To (Un)Live and Die in Las Vegas...Part 3

So there I sat in the dark of night, wrestling with demons of my own conscience. Should I take some sort of unilateral action separate from my new found friends and compatriots, or should I take the well reasoned, rational approach of mentioning my suspicions to those I knew to be true allies and come up with a common approach to the problem of a traitor?

Well, as I am relatively sure you have guessed by now, I am not yet the well reasoning, rational human being that I sometimes wish to become. Perhaps it was some last vestige of testosterone flowing through what circulatory system I have, or perhaps it just a plain fact that it is not merely testoterone (of which I likely have none) that makes men do the often stupid, irrational things we do.

Either way, you guessed it, I got up in the quiet dark of the room, making sure to move quietly so as not to wake poor Jim from his slumber. I put on the long, dark trenchcoat that was now part of my image and loaded my collapsible baton into its little drop holster that I had fashioned into the right sleeve...I figured there was some head cracking to be done.

I did have enough sense to scribble a little note and place it on the table where Jim would be able to see it when he woke up. I wrote:

“J- Agron is an ally of Drake, I knew him as the Tinker. He can’t be allowed to contact Drake. See you soon.--Rusty”

I left the room, letting the electronic lock click into place as I shut the door quietly. I made my way to the elevator and punched the button to take me to the ground floor. I needed to visit the check-in desk.

A quick check with the listless clerk behind the counter told me that Agron was spending someone’s money well, he was on the top floor of the building, in the suite level. The prick was practically rubbing it in my face, he was using the full name of Agron Tinker. I got the room name (no mere numbers for the suites!) by slipping the kid a twenty dollar bill and headed back for the elevator.

Coming out of the elevator, I was met by another young man I had to bribe in order to have my run of the floor, he was dressed in the uniform of the hotel staff, and looked all officious at first, but a twenty dollar bill and a stern, no-nonsense look from me caused to find renewed interest in the scandal sheet he had been reading before I got out of the elevator.

The hallway of suite level was pretty impressive. Instead of a narrow, empty corridor, this floor was marked with tasteful lamps, discrete alcoves with sets of chairs outside of each door. The rooms were named for various personalities and place names based on the theme of the resort itself, and there weren’t any nice little signs showing which way to go like you see on the common levels of these kinds of places.

After a few minutes of wandering, I came upon the alcove marked by a placard for the name of the suite I was looking for. There were no goons sitting outside, so that was a good sign. I approached the door and was just about to knock on it when I happened to notice that it was slightly ajar.

Now, looking back on things with 20/20 hindsight, this should have been my last, best clue that things just weren’t right. Hindsight, however, is only useful after an event, and as you well know, I have made a rather bad habit at becoming very good at hindsight.

I pushed open the door to see a horrific sight, a landscape of elegant, very expensive furniture laying in ruins, much of it coated in bloody splatters. Several bodies lay strewn about the room, most with their heads bashed in, many with obviously broken limbs. Blood and what looked to be brains were splashed on a nearby wall as if a mad painter had thrown a can of the stuff to make some kind of statement.

All of the hard won instincts instilled by my former career as a police officer screamed at me to turn around and leave, right then, before the authorities arrived as they undoubtedly would. But I saw in the far shadows of the living room, almost behind a plush couch, there was a female figure cowering and wimpering in pain or shock. I could just see enough of her face to recognize her as one of the young women who had come from Chicago with us in the caravan, Jennifer, I think her name was.

When she saw me, her eyes grew wide with fear, and then seemed to relax with recognition. She cried out in a small, wavering voice, “Help me!”

I rushed into the room towards her, my vision tunneling in on her battered form, she had obviously been attacked as well, appeared to be suffering from a broken arm and her left knee was bent in a way that it shouldn’t have been.

My only warning to the coming attack was to see her eyes widen once more in fear, causing me to tspin around and throw up my right arm in a blocking motion. What I saw left me nearly as stunned as the powerful blow that came crashing down on me!

Greg, or rather Greg’s animated body had come out from a door that I had not noticed when I was rushing to help Jennifer. He was covered from head to toe in blood and gore as he brought his own collapsible baton down on my right forearm with incredible force, knocking me backwards and down onto the already trashed coffee table.

Luckily, the baton was no real match for my reinforced bones and my own baton that was still in its drop down sheath, but the force of the blow was enough to knock me off balance and into a couple of bodies.

As I was recovering my senses, I looked into what passed for Greg’s eyes, opening my own third eye, to see if Greg’s spirit was in this body, but what I saw only horrified me more. The darkness that passed for spirit in the body was definitely not Greg’s Spirit, but seemed to be a teaming mass of partial or incomplete spirits of some sort. Their sheer malevolence was almost palpable. My own Spirit shuddered to see such evil incarnate and in such a dangerous, human looking form. The foul creature raised its arm to continue its attack.

Behind me, I could hear Jennifer scream in fear and obvious pain.

Ignoring the threat of the coming attack, I was able to glance over and see Papa Locks emerge from the shadows beside Jennifer, smile in obvious glee as he reached out to Jennifer and snapped her neck in his huge hands in one fell motion all before I could do anything to help her out.

Distracted as I was, I was unable to prevent the foul creature that was using Greg’s body from raining blows down upon me, all I could do was shield my head as best as possible and try to roll in a kneeling position to try to regain balance to counter-attack.

Just as managed to get to my knees and rise up, ready to face the beast, I heard Papa Locks bellow out an order in what I assumed to be Creole. The creature grunted something back at him, dropped his baton to floor at my feet and lunge for the shadows to my side. It and Papa Locks disappeared into the shadows just as I heard that all too predictable cry of:

“Freeze motherfucker, Police!”

I looked over to the wide open door to see several armed members of Las Vegas’ finest standing there with weapons drawn. I dropped my own baton, and raised my hands....

To (Un)Live and Die in Las Vegas...Part 2

To get to the location of the meeting, we had to make our way through the main gambling floor of the hotel. The amazing display of sounds and sights of the slot machines, roulette wheels, video poker machines and gaming tables made this huge room seem like an adult version of a video arcade. Everywhere you looked there were lights flashing, alarms and screams of joy from happy (but temporary) winners, scantily dressed cocktail waitresses and costumed characters from the theme of the hotel itself to distract the unwary gambler.

It’s quite ingenious actually, to package the experience of losing one’s money in games chance as entertainment, so that when the majority of patrons walk away from the place lighter in the wallet, they often do so happily, thinking that at least they got their money’s worth of free alcohol, wondrous sights, and adrenaline rushes of temporary wins. Looking around at all of the poeple, from retired grandmothers and grandfathers, to blue collar factory workers, to single moms, to normally bright and fiscally conservative businessmen all lining up to have their chance to flush away some money that may or may not be extra in their budgets was very depressing.

I couldn’t help wondering if my detached attitude towards the sights and sounds that the resort owners were employing to detach theses folks from their money was related to my lack of hormones and the limited amount of stimuli that I could actually now experience. I remember having made trips before to Vegas, and that I was as enthralled by the experience as many of these poor, sleep deprived people now seemed to be.

I was walking with the Frau, Ravyn, Cerrydwen and Jim.

The Frau seemed to be her normal, happy self as she toddled through the maze of machines, tables and people. Smiling at some folks, pointing out machines that were celebrating winners, but otherwise unaffected by the hustle and bustle of activity. She used her cane artfully to clear a path without actually offending anyone with her gentle touch and her kind smile and easy laugh.

Ravyn seemed to be a bundle of energy, barely contained within her small frame. She smiled more than the Frau, and exclaimed for joy when a nearby older gentleman leaped from his stool in front of the machine he had been almost praying at before hitting his small jackpot of a couple of hundred dollars. She pranced through the crowd like someone who felt herself to be actively involved in the excitement of the moment, like she gained strength and energy from the underlying buzz of the room.

Cerrydwen, on the other hand, walked like she was shielding herself from a constant assault on overwhelming stimuli, like the same energy that boosted Ravyn actually brought her pain. Her eyes were squinted, she walked with one hand seemingly shielding her eyes and her temples from the bright light of the sun. When a nearby blackjack table exploded in laughter and joy as the dealer busted, she winced in pain and staggered in her step before I caught her elbow and steadied her.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

Without looking at me, she choked out, “I will be once we get out of this madness. Sometimes it sucks to be an empath.”

Jim towered over most of the crowd, easily using his bulk and strength to intimidate opennings in lines or crowds just before he reached them. People almost unconsciously moved out of his way as he approached. His eyes were darting everywhere, taking in probabilities of winning and losing and quickly assessing the losing odds at nearly every game we passed. Passing a completely full poker table, he nodded in the direction of a couple of young men sitting across from the dealer who was placing cards in front of them and said to me, quietly, “There’s a set-up, see those young men, they’re playing that drunk guy in the middle, he’ll likely never know what hit him and how he lost all of those chips before dusk.”

The gaming hall was immense, crowded with machines, tables and activities that had been artfully arranged to make passersby move through every conceivable type of gambling in order to get anywhere in the room. Just about everywhere you went, employees of the resort seemed to invite or even implore you to join in a simple little game or to sample some free drink. It was an orgy of activity clearly designed to overload the senses of even the savviest consumer into trying just one pull at this machine, or one hand at this table. Why not take one good roll of the dice? It might be your lucky day! You know, you can’t win in Vegas if you don’t play!

But beneath all of the happy, exciting buzz was an undetow of desperation and seriousness to the room that was also visible, if you were lucky (or unlucky-depending on your persepctive) enough to be immune to many of the other distractions. I could almost feel the desperate, nearly hopeless need of the single mother pushing in the last of her rent money, praying for the miracle that she was just due for to finally come through, and the despair she felt when the symbols aligned to reveal the loser that she knew in heart that she likely would always be.

I could feel the stares of the hard edged men and women looking out from the ‘pits’ as they watched everyone, assessing who was cheating and who needed to be stopped. Their faces betrayed the fact that they had long ago become immune to the ebb and flow of emotion stemming from glorious victory and crushing defeat. I felt in these stares, a strange sense of kindred with these last folks, knowing all too well how much that loss meant.

