As we descended further into the mountain, we came upon a massive chamber. There was fire along the walls, and randomly-placed burning pits scattered along the ground. The chamber went on an impossible distance, with smaller chambers branching off here and there from the uneven walls. I glanced to Akshainie, who was starting to sweat.

“Well, we found somewhere warm,” I said.

“You’re hilarious,” she answered flatly. I laughed and looked around. A small fire spirit, that looked like a living flame with arms and legs, leapt out of one of the pits, carrying a small pile of red hot volcanic rocks. Akshainie drew her swords and stared. It jumped when it saw us, throwing the rocks into the air and landing on its back. The rocks clattered to the ground around it, and it sat rubbing what passed for a head for a moment.

“Oh! Oh my, sorry, I didn’t expect…hold on,” it said, before scrambling to its feet and beginning to gather the stones. Akshainie sighed and put her swords away.

“What is this place?”

“You don’t know? How did you get here if you don’t know?”

“Through the mountain.” I crossed my arms and waited as the flame nodded slowly, then grabbed the last rock.

“Right, well, at any rate, if you don’t know then you haven’t seen the boss, and if you haven’t seen the boss, you really should.”

“What’s it saying?” Akshainie asked, in English. It took me a second to register that we hadn’t been speaking a human language.

“Oh, uh, hold on,” I said, before turning back to the spirit. “So where do I find your boss?”

“Down this way,” the spirit answered. It adjusted the pile of rocks to ensure they were balanced in its arms and started walking.

“It’s leading us to the spirit in charge of this realm.” I started walking, and Akshainie slithered alongside me. “You going to be alright down here?”

“It’s not exactly made to keep water-aligned spirits comfortable. Let alone water-aligned spirits wearing metal.”

“You can take it off.”

“Oh, can I? Would that be alright by you?”

“Why are you being weird about this?”

“I’m being weird!? I can’t so much as wear a thin shirt without you turning away and covering your eyes! What is it about me that you find so impossible to gaze upon?”

“Your breasts.”

“And what’s wrong with my breasts?” she demanded. I groaned and rubbed my neck.

“It’s not that there’s something wrong with them. It’s…let’s call it Catholic Guilt.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You guys aren’t trying to talk to me, are you? Because I don’t know what language that is,” the spirit said.

“No, sorry, we’re sorting something out is all,” I answered.

“Seems rude to be doing that right now.”

“You’re right.” I looked back to Akshainie. “Look, can we do this later?”

“How much later?” she asked.

“Look, as soon as this is over, we’ll take a break and talk, okay? I know a place you may like.”

“Yeah, okay.”

We continued in silence after that, occasionally noticing other spirits jumping into pits or dancing or tending the flames on the walls. The place grew more crowded the further we went, and when we reached what seemed to be a fairly busy interchange the spirit stopped and turned to us.

“Okay, look, this is it. I need to take these stones further down, but the boss is here somewhere,” it said.

“Oh, okay. Thank you,” I answered. It nodded and scampered off.

“What now?” Akshainie asked. “Which one of these little…sprite…things is in charge?”

“I don’t think any of them are.”

“Cousin!” a new voice bellowed, echoing around the chamber. We turned to find a large serpentine being made of fire, about as tall as me, with three pairs of arms and a smooth face like an amphibian emerging from one of the chambers. All the other spirits glanced at it, then at us, before resuming their work. The being charged forward and wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace. He pulled back with his hands on my arms and looked me over. “Haven’t had a visitor of your kind in centuries! And you brought a friend! She…looks uncomfortable.”

“She’s a water-aligned spirit.”

“Oh! You should have said! Hold on,” he let go of me and held his arms out, lowering them slowly as he concentrated. The temperature in the room decreased, and he stopped when we heard a sigh of relief from Akshainie. “There we go. Come! Come, let me show you around.” He slipped off back down the corridor he’d emerged from, and I nodded in that direction. We both set off, following our host.

When we arrived at the campsite that evening, I relit the fire for Akshainie and went to a bit of ice still present on the mountain where I had stored the rest of the deer from the night before. Gathering a sufficient chunk for our dinner, I brought it back and held it over the fire. Akshainie was back in her naga form, had been for a few hours now, and her body was coiled around the fire as close to the stones as she could get without touching them.

“Are you going to be alright down there?” I asked, turning the meat over in my hands.

“It’s a hell of a lot better than that tent.”

“I’m really sorry. We could go see about the cabin if you like.”

