Chapter Three: Boots, Coffee, and an Emu

Part 1

The Writer considered a moment as the man across from him paused to gather his thoughts. The question, though, had to be asked.

“How old are you?”

The Mage pulled himself from his thoughts then chuckled. “If I had a nickel for each time someone asked me that I would have approximately two dollars and five. I am old. Ancient, even. But I am not exactly sure how old.”

“Why is that? Come up with a ballpark figure.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Alright, I see you won’t let this go. I am one-hundred seventy two.”

“That’s not true.”

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

“You lived long enough to correspond with the first president of the United States.”

“Three hundre-”

“And you mentioned Atlantis. That’s a little older than three hundred years – if it really existed.”

“It existed, certainly. It wasn’t all glass towers, mind you. A little sooty, foggy if you ask me. But you’re right, it was a bit farther along than three hundred years ago.” He paused, as if considering a profound thought, the shrugged lightly. “A gentleman never reveals his age, you should know that. Or was it a Lady… I confuse that sometimes.”

“Why don’t you want to tell me your age?” the Writer asked as he leaned forward, making small marks on the transcript with his stylus.

“It would cause some disturbance. Imagine me as how I appear. Late thirties-”

“I would say early forties,” the Writer interjected.

The Mage glared across the table, “but it is believable. If I say fifty, sixty, you can still believe me, yes? Then if I say eighty, ninety, there is something unique about me, but not particularly superhuman. So if I tell you that I’m, oh, say five hundred, what do you think? Your first thought is now what in history must I have experienced and how old was I then?”

The Mage paused and crossed his arms. “And if I say I was two thousand years old, half of this world would ask, what? If I knew the messiah. The concept is incomprehensible. How can any one man live for so long? But, more than that, why can’t THEY live for that long? What is my secret to eternal youth?”

The Writer frowned, nodding. The Mage continued. “I do not wish to be mobbed everywhere I go. I do not wish to create issues as it pertains to the economy or spiritual stability. I’ve lived long enough to know that one man can, indeed, throw the entire world into a terrible age of darkness.”

The day was the sort that you forget about but when it comes around every spring and fall, you remember just how miserable they are. It was chilly, windy, with a hint of rain spray on the wind. Overcast and gray with swiftly moving clouds. I call these days mean days.

Truth or Consequences was not as mean as its weather, though. The people were friendly enough when we arrived. Our vehicles had been shipped and had arrived through some technical miracle of Lorenzo’s, though I believed he just commandeered them from a nearby FBI office.

There was a fresh report that came in that morning concerning strange occurrences. So, rather than settling into a comfortable hostel as I expected, we made for our first investigative stop of the day.

“No, seriously, what do you farm?”

“Emus.”

“On this entire bit of land you don’t have one bull? One horse?”

“Mister Valentine, please stop harassing the farmer.”

Michelle was right of course. I was interrogating the poor man, but I was really looking forward to trying to wrangle a bull — or whatever it is that cowboys do. You know, in my entire time in that charming town I saw not one coyote. Unfortunately, there were bigger things afoot than me wanting to ride around like a fool trying to capture and subdue fully grown bulls.

I am still disappointed, mind you.

“Mr. Haverty, can you tell me what you heard last night?” Michelle asked. Mr. Haverty crossed his arms over the handlebars of the dusty ATV beneath him. Michelle’s eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses, but I could tell she was checking the man over for any sign of subterfuge.

“Not much. Was just sleepin’. I went to bed late cause I was working on my taxes. Then I went on to bed. Alarm went off at five like every morning and I come out here and…” he gestured to the field.

“Crop circle.”

“Yes ma’am,” the man replied, smiling. He had a striking smile. Very, distinguished, but the look was mitigated somewhat by the dust and dirt on his clothing and face.

“He heard we were coming into town, obviously,” Aiden said, eyes eternally down on his cellphone, apparently texting.

“How,” I asked, glancing around at the expanse of land and open sky, “can you get a signal here?”

“Tied it to the dish. Thanks, by the way.” Aiden jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the satellite dish and antenna array atop one of the vans the group of them rode in.

“Ain’t you gonna take some pictures or something?” The farmer grinned expectantly, I imagine he thought he was going to become famous for having a crop circle in his emu farm. I imagine he would be famous for being the one farm in all of America that does not possess one. Single. Horse.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t even be getting that. “No, this has nothing to do with the incidents in town. I cannot believe we wasted our time on this,” I said. I am still angry now as I was back then. About the horse, not the crop circle.

