Chapter 26, Part 2: A Plum Pudding of the Damned.

This week's entry is coming a bit late. A client needed a number of articles written in a hurry and as fun as blogging the story is, a bit of extra money around this time of year is always a good thing.

Warning: This is the rough draft of a story with adult themes and situations. If you are offended by bad language and grammatical errors, gentle reader, read no further! For those of you who have decided to stay, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this week's chapter.






It took a few seconds, but even in the light rain, the fire, fed by the preservative still in their bodies, began to consume hair and clothing. As it spread, the flame shifted from an alcohol blue to a yellow that cast the shadows of the trees around them in a frenzied dance. The smell of burning hair and worse began to hang heavily in the air.

As she fought, Aleph noticed something disturbing, as their skin charred and flaked off, she could see healthy skin appearing underneath healing as fast as the flames could consume it. They paused to wipe away the flames from their faces but it wasn’t a pain response she realized, their efforts were only so they could better see to continue the attack.  It gave her an idea.

She continued to weave her way through the blazing fray, in constant movement, instinctively finding the best path through and striking where she could. Fists and kicks passed harmlessly through the spaces she was a fraction of a second before. She dodged and twisted in perfectly timed and deliberate motions behind the screen of flaming bodies.

“This is so unbelievably fucked up,” Sam said with a sick look on his face. The light of the flaming souljacked attackers began to brighten and light up the path. To his credit, Sam kept his attention focused on growing the flames. Aleph knew from her own experience it was a lot easier working with existing fire than it was creating fire from thin air. Now that it was going, it was like a rock rolling down a hill and gaining momentum of its own. Still, the attackers struck and kicked at her as she dodged.

With an expression of sick reluctance, Sam held out his hand and pale orange flame began to dance in his palm. It was about time. Inside the flame, the shadow-shape of a salamander could be seen moving around. With a resigned sigh, Sam tossed the little ball of fire toward the closest of the flaming attackers. The flames merged and the little salamander began scrambling over the head and shoulders of the burning man. The fire consuming him, and his slack-jawed friends immediately intensified and began to roar with inrushing air.

Sam gagged, spat, but kept his attention focused. 

Dimitri glanced at Sam and seemed to come to some inner decision. “Whatever, fuck these guys.” With that, Dimitri charged the group. He planted a foot into the lower back of one the flaming forms and knocked him to the ground. The rest of the group ignored their fallen companion as Dimitri continued to work him over, little puffs of flame erupting at every kick. “It’s not!” kick, “nice!” kick, “to hit,” kick, “girls!” kick, kick, kick.

Two things happened almost simultaneously. There came a cry of alarm from the direction of the forensic tent, the police had finally seen them. The second thing that happened was that a storm of crows erupted out from the centre of the flaming mosh pit.

The crows cawed, pecked, scratched, and buffeted the attackers with their wings. Flames swirled and writhed in the wind from the wingbeats. The sound of cawing and the flapping of wings was deafening, and the little morning light that had been seeping in past the trees was obliterated by the mass of black feathered bodies.

Sam and Dimitri fell back from the corvid vortex, covering their own faces. The needn’t have worried though, in mere moments the crows had moved on. The attackers, many of whom were still ablaze despite the sudden wind of crow wings, staggered drunkenly around the path. It wasn’t until Sam looked closer that he noticed the truth. Bloody tears ran down the cheeks of every individual, but there wasn’t a single eye left whole among the group. The crows had blinded each and every one of them.

The sound of heavy footsteps approached their position and Dimitri grabbed a horrified Sam by the shoulder to pull him off the path and into the shadows. Uniformed police officers began to appear in the firelight. Some threw their jackets over the flames to try and put them out. Others tackled the flaming individuals to the ground, using the wet path and soggy grass help to extinguish them.
As the police came into contact with any of the blinded group though, they were immediately attacked. Soon, there was a decent little brawl going on with the police trying to subdue a dozen blinded and flaming berserkers. The police had the advantage of sight, but the group had the numbers, and they looked fairly evenly matched. Sam and Dimitri did their best to silently make their away from the action.

The crows, meanwhile, began to descend in a tight circle around the war memorial next to the visitor centre, narrowing down to a single point. Soon they were gone, and a familiar shape motioned them over.

