Chapter List

11:15 AM September 13th 2026

The National Museum of Unnatural Science and History

The screaming and panic had finally died down a bit as he ushered people seeking safety deeper into the museum. He and his friend had rushed to the museum with all the other people fleeing the danger of potential monsters. Unlike those panicked patrons, Kyle had known that he needed to report in and start helping coordinate the evacuees from the park.

They’d fill the lecture halls first. Then the loading dock. After that, they’d started siphoning people into the onsite restaurant where a certain Viking-looking chef who couldn’t keep the blood off himself worked.

It had been a sketchy for a few minutes there as he was fighting his way through the sea of bodies trying to help sort order out of the chaos of the crowd. But they’d trained for this. Their boss had made sure everyone drilled on safety procedures. Kyle had begrudgingly come in on days the museum was closed for the boring emergency drills that made him feel dumb pretending that he was shouting at a swarm of panicked people represented in the drill by his vampire boss doing his best impression of a stereotypical yokel. Which felt suspiciously like the vampire being racist against humans…. Yet, he couldn’t help but admit, the training had paid off. Every employee who had participated in one knew what they were supposed to be doing.

Now that things had settled down, Kyle wiped the sweat from his forehead and leaned against one of the walls for support. After a moment, he decided that the adrenaline rush leaving his body had been too exhausting and he slid down the wall to rest and collect his thoughts for a bit. He’d go and report to the director that everyone had been settled soon enough.

No sooner had he taken a second to relax, than did one of the security guards come trotting up. She looked official and badass in her bulletproof vest with a radio clipped to it and her crisply pressed uniform. A gun was holstered on one hip, a wand on the other, as she came to a parade rest in front of him with her hands clasped behind her back.

She didn’t look at him, instead looking into the middle distance straight in front of her, which was somewhere through the wall above his head. Kyle had a great view of her set jaw as the perfect bun that stuck out under the back of her beret kept her hair from obscuring any part of her face. Yeah. She looked impressive as hell.

But Kyle happened to know that she was scared shitless of a certain bloody coworker.

“Mister Wattkins. I have been ordered to relieve you. The director has requested your presence.” Kyle tried not to chuckle. All the security guards in the museum were military personnel. They were here because magic was ‘dangerous’. And because if an artifact that the museum restored had military potential, then the military took it, and it wouldn’t do for it to go missing before they had been informed it existed.

But the smart ones knew who Kyle was in relation to a certain famous Wattkins. This either meant that they were very respectful as they didn’t want to get known as that dumbass who fucked with the Harbinger’s kid and pissed her off. Or they sneered because they were disgusted that he hadn’t followed in his mother’s footsteps.

The profile article with its highly inaccurate description of Kyle’s actual career combined with the fact that it did not mention at all his position in the museum, had changed that somewhat. How it had done that and what they were thinking, Kyle didn’t know, but all morning long he’d been addressed as if he were a superior officer or a high-ranking civilian official. He wasn’t sure if he was being punked, or what.

“All right.” He stood with a groan. “He’s in his office?” The Magicorps soldier still wouldn’t meet Kyle’s eyes as he stood up in front of her. But she responded with the same precise and respectful tone that she and the others had been addressing him with all day. Which was, of course, the complete opposite reaction of every civilian who worked at the museum.

“He’s waiting for you in the foyer…Sir.” Oh, it had been slick the way she’d said it. If he hadn’t been sensitized to the way the lot of them had been behaving all day, he wouldn’t have noticed the slightly too-long pause that turned the ‘s’ in sir from lower to upper case.

“Err. Thank you,” he acknowledged, and began to walk away. She didn’t drop her formality but completed a precise about-face and took over observing the milling evacuees. This day.

What the hell was happening?

Kyle trudged wearily down the hall and back up into the foyer. It was darker than normal lit only by the yellow emergency magic-powered lights inside the building. The big glass windows that lined the Greek-temple-esque front of the museum had been blocked when the heavy-duty metal security shutters had come down. Glowing runes and enchantment etchings in gold and blue-green glowed softly on the metal of the many jointed rolling shutters.

The foyer was still in a slight state of semi-chaos, but the military security personnel were directing traffic. They’d managed to enforce order quite effectively under Mister Arcas' instruction. Maybe it was just the weird lighting combination of the emergency lights and the magical reinforcement on the doors, but Adrian Arcas almost looked excited by events. The vampire’s burnt umber eyes glowed more brightly than normal. As if he was on the hunt.

It's probably just because of the higher ambient magic density.  Kyle reassured himself. But the slight twist of sardonic smile he always wore combined with the gleam of his eyes made the pale-skinned director of the museum seem uncannily as if he was enjoying himself. It didn’t help at all that the smoothly fluidic stalk of his normal walk looked like a hunter about to pounce at all times.

“Director Arcas.” Kyle called out to get the director’s attention over the hubbub of voices. The director’s keen pointed ears could pick out someone’s location in a crowd without error just by the sound of their voice. His head snapped around and his eyes laser-focused on Kyle, that slight twist of a smile cracking into a bright fanged grin.

“Ah, Kyle.” His accent was vaguely Eastern European but not distinctive enough for Kyle to ever place. But that was probably an effect of living so long and speaking so many different languages. Right? The apprentice warlock reflected as he edged along the wall while skirting the incoming evacuees. The director turned to one of the soldiers to give a few instructions before finding his own way to join Kyle.

“You have new instructions for me?” Kyle asked when they finally met. The director was still smiling, this time a bit sheepishly as he ran a hand through his jet-black hair.

“First, I wanted to let you know what happened. An unidentified source overloaded the city’s magic collectors.” He paused to let that sink in, his glowing eyes assessing Kyle’s response carefully.

“Overloaded the collectors? The city’s collectors?” That was…That was unheard of. “It would take a monumental magical event to cause that.”

“Yes. I’ve received a message scroll communication from the FBI’s Magic Crimes Division, and they have identified the location of the event.” Kyle nodded as he heard that. The Magic Crimes Division was good. They would be on top of any situation like that.

“Good. Good.” Briefly, he thought about his older sister. Everyone in the New York office was probably working on this.

“You are either going to be very pleased with, or very upset with what I’m about to tell you next.” The vampire sighed, clearly pausing for time as he thought of the best way to present whatever he had to say. Kyle’s heart rate, which had finally calmed down after the initial emergency alarm, skyrocketed back up again as his system experienced an adrenaline dump.

“What is it, Director?” His hands were trembling, and he tightened them into fists nervously. Had something happened to Samantha? No. Clearly, it wasn’t news of a death, or his boss wouldn’t think he’d be happy.

“They are requesting a consultant from the museum meet them at the scene and provide expertise when they approach the epicenter.” Okay. Kyle thought distractedly. That’s normal. The director and other senior staff often provided consultation services on various magical phenomena and artifacts.

“All right. What are your instructions for your absence?” It was a logical question. “Or will one of the other senior staff members be taking this request?” The director’s grin widened in a way that almost looked painful. Kyle was sure it would pain him if his teeth pressed into his lips the way the vampire's fangs indented his lips.

“I’m afraid that protocol dictates that in the case of an emergency, all senior staff on hand are to remain on premises until relieved by an appropriate security force.” He winced before continuing. “But, because of the unprecedented nature of the event, they’ve requested a consultation with the Archivist.” That was understandable. Arcas ran a pale hand through his dark hair yet again. It might have been a nervous tick?

“But I’m the only Warlock of the Archivist at the museum,” Kyle stated lamely. Once again, his lack of full Warlock Status was going to hold him back. They’d send the request to another location for consultation in favor of getting a fully licensed Warlock.

Disappointment flooded him and his shoulders slumped. He wanted to sink to the floor in despair and have a good, ‘I’m not crying there’s something in my eyes’ moment. The apprentice warlock didn’t get that opportunity though because the director started speaking again.

“And I told them that. But they aren’t going to wait for the next closest Warlock of the Archivist to arrive. They can’t wait that long. So, grab your stuff. You’re about to handle your first solo artifact acquisition.”

Kyle’s mouth dropped open in shock before morphing into a face-splitting grin. His heart soared, both with excitement and trepidation. This was it. This was his chance. This was the day he became part of history instead of just studying it.

11:42 AM  September 13th 2026

Industrial Park District Near the Port of New York

Oh, this day was going down in history alright! Samantha Wattkins fumed as she carefully navigated her way through the wreckage of roads that remained in the industrial district. All she had wanted to do was work her way through the fucking mountain of paperwork on her desk. She’d been taking the jokes from all the boys in good humor and pretending that she wasn’t bothered at all so that she could trick the coworkers who’d been teasing her about the Tissue Medic commercials into a couple of practice bouts in the training rooms.

“Come on, Samantha.” Agent Alex Parker wheedled from the passenger seat. She was pressed against the door trying to avoid the sharp edges of Sam and her pact item, Gleipnir’s combined auras. 

“Cheer up.” Sam turned her head to glare flatly at Alex and Alex shrank back against the passenger door of the bureau sedan.

She looked to Gleipnir for help, but his normal friendly glow had transmuted to a disapproving dark shadow. Gleipnir, the ribbon – or chain, depending on which translations of the myth one read - which had been used to restrain theFenrir of ancient days, had been gifted to Sam by her patron Frigg. He, Gleipnir might have been a genderless transforming sentient magical item, but he identified as male, had changed himself into a large needle-like sword shape trailing several feet of a fine razer-sharp braided chain whip from the handle, and hovered protectively in the back seat between Alex and Sam.

