by CT Knight
“No. No, it’s not. It will be. I just…” I stalled for time as best I could. Time I didn’t have. I really didn’t want to tell John Wallace about the case. But he wasn’t going to let things go.
“I’ve got seven kids at home, Pendragon. Seven kids and an ex-wife who’s about ready to take me to court for back child support pay of five others,” John said.
“I can see where that would make anyone cranky. But— Wait, you have twelve kids?”
John snarled as he lunged at me.
I jerked back. “Can’t you just move upstate and hunt in the woods?” I asked, stalling whatever beating he was preparing me for.
“Seven of them are full blood Hamnskitfare. The other five are human, what do you think?”
“I think they’re probably not normal humans if you’re their dad.”
He snarled and rushed at me again. I was sensing a pattern so I put the car between us. “Hang on!” I shouted.
“Quit wasting my time. You’re a wizard. Magic it from a bank or something.”
“I like to try and do things legally, when I can.”
“Then get it from your own account.”
“That’s running a little lean, lately.” I could see the drool starting to fall from his mouth. It was clear John was having a bad night. My appearance and the answers I was giving him were only making it worse. But my night wasn’t that great either. That’s probably why I was antagonizing him. I really just wanted him to get out of the way.
Watching him shift to his human form was a relief. It didn’t mean he was done with me but it could have meant he was calming down. The man in the sleeveless t-shirt looked about what you might expect a werewolf to look like. Tattoos on his shoulders, mostly the names of his twelve kids. The name with a black line through it, I guessed, was the ex-wife. His blue jean shorts stopped just at the knee. They looked like they’d seen better days. His short black hair had a single white streak right in the middle. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was a Lycan or if it was from the stress of all his offspring.
“Two weeks ago, you came to me looking for a loan cuz you were running lean. What did you spend it on, Arthur?”
“There was this other loan?”
“You paid someone off with my money?”
“And I’m going to pay you back with my fee from this current case.”
“What, more missing cats?”
I grimaced. “You heard about that, huh? Word travels way too fast in this community.” I adjusted my jacket, trying to look more professional. I had a feeling my next words weren’t going to be received with much faith. “No cats, this time. I am actually trying to stop the end of the world. Believe it or not.”
“It’s always the end of the world,” he said. “Which disaster is it this time?”
“Chaos Bringer.”
“Chaos Bringer?” John started laughing. “Chaos Bringer. Really? How long you been doing this, Arthur? That’s the best you could come up with? It’s not even original much less a good name. All those books you got and all those cases you’ve worked and you come up with some made up name like—”
“I would love to be making this up. Unfortunately, it’s the truth. My client’s sister was abducted by the Acolytes of Chaos to be used as a sacrifice that will summon the Chaos Bringer to our world.”
John narrowed his eyes and took a deep inhale through his nose. The Lycans had a way of telling fact from fiction. “Keep going,” he said.
“It’s not just a destroyer. If that thing comes here, people and beings like you are going to be at each other’s throats. It affects all living things. Once the fighting is over, the Chaos Bringer will, in theory, kill the one who summoned it before it moves on to the next plane. That’s all it does. The Acolytes probably think it will reign as some kind of king and reward them but they’re wrong.”
John took a look down the street. I could tell he was pondering my words and thinking about what they could mean for his family. “I could use something like that for my ex.”
“And I could use your help with this. I’ve already had to fight some monster the Acolytes whipped up. My gun didn’t work.”
“You can’t afford me.”
“The fate of the world is at stake and you’re worried about a payday?”
He smirked. “You don’t know my ex-wife.”
Several moments passed. I felt a lot like I needed to leave a friend’s house but didn’t know how. Fortunately John broke the silence. “But, I guess there’s no other option. Can’t go home empty handed.” I was relived as he strolled to the passenger side of the car.
“So you’re in?” I asked, probably more excited than I should have been. Really, I was just glad to get a hand with this one.
“Gotta make sure you don’t skip out on me.”
“When have I—” I stopped short at John’s glare. “Never mind. I’ll take that deal.” With a werewolf on my side, any other fights were going to go a lot smoother. If nothing else, they would give John something to take out his aggression on. Though, honestly, I was hoping for no more fights. The good news was, since Sasha was taken, the Chaos Bringer hadn’t shown up. The bad news was, the night wasn’t over.
CHAPTER 13
The ride back to my office had been uneventful. Something I very much welcomed. I was in no mood to deal with any more high stress situations. As things still stood, we were already in one. John had been quiet the entire trip. Something I also very much welcomed. And it really was for the best because I was sure there were only two things on his mind at the time. The money I owed him and the end of the world. And since world-ending events weren’t all that uncommon in the mystical arena, he was probably thinking more about the money. I knew there was a reason I never got married. If werewolves couldn’t keep up with the expense, what hope did I have? Especially in my line of work.
My office was more of a clutter than I originally thought. I was never one for labeling things. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. I had storage boxes that were full of so many miscellaneous things, labels wouldn’t have done much good.
