Paranoid Mage - dChapter 16: Distractions

Archmage Taisen hovered over the treetops by a lake in the middle of the Amazon Basin, invisible to every sense he knew how to counter. He knew that still left some gaps, but even a fae king would be hard-pressed to notice his presence. Which was demonstrated by the fae court that was going about its business directly underneath him.

He did not create Defensores Mundi in order to police the inevitable conflicts between supernaturals. It was meant to stop the threats from the portal worlds, which was more complicated without free access to the main portals, but he had the foresight to acquire his own. He also had, with some reluctance, taken up the task of restraining the more excessive sorts on Earth. Reluctant less because he objected to dealing with such people permanently, and more because it was the kind of mandate that had no limits. Without boundaries, any organization would expand to fill every available space.

So far as he was concerned, most of the problems that GAR had created sprang from the fact that it had tried to do everything. That kind of all-encompassing authority would always end up contradicting itself and snarling itself on cross-purposes. Taisen had no desire to make the same mistake. Nor did he want the responsibility.

Still, the goings-on below were definitely in the envelope of Defensores Mundi. Unlike the usual sort of fae enclave, this one was out in the open. No special rules, barely even a glamour, which meant that the massive tree that had abruptly grown to straddle the Amazon River itself was visible to the naked eye. To satellites too, most likely.

That was bad enough, but it wasn’t just fae down below. There were vampires operating with support of fae magic over hundreds of miles. While the Amazon Basin had been sparsely populated before, it was completely unpopulated by any mundanes now. Not all of them had been killed; some had just been driven out.

It irked him that Wells had tipped him off before his own sources could inform him of it. In hindsight, he should have suspected something with the way the Brazilian government had some vague coverage about an ongoing series of disease outbreaks in the Amazon Basin, but there were so many genuine disasters and problems worldwide. It was easy to miss those that might be supernatural. Not that any natural disaster created trees the size of skyscrapers. By any metric, wholesale destruction and alteration of the Earth couldn’t be allowed.

He clicked the transmitter of his scry-comm, the similarly-cloaked squad around him checking in with brief return clicks. Even if he was muffling sound with a judicious use of force magic, he didn’t want to take chances. He gave the signal, and they scattered.

Taisen drew on his vis, somewhat wishing that he’d been able to manage the sort of internal reinforcement that Archmage Huitzilan had described, but satisfied enough with the power he’d achieved by finalizing the step into Archmage himself. The creations he spun into existence inside his shell didn’t have much finesse, but they didn’t need it.

Orbs of coruscating light packed around bubbles of force appeared at eye level among the fae, exploding with an intensity that was blinding and deafening even to supernaturals. Massive wedges of force cut into the earth, severing the tree at its roots, and a vortex of intense gravity lifted it from its perch above the river. Bark and limbs crackled and crunched as the mana-enhanced wood collapsed in on itself, wind whirling about the rapidly disappearing tree.

Taisen’s resident fae expert had assured him the tree was the locus of the enclave, the source of any passage they had into the Ways and god knew what other connections that might be spilling out into South America. Normally it would have been nigh-indestructible so long as there were enough fae to anchor it, but he was an Archmage. By destroying it first he removed the fae interlopers’ shield and retreat both.

The sounds of combat came from below as he used his light senses to track his people. He could have simply wiped out the entire nest himself, but he was a big believer in empowering his soldiers. The more experience they could get, the better, especially when he was running oversight. At some point, he had to trust in his people’s ability to perform by themselves. If anything, he was spending too much time putting out fires on Earth, when it was obvious there were issues on the portal worlds.

He caught one fae trying to ambush a mage with some sort of magical spear, and a brief whorl of light magic sent an invisible lance downward faster than thought. Finding the right frequencies for magical lasers had been a pain, but an invisible sword a mile long was an extremely useful weapon. Taisen spun out some gravity chains and used them to cripple several large fae beasts, things that had been brought through from somewhere deep in Faerie.

