A Blast from the Past...Part 1

The council ended without much further serious discussion. Naomi’s bombshell visions that had been provided by the peacefully sleeping child in her arms certainly sobered up the discussion. She consented to a meeting between Alexa and the ring that held Drake’s Spirit form, if I chose to go ahead with the rest of the deal.

As Alexa stirred in her arms, Naomi looked around the table before standing up slowly. “I need to get back before she wakes up, please excuse me.”

After a brief exchange of pleasantries and a smattering of kisses on Alexa’s forehead, Naomi took her leave.

Naomi’s name was fading above her now closed door before anyone moved or spoke again.

Jim sat forward, poured himself another mug of Diet Pepsi from the magickal pitcher before he broke the silence. “Rusty, there’s something else we need to discuss, since you’ve dragged me here.”

“What’s that Jim?”

“I came across a couple of news items of interest when I was reading through some back issues of the Wall Street Primer that had piled up on my table. The first story was actually the more recent story, one that I at first glanced through in passing, but came back to in more detail and more interest after the second story really caught my attention.”

“Oh? So what were these stories about?”

He took a long swig from his mug, draining it and setting it aside as he created to room to be more demonstrative with his hands. “Well, the second story was an anouncement by one Dick Arnold, the former CEO of VortiCorp, about a new company that he has formed with a number of silent partners.”

“Dick Arnold? I thought he had fled the country when we messed up the financials for VortiCorp?”

Jim nodded. “He did. That’s what this announcement newsworthy. It appears that VortiCorp had a number of offshore subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, and the Caymen Islands. This story was a puff publicity piece that was attempting to rehabillitate his image by blaming the financial problems of his original company on the ‘unethical and illegal activities of certain highly trusted employees’ and to trumpet his return with a newly formed holding corporation called the Mercury-Unlimited Group.” Jim sighed as he refilled and drained his mug again. “That article didn’t go into much detail about what businesses this new hoilding corporation was getting into, other than its ‘highly diversified investment portfolio,’ but the second article provided some ominous clues.”

Ravyn cocked her head and pursed her lips before speaking. “Mercury. That’s an interesting choice. There’s implied ties to business and commerce, which is probably the obvious refernce they are going for, but there could be a lot of magickal meaning hidden in that name. Mercury has a lot of associations with magick in modern occultism, especially the rulership over magick.”

The Frau chuckled, looked up from her second dissected grapefruit and spoke up. “Yes, Mercury also played a role in guiding the spirits of the dead. I don’t think this was a random choice at all, especially from what we know that VortiCorp was trying to do before.”

Cerrydwen nodded. “I agree. This name was not chosen by random. So what did the other article say?”

It was the best of times...

Despite the looming uncertainties about what exactly Draakar was, and what he intended to do with Drake’s body, the first few months after Drake’s defeat were great.

Zenny Al Farhan, Naomi and Alexa all returned with Ravyn to the Phoenix Coop, where both Zenny and Naomi began their first lessons in becoming full-fledged Casters in their own right.

Alexa was quickly adopted by all of the other residents of the co-op and named ‘Princess of the Coop’. She essentially had the run of the place, even Ravyn deferred to the Princess, especially when she flashed that toothless smile of hers.

Ravyn did manage to put both Zenny and Naomi to work in running the Coop itself, allowing her to spend more time instructing and playing with Alexa than she had before. She had also ‘convinced’ the Professor that all of her new students should receive scholarships, sponsored by the ORC, Inc. treasury.

The Professor continued his research and studies, both of the data taken from Bernstein’s computer files, and of the portion of stolen VortiCorp files that we had recovered in Miami when we broke up Drake’s organization.

Cerrydwen and the Frau returned to their secretive ways, although they too made frequent visits to the Coop to check in on the Princess and the rest of the crew there.

Herne and Moira returned to their Colorado home, although they were beginning to make grumbling noises about moving to somewhere more ‘natural.’ Herne kept hinting that Alaska was his choice destination for early retirement. Somehow, the thought of him loose in the primeval forests of Alaska seemed just about right.

I had to return to work, pulling several small, but still significant assignments over the months that all involved travel to some extent. The Bureau was learning to appreciate the value of an agent that didn’t need sleep or food, and who they didn’t have to worry about getting hurt. Some of the cases that I was involved with were interesting enough to write about, but I felt that owed you, my gentle readers the full effort of getting the main story of Drake’s downfall down. I will write about some of these cases as time permits, but I will not let them get in the way of any of the more important stories that I have to tell.

I did find time to return on an almost weekly basis to visit the Coop to check in on Jasmine (my oldest daughter-who was also studying under Ravyn) and Alexa. I also made some time to take Kenny to a few Detroit Tigers baseball games this summer, it was nice to bond with my son while watching the first winning Tigers team in his living memory.

There were two unresolved issues that took some dealing with during the last few months.

The first of these issues, was the new sword that I now had the burden of carrying. Excalibur was a blade of legendary powers, but it had a stubborn streak that was as wide as it’s reputation was large. The blade simply wouldn’t allow me leave it anywhere I chose to, it wanted to be borne as the legendary weapon it knew that it was. The problem with carrying such a weapon around, of course, was that I was already conspicuous enough as a walking corpse. Add three feet of gleaming, sharp steel, and you have one truly noticeable oddity.

The solution to this dilemma was provided by the Merlin. After a couple of weeks of tinkering, he was able to devise a special sheath that actually shifted the blade into the Shadowland, yet still allow me to carry it around. Thus the blade was always handy, in both the Shadow and in the physical world, should I need to to retrieve it.

The second issue would not be so easily resolved. That will be the subject of next couple of posts...