“You always ask that question, you know? Violet, do you like, walk into a grocery store, and then go… ‘are the monsters strong here’? Like god damn. Not every place has monsters, stop asking that. But yeah, the monsters are strong here.” -Alex, Wooden Ocean-
_____
North Smiths, Utah, was the driest place James had been in a while, and not just in the sense that it seemed to lack liquor stores. It certainly hadn’t improved any just because the sun had set and he was sneaking around. The cooling winds and the constant smell of dust kicked up only working to make him feel like he was having the moisture sucked out of him, and that without his multiple points of Endurance he would turn into a withered husk.
”I thought,” James lightly accused Zhu, “you said there was a storm coming.”
”I said it was a metaphor, don’t blame your species’ reliance on being damp on me.” Zhu countered.
Next to the two of them, sitting in the driver’s seat of their rental car, Arrush cupped two of his smaller claws around his muzzle and tried not to sigh. He didn’t need to cause any more damage to this thing than he already had.
They were waiting at the curb across the street from a small park. Dotted trees, a lot of bark chips, and a playground that even Zhu threatened to be too large for at this point, the place was where Zhu claimed two of the teens they were tracking would intersect. He’d brought their own path here at the cost of a mildly painful mishap, which James was pretty sure he’d already paid off when he’d hit his head getting into the car.
James maintained that his general face region was cursed to take damage. At least “car” was the most mundane thing that had encountered his forehead. On a scale of one to ten, it didn’t approach dungeon chemical fire, or magical dendrification, at least.
The three of them had clearly gotten here a little early for whatever rendezvous was happening, and now it was just a game of waiting. Hoping that no one stopped to look in the car parked in the shadows between the bright LED streetlights, and trying to figure out how to approach a pair of skittish kids who might be connected to the whole mess going on here.
The thing was, waiting just seemed like a great time to James for musing.
”I’ve been thinking.” He said as the quiet threatened to take over the car.
”Oh no.” Zhu and Arrush said at the same time, with the ratroach especially looking pleased with himself, a satisfied glowing line of a smile on his muzzle.
James chuckled, taking it in good humor, and honestly just happy to see Arrush this lively. He didn’t always get the chance, since his lungs currently grew in a kind of cycle, and talking was artificially difficult for him already. “Yes, you’re both hilarious. But no, this whole thing has me thinking about dungeons.”
”They are… fun to think about.” Arrush nodded with measured care. “Sometimes.” He added in a low rasp.
”To be clear, I’m not talking about thinking about what’s in the dungeons.” James said, steering the conversation away from the harsher realities of the Sewer or the Underburbs. “I mean in general. The Order… we sort of control a lot of the things, don’t we?”
”…Do we?” Zhu asked. “We go into a bunch of them, but I don’t think I’d call them controlled.”
Arrush gave a rasping cough. “Haven’t even seen all of the Library.” He pointed out.
James tried to clarify his point. ”Right. I mean more that we have a semi-monopoly on access. No one gets into Officium Mundi or Clutter Ascent or especially the Akashic Sewer without us allowing it. Until a few days ago I would have included the Stacks on that list too.”
”Oh, you’re doing the thing.” Zhu’s glowing ethereal feathers ruffled along James’ arm. “Alanna warned me about this.”
”Wait, she did? How. When.”
”While you were dying two months ago or something.” Zhu flicked a talon out lazily. “Alanna says you feel an ‘omnipresent guilt for being involved’. This sounds like that.”
”Mmh.” Arrush carefully reached over to James, awkward in the motion and in his thoughts, but still making an effort to set one of his clawed hands on James’ shoulder.
James rolled his eyes. “I’m not feeling guilty for our use of the dungeons, I’m trying to ask a very real and important question, which is, how do we share these things.” He bent his arm at a weird angle to layer his fingers over Arrush’s as he continued. “There’s a lot of other people out there who might not end up as part of the Order, but who aren’t bad people, and I dunno, it just feels like we should work out a plan for opening dungeon exploration up at some point. I think I’ve said before that I might want to be one of the first wizards, but I don’t wanna be the only one. I think the world would be cooler with a lot more magic in it.”
”Eh-even dangerous magic?” Arrush asked, then startled James with a sudden clicking bark that was actually just a laugh, Arrush having realized something that surprised himself. “Nevermind.” He said, pulling his hand back. “I forgot.”
”You- oh.” James realized Arrush was talking about himself, and gave a snort of laughter of his own. “I kinda did too, honestly. I was thinking of stuff like skill orbs or Climb spells or anything I guess.”
Zhu tapped at the back of James’ hand. “So, who would you let in? Anyone?”
”Oh, god no. That seems like it’s begging for trouble. But… I dunno, other delver groups we meet that have compatible levels of idealism? Zoologists and botanists just to let them see the weird stuff? I guess… any kind of journalists for the same reason? Even just sightseers, if they’re careful. Winter’s Climb is actually a weird example for this cause so many of its spells are utility, and good for normal daily life, that it would be cool to just let anyone go on trips up one or two thousand feet to get those. Even if someone sucks as a person, making their life better is more likely to make them suck less than more. Statistically that is true.”
