Chapter 22 – Down to business

  “In some cases, competition can inhibit growth, such as we see in siblings that compete for parent’s love. But in the case of technology, it can do wondrous things.” – Article about competing technology and market shares.

  The dynamic duo of Kurt and Val, along with special guest Penny, Made their way through the show room with Dan. He was taking them to see a new dresser set and bed after confirming the style and size. After he stepped away to check their stock, Kurt had a quick huddle with the girls.

  “What’s going on?” Val asked, preempting his opening line.

  Kurt gave her some side eye and she made a small ‘o’ with her mouth before pantomiming zipping her lip. “We got another crew of three. This time they were looking at the car right after we entered.”

  “Same group as st time?” Val asked.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know, looks like it. Same MO as the st crew other than checking out the car but we also don’t know if the previous ones did that either.”

  “I will call the help line and let them know to have a team on standby.” Penny said and pulled out her phone. She stepped away as Dan returned a moment ter.

  “Good news.” Dan said. “We have that style in stock and in that size. Bad news is that the dressers are not going to be ready until next Wednesday. They are just putting together another batch and the glue needs to set this morning before they start putting finish on it.”

  “That’s fine.” Val said after a moment’s thought. “Can we schedule delivery on 2 separate trips or only one?”

  Dan waggled his hand. “Eh, we prefer to do one trip per order if possible. I can try to bend th…”

  “Oh, no. don’t bend rules.” Val quickly said, patting the air in front of her. “Next Wednesday is perfectly fine.”

  They hashed out some of the details for the delivery and how the return would work. It all seemed a pretty straight forward process to Kurt. Penny had come back a minute after she left and gave him a discrete thumbs up. When they went to the checkout counter, Kurt was sure to shake Dan’s hand, palming him a neatly folded fifty after paying. The man had the good graces to stick that hand directly in his pocket, not even looking at the bill as his smile widened.

  They walked out to the car, Kurt had to remind both of them not to eyeball the 3 men that were watching. It was a struggle for Penny as she wanted to get details to pass on to the emergency response team.

  When they got back in the car, Kurt made a show of looking in the center console. What he was actually doing was a quick runic spell. He had to manually cast it because it was the first time since his injection.

  The traditional circle was made before he drew a stylized eye within. Unlike a normal eye motif, this one had an inverted triangle in the pupil. After drawing the eye, he drew a square around it before colpsing the circle and pushing the point of light into the bottom of the console.

  Faint feedback entered Kurt’s mind as the spell took effect. It swept over the car, giving the impression of what is and what isn’t supposed to be there. He found the usual returns like a stone in the under carriage and some mud building up on the brake caliper. There was an additional return near the back bumper that he was almost hoping to find.

  A small, matchbox sided token was pced on the underside of the bumper, just above the exhaust pipe. The impression it gave was that of being watched and of a marker buoy at sea. One normal return and one odd one.

  Kurt finished his spell and started the car, expining his findings to the girls. “It’s a tracker of some sort. I think it meant to allow them to easily spot us or know where we are within a limited range. But there is something else that I haven’t seen before.”

  “Like you haven’t seen that exact spell?” Val asked while watching the car pull out behind them and onto the road.

  “No. More like I haven’t seen or felt its type.” Kurt said then expined the sensation. Neither of the girls knew what it was either, much less from the secondhand account.

  “What’s your pn now?” Penny asked while holding her phone.

  Kurt smiled at her in the rear-view mirror. “We go get our groceries and see if our tail tags along.” In truth, he mostly wanted to see how patient they were and if they would do more than follow the car. “Val are you packin?”

  She smiled and pulled up her shirt, showing a stainless J frame revolver. “Of course, it might be hard to shoot but these thirty-eight’s are good in a pinch.”

  Groaning at her choice of carry, he turned to Penny. “How about you?”

  “Same as Val, standard issue.” She replied, taking a quick look out the rear window. “They are still following.”

  “Great, just fucking great.” Kurt swore as he pulled into the grocery store parking lot. He was partly annoyed at the people following them but more annoyed at the order issuing five shot revolvers. They could have a ten or even twelve round nine millimeter for the same size that was easier to shoot with just as much power.

