by Daniel Ruth
“Yeah, I hear Mei feels the same,” I commiserated. “Anyway, Jin kidnaped Jeremy and sent an army of demon bugs to my house, so it’s pretty important we track his lair down before they have Jeremy too long.”
“What?” exclaimed the city’s resident supercop. “When did this happen? How did you deal with the demons? If you’re at Tower Plaza now why didn’t you call this in earlier?”
“It happened a couple hours ago. My wards took care of the demons, but all the magic blew out vid terminal again. Things just calmed down enough to call all this in.”
“Damn, how did they find out you two were being subcontracted for consulting,” a frustrated sigh erupted from the phone. “He was going to handle the surveillance. He mentioned he had some hardened equipment that could handle the stress.”
“I know what Jeremy was talking about,” I inserted before the rant could get too far along. “I can prep your equipment if you can bring it around. We also need to make some preparations, to keep the captured minions from blowing up. I have an idea on that.”
“Blowup?” he asked, confused. “What do you mean blow up?”
“Mei didn’t mentions the minions of Jin blow up when they are captured or killed? It’s a cool spell, I am not absolutely sure how he does it, but I have a couple ideas on how to at least delay it.”
“No, she didn’t mention it,” his voice said in a flat tone. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that was keeping Conrad in the dark unless he had to know something. Naughty girl. Maybe she’ll lose her parking spot.
“Vincent is going flip when he sees what you’ve done to his authentic period phone,” a voice interrupted what was rapidly turning into a gripe session. Turning around I saw Sebastian behind me, clucking at the tangle of wiring Beth was still working on.
“Okay Conrad, I have to talk to Vincent’s people to iron out some details,” send a technician out and once he repairs my terminal he can grab the data from it. I should be home with Stella and Beth in an hour or so.”
“Who is Beth...” was the last I heard from Conrad before I hung up. He always seems so lost during our discussions.
“Estella, Beth, I would like you to meet Sebastian,” I gestured at the new arrival. “Creepy stalker, keeper of an excellent collection of antique weapons and purveyor of fine spices. Don’t eat anything he offers.”
“Honored to meet such adorable young ladies,” he smiled a most toothy grin. Stella looked mildly ill. That was no surprise, she obviously liked the undead less than I did. And I didn’t like them at all. Beth looked nervously from him to me, unsure of whether he was a friend, but not blind to the undertones of my introduction. “I understand you wished to talk to me. I am glad to see you well.”
“Yes, fortunately, we both recover quickly,” I returned. “I understand that you hire your services out. I would like to take advantage of your stalker ways.”
“While I do work with others on occasion, Vivian has been clear that we are not to come into conflict with a certain mage.”
I blinked, “I don’t want to get rid of you that much.” I shrugged as I continued, “Jin would eat you up and spit you up. You’re really not that subtle.”
“Then what of my humble services can I offer to a gentlemen of such discriminating tastes?”
“We need a contact to underworld,” I nodded towards the door. “Vincent can set a watch on some random points but that may take time to catch something. I am not sure how long Beth’s brother has.”
“Beth’s brother,” he asked, an eyebrow arched towards the young girl.
“Jeremy. I am sure your research on me included him since I contract his services.” I tapped my fingers in thought,” Jin sent his goons after him. He has gotten extensive feelers into the shifter community and hired a very good hacker to cover his not so subtle movements.”
“I thought you and the head of the new division were on good terms?”
“Well, as good as you can expect from someone that set in his ways,” I shrugged. “You can hardly expect a shining pillar in our community to rub elbows with cyber criminals and rogue gang members.”
“So you want me to detective while your own gumshoe is out of the running?” the pale vampire snorted softly.
“To be truthful, Jeremy didn’t have contacts in the supernatural underground. I didn’t care when he was around, we had a plan and if it took a little longer than it could have... well, I had other things to do while that plan matures.”
“But now,” he prompted.
“But now he took what is mine and I want to rip his head off his shoulders now,” I finished with subdued intensity. “I think you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I think I do,” he looked at me thoughtfully. It was obvious he was tallying what he had found out about me and trying to figure out what I was. “Why not go to Eddie Prince? You seem to have come to an accommodation with him.”
“I am pretty sure his territory includes the more mundane illegalities, I don’t think he has a foothold in the supernatural community. I didn’t see any vampires or shifters in that fancy building he has.” I paused before continuing, “Besides, I owe him some services, not the reverse.”
“I am not cheap,” Sebastian warned, a creepy smile forming.
“I think I have enough funds to contract your services,” I said rubbing my chin. “Give Beth your contact information. I’ll have her send the funds to you.”
“Me,” squeaked a startled Beth.
“Sure, your brother said you were smart and you certainly know your way around technical stuff, after all you bought the tricycle for us.”
“Wh... what? She’s like seven years old,” the vampire protested. “Even I think that’s irresponsible!”
“She’s a very mature eight,” I countered defensively. “Jeremy said she was really smart. I’m sure she can handle a little money. I’ll pay her the same rates as I did her brother.”
