Of Man and Monster

by Saje Williams

  "I am? That's news to me.” He gave them all a sardonic grin. “I think only one of us here has any training in this sort of thing. Amanda?"

  She lifted an eyebrow, surprised. “You're deferring to me?"

  "Seems like the thing to do,” he answered honestly, with a glance over at Shine, who'd remained silent through all of this.

  Amanda still couldn't get over the fact that Cory had figured out a way to break her ties to her creator. By accident, perhaps, but still significant. Especially considering that no one even knew that sort of bond was possible until this creature came up with it.

  Shine nodded. “I think you have more background in this kind of shit,” she said simply. “You want the job—I'll do what you say."

  "Great.” She reached into her pocket and threw something to Ben. He caught it by the chain and stared down at the Egyptian ankh—symbol of eternal life—twirling gently as it dangled from his fingers.

  "What's this?"

  "It's an ankh, dummy.” Jason said with a smirk.

  "I know that,” Ben replied placidly. “Maybe I should've asked ‘why.’ If crosses don't do any good against vampires in general, what good is this going to do?"

  Amanda simply smiled. “A cross can only support two arms. An ankh supports three. Which means I can bind three threads into it rather than two. If I did the same thing to a cross, the vampires in the room would be most uncomfortable right now."

  At their questioning looks she laughed aloud. “It's spell-bound. It can sense the proximity of a vampire, sense whether he or she's a threat, and cast a spell of daylight.” She sighed. It really is like explaining color to the blind. “If I did it to a cross, it could do any two of the above, but not the third. Since the first and third functions are the most important, the spell's ability to detect the intention of the vampire would be sacrificed."

  They really couldn't do anything but look confused. She wanted to groan but knew it would just make it more aggravating. “Okay. Let me explain what I can. It's unlikely any of this will mean anything to you personally, since I'm told that the nosferatu virus makes it impossible to contract the arcane virus designed to re-write our DNA to allow us to see and interact with mana. If you can't work magic now, you never will.

  "If you have the genes to work magic, the world is full of threads of mana wiggling this way and that over and through everything. Acting upon itself, other threads, and on the universe at large. Mana is energy—some say it's the life energy given off by everything in the world, others say it's the by-product of intelligence. I, personally, believe it's a bit of both.

  "A mage manipulates this stuff. If I want to create a spell, I lock myself away from the world inside a ‘circle’ which eliminates outside influences. Then I sit down and take the now-inert threads and put them to work. It involves a great deal of concentration and, above all, intent. I take these threads and fashion them into spells by tying them together with other threads and forming a pattern with a particular set of intentions built into it.

  "Manipulating mana isn't easy. Tying these threads into spell sigils is a bit like playing cat's cradle with det cord. If you lose focus for one second, the thread can snap out and bring the specific intent you had planned for it into existence right then. Sometimes that's not a big deal. Other times—let's just say I've seen people killed, or worse, when they lost focus at the wrong time."

  "What's worse than being killed?” Jason asked curiously.

  "Wishing you'd been killed.” She didn't elaborate. “With a solid object to bind the threads too—avoiding the need to actually create a sigil—it's a hell of a lot safer. That ankh has three of what we call ‘arms.’ Three places to bind the threads. The more arms a sigil—or spell-bound object—has, the more functions you can weave into it.” She looked directly at Ben. “That first day, when I bound you up the way I did, I didn't need to use a sigil. I grabbed a single thread and threw it at you, with the intent to tie you up. That's down and dirty magic. The simple stuff. I could have done more, maybe, by hurriedly tying a second thread to it, but that's tricky as hell. That's why we make sigils in a safe place and ‘hang’ them around us to be used later."

  Magic 101. “Threads are extremely flexible. They can be stretched to nearly any length at all, from no longer than a pubic hair to possibly as much as a mile. That's how I could tie you up with only one."

  Cory leaned forward on the couch, catching her eye. “I want to do what you can do. We'll have to figure out something..."