  “OK, groceries and these guys today. New guns tomorrow.” He said after finding an open spot near the entrance and taking it. “Here’s the pn. We all head in but stop just inside and see if they follow or move to the car. If they just don’t come in, one of us will stay and watch the car. If they do follow us, then we go about our normal shopping.”

  “And if they send someone in and someone to mess with the car?” Val asked.

  Unbuckling and turning to see the other car pulling in further down the aisle, he thought about the possibility. “Hope they don’t, but if they do, then we go shopping as pnned.”

  “How long do you think we can stall them?” Penny asked as the walked up to the store. “The response team is wondering if they would have time to set up an ambush.”

  Kurt grabbed a cart on his way in, some asshole having left it in the middle of a parking space. “Probable another hour. I don’t think we can stall for much more time than that.” He looked out at the parking lot and saw that one of the men was walking inside after them. “Welp, lets shop then.” He said with a nod in the stalker’s direction.

  Penny then went back to furiously typing on her phone while Val pulled out the grocery list. They made their way up and down the aisles, grabbing everything on their list and some things that weren’t. The groceries weren’t needed, strictly speaking, but Kurt like to have back stock when possible and the pay from the order made that very possible.

  The man that followed them in had longer brown hair that he tucked back behind his ears. His features were rather pin, and his clothes looked to be nothing special. Other than the fact that he constantly stayed with sight of them and only put some things in his hand basket, Kurt would never guess he was following them.

  Penny finally quit typing after the fourth aisle and whispered to them under her breath when they stopped to pick out snacks. “They are prepping an ambush to take them alive. It should be ready in thirty minutes.”

  “Where at?” Kurt asked while studying the back of a bag of mixed nuts.

  “Off a dirt road a mile out of town. They are making a ritual in the road and will snag them in it as they drive over.” Penny said before she snagged a few snacks off the shelves and tossed them in his basket.

  Both Kurt and Val looked at her with confused expressions. “What? I just want to have some snacks for when I am over for work.” She said. Penny didn’t admit that she would also like to hang out socially as well as professionally.

  They continued on, making their purchases and loading up the back of the car. In the process, Kurt fumbled a can of soup and made a show of chasing it under the car. While down there, he detached the device that was on the exhaust hanger. It seemed to be magnetized so it was easy to remove.

  Palming the device, he finished loading the groceries and then took the cart back, passing the guy that had followed them in. The long-haired man kept walking, not even gncing his way. He returned the cart and stuck the device to the under side of an ash tray on the garbage can.

  “That will keep them busy.” Kurt said after getting back in the driver’s seat.

  Val leaned to look out the window, checking on the other car. “What did you do with it?”

  “Stuck it to the bottom of a garbage can lid. The kind with the ash tray on top.”

  Penny once more began furiously typing in her phone as the pulled out. Kurt saw the other car start to follow but they hesitated for a moment. They followed after a short pause, driving a little too fast to catch up.

  “Where exactly am I supposed to be going?” Kurt asked penny as he headed for the main road.

  “You are going to Millers Road off of fifty-ninth street. Its south of the city. If you take thirty-one down, you should ruin into fifty-ninth then take that south.” She rattled off the direction.

  “Well, we can’t exactly go north of the city.” He grumbled under his breath as he looked to the north and saw the ke. “Penny, congratutions, you are now promoted to navigator.”

  Pulling out into traffic, they headed in the direction Penny had told them. The people following them stayed a few cars behind, never directly following. A task that became much more difficult as they got further out of town.

  Soon it was just the car with three men and the SUV with Kurt and the girls. They drove down the route that Penny told them to, leading the car along. Eventually they gave up all pretense of discretion and started following closer.

  “This is the road.” Penny said. “The ambush point will be exactly half a mile from the intersection.”

  “And we just drive right through it?” Kurt asked. He gnced in the rear-view mirror to see that the car had followed but was keeping back a little farther due to the dust kicked up from the gravel road.

