Science and Sorcery - Sample

Christopher G. Nuttall

www.chrishanger.net
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Cover Blurb

Years ago, the magic faded away and was gone.  Now, it is back ... and the nightmare is following close behind.

Strange events are being reported all over the globe.  Werewolves and vampires, magicians and sorcerers ... ordinary people are becoming monsters, or developing strange inhuman powers.  But as the government, the military and religions  struggles to come to terms with a radically reshaped reality, a dark force from the days before science is slowly working its way back into the world.  If science fails to come to grips with sorcery, the world will plunge into a nightmare without end.

And time is already running out ...

[As a matter of principle, all of my self-published books are DRM-free.  You may treat it as you may treat any normal paperback book.  Download a free sample from my site – www.chrishanger.net; try before you buy.  And if you like, please review.]

Dear Reader

This book is an introduction to a whole new universe.  I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  If you like my books, please review them on Amazon – it helps boost sales and convinces me to write more in certain universes.

As I am not the best editor in the world, I would be grateful if you email me to point out any spelling mistakes, placing them in context.  I can offer cameos, redshirt deals and suchlike in return.

Have fun!  And if you want a second book, let me know...

Christopher Nuttall

Dedication

To Larry Niven, whose ‘Warlock’s Wheel’ stories inspired Science and Sorcery and the Niven’s Wheel, and who kindly granted me permission to use the Wheel concept in this story.

The two universes are not entirely compatible, but if you like you can imagine the Warlock’s birth as taking place several hundred years after the defeat and entrapment of the Thirteen, when the magic started to fade away ...

Prologue

Awareness came back slowly, in fits and starts.  

He was underwater.  Of course he was underwater.  Enchanter had taken him to where Great Atlantis had sunk, shortly after the war had been won, and placed him under the waves, right outside the tomb.  And then...?

My name is Golem, he thought, as another fragment of memory returned.  Enchanter, the greatest magician ever to walk the planet, had created him from mud and stone, imbuing raw material with the raw fabric of life itself.  The magician had spent freely of his mana and knowledge to create Golem, calling him the greatest accomplishment of five hundred years of magical research.  Golem the Guardian, he’d said, although none other than Golem himself had known what he was to guard.  The Enchanter had known that it was sometimes better to let people keep their illusions.

“You will not live where there is no mana,” the Enchanter had said.  Back then, it hadn't seemed like a real possibility.  But Enchanter had known the terrible price civilisation was about to pay for defeating the Thirteen, if such powerful magicians could ever be defeated.  “When mana returns to the world, you will be alive again.  And thanks to what I paid to create you, even a low-level mana field will suffice.”

Golem opened his eyes and looked around.  Atlantis had once been the greatest city in the world, until it had been destroyed in the war.  Now, deep underwater, the ruins of the city were home to living creatures, none of them human.  The remains of the population had rotted away long ago, those who hadn’t been consumed by the Thirteen.  Even his eyes, perfectly adapted to underwater conditions, could see nothing beyond the remains of the once-great temples and fortresses.  Carefully, Golem took a step forward and then another, unable to escape the sensation that he was walking across a tomb.  How long had it been since the mana had faded away?

But the mana is back, he thought, as he crossed what had once been unbreakable walls, formed and held in place by the massed will of the Council of Wizards.  If it were not back, I would not be alive.

The Enchanter had created and taught him when mana was plentiful and student magicians had no need to limit their consumption, just to conserve their power.  Now, Golem discovered that most of the spells he knew simply refused to work.  He could still feel the faint trickle of mana flooding through the water, spreading through the world itself, but there wasn’t enough to do more than maintain his life.  But there would be enough soon, he knew.  He could feel it in his clay bones.

There was no point in trying to swim, so he walked forward, knowing that he would encounter a landmass eventually.  Or the mana would rise to the point where he could use it to fly up, out of the water, or simply teleport back to Enchanter’s fortress.  Time passed – days, weeks, months – until he finally reached a coastline.  Bidding a silent farewell to the fish that had followed him on his walk, he strode out of the water and onto the shore.  High overhead, the moon peered down as it had done for centuries.  And there were strange lights in the sky.

Golem’s eyes had no difficulty in picking out stars he’d known in his youth, before Enchanter had buried him under the waves, but the constellations were so different.  Once, astronomers had charted the skies and astrologers had used them to read the future.  Now...Golem knew enough about the slow passage of the stars to realise that thousands of years, perhaps longer, had passed since the death of magic, since he had gone to sleep.  It was quite possible that no one even remembered Enchanter and his greatest creation.  Golem looked down at the sand and then back up at the stars, knowing himself to be the loneliest being in the world.  All of the people he’d known would be less than dust by now.

And if they had forgotten Enchanter, had they also forgotten his enemies?

The mana was back.  How long would it be before the Thirteen were unleashed once again?

You know your duty, Enchanter’s voice seemed to echo out of time.  I created you to save the world.

Golem took one last look at the stars and stepped forward, heading towards the lights in the distance that suggested a human town, or city.  There would be answers there about this strange new world, and about the early impact of mana.  And then he would seek allies who could help him to complete his mission.  The Thirteen had to be stopped.

Or the entire world would be trapped in a nightmare without end.

Chapter One

New York, USA
Day 1

“Damn girl,” Dawn said.  “What’s wrong with you?”

Katie Sheehan rubbed her eyes.  She wanted to go back to bed, or at least to somewhere quiet where she could sit down and rest, but Dawn had insisted that they went clubbing.  Her friend wanted to enjoy her single life in New York City and thought that Katie should enjoy herself too.  Dawn meant well, Katie knew, but it hadn't been a very good day.

“Tired,” she said, feeling dizzy. Maybe she was coming down with something, maybe something bad enough to justify spending two days in bed rather than at work, slaving away beside an asshole who took credit for her work while leering at her every time he thought she wasn’t looking.  She wanted another job, but it wasn't easy to find anything else in the current economic climate.

“Well, come onto the dance floor,” Dawn said.  She lowered her voice, mischievously.  “There are some hot guys out there.”

Katie rolled her eyes.  Dawn was popular with the guys – and a single glance at her chest was enough to tell her why.  Blonde and bubbly, wearing a shirt that looked as if it had come out of a Hooters bar, Dawn caught the eyes of every man in the room.  Compared to her, Katie felt more than a little dowdy, even if she wasn’t quite overweight.  Guys rarely looked at her if she was standing next to Dawn.

