NEW CHAPTER: Urban Fantasy 2x07 "Transkey to your Freedom" presented by 99geek.ca

I'm sorry this was hours late. Editing took longer than expected cause I didn't get any sleep, and then passed out halfway through editing.

To make it up to you, next month is going to be a special "Anti-Valentine's day" episode of Aldonn Chronicles, as Penelope discovers an underground criminal child sex trafficking ring that involves the use of love potions. So that should be fucked up. And very anti-valentines day. It'll be a very "Love is bad and I feel dirty" kinda thing. And my hope is to release it early for the holiday, but as with this episode, I might miss the deadline, so don't get disappointed when I do. But it will be early, nevertheless, and that will be my apology for being late here. Hope you accept.

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Previously on Urban Fantasy:

Rachel Lin Smith was just a normal shy teenage girl until she was turned into a vampire against her will by an evil serial killing monster. Escaping from his perverted clutches, she was able to put a stop to his reign of terror with the help of her geeky friends, who have been working hard to re-acclimate her to her old human life. Her friends include the most popular girl in school Tanya Daytton (Daughter of the mayor and real name Shawna Dixon) and her childhood best friend, the pudgy and geeky Ian Fletcher. The only thing her two best friends have in common is their love for her.

Her other friends include the smart-mouthed loser geek Andrew Grezzy, the cowardly and fussy Bilal Valenca, the gentle giant genius Charlie Gordon, the military obsessed Jason Stride, the sports fan with his brothers car Mike Jones, and Tanya’s best friend Alice. There’s also been two new kids in town, a teen with Synesthesia Jon Mason, and his loyal protector, government experiment Erika Sannik. Together they fought to protect Tanya’s Time Travelling father Joseph Dixon from a cult that believed he was a prophesized wizard meant to bring magic back to the world, a force long lost to the ages. While they succeeded at protecting the mayor, they also got their asses kicked, and Rachel was taken, leaving the rest of the gang helpless.

 

2x07 “Transkey to your Freedom”

Released on www.patreon.com/99geek in January 2019

“I thought I sent you to Canada,” Robert Daggers said slowly, fidgeting with a letter opener in his hands as he stared absentmindedly out the window at the brilliant green grass of his house’s front lawn. “And last I checked the White house wasn’t in Canada.” He would know, having just returned from Canada after a less than successful diplomatic mission, and an even less successful interview.

The President of the United States turned around in his chair to face his two well suited lackeys. “So why ARE you here?” He looked from the blonde woman to the bald man, both in black ties and even blacker shades. “Did you find them?”

“We could find no sign of them,” Special Agent Greta said, her head bowed so that her long blond locks covered her pale face. “We’ve had our men spread out throughout the Greater Toronto Area. It’s possible they could be on the move.”

“If you gave us more resources,” Special Agent Brody said beside his partner, “we would stand a better chance of finding the escapees.”

“You have all the men you need, Special Agent,” Bob Daggers said spitefully. “Your incompetence does you no favors.” The last thing he needed was to expand his secret agency of genetically engineered super agents so much as to have to go public with the whole thing. Conspiracy theories would only go off the rails with their crazed ramblings. Of course many of them would be right. But that was beside the point.

“Return to our northern ally and redouble your efforts, but keep a low profile,” he told them, his gaze drifting past them to a TV set up in the oval office. “We’re only allowed one chance to make a move. We have to make it count.”

On the TV there seemed to be a story developing in a sleepy Canadian suburb. It seemed that suburb was showing up on the international news quite a lot lately.

“Sir,” the bald agent Brody insisted. “If she doesn’t want to be found, we’re never going to find her.”

“Is that so, Special Agent?” Daggers said, a satisfied grin on his face as he paused the news footage live from the scene. “If she is so hard to find, then how was I able to do so from behind my very desk.”

The two agents turned around, as the president zoomed in on his footage. It was of the Oakville city hall, the glass walls shattered in places after what seemed like a large battle. And lying in the debris behind a tall butch brown haired girl was the unmistakable pale face and dark black hair of his number one patient.

“Wherever she is,” the President said with glee, “The boy is never too far away. Return to Canada. Find them both. Learn what you can of their new friends. Where they are hiding, their strengths and their weaknesses.” He crossed his fingers, placing his hands on his desk. “Report back to me, and we shall strike with such surgical precision that by the time they know they’re under attack, they’ll already be safe in our custody.” He glowered at both of them. “Do not engage before then. Incompetence will not be forgiven again.”

Greta gave a visible shudder, the both of them only too aware of the suffering he was capable of bestowing. Neither of them wanted to go back to their dark cells. And the experiments. Fearfully, they both retreated from the room, never once taking their eyes off him until they were out of sight.

*     *     *

Everyone’s eyes were on Tanya as she stormed back into the ruins of the city hall.

“This is your fault,” Tanya said, pointing at her father on the escalator, salty tears stinging at her eyes. “It’s your fault she’s gone.” She reached down to help Erika to her feet, the older teen hurt bad. She groaned and then screamed as Tanya got her to her feet, but with Tanya’s support it seemed Erika could still walk.

“I understand your upset daughter,” he told her. “But running against me for mayor? Don’t we have more important things to worry about? Like keeping me alive?” Of course, even after everything that happened he’d still only be thinking about himself.

Tanya opened her mouth, but a different voice rang out from the second floor overlook. “You monster,” Hana Lin yelled at the mayor before Tanya could, throwing an iPad at him. The device collided with his head and he fell the remaining steps to the ground, landing heavily on his back.

“You promised me my family would be safe!” Hana Lin insisted, storming down the stairs. There was gasps from the crowd of people outside, as they rushed past Alice to get inside and see for themselves what the commotion was about.

“You trusted the word of this guy,” Erika asked, her voice unsteady as she winced from the pain. “He’s a weasel.”

“I promise you,” Tanya said, limping to Hana with an arm still around Erika, and taking the mother’s hand, “I will do everything I can to find your daughter and bring her back safe.”

There was an empathetic sigh from the crowd of people gathering around them, and Tanya became acutely aware of the news cameras pointed at her. A couple people started to applaud.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said with a shrug. “They weren’t interested in anything I wanted to say.”

“All right,” the short Detective Dae Daniels said, stepping down the escalator with her badge in hand. “Everyone better clear out of here I’m deeming this place structurally unsound until we can get some inspectors in here to scope out the damage.” She looked down at the mayor with disdain. “That means everyone, sir.”

“And what if they come after me again?” the mayor yelled across the lobby at Tanya as she tried to carry Erika to the exit.

Tanya spotted something on the floor amongst the broken glass shards. It was Rachel’s sword and sheathe. Tanya let go of Erika against a wall to pick up both, sliding the small blade into its scabbard, and touching the glowing diamond on its hilt.

“Let them come,” she said with resolution. Grabbing Erika, they limped down the front steps of the city hall to her car.

“Your future mayor everyone,” Alice said quickly with a clap, hurrying after them before they left without her.

*     *     *

Deisha was giving another speech, this time in the front hall like she’d originally wanted to. “Some people are born with the vision for real change,” Deisha said from the front stairs of the school as everyone on lunch gathered around her. “Some people, like myself, think that this school deserves better.”

She spotted Bilal watching from behind the crowd, and she sneered at him. He tried to shrink behind the pillar he’d been leaning on, but it was no use. “Some people running just care about basketball and making ridiculous promises.”

The crowd turned around to stare at Bilal, who quickly stepped in front of the pillar to hide that he’d just been hiding. “Do you have a rebuttal?” someone in the crowd asked him.

This was his chance. The whole school was looking to him, and he couldn’t let them down. “I say there’s nothing wrong with a little Basketball,” he said loudly, “And I’m hosting an 8 o clock showing of Space Jam right here, upstairs in the science lab. Anyone can come and watch, ask me some questions, enjoy some microwavable popcorn, and I’ll describe there in greater detail how I will be the best student president ever.”

“You moron,” Deisha said with a laugh from her high ground, five steps above everyone. “There’s play rehearsals tonight, and our soccer team has a huge practice. Yearbook club has a meeting, Student Council candidates are working on their campaigns, Grade twelve tech classes have a huge assignment due tomorrow they’re all staying all night to finish, and Grade Nines have a dance in the cafeteria. Everyone’s busy tonight, and no one’s gonna go to your stupid Space Jam party.”

Bilal crossed his arms. “Well my party isn’t for those people. The people with clubs, and events, and things to do. My party is for the people who have nothing better to do on a Friday night.”

Maybe seven people cheered, but everyone else turned back towards Deisha.

“And there you go,” Deisha said with a sneer. “Our future student council president. Representing the nobodies, or maybe just nobody.” She laughed and a number of people laughed with her.

“I’ll come,” Danny McGreed said, the bully approaching Bilal so fast that he flinched. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he insisted, his arm in a sling as it was.

“You’re gonna destroy my Space Jam party?” Bilal asked him.

“No,” Danny insisted. “I just… Rachel’s gonna be there right? You’re friends with Rachel.”

Bilal’s jaw dropped. “Sure,” he said. “Sometimes. But no she probably won’t be at my space jam party.”

“Is she single?” Danny asked, leaning in close.

Bilal shook his head, giving a deep sigh. “No,” he told the bully. “She is very far from single.”

*     *     *

“Let them come,” Andrew watched Tanya say on the TV for the twentieth time. Suddenly the door to their headquarters swung open fast, and Alice and Tanya came into the room both supporting Erika between them.

“What the hell happened out there?” Gordon yelled from downstairs, taking the stairs from his basement two at a time. Reaching the top, his black bald head peered around the corner.

“What does it look like,” Erika complained, as Andrew moved so the girls could place Erika gingerly on her stomach on the couch. “We got our asses spanked.”

“I’d pay to see that,” Andrew muttered. Jon came down the stairs from his room.

“Erika!”

“I’m okay!” She insisted. “I think I just sprained something in my back.”

Alice lifted the older teen’s shirt. “Where does it hurt?”

“What are you, a licensed chiropractor?” Erika muttered, her voice uneven from the pain. Jon gave Erika a pitying look, and she scowled at him. “Here,” she said, pointing to a part on her back.

“There’s a bundle of nerves there,” Alice said, massaging at Erika’s back. “You’ve probably upset them. They seem really swollen.”

“So kinda like a sprain,” Erika said, “Like the textbook definition of a sprain. Like I’m not a fucking moron.”

“Would you stop moving,” Alice insisted.

Erika pressed her face into the couch and moaned loudly. “That feels good, ah now it hurts.”

“Stop fussing.”

Jon leaned down beside Erika’s head and offered her a couple Tylenol. “Will these help?” Erika took them from him hungrily.

“Almost as good as a beer,” she said as she swallowed.

“Well we don’t have any of that,” Andrew said, looking around, “considering we’re all underage.”

