My Path to Magic (15 page)

"We received neither complaints," the coordinator pulled himself together, "nor certified testimonies.  One might as well start a conspiracy case!"

Baer imagined peasants that suffered a great deal from the cleaners' meanness "greeting" NZAMIPS agents, and he silently sympathized with the coordinator: his people, carrying out their duty, felt spit at up and down.  It remained to be seen how they intended to look for the mage, with no statement or witness testimony...

"We don't have an imprint of his aura," Ms. Kevinahari added to the conversation.  "He uses a portable altar and the most basic spells and always thoroughly destroys all traces of divination.  Even if we get a search warrant, unlikely we will find any specific proof."

"The prudent son of a bitch," Mr. Satal sighed.

"By the way, he is a good psychologist, too," the empath seemed to be amused by the difficulties before her colleagues.  "For a dark, it is a very rare skill!  Nobody saw him without a black coat, leather shoes, a handbag and, more recently, a cane.  These flashy attributes of the profession attract all the attention:  the witnesses who agreed to speak with us cannot describe his facial features or even his hair color."

"Perhaps he doesn't operate alone?" Locomotive suggested cautiously.

"Can you picture a cohesive team of dark magicians?" the coordinator hummed.  "No, his style is too unique, precisely because of his elusiveness.  The guy works not only with magic, but with people as well:  he says what they want to hear, does what they expect from him.  He is so convincing in this role that even the white don't feel false; on the contrary, they would rather not trust the police.  You have no idea how difficult it is for a dark to achieve this!"

Captain Baer had some ideas.

"That is," he concluded, "you can only catch him red-handed."

"That's it.  The county's office is now trying to find his contacts."

Locomotive figured that Mr. Satal would wait for a long time for the results from his old friend Yudter: the chief of the county's "cleaners", being a seasoned pro, didn't fear resignation and criticized the politics of the capitol's authorities, using foul language.  He would need to talk to the old man in person; acting together, they would be able to prevent the bloody denouement of the story.  The captain didn't doubt for a moment that the end would be bloody.  After the mage's arrest he would petition the court to mitigate the punishment and, perhaps, even offer the enterprising guy a full-time position at NZAMIPS.  But he had to be found first.

"Have you already got some details?" the captain asked.

Ms. Kevinahari took the floor again: "We were able to establish that our smart guy uses public transit for traveling; the analysis showed that the starting point of his routes was, most likely, Redstone.  In addition, we noticed certain periodicity in his actions; for example, he never goes to clients on Wednesday.  We may, of course, suggest some sort of superstition, but most likely he is engaged in some legitimate work at this time."

Redstone!  That's why they came to him.  Locomotive tried to figure out which one of his charges could have gotten involved in this venture and shook his head: "Redstone is a big town; there are a lot of dark magicians here.  Furthermore, there's the university.  This guy just needs to change clothes to mix with townsfolk."

Mr. Satal reluctantly nodded: "We have a chance to track him down at the station—a man in a black coat, with a cane and handbag should be eye-catching."

"How many people do you intend to involve in surveillance?" Captain Baer said half-heartedly, weighing his resources.

"Two!"  Ms. Kevinahari calmed him down.  "It would look strange if I wait at the station alone, without a companion."

In a quarter of an hour they had created a plan for the operation.  Locomotive admitted that an ambush with the empath's participation was the surest means of solving the problem.  The coordinator himself wasn't going to take part in the ambush, but he couldn't wait—his eyes thirsted for action.  Captain Baer hoped that Mr. Satal would direct his energy at the county's "cleaning" service.  The guard on duty, who replaced the captain's secretary, called the garage for a car.  The fierce coordinator and his empath were shown out to the hotel.

When thick cabinet doors closed behind the visitors, Mr. Vosker loudly gasped; the senior analyst of Redstone's NZAMIPS was a nervous man that grew pale simply upon hearing the words "dark magician".  Meeting with the new boss made the poor man lose heart.

Inspector Shtoss cleared his throat: "Hmm, a very energetic man."

