by Daniel Ruth
“What about the wolf?” asked Jeremy, before slowly looking back at the warehouse in trepidation. We all looked at each other and then back at the building, before the world turned white.
By the time Conrad and his task force brigade arrived, I had almost finished healing Jeremy’s eardrums. Apparently the force and volume of an exploding corpse is in direct proportion to its mass. Who knew? My bubble protected everyone inside of it but Sabastian. He was blown through the building opposite us. His buggy appears to be in one piece but knocked on its side. That’s was pretty impressive since the building behind it had its front collapsed. He didn’t bother coming back. I looked away for a few minutes while I was healing Jeremy again and when I looked back the antique car was gone. Mei later said that she saw a filthy naked man sneaking around the buggy before it drove off. It seems Sabastian had outlasted his clothes. I wonder if this means his fees will go up.
“I have been cutting you a lot of slack, Professor, but this is beyond the pale,” Conrad started in as the troopers and horde of police buoys secured the area. “We would have worked with you to get your friend back, but you just had to ignore us and take the law into your own hands. Give me a reason I shouldn’t lock you up and continue this investigation on our own.”
I looked at him with a frown. I admit I am not the most politically correct fellow around, nevertheless I was pretty sure telling him that I didn’t trust their skills, subtly or ability not to die was not going to win me much. Fortunately, another member of our haggard band had an answer.
“Officer, I know you aren’t aware of it but the Professor and his companions,” Jeremy gestured at himself and then at group around him, “were specifically targeted. When the kidnappers contacted him and told him that he was supposed to meet and to not notify the police, what else was he to do when they threatened my life?”
Whoa, that sounded far better than my reason. I think I would go with the flow on this. “I am profoundly apologetic, but I was deeply, deeply worried about my friend’s welfare,” I humbly proclaimed, placing my palm over my heart. “I gathered those I could trust who were not watched and not suspected as being law officials and did what I could. I was fortunate that when they attacked us at the meeting place, my friends were able to defend ourselves and get Jeremy back safely. I truly would have preferred to have the elite task force behind me at this time; however, I just couldn’t risk my friend’s life.” I looked up under my downcast gaze to see how my delivery was being taken, to see Conrad’s skeptical glare. I was about to go on with the sucking up, when Jeremy elbowed me in the side.
“I want a report of exactly what happened in my inbox within the hour,” Conrad barked, giving the entire group the hairy eyeball. Even Mei, who was by far his favorite, was not exempt. “In the meantime why is this building nonexistent?”
“One of the minions of Jin blew it up,” I said.
“He had explosives?” Conrad asked puzzled.
“He was the explosives,” I corrected. “Remember Jin’s exploding minions? Well, this is what happens when several tons of them go off.”
“Tons? How many died?” Conrad asked, shocked.
“Three.”
“So where did you get tons?”
“One of them was a wolf that could grow to the size of a bus,” I turned to Jeremy. “They still have buses, right? I’ve seen them in the holos but they aren’t around here.”
“They do but they aren’t zoned for...” Jeremy began.
“Never mind the damned buses,” growled Conrad. We all looked at him in shock; he usually had a good rein on his temper. I wondered what had him so upset. “So all of this was three ‘minions’ blowing up? I thought you had a plan to prevent that?”
“It seems that the size of the explosion is directly related to the mass of the body. My countermeasures didn’t fit on creatures that size,” I paused as I thought about the situation. “I still haven’t figured out why live minions have a greater yield. It must have something to do with the magical energy inside a typical creature; it’s multiplied at the moment of death so...”
“Focus,” barked the irate officer. “How can we prevent this? If he has an army of minions what’s to prevent him from sending suicide bombers all over the place.”
“Well, I would assume they don’t actually want to explode,” I thought out loud. “Generally these are people dissatisfied with their lot in a pack. If they were complete fanatics I think you would have mentioned it. Despite their brainwashing, they are probably already unhappy about the price of failure. Being used as disposable bombs would also likely cut off a new supply of minions once the word got out. I would be careful about cornering him though if he thinks he has nowhere to go it could be ugly.”
“So there isn’t anything we can do except put a shield around them?”
“Well, I did find a way to cut the thread, so to speak,” I nodded to the two unconscious minions we had on the ground.
“Why do they have Tupperware on their head?” asked Conrad. Jeremy shrugged his shoulders, Stella looked confused and Mei suppressed a chuckle.
“It’s a magic bowl,” at the officer’s glare I gave in and continued. “I inscribed some bowls I had with some wards to suppress magic. It doesn’t affect their powers, but it should prevent any new spells on them or old spells from being triggered.”
“Why does this one look like his head is made of clay?” the brawny shifter asked, nudging the metal man with his foot. “I think those are fist imprints...”
“He took some subduing,” I replied helpfully.
“Is he even alive?” he asked doubtfully. “He’s not breathing. Or moving.”
“That’s just because Jin gave him the power to turn to metal. I am not sure if he can control metal or not, it didn’t come up before he was incapacitated.”