“No, you’re right about how uncomfortable I’d be there. But this is hardly the most fire we can have here, isn’t it?”

“Well, there was very little firewood to work with.”

“You don’t need firewood.”

“Well, no,” I said. I sighed and pulled the meat off, testing it. I had learned by now that Akshainie was comfortable with her meat pretty rare, and I was functionally immune to disease, so it didn’t make sense to overcook it. “But you know I’m not super comfortable taking on my alternate form yet.”

“Okay but I am literally a snake and there is a literal glacier close enough for you to store our dinner in.”

“Okay. Okay, fine. Here.” I tore the meat in half and gave her a chunk, which she tore into immediately. I considered the best way to handle the situation, then stepped away from the fire. I pulled my clothes off, folded them nicely at the entrance of my tent, then walked into the center of the campfire. Akshainie loosened her coils to give me more room, and I changed form. The wood on the fire was consumed almost instantly, and the face of the stones pointed in my direction started to hiss as anything organic or liquid sizzled off them. Akshainie recoiled back a bit further, and then we both turned as we heard a cracking noise. There, in the cliff face nearby, a crack was opening.

“Did you do that?” Akshainie asked.

“It seems like it, but I don’t know how I could have.” We watched as the crack grew larger, and then the cliff opened to reveal a cave running into the mountain. There was a glow from deep inside it, and we could hear the distant crackling of fire and cacophony of voices. We looked at each other for a moment, then she threw her armor on and grabbed her swords as I stepped out of the campfire. We cautiously made our way to the entrance, peeked in to find the path ahead twisting away into the rock, then braced ourselves and stepped inside.

In the morning, we redressed Akshainie’s injury and began our search in concentric circles starting with the edges of the lake and working outward. We took it fairly easy to avoid aggravating her side, which annoyed her to no end, but I insisted on not diving into anything major right away. Especially since she wasn’t wearing her armor, out of concerns about how it might rub against the bandages and disrupt healing. When we made it to the top of the ridge east of our camp, we noticed a large cabin at another nearby lake.

“Did you know that was there?” She pointed her sword at it.

“I did, yeah,” I answered. “It has rented rooms, but it’s pretty specifically for hikers and the beds are in fairly communal spaces.”

“And you elected to have us camping because?”

“Well, we aren’t here as hikers, and I thought you might like being able to assume your naga form for the bulk of our time here.”

“Is it warmer in there than it is in the tents?”

“I suspect so.”

“And that didn’t seem relevant to you?”

“Sorry, I don’t really notice the cold and didn’t think about it. It hasn’t come up aside from Norway.”

“Yeah, well, it’s coming up.”

We made our way over to the cabin, with Akshainie taking on her human form, and met the caretaker of the building. He welcomed us in and we spent a little time chatting about the mountains and local lore. None of his stories, or the stories he reported hearing from others, sounded like anything we recognized as Brood activity, and shortly after lunch we thanked him for his hospitality and returned to the mountains. We continued our search until the sun began to go down, but found nothing indicating the Brood of Nachash was active in the area.

We heard a lot of stories about a lot of things around town, but very little about a serpent. What bits we were able to gather centered on strange noises and sights in the mountains south of the town, and the spirits of Lac d’Oô refused to talk about it. One thing we learned was that Michael’s information had been somewhat imprecise. It seems the word that reached the Hudson estate was that there was a serpent active in a lake in Oô, and in translation that became Lake Oô, which would be Lac d’Oô. But there were more lakes further up the mountains, and in our conversations it became apparent that the stories took place near a glacial lake further uphill. So, on the second day after our arrival, we set out with camping gear to make our way up the mountain.

It wasn’t a terribly long hike to the lakes, but it was roughly a kilometer in altitude, so we decided to take it easy on the way and camp there while looking for answers instead of going up and down the mountain. It was late afternoon when we reached the lake in question, and we decided to focus on setting up camp and sorting out dinner. We could, after all, begin searching for signs of the Brood in the evening if we had time, or morning if we didn’t. Either way, we weren’t going to be any good at dealing with them if we hadn’t eaten. Akshainie slipped away to hunt as I got a fire going and set up our tents. It took me a while to find a suitable amount of wood for the fire, and I had some trouble with the new tents, but I was still done and sitting around for what must have been an hour before she slithered out from a rocky crag nearby. She had a dead deer slung over her shoulders, the blood from its massive neck wound half dried down her outfit. It took me a moment of observing her approach before I realized some of the blood was not pouring out of the deer, but her own side. I jumped to my feet and ran over, but she just slung the deer around and into my hands.

