12:30 PM September 14th

Industrial Park District Near the Port of New York

Alex was taking a break from the long grueling hours keeping the site secure until the two corpses were taken away. It had been confirmed by Sam when she climbed out of the ruins of the collapsing structure monster, the second arcane source had been another dragon. Gleipnir was still inside the rubble wrapped around it and keeping everyone safe from it.

The sentient pact item had needed his warlock’s help to get him into the mess so he could essentially – and Alex hated to admit this – save everyone. Or maybe the obnoxious ribbon-needle-thing of myth hadn’t really needed Sam to go in there. Maybe Sam just refused to let him go in there alone?

Whatever the case, the magi-technician was now one of the few people known to have entered a Class Four monster and lived. Though from the mumbling Alex was hearing from the higher ups, the monster that had formed around the dragon corpse might have been an even higher level than that. However, Alex was finding it hard to trust anything the bosses were saying.

She eyed the pop-up Emergency Response Joint Task Force magically insulated command structure that was located a good half mile back from the ruined building. It had been there since about fifteen minutes after Sam and Gleipnir had neutralized the monster. Yeah. That whole chain of command that had been out of contact during the most dangerous part of this emergency had waited until it was safe to swoop in and look like heroes.

“Assholes.” Muttering under her breath, she drew her gaze back to the buzz of activity surrounding the second of the two corpses. The first, the one in the moving van had been easy to move. It had just been levitated into an enchanted net connected to magic collector and a couple of heavy-duty choppers aided by levitation specialist mages and helped move it hours ago. Frank had sent most of his people with it. As for the second…?

Industrial demolition experts in bright yellow magically shielded containment suits were swarming all over with equipment to remove the debris. One walked past her, sweat pouring down his face behind the clear mask. Meanwhile, bulldozers, cranes, and backhoes were loading the false matter remains of the monster into shielded trailers and dump trucks and carting it away to be ‘safely disposed of’. Alex was fairly certain that was code for, ‘sold to military contractors and big corporations for experimentation’.

Frank had argued against that. He’d pointed out that the Eastern Dragon Empire might want the entire monster corpse because it was now part of the dragon’s remains. But no one had given that a second thought. The false matter of the monster had taken on magical properties of the organic host body. Greed was fueling this whole project. All the people in charge saw were money signs. Billions of dollars of dragon false matter flesh and bones for experimentation with. Not to mention the actual matter of the building, the concrete, steel and… Alex tried not to think about it because every time the words flashed across her mind she vomited.

Organic. Matter.

Too late!

She turned and vomited onto a little strip of grass behind the vehicle she was leaning against. Frank patted her back and gave it a kindly run like he did with his daughters when they had the flu. Such dad energy. Oh, thank God. I stopped thinking about the… before she could stop herself the words ‘Organic Matter’ popped into her inner dialog along with the images of he twisted broken bodies of the factory workers who’d been incorporated into the monster.

She hadn’t known. Not until they removed the first layer of rubble armor from the beast. Like, she’d known, of course. She’d seen the corpses dangling from the monster as it came for her to eat her. But she hadn’t known the true horror of it. That some of them had been alive when they were absorbed. That they hadn’t been fully absorbed. That they’d been conscious and cognitive as the creature formed around them.

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Those bodies weren’t going to be buried. Those bodies were… Some aren’t technically bodies yet, are they? A fresh wave of nausea overwhelmed Alex. Yeah, the waste removal specialist and the senior staff had tried to hide it from the FBI and military personnel – none of which were Magic Corps, that were standing guard. But some had seen despite their efforts.

Alex and Frank had already been briefed, four times, on how they needed to keep their mouths shut about what was happening with the…remains. Remains don’t fucking talk and beg for help. An insidious little voice in her head whispered and another vicious abdominal thrust heaved nothing out of her body. She’d done this too many times already.

In the car, an unconscious Sam stirred and whimpered. Frank looked through the back window.

“She’s fine. Just another nightmare.” He watched her thrash feebly in her sleep. When she’d come out of the monster corpse, she’d seemed fine. ‘Seemed’ being the operative word. The exhausted and overspent warlock had not given the slightest hint that there was anything particularly traumatizing inside the monster. Just a regular slaying. Or so everyone thought until about seven hours ago.

After an interminable period of time, Alex felt her stomach settle. She’d started counting. Not counting anything. Just counting. Because if she put objects in her mind it would merge with the visions of the inside of the monster and prolong her agony. The first time, she vomited, she was counting sheep. Because that’s what she always did. Count sheep until she felt better and could control her stomach again. Alex loved sheep. They were adorable. They were her favorite. Her entire desk at work was personalized with sheep paraphernalia.

But no. This time, the images of sheep in her head, instead of jumping over a little fence on a green lawn they had been sucked into the monster and were bleating horribly. Their little fluffy heads struggling to escape while their eyes rolled back in terror. So, now Alex just counted. Seconds.

Because seconds fed her hate. It felt like seconds after Sam had defeated the monster that the director of the New York Magic Crimes Division had miraculously appeared with suspicious swiftness as soon as it was safe. Backed up by the combat mages that hadn’t been available to help out the investigative team. And the Army. Where had they been when they were needed? Huh? Why were the Magicorps monster suppression teams being sent away from the fucking monsters? Why wasn’t there anyone who was normally in charge of dealing with monster incursions on site?

Huh?

Why?

Why had so many of her colleagues suffered near fatal or even possibly fatal exposure to magic while fighting that Gods damned zombie monster. And the nausea was gone, replaced by the calm icy burn of rage.

“You good?” Frank patted her back again which just made her annoyed this time now that she was filled with her new favorite emotion of righteous anger. The magic technician straightened and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. A bottle of water was placed before her face, and she took it gratefully. She didn’t gulp it down despite her growing thirst or the fact that today was even warmer than the previous one. That would be stupid and just give her stomach more projectile ammunition. She did, swish some around and then spat it out into the grass behind the car.

“I’m fine.” Frank snorted and raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Really?” Rather than get defensive like she wanted to, Alex had to own the fact that he had reason to doubt her words.

“For now.” Then she crossed her arms and went back to glaring between the monster-dragon corpse removal and the command center.

“You’re goin’ to get someone’s attention if you keep glaring at command like that.” How Frank had managed to keep his cool, the young warlock didn’t know. If it had been her giving the briefing, she would have run her mouth something fierce.

“How are you not enraged that they sent us out here with the intention of letting us die. If I hadn’t insisted that Sam and I take this call to keep her out of trouble…” Her voice broke because that coincidence was the only thing that had saved anyone.

What if Sam hadn’t been here? What if she hadn’t been teased in the office to the point of planning her retaliation? What if Alex had said, ‘Fuck it. I don’t care if my partner gets suspended for having a temper tantrum?’

Why hadn’t everyone been sent out to the scene? Why had this happened the way it did. It wasn’t normal. It was not the way that things were done. No one had followed protocol for an event of this size. Especially by not sending out any combat mages to back them up.

“You can’t find out what’s really happening if you let on to everyone else how upset you are.”