Her head spun again as the familiar resentment – at her boss, at Dawn’s looks, at her life – boiled up inside her mind.  She caught the side of the table as red fire seemed to burn through her brain, bringing with it a rage she had never fully understood.  The room seemed to fade out for a long second, just before the sudden burst of temper faded away into nothingness. 

Dawn caught her arm.  “Do you want to go home?”

“Yeah,” Katie said.  All of her senses seemed to be going crazy.  She could smell everything in the hall, from cigarette smoke to the musky stench of guys on the dance floor.  The flickering lights were slowly driving her mad.  “Please get me out of here.”

The light of the full moon blazed down at them as they stepped outside and started to walk back towards their apartment.  Neither of them had enough money to call for a cab, even though they knew that walking home could be dangerous.  Katie’s mind was too busy spinning to care; her ears were recoiling under the constant bombardment of noise from New York, the city that never slept.  She had never realised just how loud the city was, or just how confining it could feel.  The massive towers and skyscrapers seemed nothing more than the bars of a cage.

“That bastard probably slipped you something into your drink,” Dawn said, as they turned the corner and stumbled down an alleyway.  “Or maybe you just drank too much.”

Katie shook her head, although in truth she had no way to be sure.  She hadn't drunk more than two glasses, but she hadn't been paying close attention when the bartender mixed the drinks.  He could have given her anything.  But she knew what it felt like to be drunk and this was different.  Her entire body seemed on edge, waiting for something that was advancing towards her...and yet she had no idea what was happening.  The light of the full moon splashed over them and she felt a sudden surge of rage.  Her hand gripped Dawn’s arm tightly and her friend let out a yelp.

“Katie,” she snapped.  “What is wrong with you?”

The rage faded away, back into Katie’s mind.  “I don’t know,” she admitted.  She felt sick, and tired, and yet there was something running through her mind that would not let her rest.  “Can we just get home...?”

She smelled them before she saw them, four young men carrying knives and lurking in the alleyway, waiting to see what would walk into their grasp.  Katie opened her mouth to warn Dawn, but before she could put the strange set of sensations into words it was already too late.  The gangsters had moved into position to prevent the two girls from running, their face twisted with greed and lust.  Two young and pretty girls...their scent changed as they realised they could do more than just mug the women.  Katie sensed their arousal and recoiled in fear, before the fear was swallowed by rage.  How dare they even think of violating them?

The lead gangster slapped Dawn with his hand, breaking her lip.  Katie sniffed the blood and felt a sudden wave of rage and bloodlust that refused to fade away.  Instead, she opened her mouth and screamed as her body started to change, becoming something else.  There was a moment of horror as she saw hairs growing out of her hands...

...And then the bloodlust swallowed her completely.

***
Officer Mathew Coombs heard the screams and started to run, cursing his supervisor under his breath.  The NYPD’s latest round of budget cuts had put a number of policemen on the streets alone, without backup, something that meant they had to deal with any problems on their own.  He hit the emergency beacon as the screams grew louder, torn from male and female throats, while drawing his pistol from its holster.  Anything that could make someone scream like that had to be dangerous.

He ran into the alleyway, pulling his torch from his belt and shining it ahead into the darkened scene.  The screams faded away and were gone, just as he caught sight of something moving ahead of him.  There was a snarl, almost like an angry dog, as he flashed the light down and saw a horrific scene of carnage.  Four bodies, maybe more, were scattered on the ground, their throats torn out by...what?  Matt had heard of humans being attacked by animals, but he’d never seen anything like it.  And yet he found it impossible to believe that anything human could have inflicted so much damage.  All four – no, there were ten legs, so five – bodies had been torn apart.  One of them was very clearly a woman.

“Dispatch, I need a forensic team out here now,” he said.  There was a very faint growl, coming from somewhere in the darkness.  A chill ran down his spine as he grasped his pistol tightly.  “And I need armed backup.  I say again...”

The growling grew louder and he shone his flashlight towards the source, catching sight of a giant wolf half-hidden in the darkness.  Time seemed to slow down as he stared at the creature, unable to comprehend exactly what he was seeing.  It was huge, easily twice the size of the largest police dog in the NYPD, with strange green eyes that seemed to peer at him, almost as if they were hypnotised by the flashlight.  And then he saw the blood staining the animal’s snout.  He had no doubt that he was looking at the creature that had killed five civilians as easily as a man would squash a spider.  

He started to inch backwards as the wolf prowled forward, keeping his pistol trained on the beast’s head.  It was growling, very faintly, a sound that sent primal fear running down his spine.  The hand holding the pistol started to shake and he caught himself, just as the creature opened its mouth and roared at him.  A moment later, it sprang right for his throat.  Acting on instinct, Matt opened fire, hitting the beast several times.  It’s immense bulk crashed into him and sent him flying backwards, just before it hit the ground with a thunderous crash.  Matt staggered to his feet and groped around for the flashlight and pistol – he’d dropped both when the creature had hit him – hoping and praying that the beast was dead.  If it had killed five humans, it probably wouldn't hesitate to add a sixth to that number.

The flashlight was lying on the ground, still burning brightly.  Matt stumbled towards it and picked it up, turning it on the beast as he heard sirens howling in the distance.  But the beast was gone.  Matt started forward, waving the flashlight around, and almost jumped out of his skin as he saw a naked body where the beast had fallen.  It was a young girl, barely out of her teens – and clearly shot to death.  Matt was familiar enough with bullet wounds to know that they’d almost certainly been caused by his pistol; besides, he hadn't noticed anyone else shooting...

His head started to spin in absolute disbelief.  He’d shot at a wolf-like creature.  He’d hit a young girl.

What the hell was going on?

Carefully, he recovered his pistol and knelt down beside the girl, taking her pulse.  She was gone, beyond salvation by anything he could do.  There was no sign of any ID, or of her clothes...she seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.  Matt tried to collect himself as a small army of policemen appeared at the end of the alleyway, some of them carrying spotlights to illuminate the crime scene, gasping in horror as they saw what had happened.  Very few of them had ever seen anything like this.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up to see McLain, his immediate superior.  “Matt, what the fuck happened here?”

