by Daniel Ruth
“A miracle,” I agreed shortly, fastening my shirt. I did not want to get stuck on this planet with the authorities closing in. Who knows how long it would take to sneak on board a ship heading to earth. Considering the embargo, I might need to jump out the airlock in order to get to earth. Freefalling through the atmosphere was definitely not the way to travel.
“You got here using this stone engraved with the anchor.” She stated thoughtfully. I was surprised at her insight. From the stories, simply being a god did not mean you were smart. It made sense that she recognized it since she had decided to use the stone as the foundation of her first staff.
“It’s from a larger anchor stone. From a certain perspective, there is only one stone. If I am next to one, isn’t it the same as being next to the other?”
“I am familiar with the concept,” she said looking at the stone on the ground to somewhere in the sky. I think the earth was in that direction but I wasn’t sure. She slithered over to the staff affixed to my anchor stone. Reaching over she struck it. Immediately it began to vibrate, creating a subharmonic sensation that reverberated through my entire body. Slowly the staff began to glow brighter and brighter.
In a minute the glow became so bright I had to turn away. Despite this, I still perceived a wave of energy pierce upward into the sky. A moment later the light dimmed enough to look at the staff again.
“Oh, good grief. You re-routed a ley line!” I exclaimed in exasperation. Sure enough, from the anchor stone sprang a modest size ley line. Instead of traveling along the surface of the planet it towered straight above, heading off into space until the unaided eye couldn’t see it anymore. “You connected the anchor stone to the ley line at the base anchor stone in Arc.”
“As you said, they are conceptually one,” she smugly stated, panting slightly. She looked exhausted and physically smaller, almost human-sized.
“Once that line connects, the energy is going to spread out from here,” I said faintly. This was bad. “There’s a really good chance that it will start a chain reaction to flood the stagnant ley lines of this world. There are no circles limiting the dimensional portals on this planet. I think you just killed the planet.”
“Nonsense, it’s just a minor ley line shift. It doesn’t have enough energy to sustain itself,” she denied uncertainly.
“Normally it wouldn’t but you just connected to one of the most powerful nodes on the planet and because you used the anchor stone, that node is effectively right here. I am almost positive you triggered the apocalypse.”
“I did not,” she retorted weakly. An uncomfortable silence fell as I looked upward. We wouldn’t know for a few hours. Perhaps I was being too pessimistic.
Off in the distance, I saw an armed floater heading our way. I wasn’t surprised. Thanks to Miss subtlety, they did not have to track down a fusion reactor and connect it to any faint atmospheric disturbances. There was a huge tower of energy pointing directly to us. The good news was that standing on this faux ley line I felt my power and durability rising exponentially. The bad news was that the shit was going to hit the fan if this fake ley line became real.
I hurriedly went around and placed each of the ten staves in my pouch. I turned to Lamia. “I hope you’re right. But I think this planet just got inducted into the hell on earth club. Just out of curiosity, do the pantheons mind if one of their god’s end a civilization?”
The floater was almost upon us. Shaking my head, I reached out with my senses and synchronized with the base anchor stone in the Arc city park. With the familiar wrenching, hooking sensation I was gone. My last thought before I was engulfed in pain was that considering the stories surrounding the Greek pantheon, Lamia would probably get a prize.
Chapter 34
While agonizing, it was merely the normal hook and puree sensation. My skin and clothes remained intact. I lay there, resting against my little monument of rock and stared into the sky. The light saturation made it a bit hard to perceive from this angle but I was pretty sure a bridge of light went straight into the sky, hundreds of feet wide and extending all the way to Mars.
I wasn’t really sure if the cascade effect would happen at all. However, if it did then Mars would experience the same shift in the entire planet's energy level. Their ley lines would flood, then overflow and pool into the nodes. Very similar to the one I lay on top of. Except, of course, it would not be stable. The portals would come and go and since there would be no barriers crafted by a not so well intentioned demon lord. These would open on horrors throughout the dimensions. It would be like my original home. I had definitely mixed feeling about it.
After a half hour, I had recovered enough to stand without my legs wobbling. I raised my wrist to call a floater from my terminal, only to stare blankly at my bare wrist. Cursing Conrad and Durmont under my breath, I shakily stomped out of the park. It took me a while to find a public terminal. It was broken, which I really should have expected. Finally, I just stalked over to a traffic buoy.
“Call me a floater. I need a ride home.”
“I must inform you that there will be a fine for misuse of public property as well as the fee for an independent pickup. Do you still wish to proceed.?”
“Bill me.”
“Your identity has been logged as Professor Derek. Ten thousand credits have been deducted from your public account.”
I raised my eyebrow a bit at that but didn’t complain. I didn’t feel like wasting time walking through half the city to get home. Despite the expense of the floater, it still took another half hour to pick me up. I suppose with the scarcity they were in demand, despite the cost.
I lucked out when I arrived. There was a dump truck in front of my house. This meant I would not have to traipse all over town to find Vivian or wonder if she would answer my call. I was a bit less pleased to find Vivian and Mei still arguing in the yard, as the dumped corpses vaporized into the warded field.
