by Daniel Ruth
“Which is another way he has changed in the last ten years. Honestly, what’s he has done in this city is more his style than anything else he has done in a decade.”
“He has probably has to move up his timetable once his cohorts were discovered. It sounds like he is trying to keep us distracted and chasing false leads. I suspect he knows exactly where and when the ritual needs to be done.”
“That’s not what you said earlier,” Mei said with a frown, disturbed that all our planning was in vain.
“We didn’t have all the information. Have no fear that we wasted our time. The mapping and surveillance that we had our allies do will still be critical, I think. Just not exactly the way I had planned,” I assured her.
“Whatever he is doing it still needs to be done on the largest node in the city,” Stella interjected.
“Or one of the largest, there still may be several candidates. Just not as many as we thought,” I corrected.
“Okay, so we have a plan! Let’s head out and get Jeremy back,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
“So who do you have to babysit Beth?” Mei asked as we got prepared to leave. Stella and I looked at her in askance.
“I don’t understand. Why would she need a babysitter? She isn’t a baby,” I asked, looking at her confused.
“She’s short but isn’t it a bit rude to call her a baby,” asked Stella, glancing back through the hall where Beth was sleeping. “You are short and we don’t tease you about it.”
“She needs a babysitter because it’s illegal for her to be alone for at least five more years,” Mei said in a low angry voice, a vein on her forehead visibly pulsed. Apparently being call a short offended her.
“I think she’s going all Conrad on us,” I whispered into Stella’s ear. This got a cough from Sebastian and a growl from the shifter in question. “Fine, it seems silly to confine a woman on the edge of adulthood that way, nevertheless I’ll check the auction house for a butler or something. Man, I wish Jeremy was here.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” barked Mei. “I’ll call a friend from one of the local packs. It’ll be faster than arguing about it.”
We had to wait an hour for the babysitter to come. It wasn’t wasted time; I took advantage of it to inscribe a few bowls with negation wards so we could actually capture some minion before their heads blew up.
Afterward, we all piled in the vampire’s antique buggy and were off. Stella was nervous until I assured her that it would not leave the ground and was in no way related to a roller coaster ride. Once we actually got going I think she liked it. The inertia dampener cut the wind and bugs out of the experience and due to the lateness of the night most of the other surface traffic was gone. That meant we didn’t have to stop or slow for people trying to get in touch with an earlier age. They weren’t in our way with their glacially slow bikes or skates or whatever ancient tinker toy they managed to get together. The teen scooters and self-propelled jet shoes were gone too.
The park was controlled by several shifter clans, which also meant that the flashy ads and noisy show tunes were not on display. This lead to a rather peaceful journey, as we circled the area for a good spot to set up. I had my tooth out and we also narrowed the location to a single building. We surreptitiously kept on going, moving to the back of another abandoned warehouse on the opposite side of the target building. It wasn’t the most convenient but the entire area was deserted.
From what Mei shared, the businesses had been locked in petty legal battles between the owners and the packs. It was questionable who would someday win, but it didn’t really matter since the businesses were steadily losing money. Mei predicted that they would settle out of court eventually and the clans would either rezone for residential areas or extend the parkland. Once that happened, the cooperation between the packs would in all probability vanish as they all wrestled for the territory. They really weren’t big on sharing.
At the locked doors, Sebastian tinkered with his wrist terminal and the lights on the deadbolts dimmed before the lock clicked open. He was useful as a thief until Jeremy came back. All of us worked very well in complete darkness, although the reflexive coating on Mei’s eyes was a bit distracting. We quickly set up stations at the front windows, watching the building across the street as Sebastian ghosted his way out. Even though I could see perfectly in the darkness I couldn’t see him as he went his way. He may have changed into a mist, I know he didn’t turn invisible.
We stared out the windows for almost an hour before my terminal vibrated and asked me if I wanted to accept a data transmission. I tapped affirmative and a map of the relevant warehouse popped up with the locations of Jin’s minions and more importantly Jeremy. This was actually more than I had been hoping for. I started tapping away at the holographic interface assigning tags to specific icons. One minion was solid metal, another solid stone. Another kept emitting sparks and a fourth had constant wind surging around him. Mostly elemental powers so far. Unless they had something tricky, like the ability turn someone else into an element it sounded pretty basic. Then another tag popped up which raised my eyebrow. There was a giant wolf the size of a tank pacing back and forth in front of Jeremy.
Stella didn’t have a terminal, so I slunk over to her and whispered to her. “You have the stone guy. I assume you have something that can neutralize stone?”
“Sure,” she hesitantly nodded. “I thought you wanted me out front to grab the runners.”
“I do, I’ll arrange for him to come to you. Just make sure to nail him before he jumps back inside.”
If Sebastian followed our initial plan he would be on the wolf and guarding Jeremy. If he failed, I would not only make sure he didn’t get paid, but ensure he would never be paid again.
I would take the metal guy and as I tapped on the interface again I forwarded the plan to Mei who was assigned the lightning minion. I debated the priority level to assign the wind powered shifter but really had no idea of what his powers were. The others I could guess at. Sighing, I made a note to make him a target of opportunity.
