After completing their task in Reno they headed back to the office by portkey and Harry handed Billy and Valos ten $50 gold coins each from the bag when they walked through the door to their Office. Each man took the coins and headed into the range room to clean and restock their gear without being told to do so. Harry headed into his office and took a seat in his chair. His brother followed him into the room and dropped into the big chair in front of the desk he put there. This was how their old office was set up in the DoM. Harry's office had a big chair for him to recline in and his office had a couch Harry loved to lay on.
"They did good out there." Neville said leaning back in the chair.
"I expected them to. Billy is a survivor with untapped potential and Valos is a master assassin looking for a new brotherhood. Speaking of, we still need to get him that amulet your wife was working on. We also have to set up a beacon network in all directions from this town. On top of that we have a few calls that we still have to take care of. When it rains, it pours." Harry said he said pouring two small glasses of scotch and handing one to his brother.
"Then stop with the rain dancing brother. You're the one that turned a few copied guns into a firearms company. You turned a mine full of lizard men into a mining company. You turned routine airship maintenance the small wolfpack fighters. I'm still waiting for you to say we're selling those by the way. And now you came up with the idea of forming a magical task force to handle the crazy shit that happens out west where all the crazy magical shit happens. It's all your fault we barely have time to reload, get some chow, and take a shit between fights." Neville said.
"Look at you sitting there on your high horse judging me when it's you that's been egging me on the whole time. This is why we couldn't be partners back when we were Unspeakables. We egg each other on until we're doing stupid shit! You know, like fighting the whole world's problems by ourselves." Harry said laughing.
"Well it's too late to turn back now. We just need to hire two more men and lighten this workload up a bit." Neville said.
"We will, for now we'll work as a team and when these two are up to speed then I'll go out and recruit when we have time. For now let's gear up, get some lunch and then we'll head back out. We have to look into the reports of a big building that just showed up on the top of a mountain in Colorado. If it's someone's home then we have to warn them it not safe to set up shop up there because the dragon's are drawn to the mountains. There has got to be blue or red stone in them. We should look into that one day. On the other hand, If the building came from a rift then someone is playing with rift magic again." Harry said sorting out his gear.
"A building just showed up on a mountain top?" Neville asked.
"According to captain Gordon Connors, an airship captian that makes the run from Salt Lake to Denver everyday, the mountain was untouched yesterday morning and last night when he was making the return trip the mountain top was leveled off and there was a big building built on top of the mountain." Harry said grabbing a sheet of paper off his desk and reading off the report.
"They leveled a mountain top and built a building?" Neville asked.
"That's what he said. He also said it was dark and cloud coverage was very dense so it was hard to make out details. That's why he reported it to Walter and Walter passed it on to me because his boys would have a hard time making it up the mountain." Harry said.
"The fucking weird magic of this world. I'll never get used to it." Neville said shaking his head as the door to their department opened.
Hermione and Abby walked into the main office area with a few bags and a clay pot of something. Both women were dressed in more casual jeans with corset style leather vests over heavy cotton shirts and leather jackets. It was their working around town in the cold look perfected by Hermione and copied by every woman in their ever growing study group. Today they wore their shorter jackets and less heavy shirts. It was nicer today than it had been in the last three months with the sun out and temperatures in the 40's. but it was still early March after all and there was a good layer of snow on the ground in town. It was also a look that caught Valos's eye.
"Can I help you Ladies?" He asked. The accent and the charming smile made the question more suggestive than innocent. Harry smirked but had to suppress a laugh when Billy came practically running out of the gun cage when he heard the word Ladies.
"Yes, what can we do for you fine ladies?" Billy asked taking off his new fancy black gambler's style hat.
"Well aren't you two just the cutest looking southern gentleman a lady did ever see." Abby said in an over the top southern bell accent.
"They are in deed Abby. Are you two big strong looking men Marshals?" Hermione asked mocking Abby's voice.
"We are Ma'am, was there something you needed help with?" Valos asked.
"Why yes there was, you can kindly fetch our husbands. Marshal's Harry Steel, and Neville Blackwell. We have their lunch for them." Abby said with a smirk as the look of hope in the two men's eyes died and oddly enough the look was replaced with respect and mild shock.
"Right away Ma'am." Valos said turning around only to find Harry and Neville already coming out of Harry's office. "Sirs, your wives are here." Valos said giving Harry a look of 'good job boss'. Billy was less subtle.
"Damn Boss you're better half is much better than you. What kind of magic is at play here? And is it legal?" Billy asked making everyone laugh.
"She's got a thing for older, grizzled, mean guys." Harry said dropping a kiss on Abby's cheek as he took the clay pot from her hands and set it on the wood conference table in the middle of the office. "What do we got?" He asked looking in the pot.
"Jon Philip said it was a beef stew with potatoes and carrots made with caramelized onions and a red wine base. I also have fresh rolls and beers." She said setting the bag she had on the table.
"And I have your new glamour." Hermione said setting her bags down and pulling a small wood box out of her leather bag. She opened the box and showed him the small gold hoop earring.
"That's the glamour?" Valos asked looking shocked.
