by Daniel Ruth
“Fine, we’re going to have to watch out for her though,” the elf sighed.
“I’d give her a sword but I guess she is a little small,” I eyed the girl critically. “Not much point unless it’s a rune sword.” I doubted Jeremy’s little sister had super strength. I am almost positive he would have mentioned that. “Okay, let’s go with defense. I have a couple of experimental wards that should pop up a real physical force bubble.” I think they would. I hadn’t tried it yet and the practice wards would only elicit a tiny force field but then again Beth was a tiny girl.
I ran downstairs and rummaged through my supplies, getting a leather pouch with five placards engraved with sigils, a vial of dragon blood and tiny sheathed dagger I had been using to etch the symbols. I paused a moment in front of the stack of experimental energy expulsion wards sitting on the workbench before making a face. I left them there. I don’t think I could face Jeremy if I accidentally disintegrated his sister.
I suppose I was down longer than I thought, because Estella had fixed her hair and dressed. I handed Beth the pouch and supplies and went through the activation procedure for the ward. Since they were already empowered all they needed was triggering. A drop of dragon blood and a drop of the activator’s blood in the center would set it in motion. In theory.
We then trooped out of the house towards the market. I took a few minutes to shove the wreckage of the taxi further off to the side. The crash foam had long since broken down into a sticky slime and I almost slipped on the large puddle around the vehicle before I caught myself on the side. The gore from the burned demons and ichor had evaporated. Except for the bodies I had preserved, the remains had completely discorporated as the essence of the demons fled back to their plane.
I gave the taxi an extra kick, sliding it another meter into the street, as I took in the damage to the road and my lawn and porch. The permacrete road only had a shallow furrow, but the short distance the car had made through the grass, before impacting my shield was completely torn up in a disgusting mixture of churned soil, grass and slime. I had to stifle the urge to go back to the house and add the repairs to Jeremy’s ‘to do’ list. Without Jeremy, there wasn’t much of a point and the sooner I made the arrangements with the vampires to track down Jin’s followers the sooner he would be back. As we left I went over to the garden hose and took a minute to spray the crash gel residue off of me and my clothes. Sopping wet but not sticky I wrung out my shirt.
Walking to the market area, I paused a second to look around. Usually in the case of a crash the police and medical services would be all over the area. After a moment, I saw a crashed traffic buoy laying on the street several hundred meters away. Faint wisps of smoke trailed up into the air from the carcass. Wow, Estella’s last panic attack must have taken out all the traffic monitoring and control nodes in the area. Likely all traffic had been routed away from here until engineers were sent out to identify and fix the problem. Actually, thinking about it, my last aura surge where I took out the engines on the floater may have been the cause. I nodded to myself, if anyone asks it’s going to be the elf’s fault.
It was a somber trio that made it into the market to the public holo terminal. I was calling a cab and ordering a pickup when the álfar grabbed my arm. “What is it, Hel... er Stella.”
“Wh... what are you doing?” she nervously asked.
“Ordering a taxi,” I stated slowly. What the heck else would I be doing?
“I don’t like taxi rides,” she said gathering herself and ending in a firm statement. “Human technology isn’t safe.”
“Huh, why not?” I asked, confused. A second later I realized what the issue was. “That wasn’t a typical ride.”
“You said they all flew that way,” she said indignantly.
“I was trying to keep you calm,” I explained. “The newer technology is very vulnerable to magic and even the auras from the stronger mages and supernatural creatures. When you got nervous your aura flared and poof.”
“Oh,” she paused in thought. “What makes you think it won’t happen again?”
“Now that I am ordering the aircar I’ll make sure to get an older model. I tip well so it shouldn’t be a problem.” I added thoughtfully, “Though if you see smoke next time try to think happy thoughts. Non-crashy things.”
“Can we walk instead?” she asked with a hint of desperation.
“That would be silly, it would take hours to get there and Beth would be exhausted.”
“I... I can summon an air elemental to fly us there,” Estella offered triumphantly.
“Really? That would be cool,” I perked up. I had never flown with an elemental.
“That would be awesome,” chimed in the tiny human girl. Right, the human girl.
“I don’t think we should take Beth on that kind of ride.” I subtly leaned over to the elf and whispered in her ear. “Elementals get kind of careless with mortals unless you’re an elemental mage. They may squish the fragile H-U-M-A-N,” I spelled out the last word.
“Hey! I can spell,” the girl squeaked indignantly, obviously grossly insulted. Maybe I wasn’t that subtle.
“Okay, what about that other contraption, the one with two wheels,” the hint of panic fully blossoming into something more.
“You want us to bike to the vampire meeting,” I asked incredulously. Only the nostalgia freaks and hardcore tourists used those things. “There’s no way that Beth could walk or bike or hike or even roll there,” I explained with less patience than before.
“What about,” she started.
“She can’t swim there either,” I interrupted.
Estella broke out of her incipient panic to glare at me. “That’s absurd, I was going to suggest a ‘bicycle’ caravan. I saw it once with Faramond.”
I stared blankly at her. I didn’t understand the reference at all. Beth tugged on my sleeve. “I think she means a rickshaw.” She had taken my spot at the terminal and was doing a search. “There’s a tour place about a mile away. We can go there.”