Wind began to howl as his gravity vortex finished compressing the bulk of the tree and started in on the atmosphere, instantly condensing clouds as the shockwave raced through the air. The forty-story tree had been turned into an almost spherical lump of wood, so Taisen dismissed the vortex and let the wooden ball drop down into the river, where it sank like a stone.

From there it was mostly mopping up. Half the people he’d brought along were there to reshape the ground just to hide the obvious buildings and alterations. There was nothing they could do to fix what had been done to a lot of the local plant life, but fire would clear that up. He didn’t bother to take prisoners, because they already knew where this incursion had come from. At least roughly.

Faerie was leaking into Earth.

It had never happened prior to the GAR shakeup, so he was forced to conclude it was purposely being allowed, but none of his official inquiries had gone anywhere. BSE didn’t even bother policing anywhere outside of the main strongholds of Europe, China, and the US coasts. Admittedly, that was partly because he’d taken half their workforce with him. He allowed himself a self-satisfied smile, because it was the better half.

“Clear, sir,” the voice of the Lieutenant Armond came over the scry-com. He checked the battlefield with his own senses and nodded.

“Clear,” he agreed, and flicked out a massive glamour, now that there was nothing to break it. There would probably be mundane attention soon enough, something that Lieutenant Armond noticed as well.

“What were they thinking, sir? This could have gone very badly for everyone,” she asked, disgruntled.

“I suspect that, generally, they expect us to clean up their messes,” Taisen said, his mouth set in a thin line. “Maybe they thought we’d swoop in with glamours or something, but by forcing us to respond they’re able to stretch us thin and, when the time comes, ambush us.”

“That sounds an awful lot like war, sir.”

“It does indeed,” Taisen said grimly. “There is a reason that GAR is supposed to keep other supernaturals very restricted. We aren’t fae or vampires and don’t live like them, nor do they live like us. The very first agreements made it clear that they could live with us on Earth, not displace us. What they’re doing is exactly why I created Defensores Mundi in the first place.”

He wasn’t a fan of the American Alliance for those exact same reasons, but they had at least committed to much of the same restrictions as GAR. In fact, Chester’s people preferred to blend in and Wells’ specific moral requirement opposed any sort of creep into an actual threat. Of course, they covered more densely populated and surveyed lands so what they could do without attracting attention was fairly restricted. And the potential consequences were greater.

The American Alliance blended in with the general mundane population and spread itself wide, rather than separating itself out into fae enclaves or mage Houses. If they ever needed to be dealt with, it wouldn’t be easy to even find them, let alone corral and contain them. Not as diffuse as they were.

“I’m glad it’s not my job to figure that out, sir,” Armond said. Taisen grunted.

“Sentiment noted, Lieutenant.” he said. “I’m not looking forward to trying to tackle it myself.” He surveyed the aftermath of the battle. Here and there fires burned, soil and rock was churned and displaced, foliage was torn and mangled. To say nothing of the bodies. “For now, we’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

***

Mateo Torres rolled the gold coin over his fingers while his men drove the trucks into town. While the stamping was amateur at best, it was very definitely pure, and his cartel was very interested in whoever had dumped nearly a million dollars in gold into their territory. Theirs, because the previous owners been useless, as evidenced by the how easily they’d been taken over and how they’d ignored such a enormous potential resource.

The Torres family could always use more traceless gold, but tracking back the coins to a small village in the middle of nowhere had made them all suspicious. Flooding the area with gold was the sort of move that that might mean a large militia, or a mine, or a facility to control something even more lucrative. Most of the various products and services in the area were under firm control, but there were always people trying to strike out on their own.

Their convoy came to a halt inside the little village, which had quickly become deserted. Everyone stayed inside, knowing they didn’t want anything to do with such a convoy. Mateo glanced around as he slid out of the car, seeing that despite the size and remoteness of the town, there seemed to be a lot of new vehicles, new facades, and even new asphalt on the roads. A lot of money had clearly been dumped into the area.