"Sure, I know it's a bit big but instead of a glamour that gives you another person's face this lets you keep your face. This earring changes the shape of your ears, and the color of your skin, hair, and eyes. It also vanishes like the undercover shoulder rig. This was just a proof of concept. The next iteration will be smaller." Hermione said talking fast. It was clear she was excited about her concept but also disappointed with the roughness of her work because of the quick turnaround.
"No! This is so much better than anything I could have hoped for. This is the glamour I paid $8,000 for." Valos said unbuttoning the top three buttons on his shirt and vest to pull out a big five inch silver cross that was covered in glowing white runes on a thick leather cord.
As soon as he took it off his face shifted from generic white guy with brown hair and blue eyes to his dark bluish-purple skin, shock white hair, and light blue almost glowing white eyes. His face thinned out and became more angular with a sharp jaw line. His hair was short and pushed back showing off his long pointy ears. When the glamour lifted Billy jumped back a bit but the rest of the group didn't really react the way he expected at all. They all stared at him with confused looks.
"Nev, why does he remind me of someone?" Harry asked.
"I think he's hot." Abby said before she realized she said it out loud and blushed.
"He looks like an actor. But the blue skin is throwing me off. Mia put on the new glamour so I can figure it out." Neville said closing one eye and then the other one trying to change his perspective.
"Yeah, here. We need to pierce your ear. This is going to hurt for a few seconds." Hermione said forcing the tall thin man into a chair and turning his head to the side to get to his ear.
"I look like someone?" Valos asked.
"You do. But like I said the skin tone is making it hard to put my finger on it." Harry said making some bowls and spooning out stew.
"Brace yourself." Hermione said jabbing his earlobe with a glowing hot needle.
"AWWW!" He called out making everyone laugh. Hermione deftly pulled out the pin, inserted the gold earring and healed his ear with a wave of her finger.
"There all done. Now I just have to activate the enchantment." She muttered tapping the ring with her wand and Valos changed again. His ears shrank. His skin became a sun kissed golden brown, his eye and hair became light brown and as soon as the change hit Harry snapped his fingers and pointed at his face.
"Young ass Clint Eastwood!" Harry practically yelled.
"Your Right!" Neville said.
"Really young, like Fist Full of Dollars young. But it's uncanny." Abby agreed.
"This Clint Eastwood is a good looking man?" Valos asked with a smirk.
"Sexy as hell." Abby said before catching herself again and blushing.
"Later we'll show you a few movies. For now check it out." Hermione said making a mirror and handing it to him.
"Let's eat. We got a report of a building just showing up on the top of a mountain. We have to portkey to Denver and fly over the Rocky mountain range until we see this place. That's another thing we have to add to the list. We have to get you two up in a wolf pack fighter and have you train to fly your own ship. We also have to get you both a broom, and a we still have to Show Valos where he'll be staying in town." Harry said passing out bowls of stew, fresh baked rolls, and cold beers.
"We also came to drop off two more crates of grenades, three crates of High wall ammo, and a crate of 500 anti-dragon explosive rounds." Abby said taking a bowl from Harry.
"Your team of enchanters are working miracles. You guys do so much great work and I hate to do this to you be we need more ward beacons. We need to put them on every road leading out of our town. We lost two wagon trains out of Reno and that should not have happened." Harry said.
"Okay." Hermione said.
"Really? It's not going to put extra strain on your work?" Harry asked.
"Not really, how many do you need?" Hermione asked.
"I'm not sure, a lot. Say an extra 250 just to be safe we're just going west and north. The the south we'll put beacon every 5 miles apart.
"When do you need them by?" Abby asked.
"Is saying ASAP too much?" Harry asked.
"No, what do you think Abby? End of next week?" Hermione asked.
"Easy. By next Wednesday more like. We have the ward stones for it. We just have to make the poles. We'll add it to the order Salt Lake put in. It's not too much extra work." Abby said.
"Good, the faster we can protect the roads throughout our state the better." Harry said.
After lunch the boys geared up and portkeyed to Denver. The Marshal's office was a hive of activity. Harry stopped one of the Marshals running around.
"What's going on?" Harry asked.
"We got reports of missing people. Snatched right off the streets last night or earlier this morning. We got blood but no bodies for the most part." The marshal said.
"Shit. I think we better talk to Walter before we head off." Neville said.
"I agree. Thank you for the heads up." Harry said thanking the kid he stopped before leading the group to Walter's office. He knocked.
"Yeah!?" Walter called out.
"It's Harry Steel. Can i…" Was as far as he got before the door was ripped open and Harry was ushered into the office with Neville. Billy and Valos were going to follow but Walter had a cagey look in his eyes so Harry backed them off and nodded to a bench off to the side.
"How did you know about the kidnappings?" Walter asked.
"We didn't. We came to investigate the building that popped up on the top of a mountain remember?" Harry said with a calming smile.
"Right! I totally forgot about that. We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off since this morning." Walter said scratching his head.
"Why don't you start from the beginning and tell us what we can do to help?" Harry said.
