Warlock of Omaha

by Hemaccabe

Adventures of a Warlock who lives in Omaha in the Dresden Files universe. No overlap with characters from the series. Less violence and more sex than actual books. Rated M for both explicit sex, violence and some language.

2. Chapter 2

Warlock of Omaha

By Hemaccabe

Chapter 2: Unicorn Hunting

As luck would have it, the mundane world has an answer for those who can't throw magic fireballs, it's called the shotgun.

While I took many steps to improve my ability to defend myself, the most obvious was firearms. Over the years, what is available in the world of firearms and what is recommended for personal defense have changed. When I first got started, the consensus of the self-defense expert community for the best personal safety firearm was a shotgun. I ended up with a Remington 870 Marine.

I took the shotgun apart and put it back together many times until I understood every bit of it. I practiced for at least two hours a day, while also going down to a local range at least three times a week. Each time I went, I spent a few hundred dollar's worth of shells shooting endless streams of trap and skeet. After a few months, I wasn't going to the Olympics, but I had achieved a high level of basic competency.

Not being one to ever leave well enough alone, I played with the 870. I would have liked a box fed semi-automatic shotgun better than the pump fed Remington but didn't feel there were any good options on the market. The 870 was the preferred option for countless law enforcement agencies and is very popular to this day. That meant there is a bottomless pool of accessory options. Shotgun shells are also known for coming in substantial variety. I ended up with a variety of doo dads including an upgraded stock and rifled barrel.

There's an old saying, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."

Whoever started that saying obviously didn't know about shotguns. The point of a shotgun is that it fires a shell full of pellets and will hit an area that grows larger the further from the gun it hits. This doesn't mean shotguns require no skill. You still have to be on target to have an effect, but it is a much larger area of effect than you'll get from a rifle or pistol. The standard pellet options for personal defense shotgun shells are size 4, double aught and slug, with double aught being the most popular. Double aught has a small number of large pellets covering a small area. Size 4 has more smaller pellets covering a wider area. The slug breaks the rules being a single large "slug" of lead, often hollow pointed. A slug firing shotgun will give up a lot of range and accuracy to a rifle, but that single huge slug, firing with such huge force behind it, is absolutely devastating.

Of course, no shell option was good enough for me. So, I created a flechette round made of stainless steel that fired from my, unusual for a shotgun, rifled barrel. My flechette loaded shotgun rounds looked like a slug with lots of pointy ends in one direction. The whole thing would be spun by the gun's rifled barrel then come apart after leaving the muzzle and corkscrew downrange. The flechette package would be backed by some size 4 stainless steel shot, an oversized load of fast burning powder and a fast primer. I coated all the projectiles in tracer material which meant they burned as they flew. I put magic into them to help them fly straight and true and seek out the weak spots on targets. That meant anything I fired at would have big pointy bits of burning stainless hitting them with extreme force and supernatural accuracy. I did extensive testing on ballistic gel, different kinds of armor and sides of pork. The effects were devastating out past one hundred yards.

Why stainless steel? Two reasons mostly. Firstly, steel is illegal in most pistol ammunition because it's too good. Steel is really hard compared to the lead most bullets are made of and therefore much more likely to penetrate most kinds of body armor. Police, who like to feel body armor makes them safe are understandably concerned. The better penetration is the kind of advantage I want when facing things that are much nastier and more resilient than mere mortal men.

Which leads to the second reason. As I've said before, there is very little magic in the world. I've been in hundreds of shops claiming they sold "real" magic paraphernalia and I've never found a single thing with any magical resonance. One is much more likely to find such objects in old antique shops or at swap meets. Even still, I've hiked over many acres of such places and frequently come up empty. However, of the magic that does exist, most comes from what I call fairyland.

I don't know a whole huge heck of a lot about fairyland, but I know it surrounds the physical world we live in and probably has many times the area of Earth and many times the variety of inhabitants. I'm sure some are nice and would make great friends, but most are incredibly dangerous and prey on us mere mortal humans. I can make a magical gate to the fairyland, but it leaves me exhausted which would be a wonderful condition to put myself into incredible danger, so I don't much do it. One basic detail that seems to apply to most of fairyland is that they're very vulnerable to iron, and therefore steel.

That shotgun was what I had when I got my first test.

My home has a variety of defenses, both passive and active. They include a variety of cameras and motion detectors, both obvious and hidden and in depth. If camera 1 goes out, chances are camera 1a, 1b and 1c are covering the same area and now getting a lot of attention.

