A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1) (35 page)

“He’s
never been this blatant before,” Mei said in a worried tone.  “The scuffle in
the hotel was a little bolder than normal but not entirely out of character. 
The kidnapping is not too far from normal too.  Though usually they are my
friends.  It’s why I tried not to get too close to people over the last few
centuries.  It’s safer for both them and me.”

I
mulled over her words.  It was clear that as formidable as Mei was, Jin was not
actively trying to kill her.  If he considered her his ‘property’ it would be
consistent with the observed behavior.  A high-level supernatural entity could
latch onto a lesser being as a ‘pet’.  If the ‘pet’ continued to follow the
entity around it would likely reinforce this behavior.  The harm to her friends
would simply be jealousy.  What a crappy relationship.

“Usually
I try to track him down and he uses his magic and lackeys to obscure his plans
lead me in circles,” she continued thoughtfully.  “This goes on for months or
years before he does a huge spell that gives all the sensitives in the city migraines
and he leaves.”

“Holdup,”
I interrupt.  “You never said he did this before.”

“Well,
I never actually knew what he was doing before.  You’re the one that figured
out about the nodes.  I’ve just been wasting my time,” she growled angrily.

“Let’s
go upstairs and you can show me where on the global map you’ve been,” I said as
I hurriedly brushed past her.  This was new information that felt important.

Upstairs
I set up the projector as I had the day before but shrunk the city and brought
up the world map.  For the next hour, I added the locations that Mei had
tracked Jin to.  I marked the ones that had the final burst of energy that the shifter
had described. 

“This
can’t be good,” I muttered to myself as I looked at the globe serenely rotating
in the air in front of us.  Little red and blue dots highlighted the cities. 
The red dots were random.  They covered the entire world with no real pattern. 
It was the citied highlighted in blue that worried me.  These were the cities
that suffered from Jin’s energy backlash.  They formed a circle around the
planet.  Almost a belt around the planet, or a chain.  It almost met at both
ends, but there was a space.  A space that would be filled by the city we were
presently in.

“What
does it mean,” Mei watched the projection in confusion.

“Jörmungandr
,” Stella said from the couch, where a
sleeping Beth was resting her head in her lap.

“The world serpent,” I asked skeptically.  “What
are the chances that your giant snake just happens to be in this specific
reality?”

“What are the chances that our oracles have a
warning of an impending apocalypse endangering this root of the Tree.”  I
didn’t really have an answer to this.”

“However, that is not what I meant,” Stella
said quietly, caressing Beth’s hair.  “
Jörmungandr,
like Ragnarok has been misinterpreted by your folklore.  The seer’s vision
could be interpreted as a disaster or simply great change.  Like most such
visions, they are not clear.”

“Ah, like Uroboros, change or renewal,” I
shrugged.  “I think it’s unlikely that Jin is working for anything positive.” 
I stared at the map longer.  “I wish I knew more about these cities.  What is so
special about them?”

“Not a clue, most were sinkholes, though the
ones in blue were all in the last decade,” Mei offered.  “So those mostly had
modern plumbing at least.”

“Hey, I think those three have a root of the
world tree in them,” Stella pointed to the globe.

“Don’t most locations have an expression of the
root I them?” I asked, puzzled.  “Are these roots the physical expressions from
the original tree or just weak points in the dimensional fabric?”

“The World Tree has a physical expression, however
it exists in many dimensions,” Stella said a matter of fact manner.  I rubbed
my temples.  I hated theology.  “But these are actual expressions I am talking
about now.”

“Okay, this city has a root,” I said slowly,
running through my train of thought.  “It also has an unusual number of nodes
and an impressively strong lay line network running through it.  Not like home
but strong.”

“The other locations where the roots are the
same.”

“Mei, find out how long that Baron guy was
running around masquerading as a gang leader,” I turned to the small shifter.  “We
know they worked together.  I want to see if the timing matches up.”