"It all started at about four o'clock this morning. We got a report of a man being attacked and dragged into an alley by a big dog. Before we could go investigate that we got four more reports of night watchmen being attacked and dragged away. That's when we sounded the emergency recall. By five I had most of my boys out in the streets looking at crime scenes and searching for bodies. All of the attacks happened on the west side of town but we had deputies out patrolling the streets. As we were doing that two big dog creatures attacked a man walking home from a bar not too far from the first attack sight. My boys heard the screams but by the time they got there the man was almost dead and the body was being dragged into an alley. My boys opened fire at the dog beasts and got a few good hit but the things just ran off. They stood to drop a healing potion in into the man but with no magic in him at all, and the neck wound he he suffered he died in a few minutes. That was at around seven this morning. Since then we have every cop and marshal out there looking for these things. The attacks have stopped but reports are still coming in of men not coming home last night, we're up to 29 as of right now. With our dead friend in the cold room that's 30 dead or missing that we know of. If we didn't find anything in the next couple of hours I was going to call you guys." Walter said.
"Well we're here now. Do you have the dead body?" Harry asked.
"We have it in the cold storage room in the basement. We took off the head but aside from that the body is untouched." Walter said.
"Neville call your wife and have her come over to look the body over. I want anything she can give us. I also want to talk to the two marshals that shot at the things that did this." Harry said standing up.
"That would be the brothers Ford. Chris and Tommy. I split them up and sent them off to lead patrols of deputies around the city. I'll send runners and have them report back to the office." Walter said.
"Don't bother. We'll go find them and talk to them. When Hermione comes have someone show her to the body and let her work. We'll be back in a bit." Harry said walking out of the office. He saw Neville on the phone. He waved Billy and Valos over.
"What's going on boss?" Billy asked.
"We got a pack of possibly magical beasts on the loose killing people and dragging their bodies away." Harry said as Neville hug up and joined them.
"Mia and Abby are getting their bags ready and they'll be here in a few minutes." Neville said.
"Good. For now I want to take a look at the body and then we're going to head out and find these two marshals that got a few shots off at these things. We're splitting up Neville, you and Billy go talk to Chris Ford. Valos and I will head off to find his brother Tommy. Have him walk you through the encounter and see if he'll let you view the memory." Harry said as they walked down into a cellar where the cold storage was.
Harry found the body and lifted the white sheet covering the corpse. The body had odd shaped bite marks on the arms and legs. Oddly enough the cut on the neck that caused him to bleed out looked different. Like it was caused by a jagged blade or broken glass bottle he amended seeing a sliver of brown glas in the neck wound. They were consistent with the glass in the wounds on his right hand. Harry leaned over and sniffed the mouth of the severed head and smelled cheap whiskey under the smell of death. Things were coming together in his head.
"This guy was walking back home from the bar with a bottle of whiskey. He must have been drinking from the bottle when he was attacked. He fell, the bottle broke, and he must have landed neck first into the broken glass. This man died from an accident that was tangentially related to him being bitten. If he had fallen differently he'd still be alive. These bite wounds are not lethal. In fact look at where he was bitten, arms and legs, but look at the wounds." Harry said.
"Away from any main arteries." Neville agreed.
"This was kidnapping. Not dinner." Harry said leading them out the front door into the courtyard of the barracks like set of buildings that made up the Marshal's station.
"Right Harry. Let's go." Neville said pulling out two horses and expanding them both. Harry followed his lead and soon the two teams were headed in two different directions in search of answers with varying degrees of success.
Chris Ford saw almost nothing. Between the shadows of the early morning, running around the block, the adrenaline spike, the muzzle flashes and loud bangs from his gun he caught just a glimpse of what looked like a pair of big black dogs. Tommy was just as bad but his memories were more helpful. It was in Tommy Ford's mind that Harry caught his first look at the creatures that killed or kidnapped thirty men that morning. What at first looked like a dog was in fact a two and a half foot tall six foot long very fat black rat with glowing red eyes. The memory also helped Harry track were the huge rats ran off to. Harry made a call to his brother and ten minutes later they were all standing in an alley looking at a storm drain grate. It was one of those big square hole in the sidewalk curb style grates but this one was big.
"The sewer?" Billy asked not looking happy.
"It's not a sewer. It's a storm drain. All the plumbing in the city is magical. There is no sewage. Shit gets flushed into a vanishing rune and disappears. This drainage system is for rain and snow. You ever notice how the streets dip down on an angle headed into the alleys? This is where the water collects. So, which one of you is going in first?" Harry asked with a smirk.
"Don't you want to lead by example Boss?" Billy asked returning the smirk.
"And take away all the fun and adventure you'll miss out on by me going first? Besides, I'm your boss. Now, get in the fucking hole." Harry said.
"You don't pay me enough to go into a dark storm drain full of huge killer rats. Why don't you lead from the front." Billy said.
"Both of you are pussies." Neville said kicking off the grate with his boot and pulling out his X-Five and a flashlight . He crouched down, flashed the light around to make sure it was clear, and hopped into the hole. "It's clear Ladies! We got a left and a right tunnel." Neville called back making the other three smirk.
"Valos, you're next, then the cowardly kid. I'll bring up the rear. Head lamps and black rifles boys." Harry said putting on the headlamp from his bag at the same time Valos pulled his gun and dropped into the hole. Billy copied Harry and followed Valos. Harry was the last one in. He flipped the lid back into place.
