Smilodon, page 25
A notification popped up just as she finished—New Text Message Received—and she had to keep from cheering. The message came from Grandma.
Oh, dear girl. So glad you’re okay. Wyatt’s on the way with five hundred shifters. Less than two miles out. Magi follow. Protect the kids. Luv you.
Vicki looked away from the phone and fought the urge to cry. Bawling like a baby over her brother coming to get her wasn’t very heroine-like, but everything just became so much easier. All she had to do was find the kids and keep any of these people from taking them, while waiting for Wyatt and the Magi. She could do that. She might have been the heiress to the Magnusson dynasty, but that didn’t mean she was ready to face down two hundred baddies. Grandpa or Grandma could do it, no problem, but she wasn’t to that level yet.
Vicki returned her attention to the phone and tapped out a quick message:
Luv you, too, Grandma. I’ll fort up with the kids.
She slipped the purloined cell phone into her hip pocket and lifted her staff in a solid grip. Then, she slipped out of the storage room, re-locked it, and went off in search of the kids.
* * *
It wasn’t night yet. She saw that as soon as she reached an exterior wall of her building. Whoever built her storage room just put it inside a hollowed-out cave. Hmmm… did that mean it was something like a cellar for food? Vicki moved to a window and searched the surrounding area with her eyes. The mining complex sat in the end of a small box canyon that butted up against the base of a mountain. Cliffs ranging from a mere thirty feet high to over a hundred ringed the complex, with the entrance of the collapsed mine at the very back of the canyon. None of the ramshackle buildings that she could see looked like a place to hold six hundred children. She worried about bumbling into a bunkhouse with the baddies, instead of the bunkhouse with the kiddos. That would not go well.
A charmed roving sentry told her where the children were, and she divested him of his weapons, phone, and radio before sending him off into the forest at a dead sprint. He’d sprint until the charm expired… or he died, whichever came first. That was the important thing about charm spells. You couldn’t order a charmed person to kill themselves, but you could order them to do something with a high probability of death. Hence, ‘sprint until you drop’ versus ‘take your knife and slit your throat.’ Subtle difference, perhaps, but very crucial.
She arrived at the building that held the children in short order. One guard paced in front of the door, an automatic rifle hanging across his torso from a speed sling. A quick charm spell revealed that he was the only person assigned to guard the children for the next four hours, so Vicki had him walk around behind the building and lay down in the grass. Then, a sleep spell.
She stopped and leaned against the corner of the building as she surveyed the area. She’d been using magic a lot in the last hour or so, and she felt it. If she kept up at her current rate, hypoglycemia was not too far off. But she couldn’t stop. Not yet. She needed to hold this building until Wyatt and his war party secured the complex. These kids were going home today if she had anything to say about it.
Okay. She’d rested long enough. She didn’t see anyone, so she slipped around the corner and moved to the door. It was locked. Of course it was. She went back to the sleeping guard and pawed through his pockets until she found a keyring, then went back and unlocked the door. Slipping inside, she found several dozen children looking at her. She quickly gestured for them to be quiet and smiled.
“I’m here to take you home,” Vicki said, “but we have to be quiet until my friends arrive. Okay?”
Before she had time to do anything else, a girl who looked around twelve or thirteen pushed her way through the crowd and ran to Vicki, throwing her arms around Vicki in a tight hug. Just when Vicki started feeling a little awkward, the girl released her and took a step back; she grinned and pointed to Vicki’s staff.
“You’re like me,” she whispered.
Vicki blinked. “Like you?”
The girl nodded. “Momma and Daddy said they’d help me pick my staff when I was older.”
Vicki fought to keep her expression neutral. How many of these other children were Magi, too? It was one thing to know these people took Magi children; it was something else entirely to get hugged by one in the holding facility.
Another child—this one a boy of no more than six or so—arrived at Vicki’s side and tugged on her pant leg. Vicki turned away from the Magi child, and the little boy motioned for her to lean close.
When she did, the boy whispered, “What about Daisy?”
“Daisy?” Vicki asked.
The boy nodded. “One of the bad guys took her a little while ago.”
Of course. It had all been a little too easy. But she wasn’t going to leave without knowing Daisy’s fate at least. She’d prefer to take Daisy with her, naturally, but if Daisy was already gone, that might not be immediately possible.
“Okay. I’ll go look for her, but since I won’t be here to protect you, I’m going to lock the building so no one can get in or out. Can you two pass the word to wait for me?”
The Magi girl nodded, and the boy quickly followed suit.
“All right. Everyone be good, and we’ll see about getting you home today. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Oh… and if you hear a huge roar here in a little bit, don’t be afraid; he’s one of the good guys.”
That said, Vicki slipped back outside. The incantation to secure the building was not easy, and it would take a considerable chunk of her remaining power. But she wasn’t going to leave the children defenseless while she looked for Daisy. She rushed the incantation a little bit, but it took hold, staggering her. She held out her hand to the building and leaned against it for a few moments until she felt steady enough to move. Then, she turned and scanned the compound.
