AN: my group was getting a little antsy and the girls wanted to play more combat centric characters. and we are added two more characters to the group in the next few chapters. this chapter is kind of facts heavy. it marks a two month jump in in the plot to cover a lot of things the group wanted to accomplish.
The month of January blazed right into February and almost two weeks into March before the group had a chance to slow down and take a break. Everyone was busy as hell building up the mining expedition into the tunnels, their budding firearms empire, airship construction, magic stone research, and building up the marshal office by padding up the team with new hires. On top of all that they were getting more calls for help everyday.
On the mining front Harry contracted the town of Hamilton and the Harrison mining company out of Ely to mine the tunnel that ran between the war room and the Hamilton mine. The take would be split 50/25/25 with the group getting the bigger take and all the non-precious metal that came out of the mine. In both cases they were thrilled to work the mine once they saw how much blue stone, gold, and silver ran through the mine.
As a result of this new contract the town of Hamilton grew in population to 200 residents in the first week of the new year as miners from nearby Salt Lake came over to take jobs in the mine. Harry built a simple house with expansion charms on the inside to provide barracks like living quarters for the new men. It was crazy how a 10x20 foot small cinderblock building that was 10 foot tall could become a 100x200 foot apartment building that had 5 floors on the inside with ten small one bedroom apartments on each floor. Harry drained himself making that thing.
The tunnel had about 5 feet of good mineable material on all sides. And as the tunnel got bigger their profits went through the roof. They set up a deal with the bank in Salt Lake to move all the gold, silver, and blue stone that came out of the mine at $24 an ounce for gold, $12 and ounce for silver, and $5 a pound for blue stone. Profits took a bigger jump when they figured out they could use the goblin spell to make 5 pound blue stone blocks that sold for $7 a pound.
They were pulling about 2,000 pounds of blue stone out of the mine every week. They were also averaging about 2,000 ounces of pure gold and 3,200 ounces of silver a week. The magic in the mine that made bluestone also made the other metal veins richer. When you added this to the gold, silver, and bluestone they pulled out of the mine when they raided the kobold city they never had to worry about money ever again. They cashed in as much silver as they could for $50 gold coins. They now had a trunk full of shrunken trunks full of bags of gold coins. Each trunk had $250,000. At last count they had 45 trunks so far. They also had trunks full of 100 ounce gold bars.
The girls with help from Alice, and her granddaughter Mary worked on new ways to use the glowing magical stones. They found that blue stone was a good substitution for magical batteries that charged off the magic in the air around them, and when fully powered and glowing they could store huge amounts of energy that could be tapped by adding it to a rune driven spell. Within weeks of study the town of Eureka had extremely powerful wards. So powerful that they glowed at night giving off a nice blue light acted as street lights for the town. The wards also served as a beacon for the town that could be seen for hundreds miles.
With the success of the new powerhouse wards Hamilton and Ely soon got an upgrade as well. But the girls knew these new wards could be used for more. It took some playing around with ward shaping but soon they figured out the wards could act as beacons on the road. The girls set ups 25 foot tall telephone poles made of steel reinforced wood on the side of the road every five miles from Eureka to Hamilton.
The wards on the top of the pole stretched out for fifty feet in all directions and on the pole was a call button linked to the communication station in the marshal's office. The idea was that if you broke down, or if you got hurt, or even if you were being chased by a creature you could run to a pole, hit the call button and stay relatively safe as help arrived from the nearby town. The poles also acted as beacons on the road for lost travelers throwing off light for hundreds of feet. In the first week they were up they got two calls and the average wait time was two minutes. In both cases the dire wolves and coyotes ran off before Harry got there.
Seeing the good they did Ely had them set up beacons from Hamilton to Ely and from Ely to West Wendam. By the end of the month the beacons saved dozens of lives and they had to deal with less walking dead. They doubled the number of beacons at every 2.5 miles and Salt Lake set up beacons every 2.5 miles on the road to the city from West Wendam with the calls directed to the Marshal's station closest to the pole. They added portkey markers to each pole and numbered them like mile markers to cut response time down to 30 seconds and cut patrol times way down. They still patrolled the roads once a week but with the call boxes they didn't have to patrol three times a week. Also with less deaths on the roads they had less undead to deal with.
The girls also figured out that red stone had similar charging capabilities as blue stone but could not be time released. It was not a battery substitute that recharged off ambient magic. It did however chanel powerful magic better than a wand. A reducto curse fired through a charged and glowing red stone 'wand' was three to four times more powerful. But the red stone was brittle when it was charged and glowing. Worse than that It was also subject to shock triggering. If a red stone was glowing and you dropped it you better pray it landed softly or it was going to explode. However when it was not charged you could hit it with a hammer and it would shatter like glass.
Which means if you charged it up with raw power and tossed it the stone acted like nitroglycerin. A small one inch cube of red stone charged to glowing and thrown into a hard surface exploded with more force than a cube of C4. Things got more stable and even more explosive when they ground it up into a fine powder and added just enough water to make it a thin paste. The paste took more force to set it off but a small 50ml glass test tube of glowing red paste had the same explosive power of two full sticks of TNT. Once they figured that out they strip minded the red stone mine they came from and ground the red stone they got from the mine into powder for later use.
One of those uses was magical grenades. They were essentially a 50 ml aluminum tube full of glowing red paste with a 5 second time delay detonator cap sitting in the center of a round cast iron ball with an expansion charm on the inside and the tube was surrounded by 100 buck shot balls. The prototype grenade exploded sending buck shot and shrapnel flying in every direction for a hundred feet. Just the concussive force of the explosion was enough to kill a man if you were standing within 25 foot of the blast. The girls were both really proud and slightly horrified with themselves for creating something so deadly from stuff they had laying around the cube and Smith's workshop. The boys just high fived and requested a case of 50 of them.
