Inside the containment unit was a level-five cambion, without a doubt, and it would power several city blocks for years. Such a capture would definitely help their quarterly earnings. SoulFire had contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company, at least in Northern California. Vannix House in Angel City took care of SoCal.
Aleksy stood back, against the wall, while Monique reached out to check the entity. There wasn’t anything unusual about the daemon. It was big and powerful, able to manifest itself, so it could roam the world. If Wilcox hadn’t captured the daemon, it might’ve hurt someone in Salt Lake City. Daemon scrappers, hunters, might go after a cambion this size, if it were found in a city or on public property. However, a lot of them might think twice about going up against something so potentially lethal.
A Battle Artist would be braver, confronting the creature and then probably selling it to SoulFire. If the Battle Artist was ambitious, they might try to cycle the huge daemon. That was an interesting dilemma people faced. Fortune or power?
There was always the danger that a cambion that big might damage your prana or kill you outright. The safer bet was to take the money and run.
The bottom line for Monique? They were seeing more and more of the bigger daemons. It wasn’t a threat to public safety, not yet.
What she had found, the tentacle monster and the shadow man? Those might be anomalies. They’d been bloodthirsty and worked together. They’d killed two people at the Rye Patch Reservoir. Such murders were just as anomalous.
Monique stepped back. She wiped some sweat off her forehead. She’d used a good bit of her own prana to feel out the creature inside. She turned. “So, a family electronics repair business? Did you also do any capturing or cultivation?”
Aleksy’s eyes turned furtive.
That was a yes, despite whatever he said.
However, she had the idea the guy didn’t lie very often or very well. He just wanted a job in corporate America, to pay his bills and to get a little comfort. He hadn’t talked about dreams of arenas, fame, and fortune. It seemed he’d given up on those dreams early. Was that for the best? Or simply on par with most human beings?
“Mostly we did repair work.” He paused for a long time. “But we did do some capturing. Mostly referrals. But it’s the South Bay, you know, Apricot and South Valley. We mostly dealt with drodes and one or two level-one cambions. Nothing major. Why?”
“You’ve never seen daemons work together, right? Or employ more strategic thinking?” Monique had to be careful. She didn’t want the guy gossiping that he’d escorted the CBA around some Nowhere containment facility and she’d talked about daemon intelligence. That was a seething cauldron of debate, and you had hippies wanting equal rights for daemons, which didn’t make sense, because there had never been signs of life. Well, until recently.
Aleksy put his hands behind his back. “No. Never. After a century of study, we can definitively say there is no intelligence there, not even in the manifested daemons, like what’s in Z4 there. They are clusters of energy, nothing more, though it does make me wonder.”
“What does?” Monique asked.
“This thing was hyena shaped. Why that particular shape?”
Monique didn’t have an answer. She’d read SoulFire R&D reports positing different possible explanations—mimicking biological life, taking on possible natural shapes that remained undiscovered, following patterns of energy not unlike the logarithmic spiral. As early as Descartes, scientists noticed that certain shapes echoed throughout nature. The universe was a big place, and while the scientific method had unlocked many of the mysteries of the world, there wasn’t an answer for everything just yet.
As for the shadow man, there wasn’t an answer for him at all.
Monique had come to the storage facility looking for some inspiration, but she’d found none. She was going to have to face the executive board and inform them of their Winnemucca mystery. Two daemons, working in conjunction, tricking her and overloading a top-of-the-line Whitney container.
SoulFire’s CEO, Phil Lord, would love that. He was a man who liked a good mystery. Their COO, Alvin Fujimori, wouldn’t be so pleased. And of course, he would lay the blame at her feet. Fujimori didn’t think any of the big corporations needed Chief Battle Artists. Of course, Winnemucca proved her case for her.
Aleksy wasn’t about to interrupt her thoughts. He stood there, a good little soldier in the SoulFire army. There were a lot of them, working long hours, doing what they were told.