“Right, then,” she whispered. “Where would I take a little girl if I was an evil bastard abducting children for money?”
One of the buildings had the look of a mess hall about it, and she felt she could at least peek in a window. She set off, keeping to the buildings and the growing shadows of the late afternoon. She chose avoidance over engagement as she crossed the compound and saw several people; she didn’t have the reserves to put everyone she encountered to sleep.
Vicki soon saw people gathering in a central courtyard-like space, and a rough-looking fellow held a small girl by the arm. Dammit. All she could do was to delay them until the cavalry arrived.
Vicki stepped away from the building and strode toward the collection of people with intent. No one noticed her right away, as the imminent confrontation between two men—the one holding the child and another one—kept everyone’s focus. She reached earshot of the conversation, still without any kind of challenge.
“Karl, let her go,” the other man said. “We don’t mess with the merchandise, even if they were not children.”
The guy holding the little girl—Karl, apparently—snarled. “I’ve had it with this punishment duty, Hector. You order us all into the backwoods ass-end of nowhere after you botched the ambush at the orphanage, and you have the gall to tell me I can’t enjoy myself? Go to hell, and take the rest of the high-and-mighty jackasses around here with you.”
That was too good of an opening to pass up. Vicki stepped through the last cluster of people that loosely ringed the confrontation and said, “You first.”
Vicki whispered an incantation as she focused on Karl, and it was all she could do to remain impassive when the incantation robbed her of what little strength she had left. Karl, though, didn’t fare so well; he collapsed, dead before his head struck the grass. Vicki waved her left hand at the little girl, motioning for the child to come to her, and the little girl almost knocked Vicki flat when they collided.
Hector turned to face her, and Vicki realized she now held everyone else’s undivided attention.
“How did you get free?” Hector asked, his tone almost making it a rhetorical question.
Vicki shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. If we make a deal right here and now for the children and I to leave peacefully, the day will end a lot better for you.”
Chuckles and outright laughter circled through the assembled onlookers, as Hector himself betrayed amusement, saying, “Is that so? Has it occurred to you yet just how outnumbered you are?”
Vicki adopted what she hoped was a cocksure smirk. “Are you truly sure about that?”
Hector threw his arms wide. “Little lady, everyone you see here answers to me. If we’re so outnumbered, where are your people?”
Before anyone could say or do anything else, motion in the corner of her eye attracted Vicki’s attention. A massive shape of tawny fur and curved incisors burst out of the tree line at the top of the thirty-foot cliff and leaped. The first Smilodon to walk the Earth in thousands of years kicked up a cloud when he landed, and his roar rattled windowpanes and the bones of everyone who heard it. Wolves, bears, a few lions, and even a tiger—all led by a black jaguar and a dire wolf—charged into the yard, surrounding Hector’s men in a snarling wall that thirsted for their blood.
Vicki watched Hector’s bravado vanish, as he stared at her brother in sheer terror. She gave the man her best happy cheerleader smile as she said, “Too late, Hector. You really should’ve made the deal. Come on, Sweetheart; we don’t need to see what happens next.”
Vicki hefted the little girl into her arms and turned, walking back toward the building where the other children waited. The shifters were kind enough to wait until they were out of sight, and soon, the screams of the dying and sounds of rending flesh echoed across the compound.
26
The Magi created temporary shelters for the children in Precious and brought in healers to assess their health and wellness. Magi, shifters, and Hauser’s branch of its agency worked overtime and then some to identify all the children as well as their families. It was a Herculean effort that would take days to complete, but not even one person in the cast of hundreds already involved begrudged the loss of sleep.
Vicki insisted on seeing the children returned to their families before going home. She called her grandparents to let them know she was back in Precious with Wyatt and his people and that she’d be home once all the children were safe at their homes. Her grandfather grumbled a bit, but her grandmother cheered her on and said she’d have Vicki’s favorite pie waiting for her when she stepped through the door.
The second day Precious hosted the children, Hauser and Burke tracked down Wyatt. They found him sitting with Vicki, Gabrielle, Karleen, and Alistair in the diner, and they looked both apologetic and determined at the same time.
“Wyatt,” Hauser said, “do you have time to take a call?”
Wyatt shrugged. “That depends. If it’s a telemarketer, no. I’m on my first break in six hours of interviewing children to help find where they belong.”
“It’s the deputy director in charge of my branch,” Hauser replied.
“Oh,” Wyatt remarked, much of the fire gone from his tone. “I suppose I probably should.”
Hauser handed him her phone, and Wyatt said, “Wyatt Magnusson.”
“Hello, young man. I’ll trust Special Agent Hauser introduced me and get right into it. Both the Shifter Council and the Magi Assembly tell me you were the one in charge at the sharp end of the spear. Is there anyone or anything you want to hand off to Uncle Sam?”
