by T S Paul
Running after the owl, Mack stumbled and almost fell as his sandals caught on his toga. He made a mental note to excuse decorum and wear t-shirts and shorts from now on. It wasn’t like this place was the hottest spot on the town tour.
Reaching what they called the temple, Mack came to a screeching halt as three men dressed as gladiators pointed what looked like very sharp swords at him. Looking past the men he could see Owl speaking to a large group of mixed beings.
“Who are you?” Owl repeated. He’d tried several dialects already, including English and had now settled on Greek.
One of the Satyrs bowed and motioned to the others. “We came here at our Queen’s behest. Her Majesty the Gorgon wishes to re-establish a connection with the Goddess Athena and the Lords of Light. Now that the great divide has been severed, we are moving, making the connections needed for the future.”
Three extremely beautiful women revealed themselves, shedding their cloaks. They moved to encircle the large owl and each curtsied. The Satyr rose and continued to speak. “These are three of the Hoisioi, the attendants of the Pythia. Our oracle has foreseen what is to come and wishes to aid your kingdom.”
Owl blinked his large expressive eyes as he gazed upon the people in the room. Spying Mack at the entrance, he snapped his beak a few times. “Please allow my friend entry.”
The Satyr waved his hand negligently and the three gladiators removed their swords. Giving Owl a wave, Mack stepped into the temple area. “Who?”
Owl swiveled his head to one side and looked at his longtime friend. “That’s my line. These are travelers from a distant land. They’ve come seeking the Goddess.”
Without even blinking, Mack responded sarcastically, “Did you tell them she rarely speaks to us?”
“Not yet,” Owl responded.
“Where did they come from?” Mack asked, eyeing the pretty girls.
“Greece, or Athenia, as they call it now. The Gorgon sent them to us if you believe that,” Owl explained.
“Hmm. Sent them to us from where? It takes a special place to be able to build a Gate with enough power to get here. Did they say?” Mack asked the large bird.
Owl flapped his wings a bit and looked to the Satyr again. There were two of them and a Faun milling around the temple area. The one he’d spoken to was prostrated before the statue of the Goddess.
“Excuse our leader,” the Faun said. “It’s been his life’s goal to visit a true temple to Athena.”
“You come from what was once Greece? Are there no temples left there?” Owl asked, speaking in the Faun’s mother tongue.
“No. The humans destroyed them years ago. The White God remained supreme and encouraged the destruction. Even the temple at Sounion was destroyed. Poseidon’s still stands but in name only. Our people could only watch from afar as the destruction went on and on for centuries. It was only through the actions of our Majesty, the Gorgon, that we have regained the culture we lost,” the Faun explained.
Owl repeated the conversation in English for Mack so he’d understand. While he might read ancient Greek, speaking it fluently was a different matter.
“English? You speak that even here? I will tell them and adapt,” the Faun spoke up in the aforementioned language. “We knew YOU were here but made other assumptions as well…Forgive us.”
Stepping closer and laying a gentle hand on the Owl’s wing, Mack spoke to the creature before him. “You seek the Goddess. What of her temple in Assisi? It’s under her guise as Minerva but…”
“NO.” The Faun made placating gestures with his hands. “Sorry. That temple is one of his, the White God. It’s attributed to the Goddess, but our research says it was actually built to honor Hercules. Trust me when I say that we have done our research on this. Your temple here is the last true site. Even the center of the universe, Delphi, was looted and destroyed. They built a church to HIM upon the ruins. All is gone now. The Gorgon has restored worship, but the Pythia still received warnings. The Goddess needed to be warned and given access to the people. We chased her off and now beg for her to return. How else may we give our power to the Gods? Without us they are nothing but empty shells.”
“What sort of warnings are they getting that are so serious?” Mack asked.
“Such things are the matter of state and diplomacy,” the original Satyr replied as he gently pushed the Faun aside. Giving the small creature a look of reprimand, the leader of the small expedition said, “This is my task. Being here I needed…Forget what I needed. My assistant spoke the truth to you. We searched and researched for years before attempting the crossing here. There are rumors and speculation of this place. In some circles it’s called a haven from persecution. Did you know that? What the humans call Europe has become almost unbearable for any of our kind. The Paranormal peoples are being driven from the land by followers of hatred and pain. Our Queen has taken many of them within her bosom and sent others to the kingdoms of the Vampires. What our oracles have seen is destruction and chaos. They are returning and nothing in this time can stop them. Not yet at least. With that being said, the Gorgon wishes to open up one of the lost Portals and send what aid she can in your fight against the enemy. It might not help in today’s fight, but the future is fluid.”
“When you speak of the enemy, who is it you mean?” Mack asked the Satyr. “We have many against us, including the Gods of Darkness.”
“We think of them as the children of Typhon, but you call them the Draconic Empire,” the Satyr explained. “Even now they fight, do they not?”
Mack looked over his shoulder to the doorway as if expecting one of the Legion or the enemy to appear suddenly. When nothing appeared, he turned back to the conversation. “You didn’t answer my question. Where did you come from, other than Greece?”