After getting a nod from Mei and Stella, I sent a message to go and waited for the explosions. Evidentially, there were no explosions but Mei charged through her window, across the street and through the warehouse wall next to where the map said her target was. Perhaps she was a were-cheetah. As I followed her at a significantly slower pace, I faintly heard what her enhanced senses had obviously picked up. Deep in the warehouse was yelping and howling combined with barked orders as the shifters desperately and loudly tried to get a handle on what was going on.
My targets last known whereabouts was near a window so I simply leaped through the standard explosion proof glass leading with a kick. Shifters must be faster than I thought, because my metallic target and stone form secondary target were already halfway to rear of the warehouse. They had, however, briefly paused to find out who had broken through the wall. I shameless took advantage of this distraction to catch up to the stone man grab him by the arm. With a single revolution, I whirled him around and threw him through the opening I had made. I was a little off, because his head made a hole in the window frame as he passed by.
Metal man used this grace period to tackle me to the ground and start slamming some very respectable blows into my face. I took five of these before I had enough leverage to retaliate, enlarging my hand to the size of hams to encircle his neck while forming six inch talons on my right hand. These changes barely twinged the rune on my chest and I silently gave thanks to Sulayman for his absurdly overpowered enchantments. Every ounce of pain was worth it to feel a little more freedom within my body. I would have to visit a mirror soon to explore the new boundaries of my form.
My ruminations were rudely interrupted when a metal fist slammed into my face for a sixth time, immediately followed by a direct hit of a lightning strike. The final punch bloodied my lip and the lightning elicited a surprised grunt. My shiny opponent ignored the lightning, but my taloned claw tore screams
from him as four inch deep furrows were etched into his face, blinding him in one eye and almost removing his nose and mouth. His purposeful attacks changed to desperate swats at my clawed hand as he struggled to escape.
Meanwhile, the lightning wielder was spraying the room with sheets of electricity trying to get at Mei. She in turn was doing amazing acrobats as she leaped around dodging the energy. I was struck by lightning twice more during her display of agility. I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore it. It didn’t hurt me so much as messed with my coordination.
The wind controller was tossing miniature tornadoes that were also crisscrossing the house. One of these picked up my opponent and I and set up spinning through the rear interior wall to the back. I am not sure if he had any control over it or we just coincidentally hit every possible solid object in between.
While being bounced around didn’t hurt either the metal man or myself it, was very confusing and made it incredibly hard to concentrate when combined with the twitching caused by the high voltage. I finally simply closed my eyed and started to punch the man I was grappling despite his random flailing. I didn’t use my claws at this point. As fun as they were, they turned out to be a little too effective if I wanted I prisoner.
We were finally thrown clear of the wind’s grasp into a pile of crates. Opening my eyes, I saw that the metal man’s face looked like metallic play dough that had been pounded until all you could see were impressions of fists. Despite this, I saw that he was alive. Looking up, I saw Sebastian grappling with the huge wolf. It was even larger he had described, which meant that his power hadn’t hit its maximum yet. Behind him, barely visible in occasional glimpses was a black and blue Jeremy, sagging against the interior of a cage. His face was grossly swollen, but he was awake. He was clearly trying to stay as far away as he could from the now truck sized wolf. Beside him, on the outside of the cage were two inscribed bowls. Looking back and forth from the giant wolf to the absurdly small bowls, I made a decision.
“Sebastian,” I yelled, trying to catch the vampire’s attention over the howls of the wolf and the sound of the wind from the front area. It was difficult, because the gale suddenly picked up volume and sounded like a hundred trains were tearing around in the street outside. “The wolf has become a liability. Stop playing with him and use your damn dagger.”
The vampire almost paused and smiled before reaching behind his back and pulling his deadly blade. “As you wish.”
Ignoring the battle with the wolf, I held out my hand to the bowls and pulled them to my hand. I always appreciated how psionics ignored most magic although the reverse wasn’t always as pleasant. I reached into my somewhat tattered pants and pulled out the adhesive bottle I had grabbed in my workshop. It was strong stuff, the warnings not to use on humans was repeated several times in large red text on the side. Ignoring this, I put a generous glob on the metal man’s head and placed the bowl on it. While it dried on the man’s head, I jogged towards the front of the warehouse. In the back ground, I started to hear the howls and whimpers of a wolf having terrible things done to it.
Back at the entry of the building, the roof had blown off and a huge tornado towered above the open area. Inside, spinning at hundreds of miles an hour was a blur that looked like a very disgruntled tiger and the shredded corpse of the lightning shifter. At the very bottom of the funnel, cackling madly was the paradoxically grounded and stationary wind controller. Okay, I now knew what he could do. Next time I would definitely prioritize things slightly differently.
I was just about to head towards the manically laughing man when Stella poked her head inside. “Are you done yet?” I saw her mouth, though I heard nothing over the sound of the tempest.
I gestured at the tornado and shrugged. Then I mimed her waving her hand at it. After a second of confusion, she mouthed an incantation and did indeed wave her arm. Immediately silence descended as the windstorm vanished. Looking around puzzled, the air controller started to form dozens of smaller funnels. This time Stella simply waved her hand and they vanished. For the next few seconds furious hand waving from both elemental wielders, became endemic.