“I’m not even sure it’s legal to pay her, not that care...”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say dismissively. “It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to work for free. What a barbaric law.”
Stella mumbled something. It sounded vaguely like, “Better than dragging her into a vampire nest.”
“I... never mind,” the vampire shrugged massaging his temples. “I’ll give her a card. Call me and I’ll get her the account information.”
“So we have a deal,” I confirmed.
“Sure, I’ll look into your friends kidnapping. As you said, I have some sources.”
Chapter 17
Back on the bike, the two passengers spent the time talking about magic. Well, it was mostly Estella droning on about the joys of being one with the elements. Upon leaving the den of the dead, the elf’s upbeat attitude had returned with a vengeance. As before, I zoned her out.
“What about the kind of magic Mister Derek does?” Beth’s question roused me from my catatonic state. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the elements. At least I don’t think so.”
“Well, I suppose the energy is similar but the means he reaches it is different,” Stella started.
“All magic is fundamentally the same energy,” I interjected while swerving around a pedestrian. “One thing you have to understand is that there are layers of reality besides this one.”
“Like alternate realities,” Beth questioned.
“Well, no,” I started. “Those exist too, but I mean there is a foundation, you may consider it an energy level below all the realities. It’s a common ground. As far as anyone knows it is singular and unifying. For convenience sake let’s call it the firmament.”
“Most believe it existed before the multiverse and it will exist after all the dimensions die,” Stella piped in.
“Right,” I moved on. That theory verged more on faith than any evidence I was aware of. “So it’s the foundation of the universes and existed before anything else. Beings... creatures, were birthed into this fundamental reality. Whether they existed before any o
ther dimensions were born is up in the air. A lot of the religions argue about it.”
“The gods were born into the firmament,” Stella quickly added.
“Most agree with that, and the gods certainly say so.” Or so the stories say. “But there were entities that existed before them. They spontaneously formed and most are beyond our comprehension. They were formed at a point there was no space or time as we know it. We can relate to the gods because they were born with the same perceptions of the universe as we have,” I had to use a bit of telekinesis to slow us in time for one of the rare stop lights. “Anyway, these creatures are pretty much creatures of energy, some formed as manifestations of concepts.”
“Like love and hate,” Beth asked.
More like ‘power’ and ‘time’ but yes there were other more human concepts too. Though without the rest of the human aspects it wouldn’t seem sane to us,” I said, as a few antique cars blew by us honking and jeering. “When the rest of the universe formed, other more mortal entities were able to tap into their power by their names or symbols representing them or their aspects. These symbols in turn became bound into the firmament, drawing power from these entities.”
“So magic draws from some Lovecraftian beasts,” Beth asked somberly.
“Um, Derek never got around to showing me any of those movies, so I can not confirm or deny that,” I trailed off. “So the first magics were powerful but really primitive. Forces and concepts but really hard to put together in a manner to do something more complex.” We had finally left the newly revitalized Blight. Amusingly enough, the “good” area just outside of the Blight now looked drab and run down next to the newer prefabs.
“That doesn’t sound like what you do.”
“That was the first-generation magic. Runes fall into this category,” I lectured. I left out where runes were forbidden to most beings. “Later some ingenious creatures figured a way to use symbology to guide the forces of magic and define their effect more strictly.”
“That sounds like what you do,” Beth confirmed happily.
“Less powerful but more flexible. The important thing is that the firmament remembers it all. Any magic once impressed on the firmament leaves a memory. If you know how, you can draw on previous bits of magic and put them together in different ways.”
“This sounds like programming, going from machine language to a higher level language.”
“Jeremy said the same thing. I read a few books on it and there is some truth to it. Anyway, once enough of the building blocks were there, people started to make complex spells. Such as turning a rose blue, cleaning your shoes, turning a person into a frog...”
“You can turn people into frogs,” shouted Beth.
“Only the annoying ones,” I joked. “I can’t, but those spells do exist. Ironically if you can find a teacher they really aren’t that hard to learn. They already exist so you can use some mnemonics to trigger a state of mind to tap into firmament spells. Usually, these spoken mnemonics include a reference to the original firmament creatures or concepts to help channel the energy.”
“If anyone can cast super complex spells, why isn’t everybody casting spells?”
“Well, the spells exist, however the initial tapping into them is tricky. Without a map of how to reach these spells you may as well as try to invent them from scratch. It took many millennia to get to the point where anyone could do spell magic,” I said, as we passed the tourist shop we had picked up the rickshaw. The employee looked at us, jaw agape as we blew past him, our wake causing his clothes to beat against him. “Developing spells from scratch is incredibly difficult. It’s somewhat of an art. Not to mention that a person’s ability to channel this energy gets better with practice. Once you have the knowledge of the spell you can cast it, but a neophyte casting a fireball won’t get anything more than a spark.”
“So is that kind of magic more powerful that what you can do?”