He meandered away from the vehicles toward the target of their interest, a building owned by a man named Miguel Vasquez. Mateo’s armed guards surrounded him, one of them pounding on the door until it opened. An older man stood at the threshold and blanched at the sight of Mateo and his people arranged outside, though it wasn’t like he could have missed them before. Nobody else had.

“Where’s Miguel?” Mateo’s lieutenant demanded, and the doorman stammered and backed up, gesturing them inside. The lieutenant snorted and shoved the doorman out of the way as he stepped through, weapon held casually as he eyed the interior then signaled the all-clear. Mateo walked in and glanced around, finding the house obviously sporting new furniture and appliances too.

“Mister Torres, welcome.” A man stood in the living room, keeping his hands very obviously in sight and giving him a respectful nod. “What can I do for you?”

“You’re Miguel?” Mateo asked brusquely. The man nodded again, and Mateo flipped the gold coin his way. Miguel caught it and looked at it. “You’re going to tell me who is spending so much gold around here. And where I can find him.”

“Ah. It is just some gringo who wanted a private house. I can show you the lot on the maps…” Miguel offered, handing the coin back into the demanding hand of Mateo’s lieutenant. “However, the last group that went down there couldn’t find anything. They said that the road and the tracks just vanished.”

Mateo grunted. He hadn’t heard about that, but then again, the previous owners had been fairly careless. Whatever had happened, it had been buried well. Or maybe they’d just gotten the wrong area, assuming Miguel hadn’t misled them.

“So, what, an American? Show me.”

“He was an American, yes,” Miguel said as he hastened to obey. “But he didn’t seem too worried about people looking for him.” He headed back into an office and dug through filing cabinets under the watchful eyes of Mateo’s men. He came back with a large map and spread it out on the desk. The plot of land was off near the village of San Fernando, one of a thousand such villages with that name, but the location was clear enough.

“I think he was a dangerous man,” Miguel added uncomfortably as he showed them the map. “Perhaps, American military? I do not know.”

“Yeah?” Mateo pulled a cigarette from his front pocket and lit it. “Well, I’m a dangerous man, too,” he said, taking a long drag and blowing the smoke out at Miguel. “The Torres family isn’t going to permit foreigners to do what they like in our territory.”

“He offered a lot of gold,” Miguel said, by way of excuse. “And he just wanted a house. I hired the workers myself, so I know that’s all they built. I still have the house plans somewhere around here.”

“Sure, get those too.” Mateo acknowledged. He had doubts that it was just a house but Miguel wasn’t acting like he was hiding anything. If anything he was being too accommodating. Not that many people would hesitate when confronted by someone in Mateo’s position. Or by the firepower that came with that position.

While Miguel was digging for the documents, Mateo texted an update back to his brother with a snapshot of the map. Not that either of them expected real trouble, but lack of communication was an easy problem to avoid. The family they’d removed hadn’t been the best at keeping each other updated, and that had let the Torres family roll right over them. Mateo wasn’t going to be that stupid.

When the house plans came out Mateo did feel a bit stupid, because he couldn’t read architectural drawings. Not that he let it show. He just too more pictures and sent them off. What he did understand looked normal enough, just a basement and some places labeled as bedrooms and bathrooms and a living room.

Which was only more suspicious. Who would bother trying to build an ordinary house off the grid in rural Mexico? There was no telling what might be going on out of the sight of everyone.

“What was his name again?”

“I don’t know. The documents are in the name of Mister Smith, but he paid in gold.” Miguel shrugged. “I didn’t ask too many questions.”

Mateo scowled, considering whether he should make an example of the man or not. Miguel should have reported on the American back when the property was purchased, but little more could have been expected. It was hardly reasonable to expect him to pry anything useful out of a rich and dangerous man who obviously wanted privacy. Miguel also paid promptly and completely, so it probably wasn’t the best idea.

