Witch Of The Federation IV (Federal Histories Book 4), page 42
“Whose grandpa is that?”
“Dunno.”
“He’s gots pointy ears,” came in a child’s version of a failed whisper.
Another giggle greeted that, followed by, “I like them.”
Several parents had turned to look at the old mage, but Tethis appeared to be too busy watching a dog chase a flying flat disc over the grass. It looked for all the world like he hadn’t heard a word.
“He’s a better actor than I am,” Amy muttered, and Elizabeth had to agree.
The dog missed the disc and it landed at the mage’s feet. He leaned forward and ignored the canine racing towards him. By the time the animal had reached him, he had picked the disc up.
The dog gave an indignant bark and stopped in front of him.
“Yes?” he asked it, and the animal bounced and barked again, its eyes fixed firmly on the disc in his hand.
He glanced at it. “This?” he asked and received another bark. “Do you want it?”
It spun in a circle and stopped to face him.
“Very well,” Tethis told it. “Give me a minute. I haven’t thrown one of these before.”
It took him a moment to rearrange the disc in his hand and hurl it away over the grass with the dog tearing happily in pursuit. The Teacher sank onto his seat and watched.
Elizabeth swore he was smiling.
“Well, he seems happy,” Amy remarked and looked at her. “Are you sure you want to spoil his day?”
Her boss gave her a sharp glance. “Who said I’d be spoiling it?”
She started forward and marched across the road and path and onto the grass. In reality, it did seem like a shame to spoil the man’s peace, but that didn’t change the fact that it needed to be done.
He didn’t even turn his head as she approached.
“I wondered when you’d decide to interrupt me,” he said when she’d almost reached him.
“It’s not me interrupting you,” she snapped and slid onto the bench beside him. “It’s the Telorans.”
His gaze shifted to follow two joggers circumnavigating the park, then drifted to observe two boys and a girl who passed a football between them. When he spoke, it had nothing to do with the humans playing around him.
“They have much to answer for. What do you believe they are doing now?”
“I think they’ll attack Dreth,” she told him as the girl intercepted a pass and bolted away across the park with the boys in hot pursuit.
“Dreth, eh?” Tethis mused. “But they’re supposed to eliminate Earth, first. That’s a little ambitious of them.”
The girl succumbed to a well-placed tackle and eventually gave up the ball. He smiled as the three friends scrambled to their feet and headed to an ice-cream cart.
“With a tackle like that,” he observed, “it had better be a double cone to apologize.”
“She deserved it,” Elizabeth commented. “And she deliberately provoked them.”
“They weren’t sharing,” he told her. “Rather like your Telorans.”
“These have better manners,” she argued. “The Telorans want to both keep the ball and put their opposition out of play.”
“Like Meligorn?” he asked, his voice troubled.
Across the park, everyone had double scoops in a cup.
“Smart kids,” Tethis said. “Now, they won’t lose it when it melts.”
“And they can share it with the dog,” Amy added as the furry disc-chaser ran up to the trio, the disc in his mouth.
“Something the Telorans would never do,” the old Teacher observed. “So, this attack on Dreth—when do you think it’ll happen?”
“I’m not sure,” Elizabeth admitted, “but I may have a way to find out.”
“Don’t make me come in there and dig it out,” he warned and she caught an edge to his mild tone that suggested he was more than capable of doing what he threatened.
It sent a shiver down her spine and she remembered that the Master had many years behind him and a past she knew nothing about. Perhaps it’s about time that changed.
She didn’t pursue the thought. “I have a friend.”
“The kind of friend you want to keep?”
“Not if he’s done what I think he has.”
“Which is?”
“Sold us out to our alien friends.”
“Ah…” Tethis thought about it for a minute. “And you’d like for it not to be true.”
“I never said you could look inside my head.”
“I didn’t. There were other signs.” She tilted her head accusingly and he held a hand up. “Do not ask and I won’t have to lie.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I’m not exactly sure what they’re planning but I believe there will be combined actions and that Stephanie may have to be in two places at once.”
“So it’s not only your friend you need me for, hmmm?”
“No.”
“Tell me, what makes you think your friend has betrayed you?”
She sighed unhappily and explained what BURT had found that morning. Tethis listened to the multiple betrayals and watched the dog lick the empty ice-cream cups and then chase goldfish in the fountain pond, while his owner tried to call him out.
As she described what they’d uncovered on Charlie Woods, the dog bounded out with half a water lily dangling from its mouth.
“Poor Lars,” the mage murmured as the animal sprayed water over its owner, the kids with the football, and a nearby mother pushing a pram. He chuckled, and Elizabeth frowned at him.
“Not you,” he explained and indicated the drama around the fountain. “That. Humans and their pets.”
Ms E’s mouth quirked in a small smile. “Yes.”
She fell silent and he motioned for her to continue. “Go on.”
“And that’s where Tex comes in,” she told him and described the connection.
“So,” she said, “my friend has decided to support a different direction than I would have him go in.” Sadness leached into her words, more disappointment than bitterness at being betrayed. “Well,” she concluded, “whether the decision is philosophical, pragmatic or petty, he has now officially outlived any usefulness to the human race.”