Arrush met Zhu’s eye, the navigator’s large rolling orb turning to look at the tan-furred ratroach in his comfortable hoodie. Between them, an invisible message was sent, before Arrush decided to ask the question that they were both thinking. “You… are talking about… having control of the dungeons.” He said, before realizing it wasn’t really a question. “Yyyyes?”
James fumbled at the side of his seat until he found the little thing that let him lean it back slightly, and promptly messed it up, before spending twenty seconds trying to get it to the right position. “Yes.” He said, between muffled cursing. “I… okay, yes. Did I say this wrong? I don’t think it’s bad that we control the dungeons,” Zhu and Arrush both sighed in relief as James spoke, “I just think we should be conscious about it. Be deliberate about who we share with.”
”Does this get weird when you consider that the dungeons are kind of people?” Zhu asked.
”Zhu, I love you. I really do. But this got weird several years ago, and hasn’t stopped getting weirder since.”
”…I like the weird.” Arrush rasped quietly.
”Oh, same. Don’t get me wrong. Also Zhu’s kinda right which is also worrying. We treat Clutter Ascent like a kid, and that place is growing… well, like a kid. I would never ‘put them to work’ the same way I would the Climb or the Office. But yeah, if we had a way to negotiate with either of those places, we should absolutely-“
”Ssh.” Arrush placed a hand on James face, missing his lips and just kind of pawing at his whole head. The ratroach had gone rigid, his rear arms pushing him upright in his seat as he stared out the windshield. “T-talk later. Someone is here.”
The someone was a kid. Though James needed to get out of the habit of thinking of anyone under the age of thirty as a kid. He could see that becoming a problem as he grew into his presumably ancient and terrible lifespan, and he didn’t want to do the traditional boomer thing of assuming people younger than him were dumb.
Just this person. Though to be fair there, who expected to be tracked down via magic, to a late night meeting in a playground?
Well. James did. But that’s kinda why it didn’t happen to him. He had Planner and whatever bullshit JP cooked up to keep him out of trouble like that.
This kid though was absolutely a kid. Probably around fifteen or sixteen. He wasn’t overweight or anything, but he had a boxy face that made him seem heavier than he probably was under the generic polo shirt and jeans he was wearing. As he passed under a streetlight and made his way to the part of the park farthest from the streets around it, James got a better look at the bowl cut of blonde hair, and the way he seemed like he was especially twitchy. That was confirmed as he started pacing a line in the bark chips behind the dome of climbing bars, flinching at every car that passed by.
”Settle down.” James softly told Arrush. “His friend’ll be here soon. And Zhu, under cover please. Let’s not give ourselves away too early.” The navigator grumbled, but made the effort to pull his feathers back under James’ clothing, showing off his selective solidity as he pressed against skin with a series of prickles.
They didn’t wait idly, though. Instead, both of them compulsively checked their leveler earrings to make sure they had at least one invisibility charge, and James double and triple checked the telepad that would get them out of the car without the doors alerting anyone. They’d have to make sure they didn’t fall over when they landed from a seating position, but Arrush’s tails were surprisingly robust, and Zhu’s own tail would help brace James.
When the second young man showed up, James’ main thought was to wonder what the hell they were putting in the school lunches. He looked like he was also fifteen or sixteen, but he was closing in on seven feet tall, thin to the point of being almost gaunt, and just as nervous as his friend. He rapidly headed for where his friend was presumably making a stereotypical “psst” noise behind the playground structures, which meant it was time for James and Arrush to get closer.
Now was really the best time for it; any noise they made would also be covered by the two teen’s footsteps, and they were still close to a busy street. “Okay. Let’s go.” James said. “Ready?”
”No. I’m t-terrified.” Arrush said. “Wh-aat if one of them sees me? Th-they might faint and hurt themselves.”
”…I love you.” James couldn’t keep the glowing grin that was so wide it kinda hurt off his face. “Gimmie your paw and cloak.” He held a hand out, and Arrush set his own on his palm. Through his skulljack, James mentally nudged a program and a connection, and started sending everything he was seeing and hearing off to the rest of the team, who would presumably also get the feed to Ben back at the Lair. Then they vanished, and a second later all three of them were somewhere else as James pulled the telepad.
Landing was a trick. But they were tensed and ready for it, and the crunch of bark chips under their different forms of feet was ignored by the two teens. As James began moving into position with Arrush just behind him, he caught the start of a somewhat panicked sounding conversation.
”-to come out during the day!” The taller kid was saying, voice cracking into a squeak at the end.
“I don’t know!” The shorter one snapped back, voice rising before he forced himself to a quieter tone, at least slightly mindful of the fact that they were surrounded by suburban houses. “I don’t know. I saw it too! What are we supposed to do?”
