Lillene

Enjoy!

Quincy stayed with Russ through his entire round of medical treatment. Between the deep puncture wounds and burns, Russ decided to pay for magical healing; without it, he would probably have had to stay at least overnight but magical healing had been around for long enough that they let him go home with strict instructions to come back to the hospital if any of a long list of things happened.

It still took hours. Magical healing didn’t automatically clean wounds, and while wounds made by dungeon monsters were generally cleaner than other injuries, there was always a potential for infection. On top of that, magical healing didn’t clean out debris or deal particularly well with dead, burnt skin above the newly-grown skin. There were spells and Skills that could, but they weren’t used that often. For surface wounds, they were no better than a standard disinfectant at their best. Russ very clearly knew that better spells were possible, but they required more skill. Betadine or its equivalent would always have a place.

No one at the hospital asked any questions about his injuries beyond the practical; Russ knew from experience that that was at least partly because he was brought in by police. They probably assumed everything was under control.

Quincy didn’t ask questions, either, at least not until she was driving him back to his house. “Do you think you’ll be safe staying at your house?”

Russ shook his head. He’d been thinking about that question since he got to the hospital and he was beginning to question whether it was even aimed at him. “Anyone could have opened the box. Red could have opened it instead of just taking it inside. If she had … she’d probably be dead. Hell, I’d probably be dead if I opened it and wasn’t ready for a fight.”

Russ wasn’t certain Red would be killed. She always had different things on and around her; she might have survived. He wouldn’t bet on it, however; hellhounds were vicious.

“It wasn’t just an attack on me; it was an attack on my family. The thing is, I don’t see how moving would make us safer, not if whoever is behind this is determined to get at me.” Russ shook his head. “It still doesn’t make sense. I guess they could have delivered it while I was out and assumed I’d take the package inside when I got home, but then why did they ring the doorbell? That was what got Red’s attention. Unless they meant it for Red? She hasn’t been involved in any of this.”

“You still think it’s related to the Solomon vases?” Quincy pulled into the driveway and turned the car off. “It could be something else, even if I’m not sure what. Something aimed at … your sister, was it?”

“Phoebe’s cousin, but close enough. No, I don’t think so; it really did look like one of the Solomon vases. Did they record what happened when the box was opened, by the way? I didn’t want to ask at the hospital.” Russ climbed out of the car and headed to the door. He kept a wary eye on his surroundings as he moved, but at the moment everything seemed to be fine. There weren’t any odd packages or any places something could be hidden. It wasn’t until he was several steps away from the car that he realized Quincy hadn’t gotten out. “Aren’t you going to come in?”

“No, I should get back to the hotel. I don’t want to get between you and your wife.” Quincy glanced down for a moment, then started the car up again. “See you tomorrow?”

Russ nodded. He could understand Quincy’s feelings; Phoebe had yelled at Quincy a couple of times. Russ had walked in on the end each time. He knew what the conflict was about; Phoebe didn’t like how much time Russ was spending away from her, but she also didn’t want to return to traveling everywhere with him the way she’d done when she thought her foresight was infallible. 

Phoebe didn’t have enough faith in herself and it brought back bad memories. She was taking her feelings out on the people Russ worked with, rather than on herself or even Russ. She knew it wasn’t the right thing to do and often apologized afterwards, but it wasn’t fun for anyone involved. Russ couldn’t even help her; he’d support her in whatever she decided, but she had to work through her own conflicted feelings. She was lashing out less these days, but less didn’t mean not at all.

Russ also knew that Quincy was interested in him, but had decided to ignore it. He was married, after all, and that meant there was no future in a relationship with Quincy, even if they weren’t working together. “Yeah. I’ll send the pictures to you tonight; if you have a chance, maybe you can get the process started to see if there’s a match.”

“Pictures?” Quincy sounded confused.

Russ tried not to read her thoughts, but he couldn’t completely avoid the confusion she projected with her emotions. Had he forgotten to tell her? It was entirely possible; he’d been thinking through what to do, after all. “I thought I mentioned it, but maybe not. Rissa has a camera on her front door. It’s set up to take a picture every time the doorbell rings. There should be at least one picture of the guy who left the package.”

“Probably not a good one, if he knew what was in it.” Quincy didn’t sound hopeful.

Russ shrugged. “It’s worth a try.” He left the unspoken words “criminals make mistakes” unspoken. They were true, because everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes it could take entirely too long for those mistakes to add up to finding a criminal.

The next day, Russ watched the recording of what happened when the robot opened the box. There was no good image of the vase; it was surrounded in bubble wrap that obscured everything and the thing that looked like a rock sat near the opening of the box under a layer of bubble wrap. 

It wasn’t as simple as an explosion that broke the vase; instead, when the layer of bubble wrap over the “rock” was lifted, it began to glow. It wasn’t a rock at all, or at least it wasn’t just a rock. It looked like a monster core that someone had embedded in a carved wooden cage. There wasn’t a clear image of it after the first few moments, but Russ thought it was the cage, not the core, that began to glow.