“Samantha,” Gleipnir emphasized the first syllable of her name when he addressed Alex, as Sam preferred to be called, Sam. “…is not speaking to you.” Alex gave an annoyed look at Gleipnir. She hated speaking to sentient artifacts. And this particular magical artifact did not like her. It really wasn’t her fault that she’d been called ‘The Next Sam’ and ‘The New Sam’ when she first came through the training programs at the bureau. It wasn’t her fault that ‘Sam’ Wattkins thought she was better than everyone just because she was the daughter of a famous Warlock.

Alex crossed her arms in frustration. Both humans fumed in silence for a few minutes. Gleipnir hovered menacingly making a low-pitched growl or buzz. I hate being partnered with this stuck-up bitch. But Sam Wattkins was undisputedly acknowledged as The Best magical engineer in their office.

So, new agents vied for the chance to be paired with her. Except, she’d somehow managed to strong-arm her way into not being partnered with men anymore. Stupid Gleipnir kept stabbing them for coming on to Sam. The thing was a menace to society.

“You were trying to trick the guys into thinking you weren’t mad at them so you could hurt them while sparing!” The sentence just blurted itself out of Alex’s mouth as if she had no control over it. “So, I volunteered us for this assignment.” She covered her mouth with a gasp as if surprised that she had said it. Alex suspected that it was a skill or effect that Samantha or Gleipnir could cast on others. “Not as if we wouldn’t have been sent anyways with something this big.” She mumbled gloomily.

She and Sam might not get along because Sam was stuck up and Gleipnir felt like Alex’s talent was a threat to his Sam’s position, but Alex needed things to go if not smoothly, then at least without animosity and conflict while she was partnered with Sam. As soon as she could, she’d get transferred somewhere else and she’d have the prestige of having been mentored by The Samantha Wattkins on her record. The two of them just didn’t make it easy.

“I wasn’t going to hurt them…” She looked over to glare at Alex again, but the younger woman just gazed back incredulously. “Not irreparably.” Sam amended indignantly. They went back to silence for a few moments before Gleipnir spoke up again.

“Oh, your God!” He exclaimed ridiculously. Yes. We get it. You were made by multiple Gods. There is empirical evidence that there is more than one God. The junior agent also hated the way that Gleipnir seemed to flaunt his divine origins. “Look at that mess. I think we should park here and hike in.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right Gleip.” Sam replied distractedly. “It will be hella hard to turn around if we need to flee in a hurry.” She navigated over to the other vans, sedans, and armored vehicles, some unmarked and some with the FBI Magic Crimes Division emblem on them. She turned around and parked facing out.

“Should we do something to make sure we aren’t boxed in by latecomers?” Alex piped up petulantly. Sam paused getting out of the vehicle.

“Alex,” She looked at her supposed protégé with confused disgust.  “We are non-combatant technicians and engineers. We are the latecomers, and we never block anyone’s route of egress. Do you understand?” Alex gulped and nodded nervously. She’d known that. Hadn’t she known that? 

“Answer me. Do you understand?”

“Ye...yes.” Then she grabbed the door handle and bailed out of the vehicle as quickly as she could.

“Always giving me the greenhorns fresh out of training.” Sam was muttering as she stood and waited for Gleipnir to exit the car behind her. The older agent looked up as she closed her door and met Alex’s eyes. She was entirely unrepentant about the fact that Alex had heard her. “Did I say something untrue?”

“No.” It was shot back defiantly with Alex’s regular disdain for the Warlock she thought of as a snob.

“Ohhh, whatever.” Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Sam held her hands out to the side and spoke to Gleipnir. “Hey Gleip, wanna ride?”

“Don’t mind if I do, Sam.” His tone of voice brightened considerably when chatting with his warlock and he wound his whip chain around Sam’s waist to hang himself from her hip like a sword on a belt. Somehow, the razor-sharp links that would have sliced Alex’s hand off if she touched them, didn’t harm Sam – or her clothing – in the slightest.

Tendrils of envy tried to worm their way into Alex’s irritation with her partner, so she looked around at the scene as a distraction. Focusing on work was probably the way to avoid being irritated with Miss Fancypants. The road was damaged, and the buildings that were a ways into the distance across vast industrial parking lots were cracking with a hole in the wall of at least one.

Even some of the supports for freeway overpasses looked precariously close to collapsing. She scooched about fifteen feet to the right as Samantha rummaged around in the trunk of her assigned vehicle for the tools of their trade. It was still a bright beautiful early fall day. The event had not changed the weather at all from the brilliant clear skies of this morning.

Sam stepped up next to her and began assessing the situation and gestured to Alex to follow her up to the senior agent on the scene. She ran a commentary as she walked, sharing her assessment. However, Alex suspected it was more for Gleipnir’s benefit than for hers.

“Crime scene barrier tape surrounding that vehicle.” The magical engineer glared hard at the mangled van in the center of the tape circle. “Hmm. The magic is active on it. The runes are very bright. Too bright. Like the ambient magic density hasn’t disbursed yet.” She stopped musing as she shifted her gear from one arm to another.

“Hi, Frank.” She pulled the name she needed from her memory. “Sam Wattkins, Magical Engineering Technician, reporting in.” Sam didn’t smile but her face wasn’t unfriendly beneath her businesslike expression. The Senior Agent on the scene was someone she’d worked with before. They were likable and smart enough to admit when they didn’t know what was what and defer to the technicians. “What are we looking at?”

“Sam,” The agent grabbed her hand and shook it. He was middle-aged, with laugh lines and crow's feet that gave him character which was a better look than if he’d been conventionally handsome. “Thank fucking God you are here. I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“Tell me what data you’ve got. I see from the runes on the barrier tape that the AMD is still up in this area.” Frank shook his head in frank bewilderment.

“Yes. The tape is as close as we could safely get to that vehicle at the epicenter when we arrived.” He pointed to the mangled vehicle which she could see now was some kind of large van or delivery truck. The branding colors looked familiar, but she couldn’t make out any images or writing from this far out. “AMD levels were in the Pink.”

“Pink?!” Alex gave a gasp of disbelieving horror. “We’re too close. We could die.” Gleipnir chuckled as Sam and Frank rolled their eyes.

“Newbie,” He patiently explained to Alex, “we’ve got mobile magic collectors bringing down the ambient magic levels.” But he didn’t waste time seeing if she was mollified by that or not and got right back to business with Sam. “The vehicle, or something in it, is emanating high levels of magic. Whatever it is must be incredibly powerful because arcanes are sustaining at purple on the Prometheus scale even with the magic collectors working at full intake capacity.”

“Oh, shit!” Sam’s exclamation was mild as she examined the vehicle with intellectual fascination.

“Yeah. I’ve requested a consultant from the Museum.” Sam nodded thoughtfully.

“That was a good call.” There wasn’t a need to say which museum. Everyone knew which museum you called for something like this. “We’ll go in when the consultant gets here.”

They needed an expert for something like this. So much power. She could feel the magic radiating from the vehicle even from here. It was a rich, pure magic. The kind a magic user could be tempted to drink into their pores and hold for workings. It was tempting, but it was too much magic. It would twist a person, taint them, and kill them eventually.

“At purple?” Once again Alex squeaked out her surprise and both older agents gave her a flat look.”

“If arcanes are high enough for AMD to hold at purple even with magic collectors, we have to go in.” Sam tried to keep her annoyance in check, but this kid was really trying her patience. “We need to find out what it is and how to contain it before we run out of mobile collection units.” She went back to watching the still vehicle and sensed the ripples and currents of magic coming from it seeking things to join with. “Did you order up a contingent of defense specialist mages? We’re going to have monster formation soon.”

“All my agents are certified to fight monsters,” Frank assured her with his Southern drawl.

“Not like this, Frank.” Sam winced as she heard a siren going off in the distance. At first, she thought it was first responders dealing with the aftermath of a city-wide blackout or under-trained and ill-equipped law enforcement trying to deal with the first of many monsters that they should expect from this event. Instead, the siren grew closer and closer to them, and a horrible realization dawned on her.

“Why does that vehicle have sirens on?” Frank grumbled as an armored vehicle with flashing lights pulled up, the emblem of the Museum was on its doors. “Is that the consultant? You’d think they’d know better. They’ll have any monsters in hearing range converging on us.”

“I think that was the point.” Alex watched the strange rueful-perturbed look on Sam’s face as it mottled with conflicting emotions. Then she looked at the incoming vehicle speeding over the bumps, cracks, and folded bits of asphalt that they had navigated so painfully slow around on their way here bumping and jumping over those obstacles with ease.

The armored vehicle skidded to a halt and the sirens and lights quit abruptly. Sam was glaring with extreme distaste at the young man who hopped gleefully out of the driver’s seat. He was grinning, a wild gleam in his eyes.

Short brown hair with sun-bleached golden tips, tannish, average looking, in a warlock’s robe that looked like a stylish dark-colored men’s long coat. Maybe kind of cute? He looked good in nice clothes, a pair of slacks, a dress shirt, jacket, and a vest with a long tie and dress shoes. It was like a fictional academic warlock character had leaped out of a TV show and swaggered into real life.

“Hey, Kyle.” Sam waved and smirked at him. She clearly knew him. He stopped in absolute horror. The look of shocked betrayal and disappointment he gave Samantha Wattkins was not lost on any of the agents whose attention had been grabbed by his flashy arrival.