The tall one jumped as a pair of cars passed by, whatever was making him nervous also clearly making him angry. “Tell the bishop!” He snapped, prompting James to make a note on that with his skulljack. “Tell our parents? Tell anyone?”
”They won’t believe us!” The shorter one yelled back, voice rising again. “Bishop Mercer didn’t even believe us about Emma and Liam, and that wasn’t close to this serious!” Twenty feet away, James mouthed the names with a furrow of his brow. Those were two of the kids who the Order had intersected with before.
”He’s a bishop! He’ll know what to do!” The quieter friend insisted. “It’s our duty to tell him about demon activity!”
James almost audibly sighed. There was another noun to add to his list. And another spike of shame at how other members of his species saw Arrush. Part of him considered dropping the invisibility now, but he held out for more information.
The shorter teen jerked a hand through his mop of blonde hair, pulling at it in a way that seemed like a habit for him. “What are we supposed to do?” He asked in a fearful young voice. “Why is this happening? And where’s Joe?!”
”He can’t go out on Monday nights, remember?”
”Maybe he should! We should all be here for this! And… and we could handle it!” He arched his back like he was trying to match his taller friend for height. “God doesn’t give us tests we can’t beat, right?”
”R-right…” came the more skittish answer. “I guess… yeah. Should we… should we go get Joe? Maybe he’ll know something. And… and we can’t wait until Sunday.”
Seeing the conversation starting to falter, James took that as his cue to step in and ask some pointed questions of his own. “Hold back. Keep out of sight.” He said softly to Arrush, knowing his voice wouldn’t carry far and the ratroach should hear him. Letting his invisibility drop, he started walking forward with measured steps on the bark chips that made soft crunches. The noise may as well have been gunshots for how quickly the two teenagers spun. One of them even screamed, which wasn’t exactly what James was going for, so he decided to go with his calm adult voice to try to manage the situation before they decided to run, or shoot him. He just assumed they were armed; his worldview might have some issues after everything he’d been through. “Good even gentlemen.” He said, giving them a level look.
“Demon!” The tall one shouted, while the other one took a fumbled step backward, looking like he was preparing to sprint away.
”Federal agent, actually.” James said smoothly, deeply satisfied with his delivery. “Gordon Haman.” He held up his fake badge in one hand, the leather wallet unfolded so they could see it existed, but there was no way they could read it at this distance. “I have a few questions for you two.”
If anything, James impersonating law enforcement seemed to scare them more than if he was a demon, whatever that happened to mean. “You can’t talk to us without the bishop’s permission!” The tall one instantly squeaked out.
That was… legally not true, but the conviction in it drew James up short. “Parents.” He said slowly. “Legally I cannot interrogate you without your parents.” He corrected them. “Either way, it’s a good thing this isn’t an interrogation, just some questions. On account of neither of you being in trouble for anything.”
“Y-you’re not here to take us home for being out past curfew?” One of them stammered out.
James checked his nonexistent watch with a frown. “It’s barely ten PM.” He said. “It’s been a while since I was your age, but curfew isn’t… that early, is it?” He shook his head slightly and tried to pull the mask of professional federal agent back up. “Well. Doesn’t matter. All laws are enforced selectively, so if you can help me out, I’ll forget what curfew is.” He crossed his arms, shifting into a casual stance that made it clear he expected them to stay still and answer. “But first, what do I call you?”
”Jeff. S-sir?” The tall one said.
Shaking his head at the kid, James turned to the blonde who looked like he was trying to decide if running was an option, before ducking his head and muttering a name. “Scott.”
”Alright Jeff, Scott.” James nodded. “How about you tell me what you know about Liam, Emma, and Lincon. I know you know at least one of them, and I’m interested in what you have to say.”
”They-!”
Jeff only go a single word in before Scott cut him off. “No!” He shouted, loud enough that even James glanced around to see if there was any attention from the middle class houses they were amidst. “No! We’re not supposed to tell anyone!”
”I was just gonna tell him we’re in the same class!” Scott jerked back as Jeff lunged over and grabbed his arm, the two of them getting into the most awkward shoving match James had ever seen. “It’s not a secret! Our families go to the same temple!”
”Of course,” James said with a firm tone that overrode their fighting, “that opens up a new question. What aren’t you supposed to tell me, Jeff?” He took a step forward, an unhappy frown on his face. “Your classmates are missing. A lot of people are missing, actually. Something is wrong around here, and I think you know it. But here you are, out after dark, like that doesn’t worry you. So.” He stepped toward them again, softening his tone. “Would you like to tell me what I’m missing?”
”Th-they aren’t missing!” Jeff said, on the verge of breaking down crying. “I’m sorry! They aren’t missing!”
”…what?” James actually drew up short at that. “Yes they are. They aren’t at home, their parents are gone too, their grandparents are dead. No record of where they went, no one even seems to remember them. They’re as missing as it gets.”