  “Yes, don’t stop, don’t slow down.” Penny’s instructions had been to just keep driving and the response team would handle it. She was curious how it would all go down but not enough to stick around for no reason in a possibly dangerous situation.

  Val giggled. “That’s what I said.”

  Kurt snorted a ugh at the inuendo, and it being pointed out like that. Penny didn’t seem to understand and just looked at Val with a questioning expression. They didn’t get a chance to talk more as Kurt felt a slight tingle run up his spine.

  The sensation affected all of them and they shivered slightly from the feeling. Kurt looked in the mirror just in time to see the car following them vanish in a very odd way.

  The jeep that had been tailing them around all morning suddenly fshed in photo negative. All its color from the green paint to the orange turn indicators inverted in an instant. He vaguely thought he saw the people inside also change but couldn’t be sure from the distance. A moment ter, the photonegative car and its passengers seemed to be rolled up like a poster before vanishing.

  “Oh fuck. I do not like that.” Kurt swore as he slowed to a stop. “That was incredibly disturbing.” He ran his hands over himself like he was trying to brush off a spider web he had walked through.

  Val was whining and scratching at her ears that she had resummoned, screwing a knuckle into one of them like she was chasing a bug. Penny seemed completely unaffected other than she looked like she wanted to sneeze.

  “That was Skalnia’s trap magic.” Penny said and looked out the rear window. “Oh, one of the response team is headed this way.”

  The man that came up to the car was absolutely massive, at least seven feet tall and built like an adamantine shit house. Kurt rolled down the window as he approached. He had to stoop to get his head in the frame but eventually managed.

  “Hey, we got them, so you are good to go.” He said in a rather clear but deep voice. “Oh, hey Penny. Want me to have the interrogation team send their findings to both you and Jay? Since we got them alive it should be good this time. Also, I think someone already went to retrieve that device you dumped earlier.”

  Penny smiled at the huge man. “That would be great. Thank you Bal’ut.”

  The giant gave a thumbs up before jogging back to his team who then teleported in the now familiar blue ring. “What is he?” Kurt asked after they had started driving again.

  “Oni. He is wearing a charm of some sort otherwise you would be able to tell from the horns.” Val answered while sending a text on her own phone.

  Kurt tried to memorize the features or the man and the scent he got after rolling down the window. He was always trying to learn how to identify other paranormals without the help of his ring. He couldn’t always touch them after all.

  “Do we have to worry about them coming to the house again? They have been there once already.” Val asked.

  Penny shook her head. “No, the hub has a sort of repelling effect. Unless you have specific business there, it tends to repel outsiders. Delivery men and such will quickly forget about it and those seeking to do you harm have a very hard time focusing on you or the area with the hub.”

  That was a relief for Kurt. He didn’t really like the idea of these people just popping over whenever they wanted. He was also thankful that Val had asked since it had been bugging him in the back of his mind without him even realizing it.

  Back at the house with groceries put away and lunch eaten, Kurt went back to his workshop. He had a long-term project that he had been working on and was making slow but steady progress. Val and Penny followed but diverted to the couch. He found it interesting that Penny seemed to be sticking around, still with her ptop out but mostly involved.

  Having gotten out his workbook from its separate, locked container, Kurt began reviewing where he left off with his project. He pulled out the designs he had drafted on the various sheets of paper. The process was very tedious because of the restrictions that he had found with the spells he wanted to use.

  “What are you working on?” Val asked, suddenly appearing at his shoulder.

  “Gah!” Kurt startled. “Shit, Val, you nearly gave me a heart attack. I only just sat down.”

  She looked at him with more than a little side eye. “You have been sitting and staring at this for an hour without moving.”

  “Oh, really? It hasn’t felt that way to me.”

  Penny joined the conversation, coming in to look around and see what he was up to while they watched one of the national mpoons movies. She moved to Kurt’s other side and inspected the drawings.

  “What is this?” Penny finally asked. “This looks to be incomplete. Like the sides, here and here, don’t really have an end point.”