Stella was obviously rapidly becoming bored with this game and the man was growing frustrated as the state of affairs continued. Meanwhile, the debris from the now non-existent towering funnel of destruction had been raining down steadily. Wall fragments of duracrete, synthetic wood and plasteel steadily peppered us as the waving contest continued. The mauled corpse of the lightning caster landed with a disgusting plopping sound.
“Are you going to stand and watch us or are you going to do something?” Stella sighed in boredom. “This idiot can only do three things and clearly has no idea how he does it.” She waved her hand again, “Okay, make that four things. I am getting a cramp.”
“How dare you ignore me, my master’s power will wash over the face of this...” at this, a long katana, radiating power fell from the sky and impaled him through his right shoulder, putting a stop in the nascent tirade.
“Wow, that was neat,” said a mildly impressed álfar. “Where’s Mei...” At that point a large red and black tiger fell on top of the wind shifter, who had been staring in horrific fascination at the sword jutting out of his shoulder with his mouth rhythmically gaping. She stood triumphantly on the prone figure for a full five seconds as we watched in impressed silence. This sense of awe was ruined when a moment later the tiger vomited over the moaning shifter. It was completely destroyed when it staggered of on wobbly legs and collapsed several meters away moaning and grousing as only a large disturbingly sick cat can do.
In the next several minutes we stuck the remaining members with the inscribed bowls to prevent premature explosions, freed Jeremy and un-impaled the wind controller. That part involved a lot of screaming since it went through an entire lung the long way.
“How is he even alive?” I asked, as I affixed his bowl to his head. I mean that sword is a monstrously overpowered artifact. There is no way he should be alive.
“Final Death only does what I ask it to,” a nude Mei said solemnly, from under Jeremy’s torn trench coat. She still looked a bit green, but she could mostly function without accidental vomiting or falling over.
“It’s named Final Death?” I asked in contemplation.
“Yes, I stole it from Jin centuries ago and he hasn’t dared to be in my presence since.” Personally I thought that it might be due to her lack of tracking skills but I managed not to blurt that out. “It is bonded to me and no one else can touch it without consequences as long as I live.”
“Which appears to be pretty long,” Jeremy muttered indistinctly, through a swollen mouth.
“Final Death only uses it dire powers on its enemies. Its wielder’s benefit from its more wholesome abilities,” Mei said with a smile, practically caressing the sword before placing on her back where it vanished.
“Are you sure it’s not cursed,” Stella used doubtfully. “Most artifacts I know that are that powerful have some kind of curse.”
“Remind me to not get any gifts from your lot,” Jeremy said with a wince as I worked on healing him. He was a mass of bruises. Nothing fatal, but I had to start growing two shattered teeth for him. Teeth are hard to coax out after a certain age unless your species naturally heals them. It would take them a week to grow out.
“So the stories are true?” I asked perplexed. “Why would you ask a dwarf to make you an artifact if you know it’s going to be cursed?”
“Dvergar, not dwarves. They are asses,” Stella nodded ruefully. “However, it does encourage politeness. Except for gifts from the rare god with a talent for forging or magic, you can’t find a more powerful bit of fluff. If you’re nice you may just get an endless stink curse. If you marry one it may not be cursed. Just never divorce them. Ugh.” She shivered, probably at some remembered tale. “They have no sense of proportion when it comes to revenge.”
“By the way Stella, did you have to kill your fellow?” Sebastian asked. He was still immaculate
in his suit. It must have been a super power. I had seen him wrestling in it and when I went back to get Jeremy, I had seen how many bloody pieces the bus-sized wolf had been reduced to.
“Well... technically no,” Stella said hesitantly.
“How technically?” I asked with interest. I love puzzles!
“I guess I’ll need to show you,” she sighed. We all trooped out with our prisoners in tow. Outside looked slightly better than the inside. The tornado was stationary so the damage was remarkably localized. One thing did stand out from the general debris. Out in the street was a large pile of mud. “He was stone, so I turned him into mud.”
“Can you turn him back?” I asked curiously. I looked at the pile of filth and at my remaining bowls. Again, they weren’t going to fit. Maybe if I scooped some up I could interrogate it. It seemed doubtful. “Is he even alive?”
“I can turn him back into stone, but he is still that shape,” she began, embarrassed. “I tried. And yes he is alive.”
I checked with my aura sight. Sure enough, he was alive. And pulsing with a magic about to go critical. I had a helpful, if somewhat late, premonition of danger. “Holy! Duck!”
We had enough time to take a single step back before the pile of mud blew. For a mere human sized pile of mud, it was surprisingly messy. It spread out in a perfect sphere covering everything on both sides of the street. I had managed to get my force bubble up around everyone, with a singular exception.
“I am charging you for my cleaning bill,” a mud encrusted vampire said from where he had stood, just next to us.
“Sorry, you were out of range,” I replied with a smile. This was untrue, of course. I simply wanted to see if his suit was magical. It wasn’t, he really was covered in mud. Maybe it would miraculously clean itself later. It would be an interesting experiment.
