Law of Shadows

“Don’t get between an Old One and his...”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

All my plans were for nothing. I angrily walk down the street, fuming. Originally I had the intention to have a good night’s sleep and wipe out the trolls today. But at exactly three o’clock, several Old Ones broke through the veil. I felt it right away and woke up. They weren’t too powerful, except for one of them. So instead of sleeping, I drove to the place where the Veil was breached. From there I tried to track the eight intruders by magical means.

Unfortunately they headed directly for the capital city, which belongs to me. They took a roundabout route, clearly trying to avoid anyone who would come from the city to check on the breach. It doesn’t change the fact that they challenged me by entering my territory without permission.

And now they are hiding somewhere in my city, clearly searching for those two women.

I walk along the lake’s canal towards the city centre, hell bent on getting some answers from the troll chieftain. At least that’s what I wanted to do, when I notice a red dot flickering across the walkway. My irises narrow to slits, turning inhuman to change their visual spectrum. So it’s no big deal to follow the laser-sight to the window in the second floor on the other side of the street. And the man, who is aiming at me.

My eyes widen. “You are kidding me!”

He pulls the trigger and I scream, throwing myself over the balustrade and into the canal. The world explodes and I felt my eardrums pop. Dust and debris rain everywhere as I roll down the steep slope towards the frozen canal. At least I am now out of sight of the rocket launcher! Where the heck did they get a rocket launcher? I am not a fucking tank. Though I admit that they didn’t underestimate me, which is a point for them. The other question is how they learned who to look for? Which brings me back to the damned trolls.

Lying on the ice, I pull out my pistol and aim up the slope, ignoring the screaming people and hooting cars. If humans are good at one thing, then it’s falling into panic. When I try to get up I realize that my left foot is a shredded mess. And gods it hurts!

Making a split-second decision, I release my magic and punch the ice once, twice and a third time, creating a hole large enough to pull myself into the water. The current grips my body and pulls me away. The cold stuns me, but it has the added effect of numbing the pain. A few seconds later I feel the shock-wave of another explosion. The blue surface of the ice above the canal shivers and long cracks appear in it.

But the current pulled me farther than the attackers anticipated.

I close my eyes and silently count to twenty, allowing the water-current to do the work for me. Once I reach the magical number, I pull my fist back and punch upwards, locking my fingers into the ice. This time it’s harder to create a hole. Under water I’ve to deal with more friction and the ice is thick. After several punches the ice yields to my mindless brutality and I pull myself back to the surface, drawing a deep breath.

In the distance I can hear sirens and realise that the current carried me about fifty metres downstream, back towards the lake. I pull myself out of the water and hobble up the slope. Yesterday it was also my leg. Am I cursed?

Back on the street I ignore the lady who gasps at my sight. She’ll surely call for help, but by that time I’ll be long gone. Walking down the parking slots, I choose the first old car I can find. The new ones are too much of a hassle with their anti-theft electronics. At some point I’ll have to take the time and learn to steal the newer models.

The Peugeot 206 is an old model. All it takes to open the door, is to flip the bracket of the door-mechanism with a little telekinesis. A human mechanic wouldn’t have taken much longer with the right tools. Sometimes I have a feeling that these cars are meant to be stolen.

I take the driver’s seat as if it is my own car and rip the plastic cover off the ignition. After cursing the one who made a rat’s nest out of the wires, I finally find the right ones and start the car. Blinking, I leave the parking slot and follow the traffic jam towards the place where I was attacked. Sad, I notice that the car is ready for the junkyard. The coupling is overrunning, so I suppose that the car’s owner must be a woman.

My eyes flick to the pink plush-toy which is grinning at me. I flick it with a finger and it squeaks. And I notice the heavy scent of perfume. Definitely a woman. Maybe I should have hobbled a few metres further. At least the air-conditioning works perfectly. That’s the one thing that always works in a woman’s car. I crank the heat up to maximum and sigh.

I return to the site of the attack to get a whiff of my attacker’s magic. The gawking humans are of no interest to me as I take the time to drive past the bulk of cops and fire-fighters who were called in. The cops are already shooing the people farther away and putting up plastic tape to keep everyone away from the discarded rocket launcher. Nothing hints at the fact that something supernatural happened here, so I let them be and conserve my strength.

Instead, I concentrate on the residue of magic which was left behind by the man who fired a rocket at me. He must have crossed the street to fire the second rocket. So by simply following the traffic, I pass right through his trail. I recognize the signature as belonging to one of the eight intruders.

