Chapter 12

I slapped a dome over Charity to keep her out of this, prevent her from getting any of her power back until I let her. Then I began shrinking the shield I had placed over the bruiser, changing it into the kind of siphon I had used on Charity.

It took almost a full minute to drain this guy. He had several artifacts, including a spelled blade that looked particularly nasty. When he was on his knees, panic in his eyes, I stood over him and kicked him in the balls as hard as I could. My shield was focused inward, and if anything, helped in the kick.

The guy collapsed and began puking, his hands cupped over his testicles. I took the opportunity to take the spelled knife, a spelled bag filled with lead shot, and after a threat to kick him again, got him to give up both rings and the chain around his neck, all of which had enchantments of some kind on them.

Then I tried to call Pete again.

‘Hey, Hank. No changes. The number of sightings is still down, but not gone. Not all of them are real though, I think folks are jumpy.’ Pete said in lieu of hello.

‘That’s great, Pete, but I have another problem. Do Mages have a mafia? Magical Dons and Mage Made Men kind of thing?‘

‘Hold tight, be right there.‘ Pete spat out, appearing almost as fast as the words arrived. He was in a crouch, one hand on the gun under his jacket when he appeared.

When he saw the big guy lying in a puddle of his own puke and the fat girl huddled on the ground, me standing over the pair, he relaxed a bit and shook his head.

“Not that I didn’t have faith in you, Hank, but Reggie made it perfectly clear that I wasn’t to risk you if there was anything short of an invasion. I guess he likes having a Wizard in his Rolodex.” Pete said with a shrug, straightening up and relaxing a bit.

I told him the story, starting from what the girls had told me about someone showing up to the school this past Monday, looking for me. Then I explained the approach in the parking lot, then the threats from the meathead.

Pete took several minutes to examine the artifacts I had taken from the man, grimacing when he touched the knife and the lead shot bag.

“These are really nasty. The knife is completely proscribed, it is meant to nullify any magical wards, slide right through shields. The sap is supposed to cause a lot of pain, beyond what you would get from being hit with it. Either one of these would be enough to get these two executed. The rings are pretty standard. One is a shield of some kind, the other is a spell that lets the wearer open any locked door, drawer, and so on. Mundane locks, of course, it’s a thief’s tool.

“The necklace ... I am surprised you could get it off. I have seen two others in the last fifty years, no idea where they come from. They are loyalty spells. The wearer cannot betray the person who placed it on them and cannot remove the necklace either.” He looked at me, the obvious question in his eye.

‘I have been experimenting with my shields. I have one already that accepts whatever power is thrown at it and uses the energy to get stronger. I figured I could use that same idea but put a close-fitting shield around a person to drain magic inside of the shield and draw energy from them. I had envisioned a stun gun, but it is slower than that. Still, it worked.‘ I told him mentally, not wanting the two on the ground to know how I had beaten them.

‘Very useful! How fast does it work? Can you hit a moving target? Can you do more than one at a time? Can you... ‘ his questions were coming fast and furious, but I held up my hand to stop him.

‘I don’t know. I just tried it for the first time on the girl.’

Pete looked at me like I was crazy, and then looked at the bruiser and at the cursed items in his hand. ‘ARE YOU CRAZY? What would you have done if it hadn’t worked? This knife goes right through shields against ... Oh, yeah, multiples, rotating. Mike Newell forgot too,’ he took a deep breath and seemed to calm down a bit, but he was still scowling.

“You need to not get cocky, Hank,” he said aloud, shaking his head.

“What are you going to do with those,” I asked, pointing to the artifacts, “and them?” I shifted to point to the bruiser.

“The artifacts go to the Council so we can find out who put the enchantments on them, track things that way. These two go with me as well, I need a quiet place to drain their memories, track down the others in this group. We wipe them out, but there always seems to be a new group eventually. Some people would victimize others rather than do an honest days’ work,” Pete said with disgust.

“How long will this, um, condition last?”

I had no idea, but I did have one more trick. I siphoned enough power out of the two that both were unconscious in seconds. “No idea, but they are out for now. I assume they will recover as their internal power stores build back up. I suggest keeping them far from any power sources they can use and keep them weak.”