The robot withdrew away from the box; its operator must have noticed something was wrong. Russ kept his attention on the box rather than the bot.

The wooden enchantment flashed brightly enough that the camera whited out; when the image came back, it was dark and in several pieces, with scorch marks near the breaks. There was no sign of the monster core. 

Russ still didn’t have a good view of the vase’s exterior; instead, he could see the interior. The vase had been cleanly sectioned into eight symmetrical pieces. They radiated out from the bottom of the vase like a flower, or perhaps more like a star. Lines inscribed on the pieces of vase glowed slightly and Russ started to swear again. He’d heard of spells like this, where the caster could prepare something ahead of time and trigger it later, but he’d thought the knowledge was long lost. Red would be interested; Russ was horrified.

Out of nowhere, a small hellhound appeared directly over the spell. The moment it moved out of the way, another appeared, then a third. The third seemed to stand over the spell confused for a moment while the first tore its way out of the truck.

Russ remembered this from the other side. He could only be grateful that they’d taken some time to appear; if he’d been hit with four at once, he would have been in big trouble.

The first two were already out of the truck when the third one moved to follow them and the fourth hellhound, larger than the others, formed. When it stepped off the spell, Russ saw its rear foot hit one of the shards of the vase; it cracked. He didn’t know if that was why the spell ended or if the end of the spell was the reason the shard was able to crack, but either way he was relieved: there were indeed only four.

Russ ran through the video several more times, looking for any details he’d missed. It was short, so it was completely worth the time. By the fifth time through, he was fairly confident that the reason the vase broke after the fourth summoning was that the spell was no longer active; each of the previous hellhounds had also stepped on it, and they hadn’t disturbed it at all. Yes, the fourth one was larger, but it was that much larger.

He was also fairly confident that this was Earth’s old magic, not the new enchantment brought by the aliens. He wasn’t an enchanter and wasn’t interested in being one, but he’d made sure to spend time in the enchanting and spellcasting classes in the Tutorial anyway. He needed to know what they were capable of, or at least what the instructors were willing to talk about. 

It was also closer to one of Serenity’s rituals than to anything Russ saw in the Tutorial, which implied that there likely were people out there who could do it. Russ simply doubted they were on Earth. Russ was aware of hidden magic and he was confident that many mages didn’t share everything they knew, but this wasn’t even close to the spellcasters in the Tutorial used, while it shared some similar patterns to things he’d seen in grimoires over the decades. The biggest difference was that the grimoires never called out a monster core.

They did, however, sometimes talk about a ‘power stone’ or ‘radiant crystal.’ Russ had seen a few of those spells cast; all too often, they were cast by enemies, but not always. He’d once had the chance to talk to a mage about his ‘radiant crystal’ and found that it was an ancient artifact that couldn’t be replicated that would store magic that was put into it to be used later. To Russ, that sounded a lot like a rechargeable battery, where a monster core was single-use.

The way to bet was that this was someone who’d been here, someone who adapted something they knew to use a monster core.

Russ was trying to figure out where to begin to find that person when Quincy and Brown walked into the room, one after another. 

“It wasn’t just aimed at you,” Brown started. “You were just the first. There are reports of mad dogs and monsters rolling in.”

Russ hopped up from his seat. He paused when his movement pulled on some of the freshly-healed shin that was blistered the previous day, but it was only sore, not reinjured. He turned to grab his jacket, only to find Quincy standing in the way with a hand up.

“It’s already been handed over to UERT,” Quincy contributed. “They’re aware that ordinary bullets don’t work and that the dogs may be able to breathe fire. There are more of them than of us, and you’re still on light duty; you don’t need to get out there. They’re trained for this; heck, most of them delve for fun in their off hours.” A note of incredulity ran through both Quincy’s voice and her emotions. She didn’t understand fighting simply for fun; she did what she did because it was important, not because it was fun, even if it was also enjoyable.

“You don’t expect me to just sit here?” Russ couldn’t just do nothing. He was certain Quincy knew him better than that.

“Of course not,” Quincy said. “We’re going to try to backtrack the reports to where they came from. UERT can handle the hellhounds; we’re going to figure out where they came from and see what the link is. There has to be one. Of course, if we happen to see a hellhound, that’s different; we can’t just let them wander around loose.”

Russ knew exactly what Quincy was doing; he was certain that she had no intention of taking them near any recent hellhound sightings. He also knew that if they did happen to see one, she’d expect him to handle it. 

She also had a point. It couldn’t just be aimed at him if there was another attack this quickly; this had to be part of a plan. The best way to avoid mass casualties was to figure out what the plan was. Russ sighed ostentatiously; it was all part of the game, after all. “You’ve got me. I assume you have an idea where to start?”

Lillene

Red is going to be thrilled when Russ shares the recording with her … and he’ll probably be able to. After all, where else can he get good help that will understand a variation on an ancient spell?