Gremlin Night

  Gremlin Night

  Agents of Sorcery #1

  Dale Ivan Smith

  Copyright © 2019 by Dale Ivan Smith

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Yocla Designs

  Published by Dale Ivan Smith

  Portland, Oregon

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.daleivansmith.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Get the free prequel story

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

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  1

  Burt the ogre was late. I squatted in heeled boots in a snowy alley in Peoria, calves burning, hair damp, stomach rumbling, all because an ogre crime boss took his sweet time to show up at his own blasted nightclub. Talk about a thoughtless jerk. My life would be so much easier if criminal manifestations kept better time. But that was the supernatural for you, always doing things on its schedule, never mine.

  I fought a yawn. It had been a very long day.

  The snow fell faster, and I pulled my motorcycle jacket closer around me. From where I crouched, I glimpsed the human bouncer as he paced on the steps outside, parka hood covering his face, wind-milling his arms to keep warm. His breath frosted the night air.

  Freezing my behind off while assigned to a stake out wasn’t the worse part of being a sorcerer-agent for the Regulating Union for Normalizing Enchantment. No, the worse part was doing this stakeout solo, because my temporary partner, Nancy Kirk, a Seer, had decided she’d rather stay in the van parked six blocks away, casting her magical sight through binoculars. All because she listened to the Midwest front office when they said we needed to keep a low profile.

  We always needed to keep a low profile. But the neo-gnome we’d gotten the tip from said Burt the Ogre was leaving town tonight and headed to Chicago. It would be a lot harder for R.U.N.E. to track him there.

  My phone slithered in my jacket pocket. I slipped my hand inside and the phone coiled around my wrist. It was a R.U.N.E.-issue arcane phone. I should have had an ear talker, one of those little jeweled silver dragonling artifacts, but the Midwest division of R.U.N.E. didn’t have any to spare, especially not for someone passing through on a temporary assignment.

  So, I was stuck with the arcane phone. I raised my hand. The phone looked like a big ebony bracelet to normal eyes; to mine, it was covered in scales, scales that projected messages before my eyes.

  Words glowed in my vision. Get back to the van, Liz. Now.

  Nancy and I had already had this conversation. Twice.

  Any sign of Burt? I whispered. My words floated in front of me. Nancy would be seeing them in the same way. Arcane phones couldn’t be snooped on, or hacked. They were useful in other ways, too, since they were alive, like all manifestations, but fixed in form, since they were artifacts.

  No. You must be freezing, she replied. Get back here.

  A Hummer limousine, black and ridiculous, windows tinted excessively dark, drove past the alley and pulled up to the night club’s entrance.

  Can’t, I replied. We have action.

  You don’t know that! Nancy texted back.

  The bouncer nodded at the limo, and spoke into what looked like a CB radio.

  The door to the club opened and two big men bounded down the stairs to the limo. One of the men opened the limo’s side door.

  A faint purple haze drifted out, almost too faint for me to see. Mana, the raw fuel for magic. With her seer’s eyes, Nancy must have seen it, too, and in more detail.

  A female figure covered in tattoos and leather hopped down from the Hummer. Her long blood-red hair was pulled up into a top knot. Even from where I crouched, I could tell something was off about her. Her skull came to a point in the back, and her skin was bone white.

  A whorl-kin. A bloodthirsty neo-type manifestation. They were getting more common. Criminal manifestations like Burt used whorl-kin because they had no remorse, they just lived to create fear and cause pain.

  I was a sorcerer, so I could see manifestations and magic, while ordinary people only felt their presence, if they noticed them at all.

  The whorl-kin scanned the area. I ducked back, my heart racing, just as she turned to face me.

  I texted Nancy frantically. Bring the van. It had a lightning staff. That would take care of an ogre and a whorl-kin.

  Stay put, she texted back. I’m calling the front office.

  I shook my head. That would take far too long, and Burt would be long gone again. No time! I replied. I slipped my hand back in my jacket pocket, and the arcane phone uncoiled and slipped off my wrist.

  I risked a look around the corner.

  A huge figure in a London Fog overcoat emerged from the limo. Burt loomed over the whorl-kin. He was eight feet tall. He would have been an impressive figure on the basketball court, but the Compact forbid manifestations from playing in human sports leagues, or starring in movies. Exceptions had been made, but they were extremely rare, and usually thanks to some bribes and favor swapping in some of the other organizations in the Hidden.

  Burt’s outfit dealt drugs, pimped out the down on their luck, ran gambling rings--all the usual vices. My jaw tightened. Far worse, Burt’s outfit also engaged in human trafficking. Yet Burt managed to stay free. Someone in one of the arcane organizations that dominated the Hidden world must be in his court.

  R.U.N.E. had been after him for a long time, but he had always eluded us.