“No. No way.” One slim finger pointed accusingly at Sam. Alex smirked. It looked like she wasn’t the only one to see through her partner’s bullshit. “You cannot be here.” He looked to the gorgeous autumn sky and shook a fist admonishingly the shouted. “I will not work with her!”

Then he got back in his vehicle and rested his head on the steering wheel in defeat.

11:47 AM September 13th 2026

Industrial Park District Near the Port of New York

“When you asked for a consultant…?” Sam turned to Frank with a grimace, “What exactly did you request?” Frank raised inquisitive eyebrows as he glanced between the dejected young warlock and Agent Wattkins’ thinly disguised attempt to maintain her professionalism.

“I requested a Warlock of the Archivist – ” He started and Sam’s head drooped as she spoke over him.

“Of course, you did.” She sighed as he continued the sentence she had spoken over.

“ – in case the cause of the event was a known phenomenon or item.” Sighing, Sam rubbed the bridge of her nose and felt the familiar pain of ‘dealing with Kyle’s shenanigans’ beginning behind her eyes. Rubbing her eyes lightly for good measure while her hand was up there anyway, Sam Squared her shoulders and spoke. “Get ready. We’ll be going in momentarily.”

Kyle raised his head from the steering wheel when he felt his sister’s aura approaching him. He knew he was being childish, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to him that his sister would be here. Having his older sister as one of the agents on the scene when he had his first solo acquisition? Nah. That wasn’t – that was going to seem like so much nepotism. It wasn’t a good look for his career.

“Hey, Shrimp.” Her voice was quiet enough that the other agents couldn’t hear. He hadn’t thought his shoulders could droop any further, but then she brought up her derogatory nickname for him.

“Could we not make fun of my being shorter than everyone in the family but Dad in front of all the other agents?” It was an old conflict. One she relished and rubbed in any chance she got. “You’re just going to be calling attention to how freakishly tall you are.”

“I’m sorry.” His sister amended softly. “That wasn’t professional of me.” With a groan, Kyle got out of the armored vehicle as the Magicorps soldier escorting him looked up from rummaging through the gear in the back of the vehicle pretending not to listen in and failing horribly. The two siblings shared a suppressed smile.

“You shouldn’t be here Sam.” Kyle soberly scolded as he walked briskly around to the rear hatch to help sort through gear. “These kinds of arcane levels have to be from an artifact or an organic source. It’s too dangerous.” He didn’t add the words ‘for you’ to his sentence. They were implied.

“Yeah. It’s unlikely it’s from technology. But the suddenness with which the release happened smacks of technology.” The older sibling studiously ignored her younger brother’s attempt to be protective of her while Gleipnir bristled silently at her waist. “Hush, Gleipnir. Kyle’s just being a brother, he’s not insulting yours or my abilities.”

“Well, he was rude even if that wasn’t his intention.” Gleipnir’s words had the usual effect when he spoke, and Kyle rolled his eyes at the ancient magic sentient item who always took his role as Sam’s protector too seriously.

“Stop.” It was a sudden crisp order he gave to the soldier pulling gear out of the armored vehicle’s rear storage. “Err…Private? No, Lieutenant Jones.” The soldier halted with a pained look on his face.

“Sir?” The soldier’s face blanked at the address.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake Kyle, he’s a Specialist. And quit fucking with them by pretending you don’t know their ranks.” She turned to Specialist Jones and pointed at the pile of gear he was organizing. “What my brother was about to tell you is that we don’t need most of that stuff.”

“Yeah.” Kyle scruffed his hair with another wince. “Leave the bulky containment equipment in the car until we ascertain what we’re dealing with. I can guarantee that we’ll need something bigger than what we’ve brought to transport it anyway. I mean, just look at the size of the vehicle they were transporting it in and how it has deformed the walls of the cargo compartment.”

“Oh. Yes, Sir.” The soldier replied and obediently looked at the truck hundreds of feet away. He began putting the gear away.

“Leave out the portable magic collectors. Activate a spare one in the vehicle in addition to the onboard one, we don’t want our ride transmuting into a monster on us. And toss us the personal shield collectors. Put one on yourself too.” Kyle was knowledgeable enough and had ridden along enough on consultations and artifact collections that he knew what he was doing.

“Good call Kyle.” Sam offered a rare compliment to her baby brother as she caught the shielding device and strapped it on one wrist. Her brother and the soldier did the same. “Don’t activate these until we’re closer. It will prolong their use.”

“I know that, Mom.” Snark. It was Kyle’s native language.

“Yeah. But Specialist Jones didn’t.” She added peeved. They were already getting on each other’s nerves. “Make sure you activate the sensor but not the collector until Kyle or I tell you. They’ll interfere with our readings once they’re on. Ignis Promethi.”

Sam activated the Prometheus sensors on the techno-magic devices by placing two fingers on the half-heart-shaped arrow that was the symbol of Prometheus and spoke the activation spell. The enchantment flared to life and the large clear crystal glowed purple within. Her words were echoed by the two men with her. Kyle frowned as he grabbed a fourth personal collector and offered it to Sam.

“For your partner?” She gave an ‘Ugh’ in response to Kyle's query and nodded. He tossed it to her.

“I’d rather let her use the FBI standard-issue gear.” She snorted derisively. “But the museum’s work better in high AMD areas.” They turned and began heading back to the group of waiting agents. 

There was a cluster of them around Alex and Frank. Their bearing and the conspiratorial looks on their faces combined with the way they were speaking to each other behind the occasional hand seemed...Sam narrowed her eyes as she saw what was going on.

“Well,” Specialist Jones commented, “Those people are clearly gossiping about you two.”

“Yes,” Kyle answered with a thoughtful smile. “I guess we shouldn’t disappoint them.” He turned to his sister and for the first time since she read that article this morning, her mood lifted. Maybe she couldn’t beat some kindness into her coworkers, but as much as her brother might annoy her, he always had her back.

Samantha Wattkins grinned evilly.

11:50 AM September 13th 2026

Industrial Park District Near the Port of New York

Frank liked Samantha Wattkins. He really did. She was competent, polite professional, and worked hard. Which was a lot more than he could say about a lot of people he’d worked with over the years.

Sure, there were people who had issues with her…if they were insecure jackasses who thought she only got her job because of favoritism. Or if they mistook her professionalism and competence for arrogance and standoffishness. Then, of course, there was Gleipnir, who was both arrogant and was an absolute void of professionalism.

So, it was normal for Frank to initially assume this was someone Sam and Gleipnir had just rubbed the wrong way. After the two began speaking, however, it started to seem as if there was something else going on. He sidled over to the junior agent who had arrived with Sam Wattkins.

“You Wattkins partner?” His question was pitched low, but Alex was also so distracted watching this interesting interaction that she didn’t notice the conspiratorial nature of the question.

“Uh. Huh?” The young woman spared only the briefest glance at her addresser. “Um, yes.” Her head snapped back to watching Sam and the kind of cute consultant from the museum.

“I know I shouldn’t ask but,” Frank hesitated because he’d never really participated in gossip before. “What’s the story with those two?” He nodded at the pair off in the distance and the poor Magicorps soldier awkwardly trying to avoid being noticed. “Like, is this a work thing or a…personal thing?”

“I…I…” The junior agent stuttered absorbed in the distant drama. “I have no idea. Whatever this is, was before my time.” They watched in speculative silence as Sam coaxed the younger man out of the vehicle.

“Five bucks says it’s an ex.” A third agent added as they walked up. Frank frowned but couldn’t stop watching the train wreck in action. Inexorably his eyes would be drawn back every time he tried to jerk them away.

“I’ll take that.” Alex chimed in. “Five dollars says he dislikes her because they’ve worked together.”

“I mean,” Frank added thoughtfully, “Those two situations aren’t mutually exclusive.” Then he blushed and ducked his head before glancing back at the vehicle. The two junior agents turned their heads slowly to stare at him in awe for suggesting to them a scandal neither would have attributed to Sam on their own.

Everything seemed to be moving along and the possible former couple were smiling when Sam suddenly stopped, turned on the consultant, and slapped him viciously across the face. He staggered back with a look of disbelief. The watching agents gasped. It wasn’t all the agents, just the few who weren’t actively patrolling the perimeter of the quarantined area.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what that’s for.” Sam’s shout of pent-up betrayal almost sounded like a sob. “Now let’s just get this done so I don’t have to spend another second in your presence.

“Fine by me.” The young man cupped a cheek and rubbed it wincingly as they started walking again. The soldier with them covered his mouth as his eyes bulged in surprise. He slapped his other hand to his thigh and took a second to recover from his shock. His hand was still covering the lower half of his face as they approached the cluster of senior agents.

“Alex, catch!” Sam tossed a personal magic collector and arcane sensor to her partner without bothering to see if the woman caught it. “Gear up. The faster we’re done with this the faster our consultant can leave.” The three veered toward the barrier and made a beeline for the waiting mystery within.

“Oh.  My.  GOD!” Alex whisper-screamed to herself as she put on the magic collector and activated the sensor. Then mouthed it a second time. Frank gave a shake of his head and turned after the trio.

“Okay, people!” He gave a bellow aided with magic to make it loud enough for all the agents on site to hear. “We’re sending the museum consultant and the magic technicians into the perimeter.”