While getting all the systems integrated, speaking to each other and usable with a fast-user-friendly interface was not as simple or quick as I would like, it came together eventually. Not long after that, a camera we'll call, "camera 22," started dying. It would die and I'd start scanning 22a, b and c and see nothing. The first time I checked the camera, it had died from a typical short, so I sent it back to the vendor for replacement. Electronics were fairly sensitive back then and I had a lot of them out. Other bits and pieces had teething problems during set up, so I didn't think much of it. I was still within warranty and as a very large customer of the vendor in question, got excellent service. Three days later, a replacement was up and running. It lasted two days and died.

Camera 22 just didn't do well. It never lasted more than three days and frequently only one. I checked everything I could think of to see if it was a system fault or problem with the location, but everything was fine. I took to keeping extra cameras in inventory so I could get the next one up faster. I switched models and manufacturers over time. I think the constant failures actually drove model changes from manufacturers as they wondered why so many of a given model were dying. Nothing helped.

I know it's a simple thing to use a bit of magic to scramble and break electronics. The results tend to look like common failures, but it didn't take me ten cameras dying to realize it was magic and that someone was out there probing my defenses. If I was a badass wizard with allies, I probably could have gone out and hunted them down. That sounds cool, but it would mean letting them pick the time and place of the fight with me at my weakest. Not a good strategy. I could have gotten lazy, stopped reacting and just rolled over in my sleep, which seemed very tempting after it had happened over two hundred times. It was very frustrating and very tempting. Instead, each time I jumped into my readied gear as I clicked on the laptop to watch what was happening.

A little over a year later, something did finally happen. What I've always later called, "Forest Man" sailed over my wall with a fairy elegant leap. I was there with my shotgun. Forest Man took one in the head and two in the torso before he hit the ground. When "he" hit the ground, he was done. No movement. Small fires went out after a few seconds. I spent the rest of the night out with my gear on waiting for the next move which never came. Forest Man was basically humanoid, but made of nothing but branches, vines and other plant matter. I'm pretty sure he was a magical construct and all the metal in the shotgun shells disrupted him. We buried the "corpse" under the garden, and I have to say, the grass on the spot where Forest Man fell and the garden, we buried him in have grown really well ever since. Camera 22 has also never failed again. I guess whatever was probing me gave up that night. Once again, it would be a much better story to say we had a long feud which, after many close scrapes resulted in me putting paid to him, but that's not what happened. Whatever was hunting me clearly decided that I was more trouble than I was worth, and I never wanted to meet anything in a dark alley that thought hunting me was a good idea.

My weapons have evolved since then. The shotgun was great, but pump actions are slow to shoot and the eight-round magazine limit and slow reload time were serious liabilities. I know there are those that think eight rounds is a lot. Imagine if Forest Man had a few friends. I could have gone through eight rounds pretty quick, if they gave me long enough to pump, before they put paid to me.

I went shopping.

In the world of firearms there are many different types and classes of weapon. One has to remember, guns are tools, just like hammers and screwdrivers. You wouldn't use a twenty-pound sledge to tap up a photo or a small screwdriver for demolition. Picking the right gun for the right situation is very important. One of the reasons gun rights people like me don't like the not very "common sense" restrictions of gun control advocates is that they tend to restrict types and varieties of firearms at random without really thinking about the legitimate needs of the people they are inconveniencing to death.

The funny thing is, that amongst those very practical tools are ones that don't make much sense. They're too powerful and do too much damage at the expense of being quick, fast and other important practical considerations. It's like they were made for hunting some fantastic creatures we all know don't exist. In other words, perfect for me. In the firearms community, they're known as unicorn hunters.

The unicorn hunters were born in the era of Dirty Harry. Back in the seventies, a .44 Magnum revolver made sense, if you had the arm and hand strength to use it. Most police were equipped with woefully underpowered 38 special six shot revolvers. Semi-automatic pistols of the day were not very reliable and the most common, especially here in the states, was the M-1911, which only gave you seven shots of .45 ACP. Giving up one .45 ACP for six .44 Magnums wouldn't be a bad deal. But the world moves on and, in the eighties, Gaston Glock gave us a very reliable and simple semi-automatic pistol with seventeen shots of 9mm. Further, the weak 9mm rounds of the seventies and early eighties gave way to better, much more lethal 9mm options. So, do you want six shots that will buck, be hard to handle, slow to shoot and hard to be accurate with or seventeen that will allow fast, accurate follow on shots and be much faster to reload while being just as deadly? Exactly.

So why do they still sell .44 Magnum revolvers and even bigger? Why do people buy expensive sports cars?

That said, for me, they make a lot of sense. There are a lot of nasty superhuman buggity boos out there that take a lot more killing than the average person.