“The human race? Or you?”
“In this case, it’s the same thing.”
Tethis’s smile faded. “It is much worse than merely throwing rocks at us, I think.”
“Yuh think?”
“That is what I said.” He stood and sighed as he surveyed the park one last time. “I will miss being here.”
“It’s only for an afternoon,” Elizabeth protested.
“And however many more afternoons that Stephanie needs me,” he told her and sadness deepened the lines in his face.
He looked around and returned more waves from the children’s playground. More comments rose from behind him as he walked away.
“Who’s that lady wiv him?”
“Maybe she’s his daughter.” This brought gasps and laughter.
“She’s so old.”
Amy snickered, and Tethis chuckled.
“Is not.”
“Yeah? Well, if she’s his daughter, how come she doesn’t have pointy ears?”
That comment was followed by hasty shushing noises and a short reprimand. “Alice!”
“Well, she doesn’t.”
“Maybe she’s not lucky.”
Elizabeth stifled a groan. “I hate children.”
Amy clearly had trouble suppressing her laughter, and Elle had begun to shake silently. Tethis laid a hand on Ms E’s arm.
“Don’t listen to them,” he told her, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “They don’t know how lucky you are.”
Thinking over what she’d done—and survived to do again—she decided he might have a point. She sighed again and straightened her shoulders. “Let’s get this done.”
The twinkle died from his eyes. “You are calling for your friend’s death?”
“Yup.”
“Isn’t that a judicial responsibility?”
She gave him a cold, hard glance. “I’ll get Stephanie’s blessing—she has one of those get out of jail free badges. Are you willing to help me?”
The mage glanced at the park and gave her a quiet smile with a hint of iron. “Parks are nice but they do get boring when you have held the power of the cosmos in your hands.”
“I thought you said you’d miss it?”
“And so I will,” he admitted, “but I miss the hunt as well.”
“If I told you to wait in the car…” Elizabeth began and trailed off helplessly. Amy and Elle were already shaking their heads. She sighed. “Fine. But don’t get in the way.”
She’d tucked the car in a shadowed corner near a broken streetlight, having already changed its plates. It didn’t take them long to find the front entrance.
Tethis put the guard to sleep, and the four of them walked past the gate.
“Do you think he’ll notice?” the mage asked, his voice mild as he flipped the cowl of his robes over his head.
She snorted. “No more than he’d notice a hooded wizard roaming about his warehouse parking lot.”
“How about an unhooded wizard?” he asked, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth.
“Point taken.” She smiled in response. “Come on, he’ll be expecting us.”
She couldn’t be a hundred percent sure he knew they were coming, but the bastard hadn’t answered her calls and BURT had traced the handset to the glove box of a vehicle about to be crushed.
“Well,” she’d murmured. “It sucks to be him, then, doesn’t it?”
Amy cast her a quizzical look. “How old a friend was he, exactly?”
Elizabeth thought about not answering that one, then shrugged. “He was my start—he picked me up when I was still trying to work shit out.”
Her eyes took on a faraway look for a moment before she shook herself out of it. “And made me pay twice over for every edge he ever gave me.” Her voice became hard. “Nothing covers selling your planet out for your own gain.”
They moved as a team through the carpark’s shadows. She had no doubt Tex had hacked the surveillance system and watched them as they moved—until she saw Tethis glance at one of the cameras and make a covert gesture with his finger.
The light above the camera winked once and died.
“I hope you like children’s programming,” he murmured and caught her watching him.
She cocked an eyebrow. “What exactly did—”
He wagged a finger at her, and her mouth froze. The mage smirked. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
While she wanted to smile in response, her lips couldn’t move. His magic held them a little longer before he released the spell. She rubbed her mouth vigorously. “Nice trick.”
“Would you like to see more?”
“Not until I have him in front of me, then we’ll see.”
“Do we need him alive?”
“Well, yeah. Dead man can’t tell us shit.”
Tethis nodded and she left it at that. Together, they reached fire stairs up the outside of the building and ascended quietly to where BURT had traced Tex’s movements.
“He has quite a stronghold there,” the AI had told her. “You will have to be careful. Some of his defenses are formidable, even for me.”
“Tell me about them,” she’d ordered and he had.
They encountered the first one on the landing leading into the warehouse.
Elizabeth pointed at the tracery of explosives that patterned the underside of the landing and glanced at the mage. “Let him have the cameras.”
He gave her an odd look, shrugged, and flicked his fingers toward the camera. “As you wish, E.”
She directed her most evil grin to the closest device. “I wish it very much,” she told the mage and focused on the blinking light. “Hello, Tex.”
Light sparked over the landing above her. White flared to be submersed in a purple glow, and the explosive crumbled to powder. Elizabeth raised both eyebrows and moved up the stairs.
“Wow, Tex. That is no way to greet an old friend—especially not one who’s provided you with the respect you never knew you wanted.” She placed a finger on her chin. “Now, should I be upset?”