“You know how to prep this?” she asked. I nodded, and she grunted and slipped past me toward the water. I groaned and turned.

“Are you okay?” I called after her. She waved it off and continued on her way, and I sighed and took the deer back to the camp site. There, I skinned and processed the animal, and was about to hold a chunk of it over the fire for our dinner when I heard her calling for me. I set the meat and fur aside and made my way down to the water, where she was submerged up to her neck and working at something under the water.

“Ah, there you are. Look, I can’t quite reach most of the wound, can you help me with the bandage?”

“Yeah, of course. Is that what you have there?”

“What? Oh, no,” she said, holding up her armored shirt. She had managed to get most of the blood off, and it looked as though she was actively removing the bits that had dried on pretty solid before she arrived. “I have a pack on the shore there, though, which includes some wraps and medicinal herbs.” I dug through her pack until I found what I needed, and when I turned back she had moved far enough ashore that her upper body was out of the water. I turned away from the sight of her standing there topless, and she groaned.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“I don’t mean to disturb your delicate sensibilities, priest, but I’m not done cleaning this shirt and you’ll need my skin to be exposed to bandage it anyway.”

“Right. Of course.” I removed my shoes and socks and rolled up my pants and waded into the water. I made my way around to her back, where I could see the gash more clearly, and felt a bit of her tail rise up under me.

“You’re too tall up there,” she said, which I had to admit was accurate. I sat on the portion of tail, took a closer look at the wound, and got to work.

“Why not just heal it, like you did with Henry?” I started by cleaning the wound out better. It looked like she had tried, but could only get so much done from her angle.

“It’s…tricky, with spirits. Besides, I earned this one.”

“What happened out there?”

“A stupid accident.”

“How stupid?” I reached down for two stones and used them, and the bit of water still on them, to grind some of the herbs into a paste. She sighed and lowered the shirt.

“I cornered the deer.”

“And it fought back.”

“You know, it’s been a few years traveling with you, and I haven’t had to hunt for one meal in that entire time. And I didn’t honestly do much hunting back at Iravati, if I’m honest.” She winced as I applied the salve, and we were both silent for a moment as she recomposed herself. “It was mostly fishing. So I forgot how good deer were at defending themselves.”

“And how scared animals get when cornered by a snake with swords?” I asked. She chuckled, and I began wrapping the bandage around her. When I reached around to her stomach she raised her arms out of the way so I could grab the bandage with my other hand and continue the work.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“But this wasn’t done by antlers.”

“Not directly. He knocked me back against a stone outcropping. It was low and pushed the shirt up, caught me by surprise.”

“Is that the deer you brought back to camp?”

“You’re damn right it is.”

I finished up and stood, and she lowered her tail back into the water and ran her hands over the bandage. I made my way back to shore and repacked the materials I hadn’t used. I felt her hand on my shoulder, and turned to find her smiling at me.

“You did good. Thanks. Also, I need the undershirt you’re sitting on,” she said, pointing to a piece of cloth I hadn’t paid much attention to when I came back. I stammered a bit as I shuffled out of the way, and watched as she set the armored shirt down and slipped the cloth one on. “You enjoying the show?”

“Sorry, I guess I didn’t really think about it.”

“It’s okay, Benedict.” She slithered over and rested her hand on my cheek. “It’s probably best we start getting more comfortable around each other. Who knows where the next bandage will be?” We stared at each other for a while, and then I nodded and slid my hand up to move hers away from my face.

“Of course. But you must be famished after all that work.” I went back to the fire and grabbed the hind quarter I’d prepared earlier and held it over the flame. She arrived shortly thereafter, carrying her things, which she dropped next to one of the tents.

“Yeah,” she said, softly. “I am.”

We really had very little to go on when we landed at Altiport Peyresourde. Michael's information claimed there was some activity involving a great spirit serpent in the mountains south of the airport, near Lac d’Oô, and that it had caused some trouble for locals. Michael had been kind enough to get us a car from the airstrip to the town, but from there we were on our own. I decided to sort out accommodations for us and check in with my supervisor in Rome, and she slipped into the spiritual realm to start asking around. It didn’t really occur to either of us right away that the spirits would be accustomed to speaking French, which she didn’t know. So I was in a small rented room on the phone when she burst out of the spiritual realm ranting about how she couldn’t find a single spirit using a sensible language. On being questioned, I briefly reminded them that I was traveling with an expert who had just returned from some preliminary scouting and quickly got off the phone.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to maintain permission to travel with you?” I asked.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a spirit that doesn’t turn its nose up at you when you don’t speak the local human tongue?” she demanded, slumping back onto a bed and slowly coiling her lower half on the floor beneath her. “I hate Europe. We’re still in Europe, right?”