Captain Baer just smiled: "He is exactly what is needed to whip Colonel Grokk into shape.  Listen," he turned to Hamirson, and the lieutenant melancholically raised his eyebrow, "Do not do any favors for the county's "cleaners", and order your people the same.  Everything should go through me!  All inquiries should bear signatures, all papers—endorsements.  The same applies to the rest of you."

His subordinates nodded with understanding. 

"Grokk will twitch now like a man hanged on a rope; I hope he won't drag us with him!"

* * *

In the evening the NZAMIPS' office was empty and quiet.  Mr. Satal marched proudly to the exit door, glancing disapprovingly at tubs of ficus plants and flowerpots; his empath kept an impenetrable silence.  The coordinator broke their quiescence first: "What a sleazebag," he said through his teeth.  "How did he manage to become an officer with such a mug?"

Ms. Kevinahari smiled slyly, but her voice was serious and reserved: "Conrad Baer has been with NZAMIPS longer than I've been alive, achieved a perfect career record, liquidated an incident in Nintark, and was awarded a medal twice.  A skilled and responsible manager."

"How does his current behavior fit with the massacre in Nintark?" the coordinator snorted.

"He showed no enthusiasm today," the empath admitted, "but I cannot say that he does not understand the problem.  Rather, the captain chooses the lesser evil.  Obviously, the situation with the supernatural is so serious that he is willing to pay for twenty successful expulsions with lives of the mage and those nearby."

"What a bastard."

"He is cynical," the empath agreed, "tends to manipulate others, but he is dedicated to his job.  He will go after our guy."

"He wouldn't dare not to."

"I would like to point out to you that any reference to the 'cleaners' causes inadequate reaction in all respondents."

"You bet!" Mr. Satal almost spat in a fit of temper.  "I'll be damned if any of those scams remain in the service!"

"The capitol is partially guilty," Ms. Kevinahari recalled.  "We should have foreseen that ten years of peace would badly impact the team that was made up entirely of dark magicians."

"They had enough fun for the last three years, the frequency of manifestations has been quite high."

The empath did not argue.  Mr. Satal paused on the porch steps, intently eyeing the street, as if expecting to see the man wearing a black coat and a cane.

"I haven't been here since the day of my graduation," he said quietly.  "Nothing has changed.  The province, what else can I say?!"

"Would you like to change anything?" Ms. Kevinahari moved her head.

The senior coordinator paused before replying.  A tram rolled along the neighboring street, banging and clanging; soft music was heard from the pub on the corner.  Second-shift NZAMIPS' staff was leaving the office with relief, excitedly discussing something—it was Friday.

"No, I wouldn't," the magician said very seriously.

They did not discuss this question further.

Chapter 11

"An incredible monster—huge, black, and one-eyed—raced down the road, frantically snarling.  Blinded by the light of the evil pupil, a child stood stock-still, barely seeing a brave knight that sat on the back of the monster and firmly held the creature by the horns.  Having noticed the boy, the beast reared; then, tamed by a firm hand, the beast obediently froze after roaring one last time.

'I am a dark magician.  Who called me?' a stentorian voice resounded.

'There are... dead... many..."

'Show me!' a fearless magician commanded sternly, grabbing his crosier with right hand and a magic valise with left.

The boy seemed to hear the magician mutter under his breath something like, 'Every time in deep shit' but, obviously, it was a sound hallucination."

I could not read further.  Ms. Fiberti was crying from laughter.

"Who wrote this... such..."  I had many epithets for the content of the article in
The Western Herald
, but they were all quite obscene.

"What do you want, Thomas?  Not every day a dark magician can stop an army of ghosts!"

"What crosier, damn it?  I had a cane, a walking stick!  I thought it would be handy to cope with furious dogs."

"A cane and a crosier are similar things.  Oblong..."

"How about the valise?  Where did they take the valise from?"

"The magic valise," Ms. Fiberti giggled again.

"Other magicians will be reading that!  The dark ones!  I look like a complete idiot in there!"

"Don't worry; they haven't mentioned your name.  Imagine what people will say about 'cleaners' after that!"

I pictured how tough combat mages from the "cleaning" service would be reading that nonsense... and neighed like a horse for ten minutes, unable to stop.

Although the situation did not seem quite so funny last week.