Aleph looked none the worse for wear.

“Well, that was fucking disturbing,” Dimitri said, as they arrived at Aleph’s side. Sam nodded emphatically, not quite trusting himself to speak yet.

“If that’s the worst thing you see in the next few days, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.” She turned to look at the grey granite cenotaph and lay her fingers on the smooth surface. It was a three-tiered monument set on a stepped cement platform. On its side were carved a maple leaf and the words, “To the memory of the Men and Women who served in the defence of their Country”

“Let’s get moving,” Aleph said, looking back to where the police were still attempting to subdue the blinded group. “The Sand Network is going to be all over this in no time, and I cannot be here when they show up.”

She stepped up onto the cement platform and began walking around it in a counter-clockwise direction. Some of the old folks still called it walking the path widdershins, just like they talked about casting spells instead of throwing tricks. Times changed and language changed with it.   
Sam and Dimitri fell in close behind her. As they walked, Aleph began to feel a chill on her cheeks that had nothing to do with the weather. The further they walked around the memorial, the colder it got. Slowly, the cold was accompanied a grinding feeling vibrating through her chest, as though two stones were grinding against each other. The morning, which had just begin to lighten, became dark again as though the world was on a dimmer switch.

Aleph began humming a rhythmic tune, then after a few seconds began to sing softly, “Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

“What?” Dimitri asked.

“Just an old poem my father used to say whenever we used to go to Senak. Honestly, I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“Wow, that’s so neat. So, now that you’ve had a look at them, what are those things,” asked Dimitri, pointing back at the ongoing melee.

“Like we guessed, they’re some flavour of necroalchemical abomination.”

“Yeah, but what do we call them, because ‘necroalchemical abominations’ is a bit of a mouthful and NA is already taken.”

“Alright, let’s run down the list them,” said Sam, as they began their second circuit around the cenotaph. “First question, are they alive or dead?”

“Alive,” provided Aleph.

“So that rules out Zombies, Wights, Revenants, and Draugr.”

“What the what?” asked Dimitri.

“Second question, do they have free will.”

“Nope, you saw the way they spoke. Definitely souljacked, probably by a single controlling being,” she replied.

“So alive,” Sam counted off on his fingers, “no free will, and a hive mind.” He paused to think. “They’re drones, they have to be, nothing else matches.”

“Drones? That’s so boring,” complained Dimitri. “They’re mindless killing machines. Can’t we call them something more horrific and awesome than drones?” He paused to think. “How about killer explosion drones?”

“You’re the one that said alchemical abominations was too much of a mouthful.”

“Fine, let’s make it into an acronym. How ‘bout KSDs?”

Sam continued to walk for a time, his brow furrowed. “I give up, what does the ‘S’ stand for?”

“‘Splosion. The ‘ex’ part is silent. Duh.”

Sam shrugged, “Works for me.”

Aleph rolled her eyes.

They’d completed three circuits around the granite monument now and Sam and Dimitri stepped around to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. The world had taken on a thin ice transparency as though if you didn’t step carefully, you might fall right through. Only feet in front of them was a yawning hole in the air as though someone had pushed a pencil through the pages of reality. The broad maples lining the path were barely visible, only to be partly seen when a faint breeze stirred their bare branches. There was no sound of rain in this place between, it had been replaced by a white-noise hush that Aleph associated with a heavy snowfall.

“Ready to go?”

“I hate going to Asphodel,” sighed Dimitri, eyeing the hole in the world.

Beside him, Sam nodded in agreement. “Why couldn’t it be a wardrobe or maybe even a locomotive. I’d settle for riding in a train with a bunch of obnoxious teenage wizards for six hours if it meant I didn’t have to travel this way.”

“I know, right? Everyone talks about how Senak is sooo great. It’s not that great.”

“And it’s always dark,” added Sam. “I get enough dark here in the winter without wanting to go to a place where it’s dark 24/7. Give me white sandy beaches and drinks with umbrellas in them.”

“Amen, brother.”

The two bumped fists.

“Are you two done?” Aleph asked.

“We were just saying Asphodel’s not all that,” complained Dimitri.