“You sure?” Michelle asked, looking out over the formation of depressed grasses. Even in the overcast, she’d decided to wear her dark shades. They obscured her eyes.

“I am sure. Actual crop circles, about five percent of those reported, are caused by demons dancing, not sinister at all. The other 95 percent are hoaxes.” I gestured to the farmer. “By people who want a little bit of fame.”

“Hey! This is just as important as those cut outs those shadows make the other night! In fact, they came around and did this to my grass.” Farmer Haverty was, understandably, upset.

“Mr. Haverty-” Michelle began, but I cut her off.

“Shadows?” I asked. “What sort of shadows?”

Haverty shrugged. “Sort of looked like people, you know? A bit stretched out and long. But I was staying in town with my girlfriend. I got up in the night to, you know, do my business. When I was going back to bed, I saw the shadows goin across this one building. Next morning there was a giant bite out of the side of that very same building.”

It was silent for a bit. That damned game bleeped once or twice, I recall. “Shadows,” Michelle said slowly. “Why didn’t you report this earlier?”

“Thought I was dreaming.”

“That’s stupid,” Aiden interjected. I agreed.

“There are strange things going on all round the town and you don’t think that something like this would be helpful in finding out what it was? It is a small wonder why you’re raising emus.” What sort of farmer uses an ATV instead of a horse?

“Mister Valentine…” Michelle admonished. She gestured for Jenna to take over the questioning. Jenna, who seemed as fixated on taking notes as her son, moved closer to the farmer, who seemed to perk up until he realized that she was all business. Michelle caught my arm and led me to the large black cars. “You need to be more… Tactful when you question these people.”

“Tactful? I’m not the one who faked a crop circle-”

“Screw you!” Haverty called over Jenna’s shoulder.

I raised a brow, then continued. “I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a very, very long time. The only time we’d have an issue with this man is if I started to insult his mother rather than insulting his lack of bovines.” I said this last so that the farmer could hear me, but the man was focused on answering Jenna’s prying questions.

“Fine, we’ll talk about it later. What do you think?”

“I proper farm should-”

“About the shadows.”

“Definitely an aspect of what’s happening here. We should find out where the first incident occurred. I’ll get out my ghost detector and we’ll be on our way.” In retrospect, the snarkiness was probably not helpful.

“That’s not helpful.” Right, she did actually say that. “These events seem to be accelerating in speed and only occurring during the night. According to Lorenzo’s projections, we’re probably looking at something tonight or tomorrow night.”

One of the large SUVs began ringing from within.  Aiden grumbled loudly as his game gave one of those descending melodies — it seemed as if his little character died. His father, who had remained in the driver seat for whatever reason, reached down and answered the phone located on the dash.

“These investigations can take months, Michelle. It took me weeks to track down the bats in all of Appalachia. There are concepts, worlds and sciences that sometimes need to be discovered before I can pinpoint an issue.”

“Valentine, these things don’t seem to be dangerous yet, but they are increasing in frequency and have finally affected living things. We’ve had a dog and a horse-”

“We should have gone to that farm. It’s a dead horse but at least it would have one.”

“Will you let this horse thing go?”

“Miss Williams!” Henry leaned out of the window and beckoned us closer. He seemed a bit dour, more so than usual. “Got a call from Lorenzo at the home office. Someone’s discovered a person who’s been… Bitten.”

Michelle glanced at me, then called over her shoulder to the rest of the group. “Let’s get going.”

“Tally ho,” I offered.

I recognize that it is still not humorous, or even tasteful. But emus?

Part 2

“No siren?” I asked.

We sped along the outlying roads of Truth and Consequences, only very seldom passing another vehicle. The clouds continued to threaten rain and the scent of it was thick on the air. Michelle glanced into the rear view mirror at the Seer Delores who seemed to be sleeping. Since we left D.C., the young woman hadn’t said a word.

“No need.” We drove in silence for several more moments. Michelle sighed. “You seemed much more serious in Crowston.”

“I’m still serious, Michelle. Though, sometimes I find myself fixated on certain things.”

“Like horses.”

“Just so. Like horses.” We passed small farmhouses, grain silos and other structures. A few cows went by, and a few horses. Something in my gut, my instinct twisted inside me as I looked at them all. They seemed still. As if waiting.

