“Am I that transparent?” I asked.
“I’ve seen a lot of people over the years who feel they’re carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.” He gestured me into one of the smaller conference rooms. “Have a seat. Let’s talk.”
“It’s the kobolds,” I said, sitting down and rubbing my forehead with the heels of my hands. “They’re so different from the Urisk. Lotholio didn’t do anything without consulting me first, wording of prayers, types of sermons, heck, even the rhythm of hymns. The kobolds are interpreting my actions and it upon themselves to emulate them.”
“Does that bother you?”
I shook my head. “It’s not them, it’s me. I don’t know how to be god to an independent people like that. The Urisk were dependent in ways I’m only starting to realize. The kobolds are a complete one-eighty from that. Take this one in particular, her name’s Jeal.” I told the boss about my encounter with my new Prime Liberator, filling him in on what happened with the vampires.
Galahad finished his coffee as I spoke. “Vincent,” he said when I was finished. “You are more than capable of dealing with this. Ask yourself, what do the kobolds need, and then what should you give them? From what you’re telling me, I think you’ll find that you’ll be doing your job best when they can’t tell you’ve done anything at all.”
“Isn’t that from Futurama?” I asked.
“I will admit I have watched an episode or two,” Galahad said with a smile. “That particular statement is one of the most profound I’ve ever heard about God’s work. And I think it applies to you as well. The kobolds don’t need or want someone who will always rush in to save them. They want to save themselves.”
“Heh. Almost feels like I’d be putting myself out of a job there,” I said.
“I don’t think so. I think the more self-sufficient you make them, the more appreciative they’ll be of you, and they will respect and worship you even more.”
I stood up and stretched. “You’re probably right, boss,” I said. “But this is going to take some getting used to. And I am in need of a Pepsi in a big way right now.”
“Won’t that keep you awake tonight?” Galahad asked.
“Nah, at this point, I’m pretty much immune to caffeine.”
Galahad smiled. “I’m afraid you’ll need to go to the corner market, then. The vending machine is out of order.”
“Out of order? Let’s just get Gears to fix it.”
Galahad frowned. “I believe Gearstripper ‘liberated’ some parts from the machine for one of his projects. He actually hid from me when I went to ask him to fix it.”
“Ugh. All right, I’ll be back in a few minutes. You want anything?”
“Thank you, but no, Vincent. I will speak with Megan about these vampire developments you mentioned. Be safe.”
I left HQ and headed down the street to the convenience store. This winter hadn’t given us much snow, but there was a good inch or two of the white stuff built up at the edges of the sidewalks and any untreated surfaces. It was more a dirty gray than the pure white that you see on postcards. On the plus side, less to shovel.
A few minutes later, having procured a box of Twinkies for Gearstripper and a bottle of Pepsi for me, I heard a yell for help from down the alleyway next to the convenience store. I snapped on my kobold night vision and stepped into the alley’s mouth. The voice had been female, but in the grainy green view I had, I couldn’t see anyone. Thinking maybe someone had pulled a victim behind a dumpster, I started down the alley. I tapped the newly issued earpiece in my right ear. “Dave, this is Vincent. I’m investigating a cry for help. Mark my location.”
“You got it, Vinnie.”
The earpieces that we’d been issued had a short-range audio distortion enchantment on them, allowing us to communicate with Uncle Dave without having to use that cant. It made life so much easier when you could just say “A monster’s about to eat me!” instead of “The new neighbor is going to have me over for dinner.”
My situation reported, I moved further into the alley. I still couldn’t see anyone. There was garbage all over the ground. That didn’t sit well; if someone had been struggling here, the trash would’ve been scattered off to the sides of the alley. For that matter, I didn’t see any footprints in the thin layer of dirty snow on the ground. I looked up. A figure was attached to the side of the wall maybe fifteen feet ahead of me. Her eyes glowed red, and I saw a flash of fangs before the creature threw herself at me. I dropped my snacks and instinctively moved to put up a telekinetic shield. Nothing happened. I swore and fumbled for my switchblade.