The tunnels were bigger than Harry first expected and a lot drier too. The tunnels were eight foot tall and six foot wide. They were made of brick, stone, and cement. There was a small flowing puddle in the center of the tunnel but the walls were dry. There were small shafts of light coming from the drain grates that gave the tunnel a very low light. Harry held up his hand and sent a pulse of magic down the tunnels before turning left and leading the group down the tunnels leading out of the center of the city to the west.
Harry lead them through the tunnels for a few minutes. Ever few hundred feet he would let off a pulse of magic. As they went they found all sorts of things in the drainage tunnels. From papers and ripped up clothes to coins and jewelry to knives and guns it seemed like the city's trash got washed off the streets and ended up down here. It also looked like drains were a good place to ditch evidence of crimes. Billy who was mastering the summoning and shrinking spells was in charge of collecting everything they found. So far he was up to $138 in change, a few nice gold pieces of jewelry, a dozen knives, and four revolvers. Not that he had too much time to look at each thing he found. Harry kept up a good pace leading them through the maze of tunnels using his magical pulse to track the rats. As the group got more west they found a few piles of clothing. Harry shared a confused look with Neville before leading the group on. He did his magical pulse one last time as they neared the western edge of the city before he stopped the group with a hand. He crept forwards around a tunnel before he backed up to the group.
"Three for them are dragging what looks like a dead body. Neville, Valos, we're going to roll around the corner and take them out with a few quick precision shots. Try not to hit the body on the floor." Harry said leading the group to the junction.
They rounded the corner and saw the huge rats. As a group they brought their rifles up and they all fired at about the same time. Each of them let off three shots that all found their targets dropping the huge rats like tipped cows. Harry ran up with his gun at the ready and popped the two that were still moving and screeching in the head to finish them off before he went to check on the body they were dragging. Harry checked the man's pulse and found a strong but irregular one.
"We need to get this guy back to the…" Harry stopped talking when the rats started moving again. He was about to shoot them again when their bodies shifted and convulsed before they changed into three naked men.
"What the fuck is going on!" Billy asked summing up the group's thoughts pretty well.
"Some kind of Were-curse." Neville said what Harry was thinking.
"We have to get these dead bodies back to the Marshal's station and we have to keep track of this guy's transformation. We also have to finish tracking these things. If its a were-curse then their may be a cure for it. If there is then these people that got taken today can be turned back. We also need to put out a city wide alert." Harry said.
"We should also stop killing these things." Neville said.
"Good call. We'll track and capture from here out. Hopefully these guys were not locals. Billy do you have the stunning spell down?" Harry asked.
"I do, but not confidently." Billy said looking disappointed.
"That's okay. I'm happy you know your limits. It's better to say you don't know something then to act the part and get killed in a firefight. Take this portkey rope, tie it to everyone's hands, and take these dead bodies and our turning friend back to the marshal's office for my sister to look after. Tell her what went on down here." Harry said turning a ten foot rope from his bag into a portkey and handing it to the younger man.
"Yes boss." Billy said as he took the rope and nodded. Harry patted the boy on his shoulder with a smirk before leading the group down the tunnel.
Around the next few turns Harry and Neville ditched their rifles into their bags and pulled out Ruger Mark III 22/45 paclite pistols with small red dot sights. They checked the mags and pulled a few spares out of the bag and put them in their coats. Harry pulled a second gun from his bag and handed it to Valos along with two spare mags.
"This is a gun that fires tranq darts. The safety is off so all you have to do is put the red dot on the target and pull the trigger. There are ten darts per mag. You have three mags. Make every shot count." Harry said leading the group down the tunnel.
"If you had traq guns why did you ask Billy about the stunning spell?" Valos asked.
"Because one of you had to take the bodies back. That was always going to be Billy. You're a better shot. But to save the boy's ego a bigger hit I sent him away for safety reasons instead of his lack of skill. We don't need flashy magic right now, we need to find this group of rats and take as many out as we can with tranq darts. Besides, If we run into a swarm we will be using the stunning spell. That was not a lie." Harry said using his magic to track.
"I see." Valos said nodding.
Harry lead them to a choke point in the tunnels. They were at the edge of the urban city streets that lead into the small bit of farmland within the city walls. From this point the tunnels became 10 inch clay pipes that took rain water collected in the city center out to the crops growing on the farm land. To the west was where the apple tree farms. The maintenance gate at the end of the tunnel before the pipe reduction was ripped apart so Harry followed it out and tracked muddy rat paw prints to a standing grove of apple and nut trees. The trees were barren at this point but the collection and storage houses were full and sure enough that's where Harry found the big nest of rats. They had set up camp in one of the smaller storage barns.
They snuck into the barn with Harry and Neville under invisibility cloaks, and Valos hiding in the shadows. They took up positions around the big nest of rats and started shooting. They got most of the rats before alerting the pile but at a certain point they got all the ones they could get before they had to move the knocked out rats to get to the ones under them. Harry lifted the 38 knocked out rats off the pile and Neville and Valos took out the rest. They lined up the rats and using a big rope they tied one of the rat's feet to the rope before Harry turned it into a paired portkey using a rock.
He popped back to Eureka to grab a crate of 25 pound steel bricks before heading back to the Denver marshal's office. He turned all 250 steel bricks into a big 40 foot six sided cage with thick bars and very small gaps between the bars in the courtyard of the Marshal's barracks. He tossed the rock into the cage and activated the portkey deposition all 63 huge rats into the big cage. He vanished the rope and left them to sleep off the sleeping draught. By this point most of the marshal's and Billy were outside looking at the huge rats in the cage.
