Marking Territory (Freelance Familiars Book 2)

by Daniel Potter

  "O'Meara hasn't really filled me in on precisely what an Inquisition is other than bad."

  "Well, their investigation techniques are inspired by the Spanish one, including the protections afforded by money. If you have a House, then they'll submit those under investigation to questions three."

  "Just three?"

  "Three that you gotta answer truthfully or the Inquisitor's seal burns out your eyes as a warning and burns one alive with the second lie or half-truth."

  "And if no House?"

  "They ask questions, you answer until all your secrets are lying there on the floor."

  "That wouldn't be good." I thought about just how well the knowledge of my deal with the dragon would go over with the wide world of the magi. "Would the Inquisitors question O'Meara?"

  "Oh yeah. They might go a little easy on her if they decided that ol' Archibald's death was too political to get involved in. Otherwise that whole thing with Sabrina's gunna become public domain. But we don't have to worry. Only magi get put to the question. Us familiars are too stupid to testify and too valuable since we so often nobly sacrifice ourselves to protect our beloved masters."

  "So this wasn't a threat at me to figure out who killed Neelius then?"

  "Ha! Detective Khatt is on the case?"

  I rolled my eyes. "Is that so wrong to want to know?"

  "Jules doesn't want to know. That will force the Inquisitors to question everyone."

  "But that only works if they're a House? The Inquisitors would have to acknowledge the Technomagi as a House, right?"

  Rudy nodded. "I bet that’s what they're being hush-hush about now."

  "I'm guessing declaring a House is a matter of gunboat diplomacy?"

  Rudy shrugged. "Never seen it happen."

  That perked my ears. I'd gotten that despite Rudy bravado and energy, the squirrel was quite old. How old? I had no idea. If I could find out when the last House had been established, then I had an upper limit on his age. I filed that away for whenever I stumbled across a textbook on the Council of Merlins history, which if it existed was probably in Latin or worse.

  "What do we do?" I asked.

  He chuckled. "Dude, I'm going to keep driving that robot!"

  "Is she paying you for that?"

  "Eh, not much. You feel the ice between her and Ixey? Brrrr! They both think the other is missing screws."

  "Sandra jealous of her? Ixey's a full magus. What does Sandra do exactly? She doesn't have a partner, familiar or otherwise that I see."

  "In terms of magic, not much. She pulls elementals out of her anchor plane and puts them in the engines of stuff. She's still pretty sore that we lost that big one fighting the ice-man. Says Sir Clanks-a-lot would move double time if that big one was in the tank."

  "So they're like smaller versions of the dragon?"

  Rudy grimaced. "Yeah kinda, but... Giant robot!"

  I let the matter drop. I had my paws full trying reminding the technomagi not to hurt people while we harvested tass. I'd have to worry about equal rights for elementals at a later date.

  So we chilled for a bit. Rudy set up his iPhone on a root and we watched a movie, something with so many explosions that I tuned them out.

  I woke up hungry. A chill had seeped into my bones as the sun began to set. I heard rhythmic crunching above me and found Rudy messily devouring a bag of peanuts. He had what I could only describe as an electric washcloth draped around his body, a power cord leading back into the mass of leaves that was his nest.

  "No calls?" I asked.

  "N-nut nada," he chattered.

  "Shouldn't you be hibernating?"

  "And miss out on four months every year? Ha, no! Just gotta keep the calories coming." He shoved a few more nuts into his cheek pouch. "So you ready to see my trick?"

  "Sure, as long as it doesn't involve flames." Although I could do with a warm fire.

  "How 'bout some off the books tass? Maybe, maybe!"

  "I'm listening."

  Rudy scuttled down to the base of the tree and tapped his iPhone to open the photo gallery. "Snapped these while everybody was working on stuff." He scrolled through the photos until he reached an overhead shot of the map Jowls and Jules had been using to track the transitions. The camera hadn't captured the depth of the paper, but a portion of it. Nonsensical ink lines dashed across its surface.

  "Okay, that’s kind of what I thought would happen if you took a picture of that paper. Tech and magic don't always mix well," I said.