“What are you looking for?” John asked, leaning against the arm rest of my couch.
“Locator-Warp Lens,” I told him as I dropped a stack of office supplies back into the box they came from.
John snarled. “I hate those things.”
“Fastest way to travel.”
“Mirrors are faster.”
“Yeah, well, if I knew where they took her, I could do that, but I don’t so…Where did I put that thing?” I spun around, hoping my eyes would just fall on it.
“How many people are we dealing with, here?”
What he really meant was how many Acolytes did he have to kill to get his money. It was a good question. One I wanted the answer to as well. The Acolytes could have been anyone and anywhere. The only tell they had was the hood with the yellow circles. But I doubted every single one of them was gathered in one spot. I knew whoever Prime was, he’d be there for the summoning but that was it.
“That’s a good question,” I told him. “I’ve run into two Acolytes, so far. I don’t know how many it takes to summon the Chaos Bringer. My guess is, it will be a lot.”
John stood from the arm rest. “Good. I’m feeling restless.”
Now what he really meant was he wanted to take somebody’s head off. Most likely mine. My only defense in that was if I died, he didn’t get his money. My hope was that might even provide a guard against others who wanted a shot at me. It was never a bad thing to have a werewolf on your side. Of course, there was the possibility that he’d kill me and cut his losses. I Never understood how that was a fair trade for those who were owed money.
He slowly moved around the office, not touching anything but casually scanning for the object of my search. Not all Lycans were as indifferent as John. The guy was a little on the mercurial side.
“What’s this thing look like?” he asked.
“You know what it is but you’ve never seen one?”
> “I don’t know if you got some special frame around it or twigs or anything. Don’t you wizard types like decorating your stuff to make it look more mysterious?”
Some did. I wasn’t one of them.
“It looks like a magnifying glass,” I said flatly.
“Well, that really narrows it down. You’re a detective. How many magnifying glasses do you actually have?”
It wasn’t an unfair question. I had at least three. Then there was the True Sight Lens. Throw in the Locator-Warp Lens and I had five useful pieces of glass for reading small print. But the only one I could account for was the True Sight I had used on Sasha.
The Locator-Warp Lens was an interesting magic device. I never took the time to really study how the arcane object worked. I only knew what it did. I could use it to look at any subject that used a magic portal and it could identify the subject and where it came from, showing the portal of origin and reopening it. Pretty handy for chasing after teleporters and those who could create gateways through etheric barriers.
It was also useful for making quick escapes through old portals when the need arose.
“Arthur Pendragon!” the Greek accented voice shouted. Now I really wished I had that lens. It was much too late for him to even be here.
I turned around and smiled. “Mr. Costas. How are you? How’s your night going?” I was hoping to deflect his next words before he even spoke them.
“It will go better when you have my rent.” Costas said, ripping the rent notice from the top of my desk.
“Geez, Pendragon,” John started. “How many people you owe money to?”
Too many, I thought.
“Who are you?” Costas asked John. “I do not know you.”
“And you don’t want to,” John and told him.
“You owe six weeks. You know this,” Costas turned back to me. “I gave you an extension—”
“That’s true, you did and I am ever so thankful for that. I just need one more night. Just one more night. I’m about to close a case. Big money.”
John and Mr. Costas looked at each other. Both wore very similar expressions of doubt.
“I’ll have it in your mail slot in the morning. Guaranteed.” Was it a lie? Yes and no. I figured I’d have the whole thing wrapped up by dawn if not sooner. And if I didn’t, well, the world was going to end anyway.
The landlord narrowed his eyes and took one more look at John before turning back to me. “Fine. In the morning or I sell all your stuff and kick you out.”
“It’s a deal,” I said with as forced a smile as I could muster.
“And you know the rules. No pets,” Costas said. “It smells like dog fur in here.” With his last words, he walked out the door. I was thankful he didn’t notice the broken glass from the Acolyte attack.
“That little—” John started after him, having taken full offense.
“Like he could tell,” I said, trying to calm the Lycan.
I went back to my search but stopped midway. Mr. Costas’s last words had given me an idea. I wasn’t too sure what expression John actually saw on my face. I was too wrapped up in the genius and the poetic irony of it.
“Pendragon,” he spoke with some accusation in his voice.
All I did was nod my head. His response was shaking his own.
- - -
I was going to have to come back to the docks if I’d found the warp lens, anyway. All the back tracking was a massive waste of time but it was the only way to follow the leads I did have. John stepped out of the car and shuddered. My guess was there were too many things going on at the harbor for his senses. I couldn’t believe the city as a whole wasn’t a problem for those like him. The noise, the sights, and the smells…I was bombarded by them. I could only imagine what a shifter went through. I guess all the smells were slightly doused when they weren’t animals.
“Where did you last see her?” he asked.
“That third warehouse up ahead.”
“How was she taken?”
“Some kind of teleport spell, I think. All I could see was black smoke.”