"These are the things that killed or kidnapped 30 men this morning?" Walter asked.
"Well half of them are. The other half are the missing people. This is some kind of wererat curse. I've never seen anything like it." Harry said.
"Why are you keeping them in a cage? Why not just kill them?" Walter asked.
"My sister is looking at a man that has yet to change. She might be able to figure this out. She might be able to turn them back into humans again. For now we'll keep them caged up and alive." Harry said.
"You think you can fix this?" Walter asked looking shocked.
"Maybe? It's worth keeping them alive until we can find out. For now I need to head back out to the apple farm and figure out how they got here. They made it inside the new wards my sister just put up. That should not have been possible." Harry said finding Billy in the crowd and waving him over.
"We're heading back out." Harry said looking up at the setting sun. It was early March but it was half past five and cloudy. They had maybe an hour of sunlight left before it was too dark to see.
"Let's get a move on Boss. We're losing daylight and these big rats ain't gonna track themselves." Billy said with a good natured smile adjusting his long king snake coat around him better and pulling up the collar to cover his neck.
"Don't tell Valos, but I think you're my favorite new recruit. Let's go." Harry said holding out a rock. The two men vanished and reappeared next to the barn. They found Neville and Valos a few hundred yards away looking at the ground.
"What did you find?!" Harry called out as they walked over.
"Tracks! They lead to the outer wall. They used the line of trees to find the shed full of food. I say we pop to the wall and figure out how they got in while we still have the light on our side." Valos said.
"Good call. Horses?" Billy asked.
"Wolf pack fighters. I have a feeling we're going to be heading up a mountain soon. The tracks lead to the west. To the mountains. What's the only thing that changed in the last 24 hours aside from Wererats we've never seen before?" Harry asked as he pulled out his fighter.
"The building that showed up on the top of the mountain." Neville said pulling out his fighter.
"Right." Harry said hopping into his fighter with Valos.
They flew low and slow to get to the wall and in a few minutes they found the hole in the ground and the tunnel that went down 30 foot under the wall to get under the wards. They came in single file and they kept the dirt moving down the line until it was piled up next to the hole outside the wall. Harry tossed a couple of grenades down the hole to collapse the tunnel and filled in the holes with the loose dirt from the other side of the wall. Once the tunnel was covered over they hopped back into the fighters and headed up into the mountains.
The building they were looking for was easy to spot. Once you got above the cliffs of the rockies the Art Deco style building was right there. As they flew closer they could see that it wasn't just a building, it was a complex of three buildings, a promenade between the buildings, and a parking lot. They made a low fly over the campus and almost instantly Harry could see something was off. It was like the campus was carved into a divot in the mountains. He made a few more passes and it hit him as he came around the front of the campus. If you put a pin in the middle of the center building and drew a circle around the campus that's what was sitting on top of the mountain. It was like a bubble enveloped the campus and popped it to the top of the mountain. But it looked like it left everything else back where it came from. A corner of the left building was missing and the parking lot was cut off cutting two of the cars parked in the lot right in half.
Harry dropped down and landed in the quarter of the parking lot that came with the campus and hopped out with his gun in hand. Neville landed next to him and followed his lead. Harry walked up to one of the 14 whole cars in the lot and looked it over. It looked like a 34 Cadillac roadster, it even had a Cadillac badge, but it looked more curvy, swoopy, and streamline. Infact all the cars did. Harry clocked a 39 Oldsmobile coupe that looked like a chopped hot rod but he could tell from the paint and the stance of the car that it was factory stock. It was like Art Deco was invented in the 1920 and stuck around until the 1940's. It was like all the cars made after the 135m Delahye just copied the style and stuck with it.
But as cool as the new style choices were the thing that stuck out the most was that 6 of the 14 cars didn't have wheels. In the wheel wells were some kind of electro magnates. He dropped down on the ground to get a better look under the car and saw the car was floating about three inches off the ground. He pushed on the car to see if it would move but it was rock solid. Harry was sure his sister would take one look at it and know what it was and how it worked but Harry was sure it was magic. He stood up getting ready to head into the building.
"I call dibs on the Caddy drophead roadster." Neville said making Harry look at his brother and roll his eyes.
"Let see if their are any more rats or maybe even survivors before you start calling dibs on cars we can't drive here. Or have you forgotten there are no roads?" Harry said leading the group to the front doors of the main building that took its style cues from the Cincinnati Union Terminal building with it's half dome front face and fountain out front. Across the front entrance was brass letters declaring 'United States Army Technomancy Research Laboratory'. The front glass doors were shattered. Harry pulled the front door brass frame open to look inside the building was almost totally dark inside.
"Head lamps boys." Harry said pulling out his very bright headlamp and putting it on. He also pulled out a small but powerful tactical flashlight from his bag and turned it on. Almost as soon as he got some light going he could see the bodies on the floor. There were 13 dead guards in full US army WWII infantry and MP uniforms with bite and claw marks all over their bodies holding M1 Garands, M2 carbines, Tommy guns, and 1911s. Also on the floor were 9 naked men and a naked woman riddled with bullet holes.
