Chapter 2
For a moment I took a really good look at the woman's face.
"You're a girl." I blurt out, and then I giggled. Of course she was a little girl, what else could she had been? Either it was because of all the adrenaline, or the surrealism of the scene, or maybe perhaps because I was seeing such a serious expression in a face of what couldn't have been a teenager older that sixteen, but I simply couldn't stop giggling.
"Stop that." She shouted.
Ow, headache. Of course, I took a second look at her and started laughing. I couldn't stop that either. I am not a person to usually devolve into hysterically laughter, honestly. Of course the face she did when I started giggling didn't help my laugh at all, nor did the way she kept tapping her foot on the ground.
A few seconds later, deciding to finally take my place as an adult in this conversation I inclined my hand in her direction in the universal hand signal for wait just for a minute and tried to stop my wheezing. Managed it too.
It was then Mouse arrived at my side. I shoot him a look that quite clearly asked where he had been, but then noticed the little pieces of concrete on his fur. I winced and sent him an apologizing look. He somehow managed to contain all the disappointment he felt in the look he gave me back.
"Later." I mouthed out to him. There were more important things at work for the moment. I made a mental note to buy him several of Mac's steaks.
I focused my attention again on the young girl. And God was she young. Her hair was reddish-brown, somehow much more voluminous at the front of her head than in the back, where she had her hair in two braids. Her skin was also pale, managing to seem almost paler than her white dress. A big red ribbon was in the middle of her dress and a quick look at her eyes showed them to be blue. There was no way she was evil, a part of my brain that thinks everything cute and fluffy is innocent said, unfortunately or not depending on how things pan out, the cynical part of my brain won in the end and I decided to be very cautions of the extremely powerful wizard in front of me.
While I watched her she unconsciously started to fidget a little, and I in my magnanimous ways decided to spare her nerves and start this show in the road, it was then, of course, that she decided to talk.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" She asked.
"Shouldn't I ask you that?" I shoot back.
"I was here first." She said.
"You really are a kid." My headache started to get worse. She looked at me, took a deep breath, decided to act like I should have, and calmly spoke.
"I'm Second Lieutenant Takamachi of the Time and Space Administration Bureau, who are you? And what are you doing here?" She asked once more.
I really had a terrible headache, it was as if my brain had decided to test just how much punishment it could inflict on me. I started feeling a little dizzy too, between those two things it was a comprehensible that my brain took a little in processing everything the girl said. To not say my mouth isn't faster than my neurons words started coming before I could stop them.
"What's that? Some kind of magical girls scouts?" I asked.
"Magical girl scouts!" She slowly muttered. At least that was what I heard, but here my headache got even worse, and I realized that while I've heard say that her lips didn't exactly added up to what I've heard. She started saying something else, and I could tell she was just a little irritated, but I couldn't hear her. I realized what was happening then, someone was in my head.
Oh God, someone was in my head, and seeing how the only person here with me was the girl in front of me, it was fair to assume she was responsible for it.
"Stop that." I shouted interrupting whatever she was saying, not that I could actually understand her, not with my headache.
She did stop talking, but she only stayed there looking at me, seemly startled.
"Now." I continued, but she stayed the same. I noticed her holding her staff a little tighter. The pounding on my head continued.
"Get out of my head!" I screamed and only then did my headache started to recede. She seemed to say something then, but I couldn't understand her nor did I want to. This person in front of me had just entered my head, that had hurt like very few things ever had in my life and she had broken one of the laws of magic, if she was even human, something I doubted more and more. Some part of me wanted to attack her, and the rational part of me didn't think that was such a bad thing, after all didn't she attacked me first.
What I would have done then I don't know, because in that moment a female computerized voice rang out.
"I apologize master, it seems it was my mistake." I looked to the girl's staff, which had just spoken.
Of course it spoke Dresden, didn't yours also spoke a few minutes ago? I thought to myself. Yeah ok that could have been, but I'm not so used to strange things that I couldn't be startled right? And why the hell I'm asking questions to myself?
I paid a little more attention to the conversation going on in front of me. Now that my head was clear, I could at least hear the words that were spoken. The staff strangely enough was talking in perfect English, and was completely engrained in the conversation with its master. The girl was speaking in what I realized was Japanese, something which looked strange enough accounting to the fact she didn't look at all Japanese. Probably foreign parents I absently thought.