“You’re still a bitch. If Derek hadn’t vouched for you I would drag you into this ward and we’d see how bitchy you would be.”
“If only you had any class, we wouldn’t be having this same argument every night.”
“Hello, ladies!” I greeted with forced cheerfulness. Both of them turned to me but neither smiled in greeting.
“How much longer are we going to be the dumping ground for unwanted dead? Isn’t there a home they can go to?”
“Tonight’s the last night,” I said with a slightly less artificial smile. Vivian immediately perked up.
“You mean...”
“Yes, you are now the high priestess of the goddess Lamia,” I said as I reached into my pouch and pulled out one of the staves. At six feet long each, they were a bit unwieldy. The women looked at me nonplussed as the pole exited the tiny pouch.
“I need to get me one of those,” Mei said, recovering her composure first.
“If I run into a shifter god you get first dibs on the next high priest job.”
“I meant the pouch,” the shifter snarked back.
“What do you mean, ‘High Priestess’? I just wanted a cure!” Vivian seemed slightly put off by the turn of events.
“Well, a funny thing happened. In order to return sanity to all the rabid little blood drinkers, the goddess requires a high priestess.”
“That’s utter nonsense. There hasn’t been an organized religion for vampires in four thousand years.”
“Looks like it’s time to get back to your roots.”
“I’m a Christian!”
“Really?” I looked at her in disbelief. “I mean, no problem, you can believe in that too. I’m sure Lamia won’t mind.”
“I’m on the Council, why can’t someone else be high priest?”
“I don’t see any other vampires out here saving their own people and the lives of the humans.” Since I was the one giving out the staves, I was not going to give it to some old undead mummy cowering in his coffin somewhere while the world burned.
“I don’t know the firs
t thing about Lamia!” she shouted, losing her composure completely.
“She is a minor Greek goddess that had her kids turned into vampires and then went on a quest to give them free will.” I paused in thought for a moment, “And she’s an idiot. She’ll tell you anything else she wants you to know.”
She stared at me in defeat and slowly took the staff from my hands. It glowed with a black light as she touched it and the night took on an unnatural chill. Off to the side, Mei stared at us with her mouth open in disbelief.
“How does this thing work?”
“After you kill a feral vampire hold it up to them as they reform. They should regain their senses. If they are still murderous assholes, well it’s just them. The spells and other priest stuff you’ll have to figure out on your own. Try meditating. In my experience, it makes everything better.”
“Spells? What do you mean spells?”
“Hmm, as a priest of a god. An active god I mean; you should have some abilities. Generally, you can channel your god’s powers to cast anything they can cast. I think you can repel undead, which is a bit ironic, remove curses and raise the dead.”
“Raise the dead?”
“Well, assuming you don’t want to turn them. I am just tossing it out there.” Those were the standard powers that the priests in the West Gildorn kingdom had. Before the demon lord locked out their bosses. I didn’t see any reason why Lamia would be different.
“What kind of spells? Project bitchy aura?” Mei asked from the side. Apparently, she was over her loss of words.
“Not a clue. Lamia is a pretty small goddess. I don’t think it will be anything big unless she gets a lot of followers. Then she might be able to do greater things.”
“I’m not going to have to preach anything, will I? I don’t know a thing about her.”
“You shouldn’t need to. Any vampire made by a sane vampire will be counted as hers. Just by existing and not being feral.”
“Fine. I can do this,” the vampire said firmly, getting herself under control. “Take down your wards. I will test this out now.”
“Now?” I asked a bit nervously. Didn’t Vivian say there were thousands of vampires trapped as mist inside the wards? “Is that a good idea? Let’s start small.”
“Once your enchantment is down they will slowly take form. Only a few of the most powerful will form at first. It should give us ample warning if this process fails.”
“Right. Mei, go inside with me. Vivian... um, scream really loud if a horde of rabid vampires suddenly attacks you.” She glared at my back as I went inside.
Going down to my laboratory in the basement, I took one of the bowls with the magic suppression ward and put it over the part of the circle of protection that described ‘undead’. I couldn’t see what was happening but I could vaguely hear the wind pick up. A few minutes later I heard weeping and anguished crying. It didn’t sound like Vivian and feral vampires had the emotional depth of a shark.
Tentatively chalking this up as a win, I leaped up the stairway, ran through the hallway and looked out the door. Sure enough, the mist was stirring and roiling as if boiling from a pot. Every few seconds a naked human form would coalesce from this fog and drop to the ground. Most of them were shell-shocked, staring blindly into space in confusion. Many others just clutched themselves and wept. I could only assume they were coming to terms with some very unpleasant memories.
Still, it had worked. With a core of slightly traumatized vampires, they should be able to sweep up the still feral ones and bring them over to Lamia’s dominion. Vivian was issuing directions to the few that were aware enough to listen.
“Not to be insensitive but you’re going to need either busses or a lot of trucks to get everyone back to Tower Plaza. They are certainly not all going to fit on my lawn.” Indeed, the free space of my lawn was rapidly diminishing, being covered by naked bodies. It was starting to look like an ancient Roman party... well minus anything sexual.