My current load out includes a Glock 20 long slide, which fires the pointlessly powerful 10mm round which I can handle pretty well with my magically enhanced physique. It's a Gen 3 that's been souped up with some after-market parts and one of my signature barrels. I've also spent many hours imbuing it with magic. It would be wonderful if there was some simple way to put in magic and make it better. If there is, my magical tutelage has not extended that far. I have been able to make it stronger, more reliable, faster to point, lower recoil and more likely to aim true. That represents a lot of hours of carving in patterns and then painting it with Cerakote and then doing it all again.

I also practice. Anyone who competes in firearms sports spends a lot of time practice drawing and doing drills in addition to actually shooting their weapons.

I also manufacture my own bullets. They're not too different from current high-performance bullets readily available on the civilian market, lead cores, with a bonded alloy skin and a boat tail rear end. What I add that makes them different and special is a cup in the base which does amazing things adding power, think hemi engine versus conventional. More importantly, I fill the bullet's hollow point with a super hard steel pointed tip. Steel tips aren't really illegal for rifle and shotgun ammo but are ever so very illegal in pistol ammo. But I want that armor piercing thing again. However, unlike traditional armor piercing which might over penetrate and not do enough damage, I've done super-slo mo studies on my rounds. When the steel tips impact a target, they squash back into the lead and bonded alloy skin of the bullet, pushing the lead petals of the round to spread out, doing maximum damage. My rounds have a devastating combination of penetration and mushrooming. Each cartridge also gets some magical attention. I have stage one with no magic, stage two with some magic and stage three with the most magic I can squeeze in.

It might be simpler if I only had stage threes, but the coin of my realm is now time. I can make ten stage twos for every stage three and I need volume.

I keep my Glock on me at all times, and even now, it's sitting on the dining room table next to me.

In addition, guns aren't the only thing I do. With a lot of tedious and painful exercise and martial arts practice, I've been able to push up my strength from low average to high average. I also don't seem to be suffering from aging nearly as much as much as my fellow humans. That said, I have a few charms that I've put together to help. They make me stronger, faster, more agile and sharpen my senses. I'm not Spider Man, but I'm working on it as I constantly work to improve my craft.

As I muse about my Glock and whether I should let Diane delay my important work on the bolts, the phone rings.

That's a surprise. The girls each have their own cell phones and conduct their personal business on them. They don't use the house phone. I didn't even have to make that an edict, the girls are too modern to want to interact with something as old fashioned as a house phone. I have my own personal cell and conduct what few calls I make on that, mostly to the girls. The house phone isn't listed and is mostly for emergency situations, calls from house phones will bring emergency help more quickly than cells and it's basically free with the cable and internet package.

Holly walked in and put a handset by my hand. Holly is the third and last girl currently living in my home. She's studying Hospitality Management and she does the cleaning and laundry about the place. Holly is a tall Nordic girl with amazing long legs and blonde hair. She's also gives the evolutionarily valuable signal, quite strongly, that she would be very effective lactating for an infant. She was also wearing a bikini-like lingerie ensemble that vaguely alluded to being a maid.

I picked up the phone and answered, "Hello."

"Is this Dr. Fox?" The male voice at the other end of the phone asked.

"May I ask who's calling?" I replied.

"My name is Jake Black. Is this Fox?" Jake replied with a bit of an edge.

"Yes, this is Dr. Fox, may I ask what this call is in regard too?" I continued to inquire.

"I'm in trouble. I need help. I was told you were someone who could help." Jake answered.

"What sort of trouble?" I asked.

"I don't want to say on the phone. Could we meet somewhere?" Jake said with a touch of desperation.

I paused. I've heard of the wizard in Chicago who supposedly rents out his talent like a private detective. I've also heard that the White Council of Wizards has a police force called "Wardens," who supposedly enforce some unpublished set of rules, but mostly seem to hunt people like me down and chop off their heads.

I'm not a private detective. I'm also not a member of the police, though not for lack of trying. I likely already have more money than I will ever be able to spend. Avoiding conflict and not pushing myself to the top of any powerful being's shit list are important parts of my defensive plan.

I had spent the better part of the last ten years trying to make myself a tough nut to crack. Meeting this Jake would essentially be giving him and any associates he had a free crack at me.

However, there was another piece of the equation. I had no real allies. Allies who genuinely care about you and who will face danger on your behalf are a key force multiplier in building the strength of one's deterrence, particularly of a weak player like myself.

