Layers upon Layers (2014-01-25)

Connor fiddled with the dice in his hand, rolling them around his palm with his fingers as he considered the cars. He could sense nothing that would indicate their late adversaries had tampered with the vehicles. "Nada."

Lee looked at Mushu as the little dragon scurried over, under, and through the cars. He finally settled on the car hood and shook his head. "We sense nothing," Lee confirmed as she extended her hand to allow Mushu to climb up to her shoulder. "We should leave."

Climbing into their respective vehicles, they pulled drove slowly out of the park and down the road until they reached the site of Lee's ambush. Stopping, they got out of the vehicles again.

Liam frowned, looking at the car filled sink hole. "We can't leave the road like this... someone will be killed."

"It will take time to fill it back in," Lee thought aloud. "It will be difficult to gather all the foundation materials in the right order."

"I can help with that," Connor said with a grin.

Lee looked at Liam, raising an eyebrow, but Liam shook his head. "I will keep the area safe from intrusion while you work your magicks. The last thing we want is for unaware to encounter us." He lifted his incense burner and started walking up the road, chanting softly.

Willa looked down into the hole. "What about the car?"

"It would be helpful if we can compact it," Lee acknowledged, looking at it as well.

Pulling out her wand, Willa nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

Over the next hour, the four mages combined their powers to restore the road to something approaching what it had been before Lee's sink hole. Liam maintained a bubble of correspondence, warping space so that cars coming around the corner were instantly translated to the other side of the work area. Willa enhanced gravity's influence upon the car, increasing the gravity until the car collapsed in upon itself as Lee's spells returned the dirt and stone to the hole. With Connor's help, Lee summoned back the materials of the road in the right order so that the final pieces of asphalt returned to the top of the disrupted area.

* * *

The mansion still burned. From what he could discern from his unobtrusive position up the street there was no way the valiant fire fighters would stop the blaze. It was a prime fire, not a typical fire. Nothing short of magickal intervention would prevent the entire place from incineration. Lucranaris shifted and pushed off from his seat against the fender. It wouldn't be too difficult to break the rote fueling the fire, he just needed to make a few calculations first.

Moving around the to the back seat, Luc reached in and pulled out his briefcase. Retrieving a grease pen, Luc began sketching out his computations on the driver side window. Glancing infrequently at the burning mansion, he adjusted his figures and traced out the rote. With a thrust of his will, the symbols flared, burning away, leaving only an oily after image of the rote. Up the road, the intensity of the flames changed, and the torrent of water the fire fighters had been using began suffocating the fire.

It will take them several hours to put the place out, Luc calculated as he tucked his pen back into his briefcase. Might as well get something to eat and prep. The MiB will be here by morning.

 * * *

The four mages pulled the cars into the parking spaces in front of the sanctum, and Willa cringed when she saw her mother's tall, disapproving figure standing on the front porch. Her mother's grey streaked, dark blond hair was pulled back severely in french twist into which several crystal tipped hair sticks were thrust. Her jaw was set purposefully as she watched Willa and her companions climb out of their vehicles. She lifted her iPhone. "Your phone broke?"

(to be continued)

Survivor's Spirit (2014-01-18)

Having retreated to "the faerie ring" at Liam's suggestion, Willa and Connor continued their magickal preparations for the upcoming confrontation. Lee slipped back down the road as silently as a shadow and as fleeting as a ghost in hopes to delay their pursuers long enough to provide her companions additional time. She gave little thought to Liam's disappearance, focusing instead upon the need to know who and what their pursers were.

Pulling out his clips of ammunition, Connor looked at Willa. "Have anything which can give my bullets a boost?"

Willa nodded as she finished her first circle of the ring and retrieved her survival witch kit. Setting her pack within the faerie ring, she pulled out a vial of essential oil. "Spread some of this on the bullets, it will give them the bite to get through magickal protections." Taking up her wand, she eyed the ring. "We'll need to stay within the ring for my wards to protect us."

Connor eyed the nordic witch. "What do you plan to do?"

She closed her eyes, drawing in the scents of the forest, feeling the life about her, and lifted her wand. "A kinetic shield, a life ward, and a primal barrier..." She frowned. "If I can cast them all before they get here."