I looked over her shoulder and sure enough there was a rotating image of a something that looked like a large tricycle with a two seater open carriage behind the bike seat. “Driving through the Blight in that thing is asking to get mugged,” I offered weakly.
“We just went through that earlier today,” Estella quickly jumped in. “There’s hardly any of the previous occupants.”
“Fine,” I conceded tiredly. “Beth please call ahead and see if we can purchase a ‘rickshaw’. I’ll pull it myself, no way am I waiting for some slowpoke. Make sure it’s all durasteel construction.”
I gave her my account information and went off to buy a few bags of food to eat on the way. It was looking like it was going to be a long day. If I had known a traumatized elf was going to be such a pain in the ass I would have blindfolded her before we took the taxi.
An hour later I was feeling very conflicted. Biking was definitely slower, but I enjoyed the feeling of the wind. Due to the durasteel frame material I was able to push the rickshaw up to forty miles an hour. It got less stable at that point and the wind was buffeting the passengers. It likely would have been worse, but I felt Stella moving some magic around. It probably just made the open carriage seat behind the bike portion act less like a parachute.
On the other hand, there was the basic fact that I had passengers. I wasn’t really sure, but it felt somehow demeaning. Perhaps after all this I would buy a single bike with ridiculous gear ratios so I didn’t have to spin the pedals so fast. It might even catch on among the supernatural community. Most of them were like me long on strength but not so fast on the pedaling.
Beth squealed in delight and in the mirror I saw her put out her hand like an airplane. At least the adventure was distracting the girl. Even Stella had relaxed and her natural bubbly personality was peeking through. I really had no idea why. Driving a rickshaw at speeds far beyond its intended specifications seemed more hazardous than an aircar and there wasn’t any stashe
s of foam to slow your crashes.
I had made this walk fairly often through the Blight, but as I had seen earlier it had really been transformed by the flurry of construction. There was actual air traffic above us and the roads that weren’t blocked off for construction were clear with only normal city pedestrians. No gangs, homeless, street fires or similar scenes of urban disaster met our eyes as we sped through the streets.
The detours around the construction zones took most of the time, turning a rather straight shot into a winding maze. Never the less, we eventually made it out of the Blight and into the monolithic Tower Plaza’s shadow. A different set of guards in their ever classic tuxedos were at the doors, but I saw some spark of recognition in their eyes. Either that or they were surprised to see a man-sized tricycle with a coach barely slide to a halt in front of them. It really wasn’t built to go that fast.
“Please let Vincent know that Derek is here to see him,” I told the larger one.
“He is expecting you,” he looked dubiously at the vehicle. “Should I call the valet to park your... bike?”
“Nah, I’ll just leave it here,” I nodded back with a smile, as I helped Beth done from her seat. “I shouldn’t be here long.”
As we entered through the doors Beth drew a breath in wonder at the authentic holographic view of wilderness. To be honest, I think it looked better than a real forest meadow. Certainly less dirt.
The elf was less impressed. “It’s a room full of pretty lies,” she said with disdain. “There is nothing natural here at all. Are these ghost plants?”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way before, but how much more appropriate is it for the vampire’s central headquarters to be an undead vision of nature.” Beth’s smile immediately dimmed and she pushed up against my side shivering. Perhaps I shouldn’t have dwelled on the creepy parts of the view. Still it’s hard to get away from that around the undead. There’s not much creepier than them.
Winding my way to the elevator again, I saw a glowing orb floating in the air showing me the way the contrasting metal interior. As we piled in, I looked worriedly at the girl. The vampires would use reliable inertia dampeners in their own home, wouldn’t they? I was about to have us turn around and use the stairs when the numbers flickered and started to swiftly increase. As before there was no sense of motion before we came to a halt. I shrugged, we’d take the stairs down.
There were fewer people in the hallways as we went through. Most had the telltale grace that signaled the undead. Beth looked around at the people in wonder, obviously realizing what she was among. Stella was obviously far more suspicious of them and gave them wary sidelong looks as they passed us. In return, they gave us sneers, though Stella earned a few admiring, though puzzled looks when they noticed her ears.
We finally came to the meeting room’s ornate doorway and this time I just entered without knocking. Hopefully, they would have something to eat, I didn’t get much snacking done with me doing all the physical work. Looking around the room, I noted the central table was still strewn with papers and a somewhat harried Vincent sat at the end, reviewing some documents. I wondered if he had even moved since I was here last. A well-dressed man was at his elbow. He was likely an aid, or a sycophant, maybe even a butler. Heck the various style escaped me, he could’ve been a duke for all I knew. I had no idea if he was the same aid that was here previously.
“Hello Vincent, it’s been while. You never call or write,” I opened the conversation with a smile.
Vincent’s eyes slowly rose from his papers, “Flippant, as always,” he muttered with a remarkable amount of disdain. “Still Vivian insists you are worth the annoyance.” He glanced at my companions. “Why did you bring a child and a Sidhe with you?”
“I am not a Sidhe,” Estella denied indignantly, “I am an álfar, not one of those barbarians.”
