First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association)

by Carter, D. L.

  She raised her head and glanced around the computer “lab.” Most of the time she worked seven floors up and one building over in the main IT department. Tonight, since it seemed likely she’d be pulling an all-nighter, she’d elected to work in the extremely secure room that actually contained the main servers for Trishanara Bank.

  The alternative was to be the only living person on her floor (she never counted the two ghosts or the gremlin) and while she was confident in her ability to cope with any moron who might disturb her, there was something primal and spooky about being the only person in a room that usually contained two hundred.

  Ghosts didn’t bother her; silence did.

  Besides she didn’t want to accidentally zap a security guard. Such things caused talk and with the recent merger making people nervous she didn’t want any weird, well, weirder gossip going around.

  No one paid attention to the little scented garden of stones and incense that she’d put on the corner of her desk to calm the ghosts (girls will be girls) or to the broken antique Atari that she’d made into a home, and a trap, for the gremlin. After all, a certain measure of eccentricity was required of a computer dweeb.

  She glanced at the clock again. It was too late to go home, too early to start a new day’s work.

  Keeping an eye out on the night crew she reached into her handbag for her extremely tiny and well hacked micro-mini computer. There was no “real” work to do until the program patch she’d created finished loading, assuming the damned thing installed without conflicts. She didn’t trust the old undocumented program to behave itself so she couldn’t risk a power nap, but she could spend a little time checking in on her aunt’s reason for living – the website of The World Wide Witch’s Research Association and Pinochle Club.

  She worked her way through the security levels of the website. Most people idly traveling the interwebs would only see the superficial, outer layer of the site. It had some interesting information about the origins of witchcraft, a couple of essays refuting some of the stranger myths of magic, pretty pictures of public rituals, and a few light and innocuous spell outlines to satisfy the dilettante or the new seeker after knowledge; but deep under passwords and security firewalls that wouldn’t be amiss in a large bank or paranoid small nation was the real work of the WWWRAPC.

  Since her days as a high school geek, Amber (head of the AV club, chess club, and science fiction fan club) had held the title of Information Coordinator of the WWWRAPC. It was her job to maintain the website, check the site for spell requests, see which ingredient was being tested this week, and randomly assign spell requests to one of hundreds of witches associated with the project, who were scattered around the world.

  Aunt Lucinda took care of the correlation of the results, thank all the Elementals, although Amber’s most recent contribution to the project was the creation of a data mining program for the twenty-five years of data already collected.

  Amber checked the membership list, made certain that those witches who were supposed to be casting spells filed the spell as completed (or gave a good excuse), and sent a few reminder emails to the customers asking them to file their response reports – and ignored the flashing urgent message from her private email box.

  A few months ago her aunt had started nagging – there was no other way to describe it – demanding that Amber give up her life of leisure, luxury, and technology in New York City and head out to the boondocks to begin her long overdue magical apprenticeship.

  Unfortunately for Aunt Lucinda, that demand had arrived the very same day that her father had sent a “gift” – the payment for her first semester in a graduate degree program in Statistical Analysis and Bioinformatics.

  Never mind that Amber hadn’t expressed an interest in the subject. Never mind that she was happy with her current position and hoping for a promotion once the agitation from the merger calmed down.

  Both sides of her family had ambitions on her behalf. Had plans for her life. Had strong opinions on what she should do with her time on Mother Earth.

  She should be grateful that her mother didn’t once hint that grandchildren would be a good idea; that would have been the absolute, totally, very last straw.

  In the interest of not being arrested for Patricide and Auntie-cide Amber changed all her phone numbers and email addresses, did a find-me-not spell for other forms of family communication, and for the last few months she’d hidden from the two branches of her family – the scientists and the psychics.

  There was nothing in the world that could make her more jealous of orphans than having to deal with the reality of a “caring” family. It was enough to make ear wax melt.

  It was Amber’s New Year’s Resolution never to be the piñata in her own personal family feud.

  The cycling of the security doors echoed through the lab giving everyone inside enough warning to put their forbidden food and drink out of sight and wake up those taking a cat-nap. Amber flipped her mini laptop shut and let it slide back into its bag. Two of the other night duty computer dweebs glanced toward the door, then dropped their eyes and tried to look busy when a “suit” came in with a security guard.

  The presence of a suit in an area usually occupied by the barely business casual crowd was a source of concern, especially at Oh-My-God o’clock in the morning. Amber winced in sympathy for whichever of the dweebs the suit was here to see and turned her eyes elsewhere.

  It was a most unpleasant shock when the hollow footsteps stopped beside her workstation.

  “Ms. Kemp?”

  Amber raised her eyes slowly, pausing to check out the name tag attached to the suit before sighing. Nothing good could come of seeing the new Chief Technology Officer at this hour of the morning.

  Nothing good at all.

  An hour later Amber leaned against the wall of her apartment building elevator, eyes closed, and tried not to think. The weight of the box in her hands was not anywhere near as heavy as the dragging weight on her heart. She’d been fired, laid off, cut loose, outsourced, dumped, let go … all without any notice at all.

