by Daniel Ruth
“Mat,” my voice cracked a bit on the name. He wasn’t quite one of my special humans, but he had been getting close. My hands clenched in anger and one of the officer’s terminal screeched with feedback before I gained control of my aura again. I looked closer at the remains.
“I assume there is nothing to take to a hospital?” I said quietly. Stella’s hand went to my shoulder and I let it rest there.
“No. Officer Cromwell reported on the remains of Baron Samedi’s headquarters and then he headed here to pick you up. His vehicle is parked over behind those trees so he must have seen something suspicious. His implant went dead before he landed. You can guess why.”
“Demons are hard on technology, hopefully, this thing will hold up because there is no doubt we’ll meet more,” I said tapping the new wrist terminal. “Jin seems to have shifted his attention to me.”
“It may not have been you,” Stella interjected. I looked at her questioning. “Mei said that that Jin sends creatures to test her. Never anything overwhelming. He obviously wants her alive, but this might be her test.”
“Possible. The timing coinciding with Mr. Peterson’s abduction is a bit of a coincidence,” Conrad growled softly. It took a moment to connect ‘Mr. Peterson’ with Jeremy’s last name.
“Okay, inconclusive but it doesn’t matter since she is staying with me at the moment,” I paused a moment. “By the way, where is she?”
“I didn’t have time to organize the shifters and deal with Jin’s crime spree. I deputized her and she is now kicking shifter butt into an organized group capable of monitoring the nodes you tagged.”
“Oh, she must have hated that,” Stella muttered. It occurred to me that Stella and Mei were spending a lot of time together to be this familiar with her.
“She had a fit,” the stoic officer nodded, obviously hearing the comment. “Never the less, she has been after Jin longer than most of us combined have been alive and she can taste the endgame is here.”
I looked again at the bloody debris. You bet the end game was near.
We were a subdued pair as we made our way back home. There was a floating construction barge and crew already on the street in front of my house resurfacing the permacrete. Two more people in the crew’s overalls were kneeling on the churned grass discussing plans to fix the damage. The destroyed cab that I had kicked off my lawn was gone, perhaps in the barge somewhere. I generally hadn’t been up and about when this company stopped by for repairs, but I have been fairly pleased with Jeremy’s choice of contractors.
I watched the construction for a few minutes until I saw one person hop out with a large old fashioned bell. It looked like a bucket sized replica of the Liberty Bell. In fact, as I looked closer I saw it actually was the Liberty Bell including the crack and inscription. I chuckled to myself. Beth had interpreted my instructions in a rather humorous fashion. I approved.
I had to correct the placement of the bell though. The workman was going to place it inside the ward effects. While watching vampires burn never got old, it would defeat the purpose of having the bell for guests that may have a poor reaction to the wards. Afterward, I went inside still shaking my head. Truly this was the age of instant gratification, though I likely didn’t want to know how much it cost me.
Beth was at the terminal doing further research on my requests, using a projection on each all and flipping through the search pages as soon as they appeared. I hadn’t even known it could do that. Stella sat on the couch staring with an unfocused intensity into nowhere. It was clear her mind was not on us, and I wasn’t much in the mood for conversion either. While the females were occupied I went down stairs.
I had a difficult time concentrating on my research. A lot had happened today and although I considered myself mentally flexible I admit that I am sensitive when it comes to losing my companions. It had hurt the first time and I wasn’t looking forward to experiencing more pain. I had known I would outlive my mortal friends, however this world’s technology was supposed to mean that they had a chance to potentially live as long. Or at least put off parting until some vague point in the future. The future was approaching faster than I had planned. I was tempted to open the floor and relax amid my treasures, but I couldn’t do that with guests in the house.
I almost gave up on making any progress when I noticed Beth next to me. “What are you doing?” she asked, breaking me out of my contemplation.
I was about to respond when I realized I had actually had my paints and chemical vials unopened in front of me and I had been looking at the ceramic disk I was using as practice for almost fifteen minutes. “Apparently I am not doing anything. What do you need?”
“I was thinking about the placard you gave me,” she said, while pulling out some parts, springs and a glue stick. “You said I need to combine my blood and this other liquid, which I assume is your blood,” I raised an eyebrow. That was good reasoning. “If I glue this old model blood sampling needle to the disk and encase your blood in this gel pack next to this second needle I should be able to activate the... er, ward in one action.”
I looked over the parts and slowly nodded. “Excellent idea. Much faster than my idea.”
“Yeah, drawing blood with a dagger was scary. I mean inefficient,” she hastily corrected herself.
“Yeah, your idea is definitely better,” I agreed. “However, you have to make sure the glue doesn’t touch these lines here. Could have unintended side effects.” Pausing in contemplation, I continued, “Now that I think about the dagger I gave you may have gathered enough of a charge to accidentally cut off a finger.”
“What,” she exclaimed, eyes wide in fear.
“Don’t worry,” I soothed her, patting her shoulder. “I could have put the finger back on after the fight. Assuming a demon didn’t eat it,” I winced as she twitched and paled. “But I would have been able to regenerate it back!” My attempts to reassure her didn’t seem to be working.