”They’re in the-“
He stopped talking as his friend slugged him in the face. Well, tried to. He was literally punching up, so Scott’s fist kinda just hit Jeff in the neck at a weird angle. “Shut up!” He shouted. “Shut up! The bishop made us promise to not tell anyone! That includes him!”
”But he’s with the FBI!” Jeff coughed out, staggering to the side.
“That doesn’t matter!” Scott screamed, voice breaking. “He’s not part of anything! We promised God! He doesn’t matter!” He lunged for his friend again, swinging wildly while he kept shouting. “You’re breaking the vows! You’re why there’s demons in the day! This is your fault!”
Jeff grabbed the other kid’s wrists, face screwed up in a panicked snarl as he seemingly reflexively kneed the other boy in the groin. He followed him down as he collapsed onto the bark chips, fumbling for purchase as he tried to grapple the other boy. The fight came to an abrupt halt as James walked up to them and grabbed the two of them, yanking them to their feet and apart, though Scott still had a hand trying to crush the other teen’s arm. “Hey! Cut it the fuck out!”
And then, this close to them, one of them got a much clearer look at his face. ”Jeff…” the kid let go of his friend, staring at James now that he was closer to them, “that’s the guy.”
”What?”
”The guy. That’s the guy from earlier. With the demon.” Scott shuffled backward, putting his friend between him and James.
The words were whispered, but James heard anyway, and sighed. “Gentlemen.” He said. “Fighting is not going to-“ he stopped as Scott lunged for him and tried to hit in the face with the same badly formed fist that he’d used on his tall buddy. James didn’t even move, he just let the kid misjudge the distance and swipe at the air in front of his face. “-solve anything. Now I-“ he shifted deftly to his left to let another attempt at hitting him whiff past,” -would like to know a few things.”
”Scott!” Jeff yelled, and now there were definitely lights coming on in some of the nearby houses. “He’s a cop, you can’t do that!”
”Help me!” Scott coughed out as James shoved him off with an open palm, leverage and momentum making the push powerful enough to send him sprawling. “We can deal with him, and the bishop will take care of it!”
Jeff looked appalled. ”Dude! No!” He backed off, holding up his hands. “I don’t… I’m not gonna help you kill a guy!”
James cleared his throat. “As a short aside, I’m also not going to let you kill me.”
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”You don’t have a choice.” Jeff said, probably thinking that line sounded incredibly badass, but botching the delivery so badly that it really never would have sounded like anything except a fifteen year old trying to sound cool. But, when he stumbled to his feet with a swaying and trembling stance, he was holding a spear that hadn’t been there before.
He lashed out, and James punched him. Once, hard, right in the solar plexus. James caught the spear out of the air as Jeff slammed his back into the bark chips, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on one of the metal pipes that made up the jungle gym. The two teenagers didn’t catch it, but with his magically sharpened ears, James caught Arrush’s coughing giggle from twenty feet away. “Stay.” James ordered the downed teenager in a commanding tone, before turning back to the other one. “Scott. Answers. Now.”
The teen held his hands up like James was holding him at gunpoint. “Th-they’re going through repentance! Emma and Liam are! I don’t know the other guy you said!” Once the words started, they came out in a flood, though without actually explaining much. “Th-th-they did something evil, and they lied to a bishop! Everyone knows! They got someone killed from a demon that wasn’t supposed to be there!”
”Kid.” James said slowly. “If you say ‘demon’ one more time, I’m gonna scream.”
Jeff started to lower his hands, his shadow on the ground stretching under the harsh streetlights behind him on the sidewalk. “You don’t… know?” He looked confused, glancing at where his groaning friend was coughing on the ground. “But Scott was… you were the guy earlier, aren’t you?”
”Yeah. That doesn’t mean I know what a demon is.” James said evenly, realizing that he had fully lost control of this encounter and was going to learn probably very little from it. “Look at this from my perspective for a second. You just told me that multiple minors are being held against their will by what I presume is your church leadership. And you’re more scared of literal demons than you are of me. Scott back there just made this thing” James hefted the spear, “appear by literal magic. So maybe, maybe, what I would like is a straight fucking answer about what is going on here, before I get annoyed.”
“I… I can’t.” Jeff’s voice was choked as he took a step backward, looking like he was about to run. “I’m sorry, I can’t!”
“People are getting hurt, Jeff.” James said softly, sweeping his eyes around them as he felt Zhu shift under his clothing, the navigator reacting to something James couldn’t see. “Help me out here. Where are your classmates being held? You know that’s wrong, no matter what any of your elders or bishops say.”
“I can’t.”
”Can’t, or are worried to?” James asked. “I can-“
”You can’t!” Scott yelled from behind them, only part of a groan in his voice as he staggered to his feet. “You can’t help us! You’re not the first person that would say that, and then disappear. And then more people go into indefinite repentance!” He fumbled the last words, pronouncing it ‘indinenent’, but James was pretty sure he caught the meaning.
“And who is running, or where is, this secret unofficial prison?” James demanded.
