Locomotive came up closer, expecting to see the charred remains.
“The same style as last week,” Satal sighed, straightening up. “But there is a difference.”
The captain looked at the ashes with understanding, but the dark magician smiled: “No, it’s not about them. The artisans performed the shackles ritual last night, likely successfully, because this time their victim was an initiated dark.”
Locomotive got a nasty sucking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“The pump-sign stayed for eight hours, but then something happened,” Satal gestured around the walls, gnawed by fire. “This couldn’t be done by a human being. The channel is very different from the standard one; a magician with such a Source would not live through the Empowerment.
“A dark mage,” Locomotive stated.
“Rather, an otherworldly creature. A mature one, rich in energy, confidently orienting itself in the material world, affecting the environment with rare strokes, not wasting its power. Perhaps it has a material carrier.”
Captain Baer tried to picture such a horror walking along the streets of his city and failed.
“I don’t understand another thing: how did those two men survive? They were injured later and only because they didn’t get out of the fire in time,” Satal mentioned and nodded to an expert that had dug some crumpled round piece out of coal. “Send it to the lab and let me know the result!”
“Couldn’t that be the armory curse work?” the captain asked with an inner shudder.
Satal frowned. “I doubt it. The pump-sign broke up from an external impulse, but not due to the release of energy of the Source. The perturbation was extremely local, at least this time.”
Baer realized that he had not seen typical human remains in the mud: “Where is the victim?”
“Obviously, he or she woke up and ran off,” the dark shrugged indifferently. We haven’t seen any belts; the victim was held onsite only by the pump-sign. Rather thoughtlessly on their part.”
“Crazy psychos!” the captain could not resist shouting. “The third case. What do they want to accomplish?”
“Probably the same thing as Melons, had she not been arrested.”
“One more artisan?”
“Not likely,” the coordinator nearly spat on a pile of evidence, but managed to restrain himself. “That bitch seemed to coach a follower; he didn’t make the grade by just a bit. He knew what to do and how, but wasn’t sufficiently accurate, so the first two victims died during the ritual. And he was not explained how risky it was to put the pump-sign on an initiated mage. Here’s the result!”
The coordinator looked again at the blackened walls.
“And the white bastard is still at large,” Baer added gloomily.
“Then go back to work!” Satal soared. “Look for witnesses; he didn’t get here by air, did he? And I’m not done with evidence yet!”
Locomotive did not quarrel in response, although his patience was stretched to the limit. He was the head of Redstone’s NZAMIPS, there were four hundred men under his command, and he wasn’t going to lisp with a milksop—even if the latter was a dark magician. He wouldn’t be a scapegoat! None of the emotions raging in his soul reflected on Captain Baer’s face. He turned around and walked to the door in silence, habitually pondering whether he should immediately quit. Yes, five more years remained until his full pension, but he had already surpassed the length of service for an officer, and an old bachelor like him wouldn’t need a lot. Numerous relatives would welcome an uncle from the city; he wouldn’t be bored. Locomotive saw only one obstacle: if he left, he would completely lose the chance to influence events.
A young policeman in motorcycle goggles and gloves trampled on the steps of the college. He got agitated, seeing the captain, and started waving his hands. Not a moment of rest! Baer pushed his way through scurrying firefighters and approached the policeman. The guy’s face expressed embarrassment.
“Eh, sir…”
Locomotive looked down and cursed in a fit of anger.
“Damn, it’s all dirty here, too! What else do you have for me?”
The motorcyclist handed him a piece of mail, and Baer realized that shit was about to hit the fan. What could happen in the town that the chief of NZAMIPS had to be notified by courier? Locomotive pulled out of the dense envelope a letter, read it, and wished he carried a poison: in full compliance with the statute, the team of instrumental control informed the authorities about a powerful surge of magical activity around Quay Barco. Had they missed the alpha and omega?
“Pass it to Senior Coordinator Satal, okay?”
The policeman saluted and briskly splashed through the water on the sodden floor. He didn’t know what a mine he was carrying.
While a striped NZAMIPS car was making its way through the crowd of firefighters, Locomotive intensely pondered the situation; none of his subordinates would guess that behind his usual mask of calm was carefully suppressed panic. Not without reason the artisans hid on the river: the magic activity in Redstone was traditionally tracked well, mainly because of the presence of the university. Amulets scattered around the city were officially regarded as protection against the supernatural, but they could also fix any spike of magic background, regardless of its nature. On a daily basis the monitoring team recorded dozens of small flashes, but there were plenty of magic artifacts on the streets that could cause them; records of the place and time of the outbursts assisted in NZAMIPS investigations from time to time, and that was it. The magic surge was very serious, if the magicians on duty recalled the statute and decided to play it by the book.
The driver brought the captain to the Quay Barco in less than ten minutes. Locomotive expected to see signs of panic and destruction, but the street was quiet and sparsely populated. Still, that didn’t mean anything in the case of a magic attack. A policeman, meeting NZAMIPS cars, waved his hand, inviting them to turn toward the docks.
