Warlock of Omaha Squared
By Hemaccabe
Chapter 7: Do Not Forsake Me
We got home and, twenty minutes later, there was Novi looking like a tall, brunette swimwear supermodel from my teen age fantasies wearing a conservative maid's outfit.
"Thank-you." I said as she gave me the statuette and I gave it to Tamar who took it back to her own cottage.
It wasn't long before I got a call from Chebelforth.
"I believe my property is now in your possession." He said.
"Not exactly. It belongs to a guest who lives here on my property. I promised only to ask for the item and see if it could be negotiated for. I do now have an answer. My guest is completely unwilling to part with the object." I explained.
"That statuette rightfully belongs to me. If you do not yield it, I will come there and take it." He answered, clearly quite angry.
"I don't recommend that. We've just upgraded the security system." I counter threatened.
Chebelforth hung up.
"Everyone on site, security alert." I announced through my cell phone, also sending the appropriate text messages.
I did a quick check. It was the middle of the day, so the girls were in class. That was good. Tamar came back quick, she was wearing her, still somehow sexy, type 1 reinforced fatigues I had made for her.
"Is there a problem Master?" Novi asked.
"Chebelforth may be here soon. We need to be prepared to fight." I replied.
"I don't think Chebelforth will be able to gain admittance. If he does, I will be here to repel him." Novi replied.
"Do you think you could take Chebelforth?" I asked.
"Certainly." She replied.
"Why don't you think he could get in?" I asked after thinking for another second.
"All powerful magical beings must respect a threshold. Your home has a particularly strong threshold in the exact variety most inimical to him. If a human mage tries to force his way across a threshold, he would lose most of his power at the door proportionally to the strength of the threshold. Chebelforth is a sort of undead, he might simply cease to be. I would expect he just won't be able to cross." Novi explained further.
"Could we force him across the threshold?" I asked.
"That would be an invitation and then he would be able to cross your threshold at will." Novi replied.
"Okay." I answered a little confused.
I got into full battle gear and was pulling on the last straps as Chebelforth arrived at my front gate.
Maybe it was foolish, but I went down to the gate to meet him.
Chebelforth got out of the expensive BMW he was driving and walked up to my front gate.
"Give me back that which is mine or I will come in and take it." Chebelforth threatened.
"No." I replied.
Chebelforth walked up to my gate and reached out his hand. As his hand got closer, it was like there was a wind made of light blowing him back. The closer he got, the harder the wind blew. The harder the wind blew, the more the illusion that Chebelforth was a short, slightly heavyset, middle aged man faded and the more it became clear he was some sort of corrupt thing. The smell was terrible.
After what seemed to be an eternity during which I thought he might break through at any moment, but what my security footage showed was no more than 1.38 seconds, he pulled back his hand.
"This is not yet done Fox man." Chebelforth snarled from a throat that wasn't all there.
"I don't like threats." I replied and shot him with my rifle.
The bullet went straight through him. The security cam footage would later show a puff of dust emerged from his back. Then the bullet dug a brick out of the street. It wasn't even clear that I'd made a hole in his clothes.
He smirked, turned around, got back in his car and left.
I retreated back into the house.
Novi, Tamar and I went back to the kitchen.
"It would seem bullets don't have much effect on him. Do we have any better ideas?" I asked.
"I can teach you to use your magic better to challenge him." Novi said.
"Can I hide in the house forever?" I asked.
"No, he will find other ways to make your life unbearable." Tamar answered.
"What can kill him?" I asked.
"It's not clear that he can be killed. In one sense, he is already dead." Novi answered.
"Fine, without dwelling too much on semantics, what can stop him, destroy him?" I asked.
"That's just it, it's not clear that is possible without a major divine intervention?" Tamar explained.
"What?" I asked incredulous.
"You should read your bible better. Chebelforth was pushed by God to do what he did. As a recompense, he was spared at the Red Sea. He was also allowed to seal himself in an eternal sleep in his tomb so as to avoid final judgment." Tamar explained.
"So, what happened then?" I asked.
"Chebelforth had a plan. He would be raised from the dead to eternal life here on Earth and would in turn raise an army of undying, undefeatable undead to wage endless war on his greatest enemies." Novi explained.
"Wage war on me." I said.
"Essentially yes." Tamar chimed in.
"I'm just trying to live quietly in my house. Why can't these things just leave me alone?" I asked with more than a note of frustration in my voice.