She surprised herself by feeling jealous of him. She finally answered his question. “I don’t know why the higher-level cambions have shapes. And between you and me? We don’t know what they are, not really. You didn’t hear that from me, though.”
“I won’t speak out of turn, ma’am.”
She grimaced. “And I was just starting to like you. You ma’amed yourself right out of my good graces.”
The shock on his face was adorable.
“Better luck next time, Aleksy Kowalczyk.”
MONIQUE GOT HOME BEFORE midnight, which was a blessing. She lived in a luxury apartment near the Presidio in Bay City. She had a view of the Red Gate.
The night nurse was there, an older woman with gray hair and bags under her eyes. Her big purse contained both knitting and an eBook. Cathy had been with them for a long time, since Logan got sick.
Cathy was frowning. “Ms. Lamb, I don’t mean to complain, but there has been a problem with payment.”
Monique pulled up her phone. Her main checking account had been drained. So were her savings. All gone. She noted the icy feeling in her guts, the light sweat on her forehead, and then the annoying calculations of how much work it would take to figure out what happened. It was an item on her to-do list she didn’t want to deal with. And yet, here was Cathy, wanting to get paid.
Monique let go of her terror and doubt. She laughed. “Well, Cathy, you’ll get the money. I might have to sell a kidney, but I have two, right?”
The woman didn’t respond. Between her and the Kowalczyk guy, either Monique was losing her sense of humor as fast as her money, or she needed a new audience.
Well, at the board meeting, she could try out her new material. She’d leave them rolling in the aisles. Hopefully, Fujimori wouldn’t get his way and fire her. At this point, she needed the money, desperately.
She left Cathy to check on Logan.
He wasn’t much of an audience either.
The Critique Group
NIKO WAS GOING TO BE late to his first night at the critique group despite his best efforts. He’d mapped out the route using the Bay City Transit website but the BCT overestimated his speed on the bike. And he underestimated the percentage chance of getting a call right before he needed to leave to ride to the train station.
Then there was the drode he cycled, the first one in a long, long time.
It was from a laundromat near South Valley City’s municipal rose garden. He’d found a faulty drode in a washing machine, so he’d replaced it, but the owner of the laundromat got chatty. Leaving that conversation felt like swimming with anvils tied to his feet.
When Niko got back into the Pig, he held the faulty drode in a container. The daemon still carried a charge. It was probably a five-dollar drode, child’s play, and not functional. Instead of taking it back home, however, Niko placed his hand over the Whitney. He then drew the drode into him. The vape had opened his prana channels, and his core was stronger, more flexible. Still, when he cycled the drode into his core, it felt icy, uncomfortable, and he grew nauseous. He was already late, but all he could do was close his eyes, focus on his breath, and slowly let his system get used to the new prana.
The drode might be faulty where circuits were concerned but it added a bit of strength to Niko’s core. It would take a good twelve hours to cycle through all the energy, mostly because he was so out of shape. It might slow him down at the critique group. Fine. He wasn’t there to impress anyone, only he was.
Pete h
ad said it—Niko liked an audience.
Feeling sick to his stomach, he drove the Pig back to the Fix-It Shoppe, got his bike, and then hustled off, bouncing over the sidewalk, on his way to the BTC train station, where he would catch a train to Bay City. It took a little over an hour just to get to downtown.
He slid his bike into the holders inside the train and took a seat. He had his satchel, filled with his Artist robes, an apple, a sausage, and some dried crystalized ginger.
He didn’t try to eat, not with the drode and the waves of nausea. He could imagine him finally getting to the critique group and puking during his first fight. That sure would impress the hell out of them.
He cycled his prana in five-minute increments, reciting the Duodecim—Sanguine, two, three, four. Masonry, two, three, four, all the way to twelve. He sat with his hands folded in his lap. The people around him would know what he was doing, but others were doing the same. He didn’t stick out.
He rested for fifteen minutes between cycling. He’d tell his parents he cycled the level-one drode. They wouldn’t be upset. And if they wanted, they could dock him five dollars. Mamo would. Tato would grin at him. Why was his father so gung-ho about him fighting again?