Yes, I could get more "friends" with seemings, but not the right kind. Seemings tended to not work well with magically gifted beings, their natural magic made the seeming fade. Further, seemings did not seem to work very well with serious, tough minded people either. I'd tried to offer my services as a volunteer to the Omaha Police Department and had been rebuffed when the Detective looked right through my seeming and decided I was a phony. Yes, when a seeming fails, it tends to give the seemie a strong, and perhaps deserved, sense that one is a phony which can have negative consequences.

Perhaps sensing my indecision, Jake added an urgent, "Please!"

I answered tersely, "Do you know where the Starbucks by 72nd and Dodge is?"

"I can find it." He answered.

"Be there in a half an hour." I answered and hung up.

Why did I say I would meet him? I had good reason not to. I'd seen the White Man. I had endured attacks since, like the one from Forest Man. This could well be a set up. The answer, I suppose, is that I've been hiding for ten years. Ever since that night with the White Man. Frequently in nature, the most dangerous thing is not the injury, but an organism's response to that injury. The human body's over-responding with swelling and inflammation to injury is frequently more dangerous than the original injury. The attacks on 9/11 were bad, but they shouldn't have crashed the US economy.

Really, the White Man had put fear in me. I had been running inside ever since. The only way to stop him from continuing to hurt me was to stop running. It's simple and true, but not easy. I was trying.

I pulled on my hat, vest, shoes and coat. I put my Glock in my pocket and checked that my axe was hiding in my sleeve where it belonged. I walked to my garage, got in my truck and drove around the corner to the Starbucks.

I may be boldly trying to stop running, by I still take some reasonable precautions. I'm a bit obsessive and compulsive about my gear these days. No part of my gear avoids intense review and modification. In my defense, I made the conscious choice NOT to bring or wear my gauntlets, leg armor and rifle.

So why did I choose Starbucks? I know in Chicago they have that wonderful accorded neutral ground. I'd visited the last time I was in Chicago and the steak sandwich and lemonade were delicious. Of course, someone like me still shouldn't go. I probably won't get eaten in the dining room, but a big fish hanging about the place might notice me and that's not the sort of attention I want. We don't have anything like that place here in Omaha, there isn't enough of a magical community to warrant it.

Omaha has a very limited magic community. As for vamps, the prey pool is too small for black vamps for anything but passing through. People disappearing in Chicago and LA happen all the time. In Omaha? People notice and look. White vamps think going to Omaha is a punishment, I know, I read their e-mail. Red vamps barely consider Chicago to be worth noticing, that's why they only sent a fifth-rate player to set up shop there. Omaha is completely off their radar. By and large, Omaha, due to her small size and remote location, exists in a state of benign neglect from the magical world. I knew, intellectually, that the White Council of Wizards had been fighting a massive war against the Red Court of Vampires. In the backwater of Omaha, we were being allowed to ignore it.

The previous week had been unusually exciting for Omaha. I had seen two wardens of the White Council in their grey cloaks walking down the street in the warehouse district as I had a beer and ate some appetizers at the food festival. My neck was immediately nervous. The Wardens moved along and didn't even seem to notice me. Which was fine by me. I was a bit worried that it might mean some new front in their war could be opening here as well. Then to make it more interesting, a couple days later, I got a call, not an e-mail, from a Paranet contact asking me if anything strange had happened lately. I thought about my answer for a moment, it's not like I had an abundance of sympathy for the White Council, but I certainly had more for them than I did a bunch of disgusting vampires. I didn't want to inadvertently betray the White Council to the Red Court. In the end, considering the necks of others like me, which the Paranet essentially represented, I chose to mention the wardens as I had never seen anything like that before. I was wondering if all this had something to do with this morning's call?

Here in Omaha the limited magical community does include DiAngelo. He's the head of the local mob. He's a lieutenant of the guy who runs Chicago, who is deeply ingrained in that city's magical community. DiAngelo probably wouldn't be more than a third-tier guy in Chicago, but as the man in charge here, he's prince of the city in a practically unassailable position. In some ways, I suspect we might be alike. I've seen DiAngelo and a number of his boys, they're all vanilla human. But now I know he's tied into Chicago and their magical assets.

Then there's the Fomor, they don't have a real presence, but every so often, if one is looking for it, one can catch them sniffing around.

Then there's the fact that we're close to rural and wilderness in a way that a place like Chicago isn't and that has the magical equivalents of deer, coywolves and cougars wandering in to sniff about.

As I thought about DiAngelo while I drove to the Starbucks, I inevitably thought of another meeting at a restaurant. I like to go out to eat. It doesn't make much sense for me to eat out. Miranda puts breakfast in front of me every morning and will have an amazing dinner ready to go by five, unless I call. If she's home and I want lunch, she'll put something in front of me if I ask. If she's not home, or I don't ask, I know the fridge will have a handful of great options hanging about that I can quickly turn into a tasty, filling lunch. Going out makes no sense, but I do. It gets me out of the house and gives me a chance to have things in ways Miranda probably wouldn't make them.

