by Daniel Ruth
Her face was expressionless as she digested this information and I could see that the anger was finally leaving her. “I was not involved in that. I think it was unlikely that Vincent was either. As the master of the city, he would avoid such potential scandals like the plague. I can only assume it was Sebastian, but I can't imagine why.”
“Sebastian and I have previously met. I will have to invite him over for tea sometime to show my appreciation.” This garnered a hint of a smile from my undead guest. “Let us put such things behind us, so why didn't you call?”
“Your number is unlisted,” she stated. “And not working when we finally dug up the number”. Did I forget to turn the vid function back on after inscribed the ward on the holo terminal? I frowned, that must also mean I forgot to leave them Jeremy's backup number. It may be just as well, I really didn't like the idea of the undead hanging around my friends.
“Well then, I apologize for the inconvenience. Does this mean that you have some of the locations?”
“Yes. The summoners are still bringing creatures through. We have been keeping the little monsters under control in our areas, but you may have read about them from other parts of the city.” I grunted noncommittally, I haven't looked at the news in days. If I had I might have remembered to check the vid function. “They are never there when we send people to the disturbance and once we put people on watch they do not go to that node’s location again. We are starting to gather an interesting menagerie but no magicians.” She activated a tiny holo display on her wrist. I was impressed by her control, I could barely detect flicker in the image.
“If you are ready I will beam the information on the nexus locations to your implant,” she looked at me expectantly.
“I don't have an implant. It’s against my religion,” I offered her piously. It came across as a bit stilted, but it was the best reason Jeremy and I had come up with. I had wanted to use an allergy as an excuse, but I was assured that no one suffered from them anymore. As Vivian stared blankly at me for a moment I could see that she wasn't buying it either. Doubtless she knew as well as I did that any supernatural or magical race with even a slight amount of regeneration couldn't use implants due to the technology being expelled from the body. I could almost see the gears inside her pretty head turning as she tried to figure out what I was.
“Of course, what religion is that?”
“New Amish, very devout,” I said solemnly. I think her mouth twitched, but she hid any further reaction exceedingly well.
“I see. Well, we have similar problems, these are a bit antiquated but I am sure your home system can read it.” Vivian took out a tiny cube from her pocket and tapped it to her wrist holo emitter before handing it to me.
“So, these critters your gathering, anything interesting,” I asked, curious what Jin's apprentices had brought through in order to test the dimensional weak points.
“Random garbage. Gremlins, minor demons, shadows and even a few mortals from other worlds.” She recited the list with a faint hint of disdain. “The humans we give the choice to go to the authorities or enter our service.”
“Demons? I could use demon blood if you could spare any...” I asked hopefully. There were a lot of ingredients I was missing, most of them I was planning to find substitutes for, but as I was finding out, the specified materials had the strongest effects.
“Good luck with that, they evaporate after you kill them,” Vivian gave a ladylike snort. I hadn't known you could do that.
“Yes, that's because you’re not actually killing them, just sending them back to their own plane. There's a trick to harvesting their parts,” I helpfully informed her. I was rewarded by the look of disdain again. Well, I had to ask. Why waste good extra planar materials like that?
I was about to go back inside when her words clicked. Vampires are not known for their kindness. Okay, the ones I had the most experience with are not much more than bloodthirsty beasts, but even this strange offshoot hadn't come across as brimming with good will. Why were they offering strange mortals a place in their society? As I thought this over I was reminded of Jeremy's comment the other day regarding this world's healthcare. There was an entire generation that was almost as unkillable as a shifter and effectively immortal. Even today's younger humans who no longer had access to nanotechnology had methods that could keep them young and vigorous indefinitely. Fatal accidents weren't nearly as fatal when you could be resuscitated about a day after your death, as long as your brain was intact.
“You know I never noticed the lack of quality among the younger vampires until just now. It must be difficult to entice humans to come over to the undead side, when they can get all the benefits and still see the sun.”
Vivian looked off to the side, a scowl on her face. It was undoubtedly a sore point when the new generation was likely the insane, social misfits and rebels. Like the residents of the Blight, which was just now getting a makeover if I could believe our friendly neighborhood elf.
“I'm glad you’re there to give our world's newest guests a place to stay.” Doubtless, the good ones would be groomed to become the next generation of vampires. That would be assuming that the guests didn't find out about their alternatives. Not quite evil, but not so nice. It was what I was beginning to get used to from this brand of undead.
I heard footsteps off to the side and saw Mei, Conrad and Estella coming around the corner. Glancing back at Vivian, I was just in time to see her body billow into mist before being carried off on the wind. What a drama queen.
“Hey guys,” I nodded to the small company. They each responded with their own acknowledgment. “Come on in. Remind me to have the ground keepers fix my door in the morning.” I muttered the last grumpily as I passed my damaged entrance. I shrugged internally and made a quick detour to add “Fix door” to Jeremy’s list. After another pause, I wrote “Replace house. Use 3rd account.”
“Are they the ones that repaired the house you destroyed?” asked Estella merrily.
