20)

Cassy- At an abandoned paper mill

I left my SUV parked in plain sight in front of the ruined building. it was a field issue Bureau vehicle I had gotten with my promotion and not at all like the type of fancy vehicles my boss liked to be driven around in.

Speaking of which, I don’t think I had ever seen her drive, what was going on with that?

Otto and his guys had gotten there a bit before us and had taken the time to set up a few concealed flood lights before heading off out of sight. Leaving only Otto himself to greet us.

He gave me a nod "How do you want to play this?"

I shrugged. “Kinkade will use the ring to get him here and I'll tell him I'm bringing him in for questioning. If he ends up being difficult, I'll leave it to you. Just make sure you leave his head intact.”

The big man shook his head and pointed over to Kinkade. "Nope. We'll leave the roughhousing to her. Me and the boys will just keep him in the area."

Kinkade smirked and looked down at Natalie's ring. “I think I know how to work this.” The metal of the ring began to shine like it was reflecting a deep green light. “Grimaud, you are needed.”

For a moment she looked a little surprised. "Huh, got a response. Not in words, but I think he's on his way."

I shrugged “From what I've heard about him, he isn't going to just show up in a car, and it isn’t going to take him all that long to get here.”

Kinkade gave me a nod before waving at Otto to follow her inside the building to hide away out of immediate sight.

It ended up only being a few minutes before I could hear the breathless broken whistling that the Thibedeau's fixer was said to be so fond of.

I had only met the guy a few times when he delivered something to my boss, usually a written note from her father commanding her to come running back to her family home to report to him. The old man hated phones.

Picture a pale, gaunt man who is always dressed in old suits. Think full on vest, tie, hat, and kerchief neatly tucked into his pocket. His suits aren't just old fashioned looking, but real antique ones which looked slightly worn out and a little too big, as well as insanely uncomfortable looking for the Louisiana heat and humidity.

But not a drop of sweat on him, just a grim look on his face.

He stopped a good twenty feet off and began to talk in a voice like he was a little out of breath all the time. “Agent Varrow... I believe your mentor... is expecting me."

I shook my head. “Not exactly, she instructed me to bring you in for questioning.”

He stared at me for a moment. "I'm afraid... I would have to hear that from herself... not you.”

Kinkade stepped out into the moonlight, her hand held up in a fist to show off Natalie's ring. "Director Thibedeau has more important things to do than round up her family's errand boy. So just be nice and do what the Agent tells you to."

The gaunt man looked more curious than concerned. "I've walked this earth for over four hundred years... in the service of the Thibedeaus... witch. My body and soul... have been reshaped by magics... unseen in this age." He tilted his head. "I stood toe to toe... with your grandmother in her prime... little girl. So I don’t see a possibly stolen... little ring as enough of a reason for me... to obey anything... a child has to say.”

Kinkade smiled and turned her fist over, lifting her middle finger. “I would say that indicates an inclination to not cooperate. Lights!"

The flood lights snapped on as what must have been several dozen men and women in a motley assortment of military and hunting gear came roaring up in several trucks or popped out of cover from in or around the old paper mill. Each one aiming a wide variety of rifles, shotguns, crossbows, and even one guy holding up a harpoon.

Along with all of this came a whirling noise as Otto came lurching out of the building with the spinning set of gun barrels of a minigun complete with a laser sight and what looked to be a machete somehow attached to it as an oversized bayonet.

I didn’t recognize the model, but the sheen of the metal suggested something commissioned from the dwarves. Guess I know what happens to all of Otto’s money.

After a moment of looking down at the many, many red dots of light covering his chest. Then back and forth at the surrounding mob. Grimaud nodded in appreciation.

"Touche... All of this... would be a reason to surrender... for someone else."

Kinkade smiled. “Let me give you another.”

Order mages like me take the orderax created by the rituals of civilization to power their spells through symbols. We can do just about anything within our power if we know the right symbols and put them in the right order.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Witches like Kinkade take their mana from living systems, forests, swamps, and deserts. It shaped their magic with the way they’ve learned to feel the power that comes from their homes.

It can also shape them.

The Kisatchie national forest has a wide variety of wildlife. Foxes, boars, bears, coyotes, and even alligators.

What Kinkade turned into seemed to include a bit of all of those and more. All at once.

Martin- sitting in the office of the Party mart.

I looked down at my severed arm lying on the desk in front of me, along with the medical supplies, paper towels, and tools that I had spread out on the desktop. Then I wiggled its fingers.

“Well old chum, I have my arm back. Now how do I get it reattached."

Tosser leaned in and looked up at me. "The Master has arm."

I leaned back in the tall office chair. "Not very helpful old boy. But since I do have it, and getting it back on may end up being time sensitive, I guess I should be about it.

I rolled up the remains of the sleeve on the stub of my left arm. Then grasped the severed limb firmly in my right hand and pressed the two ends together.

Nothing. But it's best to try the simple solutions first. Nothing frustrates like finding out there was an easy way to do things after spending hours failing with the more complex.

I twisted the limb around a bit and smooshed the two ends together a few more times. I could feel a bit of pressure on both ends as I tried to squeeze the arm back together, but that’s about it.

“I guess I need to involve a mirror again since that was the cause, logically it should also be the solution.”

There was no sign of any of the... twits, from the other side in the mirror of the store toilet. So I bent my arm at the elbow and thrust my entire limb through the mirror up to my shoulder. With both ends lined up and pressed firmly together.