  "Wait, wait, wait." Rudy held up his paw. "I got an app for this." He opened up his options and selected depth of field. A slider appeared beneath the picture and as the he slid it back and forth the lines on the paper slithered. Their movement stirred a memory in my mind. "See? See it yet?" He increased the speed, and I saw it! Each frame was a slice of the entire four-dimensional image of Jowls and Jules' map of the transitions!

  It still didn't make much sense, a map of the town, twisted, as if someone had stabbed the earth with a fork and begun to twirl the map like a plate of spaghetti. Shadows played out over the town's surface. The placement of it all made my brain itch.

  "Cool, right? Got it from a different technomagus. Multidimensional lens. Can do section imaging of 3D projections. It’s entry level stuff, but it’s the sort of thing that allows Sandra to do any magic at all." Rudy continue to talk, but I didn't hear him. Something about the angle of the map and the way the shadows had moved built like a pressure in my head, like a blister that refuse to pop.

  "Show me... Show me again." I could almost see it.

  "Kaaaay. You alright?" He scrolled through the sequence. Still, whatever thought was growing inside my brain refused to come into the light. Instead I saw something else. One of the shadows, a particularly dark one, hovered directly over Noise's apartment building. I focused on it and the pain and the thought retreated.

  "Did you just take the one shot of this?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I just thought it was neat. Wasn't really trying to spy. Unless you can read it! Is a transition gonna happen while they're all in their little war room?"

  "How long does that charm last?"

  "What charm?"

  "The one that protected Noise from the goo transition."

  "Eh, it sounded sloppy. Few hours. Why's it matter? You’re not going to go crawling back to her, right? You forget what she said?"

  I looked down at my paws, their distinct lack of thumbs and the chipped fluorescent paint on my claws. No, I hadn't forgotten, more mentally tiptoeing around the giant sinkhole of hurt that yawned open in my mind; centering my thoughts on O’Meara instead of Noise. Still, my paws began to move in Noise’s direction.

  Rudy jumped on my back, chittering. "She's not going to want your help or even see you. Werewolves sulk violently!"

  "We'll just swing by and warn her. That's all. We should be in the area anyway to collect the tass, right?"

  "You're a fruitcake full of half-baked, cracked and mildewed chestnuts, Thomas."

  "Yeah. I know," I said as I broke into a full out run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I didn't notice my tail until I had nearly rounded the last bend on our way to Noise's apartment. And I don't mean the long furry one attached to my ass. This tail had feathers and four wings between the two of them. I couldn't be sure which Blackwing it was, but I didn't care. It wasn't Dorothy. That was good. So, options were: Naomi, who had turned into a fierce looking bird lady, and Rinoa, whose wheelhouse I had no idea about.

  "You better bail, Rudy. In case this gets ugly," I said.

  "What?" I felt Rudy stiffen on my neck. "Oh. Rinoa. I'll go hitch a ride and get backup."

  "You know what her anchor is?"

  "Either a musical conceptual plane, or literally a plane of sound. That guitar had too many foci in it for it to be a hobby. Good luck! I'll go grab the clank. Here they come!"

  With that, two black shapes flitted ahead of me, landing thirty feet on the sidewalk directly in my way. Foc
i flared as their outlines blurred from birds to a woman and her German Shepard. Rinoa held out her hand in the universal sign of STOP! "Hold up!" she barked.

  I started to slow but as I did I caught the barest trace of purple in the corner of my vision. The transition had started already! The last thing Noise needed would be to get stuck in another transition. "No time!" I growled, feigned to their right and bolted to their left. Tack, made a half-hearted attempt to get in my way and managed to trip himself. I braced myself to dodge whatever Rinoa could throw at me.

  To my surprise, the woman's aura didn't even flicker. She just spun on her heel and watched me sprint past, calling, "It’s a black plane! Stop, you idiot!"

  I'd really hoped the darkness of the plane on the map had been a generic mark for a transition. I had no time to imagine what that black plane at the daycare would do to a 300-pound werewolf. I redoubled my speed.

  I thanked my lucky stars that the transition didn't appear to be in any hurry to impact reality. The purple stayed in the corner of my vision and pulsed, as if gathering strength. I hit Noise's front door at a dead run, making a thunderous bang.

  "Noise! Open up!" I raked my claws across the wood, ripping spiraling shavings out of the cheap wood.