“If anything like this happens again, you will notify me directly,” Mateo said. One of his men shifted the gun he was carrying.

“Yes, of course, Mister Torres.” Miguel said hastily.

“Come on,” he said to his men. “Let’s go check on this Mister Smith.”

***

Lucy sat in her section of the back garden, pulling weeds. She was hoping that eventually she’d be able to interact with a telekinesis focus enough that she could do it that way, but it wasn’t like she actually minded the work. She never would have guessed before that she liked it, but there was something relaxing about working with plants. Fiddling around with drones and rapid prototyping was still more fun, but she couldn’t do that with Alexander.

Her son was busy grabbing the plants she’d pulled out of the soil and carrying them over to the compost pile, where he threw them as hard as he could. They didn’t go very far, but he seemed to enjoy it. He ran back toward her and she opened her arms.

“Come and give mommy a hug,” she said, and smiled as Alex ran full-tilt into her embrace. “Mwah,” she said, and he giggled as she gave him a big sloppy kiss. It was just the two of them for the moment, since her husband was out shopping.

With Alexander, Lucy hadn’t had any cravings at all, but this time she was getting them something fierce and Gayle couldn’t do anything about it. Or rather, she couldn’t do anything permanent, not without running risks nobody was willing to take. Fortunately it wasn’t like it was hard for Callum to make a grocery run, nor was it like she was asking for anything completely outrageous. Even if Callum did give her a look when she asked for licorice.

She wasn’t sure what he had against licorice, but it’d be fun to tease him about it later on.

Her phone chimed from the chair on the deck, and she frowned. It wasn’t the usual tone, and it sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Brushing the dirt off her hands, she stood up and walked over to check the phone, only to doubletake when she saw the notification was a warning from her home security system.

“Oh, heck,” she said, mindful of Alex following her. She swiped open the phone and tapped on the notification, getting a picture of a bunch of men with semiautomatic rifles marching through the forest near the road. A chill went down her spine and she gawked at the picture before she dropped the phone into her pocket.

“Come here, sweetie,” she said, scooping Alex up and hurrying inside.

“What’s wrong, mama?” He asked, though it came out a little garbled since he was still only two.

“We just gotta go down to the basement for a while.” She and Callum had practiced an emergency drill once or twice, but that was a lot different from actually having an emergency. She stepped through the basement door and locked it, hurrying down the stairs. It was just a steel fire door, nothing truly reinforced, but Lucy felt better with it locked. Only then did she let Alex down and text Callum.

He might come sweeping back in a few seconds, or have already spotted the men with his senses, but he might not, too. Callum was not as attuned to his phone as she was, and with all the nexus stuff he seemed to miss things sometimes. He had admitted it was hard to keep track of everything when he had so much volume for his perceptions. Even if she didn’t get how his spatial sense worked, she understood that much.

Safely down in the basement with the door locked, she took Alex’s hand and pulled him into the war room. They’d kept him out before, but that was where most of her controls were for their defenses and she wasn’t going to tell Alex to go play in the other room while she attended to things. Instead she just shut the door behind them and went over to where the tile controls were.

The first thing she turned on was the glamour. While it shrouded the existence of the house from normal eyes, it was also visible to mana-sight so they didn’t leave it on all the time. They didn’t want to broadcast their presence to any supernatural in the area. Unfortunately, all it did was hide things. There was nothing to stop someone from crossing through it just by moving blindly forward, so it wasn’t that great of a defense.

She pulled up all their surveillance cameras on the screens in the war room, and watched the reactions. There were around a dozen men pushing their way through the underbrush where the access road had been, where despite two years of growth there was still a clear view of the house. The ones at the front faltered when, to them, the house ceased to exist, but someone barked something in a Spanish dialect she couldn’t decipher. That seemed to be enough to shore up their reserve, and they continued on.