There was a scream from a mirror on the back wall where Tanya seemed to be trying to straighten her nose.

“Your nose looks a little crooked too actually,” Alice said, looking at Erika’s face.

“It’s fine,” Erika said quickly as Tanya choked back tears and doubled over. “It can heal crooked for all I care.” She moaned again as Alice pressed down on what must have been a sensitive spot on her back.

“So,” Jason said, getting up from the armchair where he had been watching everything, and letting Tanya take his place as she painfully cradled her ribs. “What the hell happened out there? Where’s Rachel?”

“It was some sort of cult,” Erika said shaking her head. “There were so many of them.”

“Apparently they call themselves the Tempus Cult,” Tanya said, glancing around the room. “They believe that one day a time travelling mayor from the past will come to present day, and they hope to use him to bring magic back to the world.”

“I’m doing a search,” Gordon said, grabbing a wireless keyboard from the table and turning the TV into a computer screen with the push of a button.

“You’re not going to find anything,” Tanya insisted. “They’ve been hiding in secret for decades.”

“What I don’t get,” Erika said from the couch, “if they’ve been hiding for so long, how are there so many of them? It must be hard to recruit without any PR. Or a website.” She straightened, sitting up painfully and shaking Alice off her. “We were winning for a while there,” she said reminiscently. “Like five hundred and oh.”

“But some of them were stronger than the rest,” Tanya said.

“Stronger how?” Jason asked.

“They had cool weapons,” Erika said. “Like weird medieval shit.”

“I’m still listening,” Jason said, his interest obviously piqued.

“They had a vampire,” Tanya grumbled.

“I’m crapping my pants,” Andrew said, only mostly joking.

“Their leader was strong too though,” Tanya said. “But he wasn’t a vampire.”

“Cool. What about the vampire?” Jason asked, clearly fixated.

“He was a samurai,” Tanya said.

“That leader though,” Erika said, leaning her head back painfully to rest against the couch. “He sure seemed strong like a vampire.”

“Okay,” Jason said. “Can we focus on that samurai vampire though. Was he an actual samurai?”

“He said his name was Christopher Dalish,” Tanya said, ignoring Jason. “Rather boastfully in fact.”

“I’m doing a search,” Gordon said, opening another tab.

“The samurai?” Jason asked.

“No,” Erika said. “The leader. I don’t remember the vampire saying his name.”

“I think he was speaking with an Australian accent,” Tanya said. “But a really peculiar one.”

“The samurai?” Jason asked.

“No,” Tanya said sharply, “Jesus Christ Jason, shut up.” Andrew wasn’t surprised. Jason could get a little excited about history.

“I’ve found something,” Gordon said, and Andrew turned with everyone else to the TV. Gordon brought up a map of Australia. “The Dalish family is one of the oldest and richest Australian families, dating back to the earliest penal ships in the seventeen hundreds.”

 “They were originally from Spain,” Gordon said, tracing the lineage back further. News articles flashed up on the screen as Gordon quickly waded through the relevant from the unconnected. “Booted from Great Britain for starting a religion apparently. A religion that worshipped magic. They had a church right in the center of London.”

“I’m sure the establishment loved that,” Jason said, folding his arms. “That was around the time the higher classes were trying to expunge magic worship and superstition from the lower classes, and spread the enlightenment of rationality and scientific advancement. The modern era didn’t exactly come willingly. Methodists were among the expunged. You’d bet this cult would be too.”

“In Australia,” Gordon continued, pulling up three extremely old newspaper articles and highlighting the interesting parts, “eighteen hundreds, there’s legends of Reginald Dalish, said to be a master alchemist. Capable of brewing potions said to have miraculous effects, including healing properties, as well as other concoctions he kept for himself granting him the ability to pull off amazing feats.” He did a deeper search and pull up another article. “Including a potion that gave him immeasurable strength.”

“Ooo,” Andrew said, all the gears clicking into place in his mind. “He’s a Witcher.”

“A what?” Tanya asked.

Andrew looked around the room. “No one’s played the Witcher? It’s about these demon hunters who enhance their bodies using potions and poisons, keeping balances of chemicals in their blood just right to give them superhuman powers.”

“Like drug addicts,” Jason said from beside Tanya.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how drugs work,” Tanya added.

“No,” Andrew said to Jason. “I mean, I never thought of it like that. To be honest I found the whole potion mechanic annoying, but it was apparently very important to the lore. There’s a TV show coming starring Henry Cavill.”

“So,” Tanya said tapping her finger on the armrest of her chair. “Grand daddy Dalish came up with some superhuman serum, and his grandson has been juicing on the stuff.”

“Not grandson,” Gordon said, bringing up another webpage that was running through a search of public birth certificates. “Reginald Dalish had only one child. A Christopher Dalish. Born eighteen ninety four.”

Gordon pulled up a shot of a young Christopher Dalish from some piece of ID and Tanya got unsteadily up from her chair, tottering from the pain.

“That’s him.”

The man was gruff, even in his twenties he looked thirty or even forty. Weathered. “Drugs didn’t do his complexion any favours.” Andrew pointed out.

“I don’t get it,” Tanya said, leaning against Jason. “He’s older than my dad? Is he a time traveller too?”

“A lot of myths on alchemy,” Gordon explained to her, “revolved around prolonging life. Like with Nicholas Flamel in Harry Potter.”

“Was that the old guy with the hat?” Tanya asked, not taking her eyes off the screen.

“That’s Dumbledore,” Andrew corrected her. “You never actually see Nicholas Flamel, he’s just talked about.”

Tanya looked at Gordon. “Then why the hell did you think I would get that reference?”

“I’m sorry,” Gordon complained. “Lots of people have seen Harry Potter.”

“I saw the third one,” Tanya said with a shrug.

“That’s a good one,” Andrew complimented her.

Tanya nodded. “It was alright.”

“Basically Daddy Dalish probably gave his son an elixir of eternal youth,” Andrew explained, glancing at the screen and correcting himself. “Or eternal middle age I guess.” Tanya looked at him to go on. “So unlike your dad he actually lived through the nineteen hundreds the long way. Two world wars and a Vietnam.”

“How did his father die then,” Erika asked from the couch, paying attention though she didn’t stand with the rest of them.

“Spider bite,” Gordon said, pulling up a newspaper article from the early nineteen hundreds. “When he was in his late teens. Apparently he insisted it was murder, but the police couldn’t find any signs of foul play.”

“Remind me never to go to Australia,” Andrew muttered.

“It’s actually a pretty place,” Tanya insisted to him.

“Oh yeah,” Andrew said sarcastically. “With so many pretty things that can kill you.”

Gordon continued narrating as he browsed through all the information he could find. “It seems our friend Christopher Dalish moved to the United States shortly after that. The picture I found was taken from his passport given to him at Ellis Island.”

“Can you imagine living that long?” Jon asked, shaking his head.

“I can imagine one person who’s lived longer,” Jason said, turning to Tanya. “The vampire samurai.”

“I think Dalish said his name,” Erika said, her face twisting in her strain to remember. “Santana.”

Andrew laughed, and Jason crossed his arms. “A samurai named Santana,” Jason said with disbelief.

“Satoru,” Tanya corrected her and everyone looked at her.

“Satoru,” Gordon said, changing tabs. “A Samurai in the twelfth century Japan. There’s a cautionary tale known as the legend of the Ronin Satoru. He was a sworn samurai to a Daimyo who fell very ill.”

“What the hell’s a Dynamo?” Tanya asked.

“It means feudal lord,” Jason told her in a hushed tone.

“The Daimyo sent his men out in all directions in search for a cure,” Gordon continued, “None were successful but one.”

“Let me guess,” Erika said. “Our man Satoru.”

“He brings a creature to the Daimyo that promises the feudal lord eternal life,” Gordon read, “but his promises of a cure turned out to be more of a curse. The Daimyo went mad, murdering his Samurai, and all their families. Satoru was the only one to survive, forced to bring down his Daimyo and end the monster’s rage. He did so, but not before the deaths of everyone in his clan, and not before being inflicted with the curse himself.”

“Anyone else here feeling bad for the guy?” Alice asked. Andrew started to raise his hand, but a look from Tanya made him lower it.

“I’m not,” she said, apparently in one of those moods. “He took Rachel.” Okay, so her mood was reasonable. “We have to figure out what we’re going to do to get her back.”

“I still need to figure out how to get off this couch,” Erika told Tanya. “Do we even know where they took her? Where they came from?”

“It all started with that spell,” Tanya said, falling back into her armchair.

Andrew jumped at her mention of magic. “A spell?” he asked.

“They like drew a thing in the lobby,” Erika said “Did something to some keys and then they made the doors lead wherever they wanted to.

“With the keys?” Andrew asked, trying to follow along. Gordon seemed to be hacking into the city hall security server and pulling up footage of the event.

“No,” Erika said with a shake of her head and a wince. “with different keys.” She told them. “I think those keys were for bringing them back.”

“So each key is imbued with a specific destination,” Andrew mused, making notes on his iPad.

“Don’t suppose you managed to grab one of their keys,” Jason suggested as Gordon rewound through the footage and stopped at a cultist opening a broom closet with a seemingly overstuffed keychain.

“Maybe if I could study one of their keys,” Gordon suggested, “I might be able to figure out how they’re pulling this off.”

“I’ll check with the police to see what they found at the scene,” Tanya told them. “What about Rachel’s cellphone? Can we track it?”

“Her mom has it,” Erika said, and Tanya’s jaw dropped. “Rachel left it with the protestors and I think Hana grabbed it on her way in.”

“Dammit,” Tanya swore.

The door opened suddenly, and Mike stormed in, cheering with pride. “It took me all day at the autoshop but my brother’s car is finally good as new.” Everyone turned to watch him. “That means no more bullet holes, new sunroof, new doors. Deep cleaned insides.”

Mike quickly read the room and stopped. “Okay what did I miss?”

“We’re down a heavy hitter,” Andrew told Mike. “And we’ve got an enemy trying to kill us.” What they needed was more allies. Wait, that was it.

“I have an idea,” Andrew said, and he pointed at Mike. “The two of us should go to Mississauga and pay our friend the wizard mayor a visit.” Surely the kindly old lady would be more than willing to help them out, and being an expert of magic she had to have heard of the Tempus cult before.

“That sounds safe enough,” Mike reasoned.

“And I’ll stay right here,” Erika said from the couch. “Maybe pop a couple Tylenol and pass out.”

“As long as you promise you’re not gonna try to leave again,” Jon complained to her, obviously getting something off his chest he’d been holding in the whole time. “They told me about how you wanted to run away.”

Andrew whistled. “Busted.”

Erika rolled her eyes. “I think we have bigger concerns right now,” she said. She reached her arm out for Jon, but couldn’t reach. Flailing, he finally stepped forward and grabbed her hand. “I can promise you I’m not going anywhere, at least for a little while.” Jon rolled his eyes and let go of her.