There's this bar. They had a dollar taco special on Tuesdays. They were pretty good tacos, made in the bar's own kitchen. Despite that, the place is frequently empty, I don't know how he pays the rent. I had gone there with an appetite and plans to eat a few tacos, ogle the barmaid and read my paper in an atmosphere of pleasant quiet.

So, I'm sitting there, reading my paper and eating my tacos in an otherwise empty bar, minding my own business, when five of DiAngelo's boys walk in. I notice but I don't do anything, maybe they're here for tacos? Back then, I didn't even know they were connected to Chicago or what kind of assets Chicago had.

Four of the five mob boys settle down into tables surrounding me. The fifth starts walking around behind me and talking.

"We think you know who this town belongs to. You do business here, but you never pay your percentage. We're always doing things for you and do we get even a 'Thank-you' back, much less the kind of favors you could be so good…"

The first four guys are big, not crazy big, but jocks, like the ones who would hassle me in High-School. They have leering, knowing smiles and are clearly ready for something. They light up all of my resentments of jocks past. The fifth one is smaller, around five feet and slender. He starts walking behind me and has an annoying tone that makes me think he's gay. Not gay as in, 'I'm good at decorating and have liberal political ideas,' much more the urban version of banjo playing. As he says "so good" he touches the back of my neck in way that feels sexual and threatening. I lose it.

I grab number five by his hair as I stand up and draw my Glock. I'm packing #2 that day and, at a speed that would do me proud in a USPSA match, I put a bullet in the face of each of the other four. Later media reports indicate that the proprietor, who was in the back, heard only one shot at the time. I drag number five by his hair as I walk around checking his friends. Two are dead and two get extra shots in the chest.

It's only at this point that number five starts pulling out his sidearm from under his jacket. I let go of number five's hair and take the pistol from him in a way that I'm pretty sure breaks some fingers. I toss the gun into the corner. Then I grab number five's head again, tilting it back. I put the nose of my still smoking gun into his nostril, likely burning it. This stops his screaming and gets his attention.

"Tell your boss that I am independent. I don't pay. I don't do favors. If he tangles with me again. We will be at war. He may win, but I'll make sure he dies in the fighting. If he wants to restore the peace. He will pay me a wergild for this intrusion. Soon. Or I will assume we are at war. Can you convey that message?"

Got to give number five credit, he starts blowing his mouth about how, "My boss is gonna put you in the ground." Yada yada yada.

I give him a shake and say, "If you cannot convey my message, your life has no value to me."

"I'll do it," he yelps.

"Swear on your life." I reply.

"I swear man, I swear." He answers.

Something comes out of me. Some magic I don't even know comes from my body to his.

"You know something of what I'm capable. If you don't convey my message, exactly, your oath will be binding." And with that I throw him down sideways and he scuttles from the bar. I had meant that last statement as a bluff. I'm not capable of anything that will kill a person for failing to keep their word, but that strange magic makes me feel like maybe it's the truth? Something happened.

Coming to my senses. I holster my pistol and get the hell out. I retreat to my home and go back into neurotic hiding. Will they call the Police? Will they come themselves? What's about to happen?

I watch the news. It's a big deal in Omaha. Violent, apparently gangland, confrontation. Four dead. That doesn't happen in Omaha. It's everything that makes a good summer news story lead. It crosses into national news.

I can read everybody's e-mail and I do. The Police mostly don't care, seeing as the four dead were mobsters. They like that someone has taken out the trash in a way that minimizes tax payer costs. They're worried that this will start some sort of mob war and theories about Russian, Hispanic and Black organized crime infiltration run rampant. They're also pissed because they managed to recover three of my slugs. Even with bonding they can't be analyzed. However, the steel, armor piercing nose causes a lot of concern as cops, who having begun to think of themselves as bullet proof, realize someone out there is making very lethal rounds that will go right through their vests. They're worried they'll start to see these bullets on the street and would like to find the source. Also, there's some questions from newbs about why the witness only heard three shots when six shots were clearly fired. An older hand, whose name I recognize as a serious competitor at USPSA, points out that if a gun fires fast enough, three shots will sound like one.

Chicago is pissed at DiAngelo. Paying for four dead guys is going to cost a fortune. Quieting the situation down is going to cost a fortune. Apparently, number five, Kibi "Kinky" Albici, a DiAngelo lieutenant, acted on his own. They instruct DiAngelo to make peace.

