The Power of Ten

Sama didn’t put Tremble away, instead turning her gaze upon the still-motionless wolfwere, who seemed to have a rather desperate look of fear and fury in his eyes now.

“If you would like to talk to me further about getting proper vengeance upon those who wanted to make a pawn out of you, Elder, I would be happy to assist you. Why don’t you let this wolf with delusions of importance and I finish our business, and we can talk over tea?”

The Owl Woman considered that, and twitched two fingers.

The wolfwere howled and lunged right at Sama, who snapped up into the Archer Stand Thrust as Tremble struck two harsh notes in crystalline defiance. The wolfwere drove himself fully onto the point of the golden Blade that was swirling with a waiting Sun Strike as it plunged between his jaws, lit up his insides, and went off.

---------

Klitza came bumping up the road, pulling over when she saw Sama standing there, her golden claws shining in the night and impossible to miss.

The Mick in Bone Marrow pulled over next to her. On the hood of the car were mounted three rather fresh werewolf heads. Their teeth were almost as white as his.

“Going to make Baneskulls out of them, I trust?” Sama asked, nodding at the three heads.

“Shapechangers, Magical Beasts, AND Monstrous Humanoids,” The Mick ticked off, remembering their earlier discussions about the uses of werewolves. “Who knew they could be so useful?”

Sama just smiled knowingly. “That enough to satisfy your bosses?” she asked calmly.

“They’d be more appreciative the more I killed. That ‘going above and beyond requirements’ thing one’s superiors so love to not have to pay for ahead of time,” he admitted.

“Well, I just came off a darling tea party and dinner with the Owl Woman.” Both of them blinked in disbelief. “She can verify that pretty much all parties working around here are either dead or fled, and that includes most of the werewolves, and all the Druids who couldn’t Wildshape and flee fast enough. As you can validate your appearance here, I imagine you can spin this up sufficiently to claim total credit for setting off this series of events, perhaps unwittingly, and the Church of Imprus certainly isn’t going to claim otherwise...”

“That’s true,” The Mick mused, stroking his chin, and glancing at Klitza. “And it kindly leaves both of you out of the picture...”

“Like I want to get two Ancient Packs pissed at me,” Klitza sniffed.

“Ah!” Sama said, holding up her finger suddenly, and then pointing it at Klitza. “You’ve been appointed as the Head Shaman for the Owl Woman!” she exclaimed, and lifted an owl figurine on a leather thong out and held it out to Klitza.

“I who the what now?” Klitza blurted out, even as she reached out to accept the Token.

“The Owl Woman is not happy with what the two Packs did, nor the faction of Druids here. She would prefer at this time to have someone affiliated to talk to and through. I was naturally very unsuitable for the position, and being as you’re so up with modern tech and you’re a literal lone wolf, you’d be quite ideal for the job.

“Congratulations, Great Shaman of the Owl Woman!”

Klitza blinked at the Fetish in her grasp, feeling the power and connection to a great and ancient power that lay within it. “Oh, my...” she managed to say after a long moment.

“Congratulations. Right time, right place,” The Mick observed knowlingly.

“The first order of business is a little matter of some revenge. The Owl Woman is interrogating the spirits of the dead, and is going to be quite clear that she doesn’t like being involved in the political games of idiot mortals. That Fetish enables her Great Shaman to Summon her to a place, at which time she can take her vengeance upon those who devised this scheme.

“I told her that I probably wouldn’t mind if a few little gratuitous reminders that Imprus isn’t all that were administered to his followers, and I would be happy to help. You should probably Commune with her soon and get an idea of her ambitions.” Sama turned as a rumbling passed overhead, and a flight of military jets, flying low as they were required to stay under the Haze, flew by, looking for signs of moving trees.

“Lord Mick, if you could make a phone call and get information moving up the ladder to the interested parties, perhaps as part of your report. The Owl Woman has moved her demesne, so nuking this area is just going to glass a lot of trees, and she’s having the plants devour and break down the dead rapidly, so there’s no risk of mass undead rising here.”

“I can start that report right now,” he agreed with a grin, fishing out his Vaccine cell phone. His superiors would earn some major quiet kudos for being the first to report the truth of the situation here, even if it was all dressed up in bald-faced lies.

“Ohhh, you got one of the new ones!” Klitza blurted out, bending down to look at the latest model. Sama thought it still looked a bit clunky, but cell phones were still decently new tech, although they were improving rapidly, given how magic helped create smarter people with more Ranks in stuff.

“Leave out whatever you can’t personally verify and validate,” Sama warned him.

“Please, lass. I am a professional translator and profoundly fluent in Bullshitese,” The Mick sniffed, his dark eyes dancing. He stepped away from them, hitting some buttons and raising the cell phone to his ear.

He still got coverage, even after the Trees Walked. Sama saw him cast the Message spell to power up the Vaccine and connect it despite the fact any local cell towers and cables were probably down.

She looked back at Klitza. “We’re going to go home and do some research.”

“On what?” the werewolf asked, still stroking the Owl Fetish in her hands, and imagining how her life was going to change.

Sama pointed at a small mound nearby in the darkness. The werewolf looked at it, narrowed her eyes, and abruptly realized it was a stack of bound-up heads.