“You can do that with magic,” she asked cautiously.
“Well, it wouldn’t really be magic,” I clarified. “I also have some psionic tricks.”
“Like telepathy and telekinesis?”
“Exactly.” I nodded smiling. “Jeremy used to crawl in here all shot and bleeding all over like a stuck pig.”
“What?”
“Yep, he could be a slob sometimes. Made a lot of messes. On my carpet, my floor, my clothes...”
“Is working for you that dangerous,” she whispered hesitantly.
“Me?” I asked in surprise. “All that was from his detective work. He always took crazy chances. I offered to teach him a few things. Force fields, telekinesis. The fun stuff, but he never accepted. He insisted on doing things his own way.” I admired him for it, but it was hugely frustrating.
“Could you,” she stuttered to a halt for second. “Could you teach me?”
I looked at her in surprise. Then leaned closer to look her in the eyes. “I could. Jeremy had potential, but he was a bit old and set in his ways. Even though you’re almost an adult, I think we can unleash your potential.”
“Will a take a very long time to learn it?”
“Well, I can show your brain the right way to do things but it actually starts very weak. If you practice every day until your head starts to ache you should have something usable in a few weeks.”
“Oh,” she said, seeming rather lost. “That seems rather more and less than I thought. So it’s not like an apprenticeship? Just show me and I practice.”
“Yep. Though once you master what I show you and build up your strength, I can lead you to the next set of exercises and skills. Pure self-study is possible but can take a very long time.”
“Oh, I thought it would take more training,” she whispered. “Yes, I’d like to learn, please.”
“The practice is real training, though once you get it down you can practice to grow your strength while doing other things. Like float a book to read, interface with the holo terminal with your mind. Fun
stuff,” I placed the palms of my hands on either side of her head. “Hold still, it gets messy if your head explodes.”
With that last bit of humor, I looked deeply into her eyes and dived into her mind. It’s not really possible to describe the experience completely, but by feel I was able to match my aura and mental energy patterns to hers. Once I had, I slowly changed my energies back to my normal and forced her energies to match. It actually was very similar to the merging I had done to infiltrate Kingston’s group. Less intimate though, no actual thoughts were exchanged. “Okay, that is part one. Next I am going to move these plates with my mind. Note how it feels. You’re doing it next.”
She didn’t get the plates to move, but she did get the spring to twitch. I think that was good beginning if you’re not a fount of psionic energy. I also gave her mental drills to develop a body field and a calming exercise to shield her thoughts. The damn city still had a terrible effect on psychics, she’d need to develop that first unless she wanted nightmares.
By the time we had completed all the basic training I could see she was getting a headache. “Don’t practice after the headache starts. Unless your brain heals itself it can cause an aneurism.” I was almost completely sure human brains didn’t heal unless they were full of nanites.
“I’m tired,” she said with a huge yawn. “I’m going to take a nap on the couch.” I looked after her slight form as it staggered up the stairs. I should have pressured Jeremy to take the training more. I shook myself out of my funk. He wasn’t dead yet.
Of course, he may be mutilated or injured. I could heal that, heck any hospital could, however I couldn’t heal the brain and for similar reasons it was illegal to regenerate someone’s brain unless it was very minor damage. Science and psionics couldn’t create something out of nothing. A person was likely to have their brains regenerated and then lay there like a turnip, a blank slate, lacking personality or intelligence. Of course they had ways to record memories but there was such a history of abuse that the law would rather declare a person dead than deal with the fallout of clones, multiple bodies, multiple minds and innumerable nefarious schemes.
Magic was different. As I had told Beth, everything was recorded in the firmament. Perhaps even a person’s spirit or soul. In either case, powerful enough magical healing could restore brain damage, memories and even resurrect the dead. Maybe it was time to look into it. I had found a circle in the books that was supposed to resurrect the dead, however it was as far beyond my meager abilities as the dimensional travel circle was. There was a basic version of it though. A circle that flooded a body with regenerative energy. I was unsure whether it would do more than I could do with my psionics. Would it access the lost patterns impressed in the foundation of reality or simply regenerate the flesh?
I shrugged. I needed the practice and if I got good enough to pull off the basic healing circle it would be a step further to do the intermediate circle which I was confident would reach a pattern in the firmament. The resurrection circle would be a ways off though. Turning to an unoccupied corner, I scraped the duracrete floor clean and moved the ceramic plates together to form an area large enough for a comfortable circle. With nary a twinge of pain from my chest, I extended my forefinger’s nail into a sharpened talon, perfect for engraving. This time I was able to lose myself in the process rather than in my brooding.
There was some knocking from above, but I stayed true to my focus as I etched the outer circle and started the primary and secondary divisions. I hadn’t gotten very far on the interior before Stella came downstairs.
“There is a man upstairs from Blue Skies. He wants to talk to you about some damaged property.”
“Ah,” I nodded absently, “That the company whose taxi crashed while we were in it.”
“The roller coaster death traps,” she said, her voice rising as she became more upset.