"Our people have been living with that essential quandary for three thousand years my love, and many more of us dying with it." Tamar explained with a bitter smile.
"So, what happened to his big plans?" I asked.
"His successor was not so interested in his rising to rule forever, so he let Chebelforth sleep." Novi explained.
"That makes sense, then the original Chebelforth finds him and accidentally lets him loose." I contributed.
"Actually, the original Chebelforth did a very foolish thing in excavating him, but at least did an amazing job keeping him sealed up." Novi corrected.
"So, what happened?" I asked.
"Chebelforth's idiot son cracked open the sarcophagus in an effort to see if there was any gold or money inside." Novi explained.
"So that brought him back. Why didn't he gain eternal life and a massive unstoppable army?" I asked.
"The second Chebelforth had already sold the key artifact he would need." Novi answered.
"The statuette." I answered.
"Exactly." Novi answered.
"So, there's no giving that back to him now." I said with resignation.
"Exactly. Though we wouldn't have given it back even if it was an ashtray." Tamar explained.
"So, we still don't have a plan for how to stop this guy?" I pointed out.
"He can't be destroyed. He's already dead." Novi replied.
Novi's saying that again was so totally not completely annoying. Okay, it was.
"So, he's going to make my life miserable if I don't give him back the statuette. If I do give it back, he'll start some sort of mega war on the living, me first, and there's no way to stop him. We need to come up with something." I summarized.
Then Tamar, Novi and I came up with a brilliant plan.
After we came up with our brilliant plan, I took Tamar back to my bedroom, we had a bath. We relaxed each other and got a few hours' sleep.
When it was dinner time Tamar and I ventured out and joined Yumi, Diane, Kaylee and Brenda.
I had Novi come in, "This is Novi. She will be joining the household. She'll be taking the room next to Diane's. Her tasks will be to help all of you with your tasks and, in doing so, learn them. Please welcome her."
There was general friendly welcoming.
Diane spoke up next, "There was a security alert today, what happened?"
"We have a new problem. Chebelforth has become aggressive and threatening. We're working to resolve the issue. For the time being, I believe we are all safe. But I ask all of you to be extra cautious until the situation is resolved." I explained.
We discussed it a bit more, but there wasn't much more to say.
After dinner, I went out to the forge. I had some things I wanted to work on. I got back to bed right around midnight, which, unfortunately was right when Tamar was heading out on her errands.
The next morning, I got up bright and early and met Novi at the forge. Part of the plan was that Novi would work with me in the mornings. One of my weaknesses had always been my lack of magical tutelage. Now Novi would be attending to that deficit each morning.
"You have only the most basic understanding of controlling magical energy. We will begin with that."
We spent the morning working at pulling power from my well. Between the exercise I had gotten working on the bolts and the enhanced will finding my inner wolf had endowed, I was better than I once was. Novi spent the morning showing me how much farther I had to go. By lunchtime I was exhausted. I was glad it was only a half day class. Compared to Novi, Mr. Guna was a rest cure.
I had lunch and then met with Tamar.
Another part of the plan was that I had to learn from Tamar some of the basics of what it meant to be a Fox person.
"We will start with the basic movements." She began.
I would say it was most similar to Tai Chi. Slow movements which clearly built control.
No specific movement was that difficult. However, I had to be perfect and there were no breaks. By dinner time, I was exhausted again.
We had dinner as a family, and I went back to the forge till midnight. Once again, just as I was getting back to bed, Tamar was heading out. A quick kiss is all we shared as I collapsed into sleep.
So, it went. The third day I got a call from Miranda. "We just got inspected and they marked us down!"
"Was there a real problem or did they demand a bribe?" I asked.
"No and no. Everything was fine. Our food and facilities are top notch. It makes no sense. It's like the inspector had decided before he walked in, he would find a problem." Miranda replied.
"Okay. Shut down. Make an announcement we will do a full review of processes. I'll put money in the account to cover expenses while we get this sorted out." I explained.
"But there's nothing wrong with our processes?" Miranda said.
"That may be but were doing damage control now. The truth is irrelevant. The problem is coming from my world. You remember Chebelforth?" I asked.
"Yeah, what about him?" Miranda asked.
"He's actually a player in my world. He's decided he has to be a problem. He can't get at me directly right now, so he's using his money and power to put pressure on me." I explained.
