Chapter 5: 5)

5)

Cassy- In the Exchange watching a security feed.

I admit that I flinched a little when the big orc girl buried the tip of her sword into the thug's face. Deep and hard enough that his body was held up halfway off the floor by the blade sinking into the cabinet behind it.

At least until she pulled it out to wipe the blood from the blade onto his shirt. The horned demon seemed a little upset while the ghul danced back from the spreading pool of blood.

“Oh, we should time how long it takes him to come back to life this time.” My boss checked her phone.

It had a glittery cover with an image of a rainbow puking cartoon kitten on the back.

I cleared my throat to get the bemused djinn’s attention away from the phone. “Once the spell nimbus went out, I didn't see Martin anywhere. Is that what you meant by some hope for him."

The djinn nodded with a smile. “He is a very resourceful young man, until I see a body I will assume he is alive somewhere.” He nodded to himself. "And most likely making friends."

Natalie's phone began to play the opening bars of the Stone's street fighting man.

What? Sue me. I like the oldies, and so do a lot of the arcane. We tend to live a lot longer than the mundanes since we can deal with the trace amounts of raw Chaos that reach earth. It doesn't make us age or otherwise break down at the cellular level so easily.

My boss finished her conversation on her phone “Huh? Tell her the person in charge will be right out.” She turned to me. “Got someone trying to get past Johanson, says she lived above the Party-Mart.”

Khalid tapped at his keyboard until the monitor showed a split screen with twelve images, which he took down to a single one showing us a live feed of across the street to where a woman stood facing off with Natalie's Bureau assigned bodyguard. Both with their arms crossed as they engaged in a stare down.

I take an informed guess "Sally Kincaid, Kisatchie Pact. Rented out the second bedroom in the apartment from Martin this last year. Former girlfriend.”

Natalie whipped her head up at me. “How’d you know that?”

I point my thumb at Khalid. "Because you asked him to keep an eye on your nephew, and then you dumped the job of collecting and reading his reports on me for the last three years.”

She nodded and smirked. “Yeah, I vaguely remember something about that.”

"Right, I'll go talk to Kincaid. Maybe you should catch up a little on everything you’ve been paying Khalid to find out.”

By the time I got out of the store, Kincaid was cautiously poking the toe of her boot at the, for some reason, wet pavement just on the other side of the caution tape. There was no sign anywhere of Johanson.

Martin- posed to run at the front of the Party-mart

For a moment the ripples in the swampy water begin to calm, then a big orc guy in black tactical gear came surging out of the waist high water with a roar.

He looked pretty upset, as he glared at me then whipped his head back and forth to see the dour looking swamp land all around. He then gave the store behind me a curious glance, and turned to look at me again.

“Martin Thibedeau?”

“Yes?”

“Your aunt was worried about you."

“That is...” I try to think of the right word. “...novel?”

He stared at me, I stared back. “So...maybe get out of the water, I do not really know what all might be in there with you.”

The big guy gave the water around him a concerned look before beginning to hastily thresh through the waist deep water to the edge of what remained of the parking lot and heaved himself, dripping wet, onto the blacktop.

The orc held out a hand “Charles Johanson, Trooper, Magic Incident Bureau. Assigned to Natalie Thibedeau. Drove out this morning to find a big hole where this store was at.”

We shook hands, his grip was firm without any of the hand crushing dominance games I would have expected. “Martin Thibedeau, as you know. Got shot. Miscast a desperate attempt at a healing spell. Ended up here."

He blinked at that. “Are we in any immediate danger?”

“Immediate? I do not think so, but we are smack dab in the middle of what I have been told is the changing lands. From what I have heard the Realms patrol them for what must be a good reason.’

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He grunted in acknowledgment. “Any clue how I ended up here?”

“Sorry, my spell is still going and I do not know what all it may be doing.”

Another grunt “Can you end it?”

I waved my hands around aimlessly. “The spell did not heal me from being shot, but it is just keeping me in a state of perfect health. If I walk, or well, wade too far from the store I go right back to being gut shot

Oh shit, did I extend the spell when I walked over to...right where he just appeared. Oops.

He shook his head in disbelief. “Why...how did the spell go off so..?” he waved his hands around.

Apparently, the reason my family had disowned me was not all that well known, at least not anymore. “Spell weaving is all about manipulating symbols. While the families like to get fancy and call it magebane, what I have is just plain old dyslexia which limits me to two symbol cantrips, sometimes three on a good day.”

He grimaced “Well. That… really sucks."

I wiggled my fingers around. "A healing spell involves symbols for the target, life, order, inversion, detection, stability and renewal, or at least all of that if you don't want to end up with a cancerous mess. How that ended up sending an entire store to another layer of reality I have not the foggiest idea.”

“So unless you have a healer ready to fix me the moment I step away from this place, I am stuck. You on the other hand can just call my aunt and let her know you have vanished off the face of the earth and need to get summoned back.”

He gave me a look of disbelief. “Seriously? Our phones work," he waved a hand around. "Here?"

I showed him my phone “Just called my boss a few minutes ago, and really? A gas line explosion? That is the best the Mib could come up with?”

The big guy ignored me as he excitedly pulled his phone out, only to look at it in despair as it emerged from his pocket leaking out swamp water. A slow firm poke on the power button did nothing.

“I don’t suppose you memorized her number...no, never-mind, no one does that anymore.”

I handed him my phone. “I put the Bureau down in contacts as Asshold666”

He gave me a look

“Nothing personal.”

Donovan- Lying on the floor of the Party-mart with a hole in his head.

It’s dark again and my face hurts. A lot.

And, it’s back to just voices again.

The hottie “I would have liked to get at least a few answers from him before you went all Conanna the barbarian on him”

The face stabbing scary one. “Sorry...shoot, what's the new name...Damia? Yeah, Damia. So, Damia this is what you promised me when I came down here with you. In hell, if someone gives me a problem, I get to solve it with violence. No more putting up with anyone's bullshit."

The hottie, or Damia, said with a bit of a whine. “I know and I don’t blame you. But you could have just kicked him or stabbed him someplace a little less lethal. He can’t exactly answer any questions with his head nailed to the cabinet door and it’s not like you couldn't have killed him later.”

“He got his warning. I had spoken.”

I could feel the exchange of dirty looks. Until the third one, the goth girl, broke it up. “Uh, the blood is going away and I think his face is healing. So is the cabinet.”

I opened my eyes, and the room looked weird. Then I could feel my face…inflating? Broken bits of bones moved around as my eyes were pushed out into their rightful places.

Right about then I was finally able to breathe in again and let the world know just how much having your face getting stabbed in reverse hurt. Hint, a lot.

My scream was cut off by a green tinged fist in my face.

“See. The screaming was a problem for me. Violence was applied and the problem was solved.”

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