While she spawned another window to talk to
Conrad’s assistant, I continued to examine the global map with increasing
concern.  This was more than summoning a demon lord.  It was more than
summoning a god.  This was something that spanned over a decade and may have involved
another dimension and mages, one of which was extremely conversant in circles,
a very strong, if not versatile form of magic.  They could have summoned a
demon lord years ago if they wanted something so plebian.  Our briefly captured
werewolf minion that had squealed was either a lair or misinformed.

“It matches up,” she confirmed as she shut off
the secondary terminal.  “Baron set up shop a little before the first backlash
event.”

“So what do they want?” 

“Whatever it is, I think it’s finishing up
here,” the Asian woman stated.  “He’s changed his pattern.  He’s never
blatantly opened portals like this.”  I gave her a doubting look.  “That I know
of,” she acknowledged.  “I may not have sensed the opening but there were not
any reports of demons rampaging through the city.  I was looking for things
like that.”

“Well, other dimensional invasions are classic rationales,”
I volunteered.

“Seriously?  It isn’t that clichéd,” Mei asked
suspiciously.

“It pretty common,” Stella called out for the
couch.  “That’s why its cliché.  In the last few centuries, my home plane has had
raids every few years from other dimensional world powers.”

“My home too, it sounds like it par for the
course for realms with high ambient energy,” I waxed philosophically.  “The
higher energy make the dimension easy to get to and easier to get away.  There
are whole empires that are made from expanding into such places or just find
raiding easy.  Still, this is not a high energy location.  It’s got a lot of
ley lines compared to the rest of the world, but they don’t even have enough
energy to be visible to the naked eyes.”

“I loved watching the ley lines at night back
home,” Stella sighed.

“Me too, until some beastie leaps out of the portal
on the node and tries to eat your face,” I countered.  Stella just shrugged
shoulders, apparently it had happed to her too.  “But unless they want to open
up a portal in each city and invade the whole world simultaneously I don’t see
a reason for a ten year preparation.”

“Would it help to see his previous lairs?  We
can get a sub orbital flight to one of them and be back in a couple hours.”

“That would be nice,” I said reluctantly. “Unfortunately
I am under a... curse.  I can’t leave the city without dire consequences.”

“Oh, I wondered why you were doing research on
magic in a city that had no magic users instead of just asking someone in
another city,” Mei said with sudden understanding.  “They are hard to find since
Moscow, but not impossible.”

“Yeah, that would make things easier,” I
muttered.  I knew this city was barren of psionic sensitives.  Apparently it
did the same to mages.  Except for our three villains.  Either they were
shielded or immune to the psychic pollution of the city.  “Anyway, getting back
on topic.  I can’t think of anything else he would want to do besides open all
of the nodes at once, unless he’s been smuggling Twinkies all these years.”

I was assuming that the last decade was
preparation, since there had been no obvious effect that would have been
noticed by someone that had dedicated their entire life to hunting him down and
finding signs of him.  I thought about it more, but I didn’t see the point
unless you were a terrorist.  Opening all of the portals at once would see random
monsters and people come through.  Depending on where they lead to, it may not
even be hostile.  I suppose the worst case would be if they all opened to a
hell dimension or a high energy world.

Of course from what little we knew about Baron’s
world did indicate it was such a high energy world.  That many portals open at
once would temporarily flood the ley lines, which would in turn pop open a few
more tears in reality, but it would only last as long as the portals were
open.  Chaos yes. Likely more than a few deaths from some random failing
technology that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and, of course, the
inevitable malicious creatures drawn to the energies surrounding such
phenomena.  It still seemed more like a terrorist plot than anything else. 
Unless it was the invasion idea.  I shuddered at the possible sheer lack of
originality.

I was going to offer more irrelevant and
frivolous examples just to see Mei’s face when I heard a shout of pain from the
front.