Elizabeth made a show of thinking about it before she wrinkled her forehead. “Nah. You couldn’t possibly have meant that for me. It must be an automated system you forgot to shut down when you saw it was me.”
She reached the landing with Tethis at her side. He surprised her by thrusting a hand forward toward the door to bathe the handle in purple light. Ice formed around it and spread in delicate lacework up the door and out over its hinges. A second burst of magic made each tendril gleam and then shatter to reveal the trap within.
Again, she sought the closest camera. Tutting softly, she shook her head. “Now, now, Tex. I’d have thought you knew better than that.”
With exaggerated care, she gently extracted the glass tube seated above a framework of other similar tubes. “Come on, acid? Really? What was that supposed to do?”
“Melt your face off,” Tex muttered from where he watched her via the surveillance camera, relieved that she wouldn’t hear him.
“Honestly, did you really expect a spray of acid to blind an intruder? I hope you noticed how easily magic removed that threat?”
She set the tubes aside carefully. “Tethis, be a dear. We really can’t leave these lying around for simply anyone to stumble over.”
And what was that all about? he wondered and glowered as the old Meligornian in mage’s robes cast another spell that transformed the acid into dust and vaporized it into nothing. Emerald with a mage?
He snorted. That was hardly the woman he knew. She’d shunned all forms of magic and labeled them “make-believe” or “useless compared to a solid round” while she demonstrated the fact.
The E he knew would have gone directly for the profit, regardless of who got in the way—exactly as he’d taught her. She’d never have put a planet before her profits.
He frowned. Unless there’d been a side to her she’d kept hidden. Tex snorted at himself. Who was he kidding? There’d obviously been a side she’d kept hidden. If she hadn’t, he’d have forced her back into service long before.
Instead, he’d let her run. Yeah, and look where that’s gotten you, he scolded himself and followed her progress as she led her team through the door. The damned mage destroyed the autocannons at either end of the catwalk before he disarmed the infra-red trigger they’d tripped.
The ease with which he did it was arrogance itself and once again, the damned woman goaded him through the surveillance cam. “Oh, come now, Tex. Only two? Once upon a time, there’d have been four—and you’d have gassed us from the ceiling.”
His scowl was reflexive. He should have gassed them from the ceiling—and the floor, too, for that matter. Where the hell was the gas? He leaned forward and squinted at the monitor as he began to tap the commands in to find out.
The gas was still there but it wasn’t moving. An odd sputtering sound drew him back to the monitor.
Tethis had pushed aside one of the covers over one of the release points and Elizabeth peered inside and sniggered like a ten-year-old. She glanced at the camera. “Oh my… Tex, Texy, Tex, Tex…”
Once, he might have enjoyed hearing her say that. Not in those tones, however, and definitely in different circumstances, but— He pushed that useless speculation aside as she straightened. “It’s time to stop playing.”
The flint in her voice was a warning in itself.
“Tethis.” She said no more than the mage’s name but the Meligornian knew exactly what to do. It was like they’d worked together for years. Tex wondered what else he didn’t know about his old colleague.
“Jeez, Tex.” Her voice interrupted his musings and he realized she was at the door. She held up a small device he was more than familiar with. “I’d try the lock with this but I can’t be bothered.”
As if her words were a signal, the old mage knelt.
Tex tensed and waited for the spray of acid that should occur the second the mage touched the lock.
It didn’t, of course. The Meligornian laid his finger against the locking mechanism and purple light encased it. Glass shattered and liquid splashed against the inside of the magic bubble, but the mage’s face remained intact.
“Well, Tex,” Elizabeth mocked. “I hope that’s a lesson for you not to rely too much on one thing. Magic, as you’ve learned, can deal with most things. If you missed it, I’m sure I can provide you with a recording.”
He glared at the screen. Like he needed a recording to watch her blatant cheating.
The mage glanced at her. “More acid,” he told her succinctly and poked the door with his finger.
Tex froze. They were through to the outer office now. He glanced around and confirmed that the mage’s voice came from the outer room, and not only through the speakers.
“Let me fix a few things first.”
Fuck! He looked around his office. Time to leave.
A loud crack resounded from the room beyond, and he jumped. He stepped hastily to the panel that led to the emergency chute.
Not so fast. An old voice snapped the command through his head but he only moved faster.
He curled his fingers around the release mechanism and yelped in pain. When he looked down at it, sparks hovered over its surface.
“Two can play at that game,” he muttered as a series of pops sizzled from outside the door. The smell of burned electronics was unmistakable and he wrapped his hand in the folds of his jacket and slid his fingers around the release mechanism. The mage’s voice echoed between his ears.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Purple lightning arced over the chute entry and the panel melted into those around it.
“Fuck,” Tex muttered. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
That left only one thing. He hurried to the desk, sat, and yanked the top drawer open as his office door burst inward.
As he watched them over the hacked surveillance cams, BURT wasn’t sure Elizabeth and her team would actually reach him in time. There was no point in alerting them. Her treacherous contact was already raising the pistol to his head.
Well, at least he isn’t trying to shoot them, he thought. He watched as the man turned the pistol and raised it halfway to his temple before his arm froze.