  Slightly impressed that she knew anything about runic enchanting, he took a slip of paper and drew a very rough version of the inscription. He then did the same with another thin slip, all the while getting strange looks.

  When Kurt joined the opposite ends of the paper together and made a ring shape, he began to expin. “I am trying to figure out a problem that we have all been having.” Seeing that neither of them really followed his opening statement, he eborated.

  “So, you know of our bags of holding right?”

  Val perked up. “You mean the priceless artifacts that only a handful of people have ever figured out how to make?”

  “Sure, lets go with that.” Kurt smiled at her. “Well, there has always been a problem with them. Retrieval of items is pretty much limited to feeling around for it. That also limits their size since you need to have the bottom of the bag within arm’s reach yet also an opening big enough for items.”

  “Right but we cant put a summoning spell on it for reasons that I am unsure of.” Penny answered.

  “Exactly right. We can’t make an enchantment that both stores’ items in an extra dimensional space and can then summon those items out. I have no idea what that would look like and don’t even want to try. But that same problem limits us on what we can make the bag of holding from.

  “I can’t make a smaller bag or opening because I need to literally remove or pce things myself. Which is why nobody has figured out anything except various pouches, boxes or bags as bases for the enchantment.”

  Val was squinting at the paper slip still pinched in his fingers. “That looks suspiciously ‘not’ bag shaped.” She said and poked the paper. “I thought you said you didn’t know how to do the enchantment or even what it would look like for a different object.”

  “That’s because I am not doing one enchantment.” Kurt smirked. “The other issue with bags of holding is that most people want storage and stasis on it. That way they can put something like food in it without spoiling. I don’t care about that part and just want it to hold gear or nonperishables.”

  “Ok, but how do you pn to make this work?” Penny was sounding both interested and impatient.

  “One band holds the enchantment for the summoning and translocation magic.” He held up the paper slip he already had formed into a ring. “The other contains the dimensional enchant” he wrapped the other slip, writing down, around the one he already had. “All I have to do is make two focal points meet in the middle.”

  Kurt looked up to see Val with a huge smile and her tail filing around behind her while she made suggestive eyes at him. Penny, on the other hand, looked like she was about to have a stroke, her face going nearly transparent as the blood drained from it. Good news, she didn’t have a stroke. Bad news, she fainted instead.

  Thump. Penny hit the ground in a pile. “Penny. Penny!” Val said as she rushed over to her.

  Kurt moved to help y her out ft and put her in a recovery position for fainting. Val was patting her cheek and rocking her gently until, after a minute, her eyes fluttered open.

  “Hey, you ok?” Kurt said while holding her down with a hand on her shoulder.

  “Yeah, you just passed out after you made a funny face.” Val added on.

  Penny groaned and covered her eyes with a hand. “Hua. Do you have any idea what this will mean? If you actually do manage to make this and can make multiple?” She slowly sat up and leaned against the cabinets under the bench.

  “Well not really until yesterday when we talked with Jay.” Kurt admitted.

  “He will be first in line to buy one.” Penny gave him a look that said she wasn’t joking. “He wont care about price or of it’s a prototype of some sort and limited. He would murder people for the chance to have one.”

  Val looked at her and tilted her head. “Why? What is so important about that?”

  “It’s because he is a space mage himself. He wants the base concepts used and to magnify them.” Kurt guessed, taking a shot in the dark.

  Penny pointed to him then tapped her nose. “And he loves to funt things in the faces of stuck-up jerks that always give him shit about being a demon.”

  Kurt walked over to the locker that he kept his base components and materials in. He pulled out a box and brought it over. “Well buckle up then, cause this will be happening soon.” He opened the box and showed forty rings arranged in four rows of ten.

  Two of the rings had been made rather thin in profile, but otherwise resembled normal bands. They had tapering edges on both sides that ended in a step. The other two types of ring looked to be more like washers. They had a much shorter width compared to their thickness and had two carved grooves in them running along the edge.

  “These are them?” Val asked, peering into the box but knowing better than to touch by this point.

  Smiling, Kurt pced the box on the work bench and began getting out tools. “In the next couple hours, one will be.”