“Yes. France is in Europe.”

“Fucking Europe.”

“Yes, well, am I to take it then that you haven’t found anything useful?”

“Not yet. But I bet there’s spirits that at least speak the language of water in that lake nearby.”

“You didn’t check?”

“I needed to cool down before I dealt with any more locals,” she said, rolling off the bed and stretching. “Any luck on your end?”

“Well, we have this room, which is not a hotel, so please be mindful of the limitations there.”

“Very productive.”

“I’ve also suggested that we are here to record local lore. We have a dinner tonight with a local man who is very eager to tell us all about local customs and folklore. It seems the Pyrenees do not get nearly as much attention as the Alps and he is excited to correct that.”

“Does he know about me, or is he just expecting you?”

“He’s expecting both of us.”

“What does he think we are?” she asked. I looked at her confused for a moment. “As in, are we dressing nice? Should we be acting like professionals, or romantic partners, or…?”

“I did not indicate anything that would make us pretend to be in a relationship.”

“Bene, we’re in a relationship.”

“I mean a romantic relationship.”

“It might be fun to pretend you have interest in romance, one of these times. Really test our skills at fitting in.”

“I never said I’m not interested in romance. Just that my vows preclude it.”

“Right, your vows, again. Well, at any rate, what image are we putting forth tonight?”

“Dress comfortably,” I said. “I suspect you’ll have legs late into the evening.”

Sure enough, there was little else for me to do. The suspects were processed in whatever manner was normal for the estate, and then Michael met with us for a debrief. The essential message of it was that we had done a great service for the Crown that day, and would be compensated accordingly. I don’t know what he paid the others, but the cheque handed to me was significantly more than I expected, and Akshainie’s was similar. She asked me later how one spends a cheque, and we ended up having a long discussion about how to get her a bank account.

Before we had that discussion, however, Michael took Akshainie and I aside and we discussed what was next. He was guarded about what, exactly, was going to happen regarding those we’d arrested, and seemed mostly focused on us. We told him about our recent shift in focus to finding ritual sites that were providing the cult with magical energy, and I expressed my concerns about the cult’s increased activity. He took us to the estate library, and showed us records that they’d been receiving about some serpent-based spiritual activity near the border of France and Spain. He informed us it was beyond his jurisdiction, but not ours. We discussed what few details he had, and it was agreed that we would be flown to the Pyrenees the next morning.

After breakfast, we had a brief period to say our goodbyes to Matteson and Alice before they left for a day in town and we were driven to the plane.

“Do you think he’ll really do it?” Akshainie asked, finally, as we were looking down on the French countryside.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Make things right with Iravati?”

“I don’t know. I take him as a man of his word, however.”

“You almost sound remorseful about that.”

“Well.” I thought for a moment as we flew over a river. “It’s what he wouldn’t say that concerns me.”

“Do we trust him to do what’s right?”

“I think we can trust him to do what works,” I said. “And, I suppose, establishing a better relationship with Iravati does work for him.” Akshainie grunted an agreement, and we both turned our attention back to the view.

We had to split up for the last two raid locations, with Michael identifying a group of cultists in a building for me to take out before they could react, while he dealt with picking off the individuals scattered around the area.

The cultists who held vantage points, it turned out, were also relying more on weapons than on magic. Allowing enough heat to escape my body reduced their attacks to mere annoyances, and that in turn caused them to yield quickly. Which was quite good, as I fear what would have happened to the structure of the buildings if I had kept my heat up much longer. I am convinced at least one of them was already compromised from my brief burst; when I raised the matter to Michael, he promised to have someone look into it.

The lack of magic concerned me, however. In every other instance of encountering the Brood of Nachash, they relied heavily on the power of their dark gods. Here, they relied heavily on illegal weapons. I considered the possibility that the people I was facing were not actually part of the cult, but I could find little reason for him to have otherwise been able to identify them the way he did, and their weapons were still illegal. If they were part of the cult, it suggests that either they’re branching out, or that their recruitment in Britain did not allow them time to properly initiate these cells. Such a rush cannot be looked upon lightly.

