A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1)

by Daniel Ruth

  “The other locations where the roots are the same.”

  “Mei, find out how long that Baron guy was running around masquerading as a gang leader,” I turned to the small shifter. “We know they worked together. I want to see if the timing matches up.”

  While she spawned another window to talk to Conrad’s assistant, I continued to examine the global map with increasing concern. This was more than summoning a demon lord. It was more than summoning a god. This was something that spanned over a decade and may have involved another dimension and mages, one of which was extremely conversant in circles, a very strong, if not versatile form of magic. They could have summoned a demon lord years ago if they wanted something so plebian. Our briefly captured werewolf minion that had squealed was either a lair or misinformed.

  “It matches up,” she confirmed as she shut off the secondary terminal. “Baron set up shop a little before the first backlash event.”

  “So what do they want?”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s finishing up here,” the Asian woman stated. “He’s changed his pattern. He’s never blatantly opened portals like this.” I gave her a doubting look. “That I know of,” she acknowledged. “I may not have sensed the opening but there were not any reports of demons rampaging through the city. I was looking for things like that.”

  “Well, other dimensional invasions are classic rationales,” I volunteered.

  “Seriously? It isn’t that clichéd,” Mei asked suspiciously.

  “It pretty common,” Stella called out for the couch. “That’s why its cliché. In the last few centuries, my home plane has had raids every few years from other dimensional world powers.”

  “My home too, it sounds like it par for the course for realms with high ambient energy,” I waxed philosophically. “The higher energy make the dimension easy to get to and easier to get away. There are whole empires that are made from expanding into such places or just find raiding easy. Still, this is not a high energy location. It’s got a lot of ley lines compared to the rest of the world, but they don’t even have enough energy to be visible to the naked eyes.”

  “I loved watching the ley lines at night back home,” Stella sighed.

  “Me too, until some beastie leaps out of the portal on the node and tries to eat your face,” I countered. Stella just shrugged shoulders, apparently it had happed to her too. “But unless they want to open up a portal in each city and invade the whole world simultaneously I don’t see a reason for a ten year preparation.”

  “Would it help to see his previous lairs? We can get a sub orbital flight to one of them and be back in a couple hours.”

  “That would be nice,” I said reluctantly. “Unfortunately I am under a... curse. I can’t leave the city without dire consequences.”

  “Oh, I wondered why you were doing research on magic in a city that had no magic users instead of just asking someone in another city,” Mei said with sudden understanding. “They are hard to find since Moscow, but not impossible.”

  “Yeah, that would make things easier,” I muttered. I knew this city was barren of psionic sensitives. Apparently it did the same to mages. Except for our three villains. Either they were shielded or immune to the psychic pollution of the city. “Anyway, getting back on topic. I can’t think of anything else he would want to do besides open all of the nodes at once, unless he’s been smuggling Twinkies all these years.”

  I was assuming that the last decade was preparation, since there had been no obvious effect that would have been noticed by someone that had dedicated their entire life to hunting him down and finding signs of him. I thought about it more, but I didn’t see the point unless you were a terrorist. Opening all of the portals at once would see random monsters and people come through. Depending on where they lead to, it may not even be hostile. I suppose the worst case would be if they all opened to a hell dimension or a high energy world.

  Of course from what little we knew about Baron’s world did indicate it was such a high energy world. That many portals open at once would temporarily flood the ley lines, which would in turn pop open a few more tears in reality, but it would only last as long as the portals were open. Chaos yes. Likely more than a few deaths from some random failing technology that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and, of course, the inevitable malicious creatures drawn to the energies surrounding such phenomena. It still seemed more like a terrorist plot than anything else. Unless it was the invasion idea. I shuddered at the possible sheer lack of originality.

  I was going to offer more irrelevant and frivolous examples just to see Mei’s face when I heard a shout of pain from the front.

  Chapter 18

  I rushed over to the door and opened, it just as the new bell rang. There, outside the wards stood Sebastian in a casual suit and bow tie under the dim moonlight. He would have looked quite fashionable if it weren’t for the smoke pouring off of him and the stream of vitriol coming out of him mouth. It appeared to be directed at me.

  “Sebastian,” I shouted happily. Watching him burn really cheered me up after having such a lousy day. “Glad you could make it! Does this mean you have some news for me?”

  “Damn you,” he glared as he readjusted his suit. “My price just doubled. Your little agent sent me the account information however she hasn’t responded.”

  “She’s had a long day. She’s taking a nap,” I offered with a shrug. Obviously Kingston hadn’t told him why he was trying to kill me if he thought I was worried about money. “Tell me what’s up.”

  “Here?” he asked looking nonplussed. “In the middle of the street?”

  “Hmm,” I nodded in agreement. “I guess that might not be the best idea with demons running around. Let’s go across the street. I haven’t seen it since we accidentally tore it down.”

  “Accidentally,” he asked skeptically.

  “Okay, it was mostly accidental,” I shrugged. “I’m sure the insurance covered it.”

  Mei followed us silently, eliciting a glance from the vampire. “Are you going to introduce your lovely companion?”

