The Power of Ten

Chapter 5-134: Secrets to Keep, and Miles to go Before we Sleep

Shvaughn looked impressed at the immediate Oath. “Who are Sama and Briggs?” she asked quickly. “This is not a secret I like to spread.”josei

“I believe ye met her already. Sama’s also called The Golden Hag,” The Mick promptly spoke up.

“What?!” Her eyes literally popped flames. “That bitch?!”

“Amazons instinctively loathe Hags,” I said to the boys out of the side of my mouth, taking in her angry expression. “What’d she do, beat you up?”

“There was a sword competition in Chicago a few years ago. It’s where I first met Shvaughn, actually,” The Mick answered, plainly amused. “Senpai Sama competed in it under The Golden Hag, won the whole thing. The only year Shvaughn didn’t, actually.”

The woman was fuming, but in control of herself. “How’d you do?” I had to ask.

“Ah, I got knocked out by a Storm stylist in the second round, who made it all the way to the fourth before Shvaughn beat him, chasing him all over the circle with a flaming sword. I laughed for half the fight watching him trying to get away.” He grinned despite himself, and the Grandmaster blessed him with a smile and laugh, clearly recalling the fight, too.

“Sama’s probably the most dangerous swordmaster on the planet, so you losing to her is no different than another Warlock losing to you... and I rather doubt any Warlock can beat you in terms of Wrath,” I pointed out to her.

Mollified a little, she tossed her burning hair back, still a bit disgruntled. “And who is this Briggs?”

“The most dangerous Hammer wielder on the planet. An armored hulk of an Ancient who can definitely beat you at arm-wrestling. He and Sama are a Team Supreme, and it’s not going to be a good idea to get on either one of their bad sides.”

She studied my face, contemplating that, dipped her gaze to the Shards that were still showing, and made a judgement call, looking at Master Fred.

Fred nodded slowly. She looked a little impressed, glancing at The Mick, who also nodded. Those two were definitely not people to mess around with...

“I have a feeling I’ve stumbled into something momentous here... which, if what I’ve been hearing of the stuff coming out of Detroit you’re in the middle of has any truth to it, is why I agreed to come in the first place!” She turned back to look at me, weighing things. “Do you know how much of a tizzy you’re creating in the halls of the College of True Magic?” she smiled in approval.

“At least ninety-four goldweight and counting,” I answered, which only made her smile more at the spells-hunger of the Uruthimi masters of the College. “True Magic my finely curved arse,” I sniffed loftily, and she actually laughed again.

“All right, I’m in, although why you even asked me to come...” She clapped her hands together.

“Don’t play dumb,” I chided her, being perfectly aware of the potential of a Hungry Heart Warlock. “What is the name of the Temple they are holding my son in?”

“You’re killing me here. How am I supposed to play a slightly ditzy glamour-babe if you keep expecting me to show how smart I am?” she sighed to me theatrically. “They call it the Shrine of the True End. It churns out the Ebon Blood, Starving Tongue, Withered Heart, and Hands of Murder Pacts. The Pact Grantor is a powerful creature that changes its appearance, and has access to some pretty powerful magic.”

“Most of the Grantors do,” I agreed. “The Angelos believes it is a Matrixoth, a Greater Daemon of Famine, although not a powerful member of the species, or it would have a much greater presence.” And very shortly wouldn’t be at all a match for the Angelos...

She gave me another funny look. “I consider myself one of the most-informed occultists on the planet, and I have no idea what that is.”

“Have you ever sat down with one of the otherplanars and had a good, long discussion about just what kind of creatures are out there, instead of dribblings from madmen, idiots swearing a Pact completely overwhelmed by them, or clueless observers who had no idea what they were really looking at?” I asked archly.

She put on a thoughtful face. “Once you put it that way...”

“I’ll fill you in on the reality outside the planet. Lord Mick, give her your keys.”

He complied instantly, despite the look on his face, and she looked equally amused as she caught the tossed keychain. “And why am I driving the sexmobile?” she had to ask, which did get an appreciative grin from The Mick.

I reached behind my back to the Masspack laying almost unnoticed there, and pulled out a small Tome bound in bloody velvet. “I made The Mick a promise for when I hit Five, which I did yesterday. I spent a couple hours writing this out... it’s time to give him some magic lessons.”

The Mick’s black eyes went totally and utterly crimson, glowing with a strange hunger as he stared at the book. “The principles of Blood Magic?...” he trailed off meaningfully.

“You’re going to be taking lessons in the back seat, while she drives. Let’s see how good a student you are.”

Master Fred only looked amused. I was sure he understood the innuendo, and equally sure he knew it was harmless flirting. There was nothing going on between us.

“Lady Traveler, you will have my full and undivided attention,” he assured me, bowing to the waist slowly, and meaning every bit of it.

“Let’s get you started on a formal refinement of that muck you call not-dark-magic Wizardry, and wile away some hours on the road.”