While the girls were working on all that Harry and Neville were working on a few projects with William Young, the Night Wolf's head engineer, and his three sons. They started by stripping out the rusty steam turbines and magical boilers from the night wolf. After they pulled it all out Harry spent a day studying the system with Neville. After years of modifying cars and planes the two hoby grease monkeys knew the steam system was inefficient. Harry took their findings to the girls. Two days later they were handed blueprints for a mixed bluestone and redstone engine system. It used a big blue stone block to power red stone paste. The red stone paste superheated conjured water making high pressure steam. The steam then went through a steam turbine with more compression. The turbine was directly connected to the propshaft. With new redesigned propellers and forcing cones on the exhaust ports the ship now had a top speed of over 650 mph and the engine room was more spacious with better access to the system and had a more comfortable ambient temperature.
Willam was extremely happy with the changes to the Night Wolf. Harry and Neville on the other hand, saw potential in the new system. They patented the system and the red stone paste. They also started drawing up plans for a smaller fighter jet sized ship. By the end of January they had a fleet of fifty ships. Because why copy the parts for one ship when you can make big batches of parts. The ship was based on the Night Wolf as well as the Delta7 Jedi Starfighter from the star wars prequel movies. It was an an arrow head shaped single seater design. They named it the Wolf Pack class fighter after the Night Wolf. It was 20 foot long from the nose to the tip of the tailfin and 10 foot wide from wingtip to wingtip and made of one inch thick enchanted steel armor plates and thick enchanted glass.
Under all the armor plates the inside of the ship was expanded to house three scaled down blue and red stone steam engines. Huge blue stone blocks to power the broom enchantments that gave the airships the ability to hover and fly were added to the empty spaces in the wings. In the front Harry added two belt fed 50 caliber machine guns and a belt fed 20mm cannon copped off his P51 Mustang. The cock pit was also a copy of Harry's very comfortable mustang and used all of the same controls to fly the fighter giving the little ship a super maneuverability. When the ships were done Hermione and her crew of newly hired skilled enchanters went to work on the ships they adding blue stone driven wards, cloaking, they lightened it all the way down as far as they could meaning the fighter weighed as much as the guns, ammo, and the pilot.
When they were done Harry made the first test flights in the first wolf pack fighter they made call sign Wolf One and within minutes of lift off he knew he never needed to use his mustang again. He hit 850 mph at full throttle but the ship started to shake after a few seconds. But it cruised smooth as glass at 800 mph and it was stable all the way down to a hover. Harry flew south west of the town and made a few strafing runs at the targets he set up and his grin got bigger. Harry took Wolf One through a few combat maneuvers before he got bold and started doing loops, flips, rolls and flat spins. The fighter was as maneuverable as a broom. His grin got bigger. He headed back to town and landed in the space next to Alice's shop without disturbing the ground or the two buildings, hopped out of his fighter, and high fived his brother with the biggest grin he ever had.
"THat good?" Neville asked excitedly.
"Better. 850 mph with a smooth cruise speed of 800. Full control from 0 to 800 mph. It as maneuverable as our brooms. Hell we even calibrated the guns perfectly. I'm going to add cargo doors and a rotating hardpoint rack in the unused bulkhead space behind the front landing leg. I bet you could fit two eight point racks in here. That's 16 Hellfire missiles or guided bombs. I think I'm going to make mine black with red pin striping and a red tribal wolf head on the nose." Harry said looking at the little fighter.
"I want to make mine red and white like Obi-wan Kenobi's from the movie. I can't believe Mia didn't call us out for making a jedi starfighter." Neville said.
"She didn't know it was, the prequels are very forgettable. If we would have made X-wings like we wanted to in the first place then we would have been yelled at." Harry said.
"Yeah, this was a better call." Neville said laughing.
The boys made the modifications to the ships and soon there was a rack of black shrunken Wolf Pack fighters in the cargo bay of the Night Wolf and each one of them had a custom fighter in their bags.
On the gun business front they produced 5,000 winchester rifle barrel and magazine tube kits to turn 44-40 rifles into 38XL rifles. The barrel had the accuracy enchantment on it and the mag tube was expanded to hold 140 rounds. The set cost $60. $65 if you had them install it. If you traded in your barrel and mag tube they took $5 off the price or they swapped out the barrel and mag tube for free. They also replaced all the marshals and sheriffs 44-40 rifles with 38XL. The barrel sets became an instant hit as did the .38XL cartridge. They were expensive but they hit harder then a 45 long colt, they were more accurate, and they put bigger holes in things on top of being smokeless.
Business was so good. They had to hire 25 more wizards to help Smith build guns and reload ammo. Harry put them up in the houses at the end of main street and had them swear a magical oath to not reveal trade secrets. They expanded the shop to a 20x30 foot cinderblock shack Harry built behind Shoth's shop and expanded to a 200x300 foot warehouse space with magical heating, plumbing, and lighting. They were building guns and reloading ammo at a staggering rate. Their stockpile was growing but so was their customer base. They expanded north to Twin Falls and Boise Idaho. West to Reno and Carson City Nevada, south to Flagstaff Arizona, and southeast to Albuquerque and Santa Fe New Mexico or at least it would be New Mexico at some point, right now it was contested territory.
In each case Harry would take the Night Wolf or his plane to the city and meet with the town marshal and introduce himself. He would show off the guns and using the cargo bay of the Night Wolf he would let the marshals test out the guns. The cargo bay was set up with a 20x25 foot cinder block cube. Inside the cube was a huge 100x135 foot shooting range with 30 shooting stalls with copies of all the guns they sold. A few days later using the portkey he set up in their offices he would be back with one of the girls and they would hand out guns and vests. A few days later they would open a pop up tent store in the town and by the week's end they would need a real store front and someone to run it full time. They hired eight more sales girls and eight more guards to run the stores in each city.