The situation at the docks was peaceful and sort of ordinary. A police officer questioned a company of drunken fishermen, and a criminal police van was parked to the side, meaning there were victims. The cops pulled a striped ribbon around a large boat hangar and chased the curious away. Locomotive went inside, not stopping for talk.
Well, the hangar consisted of nothing ordinary. There was neither blood on the walls, nor a cadaveric stench, nor traces of fire, nor damage, except for an overturned barrel. And piles of dust were all around. Magician-criminologists were rummaging there, too, but of a lower rank, local from Redstone. One of them habitually saluted: subordinates respected Locomotive.
“Amulets of instrumental control recorded an outburst of magic of level eight, no less, at 2:32 pm. There appear to be human remains—ashes. I cannot say yet how many people died. I’d like to show you something interesting.”
Carefully avoiding forensic specialists, rustling with their brushes, and stacks of boxes, the magician-criminologist took the captain into the back room. A seasoned professional, Locomotive whistled in surprise: against the wall there was a rank of crossbows, cocked and ready for firing; three or four more in the process of assembly were laid out on a long table; two uncovered boxes labeled “Hardware” predatorily gleamed with familiar parts. Boards on the far wall were pierced with bolts: the assembled weapon was tested in action.
“Search from floor to ceiling,” the captain ordered. “Do you have enough people?”
“The office has sent all people who haven’t been taken by Mr. Satal,” the expert shrugged.
“Okay, I will get you some of the coordinator’s people!”
“One more thing, sir,” the expert stopped him. “The imprint of the aura at the crime scene is very unusual. I have not been able to identify it, but it’s nothing like I’ve ever met.”
Locomotive nodded and went out into the fresh air, the smell of smoke and ashes followed him closely. It seemed inconceivable that the otherworldly, even with a carrier, managed to get from the College of St. Johan to North C
reek unnoticed, but two cases with fire and strange aura in one day… The timing of both events was appropriate. The frightening word “quarantine” slowly appeared in the captain’s mind. Redstone was much bigger than Nintark; in order to put a cordon around it, one would need a lot more than four thousand people. Rumors would start panic and result in victims. Soldiers would have to shoot into a mob mad from fear.
On the waterfront a young officer reported to the senior coordinator; troopers jumped out of a truck with NZAMIPS logo. Locomotive quickly approached them; he wasn’t going to let the dark magician terrorize his subordinates.
“I know what you think,” Satal quickly said, “let’s step aside.”
The word “quarantine” was left unsaid.
“Please, wait!” the coordinator muttered quietly. “I know I cannot order you in this case. But the situation is not so obvious.”
“The creature walks around the city.”
“Listen, witnesses say the suspect had talked to them. Do you understand what that means? The supernatural cannot talk! The otherworldly are capable of thinking in their own way, but they cannot articulate words: it’s a known fact.”
“What do you suggest?” the captain interrupted him coldly.
“Give me a day! The quarantine will sow panic in the city; the artisans want exactly that. We would play right into their hands!”
“What will change in a day?”
“The carrier is likely the very same victim; there were no more people on the spot. We’ll find him before he reaches the point of breakage, I promise. The pump-sign retained the imprint of the original Source; we’ll find the name through the crystals and catch the carrier before the monster will completely suppress his will. Trust me!”
Trust the dark mage? Again?
“Probably, the last victims are somehow related to the sect,” Locomotive noticed, trying to gather his thoughts. “There is a large batch of illegal arms in the hangar.”
“We need to search the hangar!” the coordinator came to life.
Captain Baer frowned: did Satal doubt his professionalism?
“Twenty-four hours. You have exactly twenty-four hours. After that, I will inform the center that we have lost control of the situation.”
Chapter 24
The artisans could burn half of Redstone and conduct long-lasting battles with NZAMIPS, but my lecture on alchemy began at 9 a.m., and I was on time for it—albeit battered and not fully awake.
The dim fall sun filled the world with moderate contrasts of heat and cold; golden leaves in the University Park established a lyrical mood. What should be done to the dark to draw him to the lyrics? A silly question! A couple of insignificant things would do the job: fleeing through the city on an empty stomach for a whole day, being enchanted (so that all of my magic turned inside out) and almost killed twice—nothing special, in short.
Quarters met me at the door (was he waiting?) and immediately began to dump on me the accumulated news. Where had he managed to learn so much?! By the time I took a seat in the auditorium, I already knew how intense the last weekend happened to be in Redstone. The police banned the rally in support of Melons, and nothing terrible occurred. Someone set fire to the abandoned huts on the island at the northern end, and the mayor had lost around a million crowns worth of burned real estate. Though nobody would pay him so much money anyway—the place was thought to be cursed. There were persistent rumors that NZAMIPS had ruined the artisan’s nest (NZAMIPS, indeed!) and found such nasty things that battered cops refused even to whisper about them. Two mutilated bodies, found in the river, were certainly the work of the same gang, and now the townspeople wondered if there would be a third corpse. I nodded melancholically and pondered how many attempts the sect needed to make things right. And they were called “artisans”, those idiots?! If they always acted like that, no wonder that so many people were killed in Nintark.
“…and the mayor’s horse gave birth to a three-legged calf.”
“What?!”
