Gremlin Night Page 15

  The image flickered again and the staff returned to looking like an ordinary crooked walking staff. Rudy no longer looked like a better-dressed version of the tall trickster from earlier, he was dressed in jeans, pull over and winter jacket.

  I felt my magic ebbing away. I had to boost it. I ground the blood amulet into my palm, crying out from the white-hot pain that shot up my arm.

  I twisted the knife again, like a corkscrew. Sparks flew from the blade’s tip.

  The gremlin’s face contorted. The golden light from Rudy’s Sever spell bounced off the gremlin, which was now surrounded by silver sparks from my blade. Ha! I shouted silently. My arms shook from the strain. Sweat ran down my back. Just maintaining one spell on the gremlin took everything I had.

  “Break the spell” I ordered, gesturing at the magical torrent spewing from Rudy’s fingers.

  The gremlin shuddered, and then my binding finally took hold. The gremlin pivoted, and ran at the spell line, “Hee-hees” erupting from it as it charged.

  The golden light turned silver, thickening in the middle like a python that had swallowed a cow.

  “No, damn you!” Rudy yelled. But he was stuck. He couldn’t stop casting the binding spell on the fox. If he did, the Trickster would be free.

  The other gremlins had stopped dancing. They squirmed in their golden lassos, fighting Rudy’s spell.

  The swollen silver middle of his spell bulged even more, and I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut.

  Spells were usually silent, or perhaps had a faint hum or crackle to them. It was a rare spell that made any sort of noise.

  Not this time.

  Maybe it was all the chaos from the gremlins. Maybe it was the ferocious amount of mana his casting consumed, or the complexity of maintaining three spells at once, or perhaps the sheer power embodied in the binding spell fighting to control the trickster fox.

  Whatever it was, the boom made me jump and clutch at my ears.

  Car alarms wailed in the nearby parking lot.

  I opened my eyes. Silver sparks rained down. Rudy staggered back, arms flailing but failing to keep him from landing on his butt.

  “Gotcha!” I whispered, and then took a deep, ragged breath, and a second. The sparks spattered against the pavement.

  Beyond them, the purple and blue mana cloud descended.

  Rudy chanted in English. “Come to me, mana, come to me, and be the blood that pumps through the body of my spells.”

  I’d never heard anything quite like that spell.

  But then again, I wasn’t a wizard.

  I reached out with my hand, fingers twiddling, summoning a binding spell.

  Rudy flicked his wrist, and my spell went awry. A chorus of maniacal laughter exploded.

  More flashes of light, illuminating all the human faces staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed from the train.

  Metal snapped and banged, and the train cars jerked and toppled to one side. The wheels had literally come off.

  “I have loosed the gremlins of chaos!” Rudy shouted.

  One train wheel bounced away from the track, rolling wobbly toward us.

  The gremlins pranced about, their manic laughter echoing off the train cars alongside the screaming chorus of car alarms.

  I whirled back to face him, but he was sprinting toward a brick maintenance shack twenty yards away.

  “Running away,” I shouted. “No, you don’t!” I dashed after him.

  He stopped at the door, turned and brandished the staff at me. “I don’t have time for insects like you.” He smacked the staff’s butt against the pavement. A loud bang reverberated and I flew backwards, hitting the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me.

  I groaned and sat up, in time to see him raise his staff at the shed’s door. He made a pass in the air. The door swung open. A shining corridor stretched ahead of him to a room somewhere else. He stepped through the door. For an instant, his image stretched and then the shining corridor vanished, replaced by the interior of the shed, lit by an overhead light, which began flickering, then went out with a loud “pop!”

  My jaw tightened. Somehow, Rudy knew about the teleportal network. He’d used it as readily as any R.U.N.E. sorcerer-agent.

  How did he know about it? R.U.N.E. kept the teleportal network a closely guarded secret. Only R.U.N.E. agents knew about it. Yet, Rudy went straight for the teleportal. I didn’t even know about that particular one. No one knew all of them, for security reasons.