“Ah. Forgive me. Yes,” the speaker turned to Owl. “You have traveled to Earth numerous times in the past. The Owl of Athena is legendary to us and artifacts of your passing are treasured. Using prized forgotten feathers from your body, we built the Gate in the only place that the energies of the Goddess herself were proper. The Parthenon in the land called Tennessee.”
Owl clicked his beak a few times before speaking. Muttering a curse under his breath he shook his head. “That is a museum, is it not? You did this amongst Humans in broad daylight?”
The Satyr shrugged his shoulders. “Only the guard the humans insisted accompany us was present. What matter, they’ve seen Magic performed before, have they not?”
Mack sighed. “Not like that, they haven’t. There is an unspoken rule about showing the Humans Gates and Portals. Having them appear here more than once in force is enough for me.”
“Marcella must be informed,” Owl instructed.
“On it.” Hiking up his robes, Mack ran for the door. He had a Portal to cross and a Witch to find.
“While it’s an honor to be sought out, you may have triggered events that cannot be repaired. Mack will seek out our representative in the United States and inform her of your presence. She might be able to head off any repercussions, but I doubt it. The Humans are more capable than you give them credit,” Owl replied.
“By Hell, you mean what exactly?” I asked the Agent. We’d gone up to the main floor and he had shown me exactly what and where the diplomats had gone.
“There were nine of them altogether in here. As a group, they scurried to and fro, as if looking for something. To me it was just a big empty room, but to them it was something else. The robed ones clustered in a circle suddenly and started to chant in a language I didn’t quite understand,” Agent Asem explained. “Linking hands, they all vanished in a flash. It was as if a great wind came out of nowhere and sucked them right up! Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”
His description rang a bell within me. I’d seen something very similar one afternoon in Maine, only the flash of light had brought forth dinosaurs trying to eat me. Marcella Blackmore had called it a Gate. Somehow these people had opened one of them here, inside the museum!
Shaking the man’s hand, I hurried to leave. “I’ve seen it before. Thank you Agent Asem. You’ve been a big help to me and the investigation.”
The agent’s mouth dropped open and he looked at me in shock. “I have? What did I say?”
“That you’re innocent and unless you are secretly a Witch, that you didn’t do this,” I said even as I hurried from the room. The temple reproduction was huge, and sound carried like an echo through it.
Spotting one of Klarkson’s men at the door, I slid to a stop. “Phone? I need a phone with long distance calling right freaking now.”
The local agent looked at me in surprise and it was all he could do but point to his right. I could see the restrooms and a small kiosk of payphones.
“Great, thanks!” Sliding the booth door open I grabbed the receiver. Waiting for a dial tone, I dug into my pockets looking for a nickel. “Huh? What did I do what it?”
Cursing, I stuck my hand out the door and yelled at the Agent. “Coins! I need some change!”
The local agent must feed a lot of meters, because suddenly my hand was filled with silver. Dimes, nickels, and quarters were bouncing out of my hand. I could see a few red cents mixed in as well. Those were pretty useless in these machines. We’d had a class at Quantico on how they worked, and it had to do with conductivity. Pennies could overload the early phones, so silver was better. Plus, the way the old Crosley phones were set up was that each coin’s shape or denomination only fit a certain way. A bell would ring telling the operator or switchboard how much you had put into the machine. They were actually equipped with a string cutter as well, to prevent cheats from trying to take the coin inserted back out.
Dropping in a nickel, I stuck my finger in the rotary and dialed zero.
“This is the operator,” an older woman’s voice said to me.
Knowing that telling her I was FBI was useless, I just stated who I wanted to speak to. The last time I did that, they had to involve a supervisor and it took what felt like hours. “I need a person to person connection to Marcella Blackmore in Briarwood, Maine. That’s a 207 area code.”
“One moment please.” There was a pause and I could hear several clicks on my end of the call. “Please deposit thirty-five cents.”
Dumping the coins in my hand onto the small shelf under the phone, I grabbed a quarter and a dime. Careful to not lose them, I dropped them into the phone. The voice of the operator came on again. “Sir, your party is on the line.”
There was a click and I could almost hear breathing, “Marcella? It’s Jack. Jack Dalton. I need more information and some advice from you.”
“Jack. It figures you’d be behind this mess. Marcella’s not here at the moment. She went…” Minerva paused. Internally I sighed when I heard the much older woman’s voice. She wasn’t quite what I wanted right now.
“You still there, Jack? Marcella went through the Portal to visit some folks you might be missing. They’re safe, if that is what you wanted to know,” Minerva explained.
I leaned back into the wooden bench. It was some relief that the people Agent Asem brought with him were safe, but it didn’t explain where they were and why. “Where are they? This is the very brink of an international incident with a country we don’t exactly have good or any relations with. I need to speak to them, Minerva!”
“Not unless you can get to Maine all of a sudden. I’ll pass the message along for you. Goodbye, Jack,” Minerva hung up the phone, leaving me with nothing but dial tone.
“Dammit!” I exclaimed. Reaching up, I started to put more money in the machine but stopped. Knowing Minerva, she’d just refuse to accept the call. This left me with nothing useful. Concentrating for a moment, I thought of something. I knew another person who at one time mentioned Gates and Portals to me. Anastasia.
