Somehow I didn’t pass out.
The feel of the air changed, and we were outside.
Someone had the smart idea to drag me onto a big flattened cardboard crate. They pulled that across the parking lot toward a cement block utility building. It provided at least some concealment from the alley and was out of the shadow of the big steel mill we’d just been inside.
Things happened. People said stuff. Maybe. I’m not sure.
The pain faded.
Then it got worse.
Then it went away.
Just like that.
Well, mostly. It was still there, but in contrast to a few minutes ago, it was basically nothing.
I was looking up at a creosote covered industrial pole light.
My friends were there. Babd too.
I was drained like the time they’d made us do twenty miles in cross country, and I’d thrown up and heaved for fifteen minutes afterward.
Hands helped me sit up.
“Take it easy,” said Brigit. “That was a major trauma.”
I nodded.
“See if there’s anything to drink in the car,” I heard her say. Footsteps.
I looked around.
My pants and the cardboard I was laying on were covered in blood. Brigit was wiping her hands on some paper towels. Gwen was on her haunches with her hand on Babd. She looked a little green.
My car was making its way across the parking lot, Dan at the wheel. He pulled up and rolled down the windows.
“Get him in,” he said.
Brigit placed a hand on my shoulder to keep me from getting up. Her skin was clammy.
“This is all I could manage here. The bleeding is stopped and things are back in place, but I couldn’t call up enough power to actually get the bone to regrow. You stand on it, and it’s going to snap again.”
I took her at her word.
The ladies helped me up. They got me into the back seat, along with Gwen and Babd. Brigit jumped up front.
“Let’s go,” said Dan.
I heard sirens.
He took off, fast enough to get us some distance, but not driving like a maniac or anything that would attract attention.
“Sorry,” he said. “We had to drag you out the back door. Didn’t have time to try to disable the alarm system.”
Evidence. There was so, so much evidence back there. Our fingerprints were everywhere, my blood, and who knows what we had left lying out in the warehouse area. Of course, there was the chopped up bird-bug thing in the hallway too. That should be fun.
And Fox.
Shit shit shit.
“Fox,” I said.
“Take it easy, buddy,” said Dan. He threw something over his shoulder, and it landed in my lap. Fox.
“You’re gonna want to clean that up,” he said. “I cut it out of the Aertrix gullet.”
A flash came back to me of the creature, the Aertrix, holding me down, and my world seemed to shrink into that thought. I could smell the panic trying to find me again. The feeling of the breaking bone, and the terror when it had me helpless. My breathing began to shorten.
“Somebody talk to me,” I said. “About something nice. I’m kind of freaking out here.”
My voice sounded strange in my ears.
A hand found mine. Gwen. Babd put her head in my lap.
I had a million questions swarming in my head, but I was afraid to start asking them. None of them had good answers, and I needed some good right now.
“The Thing...” said Babd.
“Aertrix,” said Dan.
“Guys please,” I said.
“The Thing... tasted like chicken.”
I looked at Babd. When dogs smile, they mean it. I swear to God.
And I lost it. Completely. In the good way.
Everyone else was laughing too.
Good dog.
“At some point, I’m going to need to know how you figured out how to make a joke,” I said, once I could breathe again.
“Boys and girls,” said Dan, “where are we headed?”
“We need somewhere far enough away that I can fix Link up permanently,” said Brigit. “It’s going to take some juice.”
“I thought you said that if we went far enough away they’d nuke us?” said Gwen.
“Look,” said Dan. “We don’t know why that thing showed up. But if someone had it tracking us, then it’s safe to assume that hiding out where we did didn’t matter at all. They can find us. So let’s go somewhere we can at least use what we’ve got.”
Dan kept driving. He made a few turns. We had to pull to the side twice for emergency vehicles heading in the direction we’d just come from. I really hoped the building wasn’t on fire. Fire was bad. It could get out of control. I had another flash, this time to me shooting Stoneface in the back multiple times, and the news that he was no longer among the living. That whole thing was still on semi-permanent hold in my mind, and I didn’t want to add additional potential horrific guilt to that pile.
“And,” Dan said, “we’d actually have done all right if someone hadn’t lost their shit and wanted to split up like we said we wouldn’t do.”
I was still feeling a little slow, so it took me a moment to get there.
“Yeah?” I said. “And what would have happened if we’d still all been high on Dan-grade party magic when that thing came around?”
Dan didn’t respond.
“Brigit,” I said, “how long do you need to do your thing?”
“A good fifteen minutes. And I need quiet.”
“Okay,” I said. “And we need real food. Not snacks and beer.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Dan.
“Real food, non-negotiable.”
“Dan, do you have one more of your Ignorable spells hanging?”
“I do.”
“Can you cover the whole car with it?”
“It’s not designed for that. Just people.”
“Damn. Give me a minute,” I said. “I’m thinking.”
“Let’s go north,” said Gwen. “Less iron, faster. We won’t have to go as far.”
She looked around, but I guess none of us really knew for sure, so none of us said anything.
