Five days later, I still hadn’t found my foe. And I was getting frustrated.
“Kyle, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Agent Sinclair was saying to me.
“There’s something I’m missing. There’s something you’re missing,” I argued. “We need to bring in another set of minds on this, to see if they can find the pattern we’re not seeing.”
“I understand that. But a bunch of gamers?” He definitely sounded dubious at the thought.
“Who better to spot patterns than people who have trained themselves to find patterns for fun?”
“Fine, but a video meeting? What if someone tracks this to your location?”
“I hope they do,” Aurora said dangerously from the bench where she was polishing her blade. “I don’t like waiting like this. I’d much rather we could find them so we could stop them.” She had been learning not only about her new world, but had seen just how things had gone wrong. She was, in truth, taking things harder than I was.
“Sorry dear, but they won’t,” I said. “Juiz will mask our location just fine.”
“Fine,” she said, playfully rolling her eyes at me and pouting. “I’m going to the gun range.”
“I don’t know why,” I responded. “You can already shoot the wings off of a fly at fifty meters.”
“Maybe, but what if I only want to shoot one of its wings off?” she said, kissing me.
“Fair enough. I’ll let you know how the meeting goes.”
Once she was gone, Sinclair gave me a look. “That is one intimidating woman,” he said with a laugh.
“And you’ve never seen her stare down a demon,” I replied.
“Demons are real?”
I shrugged and gave him a sly smile. I wasn’t entirely certain how much I should be telling people about that kind of thing here on Earth. “Let’s get this show on the road. I promised them I’d boot up the session right about now.”
“Session loaded and ready to activate,” Juiz responded.
“Excellent work.” I logged in and was greeted by the images of a dozen silhouettes. Only I was visible, dressed as Genji Ikari via the magic of real time image filters. I tented my fingers in front of me. “Greetings, gentlemen. I have called you here because I need your help.”
“Name it,” responded the voice of AegisofAquarius, which sounded like a young woman’s voice.
“I’m trying to find a lead on the person behind much of the bad stuff going on right now. And I’ve hit a wall. I know I’m missing something, but I can’t find the pattern.”
“We’ll do our best,” BasedFishGoat, who sounded to be a man in his forties, responded. “Do you have anywhere for us to start?”
“Unfortunately, some of the data I have is classified. What I can tell you is that there are definite traces that someone or a small group of someones is behind this. I’ve forwarded every bit of information I can share to each of you. I want you to look over it, and compare it to things going on in the world. Anything you find out of the ordinary, no matter how insignificant or crazy sounding, please share it with me.”
“I have a theory,” AegisofAquarius responded.
“Oh god, not this again,” someone else groaned.
“I don’t see you suggesting anything,” she sniped back.
“Please, tell me,” I said, trying to head off the fight. “Like I said, no matter how trivial or far out, your input could make the difference.”
She took a breath, sounding like she was afraid to speak. “I think a wizard’s behind everything,” she said.
“What,” Kira responded flatly in our mind as I saw Sinclair’s eyes go wide.
“What makes you think that?” I asked, doing my best to hide my reaction.
“My mother’s aunt was an archaeologist. She uncovered a trove of artifacts on a dig in England. One of those documents was a journal.” Oh crap. I didn’t like where this was going. “I think it got her killed. And what happened to her body… the papers reported it was a cave in. But I saw it. I was the one who found her and her team. That was no cave in that did that. There were barely even any rocks on the ground around the corpses. And they looked like they’d been hit by lightning.”
“You have my attention,” I said. “Can you tell me anything about the site? Or what she was working on?”
“She believed that she had found the burial site of an ancient princess. She actually believed the woman was an elf, and the cousin to the mythical Guinevere, if you can believe it.” Oh god.
“Your aunt’s name… was it Elizabeth?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“How did you know?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“I spoke with her once,” I said. “I’m not sure how to say this, but… I think I may be at fault for her death.”
“What do you mean?”
“I translated something for her. She may have had other material she didn’t tell me about, and my translation may have given her what she needed to translate the rest.” Nothing in the document I’d copied from her even remotely spoke about the location of the Fairy Blacksmith’s tomb. Hell, the whole thing was written by her. Why would she have known that information? Or, more aptly, why would I have known that information, since I now realized that I was the reincarnation of the woman in question?
And why would finding my tomb have led to the deaths of those involved? No, she had to have found something else. “I see,” she said after a moment. “Don’t worry, I don’t blame you. But if you translated something for her, then maybe you can translate this?” she asked, posting an image. “I took it at the dig site, before the medical examiners and eventually a bunch of men in black suits showed up.” I gave Sinclair a look and he just shrugged. I then opened the image.
And nearly fell out of my chair. The text was in Sylvan, and it had been written using fey magic. But more than that, I recognized the handwriting. “Holy crap,” I swore without thinking.
“You know something?” BasedFishGoat asked.
“Yeah, I know something. And, if I’m right, we might be in a little trouble. Thank you, all of you. I’ve got to go, but I was right, you really have given me exactly what I needed to move forward. And I have to move quickly. I’ll contact you again when I’m able.”
Then I signed off. “What is it, O’Halloran?” Sinclair asked me.
“It’s you hoping that I’m entirely wrong. But I’m not. Juiz, I’m going to project the image of a face through the telepathic interface. I need you to search every photo of the last ten years and flag any that contain an image of this person.”