Sales were way up. They were doing about $47,000 a week in sales and with every new store they opened they would see a $3,250 a week steady boost in sales after the first wave of purchases. They couldn't figure out why people were buying so many expensive guns and why they were getting so many repeat customers. It turned out that the gold engraved guns made for the perfect gifts. In fact they started getting a lot of requests for custom engraved handles. They also sold a lot of plane jane guns to folks that could just barely afford them. The key was the indestructible charms on the guns. Sure a base Model 1 was five times the cost of a new colt peacemaker but the but the Model 1 was a gun your grand kids would still be using in a hundred years. People were buying B&S guns for looks but they were also investing in a forever gun.
To keep up with demand and to make sure they had a steady 50,000 gun surplus Harry and Neville spent one day a week making thousands of gun parts. With the mana potion they were able to pump out 5,000 guns. It took all day and at the end of the day they crashed but the next day they were able to spring back into action. With the amount of B&S guns floating around the west they were getting interest from local army battalion commanders. They started buying plain Model 1s and Model 2's, dragonhide vests, and ammo for their men. They sold to military at the same half price discount they gave to law enforcement. They were hoping to get a real, government paid for, military contract one day. They made themselves available to any high ranking military official that walked into one of their stores, and they were always happy to hand out free fancy Model 1's to anyone with brass on their uniform.
But while they waited for a high ranking general to send them a letter requesting a contract They spent time looking at the stock of modern guns they brought back with them trying to find the next gun to add to the line up. They introduced three more guns in the month of February and spent some time building up a small surplus of the gun.
They made 5,000 copies of the 4 bore rifles they had. They also made improvements to the already impressive rifles and ammo. The guns, now called the Model 4, had a recoil and feather light charm on them dropping the weight from 35 pounds to 7 pounds and the recoil from break your shoulder hard to just a bit more kick then a 12 gauge shotgun. The guns had a starting price of $250 and the price went up as you added things. You could purchase regular ammo for the gun and they sold it for $.50 a round. It was powerful enough to take out things like king snake and giant spiders with one hit but they also made an explosive hard hitting anti-dragon round as well.
The dragon ammo was a thing of magical beauty. The already huge 4 bore rounds were handed off to Hermione and Abby. A few days later they handed Harry a brass ten inch long three inch wide mortar shell casing and a three pound brass artillery shell with a steel core full of red stone paste and a blasting cap. Both items were covered in runes and glowing with power.
The shell casing was packed with Smith's magical black powder and the shell was locked in place. As soon as the shell was charged the round shrank in size to fit the gun. When it was fired the shell grew in size as it spun through the air to it's target. When it hit, the brass shell crushed and split along the cut lines and set off the blasting cap and detonating the redstone paste sending the steel and brass shrapnel inside the target. They fired it into the side of the mountain and blew a dumpster sized hole into the rock face. The rounds cost $5 each and had to be hand engraved by one of the ten wizards they had on staff that could do enchantments and hand poured and sealed by Hermione or Abby. The good news was it would take out a big dragon with one hit no matter where you hit it. It would also probably take out an airship too so they were cautious about who they sold the rounds to.
They also introduced the Taurus Raging Judge revolver with a 6 inch barrel as the Model 5 after Hermione filled the patent paperwork on it. The guns were extremely expensive with the base model gun starting at $225. But for that price you got an enchanted 6 shot revolver that could shoot .454 casull (renamed .454 B&S), brass .410 shotgun shells, and .45 long colt. They also put an expansion charm on the cylinder making it long enough to take .45-70 rounds too. The guns came with sound deadening charms and recoil enchantments.
They also sold the same gun with a rifle stock, a 16 inch barrel, a blast shield covering the cylinder gap, and a wood foregrip as the Model 6 for $250. The guns came with the same sound deadening charms and recoil enchantments as the 6 inch model 5. With the standard accuracy charms and buck shot or .45 long colt you could use the revolver as a short barreled rifle. But with the bigger rounds and an attached scope it made a good long range rifle capable of hitting targets up to a 400 yards. They also made speed loaders for the gun. In theory, the model 6 was faster and easier to use then the Winchester rifle. It might only have 6 rounds but the quick reload and not having to cock the lever every shot ment it was a better rifle.
Both guns came with a box of 25 B&S .454 brass jacketed 300 grain bullets, a 50 round box of smokeless 45. Long colt, a box of 25 brass .410 buckshot, leather and fur lined sleeve, and a leather gun belt for the Model 5. Both guns were advertised as anti dire wolf and huge spider guns. They were unsure how well the guns would do so they only made a few thousand copies of the Model 5 and the Model 6. They sold a 1,000 of each of them them in the first week alone. Almost all of them were the plain jane guns with stock wood furniture.
The trick with the models 4&5 was the price of ammo. A box of 50 smokeless .45LC was $2.50. But a box of 25 brass jacketed hollow point hunter rounds B&S .454 was $5. When people were buying the guns they were buying $25-$75 worth of ammo with it. They made a killing on the guns and Harry started looking for the next gun they would 'invent'.
Harry was looking at the pump shotgun as an option He enchanted the mag tube on his winchester 1897 pump action 12 gauge shotgun to hold 60 brass buck and ball shot shells and started carrying it along side his rifle. The gun was the first pump shotgun ever invented and the model he had was a trench gun from WWI which means in had a heat shield around the barrel and the ability to slam fire. By holding down the trigger you could work the action and every time you slammed it home I fired automatically. Meaning you could blast off all 60 shots as fast as you could pump the shotgun. He also added a better peep and brass bead sights, a sling with 25 shotgun shell loops, a leather butt pad, and a new stock and fore grip that fit the hand better and gave you a better grip. All the modifications gave the gun better range, aim, and quicker follow up shots. He made a 10 copies and handed them out to his team for testing. Funny thing is they got a lot of chances to test them in the month of February.
