Tesser: A Dragon Among Us (A Reemergence Novel) (7 page)

"One last thing. You will totally be able to recognize him by his eyes."

"His eyes?" Henry asked.

"Yeah. They’re like golden, or like super brown or something. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like that before. Okay, well that's it. Thanks!" The girl hung up before Henry could take down her personal information or thank her for the call.

Terrific. Now the naked hobo is a foreigner with weird eyes who likes cheap Back Bay pizza. Anything's better than nothing, I suppose.

Henry shooed the young kid back inside the apartment building and proceeded to find an available cruiser. He needed to get back to the station so he could change and fill out the paperwork for the raid. He would follow up on the phone tip as soon as he was done.

Chapter Nine

Abe Fellows

Abe sat alone at a desk in a study that had been assigned to him by Mr. Doyle. The room was sumptuous, the desk made of cherry. Everything felt old.

Daft Punk blared in Abe's ears through high quality headphones. The melodic, electronic music thumped and pulsated. Abe's left index finger tapped on the desk to the beat. Abe's right index finger operated a computer mouse as his eyes scanned webpage after webpage for something… special.

Something weird. Something new. Something magical.

Abe's first stop on his internet adventure at the behest of Mr. Doyle was a series of websites dedicated to the mystical and magical. These were the first sites that he'd stumbled on years ago that awoke his still-budding magical talent.

He could thank the internet for bringing his magic to life.

The first site he visited was the one most likely to have chatter, but the least likely to produce anything meaningful. It was called Wizard's, Warlocks, and Sorcerers, though its domain name was something entirely innocuous. WWS, as those in the know called it, was a forum dedicated for people to share their work in the magical arts. Hedge mages who could only work the barest of spells were the primary attendants there, but sometimes they saw something real and powerful.

The talk on WWS was heightened and excited, not because one of them had seen something specific, like the reappearance of an incredibly powerful artifact, but because they
all
had seen something. Their magic was growing. Each of the meek spell casters had seen his or her own ability to wield the arcane art grow in the preceding weeks. One mage had only started to study reputable texts a week prior and was already able to wield a fledgling form of telekinesis.
 

Man, what a lucky asshole.

The rest of WWS was crap. Nothing of note. No sightings, no truly substantial revelations worth telling Mr. Doyle about.

Daft Punk gave way to Death Cab for Cutie.

Abe's second internet destination was The Delphian Covenant.
 

The Major Leagues, baby.

Abe would never dare to shorten The Delphian Covenant to The DC, not even in the secluded sanctum of his head. The circle of warlocks that operated The Delphian Covenant would know if he did. He wouldn't dare risk their wrath, however unlikely it was.

The Delphian Covenant was a news site dedicated to the arcane. Seven male warlocks worked for the site as the modern day, magical equivalent of journalists. Abe's favorite writer was a man named Oliver Douglas. Oliver was a well-spoken man and an excellent writer, as well as a successful practitioner of water-based magic. Some of the other spell casters that had met Oliver claimed that he was able to use highly refined skills to walk on top of water and form tendrils of water, despite the overall waxing of all magical power in the world. Abe was jealous once more.

Oliver’s writing was focused on the magical occurrences of the European continent. His last article on The Delphian Covenant was about a circle of stones deep in the German forest that had begun to vibrate a few weeks ago. Abe had never heard of the stones. The date of the new vibration seemed to coincide with the morning that Abe was able to cast the telekinesis spell to turn off his cell phone. Oliver had taken some video of the circle of stones and of the interviews he'd done.

Bingo. Maybe this will be good.

Oliver spoke at length about the composition of the stones and their placement in relation to constellations and phases of the moon. He commented on how the stones seemed to be vibrating in varying frequencies. There were seven gray stones, each the size of a modern refrigerator, and all but one was vibrating. Local mages filled in the back-story as they stood in front of the circled granite obelisks, with the voice-over English translation courtesy of Oliver.

"The Seven Stones of the Black Forest have always vibrated in some fashion. Six of the stones have vibrated for a very long time, you see, centuries, millennia. One of the stones stopped vibrating about ten years ago, and that happened just before all the magic began to fade away," said a middle-aged German woman. She was clearly from the area and looked halfway between elated and terrified.

"The sixth stone was the stone that stopped vibrating a decade ago. But just now, just this summer, the seventh stone began to vibrate once more." She turned and pointed at a stone that had a faint glimmer of gold to it. As Oliver zoomed in on the seventh stone, Abe caught traces of actual gold filigree laced into the granite. The stone itself was beyond beautiful up close. Oliver panned his handheld camera to each of the other stones, and in turn, each stone revealed its own strange and beautiful quality. One had similar veins of a red substance that looked like iron, whereas one stone had scattered bits of an amber-colored gem embedded into it. Each obelisk was unique. The sixth stone, the silent stone, had amethyst in it.

"The two most remarkable stones are the water stone and the fire stone." The woman gestured to two stones arranged conspicuously from one another in the circle. To the west was a stone that was unremarkable in any way, save for a small hole in the center of its peak that issued forth a gentle stream of water. The water cascaded down the stone, covering it in what looked to be a glossy film of water.
 

The Water Stone.

To the south was the other extra-remarkable stone. The German sorceress skimmed some of the water off the side of the Water Stone and brought it to the south stone, and emptied her hand atop it. The water sizzled, popped, and steamed immediately.

That thing has to be boiling hot to the touch.

"The Fire Stone is boiling hot to the touch," the German woman said.
 