Putting her pale hands on both of their shoulders, she gave them both a good shove right into the portal.

“Hey, wait!” was all Dimitri managed to get out before he disappeared into the unrelieved blackness of the portal.

Aleph sighed, gave Vancouver one final look around, and strode into the gateway.

Chapter 26, Part One: A Plum Pudding of the Damned.

Warning: This is the rough draft of a story with adult themes and situations. If you are offended by bad language and grammatical errors, gentle reader, read no further! For those of you who have decided to stay, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this week's chapter.





The dark tree-lined path ahead of them opened onto a visitor’s centre, beyond that Aleph could just make out the outline of the war memorial in the dim light being cast from the forensic tent.

Most of her children were in the air now, winging their way to their daytime haunts, but it would be another fifteen minutes before the first of them could make a flyover. By then this would be all be over. Though her side still twinged from their last encounter, she wasn’t willing to wait.

Shadows separated from the darkened maples in front of them and began lining up on the path. Aleph, Dimitri, and an uncomfortable-looking Sam stopped, the smell of preservatives, which hadn’t been noticeable to anyone with a human-level sense of smell, bloomed in the air as the group continued to gather. By the time they’d finished assembling, there were over dozen arrayed before them.

They were of no particular skin colour, young, old, men, women, and children, and none of them wore any expression that couldn’t be best described by using some form of the word, “slack.”
Dimitri must have noticed the same thing because she heard him mutter, “It’s like a United Nations delegation of potheads.”

The front of Dimitri’s jacket began to suddenly bulge and Aleph was strongly reminded of the scene from the original Alien movie. Instead of an acid-filled killing machine though, Minnaloushe reared up from where he’d been tucked inside the front of Dimitri’s coat. The Kellas Cat freed the top half of his body, wrapped his long-fingered hands on either side of Dimitri’s head and screamed directly in his face.

Dimitri stumbled back and fell wetly onto his ass. Minnaloushe scrambled over his chest, snatched the car keys out of his hand, and tore off back down the darkened path the way they had come. The little bastard was laughing as he ran off.

“That ungrateful shit!” Dimitri spluttered, as he got to his feet and wiped off his wet pants.
“He’s got my keys!” Sam said disbelievingly. “Why did he take my keys?”

“I know, right? Your car’s a piece of shit,” said Dimitri.

They were distracted from the question of the missing keys as words rang out into the rainy morning. “If you try to pass again, you will be killed. You will not pass.” The words had come from the group blocking their way, but they weren’t said in chorus, instead each word came from a different member. The timing and tone were perfect from one individual to the next, but none of the faces that spoke betrayed any of the emotion that was in the words.

“It’s like The Borg Queen and Gandalf had a baby,” Sam whispered.

“Are they brainjacked, or something?” asked Dimitri. “Like the ones at Strangefellows? Because those guys never did that,” he said waving an arm in the direction of the mob. “And what do they mean, “again?”

“They were here when I came through from Senak last time. We tussled. To answer your first question though, brainjacked I could handle, I’m pretty sure these guys have had their souls removed from the driver’s seat altogether.” answered Aleph.

“Definitely time for fresh undies,” Sam opined.

“If you try to pass again, you will be killed. You will not pass,” came the message.
The time for talking was coming to a close. Before that though, she needed to cover her ass. The thing about enjoying the powers of a duly appointed officer of the law in this part of the Aether was that it came with a lot of dos and don’ts. For instance, she couldn’t just plough through this little gathering leaving a trail of blood and viscera for her children to feast on. As gratifying as that would be there would be questions. It was time to read them the Riot Act. Literally.

She drew herself up and said in a clear voice, “I say this as a duly appointed member of the RCMP and as a representative of her Majesty the Queen: Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all beings being assembled immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations, home realms of existence, or to their lawful business on the pain of being guilty of an offence for which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to imprisonment for life. God save the Queen because I’ve already got enough on my hands. Bitches,” she added at the end for verisimilitude.

Now that, that was out of the way, she gave the group a glare, “On a personal note, I’ve had a long night, and if you refuse to move your slack-jawed, smelly, expressionless, asses out of my way, I’ll take enormous pleasure in doing it for you.” She flexed her fingers and her black fingernails lengthened and curved into talons.

