. Dog. Pony.
One? Ajha bit his lip nervously. Surely not genetic transformation spells? And a spell that could turn anyone into the One? Witch, wizard and One were all different alleles of the same gene. The mage gene was similar, but located on the Y chromosome instead of the X.
He could experiment with the mage gene, without messing up his One gene.
"If I was insane."
Then his left hand went to his thinning, graying hair.
"I'm going to regret this . . . " It's research. Analyzing spells.
A few sips later he slipped back out, feeling guilty. He circled around to the other wing and got to the restaurant just as Rior was finishing. The Princess gave him a chilly glance and walked out. Ajha sighed and ordered pancakes by candlelight from the reduced menu caused by the lack of electricity. Fean, Hob and Baik joined him a moment later.
Baik was red faced from being out in the cold, and beaming. "Isn't this great! We're stranded, snowed in with a rogue Withione."
Ajha closed his eyes in pain. "Power tends to grow exponentially with every additional prophet's gene. Princess Rior Withione has a complete double set. Two of everything. She may even have some new additions from her Comet Fall encounters with those magicians. Do. Not. Under. Estimate. Him. And I say him, because he's got all male responses and impulses, now, and has thrown off all restraint of law."
Fean raised an eyebrow. "You are saying he's a rapist? Like half the upper-family male Oners? I've never heard of that in a double set."
"That's because if you open yourself to a double set, you'll willingly do whatever they want. Even you, Fean Withione, because you are just in training and haven't the experience to wall off that sort of influence. Just because you can fend off a Withione without straining yourself, don't think he's the same thing."
She tapped her fingernails on the table and eyed him. "I was shocked at how bright your glow is, when you let it show. Because you're just a Clostuone."
"Some of the prophet genes are for relatively unimportant things, like hair color and height. Others are dominant, so one is as good as two. Some are recessive, so one is as useless as none. I'm fortunate in that what I lack is relatively unimportant, and I've got doubles of all the seriously magical recessive genes." And didn't I just enjoy rubbing that in my snobby family's face when those sorts of studies came out. Especially a couple of Withione cousins who were missing some very important recessives.
Obji Withione blinked thoughtfully. The With the Ones had a complete single set, and a bunch of doubles. Hob would be strong once he was trained, and he hadn't shown any signs of the sexual abnormalities that plagued so many male Oners. Three behavioral genes, with some dangerous interactions, depending on the mix of single and double copies a man had. All doubles or all singles (or all absent) tended to allow normality.
Ajha was blessed with none, hence his status as Clostuone. Fortunately his total count had been large enough to keep him from being labeled Servaone. He'd been blamed for his parent's divorce, which, since they had given him the genes seemed a bit unfair. His grandfather had informed him that if he'd been born with many fewer prophet genes his mother would have committed suicide. Not likely, but she'd never married again, never had another child.
Fean looked interested. "So you're powerful, but underestimated. Could be useful in politics."
"Were I ever insane enough to dive into that cesspool." Where all the sicko Neartuones hangout. "Trying to figure out what, if anything, I ought to do about Rior Withione is quite enough challenge for now. You infants are well advised to keep your distance."
Fean sniffed, but turned her attention to the variety of syrups available for her pancakes, squinting in the dim light.
Hob eyed him. "What about these Fallen? Should we contact them?"
Ajha sighed. "Despite indoctrination to the contrary, Fallen magicians are very powerful. You want to test them? Do a bit of mental arm wrestling? I'd suggest you approach them honestly and play a few games with them. I don't know how strong these particular ones are, I'd guess the equivalent of Neartuone, but it's hard to say. Up close you can see that they never completely open up. That glow you see is not all there is."
Baik had been taking this all in with bright eager eyes. Receiving what amounted to permission, she looked around the room and eyed the two big men, barely visible in the candlelit room.
Ajha winced. "Look, I recommend staying public. As best I understand it, under Rior's leadership they are criminals. You are probably strong enough to protect yourself, but it would be better if you didn't put yourself into a position to need to. Understand?"
The two girls smirked at him. He shook his head despairingly and finished his breakfast.
***
Eldon looked over at the women walking up to his table and grinned. "Now here's a way to get a day off to a great start. Have you ladies eaten?"
"Has anyone ever told you, you have a beautiful glow?" Heso pulled out a chair for the nearest, the shorter of the otherwise matched pair. "So, what are a nice pair of Oners doing on a World like this?"
The tall one raised an eyebrow. "Those are awfully old pickup lines."
"Really? How many Worlds do you go to, and meet handsome gentlemen like us?"
The short one smirked. "We have eleven Colony Worlds. That's a standard pickup line on all of them."
"Damn. How about, if I said you have a beautiful body . . . "
"I'd hold it against you."
"Hmm . . . "
Eldon left the examination of clichés to Heso and the short girl, as he turned to the tall one. "Eldon Kissison, of Gemstone on Comet Fall. I take it you're part of an Exploration Team?"
"Fean Withione. Yes, we're collecting comparative data on this book—this region with closely parallel Worlds. My team has specialized on North America. We've got one or two teams for every continent. What are you doing here?"
"Robbing banks and drinking beer, mostly."
She looked quite startled. "You aren't even hiding it?"
"Nah, there's cops around, eyeing us, so it's time to go. We can kick back and enjoy the snow for a couple days, but once the roads are open, we're gone."
"What if you can't get back to your gate? Or, is your gate here? Is it one of those permanent gates, like some of your people can make?"
Eldon chuckled. "Now, that would be telling." He forked in the last of his eggs and topped it off with orange juice.