After everyone was arrested and safely transported to the prison, we stepped through the gate and I was formally introduced to Lord Hudson. I checked with him and with Michael, and there was no sign of anyone matching the Barzai’s description at any of the raid sites. It was possible he would have been at the attack on the bishop, we were still waiting for Akshainie and Matteson to return, but I was growing concerned. If the Brood is in enough of a rush that they’re suddenly getting sloppy in training, and the Barzai is occupied elsewhere, something big was in the works. We would have to be vigilant against that, and I was concerned we were running out of time.

There was little else for me to do, however, so I was shown back upstairs while the Hudsons began to process their suspects. I reminded them that I was available if any last rites were needed, with a stern look reminding them I did not want them to be needed, but I left all the same. The fact is that I had no real authority here, and it was beginning to appear my work was complete. I took a walk around the grounds to think, and stopped when I found the work site where the corner of the estate was being rebuilt. Alice was there, as well, and I walked to her.

“You seem bothered,” I said. I noticed she was shivering, so I allowed a little more heat to escape my form.

“It’s…it’s nothing, Benedict. But thank you,” she answered, softly. She soon noticed the heat, and shifted closer to me. We both stared at the wall for a long moment.

“Did Matteson really do that?”

“I don’t know. Melinda said the place was so infused with magic that he might have, but we weren’t able to see exactly what happened. The cult priest was also calling on some spell or another at the time, it may have been him.”

“I see.” We stood in silence for another length of time, and when I glanced down to her I noticed a tear on her cheek. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about something? As someone who hears confessions, I understand how to keep it between us.”

“I appreciate that, but no. I think it would be best if I didn’t. I guess this trip just didn’t go how I expected it to.”

“You have seen very little of the supernatural before now, have you not?” I asked. She nodded. “I imagine it must be quite the shock.”

“That’s one way to put it. I just…” She faded out, then paused before looking up at me. Her eyes were welling up with tears now. “What do I do, father? I love Matteson, but if this is what his life is like, am I really ready for it? Is this really want I want for my life?” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

“Every life has different challenges than you expect going into a relationship,” I said. “No one can decide if those challenges are worth it to you but you.” She buried her face in my chest and cried, and I held her and waited. I wasn’t tracking the time, but it must have been some minutes before she finally pulled back and looked into my eyes again.

“Thank you. I think I just needed to get some of that out.”

​“Well,” I said, wiping the hair from her face and giving my best comforting smile, “just make sure you don’t hold the rest in too long, okay?” She nodded, and slipped away back inside the house. I gave the house work one more look before continuing my walk.

By sorting out the targets for the cult cells and basing their locations on the ley network they would certainly be using to instantly mass communicate, Benedict and I were able to map out where to find the cells with a workable level of accuracy. The first three cells, it was close enough to strike before they realized we were there for them; a quick ambush from both of us at full power, and a portable door that tossed them straight into the dungeon as soon as they were sufficiently subdued, made short work of them. Short enough they couldn’t get a warning out. Exactly the goal, augmented by Benedict’s desire to avoid killing as much as possible.

It was nearing noon. We hadn’t heard from Matteson and Akshainie, and were beginning to wonder why. Were they having difficulty? With Matteson’s wound he would certainly be limited, and there was nothing we could do to speed his healing. But they had ways of letting us know if they needed help. Had the cult not attacked yet? If not, when were they planning to? Would the cult be on higher guard once the time for the attack came?

As we approached the fourth location, I received a call from father. He and his personal team had gone after the cell targeting the Queen, due both to proximity and the need for the true Lord Hudson to be handling something so sensitive. It was a harder fight than ours had been—they were prepared for stronger defenses, after all—but the task was finished and the cultists were in custody. He was now on his way to the cell targeting the Archbishop of Canterbury, and we had two more to handle.

This group was more well-hidden than the others. We knew they were nearby, but the area was more densely populated than the others we’d dealt with so far, and it was harder to pinpoint their locations. The others had a limited number of places they could actually be in the space; with the shops and flats surrounding us, we had no idea if our targets would even be collected in one spot. And, of course, collateral damage was much more likely here. We had to be far more careful. Benedict and I found a secluded place where I could work out a spell.

“Why are you trying to keep this a secret?” he asked, after I’d ensured we weren’t being watched.