“Holy shit,” said Dimitri from behind her. “She’s hardcore.”

“Alright, Sam,” she said. “As we discussed.”

Sam shuffled forward to stand next to her.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked uncertainly. “I mean it’s not like they’ve hurt us, they’re just trying to stop us.”

Instead of answering, she began to cover the distance between herself and the group.
“I’m not stopping, Sam. I need to get to Senak, and I need you and Dimitri with me. Lives depend on this.”

Aleph advanced on the group, her heels beating out a steady rhythm on the wet path.
“Aleph, hold on a second!” called Sam, taking a few hesitant steps of his own.
“I have responsibilities, Sam, and so do you.”

When she came within arm’s reach of the group she dove in, punching and kicking. Sam lost sight of her as she was swarmed under. All around her fists and elbows swung at her. She avoided the worst of the blows, ducking and dodging away, but Sam, bless his timid little heart, needed yet more motivation. She let a few of the lighter hits make contact. She might have grunted a bit more on impact than was called for, but let it never be said that she wasn’t beyond some mild theatrics to get the job done. She had a strong hunch that she would need Sam as something more than a passive piece of baggage, and she’d learned to pay attention to her hunches. It was time for him to get involved.

“Do it, Sam!” she heard Dimitri yell.

In the space of a slow heartbeat, wavering blue flames the size of a man’s thumb began to wink into existence on the crown of each of the attacker's heads. Aleph had the sudden impression that she was in a fight with sentient candles. The illusion was broken almost immediately as fire rippled down over the hair and faces of over half of the individuals, their features limned in eerie blue flame in the darkness. It was just like a plum pudding. A plum pudding of the damned.

Chapter 25, part 2.

Chapter 25 continues! The usual warnings apply this is a rough draft so expect the occasional grammatical faux pas. Also contains adult language and situations. Thanks for reading!





Sam led the three of them out of Strangefellows and around the corner to a gravel parking lot to where a sunshine-yellow car was parked. It looked like the unwanted result of an alcohol-fuelled liaison between a Teletubby and a toy car from a Mc Happy Meal.

“What’s that?” Aleph asked.

“It’s an Aztec,” Sam replied, unlocking the doors.

“Does it run on bubble juice?”

“Heisenberg drove one,” said Sam, folding himself into the driver’s seat.

“And you think that owning the same shitty car as a fictional Meth kingpin is a selling point?”

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts. Not every car has pyromantic script etched onto the engine block.”

“It still looks like a toy.”

Sam shrugged, “Better than a VW Beetle.”

“Not that it has any bearing on the current crisis, but sure, I’ll bite. Why not a bug?”

Sam gave her an incredulous look. “The Bug was designed by Hitler. It’s fascist transport.” He said this as though he was explaining water was wet.

She blinked and looked at Dimitri for confirmation.

“Pretty sure he’s right. At least about the design part,” he said, casually aiming himself at the front passenger-side door.

Aleph gave him a little jerk of the head, Dimitri scowled and diverted to the rear door.

“Sure, but it’s what people did with it that counts, nobody that I know of committed genocide from inside of a Volkswagen,” said Aleph.

“Would you wear Hitler’s sweater?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“Point and match.”

“Millions of hippies would disagree with you,” she said to Sam, getting in herself and arranging Minnaloushe on her lap.

The Kellas cat had regained consciousness back in Strangefellows. He was sore and refused to speak beyond a few words. There were a couple local vets and doctors who would work off the books on off world beings, but he would get better care in Senak.

They lurched out of the pot-hole pocked parking lot and filtered through narrow side-streets until they hit Bridgeport and merged onto the Knight Street Bridge heading toward South Van.

It wasn’t Aleph’s favourite route, but she didn’t ask Sam to divert when she realized where he was taking them. It was the most direct way to Memorial Park and she could deal with some discomfort for the sake of speed.

The Knight had been guarding the bridge since it opened to traffic in the mid-seventies and had been a fixture on the old Fraser Street Bridge years before that. It was about as close to being a real knight as she was, but since it guarded the Knight Street Bridge, and since, given the option, people would always fail in their attempts to be clever, the name had stuck. It was one of the few things around that was capable of killing beings like her, and she could happily admit that passing it made her skin crawl.

