The Wards of the Sanctum Sanctorum registered my familiar presence, and I knocked on the door politely.

Obviously, it wasn’t an emergency, or I would have called ahead. Wong came to the door after about a minute, still looking as immaculate as ever, and a bit curious. “Miss Dynamo, is something going on? This is an odd hour to be paying a visit...”

I threw a thumb over my shoulder, and he looked past me. He didn’t have any problems making out the ghost by his curious expression. “He’s a contemporary of Morgan le Fey, and says I’m the designated host body she’s coming to the future to occupy. I figured a consultation was in order.

“Also, he’s been wandering around bodiless for a long time, and I figured he might be able to use the ambient magic here to at least partially materialize.”

Wong looked at me, back at the ghost, and considered that crazy statement. “I will see if the Doctor is still up.”

-------

Actually having some color now, and marveling as he traced the old brocade wallpaper on the room we were in, Magnus looked on as Doctor Strange sat back, a pensive look on his face.

Strange didn’t have on his full outfit right now, being clad in a nightshirt and loose trousers, albeit in the proper colors for the Sorcerer Supreme. Brand is important, after all.

“Your spectral friend is correct, Dynamo. There is a powerful spell here, and it is interwoven directly into your bioelectric powers. Removing it would require me to remove those powers as well...”

“A control conduit woven into my nervous system. Clever.” However, my smile clearly showed that I wasn’t worried. “It really is a pity that she doesn’t have an understanding of modern methodologies and frames of thought.”

“You have another solution?” Strange asked, surprised.

“If you know the route something is going to take, setting a trap on it is pretty damn easy. She’ll only be an astral form, and literally in the middle of body-jumping, severing her link to her own body and getting ready to forge a new one.

“I think I will make her pay the final price for her arrogance, and send her on her way, using her own magic to do so.” I held up my hand to forestall him. “No need to ask how. She’s just picked the perfect target for her desires, who also happens to be the worst target.”

He looked thoughtful at my words. “Well, I can certainly remove the spell at any time if you feel there are dangers involved, and are not certain of your scheme.” He turned to Magnus. “Brother Magnus, you are welcome to enter the Sanctum at any time, if you remain clear in thought and purpose. We can allow you entry through the Wards simply enough.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Doctor,” the ancient monk bowed, tracing the edge of the centuries-old chair upon which he was sitting. “In return, please ask of me anything I can do to help you.”

I spoke up before Doctor Strange could. “Well, I was hoping that both of you could give us a hand.” Both men looked to me. “Castle and a few interested parties are going to start cleaning up vampires. Locations of their nests,” I glanced at Strange, “and some up-to-date if carefully distant scouting would be most useful.” I eyed Magnus expectantly.

The Doctor nodded slowly. “Prying directly into vampiric affairs would invite immediate retaliation, but I should be able to locate their centers of power with little effort. They surround themselves with blood and necromancy.”

“I am a wandering spirit in the service of God. They will not be able to entrap me so easily, and the soulless things should be judged,” agreed Magnus, delighted to have a task and a purpose.

---------

“Jebidiah Bartholomew Hill.”

The Mountain stiffened up the moment he heard that voice. There weren’t many people on this planet who could impress him, but the owner of that voice was one of them.

The Castles all looked around nervously at the voice all of them could hear, searching for the woman who had spoken. The open grass lot they had come up out of the earth in didn’t really have any cover.

“There’s your ride,” The Mountain pointed for them, the driver sitting outside and waving a hand at them. “Let me help you in, and then I have someone to talk to.”

He saw the motion out of the corner of his eye, and knew she’d been standing there, just impossible to see. The blue eyes flashed at him, but she didn’t make a move as he hefted the rest of the Castles’ luggage with him, and led them towards the van that would drive them towards their new home.

Harvey opened up all the doors, helped stack the luggage, got everyone set courteously, took his tip, got in, and drove away, delivering Frank Castle’s family to a secure place to live far away from New York and the shit that was about to happen there.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Sighing, The Mountain turned around to face The Golden Hag.

Her hair was actually black, and her eyes blue. The golden moniker came from when she got into a fight and armored up, looking like she was made of precious metal. As actual pictures of her were rare and hard to come by, he could honestly say he’d only seen her do that twice, and both times the level of carnage being inflicted on something was extreme.

Watching her rip her way through those armored aliens who thought they were going to stomp over humanity had certainly been instructive. She’d torn her way right through their elite infantry landing force, disabling a lot of mechanized cavalry on the way, and gone up into the transport ship, which had rapidly been emptied of life before she went on to the next... and the next, and the next, ending up on the mothership of the fleet using their own teleportation systems.

Yeah, been a lot of blue blood and gore tossed about that day.

He walked over slowly, feeling like a kid caught out in the hall and having to report to the principal. She watched him walk over with those calm, knowing eyes that hid an edge sharper than any other he knew, and as he did, he felt the wall of her Null rising up in front of him.