“I wish I knew,” Matt said.  They wouldn’t believe a word of it.  How could he blame them when he wouldn't have believed a word of it if someone told him what he’d seen?  “I wish I knew.”

***
The interrogation room was small, brightly lit and effectively a prison cell.  Matt sat in one chair, rubbing his eyes with his hands.  It was 2am and it seemed that half the NYPD had been awoken to deal with the nightmare he’d seen, if not created.  He’d already made his report to McLain and two of McLain’s superiors; as he’d expected, they didn't believe any of it.  The whole story was starting to look like Matt had gunned down an innocent girl for no clear reason, something that would reflect badly on the NYPD.  

He looked up as a door opened, revealing a tall black man carrying two mugs of coffee and a single cardboard folder.  “I’m Jeff,” he said, as he put one of coffees down in front of Matt.  He didn’t give any rank or title, which suggested that he was part of Internal Affairs.  The men who policed the police – fiends in human form, as they were viewed by the regular police – all had the same sense of arrogance and entitlement, as well as a conviction that any copper who didn’t want to talk to them had something to hide.  “Tell me what happened today.”

Matt sighed and repeated the story, again.  Jeff listened quietly, without saying a word, no doubt comparing it to the stories Matt had told the earlier interrogators.  By now, the Mayor would have been informed and the NYPD would be bracing itself for a media storm.  A cop shooting a young girl would sell more papers than anything reassembling the truth.  It had reached the point where Matt had started to question his own sanity.  But he’d seen the other bodies.  Nothing human could have done that to anyone.

“They rushed the bodies to the morgue,” Jeff said, when he’d finished.  “I’m afraid you definitely did kill the girl, Matt.  We pulled your bullets out of her body and checked them against your gun.”

“I know what I saw,” Matt said, quietly.  But had he really seen what he’d seen?  Maybe it had all been an illusion caused by a hallucinogenic gas.  “I don’t understand what happened...”

“Neither do I,” Jeff said.  “We haven’t done anything more with the girl’s body, for the moment, but we have had the other victims checked.  The best the doctors can suggest is that all five of them were torn apart by a powerful animal of some kind, perhaps an oversized dog.  They pulled animal hairs out of the blood; they just haven’t been able to match them to anything.”

Matt leaned forward.  “So there was an animal!”

“It seems that way,” Jeff agreed.  “We’ve managed to identify two of the victims, both known gang-bangers.  The other two males and the girls remain unidentified so far, but we’re only just starting.  No doubt something will surface to tell us who they were and what they were doing in that alleyway.”

He looked up, sharply.  “Another odd datum,” he added.  “The girl you shot was badly stained with blood from all five animal victims.  We’ve had it checked against the others and it is definitely their blood.  And she doesn't seem to have any animal hairs on her.”

Matt stared down at his hands.  “So what the fuck happened?”

“We don’t know,” Jeff said.  The Internal Affairs officer shook his head.  “It’s turning into a horrible mess – and it will get worse once the media catches wind of it.  We have to take action to show that we’re on top of the situation and we don't know what action to take.”

Matt scowled.  The NYPD couldn't afford another scandal, not after a series of scandals involving police forces had plagued the nation.   Coppers had shot innocent men, or arrested the wrong person, or been politically involved...the list went on and on.  He had a nasty feeling that McLain was about to throw him under the bus in the hopes that it would distract attention from the NYPD itself.  

“We tested your blood,” Jeff added.  They’d taken a sample as soon as they’d suspected that Matt might have been under the influence.  “No drugs, no alcohol, nothing that might have affected your judgement.”  He didn't quite say that Matt might have been born with poor judgement, but the training should have taught him better.  “We really don’t know what happened to you, or to her.  The physical evidence is...somewhat murky.”

He frowned.  “But we do know that you shot the girl, which means that we have to take action.  For the moment, pending the outcome of an investigation, you will be suspended from duty and barred from talking to the media.  In the event of them managing to identify you, we will take you into protective custody for your own safety.  You don’t want the media trying and convicting you before we actually know what happened.”

Matt nodded.  Under the circumstances, it was the best they could do.  They had to suspend him until they knew what had actually happened, even if they believed his story.  Besides, it would give him a chance to sleep and to try to come to terms with what had happened.  There was no avoiding the fact that he’d put three slugs into a girl and killed her.  

Jeff stood up.  “We’d prefer it if you reviewed the instructions for suspended cops and followed them to the letter,” he said.  “Don’t talk to the media, don’t try to run your own investigation and don’t leave the city.  You may be expected to attend further interrogation sessions without warning.”

“Yeah,” Matt nodded.  “I won’t leave the city.”

He caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror as Jeff escorted him out of the chamber and winced.  Matt had never thought of himself as particularly handsome, but right now he looked haggard, as if he’d aged overnight.  A good night’s sleep would cure the tiredness, yet it wouldn't do anything to mollify the guilt.  The girl was dead and it was his fault and even though he’d acted in self-defence, or what he’d thought was self-defence, he’d still killed her.  

The other officers in the station looked at him, and then looked away.  Failure – and the attention of Internal Affairs – was contagious and they didn't want any of Matt’s troubles splattering over them.  Matt knew exactly how they were feeling; Internal Affairs had a tendency to go on witch-hunts that did little more than threaten the careers of decent policemen.  Jeff might appear to be an affable guy, but Matt knew that he – like all officers – was itching for the collar.  Arresting a corrupt – or criminally negligent – policeman would go some way towards justifying Internal Affairs’ budget.  

Jeff arranged for a car to drive Matt back to his apartment.  Outside, it was still dark, with the full moon half-hidden under the clouds, but New York never slept.  There were already a couple of reporters watching the police station, as if they expected something spectacular to appear right in front of him.  Matt rolled his eyes; he’d seen enough reporters to know that they were just stringers, sent along to make sure all of the bases were covered.  The really famous reporters were probably still in bed.  

He’d never bothered to rent a proper apartment, which was probably why none of his girlfriends stayed with him for very long.  Opening the door, he stumbled inside and crashed down on the sofa, closing his eyes tightly.  He was just too keyed up to sleep with the bad coffee he’d drunk at the station.  Eventually, he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled across to the laptop.  Internal Affairs should have cancelled his access to the national police network of computers, but he knew logins from two of his comrades and those wouldn't have been changed.  By now, the record of the incident in New York would have been entered into the system and linked to other cases.  Matt felt his eyes widen as no less than three similar cases appeared in front of his eyes.  Two of them involved fatalities, apparently caused by monstrous animals; the third claimed to have seen a young man become an animal.  Separately, it was hard to take any such report seriously, but taking them all together...?