“That damage was totally repairable until your Faramond brought the entire thing down. Is it back up already? Jeremy must have called it in.” I admit I had been preoccupied the last few days. I hadn't noticed the house across the street had been put back; even when it was in plain sight while I was talking to Vivian. I really need to pay more attention. I crossed the last item off on the list. The construction company I kept on retainer was pretty good. Or maybe they dropped an entire prefab house on the lot. I didn't really care, I didn’t keep anything cool in that house.
“Faramond the vigilante?” Conrad asked, looking rather disturbed. I recalled the city was about to vote on whether to outlaw vigilantism. Then again maybe they already had, I never really paid attention to politics. I could only assume Estella hadn’t had much to say about herself to him.
“So Conrad what brings you here?” I asked slapping his back. Shifters hate people invading their space, though the most civilized ones hide it well. I figured I would do my part to distract the resident supercop. Sure enough, he shrugged under his bulky armor uncomfortably and gave me his full attention. Mei spared me an amused look as she sat down with the others.
“The city voted. The special forces division is official. We've been planning this for a long time so we should be organized by the end of the week.”
“Congratulations,” I said heartily. Should I bring food out or would that be inappropriate? A turkey dinner or a cake?
“Thank you. You actually had a large part in the decision. The last encounter the police had with the zombies and vampires just drove home how ill prepared the civil forces are to handle these threats.” I could tell the bubbly Estella's attention was drifting. Mine was too. What did this have to do with me?
“Glad to help, civic duty, all that stuff,” I offered distractedly. I really needed to get Jeremy to enter the new coordinates we had. My living room holo hadn't blown up lately so maybe we could finally use it for more than watching old movies.
“...so that is
why the city would like to hire you,” Conrad finished. Blinking I forced my memory back a few minutes. Had Conrad just offered me a job?
“Gee, thanks but I am pretty busy lately I am not sure I have time...”
“Give it some thought before you decide. As a consultant, you wouldn't be spending all your time working with us. It would be mostly looking over the crimes scenes involving the more esoteric events.”
“So you wouldn't call me on werewolf muggings?” I asked, with some relief.
“No. Standard crime we can deal with. We would call you in for the cases involving magic. We lack any expertise on the subject. There are no experts available that we know of, except the few ‘magic men’ that know a few tricks and voodoo women out in the boondocks.”
I must look positively reliable compared to the natural mystics that were in the public view. “Well, I don't know. I have a lot of things on my plate at the moment...”
“I know it’s a real burden, but who else are the police going to have identify the spell books and magic contraband?” Mei chimed in with a sweet smile on her face.
I froze with my mouth open in the middle of a protest. “I guess it is my civic duty to help wherever I can.” Nodding gravely, I continued. “Perhaps we could set up some secure storage facilities for the more dangerous artifacts and tomes. Some of them can be dangerous unsupervised.” Like my basement.
“I think that can be arranged,” Conrad pondered. “I'll verify that we can do that and get back to you.”
“Meanwhile, since we are all here, let’s talk a bit about how our search for Jin is going. I assume you already know Estella's concern.”
“Mei mentioned she's here from another dimension because of a vision from a priest of some sort.”
“Some sort of cataclysm,” the cheerful álfar contributed.
“Yes...” Conrad responded, somewhat halfheartedly. Obviously he wasn’t as cheered to hear the distinction.
“I can't speak for her priests, heck I can't get a good prediction more than a few minutes into the future, but a professional can get a decent idea when something big is on the horizon,” I tried to assure him. He didn't seem to be that comforted by that either.
“Great, and you think it is Jin?”
“Jin and the two magic users Derek uncovered do seem to be connected, Conrad. If they aren't what Estella is worried about then we don't have the slightest clue what it is,” Mei firmly stated from her seat.
“It is possible there's an unrelated disaster looming in the future, but let's go with this assumption until we find some evidence otherwise,” I urged. I wanted to keep him focused. It seemed pointless to worry about the sky falling until we knew more.
I heard a little jingle as the wristband on Conrad’s arm buzzed and flashed. He activated it and a beam of light shown directly into his eyes. Hmm, a private band holo terminal. I frowned to myself. He really shouldn’t use that in the house. A minor power surge from my workroom below us and he could be blinded. Of course, he was a shifter and immune to anything non-mystical in nature. Okay, he was safe. The next question was whether the battery cell in those things powerful enough to damage my stuff if it blew up?
“Damn,” the armored man muttered as he lowered his arm and the light vanished. “The barrier went down and the entire block above the hideout just melted. Nothing left, but a sinkhole,” he looked at me and nodded. “It’s a good thing we evacuated the area. The shield generators we put in place lasted about two minutes before they melted too. The military will be furious. They were on loan.”
The circles heat must have been a secondary effect as opposed to actual flame. That would explain how they ignored the shield the police had up. I am not sure this world’s technology had any way to block those effects. More due to them not being able to gather empirical data than ability. Perhaps if they had a gravity generator in sync with the barrier they may be able to set up a harmonic standing wave that would affect the fabric of space enough for magic to actually notice it was there. Of course, it would be easier to simply ward an area than do that. I would still mention the idea to Jeremy. Maybe he’d get a patent out of it or partial credit if anyone actually implemented the idea.