I
rushed over to the door and opened, it just as the new bell rang.  There,
outside the wards stood Sebastian in a casual suit and bow tie under the dim
moonlight.  He would have looked quite fashionable if it weren’t for the smoke
pouring off of him and the stream of vitriol coming out of him mouth.  It
appeared to be directed at me.

“Sebastian,”
I shouted happily.  Watching him burn really cheered me up after having such a
lousy day.  “Glad you could make it!  Does this mean you have some news for me?”

“Damn
you,” he glared as he readjusted his suit.  “My price just doubled.  Your
little agent sent me the account information however she hasn’t responded.”

“She’s
had a long day.  She’s taking a nap,” I offered with a shrug.  Obviously
Kingston hadn’t told him why he was trying to kill me if he thought I was
worried about money.  “Tell me what’s up.”

“Here?”
he asked looking nonplussed.  “In the middle of the street?”

“Hmm,”
I nodded in agreement.  “I guess that might not be the best idea with demons
running around.  Let’s go across the street.  I haven’t seen it since we
accidentally tore it down.”

“Accidentally,”
he asked skeptically.

“Okay,
it was mostly accidental,” I shrugged.  “I’m sure the insurance covered it.”

Mei
followed us silently, eliciting a glance from the vampire.  “Are you going to
introduce your lovely companion?”

“You’ve
already met Mei Ling,” I said, while opening the door to the re-built house. 
It looked... generic.  I guess that they had gone with the prefab look.  The
lights flickered as we entered.  Apparently, the construction company used
components just a little too new to be reliable around three supernatural
creatures.  Hopefully, it would last long enough for us to finish.  “You were
just busy.  I guess your attention was divided.”

Mei
smiled slightly at the quip.  It was good to be appreciated.  Sebastian either
didn’t get it or was more interested in business.  “I did some digging.  The
hacker was the easiest.  Apparently he advertises on the Shadownet and even has
customer reviews.”

“Shadownet?”
I inquired.  “I’m not familiar with that.”

“It’s
an ancient service that runs in parallel to the net,” Mei interjected.  “Criminals
use it to advertise their services and payments for illegal goods.  Every few
weeks it gets taken down, but it always goes back up within a day.  They have
had to reinvent themselves every few years as technology changes.  Their new
catchphrase is actually their old one.”

“Oh. 
Neat,” I said, without much enthusiasm.  I guess there was a down side to
technology, it couldn’t be exploding taxis and melting cities every day.

“Exactly,”
Sebastian continued.  “He has too many blinds and dead ends to ever hope to
contact him directly.  He’s probably not even in the city.  He does have a
reputation of loyalty within the limits of his contract.  Unfortunately, that
means he is not likely to give us any useful information.”

“Give
what you have to the police; let their computer people chase him.  Even if they
don’t catch him it would be nice not to have future clues shut down because cameras
and sensors didn’t record anything,” I told my undead minion.  Not that there
would be much on camera from amped up shifters but one step at a time.  “What
else?”

“There
are definitely supernaturals missing.  Mostly wolf shifters,” the pale man
reported.  This caused muttered curses from Mei about troublemakers.

“I
must have talked to most of the wolf clans in the last few days and they
mentioned nothing.  They probably won’t report anything until most of them are
gone, insular bastards.  Do they know what happened to them?”

“It’s
mostly their younger people.  You know how restless they get, always pushing
against authority,” he continued, winking knowingly at Mei.  His good mood was
slowly returning.  The shifter grunted unhappily but nodded in acknowledgment. 
“If they are seen again they seem different.  More intense.  Most figured it
was a girl or they found religion.  Apparently they found a cult.”

“He
may employ brainwashing techniques.  Lord knows the sheer number of minions he
has and the way he throws them away must mean something.” Mei frowned in
thought.  “So they have no idea where all these people went and they didn’t
tell me or Conrad.  Idiots.”

“No,
unless we want to track them down with more mundane surveillance methods it’s a
dead end for any immediate returns.”