No earth-power, no gravity control inside of there. Just him and his strength and stone-hard body, which wouldn’t slow the Golden Hag down in the slightest.

She had on a white t-shirt, a jean jacket, and jeans, and wouldn’t have looked out of place walking down any street, except for the hunter’s grace she exuded effortlessly. She had the round face of the native Inuit she had been born from over a century ago, before she had taken up the cause of the Tribes and totally turned the whole destiny of North America upside-down by herself.

She had united the native Tribes, advanced their technology by leaps and bounds, and proceeded to kill and chase the Europeans invading the West back, back, and back across the land, driving them back across the Mississippi with a bloody carnage and ruthlessness that the Muricans still dreaded today, and she kept them there, despite their numbers and hunger for more land.

Murica wanted her dead like no one else in the world. Most of the lower-tier nations in the world considered her a great hero and mother figure, while the more advanced ones considered her a direly dangerous figure nearly on par with the Great Bear.

In the Powered community, she was an absolute titan. The Core Disciplines had basically explained super-powers to the whole world, and laid out psionics and many other spiritual and mental disciplines for people to understand, if not necessarily wield themselves.

The Seven Dragons had revolutionized martial arts for the whole planet.

The Tribes had the highest rate and power of Core and Chi-users in the world, and that included Russia. Most of that could be laid at the feet of the Golden Hag.

Hill was one of the strongest men in the world, but he knew she could rip him limb from limb if she was so inclined to do so. He was pretty sure Primus himself didn’t want to tussle with the Golden Hag.

“Sama,” he greeted her politely, noting how she looked twenty going on fifty, once you looked at her eyes. Whenever he heard the word ageless, he thought of her and the branded scar on the side of her face, marring what was definitely a world-class beauty. “What can I do for you, ma’am?” She looked younger than any daughter he might have, but he might qualify to be her great-grandson. He took careful note of the seniority here.

“A word of warning, Jebidiah.” Nobody else in the world called him Jebidiah. He didn’t like the name, except when it passed her lips. When she said it, it was like she was singling him out from the rest of the world.

Him. Jebidiah Bartholomew Hill, talking to him, and nobody else. It was just right in a way he couldn’t understand.

“Yes, ma’am?” he acknowledged, having to focus to keep those blue eyes that looked right through him.

“You’re in the big leagues now.” His heart actually skipped a beat at hearing the Golden Hag, of all people, say that. “You can Teleport now. You can go anywhere you want, be anywhere you’re needed to be.”

“Earthjumping,” he supplied into her pause. “Natural earth or stone. Haven’t tried, uh, going to the moon, or anything.”

She considered his words, nodded slowly. “You’ve a ways to go before you get strong enough to do that. Work on the range of the power, the numbers you can take, and the speed of it first.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Just like a certain Schmot Gurl had told him. One of the things he did every day was go out and Teleport at least ten times, everywhere around the planet, testing the power that enabled him to do so, growing it and getting familiar with it.

The Tyranny of Rep Counts. In mundane terms: practice, practice, practice.

“Teleporting is a very dangerous power. Those who have it are watched like hawks, because it is so damn abusable.”

He knew she could Teleport. The fact she could do so was one of the things that kept the States from making too much trouble for the Tribes. Skinny from the gray underbelly of the merc world said she had gone into the Pentagon more than once and taken out generals involved in their vampire and werewolf relationships. More than one Master Vampire and its closest bloodspawn, as well as powerful Packs, had vanished in the States, presumably from her paying them a visit.

Yeah, the Golden Hag terrified them, too. One of the reasons the vampires and weres kept a low profile was because raising it brought the Hag in to Kill Them All.

“Moving around, maybe carrying people from place to place, or even goods, I will ignore,” she told him directly. “But if you bring in traitors or troublemakers, or any kind of weapons of mass destruction, I will hold you personally responsible for anything and everything those people or things do or intend to do, if I get to you and them first.

“Do you understand what I am telling you, Jebidiah?” she asked him directly, staring into his eyes.

He hadn’t broken a sweat in forever, but he could feel one pop out. There was a razor-edged sword ready in her Null, willing and able to cut him down.

Facing down Primus wasn’t anything like this, because Primus was basically a decent man, only grim if he truly had to be.

Sama Rantha was polite. Those who mistook that for nice and tried to take advantage of it generally didn’t last too long. They were probably the same kind of idiots who ignored her history...

“Ma’am, I understand that if I’m going to transport something dubious, it would be best to clear it with you first.”

“It would actually be best if you clear it every time you Teleport into Tribal territory. I don’t like having to investigate every time someone pops in unannounced. It’s an irksome waste of my time.”

He considered how valuable her time was, and had to admit she had a damn good point. An hour of her time was worth way more than his.

“Give me a number,” he said, and to his surprise, she instead handed him a phone.