G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic (30 page)

“So, Y, L, E, A. What the hell does that spell?”

“Yale,” Visine said with no conviction.

“So maybe Dirk wanted you to go back to school or there is a clue there or maybe it’s someone’s last name?” I tried.

Visine shook his head as if he couldn’t think of any possible connection between himself and Yale.

“Or they are initials,” Visine said.

“They could stand for anything and we don’t even know the order.”

“Twenty four possible combinations,” he said.

“That doesn’t make sense. Dirk needed to be sure that you would figure this out. Presumably in a hurry if he knew something bad was coming.”
 

Visine nodded in agreement. I let the letter combinations run through my head.

“Okay, if we were playing scrabble you could also get points for lay, ley, yea, and aye. We could also spell ale. Maybe it’s about your bar?” I asked.

“You believe he gave us an extra letter?” he questioned.

“Is ale-y a word?”

Visine frowned.

“Okay, let’s call the team. Maybe they will see something that we are missing.”

Visine nodded and we quickly put everything back into the suitcase. We zipped it up and waved a thank you to Karen and Jessica on our way out. Tossing the bag in the trunk, we were back inside of Vlad and calling HQ. I didn’t want to be stuck behind the slow airport traffic once we figured things out so I started driving as we waited for the switchboard to connect us with the team.

“Hey Freddy, we found something. I was hoping that the same teamwork synergy we displayed earlier might help us figure out what it means.”

“An excellent idea. You are on speakerphone and we are all here,” Freddy said.

“Okay, we found four hidden letters. Y-A-L-E. They spell Yale or ale-y, neither of which seems particularly helpful.”

“It would seem unlikely that the university is their destination,” Freddy said.

“Why?”

“Because the orbus is fragile, it wouldn’t make sense to bring it here only to transport it up there,” Kara answered.

“Yeah, it didn’t feel right to us either. There are only so many combinations of those letters. Is there someway to check the database and see how many Fae lady names they can spell?” I tried.

Erika spoke up before either of them could answer me.

“Where did you find the letters?” Erika asked.

“In the suitcase, why?”

“I mean specifically, where did you find the letters?” she questioned.

“They were in the pockets of his pants. We had to fold inkblots at certain angles to really see the letters. It was all very Da Vinci Code. Does that matter?” I finished.

“I’m not sure yet, maybe. Clues, like animals, often follow a trail,” she said.

It sounded like Erika was going a little Zen on me and I wasn’t sure how to respond. Before I had a chance to say anything Kara answered my earlier question.

“In the meantime I will try and see what Fae names I can come up with using those letters,” Kara said.

“Thanks Kara.”

There was a pause as we all kept racking our minds for answers. I looked over at Visine and he just shrugged, obviously not having anything to add at this point. Then I heard Erika say huh in the background.

“The letters were only in his pants?” she asked.

“Yeah, one letter in each of the four pairs, why?”

“Because I think you might be missing a letter,” Erika replied.

“The pants he was wearing,” Visine added.

We heard Erika asking someone to bring her the clothes from evidence. There was some shuffling of feet and a tense silence as we waited. Footsteps returned and we could hear Erika opening up a plastic bag.

“One of the front pockets, you gotta push the sides of the stain together…”

“It’s an F,” she cut me off.

Score one for teamwork. Again I tried to find something useful to spell with the letters.

“Okay, we got Y, A, L, E, and F. Let’s see. Is leafy a word?” I asked.

“F, A, E, is Fae,” Visine pointed out while giving me a dirty look.

“Which would leave Y and L,” Erika said.

“Unless we spell it F, A, Y,” Kara stated.

“Le Fay. Morgan Le Fay,” Freddy said brightly.

“Awesome. That has to be who we are looking for, right?” I asked.

“Fascinating,” Freddy said as if talking to himself.

“Okay, well I’m no expert but shouldn’t she be in England fighting Arthur and his knights or something?” I pointed out.

There was a long pause and the only sound was Freddy tapping away on his computer. Everybody else seemed to be pondering the same problem as me. If we were right and it was Morgan Le Fay then why would they be trying to raise her here in DC? Somebody had to break the silence and I figured it might as well be me.