  "Weren't you listening? As a vampire you're immune to the arcane ‘virus'. Even if I wanted to screw you, I couldn't give it to you.” At his puzzled look, she explained. “Most of the metaviruses were, originally, set up as STDs. Sex seemed the safest way to spread them.” She shrugged. “The guy who put them together is eccentric, to say the least."

  "Huh?” Cory ran his fingers through his copious mane of black hair. “Could there be another way? With magic itself, maybe?"

  She almost said “no", but thought about it a moment longer. “Maybe. What did you have in mind?"

  "It sounds like your only real limitation is your imagination, magically speaking, I mean. If you can imagine it, and come up with a way to do it, then what's stopping you?"

  "How much mental energy it takes, for one,” she answered. “Mana isn't exactly cooperative about it. When you join strands together to make a spell, the more you try to use, the more they fight you. My limit at this point is three. The most I've heard of is five."

  Cory held up a hand, palm outward. “Hold on a sec. So, why couldn't you just use a spell—hell, a single strand—to modify my DNA?"

  "Not that simple,” she replied. “Mana responds to intent, yes, but it also requires imagination—or at least an understanding of what you're trying to do. I'm no geneticist. I don't know what to change, or how to change it."

  "So you use magic,” he said casually, with a glance at the others.

  "Sounds simple when you put it that way. It's not that easy, though."

  "Why not? Just create a spell to scan your own DNA, then one to scan a normal human's. Then do mine and do a cross-comparison."

  She wanted to laugh. “And so what would I do with that information? I wouldn't even be certain what I was looking at, and I can't just cast a spell to gather that, make a comparison, then modify your DNA to match mine wherever necessary. That would take a four-strand sigil, at the least. I can only do three."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Am I sure?” Now that he mentioned it, she wasn't sure. It wasn't as though she got a big green light from on high to let her know she could suddenly work more threads than she could. As Thoth himself had put it—"only the mage can know when it's time to progress to the next level."

  Is it time? Even if it was, and she could actually pull it off without doing irreparable harm to Cory in the process, she had to question the wisdom of doing it in the first place. He was already a powerful vampire—did she really want to give him magic as well?

  Then she thought about what was out there waiting for them. “Fine. I'll need an ordinary mortal."

  "Got one in mind,” Cory admitted. “My cousin Mir. She's been staying at her friend's house, but it's getting to the point I'm not sure anywhere is really safe. Except here, of course."

  "Okay. How far away is she?"

  He frowned as he calculated the distance. “About two miles, I guess. Not far."

  "Good. I don't want to waste any more time than necessary, so I'm going to show you all a neat little trick I picked up somewhere."

  She dialed her magesight and plucked a strand from the air. About the size of an adult earthwork, it wriggled in her grasp. She snatched another one and stuck two ends together. A couple seconds later she had a single thread. For the moment, anyway.

  She was almost surprised by how easy it was. The last time she attempted this one she'd accidentally sent one of her classmates flying through the ether to land sprawling in the midst of a bunch of afternoon commuters
waiting at the transit center in downtown Tacoma. Roughly a mile from the Academy grounds. He'd just been lucky he hadn't been tossed out into Commencement Bay, or straight into rush hour traffic on I-5.

  "Which direction?” she asked him.

  He turned slowly, then pointed. “That-a-way."

  She snapped the strands outward, an effort of will causing them to stretch all the way from here to their utmost limit. Or, she amended, what she thought was their utmost limit. Another silent command caused their end to telescope open like an iris. She walked over, grabbed Cory's arm, and pulled him into the opening.

  Traversing the distance between the two ends was more or less instantaneous. They stepped out onto a sidewalk along a well-lit street lined with older one and two-story homes nestled among a medley of cultivated hardwoods. As Cory looked around with an expression close to shock, she folded her arms and watched him expectantly. “Well ... I've done my part. Now it's your turn."

  He said nothing, instead nodding toward a well-maintained white Victorian with gray trim.