"The rats attacked in a pack and took out the guards." Neville said picking up a M1 Garand off the floor and looking it over.
"Yes but they came from within the building. From down this hall deeper in the building." Valos said looking at the positions of the dead guards.
"True. Hey Harry, what are you thinking about the time line? 1930's? 1940's?" Neville asked pulling a 1911 out of a dead soldier's hip holster. It was a model 1911A1 with a C serial number code. That meant it was made after 1930 but that didn't help much. He racked the slide and caught the round that flew out. The bullet looked different then he was expecting. The case was brass, but the head was some kind of copper or brass jacketed hollow point with a small ball bearing in the hollow point. Also on closer inspection the soldiers were wearing what looked like green dragon hide leather vests under their field jackets.
"Good question. Check his wallet for date marked bills and his ID if you want but I'm sure we'll find documents and calendars in offices with the date." Harry said.
"Good call." Neville said.
"Hey boss, should we take off their heads so they don't get up and start walking around?" Valos asked.
"If you want to but they haven't gotten up so far and they've been dead for at least 36 hours. I'm starting to think the curse only affects people from this world, sorry Billy." Harry said headed deeper into the building.
"Tell me about it. I'm always wearing armor from now on." Billy said with a smirk as they walked by the front desk at the back of the lobby. Neville checked the date book on the desk.
"March 5th, 1944." Neville said.
"But not our 1944. The cars were floating, and I don't remember a branch of the US military dedicated to Technomancy. That was all handled by their CIA and it was kept secret." Harry said.
"A lot of things don't add up. They have hollow points with ball bearings in the tip to help with spreading. That's like that critical defense ammo the magical CIA boys use." Neville said.
"Another rift into another world. I wonder how many worlds are out there?" Harry said leading them down the hall to the offices of the main building and what had to be the laboratory. It was a big room that took up half the main building's floor space in the center of the building with a ring of offices around it. There were four doors leading into the big laboratory and all of them were heavy plate steel vault style doors with big locks. On top of that they were glowing with wards and runes.
"It's going to take an hour to break just one of these doors down." Harry said scanning the wards to get a feel for them. They were nothing he knew and being a minor curse breaker that was saying something.
"Why not go through the wall?" Neville asked vanishing the marble wall only to hit plate steel covered in runes under it. "Fuck." He said.
"That sums it up. Call the girls, have them come over and start working on the door. They would be the only ones to understand anything we find in there anyways. I don't know much about technomancy, just what Mia taught us." Harry said.
"Yeah, I'll tell them to fly over. They'll wanna see this place anyways." Neville said pulling out his phone and walking back to the lobby.
"Valos you stay with Neville, Billy you're with me. I want to start clearing out the complex room by room to see if there are any survivors or more rats." Harry said pulling out his X-Five and walking down the hall to the first office.
Harry opened the door and Billy rushed in with his gun up. They found an empty office. They repeated this all the way around the building. In total there were 22 office and a small reference library/breakroom in the back of the building. They found a total of 36 dead soldiers, six janitors, a librarian, and 16 men and 4 women dressed in suits, and dresses with white lab coats over the top. They also found 37 dead naked men and women full of bullet holes. Harry turned them all into coins and pocketed them as he went. Billy summoned all the guns and shrank them as they went. At about the halfway point after seeing two women with their throats ripped out Billy ducked into one of the bathrooms and threw up. Harry followed him in and stood by with a sad look on his face.
"So much death." He said trying to flush the toilet but nothing happened. "Great, the plumbing is broken." Billy said.
"It runs on water pressure, all of the utilities were cut when this building came through the rift. Here." Harry said vanishing the puke and handing Billy his canteen of cold water.
"Thanks. I guess you must be rethinking your picking me to be on this team today? I can't use almost any of the spells you use, i'm not as good a shot as Valos, and I have a weak stomach." Billy asked leaning against the sink as he rinsed out his mouth.
"Not once. You're a good kid Billy. You got a lot of untapped potential and a good head on your shoulders. You just have to get used to the horrors of the job. That's it. On the other hand, do you regret taking the job offer?" Harry asked.
"No, we helped protect hundreds of people trapped in Reno by the big ass spiders and we captured the wererats to see if we can cure them. Even if we can't they're not in the tunnels kidnapping and turning or killing folks anymore." Billy said summoning his X-Five off the floor by the toilet where he dropped it.
"You're coming along a lot faster then I first thought. Our magic is a lot harder then the shit they teach here. It takes years to learn it and you've been pushing yourself to be wandless instead of using a wand as a crutch to learn faster. In a month you'll be a very deadly man. For now stick with us and we'll get you over the hump of death and horror." Harry said patting the kid on his back as he headed out the door.
Before Billy could get out of the bathroom Harry turned the two women into coins and pocketed them. When Billy came out he saw the two women were gone and he nodded at Harry with a thankful look in his eyes. They continued around building to the lobby and saw all the bodies were moved they came around and saw Hermione and Abby working on the door. Harry was about to call out his approach when Abby spun around and brought her 1911 up. When she saw it was them she relaxed.
"Warn a girl next time before you creep up on her in a dark and scary building." Abby said.