Alex hurried to catch up, wary of getting caught in other people’s drama. Without looking at her the consultant snapped.

“Turn off your collector until we finish our readings.” How did he know? Alex couldn’t sense that much difference in the magical currents. The place was flooded with magic. She obeyed quietly.

For once, Sam seemed to be behaving humbly, letting the consultant take the lead even if she had slapped him only a few minutes ago.  So, Alex turned her attention to the consultant.  Despite his potential cuteness, the Warlock of the Archivist was haughty. His gaze was intensely serious, and his jaw set with determination as he took measurements around the open area of devastation around the vehicle.

The asphalt, sidewalk, and parking lots nearby were ruptured and crumpled like demented accordions. Some large pieces were completely vertical with the gravel and earth beneath exposed. Water pipes and other infrastructure poked through the surface periodically.

“Okay,” Kyle exclaimed after a hike around the wasteland. “…I’ve gotten all the readings I can. Turn on your magic collectors and stay behind me and Sam. Gleip, I need you to do your thing.”

“What thing?” Sam questioned, though she suspected she didn’t want to know.

“That thing where I drag you to safety at the slightest sign of danger whether you want me to or not,” Gleipnir responded smugly as he unwrapped his chain from his warlock’s waist.

“That’s right, my man read my mind.” Kyle held out a hand and got a high five from the tail of Gleipnir’s chain before it rewrapped itself around Samantha protectively. Both chuckled as Samantha glowered.

She tried to brush a lock of her light brown hair back in irritation, but it was already securely restrained in a ponytail so she smoothed any that might have come loose instead. Then she activated the magic collector on her wrist and tried to focus on their destination. The closer she got, the more familiar the vehicle and its branding became. Was that a giant with a crown missing a chunk out of its side standing over…

“Oh, my gosh.” Finally, the information that had been tingling in the back of her head popped into her awareness. “Kyle, the company branding. Is that Mountain King Movers?” Kyle narrowed his eyes and blocked the sun with one hand as he tried filling in the missing imagery with his imagination.  Then his eyes widened, and he turned to his sister in excitement as he came to the same conclusion.

“I do believe you are right.” His gleeful exclamation was echoed by Gleipnir’s own crowing.

“Ha, ha. Yes, it is my darling Samantha. On the count of three. One, two, three…,” The sentient magic item counted down as Alex and Specialist Jones gave each other dubious looks behind Sam and Kyle’s backs. Then the two siblings and Gleipnir broke into the song from the company’s commercial set to the tune of In the Hall of the Mountain King.

“When you need to move your stuff,

Trust in us,

We are tough,

When you need to move your stuff,

We will get it done.”

Their impromptu serenade ended on laughter and the three paused for a moment then exclaimed in unison “Jinx."

“Da fuck?” Specialist Jones murmured under his breath. “I think I’m going to hate my job when those two work together.” He added thoughtfully, lost in imaginings of what other horrors they might drag him into. He was already dreading what would happen if someone reported the whole slapping incident to the museum director and word got back to his boss.

“I think I like that guy,” Alex exclaimed with a smile.

The vehicle that seemed to be the epicenter of the magic emanations was in a depression on the ground. Kyle picked his way over and around the broken crumpled asphalt cautiously. Out of corner of his eye, he kept checking on Samantha’s progress. Not that she couldn’t handle herself, but old habits died hard. Their big brother, Davelor, had always ground it into his head that they were supposed to look out for Sam.

School had been rough for Sam. And after Gleipnir became a part of her life, things had gotten more complicated. The pact item had been both her new best friend and defender, and the cause of so very many calls from the principal. Even if it was only because he was adamantly defending his partner.

“Wait a second.” Gleipnir called out. “I’m sensing a changed in the magical currents. Is anyone picking that up?” Everyone stopped in their advance and Kyle took some more readings.

“Yes.” He confirmed, his brow furrowing at the meter. “I’m reading two sources now. One’s coming from…” Looking up at the damaged building that had been incorporated into the quarantine zone, he pointed toward the highly suspicious hole in the wall before glancing at his sister again.

“Hey, Sam.” She quirked her eyebrow at him inquisitively.

“Yes, Kyle?” Sam’s obvious wariness was not lost on her partner who tried not to snort in amusement.

“You requested defense specialist mages to back us up, didn’t you?” Kyle was kicking himself now for not remembering to ask for them himself. He’d let himself get distracted like the young impetuous man everyone older than him thought he was.

“I sure did.” She assured her brother. “I don’t know why they weren’t out here already. I mean, it’s a Purple Alert. How are we supposed to do our jobs if we get attacked by monsters while we’re out here.” The diatribe wasn’t one she’d intended on, and she blushed slightly. Working with her brother was making her act too familiar in this serious situation.

“We’ve got two major sources of magical emanation. One is from whatever is in the truck and the other is from the thing in that…is that a warehouse,” Kyle squinted against the sun again. There was just no avoiding it in his eyes today, “...well, whatever that building is over there. He waved a hand and the loose sleeve of his warlock’s robe flopped around his wrist as he did.

“What’s your verdict then?” Sam asked affably. “You’re in charge baby brother.” Kyle’s shoulders dropped and he gave her a flat look of disgust. “What now?” The technician really wasn’t sure how she had offended her kid brother this time.

“You just blew our charade.” He gestured to Sam’s partner, Alex, who was choking on air as she processed the trick the siblings had played on everyone. “Oh, fuck it!” He gave up and moved on to more pressing matters.

“I’m fairly certain that what we’re looking at is one dead magical creature that released most of its magic at once, which is what overloaded the magic collectors. The dead body and whatever the second source is, are still leaching magic into the vicinity. And…” he gestured at the hole in the side of the building, “I’m not entirely sure that second one is dead. Let’s get the first thing identified before the second wakes up, yeah?”

“Heck yes.” Specialist Jones spoke up in emphatic agreement. “I have orders to remove you from the area if it’s dangerous. How dangerous is it, Sir.” Unsure why the soldier was treating her brother like he was a superior officer and not just a civilian he was guarding; Sam gave the pair a quizzical look.

“Agreed. Let’s get a closer look at what’s in the truck.” They began moving again in the direction of the Mountain King Mover’s vehicle. All the while Specialist Jones kept a hand on his weapon and alternated his watch between the vehicle and the ominous hole leading into the dark interior of the warehouse.

As they drew closer, it was plain to see that something hadn’t exploded inside the truck. Instead, it seemed as if something that was small, had suddenly gotten too large.

“Someone’s shrinking spell wore off, you think?” Sam offered Kyle who nodded grimly to her.

“That or a shapeshifter that reverted back to its full size after death.” The younger brother chimed in, sharing his theory. “I think I see flesh.”

“And blood.” Sam confirmed pointing at the red that had flowed out of various tears in the sides of the vehicle to dribble and pool congealing beneath it.

“I see scales.” Alex proffered unprompted when they’d finally gotten close enough to focus on what she could clearly confirm was damaged flesh. From his place on Sam’s hip, Gleipnir sniffed. Then he growled and snarled in a low offended voice.

“I. Smell. Dragon.”  The whole group stopped at that. Kyle and Sam because…well…dragons! But the two with them gave pause for another reason.

“How the hell can you smell anything, Gleipnir?” Alex rounded on Sam and glared at the shining surface of Gleipnir’s current needle-sword-whip combination. “You don’t have a nose.”

“Ugh!” He complained angrily. “Must you humans always question my ability to sense things. I’m alive. I can see without eyes. I can hear without ears. I can feel with, well, I do touch things. Why wouldn’t I be able to smell? Good grief.” He settled down after his spiel to just grumbling about how insensitive some humans were and Kyle had to interrupt them before Alex got pulled into one of the Gleipnir debates that the pact item was famous for in their family.

“I see scales too.” Kyle verified what Alex had said and pulled his notebook out of its holster. He set it in place, hovering in the air, and flipped it open to a random blank page.

“Archive query.” He commanded. “Scale patterns of magical creatures that emit high levels of arcanes after death.” He watched images appearing in the notebook, hmming as he compared and discarding the ones that didn’t match what he was seeing before him. “Too many close matches. I need more information to go on.”

12:00 PM September 13th 12026

Industrial Park District Near the Port of New York

“I can see a claw from over here.” Specialist Jones called out, and Kyle jogged carefully over the disrupted ground to him.

“Oh. Good. Good.” Kyle murmured as he held up the notebook to the claw over twenty feet away as if he were taking a photo. “But still need more to narrow it down.”

“Just ask about dragons.” Gleipnir cried out from where Sam was poking at one of the large cylinders of flesh poking out the side of the truck. “Eastern dragons.” He grumbled with clear frustration that Kyle hadn’t listened to him the first time. His sister glared at him in solidarity with Gleipnir but said nothing as she literally poked the huge, scaled hide with a stick she’d picked up somewhere.

“WTF Sam.?” Kyle scolded “Get back. It’s dangerous.” before crossing his arms and doing as he’d been asked. “Archive query,” Kyle stated again in exasperation. “Compare scale patterns and claw shape to dragons.” The young warlock gave his sister a ‘so-there-are-you-happy look. “Will you back away from the dangerous source of magical radiation now?”

“Yep!” Jones stated quietly from much further back than either of the Wattkins siblings. “I’mma gonna die.” Alex looked over at him dubiously.