“You’re reckless.”

“I am full of reck.”

“I was serious when I told you I wanted you to work with us.”

“I know, Michelle. And I know why. But you suspect that I am not dependable.” I wasn’t overly surprised, mind you.

“Are you?”

“I’ve failed,” I admitted. “Through the years I’ve had major and minor successes, but it is the failures that I dwell upon. It is the failure that the world remembers. The terrible, terrible tragedies. Beginning with my first.” The rain began. Mocking.

Michelle switched on the wipers. “Can you teach us what you know?”

“Seeing as it would be far and away better than Lovecraft’s conjecture, Verne’s ramblings and Homer’s flair for the fantastic, yes, I can. But you must understand that what I do is as much an art as it is a science. It requires you and your people to think broader, bigger, different, strange even. All of you will have to be willing to accept that sometimes two and two is five. And the sum of all parts is significantly less than the whole.”

“Like talking bats,” Michelle replied. Michelle has a sort of knack asking in asking questions without quite asking them. In her mouth they take the form of statements to march across the intervening distance and challenge one’s own truth to a duel. Mixed metaphor there.

“Like talking bats… And stranger.” I paused. “Do you know what I am called?”

Michelle glanced at me, then turned back to the road. “Elijah Valentine isn’t your name?”

“It is for now. But I meant officially. In the grand scheme of all things. For example, you are Agent Williams. Henry and Jenna are Operatives. Their son is a git-”

“Don’t badmouth other people’s children.” I waited as she thought. “You said that you were a police officer. So Officer.”

“Good, but incorrect. I have been called many things in my work. Shaman, Priest, Negotiator, Wizard, Magi, Sage. But I am a Mage.” I’ve told hundreds of people this, and very few have taken it as well as Michelle did. Or as well as she seemed to. She nodded.

“So you’re telling me you know magic and stuff like that. I thought we were being serious.” Michelle frowned as she navigated the transition from freeway to town road. “And forgive me if I’m unable to think outside the box on this.”

“One of your wiser authors said that technology of sufficient advancement will seem to those who don’t understand it to be magic.” This particular point is hard for some to understand. “If you were to give a tribesman from two thousand years ago a flashlight, would you think he could understand its mechanics?”

“I think I see your point. And that point is this: you can do things with technology that seems like magic.” Again, the non-question question. But she seemed to be on the right track.

“Yes and no,” I began.

“Well, what is it? Magic or not?”

“Yes.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s magic, as far as you’re concerned. But I want you to understand that when I say magic, I really mean extremely advanced technology. Technology that I cannot, will not, share with you or the governments of this world.”

“Why not? If it will help us in defense against the demons, then why won’t you?” The patriot within her warring with her reasonable mind, which I’ve seen before.

“Because I’ve seen what people are like once they have the knowledge and ability that my technology can afford them. The last time this occurred, Michelle, it was in a place called Chernobyl. Before that, Atlantis. And before, a place called Sodom and Gomorrah. And still before that, when we were free with our technology and abilities, the Flood.” I explained.

“The biblical Flood? The Noah’s Ark Flood.” Her hands seemed to be tight against the steering wheel. Knuckles pale with the stress of it. Holding on to something solid as I explained to her that her world was not as she thought. “You’re telling me that you are some sort of angel?”

I was silent for a time. It was the sort of rain where windshield wipers did more harm than good, streaking the glass with a new mixture of dust and water. “No. Just as the demons aren’t what you know as biblical demons, I am not what you would consider a classical angel. For one, I don’t have wings. Second, I don’t have luxurious blond hair.”

“Super technology I can believe. Magic I could almost believe, but an angel? Valentine, you’re asking me to believe a lot. You’re asking me to… No, you’re telling me that everything I was brought up to believe is not true. That you are some sort of…”

She laughed. It was the second time I’ve heard her do so, but there was no humor in it, no mirth. It was the expression of her exasperation and frustration at a situation that seemed so outlandish, so fundamentally insane, that there was no other recourse but… To laugh.

I let her. It is not often when ones beliefs are brought into stark contention.

She quieted.

“And God?”

It is the inevitable question. It comes sometimes days, weeks after I reveal a portion of what I am to others. And it pains me each time it comes.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

It is the one lie I never feel guilt for telling.

