Gremlin Night Read online

  Tully continued to annoy me, sitting there silent, watching the show. Always watching.

  “Can I ask you a question? What do you think about us figuring out what caused this outbreak?” I asked him after the silence got to be too much. “By the way, what is your specialty?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “That’s two questions, Ms. Marquez.”

  “Just Marquez,” I said. I didn’t want to grant him the privilege of calling me Liz, not if and until he’d proven himself.

  “Okay.”

  I couldn’t tell if that was a prickly okay, or an easy going okay, or something else. I settled for matter-of-fact, but who knew. My dad thought I worried too much about the inflection in someone’s words, but with the arcane, inflection and tone could make all the difference. Dad didn’t know about the arcane. Inflection always made a difference, be it spellcasting or figuring out a person’s attitude.

  Except here, apparently. He watched me without expression.

  “Sorry, I interrupted your answer,” I said. Anything to get him talking. If he was going to be like this going forward, it was going to be one boring evening. I’d have to do all the talking.

  “To answer the first question—discovering the cause of these particular outbreaks is important, and thus worth the time and effort. We wouldn’t be assigned this if it wasn’t important.”

  I stifled a smirk. He was definitely a newbie to R.U.N.E. Any veteran knew time was wasted all the time on behalf of the outfit.

  “How about your specialty?” I asked. A glimmer of interest flickered across Farlance’s face. Directors—always evaluating you.

  “Seer.”

  I nearly slapped my forehead. Duh. I guess literally dropping into chaos had scrambled my brains a bit. Naturally Farlance would pair me with a Seer if he could. Tully just looked way too physical to be a Seer. They observed, and traced the patterns of magic and mana. Seers could see the true nature of the supernatural. I could see the outlines, the shapes, but they saw the essence. I figured Tully would be a spell slinger, an Invoker, the kind that manipulated the raw power of magic for direct and highly energetic results, not a Seer, but there it was.

  The van pulled up to a worn-looking brick building which looked like an old garage from the outside. I didn’t remember there being a teleportal located here, but that just went to show I didn’t know all of them, even in Portland.

  Farlance and his team piled out, Tully and I following behind. One of the suits gestured, creating a faint flash of golden light. The garage door rolled up. Lights came on, revealing a small SUV, two modern sedans, and an ancient Lincoln Continental, painted brown, with a battered vinyl top.

  I whistled. “That is a very old boat, I mean, vehicle. Is it even still legal, given all the gunk it spews into the atmosphere? Assuming it’s even drivable.”

  Farlance smiled. “It is. It’s your ride for tonight.”

  I winced. “You’re kidding, right?”

  His smile widened. “Not when it comes to cars.”

  “But why this junker?” I pointed at the black BMW sedan parked next to it. “Why not that?” The newer model Ford would work in a pinch, too. “I’m not even sure why R.U.N.E. still has this in the collection.”

  Tully actually spoke up. “It’s well grounded, magic-wise. The lack of electronics allows for better spellcasting.”

  I waved dismissively. “Whatever. It looks like a crime against all things motorized.”

  Farlance raised an eyebrow in a “really?” expression.

  “I’d rather take the van,” I muttered. “The thing’s ancient.”

  “Which helps even more than the lack of electronics,” Tully replied. “Its age connects it to the world in a way a modern car isn’t.”

  “He’s right,” Farlance said approvingly, which didn’t help. “Much less interference for his Seer sorcery.”

  Then, I spotted a thing of mechanical beauty parked by a wall.

  A Ducati motorcycle, painted black. Now that was my kind of transport.

  “If we took the van we could take that with us,” I said.

  “Absolutely not,” Farlance said.

  “Gives us a second transport option in a pinch.” Okay, it gave one of us a second option, namely me, but the van would be useful, too, not just because of the Ducati.

  “The Ducati is off-limits.” Farlance wasn’t smiling any more. One of the burners stifled a laugh.

  Clearly, I’d touched a nerve. “Well, how about the van then? Yeah, it’s big for two, but so is the Continental, and we know the van runs.”