“Right guys?” she said.
These Praecants. They didn’t know anything about themselves.
“Makes sense to me,” I said. Something pinged off my memory banks to the north.
“Dan, head up Route 8.”
“Route 8 sucks,” he said.
“It does. But there’s a crappy Motel 6 up there, and no one is going to notice an extra car parked in back at 4 am. There’s a 24-hour Eat N’ Park right beside it. We park, you cast your Ignorable spell on us, Brigit fixes me up, then we go eat. Gwen can stand guard with Fox.”
“How about I stand guard with Fox?” said Dan.
“No. I like her better.”
“You’re welcome for me, you know, saving your life. By the way.”
Truth. That was a real thing now.
“Yeah. Thanks. But she still gets Fox. Besides, you have your Dwarven lightsaber.”
“I do,” said Dan.
“I hear it’s +2 against opponents with more than four legs.”
“Are you talking nerd again?”
“Is there any other way to talk?”
* * *
For the next fifteen minutes, we climbed our way up Route 8. There was almost no traffic, but the lights were against us. By the time we hit the Motel 6, it was almost 4:30 a.m. Dan did the spell. Gwen took Fox, went outside and leaned against the front fender. She put the gun in the hip holster I’d brought. I’m not going to tell you how hot she looked.
Dan did an additional bit of Sentist whammy on me, and within seconds, I couldn’t feel a thing in my left leg.
Brigit pulled a pair of small scissors from somewhere on herself. I wasn’t sure where as she wasn’t carrying a purse. She cut my jeans off above the knee. I would look kind of ridiculous in cutoff jorts, but it was bette
r than walking around with blood-soaked pant legs.
She went to work, and I could tell she was having a much easier time of it way out here. I was wearing the glasses, so I could see what was going on. It looked like she’d constructed some kind of matrix along the length of the bone, a really careful, clever pattern, and once it was there, she started pumping energy into it. A considerable amount. I could feel a strange, uncomfortable sensation up into the rest of my body, ending at the top of my leg. It was like an internal pulling. I was really, really glad I couldn’t feel the leg.
Eventually, it was over. Brigit looked pleased.
“All better,” she said. She took her craft seriously.
“Thank you,” I said.
She handed me a canister of cleaning wipes and a small garbage bag into which she’d stuffed my pant legs, once again pulled from I-don’t-know-where.
“Take care of the blood,” she said. “You look like a horror show.”
She got out of the car.
I looked down. It was strange to see that much blood on myself while my legs felt completely uninjured. I used maybe half the canister getting it cleaned up. As I did, I realized that there were feathers and other assorted bits of nastiness all over me. I used several more wipes to clean my face, hands and forearms.
My shirt was pretty much a loss too. I climbed out of the car, took it off and shoved it in the garbage bag. My undershirt was in decent shape, so now I just looked like a massive redneck.
For a brief second, I was struck by what had just happened.
What if these people were my friends? I’d tried to act like they weren’t, but what if someone like me has to abandon their old models of what those things are, because when the universe changes around you as much as it had around me, you change along with it. The old rules no longer apply. They can no longer apply.
I found that I was grabbing Dan and Brigit and hugging them.
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean it.”
“Dude, relax,” said Dan.
I backed off.
“No,” I said. “I mean it. You guys didn’t have to do any of this. We’re all kind of at fault for a bunch of things that happened, but that was different.”
“If you tell me you’re in love with me, I’m going to turn your brain to Jello,” said Dan.
“Mmmm Jello,” said Gwen. “Let’s eat a food.”
Chapter 8
I think the first round of coffee they brought us had been sitting on a burner in the kitchen for the last eight hours. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but it was pretty nasty. We asked for a fresh pot, and when the waiter actually took a sip of Gwen’s coffee he was more than happy to make it happen. They’d put us in a booth because booths are more fun.
“I have some thoughts on what we should do,” said Dan.
“Really?” I said.
“Yes, really.”
“Does it involve me going somewhere I shouldn’t be and almost getting killed?”
Brigit snorted.
“Maybe,” he said. “If you’re lucky.”
“How about this?” I said. “Before we talk about anything else you think we should do, we play a little Q&A?”
“Maybe.”
“If you answer every question that Gwen and I can come up with tonight before we’re done with our pancakes, I’ll listen to your thoughts.”
Pancakes arrived. Dan agreed.
What’s the magic knife/sword thing?
A kris. It’s powered by your own internal magical draw. That’s why it looks different depending on who uses it.
So it wouldn’t work for me?
Not unless you’ve got the genes.
Why does it work in magically damped areas?
I dunno. It’s a really rare artifact. They haven’t been made in centuries. I guess it’s got some mojo.
Tell me what happened that night at Stoneface’s.
That’s not a question.
…
Okay. Whatever. We got there, you started looking around, I propped him up and started picking his brain. It was hard going in there. You tried to get my attention, but I didn’t want to lose it. After I found out where the jacket was, you weren’t around. I put him to bed, and grabbed the jacket from upstairs. I came back down and there you were. We left.