The construct, and a few others like it, had been created at the same time as the coastal gun emplacements during the Second World War when the fear of invasion from Japan had been a very real thing. The war hadn’t just been about bombs and bullets, the arcane community on both sides had been heavily involved.

Since the war, the Knight had been largely left alone, siphoning kinetic power from the Fraser River as its currents slid past a sigil-covered bronze cartouche attached to the bridge footing below. Its one duty since The War had been to require anyone over a certain metaphysical weight to check in on their way over the Fraser River. This morning that meant her.

She saw the Knight in the distance as they ascended the slope of the bridge. It stood planted on the edge of the pedestrian path towering a good dozen feet above the bridge deck. It had made a roughly human-shaped body for itself out of sand-smoothed branches, frayed mooring rope, and old fishing nets. On its driftwood shoulders it had placed the bleached skull of a seal. As they approached, it turned darkened eye sockets toward them and the challenge hit her like an unexpected medicine ball to the face.

She just knew she’d have a headache for the rest of the morning. She gathered her scrambled senses, passed on her credentials, and waited.

She might be imagining it, but its challenge seemed to be sharper than usual this morning. The Knight hadn’t denied her crossing before, she didn’t recall anyone having been denied, but it as the seconds ticked past she couldn’t help but become concerned. They were approaching the centre of the bridge doing north of eighty kilometers an hour and they would be past the spot where it stood guard in mere moments. She didn’t know what would happen if she didn’t have permission to pass before they reached that point, but she didn’t want to find out.

Just as she felt her fingers circle around the handle of the e-brake, she received a mental nod of acceptance. She let out a held breath and took her hand off the brake. The empty seal skull swivelled to track them as they zipped past.

Sam gave a set of cheery beeps of the horn, unaware how close he’d been to disaster. Like anyone with a drop of arcane talent, he was able to perceive The Knight, even if it chose not to interact with him. She didn’t like to think about what might have happened if it decided that she couldn’t pass.
The Knight was immensely powerful but hadn’t shown anything in the way of brains or initiative before. It was more of a worrying landmark than it was a threat. It was the cooling tower of a nuclear reactor in the distance; Concerning, but seen so often that it melted into a background of other more demanding worries. Now, Aleph had to wonder how aware it was of the world around it. Old tricks left to their own devices sometimes got quirky and ended up developing personalities. Was the Knight aware what was happening in the arcane community? It was was a worry for later, she had enough in front of her to think about.

They passed over the north shore of the Fraser and began up the hill into South Van, passing houses, apartments, and gas stations as they went. In a little under ten minutes, they were pulling into a poorly-lit parking lot that annexed Memorial Park from the west. There were still a number of police cruisers and forensic vehicles in evidence. Off to their right, Aleph could still see the diffuse glow of the forensic tent.

Ahead of them, the shadows of bare maple trees reached up in the darkness on either side of the paved pathway. Whoever had designed this place really had a thing for tree-lined paths. While it might be great for a bit of shade in the summer, Aleph knew from her last time here that they also made ideal hiding spots for an ambush.

Just as those thoughts occurred, a faint breeze disturbed Aleph’s hair and brought to her nostrils the faint scent of alcohol and formalin.

“Hey Sam, Dimitri!” Aleph called over her shoulder, stooping over to look at the ground. “Come here and have a look at this.”

Dimitri trudged up to her with Sam close behind. He leant in to look at the bare pathway where she was pointing.

“What? It’s the ground. I’ve seen it before.”

“Look closer,” she grated.

The two men crouched in around her to examine the undistinguished bit of darkened asphalt. Being as furtive as she was able, Aleph carefully pulled Minnaloushe from where she was holding him inside her jacket and urged him into Dimitri’s arms.

“What are you…”

“Shut up. This is an ambush. Sam, give him your keys.”

“Sure,” said Sam, putting action to words. “Um, why did I give him my keys?”

“Because unless we’re up against angry robots, a Webmage and an injured Kellas Cat aren’t much good in a fight.”