The Police get nowhere in their investigation and then, strangely, just stop.

Kinky shows up at my driveway fence. He hands me a letter through the fence, unopened, still sealed. I read the handwritten letter.

"Please excuse this one's actions. They were without sanction and will not be repeated. Please be assured we will be happy to keep the peace. The one delivering this message has been instructed to accept an in invitation to enter your property. If you need a wergild, he need not leave."

A person's life for an apology. "These are serious guys." I think to myself.

I look up at the nervous, but unsuspecting Kinky, "Go home. Tell your boss I accept the peace. Don't ever let me see you again. Get out of town."

On the positive side, I'm okay. I have conveyed, very clearly, to DiAngelo to leave me the hell alone. Perhaps I have found my inner badass?

Not so quick. I don't know where the hell that stuff had come from. I mean, it was me who pulled that trigger. That shooting was hundreds of hours of practice and USPSA matches backed up by my agility and speed magic. Grabbing the hair though, what the hell was that? My practiced defensive routines should have had me pulling my axe in my left hand, not Kinky's hair. What was that magic? By the way, I liked that bar and now I can never go back.

In the end, it's the most violent incident I've ever had, and I have a mountain of questions I can't answer.

In addition, I've since been to Chicago. There was a thing for the Bright Futures Society, people with small but real magical talents to meet and greet, and I had decided that what I could learn was worth the risk. Most of it had been modestly useful crafts with just a touch of magic like knitting and making doilies. I had learned some useful things about how to make my hat, met a very nice vanilla human corporate attorney who still visits sometimes and that's when I learned some rejects from seventies era Dr. Who episodes with a Little Mermaid theme called the Fomor were bothering magic people.

I also learned DiAngelo's boss was providing security. I didn't like that. I had gotten an eyeball on some of what DiAngelo's boss had available. I got a few good solid looks at those guys. I think they were called "Here Jars?" They stood seven plus feet tall and looked like they had been carved from rock, a lot of rock. I'd love to say I had a good bead on what the hell they were, but that's a negative. I DO know they were powerfully magical and very old. Very old is bad. Very bad. Experience is the best teacher.

You don't think so? You're in your forties and you think you know what you're doing? Imagine a typical, maybe even bright, ten-year-old. How long do you think it would take you to pull apart the best defenses he could pull together? Someone who's two hundred would have an even bigger advantage over you, proportionally.

They also had at least one of what I've called since, the "Tall Blond." She stood at least six feet tall. She carried a tablet as clipboard and had some sort of earpiece for communication. She wore a not particularly revealing silk business pant suit but could not hide she was hyper-fit and hot like a living Nagel painting. She was in charge of security and I got one short look at her. She was power on at least another order of magnitude from the Here Jars. I'm sure if I ever pissed the Mob off enough, the Tall Blond and a few Here Jars could come out one night, come straight through my defenses and do for me without breaking much of a sweat. Still think I'm too cautious?

So, as I went to my meeting at Starbucks, I was not without caution. I had set the meeting for half an hour away. Pretty much just enough time to jump in a car and get there from any part of the city. If Jake wanted to ambush me, he wouldn't have a lot of time to set up. Lastly, I'd picked Starbucks as a place to meet. I don't much go there.

It's not that I hate Starbucks, I like a nice hot chocolate as much as the next guy and their danish are decent by chain standards. But Miranda can make a hot chocolate that will make the angels weep and the danish she'll put beside it will be better than any that can be bought for mere money within five hundred miles and maybe further, she's getting better all the time. If this meeting went south and I could never go back to this Starbucks, it wouldn't be a big loss.

I pull into the Starbuck's lot and back my pickup in to park. I pick a spot I'll be able to see from inside. Not hard to do. Omaha has excellent parking and it's a mid-morning slow time. I saunter into the shop, get a fizzy orange soda and a cookie, then sit down in a comfy chair to wait, making sure I'm back to the wall with a view of my truck. I think how a sniper might be setting up right now across the way. Sitting by the window makes me an excellent target. Are Here Jars about to smash in from every direction? Is the wall behind me about to explode with molten bits of shaped charge? Is some magical attack I can't even conceive of about to hit?

A guy rolls into the lot on an old, big blocked, Honda UJM bike, looks a little rusty, the sound tells me the motor could use a bit of work too. The guy gets off the bike. He's tall, tanned skin from lots of time in the sun, dark complected, with black hair and a three-day beard. He's pretty cut. He's wearing a dirty, well-worn t-shirt and jeans. The jeans have small tears, not artful, but like he's worn them on a lot of jobsites. Well-worn work boots. He walks into the Starbuck's like he's going to the principal's office.

