Vicious - Ch 3

Chapter Three: The Red Haired Aristocrat

Young, professional, and beautiful was just a few words that anyone could describe her with. Dressed in a tailored purple suit, with designer high heels and matching handbag, you could tell she was very professional, and the cufflinks, the wedding band and silver ear rings, everyone could tell she was wealthy. And the long crimson red hair, almost cheerleader like looks and hourglass figure, everyone’s head turned.

Though, the look on her face, and the phone in her hand, and the purposeful stride across the lobby, everyone knew she meant business. No one approached her, she walked up to the reception desk, rang the bell and waited.

He didn’t just want the door locked. He wanted to make sure no one was going to reenter the room. With a permeant marker he found on one of the desks, he drew a spell seal around the door knob. He was sure that the lower demonic symbols were inaccurate, but if it worked, if it channeled the mana to make the room impossible to access, then it was fine.

Smiling, Blake remembered doing this to a rather egotistical demigod, almost getting himself caught as the tyrant prince tried to enter his room filled with riches, only to end up in some random room in the fortified city. Thankfully, the room he ended up in, was also his first, and two seconds before he ended up there. Three seconds later, the entire continuum collapsed, saving himself and liberating the entire kingdom form the prince. But they didn’t remember the prince in the first place, so he just took something form the treasure room as a souvenir, and called it a day trip.

The first thing he grabbed was his sword, the hilt seemed to glow in approval now that it was back in the hands of it’s welder. Then he went to return what was thrown from his bag back inside before making a note of it’s contents, checking if everything important was there. Laptop, tablet, weapons, equipment, spacesuit, reagents, potions, charms…

Blake cursed. Then he cursed again. And for good measure, cursed some more. He couldn’t believe it. Volkanir's Attenuator was gone.

Jamie was aware of the charm, and what it did.

The story of how it came into existence was a simple one. Blake was still a young human, and it was sometime after his biological father died that his mother, Dianne began taking him on various trips though the dimensions and timelines. One such journey, they visited the great southern mountains of Calypso, home to the dragon, Volkanir. Initially, Blake did not take to the trip enthusiastically as Dianne hoped and blamed it on the boy morning the loss of his father. But when the boy collapsed on their walk, she then began to suspect something more.

The elder of the local clan, Vokanir had taken pity on the boy, and used considerable resources to diagnose the boy’s problem, and much more treating the boy. Two crystals, one she knew as Obsidianite, the other was a rose coloured, quartz like crystal known as Tempate, a rare and valuable crystal due to it’s properties in time and dimension manipulation. With a shard of both crystals, Volkanir created his Attenuator and bound it to the boy with the single purpose of helping the human physical body, stay in sync with the fairy astral body.

However, after Dianne died, the boy was taken off anti-aging medication that prevented him from maturing during their lengthy trips, and kept any inconvenient questions at bay. Blake was around two hundred when they celebrated his eighth birthday, the day his mother died. The problem was that the Attenuator did to things to him as he matured. Over the seven years, Blake matured and grew unaware of his Fairy heritage or even that his astral body was fusing to his physical body. This, in turn disabled any possible ability to physically shape shift, along with some unusual biological quirks. The second, and unconfirmed theory is that the Attenuator was responsible for his ability to manipulate dimensions and time though spell craft easily. As his instructor in spellcraft, this surprised Jamie. He could barely create a controlled flame, and yet teleporting and stopping time came almost too easy. 

So imagine her distain when she saw the charm hanging from one of the villain’s necks, the twin crystal shards seemed to glow in the light, one purple, one yellow. What it did to Blake was unexpected. Gods only know what it’s going to do to Mikey. She knew she had to get that charm way from him, and quickly.

Her first attempt was brewing up a gale, despite how suspicious it might be, or how difficult it was to manipulate air currents indoors.

When she managed to gather the energy to create a decent gust, a loud rip silenced the world in a comical fashion. Even more comical was a long, silver reptilian tail, followed the man, who was completely obvious to the addition.

No. Jamie retracted as she watched the man walk, his new found tail moving as if to counterbalance his stride. He’s aware of the tail, but he’s acting like he’s had it his whole life.

The other villains, including the teller, heard the rip that heralded the arrival of the tail, but didn’t see the cause, and dismissed the sound. The hostages however did hear and see the tail, as confirmed by the whispers of the to youths that accompanied the boy inside, prior to his transformation.

“Do you think what’s happening to Greg is happening to him as well?” The girl asked her companion.

“Could be contagious.” The boy whispered, as if unsure on how he thought on the topic himself.