“Yeah, those,” I agreed as I etched another line, tiny sparks rising from my talon. “Have Beth talk to him and threaten to sue them for endangerment.” I winced a little as a high pitched screech came from the ceramic as I moved a little too fast on a curve.”
“Beth is exhausted, she is asleep on the couch,” I felt her aura expand around her, as emotions magnified energies. “I couldn’t wake her even if I wanted to. I will discuss this with him outside. He should be aware how unhappy I am with their company’s services.”
I paused in my work. Her aura was interfering with the balance of energies I was trying to achieve while inscribing. As long as I waited until she left to continue the circle shouldn’t be impacted, however if I continued without the skill to counter balance her interference I could accidentally end up with some horribly disfiguring effect. That would be awkward.
Stella retreated upstairs her footsteps fading but resolute. Soon after, I heard her raised voice and a rather nervous stuttering male voice. The front door closed and the sounds faded leaving me alone with the circle once more. Several more hours passed and footsteps came down again. This time it was Mei. She looked as tired physically as I felt mentally.
“I heard about Jeremy,” she said quietly from the bottom step. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry yet,” I said, turning from my mostly complete circle. It just needed final activation. I would have to do that tomorrow, since forming it had drained most of my energy. One of the nice things about circle is that you could empower them in parts, rather than gather all the energy at once. “He’s still alive and if we move fast enough, I am hoping he’ll stay that way.”
“True, but if we are waiting for them to make the next move, then we won’t be in control of the timing.”
“Well, our surveillance is good but I have a few other things I can try,” I slapped my hands together to get the ceramic dust off of them as my talon receded. “I was happy with our plans but since Jin is stepping up his activities and is becoming less concerned with hiding his presence I have a couple of long shots I am trying.”
“He’s never been this blatant before,” Mei said in a worried tone. “The scuffle in the hotel was a little bolder than normal but not entirely out of character. The kidnapping is not too far from normal too. Though usually they are my friends. It’s why I tried not to get too close to people over the last few centuries. It’s safer for both them and me.”
I mulled over her words. It was clear that as formidable as Mei was, Jin was not actively trying to kill her. If he considered her his ‘property’ it would be consistent with the observed behavior. A high-level supernatural entity could latch onto a lesser being as a ‘pet’. If the ‘pet’ continued to follow the entity around it would likely reinforce this behavior. The harm to her friends would simply be jealousy. What a crappy relationship.
“Usually I try to track him down and he uses his magic and lackeys to obscure his plans lead me in circles,” she continued thoughtfully. “This goes on for months or years before he does a huge spell that gives all the sensitives in the city migraines and he leaves.”
“Holdup,” I interrupt. “You never said he did this before.”
“Well, I never actually knew what he was doing before. You’re the one that figured out about the nodes. I’ve just been wasting my time,” she growled angrily.
“Let’s go upstairs and you can show me where on the global map you’ve been,” I said as I hurriedly brushed past her. This was new information that felt important.
Upstairs I set up the projector as I had the day before but shrunk the city and brought up the world map. For the next hour, I added the locations that Mei had tracked Jin to. I marked the ones that had the final burst of energy that the shifter had described.
“This can’t be good,” I muttered to myself as I looked at the globe serenely rotating in the air in front of us. Little red and blue dots highlighted the cities. The red dots were random. They covered the entire world with no real pattern. It was the citied highlighted in blue that worried me. These were the cities that suffered from Jin’s energy backlash. They
formed a circle around the planet. Almost a belt around the planet, or a chain. It almost met at both ends, but there was a space. A space that would be filled by the city we were presently in.
“What does it mean,” Mei watched the projection in confusion.
“Jörmungandr,” Stella said from the couch, where a sleeping Beth was resting her head in her lap.
“The world serpent,” I asked skeptically. “What are the chances that your giant snake just happens to be in this specific reality?”
“What are the chances that our oracles have a warning of an impending apocalypse endangering this root of the Tree.” I didn’t really have an answer to this.”
“However, that is not what I meant,” Stella said quietly, caressing Beth’s hair. “Jörmungandr, like Ragnarok has been misinterpreted by your folklore. The seer’s vision could be interpreted as a disaster or simply great change. Like most such visions, they are not clear.”
“Ah, like Uroboros, change or renewal,” I shrugged. “I think it’s unlikely that Jin is working for anything positive.” I stared at the map longer. “I wish I knew more about these cities. What is so special about them?”
“Not a clue, most were sinkholes, though the ones in blue were all in the last decade,” Mei offered. “So those mostly had modern plumbing at least.”
“Hey, I think those three have a root of the world tree in them,” Stella pointed to the globe.
“Don’t most locations have an expression of the root I them?” I asked, puzzled. “Are these roots the physical expressions from the original tree or just weak points in the dimensional fabric?”
“The World Tree has a physical expression, however it exists in many dimensions,” Stella said a matter of fact manner. I rubbed my temples. I hated theology. “But these are actual expressions I am talking about now.”
“Okay, this city has a root,” I said slowly, running through my train of thought. “It also has an unusual number of nodes and an impressively strong lay line network running through it. Not like home but strong.”