Part 3

The drive continued without much more conversation on the subject. Michelle seemed thoroughly distressed but she held her emotions close, not quite hiding, but keeping them obfuscated. Shadowed.

As I said before, I’m not an evil man. I love most everyone I encounter to some degree. And so it pains me when I have to pain others. To her credit, Michelle seemed to be taking it well. At one point I told a Catholic Bishop. Later that evening, the Inquisition was at my door.

We arrived in Truth or Consequences proper half an hour later. All of us quiet. Michelle with her thoughts, Delores with the effort of waking herself up and me not wanting to disturb either one. The GPS chirped, indicating directions fed to it by Lorenzo from the home office.

“Right, then,” came Lorenzo’s voice from everywhere in the car. Michelle, lost in her own thoughts swerved slightly, the rubber tires making soft, distressed sounds on the pavement. It was inevitable that he would do this while I was drinking. As I cleared my airway of apple juice, Lorenzo continued.

“I got on the horn with the local police. They’re good and freaked out, but they put up a cordon and are keeping people back. They’re going to give us forty-five minutes-”

“I thought we had jurisdiction,” I managed through a cough.

“Yeah, well, try explaining that to them. Can’t have jurisdiction if you get shot. Now, I have a projection of the incidents here in the city as well as a map of them as it relates to the find nearer to the river. If you’ll look at the tablet…”

I looked around for a screen but found none. “What tablet?”

Michelle reached across me and flipped the glove compartment open. Inside was a smaller compartment, presumably containing a weapon and atop it a black tablet computer. I took it and held it in my lap. It came to life.

“The tomb site was found here,” he explained. The screen became a satellite view of the town and a blinking green dot appeared over the indicated spot next to the river. “We’re not sure what occurred first, but that doesn’t really matter at this point.”

“Why? We need to know when this stuff happened to-” he cut me off.

“Because we can argue a timeline all day when the general pattern of expansion is evident in the information we do have.” the tablet shimmered and a dozen more green dots appeared on the image, moving northwest across the city, expanding. “And that does not include the number of 911 calls reporting the shadows.”

“Like dancing shadows?” Michelle asked, hesitant. She still seemed agitated, but was beginning to engage. Which was good, I don’t like working with the emotionally comatose.

“Some of them described it that way. This is much more than an isolated incident. This is city-wide now. More than that, the media seems to be getting wind of it.”

“Shut them down, Lorenzo. I do not want to see this on the ten o’clock news.”

“I can stop the media no problem. It’s the internet that I’m going to have an issue with.”

“Do what you can. Based on your timeline, when is the next incident going to occur?”

“It looks like an exponential scale. You do not have much time before it gets out of hand.” He sighed over the speakers. “It will be a few hours, best guess. In this arc here.” A large swath of the city blinked red.

“That’s a third of the city, Lorenzo.”

“The only constants are the distance they occur from the last incident and the direction that they seem to be heading. I don’t think I can narrow it down any more than that.”

“Try. We need to know where it is going to happen.”

In the years since I first met her, it seemed that Michelle had come well into her command position in the government. It still is a wonder watching her take control of a situation with cool efficiency. Mind you, at this point she was doing it while dealing with a true and genuine crisis of faith.

“I’ll do what I can,” Lorenzo said from the other side of the country. “You’re coming up on the location on your right. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Delores gasped behind us. I turned to look at her to find that she seemed to be looking off into the distance. “Dance… Dancing,” she whispered, eyes wide and luminescent with deep, piercing blue light. “They dance and rejoice and sing. I…” he voice trailed off.

“Who, Delores, who is dancing?” I demanded. Though they speak nonsense most of the time, always trust the words of a good and proper Seer.

“They laugh,” her voice was trembling, weak. “The mage is dead and the gate is open. They dance…” Delores leaned back into her seat, the blue light fading, revealing her own pale green eyes. With that light faded her energy and, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, she slumped to the seat, eyes closed.

“Delores?” Michelle kept glancing in the rearview mirror, trying to get a look at her.

I stared ahead at the flashing blue lights of the police cars as we approached the location on the GPS. Michelle glanced over at me. “What is it?”

“That’s the tenth one in as many years.”

“Tenth what?” she pulled the vehicle forward as a uniformed officer waved them forward through the cordon.

“It’s not important, yet,” I said as the car came to a stop. Michelle shook her head and moved out into the rain to the back seat to check on the Seer.

