Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  “For the record,” Lars informed the van in a haughty, dignified manner, nose stuck up in the air, “walking with an attached bear cub is somewhat difficult. Only those with experience can manage.”

  Cameron pointed to Lars and asked, “So he’s Bear-man?”

  Charlotte about spewed her coffee everywhere, half-strangling on a laugh. “How’d you know?”

  “Oh, just a wild guess,” Cameron responded airily.

  “Bear-man,” Jack prompted, “the strategy?”

  With a resigned sigh, Lars obediently responded, “We have to be quick when we get there. The bears can get up the telephone poles no problem, but there’s nothing for them to grasp so they can climb back down again. They get scared, so no amount of coaxing will get them down on their own. One set of partners needs to enclose the live electricity up there as a shield so the bear isn’t shocked. Another will actually lift it down. Our third set will act as a safety net nearby if there is more than one bear. If there’s a cub or something, then they’ll get the other one down.”

  “According to the reports, it’s just the one black bear,” Banderas inserted smoothly. “And it’s right off the main road leading up to the park, so we’ll have to have someone out diverting traffic. Jack?”

  “I’ll do the honors.”

  “Good. And…here we are.” Banderas turned to look out the front window as the van slowed to a stop. “Jack, pull this thing off the road, will you?”

  “Certainly.” Jack turned in his chair and hit the manual override to move the van off onto the shoulder.

  Far too curious to sit and wait, Noriko immediately unloaded from the van and turned, looking for the bear. It was across the street, at least fifty feet in the air, sitting on the very top and making pitiful sounds. There wasn’t much room up there, and it kept shifting around, sometimes jumping a little as it got a little too close to a transformer and was zapped. The bear didn’t seem to be a full grown adult, or perhaps black bears in California were on the smaller side? She’d seen them before in Tennessee and they were a good hundred pounds heavier than this version.

  Although the distance and the way the sun was shining behind it might be distorting her perceptions.

  Banderas craned his neck all the way back and whistled. “He would have to choose one of the taller poles to get stuck on. Alright. Charlie and I will shield him, Lars, you and Lizzie get him down. Cameron, Noriko, I’ll have you on standby. Go ahead and gather up power to work with, just in case.”

  She took a second to grab a hair elastic out of her pocket and pull her hair up off her shoulders. It was a little windy up here—Tehachapi usually was—and she didn’t want to be eating her own hair or having it blind her at the wrong moment. Noriko looked both ways before crossing, as this was a high speed highway, then jogged across. As she moved, she looked around for the ley line. She could see it glinting under the sunlight, as it turned the ground above it a muted gold. When power shone through sand, it was like looking at reflected light. Some parts shone brighter than others. There were two main ones that ran the length of the town, but they branched off in all sorts of directions. Ah, there was a good-sized stream.

  The most nerve-wracking moment was always when partnering with someone for the first time. Every person was different, and of course they had their own way of wanting things done. She was never sure until actually offering a Dwolcræft power how they wanted her to shape it, how they liked to receive it, and it wasn’t something that could be easily explained. A blind person would have an easier time explaining the colors of the sunset. She was convinced of that.

  Especially to a man that might be her long-term partner, Noriko did not want to fumble their first partnering. Her nerves stretched thin under the psychological pressure.

  Cameron reached over and smacked her lightly in the center of her shoulder blades. “Loosen up. First time never goes smooth. I am perfectly confident we’ll fumble it.”

  Strangely, this made her laugh, although it was short. “You’re not one for pep talks, I take it.”

  “Naw. Just fork it over,” he commanded with a lopsided smile.

  He wasn’t taking any of this seriously. Not one iota. Blowing out a breath, she steadied her nerves as much as possible, reaching with a mental hand into the ley line. It was always rough when first drawn out, and sometimes it caught fine particles of sand and dirt as it was brought into the air. The power also didn’t have any defined shape to it. It was like picking up a handful of mud—it wanted to go oozing out in every direction. Taking a second, she reshaped it into something that was easier to pass along to him and far more readily usable. Satisfied, she extended it in almost a ribbon-shaped form, pure and crisp.

  For the first time in her life, the Dwolcræft partnering with her didn’t just stand there like a rock and expect her to place the power squarely in his hands. All Dwolcræftas carried a little power with them, and it was with that power that Cameron reached out to receive what she offered. It was only then did she see that his preferred form was more like a funnel, as that was what his power was shaped like.

  Swearing mentally, she re-shaped the power on the fly and made it more like a stream of water. It was close, but she did it just in time so that when the first tendril of her merlins reached him, it was a near perfect synchronization. The ease of the transfer was so beautifully simple that it stole her breath for a moment.

  Cameron felt it too as he stopped dead and stared at her in wonder. “Wow.”

  Robbed of speech, she could only agree, “Wow.”

  This exchange was not lost on Lars, who stood nearby. “What?”

  “You’re really ranked wrong,” Cameron informed her, but he nearly glowed with open satisfaction. “This is the easiest pairing I’ve ever had. Do you always reshape the power like that?”