I get a long hard look at him as he walks toward me. He's no vanilla human. There's magic in him in a pattern I've never seen before, which isn't saying much.

His look says he could just be some contractor taking a mid-morning break, but he sees me immediately and walks over. I had been the only customer in the place.

"Dr. Fox?" The same voice from the phone asks.

"Yes Jake?" I reply.

"Yeah." He answers and sits down across from me.

"Are you thirsty? Hungry?" I ask.

"No. I'm fine." He answers, but my intuition says different.

I wave my orange soda to the counter girl, "Get me another of these."

I survey the menu I've mostly ignored to this point. I don't much like the food at Starbucks, pretentious, over-priced and under quality, but I see something that looks like a turkey sandwich which seems to be the most solid food on the menu.

"and get me two of those..." I read of the incantation of random hip and trendy words which is the Starbuck's language for turkey sandwich.

We stare at each other for a few moments while the counter girls pull together my order. I'm trying to trust my intuition and make good guesses as to how to handle this. In the magic world, hospitality can be a big deal and since I picked the place and arrived first, I'm the nominal host. I also know people who are hungry and thirsty generally don't respond as well as people who are fed and comfortable. Lastly, if I do something for this person, it's because I want a positive long-term relationship. A kind gesture is never a bad way to start under these circumstances.

The counter girl brings over the drink and sandwiches and makes to put them in front of me, I gesture, "No for him."

The counter girl is happy to oblige, the guy looks like the cover of a romance novel. I give her a twenty and say, "Keep the change."

She wanders back to the counter, does the transaction in the register, and throws the change in the tip jar.

Jake looks at me confused.

"You looked hungry, please, be my guest." I say politely.

Jake doesn't have to be asked twice. He eats both sandwiches in four bites and drinks the soda in one swallow. A few deep breaths later and he does look better.

"What sort of help did you need?" I prompt.

"They got my girl. The Fomor. I need help to get her away from them." He replies with a thick Boston accent that makes the "my" sound like "mah."

So, the Fomor are sniffing around Omaha again.

"Do you have any idea where she is right now?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers, "I'm good at tracking. I tracked her down to a place near the airport, by the river."

That meant Carter Lake, historically a lawless hellhole.

"So, what do you want from me?" I ask.

"I need help to get her out." He says.

Just what I've been dreading. Not "Help making a doily," or "Get my bike tuned just right so I can go in."

No, he expects me to be some kind of magic commando. Take on one of the most powerful magical factions on the planet, and, if successful, move right to the top of their shit list. For what?

"How did you hear about me?"

"Some friends in the Bright Futures Society told me about you. They said you knew more about Omaha than anyone and might be able to help." He said in a low tone, looking down at the table.

"Do you have any money?" I asked.

That got his attention, he looked up suddenly, an angry look on his face, "Money? So, you're some kind of mercenary? Just another thug for pay."

His tone annoyed me, and it showed in my voice.

"You're asking me to put my ass on the line and move myself to the top of some pretty powerful and nasty buggity boo's shit list. For what exactly? The way I see it, you have four choices. One, you could go kick the door in all by yourself. The fact that you're here is a good sign that you have the sense to know you'll just get your but kicked and your girl dead or worse. Two, you could go to the police. Even if you get past the 'Help me, my girlfriends been kidnapped by creatures from the black lagoon.' and get them to come out in force, they're not ready for what they'll see inside. Lots of dead cops and probably a dead girlfriend. Third, you could go to the Mob. They don't have anything local that could get the job done and how long does your girl have? Even if they bite hard and race in the resources, you'll owe them. Big. Probably almost as bad as the Fomor. So that leaves me. Let me give you some advice, when you're asking someone to die for you, it pays to be polite."

He looked sullen and didn't answer.

"Well?" I said, perhaps more sharply than I meant.

"I didn't even think of two and three." He admitted.

He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. I could tell he wasn't used to being told off. He was also probably crazy scared for his girl.

I continued in a gentler tone, "I ask about money, because if we do this thing, it will cost. Cars will need to be rented. Stuff will need to be bought. When you're trying to pull something off, money just burns, and you have to spend. So, do you have money?"

He looked down from the ceiling and said, "No, I don't have any money. I could barely afford gas to get to this meeting."

"Fine," I said, "just so I have this straight. You want me to sign up for a suicide mission. If I happen to survive, move myself right to the top of the Fomor shit list and you want me to pay for it. Is that about right?"

He gave me a funny look and nodded, "I didn't really think about it costing money."

