by C. M. Lance
He dialed Rick from his Favorites list.
“He… Hello?” Rick sounded blurry.
“Rick it’s me. Can you pick me up?
“Sig? Where are you?”
Sig gave him the address. He heard a metallic bang.
“Man, I’m in the back of your Jeep. What am I doing here?”
“In the back of my Jeep?”
“Oh, now I remember. That big Moldovan kicked my ass tonight. I could barely hold my arm up. My eyes kept closing. After I lost, I couldn’t find you. I staggered out to your Jeep and lay down in back to wait for you. Now you’re calling me. Why are you calling me, why aren’t you here to drive us home? Where is that address?” He sounded unfocused.
“I’m not sure. It looks like a real nice part of town.”
“I’m still up at the Game Room. I don’t have keys to your Jeep.”
“OK, you’ll have to lie on the ground in back; reach up to the top of my hitch receiver, there’s a magnetic box, with a spare key in it. I don’t know how long it will take you to get here. I’m going to start walking. I don’t want to stay where I am.”
“I thought you said it was a nice neighborhood?”
“I said it looks like a nice neighborhood, but I know better.”
“Got the box. The key’s in it. Is it or isn’t it a nice neighborhood?”
“I’ll let you be the judge when you get here. I’m walking. Call you when I get somewhere.”
He disconnected and walked toward the nearest streetlight, then the next, and the next. Passing the fourth, he pulled up Favorites again and dialed the Professor.
“Sigurd, where are you? I waited and finally took a limo home from the airport. I’m in it now. Unoccupied limos are scarce after midnight. Are you all right?”
“I’m not sure where I am. I’m walking down a neighborhood street. I just parted company from a couple of trolls who held me captive. They took my amulet, but I managed to get it back and escape. I feel like I’m babbling.”
“You’re doing fine, but it sounds like a terrible experience. What can I do?”
“I think I’m OK now. I’m getting away from the vicinity of the trolls. I’m not worried about them, but I don’t know where their Master Wizard is. Rick’s on his way to get me. I’ll call and let you know when he arrives. Then I’ll come home and tell you all about it.”
“Call me if you need anything. I’ll see you soon.”
“It can’t be too soon.” He disconnected.
Chapter 67
Sig parked the Jeep at the Professor’s front steps and shook Rick awake. Rick had asked Sig to drive when he picked him up, since he almost fell asleep twice on the way over. Sig’s second phone call with his new location woke Rick once and he was lucky to wake up the second time before he crashed.
Sig no longer felt the affects of whatever knocked them out as Rick did. Maybe it had to do with his changing into Battle Wizard shape.
The Professor bustled about the kitchen preparing hot tea. Oatmeal raisin cookies sat on the table. Rick declined and asked if he could lie down in the library.
The Professor was shocked. “That is completely uncharacteristic. Come sit down.”
Rick sat in the kitchen chair. “I’m really not hungry, maybe if you have some coffee?”
“I’m not going to force you to eat. Sit here and relax. Will you let me see if someone cast a spell on you?”
“If I relax I may fall asleep.”
“That’s perfectly acceptable. I’ll wake you when I’m done.” He walked around the chair, placed his hands on Rick’s shoulders, and muttered something unintelligible. He closed his eyes and muttered something else. He lifted his hands off Rick’s shoulders and moved them upwards, tracing Rick’s head, not quite touching.
He shook his head and walked around in front of Rick, his fingertip characteristically stroking his mustache. Rick leaned his head back to see him through drooping eyelids. He snapped them open but they drooped again. Professor Herman reached out, raised Rick’s chin, and looked into his eyes. He released his face and stepped back. “No magic. From the reaction of your pupils, I would guess a drug.
“Of course, if it is the kind of magic which I suspect holds Sig’s talents hostage, I couldn’t tell. But I don’t believe it is.”
“I just want to lie down.”
“Take the guest bedroom you usually use.”
“I don’t want to dirty your sheets or cause any trouble.”
“That isn’t a problem. The faeries will take care of cleaning the room.”
“Fairies? What kind?”
“The domestic kind. You can sleep without concern. We have a special arrangement. They take care of the house and I take care of them.”
Rick got up and trudged to the stairway.
Sig watched him go. “I hope he makes it to the bedroom.”
“It must have been a powerful drug if it affects a Were like that.” He turned to Sig. “Tell me what happened.”
Sig described what he remembered. The Professor listened intently without questions. A look of great sorrow filled his face when Sig described finding the white dress.
“Can you find the house again?”
“We have to. They said he’s going to get another little girl before the full moon. We have to stop him.”
“We have time. I believe that the full moon is a week away. Rick will know for sure. Can you find the house?”
Sig held up his phone. “I’ve got the address stored in my GPS.”
“Let’s write it down, just in case. The trolls said Dmitri is their brother and his father is their Master?”
“Yes, and I got the feeling they didn’t like Dmitri or their mother.”
“Understandable, troll mothers aren’t known for nurturing natures. In some troll species, the females are larger and more ferocious than the males.”
“I don’t think I want to meet one.”