  She snatched a passing thread and cast one end into the house, a magical bug, so to speak. In a couple seconds she caught the sound of murmured conversation and the low tones of a television or radio in the background. She breathed a sigh of relief. She'd feared the girl had been snatched away as well, despite being in an ostensibly safer location.

  She increased the pick-up and actual words began to filter through. The voices were those of two young women, scarcely younger than herself, and heavy with fear.

  "We can't hide in here forever,” said one.

  "I know that!” the other one snapped. “Sorry. I just wish I could get a hold of Aunt Rachel—but she isn't answering her phone."

  "You don't think—"

  "—No! I don't think she's vanished, too. She's a cop. A detective. She can take care of herself."

  She turned to Cory. “Your cousin and her friend are both inside,” she told him.

  He cocked his head and gave her a wry grin. “I know. I'm a vampire, remember? I can hear their hearts beating inside their chests from out here. I can damn sure hear them whispering."

  "Oh. Yeah. Any sign of the parents?"

  He listened for a long moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. So, are you leading this rescue, or am I?"

  "Be my guest,” she answered with a smile of her own. I wish he hadn't heard that comment about his mother. It couldn't have been easy to deal with.

  "Any bets the door's locked?” He asked.

  "No bets. What—were you planning on sneaking in on them? I'm sure they'd love that."

  "Not really,” he replied thoughtfully. “Just about anything we do is likely to panic them. Except ... maybe ... call them on the phone. Can I see your cell for a minute?"

  She dug it out and handed it over. He dialed a number from memory and stood there waiting, the phone pressed against his ear.

  The phone rang inside. An argument ensued about whether or not to answer the phone, then, once that was decided, about who, exactly, would be the one to pick it up. Amanda was slightly surprised by the fact that they both wanted to answer it. Braver than I would've thought they'd be, she decided.

  "Hello?"

  "Julia—it's Cory. Come down and open the goddam door. I'm here with Jason's sister. We're going to—"

  "Cory! Mira—it's Cory! He's okay!"

  Hoo-boy. Amanda hadn't taken that into consideration and, by the look on his face, neither had Cory. The last either girl had heard, he'd been dragged off never to be seen again. At least in their feverish imagination. Which, by this time, had been given plenty of fuel. There was no doubt in her mind that the two girls had been trapped inside a nightmare as well as trapped inside that house.

  Two sets of feet pounded down the staircase within, sounding like a heard of stampeding bison through her magical listening device. She winced and cut the strands free. They separated and floated off to do whatever mana threads did.

  Two deadbolts snapped back and a pair of eyes stared through the narrow crack allowed by the chain stretched between the door and the door-jam.

  Cory rolled his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Like that little thing would stop anyone."

  "Shut up, Cory,” the girl said peevishly. The door closed for a second, then swung wide. “Get in here before they see you."

  "Who?” Amanda asked, shouldering her way through first. She switched to magesight and scoped the place out—seeing nothing out of the ordinary. She stood in the foyer behind the girls as Cory slipped inside.

  "Them. Anyone. How am I supposed to know who? People are disappearing left and right, and even those who are still around are freakin’ creepy. Like they're not really home, y'know? Just going through the motions?"

  Amanda nodded.

  "Mir, Julia, this is Jason's sister, Amanda. She's a federal agent. She's here to help."

  "Fat lot of good she's done so far,” one opined cattily. Looking between the two girls Amanda might've suspected they were sisters. They both had the generic pretty blonde girl thing going on. The most remarkable thing about both of them was the fact that neither of them were actually remarkable at all. Small town would-be vixens, she thought, then chided herself for being uncharitable. So what if the two girls were playing teen pop-diva wannabes? What else did they have going for them?

  She winced inwardly. From uncharitable to downright catty. What had gotten into her? Was it that these girls—not all that much younger than her—reminded her of the kind of girls she could never relate to when she was in the public school system? The popular crowd, with few thoughts in their heads beyond the next trip to the mall, the next pair of shoes they'd buy, and the next boy they'd be fighting over?

