Chapter 11 – Beginnings

“The people at the portal are not doing their job,” Ray Danforth said to his partner. Both of them were bundled against the chill of the New Zealand mountains, though Felicia hardly needed it. It was the sixth unregistered fae enclave they’d been to in the past year, though it might have been more apt to call it an infestation. Unlike most places, the surrounding terrain had hardly been altered at all, but the landscape had already been almost fantastical. He was pretty sure that the fae had settled there because of the natural beauty and how similar it was to Faerie’s inherent aesthetic.

Not that the creatures Taisen’s mages had captured were beauties themselves. They weren’t even proper fae as such. Instead they were some of the terrible beasts that lived deep in Faerie, the Cold Children and the Shadows of That Which Dwells Beneath. A real fae would have adopted some of the local legends – there were plenty – but these types hadn’t bothered.

“I suspect they did not come through the portal,” Felicia replied, putting her bare hand on the flank of some abomination of spider and hound, stiff white hair rustling audibly under Felicia’s touch. It shivered, completely cowed, which was a far sight from the hostility the barely-thinking Cold Children showed to mages. Besides which, it would have frozen Ray’s hand right through if he’d tried the same thing.

“They dwell deep in Faerie, and they’d hardly wander through on their own,” Felicia said at length. “But with the connection to Earth, there might be other paths some fae could travel to get here.”

Ray raised his eyebrows. The fae were notoriously closemouthed about a lot of their abilities. Everyone figured they had ways to move around that were close to teleportation, but with the limitations any faerie magic had that could mean anything. It could be something they could do at will, or something that only worked under a full moon at midsummer. Even Felicia didn’t elaborate on such things usually, despite how close they’d been over the years.

“So there’s some kind of backchannel trafficking road into Earth from Faerie now?”

“I suspect so. If I knew where it was I could just send them back.” She patted the abomination again. “Without it, moving them will require a breacher portal and likely some discussion with GAR.”

“Above our paygrade,” Ray observed.

“Yes. But they should go back. They don’t belong here,” Felicia said. If they couldn’t be returned, they would have to be exterminated like the things that had been riding the Cold Children’s shadows. Ray was vaguely aware that things were not so simple as there being Winter and Summer Courts, but that characterization wasn’t terribly far from the truth either. Both of the invading species could be thought of as things from the Winter side of the scale, but at least the Cold Children had physical bodies.

Ethereal beings were generally rare and difficult to deal with, but the shadowy parasites were completely helpless against mages with control over light or darkness. The fae animals had been fairly simple to subdue for Taisen’s team, even without the Archmage in attendance, but they’d only properly gotten settled down once Felicia had been brought on site. There actually weren’t that many fae in Defensores Mundi with a working knowledge of creatures from Faerie proper.

“At least we didn’t need any outside help for this one,” Ray sighed, hands in his pockets. It was freezing, no matter how beautiful the mountains looked. “You know we’re going to need to track this down. Find this origin point.” He knew it was true, but it also appealed to Felicia’s detective instincts.

It’d be healthier than finding trouble spots, too.

The idea of pursuing something substantive after they’d been stymied on their investigation into GAR – mostly by no longer being part of it – visibly perked her up. She seemed to lose ten years in an instant, and very well might have. The way fae magic worked was weird.

“We may have to talk to some fae kings,” Felicia said. “If the Archmage will back us.”

“I think he will, since I doubt anyone else wants to deal with them,” Ray said.

“I don’t even want to, but I will,” Felicia said, then dug her tablet out of her bag as the transportation team came by. Some earth and light mages had whipped up large, lit cages for the creatures, big stone boxes that were proof rending claws and jaws — and any intangible shadows that might be still in hiding.

“It’s under control,” she wrote on her tablet as the multi-ton cage was set down on the ground. “I’ll guide it in.”

“If you’re sure, ma’am,” said Captain Yang. Neither Ray nor Felicia were part of the pseudo-military structure of House Taisen, but people more or less listened to them in their areas of expertise. Which hadn’t always been the case in the Department of Arcane Investigation.

The earth mage opened the cage by simply removing the stone from one side and Felicia ushered the Cold Child into it before the cage was sealed again. Out of Felicia’s influence it let loose a shrill and terrifying cry, muffled by the confines of its box. Ray winced, rubbing at his ears by reflex.

“Anyway, think you can figure out where they came from locally?” Ray asked. “I doubt they swam across the ocean.”