“Would you care to take a ride?”
“Now?”
“Yes, I’d like to find the house.”
“Tonight?”
“No time like the present.”
“OK, but what about Rick.”
“He’ll be fine here and I don’t believe he would provide assistance. He’s asleep on his feet.”
“Let’s go. I want to see it again.”
Chapter 68
Sig felt disappointment when Professor Herman bypassed garage door number one, which hid the Maybach. Dissatisfaction vanished when the Professor opened garage door number two on a 911 Porsche Cabriolet Turbo. Professor Herman smiled over at Sig as they climbed in. “It’s a nice night. I only drive this when I can leave the top down, otherwise I don’t fit.”
Sig folded into the seat and looked over to that the hat the Professor had donned projected above the windshield frame. The Professors knees stuck up like a grasshopper was driving the sports car. “Your legs don’t quite fit either.”
“Learning to endure vicissitudes builds character.” He placed the car in reverse, let out the clutch, and swung around on the expansive parking apron. He pressed the opener for the front gate, shifted into first gear, and accelerated down the curving driveway. They passed through the still opening gates and flicked a right turn onto the street. It felt like the car rode on rails.
Both Sig and the Professor had silly smiles as they rocketed around the next turn. It was two a.m. and traffic was sparse.
They sped onto Hwy. 94 and accelerated. Sig watched the speedometer and saw it pass one hundred and fifty miles per hour. He guessed that his expression mirrored the joy on the Professor’s face. Over the wind noise he shouted, “Aren’t you concerned about cops?”
The Professor grinned back and shouted. “They won’t notice us. A little trick I use to avoid speeding tickets.”
“I’ve got to learn that trick.”
With their exit flying toward them, the Professor flipped the steering wheel to the right. Sig pressed his hands on the dashboard to counter the ra
pid deceleration. At a more normal rate, they approached an affluent residential area.
Sig pointed to a house as they slowly cruised by. “That’s it sitting back there on the hill.” Low lighting still illuminated the clipped and polished landscape.
At the end of the long cul-de-sac, they made a U-turn. The Professor stopped at the entrance where one gate still lay in the driveway. “Let’s check it out.” He climbed out of the car. Sig hesitated. “I’ve been here already. You go ahead.”
“I need you with me to check something. Please come.”
Sig climbed out and they walked toward the gates. The Professor stepped over the fallen one, but recoiled when he tried to walk through the opening. He stepped back. “Will you enter, please?”
“Been there, done that.” Sig walked over the gate and into the estate.
“Fine, now come back, change, and try it again.”
“OK, but, like I said, I’ve already done it.”
He repeated his entry as a Battle Wizard while the Professor watched. “All right, let’s go home.”
Sig changed back, climbed into the car and they headed home.
“May I understand what we accomplished back there?”
“We ascertained that the estate is heavily warded against magic. When I tried to enter, it hindered my progress as if I were immersed in a vat of Gelatin. Additionally, I sensed magical alarms activate. Correct any misapprehension I may have, but I believe that you entered the estate as a human and a Battle Wizard without any impediment and I didn’t sense any alarms associated with your ingress. The wards don’t sense your magic. You operate in stealth mode when faced with magical wards, if that’s not too humorous to say about a nine-foot Battle Wizard.”
“Mom would never believe it. Sometimes she calls me Bull - like bull-in-a-china-shop.”
“Not uncommon in growing boys. I recognize this house.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Once, two years ago I attended a reception for the Physics department here. It’s Dean Heathcoat’s estate.”
Chapter 69
Sig, Giselle, and the Professor met the next morning in the Professor’s office. As they sat down, Rick knocked and poked his head in the door. “Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know that I managed to wake up and make it to work today, Professor. Thanks for letting me stay the night. Whatever I had really knocked me out last night.”
Sig said, “If you have the time, I’d like to have you sit in with us. You were involved last night and it will save me time since I’ll need to fill you in later anyway.”
Professor Herman and Giselle nodded agreement.
Sig described the previous night’s adventures. When he described the garbage they pelted him with, Rick looked queasy and held up his hand. “I don’t need the menu. I get the picture.”
Giselle interrupted to ask, “The trolls said Dean Heathcoat is Dmitri’s father?”
Sig was silent for a moment as he formulated a response. “Not directly, they said their Master was Dmitri’s father. I didn’t see their Master. He wasn’t in the room when I was awake. We could assume that the Dean is their Master since it is his house, but strictly speaking, I don’t know.”
Rick asked, “What woke you up? I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Even when you called and my phone rang, right under my ear, I could barely wake up. You say a ‘feeling’ made you wake up?”
“Have you ever lost your cellphone with all your friends’ numbers, or walked out to find your car gone or your dog dead? Like that, only ten times worse. I felt an aching sense of loss, almost physical, like a hole had been ripped in me.”
They looked at him pensively. He could tell they remembered losses that hurt.
“Anyway, there was a bright flash of light and the ache receded. After the flash, someone threw the medallion into the room.”
“You levitated it into your prison cell?”