“Teevee!” Alex said, climbing up on a chair and staring at the screens.

“Pretty much, sweetie,” Lucy agreed, some of her panic easing as she looked over her options. Callum hadn’t replied yet, but it’d been maybe a minute or two, and the escape portal was still there. But she also had the tile-fueled magical traps.

Still, she hesitated. She’d have to turn off the screens regardless, because she didn’t want Alex seeing any real trouble just yet, but so far she’d not actually pulled the trigger on anyone. Despite all her practice with guns, she didn’t feel she had prepared herself to actually do anything lethal. Then again, there was probably nothing that could prepare her.

One of the men actually noticed the surveillance cameras, though to be fair they weren’t deeply camouflaged. They all had wires running to them so they were just mounted inside little wooden posts to keep the weather off, which generally wouldn’t look like much but anyone who got close would be able to see the camera inside on any close inspection.

Predicably, one of the gunmen aimed their rifle at her, and she instinctively ducked despite it just being a camera. He fired, but it wasn’t like in the movies where it instantly went black. It took several tries for the person to actually hit the camera, but eventually that particular one went out, which was sobering. She couldn’t hear the gunshots from down in the basement but they weren’t that far away from the house and eventually they’d get close enough to cross through the glamour field.

“Okay, sweetie, television is going off,” she said, even though Alex had already lost interest and was investigating the fridge in the corner, which had some emergency soda and other snacks. Fortunately he hadn’t tried messing with the tile setup against the far wall. It was all mounted pretty firmly, but two-year-olds could be surprisingly strong.

Lucy grabbed the tablet and opened up the camera feeds there, blanking them from the wall so Alex wouldn’t see anything he shouldn’t. Most of the spell traps had been set up with supernaturals in mind, and against normal people even a minor deterrent was going to be lethal. The largest trap they had, the cables connected to some rocks, would absolutely work but might be overkill. She’d actually rather just scare them off, especially since they were just mundanes. They weren’t monsters like Callum hunted.

Fortunately, the tile setup allowed for a lot of flexibility. She started slotting in different spell forms, altering the area that the projection covered. Obviously it’d be a bad idea to unleash any offensive magic in the house, so she changed the projection area to just out front. Instead of glamour, she slotted in Callum’s brand-new gravity enchantment, oriented sideways.

“Hang on, wait, no, keep your hands off of that,” Lucy said, making her voice just a little bit firm. Alex had come over almost immediately after she started fiddling with it and she had to stop him from grabbing onto the tiles. They didn’t have any sharp edges, or shouldn’t, but they were still made of glass and fragile enough that they could get broken if he dropped them. They didn’t have all that many backups, either.

“Why don’t you get mommy a soda while she takes care of this,” she said, turning him around and pointing at the refrigerator. She was sure he’d be complaining about chores in a few years, but for now Alex loved to go do simple tasks for his mom and dad.

He ran off and she slotted the last of the tiles into the mounts, pushing them flat and letting them click into place. She waved her hand over the tiles, making sure the mana was flowing through all the enchantments, then put her hand against the trigger. The mana capacitors were full, which was good because Callum’s enchantments took a lot of juice.

Lucy activated the trigger, about the only interaction she could make with mana, and watched on her tablet as the gunmen suddenly found themselves falling sideways some twenty feet, getting flung back along the overgrown access road. She winced as some of them ended up smashing into trees as they pinwheeled impossibly through the air, but she only so sympathetic. Even if she didn’t want to kill them, they had been creeping around her house with guns.

“Soda, mommy!” Alex said, holding a bottle in both hands, and Lucy put aside the tablet to scoop him up.

“Thank you, sweetie! I think we’re almost done down here, then we can go back up and get lunch.” She kept an eye on the tablet, where only one of her cameras had a view of the would-be assailants. They were piled up near the edge of the property, right on the road. One had even gone flying far enough to smash into one of their trucks and break a window.

