A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1) (39 page)

“Are
you going to stand and watch us or are you going to do something?” Stella
sighed in boredom.  “This idiot can only do three things and clearly has no idea
how he does it.”  She waved her hand again, “Okay, make that four things.  I am
getting a cramp.”

“How
dare you ignore me, my master’s power will wash over the face of this...” at
this, a long katana, radiating power fell from the sky and impaled him through
his right shoulder, putting a stop in the nascent tirade.

“Wow,
that was neat,” said a mildly impressed álfar.  “Where’s Mei...”  At that point
a large red and black tiger fell on top of the wind shifter, who had been
staring in horrific fascination at the sword jutting out of his shoulder with
his mouth rhythmically gaping.  She stood triumphantly on the prone figure for
a full five seconds as we watched in impressed silence.  This sense of awe was
ruined when a moment later the tiger vomited over the moaning shifter.  It was
completely destroyed when it staggered of on wobbly legs and collapsed several
meters away moaning and grousing as only a large disturbingly sick cat can do.

In
the next several minutes we stuck the remaining members with the inscribed
bowls to prevent premature explosions, freed Jeremy and un-impaled the wind
controller.  That part involved a lot of screaming since it went through an
entire lung the long way.

“How
is he even alive?” I asked, as I affixed his bowl to his head.  I mean that
sword is a monstrously overpowered artifact.  There is no way he should be
alive.

“Final
Death only does what I ask it to,” a nude Mei said solemnly, from under
Jeremy’s torn trench coat.  She still looked a bit green, but she could mostly
function without accidental vomiting or falling over.

“It’s
named Final Death?” I asked in contemplation.

“Yes,
I stole it from Jin centuries ago and he hasn’t dared to be in my presence
since.”  Personally I thought that it might be due to her lack of tracking
skills but I managed not to blurt that out.  “It is bonded to me and no one
else can touch it without consequences as long as I live.”

“Which
appears to be pretty long,” Jeremy muttered indistinctly, through a swollen
mouth.

“Final
Death only uses it dire powers on its enemies.  Its wielder’s benefit from its
more wholesome abilities,” Mei said with a smile, practically caressing the
sword before placing on her back where it vanished.

“Are
you sure it’s not cursed,” Stella used doubtfully.  “Most artifacts I know that
are that powerful have some kind of curse.”

“Remind
me to not get any gifts from your lot,” Jeremy said with a wince as I worked on
healing him.  He was a mass of bruises.  Nothing fatal, but I had to start
growing two shattered teeth for him. Teeth are hard to coax out after a certain
age unless your species naturally heals them.  It would take them a week to
grow out.

“So
the stories are true?” I asked perplexed.  “Why would you ask a dwarf to make
you an artifact if you know it’s going to be cursed?”

“Dvergar,
not dwarves.  They are asses,” Stella nodded ruefully.  “However, it does
encourage politeness.  Except for gifts from the rare god with a talent for
forging or magic, you can’t find a more powerful bit of fluff.  If you’re nice
you may just get an endless stink curse.  If you marry one it may not be
cursed.  Just never divorce them.  Ugh.”  She shivered, probably at some
remembered tale.  “They have no sense of proportion when it comes to revenge.”

“By
the way Stella, did you have to kill your fellow?” Sebastian asked.  He was
still immaculate in his suit.  It must have been a super power.  I had seen him
wrestling in it and when I went back to get Jeremy, I had seen how many bloody pieces
the bus-sized wolf had been reduced to.

“Well...
technically no,” Stella said hesitantly.

“How
technically?” I asked with interest.  I love puzzles!

“I
guess I’ll need to show you,” she sighed.  We all trooped out with our
prisoners in tow.  Outside looked slightly better than the inside.  The tornado
was stationary so the damage was remarkably localized. One thing did stand out
from the general debris.  Out in the street was a large pile of mud.  “He was
stone, so I turned him into mud.”