“If I had the authority, I would tell you to try and shut down their magic forever, like we discussed with Anders. I am still hoping you can do it easier than the Council. It takes them days for an average strength Mage, and it is ... distasteful. Painful to the one being punished.”

“Call me when they pass the sentence, I’ll do it for you. What do you do with them then? Once they are mundane?”

“Turn them over to the cops, in most cases, with a spell that makes them confess and keeps them from ever discussing magic, it’s like a geas,” Pete said with a shrug, as if it was no concern what happened once they weren’t his problem anymore.

“Pete, why are we not being disturbed? I mean, I am missing first period. No one on staff has come out, no cops coming to check out a report of bodies laying in the school parking lot,” I asked, looking around curiously.

Pete grinned at me. “I forget sometimes. You have a shitload of power, can do things I can’t even conceive of, but you are still an apprentice, a young one at that! One, or both, of these cast an aversion spell, I think it is ... yes, look.” He showed me a mental image of a bunch of sparkling dots all over the asphalt of the parking lot.

“They cast a low-level aversion spell on a handful of gravel, then spread it around so they could work undisturbed. It should wear off in an hour or so. Safe to use here, everyone is in classes. I imagine it is what they would use for a robbery too, or a burglary, anything where they want people to not pay attention.”

“I gotta learn how to do that, could be useful!” I muttered, shaking my head as Pete smiled at me and disappeared, along with his prisoners.

Great, now I had to figure out a way to get out of detention for skipping class!

The girls were all over me at lunch, wanting to know what had happened. They described how they had an urge to hurry once I sent them off and asked if I had put a spell on them! I seemed to be out of the doghouse though, when I told them all of my spells were to bring them closer and keep them closer, not chase them away!

Thursday morning, about half-past two, I got a rude awakening from Pete.

‘Hank, they hit again, this time no one was around to stop them. A hundred and seventy civilians dead, mundanes, and at least five missing, all young women, from twelve to sixteen.’

‘Holy shit, Pete! What are we going to do? How can we stop them if we don’t know where they are going to hit? We don’t have an army that can go after them, even if we knew how to get there!’

‘We know, Hank, but we wouldn’t have the strength to go, and the power we would need to defeat them is here, in this dimension. I don’t know, but the Over Council is meeting and they have called all Warlocks to investigate the scene. That means you, honorary position or not!’

‘Give me five minutes to get dressed and get my gear.’

My go-to gear had been evolving since this whole thing started. I had some comfortable ankle high hiking boots, a pair of tough canvas pants, a thin t-shirt, and an overshirt topped by a photographer’s type vest with lots of pockets. Sure, it wasn’t a stylish robe with arcane symbols, but it seemed a bit more practical. I added a wide brim boonie hat to help keep the sun off.

The pockets of my vest were kept loaded, and it was usually stored in my emergency recall chest that I could access via the watchband. In the pockets were my monocular from Sylvia, the translation pearl earring from Itsuki, the gems I got from Zhìwěi, my illusionist bracelet from Helmut. I also kept a small first-aid kit for minor emergencies, water purification tablets, waterproof matches, a tiny compass, and some fishing line with hooks.

Okay, a lot of that was overkill, what with being a Wizard and all, but I’ve known basic boy scout survival skills longer than I’ve had magic, and I knew it would work even if something kept me from performing a spell. Like I had done to the thug and his bitch at school. Besides, I had lots of pockets and still had a few empty ones for big things! I thought I was being conservative.

Pete hadn’t told me where ‘it’ had happened, so I was a little surprised when I popped out at an intersection in what was obviously not the US. The road signs were in something that looked Russian, or in the Cyrillic letters that they use. Everything was just a little off, the house styles, the road signs, the width of the road.

When I listened to people talking and some of the screaming and crying, I was more convinced I was in Russia, or one of her satellite countries.