  “Of course,” she responded, genuinely confused that it would be this point he focused on. “You’re working with it, aren’t you? Why would I channel the merlins to you raw and expect you to remake the power and harness it all at once? Doesn’t that make your job harder?”

  “It sure does. You’re the first Mægen I’ve met that seems to realize that, though.” He let out a soft breath of laughter, bouncing up and down on his toes. “Don’t take this wrong, but I’m really glad your evaluator didn’t rank you right.”

  “Because if I’d been ranked right, I’d never have been partnered with you?” she guessed, taking the compliment in the spirit it was meant.

  “Yup.” Rubbing his hands together in anticipation, he turned back to the desert at large. “You’re giving me, what, 5 KMs right now?”

  “About there,” she agreed. “Want more?”

  “Nope, that’s perfect.”

  Noriko turned to report that they were ready but found it unnecessary. Everyone was watching them and every one of them had a smile on their faces.

  “It makes me remember our first partnering,” Charlotte said to Banderas, a nostalgic expression on her face.

  “I don’t see why,” Banderas responded half-absently as he turned back to the job at hand. “We botched it badly.”

  For that, she smacked him on the arm.

  He’d apparently expected this response, as he chuckled. “Alright, our stand-by is ready. Charlie? Thank you, that should be enough. I have the area up there shielded. Bear-man, you’re up.”

  Lars gave another put-upon sigh at the nickname, but there was no argument from him this time.

  Noriko watched with interest as he accepted power from Lizzie. Strange. She knew they’d been partners for about four years now, and yet they seemed a little rocky still. Or was that just because of how Lizzie was giving Lars power? It was filtered, certainly, and somewhat shaped, but it wasn’t something that was recognizable. Lars, too, didn’t actively reach out like Cameron had done, but like a typical Dwolcræft, just accepted the power that Lizzie threw at him. It seemed a somewhat inefficient partnering, but Lars had what he needed to work with. Reaching up, he snaked a lin
e of glowing merlins around the bear. He then shaped it like a harness or a rope around the bear’s belly.

  At first the bear didn’t seem to realize what was going on. He kept pacing the crossarms, eyes on the ground and the humans gathered around the base of the pole. But when that rope tightened around his belly, he panicked and scrambled backwards. Under their panicked eyes, he slid free of Lars’s grip completely and started falling tail-first for the ground.

  Swearing, Cameron threw his power forward, catching the bear not two feet from the ground. His grip was in the shape of a net, which promptly closed at the top, keeping the bear from escaping.

  Noriko quickly grabbed more power from the line, refining and reshaping it so that Cameron had a steady supply coming from her to work with.

  “Nice catch!” Lars complimented. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Man, that was close. I didn’t expect him to be that slippery.”

  “Your honorary title of Bear-man is hereby revoked,” his partner joked with him. “That was terrible bear wrangling.”

  “At least something good came out of that,” he muttered to himself.

  Banderas came in closer to get a better look at the bear. “I think he’s overall okay but I’m seeing some singed hair on this back leg. Let’s get him to a vet for a checkup before releasing him back in the wild. Cameron, keep him trapped until the vet can get here.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Coming back to them, the captain looked at them steadily for several moments. “Your transfer of power is very smooth, very tight. I’m amazed to see it coming from your first partnering. I’ve got a good feeling about the two of you. I think that, for once, the Powers-That-Be might have done a good match with the two of you. But remember, if this partnership isn’t working for you for whatever reason, you’re allowed to change. This will not reflect badly on you. It is, in fact, somewhat rare to stay with your first partner for long. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Noriko responded instantly.

  Cameron gave him a shrug. “Sure, boss.”

  “Good.”

  3rd Merlin

  Noriko reviewed her list one more time. She was supposed to pick up coffee for everyone on the team, but it had somehow grown to everyone within earshot. She’d gotten introduced to more cops than she had during her first day of orientation, all because of coffee. There was something not quite right about that.

  Because Cameron owned a car, he had volunteered to be the transportation on this excursion. Not that she needed him to go along, per se. The vehicle could of course drive itself, and with its own onboard GPS function it could find the coffee shop without any input from her. But as it was his car and not hers, she could hardly tell him that he wasn’t necessary for this trip.

  “If you don’t have a car,” he asked with a glance at her, “how are you buying groceries?”

  “The grocery story is only two blocks away from the apartment,” she pointed out. “I can lug a bag home.”

  “So you’re buying what you need in small doses and then carrying it all? Why would you do that when you have a partner who has a vehicle?”

  Because it seemed very wrong to impose on him in any way? “I’m not the type to demand things from you just because you’re my partner.”

  “Huh.” The response was not in a happy tone. Cameron didn’t like that answer.

  The car slowed to take a turn, and Noriko, feeling a little awkward, turned to look outside the window. This was a section of town that she hadn’t been in before. Her phone vibrated on her wrist, and she glanced to see who it was calling her. Haru. Of course it was Haru. It was always Haru at this time of the day. Hitting accept, she put him on speaker. “Haru-kun.”

  “Nee-chan, do you know where the AA batteries are?”