"Sorry, we just came around the building. We finished a scan of the offices and the cafeteria. 49 dead soldiers, 20 researchers, 7 staff, 47 dead wererats as of now. How's the wards coming?" Harry asked.
"It's coming. These are very well constructed wards that are powered by some kind of gemstone system that is really hard to crack. Thankfully they use latian runes so I can read it, I just have to figure out how to crack it. Neville is checking out the west building why don't you check the other one and by time you're back we should have these wards down." Hermione said.
"Right. Abby keep an eye out. Just because everything is dead in this place doesn't mean it can't get back up. I don't think it can happen but be on the look out anyways." Harry said leading Billy out the front door and across to the east building.
The door was smashed in just like the main doors. Harry pushed in and found more dead soldiers and naked people in the small lobby of this building, but unlike the main building lobby the guards were facing the front doors. Harry collected the dead bodies and Billy collected the guns and spent brass. The building housed a dinner style mess hall as well as a barracks to house 75 men. They found 6 cooks and a waitress dead in the mess hall. Harry looked at Billy to see how he was doing but at this point he looked numb. The Barracks were empty but full of personal effects. Harry found an armory full of guns, and ammo. He shrank it all and took it. By the time they walked out of the building they saw Neville and Valos walking into the front doors of the main building.
"What did you guys find?" Harry asked.
"Barracks, a few offices, an armory, and a training room. You?" Neville asked.
"A mess hall, a barracks, and an armory. How many dead?" Harry said.
"At this point, too many to keep track of. We coined them and kept moving. We'll sort it out when we're all done." Neville said.
"We do know a few things though. It looks like the soldiers stayed on property and the staff commuted to the lab from a living quarters off base. Probably Denver." Harry said.
"Looks that way. Did you clear out the armory?" Neville asked.
"Yeah. We don't want that level of weaponry to fall into the wrong hands." Harry said leading the group into the main building.
"We're through six of the seven wards. Then we can vanish the door." Hermione said.
"Good. I want to finish with the clean up, drop a ward stone set, and get some dinner." Harry said checking his watch.
"Dinner sounds good." Neville said watching his wife work.
It took just five more minutes for Hermione to bring down the wards on the door. Harry stacked up on the door with the group behind him. Hermione vanished the door and the team went in. The room was 100x200 foot and about 35 foot tall with a few small open air offices and desks tucked into the corners of the room. The middle of the room was taken up by a big 60 foot domed structure made of very thick glass and steel. Inside the room was some kind of ring like machine made of steel and glowing runes connected by cables to a bank of old crt computers that looked like they were powered by magic. As they spread out through the room they each took a corner to search. They found dozens of bodies on the floor. It was a mix of researchers, soldiers, and naked people. It was a bloodbath in this room. It was clear to see this was the epicenter of where the shit hit the fan. Harry bent over to pick up a clipboard off the ground when he heard an odd thunder crack like sound followed by a woman's scream and a grown.
"Call out! What's going on?" Harry called out rushing over to the center of the room the sound came from.
He found Valos on the floor. His coat and vest were smoking. In the domed room huddled under a table was a woman in her late twenties clutching an odd shaped handgun in her hands and a dead man in his late thirties to her chest. She was dressed in a dark grey pinstriped skirt suit, a white silk blouse, a wide red tie, and black high heeled maryjane style shoes. Her light brown hair was pinned back off her face and fell down her back in loose rings. She had pale white skin, soft brown eyes, arched eyebrows, a thin nose, and very delicate features. She wore very little makeup except for the dark red lipstick and the mascara that was running down her cheeks.
"Ma'am, we are not here to hurt you. We are US Marshals." Harry said pushing Valos who was waking up off to the side so his sister could take a look at him.
"Alpha Protocol Zeta 3! Call out the command codes!" She yelled back.
"I'm going to cast a light spell so you can see me. I'm human, I'm a US Marshal. I'll show you my star." Harry said casting a low powered light ball spell into the room.
"ALPHA PROTOCOL Zeta 3! CALL OUT THE COMMAND CODES RIGHT FUCKING NOW!" She screamed in a desperate tone of voice Harry knew very well. He looked into the room and got a better look at her eyes. They were red rimmed, raw, and beyond freaked out. He also saw the dried blood on the back of her hair and her shirt collar from a head wound. He also got a good look at the gun. It was small, stubby, and round.
"Ma'am, I don't know what you're talking about! I'm a US Marshal. This is my star." Harry said tossing his star to the ground close to her. "Please Ma'am you look hurt. Let me come into the room and help you. I will leave all of my guns out here." Harry said.
"LIES! CALL OUT THE COMMAND CODES!" She screamed but as she did she let off a shot at the door. The gun glowed for a split second before a beam of red light about three inches thick shot out the tip and hit the door frame blasting a fist sized hole in the steel.
Harry rolled around the corner and stunned her. He advanced on her and took the raygun from her hand and put it in his coat before he picked up the slim woman and brought her out of the room. He set her next to Valos. And pulled the id badge off her lab coat.
"Dr. Elizabeth Westen. She has a head wound and she's in shock. I think she witnessed all of this. She was clutching a dead researcher to her chest and it looks like she's been sitting in the dark wide awake for the last 20 plus hours." Harry said.