“Technomancer, and I’ll kick the asses of whoever gets in my way.”

“Sure, tough guy, whatever you say. If it gets hairy I want you to take Minnaloushe back to Strangefellows and hole up there.”

“I’m not really that great in a fight either,” Sam admitted, trying to search the darkened trees, without being obvious about it. “Shouldn’t we all go back? There’s strength in numbers.”

“Maybe there is, but I have an idea that fits in nicely with your skills. Have you ever lit a plum pudding at Christmas?”

Sam looked confused.

Chapter 25, Part 1.

Well, it has been a crazier month than usual. Between needing to rewrite a bunch of chapters, a crazy amount of seasonal work, a mini-vacation,  and a death in the family, I've had my hands full.


Here's the long-awaited first part of chapter 25. As usual, this is a rough draft. There's bad language and worse grammar. You have been warned. 





“Penny for your thoughts?” asked Sue, approaching with a cup of coffee. Aleph was leaning against the unfinished cinder block wall at the back of the staff room. Arachne had gone back to her friends, Minnaloushe was unchanged, and the only sound in the room was the gentle roar of the crucible.
“People aren’t acting the way they’re supposed to. It’s irritating,” Aleph said accepting the cup and taking a sip, black, no sugar, the way she liked it. “Wait, that’s not right. People are acting the way they’re supposed to, but I don’t know why.”

“Like who?” said Sue, taking a sip from her own cup.

“Knox of the White. In one night he’s done two impossible things, and both go against everything he’s ever worked for. I’m missing something that I just know is going to come back to bite me in the ass.”

“Want to talk it out? I can be a good listener.”

“I remember.” Aleph straightened and sighed.

“Twice tonight Knox has put his position in the Guild at risk. The first time was by killing Elanor of the Red.”

Aleph heard Sue gasp. Her hearing was acute enough that she also heard a double gasp from where Dimitri and Sam sat on the couch listening in halfway across the room. Whatever. It wasn’t like everyone wasn’t going to know soon enough. Even if there wasn’t a body, news of a missing Red was going to cause a splash when it got out.

“He killed Elanor?!”

“Did you know her?”

“Well, I knew of her. She’s been a fixture in East Van forever, sort of a local celebrity. There aren’t that many Reds to begin with, but she was ours.”

“Only twenty-one in all the aether,” Aleph put in wistfully. “Twenty now until the Guild promotes another.”

 “She seemed alright for an alchemist.”

“She was, but Knox used a tricked knife that somehow burned her Panacea. It should have been impossible, but he did it.”

“What could do that? More Necromancy?”

“Looks like it, and that brings me to the next thing. This is a problem he’d to have been working on the problem for years.” She rubbed her forehead. “As much of a chucklefuck as he is, Dimitri’s right,” she said watching Dimitri’s back straighten where he stood pretending not to listen. “This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. Hell, this wasn’t a spur of the decade thing, Knox has to have been working on this for years. He had to have a source of necromantic magic to experiment with, and everyone knows how the Guild feels about death magic. It’s taboo for them, they chop off heads first and ask questions later. It’s been that way from the very start.”

Sam and Dimitri drifted closer, any pretense of not listening in now gone.

“In one night he’s done two things that put him directly at odds with the Guild— The Guild he’s spent the last century and a half trying to move up the ranks in. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe he’s tired of trying to suck up the Guild and branching out,” suggested Sue.

“No, I have to believe that Knox still wants to rise up in the Guild. He’s been at it for too long to cash in his chips now.”

“Maybe it’s a False Flag,” said Sam.

“What’s that now?” asked Sue.

“So I’m a big loser of an alchemist with no prospects,” Sam began enthusiastically, “and I’m also a complete dick. I know that the corrupt guild I work for has a murder-boner the lone necromancers that pop up every few decades, and I, being the slimy shit I am, want to capitalize on it.”

“Less editorializing, more explanation,” said Aleph.

“Fine, fine. An untrained necromancer isn’t much of a threat to anyone. Exposing them isn’t going to make the kind of splash Knox wants, not enough bodies on the ground, not enough public outrage. So, he prepares and waits for the day for when one finally shows up. While he waits, he builds himself an army of zombies. When our unsuspecting necromancer finally appears, he commits a series of sensational murders to blame on him, and when it’s time to take out the big, bad necromancer, he makes sure he’s the one who does it. Instant celebrity in the Alchemist Guild and the community.”