My halfway boss’s number I actually knew by heart. It was a special line used only for emergencies and our own personal communications. How she’d set that up without the Bureau knowing about it was a puzzle.
“Did you find them, Jack?” Anastasia was short with me on the phone.
“Sort of. I’ve been told they’re safe, just not where they went,” I explained.
There was silence on the phone for just a moment. “Explain that, please.”
Clearing my throat, I launched into the story. “I spoke to the Agent assigned to the part and he told me…”
My part of the conversation took almost ten minutes to get out with Ana making almost no comments at all. As I finished, the phone was so silent, for a moment I thought she’d hung up. But her chair has a distinctive creak and the sound of paper shuffling was very distinctive.
“What am I supposed to do with you, Jack? Hmm?” Anastasia asked.
“This time it wasn’t my fault—” I started, but she cut me off.
“He won’t see it that way and you know it. What did I tell you the first day on the job, do you remember?” she asked me.
“Survive.” I did remember. Director Hoover didn’t want a separate FBI group. Especially one he didn’t control completely. Congress and the President were the ones who formed the Magical Division of the FBI. The Director put a total rookie in charge with the hope of having it fail in the first week. That freshly graduated rookie was me and I’ve managed to last almost a year now. Many of the assignments were impossible for a simple human to overcome, but I did, and now had gained the respect and hatred of fellow agents across the nation.
“Exactly. Survive. You’ve done a pretty good job so far, but this isn’t a simple rogue or sea serpent this time. The Gorgon has ruled for almost a half century with no outside contact. Do you understand what that means Jack? Not even the OSS has been able to penetrate her borders. Now we have half the delegation setting up an embassy here in Washington and the other half has vanished. Now you say you found them but not where?” Ana shouted at me.
Wincing I could see her point but how to explain it? “I called Marcella Blackmore.”
“I know who she is,” Ana replied.
“Right. Her maid answered and told me that the delegation was safe, but Marcella couldn’t speak to me and unless I could get to Maine it was impossible to speak to anyone,” I explained.
“Did she tell you where Marcella was?” Anastasia asked me.
“According to Minerva, she’d gone through a Portal. I wasn’t sure, but does that mean the group went through a Portal as well? There was that flash that Agent Asem mentioned,” I explained to her. Thinking back, I tried to remember all the details of the Gate I saw open in Maine a few months ago. That one had been full of dinosaurs.
Anastasia breathed heavily into the phone receiver. “Portals are permanent while Gates are temporary. The Nashville Parthenon hasn’t been there all that long. I visited the original in the twenties. It was made from plaster and didn’t hold up all that well. Something like that isn’t suitable for Portal work. Someone summoned a Gate. From what you’ve described, they may have used energy collected there to power it.”
“That sort of makes sense, but how did they know the power was here? Greece is a long way from Tennessee,” I replied.
“Don’t ask me how I know of this but sometimes there are…traces…or afterimages left when a Gate is used. It depends upon the creator and the destination as to how much or how little is left. You could try whispering the Gorgon’s name and walk the hall as much as possible looking for those traces. If and I do mean if an echo of the Gate remains, the group you are seeking may hear you. Regardless of what happens, you better prepare those folks there for the full weight of the FBI and all the other agencies to come barreling down on top of you. I won’t be able to save you this time, Jack,” Ana explained.
“Then cross your fingers and toes boss, because I’m going to search for a miracle.” I hung up the phone and smiled. She really did care for me.
“You need to have the other half of your delegation explain things to the humans. This could cause a major incident,” Marcella explained to the lead Satyr.
“Eh, humans get too excited about things. Our visit here is what is most important. My Queen has said we can wait them out and try the next generation if need be. What use is this United States to one such as her? She would prefer not to wait. There are rumblings in the beyond that she says puts this world in peril. Having friends is a must for what is coming,” the Satyr replied.
“What is coming, can you tell me?” Marcella asked him.
“Chaos and wonder. As my companions would say, to know too much is to open yourself up to change. Do you truly wish that upon what you carry? Knowing the outcome will make things much harder for them,” the Satyr commented. Meeting Marcella’s, eyes he dropped them towards her belly for just an instant. Knowing the outcome will make things much harder for them. Raising his his eyebrows he stated, “stay ignorant for now. The Pythia will welcome you if you waver.”
Marcella froze for a moment as what the creature in front of her hit home. Only Minerva knew that she was pregnant. Not even science could tell yet! But a Witch that wasn’t in tune with her own body wasn’t a Witch at all. Part of her wanted to just let it go, but as the head of the World Species Council it was her job to prevent issues with the Humans, and this was a major one.
“What about if I contacted them for you? Would that be acceptable?” Marcella asked.
The lead Satyr cocked his head and looked up at her. “Why risk yourself in this, knowing it might change the outcomes of things?”
Marcella grimaced. The fact the Council even existed was one of the world’s biggest secrets, and by contacting Washington she would be threatening it. Just getting on their radar was bad enough. “Because I must do something…”