Matt sucked in a breath.  What the hell was going on? 

Chapter Two

Washington DC, USA
Day 2

“Something very weird is going on.”

Caitlyn Lyle scowled down at the computer screen and rubbed her eyes tiredly, cursing her former boss under her breath.  The FBI was not above playing politics and Caitlyn had ended up taking most of the blame for matters that had been discussed well above a lowly Special Agent’s level.  She had warned them that something was badly wrong with a pair of Arab-Americans who had links to Hamas, but nothing had been done until it had nearly been too late.  Her boss – her former boss – had dispatched her to the Data Study Centre as punishment for being right when her superiors had been wrong.  The only thing that had stopped him putting her in front of a board of inquiry had been the certain knowledge that the truth would have come out.  

Bloody politicians, she thought sourly, as she clicked the mouse and brought up the next report.  They pile on the red tape and political correctness and then start wondering why we can't do our jobs.

The Data Study Centre had grown out of the slow realisation that number-crunching and data-analysis could actually produce results.  There were certain factors that pointed to the existence of crime, or terrorism, and careful study could often lead the FBI’s investigators to the perpetrators before they could get away with their crimes, or blow themselves up in the name of religion.  Caitlyn’s current supervisor had uncovered a murderous doctor through cross-referencing files from a dozen different hospitals, all of which had suffered the same kind of mysterious death.  A travelling serial killer could be detected by looking at reports from police departments in three or four states.

It wasn’t unknown for the crazies to come out when there was a full moon, but the files made it sound as if all hell had broken loose.  There were reports of attacks all over the nation, all seemingly carried out by giant wolves; the media, in their typical style, were already talking about werewolves.  Caitlyn had worked in the FBI long enough to know that the reported crimes were only a fraction of the whole.  She knew that there was a good chance that there were any number of unreported crimes out there.  What the hell was going on?

She would have suspected a serial killer, but there were two points mitigating against that theory.  First, there were simply too many cases for a single man – or even a small group of men – to produce in a single night.  Second, the damage inflicted on the victims was staggeringly horrific.  Caitlyn had read the reports from the doctors who had performed the autopsy and they’d agreed that the dead had all been attacked by wild animals.  They hadn't been able to suggest any way in which a human could have produced one of the dead bodies, let alone all of them.  

The media’s talking heads were suggesting, in their typically self-involved manner, that the whole affair might be a publicity stunt for one of the vampire or werewolf movies that was supposed to be coming out later in the year.  Looking down at the reports, Caitlyn found that concept unbelievable.  People had died!  God knew that so-called reality television lived by detecting and exploiting human gullibility, but they wouldn't kill upwards of ninety people just for some damn publicity.  If the reports weren't so unbelievable, even the stupidest talking head would have refused to believe the fake attack theory for a second.

Caitlyn shook her head and looked down at the report from New York again.  It was unique in one respect; the wolf-like creature – she had to remind herself not to think of them as werewolves – had been shot, and apparently killed.  But when the police had found the body, they’d found a young girl – not a giant wolf.  It was easy to understand why the NYPD suspected that the officer had been engaged in professional misconduct, but looking at the overall picture Caitlyn could see that he’d been far from alone in shooting at the wolves.  He’d just been the only one to actually kill the creature.

And the body they’d found had belonged to a human girl.

“Damn it,” Caitlyn said, with some feeling.  Her instincts told her that the cop hadn’t faked anything, or come up with an insane story to justify his mistake.  There were just too many similar cases all over the USA.  “What the hell is going on?”

Thoughtfully, she tapped through the files, looking for the autopsy report on the dead girl.  Annoyingly, one hadn't been carried out, something that puzzled her until she found the notation that there was no dispute over the cause of death.  But, the report went on to say, there were no shortage of oddities about her body.  She’d been covered in blood from everyone else who’d died at the crime scene.  

Printing out a copy of the report, she stood up and headed for the elevator.  Her superiors might not have realised just how bad the whole situation had become, already, which meant that she would have a chance to tell them.  And, if she was lucky, wind up in charge of the task force assembled to deal with the crisis, whatever it was.  It could be her chance to return to proper duties.

And she was sick of the Data Study Centre.

***
“The reports are thoroughly bizarre,” she said, ten minutes later.  Mark Tomlinson, the Deputy Director of the FBI, had agreed to see her as soon as she arrived at his office, which suggested that someone high up was taking the whole affair very seriously.  “All of them, for want of a better term, involve werewolves.”

“I hope you’re not going to put that in your report,” Tomlinson said.  He smiled, but it didn't quite touch his eyes.  “It won’t be easy to convince anyone to take it seriously if you put that word into an official FBI report.”

Caitlyn opened the folder she’d been carrying and produced a set of pictures.  “Gwen Crichton,” she said.  “Sixteen years old; born and bred on a ranch in Texas – died yesterday, after being attacked by what witnesses describe as a large black dog.  The doctors all agree that nothing human could have inflicted such injuries so quickly.”

She tapped the second photograph.  “Rupert Summers; fifty-seven years old, manager at a local grocery store in Chicago.  Killed in his own store by a giant wolf; this time, we have the whole attack on CCTV.  The beast crashes through the glass door and attacks him, ripping out his throat before he can escape.”

Tomlinson held up a hand.  “I understand what you mean,” he said.  He had been a Special Agent himself, once upon a time, but he’d been in upper-level management for years.  “But if you are trying to convince me that something...supernatural is going on...”

“I don’t know what to suggest,” Caitlyn admitted.  The FBI didn't really investigate the paranormal, at least outside television shows such as The X-Files.  “Attacks by wild animals are not uncommon, but there are simply too many of them in a single night not to draw our attention.  And then there was the girl who was shot.”

She produced a third photograph and passed it to her supervisor.  “I think that something very weird is going on,” she added.  “We need to investigate.”

Tomlinson studied the photo thoughtfully.  “And is there a more...mundane theory for public consumption than werewolves?”