  “You’ve already met Mei Ling,” I said, while opening the door to the re-built house. It looked... generic. I guess that they had gone with the prefab look. The lights flickered as we entered. Apparently, the construction company used components just a little too new to be reliable around three supernatural creatures. Hopefully, it would last long enough for us to finish. “You were just busy. I guess your attention was divided.”

  Mei smiled slightly at the quip. It was good to be appreciated. Sebastian either didn’t get it or was more interested in business. “I did some digging. The hacker was the easiest. Apparently he advertises on the Shadownet and even has customer reviews.”

  “Shadownet?” I inquired. “I’m not familiar with that.”

  “It’s an ancient service that runs in parallel to the net,” Mei interjected. “Criminals use it to advertise their services and payments for illegal goods. Every few weeks it gets taken down, but it always goes back up within a day. They have had to reinvent themselves every few years as technology changes. Their new catchphrase is actually their old one.”

  “Oh. Neat,” I said, without much enthusiasm. I guess there was a down side to technology, it couldn’t be exploding taxis and melting cities every day.

  “Exactly,” Sebastian continued. “He has too many blinds and dead ends to ever hope to contact him directly. He’s probably not even in the city. He does have a reputation of loyalty within the limits of his contract. Unfortunately, that means he is not likely to give us any useful information.”

  “Give what you have to the police; let their computer people chase him. Even if they don’t catch him it would be nice not to have future clues shut down because cameras and sensors didn’t record anything,” I told my undead minion. Not that there would be much on camera from amped up shifters but one step at a time. “What else?”

  “There are definitely supernaturals missing. Mostly wolf sh
ifters,” the pale man reported. This caused muttered curses from Mei about troublemakers.

  “I must have talked to most of the wolf clans in the last few days and they mentioned nothing. They probably won’t report anything until most of them are gone, insular bastards. Do they know what happened to them?”

  “It’s mostly their younger people. You know how restless they get, always pushing against authority,” he continued, winking knowingly at Mei. His good mood was slowly returning. The shifter grunted unhappily but nodded in acknowledgment. “If they are seen again they seem different. More intense. Most figured it was a girl or they found religion. Apparently they found a cult.”

  “He may employ brainwashing techniques. Lord knows the sheer number of minions he has and the way he throws them away must mean something.” Mei frowned in thought. “So they have no idea where all these people went and they didn’t tell me or Conrad. Idiots.”

  “No, unless we want to track them down with more mundane surveillance methods it’s a dead end for any immediate returns.”

  “Tell Conrad anyway,” I said turning to Mei. “That’s something he can get his people to do. He’s told me in the past that he has equipment that can nail down supernatural to some extent. Every time we dig deeper into this it gets bigger. I am starting to think our Norse elf may have something with this apocalypse the seers are muttering about.”

  “Apocalypse?” questioned Sebastian, quirking an eyebrow.

  “So far it’s just some psychics with bad dreams,” I replied, downplaying it. The Council was already freaked out about Jin. I didn’t need our most recent lead getting cold feet. One of the lights in the kitchen flickered and died.

  “The last thing I found out was a bit of a surprise,” the vampire smiled. “You understand that someone bought the land the Blight is on and has been rebuilding it?”

  “I keep going through it to reach Vincent, so yes, I do realize how it’s changed,” I said while shaking my head. The entire house would need to be rewired when Jeremy got back with something simpler and prone to failure. “I want to know where all the punks and crazies went though.”

  “Clan Fiero grabbed a few of the more lucid ones,” Sebastian said with a grimace. “It’s not hard to get the unbalanced to agree to the change. Maybe not wise but it wasn’t my call. Most of them come out of it mostly sane. Apparently brain chemistry has less impact on our kind.” I nodded in understanding. Being an animated corpse, basically a possessing entity in some ways, would make you independent of your physical body in some ways. It explained how difficult they were to kill. “The others seem to have been recruited by a new player. Our new entrepreneur of the Blight.”

  “So is he some other clan of vampires?” I turned to Mei, “No offense, but vampires tend to be more organized than shifters.”

  “No, he’s also not a shifter,” he stated vaguely. A sort of odd disinterested expression was on his face for a moment. “Whatever he is, he has supernatural charisma if nothing else because he has shifters and vampires working with him and they aren’t trying to kill each other.”

  That was actually a pretty big accomplishment. All supernatural are territorial and vampires and shifters couldn’t accept being near each other unless they were older and more self-controlled. An example of that would be Mei, who stood next to us, simply accepting the information from our resident assassin and showing no signs of stress or anger. I had no doubt our new player was some kind of supernatural. Likely he was high enough on the pecking order that, like me, he felt no threat from lesser types. As for how he got others to work for him... I didn’t know. Some sort of magic I would guess.

  “Are you saying this is Jin?” I asked, somewhat wary. That seemed a stretch.

  “Not at all,” the vampire assured me. “But it came up when I was looking into the missing people. I did check. He arrived before we think Jin did in the city, exchanged a lot of gold for currency and went into business.”

  “Urban renewal?” I questioned a bit puzzled.