We reached the buffet-style restaurant that lay on the far edge of the room and made our way inside. The columns and artfully placed plants that formed the only wall between the seating area of the restaurant and the gaming hall beyond provided just enough relief from the sights and sounds of the gambling to allow Cerrydwen to emerge from her self-imposed cocoon, but allowed enough to get through to be a constant reminder of the seemingly endless bounty of winning that lay beyond this temporary respite.

Everyone got their trays and made their way through the buffet line, I stayed near Cerrydwen, grabbing her tray for her, making it look like we were a couple. I made sure to grab enough food and drink to maintain the appearance of a tray for two, so as to remain inconspicuous in the crowds of the restaurant. I paid for the both of us and we made our way from the line to the large table where there were a dozen other folks already waiting.

Even in this place, in this city, it was fairly easy to tell that the people waiting for us were other ORCs, marked in some strange way as special and talented in ways that most people only dreamed of. John was already there, with one of the young men from the attack on the canyon. The group was quite an eclectic mix, as diverse in apparent race and ethnicity as they were in talents. There was a small, older chinese man who easily could have played a character in any number of Hong Kong made martial arts movies. To his side was a younger woman with black, colorfully braided hair and the brown skin of latin american heritage. Dominating others near him was a large, african american man with a clean shaven head, a hearty laugh and large, gnarled hands. Herne and his wife, Moira, also were there, satisfied smiles on their faces.

My companions were greeted as friends who had returned as if gone from a long journey, I was introduced as ‘Randy’ a prospect from the Chicago area, which was the agreed upon disguise until the full, private meetings with the membership were to take place, probably tomorrow.

Everyone seemed genuinely happy to meet me, as they introdced themselves and indicated where they were from. (As they become important to the story, I will present their names and such so you can remember them as well.)

Everything was going fine, until a small, rather indistinct man to the left of the older chinese man (who had given his name as Wang and his home as Los Angeles) introduced himself as Agron, from Virginia, and said, “N-n-nice t-t-to m-m-meet you, R-Ru-Rus-Randy, I-I-I’m p-p-pleased t-t-to f-f-fin-finally m-m-m-meet you.” Something about his voice, his stutter, jarred something in my memory. It wasn’t after the dinner though, and after the plans for the meeting to take place the next day were laid, that I started to recall where I had heard that voice before.

Later that evening, after the others had gone to bed, or gone to gamble, I finally recalled what struck me about that Agron fellow. His voice, his stutter recalled a voice I had heard in the first few days of my awakening in the NecroLab, a voice that could only belong to another assistant of Drake’s who had helped Dr. Geek to get my Chakra embedded properly. I never saw his face, since at that time my Spirit had been forced back inside the Chakra for the transition. But his voice, and his damnable stutter, were unmistakably unique. He had been called the Tinker by Dr. Geek and his staff, who had spoken on him after he finished his work, with awe and with not just a little bit of fear.

I sat there, alone, meditating on just how to handle the situation. There was a traitor, or at least a double agent in our larger circle. This man knew of the plans for the corporate meeting, and had been told like all of the rest of those at the table to read my blog, that the importance of it would be revealed at the meeting. I can remember now how eager he was to take down that website address, and how the gleam in his eyes seemed to glow bright with understanding and anticipation.

I had that sinking feeling in my virtual stomach as a I knew for a certainty that tomorrow, everything would change....

To (Un)Live and Die in Las Vegas...Part 1

Las Vegas is one of those vibrant cities of which it can truly be said that it never sleeps.

We rolled into Vegas with a plan, with all of the vehicles except the psychedelic van heading for the hotel in which the Convocation was to take place. Rowan and Morrigan would be a problem at that particular place, so the young couple who had their private time interrupted so rudely by my makeover assailants were headed to the western edge of town, far off the famous Strip, and were going to get a room in a residential style motel that rented rooms by the week. We already knew which place that was going to be, as one of the John’s students from the reservation had scouted it out for us and rented the room during our trip from Chicago. This place accepted pets, even large, fearsome looking beasts that might better belong in zoos, as long as the desk manager received his extra $20 (each) at check-in.

Actually, there were several rooms rented in that off-site motel, since Jim felt we might need a a place to fall back to in the event things got squirrelly, as somehow we knew they woould.

The rest of us joined that vast stream of nearly parked traffic that passed for the Strip nowadays. The hotel for the Convocation was one of those really big, really famous places that could be identified by just about anyone from just about anywhere solely based on its name, which I will avoid mentioning at this time for legal considerations.

(You just don’t fuck with the people who run these things, after reading about these events you will understand why I have chosen not to identify the exact location.)

I had my trepidations as we approached the hotel, I simply was not used to being around this many people. I had carefully examined myself with a mirror after my makeover and didn’t see how anyone would be able to recognize me, since the ladies had done such a good job blending everything together and putting together such a complete look. But I still felt unsettled. Perhaps it was a general anxiety about being in such a public setting, but something was gnawing at the back of my mind.

No one else seemed to have these same feelings, except perhaps Cerrydwen. She had returned to her dour, gloomy self shortly after the makeover, and was no longer smiling. She seemed almost as nervous as I did, staring at all the people with a challenge in her eye, like she was daring them to mess with her. Hardly anyone met her gaze for long without looking away or looking down quickly.

I was riding in the back seat of Jim’s truck, with Herne riding shotgun (almost literally if you counted all of the hidden weapons on his person, from his semi-automatic pistol to the newly confiscated stun gun to the hunting knife he kept sheathed in the small of his back). Cerrywen was sitting right behind him, spending most of her time staring out at passersby, while Ravyn sat in the middle between Cerrydwen and myself. She seemed her normally bubbly self as she kept badgering Jim about how much money he was going to give her to gamble with. She seemed to think she had some special skills that would help her with Roulette and some of the dicing games.

Jim remained stoic throughout her banter, making non-committal noises about gambling being risky and how the house had all of the built-in advantages. As we approached the parking garage for our hotel, Ravyn turned her attention to Cerrydwen, “Sis, isn’t this going to be great? I just love the energy of all these people, all this stuff that is going on here. I can’t wait to get inside.”

Cerrywen turned her glare back to Ravyn, a withering look if I had ever seen one, “Yeah, great. All these people. I can’t wait.”

Oblivious to the tone Cerry was using, Ravyn blurted out, “I’ll bet you and I can make a killing at the tables. You know, if we got you in the right poker game, your winnings alone could pay for this whole trip!”

“I’m not playing poker against her,” said Herne, smiling as he looked back. “But we need to focus on the matter at hand of the Convocation, darling, gambling will have to wait until afterwards.”

Ravyn sat back, crossing her ams, lips drawn down in a pout, “You guys are no fun. I’ve been cooped up all winter long!”

Jim pulled into a parking spot on a lower lever of the garage, followed soon after by the other vehicles that remained in our group. We grabbed what bags and stuff we didn’t want to leave in the truck and went inside to get our rooms.

It felt strange walking so freely, so openly, in the middle of the afternoon among crowds of people, and not attracting the stares of fear and revulsion that I normally get. The worst I got now were looks of amusement and curiousity. It was like a tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders, I felt free and easy as I walked through the teaming crowds, I even loved having to push my way through like a normal person. With my normal look, people made sure to keep as far away from me as they could manage. Perhaps everything was going to be OK after all.

Jim handled the check-in, which went smoothly. I am pretty sure that I saw him wince in pain though as he reached for his wallet and pulled out the corporate charge card to pay for all of the rooms. I got the distinct impression that spending money was NOT one of his favorite activities, even if it wasn’t his own. No wonder he did so well in building up the finances of the group so quickly.

Our rooms were in mostly adjoining blocks on the tenth floor, while the conference room we were assigned for the Convocation was on the second floor above the main casino floor but near some of the private gambling rooms that the hi-rollers used for their private gambling with other rich folk.

I ended up bunking down in the same room with Jim, since Herne’s wife, Moira, was already checked in from the day before. Herne was grinning like a fool as he waved at us on the way up to go see her, obviously intent on catching up with some much needed private time with his wife.

John was met in the lobby by a gaggle of his students from the reservation, they seemed amazed at seeing him again, but happy. The various students we had brought with us took off in groups of two or three for their own rooms.

Cerrydwen, the Frau and Ravyn were in the adjoining room. I unlocked the privacy latch on our side of the door between the rooms and knocked.

Ravyn peeked through the cracked door, smiling as she exclaimed, “We’ve got hot tubs in these rooms, Jim I’m going to give you a big hug!”

Jim looked down at his feet, “Yeah, well, you don’t need to be SO surprised, I’m not that cheap!”

The Frau called out from behind Ravyn, “Remember, we’ve got a meeting with the council at dinner, everyone should get freshened up and ready for that!”

I closed the door and looked for the remote control for the big, flat screen television that hung on the wall opposite the beds. Jim already had it in his hand, he turned it on and we vegged out to a couple of hours of SportsCenter.

After about the fourth cycle of hi-lights we got a call on room phone, Ravyn letting us know in which of the many restaurants in the hotel to meet at for the council session...

Gals Gone Wild

In the last major stop before we made it to Vegas, I was ambushed by Ravyn, the Frau and Cerrydwen and dragged in to the psychedelic van for my own personal 'ambush makeover'.

The wenches must have been planning the event for quite some time, as I saw that Ravyn was carrying a couple of bags from that Outlet Mall we hit sometime a ways back. Inside I could see the tendrils from what I hoped was only a black haired wig. The Frau appeared to be holding a large make-up bag with a set of industrial sized application brushes. Cerrydwen was smiling for I believe the first time since I had met her. She appeared to be holding some folded up clothes that almost seemed ridiculous to have ever been folded, a set of jeans that already looked ragged and frayed, a black T-shirt of some sort, and a set of very large, very brutish looking studded leather bracers all piled on top of a long black trenchcoat.

I was helpless under their relentless onslaught, as they pulled me into the van, kicked out the young couple who had taken this moment to grab a little nookie, and stripped me down to my skivvies faster than a lone Chippendales dancer at a bachelorette party, giggling (even cackling!) like schoolgirls over their first crushes.

In less time than it would have taken that horny young man to reach for the sky, so to speak, I was transformed from a pale, bald, but semi-respectable looking zombie with a few scars, to a passing fair impersonation of a trenchcoat wearing throwback to an 80's rock band, with hair-sprayed, spikey bangs sticking up from my head and hair cascading around my shoulders.