Caitlyn had given the matter some thought.  “There are...chemicals that simulate fury in animals,” she said.  The FBI had lost several agents to dogs who had been fed drugs that drove them into homicidal rage.  “Someone could have doped several creatures with one of them and then let them out to cause havoc...”

“Which doesn't explain everything,” Tomlinson said.  He rubbed his forehead.  “And yet, if the media discovers that we’re looking at werewolves...”

“They’re already talking about werewolves,” Caitlyn reminded him, quietly.  “It isn't going to go away if we bury our heads in the sand.  This could be nothing, or it could be another 9/11 plot.”

Tomlinson scowled.  Fifteen years had passed since 9/11, but the memory of just how badly the FBI – and the CIA, along with every other intelligence and counter-terrorism service – had let the country down still rankled.  Three thousand Americans would have survived if the data had been looked at properly, without inter-agency fighting and political correctness getting in the way.

“Right,” he said, finally.  “How do you propose we proceed?”

Caitlyn smiled.  “The incident in New York is the one that stands out,” she said.  “I suggest that we investigate it carefully, starting with an autopsy for the girl who was shot.  Several other reports say that people fired at the wild animals, but this was the only one that produced a body.  Either there was something in the air, or something very weird happened last night.”

“It wouldn't be the first time some cop on duty made a tragic mistake,” Tomlinson pointed out.  He tapped the table thoughtfully.  “Very well, Agent Lyle; you’re officially in charge of figuring out what the hell is going on.  I’ll speak to the Director and put together a task force, under your command.  If worst comes to worst, we can always brand it another exercise in fostering communications between departments.”

“Thank you, sir,” Caitlyn said.  It was what she wanted, after all, even though she knew that her career would not survive a second failure.  Tomlinson would have grounds for claiming that he had allowed her some rope to hang herself, if the entire affair proved to be nothing more than a waste of time.  “With your permission, I will leave for New York immediately.  The body can be transferred from the morgue to the FBI building in the city and dissected.  We need to know what happened to her, and why.”

“Good luck,” Tomlinson said.  He wrote out a travel pass, allowing her to draw a vehicle from the motor pool or board a plane on the FBI’s dime, and then nodded.  “Find out what the hell is going on.”

***
The new world was...eerie.

Golem walked down a street, hidden behind a concealing glamour, slowly taking in his surroundings.  A human would have had real problems accepting what he was seeing, let alone comprehending it, but Golem was very far from human.  Seemingly impossible sights – carriages moving with neither horses nor magic, or flickering squares displaying images of people or places – were nothing more than another piece of data on just what had happened since mana had faded from the world.  Clearly, the human race had found another way to bend nature to its will.

The population looked healthy and happy, perhaps healthier than the population had been, back before Golem had been buried to wait for the mana to return.  They wore clothes made from materials Golem couldn't recognise, some of them so thin and patchy that he’d taken the women for sorceresses, women so powerful that none would dare to molest them.  But there was barely enough mana in the air to support the concealing glamour hiding his true nature, let alone a full-fledged sorceress.  The immodest clothes, he realised slowly, were their standard form of dress.  This society was happy and confident in a way that his old society had never been, even before the Thirteen.

There were towering buildings, reaching up so high that they seemed to brush against the sky, so tall that Golem found it hard to imagine how they’d been built without magic.  They might not have been floating in the air, but they were remarkable, far larger than any mundane structure he’d seen in the old world.  Strange metal objects flew through the air, big enough to be dragons, if all the dragons hadn't died out during the war with the Thirteen.  Golem couldn't even begin to understand how they flew – there wasn’t enough mana in the air to support a child, let alone something the size of a dragon – but the puzzle wasn't important.  It was just another piece of data for him to contemplate while continuing his mission.

He found it hard to understand the various shops he was looking at, even when he tried to draw comparisons between the new shops and the ones he recalled from before his slumber.  Some seemed to sell potions, or drugs; others seemed to see objects that meant nothing to him, although they seemed very important to the scurrying humans all around him.  It was almost a relief when he found the bookshop and walked inside, looking around for the historical section.  He needed to know what had happened in the thousands of years he’d been sleeping under the ocean.  

Unsurprisingly, the books were written in a strange language.  It didn't seem to be related to Babel, the language everyone had spoken back before the mana leeched away.  Patiently, Golem picked up one of the books and worked a translation spell, hoping that there was enough mana in the world to allow the spell to work.  It was a mental spell, rather than a physical spell intended to affect the outside universe, but...he allowed himself a sigh of relief as the letters seemed to twist, becoming something more comprehensible.  A moment later, he was thumbing through the book and trying to understand just what had happened.  Nothing quite seemed to make sense.

It was nearly an hour before he started to realise the truth.  He’d been sleeping for at least three thousand years, perhaps longer.  Magic had certainly been gone from the Earth at the dawn of recorded history, even though there were tales of gods and magicians that lingered through the years.  Golem, who knew what had happened when the gods had truly walked the Earth, found some of the stories bitterly amusing.  The human race had forgotten the sheer majesty of the gods – and the terror they provoked.  Enchanter had once admitted that the human race was glad to see the gods gone, no matter how much they had worshipped them.  

So much had been lost.  He’d expected the modern world to remember Enchanter, the most powerful white wizard of them all, but there weren't even legends about him and his great deeds.  Or the heroes who had led the war against the Thirteen, or the Thirteen themselves for that matter.  Magic was dismissed as a myth, something that primitive humans had believed in without any real proof that it had even existed.  Golem found that attitude incomprehensible, to say the least; surely, the modern humans had to be capable of realising that myths had to have had a basis in fact somewhere.

You are not human, Enchanter had said.  You have no idea how lucky you are.

A human would have shaken his head, and then sat down to recover from the shock.  Golem just put the book back on the shelf and walked over to a set of atlases, opening one to see a map of the entire world.  It looked strange to him, but it took him a moment to realise just what was missing.  Atlantis had once dominated the Great Northern Sea, before it had been destroyed, but there wasn't even a trace of its presence as far as the modern world was concerned.  They only knew Atlantis through legends that were so vague they could have pointed anywhere.