“Alright,” Tanya said with a nod to Andrew. “Then we both have jobs to do.” She put a hand on Andrew’s shoulder, and Andrew was surprised she was even willing to touch him. “Speed, boys. Time is against us.”

“I’ll stay here with Jason and keep digging for more information on this cult, Dalish, and Satoru,” Gordon told them.

“The whole time we’re chasing our tails looking for her,” Tanya said to everyone, “they could be doing god knows what to her. She means,” Tanya’s voice deepened, “Everything to me. And she’s depending on us to bring her home.”

“Hooraw,” Jason muttered.

“What do I do?” Jon asked, and he looked around at everyone, none of who met his eye.

Andrew finally suggested something, if no one else was going to step forward. “Head back to school and notify Bilal on what’s going on.” Bilal was after all the only member of their gang no accounted for. “Maybe he’ll have some ideas.” Andrew shrugged.

“Alice, you’re with me,” Tanya said, heading for the door. Andrew followed behind her.

“Mike!” he called to his friend. “We’re going on a roadtrip.”

*     *     *

“Where are we taking her?” a voice said in the darkness. “I thought the cells were down two floors.”

“They’re still getting em ready,” a second voice said. “ Re-enforcing the door. We’re to keep an eye on her till then. Make sure she don’t wake up.”

“But what do we do if she wakes up?” a third voice said, somewhere above her.

“Thens we forget the whole thing and we’s kill her,” the second voice said, somewhere at her feet.

“Good luck with that,” Rachel said, opening her eyes. All four robed cultists startled, each carrying a limb and dropping it in fright. She hit the ground on her back with a thud, and quickly jumped, flipping in the air and landing on the soles of her combat boots. The four of them surrounded her in what looked like a food storage room. Had they been about to throw her in the freezer?

“Come on then,” she said to them with a determined grimace. “What are you waiting for.” The four robed men pulled long black electric stun batons from their robes and ignited them. “Let’s play.”

The one to her far left attacked swinging his weapon like a sword. She blocked it at the base, below the electrode, and broke the man’s wrist. Pulling the electric prod free, she kicked him in the chest, sending him backward, then kicked the fourth one back as well just as he moved in to attack from her far right. She parried with her new electric stick thing as the middle two moved in on her.

The one on her right swung high and she blocked it while the other one tried to jab the electrodes of his weapon into her breast. She twisted her body to avoid him, grabbing his weapon and cracking his arm with her elbow. Now she had two sticks.

The cultist on her right came in again, and she blocked another one of his attacks with one of her stun batons, and jabbed him with the other, electrocuting him in place. Spinning, she found the one on her far right had stumbled behind her, and was about to jab her with his prod. She sweeped one baton down like the windshield washer on a bus to swipe his weapon aside, and then brought her weapon around and used her momentum to swing both her batons in a sweeping arc knocking him across his face and off his feet spinning to the floor.

She turned back around, unleashing a flurry of attacks on the remaining three cultists, easily knocking away their remaining weapon between the three of them, and raining heavy blows on them as if she were doing a drum solo in a heavy rock song. They barely took three hits each before they were all down for the count.

Standing over them, Rachel spun her weapons in her hands, and held them in reverse grips behind her back. Nodding in satisfaction, she made for the hallway. The batons weren’t her sword, but they would do in a pinch.

She seemed to be somewhere underground, what with the dirt walls and her inability to pick up any sounds of the outside world beyond the hallway ahead. She did, however, hear the heartbeats of at least five people just beyond her storage room.

All the fighting from earlier had made her hungry.

Stepping out into the dirt hallway, she decided to take the five men head on. It seemed like this entire underground installation had been shoddily excavated, with dim lights strewn along the walls.

The lighting was fine for her. She could see just fine in the dark.

The hallway was narrow, and the nearest cultist was down at the end of the corridor. He seemed like he’d been heading somewhere with four of his friends when they’d heard the commotion.

“Hey you!” he yelled at her, picking up his pace as they rushed single file down the tight corridor at her. Raising his fists, he swung a punch at her, but she dodged it and brought up her stun batons. Stabbing one into his chest, she dropped the first guy fast, even as the second guy came in with an attack of his own. She let go of her one baton and slapped his fist away with the other, but he tackled her into the wall. Dropping her other weapon as he lifted her off her feet, she grabbed the lights hanging above her, and yanked the string of them off the wall, wrapping them around the man’s neck. Choking him, the man dropped to his knees and Rachel tightened her hold on the rope.

Behind her, the third cultist in line bear hugged her, and swung her around to throw her heavily into the wall. As she flew through the air, she kicked out, clipping the fourth guy and knocking him into the fifth. She thudded against the wall and dropped to the floor hard. As she got back to her feet, the third was helping the second cultist do the same. Even the first robed man in line was recovering from the shock she’d hit him with.

Balling her hands into fists the third one came at her first. Blocking his attack with her arm pads, she hit him with a jab and turned to back hand the fourth attacker coming at her from behind. The third cultist grabbed her arm and she kicked the fifth attacker away, but the second in the line up kicked her in her body armor and sent her straight through a door into what looked like a tiny living space the size of a closet. There was barely room for a shoddy brown bed and a small wooden bedside table with a lamp.

She’d hit the door so hard she’d taken it off its hinges, and as she hit the floor, the third cultist tried to climb in after her. She stepped on the bent out of shape door, and the other end swung up knocking the third cultist out of the room and into the far wall. Two more stepped in to take his place as she got to her feet. It was four and two. The fourth cultist came at her first, punching her across the jaw as she kicked the man in the shin. The man dropped to his knees, and Rachel grabbed a lamp from the bedside, blocking two’s fist and then smashing the lamp over four’s head.

As four dropped to the ground, Rachel blocked another flurry of punches from the second man, and kicked him in the chest with the flat of her boot so hard that he flew across the small room and smashed through the wall into the hallway.

That just left one and five.

Rachel stepped back into the hallway, as Five apparently grabbed a mop. Charging at her with it, Rachel was surprised to find the fifth cultist was actually a woman. The woman landed a blow with the wooden mop against her armour, but Rachel easily broke the makeshift weapon with her elbow and threw the broken handle piece at the first cultist across the hall. Striking him in the head, he dropped hard.

The fifth cultist tried to stab Rachel in the chest with the broken mop piece she still held, but Rachel caught her arm and managed to knee the woman in the stomach. As the woman doubled over, Rachel punched her across the face and knocked her out in two. Cartwheeling over her and back down the hallway, she jump kicked the first man in the head before he could get up one last time and she landed in a crouch in a sea of bodies.

Lifting up the first cultist by the collar of his robes, he groaned and begged for her to release him, but she bit into his neck, sucking deep from his blood. He struggled at first, but as she drank away and her mind cleared, his struggling ceased. She let go of him, stopping herself from draining him dry. She wasn’t sure if she’d possessed that same strength of will a month ago, but she’d had a lot of practice drinking from people and not killing them since then.

Tanya. Ian.

Her friends were probably worried sick about her. Especially Ian. She had to make her way back to them, had to tell both Tanya and Ian how much she loved them both.

Closing her eyes, she tried to focus her vampire hearing, tried to pick out more of her surroundings. It was hard underground. The dirt did a lot to dampen the sounds around her. She tried to lie down on her chest, pressing her ear into the ground. It seemed the complex she was in was massive, her room on only one floor of an underground system that seemed to go on for stories both above and below her. She could hear the heartbeats of hundreds of people, if not even a thousand, all going about their assigned duties, or practicing in combat. She could hear swords clash, and guns fire.

Through it all she was able to pick up the familiar accent of Satoru, having some kind of meeting in an office with their leader Christopher Dalish.

“I want my money,” Satoru said, and Rachel was pretty sure they were a couple stories just below her. “You promised me twenty thousand for my help in your operation.”

“I promised you twenty thousand when we take the mayor,” Dalish reminded the vampire sternly. “There was nothing about taking another vampire prisoner.” There was a pause. “You’ll get your money when we successfully capture the actual target.”

“The terms were only for one engagement,” Satoru complained with a fierce growl.

“Well I’m changing the terms,” Dalish said with finality. “Prey I do not change them again.”

Satoru roared, and Rachel was pretty sure she didn’t need vampire hearing to hear that from where she lay prone two floors above him. “Then my terms change as well. On top of the money, I want the girl.”

“You mean the vampire,” Dalish corrected him. “What do I care what happens to her?” There was another pause. “So what do you intend to do with her, Ronin? Is it perverted? Can I watch?”

“I intend to take her as my protégé,” Satoru said, and Rachel could feel a slight grin grow on her face. “She showed a lot of promise in our encounter.”

“You really think you can turn her?” Dalish asked, and Rachel heard a creak that must have been him leaning forward in his chair.

“I’m sure of it,” came Satoru’s voice.

“Fine,” Dalish’s voice said. “She can be your responsibility.”

“Supreme Leader,” one of Dalish’s men said, stepping into the room. Of course he’d take a title like that. “Someone reported a commotion on level five. The sector where we were holding the creature.” Rachel looked around at her handiwork. It had been pretty loud.

“Just in time it seems,” Dalish said, and she could hear him standing up. “So what do you think we should do about this.”

His man waited impatiently at the door. “Should we hand around stakes sir?”

“I want her alive,” Rachel heard Satoru insist.

“No stakes,” she heard Dalish growl. “But guns are permitted.”

“Hey!” a cultist said, having come in to find Rachel lying on the ground surrounded by a number of his friends. Spotting a stun baton near her, she grabbed it, and flung it across the hallway at the man’s kneecap. The man dropped hard, hitting his skull on the ground and knocking himself out. Rachel got up. It was time to go. She had to find the way out, and that meant going up.

She stepped out of the tunnel into an open corridor that wound around a large tournament sized raised arena where it seemed the cult would do a lot of their training and demonstrations. She only had moments to take in the large open vista before her; she heard the whistle of metal as a woman’s spear thrust out towards her head. Stepping back, the spear just missed her, and she grabbed it by the shaft with her right hand, forcing it down with her left and smacking the woman in the chin with the handle. Rachel spun the spear through the air, and swung it like a staff to shatter against a robe man moving against her from the left.

Taking one half of the broken spear and throwing it at a man with a gun to her left, she dragged the cultist she’d just broken her spear over, and used the spearhead to impale his hand to the wooden railing overlooking the arena.

He screamed.

Turning back to her right she spotted the stairs to the floor above her, but a train of men were charging down all armed with clubs, axes, swords, and shotguns. She wasn’t going to find the exit she was looking for that way.