Looking in the mirror when they had finally exhausted themselves into a giggling pile of breathless women turned to schoolgirls, I saw a stranger who could have easily been a member of that quintessential hard rock band, Kiss. Everything from a silver sword earring dangling from my right ear to the several silver chains now dangling from neck simply screamed white trash. The Ozzie Ozbourne concert T-shirt and the huge bracers that covered most of my forearms just seemed to finish the ensemble. I threw my shades back onto my face, put down the mirror, and held up my left hand in that Heavy Metal, 'devil's horns' sign and said "Dudes, let's rock!"

The shrieking laughter that erupted from my attackers sent them into asthmatic fits of coughing, tears flowing down their cheeks.

Somehow, these three women had transformed my image and hid my true nature from casual observation better than all of the Dr. Geeks' lab techs could manage in a half a day, and probably for a fraction of the cost! Little did I know just how valuable my makeover would become in the coming days...but that is for the next couple of posts....

Slow Road to Vegas

This road trip was a heck of lot different from my last road trip out west. Before, I travelled alone, so the only stops I had to make were for gasoline for the car, or to break up the monotony of the drive.

Now with with five vehicles of varying fuel efficiencies, two large animals, fourteen living people, and myself, we simply couldn’t make the kind of time that I had become used to making when I travelled alone. So, the drive out to Vegas lasted almost a full week.

This week long odyssey provided ample opportunities to get to know these strange people who had taken me in so quickly, some of whom had risked their lives for an undead man that they themselves knew so little about. I alternated driving and riding in just about every vehicle, so that I could get to know these people even better.

I will spare you the details of the journey for now, since much of what I came to learn about these folks in the course of that journey will come out in future posts anyway, but this will also be an opportunity to catch the blog up closer to my more recent experiences.

As an example, all of the entries from ‘On the Warpath, Part 1’ until the last post related the events of Saturday, February 26, 2005 when we rescued John and then were in turn rescued by Ravyn. We left for Las Vegas in the afternoon of Sunday, February 27. The events of that day were truly remarkable, so I felt the need to take the time to detail exactly what happened.

After what seemed an eternity, we arrived in Las Vegas on the evening of Friday, March 4. That is, of course, when the shit hit the fan again...

Preparing to Leave

The clock was ticking on the next surprise that Drake might pull, so affairs in Chicago had to be wrapped up pretty damn quick. While Herne and I caravaned our van load of (soon to be former) bounty hunters to the nearest Saintly Sisters of Mother Mary’s Mercy Hospital, the others were preparing for our newest journey westward.

Jim, the Professor, had suggested four possible locations for an organized-on-the-fly, semi-covert Convocation of the Clans--all in places that are normally warm and sunny this time of year, since Ravyn insisted--Disneyworld in Orlando, Disneyland in Anaheim, New Orleans, or the original Sin City, Las Vegas. The choices were limited not only in terms of climate, but in places that handled large amounts of tourists, usually had plenty of meeting places and hotel rooms, and where up to a few hundred Casters of various types ranging from Native American shamans to Jedi-like New Age sorcerors could come together in a fairly inconspicuous manner, and yet still be public enough to provide a modicum of safety in numbers.

His reasoning was solid, any gatherings made in places similar to the co-op offered Drake and his followers too many opportunities to drum up some local goons and buy off the local police force. He was obviously willing to set those types on us with the possibility that people would be killed or seriously hurt. But, Jim argued, in a place like the four locations he pointed out, the sheer size of the gathering places and the publicity that any possible attack would draw on the attackers made them the safest and most convenient choices for this improvised gathering.

I had no idea how large this group was, or how much financial support they had until Jim started this discussion. I was further amazed to learn that he had helped to establish all of this while he was still a graduate student nearly fifteen years ago. In that time, I later learned, he had helped turn a fairly modest endowment from the estate of a modestly wealthy benefactor of a couple hundred thousand dollars into a private corporation with a net value in the low eight figures.

Everyone I spoke to about the Professor marvelled at how he was a financial wizard, that eventhough he disavowed any magickal talents of his own, he seemed to have a true knack to know how and when to invest in various market instruments, diving into the stock market with seemingly reckless abandon just before stocks exploded, while also pulling out just before major crashes. He would just shrug when I asked him about such things and say it really, really paid to know how to research and recognize the small little signs that signalled big changes to come.

Amazingly though, he had a deep disdain for personal wealth and for those who sought such riches for their own sake. He presented himself as a man who lived modestly and who helped others out of a genuine interest in seeing good done in the world.

So it seemed to make a perverse kind of perfect sense that his final recommendation for the convocation was Las Vegas, a place that represented the antithesis of everything he stood for.

The preparations for the trip were done before dawn. I, of course, travelled light. I still didn’t have my own vehicle and equipment back from the my first southwest trip, since there just hadn’t been time for John’s students to make it to Chicago yet. Ravyn called them and had them redirect towards Vegas, asking them to start making arrangements for lodging for as many of the 80 or so Casters and as many of their several hundred students as would be able to make it.

Ravyn spent much of her time on the phone calling other Casters and sending them towards Vegas instead of Chicago. The Frau and Cerrydwen though, seemed to communicate with others through less conventional means, spending their time in a trance-like state that I recognized from my own Spirit Walking.

That left most of the packing and other physical work to the half-dozen or so students of Ravyn that were coming with us on this trip.

By the time everything was packed and ready to roll, there was a small caravan comprised of Jim’s truck, one of the appropriated SUV’s from the bounty hunters, an older van decked out in the psychedelic colors of someone who spent too much time smoking dope and wathcing old Scooby-Doo cartoons, and a couple of smaller econobox cars.

Luckily, John did come awake during the time spent getting ready and was able to recognize everyone and thank each of us for the rescue before drifting back into a healing sleep.

Shortly after noon, the Professor led the motley group of vehicles onto the Interstate and we headed west. For me, it was the second time in less than a week that I making this trip. Thius time however, I went forward with hope and friends at my side.

There was no way to know what dangers may lie ahead for us at that point, but for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I had to face those dangers alone.

Setting Things Right...Part 3

I took off at a run, knowing the damage that an assault team like this one could do against people who weren’t expecting it.

I slowed down as a I reached the driveway, not wanting to run into an ambush in case they had guys out front as well. I wasn’t sure how effective those stunners would be, but I certainly didn’t want to find out the hard way and see any of my new-found friends pay any more of a price than they already had.

The front door was still closed, and all looked quiet at the moment.

Instead of barging in and perhaps setting off some trigger happy bounty hunters by surprise, I started around the side of the house, towards the window into the library on the far side. As I approached the curtained plate glass window, I could make out the sounds of shouting and some very aggressive barking. I was about to bust in through the window when someone beat me to it, by flying through it from the inside, curtains wrapping up whoever it was, he or she crashed through the glass and landed on the snowy grass with a thud, flailing and kicking like they were on fire.

I looked into the room to see a scene of pure chaos.

Ravyn Fyre was standing facing the window, hands coated in orange flame, an angry glare in her eyes.

The professor was pounding on one poor goon with his bat, the solid wood thundering and splintering on the poor bastards’ kevlar helmet, thumped into body armor and finally stopping with a loud crack as the bat broke in two on the goons shoulder, causing him to collapse in a heap.

Herne had somehow wrestled a stunner from another goon who lay apparently senseless at his feet, while he was using the gun to its best effect on another poor soul who had apparently attacked the Frau. Now besides being electrocuted, he was being savaged by Rowan and beaten about the head and shoulders by the Frau with her staff.

The fifth and (hopefully) final bounty hunter was kneeling and begging at Cerrydwen’s feet, his face, hands and neck bleeding from obvious claw marks from her giant cat, who was sitting nearby licking the blood from her paws and face. The bounty hunter though seemed oblivious to the wounds as he stared up into Cerrydwens dark visage, seeing some sort of horror that can only be imagined. She stared down into his eyes muttering something under her breath, seeming to impose her will on his broken spirit.

John lay in the center of room, apparently still unconscious.

I looked down at the struggling form on the ground, who was now rolling back and forth in the snow, smoke rising from inside that mess of curtains. I flipped the edge of the curtain enough to see the burned face of a bounty hunter, his combat gear melted onto parts of his skin. He didn’t even notice me as I reached down and knocked him out. The fire was out, he would feel less pain unconscious.

“Is everyone OK?” I asked, looking back into the room.

The Frau’s assailant now lay stunned and bleeding, the man in front of Cerrydwen seemed to be in some sort of catatonic state, sitting and rocking back and forth muttering gibberish of some sort.

“Yeah,” said Herne. “I think maybe a couple of bruises, maybe a scrape here or there. I am getting too old for this kind of stuff.” He shook his right hand. “My knuckles can’t keep up with this kind of use.”

Ravyn’s eyes seemed to cool, the flames in her hands dying down to small tendrils of smoke. “I didn’t like those curtains much anyway. What happened to you Rusty? Where did you go?”

I explained what I went to go check out and then about the other assault team laying in the van out front. I also told them what I had learned from the guy inside the van and how Drake was behind this assault. I finished with, “I don’t know how that bastard could find out so quick how we ended up here, but it’s clear he isn’t going to be giving up anytime soon. Look I am really sorry to have endangered all of you in this mess. I think it would be best if I left John in your care and took off. If I am not around, maybe Drake and his goons will leave you guys in peace.”

“Oh stop with that nonsense!” The Frau exclaimed. “We are involved as much as you are now, I don’t think this Drake fellow is going to forget about us just because you take off now, is he?”

“No, probably not.” I said, sighing. “But I really don’t want to see you good people in such danger.”

Herne grinned. “Hey, I haven’t had this much fun in quite some time. Besides, it sounds like they have a pretty serious bounty on my head now, and if I heard you right, they still want John here.”

“You’re not going anywhere Rusty,” said Ravyn. “Not, that is, unless you take us with you. I don’t think we can stay here safely, so I will have to make some calls and make new arrangements for the Convocation anyway. This might be a good chance to go someplace warm and sunny!” She smiled at that thought.

Cerrydwen looked up from her victim, “Yes, I think a road trip is defintiely in order, don’t you Professor?”