“Welcome to Vapnyarka, Russia, Hank, part of the area known as the Ukraine. The attack happened just over an hour ago, well after school started for the day. Oh, right now it is eleven AM local time, so keep that in mind. The force came through a portal in the gymnasium and spread out to secure the main school building. They killed every adult in the building and anyone under the age of twelve. Then they grabbed a few girls and retreated. No, let’s be precise here, they withdrew. Retreat makes you think of running away, they were not running from anything.” Pete said, laying his hand on my shoulder. His face was as grim as I had ever seen it, and on a homicide cop, that was pretty grim.

‘‘Do we have any video or at least decent witnesses? I mean, ones that are not scared out of their mind, anyway.”

“Yes, but only a couple. Right now, they are talking to the police. Oh, here, take this and hang it in the pocket of your vest, ID facing out so it shows. You are now Deputy Inspector Hank Aaron of Interpol. The ID will keep the locals from shooting you. Hopefully.

“They are all pretty jumpy about now, and someone is bleating about psychotropic gas and weapons of mass destruction and other nonsense. This is so far beyond their experience that they don’t believe the witnesses.”

“Well, if we don’t have video, can you get me some time with a witness?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, moving back towards the clump of more-or-less official looking folks.

“Hank!” I blinked and turned my head, looking for who called me. It had sounded like...

“Sylvia! It is great to see you again, though the reason for it is horrible. You too, Nathan!”

I hadn’t seen the pair, and maybe lovers, since I became friends while helping out with a big problem in New Mexico.

“I decided to quit hiding, and when I heard you Americans were short a Warlock, I thought maybe I could help.” Nathan explained, then grinned at me. “Guess you will be seeing more of me, my boy!”

“Hardly a boy if they called him in on something like this, Nathan, now behave. He might even be your boss!” Sylvia protested winking at me. Nathan looked surprised at this, but gave me a big thumbs-up to let me know he would be okay with that.

“Your man Pete contacted me about making him a monocle like I gave you, Hank. Evidently, you found it helpful on another incursion?”

“Very, and he was impressed. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have loaned this one to him for the duration, but if he can get his own, that would be even better,” I explained, patting the pocket in my vest where my monocular was stored safely away.

“Well, it seems that you create a stir everywhere you go, Hank. I have orders for a dozen, and since Nathan is going to be spending a lot of time in America, and I want to spend some time with Nathan, well, I guess I am coming to America too! Got any room in your area? I hear it is practically a temperate zone compared to Australia!”

I laughed and gave her a hug. “You are welcome in my area any time, both of you. Tell you what, how would you like to be the Mage, or Mages, in residence for a college town? I hear Athens, Georgia doesn’t have a Mage these days; the old one moved to Oregon or something.” Pat had told me about that, when we were talking about keeping an eye on Maggie and Carrie while they were away at school.

The two of them looked at each other and then back to me, nodding in sync as if they had planned it. “We’ll have a look, Hank, thanks!”

“Hank, we have a witness that is done with the locals and is willing to talk, but she pointed you out specifically.” Pete said with a shrug, walking up to our little group. He turned and pointed to a pair of women standing apart from the others, one younger and one older.

“Wizard Lambert, this is Bohdana Kolisnyk, my mistress,” she introduced me and the woman next to her nodded but didn’t approach or offer her hand. “I am Yana Marenko and I go to school here. I am apprentice to Mistress Kolisnyk. She does not speak English. I will translate for you, yes?” Yana asked, waiting for me to agree.

I took the pearl earring translator that Itsuki had given me out of my vest pocket and stuck it to my ear, then nodded to her, not bothering to tell her what I had done.

She seemed unsure, but not uneasy or afraid, just uncomfortable.

<Find out what the Wizard wants to know, silly girl. He is already very famous and very powerful. Do not antagonize him!> Bohdana said, scowling at her apprentice.

“Da, Uchytel” <Yes, mistress> Yana replied, then turned to me. “My mistress asks what it is you would have of her.”

I didn’t smile, but wanted to. Instead, I nodded thoughtfully and turned to the older woman.

“I would like to hear what happened here, from the very beginning, until the police arrived. Any details you can provide might help us.”

Yana had been keeping a running translation as I spoke, and the woman was nodding, but not interrupting.