With a mighty leap, Rachel launched herself across the open air above the large fighting ring. She landed hard against the railing on the other side, and flipped herself over, kicking off against a female cultist’s shield to land on her feet. Rachel tried to punch the woman, but she blocked it with her shield. The vampire tried to get a kick under but again her attack was blocked. The woman didn’t have anything else. Just the shield.

The woman thrust her shield out against Rachel, and the vampire had no choice but to step back.

“Good choice of weapon,” Rachel admitted.

The woman, black hair with a green streak and piercing blue eyes could be seen from under her hood, peered over her shield and smiled. “Thanks.” Behind Rachel, she could hear someone coming up, and she was pretty sure she could hear a pistol in his hand. The woman in her twenties Rachel had been talking to hid quickly behind her shield, and Rachel was quick to join her. Grabbing the top of the shield, Rachel ducked behind it.

The man opened fire, completely unconcerned with hitting his friend. He fired and fired as the bullets thankfully ricocheted off the shield. Around the large underground arena, cultists were circling the corridor to get to their side. Rachel wouldn’t have much more time left.

The man threw his pistol aside, and someone above tossed him down a bazooka. Both Rachel and the female cultist looked over the shield, and Rachel could feel the woman letting go.

Taking the shield from her, Rachel threw it at the man, taking him out cold as if she were Captain America. Well almost; the shield didn’t come back when she did it. Her time was up as behind the female cultist, a line up of men and women descended stairs from above, and squeezed in from across the corridor. The person in the lead had a shotgun, and Rachel grabbed the woman, using her as a human shield against them.

“Wait,” the woman begged the man, or maybe she was begging Rachel. “Please!” Rachel could hear the man cock his gun, and realized he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot through her.

Rachel turned around again, shielding the woman as the man fired his shotgun in their direction. She took the brunt of the hit to her side, the pellets tearing through her ribs and maybe even tearing into her lung. The pain was excrutiating, but she tried to block it from her mind as she lifted the cultist woman she’d befriended and tried to jump across over the large fighting ring once more. She might have made it too, if it weren’t for the woman in her arms, or if she wasn’t wounded.

Instead she made it about half way, and then dropped like a rock. She landed heavily on her two feet, kneeling to put down the woman on the mat of the large center stage.

“Are you alright?” Rachel asked the woman, as the cultists in the complex all filed through the corridors trying to join them on the main floor. The woman adjusted her robes, and smiled at Rachel.

“I’m fine,” the woman said, lowering her arm and allowing a stun baton to slide out of her sleeve. “You’re a little too trusting though.” She brought the electrodes to Rachel’s chest, pressing the device into the hole in her body armor where she’d been pegged with the shotgun. The woman activated the device, and Rachel screamed, spasming as electricity coarsened through her body. She could feel the metal pellets she’d been shot up with heat up inside her as the woman she’d just saved callously electrocuted her again and again.

Rachel dropped onto her side, curling up as the woman kicked her, chortling with pride.

“Vampires are supposed to be so strong,” she said, gleefully kicking at Rachel and jabbing her with electricity. “And yet they can be brought down by the smallest of things.”

She jabbed with the electricity again, but this time Rachel managed to grab the baton and yank it out of the woman’s hands.

“Let’s see how you like it,” Rachel said, jamming the weapon into the girl’s foot. The woman screamed and dropped even faster than she had, Rachel bringing the baton up to club the woman with an uppercut as she fell. Grabbing the woman by her collar, Rachel pressed the electrodes to her neck as the entire cult filed down the steps and surrounded the large fighting ring where she stood. Christopher Dalish was the last to make it down the steps.

“I’ll kill her,” Rachel yelled to him. She already knew how little any of their lives meant to the rest. That wasn’t going to buy her much. “All I want is a way out.”

“There is no way out, vampire,” Dalish said with a gruff laugh. “You’re three kilometers underground. There’s no elevator. Or stairs.” Dalish stepped down the stairs, Satoru following silently behind him, still dressed in his red samurai armor.

“The only way out is with one of these keys.” Dalish raised a small non-descript key in his hand. Rachel searched her hostage, who just laughed at her. Nothing. “And no one here has a key but me.”

*     *     *

“What did you say you were looking for?” the detective asked Tanya as they trudged through the precinct. “Keys? To what?”

“It’s not exactly that simple,” Tanya told Dae Daniels as the detective led her to her office, which looked a lot more like the break room. “This is an office?”

“They made it my office when I was put on the missing children’s case,” Dae told her. “I’ll be honest with you, we didn’t find any keys at the scene.”

“Alright,” Tanya said, disappointed. But it wasn’t the end of all hope. “Can I interview one of the people you took into custody?”

The detective stopped and turned around in surprise. “I don’t know what you think we found at the scene, but when we searched city hall there was no one there.”

“That’s impossible,” Tanya said, shaking her head in disbelief. “There were like a hundred of them. Erika shot up an entire room full of people. You didn’t find a single body?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Dae said with a shrug. She grabbed a laptop from a table, and spun it around. “We have the camera footage of the event.” She frowned as the window she pulled up was only snow. “That’s weird,” the detective muttered, typing away at her keyboard. “It looks like something happened to the footage too.”

“Who had access to this footage?” Tanya asked Dae.

The detective shrugged. “I’m the only one,” she insisted. Tanya knew that wasn’t true. Gordon hadn’t had any problems getting access to the footage earlier.

“Thanks for your help,” Tanya said, turning to leave the office.

“Wait,” Dae called after her. “Don’t you want to figure out what’s going on here?”

“You figure it out,” Tanya said loudly over her shoulder. “I’m going to find my girlfriend.”

Pulling out her cellphone, she sent Gordon a text. Did you make a copy of the city hall camera footage?

Gordon’s reply was quick. Of course :p Who do you think you’re talking to?

Someone hacked in shortly after you did and deleted all the records. She typed on her phone furiously. Make as many copies as you can.

I’ll make a hard copy on a blu ray and hide it in my xbox Gordon responded.

“I’m guessing that didn’t go so well,” Alice said to Tanya, waiting for her by the car. “You didn’t learn anything new?”

“Somehow I feel like I got dumber,” Tanya admitted, lighting a smoke and unlocking her car.

They both sat inside, and Tanya took a deep drag from her smoke. She felt constantly on the verge of panic, her mind going through one nightmare scenario after another, trying desperately to imagine what Rachel might be going through.

“So what now?” Alice asked, and Tanya didn’t have an answer for her.

“I don’t know,” Tanya said, feeling powerless. She wished for once she could be like Andrew, and just come up with some outrageous plan. “I guess we have to hope Andrew has better luck than we do.”

“So we go back to the townhouse?” Alice suggested.

Tanya shook her head. “We could always find a Beer Store that will accept my ID, and get plastered,” she countered with a grim raise of her eyebrow.

“Or,” Alice said, clearly finally getting to what she’d wanted to say. “We could go to school.”

Tanya rolled her eyes and gave her friend a funny look. “It’s after four. School’s out for the weekend. I’m sorry Alice, you missed it.”

“There’s still a lot going on tonight,” Alice insisted. “I thought we could catch up on some student council matters, and then plan out your campaign for mayor. That is if you were serious.”

Tanya turned to Alice, her eyes stinging with tears. “Of course I’m serious.” She took a large drag from her smoke, and ashed out the window. “That fucker’s gotta pay.”

Alice frowned. “You mean your father?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Alright,” Alice said. “Well, running for mayor means sometimes doing things you might not want to do.”

Tanya gave Alice another funny look. “Like going to school?”

“At least I didn’t have to say it that time,” Alice admitted. “Gordon is working on research. Andrew is seeking help. There’s nothing more you can do, but attend to the rest of your life and let time pass.”

Tanya gave a large sigh, finishing her smoke and tossing it out the window. “Fine. School, here we come.” She just hoped to god Andrew was having better luck.

*     *     *

“Uh, that can’t be good,” Andrew said as Mike pulled up to the address Andrew had given him. The geek quickly checked his iPhone again, certain that he had the right address. It seemed the Mississauga city hall was a relatively unassuming office building, especially in contrast to the one in Oakville.

It also had two cop cars parked outside the front door blocking off access.

“Maybe we should come back later,” Mike suggested, though they’d already grabbed Wendy’s on the way.

“No,” Andrew said, getting out of the car and tossing his garbage in a nearby garbage bin. “There’s no time for us to wait till later. It’s gotta be now.”

“Okay,” Mike said, getting out of the car and following behind Andrew as the teen made his way past the cop cars towards the front of the building. He wasn’t going to let anything slow him down. This was his chance to be useful for the team. And perhaps get some hands on experience with real magic while he was at it. It was a win - win.

“Wait up!” Mike called after him. “Do you even have a plan?” Andrew was having the workings of a plan.

They stepped up into the building, and made for the second floor. That was where google maps said her office was situated. As they got to the second floor they found a middle aged in-uniform police officer blocking off the way with yellow tape.

“Sorry,” he said down to them. He had a patch on his shoulder that said his name was Junior Officer Stacy. “This area is blocked off to the public.”

“Why?” Andrew asked quickly. “What happened?”

“There was a theft,” the junior officer said. “In the mayor’s office.”

“Oh!” Andrew said, faking a laugh. “You thought we were here for the mayor. No no. I just really have to go to the bathroom.”

He laughed again, and Stacy laughed along with him. “Oh,” the junior officer said with a laugh. “That IS silly. Well there’s a bathroom just down the…”

“No!” Andrew insisted. “You don’t understand. This is an emergency. We need a bathroom now!”

“Oh,” the police officer said, seemingly unsure how to proceed. “There’s a bathroom just around the corner here.” He pointed in the opposite direction from the mayor’s office door.

“That would be perfect!” Andrew said, waving for Mike to go ahead. “Go with the man, Michael.”

They both looked at Andrew confused.

“I thought you said YOU needed to go,” Stacy said, only more confused.

“Did I?” Andrew said. “No, of course I meant Mike, here.”

“Oh!” Mike said, quickly playing along. “Oh it hurts.”

Andrew grabbed Mike’s arm. “Oh Mike. Is it the diarrhea again?”

“I--“ Mike gave Andrew a scolding look. “I think it might be the diarrhea again.”

Andrew looked up at the police officer with a pleading look. “You gotta take him now. Last time this happened it just,” He made a motion with his hand like a river flowing down the stairs. “It just kept going down and down. He was so embarrassed. Please.”

“Right,” Stacy said, lifting the tape for Mike to go underneath. Mike headed in the direction Stacy had pointed him in, but Stacy stopped and looked back, as if confused what to do about Andrew.

“Go!” Andrew insisted. “I’ll wait here! I mean, what am I going to do? Cross the yellow line?” Andrew started laughing again.

Stacy started laughing with him. “Right,” Stacy said, not seeming quite sure what he was laughing at.

“Your job is to watch the guy who’s already over the line,” Andrew said, pointing at Mike. “I’m staying right here.”