While I hadn't paid great attention to the conversation going on between staff and master, I realized they were talking about me. I couldn't follow both sides of the conversation, but for what I've heard from the staff, it was using some kind of spell on me making me able of understanding the girl's conversation, and that had somehow afflicted me. Yeah, it had hurt like a bitch. Then the staff carried on saying it could translate for its master.
Memory of the pain I've just went through passed for and I say the first thing that came to my head.
"Hell no, you're not getting in here again." I said taping one of my fingers on my heads side.
This time when it spoke the staff addressed me.
"It was not what I was suggesting," It said in its female voice. "My master could communicate telepathically with me, and I would translate out loud."
Oh. I thought for a second about that and I couldn't find anything wrong with it. Besides I wasn't seeing any other way of resolving the current problem. "Go ahead." I reluctantly said with a nod.
A few seconds later she/it spoke.
"Who are you?" While it was the same computerized voice I've heard from the staff, the way it spoke made me think of the of the girl's speech, which I figured was normal, seeing as she was now on the wheel.
"My name is Harry." I answer.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
"I'm a private investigator and a client of mine saw something suspicious around this place." Not quite a lie from a certain point of view. I'm a private investigator and in a way, as a grey warden, humans are kind of my clients. Ok I was twisting the truth a little, sue me.
She looked around at the hole I had thrown whoever that was.
"You're not just an investigator are you?" She asked.
"How about you, what are you doing here?" Let's see how you like to be the one interrogated.
"These men are criminals, I was sent to capture them before they escaped." She answered.
I was going to say something about how shouldn't she be at school when I remembered what she had done to those men.
"You didn't answer my question." She stated.
I hadn't actually forgotten that, just trying to see if she forgot about it, but then I realized I was being a little unfair, she did answer mine after all. Didn't mean I couldn't be a wiseass about it.
"Obviously I can do magic."
"I kind of noticed that." She said and then sighed.
I couldn't help but feel a little guilty as I looked at her, here this kid was, after fighting what for her must have been a very tiring fight, and I, instead of behaving as a grownup person, was acting like a child. Yes I see the irony in that, thank you very much.
"Look kid," "Nanoha." She interrupted me.
"Nanna, Naho ... Na-no-ha, Nanoha" I muttered under my breath. "Look Nanoha, it's late and we're both tired so let's try to do this as painless as we can, I'll start."
"My name is Harry Dresden and I am a wizard." I said.
"Is that what you call yourself? Wizard?" She asked, but then I narrowed my eyes at her and she had the decency of blushing embarrassed.
"My name in Takamachi Nanoha and I am a mage." She said.
We both stayed silent then. I have never ever heard of anyone calling himself a mage, not at least in the magical community. I looked at the staff I still had in my hands. I also had never heard of something quite like it. It wasn't the fact it was made of what appeared to be metal, while rare there were some wizards that had at sometime used metal staves, it was how the staff somehow enhanced the control of my magic. It had felt as if someone else knew what I wanted and then simply molded my magic how I wanted it. Remembering what had happened when I grabbed it, and also how Nanoha's staff seemed to somehow have sentience, or at least something close to it, I thought I might not be too far of my mark. Before I could properly think on the consequences of that Nanoha's staff voice interrupted me.
"What were you doing here?" She asked once more.
"I didn't lie to you, or at least not completely. Someone saw those guys yesterday and they felt their magic, found them suspicious. That someone told me so I could check it out." I answered.
"There's more like you?" She asked.
I was going to respond with something like 'Duh' when her words registered on my mind. She didn't know there were magic practitioners around here? Something strange was going around here, first the talking staves, then she calling herself a mage and she didn't even knew other practitioners? It was then some of her first words came to my mind.
"Wait, wait, you don't know? You said you're sent here right, so who sent you? Wait you said that already, the Space Time … that's not right."
"The Time Space Administration Bureau." She interrupted me.
"Tsab?" I asked "What the hell is the Tsab?"
She looked at me, and for a moment I felt she was evaluating me, somehow trying to find out if I she should do whatever it was she was thinking of doing. Whatever she was trying to find in me, she must have found, because she answered me.