The delay gave my attacker enough time to reach me, but instead of attacking, she vanished into a cloud of mist, which enveloped me. The mist stung my nose and eyes like tear gas, and I coughed, inhaling some of the mist, which scraped against my throat like sandpaper. This set off a hacking fit so violent it forced me to my knees. I scrambled for the Pepsi, thinking to try and wash the stuff down my throat, but the soda bottle had exploded when I’d dropped it, and now I was on all fours, hacking up blood. What had that thing done to me? I needed to get away. I couldn’t stand, so I Opened a portal beneath me and fell through to the alley behind Caulborn HQ. As I landed, I coughed out a huge cloud of the mist, which coalesced back into the creature that had attacked me.
My night vision had kicked off, but in the yellow streetlight, I got a good look at her. She had pale, angular features, and her black hair was pulled back in a braid. Her clothing was stylish without being ostentatious, the kind of thing that an upscale businesswoman might wear. She was shaking her head as if to clear it; when someone else travels through one of my portals, it scrambles their short-term memories. For a few seconds, my assailant wouldn’t know where she was, or what she was supposed to be doing. I was still coughing, my lungs feeling like they’d just been through a cheese grater.
Focus, Corinthos. What are we up against, here? Red eyes, wall climbing, and fangs typically meant vampire, though I’d never seen one do that mist trick she just had. All the same, there was one sure way to deal with a vamp.
I conjured an aura of purple holy light around me. The surrounding area was bathed in its gentle luminescence, and the vampire screamed as the light touched her. Her skin burst into flame, and her hair began to smolder. She leapt backward, but I expanded the pool of light, and now she was something akin to a humanoid torch. She scrambled up the side of the building next door, leaving flaming hand and footprints as she went. I doubled over, coughing and gasping as my lungs healed, and when the fit had passed, she had gone.
“Vinnie?” came Uncle Dave’s voice in my ear. “You okay, kid?”
“Yeah,” I rasped. “I got jumped, but I’m all right.” I coughed up a wad of blood and spat it on the sidewalk. “My attacker got away, but I’m outside the office now. I’ll head in to Mrs. Rita and get checked out.”
“Roger that,” Dave replied.
I staggered around to the front of the building. HQ is warded so that extradimensional portals and teleportation don’t work inside its walls. It’s a safety precaution to prevent bad guys from just waltzing in and trashing the place. One of these days, I’d need to have a conversation with Mrs. Rita to see if we could adjust the wards to let me through. As I limped to the door, I saw another figure staggering toward me. I snapped my night vision on, Kristin Tanis, fellow agent and mentor, was clutching her side, streaks of blood smeared across her face. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed to the sidewalk.
Chapter 2
The transfer seems to be a success. Though I can’t help but wonder what happened to Croatoan once I kicked him out of his shell. A spirit like his, without an anchor, will likely be pulled back into the Pit. And if his former masters give him the welcome I expect, it’ll be thousands of years before he ever gets out again.
— From Treggen’s perso
nal journal
I rushed over and eased Kristin to her feet, draping one of her arms over my shoulder, letting her put her weight on me for support. I very deliberately did not try to telekinetically levitate her. “Kristin,” I said, as I started us for the door. “What happened?”
“Got jumped,” she said through clenched teeth. “Two of them. Vamps, I think. It happened so fast, I barely had time to think.”
“Why didn’t you call for help?” In addition to the new earpieces allowing us to more easily report our positions and receive updates from HQ, they were also a means to call for backup when things got too hot.
Kristin turned her head toward me. Her left ear had been torn off, and blood was running down her neck. More blood was stuck in the salt-and-pepper braid hanging over her shoulder. “They got my phone, too,” she said. “I couldn’t call for help.” On her other side, I heard Mist, Kristin’s fylgiar, whimper.