Connor nodded. "Will it block our own spells?"

Shaking her head slightly, she began to trace out the ring with her wand as she walked daywise. "No."

Lee moved as only a master of correspondence could, each of her steps taking her further than a man at a full run. Her movements folded the fabric of space, allowing her to step from fold to fold instead of traversing the entire distance between. She arrived along the road, a good fifteen minute's walk from the ring, and listened. The car was approaching. Taking a stance in the road, she began twisting space. Each of her sweeping, circular motions looked like nothing more than a slow, deliberate dance, yet beneath her feet, she felt the earth sliding aside, spreading across the road in all directions as a fine dust. She moved backward, each sweeping motion spreading the dust across the area, removing the asphalt's foundation as one would scoop out a melon, leaving only the brittle black shell behind.

The pursuers' car rounded the bend and she saw them as they saw her. The engine revved as the car launched forward, intent upon running her down before she could dodge away. Yet, as the car sped over the asphalt shell, the road cracked, shattering like brittle pottery handled without care. Lee leapt as the fractures reached her, leaving the ground an instant before it crumbled and fell into the hidden crater. As she soared up and backward, flipping gracefully at her zenith, she heard the sound of devastating impact as the machine slammed into the closer wall of the crater. Earth won. Landing as lightly as a cat, Lee leapt again, vanishing into the trees like a leaf carried on the wind.

Connor's head came up as the sound of impact and twisted metal reached the clearing. "Sounds like Lee is busy."

Willa finished the her third time around the ring, the air wavering along the surface of the half sphere of power which separated them from the outer world. "I hope that indicates she's doing well."

Lee watched the car and the occupants as the dust and smoke cleared. The driver and passenger had already disengaged their seatbelts. The one in burgundy twisted to grab something from the back floorboards as the one in grey smashed out the side window and climbed out. They moved as if they'd been injured, but were by no means incapacitated. Lee frowned. That wasn't good.

The man in the burgundy trench coat leapt, soaring up from the hood of the car and landing on solid asphalt beyond the edge of the crater. The grey simply moved to the wall of the crater and began climbing, something he shouldn't have been able to do in such loose and unstable dirt, yet he climbed as if he were on a climbing walls with hand holds. As the second man ascended beyond the crater's edge, the first set down a leather case and opened the top. Reaching inside, he pulled out a tommy-gun with eldrich symbols inscribed into the stock, cartridge and barrel.

Lee passed her hand before her eyes, opening her primal sight, and gazed at the men. The barely perceivable symbols embroidered into their clothes shone like liquid fire to her primal sight. Not only did the clothing move as if there were sections of stiffer, thicker materials, but it enwrapped them in magick.

Even the tortoise has his soft points, Lee mused, silently slipping from the branches and picking up a stone from the forest floor. With a deft spin, she hurled the stone at the agent in grey. The agent turned, his arm swinging to deflect the stone, but her pitch was a fraction faster than the agent and the stone struck his skull. Against any normal man, that would have been a killing blow, and it did send the agent to the ground, but Lee could see him shaking his head as he struggled to rise.

Damn! That will complicate matters.

The burgundy agent flipped up a brass crosshair sight on his gun and turned looking through it as if he believed he could spot her within the foliage. He fired. Lee slid sideways and down just enough for the round to impact the tree behind her instead of hitting her. The tree trunk exploded as the incendiary round splinter and vaporized the wood.

Lee tried to fold space and step away from the men, but her concentration faltered and she only managed to slip away before he could fire a second round.

Willa jerked at the sound of gunfire and explosions. The carefully crafted ward-layer wobbled and collapsed. "Damn!" She cursed herself before gathering her thoughts and focusing on the task. She still had two layers to build, and the enemy was not far off.

Connor finished coating and reloading his bullets into the clips. He wondered where Liam had gone. Had the man left them to fend for themselves, or was he really gathering reinforcements?

By the time the burgundy and grey men had made it to the parking lot, they no longer limped or moved in any way which would indicate injury or discomfort. Lee narrowed her eyes, concentrating upon their garments again. Were there fewer glowing sigils than before? She wasn't sure, but it was possible. If so, then their abilities were available in finite quantities, and that was something she could exploit.