<You offer to share memory with him, that way I don’t have to refuse. I am an old woman with too many secrets to trust even someone like him.> Bohdana ordered, scowling at me.

“Please, Wizard Lambert, my mistress instructs me to share my memories of the events with you, so that nothing is left out.” Yana said softly, trembling a bit.

“Pete, will you do the honors?” I asked, not wanting to admit before the crusty old Mage that I hadn’t the foggiest how to do that.

Pete stepped forward, and at a confirming nod from Yana, placed his hand on her head and then transmitted the memories he saw to all of us, including Bohdana.

Yana had been changing for gymnastics training, her chosen form of the required physical education. She felt that same copper taste in her throat that I recalled, and she heard a scream from the gym, then several crashes and more screams. Afraid, she crept out of the shower, just a towel wrapped around her torso, and peeked around the corner.

A creature, every bit of eight or nine feet tall and almost as wide, had a classmate named Iosef by the arms. The creature had Iosef suspended, one arm in each massive paw, and with a bunching of the huge muscles in its chest and shoulders, the creature ripped both arms off the helpless boy, letting his torso crash to the gym floor.

The blood from the boy mingled with the blood of at least a dozen other bodies that littered the gym and Yana was sick, pulling back into the bathroom before losing her breakfast.

When she dared to peek again, only two small creatures remained, each with a sword almost as tall as their own four and a half feet. They were guarding a portal filled with a green, swirling light. There was a ruckus at the entrance to the gym, and the main doors were thrown open with enough force to break the hinges on one, leaving it dangling by the top hinge only.

Through the opening poured a dozen more of the small creatures, like the pointy-eared portal guards, plus three of the giant ones and two more that were taller, but thinner with fearsome visages, warped and twisted until they were a horrible caricature of humanity. These two, these frightful ones, were directing the others. One of them was chewing on what looked like a human leg, and that is where the memory ended. Yana had fainted.

“I am sorry I fainted, that I did not see more to share with you,” the girl said, miserable and unhappy after reliving the experience yet again.

“Please, Yana, think nothing of it. I am surprised I did not faint watching it, and I wasn’t even there. You were amazingly brave to witness what you did see,” I assured her, keeping my voice soft and as supportive as I could.

She shot me a grateful look, then looked to see what her mistress’s reaction was.

“Don’t worry, Mage Kolisnyk, I don’t want to know all of your secrets, not if you are unwilling to share,” I told the older woman quietly and winked at her.

She looked surprised for a second, then rolled her eyes and shook her head. Throwing up her hands, she stalked off, but not before I saw the beginnings of a smile, just for a moment.

Yana scurried after her mistress, tossing a wave back over her shoulder but not slowing down. The old woman moved pretty well for her age!

“I was told the first bunch was supposed to kidnap a girl or two as well.” Nathan said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, that is what the Ms. Lafontaine told me, anyway. The rest of her prediction was spot on, so there is no reason to doubt the rest, even if we prevented it from happening. She didn’t contact me about this one, but she said she rarely ever gets real visions in time to do anything about them. Do you suppose there is any way of making her talent more reliable?”

“You should go and see her, Hank, let us deal with the local authorities here. Things are always messy when the locals get involved before we do. I never investigated something like this, but I have had a couple of apprentices over the years, and they are not all as tractable as you are,” Sylvia said with a shake of her head.

‘Miss Lafontaine? Do you have a moment?’

‘Oh! Hello again, Wizard Lambert! Of course, I have time for you. How can I help?’

‘I’d like to come and see you, if that is okay. I’d like to talk to you about your visions, your precognition, and please, call me Hank.’

‘Oh, well, um, yes, I suppose that would be all right. Um, right now? Please, give me ten minutes, then teleport here, ‘ she said hurriedly, sending me a memory of a small courtyard.

‘See you soon, and thanks!’

Turning back to the others, I hesitated. I hated that I couldn’t go places on my own and had to have taxi service. It was like being fourteen again and without a license!

“Do you suppose someone can give me a lift? I can get home okay...”