“It’s not that bad.” Then she looked back at Sam and Gleipnir quietly arguing over whose turn it was to poke it with a stick and whether or not it was cheating for her to be using a stick instead of him. Eventually, they agreed that if Gleipnir could use the stick also, then it was not warlock infidelity of the pact item.

“Yeah, it is.” Jones confirmed. “When the Harbinger finds out I let two of her kids get within stick-poking distance of a possible dragon corpse, she’s going to kill me.” He gestured at the two Wattkins, but mostly Sam, for emphasis. Alex snorted and covered her laugh.

“Oh yeah. You’re going to die. But it’s not all bad.” She offered the soldier a ray of hope before dashing it to smithereens. “It’s my job to just follow where Sam and Gleipnir lead, so she won’t have any reason to kill me.” It was Alex’s turn to receive a flat betrayed look from Jones.

“Ha. Ha. I’m so comforted.” He replied drily.

“All right,” Kyle shouted to get the attention of his three companions. “The archive confirms it. Gleipnir was fucking right.” Then he added in an aggrieved aside “For once.”

“What’s that whipper snapper?” Gleipnir called out surprising Alex and Jones that he’d been able to hear something that quiet. “You got something to say, say it to my face.”

“You don’t have a face!” Kyle shot back petulantly.

“You speciest little pric – ” The magical item had unwound his whip end from Sam’s waist and made as if to come after Kyle. “Hold me back, Sam.” He ordered his warlock. “Otherwise, I’m gonna lay the hurt down on your brother.” Rolling her eyes and smiling fondly at Gleipnir, she gave Kyle a sardonic shake of her head.

“You just had to?” Her question made Kyle look down at his feet in shame. He and Gleipnir had…issues.

“Let’s head back to safety. We’ve only got a few more minutes on our collector shields.” The four made the slow arduous way back to the waiting agent in charge and Sam and Kyle gave their reports.

“Frank,” Sam began. “I won’t be able to determine if there was any magi-tech involved until after we’ve gotten the vehicle to a secure lab site and properly quarantined.” She felt her phone vibrating and looked down at it. That person shouldn’t have been calling her right now, so it was probably important. Gesturing to Kyle she explained “Kyle can tell you why that is. I have to take this.” Then she peeled away to answer her call in semi-privacy.

“We are looking at the corpse of an Eastern Serpent Form Dragon with shapeshifting abilities. We won’t be able to see if there is anything else in the truck until the dragon is removed.” Frank’s eyes bulged momentarily before he rubbed an eyebrow in thought.

“When will the AMD level go back down to safe levels?” He questioned distractedly, already lost in the political quagmire this was going to be. The dragons did not like it when other species had access to their remains.

There were people who still hunted dragons for their magical properties. And yes, every nation in the world ‘officially’ recognized dragons as people, but that didn’t mean that they were treated as people. Nor did it mean that dragon hunters were actually prosecuted in every country where it was ‘illegal’ in the nod and a wink kind of way. The number of magical artifacts and potions that could be created from one corpse was staggering. BIG bucks! This was going to be an incident, that was for sure.

“They won’t. Not until the remains are contained. And there is possibly another live magical creature or the corpse of one in that building over there.” Kyle pointed in the direction of the damaged wall with the hole in it. “Seeing as how whatever it is smashed a hole in the wall, I didn’t want to go check it out in case it was still alive.”

“Ho-ly sheeit!” Frank rubbed more furiously at his eyebrow. “Two sources?” Kyle nodded.

“You need the largest containment vehicles you can get, and a refrigerated warehouse with not just magical shielding but with exchangeable magic collectors that can be replaced when they near capacity.” Kyle was explaining while he spoke, much in the same way he did while giving a lecture to museum visitors. Using engaging facial expressions and gesturing larger than was strictly necessary.

“Dragon corpses continuously give off arcanes as they decompose. Dragon bones and hides will retain magic for centuries. Millennia even. If we leave this carcass here, New York would be a purple zone for at least a hundred years. Maybe longer.” He was just getting into the swing of his lecture when the senior agent interrupted.

“And there might be a living one, possibly injured, and needing help, in the warehouse?” That brought Kyle up short. He hadn’t thought of the magical source in the warehouse as being anything other than a dangerous threat. But perhaps, it could be a wounded sentient being in need of help.

“Err, um. Maybe.” He gulped down a squeaked reply. “I can’t say for sure what it is. Only that it put a hole in that warehouse and has a similar magical strength to the deceased dragon in the Mountain King Movers van.

“Oh. This day just gets better and better.” Groaning, Frank waved over to one of the agents who was holding their communications scroll. They were reading the lines of messages as they formed keeping them updated about recovery and patrol efforts all over town.

“Get on the scroll, Embry. We might have an injured magical creature on our hands, possibly an Eastern Dragon. So, we need a containment team and healers. We’ll also need more forensic specialists; this is possibly an assassination or a murder. Maybe dragon hunters. And ask them again where the hell our defensive combat specialists are.”

“Someone killed a dragon?” Embry exclaimed in disbelief before unrolling the communications scroll to the clean spot under all the previous communications.

That wasn’t good news. The combat specialist mages not showing up yet. Kyle had only just passed quite a few places where first responders had needed to help people. A magical overload destroyed a lot of electronics and a lot of people had found out that morning why it was important to use the appropriate magically safe equipment. None of those cheap knockoffs from questionable factories. 

The emergency lanes down the center of every street had been empty for him, but he wondered if it had been so orderly everywhere else.

“Hey, Frank.” Kyle grabbed the senior agent’s attention when he’d finished shouting. “Why do you have so few agents? This…” He gestured around at everything. “…this is huge. This is the biggest magical disaster to happen in America in hundreds of years.” Frank shook his head at Kyle, a look of clear confusion on his sweaty face.

“I don’t know.”

“What?!” Sam’s screamed cry of outrage reached them, and both turned to her in surprise. “What do you mean he never showed up? I’m coming to get you. I’ll be right – fuck!” She stopped in her panicked flight back to her car. “Hold tight Anna, Kyle’s with me. I’m sending him to get you now.”

“Anna?” Fear gripped Kyle when he heard his little sister’s name. She would have been at school. She would have been at school when magic collectors blew. Their mom was out of town. But Dad would have gotten her surely! He thought frantically.

“Kyle.” Sam was wide-eyed and white-faced with terror. It was a stark awful look, and a pit of horror began to open in Kyle’s stomach as he thought of all the things that could have gone wrong.

“Sam,” The warlock forced the words out calmly, through gritted teeth as he clenched his hands until his short, trimmed nails cut his palms and made him bleed. “What’s happened to Anna?”

12:05 September 13th 2026

New York Preparatory Academy, New York, NY

“Okay.” Anna calmly ended the call and closed her phone while taking long deep even breaths. She repeated a word with each exhale. “Okay. Okay. It’s…going…to…be…okay…” Things were not okay!

But Anna shook her head to dispel that thought and moved with what felt like a preprogrammed deliberation as she removed the battery from her phone and returned it to the magically hardened case that she kept the charged spare in. Then she carefully peeked her head up over the desk she was hiding behind with Sara, Dean George, one of Sara’s friends who hadn’t been picked up yet, and three of the school’s security guards.

It had been going so well after the event. Ridiculously well.

Now it wasn’t.

How had things gotten to this point?

How…?

This is how:

To say that things had been hectic after everything blew would be an understatement.

Dean George had stepped up and handled it admirably well. She also had some really choice words for the contractor that the school’s board had used to ‘update’ the safety infrastructure. Seriously, Anna had heard words she’d never even knew existed and had stared in awe with the other three suspended students as Dean George cursed a river of vitriol that would go down in her mind as one of the most important moments of history.

The Assistant Dean would live, thanks to Dean George’s quick thinking and the school nurse also being a level eight licensed healer. She’d come running from the nurse’s office when Anna had breathlessly come running in for help. The woman had already had her potions and med-kit in hand and was about to make the rounds when Anna had arrived, too out of breath to even speak. Instead, the nurse had told her to just lead the way.

Once the wounds the Vice Dean had received from his computer exploding into him had been stabilized, Dean George had rallied the security team and sent them with the head nurse to assess injuries. Then she’d made sure that the assistant nurse was staying put in the nurse’s office to receive any patients that came looking for help. And once she was alone in the administrative office and everyone else had been shuffled off to carry out her orders, then Dean George had walked into her personal office, shut the door behind her, and screamed her fury for a full two minutes.

It was glorious!

Afterward, she’d walked out of her office into the main administrative office, calmly straightened her suit jacket and skirt, then held out her hand to Anna.

“Miss Wattkins,” Her voice was smooth, even, prim like always and ever so polite and matter of fact. 

“The Academy would be extremely grateful if you would allow the administration to borrow your phone during this emergency.”

The Assistant Dean was still staring at his superior mouth agape. Sara and cronies turned to Anna in suspicion, and Anna’s jaw dropped.

“How…how did you know that I would have a working phone?” There were so many other things she could have said at that moment like; ‘that was amazing, I don’t even know what half those words mean’, or ‘you are the coolest dean ever’. Instead, she’d chosen; how did you know I have a working phone? It’s official. I am not cool. She shook her head internally.

“Anna,” the dean glanced away with an embarrassed sigh and tucked a loose strand of hair behind an ear before continuing. “It’s my job as dean, to know my students, their potential, their weaknesses, and any danger they may pose to their fellow students. Your magical capacity is high enough that if you lost control, you would…damage electronics. So, I assume you either have a magically hardened phone, or a backup battery in a magically hardened case to protect it. It's standard military procedure anyways. So…?”