I stepped out of the car to take in the scene. It is my understanding that after the first few incidents of holes being torn out of buildings, people stopped being so surprised — it is certainly something the people of this world are good at. Individually, you are capable of such insight and genius, yet, as a group, you all are as docile as, well, a flock of emus.

There weren’t many bystanders along the residential road. At the corner of the street, there was a cluster of men and women standing in front of what looked to be a local grocer. The street itself was a collection of row houses, townhomes of differing and sometimes clashing color.

“She won’t wake up, but her pulse is strong and her breathing even,” Michelle said as she stood next to me, now beneath an umbrella she’d probably procured from that damned glove compartment.

“She’ll be fine. Let her sleep it off. We can get more answers from her when she wakes.”

“Henry, can you keep an eye on Delores? Write down everything she says if she wakes up again. Jenna, I need you taking pictures and notes. Aiden, don’t use up too many minutes.”

We started towards the house and I looked over to Jenna. She had a tablet much like what I’d held while in the SUV tucked under one arm and her open umbrella in the other. “Aren’t you worried about overage charges?”

“Why?” Jenna replied, grinning. Despite her somewhat bookish appearance with her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, she seemed vibrant. “The Government pays for it all.”

“And you couldn’t-” I began, turning to Michelle. She shook her head slowly. “I’ll let it drop… For now.” I started towards the house and one of the officers stopped me.

“Authorized personnel only,” he said gruffly. The man seemed to be an old hat at the profession but not used to dealing with such oddness.

“They’re with me,” Michelle said, handing him her badge. He took a long look at it, water streaming from his plastic covered leather hat. He nodded then handed the small leather wallet back.

“You got an hour,” he said.

“More than Lorenzo said,” I muttered to Michelle as we climbed the short steps to the entrance of a pale pink cream townhouse.

“Lorenzo likes to be conservative. Better fifteen minutes early than late, he says.” Jenna tapped at her tablet. The display shifted, revealing a camera function. By then, I was certain that they had a greater budget than what they were letting on. I would learn later that the budget each office put forward was classified and very, very large.

Other offices under the umbrella of the NSA had similar budgets, but tended to flaunt their resources, which led to some infighting, which, ultimately, led to cutbacks. As far as anyone other than the team and the Senators that signed the blank checks knew, the Office of Extra-Natural Affairs was woefully underfunded. I’m sure this will not be the last time I say this, but Michelle is a masterful leader.

Jenna took pictures as we moved through the modestly decorated home. I moved to the kitchen. The occupant of the house had been split in half, or rather… This is a bit difficult to explain. Imagine a gallon of ice cream. You take a scooper and scoop out a generally round half-sphere out of the top, right? It was much like that, as if someone had scooped out a portion of reality and the home owner and part of the refrigerator with it.

The legs stood, frozen, feet clad in leather cowboy boots. An arm hung from the top of the refrigerator. It seemed as though whoever it was had been leaning into the refrigerator and was… Scooped.

“Oh my god…” Michelle breathed.

“Yes, there is apparently one household in all of America that drinks good and proper tea.” I lifted a metal tea strainer from a large mug of long cold tea.

“Valentine.”

I dropped the strainer back into the tea, the dipped a finger into the cold beverage. I tasted it and frowned, thinking. “People often forget that taste is as much about sensation as it is about tastebuds. There’s something off here.”

“That is gruesome,” Jenna breathed as she took pictures of the kitchen and the bits of body left.

“This…” I stopped. There are Eureka moments, which sends its creator running down the road naked with the suds of a bath still on his skin and then there are terrible realizations. Terrible, terrible discoveries. But I wasn’t sure of my theory, not quite. But I had an inkling. Something similar had happened Millenia before.

“There’s not a lot of blood,” Jenna remarked as she took notes. “If someone cut this guy down, there would be blood everywhere.”

“And there’s also the fact that his lower half is still standing upright.” Michelle said. She moved closer to the legs. While there wasn’t a great deal of blood as Jenna indicated, there was certainly enough of it that Michelle needed to walk carefully.

I leaned back against the counter, thinking. Something… Something was nagging at me at the time and I wasn’t sure what. Not completely. “Let’s go,” I said, heading for the door.

“We’re done?” Jenna asked, surprised. Michelle glanced up at me and I nodded.

“Yes, I got what I needed.”