  Dazed would-be party goers stumbled out of the uncoupled cars and staggered across the train yard. Gremlins pranced in a conga line, high-pitched freaky laughter echoing off the train cars. A nearby railroad crossing started up, the warning bell running way too slow, the lights flashing green rather than red.

  A gremlin skidded to a stop in front of me, and grinned, needle-sharp teeth gleaming wickedly.

  It reached out and tapped a clawed finger against my head.

  The world tilted and I went to my knees. The gremlin scurried off.

  “Hee-hee hee-heeeeeee!” The gremlin’s triumphant laughter stretched out, reverberating off the train cars and parked vehicles.

  I rolled onto my back.

  The fox sat beside me.

  “I don’t have much time,” the little voice said. “I’ll be more fully a prisoner again in a moment.”

  “Prisoner?” I asked. I couldn’t think straight. What did it mean, prisoner?

  “No time,” the fox spoke for the first time. “Use the brains the gods gave you, and figure out this little puzzle.”

  I groaned and sat up, rubbing my head. Nothing like cracking your skull on pavement, then have a gremlin mess with it afterwards. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see straight again.

  “You are talking directly to me,” I told the fox, and shook my head. Ow. That had been a bad idea.

  “Because I’m only very partly a prisoner for this brief moment. Let’s stay on track, shall we?”

  A sparkling rainbow of color swirled above me. This was worse than a shopping mall at Christmas time. Ironically, it was Christmas time. I giggled. Yeah, my head definitely needed looking at.

  “It has chosen you,” the fox said.

  I had no idea what he meant, but that didn’t stop the rainbow fountain from descending in a swirling prism of light. I do choose you. I knew that high-pitched voice, I was sure of it. It rang in my already ringing head, but I knew it. I’d been sad when it had left.

  “It needs to choose a new form,” the fox said.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Hey, not me.”

  The fox laughed. “It’s not your choice to make.”

  I raised a hand, tried to think of a spell to conjure, and failed.

  Something black floated in front of me, an inky black spot about the size of my fist. It smelled like fear and the night.

  The black inky fist-sized shadow hovered just inches from my face.

  It was some kind of shadow manifestation.

  I need a place to reside, it said, and darted onto my hip.

  Cold washed out from my hip. My bones ached.

  “Hey, what gives?” I shouted.

  I need an anchor.

  The thing squelched against my flank. It was a slug-like thing.

  A shadow slug.

  “Not so fast,” I said.

  We can work together. Soon to be forgotten previous did try to help you, but this self can do better.

  “What previous—” I stopped cold. Started to shake my head to clear it, but the throbbing stopped me. No, it couldn’t have been. The house brownie’s primal essence. Floating around all this time. “How did you find me?”

  Was called here.

  The fox was licking itself.

  “You!”

  The fox looked up. “You needed help, and you have a connection.”

  “But—”

  “If you are going to say it’s dangerous, this whole show is dangerous. Existence is dangerous.” It lowered its voice. “That’s what make
s this so much fun.”

  Well, I could use an ally, that was for sure. Especially right then.

  “You’re a cursed pain, Rudy,” I muttered.

  Gremlins ran through the yard, chortling, little purple clouds of concentrated mana hanging over their heads. Passengers fled the party train, heading for the road. Abyss be cursed, now there were ordinaries fleeing the scene.

  “His name is Rudy Gott,” the fox said, and licked a paw.

  “Rudy Gott.”

  “I would have told you sooner, but was prevented from doing so.”

  I grinned. “I’ve got your name, you wretch of a wizard,” I whispered.

  “But how do I solve this?” I asked the fox.

  “My borrowed time is up. Find a bridge to way the arcane.” It vanished.

  That made no sense. Find a bridge to way the arcane?

  I scrambled to my feet. I found a cloth in my jacket, and bound my bleeding left hand. I’d done a number on it battling Rudy Gott. This Gott jerk had left me holding the gremlin bag.