  “You’re making me pull rank on you, Elizabeth, but you and Tully will take the Lincoln. We’re having the van driven to Seattle.” As he spoke, his team loaded the van with iron-bound oak chests, potions, and bundled items. The air glowed silver even to my limited arcane sight, enough artifacts to start an arcane war.

  Or end one.

  I shivered at the thought. If R.U.N.E. needed the van driven up north, things were even worse than I’d thought. Much worse. The urge to join them filled me. Tully even looked reluctant, assuming I read him correctly. Which, having only known him for less than an hour, was a stab in the dark.

  The team finished loading the van, then two of the suits got back in and drove off. The rest of Farlance’s team assembled by an old wooden door in a shadowy corner of the garage. The teleportal, hidden in plain sight. If non-arcane, ordinary people opened it, they’d find a tiny room filled with old auto parts. Only sorcerers and wizards could see teleportals, and even more importantly, use them.

  The two burners went first, disappearing through the doorway. The Seattle end of the teleportal showed an alleyway. I recognized a corner of Pike’s Place, the perfect juncture for teleportals from other cities, like Portland. There were others in Seattle, of course, but that was an excellent assembly point.

  Farlance was the last to go. He turned to Tully and me. “I wish you two could join us.”

  “So do I,” I blurted. Tully nodded stoically.

  “I hope I’m leaving you two with just a simple investigation, but it might be more than that.” He paused, obviously thinking. “I don’t have any hard evidence, but I suspect the outbreaks might be a diversion. I wish I had a sentinel on duty, but our local one, Therese Sprig, is on medical leave. Still, she might be available. Tully has the address.”

  I nodded.

  “Good luck,” I told Farlance. I felt a sudden impulse to hug him, which I barely managed to resist.

  “You, too,” he said, and stepped into the teleportal. It was like watching someone disappear into a heat mirage. His body appeared warped and then disappeared. The shining silver-lit corridor remained for a minute longer. It would be so easy to follow Farlance. But I only had one teleportal trip left before dawn, because of the rules of magic, and, besides, orders were orders.

  A moment later the corridor vanished, revealing the tiny room beyond the door, crammed with old auto parts. I closed the door, shoulders slumped. We were stuck here.

  Sudden hope dawned. If we managed to solve the case quickly, we could join him.

  “Come on, Tully, let’s hit the road.”

  Tully drove, while I navigated. Really, it should be the other way around, since he was the Seer, but the interior was huge, and I could barely get my feet on the pedals, which meant I could barely see over the dashboard. This was yet another challenge of being short

  I wore my arcane phone on my wrist and scrolled through the list of gremlin outbreaks in Portland tonight while Tully drove. The first outbreak had happened on the east side of the river.

  “That’s weird,” I said. “Pretty far apart from the one I blundered into in the industrial area in Northwest.” It was already unusual to have more than one outbreak of the same type of manifestation—when you did, they were was usually geographically close together, because of whatever had caused the collective subconscious to create the particular manifestations. That whatever could be something in the local air, so to speak. Yes
, folklore and the zeitgeist provided the blueprints for supernatural creatures, but something specific had to trigger it. A shared nightmare, or a really popular meme. These days, it could be nearly anything. Fortunately, most of the manifestations were level zeroes-just potential that didn’t go anywhere else. The real arcane trouble started with level ones.

  Tonight’s outbreaks were exceptional in that way, too. Multiple level ones and even twos, including the one I blundered into. Level two manifestations were close to being permanent. That shouldn’t happen in just an hour or two.

  A golden glow flickered outside my passenger side window.

  “We have a message,” I told Tully.

  The golden light resolved itself into a sprite, a tiny-human looking manifestation. This one was dressed in a brown leather flight jacket, trousers and boots, and wore a World War One style flight cap with goggles pulled down.

  Showoff.

  “We’ve got to pull over,” I told Tully.