“C’mon,” I said, opening the door to HQ. “Let’s get you inside. Mrs. Rita will have you good as new in no time.”
As we staggered into the lobby, Jake rushed over from behind his security station. The big man gently lifted Kristin and carried her into Medical. Which was empty. “Where’s Mrs. Rita?” I asked Jake. Jake spread his hands. “Great,” I said. “Set her down on the table.” Jake gently laid Kristin down on an exam table, and I placed my hand on her forehead, sending a healing probe into her.
Gods can do anything their followers can, and kobolds have an innate healing magic that can fix nearly any wound. It’s a power I’m still learning to use effectively, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The probe came back a second later. In addition to her missing ear, Kristin had taken a series of stab wounds to her abdomen and arms. There was significant bruising along her back and ribs as well. The Caulborn-issued armored vest that she wore under her business casual had no doubt saved her life. My probe told me she’d also suffered significant blood loss, and something else, a sensation I’d never felt before, which I was guessing indicated that she was slipping into shock.
I put both hands on her head and sent a wave of golden healing energy into her. Nice and slow, I thought. The kobolds who worship me give me a measure of healing power, but healing is a delicate process. Go too fast and you risk killing the patient. As my energy touched each stab wound, I gently willed the tissue and sinew back together. Kristin groaned as I did, and I hastily dampened her pain receptors. “Sorry,” I whispered as I closed another wound. A few minutes later, Kristin was resting comfortably, her injuries closed, her bleeding stopped. I looked at where her ear had been; it was just a patch of smooth skin surrounding a hole. I didn’t know how to regrow body parts. Maybe Mrs. Rita could walk me through that.
I released Kristin’s head. She was asleep now, her face peaceful. “She’s lost a lot of blood, Jake,” I said. “Do you know how to do a transfusion?” The big man nodded and hastened over to the fridge where we kept blood. He came back with a pouch marked K. Tanis and then proceeded to administer the transfusion. To my side, Mist gave a relieved sound, something between a purr and a snort.
“She’ll be okay,” I said to the fylgiar.
“Thank God,” a voice said. I turned to see Galahad XI walking into the room. “Uncle Dave told me you were attacked and that we’d lost contact with Kristin. What happened?”
I filled the boss in on my encounter outside the convenience store. “Kristin said she fought vampires, too,” I said. “Not sure how she got away from them, though.” Since I’d lost the Urisk, I’d lost my telepathic powers, too. That meant no mental communication with non-human entities, otherwise I could just ask Mist.
“And you are all right?” Galahad asked.
I rubbed at my chest. My healing fever had fixed me up while I was helping Kristin. I still wasn’t sure what that vamp had done to me. I’d inhaled her—she must’ve been attacking my lungs from the inside out. “Yeah,” I said, suppressing a shudder. “You know me, boss. I bounce back pretty fast.”
“Galahad,” Leslie’s voice came over the intercom. “The Codex is ready for you in the main conference room.”
I blinked. “The Codex is here?” The Codex is one of the most powerful people in the Caulborn. I’d never met her, but she knows everything that happens, advises the Care Taker on how to handle situations, and is something of a historian as well.
“Not exactly,” Galahad replied as he moved to the intercom. “Leslie, please tell Annabelle that I will speak with her as soon as all our agents are accounted for. Have you heard from the others?”
“Mrs. Rita has checked in, she’s fine. I—hang on, I’m getting a transmission from Uncle Dave. Patching him through.”
Uncle Dave’s voice came in over the intercom. “Galahad, I’ve got reports of a car bombing near Mass General.”
Galahad’s face went white. “Dr. Ryan was heading there to get some supplies. Has he checked in?”
“Negative,” Dave replied. His voice was quiet as he said. “And the car that blew up was a Cadillac.”
