talking. His silence bothered me, so I looked over the top of the vehicle at him and saw the back of his dark head. He was looking at something across the littered parking area. "Kyle?"
" Sshh …" he said but didn't turn to look at me. "We're not alone."
Crap. I retrieved my right-hand pistol from the back of my jeans and leaned to the left, looking over the windshield to see if I could see what Kyle saw.
Clouds gathered overhead. It had been a murky day, with rain threatening from the time I got on the road leaving the cabin. As I narrowed my eyes and searched the dilapidated and abandoned buildings across from us, I noticed the sky darkening. Rain was no longer a threat, but a reality. And something about it felt…
Wrong. The air crackled with static. Charged with magic.
Just past a few rusted oil drums something moved. I wished I had super seeing power at that moment, but whatever it was, it was still too far away. And it was small. Maybe the size of a Chihuahua. I held out my left hand and whispered the dex spell. The four directional pentagrams appeared, spun and then zeroed in on the movement.
"Sweet Lord and Lady." I kept my voice down.
"You see it?"
"Yeah."
"What is it?"
"A Fetch."
Fetches were little more than conjured energy in the Human World. The spell used to create them had an Arcane base. No one knew where the spell originated, and lots of Witches cursed its existence. It was a cheap and low energy expenditure of magic to create life. Fetches had no visible form. To combat that, a compulsion is built into the spell, telling the Fetch to clothe itself, and it did so using whatever material was handy. If a Fetch was made in the desert, it used sand. If made near the beach, it usually looked like a weird mixture of sand and water. And if someone built one in an abandoned industrial park, then of course, it was going to look like a walking piece of scrap metal.
It moved from behind the cans when it realized we could see it. The thing had used a combination of scattered, crumpled concrete, bits of metal and glass and from this distance, the headlight of some kind of car or truck. It looked like a Cyclops, only it had the headlight in its belly. Fetches were programmed for one purpose and they wouldn't stop till that purpose was complete.
But only the creator knew what that was.
"Can't you just banish it?" Kyle said.
"No. The magic's not from any of the Other Worlds. It's from here. It's local."
"You mean it's Witch Magic?"
I didn't have an answer.
Sam . Grey was behind the Jeep, growling softly. There's more than one.
SEVEN
I looked to the right in her direction and spotted another movement in the middle of the path I drove in on. Another Fetch. Only this one wore car parts. A rusted muffler made up the main body, and the arms and legs were more or less pipes. A distributor sat on top like some weird robotic head.
"Sam, I count four of them."
I held the gun out in front of me as I moved to the front of the Jeep and pivoted. He was right. Besides Concrete Fetch and Muffler Fetch, two more were approaching as well. One was made up entirely of bottle caps and stood a good foot taller than the others. Beside Bottle Cap limped…
Oh good Goddess.
The fourth one had used a plastic two-liter of some beverage, the brand wrapping long gone. Then it decided to thread its body with any and every piece of wiring imaginable. The wiring stuck out in eight places, making it look like some freaky, messed up spider.
"Kyle…you wouldn't happen to have the stuff to make that ward like you did outside of Circe's would you?" I spoke as I trained my gun on each one of them, pivoting as I tried to figure out which of the little nasties would attack first.
"No," Kyle said. "That bag's in my car." He clapped his hands together and they ignited in magical flames, blue and yellow for Water and Air. He stomped his right foot as green flame appeared for Earth and then his left foot and red flame appeared for Fire.
" Sshh …" he said but didn't turn to look at me. "We're not alone."
Crap. I retrieved my right-hand pistol from the back of my jeans and leaned to the left, looking over the windshield to see if I could see what Kyle saw.
Clouds gathered overhead. It had been a murky day, with rain threatening from the time I got on the road leaving the cabin. As I narrowed my eyes and searched the dilapidated and abandoned buildings across from us, I noticed the sky darkening. Rain was no longer a threat, but a reality. And something about it felt…
Wrong. The air crackled with static. Charged with magic.
Just past a few rusted oil drums something moved. I wished I had super seeing power at that moment, but whatever it was, it was still too far away. And it was small. Maybe the size of a Chihuahua. I held out my left hand and whispered the dex spell. The four directional pentagrams appeared, spun and then zeroed in on the movement.
"Sweet Lord and Lady." I kept my voice down.
"You see it?"
"Yeah."
"What is it?"
"A Fetch."
Fetches were little more than conjured energy in the Human World. The spell used to create them had an Arcane base. No one knew where the spell originated, and lots of Witches cursed its existence. It was a cheap and low energy expenditure of magic to create life. Fetches had no visible form. To combat that, a compulsion is built into the spell, telling the Fetch to clothe itself, and it did so using whatever material was handy. If a Fetch was made in the desert, it used sand. If made near the beach, it usually looked like a weird mixture of sand and water. And if someone built one in an abandoned industrial park, then of course, it was going to look like a walking piece of scrap metal.
It moved from behind the cans when it realized we could see it. The thing had used a combination of scattered, crumpled concrete, bits of metal and glass and from this distance, the headlight of some kind of car or truck. It looked like a Cyclops, only it had the headlight in its belly. Fetches were programmed for one purpose and they wouldn't stop till that purpose was complete.
But only the creator knew what that was.
"Can't you just banish it?" Kyle said.
"No. The magic's not from any of the Other Worlds. It's from here. It's local."
"You mean it's Witch Magic?"
I didn't have an answer.
Sam . Grey was behind the Jeep, growling softly. There's more than one.
SEVEN
I looked to the right in her direction and spotted another movement in the middle of the path I drove in on. Another Fetch. Only this one wore car parts. A rusted muffler made up the main body, and the arms and legs were more or less pipes. A distributor sat on top like some weird robotic head.
"Sam, I count four of them."
I held the gun out in front of me as I moved to the front of the Jeep and pivoted. He was right. Besides Concrete Fetch and Muffler Fetch, two more were approaching as well. One was made up entirely of bottle caps and stood a good foot taller than the others. Beside Bottle Cap limped…
Oh good Goddess.
The fourth one had used a plastic two-liter of some beverage, the brand wrapping long gone. Then it decided to thread its body with any and every piece of wiring imaginable. The wiring stuck out in eight places, making it look like some freaky, messed up spider.
"Kyle…you wouldn't happen to have the stuff to make that ward like you did outside of Circe's would you?" I spoke as I trained my gun on each one of them, pivoting as I tried to figure out which of the little nasties would attack first.
"No," Kyle said. "That bag's in my car." He clapped his hands together and they ignited in magical flames, blue and yellow for Water and Air. He stomped his right foot as green flame appeared for Earth and then his left foot and red flame appeared for Fire.
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