"That's the first thing that makes some sense I've heard today. Which is crazy. How long is this likely to last?" She asked.
"Hard to say. We'll probably have to cave and give him what he wants soon." I answered.
"Is crazy people from your world likely to be an ongoing problem?" She asked somewhat frustrated.
"You chose to get in business with me for the many obvious benefits. I think it's worked out quite well so far. Now we're experiencing one of the downsides. I'm sorry it's affected you. We're doing what we can on my side to get the problem resolved. I suggest you get the restaurant settled. Donate any perishable food to charity and enjoy a few days off." I replied.
"That's very frustrating." Miranda said.
"I know. Once again, I apologize." I replied.
"Okay." Miranda ended the call.
The next day, someone spray painted my outside wall, "Lying Thief," and some other less polite things. I gave the security camera footage to the police which included the car's license plate number.
The day after that, some thugs chased Diane into a police substation.
After that I kept all the girls on premises. They would be nominally safe, but missing classes and other important matriculation activities.
On Friday afternoon, I was working with Tamar. We were talking about various things.
"Then, when I hit the electronics, the whole building went out. When I threw that shot at Novi in the hotel, it was not supposed to be that hard. Then when I threw force at the bull men, I expected to, maybe, knock one down. I knocked down three and apparently killed one." I was explaining.
"You have to accept your own power and what you can do with it." Tamar answered.
"I know my own power, I've viewed it." I said.
"You've viewed it? How?" Tamar asked.
I showed Tamar how I could view someone's well of power. She laughed.
"You assumed what you did was objective. That it would give you a clear measure of what you're trying to study, like a blood pressure reader. You have to accept, magic is frequently very subjective." She explained.
"So, then what you're saying is…" I began.
Tamar finished, "All you have been seeing is your own subjective opinion. If you think you're small, you'll be small. If you think someone is big, they'll be big."
"Is there a better way to tell?" I asked.
"Not really. Also, whatever you were before, the bowl of the kappa's power spilled it's power on you. There's a good chance much of that power has permanently come to rest in you." Tamar explained.
"But when I was kid, I could barely throw a few sparks?" I asked.
"You were a feckless child without self-discipline. Now you are a man who can master himself. It makes a big difference. More importantly, you have to stop seeing yourself as a grasshopper and your enemies as giants." She answered.
On Saturday night, Tamar didn't come home.
Each night, Tamar had been going to the Durham and casing various angles to help us develop our plan.
On Sunday morning Chebelforth called, "I think we may have a better basis now for an exchange."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
In the background I could hear Tamar scream, "Don't give him anyth…" followed by a grunt.
"If you want your woman back, just give me my little statuette. Is one little inanimate object worth your woman's life?" He asked.
"Okay, you win." I said. "If she's not alive and well, you'll get dust." I conceded.
"I'm glad you saw things my way before something truly awful had to happen." He replied.
"I'll meet you at the Durham at your exhibit tonight at 3am. We give you the statuette. You go away and leave us alone." I offered.
"That's all I have ever asked." Chebelforth replied reasonably.
Tamar had been scouting the Durham each night for a week. She knew where the cameras were and how to get in and out. She had also been stashing certain supplies there. We had been building a plan to confront Chebelforth at his exhibit. Tamar being free and able to help was a key component for our plan to work.
I pulled myself together that evening and just before I left home, I ran into Novi.
"What are you going to do now? Your plan required Tamar?" Novi asked.
I assumed, despite explaining nothing, Novi knew everything going on.
"Now I have no choice. I'm going forward with the plan. Hopefully I'll be able to make it work with whatever help I can get from her." I replied.
"That's really a bad idea. You'll likely both end up dead. You should run." Novi replied.
"No choice, remember?" I replied and left.
I snuck into the Durham, Tamar had been keeping me up on what she found so it wasn't that hard. After doing a little electronic skullduggery to make sure the security system would see nothing more than it did on any given night, I didn't have that much trouble getting in. The Durham had a very modern, up to date, controlled through the internet, security system which had been graciously donated, and was maintained by, one of my clients. So, I could rearrange all the security footage, and the system in general, from my smart phone.
I made my way to the room in the basement holding the Chebelforth Collection. The place was remarkably more creepy empty and dark.
When I arrived at the gallery, I took a moment to survey the room. Was Chebelforth present? More importantly, Tamar? No, there was no one in the room.