“Does this help you find the spot of the ritual Kara?”

“Not unless I can find some connection between Le Fay and this area,” she sighed.

“I believe that I have the answer,” Freddy started, “My first year at university I came across some documents pertaining to Ms. Le Fay or Morgana as she is often called. I recall a legend concerning her final days. In their final battle Merlin sacrificed himself in order to banish Morgana from the realm. They say that she was sent to a New World and most scholars attributed that to mean another dimension. Now, this story took place hundreds of years after King Arthur, when Morgana had found unlikely allies in the Vikings. This was at about the same time that Leif Erikson sailed to America. It is plausible that the New World of this story was in fact here,” Freddy finished.

“Okay, so there is a chance that Morgana is here. How does that help us find the bad guys?” I asked.

“In studying the local magical history I came across an old Native American tale, Powhatan I believe, about several powerful medicine men banding together in order to imprison a deadly witch that arrived on their shores,” Kara said.

“And you think that it might be her?”

“Could be,” Kara responded.

“So we just need to find the spot of that original ritual,” Erika stated.

“Great, how do we do that?” I asked.

“By finding the Henge,” Kara replied.

“What?” I added.

“Summoning requires a circle. The story mentioned a circle of power. Now the most powerful circles are created from earthen materials such as large rocks. It will allow them to contain the energy of the ritual and protect themselves. Think Stonehenge,” Kara said.

“Okay, so where is Le Fay Henge?”

“I believe that I have the answer to that,” Freddy chimed in, “As we should have guessed the ritual will be taking place in Rock Creek Park. They have constructed a henge of large stones in the woods south of Wise road and west of Beach Drive. It is very close to the Maryland border and apparently well hidden,” he said.

I slammed on the gas and Vlad sped off towards our destination. It wasn’t far from the bad-guy base so we would be taking the same abundance of avenues once again. Traffic was light enough now that by swerving around other cars and breaking most of the local traffic laws we could get there pretty fast. I found myself wondering how Freddy suddenly knew so much about this henge.

“How do you know where the circle is Freddy?”

“From the transportation of large rocks mentioned in the interrogation report,” he stated.

“What?”

“After you managed to get the Troll talking, he gave a detailed accounting of his actions over the last few weeks. Most likely in an effort to garner good will towards his possible release. Once we learned that it was Le Fay being summoned and a henge was required, I remembered something that I read in that report. The troll mentioned that he assisted in constructing a stone circle,” Freddy said.

Now that he said that I had a vague memory of Benny talking about moving large rocks. Once we got him talking in the interrogation room he babbled on about all kinds of stuff. There might have been a mention of the boss using the trolls to move a bunch of large rocks into a circle weeks ago. At the time manual labor didn’t seem relevant so I didn’t give it much thought. But now I guess we really knew why Lady Servant wanted the trolls in his employ. Their strength would be the easiest way to secretly construct a large stone circle in the woods. It was a nice catch by Freddy.

“Well done everyone, now how do I stop the summoning when I get there?” I asked.

“Like all rituals, you just have to interrupt it,” Kara said.

“So we destroy the orbus?” I said.

“Or the Servant of the Lady,” Visine stated.

“That would do it. And Bruce, if I am remembering the story correctly, the ritual begins at sundown,” Kara replied.

“Okay then, times up. We got a job to do,” I said.

There was a chorus of good lucks before Freddy spoke up.

“Mr. Chang I just feel the need to stress that you cannot allow Morgana to be released. The Native Americans excelled at maintaining the magical balance of the land. Those same sources of power do not exist today. I do not believe anyone alive could stop her should she be freed. The world would be in grave danger,” Freddy said.

“In other words, my car was right,” I stated.

“Thanks Boss,” Vlad said out loud.

“Anytime pal,” I said patting his dash,

“That was not quite the message that I was trying to get across,” Freddy tried.

“Relax Freddy, I got it. Stop the ritual and save the world. In the meantime, keep an eye out the window.”