“...does that sound acceptable Professor?” the police officer was looking at me as if he expected a response.
“I’m sorry,” I asked a bit confused. “Did you say something?”
“Did your mind wander a bit,” Mei teased while Estella tittered from her seat. I shrugged. I am sure if Conrad had anything interesting to say I would have noticed it.
“I was saying that we would appreciate it if you could look at the slag pit and give up your opinion if there is still a hazard,” Conrad said rather impatiently.
“Well the pit is likely to be molten well into tomorrow based on the entire block melting on top of it,” not that the heat would bother me, but I don’t want to have to shop for a new pair of shoes. It would probably be pretty disgusting, maybe like mud. “I didn’t even know permacrete and durasteel melted.”
“It doesn’t,” the shifter stated flatly.
Hmm, I wonder if that could be used in my alchemy experimental to remold materials. If I ever figured out the heat effect of the circle. “Good to know. I’ll stop by later tomorrow once the surface solidifies. It should be safe. Burying a circle is a tried and true method of disabling them.”
“I would say it’s a bit more than disabled,” Mei offered.
“Not necessarily, most magic is immune to its own effects,” Estella volunteered. She was only slightly subdued after hearing of the disaster. I assume that Mei had given her the details during their ‘girl talk’ over the last few days.
“It is very likely the circle exists, but with all the material sitting on top of it no one is going to be able to get close enough to activate it even if it had any energy left. The dimensional portal also should not be able to activate if there is a solid mass where the breech is. Unless...”
Conrad sighed, “Give me the bad news.”
“Well, it is not likely, but the circle master was pretty good.” Better than anyone I knew from home at least. Excluding a big scaly evil monster who needs no introduction. “It’s possible, if the mage was smart enough he may have set up the barrier to collapse or have a secondary barrier to activate when the shit hit the fan. If that happened it may have formed a bubble that all that goo would cool around.”
“Oh, a natural cavern that he could reopen the portal into from the other side,” our happy little elf added.
I didn’t think Conrad could get grimmer, but I definitely noticed a change in his mood. “Fine. I’ll have some multi-environment floaters go over it and take some scans. We’ll know soon if there’s anything down there and...”
“Your scans won’t work,” I offered. I don’t think he was an idiot, but I was constantly surprised how even the supernaturals forgot the basics. “Whether there’s a bubble or not there is an entire room of exhausted but active circles. Your sensors won’t give you anything but static.”
“Then we’ll excavate...”
“And there’s no guarantee the circles don’t have enough residual energy to activate and do it all again if they are triggered.” It would likely be on a lesser scale but still...
Conrad sat there. Lips tight and his left eye twitching. I could tell he was considering his options and was not happy with what he was coming up with.
“Come on Derek, stop playing with him. Tell him how to fix it,” Mei berated me. I think she was amused, but she was also taking the news seriously.
“No, keep it up! Conrad’s funny!”
This last came from the elf, who had been watching both me and Conrad in delight. She was definitely enjoying it, even more than I was. And I have to admit I was getting a kick out of teasing Conrad.
I gave a nod in both the girl’s direction while Mei gave the elemental sorceress an exasperated look. “Fine. Just do what I suggested when you first asked me about it.”
&nb
sp; Conrad looked confused again. “We did. We did exactly what you suggested.”
“Then you weren’t paying attention. I distinctly remember suggesting that you get the military involved and have a satellite blow through the barrier. Even if it is immune to energy, possible but not definite, it should clear the way to see if there was a bubble at all. If it wasn’t, just refill it with the plentiful slag in the area. If it was, then either it is destroyed or it will be exposed for alternate means of destruction.” Or was that Mat I told? It was somebody in a uniform.
“What if the new barrier is immune to everything?” Conrad asked with some evidence of trepidation.
“Then...”
“Mortal magic can usually only completely shield against energy or kinetics. They can be very durable and even regenerate themselves, but it’s likely you can destroy it with a little work.” Estella finished her explanation with a smile.
I pouted. I could have dragged that out for Conrad until he was frothing at the mouth. The police officer looked at the elf with new eyes. “I don’t think we have been completely introduced, Ma’am.”
“She’s an elf from Norseland,” I injected as revenge.
“I am not! We haven’t been there for ages. Don’t be a meanie,” she pouted.
“I don’t think Norseland is a real country,” Mei shot me an aggravated look.
“Well, the álfar aren’t real elves so all the figments of our imagination can gather in one place.”
“Never mind,” Conrad emphatically declared. “Forget I asked.” Sighing he continued in a slightly more formal tone. “If your people ever wish to be recognized and accepted by the world at large, just come to me. Apparently, my new position includes playing ambassador for races still in the closet. Just wait a few weeks for the bureaucrats to invent the paperwork.” He sounded less than enthusiastic about this part of his job.
“Will you be able to tell what the situation is tomorrow?”
“No,” I thought more about my last astral escapade. I wasn’t going through that again. “All I’ll be able to do is tell if there are active magics. We already know the circles are going to be live to some degree or another.”