“Get over there, Vincent,” Galahad said, but I was already running out the door. As soon as I was back on the street I portaled to an alley by Mass General Hospital. Being a hospital, paramedics were already on the scene, but the fire coming off the ruined skeleton of the Cadillac was so hot that they couldn’t get close to it. I tapped a bit of the kobolds’ faith and bent the fire away, reducing its heat. I turned invisible, not wanting people to see a man walking through the flames, and approached the driver’s-side door. The smell hit me first. Burning rubber and leather, and beneath that, burning flesh and hair. The scent alone made me want to turn back, because now I knew what I was going to see. And my stomach clenched into a ball as my fears were confirmed. A blackened skeleton covered with scorched bits of flesh sat in the driver’s seat. I snapped on my night vision and scanned the area, looking for vampires.
Nothing.
A fire engine came tearing around the corner, lights flashing and siren blaring. I needed to move fast. I Opened the Cadillac door, using kobold faith to shuck the heat away so I wouldn’t get burned. Then I reached for Doc’s corpse.
It had melted to the leather seat.
I managed to not throw up, used a lance of kobold fire to cut the bolts holding the driver’s seat to the frame, and then popped Open a portal along the ground. I hauled Doc’s remains through and into the alleyway behind HQ. I was breathing hard and flopped down against the office building, just staring at the skeleton. I wasn’t sure why I’d done that. Doc was dead. I should have just let the fire department do their job. There was no reason for me to have—
Faint golden light glowed from between the cracks in Doc’s blackened skin. My eyes widened. I rushed over and sent a healing probe into him. Somehow, he was still alive. I portaled the chair to the front of the building and dragged it into the foyer. “Jake!” I screamed. “Jake, I need help now!” The security guard thundered down the hall toward me, took one look at my gruesome cargo, and then lifted it up and sprinted back to Medical. If the heat coming off the wreckage even registered to Jake, he didn’t show it. I rushed to keep up. Jake took Doc into one of the operating rooms and set the chair down on the floor, then turned to me as if to say “What can I do to help?”
I put another healing probe into Doc. His charred form seemed to be gaining bulk, rebuilding mass that had been burned away in the intense heat of the fire. More golden light, light that looked and felt identical to my own healing energy was building up around him. There was something else, too. A faint humming of tachyon energy flowing around him. The signals my probe was sending out were getting weaker; I’d blown through a ton of kobold faith in the last half an hour. I concentrated, sensing that Doc’s systems were regenerating, albeit very slowly. Then my faith reserves ran dry.
I looked at Jake. “He’s alive, but he’s go
ing to be in excruciating pain. Can you do something for that?” Jake looked at Doc’s charred form, his brow furrowing. I had an idea what he was thinking. There was nowhere to put an IV into Doc. If we bent his body, moved his limbs, did anything at all, we were likely to break part of him off. I shuddered.
Galahad came into the room. “Angels of mercy,” he said. “Is he still alive?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but I’m out of healing energy, and this is way beyond basic first aid. Where’s Mrs. Rita? I’ll portal her back here.”
“Mrs. Rita is unavailable for the time being, Vincent,” Galahad said, checking his watch. “She will return to us shortly.” He turned to the big security guard. “Jake, do what you can to make Dr. Ryan comfortable.”
Jake’s expression was less than confident, but he nodded. I turned back to the boss. “Galahad, what’s going on?”
“We appear to be under attack,” he replied as he walked over to the intercom panel. “Leslie, has Megan checked in yet?”
“No—hang on, I’m getting a call from the Midnight Clan now.”
“The Midnight Clan?” I asked.
“Megan was on her way there for a meeting with Tom Bruli,” Galahad said.
Leslie’s voice came back over the intercom. “Galahad, they’re saying she never arrived.”
Galahad grimaced. “Thank you, Leslie.” He clicked the intercom button, switching its frequency. “Dave, I need Megan’s last location sent to Vincent’s phone.”
“You got it, Galahad.” A moment later, my phone buzzed with a text message containing a set of coordinates.
Nightfall: Caulborn 5 Page 2