“Valentine, we’ve been here two minutes. We need to discover who or what did this.” Michelle replied sternly.

I paused at the door to look at the gruesome scene. “Feel free to take more pictures and fingerprint if you need to, but I highly doubt you’ll find anything worth the effort. The clue here is the sphere.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jenna had asked, but I was already out the door. Rain still poured outside as I made my way to the SUV. I hopped in. Henry glanced over, surprised. Aiden did not.

“Lorenzo? Blast it, how do I get this thing to work?” I began hitting the dash board and pressing my hands against the panels of the door.

Aiden scooted forward and reached between the seats to press a button next to the radio dial marked “Call.” “Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of tech genius?” he accused.

“I just run the place, I don’t…” I glared at Aiden. “Aren’t you supposed to be respecting your elders?”

“He’s got a point,” Henry offered as he looked over a local newspaper.

“Thank you, Henry.”

“No, I mean Aiden has a point.”

Before I could respond, Lorenzo’s voice filled the interior of the SUV. “What do you need?”

“Lorenzo, in your calculations, did you include vertical distance from the ground?” Lorenzo was silent for several moments, “Lorenzo.”

“No, but I’m adding them now.”

“Also, plot the location of the found tomb on the map in relation to the incidents.”

“Oh Christ,” Lorenzo muttered. I fumbled for the tablet screen and watched as the points came into view.

“They aren’t random,” I said slowly. The pattern… The pattern I’d seen before. There was a time before the precise science of mathematics and travel were known. On this and other worlds. “They’re tests. Whatever this is is expanding from the originating point of the tomb out into the city. Taking bites out of reality and… What?”

“Looks like they started nearest to the tomb and only roofs were affected. As it comes farther into the city, it gets closer to the ground,” Henry pointed out.

“To what end?” I asked, not really expecting an answer, yet.

“Shadows!” Aiden said, setting his cellphone aside.

“Yes, that’s another pie-”

“No, Shadows!” Aiden pointed through the windshield at the rainsoaked city ahead. Just visible in the gray downpour was the unmistakeable humanoid forms of… Some color. No, thinking back, it was an absence of color. Not black, but something alltogether darker, more alien. A pulsating nothingness made into vaugely human form.

They moved beyond the cordon towards the group of onlookers who seemed preoccupied by a young pet a newcomer had introduced to them. “No, no… Henry, lean on that damn horn.”

“What?”

“Just do it!” I pushed the door open and lept of of the car.

The rain slowed as I sped forward, towards the shadows. Sounds warped into long, drawn tones, individual drops like an infinitely large chorus. I watched the shadows, taking them in, studying them as they moved slowly through the rain. Water fell around them, never touching the impossible blackness. The void of the forms.

They were humanoid, two arms, two legs, head and torso arranged properly. But the scale was not human. I watched as some used their impossibly long arms to help them walk, while others had heads so tiny as to seem as if they had no head to speak of.

The rain slowed to a glowing grey cascade around me, I ran forward. The shadows had something to do with the spheres taken out of structures, animals, and now, people. I had to stop them before they reached the gathered crowd. My footsteps slammed into the pavement, sending water and asphalt spraying outwards. And then, I was there.

I stood between the shadows and the people, who were just beginning to look up as Henry beeped the horn of the black SUV continuously. The young dog began to bark furiously. Not the yapping whine that the little annoying Hollywood things do, but a good and proper bark.

The shadows stopped apparently seeing me. As well they should have, have you seen me in cowboy boots? Though it was not the reason why they paused. Two of them raised their arms, facing each other. Between them a small, sparking marble of light appeared. With a terrible rapidity, the marble grew into a larger sphere, swelling in midair between the enlongated forms. Rain above the sphere ceased, then, surprisingly, began falling upwards.

I reached into my pocket and took out a small knife, honed to such sharpness as to threaten to cut the fabric of matter and space itself. I threw it into the sparking heart of the sphere. It disappeared into the strange light, then, the sphere exploded. The people around me screamed as they were thrown from their feet, but I remained standing, the impact wave washing over and around me as water might around a boulder in a river.

I watched as the shadows, scattered by the blast, shimmered and disappeared. My blade hovered in the air where I’d thrown it, blackened and smoking.

Part 4

The knife hung as if it had struck an invisible tree and sunk its blade fast into the trunk. It sparked madly and began to smoke, which was difficult to discern for all the rain. The local police cleared the area, but my group of misfits and I stayed to study the phenomenon.