Harry spent the whole month of February and March answering calls made by Marshals and Sheriffs from the new towns they expanded into. It seemed that word of both B&S's guns as well as their reputation for getting the job done traveled fast in the west. Between the articles in local papers that got picked up by the newspapers in the next town over and word of mouth Harry and Neville were as busy as ever. They of course could have said no to these calls. They were after all not local, but Harry and Neville could never stand by and not help.
But with the ever growing expanse of territory and the amount of work coming in they had to recruit some more folks to the team. They sat down and hammered out a list of qualifications and personality traits they were looking for. To start with they wanted killers. If they couldn't confirm at least a dozen kills on their record they didn't want to even look at them. The job, most of the time, was our town is being hassled by this or that kind of magical monster. But confirmed kills ment they only had two pools of men they could look at, cops and convicts.
They ended up with a men from both category thanks to the second thing they looked for which was a balanced sense of morality. They didn't want serial killers that liked to torture women and children. But they also didn't want boy scout goody two shoes either. Like Harry and Neville themselves and most of the Operatives they worked with at the DOM they had to be men willing to risk their lives to save innocent people but they also had to be men willing to shoot a man in the knee if that man had information you needed. This cut the list even shorter.
They also figured out that each person on the team had to act as a specialist. Be it heavy weapons, marksman, magic powerhouse, or face man. They would all be able to handle most things but having their roles mapped out before they were hired would make things go easier. The hope was that after a few months with Harry and Neville leading them the four new recruits could form one new team and go off on their own as the first B&S Security and investigation team.
Harry had the more questionable moral outlook on life so his team was made up of lawmen. His team was also the last one to be formed as it took a lot longer to comb through the marshal and sheriff records then it did to track down two honest crooks. In fact within a week of looking they found them two criminals and they liberated from a life of crime. Starting with the first man they recruited to join the team. Neville's future face man and magical powerhouse Billy Bayles.
Billy grew up the son of a saloon girl and a random John in Dodge city. He was a wizard but he never got conventional training for his magic. Instead he was taught by a card shark how to read minds, and cast illusions and glamours. Basically skills he could use to cheat at cards. Over the years he developed an odd way to cast battle magic. He would imbue a playing card with one of four types of magic: Fire, ice, lightning, or aicd. Then he would flick the card at his opponent and it would explode whatever magic effect he put on the card. On top of that he was a very good shot with a pistol and he could flick a knife just as well as he could flick a card. As you could expect with his skill set he made a long list of enemies all over the west. The problem was no one knew his real face. He looked different in every town we walked into.
But a cheater could only run for so long before his past caught up to him. And it did in Salt Lake City. He stayed one night too long in the city and hit one too many poker tables. A group of eight hired thugs tracked him to a whore house in low town. They knew he was a night owl so they tried to get him at dawn. They snuck in, made their way to his room, kicked in his door, and tried to kill him.
Unfortunately they ran into two issues. One, Billy slept with a cut down S&W schofield snubnose under his pillow, and two, he knew how to setup basic wards around his door. The second they approached the door with intent to kill him he jumped out of his sleep with his gun in his hand. A second later when the door was kicked in he shot the three men that barged into his room. He grabbed his deck of cards out of his coat and blasted the hallway with ice killing two more of them. But the last two men rolled around the doorway and got two shot off at him before they ran.
That's when the marshals showed up and took out the last two as they ran down the stairs. The marshals found Billy in his room trying to put on his pants and hold his bleeding belly at the same time as a half dressed redhead cried under the covers. Hermione and Harry were called in to help him and to make sure Billy didn't use magic to escape. Which he tried to do as soon as Hermione healed his wounds and fed him a healing potion. Billy tried to blind everyone in the room with a flash of light from his hand. Unfortunately he was weak and Harry saw it coming a mile away. He hit Billy with a stunner as Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Amiture move that was way to telagraphed and easy to spot. The card trick stuff is comically bad as well." She said finishing up the bandage job she started.
Harry however saw potential in the younger man. When his sister was done with the younger man Harry packed up the boy's things and took him back to Eureka. He put him in a holding cell in the back of the newly renovated Marshal's office and sat next to the cell on a comfortable chair. As the boy slept Harry read his surface thoughts and used them to dig deeper into the boy's mind. An hour later Harry saw movement.
"I know you're awake son, you have none of your things, hell you barely have pants on, and on top of that you're badly wounded. You were shot twice in the gut. One of the bullets ripped up your spleen and the other one tore through most of your large intestines. Even with magic you're going to be sore for days. And yes, I'm magical and more powerful then you can ever imagine. So why don't you roll over and we'll have a nice little talk." Harry said in a calm but commanding tone. Billy, for his part was tensed up from the first word Harry said but he sighed and rolled over accepting his fate.
"So this is a jail cell?" Billy asked with a smirk but Harry could see the pain in his movements and the fear in his eyes.
"Son, cut the shit, this ain't the first jail cell you've seen. I read your thoughts while you were knocked out. Billy Bayles, 19 years old, born and raised in Dodge City Kansas at the Red Lady Saloon. Magical but not trained. You learned a few tricks to get you through life cheating at cards." Harry ran off from memory.
"So what's there to talk about? You read my thoughts, you know my crimes, not much left for me to confess to. Now if you'll leave me be I'll just go back to sleep now. Not much else to do in jail." Billy said getting defencive.
"Reading a man's thoughts and getting to know a man are two different things son. Besides, who said you're going to have to stay in this cell?" Harry said pushing the cell door open to show it was unlocked.
"I'm not being arrested?" Billy asked looking confused.