“Tell
Conrad anyway,” I said turning to Mei.  “That’s something he can get his people
to do.  He’s told me in the past that he has equipment that can nail down
supernatural to some extent.  Every time we dig deeper into this it gets
bigger.  I am starting to think our Norse elf may have something with this
apocalypse the seers are muttering about.”

“Apocalypse?”
questioned Sebastian, quirking an eyebrow.

“So
far it’s just some psychics with bad dreams,” I replied, downplaying it.  The
Council was already freaked out about Jin.  I didn’t need our most recent lead
getting cold feet.  One of the lights in the kitchen flickered and died.

“The
last thing I found out was a bit of a surprise,” the vampire smiled.  “You
understand that someone bought the land the Blight is on and has been
rebuilding it?”

“I
keep going through it to reach Vincent, so yes, I do realize how it’s changed,”
I said while shaking my head.  The entire house would need to be rewired when
Jeremy got back with something simpler and prone to failure.  “I want to know
where all the punks and crazies went though.”

“Clan
Fiero grabbed a few of the more lucid ones,” Sebastian said with a grimace.  “It’s
not hard to get the unbalanced to agree to the change.  Maybe not wise but it
wasn’t my call.  Most of them come out of it mostly sane.  Apparently brain
chemistry has less impact on our kind.”  I nodded in understanding.  Being an
animated corpse, basically a possessing entity in some ways, would make you
independent of your physical body in some ways.  It explained how difficult
they were to kill.  “The others seem to have been recruited by a new player. 
Our new entrepreneur of the Blight.”

“So
is he some other clan of vampires?”  I turned to Mei, “No offense, but vampires
tend to be more organized than shifters.”

“No,
he’s also not a shifter,” he stated vaguely.  A sort of odd disinterested
expression was on his face for a moment.  “Whatever he is, he has supernatural
charisma if nothing else because he has shifters and vampires working with him
and they aren’t trying to kill each other.”

That
was actually a pretty big accomplishment.  All supernatural are territorial and
vampires and shifters couldn’t accept being near each other unless they were
older and more self-controlled.  An example of that would be Mei, who stood
next to us, simply accepting the information from our resident assassin and
showing no signs of stress or anger.  I had no doubt our new player was some
kind of supernatural.  Likely he was high enough on the pecking order that,
like me, he felt no threat from lesser types.  As for how he got others to work
for him... I didn’t know.  Some sort of magic I would guess.

“Are
you saying this is Jin?” I asked, somewhat wary.  That seemed a stretch. 

“Not
at all,” the vampire assured me.  “But it came up when I was looking into the
missing people.  I did check.  He arrived before we think Jin did in the city,
exchanged a lot of gold for currency and went into business.”

“Urban
renewal?” I questioned a bit puzzled.

“No,
that is apparently merely a side effect,” he chuckled.  “He has a huge bar that
he is making neutral ground.”  I mouthed the word ‘neutral’.  Definitely
magic.  There is no way simply declaring it would keep the races from going at
each other’s throat.  “The rest is going to be a very large entertainment area.” 
He must have seen my blank look.  “Think a cross between Hollywood and Las Vegas.”

“I
guess that’s a step up from the Blight,” I muttered in confusion.

“Anyway,
this fine upstanding citizen has his feelers out for you.  I followed up on
your behalf while I was eliminating the possibility of him being Jin and he
requested to talk to you.”

“Okay,
I guess I am game for that, as long as we still have our other feelers out,” I
slowly stated.  “So who is this fellow?”

“Sulayman,”
he stated.

“Isn’t
that a song?” I asked doubtfully.

“Well,
apparently it’s a name too,” he bantered back.  “However, real or not, it
matches the paperwork filed for ownership.”

“Okay,
let’s head out,” I started towards the main house.  “I just need to pick
something up.  You have a vehicle?”