“What happened?” Michelle asked as she stared at the floating knife.

“That blade can cut through any matter that I’ve yet encountered–except the French. I could never understand that,” I replied. “It’s passed through the portal that the shadows created and lodged into something.”

“I could use a knife like that,” Henry remarked lightly.

“They aren’t laughing,” Delores said as she yawned behind a hand. “They are silent.”

Aiden held up an umbrella with one hand and his phone in the other. “So we’re done here. We can go home, now.”

“Silent, waiting. For someone.” Delores shook her head after that. She had dark circles under her eyes, which I thought strange, as she’d been sleeping most of the trip here. “That’s all I’m getting.”

“We don’t need to look at the other locations. I know what’s going on. I just don’t know what,” I said as I walked forward and removed the knife from the air. What I could see and the others could not was the small tear in reality left by the knife, a blinding nothingness made conceptual. It slowly knitted itself closed and a moment later it was gone.

“Do you have an electron microscope back at your office?” I reconsidered the question as I remembered the slide carousel. “Nevermind that. It can wait. I need to go to the tomb.”

“Alright, let’s get going. Are you certain everything here is safe? No more people being eaten by transdimensonal shadows?” Michelle asked as she led the way back to the trucks.

“No, but the forays should stop for a while while they repair their device.”

“What device?” Jenna asked, curious. She stood next to her husband beneath the umbrella he held.

“Whatever it is they were using to punch holes through to this universe,” I replied, following Michelle back to the vehicles. “I imagine that it is a rather complex and sophisticated piece of equipment.”

“You can’t know that for certain,” Jenna countered as the family followed.

“You’re right, I’m only guessing at the moment, but one thing I do know is that what ever method they are using to try to pass through is something I’ve never seen before. That not knowing is dangerous to you as well as me. More than that, why is it that the shadows are appearing before the event itself and what significance does that imply?” I sighed as I waited for everyone to reach the vehicles, “Lastly, why is this being done?”

We stopped at a Roy Rogers on the way to the tomb site. As the smells of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese wafted through the SUV, I considered what had occurred during that morning and what it might mean. I’d only seen that sort of technology used very rarely and even then, the implications had been dire, both for those that used it and those it was used upon.

The taste of the tea came to mind. Its individual components. It was the same as any other American made cup of tea: steeped too long and oversweet. But there was something there. Something lost in the background of fluorinated water and the dusty air of New Mexico. A taste of history.

“It’s recon as far as I can tell,” Lorenzo was saying over the speakers of the vehicle. “It fits a pattern.”

“Recon for what?” Michelle asked, glancing in my direction, but my mind was whirring as I allowed pieces to fall into place. Memories of countless years shifting, arranging themselves to the most probable, elegant explanation. But there was still much missing. And those missing pieces would be found in the tomb.

“Lorenzo, can you send me those slides that Michelle showed us yesterday?” I said suddenly. The conversation had passed on to other subjects and the clouds had grown darker with time, sending sheets of rain and wind to buffet the SUVs.

“Yeah, check your tablet.” The others left the vehicle at some point to eat after Jenna noted that there was a minor in their group of misfits. Henry came over at one point to offer me food as I sat, still in the passenger seat. They returned and we continued on.

“You’ve been quiet,” Michelle remarked as we drove on. Behind, Delores had fallen asleep again.

“I thought it would be me trying to reach out to you.”

“You’re a part of my team. I need to know where your head is.”

“I didn’t notice it before,” I said slowly. “We’re dealing with much more than I expected out of this.”

“Go slow. If you were working alone as before, what would you do?”

That was a good question and one I did not really give much thought, because the fact was that even working alone, I would have a great deal of resources at my disposal working in the industry that I did, in addition to some other personal tools. “The same as I’m doing now, only with an assumed name. And,” I pointed out; “I would have ridden a horse by now.”

“Do you have a theory, yet?” Michelle asked, frowning over at me.

“Not a complete theory, no, but the evidence is pointing toward something for certain. What it is I don’t know.”

Mysteries are a delightfully strange thing. At once one might want the answers immediately, but in the same experience, a detective might come to savor the chase. He might come to savor the slow reveal. But apparently that was not Michelle and her experience.

“What have you got so far, then?”

“I’ll know more once we get to the tomb. And don’t bother giving me twenty questions about it. I need time to think.”