”It’s not… it’s not here.” Scott said, grunting as he rolled onto his knees and pushed himself upward off the ground, bark chips sticking in his pants and to his hands. “You’ll never find it.”
James snorted. “The two of you just admitted that there’s some kind of large scale child trafficking conspiracy happening here. You do understand that, right? This isn’t a game. People are holding children captive. Now I want to get information out of you about the demons, the magic, anything more fun than this. But that’s not going to happen. We’re going to go…” he trailed off as Zhu’s feathers snapped against him, writhing against his arm and back. James narrowed his eyes, looking around again, including sweeping over where Arrush was still lurking cloaked on the edge of the little playground.
Something was wrong.
He took in the environment. The playground was empty except for them, the metal pipe dome of the jungle gym was clear, the street hadn’t had a car go by in a little while but it was normal, the houses around them…
All the lights were out. All of them. They’d been shouting and arguing out here in the open, and it had attracted attention, but there was no way that everyone had simultaneously decided to ignore it and go to bed. Hell, some of those people would have been awake and doing normal stuff without even checking on what was happening outside.
James had an unofficial policy, as a paladin of the Order of Endless Rooms, that if something looked fucky, it was better to overreact and not get killed than underreact and absolutely get killed. “Up. Move. We need to get out of the open.” He ordered the kids.
Jeff stared at him blankly. ”What-“
”You’re too late.” Scott started laughing, a manic sound that bordered on a squeal. “Can’t you feel it?”
”…no?” James frowned as his ears caught the sound of leathery wings flapping overhead. “Shit. Zhu, out, now.” He dropped the stolen spear, planting one foot on it to make sure it didn’t get grabbed away, and drew his pistol, holding it muzzle down as he scanned the air around them. “Jeff, stay close to me, unless you know what-“ James gave a strangled yelp as something hit him in the side. His head snapped around to see Jeff standing close, as instructed, but the tall teen was staring down at him with panicked eyes as he shoved a knife into James’ side. “-what.”
Being stabbed was a shock. James had been shot before, sure. Bitten, sliced, slammed into a wall, through a wall, lots of stuff. But never stabbed, that he could remember. It hurt less than he’d expected, but also, there was an associated emotional pain with his favorite weird Officium Mundi shirt dissolving away in a rapid cloud of vanishing dust as it took damage and gave up.
”S-sorry.” His assailant muttered. “I-it’s okay. I k-know the demons are your fault. But- but God will forgive you.“ his words rose sharply in pitch as he tried to drag the blade up through James’ flank and into his chest, but Zhu was already there, an orange talon clamping down on the kid’s wrist as James stumbled back and snap kicked Jeff’s knee hard enough to send the teen to the ground with a scream, even as Scott lurched to his feet and charged into the melee.
James opened his mouth to say something, but just coughed heavily as the knife in his side shifted. The crunch of bark chips was the only warning before invisible paws steadied him, Arrush arriving at his side in a pair of long bounds and chittering with anxiety. “Ow.” He said. “Zhu…”
”Got it.” Zhu unfurled completely, the light glow of his feathers and limbs painting James in a bright outline in the darker part of the park, long talons and a wide feathered tail stabilizing him and reaching out in a defensive posture. “Alright listen up.” His running engine of a voice billowing out as he shouted into the night. “This idiot will put up with a lot of bullshit from teenagers, but attempted murder isn’t on the list! Both of you sit down, stop summoning stabby shit, and tell us what is going on in this mistake of a city!”
For just a moment, the tiniest slice of time, it seemed like things were about to go the way Zhu had demanded. Scott and Jeff fell silent and - importantly - stopped trying to grab one of their weapons. The flapping of wings overhead was quiet. Even the road was silent and empty of cars, though that wasn’t so special, this was a suburb at night.
Then the streetlights went out and the things overhead started screaming in the descending darkness. They sounded like goats, thin bleats that escalated in pitch as they swept closer.
”Zhu. Evasive pattern please.” James said, finding his voice as he exhaled Breath and summoned a tiny icy limb just to clamp the knife in his side so that it didn’t either slice something important or fall out and take his blood with it. “Arrush, this might get messy.”
”Yes, that’s why I’m here.” Arrush said in steady Spanish that almost sounded amused.
”Uh…” Zhu’s confusion struck James and Arrush’s ears. “Hey, uh….!”
”Zhu, I need to know where to dodge more than I need your help hitting whatever’s coming.” James said, the pain making him sound a little mean.
The navigator twisted around, his eye scanning the sky. “Yeah, they’re not after you.” He said frantically. “There’s nothing to dodge!” His talons swept up over their heads, casting an orange glow around them in a pool, just in time for him and James to spot the first one of the creatures landing. It slammed into the bark chip ground in a crouch, quickly raising up on digitigrade legs covered in tufts of black fur. Its wings were huge batlike canopies that grew from its whole thin armless body, all the way up to where its neck started. And the neck itself was an arched furred tube, almost like a swan, that ended with a sharpened cone of a beak and a face with beady eyes and a pair of curved horns.
