Jake's Break - Book Six of Wizards

by John Booth

  There was a click as Brandon disconnected.

  “Who was that?” Jenny asked.

  “Brandon Jones. He knows I was involved with the London thing.”

  Esmeralda smiled. “Give my regards to him. He added so much amusement to our wedding.”

  Jenny spoke urgently.

  “You’re going after the one who got away. Retnor is so angry about it that I got teleportation device through our link as though he had said it.”

  “It’s only a small teleportation device.”

  Jenny grinned. “That’s not the way Retnor tells it.”

  “A dragon’s cave is his palace,” Esmeralda said gravely. “You should not abuse the special relationship you have with him.”

  I put my hands up in surrender.

  “Okay. Tomorrow I shall go and see Inspector Brandon. Then I shall round up the gang, if I can find them, and then we’re off to wherever Richard de Conte has gone.”

  “Wedding Saturday,” Merlin said. “Don’t forget.”

  I checked my phone. It was only Wednesday. I had tons of time.

  39. MRSA

  I hopped into an alley close to police headquarters. The building still looked unreasonably new to my eyes. Police headquarters should be built of stone and be at least a hundred years old, not look as though they had been sublet from an internet dating agency. The local police had been housed in just such a building before my late cousin blew it to pieces.

  The glass doors etched with the police badge slid open as I approached. My favorite police woman was behind the desk. She smiled at me.

  “Mister Morrissey, Inspector Jones of Special Branch is expecting you.”

  “Constable Tonia, it’s worth coming here just to see you.”

  Tonia gave me one of those Welsh girl looks that suggested she might be available if ever the right circumstances presented.

  “He’s in Chief Inspector Thomas’s office, so you know the way.”

  “I know all the ways,” I said, exerting my gravitas.

  She laughed. I headed for the lifts and couldn’t resist giving her a wave before the lift doors closed.

  I knocked at the door and Brandon’s voice said “Enter.”

  Once upon a time, Brandon Jones had been a tall and frightening man in uniform. But I had been in my early teens back then. Now he looked just like anybody else in his civilian clothing. He stood up to offer his hand. We shook hands and it was almost a surprise that I was taller than him. It’s amazing how childhood impressions last so much longer than childhood.

  Apart from Brandon and me the office was empty.

  “No Inspector Thomas?”

  “I asked him to stay away. This is Special Branch business.”

  He handed me a card. Below his name were the initials MRSA in bold letters.

  “Isn’t that some kind of super-bug?” I asked.

  “Misdirection,” he said and smiled. “When a member of the public finds out about us enough to want to look us up on Google, all they find is a thousand pages on hospital hygiene.”

  I slipped the card into the pocket of my shirt. “Clever, do the letters stand for anything?”

  “Magic Related Security Agency. Well, that’s what we tell our friends. I think the official description is Miscellaneous Regional Security Agency.”

  “I don’t think me and Bronwyn need a whole police agency to watch over us.”

  Brandon pointed at the guest chair and sat back in his.

  “Not for you. When you start looking for terrorists under the bed it’s amazing what else you find. Yours isn’t the only kind of magic on Earth, and we deal with all the strange and suspicious stuff. For example, when the security services investigated Richard de Conte and his wife, what do you think we found.”

  I spread my hands to suggest I had no idea.

  “Pretty much that. Absolutely nothing. They came from nowhere, ready-made rich. The banks can’t even tell us where the money in their accounts came from.”

  “I thought that was true of most rich people.”

  Brandon wagged a finger at me. “You know better than that. You had to find a treasure hoard to account for your wealth, didn’t you?”

  Okay, he had that right. You just can’t turn up with gold and jewels, people get suspicious and the banks have to know where the treasure came from to satisfy the government. I wondered how much he knew about the de Contes.

  “What did you conclude?” I asked.

  “While they were investing in British industry we decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, but we watched them closely. They were making more product than their supplies of parts would allow, breaking some scientific law or other.”

  “Laws of thermodynamics,” I said, a little to my own surprise.

  “Whatever, and then you had that gun battle with their people in Livingston.”

  “We weren’t the ones shooting.”

  Brandon leaned forward. “So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when we saw Bronwyn Mathews casing the De Conte Building.”

  “Traffic cameras?”

  He nodded, “She’s turned into a beautiful lass, hasn’t she. Has she grown out of her homicidal tendencies?”

  My turn to nod. “She’s a part time goddess when she isn’t being a schoolgirl. Best not to let her know you’ve got surveillance on her.”

  “We won’t. You and Bronwyn are regarded as the good guys. Defending us, rather than being the threat.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Brandon might believe that, but I was sure his bosses had a more nuanced view. Power never totally trusts power.

  “We had drones watching the building when you made your move. Everybody was impressed when you saved the two civilians.”

  “I forgot to wipe the building video.”

  “We did it for you. What we don’t know is what the de Conte’ were up to. Nor did we know they were aliens until that spaceship showed up.”