"Nope. I read your mind remember? I've seen all of your crimes and I've seen a few running themes. Yes you cheat at cards, but you don't cheat people that can't afford to lose. You've killed upwards of 50 men, but always in self defence and you try not to shoot first. You go out of your way to help women and children you meet along the way. You treat working girls with respect, and you never committed a crime I haven't commented in my life at some point. No, you're not under arrest, but son if you keep going like you are you're going end up broke and dead by the time you turn thirty. You never make more than a few hundred dollars in a city before you have to make a run for the next town. You have just enough skills to get by but as you saw today it's not enough. I think worst of all is the lack of trust and the feeling of fear you live with. That's going to put you in the ground fast. When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?" Harry asked and at first he thought Billy would ignore the question but he saw a sadness fall over the young man's eyes.
"It's been a while." Billy said holding his belly as he sat up.
"That's what I thought. Well, you're not in Salt Lake City Utah anymore. You're in Eureka Nevada. In this town no one knows you, no one's is going to try to kill you, and if they were thinking about it they would never try because they know I would be on them faster than they could form a plan in their heads. I got you a room in the Red Door saloon. It's paid up for a week. I also paid for a girl named Kitty to look after you for a few days. She's a nice girl and she has the potions you have to take for the next few days. You're not going to be able to eat or move around too much for a day or two. Rest and recuperate." Harry said helping the young man stand up.
"Why are you helping me?" Billy asked.
"Because I see potential in you son. With some training in the magical arts and some practical training in tactics you'll be a dangerous man. The training comes with a job working for me and my brother as a Marshal working emergency magical calls. The job pays $10 a day and a cut of any loot or bounties we collect. Plus free room and board, and expenses like guns, ammo, and better playing cards." Harry said popping them into Kitty's room in the saloon and laying the young man on the bed.
"Form card shark to Marshal?" Billy asked with a smirk.
"Why not? I used to kill people for government for a living before we came here. I still do if you think about it." Harry said with a smirk as he opened the door and called a cute blond girl in he early twenties into the room. She was dressed in a white night dress and a silk robe. She had a silver tray with a bowl of soup and fresh baked bread.
"This is the patient? He's cute." She asked with a smile.
"Take care of him Kitty, he's a soon to be Marshal on Neville's magical task force." Harry said.
"In that case we better get you back on your feet." She said taking a seat on the bed next to him and taking his chin in her hand to look him over.
"Thank you sir. I didn't catch your name." Billy said looking confused.
"Marshal Steel, Harry steel." Harry said tossing a smirk at the boy as he left the room and kitty started fussing over him.
A week later he moved into the house next to Doris's boarding house and was handed a set of black King Snake leathers. A gun belt with two Model 1's a shoulder rig with two model 2's and two dozen small razor sharp throwing knives. He was also handed a gold encased redstone wand and a year one spell book.
"A wand and spell books?" Billy asked.
"Yes, I expect you to learn everything in that book. If you have questions My sister or wife can help you with anything. Also here, take this." Harry said handing him a gold deck box.
"Fancy Cards? You know the cards I use explode right?" Billy asked pulling out the deck of crisp playing cards with nice sharp edges, bright colored artwork and gold leafing.
"I do know that, I also know that the cards you're holding are conjured. They last for an hour outside the box. At any time you can pull a fresh set of cards from the box and the set old you have in your hand will vanish. These should fly better and take a magical charge better. Basiclly better throws and bigger booms." Harry said.
"I don't know what to say Harry, thank you." Billy said looking down at the cards.
"Look kid, you're the first team member we hired. We didn't go searching for you. You fell into our lap. Call it fate, call it luck. Either way I'm happy to have you on the team. Now it's your day off, what do you have going on today?" Harry asked.
"I'm going to spend the day with Kitty. First I'm going to escort her to Salt Lake city for some shopping then I'm going to take her to the dinner at the boarding house. Jon Philip set aside the chef's table for me. After that I have a poker game set up at the casino." Billy said.
"Poker game?" Harry asked eyeing the boy.
"It's a straight game Harry, something I set up with Marshal John, and and a few of the old timers in town. They wanted me to teach them a few trick and show them how to read a tell." Billy said with a smirk.
"Good. have fun and before I forget, this is one and a half month's back pay from the start of the year. Don't spend it all in one place." Harry said handing Billy $460 in a small bag.
"Thanks Harry!" Billy said looking at the $20 coins.
The other member of Neville's team and the second man they hired was a Drow or dark elf assassin named Valos from the other side of the rift. Valos was born and raised underground in a drow city. But the Drow culture was a Matriarchy that treated men like slaves. He was taken by the ruling house and used as a miner in the caves under the city at the age of eight. Six years later he escaped the underground city but the surface was just as unkind to him. His dark bluish purple skin, white hair, silver eyes, and pointy ears made him an outcast wherever he went.
Valos found a home with the Black Hand Brotherhood of assassins. There he learned his dark skin and night vision was an asset and not a curse. Over the next six years he honed his skills and body but as he trained another aspect of himself came out. He had access to magical powers locked deep inside of him. The arcane masters of the Brotherhood unbound his magic and his memories.
He was the son of a ruling house, a prince. Which in the drow society meant little more than he was to be used as a marriage offering to other noble houses. But it meant he had rights. It meant he should have never been a slave. As his powers came back and he trained harder his memories came back in bits and pieces. His family was murdered, his castle was sacked and burned, and he was sold into slavery.
He vowed he would become the best assassin in the world so he could one day go back to the Drow kingdom and take his revenge. Two years of training in the dark arts of the Brotherhood shadow magic made him the best assassin in the brotherhood. He was a ghost that would stalk his pray from the shadows until the time was right. Then he would strike like a pit viper, and vanish like a ghost. One year later after practicing his craft he made good on his vow. He made his way into the underground city, murdered the ruling clan king and queen, sacked the vaults of the castle, and set fire to the castle.