He
simply snorted.  “Don’t bring the girl, we’re going to a bar.”

I
looked over at Mei and shrugged, “Sorry, next time.”

“The
other girl,” Sebastian snapped.

“They
don’t like Nordic elves?” I asked, puzzled.

“The
child.  The little girl can’t go into a bar,” the vampire talked slowly as if
losing patience.

“Don’t
be silly, she was never coming,” I looked at him strangely.  Beth was going to
be sleeping well into the next day.  I couldn’t possibly carry a sleeping person
around like a sack of potatoes.  The neighbors would talk.  If I had any.

As
Sebastian went to get his floater, I turned to Mei who was following me into
our home.  “So are you tall enough to get into a bar?”  Mei gave me a shove
strong enough to send me, arms wind milling through the hallway and well into
the bedroom in the back.

When
I picked up my tooth from my basement workshop and got back to the front Mei
was waiting by the door.  She had a black coat that somehow concealed her sword. 
Actually, it likely concealed itself.  With Sebastian wearing his own black set
we probably looked like a nouveau metallic band.  I put my trench coat back on
the rack and grabbed a brown scarf and sweater instead.  It should help hide my
tooth of power.  It would also help break up the ninja motif around me.

“You’re
bringing the big honking tusk Estella gave you?” she looked at it oddly.

“Yeah,
Sully may not be Jin in disguise but I am betting he is something other than
human in disguise,” I acknowledged.

“Can’t
you read auras or something?” she asked.

“Of
course I can,” I glared at her indignantly.  “But any major supernatural entity
that’s worth worrying about has ways of hiding that.  This little baby has
runes to reveal truth and track...”

I
paused and Mei stared at me.  “It can track Jin?”

“Screw
that,” I said to her in realization.  “It might be able to track Jeremy down.” 
I started to absently tap the tooth as I thought.  “I don’t have any blood from
Jeremy since I threw out his bloody clothes.  Hmmm, his sister might be good
enough, but I would have to mask her or I would keep ending up here.  Not to
mention that I would get interference from her parents and who knows how many other
relatives around here.”

“I
would suggest a hair sample,” called out Stella, who was in the living room,
with Beth’s head still in her lap.  “You could use other personal fluids but
hair works fine and is a lot less creepy.  Just tie it around the tooth and
dangle it from the chain.”

“That
thing is a tooth?” Mei spat out in surprise.  “From what? A Tyrannosaurus Rex?”

“Hey
now, that is a perfectly fine example of its kind,” I defended my tooth while
avoiding the question.  I continued, switching subjects.  “Stella, why didn’t
you mention this before?”

“Sorry,
I forgot,” I could hear the embarrassment in her voice.  That made two of us.  “It’s
been a really busy day.”  Damn, I was planning to use that as my excuse.

“Okay,
change in plans,” I said as I hurried out of the house towards the vehicle on
the street.  “We’re stopping on the way to the bar to break into Jeremy’s
house.”

Then
I stopped and looked at what we were about to get in.  In front of the house
was something that looked like my rickshaw, but without the bicycle.  The term
horseless carriage came to mind.  It had four wire wheel tires, a padded bench
for a seat and a box in the rear that seemed to house an internal combustion
engine.  It was chugging and puttering at the end of the sidewalk, lying in
wait for us.

“For
crying out loud,” I complained.  “Did Stella put you up to this?”

“I
think... I think that is a ‘Velo’,” Mei said uncertainly.  “It’s been a couple
of centuries but it was a big deal when it was made.  The first modern car.”

“This
is the last time I ever have a vampire drive us anywhere,” I said in dismay. 
There was barely enough room on the bench for three and Mei got the short end
of the stick as we both crowded around her.

“This
is an authentic replica,” the vampire started.  He was completely oblivious to
our disgust and went on to extoll the virtues of his car.  “It was the first
automobile.  I told him it wouldn’t work and by damn, he proved me wrong.”