“Can
you turn him back?” I asked curiously.  I looked at the pile of filth and at my
remaining bowls.  Again, they weren’t going to fit.  Maybe if I scooped some up
I could interrogate it.  It seemed doubtful.  “Is he even alive?”

“I
can turn him back into stone, but he is still that shape,” she began,
embarrassed.  “I tried.  And yes he is alive.”

I
checked with my aura sight.  Sure enough, he was alive.  And pulsing with a
magic about to go critical.  I had a helpful, if somewhat late, premonition of
danger.  “Holy!  Duck!”

We
had enough time to take a single step back before the pile of mud blew.  For a mere
human sized pile of mud, it was surprisingly messy.  It spread out in a perfect
sphere covering everything on both sides of the street.  I had managed to get
my force bubble up around everyone, with a singular exception.

“I
am charging you for my cleaning bill,” a mud encrusted vampire said from where
he had stood, just next to us.

“Sorry,
you were out of range,” I replied with a smile.  This was untrue, of course.  I
simply wanted to see if his suit was magical.  It wasn’t, he really was covered
in mud.  Maybe it would miraculously clean itself later.  It would be an
interesting experiment.

“What
about the wolf?” asked Jeremy, before slowly looking back at the warehouse in
trepidation.  We all looked at each other and then back at the building, before
the world turned white.

By
the time Conrad and his task force brigade arrived, I had almost finished
healing Jeremy’s eardrums.  Apparently the force and volume of an exploding
corpse is in direct proportion to its mass.  Who knew?  My bubble protected
everyone inside of it but Sabastian.  He was blown through the building
opposite us.  His buggy appears to be in one piece but knocked on its side. 
That’s was pretty impressive since the building behind it had its front
collapsed.  He didn’t bother coming back.  I looked away for a few minutes while
I was healing Jeremy again and when I looked back the antique car was gone. 
Mei later said that she saw a filthy naked man sneaking around the buggy before
it drove off.  It seems Sabastian had outlasted his clothes.  I wonder if this
means his fees will go up.

“I
have been cutting you a lot of slack, Professor, but this is beyond the pale,”
Conrad started in as the troopers and horde of police buoys secured the area.  “We
would have worked with you to get your friend back, but you just had to ignore
us and take the law into your own hands.  Give me a reason I shouldn’t lock you
up and continue this investigation on our own.”

I
looked at him with a frown.  I admit I am not the most politically correct
fellow around, nevertheless I was pretty sure telling him that I didn’t trust
their skills, subtly or ability not to die was not going to win me much.  Fortunately,
another member of our haggard band had an answer.

“Officer,
I know you aren’t aware of it but the Professor and his companions,” Jeremy
gestured at himself and then at group around him, “were specifically targeted. 
When the kidnappers contacted him and told him that he was supposed to meet and
to not notify the police, what else was he to do when they threatened my life?”

Whoa,
that sounded far better than my reason.  I think I would go with the flow on
this. “I am profoundly apologetic, but I was deeply, deeply worried about my
friend’s welfare,” I humbly proclaimed, placing my palm over my heart.  “I
gathered those I could trust who were not watched and not suspected as being
law officials and did what I could.  I was fortunate that when they attacked us
at the meeting place, my friends were able to defend ourselves and get Jeremy
back safely.  I truly would have preferred to have the elite task force behind
me at this time; however, I just couldn’t risk my friend’s life.”  I looked up
under my downcast gaze to see how my delivery was being taken, to see Conrad’s
skeptical glare.  I was about to go on with the sucking up, when Jeremy elbowed
me in the side.

“I
want a report of exactly what happened in my inbox within the hour,” Conrad
barked, giving the entire group the hairy eyeball.  Even Mei, who was by far
his favorite, was not exempt.  “In the meantime why is this building
nonexistent?”

“One
of the minions of Jin blew it up,” I said.

“He
had explosives?” Conrad asked puzzled.

“He
was the explosives,” I corrected.  “Remember Jin’s exploding minions?  Well,
this is what happens when several tons of them go off.”

“Tons? 
How many died?” Conrad asked, shocked.