  “Humans from a High Tech world, not aliens. They were making devices for a medieval empire in another universe. We stopped them. The X-Phones are harmless and they should make the United Kingdom a lot of money.”

  “Will they be back?” Brandon asked the question as though it didn’t really matter, but he didn’t fool me.

  “Perhaps. But I doubt it.”

  “No more buildings exploding and big alien spaceships?”

  “It wasn’t their spaceship and it’s gone, with a promise never to return.”

  Brandon stood and offered his hand. As I gripped it he asked again.

  “And about exploding buildings?”

  I sighed. “I can’t make that promise. I don’t have any plans to blow any up more though.”

  His eyes focused on mine.

  “What are your plans?”

  There seemed no harm in telling him.

  “Richard de Conte got away.” I waved my hand. “And I mean far away. I’m going looking for him later today. If we find him, he won’t be coming back.”

  Brandon considered the information and nodded.

  “It was nice to see you again, Jake.”

  “And you.”

  As I walked back to the alley I pondered this new development. There was a police agency with an unknown agenda that was keeping tabs on wizards. I wondered how much they knew about my life and what kind of threat they posed. On the other hand, a government agency on hand to cover up after me was an attractive idea, so it wasn’t all bad.

  I hopped to the Bat Cave.

  [Are you ever going to remove that thing?]

  Okay, it took up one corner of the cave, but it wasn’t much bigger than a house. A small house at that.

  “Once we’ve been through it, we won’t need it any more. Don’t Dragons have an interest in high tech?”

  [I can have it once you’re done?] His eagerness was unmistakable.

  “I thought you hated it?”

  [It ruins the decor, but the Elders might like it.]

  “You could score some points with the Eld
ers?”

  Fluffy sniffed a little too hard and then coughed fire across the cave.

  [I would never do that,] he claimed when he recovered. [On the other claw, they might be interested. They have been badgering me to take a closer look at it since you brought it here.]

  “It’s all theirs once we finish,” I assured him.

  [And just when are you going to use it?]

  Now he was getting pushy. “As soon as I can get the gang together.”

  [Well, off you go then. Go and find your little female friends.]

  A wing gave me a none too gentle shove across the cave. I took the hint and hopped to Balmack to get Lana and Esta.

  40. Death Waits

  I returned to the Bat Cave from my search for Bronwyn and shook my head.

  “Bronwyn isn’t at her parents, my house, or at the Palace in Salice.”

  “You did not visit her world?” Esta asked.

  I shook my head. Wild horse couldn’t drag me to Tydan. For one thing, most of the people there think of me as evil, which is kind of depressing. But mainly, I have almost entirely bad memories of the planet and have no wish to create any more.

  “Not surprising you did not find her then,” Esta continued. “Perhaps the idea of a foursome is just one too many for you.”

  [Are you going to tease each other all day, or am I going to get my cave back?]

  The girls stepped back as Fluffy lumbered into view. I was beginning to suspect they were frightened of him, even though the idea was ludicrous.

  “Let’s go,” I suggested. Having said it, I realized I had no idea how to get the teleporter to work. Fortunately, Lana stepped forward and arcane symbols appeared in the air in front of her.

  “This is a one way trip. My father’s engineers have rigged this up to go to only one place. The guidance computer has been removed.”

  “He probably doesn’t trust me with the database,” I said.

  Lana grinned, “He certainly doesn’t trust you. That’s the highest compliment he has ever given one of my boyfriends.”

  Esta stroked the side of the machine. “How do teleporters work? Should we shield ourselves?”

  “Don’t know,” Lana said cheerfully. “The basics are that they pass mass from a transmitter to a receiver and we go along with the mass.”

  “How can it send us to an unknown destination then?” Esta asked. “Surely the d’Tachi know where all their receivers are?”

  Lana grinned wolfishly.

  “Those are very good questions. All I can tell you is that the receiver has to accept the request for the transmission to happen. Does that help?”

  Esta looked as puzzled as I felt. Before either of us could ask further questions, Fluffy interrupted.

  [Could you get on with it? I have a battle to fight on the internet.]

  I stared at Fluffy. “You’re into console games now?”

  Fluffy preened himself with a single claw. [Undefeated champion. I play a dragon.]

  I grinned, what else would he play?

  “Is that easy for you?” Esta asked.

  [Mostly, but I sometimes crash into things. I think my controller is faulty.]

  Lana stepped back from the teleporter console. Orange lights were flashing over a small platform.

  “We have ten seconds to step onto the platform.”

  A scramble ensued. I felt my companions raise their shields so I raised mine as well.

  We left and then arrived somewhere else. Before I got a chance to look around the platform exploded.

  Magic has many uses, but personal shields are among the best things you can do with it. I’ve learnt a lot year or so. For example, how to cancel momentum and inertia so I could avoid being squished when my shield hit a wall, and how to absorb the energy of a blast and reuse it. I used to be hopeless at those things back in the day.

  My shield had expanded out to become a sphere as I was thrown improbably high into the air. We must be on a low gravity world. As the gases cleared around me, I could see almost the whole of the world. We were on a moon or an asteroid. It turned out there was a dome above me and my shield bounced when it hit it, taking me back down with it.