Very few of the political boundaries made any sense to him and none were familiar.  Greece seemed to be a single country now, a strange change from the warring city-states he remembered.  The Fertile Crescent had become a desert, dominated by kingdoms and states that relied on oil for their survival.  Ys, once the hub of a trading empire that had rivalled Atlantis, was now nothing more than an offshore island near a state called Europe, which seemed to be made up of several smaller states.  Golem found himself working the puzzle thoughtfully, wondering why humans made their own lives so complicated.  They didn't have to make their lives so difficult.

“Here, here, here,” a voice said, from behind him.  “This is not a lending library.”

Golem turned slowly to see an immensely fat man standing behind him.  It had been rare to see men that fat, back in the past; the only men who could afford to fatten themselves were the nobility or the wealthy merchants.  Here, he’d seen plenty of fat men and women, suggesting that this era was capable of feeding everyone.  That made a pleasant change.

It had been centuries, literally, since he’d had to speak to anyone.  Enchanter had given him a voice, using a tongue ripped from a dying man’s mouth and charged with powerful mana, but he was out of practice.  Golem had to swallow twice before speaking and, even when he did, his voice sounded cracked and broken.  If it hadn't been for the translation spell, he suspected, the human wouldn't have understood him at all.

“What is a library?”

The man stared at him, piggy little eyes peering at the glamour surrounding Golem.  “This is a bookshop,” he said, in tones of exaggerated patience.  “You give me money and take my books, not thumb them until they are worthless...”

“Books are never worthless,” Golem said.  The human had no idea how lucky he was that Enchanter hadn't survived through the centuries to return to the world.  He would have turned the human into a puddle of goo for daring to suggest that books were worthless.  “Where can I find a library?”

The man stared at him.  Maybe he had a talent for magic, enough to sense the glamour even if he couldn't see past it, or perhaps he just wanted to convince Golem to leave his shop.  Golem listened politely to the instructions, memorised them, and walked out of the building, leaving the man behind.  A library would help him to learn about the modern world, and – if they were anything like the ones he recalled from the past – would also tell him what was going on in the world.  It wouldn't be long before the humans realised that the mana was back.

And the Thirteen wouldn't be far behind.

Chapter Three

New York, USA
Day 2

The knock on the door brought Matt out of an uneasy slumber.  Nightmares were part of a police officer’s job, but these were different.  He’d dreamed that he was a great hero, striding over the land clad in nothing more than a loincloth, carrying a sword that seemed to cut through anything, no matter how tough.  It would have been a fairly basic male fantasy, if it hadn't been for the level of detail – and the horrors he’d encountered.  One creature, a woman with snakes growing out of her hair, had turned him into stone...and that had been when he'd woken up.

He pulled himself off the sofa and scowled around the living room.  Policemen were supposed to be neat and tidy, but he hadn't really bothered to clean up after the pizza delivery boy had brought him the pizza he had ordered.  A half-empty bottle of Pepsi added to the suggestion that the owner of the apartment was nothing more than a slob, but right now he found it hard to care what his visitor thought of him.  He hadn't even bothered to shave in the morning before going back to sleep.  

Muttering under his breath, he peered through the peephole and saw a dark-skinned woman looking back at him.  He didn't recognise her at all, which was worrying.  The media might have worked out which policeman had shot the wolf-girl and sent someone he didn't know to interview him.  He composed himself and opened the door.  The woman smiled at him and held up an FBI badge.  Matt blinked at it, unable to conceal his surprise.  He could understand Internal Affairs being involved, but the FBI?

“I’m Special Agent Caitlyn Lyle,” the woman said.  “I am the head of the task force assigned to investigate the recent spate of incidents.”

Matt nodded and stepped back, allowing her to enter his apartment.  There was something about her last statement that sent his cop radar tingling, the sense that he was being misled if not actually lied to, but he let it pass for the moment.  The FBI badge had been genuine, which suggested that the FBI had definitely taken a hand.  If the media had picked up on a whole series of incidents, the FBI would probably have noticed too.

He motioned for her to walk into the living room, taking the opportunity to study her carefully.  Her dark skin contrasted oddly with her white hair, which was tied up into a tight bun.  She looked fit and healthy, perhaps thirty years old if he was any judge, with a build that suggested that she worked out regularly.  Or maybe she’d seen active duty in her time.

“I know that your Internal Affairs section will probably have said that you shouldn't talk to anyone,” Caitlyn said, as Matt cleared away a chair for her.  His apartment definitely looked bad...he shook his head, in some amusement.  Caitlyn was an FBI officer on a case, not a girl he was trying to impress.  “However, I need you to talk to me.  If they give you trouble, just refer them to the FBI.”

“Right,” Matt said unhappily.  Most policemen preferred to stay out of power struggles between the NYPD and the various federal agencies.  At least this agent didn't have the normal attitude of an FBI investigator, or the conviction that the NYPD was composed of hicks who didn't know what they were doing.  “You do realise that puts me in a very awkward position?”

Caitlyn nodded, slowly.  “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” she said.  “But your incident was just one of many.  I have authority to overrule your Internal Affairs on this matter, if necessary.”

She smiled, rather thinly.  “I need to know what happened in your own words,” she said.  “Start from the beginning and go on from there.”

Matt fought down the urge to roll his eyes and started to explain, again.  He ran through the patrol until the point where he had heard the screams, and then described everything that had happened in careful detail.  Every detail was burned into his memory.  Caitlyn listened carefully, without interrupting, until he had finished, and then bounced a pair of questions off him.  Matt was surprised; unlike Internal Affairs, she seemed more inclined to believe him from the start.  He answered the questions as best as he could and then waited to hear what she had to say.  No doubt she wouldn't believe him now she’d heard the whole story.

“They found no trace of an animal,” Caitlyn said.  She would have seen the reports, of course.  “At least, they found no body.  They did find tracks that suggested that there was definitely an animal present at the scene.”

Matt kept his expression blank.  He’d seen that in the police database, but he wasn't supposed to be able to follow the investigation.  The tracks proved that he hadn't been hallucinating, even though they didn't quite explain why he’d shot at a wolf and hit a girl.  One of the investigators had stated that it looked as if the girl had been behind the wolf, which puzzled Matt.  Surely, if he’d hit both the wolf and the girl, there should have been two bodies on the ground.  

“I assume that you have been watching television,” Caitlyn added, a moment later.  “Do you realise that your encounter wasn't the only one?”

“Yes,” Matt said, flatly.  “The internet claimed that there were hundreds of sightings of giant wolves last night.  And apparently there were some deaths.”