  That changed tonight. I knew he had young women, maybe young men, too, in the basement of his nightclub. R.U.N.E. blew me off when I brought that up, saying there was no evidence. But, the thought stealer I’d spelled yesterday when we “interviewed” a middle-aged man who frequented Burt’s nightclub gave me a glimpse of young women chained to a wall. R.U.N.E. forbid us from using thought-stealers on ordinary “normal” humans. The Compact stated such thought reading was only to be used on magic-using humans accused of crimes. Come on, a creepy perv visiting Burt’s night clubs was an accessory to magic crime as far as I was concerned.

  Burt brushed snow off his jacket, rings flashing on his huge fingers. He said something in a low rumble, and the whorl-kin nodded.

  She was going to be a problem.

  Just then, my scamper returned from its mission at the other end of the alley.

  It looked like a cross between a ferret and a monkey, with bat ears, wearing a silver collar with a milky arcane pearl. The scamper was a loaner from R.U.N.E. Midwestern Resident Manifestation office.

  The scamper slunk up to my hand. I stroked its sinuous neck with one finger while another touched the arcane pearl. The fresh
memory of its journey flashed into my head. The scamper had snuck into the back of the nightclub, and down into the basement.

  The basement was a labyrinth of rooms, a perfect place for criminal activity. If I could get in the back way, I could ambush Burt and company. Okay, so I was one five -foot- two twenty-five-year-old human woman versus a hulking ogre and his private army. Crazy, but doable.

  My phone stirred in my pocket again. Had to be Nancy, but I left the phone where it was. I didn’t have time to waste.

  I gave the scamper a peanut, then followed it out the far end of the alley and around to the back of the club. “Thanks for the help,” I told the scamper. Time for it to head back to its nest at the Chicago castle. I hadn’t exactly asked for permission to take it with Nancy and me, and I’d kept Nancy in the dark about it. Simpler that way, for everyone.

  The scamper nodded at me, then whirled around and darted into a drainpipe. Being a scamper manifestation meant it could take a secret way back to Chicago. I’d have to take a train, plane, or an automobile since I’d already used the teleportal there tonight, and it was one way. Rules. The arcane, which included we sorcerers, lived and died by them.

  The street behind the club was filled with dumpsters and overturned shopping carts. There was a small loading dock off to one side. The door was a steel job with three locks and a little viewing window, currently shut.

  Luckily for me, I had a magical lockpick, also on loan from R.U.N.E. Chicago. Okay, I borrowed it without permission, but I’d return it as soon as this assignment was completed.

  The lockpick was a telescoping silver rod that expanded from two inches in length to a foot. It shivered and clicked into place. Like all magical artifacts, it was alive in its own way, trembling and hungering to fulfill its purpose. I stroked the lockpick with my pointing finger. “Descuia,” I said, unlock in Romanian.

  The lockpick shuddered. The three locks clicked open, one by one, followed by a rattling sound. I opened the door.

  Hopefully the back door was unguarded.

  It wasn’t.

  A surprised looking man in an ill-fitting suit, holding a sub-machine gun, stood there, staring at me wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Magic will do that to ordinaries, if you’re lucky.

  My luck wasn’t going to last long.

  I pointed my left fist at him. I wore a silver ring with a tiny sculpted silver bullfrog mounting it, mouth yawning open.

  “Sleep,” I told the guard. Blue-tinged vapor visible only to a sorcerer gushed from the bullfrog’s mouth and into the man’s nostrils.

  He raised his submachine gun, just in time to drop it as he slumped to the floor, the gun clattering beside him. He’d be out for a couple of hours, and nothing could wake him. The sleep ring should be standard issue, but they were difficult to craft. Policy stated that only Burners could use them, not Binders like me. We tried to avoid tangling with normal humans, but sometimes you had to, despite policy.

  Lucky for me I’d found a sleep ring in the armory when no one was looking. Too bad it only had the one charge.

  One guard down. Who knew how many after that. Actually, the plan was not to go through many, because there’s no way I could, and still get Burt. The ogre was the point of this exercise.

  One of my trainers back at R.U.N.E.’s Academy had told me if you train enough, you can act without fear taking over.

  I was trying to do that here. I swallowed, and pushed back the worry, the fear, and pants-wetting panic. I had to keep moving.

  My stomach churned at the thought of the women being held here, treated like meat at a butcher shop. Heaven only knew how long they had before they were auctioned off, or worse. I’d heard rumors that Burt liked human flesh, particularly young women, but R.U.N.E. had nothing on file. Proof of that would have brought the roof down on the ogre, but there was nothing.

  I slipped around a kitchen area. Now I could hear the thudding bass from the dance party above. The club proper occupied floors two and three, with private rooms above it, while the lair was below this floor.

  The door to below was off to my right, at the end of a short corridor. Old-style light bulbs shone inside wire ceiling fixtures. I waved the lockpick at the door, and said, “Unlock,” this time in Urdu. You could reuse a spell another time the same day, but you had to use a different language.

