Chapter 3

The morning of Christmas Eve showed some promise of ending the snow storm. For awhile the sun was even out and brightly shining, but it apparently wouldn't last. More snow expected for later this evening, according to the weather report.

Still, since there was sunshine for the moment, the odds of another Shadow attack soon were remote at best. Most Shadow creatures don't possess a whole lot of self-will, but they have a strong sense of self-preservation. There isn't a big enough whip to force virtually any Shadow creature to go out into broad daylight.

I told Gloria to stay outdoors in the sunlight for awhile so that I could go run an important errand. I vaguely hinted that I was off to find something that should stop any future attacks, and it was only a slight exaggeration of the truth. In actuality, it was time to go pay the wicked "ex" a visit. The sunshine only lasted outside about as far as the first traffic light and by the time I got to my destination the daylight was gone and things were back to being dark and dreary.

Donald, the soon to be ex-husband, didn't live that far away. I'd found the address while rummaging through Gloria's mail downstairs on the dining room table last night. He had been a busy boy it seems and had filed several flavors of complaints against Gloria, including a restraining order that included a prohibition for her to use magic in any form against him. Apparently, the ex seems to have been aware of a thing or two and a visit to him might get a few more questions answered. Unregistered magic use was bad; using magic to attempt to murder someone is far worse. The BMA loves these kinds of cases, but there was no indication that Donald had filed a separate complaint with them.

Finding the exact house wasn't at all difficult, since at the moment, Donald was having no shortage of problems of his own, namely a menacing trio of Shadow Hulks chasing him down in the snow in front of his house. Looks like I had arrived in just the nick of time!

Shadow Hulks are creatures imbued with elemental earth abilities and powers. They're wicked, nasty and foes, capable of suddenly rising out of the ground and attacking without warning. Not quite Major League talent, but darned close. Three of them were going to be a handful for me. One of them alone would be enough to handle any normal human, even in murky daylight. I'd arrived in the very nick of time.

I had one good spray left in my ionizer, but I wasn't going to need it for these guys. They're big and strong, but all offense with no defense game. No brains to speak of and not even very fast moving in their material form. One on one, I'd normally just use my sword-cane against them and not sweat about it overly much. Pulling three of them off of a potential victim was going to be a tad challenging though.

There is no point in being a self-confessed gadgeteer unless you go to work loaded for bear, and anything else that might cross your path. Most normal mundane PI's will wax lovingly about their .38 Colt Revolvers, and so will I in just the right mood; especially when it is loaded with silver bullets, just like the Lone Ranger (said to be one of Lovett's Rangers during the days of the Mexican Wars, before the Texas Rangers were established years later).

Some folks might criticize my use of a revolver, preferring instead the extra stopping power and clip capacity of a .45 APC or 10mm automatics but they would be wrong. Kinetic stopping power is certainly useful against normal people, but against Visitors it is the silver grain weight that is of much more importance. Also, revolvers do not automatically eject shell casings everywhere, and sometimes you don't have time to stop and pick them all up.

Sometimes, it can be very important not to leave strong traces of where you have been. A very skilled enemy could use a spent shell casing I'd recently handled to be able trace my movements and whereabouts, thus it is better to never leave any.

There is nothing quite like the bang of a gun, the smell of gunpowder, and the agonized cry of a Visitor just discovering for the first time the joys of an acute case of internal silver poisoning. I could have dropped one for good with three or more shots, but I decided to play conservatively and popped a pair of slugs into all three, just to get their complete and undivided attention. Their previous goal of pounding poor Donald into a mush was now quite forgotten.

I probably had plenty of time to back up and reload, or draw one of my secondary weapons, but they were moving slower now towards me, fighting off my Commands of Banishment, and facing me in a staggered line, approaching one at a time. Damned vanity ... I pulled out my silver runed sword cane and performed a good bit of directly applied chastisement to their rapidly shrinking and dissipating forms. A minute later and all three had been Banished and made to permanently Depart.

These specific guys wouldn't be returning anytime soon for a repeat visit. The more powerful an entity is, the more it damages their internal essence to be 'killed' on this plane, and forced to Depart for home with their tail between their legs ... figuratively and literally. There are lots of other nasty fish in the sea, but these three good sized fish won't be paying anyone, anywhere a visit for at least five to ten years, at minimum, plus they would be too stupid to remember me and hold any particular grudges.

The grateful ex, Donald, was more than happy to forgive my last second appearance to save his hide and refrained from commenting on the products of my misspent youth, spent watching entirely too many Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn movies.

