Sudden hope dawned. If we managed to solve the case quickly, we could join him.
“Come on, Tully, let’s hit the road.”
Tully drove, while I navigated. Really, it should be the other way around, since he was the Seer, but the interior was huge, and I could barely get my feet on the pedals, which meant I could barely see over the dashboard. This was yet another challenge of being short
I wore my arcane phone on my wrist and scrolled through the list of gremlin outbreaks in Portland tonight while Tully drove. The first outbreak had happened on the east side of the river.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Pretty far apart from the one I blundered into in the industrial area in Northwest.” It was already unusual to have more than one outbreak of the same type of manifestation—when you did, they were was usually geographically close together, because of whatever had caused the collective subconscious to create the particular manifestations. That whatever could be something in the local air, so to speak. Yes, folklore and the zeitgeist provided the blueprints for supernatural creatures, but something specific had to trigger it. A shared nightmare, or a really popular meme. These days, it could be nearly anything. Fortunately, most of the manifestations were level zeroes-just potential that didn’t go anywhere else. The real arcane trouble started with level ones.
Tonight’s outbreaks were exceptional in that way, too. Multiple level ones and even twos, including the one I blundered into. Level two manifestations were close to being permanent. That shouldn’t happen in just an hour or two.
A golden glow flickered outside my passenger side window.
“We have a message,” I told Tully.
The golden light resolved itself into a sprite, a tiny-human looking manifestation. This one was dressed in a brown leather flight jacket, trousers and boots, and wore a World War One style flight cap with goggles pulled down.
Showoff.
“We’ve got to pull over,” I told Tully.
It would be so much easier if messenger sprites could land in a moving vehicle, but they couldn’t. I’d never gotten a straight answer as to why, when I’d asked. It seemed to be a major limitation. But, they were prevented from entering a moving human vehicle, or even touching it. They simply couldn’t do it. I suspected it had something to do with the metal and electricity in a car, truck, or bus--or plane, for that matter--interfering with mana. Not in a literal, physical sense, but more the clash between human-conscious technological constructs and the ancient dreams and nightmares of the supernatural. My teachers back at the sorcerer school would have been stunned to hear me use such big words.
“Working on it,” Tully said.
We drove over the Markham bridge. Traffic was heavy at the merge with I-5. Talk about a grind.
“Take the Water Avenue exit,” I said. “We should have stuck to surface streets.”
Annoyance flashed across his face.
Finally, I’d gotten a reaction. But it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. He took the exit and pulled into the first available parking spot on Water Avenue.
I rolled the window down and the sprite landed on the door.
“About time,” the sprite said, pulling off the tiny flight helmet and goggles. A luxuriant little mane of blond curls tumbled out. “Been chasing you for longer than I should.”
“You notice we were driving?” I didn’t try keeping the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Which is why I couldn’t alight on the motorized contraption. But that is of no import now that the time has passed. What is important is that another gremlin outbreak is under way.”
So much for ‘dealing with’ the disturbances. “Where?” I asked.
“The Winter Market.”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking.
“Winter Market?” I repeated. The winter market was a big holiday street bazaar.
“Yes, the one beneath the Burnside bridge,” the sprite said.
I gave Tully directions on how to get there.
I turned back to thank the sprite but it had already zipped off.
“I wish it would have stuck around,” I muttered. “Would have been handy to have a sprite to spot for us.”
“That’s my job,” Tully said, and I couldn’t tell if he was offended or giving me a hard time.
“Good thing you’re here, then,” I said. This night kept getting better and better. I’d rather have had a partner I’d worked with before, not someone obviously fresh to the game.
But you can’t always get what you want.
In fact, I rarely did.
6
Christmas lights twinkled beneath the Burnside bridge, around the edges of the vendor tents, and on a nearby tree. Shoppers jammed the alleys and lanes between the tents. The river beyond reflected the light from the old-style pole lights that lined the Waterfront.
Okay, Christmas lights should have been twinkling, but when we pulled up, they strobed, flashed, and popped. But the shoppers stared off at something happening closer to the waterfront.
I jumped from the car before it came to a stop. I scanned the tents. Music played loudly, Christmas carols. No gremlins scampering among the tents that I could see.
“You’re going to make skid marks if you do that one time too many,” I heard Tully say behind me.
“Is that sarcasm I hear?” I said over my shoulder.
“Just stating the obvious.”
I turned to face him. He was already scanning the tents, obviously reading the mana ebb and flow. Thanks to the strobing lights, I couldn’t make out any hint of mana, but Tully’s Seer sorcery let him see the mana as plain as day.
“Over by that wooden Santa,” Tully said. “There’s an ATM there. People are clustered around it.”
We pushed our way through the crowd. Someone yelled, “There’s a monkey loose!” Someone else screamed, followed by more shouts.
This had gotten dangerous fast.
A little figure wearing a green tablecloth darted out from a stall, little gray legs pumping. The air suddenly reeked of burnt wiring.
Another gremlin outbreak was definitely in progress.
I began chanting a spell in Spanish under my breath as I chased the gremlin.
To the ordinary people here, the gremlin would