“Are you suggesting that the rest of the world does not?” I asked.

“Well, I certainly don’t know about that. But I am certain that neither Akshainie nor Matteson will consider secrecy an important aspect of their mission if you didn’t tell them.”

“Why not? They come from somewhat civilized lands.”

“Akshainie comes from a culture that openly discusses the spiritual side of reality, and I don’t know how you think things work in the United States, but the only secrets they keep are sexual. And that, only occasionally,” he said. I stopped and looked him in the eye.

“I have been to the States. They did not seem very open about magic.”

“It’s not that they’re open about it. Most of them seem to just assume it’s around but not important to their lives. They might focus only on miracles, or get very interested in psychics, or any number of things. But they generally think of it as something that happens from time to time, just usually outside of their personal experiences, and have a tendency to explain away any minor forms of it they come across. It’s a weird balance.”

“But the end result is that Matteson will just chat about it? Be open about his involvement in the supernatural? Because it is part of his personal experience?”

“That has been the impression he’s given me.”

I groaned and refocused on the task at hand. I should have probably given them more clear directions about how to carry themselves in England, but it was too late now. I’ll just have to have a debrief with the bishop later if anything happens. The spell I need for now would be more difficult, however. I no longer had access to the magical signature I’d used to track the cult before, and even if I did, it was likely at least a bit different between cells based on their regional connection to the ley network and the specific spells they were doing in preparation. I was going to have to use the Registry.

Using the Registry was cumbersome for daily use. Augmenting my vision to compare every individual with a non-standard magical nature against the records of every single registered embodied spirit and mage across the Empire took time, and often added a slight bit of lag on my senses. Benedict would have to pick up my slack if we had to actually fight. But it was a necessary spell for every Hudson to know, because it was useful in instances like this, where I needed to be able to quickly identify members of the magical community and determine if they were a threat. The cult was not registered, and while their members could technically have registered under false affiliations, something in their file should have failed to line up if they had. Red flags and unregistered magic users would have to be my targets in this setting; hopefully, if any of them were not part of the cult, we’d be able to sort them out in questioning back at the estate. I was growing concerned that Benedict would not endorse such a system, and reactions would be even worse if he told the Americans; so I simply told him that the spell allowed me to register people affiliated with the cult. Father and I could deal with the sorting later, without our freelancers. The spell was ready and cast, and as I turned around my vision marked Benedict as an unregistered half-spirit.

​“It’s ready,” I said. He nodded and let me through, and we began searching the neighborhood.

One by one, the beacons were going dark.

I couldn’t contact Benedict or Akshainie while they were in the metaphysical realm, since phones didn’t exactly get reception there, but I could mark their progress by observing the order in which beacons on the other side of town were snuffed out. I didn’t know exactly what they were doing with the cultists—the result from my end would be the same whether the cultists were dead or unconscious—but it hardly seemed important. I was already able to ambush and arrest three lone cultists, but I was carefully watching the beacon on the move. One of them, it seemed, was staying a step ahead of me, and after the third ambush I stopped to study its direction. I checked it against my map when I got suspicious, and grew concerned that it was heading toward the estate.

The estate, of course, could probably defend itself. Roderick and mother were sufficient to handle most isolated threats, and the estate has its own defenses, and of course they had the option of recalling father from London. But I was still concerned, and kept an eye on it until I saw it go dark as well. There was still one more isolated cultist I was tracking, but by this point the line of the other team’s progress was leading directly to what seemed to be a hub of beacons, and I didn’t want to leave them without backup.

On the way there, I received a call from mother. She informed me that Matteson had taken down a cult priest, who was now in the dungeon, and Alice had delivered some paperwork from that priest that indicated the next steps of their plan. I agreed to collect Benedict and Akshainie as soon as we were done with our next strike and return to the estate to study those documents. I also asked how Matteson fared against the priest, and she hesitated before telling me to brace myself for seeing some collateral damage when we returned. I made a mental note of that and we disconnected.

I arrived at an abandoned warehouse outside of town and meditated to sense the presence of people in the metaphysical realm. I waited about ten minutes before I felt the others arrive, and then exited the car as a massive flaming demon and a naga, unmistakably Akshainie, stepped out of the metaphysical realm.

“Is this what you normally look like, Father?” I asked.

“Normally? No,” he replied. The fact that it was Benedict’s voice unnerved me but I couldn’t put my finger on why it should.