“Right,” Officer Stacy said. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” Andrew said, throwing the policeman finger guns.

As soon as the officer had his back turned, Andrew snuck under the police tape and made a straight beeline for the Mayor’s office. He stepped through the door and quickly closed it behind him.

He’d successfully avoided the patrolman, but he didn’t expect CSI to still be on the scene.

“It looks like the alarm was tripped when they forced the release mechanism,” a beautiful dark brown skinned woman with large curly hair and big black rimmed glasses said from where she was examining a hidden compartment in the wall.

She was talking to a female middle aged officer in street clothes, at least ten years younger than the junior officer in the hall. The dirty blonde turned at the sound of the door closing, and Andrew didn’t hide behind the desk nearly fast enough.

“Who are you?” she asked, drawing her weapon, and Andrew got out from behind the desk with his arms up.

“I was just looking for the mayor,” Andrew said, trying to seem as innocent as possible.

“She’s not here,” the black woman said from the wall.

“Makayla,” the other woman said with warning.

“I can see that,” Andrew admitted to them. “I guess I’ll just be going then.”

“How did you get in here?” the officer asked, not wanting to lower her gun.

“I snuck past your officer out there,” Andrew said pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

The tall butch dirty blonde woman smacked her forehead. “Dammit Stacy,” she said with frustration.

“Why would you do that?” Makayla asked from her corner.

“You know who returns to the scene of a crime,” the woman with the gun said grimly. “The criminals.”

“Well I’m not returning,” Andrew said trying to out logic them. “I’ve never been here before.” Maybe a little honesty would work better. “My friend needs help. She’s gone missing.”

The woman with the gun didn’t seem to buy it. “So you came to ask the mayor for help?” she asked. “What is this, the wizard of Oz? Did you think to try a private investigator?”

“Lady,” Andrew said, lowering his arms. “We are private investigators.”

Makayla and the other woman looked at each other. “We?” the woman with a gun asked.

Suddenly the door behind Andrew swung open, and Stacy came barrelling in with Mike just behind him. “Officer Warley I think we have an intru--“ Stacy started to say, but then he spotted the female officer with her gun drawn in his direction and his hands went up. “I’m freezed. I’m frozen. Ma’am. Sir. Ma’am.”

 “Jesus Christ Stacy,” Officer Warley said, still refusing to lower her gun. She did point it momentarily at Mike who quickly raised his hands. “That your Private Investigator buddy?”

Mike probably frowned and shot Andrew a look that Andrew didn’t see because he chose not to turn around. “You didn’t go with the diarrhea lie this time?” Andrew heard him grumble.

Andrew closed his eyes. “That’s him.”

“This is adorable,” Officer Warley said, waving her gun between them. “What is this. Are you guys the Hardy boys or something. What makes you think the Mayor would want to help you two?”

“She knows us,” Andrew insisted.

“You just said you’ve never been here before.”

Andrew wasn’t used to being out talked. “She doesn’t know me. She knows him.” Andrew pointed to Mike, the short black haired tanned athlete waving.

“We actually only met once,” Mike said, putting his hands in his jean pockets. “But I’m sure she’d remember me.”

“Alright kids,” Officer Warley said, finally holstering her gun. “You’re both under arrest for tampering with a crime scene.”

“Aww!” Andrew made a noise of disappointment.

“Sara!” Makayla said in surprise to the officer. “You’ll never make detective if you don’t lighten up.”

“What do you want me to do?” Sara Warley asked Makayla. “Team up with a civilian like Detective Richards did?”

“Yeah you should do that one,” Andrew said, grasping for any hope. “Be more like Detective Richards.”

Makayla shook her head. “You shouldn’t have said that,” she warned.

“Cuff them Junior Officer Stacy,” Sara ordered, pulling out handcuffs of her own.

Mike got on his knees. “I’m really blaming you for this one, Andrew,” he complained, putting his hands behind his head.

“Hold on a second,” Andrew insisted as Officer Warley approached him with the cuffs. “At least tell me what was stolen from the mayor.”

“We believe it was some kind of large glowing rock,” Makayla told him, against Sara obvious wishes.

“Glowing?” Andrew asked, only able to think of one rock he knew of that glowed. “Like an amber glowing. Like Dixonite.”

Sara stopped in place. “What’s Dixonite?”

“It’s a mineral imbued with properties that defy the laws of physics,” he tried to explain to them, best he could. “It’s infused with magic. I’ve known someone use it to travel through time. Who knows what else it could be used for. If the mayor had a big chunk of it, and now that rock is gone, I think you’re all in a lot of trouble.”

He looked at Makayla, hoping to garner any sympathy from her. She seemed the only sane one in the room. She only shrugged, the choice out of her hands.

“You realize you sound like a crazy person,” Sara told him.

“I bet I know who might have been interested enough in a rock like that to try and steal it from the mayor,” He raised his eyebrows. “The Tempus Cult. You’ve heard of them?”

“No,” Sara said with a shake of her head.

“Yes,” Makayla said behind her. Sara turned around. “Well I have. They’ve been coming up.”

“Yeah,” Andrew continued. “They’re bad news. They believe they have the power to bring magic back to the world.”

“How am I supposed to believe any of this?” Sara asked, admittedly not trying to cuff him anymore, which Andrew was willing to take as a plus.

“It coincides with everything I’ve heard,” Makayla told Sara, and Officer Warley turned on her with disbelief.

“Everything he said made sense to you?” Sara asked Makayla.

“Would you just look into it?” Andrew pleaded.

“Fine,” Sara said, grabbing Mike by his arm and helping him to his feet, his hands still behind his head. “We’ll look into it. Right after I walk you both to your car.”

“That sounds more than fair,” Mike insisted, glancing at Andrew. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“I can do that for you, Ma’am,” Stacy insisted.

“I wouldn’t trust you to get me a coffee,” Sara muttered to him. “You can stay here and guard the scene with Makayla.”

“Actually,” Makayla said, moving to catch up. “I’m done here. I kinda wanna head back to the lab and look a little more into this Tempus cult.”

Sara nodded as they descended the stairs. “You can hitch a ride with me then.”

Once they were outside, Mike made straight for his car, but Andrew stopped at the police cruiser he assumed belonged to Stacy.

“You notice these?” Andrew asked Sara as she approached the other vehicle, an unmarked cruiser. Makayla came around to see what Andrew saw. It was tire marks, partially obscured by the cruiser. “I don’t think your tires made these. But they’re fresh. Must have been the thieves.” Andrew pointed towards the sun, just as it was cresting over the horizon. “They peeled off that way. Probably just before you showed up.”

“Dammit Stacy,” Sara said, and to give her the benefit of the doubt, she might have seen the tire marks had his cruiser not obscured them. “I passed a pick up truck on the road when I drove in here too. It was black. There were three of them riding in the back.”

“And that didn’t seem weird to you?” Andrew asked her, pulling out his cellphone. “Or like, unsafe?”

Sara pulled out a cellphone of her own, “I have to get a BOLO out on the vehicle,” she said, giving Andrew a peculiar look. “Who are you calling?”

Andrew returned her look. “My guy,” he said, hitting speed dial for Gordon. “I think he’s gonna work a little bit faster than your guy.”

“Gordon.”

“Hey Gordon,” Andrew said into his cellphone, “Are you busy?”

“Unimaginably,” Gordon’s voice came back. “What can I do for you?”

“I am standing in front of a building, surrounded with cameras.” Andrew told him.

Sara lowered her phone. “Does he need the address?” she asked.

“I’m tracking your location now,” Gordon said through the phone. “Tracing IP of surrounding networks, hacking into security cams.”

“I think he’s good,” Andrew assured Sara with a nod.

“And I see you,” Gordon said through the phone. “Wave to the camera.”

Andrew waved. Sara and Makayla both looked at him funny.

“I’m actually behind you.”

Andrew shook his head. “We don’t have time for this. I need you to rewind--“ he looked up at Sara expectantly.

“Uh--“ Sara said quickly. “Um --“ She looked at her watch. “About thirty seven minutes ago.”

Andrew gave her a look. “Lets make that thirty eight minutes. It’s a black pick-up truck. Three people riding on the back.”

“I found them,” Gordon voice said. “I’m tracing their route now. Synchronizing with GPS. Do you have your iPad?”

Andrew rushed to Mike’s car, the two cops right on his tail. Mike got out from the driver’s seat. “What’s happening?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

“We’re solving a crime,” Andrew assured him, though the jock didn’t seem to calm down at all.

“I swear to god if this ends with us getting handcuffed,” complained mike, “I will never forgive you.”

“Whatever,” Andrew said, waving Mike away as he opened the back seat. “I hear that every day.” He grabbed the iPad and turned it on.

“You also don’t have a lot of friends,” Mike reminded him.

Andrew looked up from his iPad. “You don’t think those two things are connected, do you?”

Over the phone, Gordon’s voice interrupted them. “I’m sending the google map data to your iPad. Are you receiving?”

Andrew unlocked his iPad and they could see the white shaded Google Maps view of a route from the mayor’s office to a big flashing red dot seemingly come to a stop in a wide alley.

“You know you’re way better with computers than I am,” Andrew told Gordon.

“I’ve always known that,” Gordon assured Andrew through his phone.

“You guys really are teenage private investigators,” Sara commented, watching them. “Huh.”

“We have a card,” Andrew said, reaching in his jacket and handing her the small rectangular paper. “Vampire investigations. We’re a little short on the vampire right now.”

“When did you have time to make cards?” Mike asked Andrew as Sara reached for his tablet.

Andrew pointed at his friend. “Don’t question my personal life.”

“It looks like they’re hiding not too far from here,” Sara said, looking over Andrew’s shoulder. She snatched the iPad away from him.

“Hey!” Andrew yelled, as Sara returned to her car.

“I’m going to have to confiscate this,” Sara yelled back at him. “Don’t follow us.” Makayla rushed to get in Sara’s car before she could start the engine and speed out down the road.

“No!” Andrew called lazily after them, “don’t.”

“They do know you can track them with that iPad, right?” Gordon said through Andrew’s phone as he put it on speaker and pulled up his ‘Where’s My iPad’ app.

“Can you also clone my iPad screen to my phone,” Andrew asked Gordon as he snapped at Michael to get back in the car. He stepped around the car and got into the passenger side.

“I don’t take orders from you,” Mike complained stubbornly. There was a pause. “I’m getting back into my car right now because I want to.”

*     *     *

“I don’t think you’re going to kill Tulip,” Dalish said, as Rachel studiously held the stun baton to the woman’s neck.

“Your name is Tulip?” Rachel said quietly to the woman with blue eyes and pale skin. “That’s a pretty name.”

The cult woman laughed. “You’re sorta cute yourself,” she said with a sneer on her thin lips.