“You can never go wrong with a magic elf,” I started smiling. At Stella’s glare, I weakly continued. “Unless your one of those uncivilized brutes of course. Everyone knows álfars are the best magical elves around.” Looking away from the angry elf and towards Beth, “I’m just looking after my friend’s sister until I catch up with his kidnappers.” I patted her on the head in a friendly manner. She turned and gave me a pouting look. I wasn’t sure why my companions were all glaring at me today.
“Vivian told me that she had given you the data, wasn’t that all you needed,” he asked with poorly hidden impatience.
“Thanks for that,” I nodded to him. “We used that data to get a map of the lay lines and nodes. It gives us an excellent idea of where the next test sites will be.”
“I see,” he stated neutrally. “How does this impact us?”
“So you have no desire to stop random apprentices from summoning demonic horrors into your territory,” I prodded.
“Vivian gave orders not to interfere with Jin’s plans,” he stated gruffly. I think he only gritted his teeth slightly.
“Right, you wouldn’t want Jin to kill off the High Council... again,” I said, noting his wince. “However, it is your territory and it can’t look good to the community to have all Hell break loose and all you can do clean up the mess.”
“I expect you have a suggestion or you would have no reason to be here,” he sighed in resignation.
“Well, since the maps show where the likely nodes are going to be it would be reasonable to set a watch on those locations and perhaps notify someone that such activity is happening. If those other parties take action I really don’t see how there could be any repercussions,” I offered with a smile.
“I suppose you would want me to contact the new Special Forces department,” he said, frowning.
I paused. Actually, I had pictured him contacting me. Now that he had brought it up, I was thinking he had a point. Most of the time my vid terminal didn’t work. I had even fixed it so it wouldn’t blow up and due to circumstances beyond my control it still was out of order. Vivian had also brought to my attention that some supernatural entities might perhaps spontaneously combust just a tiny bit around my house. That makes it a really poor central office.
“That might be best,” I reluctantly agreed. “Do we have an agreement?”
“I will need the new data to set up the surveillance,” he reminded me.
“Not a problem,” I said while digging out the data key that Vivian had supplied me. I tossed it to him and he effortlessly plucked it from the air.
“Then we have an agreement,” he concluded.
That wasn’t quite the end. We reviewed the map, dithered a bit about what kind of watch was needed. I was adamant about using older vampires. The younger set had not impressed me with their psychic ability and any observers would most likely need as many senses as they could get a hold of. After that, I asked to see Sebastian. He gave me a suspicious look, then shrugged carelessly. The three of us were led to a small waiting room with several couches and chairs. We had just settled in for a wait when Beth asked me, “Do you think we should tell the police about my brother?”
“I thought you already had,” I stated, perplexed.
“All I could think of was to head to you,” Beth mumbled in embarrassment. “Jeremy always said to contact you if anything ever happened.”
“Well, I doubt they can do anything except what we are doing, since we need to find Jin’s people first in order to track down where they took Jeremy.” I continued thoughtfully, “However, I think the police would get annoyed if they weren’t notified.”
“Like Conrad not being told about the new map,” Stella added helpfully. She was looking more like her cheerful self since she was surrounded by less evidence of the undead.
“Yeah, sorta like that,” I trailed off. Perhaps I should call him. Looking at the antique style phone on the table I reached for it and dialed. “I wonder if this thing actually works?”
“Hello, Conrad?” I called into the phone after a moment.
“Derek,” answered his gruff voice. “Is that you? Th
ere’s no video attached and the ID is for Fiero Inc.”
“Yeah, there been some updates I needed to tell you about,” I said while playing with the phone wire. Wow, this was actually very authentic. “The vampires came through with the locations and we mapped out the ley lines and likely target nodes last night.”
“That’s better news than what officer Cromwell told me,” he growled. “Sounds like they had a beachhead all set. I am going to have to sell some story to the military to get them to divert a satellite over the location to dig down that deep.”
“Why not just tell them the truth?” I asked puzzled.
“You know about the Moscow thing?” he asked. “Well, a lot of the people that were in power at that time still are. Thanks to that wonderful little spell that hid magic under a barrel of enforced denial, trying to get acknowledgment of anything out of the ordinary is hit and miss. Depending on who you get in touch with you, may get support or you may get no response. Better to couch the issues in mundane terms.”
“Well, sounds like that will fix itself with a little help from you,” I said still playing with the cord. Swinging it around, I had it spinning like a jump rope. I winked at Beth and gestured her to the swaying rope. She must have been as bored as me because she jumped right in and started to skip in places as I swung the rope.
“So tell me more about the map,” he flipped topics again.
“With the ley lines maps and node points identified we have narrowed down where Jin has to send his minions to test the locations,” Beth did an especially difficult skip and Stella and clapped. “I have already talked to Clan Fiero and they have agreed to set up surveillance on the nodes in their territory and to inform you of when they see activity,” Beth tripped on the cord and had to start untangling it with the elf’s help. “We just need the shifters to do the same and we should be able to tag some minions.”
“Again?” he complained. “If I have to beat any more heads in this week I just might be tempted to do something permanent that a man with my responsibilities should not do.”