  They’d waited.

  Damn them all, they’d waited.

  They’d known for days that she was going to be fired. They’d let her attend meetings, work on projects, brainstorm with the newly merged team, and when an emergency had occurred, asked her to work all night to find the fix.

  The fact that she was the only one with the particular broad set of skills and computer language knowledge to handle the fix didn’t make them think they should keep her. No. They used her one last time, then kicked her to the curb.

  Then they had “let her go” as if she were a kite or a balloon.

  There you go. You aren’t important. Go fly away and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

  The evil little … insects.

  Her ex-boss had spent the night in his office shadow-monitoring her work, each keyboard stroke and click, and when she’d dropped the patch into the server he’d called security, blocked her passwords, and after she’d spent the whole day and night working on an problem only she could solve, stood over her while she emptied out her desk drawers and served her with the Do-Not-Compete papers.

  An unbearably smug asshole from Human Resources had come in early to process her paperwork (to be fair it was the nervous smugness of the-one-who-is-still-employed-but-worried) but it hadn’t stopped him from ordering her escorted from the building by a security detail.

  So much for her brilliant career in the big city.

  How the hell was she going to explain this to her dad? Her mother would be supportive and sympathetic, but her dad would consider it just another example of Amber’s inability to cope with the real world. It wouldn’t be the economy’s fault or the merger’s or any other such thing, but the influence of Amber’s mother’s crazy relatives.

  The contamination of the psychics.

  If Amber would only take after her father’s practical side of the family no doubt she would still be
employed. No doubt her new employers had somehow sensed the existence of the far-out side of her family and rushed her from the building least she contaminate their scientific essence? Practical banker’s souls?

  Her stomach clenched, irritated by the firing as well as several gallons of coffee she’d drunk over the last few hours. She couldn’t wait to get to her apartment, although she’d likely not be able to sleep anytime in the next week – not until the caffeine level dropped.

  Sometime next week was her current estimate.

  The narrow elevator rumbled to a halt and the doors opened with as much enthusiasm as Amber felt watching them. Settling her handbag securely on her shoulder she stumbled over the uneven floor out into the corridor just as her personal protections gave her a hard shove.

  Danger.

  There was someone there! Near!

  Amber almost dropped her burden. There was someone just down the corridor, just out of sight. She shifted her box onto one hip and stabbed her hand into her coat pocket drawing out a thin, longer than normal, sandalwood fan. She held her breath, listening to the building. Letting a tendril of her attention reach out.

  Was she perceiving the sleeping minds occupying the building or … ?

  “What time is this to be coming home?” demanded a voice from her right. Before he finished the sentence, before the box falling from her hands reached the floor, Amber had her fan pointed at his neck. In the dim light of the corridor her hand and the fan glowed a faint blue.

  “Well?” the shadow inquired in the same scathing tone, all the while keeping his eyes focused on the fan under his chin with the same caution one would offer a rattling snake.

  Amber paused, her breath hissing out. The tension fled her body and the glow surrounding her hand faded, but didn’t disappear entirely.

  “Smoke, what the hell? Do you want to die?”

  “Is that a serious question?” inquired Smoke with deadly calm.

  Amber shrugged and turned her attention to the box lying on its side. “I swear, if anything broke I will take it out of your hide,” she said.

  Before she could stand up Smoke had her by the hair and pulled her head back, his hand coming round to grasp her by the neck.

  “And you? Do you want to die? Turning your back on me? Not checking if I’m real?”

  Amber kicked back with one leg and turned, throwing Smoke to the floor. Smoke was no lightweight despite his size and she was convinced the only reason she’d pulled off that throw was that he’d let her. Grumbling to herself she grabbed the box and went to her apartment door.

  “I’d’ve known if you weren’t Smoke,” she snarled. “Nothing else in this universe could be you.”

  The way she said it made it sound like a deadly insult, but Smoke only grunted and dusted himself off. Amber struck the sides of the door with her fan, then the top and bottom. A faint blue outline of a star hovered over the door for an instant, then faded away. Amber pushed the unlocked door open with her shoulder and went in. She didn’t invite Smoke in, it would be redundant and pointless to try and prevent it; after all, Smoke had been part of the team to set the wards on her apartment. He trailed along behind her, muttering under his breath.

  Inside the apartment was a bare small box. The main door opened into a corridor with two doorways containing no actual doors. Doors just made New York apartments feel even smaller. One doorway opened onto her just-big-enough-for-one-skinny-adult kitchen, the other onto her combination living room and bedroom. The only other door in the whole apartment concealed the toilet and shower.

  Amber turned into the kitchen and put the box on the small prep area. The scratch and tinkle of glass reached both their ears, although in Smoke’s case it didn’t have to travel that far.

  “Anything irreplaceable in that?” he asked.

  “A few awards, some software books, coffee cups,” said Amber. “Two laptops, a stack of CDs. Memory sticks … no, they confiscated them.”

