Warlock of Omaha

By Hemaccabe

Chapter 12 Slow Burn

After twenty-four hours, life had to go, somewhat, back to normal. Everyone went home and to school.

I had Jed come and take the RV to the dealership and see what he could get for it. It wasn't much, but there were still a lot of working parts and pieces in it so it's value wasn't zero. After I got the dealer's bid, Jed actually offered me $100 more and I sold it to him instead. Jed wanted a nice RV, had the land to store it and the shop facilities to fix it. Just because the fridge had landed on it's face, and it's finish was now smudged and the floor scraped, didn't bother him since it still worked. Most of the damage was cosmetic and to the body. For me to pay for the repairs was more than the thing was worth. Jed owned the body shop and could have his boys bang it out when it had nothing better to do.

I had a plan sitting on the books which I had never seen fit to execute, but now would. I called a custom RV maker I had been flirting with and told them to go. We had developed a plan for something that would look like a one-piece Airstream. It would have a set of very powerful diesel and electric motors. The base would be slabs of batteries ala Tesla. The roof would have a kind of sprayed on solar panel that would be able to provide power and recharge the battery pack wherever there was sunlight. She would still have a diesel generator, but more isolated so I wouldn't have to smell the fumes. She would have side cans for diesel like a semi that could take 400 gallons of payload. The pretty sausage shaped aluminum body would be very strong and then would be steel reinforced and would have large curved slabs of my best vehicle armor. The armor would also make nice sound deadening material and insulation. The body would also have plenty of sprayed in polyurethane so she would be a true four-season animal. Based on new hard-won experience, the RV would have sensor points with cameras and motion sensors. If someone tried to jump me in an empty parking lot again, hopefully I'd have a bit of warning.

The interior was NOT going to be super lavish. My primary goals were comfort, ease of cleaning and durability in that order. The driver's seat and passenger would be very comfortable and behind them would be some captain's seats if I needed to move in a group. There would be a bunk above the driver. There would be a full-size king bed in the rear, but on a raised platform that would let me have a small toy hauler below it. There would be a large bathroom with a large shower. Unlike my previous RV that had full sized kitchen appliances and a large common area, I would shrink that space down. A small galley, a couch/table and a TV. That would let me make the vehicle shorter and handier overall. We had also specc'ed in super large clean water and black water tanks. They would cut into underbody storage, but I could live with that.

AEV, the outfit that made my custom Jeep truck, was consulting. They had thoughts about creating an RV line and this would let them test out some of their ideas. Another outfit, Bowlus, that had been making aluminum sausage shaped RVs since before Airstream would not be contributing a body but would be contributing internal fixtures as they made some very nice, very light weight, very strong aluminum stuff.

I had a few other nice details I won't bore you with except to say that it was at least a year away. Large scale custom work is expensive and takes time, which meant I would be without RV for at least a year. It hadn't seemed worthwhile when I had the old RV, but now it was.

The RV plan coming off the books begged a second question, my shotgun. Recent activities had shown that it still had merit. My thinking had been it was no longer a primary defensive arm so spending big time on it was a waste. I still had my Marine and it worked well. I was emotionally attached to my 870 for several reasons. It was my first serious weapon. As long as I used it, I could pretend, at least to myself, I was in the heavy metal division of three gun. That protected my ego more than it should in the same way I wanted a trophy more than I should.

In idle moments, I had already thought through several upgrade paths. The US military had recently adopted the M4. Saiga had a great AK-based shotgun. There's the AA-12 that I don't have in my deep safe. Lastly, the best and most time-expensive, building a Tavor-shotgun. The fact that the upgrade path wasn't clear didn't help make me want to do it more.

I realized that Three Gun trophies were not my goal. Survival was my goal. That meant practical. There might be circumstances where a shotgun was the best option, so it behooved me to have a good one. That meant starting work on a Tavor-shotgun, or, as I had already christened it, "Big Baby."

As the Tavor is essentially a bullpup AK, it would have a lot in common with the Saiga, so I stole Saiga's design drawings and started CAD work.