Emily Lafontaine lived in a little cottage inside a head-high walled courtyard. The cottage was painted white with colorful accents everywhere, including shutters over each window and each of them was a different color!

Among the climbing ivy, she had planted flowers that seem to bloom in no particular pattern, but it all looked as though it were part of an oil painting of a scene from yesteryear. Even the cobblestones of the courtyard were covered in moss of a hundred shades of green, except for a clear path from the house to the gate and to a shaded table in the rear yard.

Emily was tall, an inch or two short of six feet, and very thin. As much as it made me uncomfortable to make the comparison, she looked very much like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, except she didn’t have green skin!

Her unfortunate chin and beak-like nose overpowered her sharp cheekbones and bright, green eyes. She was smiling though, with a hint of mischief in her expression, as if she knew exactly how she looked and had learned to take a bit of pleasure in the reactions of people who met her for the first time.

“Wizard Lambert? Welcome to my home!” she said brightly, stepping forward.

So great was her presence, and so great was the shock of her appearance, that I hadn’t even noticed the two men standing behind her until she stepped forward. They were of a type, both short and wiry, both dark haired with light colored eyes. Both appeared pleasant, with welcoming smiles on their faces, and they waited where they were while Emily moved to greet me.

“Ms. Lafontaine, it is a pleasure to meet you. I want to thank you again, this time in person, for the warning you gave us a while back. Thanks to you, no innocents were harmed and who knows what you saved that young girl from!” I said, taking her warm hand in both of mine and half-bowing over it as I had been taught.

“Call me Emily, and you are Hank. Come, let me introduce you to my husbands,” she said brightly, keeping a hold of my hand and pulling me forward to meet the men who were still standing outside the rear door of the house.

“Jacques, Enrique, this is the Wizard Hank Lambert I was talking about. Hank, these are my husbands, Jacques and Enrique.”

“Please to meet you both,” I said politely, nodding to one and then the other.

They both looked at Emily and she spoke to them in French. I hadn’t taken off the earring yet, so I donned my poker face and listened in.

<He said he is pleased to meet you. Jacques, tea here in the garden, please. Enrique, you can make the delivery now, sweetheart, thank you for waiting. I wanted to make a good impression!>

<Coming right up!> Jacques said, smiling at me and nodding before turning and going in the house.

Enrique also smiled and waved before he left, calling over his shoulder, <He’s young, but if he is as powerful as you said, I am glad I got to meet him.>

“Jacques will make us some tea but Enrique is delivering some of my work to a client today, so he had to go. He was very pleased to meet you,” Emily said, then gestured to the covered table. “Shall we sit? If it is not an emergency, perhaps we can drink some tea while we talk.”

I was getting the feeling that my being here excited her. She was not the first magic user who seemed to know more about me than expected, just like the Koisnyk woman. How the hell could I be famous already?

“It just occurred to me, and I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but, well, I am a school student, sixteen years old and still a junior in high school. I have no idea how that translates to schools in this country, but I am considered a minor, not even an adult by the laws of the Unites States. How is it that you, and apparently many others, seem to know who I am and so much about me?” I kept my tone light and curious, not wanting to give her the wrong impression.

“But ... Hank, are you not the new Wizard? That alone would get every Mage tongue in the whole world talking. We have so few Wizards, especially one so young. And you have the affinity with power, to fill gems so easily, to manipulate power in ways no one has heard of! Then there was the battle in New York City! Everyone in the whole world has seen the memories of that, I have a memory stone of that even myself, and I have watched it a dozen times! Of course, you are famous.”

A memory stone? Everyone has seen the ... shit.

“Please pardon my ignorance, but what, exactly, is a memory stone?” I asked, wincing at her sharp look.

“Jacques is bringing mine right now. I paid quite a sum for it just after the event, and now I am curious if the memory displayed is accurate, so odd is your response!”

Jacque appeared at her elbow, holding a small jewelry box. Nestled in the black velvet interior was a polished stone, not particularly special looking, or no more so that you would find in a hobby shop.