And then?
What do you mean “and then?” We went up to Mt. Washington and hung out. Brigit fixed me up, but you were being fussy. You left.
What did you do after I left?
Hahaha. Bowmp-chicka-wow-woww. You want pictures?
What was the bird thing, and how do you think it found us?
It’s an Aertrix. They’re what you get when a magically active bird eats a magically active bug.
That happen often?
Not really. I figure it either homed in on me and Brigit, or someone sent it.
Is there some way to tell?
I suppose. We’d have to do something ritual, but we could probably figure it out. Especially since we have its guts all over your gun.
How many Praecants do you think are in Allegheny County?
Dude, I have no idea.
Best guess, order of magnitude. Are we talking 10? 100? 1,000?
More than ten. Less than a hundred. Maybe. It’s not like we have a facebook page.
Okay, then do you have a Google Plus page?
Seriously, I don’t even know what that is.
What do you think Babd is?
No idea.
You’re saying that a lot. Guess.
Maybe a Spirit from the Inner Regions?
What’s that?
Some spells need to have intelligence behind them. Like, say, one of those spells that only lets certain people through a door but keeps other people out. How does the spell know who is who? If you’re really smart, you can craft the spell so it’s intelligent enough to figure it out for itself. But if you have more power than time, you can bind a Spirit from one of the Inner regions. They’re indentured for the length of the spell, and they give it smarts. They’re not super happy about it though. You have to be careful you get things just right.
What makes you say that Babd might be one of these?
Because you made me guess.
If there are Spirits of the Inner Regions, does that mean there are Spirits of the Outer regions?
Sure. But they’re called Spirits of the Outer Forth. You don’t want to mess with them. You only get their help by making promises you hope you never have to keep.
I finished my pancakes.
“How about we never mess with the Spirits of the Outer Forth?” said Gwen.
“Hear hear,” said Brigit, and raised her coffee mug.
I looked out the window. Babd had been laying in the grass outside, but I couldn’t see her any more.
“Just a sec,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I got up and walked the couple of yards to the main doors. I looked around but couldn’t see her anywhere. I felt a pang. How quickly the old habits and needs reassert themselves. But, she was a big girl. Or big Spirit of an Inner Region. Or whatever. She’d be back if she wanted to come back.
I went inside.
“What’s up?” said Dan, and I could see that they were on alert.
“Oh. Sorry,” I said. “Babd was gone. I went to check on her.”
“A little explanation next time, okay?” said Dan. “There are people trying to kill us, you know.”
“Yeah. Sorry,” I said, and sat back down. “Gwen, you have anything you’d like to clear up?”
She snorted. “I don’t so much have a question as a comment,” she said. “While I think you two are kind of assholes, you saved Lincoln’s life, and you didn’t have to. That’s worth something. Thank you.”
Dan pretended to wipe a tear from his eye.
“As I said.” Gwen gave me a look.
The waiter showed up and refilled our coffees. I was parched and on my third ice water.
“Okay, are you two satisfied
?” said Dan.
I nodded. So did Gwen. Dan continued.
“We’ve got problems, and I think I have answers.”
“I’d love to hear them,” I said.
“We’ve just been reacting so far,” he said. “Let’s stop that.”
“A sound tactic.”
“Um, that’s strategy,” said Gwen. “Tactics would be what you’re actually going to do. Strategy is deciding between two philosophies of action.”
“Fine,” I said. “Sound strategy.”
“Please,” said Dan. “Not in front of the children. “
“Sorry,” I said.
“Look. Either someone sent the Aertrix after us, or it just randomly found us. I doubt it was the latter. They’re rare and finding one downtown like that doesn’t make sense. It’s possible, but it’s just too weird. Anyway, we need to set up a major conjuring that will show us where it came from. If someone set it on us, we’ll know who and where they are.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
“And then we can kill them.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“Keep your voice down,” said Gwen.
“Let’s talk about the ‘kill them’ thing for a minute,” I said. “It’s one thing to act in self-defense when someone is right in the room trying to fry you, but it’s something else to track them down. That’s murder.”
“Okay then,” said Dan. “We’ll wait until whoever this is tracks us down, gets in a room with you, takes a shot at you and then you can take him out. That makes perfect sense.”
Dan proceeded to do a whole thing in embarrassingly slow motion. He mimed pulling a gun up, then saw something horrible, and his head slowly snapped backward as he mouthed the word “Noooooooo.” Finally, he brought his hand up to his forehead and made a motion indicating an explosion while he quietly said boom.
“And scene,” he said. “That’s what’s going to happen.”
“I’m not saying I agree about that entire course of action, but I do think we need to find out where the thing came from.”
“So that’s our offense,” said Gwen. “What’s the defense?”
I saw Brigit and Dan exchange a look.
“You’re going after someone, and you want to get them before they get you. Fine. But why do they want to get you? Because they think you killed Stoneface. We should be concentrating on getting some kind of proof that it wasn’t the two of you.”
Lincoln, Fox and the Bad Dog Page 11
