Chapter 14

Going through the gate was an adventure. I had not considered what it would do to the newly formed connections I had. When I passed through, I lost a lot of the new connnnnections to the world I had just left. A wave of dizziness passed over me. New connections were formed, though, new connections to the land I had called home for well over the last hundred years.

I closed down the gate. More connections were severed. One stayed though, a connection to the land I had just left. It was weak, but pulsed in my new vision. I waited until I was sure there were not going to be any new connections formed, then made my way to my camper.

It was as I had left it. No surprise there. I had put a spell on the area, after all. I canceled the spell, and went inside. I checked the clock on the counter. It had a day date calendar. I saw that while I had lived through only two days in the other world, a week had gone by here!

Amazing! How did the gate synchronize with the worlds? This was yet another thing on my list of things to find out. That list was getting quite long. The problem with magic is that it sometimes defied explanation.

I opened the refrigerator and noticed that some of the meat inside had gone bad. I threw it in the trash and took the trash out immediately. As I did, I noticed a police car roll up. Officer Shelton got out.

"Hello, Mr. Lindsy. I kept meaning to stop by, but for some reason it kept slipping my mind," she paused then continued, "Did you get a tan? Have you been to a tanning booth? It hasn't been sunny enough for you to have gotten that tan," she said.

"Not really, I just had a dragon breathe fire on me. Seems a tan is a side effect," I replied truthfully.

She laughed. She had a very nice laugh. She came over and caught a whiff of the trash.

"What are you going to do with that?" she asked.

"I was thinking about sending it to the government as a top secret weapon... biological type. But I thought a dumpster somewhere might be better," I said, grinning at her.

"Drop it in the bait shop dumpster. They won't mind. At least you don't just drop your trash out in the woods like some people do," she said approvingly.

I looked at her. I mean really looked at her. She had a nice soft glow about her. She shimmered a very nice airy blue color. I don't know what made me do it but I just had to.

"Officer Shelton? Would you care to have dinner with me this evening? I am tired of my own cooking, and your company would be better than anything I have had recently" I said. A slight exaggeration, but worth it if she said yes.

She cocked her head and looked at me.

"Are you asking me out on a date, Mr. Lindsy?" she asked, her eyes seeming to get larger. Women had that trick down pat.

"Why, I think I am, Officer Shelton," I replied in my best courtly manner.

"Tell you what. I go off duty, soon. What say I swing by? We can head to town, and decide what we want on the way," she said.

"Sounds fine to me. You probably know the best places, anyway," I said.

She got back in her car, and was soon out of sight. I got another trash bag out of the trunk of my car, and double bagged the garbage. It really stank. A part of me was constantly watching my surroundings. As I loaded the trash into my car, I noticed that someone who could do magic, was probing me.

Damn. It was that girl who I had run into before. The last time, was when I had gone to see Markus, at the Hamilton. Ok, I was about to get some answers. I let her continue her probing while I sketched a spell in my mind.

I tapped into a power line, and cast my snare. I got a sense of startlement.

'Well, she would be real startled before I am done, ' I thought grimly to myself.

I reached, and pulled her through space to me.

She popped out of wherever she had been, and looked with fear at me. I'll give this for her; she was fast on her feet. She had a shield raised before I could do another thing. Ok, that flashy show had off-balanced me. It had taken me a moment more to recover than I had thought it would.

"We meet again," I said, starring at her.

"So it seems. How did you do that?" she asked me.

"Clean living, and good hygiene habits," I responded.

We stared at each other for a moment. I decided to try pressuring her a bit to see how good she was. However good, I knew I was going to be better. I looked closely at her, and saw she had a dark Burgundy color to her body's glow.

I threw a small spell at her, and her shield stopped it easily. She just sort of smiled at me. I smiled back and created another shield and cast it around her shield. Then I cast a hammer blow spell at her. It bounced off her shield, and hit my shield which I had placed around her shield, bounced off, and went back and forth for a minute.

I hadn't been sure I was going to be able to get the spell through the shield, and then solidify it again before it bounced off. I shouldn't have worried. I t was actually a really cool effect. Both the way my spell fazed through my shield and then they way it bounced around.

About this time I felt another spell of transportation opening up a short distance away. I waited, and Markus popped into being a few feet away from me. We all stared at each other. Markus looked at the girl (woman, actually) caught up in the double shields.

"Paul, we need to talk," Markus told me.

"Apparently. This is the second time this woman has attacked me. Also, you seem to be around her a lot. She your girlfriend?" I asked.

"No, she is my daughter," he said.

I just stared at him. Daughter? I remember he said he had one, but this girl?

"She seems to be... very anti-social. She has been a supposed victim, and has been a thorn in my side since I first met her. What is her problem," I asked him.

Markus sighed. "Melissa, stop bothering, Paul. Paul, I give you my word that she won't try anything. Would you please drop the shield you have placed around her?"

I considered what he was requesting. Ok, she really never hurt me, but it is annoying to be spied on and attacked out of the blue. I silently prepared and cast a spell that would block just about anything short of a nuclear blast, and dropped the shield I had around her.

"Thank you. Might we sit while we talk?" Markus asked me.

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P I and Magic — Book 1

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