“No need,” Vivian assured me. She turned to one of her henchmen. “Frank, get these people in the street. Have them to change into their mist form and head back to headquarters.”
“That will take a while, we aren’t too fast in that form.”
“The night is young. For the next few hours, we should be able to do this. Meanwhile, go into the Professor’s home and use his terminal to get some of our trucks and buses here. The more traumatized ones will need them and the ones that reform in a few hours won’t have time to get home under their own power.”
I glared at her mildly for volunteering my terminal. Still, if it would get the slowly forming mob of people out of my yard so it sounded like a good plan. As I led Frank into the house I saw a package lying in the living room. While the minion made his calls, I opened it and was pleasantly surprised to find that it held a new CRX9020 military grade wrist terminal. I smiled, I had gotten used to having one of these.
I left Mei to oversee the undead exodus. She seemed content to glare and shoo them out as they formed. Meanwhile, I went down to my lab to etch the now standard ward of negation on the back of the terminal. It simply wouldn’t do to have the device explode as soon as I got it.
While I puttered in the laboratory, the mist slowly emptied out. By early morning a good quarter of the people had been retrieved. Vivian watched the first rays of the sun touch down in the yard and sighed.
“It’s going to take a few days of this to get everyone cleared out. Then we’re going to have to arrange hunting parties to gather the rogues for conversion. I’ll see you tomorrow night, Professor. We owe you a great deal.”
“Your welcome.” It was nice to get an actual thank you.
She took out a white parasol the size of a golf umbrella and stepped out into the morning sun. A staff in one hand and an oversized parasol in the other she definitely looked out of place. After she walked a few feet she paused, an odd look on her face. Hesitantly, she dipped the parasol until the sun touched a portion of her skin. Still not feeling a reaction, she slowly lowered the covering to the ground and looked around her in amazement.
“I suppose this is one of the perks a high priestess gets,” I commented to her as she stretched out her hand in the light. “I suggest you don’t let go of the staff. Do you still regret becoming a priestess?”
“I could get used to this,” she said as she turned and walked towards the last truck.
A few moments later she was muttering imprecations as she struggled to get the six-foot stave into the vehicle without poking a hole in the roof.
I left my house in Mei’s capable hands and synchronized with the anchor fragment in the dormitory apartment. When I regained my senses, I noted the rooms were empty but that wasn’t completely unexpected. I dragged myself over to the couch and once the acute discomfort faded, dropped off to sleep.
I was woken by a knocking on the door. With a disgruntled glare, I rolled over and tried to get to sleep again. The knocking continued. Every twenty seconds, as if timed, the door would resound with a thudding impact.
Finally, I growled and staggered off the couch and over to the door. Opening the door, I saw the same teenager that had been dropping off food and clean clothes. His jaw was slack and his eyes vacant.
“Leave the damn food by the door next time!”
“The master requires your presence,” he said dully. I looked at him with more of my attention. He looked more robotic than usual. Beth was definitely overdoing it with her hypnotic commands. Then I looked at his upraised hand, poised to knock on the door once more. His knuckles were bruised and bloody. Reaching out with a hand I gently tilted his unresisting head. Two puncture wounds adorned his throat.
Vampires had a very strong hypnotic power over humans and most other normal mortals. Even though they lacked the more advanced psionic talents, this control over their minions was powerful enough to put them into a category of an adequate psychic. It was obvious that this boy was under such an influence. Beth was talented but our hypnotism was more i
n line with powerful suggestions. She also did not bite. That I knew of.
“Who is your master?”
“Sir Hendricks requires your presence.” I looked at him in confusion.
“Who?”
“The master.”
“It’s not Sebastian?”
“It’s the master,” he repeated dully.
Okay, apparently vampiric control drops your IQ by a hundred points. Good to know. “Why would I want to see your master?”
“The master knew you would ask. Take this.” The teen reached into his robes and pulled out a small band. More specifically a CRX9020 terminal.
“Your master has Beth.”
“The masters are together. They wait for you.” Okay, that was creepy.
“Where is the master? I suddenly feel the need to meet with him.” The boy silently reached into his sleeves again and pulled out a map. I unfolded it and looked at it.
“He has an ‘x’? Isn’t that a bit stereotypical?”
The ‘master’ had arranged to provide me a map of the city. It was a little odd because it was not a map of the surface; it was a city planning map of the sewers. This was a little tricky because it wasn’t obvious exactly where the entrances were.
“I don’t suppose you can take me there?” He gave me an uncomprehending stare. “Didn’t think so.”
I left him waiting at the door. First I popped inside. Looking at the flasks on the counter I saw one was empty and the second one was ready for harvesting. I gingerly reached in with a set of tongs and rinsed the solution off. It was too late to charge the storage gem but it might come in handy.
I passed the poor student at the door again, as I headed downstairs. It was only after I noticed all the students that I passed were staring at me that I realized that I was still in my adult form, wearing my simulated tweed suit. Ignoring the stares, for the most part, I simply changed my clothes to a noble’s pants and shirt. My own face would do for the moment.