"The Bureau is an inter-dimensional security force, formed by a joint union of several worlds." She answered.
"Space wizards?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.
"Um … I… guess so, in a way." She spoke this even as she scratched her head and released a small nervous laugh, as if she comprehended just how unrealistic what she had said was.
I looked at her and I could see she was completely serious. It was then that I started to revise our conversation in my head, somehow making two plus two result in about a million. The kid was clearly insane. Or I was. What else was she going to say next, she had arrived by space-ship? I ignored the part of my brain that was nagging me that my explanation didn't account for several little details like talking staves or wizards that didn't knew anything about the supernatural, but my impetus self won in the end.
"Look kid, you definitely got hurt on the head or something…"
"I'm not lying." She loudly interrupted.
I looked at her. The kid was serious and sincerely if not for the shear absurdness of her claim, looking at her I would probably believe what she said, she didn't seem to be the lying type. But that didn't mean it was the true, it just meant she thought it was the truth. Hell, for what I know some sick supernatural being abducted the kid, told her some fairy tale, gave her a dangerous weapon and sent her on her way as some sick form of amusement. If that was so I couldn't let her go on her own way. She would end up hurting herself or others.
Or maybe she was the supernatural being, and it was doing this as some kind of sick prank on me. Maybe revenge for something? I did have lots of enemies. Was she a delusional innocent girl, a supernatural being bent on revenge or maybe, just maybe she was telling the truth? There was only something that I could do that would help clarify that. I looked into her eyes.
Many things can happen if a person makes eye contact for too long, it can carry all kinds of emotions or metaphors. Wizards in particular have an ability called soulgaze. When a wizard looks someone in the eye for an instant too long he can see the soul of that someone, he can see who that person truly is, good and bad things, desires and emotions. Sometimes the soulgaze is more specific than others, showing memories or even thoughts. It's also something that a person can't forget, a memory a person can't dull, it stays with oneself basically imprinted on the mind, and it works both ways. Just as the wizard see's someone, that someone see's the wizard.
The soulgaze started and I found myself walking down some great corridor. I looked at a mirror as I passed and realized that it was not me that appeared in it, but Nanoha Takamachi. There were paintings down the corridor, in the first one I could see Nanoha when she was a small child of perhaps five or six years old. Several emotions came to the forefront of my mind as I was seeing this, happiness, love, a sense of warmth and other several good little emotions. I realized this was Nanoha's family. In another painting appeared two kids, two pets and an adult woman. The first child was a blonde girl with a strange small red puppy in her hands. The second child was an older boy with blue-black hair. He had a ferret in his hand and he seemed to be discussing something with it. The older woman, with sea-green colored hair, looked at the children with something like motherly love. Once again I could feel Nanoha's feelings towards these people and I realized she considered them a second family.
Something at the upper corner of the painting captured my interest. A little upwards of the blonde girl some kind of dark cloud seemed to exist, and as I looked it seemed to unravel. A woman's face appeared then and as I looked at her I couldn't help but think of her as an evil stepmother from a fairy tale. It wasn't exactly my thought, I realized it was Nanoha's and I was surprised by the emotions this face brought to this seemly nice girl. She felt a deep loathing for that woman as well as something that could be called hatred. I moved down the corridor.
More paintings appeared, some of people, others of some kind of abstract images, but no painting drew me as those first two had. Another painting appeared then, where there was a group of people around a wheelchair bound girl. More feelings of friendship and love appeared then. I skipped that painting when something caught my eye. It was a small painting of what appeared to be some kind of ship, some kind of spaceship. Huh space wizards indeed. I looked down the corridor and realized there were no more paintings and darkness awaited me at the end. I looked back and noticed all other paintings had disappeared already, so I kept walking and entered that darkness. When I became aware again I was in my body.
I looked at Nanoha again, this time without fear of entering another soulgaze, two people can only soulgaze once. She looked fine if somewhat startled, that was good. Some people that I soulgazed before sometimes got a little dazed look at the end, once one person even fainted.
I thought about what I had seen in the soulgaze. I didn't felt one inch of insanity, or anything remotely similar to it in Nanoha. She was human, the soulgaze confirmed that, only human beings had souls, and the image I saw of the spaceship made me think that perhaps there was some truth to what she was saying.