The men climbed the path towards the clearing, and noted the man and woman within the eldrich shield at the center of the clearing. They stopped on the path, scanning the area.

"Who are you?" Willa called. "We don't want to fight you."

The burgundy clad man answered in an almost bored tone. "We want the freak. Do not interfere."

"Not a good start," Connor grumbled, flexing his fingers on his gun.

Willa frowned at him, but said nothing.

At that moment, another stone came careening in from the woods, but the instant it cleared the trees the burgundy clad man spun and blew the stone to powder in a single, devastating shot. The grey man crouched simultaneously to the burgundy's spin, his grey great coat shifting into something like a hybrid of a second skin and articulated, bladed armor. In a blur, he launched into the woods.

Lee leapt a second before the grey slashed through the space she'd occupied. Spinning as she ascended, she struck down with her staff, ramming it through his ankle and twisted as she descended, snapping the man's lower leg just above the ankle.

The crack of bone and scream concussed the clearing as Connor leveled his gun at the agent's weapon. Got to stop that thing, he thought. He let the dice rattle in his off hand, his mind opening to the probabilities as he pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through the barrier without hindrance and slammed into the circular cartridge of the incendiary tommy-gun. Despite his hope, the gun did not explode.

Shit, he thought, as burgundy spun back and fired off his first shot at Connor. Even knowing exactly where the round would hit, Connor would normally have no chance of evading it, but Willa's kinetic shield changed the odds. As the incendiary round passed through the outer sphere, it slowed, beginning to yield to gravity far faster than it would have otherwise. Connor stepped back, turning his body just enough for the round to slip passed him without impact. The round continued out of the ring and exploded as it hit the ground twenty feet beyond.

Willa lifted her wand, focusing on the energy she could feel coursing through the burgundy man's nervous system. With a widdershinds swirl of her wand, she tried to slow the impulses, delaying the signals and responses. The man pulled the trigger again, but Willa was certain he should have been able to get off two or three shots by then. The gun clicked, the next round refusing to enter the chamber. The man swore, and began to release the gun, in order to free his hands for other weapons.

Lee watched in dismay as the grey man's leg began mending instantly, the bone reforming and aligning while the flesh knit together in a flare of primal power. She didn't wait for the healing to finish, but launched from the wood, leapt over the burgundy man and landed at the far side, her staff ready for the next assault.

The grey spun on one foot as the other leg continued to heal, and his muscles bunched within the coat-armor. In moments he launched himself at Lee again.

As the grey launched, Connor fired again, hitting the burgundy's gun hand, blowing it nearly apart, shattering the bones, leaving the fingers without structure against which to flex. Willa concentrated on her spell, tightening her hold upon the man's nervous system, dialing it back, dimming his responses, slowing him further.

Lee ducked, bringing her staff up to catch the grey in the pelvis and propel him over her and face first into the ground. As she launched upward, she drove her staff down again, but the grey slid aside, and as her staff hit ground he hooked his ankle about the staff, locking it in place. Lee spun, refusing to let go of her staff, and used her redirected momentum to torque the staff, causing the grey's knee to snap.

Connor fired again, his bullet separating the pinky and ring finger from the burgundy's off hand while Willa slowed burgundy's responses further, sweat drenching her clothes from the mystical exertion. If they could keep burgundy from healing or obtaining another weapon, they could win the fight.

Mushu materialized about Lee's staff, his eyes wide with fascination. "Well, this is interesting!"

Lee knew the little dragon was not referring to the physical combat. She paused, allowing her sight to expand to the etheric, and her eyes went wide as well. The world about them shifted, as if the colors had been muted and the sounds muffled. It felt as if the very ground had slid out from under them, yet there was no movement at all.

Willa and Connor blinked, realizing the scene had changed. They were still in the clearing, but beyond the oddly desaturated color of the scene, they were surrounded by a dozen or more beasts ranging from six to eight feet tall, all some hybrid of man and wolf, and all looking displeased. Walking what seemed to be the perimeter of both the shifted space and the clearing was Liam. He chanted/sung to himself, paying no heed to the activities within the clearing. The smoke from his incense burner rose like faerie motes of silver light, thinning the veil between the worlds.

