Ragnarock by Stephen Kenson Page B

crowd. Talon would have preferred for someone to accompany her, but Val wanted to be alone, and he respected that. He was just glad she'd decided to come along. Talon thought about the things Val had told him at the Avalon and wondered how well he might deal with returning to a place that carried such memories. It was only a year since Talon had returned to Boston to face demons from his own past, so he could imagine what this was like for Val. It was something she could only get through on her own.
    Black-clad Knight Errant personnel handled general security for the airport, and the lines at the security checkpoint were moving fairly briskly. Talon moved up to the head of the line and presented his credstick to a bored-looking security guard standing next to the scanning archway and x-ray machinery. The guard slotted the stick into the small data-reader he carried, glancing at the information displayed on the screen, then up at Talon and back again. The information on the credstick identified Talon as Andrew Nolan, a wagemage working for Novatech. Owning up to his magical abilities made it easier for Talon to conceal their full extent from any magicians or guardian spirits that might be watching, without having to conceal them entirely.
    "Do you have anything to declare, Mr. Nolan?" the guard asked.
    "Indeed I do." Tal replied, hefting his shoulder bag.
    The guard nodded. "Please place the bag on the moving belt and go on through." he said. Talon did as he was told. The scanning arch swept an invisible MRI scan through his body as he stepped through it. It would pick up the cyberware in his head: datajack, internal memory, cellular link, and so forth. There was nothing there out of the ordinary for a mid-level corporate employee, and all of it was registered in the identification he gave. There was probably some sort of astral scan as well, but Talon wasn't concerned about that. Having magical abilities wasn't illegal, and his ID showed him to be a registered and licensed magician. There was nothing incriminating for an astral observer to detect.
    On the other side of the arch, another uniformed guard took Talon's shoulder bag off the belt.
    "Could you open this please, sir?" she asked.
    "Of course." Talon said. He unzipped the bag and presented it to the guard. Sitting on top of the folded clothes and other sundries was an ornate dagger with a jeweled, golden hilt in a sheath of tooled leather. The guard took a nylon pouch from under the counter and presented it to Talon.
    "Please place your magical devices in here." she said, glancing at the dagger like it was a snake. Talon accepted the bag, picked up Talonclaw, and dropped it carefully inside. Several other small items followed the blade. Then he pulled off the adhesive strip and sealed it. The guard placed a bar code on the outside of the bag and had Talon sign a datapad before carefully placing the bag in a plastic bin behind her. Enchanted items, particularly weapons, were carefully controlled, especially after some unfortunate incidents years ago, when Awakened terrorists used magic to destroy or hijack flights. Talon knew his dagger would be carefully examined for any signs of dangerous spells or other enchantments. Andrew Nolan was registered to carry and use a weapon focus against magical threats, so again there was nothing incriminating about the blade for anyone to find. Still, Talon hated entrusting the weapon to the airport handlers. There was a good chance he would need Talonclaw's power before this run was over, so he sure wasn't about to leave it at home.
    At least Aracos didn't have to go on the plane with them. Talon could just imagine his ally's complaints at the indignities of air travel, to say nothing of the food. No, Aracos returned to his home in the depths of the metaplanes before the team arrived at the airport. Only once they were safely in Germany would Talon summon him again. He sometimes wondered what it was that spirits like Aracos did when