  It would be so much easier if messenger sprites could land in a moving vehicle, but they couldn’t. I’d never gotten a straight answer as to why, when I’d asked. It seemed to be a major limitation. But, they were prevented from entering a moving human vehicle, or even touching it. They simply couldn’t do it. I suspected it had something to do with the metal and electricity in a car, truck, or bus--or plane, for that matter--interfering with mana. Not in a literal, physical sense, but more the clash between human-conscious technological constructs and the ancient dreams and nightmares of the supernatural. My teachers back at the sorcerer school would have been stunned to hear me use such big words.

  “Working on it,” Tully said.

  We drove over the Markham bridge. Traffic was heavy at the merge with I-5. Talk about a grind.

  “Take the Water Avenue exit,” I said. “We should have stuck to surface streets.”

  Annoyance flashed across his face.

  Finally, I’d gotten a reaction. But it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. He took the exit and pulled into the first available parking spot on Water Avenue.

  I rolled the window down and the sprite landed on the door.

  “About time,” the sprite said, pulling off the tiny flight helmet and goggles. A luxuriant little mane of blond curls tumbled out. “Been chasing you for longer than I should.”

  “You notice we were driving?” I didn’t try keeping the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “Which is why I couldn’t alight on the motorized contraption. But that is of no import now that the time has passed. What is important is that another gremlin outbreak is under way.”

  So much for ‘dealing with’ the disturbances. “Where?” I asked.

  “The Winter Market.”

  I narrowed my eyes, thinking.

  “Winter Market?” I repeated. The winter market was a big holiday street bazaar.

  “Yes, the one beneath the Burnside bridge,” the sprite said.

  I gave Tully directions on how to get there.

  I turned back to thank the sprite but it had already zipped off.

  “I wish it would have stuck around,” I muttered. “Would have been handy to have a sprite to spot for us.”

  “That’s my job,” Tully said, and I couldn’t tell if he was offended or giving me a hard time.

  “Good thing you’re here, then,” I said. This night kept getting better and better. I’d rather have had a partner I’d worked with before, not someone obviously fresh to the game.

  But you can’t always get what you want.

  In fact, I rarely did.

  6

  Christmas lights twinkled beneath the Burnside bridge, around the edges of the vendor tents, and on a nearby tree. Shoppers jammed the alleys and lanes between the tents. The river beyond reflected the light from the old-style pole lights that lined the Waterfront.

  Okay, Christmas lights should have been twinkling, but when we pulled up, they strobed, flashed, and popped. But the shoppers stared off at something happening closer to the waterfront.

  I jumped from the car before it came to a stop. I scanned the tents. Music played loudly, Christmas carols. No gremlins scampering among the tents that I could see.

  “You’re going to make skid marks if you do that one time too many,” I heard Tully say behind me.

  “Is that sarcasm I hear?” I said over my shoulder.

  “Just stating the obvious.”

  I turned to face him. He was already scanning the tents, obviously reading the mana ebb and flow. Thanks to the strobing lights, I couldn’t make out any hint of mana, but Tully’s Seer sorcery let him see the mana as plain as day.

  “Over by that wooden Santa,” Tully said. “There’s an ATM there. People are clustered around it.”

  We pushed our way through the crowd. Someone yelled, “There’s a monkey loose!” Someone else screamed, followed by more shouts.

  This had gotten dangerous fast.

  A little figure wearing a green tablecloth darted out from a stall, little gray legs pumping. The air suddenly reeked of burnt wiring.

  Another gremlin outbreak was definitely in progress.

  I began chanting a spell in Spanish under my breath as I chased the gremlin.

  To the ordinary people here, the gremlin would appear as a monkey, but I saw the clawed feet.

  “I evoke the Law of Compliance!” I hissed.

  “Hee hee!” the gremlin chortled, streaking past a plastic Rudolph covered in lights.

  The lights exploded. I threw up my hand to shield my face and my spell died before I could finish casting.

  I ran into a gangly man in a hoodie and jeans, and fell backwards, landing on my butt. The man staggered but didn’t fall. A tangle of brown hair framed a face covered by a big woolen scarf, which only exposed his narrow-set eyes.