“Yeah, that was weird. I wouldn’t have thought to do it if Mom hadn’t told me that in her vision I said ‘Aðalbrandr is part of me.’ First, I tried to change forms while the amulet was across the room. That didn’t work. Then I remembered all the lessons from you and Grampa about levitating objects. When I concentrated on levitating it was easy, and when it smacked into my hand… it felt so good.”
Rick looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Don’t get a stiffy.”
Sig blushed and laughed. “Not like that. It was a sense of relief, like coming together after being torn apart.”
The Professor nodded. “Not having prescience myself, I have been amazed many times when a vision of the future makes the future happen, as your mother’s vision made you think of levitating Aðalbrandr. As if it were a self fulfilling prophesy.”
Sig described what he saw in the room containing the bloody dress. Rick jumped up and paced the small office. He looked as angry as Sig felt yesterday. Giselle seemed both revolted and nauseated. The Professor’s face sagged into the same sad expression he had when Sig originally told him about it.
“The trolls said he needed another virgin before the full moon. When is the next full moon Rick?”
Rick stopped pacing and said, “In six days. Wait a minute, just because I’m a Were you think I always know when the full moon happens?”
“Well, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but you just assumed?”
Giselle cleared her throat. “I’ve continued to research Dean Heathcoat and found something interesting. I’d like to review it with you.”
“By all means, my dear.”
“The school records show that he was born in a small town in North Dakota, or I should say they were born. Birth records from the town show twins. One was John, the other Gianni, G..I..A..N..N..I.”
Sig looked at her and nodded. “Professor Riley mentioned one of his quirks; sometimes he wanted to be called John and other times he insisted on being called Johnny. I thought she said Johnny, but it could be Gianni. They’re pronounced the same.”
“It took some work to find the birth records. When John and Gianni were five years old, the town burned down.”
“The whole town?”
“Like I said it was a small town. Records show a population of seventy-seven. The population shrunk after it burned. Many people died, including the Dean’s parents. Apparently, Gianni also died since there’s no mention of him anywhere after the fire destroyed the town. John went to live with an uncle in Detroit. John shows up in grade school and high school records, Gianni doesn’t.”
Giselle pulled three books out of her backpack and laid them on the Professor’s desk. “These are yearbooks from the Dean’s undergraduate days here at NU.” She selected one and reached to a piece of red paper marking a spot in the book. “This is a photo of the chess team when he was a sophomore. There’s Dean Heathcoat on the end.”
Sig said, “Look, there’s Professor Riley on the other end. She was kind of attractive in a nerdy way.”
“I plan to use these yearbooks to expand our research to friends and acquaintances from his college days. I also requested copies of his high school yearbooks.”
Sig frowned as he stared at the picture of the chess club. He was missing something but he couldn’t identify what it was.
Chapter 70
Rick wanted to charge over to the Dean’s home and raid it immediately. He even phoned his uncle Jacob to help them. Professor Herman urged restraint.
Sig agreed that it would be a good idea to get more information on the Dean before they charged in. “After all, Jacob won’t be here for two more days. Don’t you want to wait for him? Also, the full moon isn’t for six more days.”
“He has considerable field experience and strategic expertise for this type of incursion,” the Professor agreed.
The meeting ended with an agreement to wait until uncle Jacob arrived.
Professor Herman stopped by Dean Heathcoat’s office several times a day to finalize the departmental budget. Eventually, the Dean’s administrative assista
nt informed him that the Dean called in sick, and no, she didn’t know when he would be in.
Giselle continued researching the Dean’s early days. She made a list of possible high school and college acquaintances. Sig assisted her in gathering contact information and calling them. Their profile information on the Dean was consistent. Everyone who remembered him opined that he odd, but no one was close to him. Several people diagnosed him as bipolar. Those with credentials to render such a judgment and those without.
Two days after the group meeting with Professor Herman, Sig flipped yearbooks open to pages Giselle had marked with various colored tabs. Pictures on each page captured Dean Heathcoat’s youth. Sig studied the man he believed the trolls called ‘Master’.
He fit the model of the brooding artist, lean body and face, long tapering fingers, and bony wrists stretching out of black sleeves. His all-black attire emphasized the stunning white streak running through his dark hair. The streak was prominent even in his high school photos.
Sig flipped back and forth between pictures and then stopped. Leaning forward, he closely studied a picture, turned to another, and studied it closely. He pulled another book out of Giselle’s pile and flipped through it, pausing to study photos.
After he lined up three books, he turned to Giselle. “Will you look at these pictures and give me an opinion?”
She laid down her pen. “I’ll be happy to. In my opinion, you are intentionally driving me nuts by flip, flip, flipping through those books while I’m trying to work. How about a second opinion? You’re nuts too.”
Sig smiled at her. “I agree. I’m nuts about you.”
She laid a hand on his. “If your gonna put it that way, how can I help?” She said with a smile.
“Please look at these pictures.”
“OK.” She studied each of the photos briefly. She closed the last book and said, “Yes, in my opinion, Dean Heathcoat is present in each of those pictures.”