Jim was inspecting his broken bat, picking up splinters that lay all around his victim. “Yeah, I can take some time off as well. I’m gonna miss this bat though, maybe we can stop in Louisville and get another one.” He grinned.

I looked over at John, “Did you guys finish what you needed to do to help John? Or did these guys interrupt that?”

“Luckily for John,” said the Frau. “We had just finished up when these fellows showed up. Cerry gave us the warning here. John should be coming around in the morning, if all went well.”

“Actually, it was just some of my own spirit friends who warned me, I just passed it along to you guys.”

“Look,” I said. “I have the other team laying in that van. We should take these guys out to join them, and get them to a hospital. these guys aren’t truly evil like Drake and his ilk, they were just stooges looking for a quick buck. Once we get them loaded up, I’ll take the van to the nearest hospital and if someone else will follow behind me, we can let these guys explain things to the police about their injuries and such. By the time anyone makes any sense out of what they are saying, we can be long gone.”

“I can follow you in one of their SUV’s, they won’t be needing it anymore.” Herne grinned as he said that. “Besides, we’re gonna need another SUV for a crew this big!”

“What about the window here at the co-op?” Ravyn looked at the broken window. “I don’t want to leave this like this.”

“I’ll make some calls,” said Jim. “It’ll be taken care of in the morning.”

“Let’s get this wrapped up then.”

With that, I went back to the van and brought it to the house, after checking to make sure no one inside was able to make any further trouble.

Once the van was at the house, I added the unconscious forms of the knocked out and stunned bounty hunters to the back, being a little more careful not to cause further damage, or to suffocate anyone. Last, I brought the gibbering fool in a catatonic state to join the rest, he moved wherever I guided him to without much fuss. He sat quietly in one of the chairs inside the back of the van.

After locking the back of the van back up, I went to Cerrydwen and asked, “Is that guy going to be able to make any trouble?”

She looked at me evenly, eyes narrowing just a little, “No, I don’t think so.”

“What did you do to him anyway?”

“Oh, I just made him take a look at everything mean he had done to anyone else in his own past, and made him experience all of that pain and hurt those people felt, only I amplified it a little bit. He wasn’t a very nice man, so he’s got an awful lot of karmic healing to do.”

“Damn, I’m glad you are on my side.” I shook my head as I watched Herne gather up weapons. “You need me to destroy those?”

“Nah, there’s some good stuff here, if nothing else, we can give them to John’s people to help defray some of their expenses. Might keep one or two myself. I kinda like these stun guns.”

“Yeah, that reminds me, they were carrying those things to try to stop me. Save one of those for us to experiment on later. I need to know if something like that can affect me.”

“Gotcha, good idea. Well, I can finish this up later, let’s go do our good deed for those poor bastards.”

Setting Things Right...Part 2

It was very dark when I stepped out into the cold of the night. Clouds were very thick from yet another winter storm rolling through, but the snow had not yet started.

I allowed my lenses to adjust to the reduced light as I slipped from the sidewalk into the shadows of the driveway, moving between vehicles. I flicked my right wrist in order to let my collapsible baton drop into my palm. Another quick flick of the wrist and the baton extended with a satisfying ‘snick’.

Moving quickly over the salted pavement, I scanned the street for anyone walking. I could just make out the shape of the van on the far side of the street, to my left. I crossed the street quickly and made my way to the row of tall evergreens that lined that side of the street. I was able to use the cover of those trees to make my way to the corner where the van was sitting facing the co-op house and the SUV was sitting just around the bend, out of casual sight. The large tree that obscured vision of the SUV from the co-op was the perfect cover for me to observe both vehicles unnoticed.

No one could be seen inside the van, but then again it could easily hold several men in the back, out of sight because of the lack of windows. The SUV, however, was a different matter. Even through the tinted windows, I could make out 5 figures. Shortly after I began observing them, the doors openned and men started getting out. These guys were either government agents or mercenary goons for hire. They were wearing the black garb and harnesses of an assault team alright, loaded to bear with weapons. They began to gather near the back of the white van, their nightvision equipment on their heads, but not snapped down into place. They were getting ready for a briefing of some sort.

I shifted to get a better view of the gathering, carefull not to step on any twigs. I was at the advantage right now, didn’t need to spoil it until I found out who these guys were and what they were doing here. The back door of the van cracked open, one of the men inside leaned out to say something to the gathered assault team. I listened...

Van man: “Alright, you know the assignment, you have your briefing photos. We need the Indian alive if possible, take Clarksson dead or alive, the boss doesn’t care which, and if you value your lives at all, keep your stun guns handy. They are the only way to stop this Bones character from making meat of you.”

Team member: “Why the stunners for Bones? My magnum should be able to drop his ass.”

Van man: “Look dipshit, didn’t you read your briefing material? Bones isn’t a normal man, he’s some freak government experiment gone wrong, the bosses say he’s gone psycho and that’s why they hired us to capture him. The stunners will disrupt his motor functions, but won’t kill him. Once you got the place secured and Bones stunned, let us know and we’ll arrange transport of the captives and Bones.”

Team member: “What happens if the cops show up? This is a pretty quiet neighborhood.”

Van man: “Don’t worry about it, the bosses have taken care of that shit, you just do your job, and everyone else will take care theirs.”

That was enough for me, these guys weren’t feds, if they’d been ‘hired’ and they weren’t the locals, but they did seem to think they had local support for their activity. Very disturbing shit.

The van man was giving some other last minute instructions, still attracting all of their attention as they listened to him, ruining their own natural night sight by looking into the lighted interior of the van. I stepped out of the cover of the tree by the SUV and walked out quietly, but quickly until I came up behind the gathered assault team.

The van man’s eyes grew wide in fear as he noticed me, just as I dropped the nearest goon with a solid thwack across the back of his neck, dropping him like a stone.

Van man was able to manage a quick, “Son of a bitch...” as I dropped the next asshole with a quick flick of my wrist as he turned to face me, causing his nose to shatter and erupt into a fountain of blood and curses.

In such close quarters, and as unprepared as they were for action, they were unable to bring to bear their automatic weapons. The poor bastards never had much of a chance anyway, as a few quick flashes of my baton quickly shattered hands, kneecaps and noses. The last stalwart of the assault team was still fumbling with a holster to try to draw some unwieldy thing that might have been a ‘stunner’ when I shattered his forearm with the baton and kicked him hard enough in the ‘nads to give his children headaches. He crumpled to the ground whimpering in pain.

The van man sat there openmouthed as I finished off his assault team. He took too long to gather his wits though, just as he was trying to close the door, muttering, I grabbed the door and yanked it all the way open, spilling onto the whimpering body of one of his goons. A quick crack to the back of his head, careful not to crack the skull, and he was out as I stepped inside to deal with the other two.

These two were wearing the blue jumpsuits I had seen earlier and were scrambling to take off headphones and find weapons of some sort. I grabbed the first one, the skinny one, by the scruff of his neck with my left hand and smashed his face into the console he was trying to back away from. I lunged with my baton tip to hit the fat guy in the solar plexus as he was turning to face me, stun gun in hand. Without thinking, I snatched the skinny guy back just in time to take the barbs of the electrified stun, letting go of his body as it started twitching and jerking in response to the charge of the gun. A second, short swing of the baton smashed the gun and his fingers as I stepped over his still twitching buddy to grab him by the front of his jumpsuit. I lifted him easily with one hand, smashing back against the cabin wall. He was still squirming, crying in pain,

“Wait...don’t hurt me anymore!”

I brought my ugly mug closer to his wide eyes, “Why should I let you live asshole? You were going to disable me and kill or capture my friends. Give me one reason I shouldn’t fuck you up real bad!”

“Please, Mr Bones...I have a family...” he muttered.

“Who hired you?”

“I...don’t know, please...just let me go!”

“If you don’t give me something quick, I’ll move on to someone else.” I said, my voice very quiet and calm.

“It was some guy named Kampmann...said he was with the FBI.”

“Why would the FBI need to hire the likes of you?”

“I really don’t know Mister...he just contacted us earlier today, said it was a special rush job. He offered us...damn my fingers are broken...he offered us a big bonus to do it quick-like.”

“What kind of outfit are you guys?”

“Please man, just put me down ok? We’re bounty hunters, but this ain’t worth no damn bonuses!”

I grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the console he had been sitting at and handcuffed his good hand to a sturdy bar set in the ceiling, a solid punch to the face was enough to knock him out, he slumped down, hanging from the ceiling rail by one hand. I hopped out of the van and started piling the semi-conscious, wounded bounty hunters into the back of the van. All of them save the one guy in a white shirt that I had pulled from the van were too wounded to be of any danger, but I still pulled all of their stun guns from their holsters and grabbed their automatic weapons. He was still out cold, so I took the time to disable the weapons. I broke the trigger mechanism on the stunners and bent the barrels of the assault weapons before putting them in the van with the wounded men.

The guy in the white shirt was just coming awake when I had finished that. He still had a cordless headphone on his ears. I was just about to start interrogating him when I heard the faint crackle of a voice come out of his earpiece. “Team 1 in place. Assault to begin as planned. Out.”

As quickly as his eyes snapped open with the voice in his ears, they closed again as I broke his nose, putting him back to sleep. I threw him in on top of the heap of wounded men, ignoring the groans of pain emanating from the pile, and slammed the door shut.

I had to get back to the house!

Setting Things Right...Part 1

There was something about the set of her jaw, the concern in her eyes, and the matronly bustle of the shorter, rounder, older woman who entered the room first. Virtually ignoring my presence she approached John’s bed quickly and deliberately, clucking under her breath. The Frau, I assumed.

The second woman was slightly taller, dressed in the dark leathers and boots of a biker, with an intense, dark look in her eyes and a furrowed brow. She had the hard look and dark moods of the goddess she was named after. She glanced at me, challenging why I was there, before coming to some sort of quick decision that I could stay, for now.

Behind the women, two rather large animals followed. The first animal was the biggest damn German Shepherd I had ever seen, who also stared in my direction before following the Frau to John’s bed. The second animal was even more curious, especially given the proximity to the dog, since it appeared to be wild cat of some sort, easily coming up to half the dog’s shoulder, but longer in proportion, and all black in coloration. While the dog almost bounded into the room and followed the older woman without much hesitation, the cat stopped at the doorway, examining things with great care, before slinking in behind Cerrydwen. The cat stayed as far away from me as was possible given the confines of the room.

