Wizard Unleashed Page 10

  "Altum Visu." I waved my stone hand in front of my face instinctively and was pleased to discover that my wizard's sight activated. Apparently, I hadn't broken every function my right hand could perform.

  I scanned the office with my sight, starting first at the back and sweeping three hundred sixty degrees. I found nothing and was about to give up when a faint glow beneath the ruined desk caught my attention. With considerable effort, I lifted one corner of the desk and toppled it over into a pile of debris. The sound of running feet caused me to look up.

  "You okay?" Amak asked, entering the office.

  "Help me move this." While I'd managed to topple the desk, it had quickly slid back down the pile of rubble and was still blocking the glowing outline of what I thought might be a safe. Amak grabbed the corner and between the two of us we slid the heavy desk even further away.

  "What are you looking for?" she asked as Squirrel joined us.

  "This." I cleared the grooves of a small inset impression on the floor. I suspected the simple magical lock was the negative of the glyph at the end of Rosen's staff. Although more difficult without the staff as a key, I managed to pop the lock. I swiped at the top of the lid and cleared debris from the entire panel so I could pull it open. Within the safe sat several bundles of cash, a ritual knife, a pistol, some papers and an ornate box containing jewelry, some of which was imbued. There was also a single leather book, protectively wrapped in a velvet bag.

  I plucked my phone from my pocket and dialed the police station. "Lieutenant Dukats, please," I said when the phone was answered.

  "Lieutenant Dukats isn't available," the officer replied.

  "I need to get a message to her," I said. "It's about the investigation she's working for the Rosen murder."

  "I can relay your message. Your name?"

  "Tell her to call Slade. Caller ID ought to give you the rest," I said and hung up.

  "What are you doing?" Amak asked.

  I plucked the book from the bottom of the box and slid it into my pack. "She's light on evidence,"

  "And you want to let her know you broke into Rosen's house?"

  "She's trying to solve this case without the full picture," I said. "Maybe this is useful, maybe it's not, but I don't want Joe going to jail because I didn't tell her about it."

  "But you're okay taking the book?"

  "The book isn't the kind of thing a mundane needs to be playing with," I said. "Did you get a better sample on the ogres?"

  "Sure did," she said. "We're ready to go."

  The three of us moved quickly through the house and into the back yard. For a moment, we didn't see Max or Maggie as we stepped onto the darkened fairway. I followed Amak's pointing arm and caught sight of a wolf and a caribou rollicking in the snow, chasing after each other. A single yip from Squirrel stopped the action as Max peeled away from their play and loped back to where we stood, Maggie trotting behind. The inner surfaces of my legs complained as I swung onto Maggie's back. I'd only ridden half a mile from the park to get here and wondered what shape I would be in after the evening was complete.

  My phone rang just as we reached the end of the golf-course and lumbered down into a gully. The sounds of high speed traffic and the sight of the interstate loop that encircled the north side of Leotown grew as we continued on. Once we reached more level ground I pulled out my phone, almost dropping it as my stone hand had virtually no capacity to hold something without crushing it.

  As it turns out, reading a phone screen while being jostled on the back of a trotting caribou in the middle of the night is difficult, but I was committed. It took a few minutes for me to finally figure out that the call had been from Dukats. I somehow got redial punched and held on while I waited for her to answer.

  "Dukats," she answered on the first ring.

  "You need to take another run over to Rosen's house." The wind partially obscured what I was saying.

  "What? Rosen's? That was cleaned out," she said.

  "You might have missed something," I said.

  "Might have or did?"

  "There are items that are sensitive," I said. "You need to put them in a salt water bath."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Don't be dense. Someone could get hurt if they're worn," I said.

  "Where are you? I can barely hear you. Tell me you don't have anything to do with the disturbance calls on North Sixty-Sixth," she said.

  "I'm having trouble hearing you. Just make sure you get to Rosen's house before it gets cleared out again." I hung up the phone and flipped the ringer mode to silent.