“We’re still sifting through everything we found at the old mine, sir,” Wyatt explained. “I imagine the entire operation is sufficiently large that, yes, we would greatly appreciate the assistance of the United States government in rolling up all their teams. At present, though, we don’t have a clear enough picture to lay a stack of evidence on your desk.”
“Makes sense,” the deputy director replied. “What about the people responsible?”
Wyatt fought the urge to shudder as his own memories of the slaughter rushed to the forefront of his mind. “No, sir; not at the moment. We handled it.”
“Fair enough. I appreciate your time, and I’ll leave Special Agents Hauser and Burke as your official liaisons at least until this ghastly operation has been thoroughly broken. I hope you don’t need them, but it never hurts to have a couple federal Special Agents to smooth the way.”
“Thank you, sir,” Wyatt said. “I can tell you they’ve represented your agency well.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll see that statement makes it to their personnel files. That will reflect well on them when we consider them for future positions of authority.”
Wyatt smiled. “I don’t mind at all, sir, and I’m happy to write up a formal statement once we’re at the end of this.”
“I’ll hold you to that, lad. Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. Unless you have anything else for me?”
“No, sir, and thank you again.”
The call clicked off before Wyatt could thumb the ‘end call’ button, and he returned the phone to Hauser. Both Hauser and Burke looked a little awed that Wyatt gave them the endorsement he did for no more than they had been involved, but they nodded their thanks and left the diner.
A week later…
I leaned against the railing of the back deck, looking out over my grandparents’ sculpted and landscaped grounds. A peculiar calm always descended on me whenever I visited the home where I grew up, and I savored my keen senses as I took in all the little scents carried on the breeze from the gardens. I knew without a doubt that I would always be welcome here, and yet, I felt like I belonged in Precious more.
My thoughts drifted back to a conversation I had sat in on between my grandparents and Vicki. The charms we found at the orphanage and the collar Vicki had worn were definitely made by a hedge wizard. Despite the Magi’s preference of looking down on the ‘lesser practitioners,’ the hedge wizards and witches of the world, they were not totally inept, and no matter what the Magi might prefer, magic was magic. If a person was gifted with it, the person could learn to use it, regardless of what they learned. Grandpa had been very clear that the Assembly sought the source of those charms and the collar, but it might be some time before any information surfaced.
Motion to my right drew my attention, and I saw Miles stop an arm’s length away and lean against the railing with his back to the gardens. I had known Miles my whole life, even though I never really understood his role… general handyman or some such, I had always guessed. He stood equal in stature to my grandfather, and he wore a well-maintained snow-white beard that touched his sternum. A worn khaki Fedora rested atop his head, and I could not remember ever seeing him without it. When he spoke, his voice hovered toward the deeper end of the spectrum, but not quite as deep as the likes of James Earl Jones. I finally recognized the look in his gray—or possibly hazel—eyes; Miles had survived his share of carnage and then some.
“It’s a fine thing having the Young Miss back,” Miles said, his voice carrying hints of an accent I couldn’t quite identify. “Ye do your family proud, Young Master.”
“Me?” I asked, taken off guard. “I’m not the Magi; Vicki is.” Then, the bottom dropped out of my stomach. Did Miles even know about Magi?
“Lad, do ye think I spent the last thirty years pruning hedges and weeding flowerbeds around here to watch yet another Magi come into her power? As dear a lass as she is, your sister isn’t the special one in the family. That’d be you… Primogenitor. A destiny awaits ye, lad; never be afraid to stand up for what you know is right.”
I gaped. Mind blown. How did he know? Had he overheard my grandparents talking? Then, recognition of his accent clicked in my head. Gaelic… maybe even Celtic?
“Your name isn’t Miles, is it?” I asked.
The old gardener shrugged. “It’s as good a name as any other. Fits in rather well around here, too.”
He pushed himself off the railing and sauntered away. He stopped at the top of the short steps that led down to the garden and turned back to me. An impish smirk curled his lips, and I couldn’t believe how much he looked like Vicki in that moment.
“I will tell you this much, lad,” he said. “The Lady o’ the Lake is a damn good kisser.”
What’s Next?
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Author’s Note
6 February 2021
First and foremost, thank you for reading…both the novel and these notes! I hope you enjoyed Smilodon!
This is my eighth novel, with many more to come, and I’m currently working on the second books of the Primogenitor Saga.
This was a fun story to tell. It was bouncing around in my mind for about a year before I settled down to write it. Circumstances reached the point that I couldn’t concentrate on what I thought I needed to write, and I took that as a sign.
I have at least a one-sentence summary for something like 130 books across 14 series. Most of them are Fantasy in one form or another, but there are a few Science Fiction (well, Space Opera, really… but what’s a label between friends?) as well. Knowing how my mind works, there will be more.
