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.”