“This is quartz with some kind of occlusion, I am afraid I don’t know much about stones, but it is called a Tourmalinated Quartz, and it is supposed to be the most stable for long-term memory storage. Just place it against your forehead and invoke it, um, wish it to play. Like so,” she said, holding it against her forehead. Her eyes went blank for a moment, her face relaxed.

It only took a couple of seconds and she looked alert again, smiling sadly, “I saw the look of shock and pain on your face when the small one committed suicide. It must have been hard for you.”

Okay, now I was really curious. I accept the stone from Emily, then raised my shields completely, keeping them close but making sure nothing could get to me while I tried this. Call me paranoid, but I sent a quick thought to Pete to ask and got back a qualified okay, that yes, Tourmalinated Quartz was commonly used to store memories.

Placing the stone against my head, I willed it to play for me, and bam! I was back there but standing to the left side and behind where my body, in the memory, was standing! I had to be in the spot the Asian Warlock, Ken Jeong, had been standing. This was his memory!

I watched the events unfold, wincing at the big four-armed one I cut in half and again when the short one shoved the blade into his own chest. The memory ended shortly after that, but it had included the emotions of the one recording as well as the visual, so I felt shock at the shield slicing the bad guy, disgust at the remains on the ground, dismay at the suicide and respect for ... for me, the boy Wizard. It was disconcerting!

I handed the stone back to Emily with a wan smile, unsure what to say at that point.

“You can see why memory recordings are especially helpful. I could feel the respect a very powerful Council Warlock had for you, as young as you are, and you have only made yourself more famous since then. The Spell you cast in your country, in that western state, is said to be as big as anything in our history and to have used more power than the combined might of all the Wizards in Europe.”

“I hadn’t heard about that comparison, but I am a bit surprised at how quick gossip moves in a secret society,” I joked, shaking my head.

“Ah, but we are only a secret to the mundanes. Among ourselves, what else do we have to do but talk? So, Wizard Hank, what can I do for you, as if I couldn’t guess?”

This time I didn’t grin, and I could tell that she picked up on that. I told her about the attack this morning, the dead and the missing.

She turned pale and closed her eyes, swallowing several times before taking a deep breath and holding it. I gave her the time she needed; it was a big shock to take in.

“You know I would have warned you, if I had seen this,” she stated, but there was a hint of a question and I nodded.

“Of course, you would, no one questions that. I am here only because of a question I had that others couldn’t answer. Is there any way, any method we can use, to strengthen your gift, to make it more ... I hate to use this term, but more reliable? To target it in any way, or to stabilize it so that you get more warning?”

Emily stared at me without speaking for several minutes, her eyes on me but not really focused. “No, I don’t ... I mean, I haven’t ... I don’t think so. Look, Hank, this curse, for it is a curse, it comes when it comes; there is no rhyme nor reason. There is no interval or predictability to it; it just happens. And when it hits me, even if it is a second’s view of a river or if it is an hour-long torture session of listening to a child learn the violin, it wipes me out so thoroughly that I sleep for hours, sometimes a full day, before I can even sit up again, much less paint or leave my house.

“I cannot drive or spend time in town at the theater or at a concert. I cannot see the ballet or an orchestra. It is a curse, not a gift,” she said, her voice sharp and biting.

“Please, Emily, I didn’t mean to bring up old pains, but you can understand why I ask these things? I had no idea it was this painful for you, this taxing. If I may ask though, is the weakness afterwards? Is it because it is draining you? Is it draining your magic? Your energy? Or do you think it is a psychic weakness, a side-effect of seeing into the future?”

She looked thoughtful, but shrugged. “I think it is power, I cannot do even the simplest spell afterwards, and I feel as if I were a new apprentice, trying to master even the easiest tasks. I feel as though I am struggling to complete a spell that is too high a level for me, too intricate.”

On a whim, I pulled off the small quartz gemstone I still wore around my neck, mostly out of habit. It was more sentimental than anything at this point, but it would be okay to test something.

“Would you hold this in your hand and tell me what you feel?”

Emily accepted the stone, the necklace dangling between her fingers, and she brought it closer to her face to examine it. She looked confused, seeing it was a bit of common quartz, but then her expression changed, and she smiled.