She cocked her head to one side, looking at Anna expectantly. And Anna had shrugged and gotten out her phone and the battery in its case. Then she handed it over.

“Right. You four are going to be my assistants.” Dean George continued brusquely. “And if you don’t tell anyone about my little meltdown, I will teach you what the words you didn’t recognize meant.” Ooohhhh! Anna hadn’t been planning on telling…no scratch that. She’d been planning on telling everyone because it had been so fucking epic.

“What do you need us to do boss?” Anna had smiled up at the dean who looked at the other girls waiting for their response. They’d smiled their evil little smiles, traded glances among each other, then shrugged and agreed. For now.

Then the dean called nine-one-one for assistance. Students and faculty all over the campus had received injuries. Some minor, some not so minor. The security guards had locked down the campus and made sure no students wandered off.

That was how Anna found herself helping to coordinate the evacuation of the school with her mortal enemy. It wasn’t fun per se, but she got to wear a bright neon yellow-green emergency vest as she ushered the first responders to various locations throughout the campus or escorted students to the front doors when a family member, or representative came to pick them up.

It kept Anna occupied so she wasn’t straight up freaking out. But it also made her worried about her dad. He hadn’t come for her. It had been literally hours since the dean called him, and he hadn’t come.

Mom was out of town. Yeah. So, she couldn’t expect her mom to come get her. But her dad? He had his own practice. He could have rescheduled an appointment. Or called the school between appointments to let them know when he’d be able to come get her. He could have even had one of her older siblings come get her.

But nothing?

That wasn’t normal.

Was it?

They had to evacuate. It was clear that the school didn’t have the appropriate magical shielding or protections. With arcane AMD levels at Prometheus Purple, they needed to evacuate quickly. Not even the dorms for the international students were considered safe. And since the dorms had originally been built with protections, it was clear that the renovations that had updated the school had also stolen a lot of valuable material from it.

The dean had managed to secure a large, shielded room at a conference center not far from the school. She’d pulled strings and gotten a bus company to send out magically hardened buses and there was a steady stream of luxury tour busses ferrying students to the relative safety of the conference center. Many kids had actually been picked up by parents, chauffeurs, family security, in limos, armored luxury vehicles, and even a couple of helicopters that nearly collided over the lawn.

Still telling Anna’s Flashback September 13th 2026

New York Preparatory Academy, New York, NY

As the students and faculty were evacuated, so was the very expensive private security that the academy employed. More than half the students had left with about half the faculty and security. And Anna admitted to herself as she ran from one classroom to another notifying teachers of when there was a bus ready for them and their students, things had been going well.

Too well.

It was Prometheus Purple out there.

Where were the monsters?

That’s what some of the other kids were grumbling about. The city kids. The students from the U.S.A. 

They didn’t know.

America had magic collectors and defensive perimeters around their cities. America had an entire branch of the military dedicated to monster defense. That was in addition to every branch of the military and law enforcement organization being required to have at least twenty-five percent of their service members qualified as level eight magic license mages.

There hadn’t been a city-wide monster incursion in decades. Because the colonists of this great nation had learned. They had learned from Roanoke what happened when you ignored the warnings the natives gave about the things magic did to people here. They had learned from Salem the depravity of demons who preyed upon young warlocks. They had learned that the only way to live here was to conquer magic, reduce ambient levels in population centers by capturing it, and incorporate its use into their lives.

So…where were the monsters?

They were coming. Anna didn’t know when, or how, or what form they would take, but Anna knew it was inevitable. She redoubled her speed as she sprinted down the hallway to the next teacher in line. They’d started with classes furthest from the front gate so now, with only half of the student body left, she only had half the distance to run.

It was still taxing. Her legs were starting to get a burn in them from the constant relay back and forth. Sara and one of her friends had kept up, not surprising as they were cheerleaders and the school’s team trained competitively. One of the group was on the swim team and she did not fare well. Her legs were trained for a different kind of athleticism.

Honestly, Anna had been surprised that she was as fast as the others. Sure, she wasn’t out of shape. But she wasn’t in sports. She ran with her mom, participated in mom’s mandatory physical fitness training, and self-defense instruction with Sam, because her mom hit too hard even when she pulled her punches. Yet, she honestly hadn’t considered herself to be genuinely athletic.

“Mrs. Deville?” Anna called out as slid to a stop in front of the ninth-grade history teacher’s classroom. 

“The buses are on their way back, they’re ready for your class at the front office.”

The nervous woman, turned from her fretful watching out the window and smiled with relief. It always struck Anna as odd that someone so stunningly beautiful – even oblivious Anna could tell that Mrs. Deville was more than supermodel gorgeous – had chosen teaching as their profession. Many of the petty girls whispered that she’d used magical enhancements to make herself prettier, as if those same girls didn’t do the same.

“Oh. Excellent. Class...” She clapped her hands together several times, making the flowing sleeves of her dress flutter. “Like we practiced in drills. Line up and follow Miss Wattkins to the front.”

“You’re not coming with?” Anna asked with alarm when she realized that the teacher was not ready to leave campus. She lived in the on-campus housing with her husband and they each supervised one of the dormitories for the international students. The resident faculty had been instructed to prepare for evacuation along with the students they supervised. “You don’t have anything to take with you?”

“I’ll escort the students part way.” She assured Anna, nervously pushing a strand of brown hair with tints of green in it out of the way. “I’m not leaving without my husband. The dean knows.”

It always felt to Anna, like Mrs. Deville was extremely young. Though rumor was she’d been around for years. The woman blushed when she mentioned her husband and her voice got a little shy. Like was that just what happened to someone who was madly deeply in love with someone else? Because that was not even a little bit how her parents acted. Though, to be fair, Anna didn’t think that anything could make her mother blush.

“I’m right here.” Marax Deville called from down the hallway. He was hurrying up, his massive bodybuilder–esque frame trailing a grey cloak or cape – Anna could never decide which it was – from the epaulettes of his jacket. His cloak-cape seemed to change shape and style as necessary. It was yet another thing the students whispered about.

The huge man dressed like nineteenth-century royalty in military dress. Without the ribbons and symbols of rank of course. He could have stepped right out of a history book with his deep blue and dark grey heavily starched uniform and heavy epaulettes and gold braids. And he had this musty sulfur smell to him – magically, he didn’t actually stink – of hot stones and metal that always made Anna suspect him of sketchy magic.  You know, the kind that was outlawed and resulted in priests and paladins showing up.

Wherever the case may be, his wife smiled a huge blossoming smile that made her already supernaturally beautiful face even more radiant. If one were to ignore their suspicions about Mister Deville, one could grudgingly admit that the couple were adorable. And maybe even have shipped them before they started dating.

“Right. Then since everyone’s here, let’s go.” Anna spun around just as the shattering of glass was followed by the crash of desks being overturned…and shrieking. Of course, there was shrieking.

“I was afraid that this was going to happen.” Eik Deville sighed like a monster crashing through the wall of her classroom was a normal everyday kind of inconvenience. “The arcanes have been twisting up pretty badly over there. I suspect this is just the first of a herd formation.”

Not all the students had finished evacuating the class and Mrs. Deville acted quickly to protect the ones still inside it. Raising her hands, she cast the wildest, rawest, purest nature magic that Anna had ever sensed. The perfectly manicured lawn and the flowers outside of her classroom window experienced a massive growth spurt. Whips of grass sprang up over a dozen feet in length to snap around the stubby rubber legs of the transformed motorcycle that had been parked in the faculty parking lot until a few minutes’ prior.

“We’ll hold this breach.” Marax chimed in chipperly with his proper British accent. He even sounded like royalty. He ran a large hand through his dark hair and winked one of his dark eyes reassuringly at the students as they fled past him to join Anna. The motorcycle monster was gnashing its teeth and struggling to get free from his wife’s magical grip.

“Honey. Could you hurry?” She called out sweetly, clearly trying to hide the edge in her voice from the students. “There’s only so much one can do with grass and shrubbery against metal and teeth.”

“Of course, my love.” He blew his wife a kiss suavely and his eyes began to glow red. His long head transformed into that of a bull as if he’d suddenly become a minotaur. Or had the image just superimposed itself over his face. Anna couldn’t tell. It happened so quickly and smoothly.

Practice. This is why practice is important. Even in this time of crisis, Anna could imagine exactly what her mother would say. Or maybe it was just what she herself thought about any skill. If you want it to work right when you need it, then practice it when you don’t.

“Run child.” Marax Deville called over his shoulder as he blasted a good old fashioned fireball spell at the creature and was immediately accosted by another coming in through the broken windows. “The herd is manifesting.” Anna’s shock stilled her for a few seconds longer before she shouted at her terrified schoolmates.

“Go. Go. Go.” She waved them past her down the hallway back the way she had come. “To the front entrance.” Screams and crashes of glass were coming from the other classrooms as other monster-formed vehicles from the parking lot found the unevacuated classrooms along the route to the front of the school. “Oh. Shit!”

It was murmured quietly as she began running after the others, bringing up the rear. Then she stopped short. The hallway began to fill as more students and teachers streamed into it from the compromised classrooms. But only the classrooms on one side of the hallway. She stopped short at the first one and waved the students out.

“Evacuate to the front office.” Anna shouted at the students as she waved them down the hallway preventing them from fleeing in the wrong direction. Peering over the heads of the older students he could see Miss Callahan, a non-magic user heroically trying to fend off the metal and rubber beast that had invaded her classroom.

