After sitting around for a while, Danny decided to take some proactive steps for once. He took out his phone and called up Smith.

“Hi Danny, what’s up?” The man answered.

“Hey Smith, I want in on the demon stuff. Can we meet up?”

Smith didn’t answer straight away and Danny could hear his breathing coming through the phone. “Sure kid, can you get to Maple Street? I’ll text you my address. We can talk.”

Danny got the address and found that Smith lived in a suburb close to the city, an affluent one at that. Danny weighed up catching public transport but realised that he could quite literally outrun the service. He got more than a few looks as he ran through the city, which reminded him that he hadn’t watched the local news yet. I wonder if I was actually on? Surely Belle would have called me about it.

Looks or not, Danny still made it to the address in ten minutes, far faster than the estimated half-hour trip his phone had suggested. Danny looked at the estate he had found himself standing before. A large ornate fence blocked him off from an expansive pristine garden. At the far end of the property sat a true plantation manor, double story, pillars and all. “Jeez Smith,” Danny said to himself. This sort of place would be a multi-million dollar home, at least.

Danny pressed the button on a little intercom by the gate. A few seconds later Smith buzzed him through and the gate opened.

“Did you drive? I didn’t think you had a license.” Smith looked a little confused.

“Nah, I ran.”

“Oh yeah, I saw that on the news last night.”

“Was it bad?” Danny winced.

“Bad? Haven’t you seen it?”

Smith led him into the large home and pulled up the news on a ginormous TV in a living room larger than Danny’s apartment. Danny couldn’t help but turn red in embarrassment as a news report stitched together multiple videos of a tall, muscley, youth sprinting through the city while faintly glowing orange. Thankfully, the news didn’t name him and they had blurred his face, likely due to Retta’s influence.

“Well, that’s awkward,” Danny commented as the newsreel ended.

Smith shrugged. “The world’s about to get a lot crazier, this will be nothing in a few weeks. When your average stay-at-home mum can create fireballs, a guy running fast will be boring.”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Smith led Danny up to a study, where they sat down.

“So,” Smith started. “I talked to the old bastard last night. He’s onboard with you working with me on the demonic cult stuff.”

“Oh, sick. I learned about the prison from Retta, seems like a pretty bad place to be.”

“It’s hell in there.” There was no humour in Smith’s eyes.

“Sooo… how does this all work?” Danny changed the subject.

Smith pulled out a laptop and turned it so Danny could see the screen. “We modernised most of the process a few years back when Tamm joined the team. She really changed things up. Made life a lot easier for us all.”

He brought up a program that showed a map of the city. There were a few areas that were coloured. “What’s this?” Danny asked.

“There are arrays throughout the city that detect mana usage, letting us track exactly what the wizards of the city are up to. The coloured areas are where we expect magic to be used frequently. Homes of wizards, the Academy, places like that. If anything unusual occurs then it will pop up here, it’s even colour-coordinated now. Super convenient. Bringing Tamm in was one of the best things the old man has done in decades.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“So you can track all the magic in the city, just by looking at this program?”

“You’re really boiling down a lot of complicated magical arrays we’ve spent decades setting up, but basically, yeah.” Smith shrugged. “It beats having to sit in a little room where all the arrays led back to all day. Trying to focus in on specifics using complicated spells whenever a signal came in. Man, that sucked.”

“Wait, so if there was someone using mana, like constantly, would they appear on the program constantly?”

“Yeah. Like you the other day.” Smith clicked a few things and Danny watched as a faint line came up on the screen, moving from the city to the beach. “Oh wait, if you ran here then…” Smith clicked another few things and a line from the city to Smith’s address came up. “You’re using mana to run faster, so it comes up on the program. Any idea how you’re doing that by the way? It looks super useful.”

Danny shook his head. He was beginning to suspect something, but he wasn’t going to tell Smith that. “No clue mate.”

“That’s a shame. The only people I know who know body-reinforcement magic are Madley and Colt, but neither of them are going to share anytime soon.”

“Who’s Colt?”

“He’s Madley’s top warden, he rarely leaves the prison so let’s hope you never have to meet the brute.”

Danny made note of the names he’d picked up so far. He was putting together an idea of Madley’s crew. Smith, Tamm, Colt. Are these the Generals that Retta was talking about? I’ll have to run that by her. “So, how’s this demon stuff work?”

“Well, we wait until the arrays pick up a trace of demonic mana, then we use more conventional ways to gather information.”

“Like what?”

“Tamm’s got a small team of these hacker-types. They get into their phones and stuff, give us a scoop on what’s going on. Once we have a location and numbers, I go in and clean it all up. Now it will be both of us.”

“Oh, that’s kinda mundane. I was expecting more magic,” Danny was slightly disappointed.

“This is way easier, way less costly as well. Mana is expensive.”

“So, we just wait around?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“How often are these demonic cults popping up?”

“It used to be a few a year, now we’re getting around one a week. It’s not just us either. Apparently, these groups are ramping up everywhere. Real pain the ass.”

The program on the laptop refreshed and suddenly four pockets of red appeared on the screen. Danny seemed to notice first. “What’s that mean?”

Smith’s eyes widened when he looked at the screen. “Red is demonic mana. Hang on, this can’t be right. Let me call Tamm.”

The man phished his phone out of his jacket and made a call. Danny could only pick up on one side of the conversation.

“Yeah, of course I’m calling about the program.”

“No I didn’t touch anything.”

“It’s real?”

“Four groups, all doing a ritual at the same time? You’re having a laugh, right?”

“Shit. This is bad. Yeah, if you can get your guys to cripple their comms I’ll take the kid and suss it immediately.”

“Can you let Madley know? I’ll get going. Cheers Tamm.”

Smith then turned to Danny. “Alright Skala, we’ve got to move.”

Smith dragged Danny down to his garage. The place was just as huge as everything else on the property. There were half a dozen cars that all looked expensive to his untrained eye. That wasn’t what really drew his attention though, the corner of the room filled with gun-racks did. Guns weren’t a common sight in Australia, Danny had seen some pistols before, a shotgun or two, but this? This was a different ballpark altogether.

Dozens of guns that the news would describe as assault-style rifles were hanging in racks across the wall. “Woah Smith, what’s all this?”

“Sometimes a bullet does what a spell can do, but far quicker and easier. Especially when we’re dealing with normal people dabbling in the demonic and not full-fledged wizards.”

Danny didn’t miss the implications of what the man was saying. Were bullets less effective on wizards? Danny didn’t ask. Smith holstered a pistol to his hip and grabbed one of the rifles. He then took another pistol off the wall. “You ever fired a gun before, Skala?”

“Nope.”

“Then you won’t be today. I’ll teach you at some point.” Smith returned a pistol he’d grabbed back to the spot on the wall. He then grabbed some magazines, loaded them into a belt, and put on a vest, looking very tactical. He threw a large vest to Danny. “This might be a bit small for you, but it’s better than nothing. Jeez, what did they feed you growing up?”

“Not much, actually. Why are we gearing up for war?” Danny asked as he fumbled with what he assumed was a bulletproof vest.

“Well, we are. What just came up on the program? Four simultaneous spikes of demonic mana? That’s bad Skala, that’s very bad.”

“Isn’t it just four groups popping up?” Danny could see that being pretty bad, but Smith looked like he was getting ready to deploy into Baghdad, 2003.

Smith turned and looked at Danny, his face dead serious. “I’ll explain in the car, get moving.”