  “Laptops? Ah, Amber, I’m sorry.”

  “You will be if anything important is lost.”

  Amber kicked off her shoes and wiggled her tired toes into the carpet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d relaxed. The last weeks were a perfect slice of corporate hell and her nerves were completely shot. If she hadn’t been so tired she would have detected her cousin from a city block away. Smoke’s presence usually rang fire engine bells in the Ether even when he was calm. When he was flaming mad, it was like standing next to a cyclone in a wind-chime factory; and yet she’d been so caught up in her own problems that she’d almost walked over him.

  Not a healthy sign.

  Actually – she concentrated and frowned – she could barely hear Smoke and he was standing a few feet away. Maybe it was exhaustion. Her protections should have warned her that someone was waiting near the elevator at her floor when she’d pressed the button down on the ground floor. She should have known Smoke was in the city.

  Should have.

  Last year, would have.

  She’d stopped celebrating the Sabbats last year after a particularly horrible visit home. No magic, no rituals, and to be fair, no phone calls to her mother, either. She could think only that Aunt Lucinda had called her cell deliberately when she was sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner just to remind Amber’s father of her existence.

  Damn her.

  Amber eventually left her parents’ home without eating anything. Hadn’t spoken to either side of the family since.

  She considered sending some energy to her protections – you didn’t survive in NYC if you didn’t pay attention – but didn’t have any to spare. Caffeine did not supply what ritual required.

  Later, when she’d recovered from being fired, recovered from the caffeine, she’d do a ritual of protection. Reinforce her apartment and personal wards. Yes. She couldn’t let anger at her family make her put herself at risk.

  Yes, she had a plan.

  She stretched her arms over her head and ruffled her brown hair out of its corporate approved hairstyle, releasing it to pour down her back. Her cousin remained just inside the door, watching the box and her with suspicion.

  “Take it easy, Smoke. I put a protection on the computers when I bought them; they’ll be fine,” she said and laughed when he visibly relaxed. “So, what brings you here at this hour?”

  She poured filtered water into her electric kettle and started shuffling through her collection of teas. At this hour of the morning, and with her current level of caffeination, decaf would be sensible. In fact … she reached into the medicinal cupboard and brought out a rarely used package. Smoke sniffed the air twice when she dropped it into a cup.

  “Kava! Good idea. You’ll need it. Same for me.”

  Amber shot a glance toward him but said nothing. Instead she added a great deal of honey to two cups – Kava might be good for your mental health, but Elementals, it tasted foul – and waited for the water to heat.

  Smoke folded his arms across his chest and enunciated carefully. “Where have you been till this hour?”

  She braced both hands on the counter and her head hung down. Her body was tired. Her feet ached and she just wanted to curl up and pull the blankets over her head for a few … years. She’d never been fired before. It hurt. Smoke cleared his throat at the same time that the kettle hissed and clicked off.

  “Gee, Dad,” said Amber. “Did I break curfew?”

  There was a low growl.

  “When was the last time you checked your phone messages?” continued Smoke in the same hard tone. “Your email? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks. Weeks! What’s the point of all this technology that you love if you don’t check for messages?”

  Amber sighed. “Smoke, I …”

  “I’m not interested in excuses. You …” Smoke turned to start pacing the room and almost fell over a heavy box beside the door. He snatched the topmost book out of the box and weighed it in his hand. “A little light reading, is it? There are ancient grimoires waitin
g for you to review, scan, and put on the website, piles of records to be processed, and you spend your time with what …?”

  Amber poured the steaming water over the teabags and turned away looking for a painkiller for the headache she could feel building.

  “What could we possibly need with ‘‘Bioinformatics Statistics’’?” demanded Smoke. “What does that mean, anyway?”

  Amber took a tentative sip of her tea and winced.

  “I have no idea,” she told him.

  “These aren’t yours?”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” said Amber. “They just … arrived. My father sent them.”

  “Your father’s an asshole, just so you know.”

  “I am aware,” replied Amber calmly and handed him the second cup.

  “So … you’re going back to school?”

  “Not as far as I know. Dad … Dad thinks that in this economy I might as well spend the recession getting another degree. A back up qualification. And when he hears about tonight he’ll feel vindicated.”

  “You lost your job?”

  “Yeah. Tonight.” Amber considered sharing her tale of woe and outrage, but Smoke’s response did not encourage confidences.

  “Excellent,” gloated Smoke, rubbing his hands together. “The Elementals are taking a hand. The timing couldn’t be better. We need you to come to Five Corners.”

  “Your needs and my dad’s needs can both go to hell, together,” said Amber. “Dancing hand in hand. To a trio of Demonic Fiddlers. Right now I need sleep and a new job.”

  “We’ll hire you. Five Corners needs a computer dweeb and a witch. Name your price!”

  “Fuck you and your job.”

  “Is that anything to say to a relative?”

  “Your uncle married my aunt. If we’re family it is only through Grandmother Eve!”