Rachel yanked on her hair. “Fool me once,” the vampire said with a sneer of her own. “Traitor,” she chided, a little playfully.

Dalish signalled something to his men. “I grow bored of this.” He looked to Satoru standing silent beside him. “Let’s see a bit of this potential, hmm?”

One of the cultists climbed up onto the arena mat, wielding an axe.

“Is he telling the truth about the keys?” Rachel asked Cultwoman Tulip under her breath while they were still close.

Tulip tried to look up but it was difficult to meet Rachel’s eye by the way they were struggling against one another. “I don’t have any,” she insisted to the teen vampire. “Dalish keeps them locked in storage until needed for missions. Only people out in the field are given the honor of holding a transkey.”

“Is that what they’re called?” Rachel asked the woman. “Was portkey copyrighted or something?”

They’re time was up. Rachel released the woman just as the cultmember with the axe swung his weapon down between them. A moment later and Tulip might have lost the green from her hair.

Cartwheeling backwards, Rachel landed on her feet as the man in brown robes charged at her with his axe held high. She went low, tripping out his legs, but yanking him back by his shirt as he fell forward, dropping him back instead, and dropping his heavy ax onto his head, knocking him out all on his own.

Two more cultmembers climbed up onto the stage, one carrying the curved blade of a scimitar, and the other what looked like some kind of uzi.

“Just surrender now,” Tulip pleaded from the edge of the arena. “There’s no way out of this for you.”

Rachel lifted the axe from the unconscious man she’d just beaten. “You could help me,” she suggested, offering the ax to Tulip.

Tulip didn’t take it. “Help you what?” the cult-woman said. “Die slower? Where would be the fun in that for me?”

Rachel heard the man with the Uzi about to fire, and she spun around to toss the axe through the air. The axe took him clear out of the ring, as the other robed man charged at her with the scimitar. He slashed at her, but she side stepped his first vertical swinging. Deflecting his diagonal slash off her arm pads.

She punched him in the face, pulling the sword from his hands and spinning it deftly in her own. She slashed him across his chest, careful not to cut too deep, and the man dropped screaming to the ground.

“I can fight and defeat a hundred of your goons, Dalish,” Rachel yelled up to him. “But I’ve been informed it won’t do me any good, so why do we continue?”

Dalish grunted a laugh at Satoru. “She thinks she can speak to me by name,” he laughed at the Asian vampire. “Like we’re equals. Can you believe that?”

“Why do we keep wasting everyone’s time?” Rachel asked him. “When the fight everyone here paid to see is me versus you.”

There was a loud uproar of emotion from everyone as cultists in the crowd screamed for her blood.

“You really wanna fight me, insolent creature?” Dalish asked, laughing a cold laugh.

“I want a fight with stakes,” Rachel said. “A fight that matters.”

Dalish stepped down the stairs, and jumped into the arena effortlessly. “So be it,” he told her, unbuttoning his shirt and letting it drop away from his large shoulders and protruding chest.

“You could leave that on,” Rachel said quickly under her breath.

“If you can beat me,” Dalish said holding up the key he’d had earlier. “Then you can have the key to your freedom.” He shoved the key in his mouth and swallowed it. “If you can beat me.”

Rachel stuck out her tongue in disgust. “I don’t know which of us is gonna regret you doing that more--” she trailed off, swinging her sword through the air a couple times, and reminding herself that it didn’t feel quite like the blades she was used to fighting with.

The old grey haired cult leader with the surprisingly muscular upper body drew his long sword from his waist and pointed it Rachel.

Rachel heard a voice in all the noise, so quiet that no one else could have heard it but her. It was Satoru. “It’s a trap.”

Dalish swung in to attack, going for a glancing blow that Rachel easily deflected to her left.

“Okay,” Rachel said so quietly so even Dalish couldn’t hear what she was saying. “But it’s my trap, right? This fight was my idea.”

“What did you say?” Dalish asked Rachel, as she blocked a horizontal slash from him. She went to surprise him with a kick, but he blocked her, and kicked her instead, right in her stomach where she’d been hit. Even with the pads protecting her the blow hurt. A lot.

She hopped back a step. Then stumbled back a couple more. “I just said your breath smells,” Rachel said, as Satoru continued talking to her. “I’d offer you gum, but I left my pack in my other jeans. You know how it is.” Sure her insults needed work, but frankly she was having a bit of a hard time paying attention to two conversations at once.

“He’s toying with you,” Satoru warned her as she was insulting Dalish. “And when he’s done toying with you he’s going to grind your face into that mat and throw you in a cell.”

Dalish hissed as he lunged forward, foraciously slashing at Rachel. She blocked one attack, barely blocked the second horizontal swing. Suddenly Dalish reach out with his free hand and grasped her by the throat, lifting her easily with no effort, he crushed her windpipe and threw her across the arena. She flew about fifty feet before colliding with the mat so hard she left a dent and bounced another ten feet. She got up slowly and shakily, her hand still grasping tight to her scimitar.

“Do you have any alternatives,” Rachel whispered silently for only Satoru to hear, her voice harsh and healing slowly.

“Let him,” Satoru told her. “Surrender yourself to him and he will put you in my custody. I promise I will protect you and get you out of here alive.” As Satoru whispered to her, someone in the crowd threw Tulip a wooden spear.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Tulip asked, looking at both Rachel and Dalish. Her indecision was all Rachel had to know.

“It’s up to you my dear,” Dalish said with a smirk, apparently amused by her indecision. “What does your heart compel you to do?” It was pretty clear from the way he said it, that he didn't want her to listen to her heart. He wanted her to listen to him.

Tulip turned her weapon on Rachel. “I’m sorry,” the cultmember yelled to the vampire. “I don’t have a choice.”

Tulip thrust her spear at Rachel, and the teen vampire easily cut the spear in half. Grabbing Tulip by the neck, she spun the woman around and bit into her throat. Tulip tried to scream, Rachel could feel her muscles tense, but only a whimper came out.

Rachel drank deeply, but only for mere seconds, releasing the woman, but holding the robed woman limp in her arms. “Stay down this time,” Rachel pleaded into her ear, kissing the twenty-something cultmember as if to accentuate her point. Tulip reached up to touch Rachel’s face, and Rachel dropped her like dead weight onto the mat.

“Come on vampire,” Dalish roared at her. “Where’s all that potential.” He slashed at her with a heavy glancing blow left, then right. Then horizontally from right to left. She blocked the first two but the third one she didn’t see coming. Dalish slashed her right across the belly and she stumbled back. “Show me!”

Grabbing at her stomach with one hand, she tried to ignore the pain. Imagining herself behind Dalish, she slipped around him, disappearing from where she stood with her vampire abilities. Glancing up to the stairs she could see Satoru give a slight smile.

Slipping forward, Rachel slashed at Dalish, but Dalish turned and blocked her. How he knew she was there was beyond her, but she slipped again to beside him. Again he blocked her attack, his blade glancing off hers. She went high to swing low, but he thrust his sword directly at her. Slipping again, she appeared behind him and slashed down. She got a glancing blow across his back and he stumbled forward screaming in agony.

She growled at him, a ferocious vampire growl, fully giving in to her animal instincts.

“Ah,” Dalish said, almost with a perverse pleasure, “this is the ferocity I wanted to see.”

Rachel slipped directly at him, and he caught her by the throat. She was getting really tired of people grabbing her like that.

“This is your monster?” Dalish yelled at her, slamming her back into the mat. “Let me show you mine.” He dropped his sword, and with his now free hand he plunged his fist into her stomach, twisting around her insides.

The pain was excruciating and Rachel screamed out. She could feel his hand shift around her organs and tear at her intestines. “No!” she heard Satoru exclaim from outside the ring.

“What does it feel like,” Dalish taunted Rachel with glee, “feeling a pain unlike anything a living man could possibly describe.”

“You tell me,” Rachel spat out at him through the blood gushing from her mouth. Reaching up with all her strength, she grabbed Dalish by the back of his head and headbutted him as hard as she could. She could hear something crack in his skull and he stumbled back, his fist slipping messily from her stomach.

Rachel rolled onto all fours, coughing up blood while she desperately tried to hold her insides in place. Lucky for her Dalish needed a moment too. He was shaking his head and furiously blinking trying to clear his vision. Just as he was about to move forward on Rachel again, a sword swung down from above Rachel and pressed threateningly against Dalish’s neck.

Satoru applied pressure with his sword, forcing Dalish to straighten on his knees. “This has gone on long enough,” Satoru told Dalish harshly. “And much too far if you ask me.”

“Very good,” Dalish whispered harshly under his breath. “Let’s see what you’ve got then, Master Ronin!” Dalish grabbed at his sword beside him and knocked Satoru’s blade aside. It seemed like he had been waiting a long time to match blades with the samurai.

Dalish sprung to his feet and their blades met once, twice, thrice, clashing off one another in brilliant sparks. Satoru went to block high again, but Dalish feinted and went low, slashing Satoru in the leg.

Satoru stumbled and was barely able to block Dalish’s next swing, tumbling away to recover.

Grabbing her scimitar from the floor beside her, Rachel forced herself to her feet, still barely holding herself together with her off hand. Stumbling forward she tried to assist in the fight, but Dalish turned to her and slashed down at her before she could make a move. She barely got her sword up to block, and the impact reverberated so hard that she was thrown off her feet. Dalish had been holding back against her before.

Satoru slashed down at Dalish, and Dalish blocked him, their swords glancing off, but while Satoru moved to block Dalish’s inevitable next attack, Dalish decided to play dirty and kick Satoru in his bad leg.

As Satoru limped, Dalish reared back to impale the samurai vampire, but Rachel jumped forward swinging her sword to glance upward off his chin. He moved from his thrust to block, clubbing Rachel in the face with the hilt and then slashing down on Satoru who had just enough time to bring his sword up to block.

“Gotta admit Satoru,” Dalish gloated with a gruff laugh. “I sorta expected better from a vampire who ‘as lived over a thousand years.”

Satoru growled as he struggled against Dalish.

“But you’ve got no moves,” Dalish continued to gloat, “no style, that I can’t counter.”

Rachel released her stomach, already healing, and grabbed Dalish by the throat. “How would you counter this?” Rachel asked him with a vampire growl.

Dalish smiled at her. “Do you really wanna know?” he asked her.

“No,” Satoru pleaded.

Dalish lifted his sword in a flash of movement and sliced Rachel’s arm off at the shoulder.

“No!” Satoru yelled, but his cries of protest were drowned out by Rachel’s screams of pain as blood sprayed out from her shoulder. The last thing she saw before passing out was Dalish removing her arm from his throat and beating her across the head with it.

*     *     *

“So what are we going to do now?” Jon asked Bilal, as they sat alone in a science lab. “And are you sure people are coming?” No one had shown up to his Space Jam event. Jon’s internal chronometer told him the sun had set, but still Bilal seemed to hope people would arrive.