  It was past high time to deal with this little army of pointy-headed nuisances. I was an agent of R.U.N.E. for crying out loud. I should have called for backup about five minutes ago. I pulled out my arcane phone. The phone was scorching hot. I gasped. My fingers recoiled from the heat and I dropped the phone.

  My phone was a smoldering, stinking wreck. The screen was dark, and the metal had melted. Arcane phones were a combination of magic and tech, a very precarious thing indeed.

  The chaos magic, the gremlins and the trickster, must have destroyed it.

  I’d have to get back to the garage and use the communication relay there to reconnect with Tully.

  But, first I really needed to clean up this mess. Somehow.

  I was out of banish spells, and might manage another dispel. The gremlins had been screwing up my binding spells, but I could try.

  Then, I glimpsed the tall, skeletal trickster in the frock coat and top hat, dancing on top of a freight train locomotive looking like a shabbier version of Gott, when Gott wasn’t magically cloaked.

  The trickster held a silver flute, and played a beguiling tune. The gremlins froze, then turned and began prancing toward the locomotive. It was like watching an arcane version of the Pied Piper going to work.

  The fox said he was a prisoner of Gott, and would be more a prisoner after a brief moment of apparently independent action. Tricksters come in many guises, so, now that my head cleared, it wasn’t surprising that there was more than one guise here of the same trickster. The fox had vanished, after all. Now Mister Trickster-in-a-top hat drew the gremlins to it, no doubt with something fiendishly chaotic in mind. How in Hades could I stop whatever it had planned?

  I can help, the shadow slug said. I can see magic.

  I raised an eyebrow. Of course.

  The locomotive rumbled to life, and gremlins clambered on to the freight cars. There were dozens upon dozens of them now. Railroad signs forty yards away burst into pieces. The passenger train began sparking. Thank the heavens that the passengers had legged it out of here.

  The freight train lurched backwards and began backing up, red lights blinking demonically. Its horn wailed like a drunk dragon. It had a section of tanker cars with lettering that said something about flammable and toxic. Gremlins danced on top of the freight cars. A particularly fat one sat on the roof of the locomotive, gesturing like a maniac. A purple cloud of mana hung over the train.

  I ran to my Ducati, jumped on and started the bike up. I looked up in time to see the trickster jump from the locomotive, take off his hat, bow in my direction, then vanish.

  The train began picking up speed as it moved upriver, toward St Johns. Cripes. If it got going really fast, it could derail.

  I gunned the Ducati and the motorcycle roared after the train, bouncing along the gravel bed beside the tracks. I was no evoker. I wasn’t a summoner either. I needed magical help in order to stop that train. But how to get it? I revved the Ducati’s engine. The train roared past. It was going thirty, maybe forty miles an hour now.

  A pair of gremlins hanging off the caboose glared at me. The perfect time for a mishap. I hadn’t thought of that when I charged off after the train like an idiot.

  But I was a sorcerer-agent. Stopping the arcane from wreaking havoc was in the job description.

  I just hadn’t planned on doing it solo.

  “You said you could help,” I said to the shadow slug. “I need some supernatural muscle.”

  I don’t have the power to stop that train. I’m not an ogre.

  Okay, that I got, but still.

  I thought furiously. There had to be a way to stop a runaway train.

  I cringed as I pulled ahead of the train, waiting for the proverbial gremlin-caused foul up. It would be so easy, especially with the hurricane of mana surrounding the train, for my Ducati’s motor to stop. Or the brakes to fail. Or the wheel to come off.

  Sweat trickled into my eyes and I blinked, the salt stinging me.

  But the motorcycle stayed in one piece, and I kept riding it.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and saw a golden tendril, the trace of another spell. It had to be another thing Rudy Gott had set up. Where had he got the super artifact that let him, an unknown wizard, do all this? It gnawed at me. It was like he’d created this sprawling web of magic.

