Homecoming A Montague & Strong Detective Novel

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  LD headed out of the casting room. I crouched down and rubbed Peaches behind the ears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  “How is this ‘bond-exploration’ supposed to help?”

  LD didn’t answer as he led us down several dimly lit corridors. Most of them had shelving of some kind holding all sorts of items. At the end of one of these corridors, we came to another thick steel door.

  This one was covered in black runes and gave off a ‘run away now while you can’ vibe. LD gestured, and the door swung open silently. It was easily four feet in thickness, making me wonder what this room was used for that required that kind of security.

  “Does Fordey get vault doors on special?”

  LD smiled, stepped in, and motioned for me to follow him. “We sometimes deal with unstable artifacts. Many of them are volatile and potentially fatal. This room keeps those effects contained in case of an accident. Oh, before I forget…”

  He gestured and materialized a blue crystal. It floated in the palm of his hand.

  “Isn’t that the—?”

  “The reason Tristan almost died? Yes. But we can’t use it in here if we’re going to activate your bond. It would interfere with the room. Give me a second.”

  As he gestured I observed the scorch marks and cracks in the walls. The far wall held a few craters in an odd sequence, and the ceiling was covered in jagged valleys. On the wall closest to me, I saw what appeared to be blast residue, and suddenly I felt less secure as the door closed behind us.

  “Have you had many accidents?” I asked after the crystal disappeared. “It looks like a few have happened in here.”

  I rubbed a finger in the residue. I’d been around Monty long enough to recognize magical redecoration when I saw it. The room looked like it had hosted a mage battle royale.

  “A few,” he said with a chuckle. “But nothing too serious.”

  The room was about half the size of a typical high-school gymnasium. The wooden floors were surprisingly intact given the state of the rest of the room. Bright sunlight cascaded in from the large, thick, barred windows high up on one of the walls. The smell of old wood and lemon wax filled my lungs, transporting me back to my teens for a moment.

  Power emanated from the room. It didn’t try and crush my brain into jelly like the Black Heart room. This power was subtle and enveloped me. I turned, trying to find the source, but couldn’t pinpoint it. The entire room was giving off waves of energy.

  I noticed the subtle runes covering the walls and floors. Unlike a gym, there were no bleachers or basketball hoops. It was a large open space with only one entrance. I wondered how large Fordey Boutique really was. LD stepped to the center of the floor.

  “In order to place a limiter on…Peaches, is it?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Peaches.” I looked around at the large empty room. “What exactly is this place? I’ve never felt a room with this much latent energy.”

  “I’ll get to that in a second.” LD held up a hand. “As I was saying, in order to place a limiter on Peaches, we need to evaluate the extent of your bond. How strong is it? How much control do you have over him? How well do you work together?”

  “All this for a collar?”

  He pointed at Peaches. “Is that a regular dog?”

  “No.” I looked down at Peaches, who nudged my leg and nearly dislocated my hip. “Far from it.”

  “Then all this for a limiter or collar, if that makes it easier for you to wrap your head around it, which will prevent your dog from growing to the size of a small bus and laying waste to an entire city, yes. Now, stand there and don’t move until I tell you to. How do you fight?”

  I opened my jacket to show him Grim Whisper and Ebonsoul. “Bullets and blade.”

  “Any magic?”

  I thought back to the anemic Incantation of Light orb I created the last time I’d tried to use the spell.

  “None worth mentioning.”

  “What about that mark?” He pointed at the endless knot on my hand. “What does that do?”

  I had a feeling he already knew. “Stops time for ten seconds, occasionally gets the attention of Karma.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “Time stasis…nice. Gets the attention of who?”

  “Karma—as in the embodiment of causality.”

  He looked at me in disbelief for a few seconds and cocked his head to one side. “An immortal who can stop time, is bonded to a hellhound, and can summon Karma?”

  “No, not summon. She doesn’t like that term and she doesn’t appear every time I use the mark.”

  “She? Really. I’ve never seen her, but last I heard, she could be a real—”

  “Trust me. She is.”

  “Anything else? Do you transform into a dragon?”

  “Nothing else,” I answered with a slight edge. My last memory of dragons was unpleasant. It also reminded me of George Rott’s call.

  He stepped back about twenty feet and began to gesture. “I like to call this place the Danger Room. Usually I’m the one in danger when we’re in here, so this will be a nice change of pace.”

  I stood still and could hear Peaches’ raspy pant next to me.

 

 

 

  “Do you want me to feel for the bond?”

  “How long have you two been bondmates?”

  I thought back to when I first met Peaches. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I first looked into the cage in Hades’ office.

  “Feels like forever.”

  “More than a year? Less than a year?”

  “Less than a year. Definitely.”

  “Okay, that helps. Now I want you to sit down, close your eyes, and regulate your breathing. Feel for the bond and find the connection between the two of you.”