“People will come,” Bilal said, though even he didn’t sound too hopeful anymore.

“Andrew said that you might have some ideas,” Jon told him.

“Of course he did,” Bilal said with a laugh. “He just wanted us out of the way so we’d be safe.”

Jon stopped in his tracks, realization hitting him like a brick wall. “You mean you’ve been passed babysitting duties.” His heart sank. It was just like Erika to treat him like a child, and this time he’d walked into it hook line and sinker. Whatever the heck that expression was supposed to mean.

“For a smart kid you’re pretty dumb,” Bilal told him, flipping on the movie. “We’re the useless ones. Just enjoy it. While everyone else is off destroying their lives, we get to enjoy Michael Jordan beat the gym shorts off some scrawny alien dudes.”

Jon crossed his arms. “Your friends are out there getting hurt or even killed, and you want to just sit here in this makeshift theater, eating microwave popcorn and watching Space Jam all on your own?”

Bilal took a munch of his popcorn. “I know,” he said with a nod. “It’s pretty great, right?”

*

“Tanya!” Ian yelled, stepping into the front hall of the school. “Tanya, I know you’re here.” He’d heard everything on the news.

Two grade niners were making out on the stairs near him, and they stopped long enough for one of them to shush Ian. “There’s rehearsals going on in there,” the kid whispered, gesturing to the theatre.

Ian assumed the kid and his date must have just escaped from the dance going on in the cafeteria to his left, but Ian ignored both the theatre, and the cafeteria, and the two weird adults in suits ascending the stairs, and the soccer practice in the gym, until he got to the student council office.

He bashed on the door.

“Open up Tanya!” Ian yelled at the door.

Tanya opened it. “It was unlocked.”

“She’s gone isn’t she,” Ian accused.

Tanya pushed Ian out into the hall, closing the door behind her. “What you have to understand,” she insisted to him, “is that we are doing everything we can to find her right now.”

“What does that mean?” Ian asked in anger. It sure didn’t seem like she was trying very hard, in a fuzzy sweater and pajama bottoms. “What happened to her? Where did she go?”

“These people attacked city hall,” Tanya told him. “they cast some sort of spell, and then they took Rachel.”

“What sort of spell?” Ian asked her impatiently. “Let’s just cast it too and get her back.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Tanya said, trying to keep her voice down though he was raising his.

“You don’t think?” Ian accused, “Or you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” Tanya said firmly, then stuttered. “I mean I do know. I mean,” She tried to take a deep breath, and she grabbed at her side, flinching with her exhale. Had she been hurt in the attack? “If it were that simple, we would have gotten her back already.”

“So you’re just giving up?” Ian asked coldly. “You know what really stings about all this?”

“I’m not--“ Tanya started to say.

“SHE CHOSE YOU,” Ian yelled defeated. “For as much as I could love her, and it was all I had, she still chose you.”

“She didn’t choose me,” Tanya argued, shaking her head. Her voice rising louder even than Ian’s. “You don’t know how hard I am trying to hold it together right now,” she could feel her eyes stinging with tears again, and she shut them before she made a fool of herself. “You don’t know what I would give to have her back. But I can’t. She’s gone and it’s something we’re just going to have to accept for now.”

“And I don’t need you to judge me on what I could or couldn’t do,” Tanya told him, tears flowing freely down her face. “Not you too.” People were stepping out into the hallway to see what all the commotion was about.

“I get that enough from myself,” Tanya muttered. She went back into the student office lounge and slammed the door in Ian’s face.

“Ian,” Jon said, joining him in the hallway. “I could hear you shouting from upstairs.”

“We have to do something,” Ian insisted to Jon.

“I agree with you,” Jon said with a nod, leading Ian through the doors to the stairs.

“Then why aren’t you?” Ian asked.

They ascended the stairs, and stepped through the doors into the science wing. “Bilal,” Jon tried to explain, and Ian nodded his understanding.

“That makes sense,” Ian said as if Jon needn’t have to go on.

They entered the science lab at the scene where Michael Jordan was trying to play golf.

“Get off your ass Bilal,” Ian yelled at him, turning off the projector. “We’re going to prove to everyone we’re not useless.” Bilal looked to complain but Ian stopped him. “We’re going to bring Rachel back.”

“Aww,” Bilal said, getting up. “How do you expect to do that?”

“If they cast a spell to take her away from me,” Ian said, “Then we should be able to cast the same spell to bring her back.”

“I can get footage of the city hall attack from Gordon,” Jon suggested.

Ian snapped his fingers. “Then we’ll be able to copy everything they did move for move.”

“It requires a large pentagram on the floor though,” Jon warned, and Ian looked around the science lab. Even if they moved the chairs and desks there still wouldn’t be enough room.

“We could do it in the basement,” Bilal offered. “The coach keeps the hockey equipment down there in the winter.”

“Do you know how to get us down there?” Ian asked Bilal.

Bilal shook his head. “But I bet Jason does.”

“Then you grab Jason,” Ian told Bilal. “We’re going to watch the video footage and figure out what supplies we need. Once we have everything, we’ll meet you at the basement entrance.”

“We’re getting Rachel back. Tonight.”

*     *     *

“We need a bloody extraction?” Brett said into his radio for the seventh time. “Ya bloody wanker.” He was getting tired of waiting. His boss said that once they had the glowing rock ready for extraction, he would open up a path for them. Well Brett didn’t see any path.

“Come on you bastard,” He muttered as his mercenary buddies stood watch. They were one of the most skilled band of ex-military men that money could buy. They’d never failed a mission. Brett wasn’t about to let this one be the first.

“We got an unmarked cruiser coming in on us fast,” Suzy, Brett’s first in command, warned from her perch on top the truck.

“Alright,” Brett said, making an executive call. “Pack it up. We’re rolling out.”

Brett got into the driver’s seat while his men took up their positions on the truck. Those cops would be sorry that they’d caught up to him and his men.

*

“That’s them,” Sara said as the truck pulled out from the alley. “I’m on their tail,” she said, leaning forward to activate her lights and sirens.

“Ooo,” Makayla said with excitement, pushing her black rimmed glasses against her face. “I’ve never been in a high speed chase before.”

The truck swerved on the road, gunning on the gas as they hit a stretch of downhill.

Sara looked into her rearview mirror and recognized the car behind them. “I think those idiot kids are following us,” she told Makayla.

Makayla looked down at the one kid’s tablet. “They could be tracking us with this,” she suggested.

Sara looked down at the device, looking up just in time to see the truck make a left turn and swerving to match them. “Well then turn it off,” Sara said, looking back at the tablet.

Makayla fidgeted with it. “I’m trying,” she said. “I don’t think I know how.”

Sara grabbed the tablet and chucked it out her window.

“That works,” Makayla reasoned. Suddenly she pointed straight ahead, “Watch out!”

Sara saw it. She swerved as one of the men on the truck unloaded a machine gun at them. The bullets ricocheted against the pavement just to their right.

*

“Holy shit, did you see that?” Mike asked as he swerved with Sara’s car, and only just avoided getting shot up himself.

“Yeah I saw that,” Andrew said with annoyance. “They’re blocking her.”

“What?” Mike asked.

They weren’t letting her advance. She was trying to PIT them but she couldn’t unless they slowed down.

“They’re blocking her--“Andrew repeated. He looked at Michael. “You’re just going to have to go faster.”

“I’m going plenty fast,” Mike argued, and Andrew looked down at the pedals.

“No look,” Andrew said reaching down. “That pedal can go further.”

“Stop!” Mike yelled at him, swerving to avoid a car in the road. “Would you like to drive?” he clearly immediately regretted saying that, the expression on his face said it all.

“Don’t say it,” Mike shouted at Andrew. “Don’t you say it!”

“Yeah I want to drive,” Andrew said, and Mike punched his dashboard. “Look would you just floor it.”

“I’m flooring it,” Mike said, and their car lurched forward. The truck swerved into the right lane as Sara tried to pull up on them. Now was their chance.

They accelerated past Sara’s cruiser, and the look she tossed their way was not one of relief to see them.

“Keep going,” Andrew told Mike. “Just keep going.”

“I’m going,” Mike said. They were coming up to a car in their lane blocking them from passing the truck.

“Car,” Andrew warned. “There’s a car.”

“I see the car,” Mike complained exasperated. “What do you want me to do? We’ve got Sara beside us--”

Andrew reached over and jerked his wheel to the left. The car swung into oncoming traffic as Mike floored it.

“Whoa!” Mike yelled grabbing the wheel. “Whoa!”

“Pass him!” Andrew yelled as he saw a truck in the distance turning the bend. “Pass him now!”

“I’m trying!” Mike insisted. “Why would he speed up?”

“Mike!” Andrew yelled. “Pass him now!”

“Let go of my wheel,” Mike yelled back, swerving right at the last second and only just threading the needle between the truck and the car. Swerving again, Mike situated them in front of the black pick-up truck.

“Now what?” Mike asked Andrew.

“BRAKE!” Andrew yelled at him, and Mike slammed on the brakes. The pick-up truck behind them saw their break lights and had no choice to do the same, giving Sara just the opportunity she needed.

The unmarked crusier swung around the truck and tapped them in their rear corner. The whole truck careened out of control, spinning left and smashing directly into a lamp post in the middle of a four lane bridge. The men standing on the back of the truck were thrown off, a couple straight over the railing into the deep waters below.

“My car,” Mike said, getting out of his driver seat and marveling at his car.

“Relax,” Andrew said, getting out his side. “You didn’t even get a scratch on it.”

“I know!” Mike said with excitement. “It’s a miracle.”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Sara asked, storming out of her car to stomp across the bridge at them, yelling the whole way.

“If you want the payload,” a man yelled into a handheld radio as he dropped out of the truck, “You’ll give us a bloody extraction NOW!”

Sara drew her gun and pointed it at the man. “Drop the radio!”

The man ignored her, grabbing a large glowing rock from the back of the truck. It was easily the size of a large pumpkin, and the man had to balance it gingerly as he crossed the bridge away from them.

“Where do you expect to go?” Sara yelled at the man. Beside Andrew, a spark of electricity zapped from Mike’s car to the railing of the bridge. “There’s no way out for you here,” Sara insisted. “Just give us the rock.”

“If you only knew, Detective,” the man said, still backing away from them with the Dixonite.

There was another spark off of Mike’s car, striking out at the middle of the bridge.

“Watch out!” Makayla yelled at them, running past Sara to grab Andrew and pull him away from Mike’s car.

Suddenly a large bright white tear in space seemed to open up right over Mike’s car, tearing his vehicle in half as electricity coursed out in all directions.

“Aww no!” Mike swore as he was thrown away from his car into the windshield of another. “My brother’s car!” As if to accentuate the point, both halves of the car exploded in a glorious fireball. “Really!!!”