The Frau dismissed me without looking back, saying only, “You can go for now. I will send Rowan for you if I have need of you.”

“Who’s Rowan?” I asked. “Oh, I see,” I said when I noticed the dogs monstrous head turn in my direction at calling out his name. “I’ll be upstairs.”

I left the room and headed upstairs to the Solarium, hoping to find Ravyn or Herne. Instead I came across another person I had not seen yet. He was very tall, probably 6’3”, had the wide shoulders of an athletic life, but the hefty gut of what must be a desk job of some sort. He was wearing a very large T-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap for a team I did not recognize. He had the look of someone who did a lot of reading, with a kind, open face.

When I came into the room, he offered his large hand in greeting, “Hi, you must be this Rusty Bones everyone is talking about, I’m James Karlton, you can call me Jim.”

I shook his hand, looked up at him, “Yeah, I guess it’s obvious who I am nowadays. So did you come with the two ladies who just kicked me out downstairs?”

“Yep, it’s best not to argue with them.”

“Oh, I didn’t plan on it. Anyway, they are going to help my friend.”

“Well, John’s not just your friend, he’s a friend of everyone here, including me. We all want to help out, if we can.” He took of his cap, mopped his forehead of sweat and hair, and put the old thing back on his head.

“So are you ‘caster’ then as well?” I asked, looking around for a seat and then sitting on the steel folding chair backwards.

“No, my skills lay more in the academic fields, I’m an econ professor. I also help out with the books of the corporation, to keep things funded properly.” He sat down in another chair, easing his large frame into it carefully.

“You know, its nice to meet someone around here that isn’t a magicker of some kind. I was beginning to wonder if there were any normal people left anymore.”

He laughed at that, “Well, I guess that depends on what you consider normal. Most of my students would have their doubts about whether I would qualify for that monicker.” He reached into a nearby backpack, pulled out a 2-liter of diet soda and took a swig.

“You know, that reminds me,” I said. “I need to get some more pop at store, I used up the last two-liter earlier. Do you mind taking me to a store nearby?”

“No problem, I could use some more spares as well. This is gonna be a long night, I’m afraid. C’mon.” He got up out of the chair and led me out into the dark of the driveway and his waiting truck, a fairly newer model crew cab pick-up truck.

On the way to the store, I noted a large white van without any rear windows parked down the block from the co-op. A couple of men in blue jumpsuits and oddly new tool boxes were getting out the front and making their way to the rear of the van. I happened to glance through the rear-view mirror as we passed and noted an unusual array of computer equipment and lights coming from inside the van. There was also at least one other man sitting in the back of the van with some sort of earphones on. That was all I could see before the two men with the tool boxes climbed into the van, pulling the doors shut behind them.

This odd situation peaked my interest, but I didn’t mention it to James, yet.

Coming back from the store, we were discussing the prospects of the Detroit Tigers for the coming season, debating how much Magglio Ordonez would help the outfield, when I noted that the van still sitting in the same spot, but I also noted a large, dark SUV with several more figures sitting in it was parked just around the corner.

After we passed them and pulled down the block and into the co-op driveway, I turned to Jim, “Do you guys have any security teams out on the perimeter?”

He looked at me like I was speaking Greek all of a sudden. “Security teams? No, I don’t think we have any need for that. Why?”

“Well, back around the corner is a surveillance van with some sort of electronics team inside, and I saw a car load of likely goons as well. Might be something that we need to address.”

He shrugged, reached down behind the seat and pulled out a very large, wooden baseball bat. “Just in case, you know.”

I grinned at him, grabbed my bags and headed inside the co-op house.

We were met by Herne in the entry hall, who had apparently been waiting for us. “Rusty, I need your help moving John, we’re going to be starting the ritual soon.”

I followed him dwon into the basement where we carefully picked up John and transported him up to the first floor where space had been cleared for him in the library. Waiting for us there were Ravyn Fyre, the Frau, Cerrydwen, the big dog, Rowan, and Morrigan, the freakishly large, wild black cat.

The Frau directed us where to put him, which happened to be in the middle of a large circle that
was inscribed in the wood of the floor that must normally be hidden by carpets, since I hadn’t noticed it before. We placed him as ordered, waiting for further instruction.

“Now you, Rusty is it? I don’t really have a place for you in this ritual, nor you Professor. But I do want to make sure that we aren’t disturbed. Herne, I need you to take the North Quarter, for Earth, of course. Face inwards.” The Frau looked at Ravyn, “Honey, I’ll need you in the South Quarter. Cerrydwen, I’ll need you in the West for Water, and I will take the East and Air.” She looked back in the direction of James and I. “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask that you run interference for us, make sure no one breaks the Circle that we are about to create.”

“What exactly are you going to do?” I asked.

She looked back at me, looking over her small glasses, “We are going to try some very powerful rituals to call John back into his body. We may also be required to travel into the Underworld, since it appears that his Spirit is being kept away by some means. This could take awhile, but do not, under any circumstances break the circle until one of us indicates that the ritual is over, even if one of us falls over or seems to be hurt, do you understand?”

I nodded. Each of the casters took their assigned positions, while the large dog, Rowan, took up a spot just outside the circle behind the Frau. The cat looked around before taking acouple of bounding leaps, first onto a large table top, and then to the top of a tall bookcase before blending into the shadow above, onlyu the occasional flick of a long black tail hinted at the danger above.

Jim, or the Professor as the Frau called him, took up a position near the main doors into the hall, dropping his backpack and leaning the bat up against the wall nearby. I moved around the circle, closing the curtains to the large windows that looked out into the wooded side yard, and then closed the secondary doors to the room.

Finally, as the casters seemed about to begin, I approached Jim, “I’m gonna take a quick look outside, just to make sure those guys we saw aren’t gonna cause any trouble. I’ll be back soon.”

He nodded, fingered the shaft of the bat. “Don’t be long.”

“I won’t.”

Remembrances

Unfortuantely, none of the three of us could discern what had been done to poor John. It was pretty clear that whatever Papa Locks had intended to do with the chakra, he hadn’t yet completed it.

John was quite obviously still alive, as evidenced by his twitching muscles and the occasional gasp or garbled shout that escaped his lips, but it also obvious that something had been done to prevent him from rising to consciousness. He had no serious wounds visible, despite a fat lip from where Papa Locks had clocked him.

I thought that with him physically near me, that it might be easier to reach him in the Spirit Worlds, but I was unable to locate him in any of our usual meeting places.

We decided to wait for help to arrive before trying anything more susbtantive. Herne was shown to a room of his own, where he locked away most of his weapons and the dusty jacket he had been wearing before heading upstairs to make some calls of his own and grab some food.

Ravyn Fyre took her own leave, saying she had to make some arrangements for the convocation thing that they had discussed earlier, and to get rooms ready for the people she was expecting later that night, a woman by the name of Cerrydwen-who she seemed to regard as almost a sister, and another woman she didn’t know who apparetnly went by the name of the Frau, even though she supposedly wasn’t German by descent. Strange people, these ORCs.

I grabbed a two liter of Mountain Dew from the fridge upstairs and was able to scavenge some tubing and a small funnel to take care of my own energy needs with an improvised ‘flush and gush’. Once that was finished, I returned to John’s room to meditate.

For the first time in quite a while, I had a moment to sit and think about things since there was no crisis that I could throw myself into. It’s pretty damn amazing to think of all the stuff that has happened to me in less than 18 months. It’s only been a little over two months since I had stated this blog, which I now see as a sort of rebirth, since it marks the beginning of what independence of action and thought I really had after Drake, Dr. Geek and the crew of the NecroLab were done with getting me ‘online’.

Re-reading the early entries of this blog, I am reminded of how much I have changed and grown in the experience. When I started posting, I was raving mad at how wrong I had been all of my life in terms of spirituality and at finding myself cast in the role of being an experiment, a modern day Frankenstein.

Somehow in all of the turmoil and struggle of these last couple of months, I have found my humanity again, something that I had no idea could be lost so easily, and then to be so hard to find again. I really have to thank John Red Bear for his starting me on that path again. It was his pulling me aside before that first mission we went on together in the Colorado Rockies that led me to taking those first, halting steps back into becoming fully human again.

I can clearly see now, how much effort Drake and his various flunkies put into trying to mold me into becoming the emotionless machine that they were really trying to create. They never had any intention of offering a second chance at life for dedicated police officers. I can see now how they chose candidates who fit into some kind of profile that led them to believe that they would get hard-assed types who lacked religion and spirituality, and then set about changing our lives so that we would be cut off even from family and loved ones. They wanted to create a cadre of trained killing machines for some unknown reason. It is pretty scary stuff really. Especially when I consider how close they came to succeeding with me.

Looking down at the suffering and pain in John’s face, I am reminded again of just how much I have lost, but finally, I am also reminded of just how much I am getting back. I will never again feel physical pain or pleasure, but I am learning to find joy in the things I can do to help others.

The fact that there are other people out here able and willing to help others when there is no obvious benefit for them to do so is also inspiring. I truly don’t know much about these people, Ravyn Fyre, Herne Clarksson, even John Re\d Bear yet, but I do know that they reached out to help me in my time of need and asked for nothing in return.

In return for his help, John was attacked, taken prisoner, and apparently hurt in some way that we have yet to figure out. I owe it to him, and to these others, to help them in any way that I can. Without them, I would still be a raging monster trapped in a nearly indestructable body-who knows what harm I could have been manipulated into doing.

I was apparently lost in thought for several hours as I contemplated all of this. I was brought back to the present moment when two new faces entereds the room, the Frau and Cerrydwen were finally here to see what they could to do help John.

ORC, Inc.

We got up out of the snow, brushed more of the wet stuff off of our dusty jackets, picked the still twitching John up gingerly and transported him into the co-op house. There was a pretty, tall young woman with more piercings and tattoos visible than I could count waiting for us at the door. Without comment she led us downstairs into the basement of the house and into a small but cozy bedroom just off the main hallway. It was easy to see that this place could hold a lot more people than currently lived there. There were several other unoccupied, but sparsely furnished rooms that we passed on the way to this one.