The petite Asian woman, Anna had never found out which actual nationality she was, was holding a tall metal stool by the seat and brandishing the long legs at the creature sobbing defiant invectives at the monsters in a desperate last stand. The small woman, smaller than Anna herself was, was cornered. If she fled, there would be nothing between herself and the students. If she didn’t flee, she’d be overrun.  As Anna watched horrified, one of the jocks in back of the crush of bodies caught the look on her face. He followed her helpless fatalistic gaze and noticed their teacher’s plight.

“Miss Callahan!” Anna vaguely recognized one of the few lower classmen who were taller than she as he shouted in alarm. No, you idiot! While it was brave of the boy to try, Anna had to groan internally at the fact that any actions he took would just divert the attention from the doomed teacher onto the students. And without magic, he wasn’t going to make a positive difference.

Or maybe not. The blonde boy picked up a whole desk like it was no heavier than the light stool that the monsters were gradually eating the legs off of to Miss Callahan’s absolute despair. Wielding it as both a defensive shield and a weapon, the boy set his shoulders determinedly and called out to the motorcycle monsters.

“Come pick on someone your own size.” A shocked short laugh of incredulity burst out of Anna. 

Really? Did, did I really just live that trope? He just said that? When he’s about to feed himself to monsters? One of the monsters turned. It was hundreds of pounds. They were all over a hundred pounds. The only thing allowing the students time to flee is that the heavier motorcycle-form monsters weren’t strong enough to break through the wall beneath the windows and were too heavy on their new stubby rubber legs to climb over the wall.

But the car-forms were coming.

One of blondie’s friends saw him taking a stand and frantically tapped a few others to try and help. Only two chose to stay behind, lifting chairs or desks of their own, and Anna started trying to shove her way into the room against the tide of exiting students. True, it had only been seconds, but it felt like forever.

Finally, the line of students was past her and running in the direction she’d shouted at them. Anna rushed into the nearly vacant classroom except for the four moped and motorcycle-form monsters. Then she stopped. Because…what the hell was her plan? She couldn’t just run into the chaos. 

Fighting with chairs was stupid against large heavy creatures.

And past the empty window frames, across the manicured lawn, the larger vehicles in the parking lot were stirring. Their dead headlights lit up with eerie glows. Wheels lost their roundness, becoming short stubby legs. Grills and windshields turned into gaping maws, some with glass for teeth and some with metal teeth. Death in aluminum and steel lumping toward the school.

“Right.” Nodding, Anna knew what she needed to do and pulled her hair back from her face. The loose strands were distracting her. “Time to seal the breach.” Maybe she shouldn’t have done it the way she did, but this was the first time Anna would ever use her magic in a life-or-death situation. This was fine. She could do this. She just needed to take the time to do it right.

Anna took a bracing stance and squared her shoulders. Then she took a few deep even breaths summoning her magic. Something that had never been hard. It was always there, swirling under the surface of her consciousness, looking for an opportunity to break free of her control. Now was no exception. Her power surged like a wild animal trying to bolt from her body in any haphazard way.

No! She thought at her magic, talking to it in her head as if it were a separate entity. Not like that. Not all at once. Measured. Directed. Anna was willing to swear to any being in existence that her magic really did have a mind of its own. It was something she had to coax into cooperating with her sometimes.

The room chilled, the air temperature dropping swiftly. Then the frost came. It didn’t creep as it radiated out from her feet across the floor and up the walls. Crystals of ice forming and coalescing into icicles hanging from the chairs and desks. The American flag over the blackboard became too heavy for the mount attaching it to the wall. It cracked from where it was and crackled with the tinkling of ice when it hit the floor.

Everyone trying to fight monsters had noticed when the floor suddenly slicked. Though the monsters had rubber feet, their ungainly forms led them to lose their balances as they slipped on the new surface. One of the boys turned wildly to see what was happening, something he was only able to do because of the opening the change in the battle had given him.

“Anna?” Anna recognized the voice, but she couldn’t place it. Her dark brown eyes had closed as she concentrated on reigning in the seemingly endless well of elemental power within her before it could become a raging torrent.  The sounds of receding screams and other desperate battles in the adjoining classrooms faded from her hearing.

Time slowed as she lifted her hands to direct the flow of her magic.

When she opened her eyes to aim, they were no longer their normal dark brown, nearly black. Her eyes glowed an icy bluish white. Magic-touched in the use of her element like her white hair showed the world her ice affinity.

“Move.” She commanded the group of boys she now recognized as being from the football team. “Help Miss Callahan and get behind me.” They scrambled carefully to help the petrified teacher. Only one of the monstrosities she had been fighting was still after her and it was having enough trouble maintaining its footing that she had managed to flee on top of her desk and was throwing staplers, erasers, and other office supplies at it.

Miss Callahan shrieked as the tall blonde boy grabbed her from behind and hauled her away from the creature trying to eat its way through the desk she sat upon. At first, she struggled, thinking she had been attacked by something that had snuck up on her. He spoke to her soothingly as he wrestled her behind Anna and toward the door.

“It’s Liam. Miss Callahan. It’s Liam Ecclestone. We’re leaving. Come on.” She’d sagged in relief for a second until he said that they were leaving.

“But there’s still a student.” The petite math teacher protested. “I can’t leave a student.” One small hand pointed at Anna.

“Get out of here,” Anna shouted at the teacher even as she herself was backing carefully away from the monsters who were getting used to the mechanics of moving on the icy floor. They were scrabbling frantically towards her and she didn’t like how close they were getting. “I don’t have enough control to use my magic while you are still in the room. Not for the amount I need to use for this.”

Her eyes left the immediate danger to check the progress of the herd. There were much larger creatures coming now. Sports cars and sport utility vehicles were bad enough. Dangerous in and of themselves. But there was a limo-form monster that seemed to have crossed with a centipede or a millipede and become a Lovecraftian horror worthy of the Eldritch classics.

Nope. She was done. Anna was not going to fight that. She would yeet herself right the fuck out of there like a coward. It had rows of gnashing teeth in a maw half the length of its body. Those teeth were backed by a thready baleen looking kind of organ which as she watched shredded a smaller slow to waken moped-form monster. It cried piteous honking cries as it was sawed by the vibrating razers of the baleen until it gurgled black oil blood in death.

“Oh, the hell with this.” The young elementalist’s voice shivered with her emotions. She didn’t wait to see if the room had been evacuated like she’d instructed but released her hold on her magic. Just enough. Just enough to let it out and form the far-reaching effect she needed for the construct she was building.

It was simple. Just an ice wall. But it was fast and dirty and stretching not only the length of the windows in the classroom but along that entire side of the building. She was following the flow of her power as it greedily gobbled up territory. As an elementalist, forming the ice wall wasn’t a spell like it would be for other magic users. It was just the form of power she had. The school was large and the row of glass windows that provided literally no protection from the approaching monsters stretched…

For the first time Anna was grateful that she had more untapped magic than she had ever wanted or needed. Her magic power was something she had always been angry about. Who could possibly ever need this much ice magic? Ice. Element. Magic.

But she did. Anna needed it now. She needed to have the ability to sense the course of the ice as it traveled over unbroken windows. Her affinity for the ice told her when her wall construct needed create a bridge and cover gaps in broken architecture. It told her when she needed to leave a hole because a student two classes down was being pulled out the window by a retreating monster and his classmates helping him needed a few more moments to pull him back into the room after a spike of ice punch out from the wall to skewer the monster trying to eat him.

Then it was done. The breaches were sealed. For now. But it didn’t do anything about the monsters already in the building. There were…a few. Dozens.

“Holy shit, Anna.” Someone exclaimed behind her. Turning, Anna realized that it was the blonde boy. He looked familiar. What had he said his name was? Crap. Liam? Anna’s eyes narrowed unfriendlily at him.

This was the kid Sara had the hots for? The guy that just got me suspended? While it wasn’t technically his fault, Anna couldn’t help but be irritated at him for the mere fact that he had unintentionally made her the object of more of Sara’s ire. It may have affected the next words that ran through her mind. Come on girl. Could this guy be any more generic?

Which… Anna admitted was an unfair evaluation of the boy. He was clearly brave, stupidly so. And he was conscious enough to know her name even if they weren’t in the same class. Though, to be entirely honest, there weren’t a whole lot of people in the city who didn’t know her name. So….

Why was she standing around glaring when she should be running?

Right!

Not waiting for anyone else in the little group to come to the same conclusion she’d come to, Anna peeled out of the classroom stumbling and sliding into the hall only to be stopped short when the texture of the floor surface changed suddenly in the dark-un-frozen hallway. Though she’d managed to encase many of the smaller monsters in ice, there was still the sound of battle coming from Mrs. Deville’s classroom where she knew a car-form had challenged the couple there.

It actually sounded like Mister Deville was having fun despite the noise as he was shouting things like, “Come to daddy.” and “Take that you fowl beast.” But when he called out, “Babe, watch this and toss me some of the condoms from your purse because this bastard is about to get fuc – ”

The words were drowned out by a clearly pained roar or grinding metal-organic gears. It cut short suddenly which meant it was probably dead and Anna grimaced at the weirdness of adults as she shook off the sound of Mrs. Deville exclaiming breathlessly to her husband.