  While I'd been talking, we crossed beneath the interstate, and the landscape changed from urban country club to rural. Amak and Squirrel ran together at an easy pace, with Max running shoulder to shoulder with Maggie. For the next hour, we continued at a fast trot. To say my butt was taking a beating was an understatement. With each passing mile, the city quickly turned to farm land. I'd known that there wasn't much to the north of Leotown, but the drop-off in population was more of a cliff than it was a steady decline. The interstate was new within the last fifteen years and I suspected that eventually Leotown's population would catch up with the highway and the farmland would be turned to malls and housing.

  Finally, after ninety minutes, Amak raised a hand as she and Squirrel slowed. I slid from Maggie's back and it was all I could do not to fall on my face. I stumbled in the drifted snow as I tried to reorient my abused crotch so I could stand straight.

  "What do you have?" I asked quietly as I approached Amak. We'd stopped on the back side of a hill in the middle of a fallow field, tall with native grasses.

  "Deep breath, Slade, you'll get it," she said.

  While riding on Maggie, the only smell I'd been able to make out was that of sweaty caribou. Now that I was walking around, I caught a whiff of the musky smell I'd first encountered outside Rosen's house. The swirling winds that blew north to south also carried the sounds of livestock and the smell of hogs. I covered my mouth as I coughed, not ready for the pungent mixture.

  We joined Squirrel and Max who had already run to the top of the hill and were looking down onto a substantial hog operation. I counted buildings and estimated there to be at least twelve hundred head. Oddly, the confinement buildings surrounded a group of what had to be residences. The farm buildings were all constructed of steel, but the residences looked to be single story, stucco. Amak pointed out two large figures who stood next to a roaring fire blazing in an iron cauldron. If the smell hadn't done it, their size was certainly enough confirmation that we'd found the ogres.

  Unexpectedly, Squirrel shifted to his human form and stood up from the hunched over position he'd assumed as wolf. Naked in the snow, he looked completely out of place, but didn't otherwise seem uncomfortable.

  "That works," Amak quipped, raising an eyebrow as she ogled him.

  Squirrel smiled and rolled his eyes. Apparently, he was comfortable on display as he did nothing to cover himself. Worse yet, he seemed to have taken some interest in Amak. I’m not sure I wanted to know, but werewolf parts were not affected by the cold wind at all.

  "What's the play here, wizard?" Squirrel asked, keeping his voice low. With the north wind, it was unlikely our voices would carry down to the farm, but caution was reasonable.

  "I need to talk to one of them," I said. "We need to figure out why they were at Rosen's house."

  "You're not going to just walk in there." Amak wasn’t giving me the option.

  "I could call Dukats and have her come up and talk to them," I said.

  "For what reason?" Amak asked. "Because your werewolf buddies tracked them here?"

  "I don't think she needs a reason to ask questions," I said.

  "Why don't you think they attacked Rosen on their own?" Squirrel asked. "Maybe he owed them something."

  I realized Squirrel was operating on virtually no information. "Someone stole something important from Rosen," I said. "The ogres were searching for it. They even asked
me about it while they were trying to punch my head into the floor. Whatever it was, I think Rosen was tortured and gave up the object before the ogres arrived. Besides, a mystical artifact that would interest Rosen wouldn’t be of any value to a group of non-magical types like ogres."

  "What do you think the odds are of ogres driving a late model BMW?" Squirrel asked.

  "Zero. Why?"

  "There's one parked down there," he said. I squinted and looked where he was pointing. All I could make out was a dark hood and headlights.

  "You make out a license plate?"

  "It's a vanity plate. Reads A-DOGR," he said.

  From behind, I heard what I would later learn to be a caribou's bugle. To me, it sounded like a pregnant cow giving birth, but I didn’t think I’d share that thought with Maggie just now. I turned in time to see Max, still in wolf form, lunge at a charging ogre.

  "Ah, shit," Squirrel said and immediately transformed back into a wolf.