  "Go away! We're done! We're over! You hate me!" a voice bellowed from inside.

  "Noise! We can work that out later! There's a transition that's about to happen and I don't think it’s a good one!" I checked the window, but it was closed tight.

  "Oh, what will happen this time? Maybe I'll grow wings and start laying eggs in the bathtub."

  The purple had finally gotten fed up with waiting and a haze descended into my vision proper. "Noise! Come on! We gotta go!" I dug my claws into the door, ripping out chunks wood from its surface. The wood splintered easily, exposing a white Styrofoam core.

  Too late. The purple surged into my vision and into everything around me. Reality itself rippled and the haze shifted, concentrating into a hulking figure huddled on the other side of the doorway. The blur shifted and a hand larger than my head ripped through the door as if it'd been composed of wet newspaper.

  Noise pushed through the doorway, her massive shoulders cracking the doorframe. I stepped away, my back arching like a common house cat's. One of her short horns caught on the top of the doorway and she ripped it off with a casual twitch of her neck. It'd only been two days, but the creature before me stood eight feet tall, more massive than Noise had ever been. Thick, muscular, apelike arms hung down to her knees. Her legs, as thick as my torso, ended in an odd two-toed paw the size of a dinner plate. Bovine and canine features had blended into a thick muzzle sporting a huge leathery nose and a pair of tusk like canines that jutted over her lower lip. She'd kept the black and rusty coloration of her fur, but the colors now ran rampant over her body, patterning themselves in the manner of a Holstein. She wore a fuzzy robe that had been hastily converted into a chest binding to contain her breasts and nothing else. A tail with a tuft of black fur flicked back and forth, swatting at nonexistent flies.

  I'd been expecting some of this, but it was the look in her eyes that made me back up and hiss defensively to shout with every piece of body language I possessed, "I AM NOT PREY!"

  There was nothing in those eyes but hunger.

  "My meat," Noise growled, her lips peeling back to show a maw filled with newly predatory teeth.

  I ran, my paws scrabbling at the pavement for a stroke before catching. Noise could have grabbed me right there and then and it would have been over. But she howled instead, letting loose a jagged song that spilled cold panic into my legs. I stumbled. Her thundering footsteps pounded after me as her call began to be echoed by other voices, human and otherwise.

  Tearing down the sidewalk, I saw the doorways to the homes along it fling open as the occupants of the houses rushed to intercept me. The humans didn't concern me. They staggered toward the road in an almost shambling manner, perhaps still warring against the alien hunger that had claimed them. Far more concerning were their pets. Through every door sprang at least one four-legged figure. All sizes, from a Saint Bernard that knocked his owner clear into the air, to a pack of dachshunds. They were all running toward me like a swarm of teeth-laden missiles. I zigged toward the nearest house and swatted away the lone terrier that barreled toward me. A jump and I was on the roof the single story dwelling.

  The houses were closer together here than out at O'Meara's, and I used it to my advantage as I leapt from roof to roof. I made four houses this way before I looked back. A pack of red-eyed rodents and cats were swarming up the walls of the houses. I could hear their claws scrabbling up the aluminum siding of the house I stood on over the thundering of my own heart. I'd covered almost half a block. How large was this transition?

  The next house was too far away to jump, so I scanned the ground for possible landing sites. Everywhere I saw shadows of movement. Indecision paralyzed me until dozens of eyes peeked over the gutters of the house I stood on. Having no choice, I moved, leaping out and over the hungry swarm. Something impacted my back legs, and biting pain lanced up my spine as needlelike teeth tore into my ankle. I landed and rolled, my teeth crushing the clinging rodent. A chorus of canine howls went up behind me, but I didn't pause. I simply ran as fast as I could, knowing it wouldn't be enough. I could see the edge of the transition, still a block away.

  The barking behind me became a frenzy as the houses raced by. My chest felt as if it would burst, but I pressed on as a growing hope propelled me. I was going to make it. As if waiting for that exact thought, something impacted my back. A sharp thing jabbed me, and then a dozen more things, including the distinct flutter of wings. The sharp thing became a multitude of stings and pecks. I had to keep running.

  In the distance I could see two figures in the middle of the road. Rinoa and Tack. They marked the edge of the transition. A sharp pain stabbed into my shoulder and I stumbled, the weight of the flock on my back growing with every step.