That day started badly: the route I planned out on the map did not match what was in the area.  One of the selected roads simply didn't exist; the other one ended in a ruined bridge.  There were no people coming from the opposite direction; in short, all of the attributes of a "bad place" were present.  Mindful of how bold travelers end their life, I did not try to go straight through the low ground, overgrown with rotten wood and, making a huge roundabout, approached the target of my trip from the diametrically opposite side.  With a powerful engine and new tires, I reached the place long before the onset of darkness.  And why my motorcycle always has a headlight on, you already know.

I drove along a broken dirt road in the late afternoon, seeing the property on the hill exactly as described by the caller, and I was happy that I didn't have to spend the night in the field.  Suddenly, a kid jumped on the road out of nowhere.  A motorcycle is not a limousine; I could pass a pedestrian even on a very narrow road, but it was a risky move on the boy's part, anyway.  I stopped and counted to ten.  What would have happened if I had touched the kid with the shields?  They stuck out for half a meter from the base and could hit hard.  After some thought, I decided that the boy was sent to meet me and asked him: "Have you called a dark mage?"

The boy was pale, shaking; his shirt and pants were ripped with blood spots in front and on the back.  Furthermore, one was struck with the impression that his clothes were torn with teeth.  This misfortune looked at me and murmured: "Dead, dead, they're all dead!"

I thought some kids had been hit by a spell while playing.  Familiar story - pitiful, but nothing could be done.  I grabbed my gripsack and cane (the latter because there were always dogs on bigger farms) and pulled the string, converting my jacket into the coat—a typical military clothes' modification.

"Well, show the way," I told the kid calmly.

As far as I remember, I even took the time to apply the cleansing spell to my clothes.  The owner of the estate was an ambitious man from a big city; you could not come in dirty shoes to a guy like that!

Why should I be nervous?  I did not know at that time that zombies had been slaughtering the inhabitants of the estate for three generations in a row, and the day before a "cleaner" came in and awakened all the nonlife around.  I walked to the house and suddenly noticed three
ghoul
s, approaching me from the opposite direction.  They were typical fully matured undead, dripping with green juice, a head taller than any man, with claws and fangs of the size that no living being could possess in principle.  Moreover, they were moving despite the day time, very quickly, and I had neither a drafted pentagram ready, nor a flame-thrower in hand.

Students learned combat curses only in their senior year, at the very end of their studies, as juniors, we practiced how to call and hold basic spells, but the deadly threat fantastically sped up my learning process.  Since the case with
Rustle
in the Prison Bay I knew how the combat curse should look (from the view of an objective observer).  Terrified, I squeezed out of myself some quivering form, crumpled it into a sort of
Shadow Sickle
, and crying: "Hishu hara!" tossed it into the
ghoul
s.

Naturally, my curse did not incinerate them, but I managed to delay the zombies; in some places, where my weaving touched the monsters, their bodies were severed into long, stirring rag-like tentacles.  Not that it hurt them; rather, they were puzzled.  While they were deciding whether to fix themselves or stay cut up as they were, I grabbed the kid under my arm (all this time he was hiding behind my back) and ran away.

Students of Redstone University maintain good physiques!

I hid behind a shed and recalled that
ghoul
s only pursued objects visible to them (they were unable to keep images in their memory long enough).  I paused to take a breath and realized that I missed something:  there were four
ghoul
s, not three—the fourth being a dog, raised from the dead.

A quite fresh corpse.  It stood and watched.

When the creature was alive, it was a big, prick-eared dog of the kind farmers of the valley liked to keep.  The invasion of the supernatural had already changed the dog: its bones and muscles stretched, its skin burst in some places, and teeth protruded from its mouth.  Naturally, the otherworldly that had animated the dog did not want to cripple it; the supernatural just did not know—could not know—how to create a truly living thing.  The deviations were not strong yet—little time had passed since the death of the dog.  At the whim of the supernatural, a wave of pseudo-life touched not only the body, but also the brain of the animal (it doesn't happen often).  The animal even slightly wagged its tail.  While alive, the creature must have been very kind.  Now, it probably started feeling urge to tear and gulp living flesh to satisfy its hunger.  The dog used to take food from people's hands, and it wasn't so crazy yet as to hunt them down.