When John was set up on the twin-sized bed, the young woman turned to Herne and said, “Mistress Fyre will see you in the Solarium, upstairs.”

Herne shrugged, “OK doll, after you.”

She nodded back the way we came, “Up those stairs, turn left and head for the back of the house, once you are through the dinning room, you can’t miss it.” She wandered off in the opposite direction.

We followed her directions, passing a half dozen other residents of the house without a second glance at our rather ragged appearances. Finally, we arrived in the sun-soaked solarium to see Ravyn Fyre standing with her back to us as she seemed lost in thought. This time, she was dressed in jeans and sweatshirt. Although her hair was still wet, it was pulled back into a long red ponytail.

Without turning to face us she stated, “I have made some calls--Herne, your wife knows that you are here now, she wants you to call her as soon as you get the chance. An Officer Jacks contacted me on his cellphone worried that you all had been killed in the explosion, but he knows now that you are safe and that you saved John. He is going to have a couple of John’s proteges bring your vehicles and other equipment back to Chicago for you, they should be here in a couple of days.”

Herne spoke up, “Is everyone else alright?”

“Yes, one young man was shot in the shoulder and someone else twisted an ankle, but according to Officer Jacks, everyone of our people is going to be OK. None of the men who took John survived.”

I interjected, “Well, the main asshole survived, Papa Locks opened some sort of doorway and escaped when he set of the timer.”

“Yes, I am going to want to hear all about this encounter.” She turned to face us now, her jaw clenched in anger, her eyes glowing. “I want to know everything about this Papa Locks and anything else you might know about his associates. I am afraid this is only the beginning.”

“He seemed to know about me,” said Herne. “He referred to me as ‘Celt’ and seemed to know a little bit about the kinds of magick I can do, although we still caught him off guard.”

“Then we have no time to waste. I have already called Cerrydwen and the Frau to come help take care of John, but we might also have to call a Convocation of the Clans.”

“A convowhat of the who?” I asked.

Herne snickered, “A Convocation of the Clans, that’s what we call it when we ORCs call a big meeting where we discuss important stuff.”

“Orcs? What is this a Tolkien novel?” I asked, only half joking.

“Our group is called the Organization for Responsible Casting, Incorporated. or ORC for short,” explained Herne. “It’s a handy way of deflecting attention, since anyone hearing the acronym just figures we are a bunch of Tolkien fans or D&D gamer geeks.”

“I see,” I said, in order to humor him. “So what does that have to do with clans?”

“A Clan is just a term of organization, it refers to any of the little groups that we set up all over the place, usually led by someone like me or Ravyn here, and any students or assistants we might have. John also led a Clan, most of those that helped us earlier today were members of his Clan. Again, it is a way of referring to ourselves without attracting too much serious attention.”

“Ah. You know, this shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

Ravyn arched her eyebrow at that, “Oh yeah, like your being a zombie is just the run of the mill, everyday sort of thing, huh?”

“Touche.”

After that conversation, we got down to the business of telling her everything that had happened in canyon, including all of the details on Papa Locks and his goons that we could recall. Herne showed her the chakra-like device that was contained in the pouch that he rescued from Papa Locks’ grasp. I shuddered inside, hoping that we would find a way to undo what had been done to poor John Red Bear.

Once we got to the part where I broke the stone and called out her name, I asked Ravyn, “How did you do that, by the way, transport all three of us back from New Mexico?”

She smiled at that, “You know, you didn’t give me much warning there. Normally, a lady doesn’t reveal her secrets. But with all of the energy of the explosion being available, I took a chance on being able to bring you back to the only place I knew well enough and that was big enough to absorb the extra energy without destroying anything, or anyone else. I had a choice of trying that, or trying to absorb and control all of that energy. I wasn’t at all sure I could do that well enough to save you.”

“So, you mean you can’t normally do that?”

“Uh no, even trying something that big would kill most Casters.” She looked to Herne, “Let’s go see what these people have done to John.”

On the Warpath...Part 4

I jumped up from behind the rock I had been hiding behind, dusted off, and got moving again. This needed to end, now.

When I was alive, I wouldn‘t have been able to keep this pace up for very damn long, but I surely didn’t need to worry about getting tired anymore. I wasn’t at all sure that Mr. Clarksson and his helpers could keep pace for very long either, but I felt an urgent need to get up the valley.

At a near jog, I came around the final bend in this crooked little crack in the mountains. I could make out the dilapidated building that must have once been a house or office of some sort at the end of the half-mile long straight away that was left. The sides of the canyon narrowed in ever so slightly, coming together in a jagged V at the end. The sliver of a riverbed split the area nearly in half, but it was pretty shallow at this point, and almost narrow enough to be able to jump. Slightly behind the house, there were several tin roof shacks in various states of disrepair. Finally, I could make out the three vehicles parked just past the sheds, between them and the opening to a large, squarish mine shaft that sunk into the mountain behind it. There were old piles of debris scattered around the mouth, but a clear path could be seen between the house and the mouth of the shaft.

My quick scan didn’t reveal any more goons laying in wait, so I resumed my march, heading towards the house.

I slowed down slightly as I approached the house, looking for any sign of recent occupation. All of the windows appeared to have long ago been broken, the grey of very old, weathered wooden boards showed through in most places, with only a hint of the antique white paint that once covered the place showing through. There were no tracks in the dust heading to the house, so I walked past it towards the area where the vehicles were parked.

Each of the trucks was sitting with its back to the end of the canyon, parked to facilitate a rapid exit should they be needed for it. I glanced into the windows of each of the Hummers, noting that they were unlocked, and that the keys were in the ignition. Confident bastards, I thought to myself. What’s to stop me from messing with them then? Just the kind of mind games that Drake would play.

There were a number of footprints leading from the vehicles towards the mine shaft, so I turned my attention to the that goal, about a hundred yards away and maybe 40 feet above the main floor of the canyon. The slag piles formed an almost symbolic honor guard as I made my way towards the gaping black maw of the shaft.

When I was perhaps thirty yards from the entrance itself, I heard that familiar deep, rumbling laugh of Papa Locks. I could see just a hint of movement up there as he called out in that gravelly Creole of his, “Sac passe, Monsieur Bones?”

He emerged from the inky blackness of the shaft, flanked by two dark suited men. The man on his left was carrying what looked to be a grenade launcher of some sort that was leveled squarely in my direction, while the guy on the right had what appeared to be a hi-powered sniper’s rifle with a massive scope on it. He was busy scanning the canyon walls beyond me. Perhaps they knew about my helpers. I hoped those boys had the sense to keep their heads down.

“Eat shit, you bastard, where’s John?”

He threw his head back in laughter, showing off his fangs, and then composed himself. “I see you have not grown any more mannered in your second life, Bones. Don’t worry, I have taken good care of your little Indian friend.” He held out his left hand, which I now noticed was holding something that sent my heart sinking--a chakra-like talisman dangled from his outstretched fingers, attached to a leather thong. “Here is part of his essence.”

I started forward, hands clenched in anger, but stopped short when the grenade bearing goon shifted his stance and seemed to take better aim.

“What have you done to him?!”

“He is a stubborn man, like yourself. He yet lives within,” he nodded towards the shaft behind him, chuckling. “He continues to resist my spiritual friends. But you can end his suffering, you know.”

“Why did you do this to him? Why did you want me so badly?”

“It is not me who wants you so much, it is your friend Drake. He has invested much in you. He doesn’t give up his investments so easily, you know.”

“He is the one who tried to kill me again. What more does that bastard want from me?”

“That, you will have to ask him yourself. Come with me peacefully and your friend John can be made whole again, ya.”

“Is Drake here?”

“No,” he smiled, his eyes almost twinkling in glee. “But I can take you to him.”

“Look, I’m not playing with you here, asshole. You have about 30 seconds before I come over there and rip your fucking head off.”

He stopped smiling. “Threatrs will not get you what you want, boy. You may have been taught something of how spirits work, but you are a mere child in that world. Even if you succeeded in getting close to me, I have any number of spiritual servants at my command who would be glad to have your very sturdy, very usable body.”

“It’s a good thing he isn’t here alone then,” said Herne as he stepped out from behind a nearby slag pile, rifle slung casually over his back. “So, why don’t you give us our friend back, and maybe you’ll be allowed to leave alive.”

Papa Locks sneered in Herne’s direction, “You think I am afraid of your animal magicks, Celt? You and your little group of do-gooders have interfered for the last time. Bones is our property, he always will be.”

“That’s it.” I lurched into action, moving towards the mineshaft. “No one owns me, asshole. I’m coming to get John and anyone who gets in my way is gonna b...”

A loud crack issued from the nearby canyon wall, interrupting both my voice and the grenade goon as he was getting ready to shoot. Unfortunately for him, the interruption was fatal as his forehead erupted in a shower of blood and brains. A second crack from the other wall caused an explosion of shards as the sniper to dodged to the side, pushing Papa Locks back into the darkness of the shaft.

The sniper was able to recover and get off one shot at a young man who was coming out from behind one of the Hummers, dropping him with a shoulder wound before falling dead from three nearly simultaneous shots from above. Herne and I reached the mineshaft about the same time, but I pulled him behind me, saying, “Use me for cover.”

A flick of my wrist dropped the collapsible baton in my hand, a quick snapping motion extending it with a solid click. I noticed that Herne was motioning for the other advancing young man to attend to the wounded one by the Hummer with his big hunting knife in the other hand.

It took only a moment for my eye lenses to adjust to the near total darkness of the shaft while I also found myself opening my spiritual eyes, looking for any magickal beings or traps that might have been laid for us.

The inside of the shaft was surprisingly wide and flat, sloping down gently into the mountain. Papa Locks was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t worry about me Rusty,” Herne said, whispering into my ear before moving to the righthand side of the shaft. “I have ways of seeing in this setting as well.”

“Very well, let’s get John.”

I started walking in the only direction that was possible, heading deeper into the mountain. We moved forward in silence, ready to face whatever came.

We both stopped momentarily when the shaft came to a fork. The sounds of a hoarse chant and a faint flicker of light led us to take the left passage, Herne hugging the right wall, me moving forward on the left wall.