“The Church of Harse is going to question these guys and find out who they are, and where they came from. Owl Woman was nice enough to provide the heads. As long as we know where they came from, we can find out who hired them, which should lead us eventually back to the people responsible.”

“We’re going to be leaving St. Paul...” Klitza said after a moment of thought.

“Yeah, things are going to get violently crunky. I have to wind down my business a bit, say goodbye to the friends I’ve made, and start Bringing It.” She paused. “As her Shaman, you’re not going to be able to turn this down, you know.”

Klitza shook her dark hair, a complex look in her eyes as she traded the free life of a lone wolf for the obligations and power of a Shaman. It would be very different from her past life as an outcast from the society of the Packs.

Perhaps it could be something much, much more...

“Would you have taken this, if you could?” she had to ask.

“It’s a moot point, because I can’t. If I could, I’d be an Annish Hag, and I’d gaff her or use her. She’d never pick me.

“Now, if you’re saying that if I could ignore all that and it would be my choice, I would counter that I’d be irked, because it wouldn’t be my choice. She’d have just made me her Shaman, and that would be that.”

“Did you impress her that much?” Klitza chose to be impressed herself, rather than envious. After all, Sama couldn’t be a Shaman.

“After she watched me Null Strike one of her spells? She wanted me as a servant or minion, not a mere ally she couldn’t control. She’s not dumb... I’m a minor threat to her now, but I’ll be a major threat when I get older.

“Still, she was wise enough to believe me, set up a positive relationship, and it turns out that we don’t like racist arseholes with Divine backing any more than we like racist arseholes without it.

“Since the Church of Imprus is acting against us, we’re perfectly free to act against them.”

“So, at some point, the Church is going to move against me,” Klitza remarked, narrowing her eyes.

“Aye, you’d better get some anti-divination stuff up, and keep it up at all times,” Sama agreed, and inclined her head at the Fetish. “I’m guessing that right there probably will do the job for you for magical stuff, but what you really want is Vampire’s Veil. Given who your Patron is, getting the goldweight and power to do such a thing shouldn’t be too awful hard...”

Klitza leaned forward slightly. “Vampire’s Veil? What’s that?”

“It’s an Arcane spell that imitates the technological invisibility of vampires, who can’t be caught on camera or film or otherwise seen by non-living devices, because they have no shadows.”

Klitza’s eyes got very wide. “Wouldn’t that mean you could just waltz through most security systems?” she had to ask.

“You mean sonar, air pressure, floor pressure, thermal detection, and motion sensors?” Sama asked dryly, and Klitza shut up, looking a little chagrined. “But, in terms of not being seen by cameras of any sort, it comes in very, very useful.”

Klitza smiled widely. “No more traffic cameras or speed traps to worry about.”

“Just remember to turn it off for when you’re supposed to be visible on them,” Sama warned her mildly, and she just laughed.

“So, we’re heading back home?” she asked, glancing north, the idea of getting out of this place definitely appealing to her. She’d seen more than enough gory red remains of people and domesticated animals, destroyed roads, and demolished homes, farms, and vehicles to last her a while.

They were just fortunate no undead were rising from all the people and animals that had been killed, or the night could have gotten very interesting, indeed.

“What are the ramifications for this area?” Klitza had to ask.

“It’s an isolated small town that was completely demolished by a pissed-off magical power that has now left the area. I imagine the town itself is going to go away or be moved, maybe just end up as a gas station for the local farms.

“Someone is going to leak that the Druids and werewolves are responsible, so we have to counter-leak first. Think you can get a phone call off to Elder Huvultlesski, letting him know what’s coming and to spread the subtle word? If Imprus wants to spread the blame, we’re going to make damn sure they are included in it.”

“And that’s why we need to get those heads back to be questioned?”

“It is,” Sama agreed.

“I can’t get a signal out here right now,” she said, looking at The Mick in chagrin.

“What, you can’t drop five hundred bucks on a new Vaccine? So cheap!”

“My Clair-dial is only a year old!” the werewolf protested.

“And proving just how fast tech evolves,” Sama riposted smoothly, and Klitza could only growl. “Ah, don’t worry about it. He fed it a Message, and you probably can’t even Orison until you Commune with her at least once.”

“Time to go?” Klitza asked, with a glance at the Blooded still talking on the phone.

“Borrow his phone when he’s done, we’ll get our stories straight, and take off,” Sama agreed.

---------------

An hour later, the two parties shook hands all around on a job well done. The word was out to parties with an interest, America wasn’t going to drop a nuke onto its own soil, the Owl Woman had a mad on for a Church that should have known better than to piss off one of ancient sleeping spirits with power, and a certain Blooded had wreaked vengeance on his targets, going above and beyond the call of duty.

It was a fine sequence of events, and the start-up for the new chief Shaman of the Owl Woman, who was going to let those people who had planned this know that they weren’t the only one who could bring down some firepower...

==================

Sama is now firmly on the shit list of at least two werewolf clans, the Church of Imprus, and has no friends in the Amazons of Eryl... and that’s only the beginning of who she has pissed off. But that will wait for the next arc.

Next chapter, we return to Traveler, in the world for a mere eighteen days instead of years, and already turning things upside down in a certain segment of society...