“I thought you weren’t listening to me.”
Entering the classroom lecture stopped me from beating the tar out of Quarters. Yes, that day I was in no mood for humor!
The lecture went awfully. I couldn’t catch the meaning of the subject and had to scribble stupidly word for word. Even in the hospital I hadn’t felt like that—I was weak, but not stupid. My mind was like jelly: the professor’s speech was heard as if through cotton wool in the ears, and my eyelids needed matches to keep them open. If I found that those bunglers messed up my brain, I would devote my life to the extermination of their kind! You couldn’t do things like that with dark mages! In the end, I managed to pull myself together to focus on principles of building electric machinery, and the lethargy receded.
To get rid of Quarters was more difficult. With unusual tediousness, Ron followed me right up to the university canteen; after yesterday’s fasting I was tormented by a brutal hunger.
“Why do you stick around with me?”
My patience was running out. I wanted hundreds of unnatural things, but learning wasn’t one of them. I was dying from the obligation to spend two more hours studying the theory of tension, but I couldn’t leave. If I missed something important, I would be angered with myself. Though desire to visit a pub never left me for a second. I was cursed, probably!
“Tom, you’re not sick, are you?”
“No, it’s just a hangover.”
“But the party took place two days ago!” Quarters was taken aback.
“I ate something bad. I had food poisoning—got it? Vomited all day yesterday.”
“Sorry… you… left so unexpectedly then… Usually you stay until morning.”
I suddenly realized that Quarters must have been plagued by anxiety. Sweet of him, but I didn’t have the time.
“You are strange! You yourself told me to stop drinking. What else was I supposed to do there until morning?”
Quarters smiled (as if getting food poisoning was funny) and soon left me for some business of his own. Okay, I shook off one, but there were still two more left: the artisans and NZAMIPS. Whom did I fear most?
No one!
I began violently cutting a steak, imagining Laurent in its place. I couldn’t care less about all the discontented (even more so if they were corpses), but the number of problems they awarded me defied comprehension.
First, how soon would NZAMIPS find out about those three? Unlikely that the owner of the stables would mourn the runaway carriage driver; that is, he would simply cross him out of the payroll, and that would be it. The two beefs were in no way connected with me at all. How much would NZAMIPS find out if they got to the hangar? True, the fishermen had gotten a glimpse of me, and the boss of the carriage drivers had my address… Who had pulled my tongue yesterday? I wondered whether the police would be able to connect the island, the hangar, and the dead artisans, but this was out of my hands, and I decided not to worry about repercussions.
Second, I needed to figure out whether I was under the influence of the shackles of deliverance. It was simple: if the shackles were imposed, I wouldn’t be able to use the Source, and all that happened yesterday would be the consequence of the homebrew ritual. NZAMIPS could not hold me responsible, even if it discovered my involvement. But if I had something on me, and it wasn’t the shackles, well, that would be the “third” problem.
During the break between classes, I went to Rakshat and asked him to let me in the basement where they conducted the ritual of Empowerment, saying that I wanted to test myself again before resuming the studies. He didn’t mind and gave me a frame and a whirligig to check my concentration. After five minutes of testing, I discovered a funny thing: the Source manifested itself, but only at times. It was not quite the Source, and it wasn’t mine. Out of five attempts, it resonated twice, at best. The power sluggishly fluctuated somewhere around zero, but as soon as I focused on a simple spell, it burst with such strength that I barely managed to plug the channel. To continue
casting spells would be folly.
That test supported the only conclusion: those half-baked macaques did mess me up. Seriously. They had not “killed” the magic, just broken it, the meager charlatans. What could I do with the Source now? Maimed magic is much worse than none at all. Disappointed, I habitually kicked the Source and, surprisingly, received a kick back, wrapped in a sort of anger—someone really expected me to be grateful and gave a hint that it had become bored. What the hell…?
The familiar feeling of the presence of another being set my hair on end. Holy priests, was Rustle sitting inside of me instead of the Source? Was that possible at all?
Hello, skeleton with brown foam…
I wanted to hang myself, fearing that forty days of quarantine would start anew.
Quietly, quietly, no panic! I read a book about Rustle, did I? To get rid of it was quite simple—I only needed to get to the garage… I rushed out of the basement bunker as if pursued by a hundred ghouls, ignoring Rakshat’s surprised exclamations and the bewilderment of the oncoming students.
I wanted to run non-stop and not think why and where I was going! Otherwise, this time more than just vision would fail me. I needed to get to the junkyard where my motorcycle was.
It was like a bet not to “think about the white monkey”; an ordinary man would have lost it, but not a dark magician. Two thoughts dominated my conscience: the need to get to the garage, and absolute, all-consuming rage.
How had the monster dared to play its trick on me, me?! Okay, no one had managed to exterminate Rustle in the last one thousand years, but I was ready to fix that. Even without the Source. Indeed, I didn’t need magic to kill the ghouls before! The complexity of the mission wouldn’t scare the dark off. I would bring down on it the entire power of technomagic! I would find what the technomagic was about and use its might on the monster. Rustle seemed to become impressed.
My Path to Magic mptm-1 Page 24