Alex latched onto her tablet and she didn’t try to pull it away, since the men were far enough away that it looked like some kind of movie. They seemed to be arguing, but it wasn’t long before they all got into various vehicles, some of them limping, and drove off.

“Smart move,” she said under her breath, then sent another text to Callum. Handled it.

***

Callum nearly had a heart attack when he saw the text from Lucy. He probably also gave someone palpitations when he vanished from behind his cart at the grocery store, but they would just have to cope. Sure, she said she’d handled it but that didn’t help at all.

He pushed out his senses through the anchor at the bunker, grabbing Lucy and Alex from where they were and teleporting all three of them to the backup bunker, a little cave in the Pacific Northwest. With a blink they were all three in the cold, dark, but safe retreat. Though Alex started wailing as he was suddenly surrounded by cave.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Lucy said, as Callum summoned one of the LED lanterns he’d left in the cave into his hand and turned it on. The brilliant light illuminated the close walls of the emergency campsite, and he grabbed Lucy and Alex in a hug before looking at them.

“Everything okay?” He asked, though Lucy seemed cheerful enough and Alex was unhappy but unharmed.

“The defenses worked fine,” Lucy assured him as she tried to soothe Alex. “Just a bunch of normal people with guns. I sent them packing. Didn’t even get anywhere near the house. I told you I had it handled,” she said, and kissed him. “Got you handled too, mister,” she added, tugging at the jackets she and Alex were wearing. He hadn’t even noticed, but it seemed Lucy had been ready for his reaction.

“Well,” he said slowly, some of his worry draining away. “I guess the question is how compromised the bunker is. If it wasn’t supernaturals, there might not be any immediate danger, but now that there’s attention we might have to start rethinking things.”

“All they know is that some mysterious force threw them back to their cars,” Lucy said. “Do you think they’re really going to go, oh yes, let’s keep walking around the spooky ghost-haunted woods in Mexico?”

“Fair enough,” Callum acknowledged. For normal people, finding nothing and getting thrown around by an invisible force wouldn’t even be something they’d admit to. “But why did they come in the first place? And they might talk enough to draw attention from supernaturals or even be in the employ of supernaturals.”

“We’re not moving,” Lucy objected to his unstated conclusion. “Not just because of this.”

“Mmm,” Callum said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He liked the house too, and they’d spent a lot of time getting it just right. “I think we’re on a timer no matter what,” he said instead. “But that timer might be long enough.”

“Long enough for what?” Lucy asked, as Alex finally stopped crying.

“For us to make it so nobody dares target us,” Callum said.

He’d always known that he couldn’t hide forever. Being remote and nigh-inaccessible was a great first line of defense, but he’d come to the conclusion that what he really wanted was to be like Archmage Wizzy. Dangerous, unknown, with more allies than enemies.

It was a work in progress. He definitely had a lot of enemies, but the American Alliance, House Hargrave and House Taisen were not exactly threats, even if he hadn’t signed any agreements with them. And once he’d removed the vampires, there’d be a lot less power arrayed against him.

“That sounds ominous,” Lucy said. “Maybe I can get you a cat and a high-backed chair to complete the effect?” Callum blinked, then laughed.

“Okay, maybe that’s a little too dramatic, but we do have to do more for our safety. If nothing else we’ll have to increase our home security. I’ll ask about different glamours, or maybe we can buy some fae artifact to make the house harder to find,” Callum mused aloud. “I also need to buckle down on getting that shield going.”

“All good ideas,” Lucy agreed. “We can discuss it at home, right?”

Callum checked through the anchor, bringing in a drone to teleport around the area and properly sweep the region. There was nobody around, and no traces of the people who’d tried to get at the house other than some broken glass on the dirt road near the property. Once he was sure there was nobody nearby, and no subtle traces of any magic other than the house defenses, he teleported them all back into the living room.