“Three.”

“So
where did you get tons?”

“One
of them was a wolf that could grow to the size of a bus,” I turned to Jeremy.  “They
still have buses, right?  I’ve seen them in the holos but they aren’t around
here.”

“They
do but they aren’t zoned for...” Jeremy began.

“Never
mind the damned buses,” growled Conrad.  We all looked at him in shock; he
usually had a good rein on his temper.  I wondered what had him so upset.  “So
all of this was three ‘minions’ blowing up?  I thought you had a plan to
prevent that?”

“It
seems that the size of the explosion is directly related to the mass of the
body.  My countermeasures didn’t fit on creatures that size,” I paused as I
thought about the situation.  “I still haven’t figured out why live minions
have a greater yield.  It must have something to do with the magical energy
inside a typical creature; it’s multiplied at the moment of death so...”

“Focus,”
barked the irate officer.  “How can we prevent this?  If he has an army of
minions what’s to prevent him from sending suicide bombers all over the place.”

“Well,
I would assume they don’t actually want to explode,” I thought out loud.  “Generally
these are people dissatisfied with their lot in a pack.  If they were complete fanatics
I think you would have mentioned it.  Despite their brainwashing, they are
probably already unhappy about the price of failure.  Being used as disposable
bombs would also likely cut off a new supply of minions once the word got out. 
I would be careful about cornering him though if he thinks he has nowhere to go
it could be ugly.”

“So
there isn’t anything we can do except put a shield around them?”

“Well,
I did find a way to cut the thread, so to speak,” I nodded to the two
unconscious minions we had on the ground. 

“Why
do they have Tupperware on their head?” asked Conrad.  Jeremy shrugged his
shoulders, Stella looked confused and Mei suppressed a chuckle.

“It’s
a magic bowl,” at the officer’s glare I gave in and continued.  “I inscribed
some bowls I had with some wards to suppress magic.  It doesn’t affect their
powers, but it should prevent any new spells on them or old spells from being
triggered.”

“Why
does this one look like his head is made of clay?” the brawny shifter asked,
nudging the metal man with his foot.  “I think those are fist imprints...”

“He
took some subduing,” I replied helpfully.

“Is
he even alive?” he asked doubtfully.  “He’s not breathing.  Or moving.”

“That’s
just because Jin gave him the power to turn to metal.  I am not sure if he can
control metal or not, it didn’t come up before he was incapacitated.”

“Hmmm,
I suppose that one way to say it,” he said, before turning to another officer
nearby.  “Get restraints.  Be sure they are the high-grade ceramics, not the
metal ones.  Same thing for the cells, no metal.”  Turning back to be
continued, “How do we secure the bowls?  I suppose we can use straps.”

“No
worries,” I assured him as I brought out the tube of adhesive I had used.  “This
will hold them in place for years, and bowls should be far stronger than normal
bowls with that ward on them.”

“Ah
cripes,” Conrad winced as he looked at the tube.  “Their lawyers aren’t going
to like that.  On the other hand, we can tell them that their defense lawyer
said it was inhuman and let them explode if they don’t cooperate.  I suppose
we’ll let the court decide. It could get messy.”

“I
could see if they have any obvious surface thoughts,” I looked at the
unconscious bodies.  “Or dreams.  I doubt I’ll get much.”  I sure wasn’t going
to share a deep bond with these idiots, who knew what insanities I would catch? 
Not to mention what a bad idea it would be to leave them with my knowledge.

“Fine,
they seem stable,” he looked at them unconcerned.  “I’m not sure why they
aren’t healing though; I suppose we’ll have to hook them up to the autodoc.  Or
hook one of them up, not sure what we can do about the metallic one.”

I
kneeled next to the wind controller.  I was very happy the ground was clear of
mud and debris in a circle around us.  I don’t think his shoulder or lung will be
healing anytime soon, but it was doubtful it would get worse.  Anything that
doesn’t outright kill a shifter or a vampire... won’t.  Touching his forehead I
tried to build a light rapport with him.