Brenda and I finished work on the optics software. I could toggle back and forth between a short-range solution where it would show me where I was aiming at any given moment and I would pull the trigger and a long-range solution where I would designate a target and the firearm would shoot itself when I got it aimed right. It was reasonably stable. We would keep working to refine and stabilize it further, but the basic idea was done.

We rigged up a practice system in the den. The TV would act as the goggles and we had rigged up a simu-rifle and pistol. We had stolen the code from an old video game called "Hogan's Alley." We improved the game to randomize targets so you couldn't try and sit on patterns. I did a lot of practicing and it turns out the girls loved it. Brenda was the champ, but Diane and Miranda were pretty good too. Holly liked to play more than she was skilled, but she was fun to watch play. Mostly, it was a great test bed for Brenda to find errors and bad patches in the code, then go work on beating out better builds of the software.

The shirt people came out. Jake and I got scanned so they could make shirts custom for us. We also got to design our shirts so that was cool. My shirts would have large flowing stripes of green and blue over black. I would have a cool "JF" logo monogrammed on the upper left chest. Jake chose red and brown and used an old Jim Beam logo for his monogram. I also got myself a couple dozen boxer briefs designed to take a cup from the same manufacturer. They were substantially more comfortable than my current arrangement.

The Compost Mage was out there somewhere. He was preparing his next move and I was sitting around buying boxer briefs. So no, I wasn't very relaxed.

My mood wasn't helped by the fact that Holly graduated and was getting ready to go take a job in Guam helping set up a major new resort. The smart thing would be for me to find Holly's replacement, have some fun. Recruit her. Then have Holly teach her the ropes before she left, but my heart wasn't in it. It's one thing when everything seems clear as a bell, but knowing I was living under the hammer, that any moment compost giants could start swarming over the walls to crush, kill or worse everyone within, I wasn't that selfish.

Further, I was still confused by my conversation with Cassie. I was keeping it in the background, but the questions were getting louder, not quieter. It's conceivable that someone like Brenda or Miranda might be someone I'd decide to settle down with. But the girl I brought in to be the maid, let's face it, she was there to clean and for fun. Holly had been a lot of fun. I'm sure I could find another fun girl to take over for Holly, but I was realizing, I wanted something more than fun.

I pulled out my compost jars and started trying to figure out how to do a tracking spell. I had no idea how to do a tracking spell and no one I could think to ask how. I kept pecking at it, hoping for inspiration that never came. There's a lot about magic that just isn't simple or intuitive. My lack of tuition was rearing it's ugly head.

At this frustrated point, a strange messenger showed up at my door. A man wearing a contemporary suit got out of a locally hired town car and rang the bell on my fence. I assumed it was something from DiAngelo, so I came down carefully.

When I got to the fence, I looked the very vanilla guy up and down. Then did the same with my veil piercing magical sight. He still looked the same. The look was too unnaturally vanilla though, so I had to assume a veil better than my sight. How comforting.

"Hello," I asked through the fence, "How can I help you?"

"Dr. Fox?" He replied.

"Yes." I answered.

"I have a message for you." He said and handed me a very nice-looking letter through the fence. It looked like a fancy wedding invitation.

I took the message through the fence and read it, wondering if DiAngelo was inviting me to someone's wedding. I opened the letter and it read:

"At this moment Mr. Guna is available to teach a basic lesson on forge craft. He would come to your home and stay for six months. If you would like to invite Mr. Guna to your home, there would be a fee of $ . Wiring instructions are included, your funds will represent a positive reply.

Sincerely,

Mr. Honi."

I looked up to say something to the messenger, but he was gone.

I looked at the letter and read it again, then headed up to my study. The writing was in cursive. I couldn't tell if it had been hand-written or printed.

I called Holly on the way and told her to get the garret to super clean, new sheets, shampoo the carpets, every square inch washed twice.

"This is extremely important, get Diane and Miranda to help." I finished.