  The ogre, much faster than his size suggested, swung a long, wooden club around and barely missed young Max.

  "Over here, handsome," I taunted and fired a triple shot of fireballs at its chest. I was pleased my stone hand hadn't interfered with the spell. As expected, however, the shots slipped harmlessly off the ogre's chest.

  "They're mostly immune to magic, Slade," Amak announced as she rushed forward, drawing her staff. She intercepted the easily distracted ogre as it turned from Max's snapping jaws and lumbered at me. Amak gave up two feet and at least a hundred and fifty pounds to the eight-foot, thickly packed giant. That said, her staff sounded like a bullet shot as it struck pay dirt on the ogre's forehead. It grunted in pain and swatted unfocused, in Amak's general direction. Max took that moment to lunge, sinking his teeth into a fat ankle. The ogre reacted immediately to the stimuli of the bite and swung a meaty fist around, catching Max in the front shoulder and launching him into the air.

  Maggie bugled again, urgently. She'd run to the top of the hill where we'd been looking down at the farm. She swung her head back and forth wildly as she sounded off.

  "I think we have incoming," I said loudly.

  "One thing at a time," Amak said, parrying a clumsy, albeit powerful strike. She poked the end of her staff into the ogre's throat, causing it to choke but not slow down much. By this time, Squirrel had shifted into wolf form and rushed the angry gray humanoid. Instead of committing completely to the kill, Squirrel slashed at the ogre's torso with his sharp canines as he pushed off the big chest with his powerful legs. While slower than the younger wolf, Squirrel's redirection caused the ogre momentary confusion.

  I ran to the top of the hill where Maggie stood. Three ogres were chewing up the half mile that separated us, bellowing loudly as they did. Their lumbering gait was deceptively fast due to long, powerful legs. I estimated we had less than three minutes before they joined the party. Headlights drew my attention as the black sports car roared to life and swung away from the property. Five more ogres exited from different buildings, answering the loud calls from their brethren.

  "We better make this fast," I said.

  Amak and the wolves were at a stalemate with the ogre. Amak had no trouble dodging the brute's blows and then getting in close to land a punishing strike with her staff. Squirrel and Max were holding back, nipping at the giant’s exposed flank and helping to distract it. The problem was we weren’t getting the ogre into a state where it would answer any of our questions. And we were out of time.

  "Yip!" Max had over-committed. While he'd seen the ogre swing, his attempt to avoid it failed. The ogre had adjusted just enough to make contact with Max’s left rear flank.

  Amak punished the ogre by striking it on the back of its neck, just below a thin, greasy hair-line. My eye caught on a jewel suspended from a leather cord around the ogre's neck. I lunged forward and latched onto the amulet as the ogre turned toward the pain. A shock transferred through my hand and I felt my grip tighten, uncontrollably, effectively locking me to the beast. For some reason, the considerable force I exerted on the leather cord did not snap it. It would take powerful magic to cling to an ogre as well as resist me as it had.

  "Scutum," I said, bringing my shield up just as the ogre swung clumsily at me. My left arm felt like I'd run into a brick wall. Even with the shield, I wouldn't be able to absorb too many strikes like that.

  Amak took advantage of the ogre's distraction and flurried with strike after strike to sensitive locations. It was obvious her blows were having an effect, but I was intimately aware of the ticking clock, as help for the single ogre rolled up the hill like a column of tanks.

  "Lapide pugno." I wasn't sure what the new spell might do, but I knew I couldn’t hang out on this ogre's neck for the rest of the night without dire consequences. A translucent gray cloud in the shape of my closed fist breezed past the ogre's chin.

  Distracted by my spell casting, I allowed my shield to slip and nearly lost consciousness as a fist the size of a ham crashed into my neck. If the blow hadn't been partially deflected by my shield, I question if I would have survived.