“I’ve gone through one of those. Stay here.”
“Oh, watch out for the…” He had already taken off. ”Dead Chaos Minion.” That was going to be an interesting conversation for the next people who stepped foot in that warehouse. Maybe it would melt into a pile of otherworldly sludge. I hated to leave it there but at that point, it wasn’t my problem. These things had a way of taking care of themselves.
I watched John turn from human to wolf. Not the nightmare wolf that attacked me. This one was like any other wolf in the wild. Not all shifters could do it but there were those who had two forms, not counting their human side. There was the regular wildlife and then there was the super-charged version, complete with bipedal ability and opposable thumbs. They were who the folk-tales were about. The ones who terrorized highland villages and stole babies from their cribs. They were the ones who slaughtered livestock, leaving strange clues that led to stories of unknown beasts. Oral tales, turned written words, turned movies—they’d captured the imaginations of us normal folk for hundreds of years. Funny how the reality could become so mundane after you’d lived in it for so long.
I stepped out of the car and leaned against it, waiting for John to return. I almost envied the normal folk. We all, normal and occult, had the same life problems. Even a werewolf had to deal with an ex-wife. But I missed the naivety of the mystical calamities. Granted, I’d rather know about them but still, it might be nice to not have those pressures to worry about.
The clack of nails on the pavement snapped me out of my musings. I turned to see John running up to me in mid-transformation.
“I got it. The warp isn’t that strong. They’re just on the other side of the river,” he said.
“Good. I don’t like this ticking clock we’re under,” I said, getting back into the car.
- - -
I had to admit, watching John lean his head out the window of the car was comical. I didn’t laugh, of course. I didn’t want the guy saying, ‘forget this’ and blowing me off. And even though I didn’t have the tool I needed, I did have the next best thing, an unparalleled sense of smell. I imagine being used for such a thing was more than embarrassing for my temporary Lycan partner. Good thing, John was so bent on getting his money.
He didn’t exactly look like he was sniffing the air as we made our way across the East River. But I had no clue as to how canine noses worked.
“How far off the bridge?” I asked. There was little traffic, which made speeding a whole lot easier.
John took a deep inhale. “Two blocks.”
I pressed a little harder on the accelerator then immediately took my foot off it and hit the brakes. I couldn’t believe the luck. There it was, a black hooded figure with two yellow circles on the hood. Out there on the bridge for the whole city to see. Not that the city would notice or even know what it was looking at. The Acolyte had its arms raised up.
“They’ve started.”
“What are you talking about?” John asked as I put the car in park right next to the Acolyte.
I pointed at the hooded chaos worshipper. “That’s one of them. They know where Sasha is.”
Whoever was under the hood didn’t acknowledge the car at all. I stepped out and took a look around. There was little risk of holding up what little traffic there was. And at that time of night, most passersby would see nothing more than a drunk on the bridge.
“Just turn around and—” I couldn’t get the rest of the words out before John ran into the Acolyte, shoving it over the bridge rail. The figure screamed as it fell toward the water below. Maybe the impact would be a death dealer, maybe it wouldn’t. I saved my shock for more important things. Sacrificing one who was sacrificing another to bring about the end of everything wasn’t a big loss to the world.
“What were you gonna do? Just ask him where she was?” John asked, pointing at his nose.
He was right. That was my
plan. But he was also right in that he already knew the answer. Who knew how much time he saved us with his violent action? And if they were readying the ritual, time was definitely running out.
CHAPTER 14
“Stop here,” John said as we drove through the dark streets. He had looked extremely focused after that Acolyte’s drop in the river. My guess was that the end of the world situation was finally sinking in…or maybe he just really wanted that loan paid back. I couldn’t blame him either way.
I pulled the car up to a construction site. There were no walls on the building, just its steel girder skeleton. It was a three-story job and not very big, with plenty of gaps in the construction to see movement or any hooded chaos worshipers. But the place was silent. No workers, no machines, and no Acolytes. John obviously didn’t like the look I was giving him. Lycans had a certain sense of pride in themselves and their abilities. A long history of being expert trackers had that effect. But right then, it looked as though his nose had failed.
“There’s nothing here, John.”
“I never said we had to go up, did I?”
“You never said anything except stop here. I just assumed—”
“Then that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
I ignored the insult, taking another look at the building in progress and noticed its footprint. Normally a building of this size would be just on the surface. But this one had a basement level. I shook my head. “Nothing good ever came from going underground.”
“I don’t know, Pendragon,” John said. “Saving the world seems like a pretty good thing.”
I scoffed. Now he decided to be a team player.
We descended the metal scaffold set up just against the wall. I expected to hear chanting or even just talk amongst a crowd of Acolytes. But there was nothing. Just the ripple of plastic tarps covering stacks of building materials and being swayed by a random breeze.
“Any guards?” I asked my Lycan partner.
“All I’m getting is the portal scent,” John said after he sniffed the air.