With his wealth he got arrogant. He bought his way out of the Brotherhood, bought a big castle and a fleet of ships, and lived like a king for the next five years. Until drow assassin came for him in the night. It seemed like an Eye for an Eye was the way the drow culture worked. The assassins didn't manage to kill him but they did burn his house and half of his fleet of ships before he killed them all. He tried to go back to the Brotherhood for protection but once you were out, you stayed out for life. He was without sanctuary in the city. He sold his remaining ships and he ran. But everywhere he went the assassins followed. He killed them all but he had to pack up and move to a new town every time they found him. On top of that it cost a lot of gold to make a new identity for himself. That included new glamour amulets to take on a new face, identity papers, letters of nobility, and confidential contacts in the new city. The average cost of a move was thousands of gold pieces. His pile of gold coins kept getting smaller and smaller every move he made. Then the rifts started opening up. With nowhere to go, and very little gold to his name Valos took his chances and jumped through a rift.
He landed in the Nevada desert where his glamour amulet stopped working. Once again he was looked at with scorn because of his skin color, eyes and ears. But his gold coins were worth a hell of a lot more here than they were in his home world. Each coin was a little more than an ounce of gold. His 800 gold coins were worth $12,000. But money only got you so far when no one talk to you because of your skin tone. His salvation came when he finally found a witch in Boulder Colorado that could make him a glamour amulet. It cost him $8,000 and it would only last a few years but it was worth it. He was allowed to live a normal life again.
But with almost no money to his name he had to get a job and the only job he knew how to do was assassin. So he set up shop in Denver and started taking contracts. With access to firearms, and a contact at a few bars in town he had a steady stream of work. He had a good reputation for getting the job done and the marshals left him alone because he only killed bad guys and he never killed women, children, or innocent people.
He was a cleaner and on a few occasions Marshal Walter White hired him to take care of a few men he couldn't touch. Valos was the second name Walter gave to Harry when he came looking for talent. Harry set up a meeting with the assassin through a contact at a bar in the bad neighborhood in Denver. Harry sat at the bar waiting for the Assassin.
"You have a job for me?" Asked a man dressed in all black with a long black leather duster with a hood asked sitting next to Harry at the bar. The thing was the tall thin man wasn't there a few seconds ago and Harry didn't feel him take a seat.
"I do. How would you like to be a deputy Marshal on a special magical task force?" Harry asked setting a silver marshal's star on the bar.
"Is this a joke?" Valos asked in his oddly accented english. Harry knew he was from the other side of the rift but in his head he tried to match the accent to something he knew and he guessed it would be close to Russian but it was like a Russian villain. It was smooth and soft and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Think Russian sounding English but spoken by a Spaniard.
"No, the job pays $10 a day and a cut of any loot or bounty we collect. On top of that the job comes with free room and board. It also comes with a free glamour amulet that is much better than the one you have on now." Harry said.
"You can see through the glamour?" Valos asked.
"Yes, the person that sold you it was banking on you not being powerful enough to see her shoddy work. How much did you pay?" Harry asked ordering two glasses of top shelf scotch.
"$8,000." Valos said looking pissed off.
"Yeah, she fucked you good. So do you want the job?" Harry asked taking a drink from his glass.
"What kind of work is it?" Valos asked.
"Cleaning up dangerous magical creatures from your realm as well as the general scum that walks the earth. You will be provided armor, firearms, ammo, and any other items you need to do your job. You will also have access to a portkey network and airships. So are you in?" Harry asked.
"I'm in. I have to take care of a few things in the city but I'll be ready by the end of the week. Where should I meet you?" Valos asked.
"The star is a portkey. Pin it on your coat, put your hand over the star, and say Eureka Marshal's office and you'll be transported to the office. This is an enchanted bag with leather armor. Wear the armor and use the bag to collect your things." Harry said handing Valos a black leather carpet bag.
"You are very magical." Valos said.
"Yes, but my sister is better. When you arrive in town she will have a glamour amulet ready for you. This coin bag has a month and a half's back pay as well as the payment for taking this meeting." Harry said setting a small black leather coin bag on the bar.
"It's an honor doing business with you Mr?" Volas asked holding out his hand.
"Marshal Steel, Harry Steel." Harry said shaking his hand and setting a few silver dollars on the bar "For the drinks." Harry said before he vanished without a sound making Valos smirk.
At the end of the week Valos landed in the Marshal's office off to the side in a 8x8 foot area walled off by a half wall and was met by Deputy Teddy sitting at the front desk.
"Can I help you with something Marshal?" Teddy asked looking at the tall thin man dressed in all black. He was wearing black King Snake leather pants, vest, and long coat, over a black collared shirt, black tie, and a wide brimmed black hat shading his face. He had a few black canvas and leather bags over his shoulders.
"Valos, I here to meet Marshal Steel about a job." Valos said
"Right, Harry said you would be stopping by. He's in his office. I'll take you back there now. Would you like some coffee or a doughnut? They're fresh." Teddy said leading Valos deeper into the now hugely expanded marshal's office.
"Don't mind if I do." Valos said with a smirk as he topped off a coffee cup from the big brass coffee maker on a table by the door and took a long john from the tray. "You guys alway eat like this?" He asked.
"We do since chef Jon Philip moved into the boarding house. He has his guys drop of a big try of pastries every morning and the coffee maker is magic. It's always full of good hot coffee." Teddy said leading Valos down the hall to a door marked Magical Division. Through the door was a big 80x90 foot room was divided into six offices all facing out with glass walls and doors, a big cage off to the side for holding prisoners, and two room in the back with heavy steel doors. Each office had a big wood desk and comfortable leather chairs. All of the offices were empty except for Harry in the back corner office. Harry stood up from his desk and smiled when he saw him.
