The setting sun was painting the sky red. I had lifted my head out of the „Guide on radio operations for authorities with safety and security functions“. It seemed that I was to be codenamed „Merlin+location+number“, both location and number to be determined when we reached our nominal home base. Very funny.

My guards had turned out to be a pair in both senses of the word. That suited me fine. It removed a source of trouble. In fact they both seemed a bit reluctant. We had not talked much after they had given me the books and we initially took our place in the convoy and they established that for today they should be driving in turns, if the convoy leader in the armed vehicle in front called a stop at all. Our tank was still nominally full. I am one of those people who fill up after each trip.

I looked out wistfully. The news sounded like the world was ending for some people, like those in Broken Hill, who had their home town being razed televised globally by a bunch of flying clowns playing superman. Yet I had not yet seen a live monster. You may wonder about the naming, but my mentioning of dimensional entities drew blank faces. If you had to sell evacuating a fifth of the country so far, monsters sounded much more impressive, I reckon. Very well, monsters be their designation.

In fact I was outright pampered in a sense. I got drivers and unlimited rations. Being driven on a scenic country road under the setting sun. The scent of smoke on the air and some car wrecks on the shoulders from time to time would have diminished the eerie feeling. I needed to get out of that mood.

P: This sunset makes it unreal. I havn’t seen a live monster so far. You?

D: A convoy vehicle firing a machine gun at some shapes in the woods. For all I know we decimated wild pigs.

U: We came upon a car wreck on patrol. A troop of large hedgehogs was shooting it up with needles growing on their backs to get at the survivors. We shot them with our submachine guns. And puked our guts out when their corpses and the needles stuck in the car turned to colored smoke while we were waiting for the ambulance to move the passenger with a pelvic injury. That is why I believe. If it makes you lose your breakfast it is real.

P: Is that an issue?

U: Where I come from, it is. People staying home.

I asked for details and got the full story of three types of zones in the unsanitized version for the security forces.

U: Where have you been the last week that you don’t know?

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

P: In a wizarding boot camp without internet access. Remember?

U: Sorry. We just never met a wizard in a personal manner, let alone a freshly trained one. We just see the people in the black body armor and that rarely.

P: That is the thing. I, that is we in that camp, am an exception. We are very much in a Harry Potter situation. The wizards are an international organization of their own kind. As far as I know we were the first batch coming out of government training.

D: Are you sure you should tell us that?

P: I have just reread my copy of the secrecy thing they made us sign. I cannot tell you state secrets or how wizarding works and if I want to tell you what I can do, I have to have a reason coming from our common duties. But that somebody is not working for the state cannot be a state secret, can it? And that I came of a witzarding camp run by the military you already knew, so that is not a secret either.

D: True, but, to stay in Harry Potter, do you want to tell us things the aurors do not want you to tell anybody?

By the puzzled look she sent him I envisaged trouble in their relationship lieing ahead. If this was bugged, as they certainly could have done, the car being at their disposal on the parking lot, they could be listening in. But could I be sure thse two were who they claimed to be?

P: Do you want them knowing that you learned that stuff from me? At the end of the day, I will have to trust somebody and we wizards seem to be rare. I am valuable. That is under the assumption that you are even who you claim to be.

Ulrike actually laughed.

U: You have a healthy touch of scepticism. We can wait for breakfast tomorrow at least. Until then all I need to know is that your job is detecting monsters.

P: NO!

I had to set that straight. Them not understanding what I could and could not do would get us killed.

P: Sorry, but this needs to be clear. If you think you have an early warning system against monsters and let your guard down this would be very bad. I cannot detect monsters. I have no idea whether that is possible at all. I detect the doors they use to come from their world to ours. That monsters are close by when a door is close by is just common sense. But the doors are temporary. I can detect them while they are forming and while they are open. But after they close they are gone and the monsters stay.

D: Important clarification. Thank you.

P: Second I need magic materials for detections. I am supposed to get them at the place we are heading for. For now I have only a magic gun with two shots and no reloads.

U: You will fire it if and when we say so and only if we say so.

P: Roger, man. I have no interest in shooting monsters.

Their radios transmitted the convoy leader ordering a fuel stop at the next gas station and an exchange of drivers. It looked to become a long night.