“But it’s not happening all at once like it did to Greg.”

Then it hit Jamie… the Attenuator was slowing down the effects of… what ever it was that was causing the transformation.

There was also something else. She could sense the charm doing something else. She repurposed the mana gathered and used it to pick up the ‘Spell Matrix’ in an effort to identify both who was causing it, and what it was doing.

When Roxanne arrived in the hotel suite she was directed to, she expected to see the room transformed into a makeshift office, holographic screens on one end, desks, chairs and tables arranged on another with laptops, tablets and sheets of plastic that displayed uploaded documents scatted around with portable scientific equipment, arcane bobbles, trinkets and weapons ranging from throwing knives to broadswords and battle axes to hand guns and assault rifles to laser pistols and anti-matter grenades.

And the only sound was the tapping of a keyboard. Sitting at the largest array of computers was Joey Parker, a young aboriginal cyborg she knew well. The boy had a talent for hacking into even the most secure of systems, writing entire programs in a matter of hours, and a reputation on the Darknet as the Ace of Spades.

He often stated that his status as Blake’s Guardian, and his Commonwealth Badge now prevents him from wearing that username again.

“You got access to the server?” Roxanne demanded, going straight into action.

“Just did.” He answered as the array of screens showed the entire file system of Roxanne’s Political Career.

“Navigate to the Human Rights document in the Universal Accords folder. And who’s the contact in the NSA?”

“Director Cynthia Hayes. Called her already. Most of the Western World has already released statements. Washington, Ottawa, Tokyo and Canberra have released statements. Basically saying that people are still people, no matter what they are, asking for clam, and carry on as normal. Meanwhile, this guy, Gordon Charles has started this Human Supremacist Movement and stirring up social media. As if it hasn’t been stirred up already by videos of dragons doing stupid things.”

“Give teenagers a pair of wings and a flamethrower…”

“It’s more then that. A pair of kids in New York City thinks it’s a good idea to scare innocent people as they walk into an elevator, and film the reactions. But for now, there’s an emergency meeting at the UN. Topic of discussion is this little dilemma. Right now, they’re just watching.”

Not wishing to dwell on the missing charm any longer, Blake looked towards the still, tied up form of the dragon adolescent. A pang of guilt and sympathy ran though his heart and the star core flared with anger in his chest as he regarded the pain, the agonising pain the transformation forced him to go though, and the obstacles he’s yet to overcome.

‘What if I lose my self control,

‘What if I choose to let it go,

‘I wanna let you and me collide,

“Baby these wings were made, these wings were made to…’

Silencing the music as quickly as he could, Blake had answered the call, well aware of who was calling, thanks to the assigned ringtone.

“You must be psychic.” He whispered.

“Very funny. So dear husband, since I’m all alone in Paris, I was hoping that a handsome young man would sweep me off my feet and show me a good time in the city of lights, especially now that I’ve found a beautiful new dress to show off.”

Blake had to restrain himself at the ‘subtle’ hints Charlotte Wells was trying to drop. “Well, a girl can dream, can’t she.” He whispered.

“Okay. What’s happened?” She asked deflated.

He grimaced. This was the one person he could never ever lie to, and she had to ask the question that may lead to her romantic night to be shot down. “Bank robbery, hostage situation, and a dragon. And if I stick around long enough, the sun might expand and roast this little backwater planet.”

“Then it’s a good thing I brought marshmallows. And nothing says love like watching a star expand into a red supergiant with a glass of champaign.”

“That’s what you said about stopping a terrorist on the Orient Express.”

“We had fun didn’t we?”

“Fun?” Blake shock his head. “I had to disarm a bomb with my teeth.”

“Upside down and…”

“Don’t remind me.” There was a beep. Blake checked his phone to find another call waiting. “I’ve got another call.”

“I’ll be on the next flight to LAX. Ta ta my love.” And with that, Charlotte hung up and Blake answered the other call.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Steorra. This is the undertaker. The client you called about earlier.”

“Yeah? What about him?”

“The cause of death was genetic shock. And I say was on a very loose basis.”

“What do you mean?”

“The client is no longer deceased.” There was a loud roar on the other end as Blake grimaced.

People coming back from the dead did not mean good things, in any situation.

“We did however manage to integrate the client before his recovery.” The Undertaker continued. “We have a set of terrestrial coordinates. Koraian and Zane are arriving at the location by Star Yacht.”

“In other words, they’re flying the Endeavour. That’s bad news from any angel.”

“And your sister is has arrived.” The line went dead.

Flames below.

A soft growl reached his ears...