The passageway was not straight, but curved slightly to the right, gradually opening into a small chamber. In the center of the chamber lay John’s body, bound in chains that were held fast into the stone beneath by large iron spikes. The far side of the room seemed to disappear in a deep shaft, but Papa Locks stood in front of that dark hole, his back to it fearlessly. He stood with his feet set wide apart, his arms held high, a soft chant emanating from his lips. His eyes shone white, creating the only visible light in the room. In his left hand, the chakra that he said held some of John’s essence still dangled from its leather thong . In his right hand, he held a small metallic box with a single large button protruding. His finger lay against the button, ready to push it.

As we moved into the room, his eyes dimmed slightly, his chanting stopped. “If you are thinking of rushing me, look around carefully. There is enough dynamite in this room to bring the mountain down on top of you and your friends.”

I glanced about the room and noticed the there were indeed bundles of dynamite strung out along the walls, piles of the stuff, all seemingly connected by cords. The cords seemed to gather in niche in the wall to the far right of Papa Locks where a digital clock blinked steadily at what looked a lot like fifteen seconds.

I heard Herne muttering under his breath in that same, rolling language I had heard him use before, so I decided to stall for time.

“OK, you got us asshole. What do we do now? If you push that button, we all die, you, me, John and everybody else down here. Is that what you really want?”

“Come with me now, and I will leave the Indian’s chakra with the Celt here for him to deal with. I am sure his do-gooder friends can eventually free him from his tortures.”

“Go where man? I don’t see any damn doors here, just a fucking hole in the ground.”

He laughed at this. “Fool, you know so little about what is possible. I can open a path of shadows between this place and where Drake is. He is waiting for you. Our patience is wearing thin with you boy.”

Herne’s spell seemed to have ended, so I took a step forward. “OK, you open that door, and I will go with you.”

I could hear the faintest sounds of chittering coming from behind Papa Locks, so I took another step forward, moving between him and John’s body until only a few feet separated us. I could sense Herne moving behind me and kneeling at John’s still twitching body.

A sudden whoosh of wind and wings erupted from the shaft behind Papa Locks as first hundreds, then thousands of bats rushed up from below. Chaos reigned as the bats quickly filled the room. Shouts of men who had, unknown to us, snuck up from behind only added to the chaos.

Grunts of pain and thuds of fist and hilt hitting flesh told me that Herne was addressing the new threat from behind, as I pushed forward to get to Papa Locks. His now empty left hand lunged forward at me, grabbing me by the neck as I lunged for his right hand and the box with the damn button.

In a rush I was thrown back as hundreds of spirits rushed through his hand and into my body as they pushed for control, their tortured voices crying out in pain and freedom simultaneously as they strove to force me from my own body.Never before had I felt such strange pressures as these spiritual entities assaulted me. I let go of his right arm, falling back against the onslaught.

Papa Locks stood upright, laughing triumphantly as he pushed the button. He then fell backwards into the shaft below, cackling out some sort of spell. A flash of spiritual power told me that he had probably made his doorway.

Meanwhile, in the haze of flying bats, assaulting spirits, and tumbling bodies behind me, I fell to the floor next to John. I could barely see the digital numbers counting down in that far niche. 12, 11 , 10...

I had just enough control over my body to reach in and grab the crystal in my jacket pocket, call out, “Ravyn Fyre!” and crush the stone.

9, 8, 7...

The fiery form of Ravyn’s Phoneix erupted from the floor in front of me, beuatiful wings of fire filling the room with bright orange light....Bats scattered or were incinerated...men fled or lay bleeding...

6, 5, 4....

Her angelic voice called out, “Herne, Rusty, come to John!”

3, 2, 1...

Herne dove to cover John’s body, yelling, “Son of a bitch...”

I rolled over, trying to shield both of them from the coming explosion...

A flash of unbelievably bright light and intense heat rolled over us as Ravyn covered us with her fiery wings just as the explosion ripped through the room in deafening roar that shook me to my very bones. There was a weird, wrenching feeling of space and time twisting which I assumed meant that I was being blown to smithereens.

When the flash ended, my face lay half-buried in quickly melting snow. My lenses fogged up from the sudden change in termperature. I could see trees, and stones, and sky!

“Men!” Ravyn said, standing over us momentarily, “The next time you need help, I’d appreciate it if you could do it when I’m not taking a bath!”

I had just enough sense to catch a glimpse of her shapely, naked backside as she stormed out of the circle of stones I now recognized from the Chicago co-op she had taken me too when we had met, her bare feet causing the snow underfoot to evaporate in steam as she stormed off to the house.

Blinking, I looked back to the equally stunned Herne, and the still twitching body of John, still in chains, but no longer bound to any stone floor. “How did she...?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I think I would give her chance to get dressed before I would go asking.” He grinned. “You couldn’t ask for prettier rescue than that though.”

I noticed that he held in his right hand the chakra that Papa Locks had been holding.

“Yeah, that was what I called on the bats for.” He looked around again at the setting, shivered. “Let’s get him inside and out of this snow. We can ask our questions later.”

On the Warpath...Part 3

I watched as the young men began ascending at various points. Some took paths that allowed them to walk mostly upright, while a couple took to climbing at certain points, slinging their well-used rifles over their shoulders before they did so.

It took a good ten minutes before they were all up onto paths and ledges that were not obvious from down below. Soon, each of the six took out their tokens and began pushing through the previously invisible wards. Shifting my attention just slightly into the Spirit World, I could see the shimmering of the wards as each man approached, small flashes of brighter light as the wards were penetrated, probably alerting the owner to the passage of some creature through them. Hopefully, Mr. Clarksson’s tokens would serve their primary purpose and give off the false signals that would prevent him or her from knowing how many of us there were today.

As soon as the last man was out of sight, I started to get ready. I saw Herne pulling close the two men he was taking with him, probably giving some last minute instructions on how close they would follow behind me. I didn’t want to know the details myself, since there was a chance I could tip off any observers if I looked back at the wrong time. Better to be surprised with the bad guys, than to give away the surprise inadvertantly. Besides, what was there for me to worry about, other than whether John was OK? It’s not like they could kill me, or even cause me any pain. There were still certain advantages to being dead after all.

I avoided the temptation to send my spirit forward to recon the route ahead, I could tell from my brief look into the Spirit World that those wards were primarily spiritual in nature, which only makes sense if Papa Locks was involved.

I shuddered at my memories of that foul man. Of all the many weirdos that I have met through Drake, Papa Locks and El Diablito were the worst, besides Drake himself. What made El Diablito so scary was the fact that he looked most of the time like the wrinkled old grandfather you’d visit around the holidays and who would make sure to have all of your favorite treats when you visited, but when he put on his magickal personna, he transformed into this diabolical little maniac with a hideous cackling laugh and strange, prancing mannerisms.

Papa Locks on the other hand, always looked scary and enjoyed the fact that his appearance would bring people up short. His face was horribly scarred from some sort of ritual disfigurement, his normally dark complexion was mottled in places from where the scars were not allowed to fully heal. His teeth had been extensively worked on, with a pronounced enhancment of his ‘fangs’, giving him a feral look, matched apparently by his smell. I recall on a number of occasions members of the NecroLab crinkling their noses after he passed and making near gagging sounds, but no one did it where he could see that reaction. His long, heavily matted dreadlocks were a signature look that he enhanced with beadwork and various tokens tangled in the locks themselves, many of which had the weathered ivory look of old bones. Papa Locks also had the advantage of being very tall, probably over 6’6”, and of being built like an athlete, with large, strong hands and corded muscles that could be seen through his loose sleeved shirts.

I can remember a number of times early after I was brought back to awareness that Papa Locks would be meeting with Drake. One time I heard him begging for one of the previous officer’s bodies, he seemed to be claiming that he had some spirits he would love to give a chance at having a new body. I didn’t hear Drake’s response to that, but by Papa Lock’s reaction, it was probably not a yes.

My reverie was interrupted by Herne Clarksson approaching me, “OK Rusty, I think the others are far enough down that you can get going. Remember, we will be following behind you, but you likely won’t be able to see us, even if you do look back, but don’t worry, we’ll be within easy range of our wepons, should we need to use them.”

“Oh, I’m not to worried about that. I’ll keep pushing forward at a steady rate, if they start shooting, I might get off the ATV and advance on foot. I’m going to get to the house up there, and nothing they have will be able to stop me.”

“I figured as much,” he said. “They are holed up back there for a reason and you are that reason, I think, so be careful, I am sure they are well aware of your abilities and have something planned to deal with them.”

“Let’s not keep the bastards waiting then, eh?”

“Right, oh and one more thing. Take this with you.” He handed me a red looking gemstone of some sort. “If you find yourself in deep trouble, crush it in your hand, or on a hard surface and call out Ravyn Fyre’s name. It contains a very powerful spell that will reach out to her and enable her to help in some way.”

I took the small, translucent stone in my hand, admiring the bright, fiery spark seemingly aliv e inside the stone. “Thank you. Do you really think it will work this far away? She’s still in Chicago isn’t she?”

He grinned. “If you doubt her, you don’t know Ravyn very well yet. Don’t worry, it’ll reach her, and I am positive that she’ll be able to help in some meaningful way. Hopefully we don’t need to use that just yet, but you have it in case you do.”

I put the stone in the inside pocket of my leather jacket, hoping that it would be safe from any accidental breakage.

I mounted the ATV, started the engine and started towards the entrance to the ravine. Without looking back, I plunged through the warded area, feeling a slight, spiritual tingling as I did so. I could almost feel the virtual alarm going off into the direction I was already heading, warning the owner of my intrusion into his sacred space.

I started at a slow but steady pace up the dry riverbed. I could see in some of the sandier places that other vehicles had passed through here recently, but other than the fact that they looked like the tracks of bigger vehicles like SUV’s, I couldn’t tell much. The going was rough, even on an ATV, so I could only imagine that the SUV’s had to take it pretty slow as well. The riverbed was fairly wide at this point, but full of rocks and dips in the sand between the rocks.