  For a moment, I thought I glimpsed a stunningly beautiful blond woman beside him, in a too-thin dress, but when I blinked, the image vanished. Gremlin chaos magic wreaked havoc with the interplay between mana and human subconscious. The image might have been a level zero manifestation.

  I shook my head to clear it.

  The man looked me over, hooded face in shadow, but his eyes glittering, lingering on my breasts. He blinked and reached down to help me up. Silver rings flashed on the fingers of both hands. Two of the rings had rubies in them. For an instant, I thought I saw mana swirling around the rings, but it vanished. Must have been my imagination. I wasn’t detecting anything magical from him. The gremlin must have been messing with my magical perception, such as it was.

  “Sorry,” I said, and scrambled up, ignoring his attempt to help me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was a silken tenor.

  “No worries.” I strode away from him, rounding the corner of a booth and reaching an intersection between rows of booths.

  A singing Christmas tree suddenly began belting out a metal tune, something by Slayer, I think. People winced at the driving thunder of the music. Tully was nowhere to be found. Great, I’d lost the rookie already.

  I reached into a shoulder pocket and pulled out a pair of R.U.N.E. issue earplugs, that looked like silver jewelry, a whorl pattern worked into the metal. I jammed them in my ears, and took a deep breath.

  “Quietude.” I said the command word in English. The music dropped in volume and I could think again.

  I needed to fix things, and save everyone else’s hearing.

  “I’m three aisles over,” Tully said in my ear.

  He’d put his magicked earplugs in as well. They worked as a two-way communication set-up, for a short while. Like all artifacts, you couldn’t use them nonstop. Otherwise we’d wear them all the time. And like all artifacts, the silver earplugs were alive, and like all living things, would need to recover.

  I dodged around people holding their heads, eyes shut. Curse that gremlin. He’d put a lot of people in jeopardy.

  A snowman statue glowed red in the third aisle. The gremlin was nowhere to be seen.

  A
hand tapped my shoulder and I jumped.

  Tully knelt beside an overturned table.

  “We need to turn off those speakers,” he said.

  “You think?” I replied.

  Sparks erupted another aisle over, and suddenly things went silent.

  “Looks like the little annoyance blew the works,” I said, looking around. “We need to find it before it decides to see how far it can break Murphy’s Law.”

  “What goes wrong, makes things worse,” Tully said, quoting a R.U.N.E. saying. “The mana threads are all snarled over by Santa’s sleigh. Snarled and pulsing.”

  “That can’t be good,” I said, trying to keep things light. I know, stupid, but if I didn’t, I’d be in a corner screaming.

  We sprinted in that direction, running past a candy cane vendor.

  A Santa statue sat in the classic Christmas sleigh. The gremlin squatted on Santa’s head. “Hee-hee-hee!!! Its chortle echoed off the tents.

  “All right, pal, you’ve had enough fun for ten solstices,” I told it.

  All the shoppers in the vicinity had cleared out, except for a little girl who cowered under a table. Her eyes were wide. She’d see everything. Worse, she shook with fear, face strained, eyes wide. Her heart had to be pounding. Mine was in my throat.

  “Hee-hee!” The gremlin gestured, and a space heater two stalls down began sparking. We had to end this, now. I wanted to tell Tully to take her away, but he could point out the mana lines, guide me, making the binding spell more powerful, and more accurate.

  “We’ll make everything right,” I told the little girl. “I promise.”

  I grabbed Tully’s arm. “Guide me, please.”

  Tully put his strong hand on my shoulder, and began whispering directions, helping me see the mana swirling around the chortling gremlin, and the way that the mingling purple mana and golden magic glows both began sparking redly. Red was the color of chaos, gremlin magic. Mana was the fuel for magic, chaos screwed with both.

  The words of a banish spell flowed from my lips in Catalan, and tumbled into the air like leaves, faintly glowing in my Tully-augmented magical sight. The closeness of Tully, his warmth, the smell of him, all helped ground me as I chanted, weaving my spell. The first gremlin I’d encountered tonight threw my spellcasting for a loop, but this time, with Tully’s presence and his sight, I was able to weave around the sparking chaos.