  I sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. I felt for the bond I shared with my hellhound. After a few seconds, I felt the tenuous strand of energy linking us. As I felt along the conduit of the bond, it merged with another, stronger strand of power.

  I guessed this was my link to Kali. I didn’t see any way to untangle the two strands so I didn’t attempt it. I remembered Dahvina’s words: “Hellhound, Kali, and this blade. You’re thrice-bound, and two of your bonds are so intertwined, I don’t know if they can be separated.”

  I let my senses expand, but I didn’t reach for the bond. If she felt it was too difficult to tackle the entanglement, there was no way I was going to try it. After a few more seconds, the flow of the bond slowly solidified around my thoughts.

  Peaches chuffed as he nudged my leg gently, nearly knocking me on my back.

 

 

  I placed a hand on Peaches’ head and mentally established the bond. A surge of power rushed through my arm, but unlike London, this time I was ready for it. It cascaded through my body, and I could feel the warm flush of my curse dealing with the sudden onset of energy. The smell of burned hair brushed past my nose. I opened my eyes and saw the hairs on my forearm curl up and turn to dust as they slowly combusted.

  The surge ratcheted up a notch, and I grunted in pain as LD kept gesturing. The power cou
rsing through my arm increased, and I felt the strain against my body. If it got worse, it would be a repeat of London, and I would have to try and survive an instant tan. Peaches gave me a soft whine as the runes along his body grew brighter.

  “Control the power.” LD swept an arm horizontally in front of his body. The runes on the floor next to me became bright orange. “If you let too much in, it will cook you—literally.”

  After a few moments that felt like hours, I was able to reduce the flow of power from bathing in an active volcano to standing on an aluminum roof in hell. I let out a breath as the sweat poured down my face.

  “Can you stand?”

  “I’m barely forming coherent thoughts. Standing seems like over-achieving. How about fetal position?”

  “Get up,” he said with an edge. “You need to work this bond or your hellhound is a liability.”

  “Liability? He listens to me. He wouldn’t go on a rampage. What do you mean ‘work this bond’?”

  “Listen, I know TK can be a bit abrupt and short-tempered, and if you tell her I said that, I’ll deny it and roast you.”

  I stood unsteadily as Peaches started to rumble. I could see his muscles rippling as the power flowed through our bond.

 

  “LD?” I glanced down at Peaches, who was incrementally growing. “I think—”

  He held up a hand. “I’m not done. Tristan is worried about TK, and yet you two locos roam the streets of a populated city with a creature that’s virtually impossible to kill and contains enough power to make a tactical nuke look like a firecracker.”

  “I think we may have a situa—”

  “You have a handle on the bond?”

  “I think so, but it looks like—”

  “Good. Come at me.”

  I stood there, dumbfounded, for a few seconds.

  “Excuse me?”

  Peaches growled again and entered a pounce-and-maim stance.

  “At least your hound is smart. He recognizes a threat when he sees one.” He gestured and formed two white fireballs. They resembled mini suns floating next to him. With another gesture, an orange field descended over the entrance. When the door was fully covered, the floor runes became bright orange for a few seconds and then dimmed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?” he responded, gesturing again. Another white-hot orb formed in front of him, partially hiding his face. “We’re heading into enemy territory.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you now? What do you bring to this fight? Attitude?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I count three mages with access to their power. Tristan is an unknown after the obsidian ice, which leaves Dex, TK, and me. You don’t have or use magic.”

  I tapped my holster holding Grim Whisper and showed the sheath that held Ebonsoul. “I’m not defenseless. I can still do damage without magic.”

  “Really? You’ve got an overdeveloped sense of competence. It’s going to get you in trouble one day.”

  He gestured with one hand while pushing in front of him with the other. The three orbs floated next to him. I looked around, expecting an attack.

  “That’s it?” I asked, not impressed.

  “That’s all I needed. Did Dex tell you what kind of mages TK and I were?”

  “He said something about you being creative mages.”

  “There are only a few of us because the discipline takes about a thousand years to reach the novice level.”

  “A thousand years?”

  The realization that LD and TK were a minimum of a thousand years old caressed my brain and then squeezed.

  He nodded. “Creating is difficult, and takes an insane amount of energy, but creating isn’t the only thing a creative mage learns.”

  I reached down to unsheathe Ebonsoul, but it was gone. When I reflexively grabbed for Grim Whisper, it was also missing. I looked down and realized I was suddenly unarmed. Both of my weapons had disappeared.

  “Leather holster and leather sheath, both unruned, unprotected, and easy to unmake.”

  He wiggled a few fingers at me with a smile.

  “You destroyed my weapons?”

  “Destroyed? No. I just relocated them. That blade is nearly impossible to unmake. And your gun is too sweet to destroy.”