  It was strange, beyond strange, but her siblings still expected her to know where everything in the house was. Despite the fact she lived over a thousand miles away. Even weirder was that she normally did. “Did you check the junk drawer in the kitchen?”

  “Yeah, I looked there already.”

  “What about the third drawer in the china cabinet. Kaa-san hides batteries there sometimes.”

  “Oh really? Okay, let me check.” There came the sound of rummaging, then a victorious, Atta! “Yup, found ’em.”

  “What do you need them for, anyway?”

  “The remote died. Hey Nee-chan, how are things going? Did you get a partner yet?”

  Cameron unabashedly leaned in closer to her to speak over her shoulder. “She sure did. Hey there.”

  “Hey. Who are you?”

  “Name’s Cameron. Who are you?”

  “Haru. I’m her brother.”

  “Cool. You a Dwol?”

  “Naw, I’m a Mægen.”

  “Really? Just like your sister?”

  There was a distinct note of pride in Haru’s voice as he boasted, “Just like her. Although I’m more talented.”

  “You are not,” Noriko objected, mouth completely on automatic. “You just learned a lot by studying my textbooks. That’s not the same thing; you had a head start on everyone in your class.”

  “Tou-san says hard work is its own talent.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Cameron assured the boy even as he grinned at her. “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Same age as Nee-chan, then. That’s cool. We were worried when she left ’cause guys don’t know how to handle her.”

  Noriko cleared her throat in a pointed way. “Haru.”

  “Ahhh…nice talking to you, Cameron. Nee-chan, call Kaa-san soon, okay? She’s been whining every day since you left about missing you.”

  “I’ll call her Sunday.” Really, why were all of her siblings annoying? They loved to tell complete strangers totally useless things. She stabbed the call end button with a little more force than necessary.

  Cameron grinned at her, as if he knew precisely what was going through her head. “How many siblings do you have?”

  “Five. I’m the oldest.”

  From Cameron’s wrist phone, there was a beep and then the ringtone started up. “I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy yeah~”

  What the—? She’d never heard that song before. It sounded like a 1990s song, though, with that style.

  Cameron put his Bluetooth in his ear and double tapped his wrist phone. “Hey, man. How’s Mojave?” Whatever response he received made the smile abruptly drop from his face. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound good. Run me through what you’re seeing. Oh, yeah, that’d be a better way to do it.” Cameron pulled off the dark holographic shades that hung on his front collar and slid them onto his face. “Power, on. Holo display, on. Download incoming file.”

  Noriko had no idea what was going on, but obviously it was at least semi-serious for Cameron to have that focused attention. What sort of file was being sent to him, that he would immediately download so he could see it with his own eyes?

  “Yeah…that doesn’t look good. Where exactly is this? That’s perfect. Sure, I’ll go take a look right now. I’ll report it to my captain too. No, you did the right thing, I don’t think you’re overreacting. Even if you were, I’d say better safe than sorry. Don’t stay in the area, okay, it’ll mess you up if it’s really that exposed. Naw, I’ve got the map you just sent, I’ll find it fine. Go, go. Sure. Call you later.” Cameron hung up with another touch of the finger and looked up at her, tilting his glasses down so that he could see her with an unimpeded view. “Noriko, cancel the coffee run.”

  “What’s happened?” she demanded.

  “Got a friend working in Mojave. He was driving the roads and he saw signs that there’s a ley line going wonky.”

  Chills raced down her spine. “Is he a Dwol? Shouldn’t he report this to his own superiors?”

  Cameron was shaking his head before she could get the full question out. “Not a Dwol or a Mægen. He’s a childhood friend—I ta
ught him the signs of what to look for if a ley line goes sideways. He took a short video and sent it to me. Here, see for yourself.”

  Noriko accepted his glasses and slid them on. They felt weird, as they were much too large for her own head, so she had to hold them on with both hands. “Video, play,” she commanded. The video obediently restarted at the beginning and played out. It was only fifteen seconds but those fifteen seconds felt like an hour to her. Video couldn’t capture what a damaged ley line looked like magic-wise. What it could record were the effects of free-floating power. To the un-initiated, it seemed as if there was a massive heat wave in the area, but there were subtle differences—visible particles hovered in the air like massive dust motes, there were signs of surface upheaval, and some low bulging in the crust. All classic signs of a ley line that had been disrupted. Her stomach did a slow turn and her mouth went dry. This was so not good. “We need to get over there.”

  “I totally agree.” Cameron tapped his wrist phone, opening the display, and then tapped their captain’s icon.

  It rang twice before there was a gruff, “What, did you lose our order?”

  “Cap, I got a friend in Mojave that sent me a video just now. There’s a ley line going wonky over there.”

  “How wonky is wonky?” Banderas demanded. “And where exactly is it?”

  Noriko quietly gave the commands necessary to forward the original message to their captain. Cameron caught what she was doing and gave her a thumbs up. “Forwarding the video and GPS coordinates to you now, sir.”

  There was silence for a full minute as he waited for the message, opened it, and took a good look at its contents. “That does not look good at all. You say Mojave, but I believe that’s in our jurisdiction. We normally patrol that area.”