”Hot.” James said on reflex, as the thing swept glinting eyes over him, then snapped its head around, moving out of Zhu’s glow as it stalked toward where James had kicked Jeff into the ground. Then he actually used his brain, and realized what was going on. “No, wait. Shit. Arrush, get Scott, get in the car and get out of here. I’ve got a telepad, I’ll get Jeff. Don’t let these things kill them.”
”Sure?” Arrush asked in a soft rasp. “They hurt you. Bleeding. Could let them-“
”Get the kid. Please.” James didn’t have time for an argument as he heard more of the demons landing. Arrush’s paws left the exposed skin of his back as the ratroach silently moved to follow the instruction. James meanwhile started taking unsteady steps through the dark, unable to see shit. Unlike Arrush, he had terrible night vision. This was one of those things he felt like should have been on the short list for common purple orb powers, but instead he kept getting more flexible skin or narrow health benefits. And now it was kinda late to add another thirty purples to his list. “Zhu-“
”On it. I know things. Short route, but you’re looking at two conflicts on the way.”
”They could be people.” James said as the map to where Jeff was laying on the ground screaming popped into his head. He started running, his eyes barely adjusting to see under the sliver of moonlight and faded glow of the suburbs. He saw one of the demons just before he slammed into it, and corrected his run just enough to not slam into it. It was ignoring him, though it was also running forward to the same point James was. “Fuck off!” He yelled at it, and it tried to backhand him with one of its billowing wings.
He tried to catch the blow but there wasn’t anything to find purchase on. James wasn’t sure how violent he should be, but as soon as it actually hit him, it started bleating loudly again, and snapped at him with its beak, the strike coming in like a fucking missile that only stopped because James had a gun in his hand and could read the trajectory through his Aim. Weeks of training to maximize his magical boost paid off, and he was firing defensively before he even really processed that he was about to have his heart carved out.
The gunshots were deafeningly loud, even over the screams, and the demon splattered backward as James dropped it, much more of it erupting into liquid blood than a pair of low caliber shots should have caused. He kept moving, reaching Jeff in short order. “Alright kid.” James said as Zhu’s glow wrapped around the lanky teen. “Get up, let’s get- shit.” He swore as Jeff tried to stab him again with a different knife. This one was a less well constructed looking curved dagger, but James wasn’t here to critique style, he was apparently here to get stabbed.
Zhu slapped the strike aside with his claw, his own limb extending off James’ elbow as James took a shooter’s stance and cracked off two more shots at the demon rushing Jeff from behind. The things were laser focused on killing the two kids, which made his Aim predict them with casual ease. James really needed to cram more basketball stats, having another point of that would be beyond helpful.
The deflection Zhu had made was more violent than James had been. He’d disarmed Jeff by slicing bloody lines across his forearm and sending the blade off into the dark, which didn’t exactly endear either him or James to the kid. But he still tried negotiating, because James was right, and they couldn’t just leave a pair of children to die, even human children that took way too long to learn any better. “Get up! We need to get you out of here!” Zhu said. “They’re not trying to-“
He was cut off as Jeff, half-screaming and half-sobbing, took the clumsiest swing that either James or Zhu had ever seen in their respective lives. Just a pitifully telegraphed haymaker that would have made him a fierce schoolyard bully with his size and reach, but against James just read as casually irritating, especially when they were in the middle of being attacked from the sky. He could still hear yet more goat swan demon things overhead, this wasn’t even close to over. And the knife in his side was making everything feel a lot harder than it should be.
Multiple points were proved for him as a pair of demons landed, one of them on Jeff, the kid screaming louder before he was slammed into the ground by the hooves these guys apparently had. James caught the other one on its way down and encouraged it into the ground, slamming it against the bark chips in a way that made its relatively light frame bounce off into the night, though his eyes had adjusted enough to be able to see the outline of it as it struggled up, bleating wildly.
By the time he got his gun back up, the one on Jeff had drilled multiple holes in the kid’s cheek and arms with its beak. Terrified of shooting into a melee like that, James kicked it off with Zhu’s tail steadying him, before he unloaded into the demon, and put another two bullets downrange at the lump he’d thrown out of the fight earlier. “This isn’t working!” He shouted at Zhu as a bleeding, screaming teenager once again tried to stumble to his feet and kill him, yelling something about a test from god that James just wasn’t interested in. “Zhu, I have a stupid idea.”
”As I am partly made of your thoughts, I also have a stupid idea.” Zhu replied with joy that was only partially faked. “You sure?”
“Kid’s dead if we don’t figure something out.” James answered, holstering his pistol and putting Jeff in a struggling headlock, easily dragging the teen with him as he pulled him across the playground. Shoving him forward, he pushed the young man through the bars of the dome shaped jungle gym. “Stay here!” He ordered, paving a demon that landed on top to blanket the playground structure with its wings, neck twisting to dive between the gaps in the bars. It screamed as James hit it again with the spell, trying to stand and then sliding along the bars with its hooves before collapsing through one of the gaps as James calmly reloaded his pistol, replaced the mostly spent magazine in his belt, and took two precise shots into the folded mass before it could get up. “Jeff, fucking stay here, or I swear to whatever god you want, I’m shooting you next.” James said. “Arrush! You okay!”