“Hmmm, I suppose that one way to say it,” he said, before turning to another officer nearby. “Get restraints. Be sure they are the high-grade ceramics, not the metal ones. Same thing for the cells, no metal.” Turning back to be continued, “How do we secure the bowls? I suppose we can use straps.”
“No worries,” I assured him as I brought out the tube of adhesive I had used. “This will hold them in place for years, and bowls should be far stronger than normal bowls with that ward on them.”
“Ah cripes,” Conrad winced as he looked at the tube. “Their lawyers aren’t going to like that. On the other hand, we can tell them that their defense lawyer said it was inhuman and let them explode if they don’t cooperate. I suppose we’ll let the court decide. It could get messy.”
“I could see if they have any obvious surface thoughts,” I looked at the unconscious bodies. “Or dreams. I doubt I’ll get much.” I sure wasn’t going to share a deep bond with these idiots, who knew what insanities I would catch? Not to mention what a bad idea it would be to leave them with my knowledge.
“Fine, they seem stable,” he looked at them unconcerned. “I’m not sure why they aren’t healing though; I suppose we’ll have to hook them up to the autodoc. Or hook one of them up, not sure what we can do about the metallic one.”
I kneeled next to the wind controller. I was very happy the ground was clear of mud and debris in a circle around us. I don’t think his shoulder or lung will be healing anytime soon, but it was doubtful it would get worse. Anything that doesn’t outright kill a shifter or a vampire... won’t. Touching his forehead I tried to build a light rapport with him.
I felt unease, some images of him with a whirlwind at his fingertips. I got an image of an oriental man with a classic Fu Manchu mustache and eerily long fingernails. That must be Jin. It didn’t seem very original. My attention was grabbed when I felt another presence within my captives mind. The intruder was obviously psychic to a startling degree and backed by an eerie other worldly, positively malevolent aura. There was no real landscape within this mind where we met, but metaphorically speaking we eyed each other. This other was no human, it was pure supernatural power to
such a degree to raise my hackles and trigger my instinctive territorial anger.
We took each other’s measure and postured. It was clear that this creature hated my presence as much as I did his. However, this was as neutral as ground could be and there was nothing to be done except glare at each other and give our host a few nightmares. With a last growl, I broke contact.
I gathered my wits as Conrad had the captives transferred to an armored ambulance float. I finally noted everyone staring at me when Jeremy prodded me impatiently. “Well?”
“It was confusing,” I admitted as I let my anger drain from me. “All my theories seem to be somewhat... late.”
“And what does that mean?” asked Conrad warily. It was understandable. He was after all depending largely on my knowledge to plan a defense and investigation.
“I encountered another entity within our friend’s head,” I started.
“I thought your magic bowl cut him off,” Conrad interrupted.
“It cuts off magic,” I continued absently. “This was a psychic probe, similar to what I was trying. It was powerful and not even remotely human.”
“Jin has been summoning demons for the last few weeks,” interjected Mei.
“This was more. It seems likely that Jin already has a greater demon or perhaps even a demon lord in his employ.” I turned to Mei, “It appears that Jin is to be taken more seriously that I had originally thought.”
“What does this change,” asked the petite Asian.
“Our original idea was that he wanted to summon a demon lord.” I paused for a moment. “Well, he already has. Then we learned that he had a network of portals around the world linked to do something all at once.”
“What? When did you learn that,” Conrad asked in morbid surprise.
“Just tonight. Keep up Conrad,” I counted these points on my fingers. “We thought this might be an invasion...”
“Invasion,” shouted a startled bear shifter. Jeremy also looked surprised.
“Yes, an invasion. How pedestrian is that?” I commiserated with the others. “Fortunately, I think it’s something else. Once Mei gets me the images of the spell work I should at least be able to tell if they open to hell or simply link to the plane that the circle master and the Baron came from. Hell dimensions are very distinctive and I saw the coordinates of our opponent’s world in the circle under the streets.”
“Now the latest information is very odd. News is that the circle master’s dimension has a cabal...” I continued.
“I thought it was a magician council,” interrupted Mei.
“Same thing,” I brushed off the distinction. “A cabal that is trying to use our dimension as an energy sink to drain off the torrential magic of their world.”
“Would that work?” Jeremy asked.
“No, it’s utter nonsense as far as I can tell,” I dismissed. “Of course they should also know this, so I have a hard time imagining what I am missing. Nevertheless, they have resources to supply Jin with the knowledge to set up the portals and probably a trigger. And of course, set him up with a honking big demon. Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the apprentices that are distracting us belong to the cabal too.”
“Where does this leave us?” a visibly disturbed Conrad asked.
“If they go through with this plan it will get ugly. It may not work but while they try it this planet is going to get a lot more energy flooded into the ley lines.”
“Wait a minute,” Jeremy protested. “You said it wouldn’t work.”
“He’s right too,” Stella added. “Flooding your world won’t reduce their energy flow one bit. It will just flow through your world and circulate back into theirs. He never said it wouldn’t have any effect on this planet.”
“So what can we do,” Conrad asked.
“Ideally we stop Jin so he can’t start his ritual. Lacking that we shut the portals,” I stated.