  Bingo.

  It was like a web of magic because that’s exactly what it was.

  Curses and blessings.

  The tendril followed the line of the rails.

  He wanted the train to move this way, picking up speed, until it derailed, no doubt in an area where dozens, even hundreds of people would have died in the explosion and release of toxic chemicals.

  What’s more, that kind of death had the potential to unleash nasty manifestations—hobgoblins, ravagers, flesh reapers, and other murderous supernatural killers. How did that map with heists and gremlin sown chaos?

  Thoughts raced through my brain. Distraction coupled with generating more fear from the collective human subconscious in Portland, which could bring more nasties to the edge of existence, which he could then pull across with his super-staff. Or perhaps just attract more mana around which he could harvest.

  The road was curving away from the rail line up ahead.

  I had a sudden flash of insight. I didn’t have to physically stop the train, since there was no human engineer aboard, the locomotive cabin looked to be empty, dark. The gremlins, prompted by the trickster, had gotten the train moving. Take the gremlins off it, and the train’s original state should resume. I hoped. Grasping at thin reeds were part of my business.

  What I needed was a different route to draw the gremlins on to. Someplace with magical power, to anchor the spell I was going to cast. And there was the perfect one not far away.

  13

  The St. John’s bridge spanned the Willamette river just a couple of miles north of the railyard. It was a classic suspension model, with tall spires, and huge concrete support pillars underneath the span. The perfect place for a spell anchor.

  But first, I had to connect the gremlins to me, and I had to do it right. The train was still building up speed, going perhaps fifty miles an hour now. I pulled a U-turn, and braked to a stop, facing it.

  I drew my binding knife. I used Latin. The train, still hooting like a dragon, lit up in golden light. Tendrils of golden magical light spread from the gremlins to me. Casting an attraction spell was easy. Dealing with what you’d attracted with your sorcery that was the hard part. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Or, more literally, when I arrived under it.

  The gremlins began jumping off the train, dozens and dozens of them, charging toward me. My eyes widened. That had worked fast. I gunned the Ducati and drove fast for the road out of the railyard, and uphill toward Greeley. Now, the problem would be maintaining the spell until I got to Cathedral Park.

  I needed more mana.

  To do that, I needed to anchor the spell to one
of the bridge pillars. The latent potential and energy of bridges, which soared against gravity, were perfect places to anchor spells. That was why manifestations tended to be found around bridges. Bridge trolls were the classic example, but there were other, modern ones, of course. Chances were (I hoped) there wasn’t one actually there.

  I roared up Greeley toward Lombard. I was going to have to break some traffic laws in order to get to the St John’s bridge faster.

  “Can you conceal me from human eyes?” I asked the shadow slug.

  Hey, I’m of shadow, right?

  Good point.

  A moment later, the Ducati and I went dark, like a shadow. I could still see the bike and myself, shadowy objects, barely visible in the night.

  Human eyes and human technology won’t detect you as long as you are in my shadow.

  "Sound, too?” I asked.

  All emanations from you.

  A cloak of sorts. That was handy. I punched the accelerator and slipped between two cars. I glanced back and saw the golden thread of my spell trailing behind me. The gremlins were still chasing us, but were blocks back now. If much time passed, the spell would fade and they would turn to causing mayhem in their immediate vicinity.

  I blew through the red light at Denver, accelerating to over seventy. Lucky for me traffic was light.

  Until the panel truck two intersections later.

  I hit the brakes, then gunned it before the car following the truck reached the intersection. My throat was raw from all my shouting.

  “Since we’re literally joined at the hip, I’m assuming we’re still good clockwise,” I murmured to the shadow slug.

  I’d never heard a giggle in my head before. I nearly jumped off the Ducati.

  Forgive me, the shadow slug said. Your last statement was, I’m not sure how to put it.

  “Funny?” I offered. “Amusing?”

  Is that what it was? Hmm. Yes. What a delectable sensation. Yes, it was funny.