Lee stepped forward now, facing the two men.  "Why am I a freak?" she asked in a level tone. Neither of the men even looked at her.  "They will not hear me.  I need a voice.  Who will speak for me?"

Conner gripped his dice and leveled his firearm while Willa steadied herself after the sudden change. Willa looked in amazement at the beings surrounding them. "I think that's a task best left to Liam. He seems to have an idea of what's going on here."

The grey took in the situation, seemingly unphased by the slip from the physical world into the boundary between body and spirit. With a slash at the air, the grey sliced through the remaining veil and plunged into the deeper umbra. Three of the garou followed, but the rest remained.

The burgundy looked about, slowly, Willa's magicks preventing any rapid responses to his surroundings. Bringing the stump of his off hand to his chest, he deliberately spread blood across the symbols on his torso, and all the magicks of his enchanted garments erupted. The explosion blew apart Liam's bubble of synergy, and tore through Willa's wards. Everyone was knocked to the ground, with injuries ranging from bruising to fearful burns depending upon their proximity to the epicenter.

Willa clambered up and ran for Lee, who, despite her amazing skills, had been knocked across the clearing by the blast. "Let me help you."

Lee pushed herself up. "I am alright."

Frowning, Willa refused to be dismissed, "This is what I do, I heal people."

"All right."  Lee straightened while Willa went back for her kit.  Lee turned to the tall, alien forms.  "I have no claim upon you.  I thank you."  She made a deep, formal bow to them.

Liam stood up, checking to make sure his incense burner had not been harmed, then carefully tucked it away before speaking to the fading images of the garou. "Thank you, my brothers."

The werewolves nodded and disappeared into the spirit paths.

Connor brushed himself off, glad that Willa's wards had absorbed the majority of the explosion before collapsing. "Doesn't look like he left enough of himself to get a DNA trace."

Liam frowned. "Death over capture, and spells prepared to destroy anything we could use to divine any information..." He shook his head. "That's disturbing."

"Very," Connor agreed.

Willa finished tending to Lee's most serious wounds before standing and looking back at the men. "What now?"

"We can't get onto the mansion grounds in broad daylight, with police and firemen there," Connor observed.

"I am not comfortable trying to wend our way back through the spirit paths to the mansion... I suspect there are spirit barriers there, or worse, which have trapped the spirits who normally accompany Lee." Liam looked at the akashic nun as she approached. "I did understand that correctly from your memories, yes?"

She nodded. "Yes. Mushu knows nothing except they did not emerge from the mansion with us." She looked at the semi-corporeal dragon wrapped about the upper length of her staff. "I will not  send him to investigate."

"We don't want to let too much time pass. Any traces we could find will be obliterated by all the activity, if not by whoever launched the attack." Connor pondered the problem as Liam shouldered his pack and Willa tucked away her supplies. "Think we can get in there tonight?"

Liam looked at Lee and Willa, both of whom nodded. "After moon rise I think..."

"We can return to the house until then, recharge, eat, rest, and maybe my mother or Grams will know something more than we do," Willa said, closing up her pack and hefting it onto her shoulder. "I hope they didn't damage the subaru.

Lee shook her head. "They walked passed the cars.  I do not think they noticed them."

Connor frowned again. "We should probably check before getting in them... just to be sure..."

Beginnings & Endings (2014-01-11)

The explosion which shattered the quiet of the morning could be felt beyond the neighborhood, and, to those with the ability to sense it,  on levels beyond physical reality. No "gas explosion" would send ripples through the spheres as the one that shook the fabric of reality when the Emerson Mansion erupted.

Willa looked at Liam as they turned the corner and saw the inferno. "Grams said the Emerson Mansion was a hermetic sanctum."

Liam frowned, pointing to a spot along the side of the road. "Best not to park too close. The sirens are closing in."

Two figures emerged from the fires, scurrying from the building like rats abandoning a sinking ship. They were mostly unseen and apparently not injured. Making their way rapidly from the scene, they descended the hill along the opposite side of the road from where Willa parked the subaru.