He couldn’t vape on the train, which was fine, because he hated how that made him feel. It was like he was pouring Diet Mountain Dew directly into his lungs. He’d finally get a few breaths in before his stomach ached as his prana processed the chemicals. That was more pain, less nausea. Yay.
He preferred the pain. Wanting to throw up made him feel weak, whereas the pain felt more normal.
The minute the train stopped at the Bay City terminal, he grabbed his bike and shuffled down through the line of people getting off. Then down steps until he found pavement. At least he wasn’t feeling so sick anymore. But trying to cycle the drode on his first night probably wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had.
It was 6:30. He’d be lucky if he wasn’t half an hour late.
He flung himself on his pedals, dodged a slow-moving Chinese woman, and then hit the streets, working his legs furiously. The sidewalks were packed. He’d have to take the streets. He wasn’t alone. A dozen other people were on bicycles, and they made a good strong presence, so they wouldn’t be run over by a car, a bus, or even an old trolley car. Bay City was famous for their trollies.
He pulled up to the seafood warehouse at 7:10, covered in sweat, breathing hard. He was so out of shape. Thank you, Dr. Wochick, for pointing out the obvious. No more snickerdoodles for Niko.
He locked up his bike, took a deep breath, and then went around to the side of the big building. Yes, he smelled fish, but mostly, he smelled the bay waters and the sweet cotton candy and the popcorn from the Pier 39 down the way.
Bay City did have a booming tourist industry.
A handwritten sign on a gate said The Premiers Critique Group in big red letters. It was on official BCBA stationary, since this was a Bay City Battle Artist group. The BCBA was a nonprofit organization that held quarterly fights through the year at several different local venues. They encouraged Artists at every level and were completely separate from the League of Battle Artists.
The door squeaked as Niko pushed through.
It was an open space, near the loading docks of a seafood warehouse; however, the hundred and forty-four tiles were there on the asphalt, with the twelve signs of the Zodiac on them. Big sodium lights glared down off poles, giving the tiles light as the sun set. A big iron gate lay on the other side, showing a number of boats docked to a long pier extending out onto the water.
Two women were fighting on the tiles, one blonde and middle-aged, thick around the middle, but moving gracefully. The other was younger, probably around Niko’s age, tall and thin. Both fought with weapons.
The middle-aged woman’s copper-colored staff was more manifested; most likely she was a Metallurgist. The other woman’s sword was more indistinct, a Radiance’s weapon, shining and silvery. The weapons clashed, low, then high, as the pair moved across the space.
The rest of the class waited by the loading docks:
A black man who appeared to be in his thirties, standing with arms crossed.
An Asian woman near him, frowning as the pair fought.
And a tall, thick man with a beard. Well, a neck beard to be precise. He was frowning as well.
They all wore white Artist robes, practice robes, cinched with a simple brown leather belt. He had no clue what belts they had. That would make it harder to spar, since he wasn’t sure how advanced they were. Asking wouldn’t be appropriate.
“Diana, Marjory, stop!” Neck Beard commanded. “Artists to their corners.”
Both retreated to opposite corners, the young woman by the iron gate. Her silver sword faded away. She looked relieved. The middle-aged Artist walked next to Niko, gripping her staff like it was nothing to keep her prana so manifested. “We start at seven.”
The black man laughed. “Marjory, cut him some slack. He doesn’t know the rules just yet.”
Neck Beard came over and stuck out a big meaty hand. “So, you’re the new guy. Andrew said he’d try to make it, but you know, Coffey is a busy man. Barton should be here any time now.”
Niko loved hearing those names. This was a legit critique group. He was lucky to be standing there, and he felt it, keenly. He shook the man’s hand. “Thanks. I’m so sorry I was late. It won’t happen again.”
“It better not.” The big man shook away their handshake. “I’m Timothy Cooper. Timothy. Not Tim. And you’re Nikodemus? Last name something with a ‘k’?”
“Kowalczyk. Niko is fine.”