“Acknowledged. Estimated time for complete list is approximately fourteen minutes.”
“Kyle, you can’t seriously think…” Kira said, trailing off.
“Yeah, I can. I’m almost certain I’m right. John, I need you to contact your superiors. Tell them I may have a lead on our adversary. And that if I’m right, it’s extremely bad. And I’m going to need a team experienced in catalogueing magical artifacts.”
“Artifacts?”
“I need to know the status of some runestones. They’re made out of black alabaster and are roughly this big,” I held up my thumb and forefinger, “and marked with magical diagrams. The diagrams may have been mistaken for constellations.”
“And then you’ll tell me what this is all about?”
“I’ll tell you what I can, but you’re not going to like it.”
I used my magic to commune with the First World, the land of the Fey. It took some time, but eventually, I attracted the attention of a powerful entity. My magic coerced her to answer me, to the best of her knowledge. “I need only the answer to a single question,” I said. “Tell me. Has the Crow escaped from its cage?”
“Yes,” the being responded. I could sense that it was being truthful, so I thanked her and let her go on her way.
I then released my spell and returned to my body. Sinclair was waiting for me. “Five runestones like that you described have been recorded. Until recently, all five were located within private collections or museums. Since their magic didn’t seem too powerful, we’d left them where they were rather than make a scene securing them.”
“There should be six,” I said. “And what do you mean they ‘were’ in private collections?”
“Four of the five have been stolen over the last six months. Again, they didn’t seem important, so we hadn’t really been paying attention to them.”
“And what of the fifth?”
“I took the liberty of dispatching a team to secure it quietly. They should have it by the end of the day.”
“That should hopefully be good enough.”
He nodded. “So, tell me, what’s going on? And where were you astrally projected to?”
“I just contacted someone to confirm the nature of our enemy, and I was right. I can’t say his name, as he might have divination magic set to listen for it. Not until I’ve set up precautions. Can we meet with the directors? I want Juiz to show them who we’re going after and then I’m going to explain who he is and why things are suddenly incredibly dangerous.”
“I’ll make the call. Who did you contact, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“A fairy,” I said. “I contacted the First World, home of the Fey.”
He laughed. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me…” he trailed off when he saw the look on my face. “You’re serious. You just called up another world, found someone to answer your question. And she did.”
“My wife has angel wings.”
“You have the weirdest life, O’Halloran.”
“Lives,” I corrected him.
“I don’t even want to know.”
“You really don’t. But it might be important later, so don’t be surprised if I tell you anyway at some point.”
Three hours later, after the meeting with the very secret Senate Subcommittee on Magical Affairs, I was livid. In fact, I was so angry, I put my hand through a boulder. Split it right in two. Yes, magic was involved. But dammit, I was throwing a tantrum and wanted to make a point of how angry I was.
“You can’t be surprised that they didn’t believe you,” Sinclair said to me. “You really expected them to believe that?”
I sighed. “I don’t know what I expected them to believe. But it’s the truth.”
“I believe you. Are you certain that your plan will work?”
“Maybe ninety percent?” I hedged.
“Good enough. I can still bring us in the support we need. I’ll go make a few calls.”
When he was gone, sat down on a bench and motioned for me to come lay my head on her lap. “Are you okay?” she asked as she ran her fingers through my hair.
“Yes,” I said. “No. Maybe. God, I just don’t know.”
“Is this enemy really that dangerous?”
“Compared to Karzoug? I doubt it. I suspect that at worst, I’m looking at an even field in a one on one fight. And even then, I’m sure I know more spells than he does. And I can protect against his magical focus.”
“You know a lot about him, then? He’s a famous figure from your people’s legends, right? Is that how you know so much?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean, I’ve read the stories, same as many others, but that’s not how I know what I do.” I took a deep breath to try to calm myself. “I’ve told you about how I’ve begun remembering bits and pieces from several of my past lives, right?”
‘Yes,” Aurora said.
“There’s one in particular that I remember better than the rest. I think that its been pushing itself forward to warn me, now that I know more.”
“Warn you about what?”
“Our enemy, the man I’m going to have to fight… I knew him back then. Biblically. He was my lover, and I was pregnant with his child the day he thrust a knife into my neck and killed me.”
“Kyle!” Aurora gasped.
“Yeah. And I’m not her. But I was, and in some ways, I still have her feelings, if perhaps not as strong as I might have once. So yeah. I’m not looking forward to seeing him again.” I laughed darkly. “On the other hand, it will be good to make sure he’s nice and dead for real this time. I’m not the scared young woman I was back then. I’ve faced monsters far greater than he. I’ll be fine, love.”
“I’ll be right there to back you up,” she declared.
“Yeah, there’s that, too,” I agreed with a smile. “I’m going to need you out of sight, but nearby. He’s going to have some kind of trick up his sleeve, and I want to be able to have you ready to flip that back against him.” I thought of something. “And since he’s gonna have one trick up his sleeve, I should have two. Juiz, will you control the power armor and pretend to be me? Not only will it be nice having some backup with a rail gun, but it’ll help me hide my identity if everyone thinks I’m in the suit.”
“Affirmative,” Juiz answered.
“Then we have all we need. As soon as we find him, I draw him out, get him to use enough of his magic in public to prove who he is, and then…”
“Then what?” Aurora asked.
“Then I kill Merlin.”
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