When I got to my study, I brought up my accounts. The amount mentioned in the message was substantially more than $100. It represented a significant percentage of my net worth. I didn't generally keep that much available liquid. I started calling and messaging my bankers to move funds to a designated account. I wanted the amount in the offer, enough to comfortably cover ongoing costs and large chunk of liquid cash ready as I had an idea that there might be other expenses along the way. I didn't seriously consider saying "no" as this would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. In five minutes, they had revolutionized the way I imbue magic. What might they teach me in six months? It was the kind of magical tutelage I had dreamed of. No matter how much I paid, I couldn't believe this did not imply they were at least seriously considering me for at least AN iron Jed position. The possibility of some sort of serious affiliation and the security that might come from that was on the table. They must have liked my bolts.

If one wants to move a huge amount of money as quickly as possible in the modern financial system, one uses an instrument called a "wire." Despite what you might think, the ability to move funds instantly, particularly in large volumes, doesn't really exist. Wires actually take about a day to get somewhere and be available in the target account. I was converting funds from investments to liquid cash and having the cash wired from several accounts to a single internal account, from which I would then wire the funds to the Svartalves. It would take at least one day, maybe two. I wasn't worried, I'm sure the Svartalves knew how money worked and that even the most enthusiastic reception to their offer would take a few days. Sending a wire is fairly simple, one needs a routing number, an account number and for international wires, a SWIFT code. The SWIFT code for the Svartalves' account showed it was located in a bank on the Isle of Wight, a well-known tax haven that made it's money from helping rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes. It was also normal, though not a requirement, to have a short, written message added to a wire. I had two days to agonize over it. Eventually I came up with:

"I am very grateful for this opportunity. If Mr. Guna has any special requirements or diet, please let me know and I will make a sincere effort to accommodate him."

I agonized repeatedly over each word. I had to be doubly careful. In relationships between magical groups, hospitality was next to godliness. Failure to be perceived as providing good hospitality could create a permanent wedge between us. Secondly, as nice as the Svartalves had been behaving, they were still transactional fairies. If I wrote something simple like, "I will accommodate it." That would be binding as far as they were concerned and if Mr. Guna wanted something that was more expensive than I could provide, like his weight in gold each day, or something I just couldn't acquire, like say, the life's blood of the queen of cold, then the Svartalves would likely consider it a violation of a written contract for which they might expect all sorts of unpleasant restitution, like my life. There were matters of security involved, the Svartalves couldn't have it getting about that they tolerated violations of written contracts, examples would have to be made.

It ended up taking two days to assemble the necessary funds. I spent a lot of time running and working with Jake. We also spent a lot of time working on math, with diligent effort he was making good progress. In time, he could be getting to a GED.

I held a special meeting and explained what was happening to my household with Kelly and Jake. The girls didn't really understand the magic stuff, so I left that out for them. I spent some extra time with Kelly and Jake.

"So, this is important?" asked Jake summing up about twenty minutes of lecturing drone.

"Yes, this is important. If they consider me part of their household, they would be inclined to help defend us. If we ran afoul of another magic power, the other power would likely be less aggressive knowing we were associated with the Svartalves. Lots of stuff that might just snap us up like a large mouth bass eating a bug, will steer clear. It wouldn't be a perfect shield or panacea, we'd still need to be able to protect ourselves, but it is a chance for some real security." I answered.

"So, what can we do to help?" Kelly asked.

"I'm not sure yet but be very understanding. As long as Mr. Guna is here, he has to be my first priority. Steer clear if you can. You never know what might offend him or make him decide that you just offered him Michael in exchange for a bag of magic beans." I said.

"Well that does it for me. We won't be coming round till this is done. You know where to find us and get a hold of us if you need us. Let us know when the coast is clear." Kelly said quite sensibly.

I took time with the girls to get on my hands and knees and scrub in the garret. Every appliance was moved and the space behind was scoured. Inside every cabinet and closet was washed down. Every utensil was pulled out, washed meticulously, as the space inside was cleaned. I think the girls really started taking it seriously when I started helping. I ended up buying a new mattress and box spring as well as a second round of new sheets. I tried to consider no level of clean too clean.

I sent the wire and three days later Mr. Guna rang my doorbell.

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