I suppose that answer could have pissed me off, but I had a sudden insight. The man sitting in front of me was just not that complicated. Not everyone in the world is a Machiavellian conspirator. Many are just simple. It made me want to look after him.

"Are you local to Omaha? I've never seen you around before." I asked in a more pleasant tone.

"No." He answered.

I waited for a moment for him to elaborate and realized he wouldn't.

"So, what brought you to Omaha?" I asked.

"We were traveling. She was riding with me on the bike. She had our money, cell phone, pretty much everything."

That meant he had other reasons to want her back, but I suspected they weren't important to him.

"I know you're probably not used to opening up and talking a lot to someone. But I want you to tell me pretty much everything you know. It's possible that something that seems like a very small detail could tell me something critical that will help me save her. Also, I'm asking you to be candid with me so you should know, I'm not some super badass, I'll need every edge I can get if I help you to have any chance of getting us all out of this alive."

It was that moment I started to put feelers into his mind. Maybe it's wrong, but I had to know, was he was telling the truth? Going into someone's mind can do terrible things. Yes, you can make them cluck like a chicken, but moving their mental furniture is always damaging, move too much and the person can die or worse. What I was doing was just to look. It would probably feel like a minor headache but shouldn't cause any serious damage.

He didn't seem to know where to start, so I asked, "What's your girlfriend's name? Where did you meet?"

"Her name is Cassie." He answered. "I used to live in Lowell. I met her one night when I went with a bunch of guys into Boston. We hit it right off. She is so beautiful, and she liked me. I could tell she'd had it rough and I think she liked having a big guy around who would protect her. I asked why she warmed up to me so fast, that doesn't happen a lot."

My feelers told me he was being honest. I suspected he didn't know his appeal. The three female Starbucks employees hadn't stopped staring at him since he came in.

"She said, 'I can tell you have a good heart and that you'll always come for me.' Don't you get it? I have to come through for her. No matter what. That means I need you and I hope you're enough."

Well that was fair. I knew he was telling the truth, but something sounded wrong.

"Tell me about yourself, I can see you're not a normal person?" I asked.

He looked down, and then up looking for all the world like the lost, very cut, best looking Baldwin brother, "I'm a werewolf. I turn into a wolf once a month. I can't really control it very well."

"Really? That's very interesting. I've never met a werewolf before. I think they're a few in Chicago, did you pass through Chicago?"

"No, Cassie thought Chicago was dangerous and had us loop south." He answered.

"What about Cassie, what's her deal?" I continued.

"Cassie," at this he looked uncomfortable, "I'm not supposed to say, but she's a Seer, she can see the future."

"Too bad she couldn't see getting captured." I said with more snark in my tone than I intended.

"Hey! She can't see everything. Sometimes they're only maybes or far away or far in the future. Sometimes she can see who's going to win a game or horse race. That's how we made money, well she made money. She can't see everything. She sees what she sees." He answered.

"How did she get caught?" I asked.

"We stopped for the night at a rest stop just east of Omaha. It was a full moon, I had to change, and we wanted to be way out of town when that happened. She was supposed to hide out and wait till dawn. They came and got her while I was changing. I still was able to track her down. I could follow her scent and the scent of the van and the scent of the Fomor. The Fomor have a real stink about them."

"How did you come to me?"

"I posted on the Paranet asking if anyone knew anything about Omaha. You're all there is."

Once again, networking bites me in the ass.

"What exactly would I get for spending a big pile of money and putting my ass far across the line?" I asked, getting to the heart of the problem.

"What do you think I have to give? I have no money. Chances are Cassie doesn't anymore either. I have the clothes on my back and a bike on it's last legs, do you want the bike?" He answered, genuinely confused and frustrated.

"Well, I have a very nice life. I have lots of money and nice things. I don't want to lose them. If I put my life and safety on the line, could I expect the same from you?" I asked probably sounding lonelier and more vulnerable than I should have.

"Well, yeah. Of course. If you come through for us, then sure. If you were ever in trouble and needed help, I'd be there for you." He answered and I could feel his sincerity.

"I've never met a werewolf before. After this is done, assuming we get safely away, would you give me a chance to study you? I assure you that I would cause you no harm." I asked.

"Well yeah." He answered. This question worried him on several fronts, including wondering if I was some kind of pervert and he had assumed, despite my earlier protests that I was a total badass, and finding out that I had never met a werewolf before shook that.

"Is there anything else I haven't asked that you think I should know?" I asked.

"No, I can't think of anything." He answered honestly.

Thinking with some regret about bolts I needed to work on I said, "Then let's go for a drive."

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