“I can try,” Felicia wrote, and made a motion at Ray. In reply he whipped up an air cushion so they could get around quicker, rather than hiking over the rough terrain. They floated about the area as Felicia turned her head left and right, scenting for the origin of the fae incursion. They had already determined that the place the creatures had laired wasn’t where they’d emerged, but they’d been there long enough any original tracks were long gone.

The two of them left the last of the cleanup behind, to mages who were more equipped for the job, and ventured out into the countryside. They weren’t stupid about it, of course. Ray called in with a scry-com, and if they were to run into anything untoward they wouldn’t tackle it on their own. But the region had been fairly well surveyed for threats, so he wasn’t worried.

They followed a zig-zag path as Felicia played bloodhound, over mountain ridges and down valleys. The things had gone quite a way, but eventually Felicia waved them to a stop by a large and lonely tree growing at the top of a cliff. Up close, Ray could see the disturbance in the mana, though to his eye there was no order or consistency to it, save that it focused on a circle of bare rock framed by gnarled roots.

He stood back as Felicia prowled around the circle, for a moment looking more primal and animalistic than normal. She stopped after three circuits and turned toward the center, speaking words that Ray could sense but couldn’t actually hear. It was a display of pure fae magic unexpected enough that she had finished before he had fully realized what was going on.

“There was a path here,” Felicia said, walking across the circle toward him. “But it’s gone. I think it was closed on purpose, but I couldn’t swear to it.”

“We need to make sure it won’t open again,” Ray said, running his fingers over his focus band. Faerie magic was affected enough by the environment that there were simple ways to disrupt it. He simply pulled the tree off its perch and relocated it at the base of the cliff, tapping into his earth-moving focus to bury the roots. It would have been faster and simpler to just destroy the tree, but Felicia wouldn’t have liked that.

Only then did he doublecheck the GPS coordinates before logging them for his report. If other things had come through, they might have gone in another direction, so there would be some teams sweeping out to see if there was anything to follow up on. For all anyone knew, the creatures were a distraction from something more insidious.

“Thanks,” Felicia said. It wasn’t clear whether she was referring to his removal of the faerie path or preserving the tree. She came back to stand next to him once again, looking around with those sharp black eyes that so easily captured him when he wasn’t being careful. “I don’t think there’s anything else for us here.”

“I suppose not,” Ray agreed, because there was something for them elsewhere. Ever since they’d found out Wells’ real identity they’d been stuck in a kind of a vague muddle, without a clear goal to chase. They merely had busywork to do. Finding out who was smuggling deep Faerie creatures into the world, though, that had some meat.

It would be nice to have something to sink their teeth into.

***

“We have no desire to move against The Ghost or the American Alliance,” Archmage Hargrave said flatly. Gayle bit her lip, still not used to being present when high-powered discussions were being held. The library at House Hargrave was a completely different setting with four different archmages arguing. Besides her own grandfather, there was Archmage Janry, there as a neutral observer, Archmage Taisen, there in solidarity against GAR, and Archmage Corrilon, as GAR’s representative.

She wasn’t the only non-archmage present. Everyone had staff along, some recording the proceedings with notebooks and cameras, others there as advisors or strategic assets. Gayle fell into the last category, as House Hargrave’s sole healer. The library was large enough that it didn’t really feel crowded, but hardly anyone besides the Archmages were noticeable.

“It’s only a matter of time before they move against you,” Corrilon said, his voice so lifeless and insipid that Gayle could barely pay attention despite the stakes. “The latest attack against GAR shows that they will not brook any power but their own.”

“That’s not true,” Gayle said, cutting in. Even six months ago she wouldn’t have dared, but after working more closely with her grandfather and shouldering some responsibilities of her own she had more self-assurance. “The Ghost has made it very clear what he objects to. We aren’t going to have any problems.”

“You still have relations with the vampires in major city centers,” Corrilon replied, the argument uninflected as if he were reading off a checklist. Which perhaps he was. Even Gayle knew that everyone believed Corrilon was someone else’s voice, though opinions were mixed on exactly whose.

“Relations which are nobody’s business,” her grandfather said, before she could argue. It was hard to remember that it was better to never explain or make excuses. She had always preferred being reasonable, but reasonableness wasn’t how things were done at the top. “I’m hardly surprised that Constance was eliminated. Even within GAR she had made enough enemies. For all I know The Ghost didn’t even do it on his own account.”

“You will regret not neutralizing such dangerous people while it is still possible,” Corrilon said, though the threat was undercut by the monotonous drone of his voice. “As GAR is made weaker, there will only be more problems. Inaction now means chaos later.”

“We’ll take our chances,” her grandfather said.