”I have the child!” Arrush’s hoarse shout was hard to hear over the gathering flock of wings and bleating screams, but James could easily spot him across the street because the interior lights of their rental car were on and Arrush was standing there waiting for him. “Are you-?”
”Get outta here! Zhu and I are gonna do something dumb!”
”…I love you too!” Arrush yelled back, before there was the slam of a car door and the starting of an engine.
”You two are so fucking cute.” Zhu said. “This must be how Alanna feels all the time watching you. You could get positivity poisoning from this.”
James tried to laugh but it turned into a pained bark. ”Shaddup.” He said with a flickering grin that hid how he grit his teeth. “Ready?” He was ready. Arrush would be fine, the others were already moving to intercept him and make sure the kid he’d gotten out of there didn’t try to stab anyone else. And Arrush hadn’t even looked hurt, so James assumed that most of the demons were after his side of things instead. A condition he intended to amplify.
”Already doing it.” Zhu announced. “Hooks in, it’s definitely something magic, though not alive. Easy, easy, because I am the perfect creation. Are you ready? I’ll be… I’ll be tired after this.”
”Do it.” James turned and started sprinting away from the park, aiming for the street and from there the cover of buildings and lamp posts that would break off any dive bombing attempts on his life. Because he was about to get a few of those.
There was a trick that he and Zhu had learned from talking to Kirk and his own navigator partner recently. Navigators were, at their core, different from their assignment brethren in one important way. While they were both, in a sense, made of living information, navigators were living maps. Not just a simple graphic representation of a route, but everything about a map. Directions, landmarks, the structured information that had to do with geographical navigation.
And just like assignments could feed off the sharing of information in different organized formats, navigators fed off the use of the idea of routes themselves. Similarly, while assignments could ‘cover’ information in themselves, blocking it out, eroding it from minds, making people think away from certain facts…
Navigators could layer themselves over a route. Any route that involved geography, which was, it turned out, most of them. Even, for example, some kind of command to a flock of demons to kill a specific person.
Zhu found it stretched him pretty thin, all while being an excellent source of energy. Which, unfortunately with his current condition, was going to knock him out pretty soon. But the effect would persist, and until the route itself was changed to get out from under his bullshit, these things would be hellbent on James and not their original victim.
James was becoming very good at one thing. Surviving. And if he could take on that role in place of someone else, it was essentially the easiest solution to most problems like this. As he started running through the cooling night, toward where the streetlights hadn’t been killed by some outside effect and some windows had lights on, a small text popped into his head through the skulljack telling him that an ambulance was on the way for Jeff. Thirty seconds later, there was confirmation that police were moving into the area, which James himself already knew from the sirens going off and closing in.
Alice and Charlie were closing in on Arrush, too. So his boyfriend would be okay. And that just left James, and the exceptionally dangerous flock of monsters on his heels in the sky.
He didn’t want to start shooting wildly into the air. He was confident he could hit; Aim was kinda bullshit that way. But confident wasn’t actually the same as guaranteed, and James wasn’t gonna be the guy that accidentally killed a random civilian two streets over because of his own carelessness. So he kept running, staggering his movements so he put on bursts of speed to keep near lampposts or the transplanted trees. He also kept moving even as two of them crashed down onto the pavement ahead of him, straightening up with their screaming bleats as one lashed forward with a beak while they both held their wings out like they were trying to catch James in a net.
Not stopping, James expended a little Breath, grateful for the warmish air, and applied frost vectors to his pants and boots, negating friction between them and the ground and letting him play it save on hitting the sidewalk at his enhanced running clip. He slid forward between the two demons, grabbing one of their legs on the way past and swinging himself around. Canceling the spell as he yanked himself upright, James topped the first demon and then utterly failed to put the other one in a headlock as the wide blanket of leathery wing kept him back. It kept screaming as it whipped around, beating at him with its complete lack of leverage, and James let the momentum carry it as he clocked it in the side of the beak with a rapid jab, burning the last of his Velocity to pave it and send it down to the sidewalk with its partner before he was running again, three more demons landing on all sides.
There was no easy way out here unless he wanted to start shooting, and James had a finite number of bullets, so he settled on using distance to draw them off of their original prey. He wished Zhu was still with him, and he also wished that there wasn’t a blade digging into his side, but those could be fixed later as long as he didn’t get drilled by one of those viciously sharp beaks.
When James heard the car approaching, he thought it might be a cop for a second, but there was no associated siren. When a battered red SUV pulled up at the corner of the intersection he was running toward, he didn’t drop any of his worries that someone was about to shoot him, especially when the passenger side door was thrown open. But then he saw the driver, leaning over to give the door a push, look up and meet his eyes.