  Scanning the world beneath my feet, I spotted Lana and Esta hovering several hundred yards below me. It was time to get the ride under control and a few seconds later I hovered next to my friends.

  “That was fun.”

  Lana gave me one of her looks. “That bomb was meant to kill us.”

  “Not unless de Conte has severely underestimated us.”

  Lana was not impressed by my logic. “If Esta had not suggested being shielded, would you have had yours up?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. Lana is so negative sometimes.

  “This world does not have the look of d’Tachi technology,” Esta said.

  I looked down at the city in a bubble and had to agree. The d’Tachi were into sleek and functional and this place looked as though it had been built by a child with oversize Lego blocks.

  “Let us descend,” Esta suggested and we drifted to the ground.

  Big chunks of electrical equipment littered what had been some kind of square. Pathways led in and out at perfect right angles. There was a noticeable lack of people.

  “Do you get the feeling this city is deserted?”

  The girls gave me severe looks and I shut up.

  Lana picked up and examined some of the electronic components in the rubble. “Definitely not d’Tachi. It doesn’t remind me of anywhere else either.”

  Esta looked across at a stepped area. Each step was a foot or more above the other. “Built for giants?” she suggested.

  “Or creatures with knees closer to their bottoms?” I said cheerfully.

  I got the looks again.

  “Do you think there’s the slightest possibility that de Conte is still here?” I asked.

  Lana shook her head.

  “After he has destroyed his only means of escape? He is long gone. You can be sure of it.”

  “Can you figure out where he went?”

  Lana picked up a piece of the destroyed tech and threw it at me. I ducked.

  “I don’t even know what that thing was.”

  “I think we should split up and look around,” Esta said. “We could meet back here in a couple of hours.”

  “Or your apartment?” As soon as I got over being exploded I’d known exactly where I was in the wizarding sense. We were not trapped here.

  “Your apartment sounds good,” Lana said, and so it was decided.

  We picked paths to walk down and set off. I found I could travel thirty feet with a single step. Maybe the steps were so high because the gravity was so low? It was worth thinking about.

  All the buildings were easily accessible. Most didn’t have doors, but when they did they were open. The city was beginning to remind me of a children’s playground. All the building were painted, or maybe constructed in bright monolithic colors, inside and out, usually clashing with the building next door. They didn’t seem to have any purpose either, they were simply empty. I couldn’t find a sink or a toilet for that matter. There were no machines inside. It didn’t help that we hadn’t seen much of the machine we arrived in before it was blown to pieces. For all I knew I was walking past coffee machines or televisions. Perhaps I just didn’t recognize them.

  Reaching the edge of the city, I found a circular building. It was the only non-rectangular building I’d seen since I arrived. I raised my protective shields and walked inside.

  The interior was dark. That was also unusual; the other buildings had all been lit in subtle ways. I never saw a light, but I had never been in the dark.

  I lit the building with magic. It was empty. The floor sloped down to a central flat circle, almost like a circus arena. The ceiling sloped up as the floor sloped down so when I reached the center it was like being in a church. Or inside a couple of giant cymbals, one on top of the other..

  When I reached the middle something
happened. A breeze blew through the place and it felt like it had blown through my mind. Lights came on, much brighter than my magical ones.

  [You have arrived.] It was a telepathic message not a bit like a dragon’s.

  [You are sent.]

  I was somewhere a long, long way away. My head spun as my wizard’s positional sense tried to make sense of my location in the multiverse. It might take me hours to hop back home from here, possibly days. This was further away from Earth than I had thought possible.

  I was in an enclosed space. The air felt musty as though it hadn’t been breathed in or out in centuries. I tried to light the room with magic, but something stopped my attempt before it had begun.

  A hum rose from nowhere, almost imperceptible at first. Then small lights faded up from black. I was in some kind of control room and there was a console in front of me. A massive curved screen sprang to life. At first I could make no sense of what I was seeing. A few red lights glowed. I applied magic sight and amazingly the screen was as good as the real thing. The red glows were galaxies, incredibly far away and in the final stages of collapse. There were no young stars anywhere.

  New points of light were appearing. At first I thought they were stars, but they were far too dim. They were as big as planets and much closer to us and each other than so many planets could possibly be. There must be thousands of them.

  “Welcome, Great Destroyer. Your fleet awaits your command.”

  I turned to find a glowing little girl approaching me. She was translucent and as she walked in front of a console I saw its lights shine through her body.

  Attack is the best form of defense they say.

  “You have the wrong person. I am not the Great Destroyer.”

  Her laugh started at the child end of the spectrum and ended up rattling the console room in a kind of dark satanic way.

  “We know you,” she said, back in little girl mode.

  “We?”

  She waved at the planet-ship things on the screen.

  “After the war we were hidden. Taken to the farthest reaches, the oldest universe; the place where it all began. We have waited for you, predicted by the Norn, the one who will save; the one who will destroy.”