“Not all chaos is bad,” Archmage Taisen observed. “It represents opportunity, not just randomness. House Taisen is not and has never been in favor of the Department of Acquisition. Why risk mundane threats when we don’t need them?”

“Leaving this be will generate internal threats like other rogue mages,” Corrilon replied. Gale could swear she saw his eyes tracking like he was reading a line off a page.

“Now that there are other options aside from GAR, I very much doubt it,” Taisen said.

Apparently Corrilon ran out of lines, because his little group took their leave soon after that. Janry had barely contributed anything during the whole discussion, and was the only archmage that looked appropriately bored by Corrilon’s dreary voice. Once the GAR representative was gone, her grandfather sighed and shook his head.

“As annoying as he is, eliminating Constance does change things. There’s a difference between going after vampires and directly striking at important mages.” He turned to Gayle. “Do you know why he did it?”

“Why, no, but I can ask the next time I see him. It won’t be long. Mrs. Wells is almost due so I’m seeing them fairly often.”

“Do so,” he said.

“Far be it from me to point out the obvious,” Janry’s assistant piped up. “But if you have access to Wells’ wife and soon to be child, isn’t that a good way to control him?” Gayle scowled thunderously and opened her mouth to object, but closed it again when she saw her grandfather’s expression. He was studying the man with the particular mix of interest and disgust that someone might use to regard a rather loathsome insect.

“You’re suggesting that we coerce someone who is willing and able to assassinate archmages and give him every reason to turn his attention to us,” her grandfather said, his voice flat. “Does Janry employ you so he knows which ideas not to entertain?” The man colored, but didn’t reply.

“Head on back to the House, Jameson,” Janry muttered, voice just as sleepy as his expression.

“Yes, sir,” Jameson said, and stood up to leave. Unlike before, he couldn’t simply teleport out. House Hargrave did still have some teleportation pads, but they only linked with their closest allies. Jameson was forced to actually leave through the front door and make his way to wherever it was that he had come from. House Janry hadn’t actually left GAR the way her House had, so she wasn’t sure how good an idea it was to have them at this kind of meeting, but they were still maintaining a sort of reserved support of House Hargrave.

“Since I assume nobody else is going to repeat that kind of idiocy,” her grandfather said. “Is there any real issue with this development? We don’t need anything that Acquisition did anyway.”

“Constance may be gone but the apparatus is still there,” Taisen said. “Someone else will be put in charge of it. Though…” His lips tightened. “I know she ran it more through personal connections than proper channels. The actual reach of the Department of Acquisition may not be nearly as far as it has seemed.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Which doesn’t seem like our problem,” her grandfather replied.

“It might be mine,” Taisen said unhappily. “The BSE has been kind of operating, but if there’s a significant disruption in how people interact with mundanes, someone has to clean it up. At some point we supernaturals might have been powerful enough to not worry about the mundane reaction, but that’s certainly not the case today.”

“Shouldn’t we be thinking about how to interact with mundanes openly?” Gayle asked, and all eyes went to her. “I don’t mean right now,” she added hastily. “Just as something to start thinking about. I’ve been looking around on the internet on what can be done and even with glamours there’s probably a point past which we can’t hide.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Taisen grunted. “The idea that there’s nothing outside of technology has gone both deep and wide. Half the stuff the BSE cleans up would probably be attributed to fanatics of various stripes even without our intervention.”

“People do not like the idea that there are those different from them, especially if they’re better,” her grandfather said without any shame at all. Though it was hard to argue that mages didn’t have an advantage over those without magic. “There is and was no way to live among mundanes without it ending badly.”

Gayle nodded, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. Not only was it wrong to just take the advancements the mundanes had made without giving back, but she didn’t think everyone was as blind as Taisen thought. They couldn’t hide it forever, and to be exposed without being prepared would be catastrophic. She just had no idea what on Earth could be done.

***

“I have to wonder why an organization as powerful as GAR, even after the withdrawal of its militant houses, has so much trouble dealing with one man.”

Teller Janry suppressed a frown as he regarded the Master of Weltentor. It was a complaint he was growing tired of, though it was usually directed at GAR by Archmages or fae rather than vampires. Possibly because usually there were no vampires left to complain when Wells acted, and Weltentor was their only superior.

“Not even Alpha Chester knows where Wells is located,” he explained patiently. “He doesn’t use any of the normal supernatural channels, and he doesn’t even appear in public. Even mundane methods of tracing him don’t have anything to start from.”

“Don’t tell me you’re just going to sit there and take it,” Weltentor said scornfully.