My left arm tingled and began to go numb, but so did my right hand which was on the other side of the mirror as well to hold everything together. I pulled everything back and then examined my still unattached limb.

“Alright. Out of ideas other than trying a spell, which for me always just makes things worst. So, plan B it is."

Four loops of duct tape went around the line of separation. With another four loops figure eighting around my lower arm then up and around my upper arm above the elbow. Stiff as could be, but it held everything together as I bent and turned my arm as far as it would go. Then I tried lifting a few lightweight objects.

I would not want to try lifting a child or help move a couch. But with the sleeve of a clean shirt buttoned at the wrist, I should be able to pass for someone who was still in one piece. If I ever got out of here, I could always get a new arm grown. I lived with someone who knew that trick.

“I'm... I'm alright. I can deal with this. I've been hurt worse, at least emotionally."

Tosser poked at my arm "The Master healed."

I looked down at him. “Not exactly, but close enough”

The rest of his pack had been bunched up outside of the closed office door. As I walked out they began to slip into the shadows as I headed to the front of the store to watch the world change to a neatly landscaped expanse of short grass and decorative trees. Tosser joined me with sunglasses firmly in place to cover his eyes.

"If it had been my choice to take a tour of the changing lands. To see so many fantastic places without having to suffer the discomforts and unpleasantries of long distance travel by plane or car. I think I could have enjoyed this."

I rubbed at my left arm, feeling the tape underneath. "But this was not my choice, and I am getting tired of all this."

I checked the time. “As well as tired in general.”

"I'll wait until morning Auntie dear. Then I am calling in my people to end this."

Donovan – Standing in what remains of the party-mart.

The store was repairing itself, just not fast enough for Damia.

“He is going to give me so much shit if he finds me squatting in this wreck!"

She seemed a mite upset, and since she isn’t my girlfriend or family, I decided to just get the hell out of there. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with a demon with daddy issues.

The downstairs was in a little better shape. Part of the ceiling were still gone as well as the top of the front wall. But the big hole heading out in front of the store went farther than I could see and it was so deep I couldn't see the bottom. But that looked to be someone else’s problem.

Shit, I shot a guy who could do that, then cut off his arm. The first he forgave me for since my uncle had done something to me. But cutting off his arm? I’m thinking I should do my best to make sure the guy never saw me again.

Shouldn't be that hard. I mean I'm stuck in hell, it’s not like anyone would want to come down here just to come looking for me.

“Found you.”

The guy with the spotted skin and the torn up clothes walked out in front of the store, with a happy smile on his face.

I started to turn and run, but this guy had made a big deal about having to be asked in, so maybe I'm good. “I ain’t asking you in Spot. You might just want to move along." I waved him away.

Spot looked up and down at the hole that was now the front of the store. "I have to ask to cross a threshold into someone’s home, or else I would have no strength inside, but there is no threshold."

"Just a hole.

" He stepped into the store.

The remains of the couch came down hard. Just missing him as it landed on one end right next to him and then toppled over and out of the remains of the front of the store.

Clarice leaned out over to down from the edge of the hole in the ceiling. "Take it outside Stippler, Donny is off the menu."

Spot, Strippler, or whatever his name was hissed at her. Then gave me a longing look before he shuffled off. Good riddance.

Clarice watched him go and looked off into the distance. "Ah Damia, daddy's home."

Way off in the distance a man sat on a horse at the edge of the big ass hole in the ground. He was dressed up like a cowboy and scratching at his head with his hat in his other hand.

After a moment he put his hat back on and held his hand up in front of him like he was motioning for someone to come to stop.

Damia appears at the edge of the hole in the roof. "Oh crap, everyone find something to hold onto."

I yelled up at her. "Why, what’s happening?” but she and Clarice had already backed up out of view. Only to be replaced by Linda who stood near the edge clapping her hands together in excitement.

"Ohhhh, he's going to do the hand thing."

The hand thing? I looked out to see the cowboy lifting his hand slowly into the air as something began to rise up on the horizon. A hand made of stone, higher than a dozen buildings. Tearing its way above the ground until it stood up higher than the clouds.

Then it fell. Right at the store.

The hand of stone began to break up as it fell to fill in the hole in front of it. Filling it up even as a shimmer of various colored lights had begun to slowly build up from the bottom of the hole. Things had begun to appear inside the lights.

Nothing I could ever describe. They hurt my brain.

The mass of stone and earth slammed down leaving behind a seamless natural looking landscape where the hole had once been. But it shook the ground hard enough to launch me and everything inside the store if not the building itself a few feet in the air.

By the time I got up and dug myself out from a pile of cheap, knock off, off brand snacks, the cowboy had somehow ridden up impossibly fast and was tying off something in the shape of a horse, but with black scales, to the bicycle rack.

He gave me a nod. "Howdy son, I'm looking for my little girl. A feller by the name of Roxir told me she took a shine to this place and the former owner was a mite upset.

Linda waved down from above, having somehow managed to avoid getting knocked off the edge of the hole. "Hi Mr. Luthor. We cut someone's arm off and I threw it out the window.”

Cowboy nodded. “Sounds about right.”

Then he turned to me. “I don't know your story son. But if you don't want to be stuck here forever, you might want to get the hell, out of Hell. Cause you ain't got much time left before it changes you all permanent like.” He shook his head. "This place here place is just too small and damaged to keep you from being changed into something else."