“Oh, Marax, that was amazing.” She giggled. Giggled. And the white-haired teen turned to the boys and the teacher behind her as she shuddered before gesturing for them to go.

“That ice isn’t going to last long against the big thing out there. It’s just hiding us from it for now. Go. Go to the main entrance where the busses are coming in.” Two of the boys ushered their teacher between them and Liam came up to Anna.

“What about you?” He questioned intently. “What are you doing?” Anna didn’t have an exact answer for him but she had the vague outlines of a plan.

“I’m going to try and help anyone who needs it and make it as difficult as possible for anything that gets in here to follow.”

“An excellent plan, Anna.” Marax Deville walked up with his wife linked arm in arm. Liam gave a shout of fear when he saw the professor’s bull-head. It must have been a transformation because some of his wife’s lipstick was smeared across the lips of his bull form to disappear into the fur of his muzzle. The lipstick wouldn’t have been visible on an illusion. “Buck up boy,” he dusted some frost off Liam’s shoulder. “It’s just me.” Liam leaned back a bit but he didn’t flinch much at the professor’s touch.

“Thank you, Mister Deville.” As she said the name, Anna watched Liam begin repeatedly mouthing it questioningly at Anna behind Marax’s back, pointing at what appeared to be a tall demon in what was clearly an imperial style military uniform. The boy was distracting her from what the teacher was saying.

“Anna, with me. We’ll clear this corridor room by room sending any surviving stragglers ahead to evacuate.” He cocked his head at Anna quizzically as she alternated nodding at the instructions that the powerful minotaur was giving her and shaking her head at Liam to stop. “Are you paying attention, Anna?”

The minotaur narrowed his eyes at her then glanced over his shoulder to Liam who shrank back as Anna mouthed, ‘Shut up!’ at him. Mrs. Deville giggled at the interplay between the trio. Liam sidled over to stand beside Anna, maybe slightly behind her. The minotaur’s narrowed eyes followed the boy suspiciously.

“I’m ready, Sir.” Anna volunteered to get his attention off of Liam who was not nearly as brave in the presence of a friendly teacher who looked slightly different than normal, as he had been in front of mindless monster machines. “I wanted to seal the hallway with an ice wall after each classroom to cover our retreat.”

“Ughm.” That caught the teacher off guard as he made a disappointed sound somewhere between a cough and an ‘um’. Anna didn’t know what his problem was, but she didn’t want to keep standing around talking. She could sense the ice wall slowly losing structural integrity from the monsters assaulting it. There were still people shouting in some of the populated rooms.

“I’d like to leave a route open back to this location.” The demon minotaur exclaimed in his deep bestial voice with an incongruous British accent. “Eik,” He gestured to his wife holding his arm and leaning her head against his shoulder. “She’s going to stay here and guard our rear. I will come back to help her after everyone evacuates.”

“Riiight.” Anna glanced at the absurdly beautiful young teacher, not entirely believing that she really wanted to stay behind. Anna had seen with her own eyes just how powerful the woman was and that she had not been strong enough to face down the monsters on her own. Liam began to speak up something that would have been stupid anyways and Anna elbowed him to keep his mouth shut. “If that’s what you want to do, Mrs. Deville?”

“It is.” The teacher smiled brilliantly. “I have means of protecting myself that I can’t use around others.” She explained in her kind and gentle way, alleviating almost all of Anna’s concerns. “I’m the best choice to hold the rear.”

“Okay.” That was fine. That, actually, made a lot of sense.

“Liam, you be ready to escort any survivors to safety, Mr. Deville instructed. “Anna, you’ll be my defensive support. Raise shields in front of me while you stay in position behind me and to my right. I’ll enter each room first. Once the entrance is clear to the right, I’ll enter and go to the left and you will enter to the right. Hold and clear that corner while providing supporting cover fire with ice spikes and creating ice wall barriers as necessary.”

“Yes, Sir.” Her heart was pounding. Part of Anna was frightened of what they would find. But part of her, was rejoicing just a little bit that she was going to be using more of her magic.

“Have you done this before, Anna?” Liam hissed a bit loudly as she followed Mr. Marax dutifully.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” It came out as a high-pitched yelp.

“I assumed you had gotten at least some basic training from your mother.” Marax commented a little self-satisfied that his assessment had been correct.

“Never with monsters this large before. Never without my mom and sister there leading me.” It was whispered thoughtfully. Marax just nodded amiably.

“This will be the same. But we may be too late to save everyone.”

Another group of students ran past Anna, helping the injured as they went. They’d cleared eleven classrooms. No dead yet. No dead people. At least, none that they saw.

There had been monsters. Dead or dying. Mr. Deville used an obsidian battle axe he’d summoned from somewhere that glistened with dripping liquid flames. Crimson, like blood, the flames splattered as he’d swung his heavy blade with its stout hilt. Each drop of fire elicited howls of pain from any monster it touched.

The blood flames – as Anna had come to think of the flaming substance on Mr. Deville’s axe – soaked into the metallic flesh of the monsters to rising wisps of steam. It smoked like it burned them where it touched, but merely sputtered out wherever it fell on non-living matter. He’d used it to decapitate the smaller monsters, killing them with swift, efficient, sizzling strokes.

When the transformed teacher had pulled a weapon as black and glisteningly deadly slick as the enormous horns on his bovine head out of nowhere, it had pretty much confirmed to Anna her suspicion that maybe he wasn’t entirely on the up and up with his magic. Because it was dark. He’d performed spells on some of the larger monsters that Anna was certain were against the Covenants.

They’d also found blood…in the classrooms.

There was some blood and Anna couldn’t help wondering if the people it belonged to had survived. Was it students? Teachers protecting their students? Or was it the security contractors that got paid truckloads of cash to protect the children of the uber wealthy?

The private security contractors still on campus had been doing their jobs protecting students and ferrying them to safer areas of the building. But many of the students and teachers in this wing had broken and ran when the monsters attacked. And that was okay. They weren’t trained for this kind of thing. Running had probably saved a lot of them.

However, it made it a bitch of a time trying to determine if any of them had been dragged away and eaten.

Mr. Deville crept up to the door of the next room with his new protégé attempting to be stealthy behind him. It was getting less awkward, and honestly, less scary with each room. This next class, however, brought Anna’s anxiety levels back up to at least eighty percent. Anna could sense her ice had frozen a monster in place partway into the room with its rear suspended outside of the building. It had been an imperfect catch, and the nasty creature was working itself free.

So, at the very least, there was one monster who she and Mr. Deville needed to worry about possibly dealing with. She resolved to bury it in ice as soon as she had a clear shot. But for now, she focused on watching the silent hand signals that the minotaur was giving her after his first peek through the window on the classroom door. Three fingers, then pointing to the left. Two fingers, then he pointed to the right. Monsters or monster bodies is what it meant. Three to the left and two to the fight. A hand flat, palm down, people maybe alive.

Anna’s eyes widened with questions that Mr. Deville stopped with tilt of his head, some raised eyebrows, and a stern shake of one admonishing finger. Right! The teen elementalist nodded agreement. Later. When they were sure it was safe to talk.

Then the door had been opened and the minotaur was hurling fireballs and a spell that made a wounded monster that had corned three people screech with a dizzying resonance. Swallowing, Anna gulped down her fear and followed the teacher into the room before turning to her responsibilities on the right. Anna hadn’t been carrying a weapon anywhere on her when the emergency started so she’d created a shield out of ice to cover one arm and protect herself. For killing monsters, the elementalist had manifest a shaft of ice that she could reform into a sword, a spear, or a mace as needed. So far, she hadn’t actually needed to use her armaments.

That didn’t last long.

There were two barricades in this room. On separate sides of the room. The room was dim and the light filtering through the ice wall was mellow and tinted ever so slightly blue.

This was fine. But the monsters were alive and though they’d been distracted, working their way through a mountain of desks and chairs toward what may or may not have been living people. Okay. 

She could do this.

Anna stayed far back from the monsters that were easily twice the size of a school desk and many times the weight of one. They were still not moving all that nimbly on their stubby rubber legs. One even seemed to have ‘flat tires’, and its feet flapped flatly as it hopped like a happy dog expecting treats and pats toward her. Except that Anna was the treat it wanted to eat.

Anna had kept her elemental magic near the surface, and she focused it through the makeshift sword, aiming it at the creature coming toward her. For a second, just a second, she hesitated. The monster had a lolling tongue and what had once been handlebars flopped on either side of its one-eyed head like ears. A floppy eared cyclops motorcycle monster, that flapped like a its feet as it happily struggled toward her. Like an oversized excited puppy, or a demented metal and rubber seal.

It was cute. And it liked her.

That was why she hesitated. Frozen with the inability to bring herself to kill someone so sweetly innocent looking, she almost hesitated too long. Then she saw the monster slip in a pool of blood. Saw the blood on its teeth. And she remembered.

It wasn’t cute.

It didn’t like her.

It just wanted to eat and kill.

So, she shot it. First it was just an ice spike that flowed like a flash of light from the tip of her sword. Then it was a steady stream coating the monster’s entire body, weighing it down. It slowed but not quickly enough, getting uncomfortably close before it was completely encased in ice and unmoving.

Anna sighed with relief then shrieked as another monster came from her right. Raising her sword, she was just barely in time for the thing to impale itself on the lightweight weapon. But it was big and heavy.

“Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.” She fed ice magic through the sword and into the monster, scrabbling backward in panic.