“Alright.” And like that, she let the matter drop. Temporarily.

She’d come a long way since we first met in Crowston those years ago. She was the same person, but changed somehow. Stronger, perhaps. Wiser. Certainly more in control. Though given the situation last time with the very large bat-like creatures, I imagine my view was a bit skewed.

“That was quite a lot of information you shared. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” the Writer asked. The Mage took a sip from his glass then nodded. “You mentioned this supernatural quality about yourself. Do you mean to imply that you are a true angel?”

The Mage laughed softly then leaned forward, “Not in the Biblical sense.”

“You say that a lot. Do you mean that the bible is somehow untrue?”

“Oh my, no. Listen, some very, very wise men sat down a very, very long time ago and wrote about God and existence in the only way that they knew. As far as I know, they felt what they were writing to be true.”

“And angels and demons?”

The Mage shrugged, “As I’ve said, extra-dimensional beings inspire some of these tales. In a few some of the demons perpetuated them. You must understand that most times when a demon arrives here, they are here for sightseeing. Unfortunately, I don’t permit them to stay long, especially those whose only aim is to cause trouble.”

The Writer made a note with his stylus then regarded the Mage with an even stare. “Thousands saw you do the things you did all those years ago.”

“How old were you, then?” the Mage asked, mirth dancing in his eyes.

“Old enough,” the Writer replied. He lowered his eyes, remembering. He was old enough to remember the panic and the fear. More than that, he remembered the news calling the man a superhero — and that’s what he’d certainly seemed like. The news became as great as any afternoon television show. The video loop from dozens of different angles from people with video-capable cell phones.

“Old enough to understand that what was on the television news was real rather than fiction?” the Mage asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Thereabouts, yes.”

The Mage nodded, smiling. “So you grew up with me on your television, flying and all that nonsense?”

“We’re moving away from my original question,” the Writer announced, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Well, to answer that question… I’d say yes and no. Was I sent here as a soldier from omnipotent, omnipresent being? No. But am I tasked with protecting this world from threats without and within? Yes.

“You’ve said that many times, both before and after the event, but there are terrible tragedies that occurred even in the past four hundred years — and you say you are even older than that — that you could have averted.”

“Like what?” the Mage steepled his fingers.

“The Holocaust for one.”

The Mage turned his gaze out over the city. “Humanity is capable of truly terrible things. Genocide is one of those things.” The Mage paused. “I interfered during the war, helping the allied forces as best I could — as one man.”

“With all the abilities you’ve shown you could have defeated Hitler’s armies.”

“Consider that you’ve been waiting some five thousand years — as a culture, mind you — for your messiah. And during the time where your people are being slain, a man appears with the ability to defeat entire armies single-handedly…” The Mage shook his head. “That would have set off a religious war that would have no equal through history.”

The Writer considered this. There did seem to be logic to his argument. “But you would have saved millions.”

“Perhaps. But how many would have died as a result of a holy war? Racism and hatred burn brightest, but are ultimately snuffed out by time. Hope, though, hope is timeless.”

“And what about assassinating Hitler, or him and his entire command structure?”

“Then we come to a different issue. Kill a nation’s leader; given a particular culture, that leader becomes n untouchable martyr. More than that, without an overwhelming military force to counter that of the German’s, what makes you think that battle commanders on the ground will simply give up?”

The Mage smiled sadly at the Writer. “Unfortunately, by the time I realized that Germany was on the path to war, it was too late for me to do very much about it. I saved people as I could, but, in a very literal sense, I am only one man.”

“How was the Event different?”

The Mage’s eyebrows rose, surprised. “That is a very astute question. The difference is that while the Event was, essentially, a result of conflict, very few people in this world have the knowledge or ability to deal with those sorts of things — on any sort of scale.”

“You’ve seen exorcisms, if not in life then on television. The reason why they work-”

“Exorcisms are real?” the Writer interrupted.

The Mage laughed, “You didn’t interrupt me when I brought up the subject of God but you do when I talk about simple exorcisms?” The Mage waved his hand, “Not important. The reason why true exorcisms work is because it is only one priest to one demon. And that’s in the case of a man or woman with true faith. Now, imagine thousands of demons pressing themselves into this reality. You would need thousands of priests, a really good quantum vibration disruptor — which you don’t have, or…”

“An angel.”