Abe sighed.

"There seems to be an elemental correspondence to the stones?" Oliver asked in German.

"There is. To the North is the Earth Stone and to the East, the Air Stone."

Abe looked at the other three stones arranged about the circle. One was the dead amethyst stone. The other two were the golden- and amber-filled stones. Something very strange rang in Abe's mind about that trio of stones mixed into the seven. Something about their placement made his mind buzz, like seeing an unsolved puzzle for the first time.

Very strange.

The rest of the interview gave more back-story to the forest and to the group of people who had protected the circle. Abe listened intently, but found nothing in the interview that made his brain click.

Facebook changed that.

Abe was assaulted immediately when he logged in. He had three new friend requests from people he'd met at the Friday Night Magic Card tourney the week prior, and he accepted all of them once he recognized the names.
 

Nerd unity.

He had two messages to read as well. One was from a former coworker asking how he was doing since quitting and the other was from a girl he'd been flirting with for months. She almost seemed interested and that was a great sign for Abe.

I wish I had to balls to just fucking ask her out.
Abe took a sip from a near-empty can of Red Bull.

He had several notifications as well, and most of those were people liking something he posted, or commenting on a status that he'd put his two cents in on already.
 

Inane bullshit.

 
Death Cab for Cutie transitioned into Porter Robinson, but after a couple songs, he switched to Lynryd Skynryd.

One of the notifications did manage to catch his eye. A local friend he'd gone to BC with had tagged Abe in a post.
 

Naked Vigilante Hobo, eh?

Abe grinned and clicked on it.

In the status update, there was a link to one of the local news stations. Abe read the brief article speaking about a man who'd intervened and stopped a potential rape, then clicked on the triangle and started the video.

He laughed at first, but as the dark video came near to closing, something made Abe pause the video.

What the…?

Abe rewound a few moments of the black and white video and watched it again.
 

No way.

He repeated the process once more. Then twice.

"Mr. Doyle!" Abe yelled as he pulled his headphones off. The loud southern rock escaped into the study and within seconds Mr. Doyle was yelling back.

"Turn off that infernal racket, Abraham! That music is likely rotting both our brains right at this very moment!" Mr. Doyle was pissed.

"Sorry! I've got something, Mr. Doyle. I think this might be something special. You need to see it."

"I'm coming!" The older wizard hollered back from up the hall.

Abe reopened browser windows pointed at Oliver Douglas' articles on The Delphian Covenant and left the video feed of the naked man open as well. When Mr. Doyle arrived, he had turned off the music and was ready to make his presentation.

"What is it?" The British man asked as he leaned over the back of the expensive leather chair.
 

He smells like old books.
 

"I've been researching all day, as you asked," Abe said confidently.

"Good. You’ve found something?"

"Yeah. I saw this video about The Seven Stones of the Black Forest earlier. Have you heard of them?"

Mr. Doyle nodded knowingly, "Yes. I've been to them once. Right as the Second World War came to a close. I was in Germany with the Allied forces working against Hitler's occult teams. There is nothing new about the stones."

Once again, the man shows his true age.

Abe sighed again. "Well, if you recall, only six of the stones have vibrated continuously, and about ten years ago, when the magic began to fade, one of the stones stopped vibrating, right?"

"Yes, that seems so." Mr. Doyle seemed irritated by the old news.

"Well, it appears that the very same day that I cast my Commoveo spell, we had that earthquake that fucked up the Green Line, and you asked me to quit my job, the seventh stone, the one that has never vibrated… began to vibrate."

Mr. Doyle leaned forward, suddenly very interested. "Continue."

"The Seventh Stone is the gold stone," Abe said as he brought up the video of the naked man from the other night. "I just saw this on Facebook. A friend sent me the link. At first it seemed like nothing, but watch."

Mr. Doyle leaned in even closer to get a good look at the small video. Abe made it full screen, and the older man seemed satisfied. Abe watched Mr. Doyle's face as the security camera footage played on.

The British man's eyes went wide.

"Play it again."

Abe did as he asked.

"Play it again."

Abe played the video a third time.

"This is a black and white video, yes? Absent of color?"

"Yes. It was taken from an ATM across the street. Pure happenstance, really. I think it's connected, Mr. Doyle. I've got a very strong feeling about it."

Mr. Doyle nodded, slowly at first, but then emphatically. "Yes, my apprentice, I do believe you are on to something. Please, continue your search, but focus it on the naked man exclusively. I believe he might be very, very important. Fine work, Abraham. Bloody fine work." Mr. Doyle stood straight and walked from the room.

He's walking really hard.

"Mr. Doyle, are you alright?" Abraham asked, concerned.

The old man turned. He looked far older than he ever had before. "The spells that have sustained my life for so long are failing, Abraham. The years will be catching up with me before long, I suspect. Hopefully, we can sort this out and I am able to refresh the spells, though I feel that my time here is near its end no matter what comes of the magic." Mr. Doyle looked sad.

"What are you going to do now?" Abraham asked.

"I'm going to research the Seven Stones. I have a few Germanic texts on them that might shed more light on the vibrations and their meaning."

Abe nodded.

"Bloody, bloody good work, Abraham. You'll make a fine mage one day," Mr. Doyle said softly before turning and walking out of the office.

Abe sighed for the hundredth time and turned back to the computer monitor.
You know, that was the biggest compliment he's ever given me.
With a fresh smile, he hit play on the video once again and paid very close attention to the naked man's eyes.