Liam's attention was arrested by the two people descending from the scene. His vision seemed to take in a sight beyond Willa's perceptions. She glanced toward the mansion as the first of the emergency responders arrived in a cacophony of flashing lights and sirens. Splitting her attention between what Liam was watching and the activity up the hill, she frowned.  There were others up above the conflagration who weren't emergency personnel.

Are those men watching the blaze? she thought, trying to see them through the heat haze.

Connor noticed the gaze of the man across the street from them. He matched his pace to Lee's, as she was his first concern, but something about the man triggered a spark of recognition. Who is he?

Lee braced herself on the car's bumper, her grip on her bo staff as tight as an iron clamp and her breath coming ragged. Her eyes did not see the ground before as she leaned forward to brace her free hand on her knee. She saw only the image of her paternal grandmother, her dying gaze focused upon Lee with startled recognition as the building burned around them. She still heard the voices of her spirits imploring her to go, escape, survive. To have come so far only to meet with death and loss; her mind would not accept it.

Willa's frown deepened as she realized that none of the police, firemen, or spectators had yet to notice the two men across the street from the mansion. The men seemed completely calm, almost disinterested in the scene, yet somehow attentive and deliberate. Their heads seemed to turn in slow motion and their gaze shifted from the mansion down the hill to her. No, not her, across the street. She looked over again, realizing that their gaze fell upon the same subject as Liam's, the woman at the car across the street.

"Liam!"

Liam's attention snapped away from the spirit-walker and he looked at the witch. "What?"

Willa jerked her head in the direction of the strange men. "See them?"

Liam's eyes narrowed as he studied them for a moment. "Yes..."

Connor's skin prickled and he turned his gaze up the hill as more emergency vehicles blasted past in a flurry of light and sound. He saw what the two people across the street saw, and he knew trouble had found them again. He wished he knew the name of this trouble, names had power, but he thanked his lucky charms that he at least knew where the immediate danger was from. He swore under his breath and looked back across the street. The flow of probabilities swirled about the two across the street from them, clashing with the less preferable outcomes he could sense from the figures up the street. Whomever these newcomers were, they were their best chance at surviving the next 24 hours.

Lee looked up as Connor tapped her shoulder. She followed his gaze and the motions of his head. It didn't take her long to realize there were both friends and foes about. She knew his expressions and could trust his judgement in these situations; that knowledge and trust had saved them before. She pushed off the bumper and straightened. "We need to go."

"Yep." Connor wasn't wasting his eloquence at the moment.

"Hey," Lee called, and the two people across the street looked at her. "Coming?"

Willa looked at Liam. "To where?"

"Faerie Ring Park." He held out his hand. "Keys."

She nodded, tossing him the keys as she dashed around the car and across the street as the oriental woman opened the back door of the other car. Liam jumped into the subaru and started the engine as he speed dialed Willa.

"You lead," Willa said into the phone as she thumbed it to speaker.

"Okay," Liam said over the phone, and backed the subaru around.

Connor started their car and turned it about to follow. He glanced up the hill and scowled. "They're going to follow."

"Of course," was Liam's comment as they turned around the corner. Lee noted that the car the unknown duo drove encountered no obstructions as they pulled around the emergency responders and followed.

"Any idea who they are," Willa asked to the company in general.

"No," came three responses in concert.

"Where are we going?" Connor kept his attention on the road and his eye on the subaru.

"A park in the hills: an area where the gauntlet is thinner and is just strange enough to discourage most muggles from staying around it too long." Willa grinned at Connor's snort. "Do you prefer sleepers?"

"Muggles will do," he replied, taking the turn onto I40 a bit more aggressively than was necessary.

Their pursuers stayed back, but Lee could track them, her spacial awareness allowing her to intimately know the distance, speed and direction of their motion. As they turned off the highway and onto a smaller, two lane road, she began to focus. As they wended their way into the mountains at a rapid but not treacherous speed, Lee expanded her awareness, feeling the fabric of space, and stretching it subtly behind them. With each turn and bend, she increased the length of the road. Sweat trickled down from her temples as she sensed the pursuing vehicle falling further and further behind.

