Chapter 994: Not Open to Outside Consultation

Screams filled the studio as the newsreader’s face erupted, spattering the camera with blood mist and shards of bone. From the hole in the front of his head emerged a red centipede, the length of an arm. The newsreader’s body got up and staggered around like an inexpertly controlled puppet. The centipede, jutting from the face cavity, flailed about like a tentacle.

One producer had the mindfulness to cut the feed before the ten-second live delay sent the horrifying images out to homes. That did not stop the cameras recording the footage that would soon be everywhere, in various states of completion. News stations would blur or edit out the worst of it, while the unadulterated footage would inevitably make its way online.

The climax of the footage was the ceiling exploding as a man crashed through it like a living bomb. Clad in armour of rainbow scales, he loomed in the cloud of plaster dust and wood splinters still falling to the floor from his entrance. His eyes went straight to the blood parasite and its now-dead host. It was hunched over its third victim, the last of those too slow in running away.

The abomination turned to look at Humphrey, its instincts sensing both danger and a far superior potential host. The centipede creature shot out of the newscaster’s head like an arrow, only to be snatched out of the air. Humphrey opened his mouth to breath fire, over both the creature and his own hand. In the corner, the newsreader’s abandoned corpse toppled to the floor.

The white-blue flame from Humphrey’s mouth lasted only a few seconds, in which it set the room ablaze. The parasite was reduced to ash, as was the news desk and one of the camera rigs. The gold-rank dragon fire swiftly started eating through the walls and even the floor.

The hole left in the roof by Humphrey’s passage was large, but the pale blue slime that followed him still had to squeeze through like toothpaste from a tube. It plopped to the floor and started firing slime gobbets from its body, dousing the flames threatening to eat their way through the building.

By the time the flames were extinguished, the air was clogged with steam and smoke, heavy and throat-searing. Having completed his task, the slime shrank and solidified. He became a copy of Humphrey, but with silver hair and eyes, a sharp business suit and a neat moustache. He looked over at the victims, his expression crestfallen.

“We’re always too slow,” Stash said.

“No,” Humphrey said. “Be glad we kept the death count this low. You have to take the victories you can get, or the losses will crush you.”

***

A portal opened on the sixty-third floor of an office tower in Seoul. The first one through was Higgy, the frontline defender of Nigel Thornton’s nine-member combat section. He had no weapon, only a round shield that he wished looked less like Captain America’s. Close on his heels was Nigel, with a conjured pistol in each hand, and Jonno, with an improbably large rotary gun slung on his hip.

“Thorny, this is bad, right?” Jonno asked.

“Yes, Jonno,” Nigel said. “This is bad.”

The looked around while the rest of the section emerged from the portal. The floor was unlit, with fallen ceiling panels and broken fluorescents. What light did come was from the windows, many of which were shattered despite the strong tempered glass. They had emerged in a bullpen, the cubicle walls bowled over, and many had dark stains or were even torn apart. The surrounding office walls were ripped open, with holes looking like a rhinoceros had barged through. The air smelled wet, with the coppery tang of blood.

The group spread out as they emerged from the portal. When the last of them was out, they were followed by Neil and the portal specialist, Remy. The team took formation with them as the centre. Higgy conjured five floating shields that moved around the group in a circle.

“Stay close to me and don’t make sudden moves,” Neil told Remy. “They know what they’re doing, so don’t get in their way.”

“Yeah, listen to the thick elf,” said Darce, the team’s singular woman. “I don’t want you getting him killed before I rope him into a bit of the old rough and tumble.”

She was equipped with what looked like a flamethrower by way of a steampunk convention. The backpack looked like a nineteenth century boiler and rattled alarmingly.

“Darcy, do I have to report you to HR again?” Neil asked.

“The Asano Clan has a human resources department?” Remy asked.

“Mouth closed, ears open,” Nigel commanded. “Green, what have you got?”

“Running and screaming from the lower floors, but it’s general panic, not something actively after them. I’m hearing breathing in a few isolated pockets on the floors above and below us. People hiding would be my best guess. Nothing on the blood oak.”

“What about you, Davone? You’ve got the strongest aura senses here.”

“Silver rank vampires,” Neil said. “A surprising number. I’m not picking up any golds, or the blood oak, but I’d expect both with that many silvers. I haven’t trained my perception for scouting like Jason or Sophie. Or even Lindy. The blood oak will know we’re here, too. We’ve discovered that they release hard to detect spores that it uses to monitor an area.”

“How reliable is tracking the blood oak by those spores?” Nigel asked.

“Not very,” Neil said while looking around at the dark stains. “What I need is blood from where someone managed to wound it. Everything I’m seeing here is human.”

“You can tell that?” Remy asked.

“I’m a healer,” Neil said. “I don’t know scouting, but I know blood.”

“Let’s go find some, then, if we have to bleed the damn thing ourselves,” Nigel said. “You up for this, portal guy?”

“Your people are all silver,” Remy told him.

“My people have a lot of training and even more experience,” Nigel said. “If you’re going to stick with us, I need to know you won’t break when we need to rely on you. If you’re not a hundred percent, I want you waiting on the other side of the portal.”

“I’m solid,” Remy assured him. “The thick elf cured my family’s supposedly incurable genetic blood disorder, and I’ll do whatever I have to pay that back. And with portal specialists at a premium right now, I have a way to do that.”

Nigel looked Remy in the eye for a long moment, then nodded.

“Alright,” he said. “Stay close to Thick and do what he tells you.”

“That is not my new nickname,” Neil said through gritted teeth.

***

After losing her position with the United Nations, Holly Macrossan had taken a position with the Australian government. Her full title was Liaison to the Multinational Supernatural Response Taskforce for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. She sat in the Asano village conference room. Her familiar, Gumboot the cat, was in her lap, enjoying being absently scratched behind the ears.

Every other seat but one had a hologram projecting a member of the taskforce’s participating members. The other person physically in the room was Jason Asano, seated at the table’s head.

“Mr Asano, I hope you understand the boldness of your proposal,” said the hologram of Claire Danvey, US Secretary of State.

“I am well aware,” Jason said. “I’ve made no secret of my intentions to move the Earth forward in certain metrics. My hope had been to advance it socially, and only bring power into play as the world was ready for it. I’ve come to realise that not only was it arrogant to think I could change the social fabric of an entire planet, but that I had no right to try. But power remains within my ability to grant.”

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He plucked a glass of juice out of nowhere, took a sip and it vanished again.

“Magitech is something that’s been researched in secret, going back to the industrial revolution,” he said. “Since magic went public, magitech development has leapt forward, yet a number of critical bottlenecks have prevented the greatest leaps forward in practical implementation. Those bottlenecks are almost exclusively related to the magical theory that Earth has always lacked.”

“The terms of your proposal are clear enough, Mr Asano,” Holly said, gesturing with a computer tablet. Your promises are certainly grand. Unfiltered access to the magical knowledge of you and your people. A training centre designed to accelerate the spread of that knowledge. Full participation in the examination and reverse engineering of the dimensional vessel you seized.”