“Uh uh.” Tim introduced the others. Diana, Marjory, the black man was Henry, and the Asian woman was Seo-yun.
“Seo Flames,” she insisted.
“We’re just doing our real names. Goddamn, everyone wants to use their stage name, and it gets confusing,” Timothy was obviously in charge. “Normally, we don’t ask new people to fight, but we’re all curious. You came highly recommended.” His smirk had a smarmy edge to it.
Niko didn’t care. He’d survived a visit to Wochick’s. He could deal with Timothy.
“No,” Niko said, “I want to fight. It’s why I’m here. I’m a little rusty, but I’ll get better. With your help.”
Finally, Timothy smiled. “That’s the exact right attitude. We’re serious about this, and if you have thin skin, or if you can’t take criticism, there’s the door.”
Niko dropped his bag. “I won’t need it. I grew up fighting. I know how it works.” Mostly, that was true. He’d had some coaches in his life that liked the hard-ass approach. He wasn’t sure how effective that was, but he wasn’t going to run home weeping.
“Oh, a veteran,” Henry said with a laugh. “Hear that, Marjory? He grew up fighting.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I can just watch. Diana and Marjory were already in a fight. They can continue.”
“Oh, so we have your permission?” Marjory asked sharply.
Timothy raised a hand. “He didn’t mean it like that.” He kept his eyes on Niko. “We’ll see what you can do. You can have your pick. I’m a Sanguine, Marjory is Metallurgy, Diana is Radiance, Henry is Sunfire, and Seo-yun is a cusp, Sunfire into Gravitas.”
“She’s trying to do both,” Marjory said with some distaste.
‘I’m a cusp. Quintessence into Luna,” Niko offered. “But I’m only focusing on Quintessence.”
“Smart.” Timothy turned. “So pick someone. We’re all ready.”
Niko considered his options. Timothy was probably the worst choice, since his sign was at its zenith. They had tiles, but they didn’t have an Arena Master, so the energy couldn’t be switched. Challenging the leader might be the best way to go. Also, Niko wouldn’t have to worry about weapons. If only he hadn’t lost a belt. Then he’d have his First and Second Studies. He let go of the regret. Already, his little bit of meditation was helping him.
The Pranad said, For the Artist, there
is no yesterday and there is no tomorrow. There is only the eternal now. Truth is in the moment. All else is a lie.
“I’ll pick you, Timothy,” Niko said.
“You will pick me?” The big man eyed him. “There is no yesterday, and there is no tomorrow.”
It was semantics. Niko played along. “I pick you. Should I change?”
“Should you?” Timothy asked.
Niko only had his black fighting robes and his Mercury Belt. He didn’t want to reveal how weak he was. Again, semantics. He’d have to watch what he said.
“I’m fine fighting in jeans.” Niko walked to the edge of the tiles. They’d been recently cleaned, so they were bright white against the asphalt of the parking lot. “The tiles are nice. And they look permanent.”
Timothy reached up to stretch out his shoulders and back. He bent forward to lengthen his hamstrings. “Barton and Andrew bought them for us. I think Barton is half-owner of the warehouse.”
Marjory finally let her copper staff disappear. She and Diana joined the others by the dock.
Niko stood on the southeast corner of the tiles. All eyes were on him. He liked it.
Timothy went to the opposite corner. “Marjory, call it.”
She came forward.
“Minds sharp?”
“Yes.”
“Souls strong?”
“Yes.”
“Let the Artistry commence!”
Niko had no idea what belt Timothy had. But he expected the big man to come out brawling. Sanguines usually loaded up their melee abilities first.
Niko was mistaken.
Timothy flung his head forward. A flash of prana, gold-colored, rocketed toward Niko, catching him off guard. The energy struck him in the face. He had no idea what his sharira levels were. It didn’t matter. The blow rang his bell.
Timothy had thrown a Third Study ability, Head Butt, at him, so there was a good chance he was at least a Venus Belt. Which mean Niko had to be careful. Another hit would drop him.
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