  “Creative mages also can undo,” I said, realizing the gap in my defense by not having runed my sheath or holster.

  “Correct. That only takes a few decades to learn. Now you’re unarmed with only your hellhound and your wits. What are you going to do? Glare me into submission?”

  I was angry. Not at his words; he was right. I was angry at how easily he removed my weapons and how long it took me to realize the ploy.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Oh, you’re pissed now? Well now, I’m quaking. Is that how you’re going to ‘do some damage’ at the Sanctuary? You’re going to hurt their feelings?”

  “I’m not entering this fight unarmed. I’ll have my weapons when we get to the Sanctuary.”

  He shook his head. “You’re still not getting it. The mages at the Sanctuary will have the entire compound shut down. That place will make Ellis Island look like a magical wonderland.”

  “So no one will have access to magic. I’ll have the advantage.”

  He stared at me for a few seconds. “How have you managed to remain alive this long? Wait, don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question.”

  “If the Sanctuary is shut down, what’s the problem? We use conventional weapons and get Monty’s dad free.”

  “Except that the mages at the Sanctuary will have full access to their abilities.” He let the words sit for a few seconds as the implications hit me.

  “Well, shit.”

  “And lots of it. Then we have you running in, no magic, no weapons, and no clue. Classic redshirt maneuver: ‘I wonder what this glowing mass is over here…maybe I should check it?’ Poof. Dead redshirt.”

  “I’ll just be a liability.” I looked down at my empty hands. “I have no way to attack.”

  “You do,” he said softly, as the orbs began to orbit around him.

  “What?” I asked, looking at him. “You stripped my weapons, and my magic missile may as well be a spitball.”

  “You need to work the bond.”

  He raised a hand, and the orbs raced at me.

  FOURTEEN

  I PRESSED THE bead on my mala bracelet, and the shield materialized around my arm. I deflected the fireballs to the far wall where they added three more craters to the existing group.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled.

  He gestured, forming three more fireballs, and flung them at me.

  “Work. The. Bond.” Each word was punctuated with a fireball. He narrowed his eyes at me and smiled.

  Peaches jumped and blinked out mid-jump. LD gestured and stepped to the side. Peaches blinked back in, and LD flicked a crackling gray orb at him. The orb intercepted Peaches and bounced him away from LD. Peaches flew across the floor and landed in a slide before hitting the wall with a thud. He shook it off, growing larger as he closed on LD with a loud rumble.

  I slid forward, leading with the mala shield. Master Yat’s words were coming back to me:

  “If you rely solely on your weapon, magic or otherwise, you are a lame man using a crutch. A weapon is only as effective as its wielder.”

  “So you’re just as dangerous without your stick of agony?”

  He tossed the stick to one side and hit me several times with an open palm before the stick hit the floor.

  “That answer your question?”

  “Yes. You have palms of agony too.”

  He extended an arm and the stick returned to his open hand. He swept a leg out from under me and assisted my swift crash onto the floor.

  “You use the weapon. It does not use you. Now get up and run the drill again.”

  I felt for the bond connecting me to Peaches as h
e closed the distance to LD.

 

 

  Peaches blinked out again, and I stepped in with a vertical fist aimed at LD’s chest. He twisted his body, causing me to miss, and unleashed another orb at me. It bounced off the shield and slammed into the ceiling.

  Peaches reappeared behind him and pounced. LD bent forward, and Peaches sailed right over him and into my chest, knocking the air out of me. We rolled across the floor in a tangle, sliding for a few feet.

  “Not bad,” he said, forming three more orbs. “Are you done with cuddle time?”

  I caught my breath as Peaches rolled to his feet. He was twice his normal size now, and the floor vibrated as he stepped forward.

 

 

 

 

  I ran at LD, who unleashed his orbs. Peaches kept pace by my side. When the orbs were a few feet away, I reached down and touched him.

 

  LD and the Danger Room disappeared. We reappeared a moment later to a perplexed looking LD, who fired another orb at us. The room disappeared again. We returned as LD shifted position, and I pressed my mark.

  Everything grew out of focus as time slowed. I held my breath, expecting the heady smell of lotus blossoms filled with citrus and mixed with an enticing hint of cinnamon. This was usually followed by the sweet smell of wet earth after a hard rain, and a jaw-loosening face pat as Karma arrived to say hello.

  I sighed in relief when she didn’t appear. I closed in on LD. Peaches was mid-pounce as I swept LD’s legs out from under him with a kick.

  A few seconds later, the room snapped back into focus and the flow of time returned to normal. LD fell on his back as Peaches descended. He was done, or so I thought.

  I was so fixated on LD’s crushing by the hellhound that I dropped my guard. He noticed this and unleashed a barrage of angry crackling black orbs my way. Peaches blinked out again and reappeared in front of me. His momentum sent me spinning back as he caromed off my chest, causing the orbs to miss.