”Get in!” The man yelled, and James had about a block of running to think about whether he should or not. Because the guy who had just provided him with an easy escape route was, in fact, police Captain Mecham. Or rather, the jowl-faced man who was impersonating Captain Mecham when James had spoken to him. “Shit!” The man barked as James’ thoughts were interrupted by one of the bat winged monsters crashing into his back, hooves shoving him down to the ground hard as the air was slammed out of his lungs.
James kept calm, because he had inexplicably trained for this. Well, trained to cast while being fucked up. Frost Vector ate up a little more of his stored Breath and made him feel a little woozy, but it meant that he slid on the pavement instead of ripping his bare chest open on it like a concrete cheese grater. Mountain of the Self he could only keep up for a second, but he did it anyway as he twisted over, and was grateful he’d burned the Breath on it as the demon’s beak broke on his invulnerable neck. He grabbed its own thin arched neck, jerking his hand sideways and getting a frantic bleat from it, before something started hitting it.
Small puffs of red erupted across the demon’s fur, and also a few stinging hits on James’ own arm. But it wasn’t blood, it was something else, the impersonator firing from his car on both that demon and the other one bearing down from behind James. Whatever he was shooting, it stung James’ skin, but it made the creatures squeal. Their fur and flesh melting into slimy liquid wherever they were hit, both of them backing off and clawing at themselves with their wings wherever they could reach.
Good enough for him. James got up, sprinted the last block in a couple seconds, and leapt into the car as the man tossed the paintball gun he was holding into the back seat. James slammed the door, buckled up on ancient instinct, and let out a long sigh of relief as the driver floored it and got them out of there, clipping a descending demon with the bumper as he did so and splattering it onto the pavement.
And now, freed from the responsibility of running, James looked down at his flank. The knife plunged into him, still held in place by his extra icy limb, had gone in under his ribs, but didn’t feel like it had hit anything vital. It just hurt like hell. “I’m gonna bleed on your car.” He told the man.
”You- oh. Shit kid, that looks bad. Cursed?” The driver glanced at him before reaching over to pop the glove box and reveal a first aid kit. Among a lot of other things that James would have called ‘standard delver gear’ if that was a thing.
”Is that even an option now? Fuck.” James snarled as he fumbled the box open and started unwrapping sterile bandages and gauze, tearing strips with his teeth before taking a series of short breaths to hype himself up, and yanking the knife out with a terrible sensation. Before he could bleed too much, he was pressing the gauze and medical tape down, holding it in place as he staunched the wound. “Seems fine.”
”So.” The older man said as he drove them out of the suburb and onto a commercial street, aiming the car at a freeway onramp. “You’re not really a fed.”
”And you’re not really a cop.” James countered, pressing his hand into the bandage and holding it there, wondering if he was going to experience organ failure soon.
Both of them checked the side mirrors in unison, looking into the better lit sky for any demonic pursuit. Sighed in unison, though James’ was more pained and the driver’s was a lot thicker. The two of them let the silence go on for a minute before both of them twisted their bodies to shake hands over the central console.
”James.” James introduced himself.
”Becker.” The other man said. “What’s with the club look?” He motioned at James’ shirtless form.
James took a second to realize what he meant, patting his chest and stomach before giving a soft. “Oh. Right, kid stabbed me. I was wearing a kind of item that breaks if it gets damaged.” He looked down at the red marks on his arm where he’d been shot by Becker’s paintball gun, brushing off whatever it was that was stuck to his skin and starting to burn. “What the hell were you shooting?”
”The things hate capsaicin. Well, the weak ones. So they’re just packed with chili powder. Safer than bullets in the burbs.”
Nodding appreciatively, James looked out the window at the freeway they were now on, a handful of other cars zipping along with them. “Where are we going?”
”I’ve got a camp off the east road out of town. Middle of nowhere enough that no one would know where to start looking.”
James nodded, checking his incoming messages on the skulljack to confirm what he was about to ask was okay. “Mind dropping me off somewhere?” He asked. “Maybe helping clear some stuff up for some friends and me? Because I dunno how the North Smiths’ vibe is normally, but it seems like things are getting a little messy.”
”…You have air conditioning?” Becker asked him.
”We have air conditioning.” James confirmed.
The man flipped the little magnetic stand his phone was on around toward James. “Plug the address in.”
”Thanks.” James said, and then, as the pain came on in full, the adrenaline faded to a bitter aftertaste, and the nightmare of the mess he was in once again caught up to him, he let his hand drop back to his lap. Leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes, just for a second, his voice softening to something tired and worried that this was too familiar. “Seriously, thanks. I think I had that, but thanks for being the kind of person that puts it on the line like that.”
”Someone’s gotta.” The man said with a heavy chuckle. “No one else in this godforsaken city is gonna.”
James grinned, feeling a spark light up as he leaned forward and started figuring out the map app. “Well. Someone is now.” He said. “Hey, how do you feel about snakes?”
”…I’m really hoping this is rhetorical.”