I made my through the room to the sarcophagus. Since the second Chebelforth, the sarcophagus had been open and shockingly empty.
I placed a white, ivory statuette, immersed in a sealed plexiglass cylinder filled with water, in the sarcophagus.
Then Chebelforth arrived. "I see you've come alone. Where is my property?"
There was a fairly large doorway back to the rest of the museum, but it was the only way in or out and Chebelforth now stood astride it. He was now doing his most interesting man alive thing ever so impeccably, but somehow, I could still smell him. It was the same awful scent from his visit to my gate.
He had brought Tamar, well bound, a little roughed up looking, but not seriously injured over his shoulder and set her down, none to gently, on a convenient bench.
"In the sarcophagus." I replied.
He came across the gallery to where I was standing next to the sarcophagus and examined the cylinder.
"It looks good. I'm glad you could see reason." Chebelforth said.
"Remember, you agreed to leave me and mine alone." I said.
"Well, what is one's word when given to a Fox person?" Chebelforth said as he pulled out a gun and fired.
He wasn't aiming at me. He shot Tamar.
I didn't have a lot of options. Novi had been drilling me all week in controlling power and I had seen how she could deflect my best shot. I pushed for all I was worth in that split second.
"Unngh," Tamar grunted and fell forward.
I then hit Chebelforth with everything I had. I sent a massive bolt of force down my axe and into him at point blank range.
Chebelforth did a little thing with the fingers of his left hand and totally shrugged it off.
"You'll need to do better than that little man." Chebelforth gloated. Then with a casual wave I flew across the room, my back slamming into a concrete wall. I hit hard enough to crack my helmet.
I struggled my helmet off in time to see that Chebelforth turned around to pick up the cylinder with the statuette in it.
That's what I was waiting for.
As Chebelforth leaned into the sarcophagus, I picked up the lid with my new and improved levitation and slammed it down on Chebelforth.
Chebelforth immediately started pushing the lid back up with everything he had, but I had him at the disadvantage. That lid alone must have weighed thousands of pounds. Still, it was taking everything I had to keep pushing down on the lid. I knew that, eventually, Chebelforth would force his way out.
Our brilliant plan was for Tamar, at this point, to seal Chebelforth in. I had been hoping Tamar would be alive, able to get loose from her bonds and do her part. Failing that, I hoped I would be able to do her job. Both hopes seemed futile now. Tamar was still on the ground not moving, with an ever-growing pool of blood around her. By myself, not only could I not seal this thing, any second I knew Chebelforth would be loose, at which point, I and most of the living things on the planet would probably be dead.
Suddenly, there was Novi. She brought over one of the tubes of Vulkem Tamar had previously hidden in the gallery and sealed down the lid.
Once Novi completed her first round, Chebelforth's resistance suddenly faded. She did several more circuits just to be sure. I kept holding the lid down, both with my physical and magical strength just in case he was playing possum.
Lovely stuff that Vulkem, use it to seal my driveway every year.
Then Novi and I attached two heavy steel bands that I had spent the week forging and magically reinforced, just in case.
I went to check on Tamar, she was unconscious, but she still seemed alive. I carried her very gently, like a baby, in my arms.
Novi lifted the sarcophagus onto a very old-fashioned, but very sturdy, four-wheel dolly and pulled it out to my truck. It just fit in the bed.
When we got home, I met Kelly who began treating Tamar over at our onsite clinic.
"She seems..." Kelly began as Tamar woke up, "…like she'll be okay." Kelly finished.
Apparently, the bullet had hit Tamar in the shoulder and passed straight through. While doing so, the bullet had also snapped Tamar back against the wall. In addition to her bullet wound, Tamar would have a wicked bruise and a nasty knot on the back of her head. The new wounds would go well with the other bruises she had received from Chebelforth, but she was basically okay.
I had, thanks to Diane, a nice deep hole ready in the backyard. We used a modern innovation, a concrete sarcophagus. When most graveyards currently bury someone, they like to have the casket sit inside a concrete rectangular sarcophagus. Since most families like to have an illusion that their loved ones will spend eternity in their luxury casket and untouched by time or corruption, they find it comforting. It also gives the funeral home another billable item. Graveyards like it, as it prevents excessive settling. The excessive settling can be avoided without the sarcophagus, but it requires more labor.