“Just in case, pack up some extras beyond the bug-out bag,” Callum told her. “That way we won’t be caught off-guard.” Lucy wrinkled her nose, but nodded. “I’m going to be making my own preparations, but first I have to go check on Miguel,” he continued. “I knew it’d be a risk when I made sure this land was purchased and built on legitimately, but I thought it’d be less of a problem than trying to scratch out a house the other way. We’ll see what he has to say.”

“If worse comes to worst, couldn’t you just teleport the whole thing?” Lucy asked. “I mean, we’re not connected to a grid or anything.”

“Except for the well and septic, I could,” Callum agreed, feeling out the size of the house with his senses. “In theory anyway. It’s a lot bigger than anything I’ve done before, though. I’ll have to test it.” A little tiny part of him imagined putting it on the moon, though there was no way he could get his hands on anything that would keep air in. Even if there was a magic solution, he wouldn’t trust it.

“I think it’s also a good idea to keep the glamour up,” Lucy said. “I’m not sure if they actually saw the house or anything, but they probably would have just passed by the property with it up. Right?”

“Yeah,” Callum shook his head. “I guess I was wrong about who we had to worry about.” He rubbed his palm over his face. “We’ll keep it up for now, and I’ll see if I can finagle better versions out of the Guild of Enchanting later. Assuming there are better versions.”

“You’re not going to try and wipe out whoever it was?” Lucy asked with morbid curiosity.

“If it’s just regular people, I don’t think I can,” Callum sighed. “Besides, if they’re really scared off, I don’t see the point. The damage is done anyway. If they’re going to keep harassing people, then I might have to do something. Anyway,” he said, crouching down to take Alex’s hands. “Sorry for scaring you, Alex. Next time we go to a cave we’ll do it the regular way, how’s that?”

“’Kay,” Alex said, scrubbing at his face.

“I’ll be back soon. I just have to check on something,” he told his son, then glanced up at Lucy. “Do you have the surveillance footage? I’ll want to make sure I know who it is.”

“Sure do,” Lucy said, clearly far less affected by the intrusion than he was. She handed him a tablet as he stood up, watching the admittedly short section of footage. Lucy had very clearly scared them off, which was frankly probably better than killing them. Their disappearance might have drawn more attention.

He accessed the drone controls for the one he’d brought back to surveil the property and sent it off to the town where Miguel lived, the name of which he still didn’t know even two years on. Since they used portals for everything, he rarely bothered to think about their physical surroundings. The town looked nicer than he’d remembered, but he recognized the house he was aiming for, and he was pretty sure Miguel was inside. All he needed was a tiny portal to spy into the room and he verified it.

“Alright love, I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Stay safe,” Lucy returned, giving him a hug. He returned it, and teleported himself outside of Miguel’s front door. The man himself was talking with his employee or whoever it was that ran the front desk, both of them smoking cigars. Summoning his cane to his hand, he rapped on the door.

Miguel himself opened it, and flinched when he saw it was Callum. Which seemed excessive, but it at least set the tone. He leaned on the cane and raised his eyebrows at Miguel.

“We had visitors,” he said.

“Si, Seňor,” Miguel said. “The Torres cartel sent someone. They asked about your gold.” He wiped at his brow with a handkerchief and Callum sighed. He wasn’t surprised that Miguel had spilled about him; after all, they had guns and organized crime didn’t play around. But it was better than a state actor and the gold wasn’t really all that huge a draw. Overall he hadn’t spent all that much.

Then again, organized crime didn’t play around.

“Did they say anything on their way back?”

“No, I didn’t see them,” Miguel said.

“Mm. If they come back, call this number,” Callum said, getting one of the weird sanitized connections Lucy had for them. “I’ll work it out with them, so you don’t need to worry about it.” Hopefully inviting Miguel to send trouble Callum’s way would also mean he had enough forewarning to deal with any unpleasantness.

He didn’t want armed men showing up at his house again, but he didn’t think he would be so lucky.