“What are we looking for?” Freddy asked.

“If you see the apocalypse, you know we failed,” I said and hung up.

I looked over at Visine and smiled.

“Okay, let’s save the world.”

The sun dipped below the horizon leaving an orange glow in its wake to remind us of brighter times. Most people believe that evil can only flourish in the dark. In this case they might be right. I wasn’t sure how villainous sorcerers measured sunset, but my gut told me that the ritual would be starting any minute now. Here’s hoping for a long ritual.

We parked Vlad on Oregon Ave about a mile up from the barn. I pulled off on the side of the road right by one of the hiking trail entrances. There were no other vehicles about so I figured the bad guys must have used a different entrance. The delicate nature of the orbus probably lent itself better to a more open path. This one was narrow and a bit grown over. But our best guess at the rituals location meant that this was the closest place to park Vlad.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Visine replied.

We jumped out of the car and started making our way up the trail. After a very short time the path split to the north and south. Our destination was to the east so we had to play bushmaster and travel through the woods. I couldn’t stop wondering how all of this linked to Visine.

“So, how do you think you and Le Fay are connected?” I whispered.

“No idea,” he replied quietly.

“You could be over a thousand years old.”

“Fifteen hundred if the connection goes back to Arthur’s court,” Visine stated.

“You look pretty good for you age,” I joked.

Visine gave a light chuckle and didn’t say anything else. We were moving quickly through the brush when I felt Vlad reach for contact. A moment later I heard his voice inside of my head.

“Hey Boss, I think the ritual started. I can feel something ahead of you,”
he said.

“Can you pinpoint it?” I asked.

“Just a general vibe. But I think it’s a hair south of your current line,”
he said.

“Thanks pal, let us know if you sense anything else.”

I gave Visine the course correction and let him know that the ritual had started. He grunted and continued on. He was in the lead since I knew from our previous dealings that his nanites gave him exceptional night vision. The full moon was low in the sky and the thick forest canopy blocked most of the helpful starlight. Although I couldn’t see nearly as well as Visine, I wasn’t blind.

A decade of running around in the dark let me know that my night vision was better than most. Whether because of special ninja training or just good genes, I can’t be sure. But whatever the reason my senses have always been pretty sharp. My feeling on the senses, especially the eyes, is that they are just another muscle in the body. If you train them, they will get stronger. Pushing my senses to their limits had saved my life more times than I could count. As we wandered through this dark forest I just hoped that they would once again serve me well.

After a few minutes Visine spotted something and stopped us. The distance was too far for me to make out anymore than a glow. But Visine cheated. His nanite-powered eyes not only gave him night vision they also allowed him to zoom in. Totally not fair. But since he had the super eyes it was his responsibility to tell me what he saw up ahead.

“I can see the circle,” he said.

“And what are we up against?”

“I only see the Servant and two ladies,” he said.

“The ones in the purple robes?”

“Can’t be sure, they’re currently naked,” he replied matter of factly.

“Dammit, do you know how distracting it is to fight naked women? Please tell me that they are ugly.”

Visine just gave a snort and starting walking towards the circle. The closer we got the more detail I could make out. The rocks themselves could have been called Stonehedge Jr.
 
They were big light-gray slabs, about seven feet tall, situated in a perfect circle. The interiors of the rocks were glowing with a white light and providing the illumination. Arching over the top, the light actually put a cap on the henge as if creating a translucent dome. The circle looked to be about fifty feet across which gave the girls plenty of room to dance about its interior.
 

Standing in the center was a frail looking man presumably known as The Servant of the Lady. He was middle aged with pale blotchy skin. Short brown hair circled his head just above his ears leaving the top completely bald. He wore thick, red, flowing robes that seemed to be blowing back as if he was standing in the wind. In front of him was a large metal frame, cube shaped, and as tall as he was. Dozens of metal struts made up the box like shape and held a bowling ball sized sphere suspended in the middle. The sphere pulsed with a red light, each of the connecting rods also glowing red in an alternating pattern with the sphere. This was obviously the orbus.