Liam's voice came over the speaker phone as they passed a car heading down the road they were climbing. "I feel sorry for them, that's going to be a really long ride."

Lee grinned. "You sense my efforts?"

"I'd do the same if I didn't have to keep my attention on driving."

Lee nodded, and returned her full attention to the distance lengthening rote, her hands moving in ki gung small gestures. "They are not trying to counter me."

"Then either the driver is the one who understands correspondence, or, if we're lucky, neither of them can manipulate space."

Connor felt the correctness of the statement. "Lucky... they can't."

Willa eyed him. "How do you know?"

Connor grinned, "Gut instinct."

Willa shrugged. She'd heard stranger explanations of "knowing" in her time.

Finally, Liam pulled off the main road and onto an infrequently used gravel road into the forest. He parked at the far end of the gravel loop, as near as he could to the path leading further away from all things man. He pulled his day pack from the back seat as the other car stopped and Connor turned off the engine. "The ring is just up the path; that's our best spot to do work."

Willa slid out of the car and jogged over to her subaru as Liam tossed back her keys. She threw open the back hatch and grabbed her witch kit, while the other two followed Liam up the path.

"I know you," Connor said as they strode out of the narrow path into a small clearing, "You're Liam Gregory, the X-athlete."

Liam nodded. "I can't return the compliment."

Connor snorted, "Probably not. You've been a sure bet for years."

Liam raised an eyebrow. "You bet on X-sport competitions?"

Connor grinned, "Amongst other things."

Liam set his pack on a picnic table and began to rummage in it as the others quickly surveyed the clearing. "How far behind are they?"

Lee frowned a moment, considering the question. "Assuming they can't drive faster than we, or counter my magick, thirty minutes behind."

Connor rolled his dice in his hand, listening to their clicks. "At most."

Lee nodded at him, then turned to the two strangers. "Who are you?"

Willa set her own day pack on the table. "I am Willa Stone. My family has protected this area for seven generations."

"Liam Gregory; I go where I am needed." He pulled a small, leather pouch out of his pack and carefully removed a silver knotwork incense burner from the bag. Cradling the egg shaped knotwork in the palm of his hand, he held it out toward (Chad) and Lee. "It would be faster if we share what we know. We have little time."

Lee and Connor looked at each other, nodding briefly, and extended their hands to touch the silver egg. Liam whispered his call to the spirits to grant them wisdom, and their memories of the past few hours seemed to pour from them into the egg, rise and swirl like smoke, and then as they breathed in, the mixed memories were inhaled. Liam waited, allowing the new recollections to sort themselves out in his mind. Lee, though surprised by this method of sharing thoughts, remained steady and centered herself. (Chad) shuddered, stumbling back and breaking his contact with the egg as he struggled to make sense of what he saw.

After a minute, Liam lowered the egg. "I see." He looked briefly at Lee. "My sympathies."

Lee nodded her acknowledgement, but said nothing.

Connor settled his thoughts. "So, what's the plan?"

Willa frowned, looking at the three of them. "I'm in the dark here."

Liam turned, stepping closer to her, and blew the remnants of memory smoke into her face, causing her to cough and stumble back against to the table to steady herself. He looked back at the others, "She isn't adept at mind magicks."

They waited as Willa recovered her senses and glowered briefly at Liam. "You could have warned me."

"Would a warning have helped?"

"No," she huffed, and settled her hip more firmly against the table. "Plan?"

"We have allies here, where the gauntlet is thin. I'll try to gather them." Liam looked at the others. "I suggest defensive tactics - we don't know who or what these men are."

"Save that they are wearing clothes about a hundred years out of date," Willa commented dryly, "That doesn't sound like MiB."

"Their clothes weren't black," Lee stated, collecting her impressions from the shared memories of the men, "one dark burgundy, and the other charcoal, but not true black."

"How much time now?"

Lee frowned. "My spell fades faster than I planned... fifteen minutes."

"Then I better get moving." Picking up his pack with his left hand, Liam slung it over his shoulder and took a long, slow breath. Then, walking purposefully away from the center of the clearing, he simply faded from view.

"That never gets old," Willa said, before looking at the other two. "Fourteen and counting..."