  Probably. Those girls had never understood that all the money she had meant next to nothing to her. She'd dressed in Northwest chic—the classic grunge uniform of jeans, tee, and a flannel over-shirt, with a pair of black high-tops rather than boots to round it out. She cared about her classes, her music, and motorcycles, in that order.

  She had nothing in common with these creatures. Never had. If anything, it was more apparent now that it had been back then. She was an alien on her homeworld as a high-school student. Now what was she?

  A mage. A federal agent.

  What were those girls who used to give her a hard time back then? She bit back on a self-satisfied smirk. Probably married to some womanizing jerks, bemoaning their boring lives.

  She could always hope.

  The resemblance these girls had to those was purely superficial. Bad choice of words, she thought caustically. Superficiality was their specialty.

  She snarled at herself and made herself look directly at the two teens. “We can't hang around here all night,” she told them. She shot a glance at Cory, who lifted his brows questioningly. “You guys all right with having them around?"

  He knew what she was asking. He considered it, then nodded. “I think I can speak for everyone in this ... we took care of everything last night. At least until tomorrow."

  The girls exchanged puzzled glances. Neither Amanda nor Cory saw fit to elaborate for their benefit. “You ready?” she asked him.

  He nodded. She switched to magesight, grabbed up a couple of mana-strands, and repeated the process she'd performed to get them here in the first place.

  As they all stepped through the doorway they were translated instantly to her mother's front yard. Julia let out a shriek and Mira—short for something else?—simply fainted dead away. Cory caught her before she hit the ground. It took a little moving, a little blurred motion, and sent Julia almost into hysterics when her brain caught up to what her eyes had just witnessed.

  I think I prefer the whole fainting thing, Amanda decided. It's just a hell of a lot quieter. She activated her magesight, snagged a thread passing by, and tossed it at the screeching teen. She crumpled like a wilting lily. Cory caught her too, then fired off a disgusted look at her. “Was that really necessary?"

 
"Do you really want her standing here screaming until someone—or something—comes along to find out why she's screaming?"

  He didn't argue. He simply pulled each girl under each arm and walked to the house. Knowing she'd simply be showing off, she snatched another strand and opened the door as he approached. He marched through without a backward glance.

  Fourteen

  Poor Miranda looked like she wanted to climb out the window. She'd awakened a few minutes after being brought inside, her eyes rolling, gasping like a fish caught on land. Cory set her gently in the pale green recliner opposite the couch.

  Amanda's gut twisted looking at her. She should have expected this reaction. I've been hanging with the freaks far too long.

  She should have at least warned them. Impulsive, Amanda. As usual.

  Nobody looked particularly happy with her—least of all her mother. Then again, Gina always had been a bit of a bleeding heart in that respect. Probably why she'd been a vegan for as long as Amanda could remember. Gina couldn't stand the thought of anyone or anything suffering.

  Hard to reconcile that with her being one of the blood-sucking undead. Just goes to show...

  "Mir!” Cory spoke loudly and tried to catch her eye. She finally managed to focus and draw her gaze down to meet his.

  "What?"

  "You okay? You had me pretty scared there for a minute."

  She turned her head and scanned the room. “What ... what happened?"

  "You don't remember?"

  "I remember talking to you at Julia's, then walking out the front door ... and ... and...” She burst into tears.

  "Well,” Jason snorted, “that went better than I expected."

  "Shut up,” Cory said conversationally. “Mir. It's no big deal. Everything's okay. You haven't gone crazy or anything. The world has, but that's not your fault."

  Across the room, Ben snickered at that. “Boy, am I glad I'm not running this show. It's like a supernatural comedy of errors."

  That earned him a glare from both Cory and Amanda. He just laughed harder.

  "Stoned again,” Cory remarked to her. She mouthed an “ahh” and nodded in response.