Gremlins. As in more than one. He’d said gremlins a minute earlier, but I’d still been thinking of the single pest above us.
Kyle’s expression suddenly snapped into focus. He raised his gun. I half ducked but he was pointing up at the traffic light. The gremlin squatted on top of the middle light, beating it like a bongo drum, and grinning at us the whole time.
I frowned. Cheeky little jerk. Even for a gremlin, he was bold. I glanced down and scanned the ground, trying to find my wand. No luck. It must have really gone for distance when it hit the ground.
“Stop!” Kyle shouted. Near panic filled his voice. “Stop now!”
He held his automatic in both hands, in the classic shooter pose, and aimed at the gremlin. The little annoyance stopped his bongo-like drumming and cocked his head, staring intently at the officer.
Then the gremlin started pounding on the street light again, faster this time. The frame shook, and the turn signal flashed all three colors at once.
“I said stop!” Kyle’s voice cracked. The gremlin ignored him.
Bullets could hurt a Class III or higher manifestation, but a Class II like this little pain in the rear was another matter.
My mouth was suddenly dry. “Don’t,” I pleaded, but the officer ignored me. I winced and prepared to drop to the ground. Gremlins could wreck ballistics like nobody’s business. No telling where the bullet would fly.
Kyle pulled the trigger. I braced for the bang of a gunshot, but nothing happened. His eyes widened. He pulled the trigger again.
The pistol literally went to pieces, in a sudden rush of parts falling with a clatter on the sidewalk. The bullet that had been in the firing chamber clinked on the cement and rolled away, off the curb and across the pavement.
“My god,” Kyle wailed. “What’s happening?”
“Hee-hee-hee!” The gremlin’s triumphant laugh grated on my nerves. He balanced on the support arm of the traffic array, like a wire walker.
I finally spied my wand wedged against the base of a nearby parking kiosk and snatched it up.
I’d try a command spell this time. It would hurt both of us, since I didn’t have a proper binding in place. Simple brute force. Not subtle at all, but that was the advantage of a command.
I pointed my wand at the gremlin.
“Drop!” I said in Coptic.
The Gremlin pivoted, stepped off the support arm and plunged fifteen feet to the street. Being a Class II still temporary manifestation, he didn’t so much smack the pavement as pillow into it. He bounced up, and then landed on his feet, facing me.
“Be still!” I thundered, still using Coptic.
The gremlin did its best impersonation of a statue.
I let out my breath, and hazarded a look at the officer.
He stared at me wild-eyed, face confused.
“What are you?” he asked in a desperate falsetto squeak.
I sighed.
Now the fun part began. I couldn’t tell him the truth, but he’d seen the truth, so I was stuck. It would have been so handy to have a way to wipe his memory, like in a movie or TV show where some hapless soul uncovers the secret conspiracy. Nor would we do something as evil as killing ordinary folk who stumbled upon the truth.
R.U.N.E. didn’t kill humans, unless it was self-defense. And even the hardest cases among us wouldn’t consider keeping the supernatural secret to be self-defense, not in the most direct sense of self-defense.
No, I was going to have to bring him in on the truth. I frantically tried to remember the name of the Portland Police embed—the contact that the Hidden could work with. The Hidden, that’s what we call manifestations, magic, sorcerers, the whole arcane ball of wax.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could begin, a strong voice called out, from the direction of the stalled semi-trailer.
“Agent Marquez, there you are!” The voice was calm, welcoming, with a confident tone that made me want to find out more about the man behind the voice.
A stunningly handsome, blond, white man strolled toward us. He was tall and his dragon-topped ash walking stick tapped the pavement as he approached. He wore a high-class coat over tailored slacks and what looked like a silk shirt.
Skyler Farlance.
4
Farlance gave me a relaxed smile, and an assured, in-charge-but-I-don’t-need-to-be heavy-handed look.
The black man beside him was even taller, and quite handsome in an easy, athletic way. He wore a brown full-length leather coat over a muscle shirt and jeans. His shaved head gleamed softly in the traffic light glow.
Behind them trailed a half-dozen shorter no-nonsense types. Four of them were dressed in business suits, looking like they were office workers. The other two, a man and a woman, wore red coats with matching red gloves, each carrying battered and worn-looking briefcases. They wore what looked like wrap-around sunglasses, but definitely weren’t. There was too much of a multi-faceted bug eye aspect to them. Because the sunglasses were actually living artifacts, pulsing with magical energy.
The pair looked like they belonged in a Devo video from my mother’s youth.
Burners. You could spot them from a mile away.
“Director Farlance.” I nodded. I glanced at the cop. “This is Officer Kyle.”
Farlance reached out to shake Kyle’s hand. “Tough situation, Office Kyle,” he said.
The tall black man stood quietly beside Farlance and regarded me with an appraising look. I didn’t know him but it was obvious he knew me. I couldn’t tell from his lack of expression what he thought of me or the current situation I’d literally landed in.
Oh, crap, I’d forgotten all about the fly-by-night. Not that it mattered. That manifestation had flown the proverbial coop.
“What’s going on here?” Kyle asked Farlance. “Who are you people? What are they doing?” This last question was directed at the burners, who had snapped open their briefcases and pulled out their tools of the trade. Iron tongs and a little iron cauldron, that, like their sunglasses,