“Yeah,” Caitlyn said.  She looked down at the floor for a long moment, as if she was debating with herself.  “You may not have realised that you were the only person to shoot at a wolf and actually kill something.”

Matt felt a hot surge of anger.  “I killed a young girl,” he snapped.  “I know I shot at a wolf, but...”

Caitlyn’s eyes met his.  “The tracks on the ground suggest that the wolf and the girl were the same person,” she said, carefully.  “There doesn't seem to be any other explanation.”

Matt stared at her, astonished.  “You have got to be fucking with me.”

“Nine people fired at giant wolves,” Caitlyn said.  “Only one person managed to kill the wolf – you.  And the wolf became a young girl in death.”

“You have to be insane,” Matt said, but he knew, even as he spoke, that she was right.  There was something about it that resonated with him, something he couldn't have put into words.  “Are you saying...are you saying that all of those reported sightings of giant wolves were actually werewolves?”

“I know it sounds insane,” Caitlyn agreed.  “There are – unconfirmed, I’ll admit – stories on the internet of people witnessing the change.  If it was just one incident, I’d agree that there were no such things as werewolves and that you fucked up, but there were hundreds of incidents.  And sightings.  And a number of deaths.”

Matt snorted.  “Good luck trying to convince the Mayor that I took a shot at a werewolf,” he said.  “He wants my badge.”

“We’ll see about that,” Caitlyn said, as she stood up.  “I've arranged for the body to be moved to an FBI facility in the city.  If we’re lucky, we should get some evidence that we can use to convince my superiors that this is serious.”  She looked down at him and smiled.  “Do you want to come with me?”

Matt stared at her in disbelief.  “Why...is that even permitted?”

“My instincts say that I should bring you,” Caitlyn said.  “And I have learned to listen to them.  Besides” – she glanced around the apartment – “do you really want to stay here and wait for Internal Affairs to finally decide what to do with you?”

“No,” Matt admitted.  He smiled back at her.  “Just let me get my bag and coat.”

***
Caitlyn considered Mathew Coombs as he followed her down the stairs and into the FBI car she’d borrowed from the local office.  He was young, according to his file, but he should have moved off the night shift by now.  It wasn't entirely clear why he hadn't moved to the day shift; the file stated that he’d volunteered to remain working during the night, but Caitlyn knew that probably wasn't the full story.  Maybe he was just a night owl, happier working in the dark than in the daytime.  He didn't have a wife or a girlfriend, judging from the condition of his apartment, so he wouldn't have to alter his schedule to fit into someone else’s life.  

He was tall, with a rugged face that made him look rather less handsome than he might have hoped, but there was something about him that bothered Caitlyn until she placed her finger on it.  The events that had led to his suspension from the force had left their scar on his mind, fraying away at his composure and weakening his ability to remain in firm control of himself.  Given time, he would recover, particularly if the girl and the werewolf were definitely proven to be one and the same.  If that was the case, he would have done nothing wrong.  

She looked up at him and shook her head, inwardly.  No, he would never be the same again, not after killing a young girl.  Even if he didn't develop outright PTSD, it would still be hard for him to recover his balance, no matter what had happened.  Or he might sink into mindless resentment that would, eventually, force him to quit the force or betray it.  

And you’re attracted to him, you silly bitch, she thought, in the privacy of her own mind.  She’d had boyfriends, of course, but none of them had stayed with her for very long.  And none of them had made her feel so...oddly exited when she looked at him.  Be professional, damn it.

The FBI maintained a small complex in every major city, staffed with agents and support staff that would allow the FBI to establish a presence at any major crime scene.  Caitlyn parked the car in the underground garage, led Matt through a series of security checks and then walked down towards the morgue.  The girl’s body had already been moved into one of the autopsy rooms, ready for the investigation.  Caitlyn invited Matt into the observation room and smiled when she saw Doctor Chandra Singh already studying the corpse.  Singh had always been a workaholic.

“Subject positively identified as one Katie Sheehan,” Singh was saying, as they took a seat.  The NYPD were already trying to backtrack her final hours, although according to the last update they’d discovered that she had shared an apartment with Dawn Granger, the other girl who had died in the alleyway.  “Blood, dental and DNA tests positively confirm descent from Martin and Janice Sheehan.”

Caitlyn glanced over at Matt and smiled, thinly.  She had never been particularly fascinated with forensic investigations, let alone autopsies, but this one promised to be interesting.  

“Subject is a young girl, seemingly in her early twenties,” Singh continued.  “Her parents have stated that she was twenty-three when she died.  Immediate cause of death appears to be a bullet wound through the temple; x-rays have revealed three bullets within her body, including one in a very strange position...”

“We’ll get some coffee,” Caitlyn said, realising that the autopsy was going to take longer than she had thought.  “And then Singh can brief us directly.”

An hour passed before Singh handed the body over to his assistants and came into the main briefing room.  “There are too many weird things about the body to count,” he said, briskly.  “For a start” – he looked over at Matt - “just what kind of ammunition were you carrying?”

Matt blinked at the question.  “Standard ammunition,” he said, puzzled.  “Why?”

“I pulled three bullets out of the body,” Singh said, as he took a cup of coffee.  “Two of them were lodged inside her head, the third was in her shoulder.  The weird point is that the bullet wounds do not directly correspond to where I found the bullets.  One was in her temple, one was in her neck and one was in her chest.  It looks as though the bullets bounced around inside her body rather than coming out the other side.”

Caitlyn leaned forward.  “What does that mean?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Singh said.  “The best theory I have been able to develop is that non-standard ammunition was used, something designed to cause massive trauma rather than simply kill the victim.  But the bullets looked standard when I pulled them out of the body...”

He shook his head.  “The second weird thing is that she was hyped up on something when she died,” he continued.  “I ran it through the computers, but they weren't able to discover a match.  They have no idea what she took.

“The third weird point is that I found traces of human flesh in her stomach.  My assistants ran it through the DNA reader and compared it to the other dead bodies at the crime scene.  They found a match.  She ate human flesh belonging to the men who tried to mug her – and her friend.  Quite how she managed to do that I don’t know.”

Caitlyn shared a long glance with Matt.  “Was there anything else odd about her, physically?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Singh admitted, uncomfortably.  “Can we go off the record for the moment?”