"Good you made it. Let's get you geared up and then I can show you where you'll be staying. Thank's for bringing him in here Teddy, I got it from here." Harry said coming out to the open area in the center.
"Nice place we got here." Valos said finishing his long john as Teddy took his leave.
"Yeah, I made it. I made this whole place. This is going to be your office over here. You'll be working for my brother Neville when we have two full teams but for now you'll be working with the both of us." Harry said showing him into the first office on the left side.
"Wow, I get an office and everything. This is all real." Valos said setting his bags down on the brown leather wingback chair in the corner.
"Yes it's real. We're going to be the most well respected Marshal's in the west. The guys they call when things go bad. We have to have nice offices. Now I know you like to do things from the shadows with blades and you have your own daggers and knives but I made a few different knives and swords for you to look at. All of them are enchanted to be razor sharp and unbreakable. Also some of the daggers have hot knife enchantment on them and some of them have a poison injection system built in. We also have a full section of B&S guns for you to pick and choose from." Harry said pointing out the two dozen black anodized steel knives and swords on the leather topped desk in the room.
"You made these?" Valos asked picking up an Italian stiletto dagger with a 10 inch long three sided blade with a dragon bone handle and a blue gem in the pummel.
"I did it with a spell. All of the knives and guns were made by me or my brother. He's the Blackwell in the Blackwell and Stell gun company. That knife has the poison injection by the way. I have it loaded with 40 ounces of King Snake venom. Holding down the blue gem for three seconds right before you use it will activate the poison. One ounce per charge." Harry said.
"These are all very nice, I will test all of this equipment and pick and choose what works best for me." Valos said looking impressed.
"Well the training room is that door on the right and the shooting range and armory in the door on the left. I figured you can pick a few guns now and we'll get you set up with a bag and holsters. Then we'll head to the house where you'll be staying." Harry said showing him how to open the firing range door. Room was sectioned off into two parts with a 60 foot long 15 foot wide four stall shooting range to the left and a gun cage to the right. The cage was full of shiny B&S guns in rack and on shelves. Crates of ammo, boxes of speed loaders, racks with potions, racks of cavalry sabers, knives, and a clothing rack with leather vests, pants, and long coats on hangers.
"Take whatever you need, just mark it down on this list. My sister is meticulous when it comes to keeping track of inventory." Harry said grabbing a clipboard off a hook by the door.
"I don't even know where to start." Valos said looking at all the shiny steel.
"Start with one of these bags. They can hold a hell of a lot, put things in and when you want them think about what you're reaching for and it shows up in the bag." He said grabbing a bag off the rack and handing it to him.
"Bag of holding! Nice. I had one of these a long time ago." Valos said.
"So they have something like this on your side of the rift? well, do me a favor, don't tell my sister. She invented that as our work bag about ten or so years ago. Anyways moving on to handguns. We have Model 1's, 2's, 3's and 5's. Any of these guns can be customized to your liking and a whisper enchantments can be added for stealth. My suggestion would be to take one of each and a few boxes of ammo and try them out. I know you don't use long guns, but the Winchester 1886 in 45-70 works well on broom patrol, and you're going to need a High Wall for bigger game. Neville is your heavy weapons guy on your team but if you can handle the bigger guns than having a backup is good." Harry said pulling three long guns off the rack.
"Just because I don't normally use a rifle doesn't mean I can't." Valos said with a smirk.
"Good, when we're not out there, and we have down time I want you practicing in here. Ammo is almost free. We collect the spent brass and the lead from the range and we reload it. So shoot as much as you want to. Now you're going to need a potions kit. In this pouch is healing tonics and mana potion. That's another thing we need to do some research about. Until we do, I'd skip the mana potion. You have blades covered, later on when you have your set list of items you like to use you'll set up two more bags. You'll leave one in your office and one in your house. In case you don't have your bag on you and you need to go fast…" Harry said only to trail off as Neville came flying through the office door with Billy hot on his heels.
"We got a call from Reno, huge pack of spiders were spotted near the city. They have a nest in the mountains. The Reno marshal is holding back ten wagon trains in the city waiting to head to San Francisco. They can't leave the city until we take out the spiders." Neville said.
"Why didn't you head two out?" Harry asked.
"I figured this would be a good test for the two new guys to tackle. Pack of spiders in a nest. It could be 4 it could be 10 big fucking spiders and a queen. The tunnel could be a cave, or a mineshaft. The bounty on the spiders is $1,500. $500 each for the two rookies if they take lead." Neville said with a smirk.
"Let's let Valos find his loadout first and they both need to get comfortable with a set of modern guns before we send them into a cave full of death. Call Reno back and tell them we'll be out there in a few hours. You two head to the range and I'll bring you a set of mission guns. These weapons come from our universe, they are not to be seen by anyone but us, the brass is to be collected after a mission, and these weapons are not to be drawn in public unless you're about to die and help is not coming. Is that understood?" Harry asked in a tone of voice that brokered no arguments and promised the punishment of death to anyone breaking the rules. Both men nodded with Billy looking slightly fearful of Harry and Valos placing his closed right fist over his chest and bowing slightly.
For the next two hours both men blasted through thousands of rounds of ammo but in the end Harry was confident that both men had the right set up of B&S guns for their combat styles and they could handle the modern mission guns they were given which at this point was narrowed down to the Sig p226 X-Five for undercover cary in the shoulder rig, a Sig MPX in 9mm with an 8 inch barrel for close quarters work, and the HK417 in 7.62x51 with a 16 inch barrel and an acog scope. Harry checked Valos' guns before they left the office and the Assassin smirked as Harry asked him questions about gun grips and speed loaders.
"Relax Harry, I think I'm all set. Plus you don't have to worry about me. I can take care of myself. I'm not some greenhorn." Valos said checking his two Model 1's on his gun belt and the two model 2's with the shorter 3 inch barrels in his shoulder rig.