“Well, as a rough guideline the most powerful magics are runes, then circles and wards. The weakest yet most flexible is verbal casting. Having said that not all spells are equal,” I said absently, as the corner market blew by us. “There are some legendary spells, whose creators did such a good job they created a tight link to the firmament. Powerful stuff but rare.”
“The gods often have access to that type of spells,” chimed Stella. “In fact some are famous for creating them. Not that they need them, as creatures of the firmament they can manipulate the energy directly.”
“Wow,” the girl said in wonderment.
“It’s not really that impressive,” I said dismissively. “You’ve heard of magical creatures and supernatural creatures, right?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“Some races have evolved with a close connection to the fundamental reality. They have various abilities.”
“Like shifters and vampires?”
“Yep,” I paused. “Well, I’m not sure about vampires but definitely shifters.”
“What about demons?”
“Demons are a bit different. They are like gods in that they formed from the firmament, but generally on a much smaller scale. It makes them very difficult to kill permanently,” I complained as I pulled into my street. I wasn’t expecting five police vehicles, with full on flashing lights, to be spaced out around my neighborhood.
Moving closer, I noted the door was open, however most of the officers were concentrated on the rear of one of the backyards five houses away. Naturally I decided to check to see who was in my house. Walking in, I noted it was a technician hunched over the holo terminal, working on the vid subsystem.
“Hello, I assume Conrad couldn’t wait to get the data he wanted?” I asked the fellow. He was blond haired and slight of frame with prominent wire framed glasses. Obviously an affection, since I hear vision correction is a fifteen-minute outpatient procedure.
“Sorry to intrude, sir” the officer replied, “Things are starting to get crazy. There are people going missing all over and reports of monsters roaming the city. The captain was cursing about not being able to contact his only expert on the occult.”
“Nice to be wanted but I am not sure that helps when I am not home,” I offered. “How did you get in? I have durasteel beams in the walls... wait. Don’t tell me, I forgot to arm the house?”
“We just had the standard lock,” he flashed me a smile. “Look in the box on the kitchen counter. Courtesy of the captain.”
Walking over to the counter, I noticed a metal box without markings. Lifting it up I saw a gleaming holo terminal with a flexible wrist strap nestled in the padding with an inch thick manual next to it.
“Well, thanks but I am not sure how long this is going to last,” I trailed off as Beth jumped up and down in excitement.
“That’s a CRX9020 military grade terminal,” she clapped her hands together. If she started to tap dance I was out of here. “They say it can withstand a near miss from a tactical nuclear strike!”
The military definitely had equipment that wouldn’t short out from magical energies or auras. They had decent shielding and ridiculous redundancies. “Isn’t it incredibly illegal to possess military technology? I heard jokes that the only way to see the military in action was when they arrested smugglers with extreme prejudice.”
“You need to be registered and the paperwork is unbelievable,” the technician talked over his shoulder as he started to latch the cover back onto the terminal. “But Conrad was getting very frustrated. Speaking of which, they need to talk to you over where all the buoys are,” he waved in the general direction the police had been gathered.
“Okay, I’ll head over now,” I nodded as I started out the door putting the wrist control on and grabbing the manual.
“Hold on,” the officer called out. “Don’t bring the girl. It would be bad.”
“Okay,” I drawled in puzzlement, looking at a clearly irked Beth. Walking over to the pad on the counter, I started to make a list. “Beth, while I look at t
he... whatever it is, could you follow up on these things? Your brother usually did stuff like that. The account information should be on the terminal.”
We left her grumbling but busy, as we headed towards the gathering of governmental workers. “That was nice of you,” Stella said encouragingly as she trailed behind me. “Letting her feel she was contributing instead of waiting for you.”
I looked at her sideways with lidded eyes. “Yes, I am caring and thoughtful kind of guy.”
She looked back at me, her smile dimming slightly. “You just wanted your chores done? You’re impossible.”
“They were important and if she’s standing in for Jeremy she should start now. Otherwise, she’s just going to sit around and waste time. It’s not like she couldn’t have said no, she’s almost an adult.”
“Fine,” she sighed and then perked up again. “Let’s go see the newest disaster.”
I grunted in agreement and slowly followed her, flipping through the manual on the terminal while concentrating on memorizing the tome. Good grief, it had more features than my holo terminal. Wait, was that a taser next to the emitter? No, that was the next model up.
Conrad was actually in the circle of officials. Tiny police buoys emitted holographic warnings to anyone wandering too close. Since I owned the neighborhood it was mainly flashing at us. “What brings you my backyard?”
“You mentioned you had a demon attack?” the shifter began before stopping with a grimace.
“Yeah, they apparently were sent by Jin. My wards kept them out. Vaporized most of them,” I reminisced. “Not powerful, however there were hundreds of them.”
“It’s good to know that group of horrors is gone, unfortunately, there were casualties before you dealt with them,” the officer said as he gestured over to the cordoned off area. Scraps of cloth and shattered armor were scattered around the house’s back yard, but the splatters of blood and bone fragments stood out on the grass. An empty armored helmet lay to the side. I recognized the number.