“Come now,” a loud strange voice said over all of their heads. “Step into the light, you imbeciles.”

“Morgan Freeman?” Andrew said out loud, fairly certain he recognized that voice.

“What is that?” Makayla asked Andrew over the roaring sound of the tear.

“I know what that is,” Mike said, joining them behind a car. “I’ve seen something like it before.”

The military man continued to carry the glowing dixonite towards the large portal in the middle of the bridge.

“I said stop,” Sara yelled across the bridge. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

“You wouldn’t dare!” the man yelled back at her. “Do you know what would happen if you hit this volatile mineral? Cause I sure don’t.”

Andrew spotted what he needed on Makayla’s belt. “Give me your tazer,” he told her.

“What?” she complained.

He reached for it. “I have an idea!” Reluctantly she let him take it. Andrew stepped out from behind their cover.

“I’ll take you up on that wager,” he yelled to the man, closing the distance between them.

“Just try it,” the man said, holding the rock up between them as he continued back up towards the portal.

“Alright I will,” Andrew said, firing the tazer at the chunk of dixonite. The prongs dug into the crumbling surface and a hundred thousand volts of electricity shot out through the rock to electrocute the man holding it.

“The one thing I know for sure about Dixonite,” Andrew said as he and Sara rushed to grab the rock. “it conducts electricity.”

The man dropped the rock and stumbled back, but the female soldier who had been riding with him, the one person besides him who hadn’t been tossed off the bridge when they crashed, picked him up and jumped with him through the portal. It closed immediately behind them.

Andrew heard Sara breath out a big sigh of relief. “At least they didn’t get the Dixonite,” she reasoned to Andrew with a grin.

“So you believe me then?” Andrew asked her. “You certainly couldn’t have gotten this back without my help.”

“And what about my brothers car,” Mike yelled at them from the side of the bridge. “Who’s gonna recompensate me for that?”

“You can file a damage reimbursement form back at the precinct,” Sara told him, with a roll of her eyes. “I’ll give you guys a ride.”

*     *     *

“I think their pentagram looked better than ours,” Jon mumbled, watching the robed cultists drawing theirs on the lobby floor of city hall. Ian had the footage loaded onto his cellphone, and they’d gone over it what felt like a hundred times.

“There’s no time to go over it again,” Ian said with frustration, tired of waiting for the red paint to finish drying. As Bilal had promised, the basement was a large unfinished space, largely uncluttered now that hockey was in season.

“This isn’t going to work,” Jason said from his corner of the basement where he watched with bemusement. “Just so we’re clear now, that I called it.”

“It’s going to work,” Ian told Jason. “No thanks to you. You just have to believe.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how magic works,” Jason argued with him. “Not unless we’re trying to summon Peter Pan or bring fairies back to life.” Jon had been listening to them argue for hours. It was starting to make his head hurt.

“Next we put the object in the middle,” Jon said, trying to bring them back on task. “The thing we want to imbue.”

Ian placed a non-descript key on the floor in the center of the pentagram.

“What is that?” Bilal asked Ian after no one else did.

“It’s my house key,” Ian said with a shrug.

Bilal gave him a look. “Don’t you think you’ll be needing that?”

“I’ll figure it out!” Ian yelled at Bilal. There seemed to be some kind of loud breeze coming in from somewhere. “What’s next?” Ian yelled at Jon.

“Next they all bled on the object they wanted to imbue,” Jon narrated, watching the video. He grabbed the knife from beside him and passed it to Ian.

“Your move now oh fearless leader,” Bilal said with satisfaction, crossing his arms with a smirk.

“This is for you Rachel,” Ian said, scraping the knife against the palm of his hand. “Ow ow ow owie!” Ian shook his hand, the blood flying in all directions.

“Whoa!” Bilal exclaimed backing away. “Get that away from me!” He bent over. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Give that to me, you wuss,” Jason said, taking the knife from Ian. “You’re supposed to get that blood on the key.”

“I don’t know why in movies people always cut themselves there,” Ian complained as he held his hand over his key. “But there has got to be a better place.”

As Ian’s blood landed on the key, Jon’s headache worsened. Dropping the phone, Jon grabbed at his temple as it throbbed in pain.

Jason sliced his hand. “See how easy that is,” he said without flinching, and held it over the center of the pentagram.

Jon’s headache throbbed even harder, like a fire burning brighter than ever, searing away at his skull.

“You wanna sit this one out?” Jon heard Jason ask, and he realized the military obsessed teen was offering him the blade.

Jon shook his head, forcing the pain from his mind as he shakily took the dagger from Jason. “We’re not useless,” He told Jason, his eyes stinging with tears as he sliced his hand.

“Yeah sure whatever,” Jason said, clearly not following along but just going with it.

The cut in his hand didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the pain in his head. He cast his hand over the pentagram with the rest of them, and this time it was as if his head exploded.

He closed his eyes, desperate to shut out the pain, and as he blotted out the world around him Jon saw other images instead. Images of the blue creatures he’d scene in his dreams. Images of a world on fire. Of death and destruction.

Jon dropped the dagger.

“It’s okay,” Bilal told the circle. “I think I’ll pass on this one.”

“We should have enough blood,” Ian said with a shrug. “Now we just need the final ingredient.”

“I guess that’ll be me,” Bilal said skipping over to put on his protective gloves. He lifted the large electrical wires off the bench where they had left them. The wires sparked and sizzled before Bilal’s eyes. “Are we sure this is safe.”

“You said you wanted electricity,” Jason said, watching Bilal approach them. “I give you electricity.” He seemed to be enjoying every bit of Bilal’s fear.

“I’m starting to agree with Jason,” Jon told the group, as his head seared in agony. “I don’t think we should go ahead with this.” As he spoke papers were flying around the basement and sparks were erupting, but not just from the wires in Bilal’s hands.

“I never said we shouldn’t do this,” Jason clarified loudly over the winds. “I just said it wouldn’t work.” Jason nodded his head in satisfaction. “I’m gonna laugh and laugh and laugh.”

“Bilal do it,” Ian said, making the decision for everyone. “The Electricity!” he yelled. “Go!”

Bilal stepped forward. “The electricity is go,” he said pressing both positive and negative ends to the key.

There was some kind of explosion that threw all four teens back, and Jon saw a large bubble expand from the center of the pentagram and engulf the room. The cellphone beside Jon went black, and so too did his vision, replaced with images of blue skinned families burned alive, their screams and anguish searing like scars onto his brain.

*     *     *

Rachel awoke with a start, her arm searing with pins and needles. Her memories of the evening flooded back all too quickly, and she glanced down at her left arm in horror. To her relief it was still there, however there was a large stitch that ran up and along her shoulder. She moved her left hand, and though it was sluggish, and felt numb, it still worked. And it itched so much she knew it must have been healing. She’d be good as new in no time.

That was one small blessing, but the only one she could hope for. She was in a dingy cell, wet and cold. There was unwashed slime on the walls, the bricks surrounding her all a discoloured yellow. From piss, she could only assume based on the smell. There was a leak in a pipe that ran over her, and it dripped water onto the moldy soggy cot that clearly was meant to be her bed.

Getting up off the floor, Rachel limped to the door of her cell, careful not to move her arm too much lest she upset the stitches before they fully healed. She pressed herself against it, but the door wouldn’t budge. She could remember the guards saying it was being re-enforced. But of course she had to try.

Leaning against the door, the driest thing in her cell, she slid down onto her butt and sighed.

Her mind wandered to her friends. She could only imagine they were doing everything in their power to try to find her. The geeks were probably typing away on their computers. Ian was probably freaking out the most. Tanya… well she’d only start drinking again. It was how she seemed to want to cope with everything, unless she had someone else showing her a better way.

Closing her eyes, Rachel could almost imagine their faces. What she wouldn’t give to get to tell Ian and Tanya she loved them one more time. To touch them again. If she just tried to believe hard enough she could almost imagine she was there with them. It was so close, but when she opened her eyes she was all alone. It seemed she was their only prisoner. There wasn’t even a guard that she could hear or smell.

“You are not alone,” Rachel said to herself, trying again to imagine the faces of her friends.  “I am here with you,” she could imagine Tanya saying to her. It was like that Michael Jackson song.

Rachel began to sing out into the darkness.

All alone.

*

Satoru sat on the other side of the vampire’s door, wracked with guilt over everything the poor girl had been through. It was his fault she’d gone through so much trauma.

It had been he who sewed her arm back to her body. He was no surgeon, but with a vampire he needed only to get it close enough, and her healing would do the rest. But she’d have to take it easy for the next little while. And Satoru didn’t think Dalish was about to allow that to happen.

How could Satoru tell Rachel he was sorry. How could he even tell her he was there on the other side of the door? It was better that he stay silent. He had disgraced his honour once again. For what he was quite certain wouldn’t be the last time.

Then, to Satoru’s immense surprise, the girl in the cage began to sing. And her song was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard. He knew at that moment what he must do, as the maiden took his breath away with her voice. Her beauty would be protected, no matter the cost, and she would be united with her friends even if it was the last thing Satoru ever did.

This he swore on his life.

Next Time on Urban Fantasy at www.patreon.com/99geek in June 2019
2x08: Something’s gone wrong at Abbey Park High School. Ian’s spell certainly did something, but it wasn’t at all what he’d hoped. Instead, the lives of everyone in that school are in very real danger. Meanwhile, Rachel begins training with Satoru. Will he be her ticket out of that hell hole beneath the earth? Or will he be her unwitting doom?
Don’t want to wait that long to see these characters again? Andrew and Mike will be showing up again as the crossover continues on Dakotah Slade Paranormal/Detective in April 2019.

Next Month: The Aldonn Chronicles at www.patreon.com/99geek February 2019
1x07: The mages have an important shipment of supplies coming in through Capsin Harbour, and Lee wants it for himself. Frankie is determined to stop him, and she plans to do it the only way she knows how. By stealing the supplies first. Meanwhile, the Thieves Guild aren’t the only ones stealing shipments from the Mage Guild. Ingredients have been going missing for months now, the same ingredients every time. The necessary components for love potions. But are they being used for no good? Penelope investigates further in this pseudo anti-Valentine’s day special possibly available early if I can for Valentines Day.

March 2019: Isabol Tseung Voice News 1x02

April 2019: Dakotah Slade Paranormal/Detective 1x03 Crossover Event continues

May 2019: Adrift Homeless 1x08

June 2019: Urban Fantasy 2x08 Crossover Event Ends

July 2019: The Aldonn Chronicles 1x08

August 2019: Isabol Tseung Voice News 1x03

September 2019: Dakotah Slade Paranormal/Detective 1x04

October 2019: Urban Fantasy 2x09 Special Halloween Edition