“How do we do that?”
I stayed silent at that. It grew uncomfortable after a minute.
“Would a bomb...,” Conrad hesitantly asked.
“Crap! This is why I didn’t want to bring it up,” I complained. “Assuming the Illuminati or whoever the magicians of this planet are, didn’t zap you with the ‘forget me’ spell you must remember what happened in that Moscow disaster. In fact, enough bombs are just the thing that causes permanent disasters like what’s happened to Baron Samedi’s world. We do not want that.”
“Fine, but we need to do something,” Conrad spat out.
“I’ll know more once Mei’s contacts get us the information on Jin’s preparations. If they can’t find them then we are stuck tracking down Jin before he does his last spell.”
“When is that?” Conrad inquired. I hate it when people asked me questions I didn’t have answers to.
“I am not sure,” I grudgingly admitted. “The ideal time would be summer or winter solstice or equinox. However, if he had enough energy he could do it anytime. I am starting to think we are further behind him than we thought. A greater demon has a ton of energy.”
“The equinox is in a week,” Jeremy helpfully informed us.
“Thanks,” I ruefully nodded in his direction. “In my opinion it could be any time between now and then.”
“That aligns remarkably well with our oracles predictions,” a subdued álfar chimed in.
“What predictions?” asked Conrad. I raised my hand to stop Stella but finally just shrugged.
“The apocalypse,” Mei whispered, cutting off Stella.
In the silence that followed I realized that half the task force was gathered around us mouths open in horror. The other half were pale and wide eyed, trying to complete their work despite the suppressed terror evident in their eyes.
“I’m sure it’ll just be a little apocalypse,” I turned towards them waving my hands in reassurance. “Barely civilization ending... probably.”
Maybe next time we discuss this it should be inside.
Chapter 20
We really tried to get Stella in the police floater but when her left eye started to twitch, I threw in the towel. She asked for my tooth to navigate back to the house and we went on ahead. She didn’t really miss much, we were quiet for the most part. Jeremy had borrowed my wrist terminal and since it was in privacy mode he was frantically waving at an interface only he could see. What was really suppressing the conversation was how every time we started talking the officer driving would jerk his head around the car would sidle to the right. There wasn’t much traffic but the auto pilot alarm sounded three times. It was definitely a good thing Stella wasn’t there.
We had barely left the vehicle when the floater shot into the air. I could faintly hear the navigation alarm fading as it left us in a jet stream. “He seemed nervous. It must have been Mei and her ferocious demeanor.”
Mei sighed and headed towards the house. She stopped abruptly while a distracted Jeremy continued moving forward, muttering energetically under his breath. It took me a moment to register exactly why Mei had stopped. Strewn around my yard were seven individuals in various states of dress and consciousness. Five were completely naked and sprawled, dead to the world on the lawn. One wore only slightly singed boxers and the last wore what appeared to be the burned remains of what was once a very nice suit.
“Eric?” I asked slightly dumbfounded. “Why are you on my lawn half naked?”
“Derek? What am I doing here? The last thing I remember is coming to deliver a message from Mr. Fiero,” he replied, with a slightly dazed drawl.
Fascinating. Either they couldn’t reform from being vaporized by my wards or they had reformed and been immediately vaporized again before they could leave the protected area. Perhaps several times.
“I see. In the future you should ring the bell before you come in,” I suggested as I walked past him. “You head on back to Tower Plaza. Thanks for stopping by. I think I have all the data I need from you at the moment.”
“Data? What about m
y message?” he groggily replied.
“Got it. Vivian was nice enough to stop by and deliver it,” I said as I opened the door and my companions trooped by me. “You should pick up your friends and get off the lawn, once I activate the security wards again it won’t be pleasant.” I certainly didn’t want any more vampires hanging around in limbo. I would have to charge them rental fees if they actually lived here. Or whatever the state they existed in between being vaporized was. “You have about two minutes.”
“What?” he said in growing alarm and confusion.
I closed the door and immediately headed downstairs.
“What are you doing,” asked Mei.
“Activating the wards. I forgot to put them back up after Sabastian left,” I shook my head in disgust. “Can’t have the undead wandering the neighborhood.”
“But who on earth were those people and why were they on your lawn naked?”
“Damned vampire hippies,” I said with a smile. “Fiero’s standards for who joins his club are getting lower.”
A minute later I heard muffled screams as I took my bowl off the symbols relating to undead. I felt the energies shift and rebalance, as the ward adjusted itself. Mai voice could be heard from the entryway, “He just went up in a jet of flames! What the hell?”
“Don’t worry, vampires are like cockroaches, almost impossible to kill,” I said, as I came up the stairs again. Mei had a thoughtful look on her face before shrugging and walking away.
“I’m going to bed,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll leave Jeremy’s coat in the connecting bath. I’m still dizzy.” Jeremy absently waved goodnight, his attention was still on the terminal.
“I have to go,” Jeremy hurriedly stated, as he walked by me and pressed my terminal back in my hands. “I have to find out what happened to my sister. I can’t contact her and my searches aren’t returning anything.”