  "LAPIDE PUGNO!" I exclaimed, dumping as much energy into the unfamiliar spell as I could. I ended up expending an extraordinary amount of energy, but much of it spilled away uselessly as the spell had no mechanism for utilizing it. My timing - which I'd like to take credit for, but knew was just luck - was perfect. In sync with my second incantation, the ogre's chin moved into the path of the ghostly fist and its head snapped back with a loud cracking sound.

  In slow motion, the ogre fell forward. It was one of those moments when I realized, too late, that getting what I wished for wasn’t always a good thing. I now faced a new, potentially deadly problem. My hand was still locked around the jewel and the necklace wasn’t coming free of the giant’s neck. There was no way I would be able to stop the ogre from falling onto at least some part of my body.

  Strong arms encircled my waist and, miraculously, I was pulled free. I landed on top of Amak with my right leg pinned beneath the ogre, but the rest of me was free. I struggled for a moment, finally pulling my leg out from under a pile of gray flesh.

  Maggie appeared at my side and pawed the ground anxiously.

  "We need to get going," I said. "Help me up."

  Amak's strong arms easily lifted me onto Maggie's back as the first team of ogres cleared the hill. I leaned into Maggie and wrapped my left arm around her neck as she bolted forward. As fast as the ogres were, they were not catching a fleeing reindeer.

  Chapter 10

  Finding Twist

  After half a mile, the ogres dropped their pursuit and we slowed to a comfortable pace. I wasn't sure what I’d hoped to gain by tracking down the ogres. I’d hoped to find one or two of them and somehow convince them to answer our questions. If I was honest, I would admit that at least part of me just wanted to validate that ogres actually existed. The fact that a group of them lived together on a farm only fifteen miles from Leotown was, to say the least, surprising. How many other supernaturals or odd species lived hidden alongside us?

  As we traveled, Squirrel forced us to slow. Max, while still able to run, favored the leg that had been crushed by the ogre's club. Squirrel pushed us west to a recreation area that surrounded one of Leotown's many reservoirs.

  A lone wolf howl in the distance brought us to a stop. Squirrel and Max both replied. The call sounded different from the pack’s sendoff howl and I wondered how much variety wolves had in their communication. In response to Squirrel and Max, an entire chorus replied with excited yipping and barking.

  Max surged forward and Maggie worked to keep up. Upon entering the recreation area, the fields were given over to tall bromegrass, slowing our progress. The grass finally thinned as we reached the northern shore of the reservoir. To our right was the lake, not yet completely iced over. Thirty yards to our left, a sparse forest. The waxing gibbous moon brightly lit the snowy field while providing a grim reminder of the short time we had left to free Joe.

  Max's
thick paws tossed rooster tails of muddy snow as he launched into a sprint. At first, I couldn't see anything moving in the distance but excited yips drew my attention and soon Joe's pack streamed through the snowy field toward us. We were still only halfway home and it occurred to me that the pack would had to have started moving this way about the time we'd encountered the ogres. I'd read that werewolves could communicate over long distances, but the source cited little proof. Squirrel's redirection to the reservoir and the pack's presence seemed to support that theory.

  Despite my own injuries, I smiled as the pack greeted Max and Squirrel. While in human form, this group could seem gruff and surly, but as a wolf pack they displayed a completely different set of emotions. They chased, yipped, and frolicked together with abandon. I even caught a particularly grumpy gray wolf - that I knew was Daphne - jumping happily as she greeted Squirrel. They spun and brushed shoulders in midair.

  "Makes me wish to see my sisters," Amak said, watching the wolf-play.

  "How big is the Senwe?" I asked.

  "My sisters number over two thousand," she said. "I would give much for a reunion with my Hansa, patrolling the Dilek." She leaned against Maggie's shoulder, still breathing deeply from the exertion of the run.

  I reached across with my left hand and nearly unseated myself as I attempted to comfort her. My abrupt shift in weight caused Maggie to snort. Amak caught me, placing her hand on my right fist, which was still closed around the amulet I'd pulled from the ogre's neck.

  "What is this, Felix?" Amak asked, lifting my stone hand.