"I need to get her back to the Cube. I need to do a full scan on her and we need to monitor her for the next few days to see if she has any permanent brain damage." Hermione said.
"I have a feeling until we get the full story from her we're not going to get any answers to anything. Let's finish the clean up, drop a ward stone perimeter around this place and lock it down until we can go over this place with a fine tooth comb." Harry said.
It took a half hour to finish the clean up, fix the doors, shrink the cars in the lot, and set up a double layer ward stone perimeter. Hermione and Abby took Dr. Westen back to the cube. Neville took Valos back to Eureka to rest and heal from the blast he took to the chest. Harry took Billy back to Denver to check on the rat cage and report to Walter. By the time they made it back to Eureka it was past dinner time and Harry was tired. He walked into the cube and took off his hat, he was about to take off his coat when he heard screaming from down the hall. He rushed to the guest bedroom and saw Hermione and Abby trying to calm Dr. Westen down who was dressed in one of Abby's white silk night gowns. She was standing in the corner of the room holding a wand.
"Where are my clothes!? Where am i!? What is going on!?" She yelled.
"SIT YOUR ASS DOWN NOW!" Harry yelled walking into the room. He must have infused his magic into his voice because all three women sat on their asses where the were. "Not you two. Now Dr. Westen, like I said before. I am a US Marshal. You are in a town called Eureka Nevada. You traveled to a different dimension. In fact your whole campus did. You brought with you wererats. They attacked people in Denver. We were called in to track them down and capture them. We have them in a big cage protected by wards. We got a report from an airship captian that spotted your campus at the top of a mountain. We were dispatched to investigate. We found a fucking bloodbath. By the last count we have. 78 dead soldiers, 52 dead researchers, 13 staff members, and 73 dead wererats. That's on the low end. We also found you. Now you're hurt, dehydrated, and delirious from your injuries. You will lay down and get some rest so you can heal up and then you can tell us what the fuck is going on." Harry said in a tone of voice that brokered no arguments and yet she still pushed back.
"Alpha Protocol states…" She started to say before Harry cut her off.
"I don't give two flying fucks what alpha protocol is! We have two dead, and 30 people turned into wererats in the city of Denver! As far as I'm concerned you asshats played with dimensional magic and you unleashed this hell on yourselves. I should charge you with the death's of the two men that died in Denver today. Your ass should be in a cell. You're not because I don't think you were in charge of this bubmblefuck of a situation that happened. I think you're a victim just like all the poor bastards that died over the last two days. Now get in that fucking bed and get some rest and if I think you're trying to escape I'll knock you out and toss you in a fucking cell. Be glad we found you and not the marshals in Denver. We too are dimensional travelers. We came here by accident just like you. If they knew you were a dimensional traveler they would have rushed you through a trial and put you in front of a firing squad. Dimensional travel magic fucked this world all up. Anyone caught practicing it get slapped by the long arm of the law. I'm not playing with you any more. One more sound out of you and i'll kill you myself." Harry asked coldly before walking out of the room but he stayed close by incase he was needed.
"I don't know what to say." Dr. Westen said looking close to tears.
"You have to excuse my brother, he had to clean up a lot of dead bodies today. Seeing that much death reminds him of the war. You work for the army, you understand war wounds." Hermione said in a soft calming tone of voice that put the doctor at ease.
"Yes. My David gets like that… David." She said softly as tears formed in her eyes.
"Was that the man you were clutching to your chest?" Abby asked helping Hermione get the Doctor into bed.
"Yes." She said softly as they tucked her in.
Hermione gave her a healing potion mixed with a sleeping draught. She was asleep in seconds. Hermione cast a monitoring charm on the sleeping woman before they walked out of the room taking the doctor's wand with her. They found the boys in the dining room eating big plates of dragon steak, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, and fresh buttery rolls. There were two plates on the table waiting for them.
"How is she?" Harry asked looking guilty. Both women knew he felt bad about yelling at her.
"She'll be physically fine in morning. Mentally? That's anyone's guess. She could wake up calm and ready to talk in the morning." Hermione said.
"But she'll be able to answer question tomorrow right?" Harry asked.
"Yes. But I'd go easy on her Harry. The man she was clutching to her chest was her boyfriend or husband. I'm not sure but I do know they were lovers. She spent 20 plus hours clutching his dead body to her chest waiting for help to arrive." Hermione said.
"I won't push. But we need answers. I'd also like one of you to talk to Billy at some point tomorrow. Ask him about his first day and see if he'll talk to you. He seen a lot of death today and I think it fucked with him." Harry said.
"We'll add it to the list." Abby said with a comical over the top sigh.
"We all work to hard. One day soon we'll take a trip to the west coast and take a break. We just need to get the team up and running. Even if it's just Billy and Valos. Those two are a lot tougher then I thought they would be." Harry said with some pride in his voice.
After dinner Harry sat in his office and cataloged all the guns they got from the dead soldiers. Harry unloaded all the guns, hit them with a cleaning charm, and stacked them in wood crates he made. 10 M1 garands to a crate, 20 M2 carbines and 20 tommy guns to a crate, and 50 1911a1's to a crate. When he was done boxing up all the guns he shrank all the crates and put them in a trunk marked WWII guns. He did the same with the ammo. He checked on their guest one last time before he went to bed.