Slowly circling around the block, I narrow down the direction of his escape. Everyone who uses magic leaves behind something like residue radiation. I try my best to keep my magic down to a minimum, so that I can’t get tracked that easily. My intruders don’t follow that policy. I can tell that they use magic often and freely, even for small things. So it’s even more mysterious that they found me. The troll chieftain must have given them a very detailed description of me, together with the heads-up that I’ll most likely seek him out.

The ministry of traffic lies just a few houses further down the street, so it was reasonable to lie in ambush here. With their numbers, they easily blocked all the possible routes I could have taken.

Strange that I can’t sense any of the others. Did they call off the attack and run off in different directions? Or did the others simply stay in their hideouts?

I take the turn which leads me into a less frequented residential area. The people here are mostly at work during the day and there are no stores, so all I get are a few random stragglers.

When I run through the trail again, I know that I am close. I hit the breaks and make a u-turn to take the street to which the trail went. It leads out of the city and over a field towards another residential area. I stick to the speed limit and bide my time until I recognize the clothes of one of the random pedestrians. I caught up to him in a small wood plantation between the two residential areas.

He is walking on the walkway as if there is no problem at all. The fact that I drove in concentric circles to narrow down his route allowed him to get quite far.

I put the pedal to the metal and steer the wheel towards him as I pick up speed. The slightly elevated sidewalk is a problem, but I don’t care as the car bumps and blows a tire.

Grinning wide, I hit the man as he turns around. He is catapulted over my car and flips twice like a broken doll. I hit the breaks and come to a halt, then I watch him in the mirror to make sure that I didn’t hit a sorry human who just looked similar. I would have no bad dreams about it, but I have no reason to maim a corpse while the real target gets away.

When he twitches and tries to get to his knees, I know that I have the right one. I go into reverse and drive backwards. The car squashes him with a nice ‘ba-dumb’, ‘ba-dumb’ as I make a complete pass over him. Then I drive forward, aiming at his legs, and ignore the screams. I didn’t scream when he shredded my leg. At least I think I didn’t. The memories are a little hazy now with all the pain.

I stop when he is in line with the driver’s seat and open the door. With force. The door impacting his head creates a rather nice sound.

Then I pull my pistol and aim it at the whimpering man, not leaving the car. “Why are you here and who are you?”

He ignores my question and I shoot somewhere non-vital. Just to make a point. “Why are you here and who are you?”

His hands flail when I shoot again and he screams, “You mad son of a-”

I shoot.

“I was talking! Are you deaf!?” He screams again.

It sounds indeed a little muffled. I yawn and pick my ear, retrieving a clump of coagulated blood. I totally forgot that the explosion blew my eardrums. “Repeat.”

“We are here to retrieve the Hammon sisters! They are hiding inside your territory! I am Tetrach Hammon and you and your territory are so fucked- Aah!”

I shoot him again, contemplating the fact that the two female Old Ones are hiding from their own clan. There are all sorts of fucked up family situations, who am I to judge? The fact still remains that they entered my territory without asking for permission. I am a little removed from the Old One’s society, but there are ways to contact me. A little heads up would have been nice.

Admittedly, I haven’t answered any requests in eighty years. But these are special circumstances, as it is the first time in years that someone had the audacity to invade in numbers. The Hammons are located somewhere in Russia, I think. They are a big and influential clan. So maybe they don’t have all the info on how things are running in my territory. Bad information gathering from their side? We aren’t neighbours by any means. Maybe they looked at the map and found my little estate too small to be taken seriously?

Okay, Austria is kind of unimportant, and Carinthia even less, but it still hurts that they didn’t even bother to look up my clan’s history. I drum my fingers on the steering wheel.

“Get the car off me!”

I shoot him in the head. Then I drive the car off of him.

It takes me a while and it hurts as fuck, but a little later I have him in the car’s boot. I just hope that he stays down for long enough to allow me to lock him up somewhere safe. We Old Ones can heal from a lot. Only massive trauma kills us. And by massive I mean completely gutted, or cut in two. Maybe he can still be useful.

Then it takes me ten minutes to change the blown tire, even though I used a little magic to cheat. By some heavenly intervention none of the passing cars stops to help. I doubt that they would have overlooked the large smears of blood on the pavement in that case. Or the dents in the car. It didn’t look pretty before, but now it’s a wreck, even though I cleaned away the worst with water magic.

Maybe I’ll give the troll chieftain a few more days and deal with these Hammons first. They certainly earned it.