"I know, but as a leader I have to make sure my troops are ready for anything." Harry said with a smirk.
"And I'm not angry. It's nice to have someone looking out for me. It's nice to be a part of a group again. Now let's go kills some spiders and make some coin." Valos said taking two of the stiletto daggers with the hot knife enchantment off the desk and adding them to his belt along with the knife roll pouch full of small razor sharp five inch throwing knives, and a razor sharp black steel Kopis short sword with a bone handle.
The group portkeyed to the Reno marshal's office and after a brief talk with and marshal about the location of the nest they expanded their two wolf pack fighters and after hitting a button on the magical hud the cockpit expanded revealing a jump seat behind the pilot's chair just like the mustang. They loaded up and headed west into the mountains along the road San Fransisco. It took only a few minutes to find the cave thanks to the three big spiders dragging a mountain troll carcass inside. They landed a close by and the new guys pulled out their Hk417 rifles while Harry and Neville both had their highwall rifles in hand and their Model 4 rifles loaded and slung over their shoulders.
Valos took point leading Billy and Neville into the cave with Harry scanning the cave behind them as they went. They approached a cavern and Valos held up his hand. He vanished into the shadows and and returned a minute later. He lead them back a few dozen feet and waved them closer.
"Eight big fucking spiders and a huge pregnant spider the size of a house." Valos said looking at Harry.
"Don't look at me, it's your show. You tell me, what do you want to do? How do you want to play this?" Harry asked.
"The cavern is about a hundred foot around and eighty foot tall. It's dark as hell, with loose rocks all over the place, and big spiders everywhere you look. If I wasn't in the shadows I would have been a snack. We need fire and explosives. Do we have any of that?" Valos asked looking at everyone.
"I can throw some fire cards but we're talking small fires. Not large scale. How about you guys?" Billy said playing with his cards.
"We have these." Harry said pulling two red stone grenades.
"What do they do?" Valos asked.
"Exposed and sends 100 buck shot balls out." Harry said.
"Kill range?" Billy asked looking at the cast iron ball.
"About a hundred feet." Harry said.
"How many do you got?" Valos asked.
"Ten, each." Harry said with a smirk. He liked the way they were working together.
"Okay. how do they work?" Valos asked.
"You pull the pin and it goes boom after five seconds." Harry said.
"Give me six of those." Valos said pulling a thin spool of string out of his pocket. He had Harry hod the five grenades and he threaded the thin string through all of the pin rings.
"How are you going to get those in there?" Harry asked.
"I'm going to shadow walk them in and teleport back here." Valos said taking the cluster of cast iron balls and vanishing. A few seconds later valos came out of the shadows next to them just as the grenades went off and the cavern shook.
"Now we cast in fire spells and clean up the still moving ones." Valos said with a smirk.
"Allow me?" Billy asked shuffling his deck and fanning out a seven card ace high straight flush of glowing red hearts.
"Be my guest." Valos said with a girn.
"Don't mind if I do." Billy said rushing to the mouth of the cave and flicking all seven cards into the cave. The explosion rocked the cavern again and Billy had to duck under his leather coat to dodge the backdraft fire ball.
"Small fires my ass." Valos said rushing over with his rifle out.
"These new cards are great!" Billy said following Valos into the cave with his rifle up.
Harry and Neville shared a head shaking smirk before walking into the room and surveying the damage. The first thing that hit them was the smell. It was like burnt hair, shit, and death. There were burnt bits of spider all over the floor. In the corner of the cave was the half burnt body of the queen. The spider was bigger than aragog was. It was way dead but the bell was still moving. Harry was about to say something when Billy came over and hit the belly with a burst of full auto from his rifle. He pulled his sword out and started hacking at the belly. He carved open the belly armor of the big spider and they all saw a sack full of dinner plate sized spiders crawling around inside.
"Fire in the hole!" Billy called out making the rest of the group back up. Billy pulled out three cards a 7,6, and a 5 of hearts. The cards glowed red and Billy flicked them into the sack. The cards exploded and set the sack on fire. They heard the chittering screeches of hundreds of little spiders as they burned.
"I think you got them Billy, good job. Now we need some more light in here to see if it's worth looking around or if we should just set off a few more explosives and level this cave." Valos said.
"Good call." Harry said casting a light ball spell and hovering it over the top of the cave casting light to every corner of the cave. That's when they saw all the chunks of bone and black globs of spider shit all over the place.
"My god." Billy said looking around the room at the carnage.
"I think we should just cut our loses and bring down this cave." Valos said looked a bit green as well.
"You both did a good job. We'll summon all the spent brass and any coins. You two scout back down the cave and see if there are any metal veins in the cave." Harry said patting each man on the back as they walked out of the cave.
"This place is a fucking shit show." Neville said.
"Just how bad is this? $1,500 is a lot of coin. How many people and wagon trains did they get before we were called?" Harry asked looking at the amount of human bones in the cave.
"Two wagon trains, 37 people. Mostly men and boys headed to a mining camp in San Francisco. The damaged carts and all the goods they had with them were recovered by the next group that was heading this way. They found the mess and headed back to town. The mining company is paying for the bounty." Neville said.
"Fuck, we really need to set up beacon poles on the roads leading out in all directions. At least in our own state. Shit like this is avoidable." Harry said pulling out a sack and summoning any coins, guns, knives, valuables, and stent brass.
"Hey bosses! We found some silver and iron veins in the tunnel this way." Billy called out.
"We're coming." Harry said heading back.
It took a few explosive charms from Harry and Neville to bring down the cave but by noon they were back in Reno delivering the good news. Harry traded a bag of gold $50 coins with the Head Marshal for a bag with all the personal belongings found in the cave. It was a grim trade but Harry hoped that the return of a few lost trinkets to the family of the fallen would bring some comfort.