“That’s…” Aleph thought about it. “That’s actually not bad.”

If the ones who had attacked Strangefellows earlier also happened to be gin, there might be more to Sam’s zombie army theory than he knew.

“On top of it,” Sam went on, “once he dispatches the big, bad necromancer, everyone’s wondering why he’s still Knox of the White and not it’s not Knox of the Yellow or maybe even Knox of the Red? There are some serious PR points to be gained in a move like that. The Guild is big on PR.”
“It still has problems, like where did Knox learn to mix alchemy and necromancy? That’s forbidden knowledge. Knox is a spineless douche, he isn’t brave enough to carry on those kinds of experiments on his own.”

“Forbidden or not, it’s still just knowledge,” said Sam. Maybe someone told him how, maybe he found a book, maybe there’s a Youtube video. You don’t need to know how a gun works to use it,”

“It works as a theory, but I think it’s still missing something.”

“You’re the goddess, you tell us then,” said Dimitri.

“Being divine doesn’t mean I know everything, it just means I get to nudge collapsing wave functions on a macroscopic level.”

Dimitri looked at her blankly for a long beat. “So anyway, it’s been fun, but it’s time for me to go now.”

“Nope,” said Aleph over his words.

Dimitri eyed her. “I did what you wanted, I got to Stirling before Rag and Bone did. If he decided to have a great big necromancer coming out party, it’s not my fault. You and I are square.”

“This is bigger than the Guild chasing down a necromancer. Whatever Knox has planned is going to affect a lot of people. Penhold should be warned.”

“So warn him them, you don’t need my permission.”

“No, I need witnesses, that means you two,” Aleph said pointing to Sam and Dimitri.

“Why me?” asked Dimitri. “Why not bring Sue? She saw it all. Better yet, bring that necro chick. She’s even got video. I’m done.”

“Uh, Char witch here, someone has to hold down the fort,” Sue said.

“Using the testimony of someone who self-identifies as a necromancer, no matter how false the claim, isn’t going to be a reliable witness,” said Aleph. “Arachne’s out.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, but no thanks, I’m already in enough trouble with the Guild. I’m not making it worse by talking to the cops.”

Aleph sighed inwardly, she wondered what Dimitri had thought he’d been doing for the last hour if it hadn’t been talking to the cops.

“Mister Singh,” she said, putting on her professional face. “Let me spell this out for you. Rag and Bone are hunting you. You might be able to avoid them in the short-term, but the odds are on their side. They will catch up to you some dark night, and when they’ve finished with you, you will believe in your heart of hearts that your death will be the single best thing that has ever happened to you. If that’s not enough for you, I can also get you dragged in and charged.”

“For what?!”

“Unauthorized use of a computer and possession of a device to obtain computer service, or did you ask permission to infect James on all those operating systems?”

Dimitri’s mouth opened and stayed that way.

Sue touched his shoulder. “Listen to her, Dimitri, she’s right.”

“You also reek of Panacea,” Aleph went on. “You were recently given a large dose.” It wasn’t a question. She moved in close and inhaled. “Fifty years, or close to it. Congratulations, that must have cost you a pretty penny. But don’t kid yourself, you won’t be getting any more. By now, Knox knows you’re working against his people and whether what he’s doing is legal or not, that means you are working against the Alchemist Guild. Any chance you, your friends, contacts, or family had of getting more was gone the moment he came after you.”

“But that’s not my fault,” he pointed, as though suddenly recognizing her, “that’s your fault! If you hadn’t made me tail Stirling, I’d still be safe.”

“And what do you think the Guild will say to you when you tell them that?” she asked him. “Do you really think they’ll take the word of a twenty-something webmage over the alchemist who has been a guild member for the last two centuries?”

“Whether you knew it or not, you’ve chosen sides. Right now you have nothing to lose by speaking with us. As a matter of fact, the Duke of Senak is the only person in the entire Aether who might be able to keep you and everyone you know, safe.”