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Refueled and topped off, we headed out down 57 down the interstate, on a route that would eventually take us to the Mexican border. If The Mick wasn’t coming with us, we could have just avoided the border by crossing the Gulf of Mexico, but seeing as how we were supposed to link up with Briggs and his crew, we’d just cross the border together... legally or otherwise.

If The Mick wasn’t bringing his car, he could’ve done the same. But how could he not bring Bone Marrow? It’d be like leaving his Sword behind; it just wasn’t going to happen. The Mick had an image, and his car was part of it. The elements of society he messed with understood face, rep, and image very, very well. The car was basically an excuse to mess with him... and if you messed with him, he was going to make you pay.

Then he’d fix up his car with magic and drive away.

It was a Named Car with a Driver, too, which meant my Lived-Line was expanding just fine while I rode in it.

I spent hours working with him on realigning his Matrix, turning the energies of the not-necromancy-I-swear that he was practicing and internalizing it, taking it away from its affinity with death and undeath and all the negative energy and necroic crap, and straight into the bubbling crimson stuff that was at the heart of his people, anyways.

They weren’t called the Blooded for nothing, after all.

The essence of Blood Magic was how much of it came from within, rather from without. While you could drag magic out of others by ripping it from their blood, you could also heal far more easily... and if you had, like the Blooded, the ability to fast heal, than sacrificing blood to power up your spells was totally a thing you could abuse far more than any normal human being could who didn’t have a similar ability.

Naturally Shvaughn was listening in on all this, and even more naturally was intrigued and not understanding much of what she was hearing, other than on a topical level. Being who she was, she had doubtless Consumed Witches and other Casters in the past, so she knew what it meant to have a Matrix and Cast spells and all that... but that still didn’t give her one of her own.

She’d been a Primos, she’d die a Primos. Consuming people didn’t make her Magos; that was part of the Pact’s power, not hers.

Still, she showed great patience as she eavesdropped shamelessly, and didn’t even comment on things, as this understanding had to come from The Mick, not from anyone else. He was retraining his magic away from the interactions of life and death to the constant living and dying of his blood cells, a crimson motif that was totally new, yet totally natural to his subspecies, and which he was obviously soaking up with an ease that went beyond talented and gifted, to being just plain easy for a member of the Blooded.

It also meant the Blood Magic spells I had made up for him were now much easier to learn, use, and apply, as his Matrix was changing to adjust to them, and suddenly connections of power and principles that just hadn’t worked or made sense before were totally obvious to him.

I had little doubt she realized he wasn’t Tomb-Tainted during the course of lessons on this magic, especially after the discussion of healing effects, but mutual secrets were things, and my introduction of a complete school of magical thought that hadn’t existed on the planet before firmly cemented her realization that I knew a lot of things she didn’t. That was a new feeling, as it wasn’t a stretch to say that a Hungry Heart Warlock as old as she was could rank among the most-informed people on the planet, albeit by the cruelest and most unmentionable of means...

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“Traveler, there’s something going on ahead. Boxer just pulled over.”

She had adopted The Mick’s nickname for Master Fred on a whim, but was using it very seriously. Her tone was also very serious.

The Mick was looking mentally exhausted, anyways. He’d been going through a lot of intellectual hoops for hundreds of miles, and definitely needed a break, even as he wanted to keep going. He sighed and closed the velvet Tome with the too-white pages, his face looking like he was resisting the urge to puke from fatigue, even as he wanted to keep going.

“Wait until Renewal to open it again,” I told him, and he nodded, twinges in his cheeks as Shvaughn pulled Bone Marrow over to the side of the road behind Sleipner.

We all got out to walk up next to Master Fred. His eyes were fixed on the area ahead and to the right.

More pointedly, there was a sign just ahead of us, Welcome to Hermitage, Home of the Hermits!

It was unnaturally dark over there, and I thought I could hear something faintly. It looked like a cloud was low over the city... a dark cloud, that nonetheless seemed to be... glinting yellow?

“Lord Mick, bat form. What does that sound like?” I said instantly. He almost exploded into a flock of white bats, swirling up and around above us. “Master Fred?”

THE TOWN IS SCREAMING IN ITS DEATH THROES. SOMETHING HAS ALREADY KILLED IT, AND IS TEARING IT APART.

“Eyes of Heaven, full power-up, what Alignment?” I asked neutrally.

His eyes flared with silver and golden light, hissing and popping for a harsh second. Right next to him, Shvaughn’s went totally black, leaking dark mists with the same.

LAW. “Law,” came up at the same time.

I looked at the size of the cloud as white bats swirled and reformed into The Mick. “That’s a buzzing sound, of a lot of insects. Big ones,” he informed us. “But... metallic. It’s not natural.”

“We’re supposed to meet Briggs there, aren’t we?” I asked rhetorically. They’d been keeping in regular contact via texting in coded terms. Master Fred nodded slowly. “Are they in there?”

THEY WERE WAITING FOR US THERE FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO, he said, and held up his Vaccine.

Signal dead. The Mick and Shvaughn checked instantly, too...