"Do you play magic games?"
He grinned broadly. "Probably not the same ones you do. Tell me about yours."
Apparently the most popular was something like stones, but with magical pieces and you had to magically overpower your opponent's pieces after you'd surrounded them. Putting the power into multiple stones was a challenge, and one he enjoyed enormously. Distracting your opponent with side spells was considered cheating at the beginner levels and part of the game at the top. They started with itchy feet, tickling and strange odors. The Oner girls proved vulnerable to the orgasm and happy mommy spells, and once they figured out how to block those, minor transformation spells. Fean looked great with freckles and red hair. Had the temper to go with the hair, for sure.
On the second game he undid the morphs, letting her skin tone deepen and the hair darken to nearly black. He kept up the sexual assaults, to no avail. She'd figured out how to block them. Or maybe absorb them without letting them distract her. She twitched. Or at any rate, she was trying to not show that they distracted her.
Heso and the short girl—Baik—were giggling over a game themselves. Looked like they'd upped the stakes, and now Heso was winning more often. Heso was going to get lucky tonight, if Eldon was any judge.
"So, you going to admit to the superiority of Fallen Magic?"
Fean tossed her head. "You're good at this game, but I'll bet you're not so good at games that manipulate the real world."
"Oh? And what do you mean by that?"
He followed her outside, out of the view of the lodge and she showed him how to try to overpower each other's illusions. He wasn't as good with illusions as he was with morphing, but he gave her a good fight.
"Now, for the real real World, try this." He stripped out of his clothes, shivering in the cold and morphed into the pony. :: I could do a Unicorn, in honor of your symbol. ::
She leaned over and touched him, stroked his coat. "That really, honestly is a physical morph. I don't believe it! You did that so fast!"
Girls really were suckers for horses. He had a transformation spell all worked out for her and dangled it temptingly. :: Better take your clothes off first, so they don't get ripped. So hard to explain, later. ::
She started at the spell web, practically drooling, and started undressing. She was a beautiful little bay pony. He led her off, deeper into the forest. Ooowee! Fun in the snow!
***
Jim got a book and found good light in the lobby for reading. Even with the storm clouds and ever increasing snowfall the big windows let the light in. And even if it hadn't, he was well placed to watch the various perps as they dealt with being snowed in and out of touch. His people came and went, occasionally traipsing around in the snow to try and check on the Animals that were mostly staying in their wing. Norm reported that the children were playing on the plastic play equipment in one of the rooms, and the four women were drinking tea and chatting. The Warthog and one of the teenage Arabic looking girls, Becky or something similar, were playing board games in the restaurant. The Deer was outside with the sister, had been for hours. Jim wondered uneasily when it would be time to organize a search party. The Deer and the Warthog had always kissed or groped some woman. Plus the Deer wore falsies . . . wasn't normal. Their father was talking to Rior, the Wolf, in his library. Dirk and Martha, with binocs were watching them from Jim's room. They were both reasonably good lip readers, but apparently there were some language problems.
Char wander casually up and sat beside him. "A lot of the staff is stuck here, probably for the night. The maids are very unhappy. One of them is trying to talk the rest into a voodoo ceremony to ward off the evil animal spirits that haunt the people in the north wing."
Jim nodded. "They must have seen some of them in their masks. Damn good masks. Or hologram illusions, perhaps. They make my skin crawl, and I know they're just a bunch of bank robbers. Coming on one of them cold would be seriously spooky."
"We need a search warrant. Once we get those masks, prosecution will be easy." Char tapped nervous fingers, looking over her shoulder at the falling snow.
The Parks and Wildlife woman came down the stairs, dressed for the outdoors.
Despite the big windows, it was getting too dark to read. "And it's just past noon." He finished the thought out loud. "I don't like being snowed in with this bunch, and that's an understatement. The combination of Bellamiso and the Animals i
s bad enough, without the possible Arabs." The Park Ranger walked out as Norm walked in the front door.
He shed coat and boots and walked over to the fireplace. Jim and Char joined him.
"The Deer and that arab girl are back. They went upstairs and then into one of the side rooms. I couldn't spot them, but the way they were laughing and hanging on each other I doubt they bothered with lights."
Char sniffed. "That might be one way to stay warm in a snow storm, but I'd choose about any other man in the World. Even Dirk would be better."
"Speaking of whom, I'd best go spell them, let them get some lunch. Why don't you two stay out here by the fire and everyone can report to you for awhile." He trotted up the stairs and into his room. They weren't bothering to lock it, in as much it was being used as a watch post.
"Damn it all Dirk that was evidence, and possibly drugged." Martha sounded pissed.
Dirk was holding out a wine glass full of red wine, and receiving nothing but a glare in return. "Evidence? Oh, I just figured the boss liked a nip now and then and brought his own glass along." He started guiltily as he looked over his shoulder at Jim.
Jim reached inside the bathroom for the glass there, and took Dirk's wine glass and dumped it in. "Go away and decide for yourself if it's drugged, eh?"
Dirk slunk out.
"So, nothing to see over there?"
"No, they left the room. I'm going to have to make sense of this all now. I think they kept throwing in foreign words. I caught a bit of the Spanish, but the rest have me flummoxed. I tried for phonetics."
"The guy looks a bit arab. I might remember a bit from my days in the sandbox."
"You were in the Army? During one of the fighting phases? Or peacekeeping?"
"Yeah. One of each." He twitched her notes around and sat down on the bed to read them.
"Hmm. 'You can't have lost all loyalty, come home.' How interesting. None of the Animals look Arabic."