  The dogs howled, and I knew that I'd lost my last gamble. The punky magus and her familiar were going to watch me die.

  Yet as I stumbled a second time Rinoa's aura pulsed. A series of deep explosions rocked my ears. The weight of the birds on my back lifted with warbling cries of alarm.

  Rinoa reached into her pocket and lobbed something square and pink at me. "Catch!" she commanded.

  It landed far short of me, bouncing over the pavement, but I scooped it up a second later. It tasted of human hands: a smartphone encased in plastic armor. It began to emit an eerie warbling sound before a flash of golden light blinded me.

  Thuds followed by several yelps sounded as my vision cleared to reveal the pulsating golden globe of a ward surrounding me: five feet in diameter and just tall enough for a person to stand up in. I whirled to see five large dogs of varying breeds picking themselves up from the ground. A sixth did not get up. The phone in my mouth continued to warble, and the ward pulsed with its beat. I backed up to the far side of the ward, but it didn't come with me, and my tail brushed up against its vibrating surface.

  "That might outlast the transition! It’s my panic ward," Rinoa called. I looked back to see her channeling again. CRACK-O-THOOM! Impossibly loud cracks of thunder staggered the approaching swarm, and the force of the shocks vibrated the ground beneath me. The smaller members of the swarm, the rodents and the cats, were blasted into the air while the humans were knocked off their feet.

  One figure hadn't been effected at all. Noise strode toward me as the swarm broke apart under the assault. The explosions detonated around her, merely ruffling the slightly longer fur on the top of her horned head.

  "Aw come on, Noise! Can’t we try to go six months without you trying to kill me?" Maybe she heard me despite the concessive blasts, but she didn't give any sign. I looked back to see the magus slumped on her knees, obviously spent. The dog had lain down beside her. They were maybe 300 feet away.

  An ear splitting crack sounded, assaulting my already tender ears. Whi
pping my head back to Noise, I found her hauling off for another punch. The blow put a fist-sized dent in the ward, which buckled like a car door. Yet the ward held, almost returning to normal as she withdrew her hand for another attack. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! On the third hit the ward stop healing the damage and a spider webbing of cracks showed around the impact site. The ward had run out of energy in its reserve.

  "Noise, come on, get control of yourself here. You don't want eat me," I pleaded.

  "I Do! I want to rip the flesh from your bones and consume it. It's less complicated this way," she growled.

  "I know you're upset! But eating people is never the solution! If you eat me, we'll never beat the next Fallout together! You'll have to play it all by yourself! With nobody to tell you when you've made poor dialog choices."

  "I hate it when you do that!" She delivered a wild haymaker that ripped straight through the ward, creating a jagged hole. I'd expected the ward to pop like a bubble and make a break for it. Instead I backed my butt up to the back of the bubble. If Noise was going to grab me, she’d have to make a hole big enough for her and plenty big enough for me.

  "Hyiiiiiaaaaaaa!" a distant voice screamed, followed by the continual pounding of metal on the pavement. Rudy. How the hell had he gotten back so fast?

  Noise's nostrils flared as her eyes tracked what I assumed to be a rapidly approaching metal man. She sneered, "He's my meat!" as she started tearing away chunks of the ward, not with her hands, but her teeth. One bite, two bites and I smashed her in the nose with paw. She didn't flinch. She didn't stop. She punched into the air, each of her massive fingers ending in dull talons. I felt them brush over my ear and fumble at the scruff of my neck before I twisted away from her grasp.

  "Hyiiiaaaaa!" Rudy screamed again, his voice like the whistle of oncoming train.

  Noise had shoved her head and one shoulder through the ward, her arm stretching into the bubble where I huddled against the far side of it, pressing my body into the quivering ward as much as possible. She snorted with annoyance, tracking the oncoming clank with her eyes. With a grunt of effort, she made a last bid to grab me, forcing the ward to bend around her body, cracking and straining, her deformed hand reaching. Her fingers brushed the fur on my shoulder. A bellow of frustration erupted as she pulled out to meet the oncoming machine. The clank struck her with monstrous ring of a bell. Noise had met its outstretched pinchers with her own hands, her feet ripping furrows into the pavement as Rudy drove her back.