The twisting riverbed soon took me beyond the sight of the reservation officers and the young men we left behind with them. I didn’t bother to look back for Herne and his helpers, or to look up in search of the snipers for either side above. I concentrated instead on finding the smoothest route up the riverbed that I could and on what I planned to do to Papa Locks in exchange for the beating I had seen him adminster to John.

It took about ten minutes of steady driving, with only the occasional backtracking to get through the first kilometer. I could see the riverbed starting to get deeper and narrower ahead, but there was a sandy bank riddled with tracks on the left hand side. It was obvious that this was the last best place to get up out of the riverbed onto the lefthand bank. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to gun the engine and get up on the bank when I saw the first bullets spray up dirt in front of me, apparently a burst of automatic gunfire in a salvo that was warning against continuing.

I looked up and to my right, hoping to spot the origin of the shooting. As I was doing that, the second burst of bullets started tinging off the ATV, one of which hit a tire, from the loud popping sound I heard and the shudder I felt. I leaped off the vehicle ducking towards a large rock that might offer some cover as I kept looking for the source. Finally I spotted a man in a dark suit, wearing reflective sunglasses (which glinted in the light, revealing his position). He was kneeling on a ledge about halfway up the right side of the ravine wall, he had moved from behind a large rock, apparently in order to get a better shot at me. Just as he was sighting down on me for the third burst, I heard a single, loud crack echo across the ravine from above and behind me just as he seemed to double over on himself and slump to the ground on his ledge. He didn’t move again.

I got out from behind my covering rock and went back over to my ATV. I could see fluid pooling beneath the thing, the front right tire was also useless. I pulled the little vehicle away from the embankment, since it would be in the way of any vehicle we might use to come back down the ravine and shoved it to the side. It was useless as far as I was concerned.

Checking out the ravine above and ahead of me for any further surprises, I started out again at a fast walk, following the obvious trail of the vehicles that had gone through here before me.

Another half a kilometer up the ravine I spotted another ledge, this time on the left side of the ravine. I could see two guys sitting up there making little attempt to hide themselves. They had what looked to be a very large caliber weapon sitting on a tripod in front of the closest guy. The other guys was using binoculars to get a bead on me. He spotted me about the same time I saw them, I could see the second guy pointing in my direction, and the first one bringing the weopon to bear on me.

I didn’t wait around to see how much damage a gun of that caliber could do, I dove behind a nearby rock that looked just big enough to give me some decent cover. I heard the thunderous discharge just as I hit the dirt, careful not to lay too much on the pocket containing Ms. Fyre’s gem in it. A spray of rock fragments and loud cracking sound told me that the rock I was hiding behind wasn’t going to survive too many rounds from that sucker.

I peeked my head up for a quick look to see how long it would take them to reolad that bad boy, and quickly ducked down again as I saw the muzzle flash before the booming bark of the discharge echoed througout the ravine again.

Again the rock I was hiding behind served its purpose, but I could feel that fragments blasting against the skin of my head, which meant that I wasn’t getting any prettier. I could see some carmelized fluid oozing off my forehead and onto my right eye lense, which I brushed off quickly.

I heard three smaller cracks from the opposite of the ravine. I looked up to see the shooter of the big gun fall back into his partner, his head exploding in red gush. His partner didn’t seem to mind too much however, as he was already splayed back against the ravine wall, binoculars dangling from his limp hand. Gotta give those kids credit, they are damn fine shots with those rifles.

I only hoped that this killing wouldn’t affect those young too much later on. Who knew if these goons would be missed, and whether or not there would be legal consequences to all of this mess. I had my doubts that this incident would ever make any news broadcast, let alone be the subject of an investigation. Who was actually behind all of this? Was it Drake? Or was Papa Locks striking out on his own here? Well, whoever was behind this, was gonna have to pay a price. And I was just about ready to exact that price on these bastards.

(To be concluded in On the Warpath...Part 4 tomorrow.)

On the Warpath...Part 2

We got back on our vehicles and continued in a northerly direction, following the all-too-clear trail left by the caravan of vehicles that had taken John.

It took ten minutes of hard driving in the steadily rougher terrain, maxing out at speeds around 30 MPH, but usually closer to 15, as we wound through the rough foothills to the west of a small mountain I didn’t know the name of.

Officer Jacks signalled a halt as we approached a point where the trail we were following crossed a wide, shallow patch that resembled a dry riverbed. The tracks of the vehicles veered to the right, heading east up the riverbed, into the heart of the foothills. A couple more young men that I hadn’t seen before emerged from the shadows on either side of the riverbed, rifles in hand. They were clearly scouts who had been left behind.

Herne leaped off of his vehicle as soon as the engine stopped and began asking questions of Officer Jacks and the scouts. He quickly determined that this was the only place that vehicles like the ones the bad guys were using could come back out and that none had returned this way since. He also found out that the riverbed was wide enough and flat enough for quite some time for those vehicles to able to go at least a couple of miles back. One of the scouts offered that they knew of an old abandoned mining facility near the back of the canyon that included an old house that had doubled as an office and several old storage sheds.

The sides of the canyon were fairly shallow here, but they quickly got much steeper, until only the riverbed and a small strip above it on either side were navigable by any kind of vehicles. There were a number of small pine trees and bushes clinging to the sides of the canyon, but the bottom was pretty much plucked clean by the miners and the occasional flash flood when it rained hard.

Herne took control of the situation quietly, but firmly, directing the young warriors to stow their bikes and the ATV’s on either side of the mouth of the canyon, half to a side, and all facing outward, for an easy escape, should it be necessary. He then starting picking men for various assignments.

“I want you Officer Jacks, and your partner, to remain out here with a couple of men who have the largest caliber weapons. I want some big rocks and debris thrown into the riverbed, not enough to block it completely, but enough to force any vehicles coming back down it to run a gauntlet that involves a lot of swerving from side to side. If you can’t see who is driving the lead vehicle, and the headlights don’t flash from brights to dims three times, I want you to take out the engine block, aim for the radiator, in this heat, no vehicle will last long losing water. Also, take out the tires if they keep coming at you. Don’t shoot to kill unless absolutely necessary, we don’t know who these guys really are, and we are no longer on reservation lands, so your tribal authority is rather limited here.

“I need six really good shooters to climb the sides of the canyon, three to a side. Your jobs will be to spot and stop any snipers they have in place up high, and also to take out the tires of any unknown vehicle that tries to head this way. When you shoot at snipers though, you need to make damn sure you are taking out a bad guy. Don’t play around with those guys either. If they are raising a weapon, aim to kill. We’ll sort out the legal mess later. I can assure you that you will have the full assistance of my organization if there are any legal consequences to our actions today.

“Agent Bones here will take the lead down the canyon, driving his ATV at a slow, steady pace until the shooting begins. He is our decoy. I expect that they know he is coming for sure, and will try be looking to lure him in. What they won’t expect, is me and couple of you to follow with me. It’s gonna be our job to take out anyone trying to trap Rusty and to help find and extricate John once we get inside. That’s about as much of a plan as I can put together at this point.”

One of the young warriors spoke up, concern in his voice. “Won’t they be shooting at Agent Bones?”

“They might,” replied Herne, “but I am guessing that this whole thing was set up to get him here, for whatever reason they want that. If they do start shooting, that’s when our snipers will take them out. Don’t worry about Agent Bones here though, from what I have read, he’s taken a few bullets recently, and he’s only a little uglier for it. I don’t know if they have a weapon that can really hurt him. Do you Agent Bones?”

I nodded. “Well, if they have any RPG’s, it could cause a problem for me, but somehow I think you are right, this whole taking of John probably happened in order to get me here. They wanted me to come to his rescue. I know that the Haitian man, Papa Locks is a powerful priest, he might be the only person stronger in the Spirit Worlds than John, so be careful using any magick here, especially if it involves leaving your body. He is an expert in capturing and torturing souls.”

Herne’s face turned grim, “We’ll see about that, he might be strong in the Spirit Worlds, but he’s in my element now. Speaking of that, I can tell he, or someone else, has set up some wards to warn against intruders into this canyon, but the wards are weak, and are permeable by non-human animals, which gives me an idea.”

With that he went back to his ATV and pulled out a battered leather sack from his field backpack. He pulled out a number of pieces of what looked like bones and pieces of horn or antlers. Taking out his knife, he began carving runes of some sort into each piece, muttering in a strange language that rolled from his tongue in seemingly endless waves. As he finished each piece, he called over a specific young warrior, or one of the reservartion officers and handed it to them, telling them what the donor animal was, ranging from an elk to bighorn sheep and even a mountain lion. When he finished giving out all of the pieces, retaining one for himself (excluding only myself), he explained.

“I have given each of you a token from an animal native to this area. Keep it in your hand as enter the canyon, when you feel it warm up, you are passing through the wards. These tokens should mask your human nature, as long you are not speaking when you are crossing thorugh and you make some attempt to move in the less direct, less purposeful nature of your token animal. I doubt that whoever set up these wards is sensitive enough to really examine each animal crossing through them. Once the piece cools down, stick it in a pocket until you need to cross through them again. Of course if the shit hits the fan like I think it will, we won’t be worrying about the wards on the way out.

“Rusty, there’s no way I can mask you when you cross through the wards, but then again, we want them to know you are coming. Once we get ahold of John, we need to get the hell out of there.

“Snipers, I want you to shadow us up the canyon, and back out again. We’re gonna give you a head start to get into position about a click down each side, once Rusty passes you, try to keep pace, but primarily watch out for their snipers. You should be higher than they are, and they should be watching the canyon floor, but be careful.

“If anyone is injured, or goes down for any reason, take out the token I have given you and either touch it to your wound, or whisper my name into the token. I will make sure we get you some help. If you are killed, I will be able to find your body.”

One of the young warriors spoke up, looking unsure as he held the token in his hand, “Mr. Clarksson, what if you are killed or hurt, how we gonna get help then?”

Herne grinned, “Son, you don’t need to worry about that. There isn’t a man who’s ever put on a suit who can see me in these kind of settings unless I want him to see me. From the sounds of it, these guys are city goons, guns for hire more used to dealing with traffic than Nature. I am confident that we have the advantage in both skills and surprise. You boys have been hunting and tracking in this land since you were old enough to walk. These city slickers don’t stand a chance.

“Now, I want the sniper teams to start up into the hills. Remeber your token animals.”