After several minutes spent in silent contemplation, I spoke.
"You said these guys were criminals right? What did they do?" I asked.
"They are illegal weapons dealers," She answered "weapons like the storage device you're using. I'm … going to need it back." She said that pointing at the staff I had in my hand.
I looked down at it. The small use I gave the staff was still fresh in my mind, the way my magic seemed to do exactly whatever I wanted it too, with barely any mental effort of my part. The type of control I would need centuries to obtain, if I obtained it at all.
"There's no way I can keep this, is there?" I asked.
"No there isn't, I'm sorry." She replied.
Slowly I reached out and gave her the staff. She then did something that made the staff recede into only the small white gemstone I had seen before.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked.
"Wait for the Arthra to arrive." She answered.
I didn't know of what she was talking about, and neither did I care at that moment. I just wanted to curl up in my bed and sleep for a couple of days.
"Well I'm probably going home then." I said "I'm tired." More mentally than physically, but tired nonetheless.
"Um, ok." She said. I don't think she kind of wanted me to leave, but she didn't say anything anyway.
I started walking away, when I remembered something. Taking one of my cards from my pocket, I picked it up and gave it to her.
"If you need anything, give me a call."
With that I left.
I was in my office in the afternoon of the next day. After a night of barely any sleep, my apprentice Molly had appeared in my house at nine in the morning for practice. I had sent her away saying something important had come up and had then headed up for the office. I hadn't left yet and I wasn't even hungry. My mind couldn't stop repeating the events of the previous night.
Space wizards? Seriously? I couldn't quite wrap my mind about that one. And worse, instead of staying there and trying to find out what the hell was going on I left just because my expectations of the world got shattered, stepped on and set on fire. Ok I had a little bit of an excuse there, but I could have done better.
It was then that I heard some kind of sound to my right. I looked on and seemly from nowhere something that looked very much like the image of a television appeared.
"Hello I'm … it's not working right." Came a voice from the image.
Some more voices were heard off-screen.
"There's no one there Amy." Said the young man on screen.
Some more angry words.
"I'm telling you it's not …"
"You're backwards." I interrupted.
The man on the screen made a double-take.
"Excuse-me?"
"You're turned to the wrong side." I said.
The man gave a look to someone off-screen and then suddenly the image disappeared, and the reappeared looking at me.
"I apologize for that," He said "It seems he have some difficulty scanning you properly."
"I kind of tend to have that effect on technology." I said. Sure after sentient staves, space wizards and spaceships what exactly is strange about a free floating television?
"You didn't seem to have any adverse effect on our devices last night." He argued back.
Here the automated response system my brain had engaged on disengaged.
"Wait, those were technologic? I thought they're magic." I asked.
"They're both." He answered.
Before I could do anything else he introduced himself.
"I'm Admiral Chrono Harlaown of the Time-Space Administration Bureau."
I said the first thing that came to my mind. "Kind of young to be an Admiral, don't you think."
"I'll let you know that I did it on my own without any…" Here he stopped and looked to the side and narrowed his eyes at someone. I figured I kind of hit a sore spot there. He turned back to me.
"I would like to personally thank you for helping our … agent last night."
"You're welcome." I said.
"I would also like to give you a proposition Mister Dresden." He said "How would you like to personally see a spaceship?"
In the shadows between two big and bulky warehouses a man appeared. Seemly looking like a fifty or fifty year old human, with dark hair sporting a little bit of grey the man looked on to the entrance of a somewhat distant warehouse.
A car passed then, an old Volkswagen Beetle which might have been at some point in the past of only one color, although which color that was would be difficult to decipher.
The being who sometimes called himself Mark Simmons watched on as the driver of the old car parked it outside a warehouse where a big hole had been made in one of the walls. Wizard Harry Dresden walked out of his car and entered in the warehouse, where the being knew he would find Nanoha Takamachi and two others.
A feel of magic later and the being knew that those four persons were someplace other than the warehouse.
More than a thousand years, the being thought to itself.
Perhaps I should pay a visit, it thought looking directly to where the spaceship Arthra would be in space.
End of Chapter 2