  “No, that is apparently merely a side effect,” he chuckled. “He has a huge bar that he is making neutral ground.” I mouthed the word ‘neutral’. Definitely magic. There is no way simply declaring it would keep the races from going at each other’s throat. “The rest is going to be a very large entertainment area.” He must have seen my blank look. “Think a cross between Hollywood and Las Vegas.”

  “I guess that’s a step up from the Blight,” I muttered in confusion.

  “Anyway, this fine upstanding citizen has his feelers out for you. I followed up on your behalf while I was eliminating the possibility of him being Jin and he requested to talk to you.”

  “Okay, I guess I am game for that, as long as we still have our other feelers out,” I slowly stated. “So who is this fellow?”

  “Sulayman,” he stated.

  “Isn’t that a song?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Well, apparently it’s a name too,” he bantered back. “However, real or not, it matches the paperwork filed for ownership.”

  “Okay, let’s head out,” I started towards the main house. “I just need to pick something up. You have a vehicle?”

  He simply snorted. “Don’t bring the girl, we’re going to a bar.”

  I looked over at Mei and shrugged, “Sorry, next time.”

  “The other girl,” Sebastian snapped.

  “They don’t like Nordic elves?” I asked, puzzled.

  “The child. The little girl can’t go into a bar,” the vampire talked slowly as if losing patience.

  “Don’t be silly, she was never coming,” I looked at him strangely. Beth was going to be sleeping well into the next day. I couldn’t possibly carry a sleeping person around like a sack of potatoes. The neighbors would talk. If I had any.

  As Sebastian went to get his floater, I turned to Mei who was following me into our home. “So are you tall enough to get into a bar?” Mei gave me a shove strong enough to send me, arms wind milling through the hallway and well into the bedroom in the back.

  When I picked up my tooth from my basement workshop and got back to the front Mei was waiting by the door. She had a black coat that somehow concealed her sword. Actually, it likely concealed itself. With Sebastian wearing his own black set we probably looked like a nouveau metallic band. I put my trench coat back on the rack and grabbed a brown scarf and sweater instead. It should help hide my tooth of power. It would also help break up the ninja motif around me.

  “You’re bringing the big honking tusk Estella gave you?” she looked at it oddly.

  “Yeah, Sully may not be Jin in disguise but I am betting he is something other than human in disguise,” I acknowledged.

  “Can’t you read auras or something?” she asked.

  “Of course I can,” I glared at her indignantly. “But any major supernatural entity that’s worth worrying about has ways of hiding that. This little baby has runes to reveal truth and track...”

  I paused and Mei stared at me. “It can track Jin?”

  “Screw that,” I said to her in realization. “It might be able to track Jeremy down.” I started to absently tap the tooth as I thought. “I don’t have any blood from Jeremy since I threw out his bloody clothes. Hmmm, his sister might be good enough, but I would have to mask her or I would keep ending up here. Not to mention that I would get interference from her parents and who knows how many other relatives around here.”

  “I would suggest a hair sample,” called out Stella, who was in the living room, with Beth’s head still in her lap. “You could use other personal fluids but hair works fine and is a lot less creepy. Just tie it around the tooth and dangle it from the chain.”

  “That thing is a tooth?” Mei spat out in surprise. “From what? A Tyrannosaurus Rex?”

  “Hey now, that is a perfectly fine example of its kind,” I defended my tooth while avoiding the question. I continued, switching subjects. “Stella, why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “Sorry, I forgot,�
�� I could hear the embarrassment in her voice. That made two of us. “It’s been a really busy day.” Damn, I was planning to use that as my excuse.

  “Okay, change in plans,” I said as I hurried out of the house towards the vehicle on the street. “We’re stopping on the way to the bar to break into Jeremy’s house.”

  Then I stopped and looked at what we were about to get in. In front of the house was something that looked like my rickshaw, but without the bicycle. The term horseless carriage came to mind. It had four wire wheel tires, a padded bench for a seat and a box in the rear that seemed to house an internal combustion engine. It was chugging and puttering at the end of the sidewalk, lying in wait for us.

  “For crying out loud,” I complained. “Did Stella put you up to this?”

  “I think... I think that is a ‘Velo’,” Mei said uncertainly. “It’s been a couple of centuries but it was a big deal when it was made. The first modern car.”

  “This is the last time I ever have a vampire drive us anywhere,” I said in dismay. There was barely enough room on the bench for three and Mei got the short end of the stick as we both crowded around her.

  “This is an authentic replica,” the vampire started. He was completely oblivious to our disgust and went on to extoll the virtues of his car. “It was the first automobile. I told him it wouldn’t work and by damn, he proved me wrong.”

  “Help, I’m trapped in Sebastian’s nostalgia fantasy and I want to get out,” I moaned to myself. I might as well pedal us all there, I’d get there faster.

  Once the rickety looking device started I began to feel better. It was obviously heavily modified, because as we picked up speed the engine sound never changed. Pretty soon we had to be going over hundred mph. I could feel the odd inertialess sensation of a kinetic dampener and at that point I shrugged my shoulders, earning an elbow from Mei, and shut up. The field also seemed to have a weak barrier effect that prevented us from picking bugs out of our teeth. By the time we reached Jeremy’s apartment, I had to admit that it was a pretty nifty variation of an antique car.