He was willing to swear to any great number of Oaths, and soon did, that he had never in any way threatened his wife ... and certainly never by magical means. His BMA card demonstrated exactly how impossible this accusation was. His score was a flat Zero. Null. Naughta.

Not a chance in seven hells that Don was trying to off his wife, at least by this means. Heck, by this point I was about willing to hold her down myself so that he could strangle her himself with his bare hands ... but I had a still valid Contract Oath that would last until she intentionally directed some harm at me. Since I was not the original intended target of this particular summoning spell, my options remained fairly limited still.

After swearing a limited Contract Oath with me, my new client Don wasted no time filling me in on the particulars of their settlement. He had all of the money in the marriage, and if he were to die before the settlement was finalized in two days, his estate would still entail to her. In short, pretty little unhappy Gloria had about ten million dollars worth of reasons to lie and wish her husband dead — and fast! Time was now starting to run out.

By the terms of the two Contract Oaths, I was required to protect the lives of both clients, but I could not actually at this point forcibly restrain or prevent Gloria from performing any more summoning against Donald. I had to keep frustrating her attacks until she decided on her own that I would make a better target than her ex. The moment she launched a direct attack on me, either in person or via another summoning, the Contract would be broken and the kid gloves could come off.

Magic has a lot of karmic rules and there are reasons for a good many of them. Smart mages learn to work with the system and that sometimes involves waiting for a long time on the defensive when you'd rather be on the offensive dishing out some payback instead ... but the long term rewards are usually worth the delay.

Gloria apparently had gotten her greedy little fingers on a full blown Artifact with more than enough oomph to summon and control anything up to a major level entity. By all rights, I could have stopped right then and there and picked up the phone to call in a crisis report to BMA, and let them deal with her. That was the safe move. I wouldn't win any hero points but no one would be (openly) second guessing me much either.

On the other hand, our local Austin BMA office was relatively small, and the minor Wizard technically in charge of Major Banishments there wasn't all that much more capable than I was, in my own opinion. Most of our big guns are either at the Imperial Spring Residence of Galveston, the School of Wizardry at Lovett, or the six main field offices in Dallas, El Paso, Elkart, Houston, San Antonio or Tulsa.

Plus my ego really wanted the credit for handling this case for them. Someday there would be likely to be a really big "Oh Shit!" in my official records. Weird and nasty stuff happens. I decided that having a few "Attaboys" in the file wouldn't hurt for when that day comes.

I girded my loins and mentally prepared myself for battle.

I had two choices now. My first thought was to take the time to build an elaborate Protection Circle (with lots of light) for Donald to wait inside of safely while I settled accounts.

Tactically sound, but I just wasn't sure how much brute force the demented woman could muster. If she tossed safety to the wind in a fit of rage or insanity and summoned some Major entities, or heaven forbid a 'Named' extra-planar personage, those protections could be brute forced.

The alternative was to just stay with Donald until the divorce became final, but this wouldn't stop her from summoning. Who knows what she'd do next ... or where it would go. If she summoned more Hulks and released them to go eat the neighbors, it would be me who would probably get the final blame after all of the investigations were completed and the paperwork stamped. It was going to be on my head now regardless of what happened.

I decided that I really needed to confront and stop her now, hopefully by getting her to break our Contract Oath first.

The next issue was how best to protect Donald. I could take him to my own home 'panic room', which I was 99% sure could hold out against anything I could think of, or else I'd have to bring him along with me for the ride, and a not so pleasant probable altercation with the ex-missus. My own need for privacy and internal security won the debate, and Don hopped into my front passenger seat for the ride to Gloria's.

I thought about giving him my reloaded revolver, but decided I couldn't trust the nervous git to not to shoot me in the back by mistake if things got exciting. He did look extremely stressed out and would likely try to shoot anything that moved. I have several minor armor spells enforced in my suit that ought to stop a .38 slug, but I wasn't about to risk my life on that theoretical assumption.

We drove back to Gloria's rental house without even slowing down for lights or stop signs. The snow was picking up again and the sky wasn't going to get any brighter anytime soon. I didn't think there were any red light ticket cameras out in this neck of the woods, but this was sort of an emergency. Besides, that's a very justifiable expense anyway that I could collect from my clients, or their estates if things didn't work out so well today.

I parked near the street entrance to her small residential cul-de-sac. Close enough to see the house fairly clearly even through the snow, but more than likely safe enough out of the way if things went kaboom! I locked the doors and gave Don extremely firm instructions to "Stay in the car and don't get out of the car — no matter what happens!"