  Click! I pushed the door open, listened. Floorboards creaked, and the bass thumped distantly. Voices drifted up from the basement. I crept down the stairs and crouched just above the bottom step. A big room spread out before me, lined with tables filled with vials and boxes. Had to be a drug shipment.

  I saw doors at the far end of the room. If they had any cells to hold girls they’d kidnapped, they’d likely be there.

  Seven muscled crooks, in all leather coats, loomed around a table in the center. A gnome, dressed in a white lab coat, blue silk shirt and tailored slacks, stood on the table as he did the talking. Light glinted off his bald head and gold-rimmed glasses. The thick lenses gave him a fish-eyed look.

  “We have three cargoes to deal with. The boss just arrived and will want the scoop.” The gnome stopped, long nose quivering as he sniffed the air. “I smell a sorcerer.”

  Bunny-rabbit panic froze me. He could smell my blood. Curses.

  I had two binding spells prepared. Looked like I was going to have to use one right now, no excuses.

  Latin fell from my lips like lead, the familiarity of it chasing away fear as I whispered the words. “Thy essence I bind to me. Thy magic I wield. The action is my command. Obedience is thine order. The Law thee must follow.”

  The gnome stiffened, his face contorting. “W-h-o?”

  “Silentio,” I murmured in Latin.

  The gnome fell silent. The crooks stared at him, then peered around the room, hands straying to the weapons under their coats.

  I couldn’t bind them. But I could persuade them. I hated going through all my talismans and charms like this. The crooks drew knives, pistols, and in one case, a shotgun, and faced in my direction.

  I walked to the bottom of the stairs, and raised a charm I’d been holding in my left hand, shaped like a dove. Not my idea, but you go with what you have.

  “Listen, boys, I’m a reasonable type,” I said. “Obey me,” I intoned, in English.

  “Who the hell are you?” the nearest crook demanded. He blinked. His face and the faces of the other thugs slackened as the charm’s power took hold. “Yes, mistress,” he said, voice low and tone obedient. “Yes, mistress,” echoed the others.

  I rolled my eyes. Great, just great. Whoever had crafted this charm in the R.U.N.E. workshop had put a sexist aspect into it.

  Didn’t matter. I needed to get moving. I only had one binding spell left, and the ogre and his nasty whorl-kin bodyguard would be here in moments. Gods, I hated nights like tonight. It would be nice if just once I had real backup, not a partner like Nancy who insisted on following cramped bureaucratic procedures that didn’t work in the field.

  I pointed at the speaker and the two men beside him. “You three, guard the stairs. Don’t let anyone past.” The three nodded and ran up the stairs.

  The gnome still writhed on the tabletop from the effects of my binding spell.

  “You’re a tough cookie,” I told him. A whiff of musty old books drifted up from him. Not a typical gnome. He looked like an ancient manifestation, but smelled like a new one. Modern manifestations had all kinds of weird traits. His must include resistance to binding magic.

  “Settle, and relax,” I told him in Latin. He did neither.

  Purple fluid dribbled from his mouth. “Cease!” I commanded him.

  He screamed soundlessly and fell, banging off the table and smacking the floor, hard.

  Stronger tremors wracked his body, as if he was having a seizure.

  Then golden light burst from him. I stepped back, shielding my eyes. When I opened them again, he had vanished, leaving only his clothes, shoes, and glasses.

  I swallowed. He’d se
lf-immolated. That shouldn’t have happened, but his resistance to magic must have been even stronger than I realized, and my spell’s overcoming that resistance made him self-destruct. A twinge of guilt ran through me. He had served a criminal who enslaved humans, but I wouldn’t have destroyed him. Unless he’d been found guilty of murder, R.U.N.E. would have sent him to the Silos.

  Gunfire banged from the direction of the stairs, followed by shouts. I had even less time to find those women.

  I gestured at the four crooks remaining in the storeroom. “Defend this room,” I ordered, and sprinted to the far side. I leaned my head against the first door, and listened. No shouting for freedom from the other side.

  The lockpick unlocked the door. I swung it open, slowly, holding my wand like a sword, and pointed around the room. Crates stacked from floor to ceiling lined the walls. There was no other exit, and nothing living, human or manifestation, inside. I lowered my wand.

  The second door had three locks on it, like the door at the nightclub’s back entrance. It was a double-wide door, too. Promising, though it did eat up three more charges on the lockpick. I only had a few left now.

  Beyond the big door ran a corridor lined with doors on both sides and another big door at the far end.

  I pulled out my phone and subvocalized another text to Nancy. Exploring Bart’s dungeon. Gun battle in progress above. Send help. I left the phone coiled around my left wrist. If humans saw it now, they’d probably think they were seeing an ebony cuff bracelet. If they saw the arcane phone for what it was, they’d glimpse the actual supernatural world. That could lead to all sorts of problems, but I had to take the risk.

  The screen said “message not yet received.” The nightclub’s floors and walls shouldn’t have blocked the message. Perhaps something else had. Fine. I’d just keep moving.