In normal burials, the flat lid of the concrete sarcophagus is put at the bottom, the casket is placed atop of the lid/slab and the rest of the cube is then placed above, creating a chamber around the casket for eternity. I had tracked down and purchased a particularly large concrete sarcophagus. I had also spec'ed in that my concrete sarcophagus would have steel rebar reinforcement.
I placed Chebelforth's sarcophagus on the pedestal. Then I put a thick shot of Vulkem around the edge to hold the bottom/pedestal of the concrete sarcophagus to the boxy top of the concrete sarcophagus, sealing it in a second time.
I had made a hole about a foot in diameter in the top of the concrete sarcophagus. I had done that because I also had an industrial concrete mixer and a whole lot of Quickcrete. We mixed the Quickcrete loose and filled the concrete sarcophagus. We then filled in the hole with more Quickcrete. Chebelforth's sarcophagus would float in concrete inside the concrete sarcophagus which itself would float in concrete. We would wait for a week to make sure everything was curing well. Then we filled in the hole with dirt and laid some nice grass sod. I liked Scott's Blue Grass. Diane was happy to make sure the sod was well watered.
It was a major sensation. A robbery in Omaha! That doesn't happen here. Further, of all the gold artifacts, jewelry and other easily moved valuables, only the relatively unwieldy and difficult to resell sarcophagus had been stolen.
"I saw the statuette in the sarcophagus, apparently it's still in there. That was not part of the plan." Tamar said annoyed.
"It was clever to put the statuette in the water cylinder. That would hide it from magical detection." Novi mentioned.
"Beloved, the statuette is still in your cottage." I said.
"Then what was in the sarcophagus?" Tamar asked.
"I took a scan of the statuette. Had my CNC machines carve me a copy from aluminum. Then I gave it a nice powder coat in ivory white. Very convincing likeness." I said.
"Then you put it in the water so Chebelforth wouldn't know it wasn't real!" Tamar exclaimed.
"Very clever Master." Novi said.
"So now he'll sleep again until someone pulls him out of there?" I asked.
"Once the sarcophagus was sealed, he was rendered immobile. However, without the proper rituals he will not sleep." Novi explained.
"Then..." Tamar began.
"He's still awake in there, just immobilized, perhaps forever?" I asked.
"Yes, and I imagine it can't be that comfortable in there with the cylinder." Novi explained.
The sarcophagus was just slightly larger than the body that went in it. Not a lot of leftover space. Chebelforth would be sharing those generous accommodations with a plexiglass cylinder that had fairly sharp edges.
"I can live with that." Tamar said.
"Exactly," I said, "we can live with that. There was no other way."
Tamar then took me back to our bedroom.
"There is something I need to tell you." She began.
"There is something I need to ask you." I said.
"Let me go first," She replied, "I am with child."
I got down on my knee and pulled out the other item I'd been working on in the forge. It was a mix of 14 Karat rose gold and high-grade tungsten steel. I offered, the ring to Tamar and said, "With this, I make you holy to me."
Tamar got a funny look on her face and accepted the ring. Then we kissed and then, well we enjoyed each other's company a lot, for a long time. We had to be careful of her shoulder.
In the days that followed, the Lodge was re-inspected and vindicated, being found to be in good condition. Then the Lodge re-opened to a whole new round of rave reviews. The only real change was that there was now a case of The Asters in the bar stock room.
A bit of sandblasting cleaned the wall and my security footage helped the police nab the vandals who were duly punished. This is Omaha after all.
The girls went back to school and there were no more incidents.
Travis, then Jake got back in town and they took me out for a real humdinger of a bachelor party. Really, we just went to Hooters and ate a lot of wings. We did still ogle! A lot!
A few days later, as I floated in the happy absence of immediate mortal danger and Tamar and my engagement, Brenda pulled me aside.
"There's something I have to tell you." Brenda began.
I could see Brenda was very concerned. "Just tell me Brenda?" I asked so serenely.
"I'm pregnant."
*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***
Please don't miss that this is the second exciting book in this series. The original Warlock of Omaha and sequel Warlock of Omaha Cubed are also on this site! Someday soon the latest, Warlock of Richmond may join them!
If you enjoy Star Wars and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three Star Wars novels I have written, all called Legend of the Harp!
I have also recently released a Star Trek novel. It's called Star Trek: Lost Destiny. Please consider this an invitation to read it.
This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:
Pay
Pal
.me
/hemaccabe
and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.
While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.
Please help. Thank-you.