“Do you know how many are in there?” Akshainie asked.

“Looks like about thirteen,” I said, “but these things have room for error above five or so.” They both nodded, and Akshainie drew her swords. “What have you done with the others?”

“They’re waiting to be collected, in a shed over there,” she said, pointing back toward a few old houses. “Didn’t seem otherwise occupied.”

“Right.”

“What’s your play, boss?” Benedict asked.

“Do those wings work?” I asked. He nodded. “Then I would like you to start at the top. Stay out of sight until you’re inside, no need to worry the whole countryside with visions of the apocalypse.”

“Of course.”

“Akshainie, you start at the loading area over there, and I’ll start at the front entrance. We can all move in toward the center until there’s no one left.”

“Results?” Akshainie asked. I considered that we already had their plans and someone reliable to interrogate, and that we had that information because they had attacked the estate.

“We don’t need any survivors,” I said. “If you want to bother with dragging them back, that’s your problem.” With that, Akshainie and I split up and Benedict vanished. As soon as I was reasonably sure we were all in position, I charged up some offense spells and blew the door open. Inside was a robed figure frantically shoving a pile of trinkets into a suitcase; I threw a bolt of lightning that fried them before they could react. I could hear commotion beginning to echo from other parts of the building, even some gunfire, and raised a mystic shield as I made my way forward.

The other front rooms were empty, and when I entered the large main room I intercepted three people running from Akshainie with another bolt of lightning that arced between them. Split up like that, it wasn’t enough to kill them, but I summoned a sword and finished them off as I passed. Akshainie already had five slain in her path and as I made my way forward she dispatched a sixth. Benedict crashed through the catwalk above us, two figures in each massive hand. They were unconscious, I realized as we all approached each other.

“You’re bringing those ones back to the estate?” I asked. Benedict confirmed he was. “Fine. We need to return, Alice and Matteson have information for us. I don’t suppose you’ll fit in the car with those,” I said, nodding toward the cultists, then turned to Akshainie. “Will you ride back with me, or accompany him?”

​“I’ll grab the others and meet you there,” she said. I nodded, thanked them for a job well done, and walked back to the car alone.

The locus at the cult was corrupted, and feeding too much power to the cultists. It had to be decommissioned until this matter was under control. It simply couldn’t be allowed to continue playing a role in this investigation if we expected to resolve it effectively. I didn’t tell the others the plan, of course. Matteson knew his part, but he didn’t need to understand what I was going to do with it and I didn’t have time to explain anything unnecessary. And the others…well, I don’t know how much Alice even understands about magic yet, and I know how badly the other two would react to the idea of neutralizing a locus. I knew the damage from doing so would be much more widespread than we needed, but the ley network will recover in a matter of hours, drawing energy from other loci. It was a price worth paying, even if they wouldn’t see that.

I could sense the presence of Benedict and Akshainie as they lingered in the house for a minute or two after stepping into the spiritual realm, but I didn’t concern myself with them. Soon they were gone, and I was able to focus on the task at hand. The concept was simple enough; tracking spells usually look for some kind of trail to follow, and all I had to do was isolate the trail formed by the specific magic used by the cult. I drew from my pocket a trinket I’d pulled from the body of the cultist I’d interrogated. It was likely this small runic inscription was meant to be destroyed when his body was—it did appear to be made of a flammable material after all—but since he wasn’t clothed when he died I still had it. Once the ritual was set up, I used it to isolate the magical signature he’d been using and seek any trail it may have left.

At first, there was too much noise. Between the recent spell and all the magic flowing along the ley line, I could barely make out anything specific. But magic using this much power is uncommon, and if I could just get a lead in a direction different than the ley lines I would be able to track movement. So I waited, and focused, and after a while I started to get a vague sense of what I was looking for. I stepped outside of the house, and was able to see a fuzzy path. It was too fuzzy and wide to reliably trust for tracking, but it pointed me in a general direction, so I took a few steps along, checked my watch, and waited. If I had mapped out Matteson’s travel time properly, and my studies on what would be required for him to silence the locus were accurate, things would change within the next few minutes.

​Sure enough, four minutes later, I felt the ambient magic in the air shatter, and the line before me suddenly came into focus in the lack of distracting energy. In the distance, I could see pillars of light, no doubt marking the location of concentrations of Nechashic magic; the cultists. I smiled, ran to the car, and made my way to the closest beacon. It would be hours before they would go dark, but only hours. Now was the time to strike.