“We won’t hold bad guesses against you,” Caitlyn assured him.  She was the task force leader, even if the task force consisted of her and her alone, at least for the moment.  The FBI could blame her for anything that went wrong, but it would be harder to blame her subordinates.  “What have you found?”

“I pulled her medical records from her doctor as soon as we confirmed her identity,” Singh said.  “The NYPD took her fingerprints and compared them to the fingerprints in her apartment.  There is no doubt at all over her identity.  But...”

He looked down at his hands, as if he didn't want to carry on.  “Looking at the medical records, I found myself wondering if we had the right records,” he added, reluctantly.  “The records say that she had surgery to repair a broken wrist when she was sixteen.  Apparently, she fell off a bike and ended up with a nasty scar on her left arm.  I looked at the arm and found no traces of a scar.”

Matt frowned.  “Might it not have faded?  Or have been hidden under cosmetics?”

“I’ve known people to keep scars for much longer than eight years,” Singh informed him.  “And yes, I checked for cosmetics.  The scar is simply gone.  With that in mind, I checked her wrist and found no traces of any surgery at all.  The medical report stated that plates and screws were inserted into her bone to help it mend.  They should have showed up on the x-ray, but I found nothing.

“In fact, physically speaking, she was surprisingly healthy.  I’d say that she’d been working out every day for years, probably quite heavily.  I’ve encountered female agents who were less fit.  The report claims that she was a saleswoman, which is odd.  I’d have pegged her as working somewhere that required extreme physical fitness, but not specific physical fitness.  It doesn't quite make sense.

“We ran her blood through a few checks too,” he added.  “Apart from the mystery substance, there was nothing else, not even alcohol.  The last witness report stated that Miss Sheehan was attending a bar and drinking with her friend, but I found no trace of alcohol in either her bloodstream or her stomach.  Nor, for that matter, did I find any food, apart from the human flesh.  It is thoroughly weird.”

Caitlyn nodded.  “Overall,” she said grimly, “what is your conclusion?”

“The evidence points to Miss Sheehan having killed everyone else in the alleyway, apart from the cop who shot her,” Singh said.  “However, if I look at the body, it seems as if she used her nails to tear them apart and her teeth to bite them.  There are traces of their blood and flesh under her fingernails and in her mouth, but when I look at the bodies I simply cannot see how her teeth inflicted so much damage.  I’ve seen humans who were chewed by cannibal cultists and their bodies were nowhere near so damaged.

“And then there’s the mystery of the bullets...”

“Put it all into your report, including the speculation,” Caitlyn ordered.  “I may need to have you assigned to my task force.  Some of the other murders will need a general autopsy.”

The local FBI had assigned Caitlyn a bare office.  She led Matt into the room, closed the door and sat down heavily.  Nothing about this case seemed to make sense, unless one assumed that there were genuine werewolves involved, which wasn't something she could put in her report without a great deal more proof.  All of the physical evidence could point to werewolves, but it could also point to someone taking a new and dangerous drug.  And the reports of witnesses transformations could be dismissed as drunkards seeing things and then trying to waste police time.  

“I’m going to have you assigned to the task force,” she said, bluntly.  “I’ll clear it with the NYPD; I don't think Internal Affairs will keep investigating once they realise that Miss Sheehan did murder those gangbangers.”

“And her friend,” Matt said, quietly.  “Did she really become a werewolf?”

“It’s starting to look that way,” Caitlyn said.  She grinned, morbidly.  “Do you think I should dye my hair red and start wearing spectacles?”

It took Matt a moment to get the joke.  “I think that there’s no reason to assume that Miss Sheehan did it deliberately,” he said.  “So...what will happen on the night of the next full moon?”

Chapter Four

New York, USA
Day 5

“Calvin, come on,” his mother bellowed.  “You're going to be late for school!”

“So sue me,” Calvin Jackson muttered, as he rolled over in bed.  School held out nothing for him, but the promise of terror and suffering.  Moe was there, waiting for Calvin just so he could torment the weaker boy.  Nothing he did seemed to convince anyone to do anything about the bully.  The school didn't give a shit as long as Moe performed magic on the football field.

“Get out of bed,” his mother said, poking her head through the door.  “Now!”

Calvin sighed and swung his legs out from under the covers, nearly treading on one of the books he’d left on the floor.  Books and the internet were his sole escape from the real world and he used them as much as he could.  It had taken six months of hard work to earn the cash to buy a proper computer, but once he’d set it up he’d found his way into a world that didn't include Moe and the other football jocks.  Sitting upright, he glanced at his face in the mirror and sighed.  He looked older than his fifteen years, worn down by life itself.  Not for the first time, he looked over at the cupboard where he had stored some paint stripper.  A single drink of that and all of his troubles would go away, permanently.

He scowled darkly as he pulled on his clothes, wishing that his family was wealthy and powerful, or at least wealthy enough to buy designer clothes for their children.  Moe and the other kids teased anyone who couldn’t afford to wear the latest fashions and it stung, even though Calvin knew that it was stupid.  Who cared if someone was wearing the latest gear or not?  Moe did, of course, and somehow his taunts hurt.  Calvin winced again as he looked down at the bruise on his lower leg, where Moe had kicked him, and rubbed it gently.  No one cared when he came home bruised after a scuffle, even when he’d sported a black eye.  And fighting just made it worse.  He was too scared of Moe to even try to hit him as hard as he could.  It just wasn’t fair! 

“Get downstairs,” his mother ordered, crossly.  “Your lunch is on the table.  Make sure your little sister gets out of the house with you.”

Calvin nodded as he walked downstairs and picked up the plastic bag, containing a sandwich and a bottle of water.  His parents preferred him to take a packed lunch rather than eat at school, something else that got rubbed in his face every day.  Mindy, his sister, looked up from where she was devouring a bowl of sugary cereal and smirked at him.  She was the apple of mom and dad’s eye.  They never seemed to blame her for anything that went wrong, even when it was clearly her fault.  It was just another thing that made him consider leaving his joke of a life behind and seeing what lay beyond.  At least it couldn't be worse than dealing with Moe and his fellow Jocks.

The door banged closed as his mother headed off to the shop, where she worked for most of the day.  Their father was already on his way to work as a plumber, no doubt complaining about his intellectual son to his friends; he never quite seemed to understand how Calvin had sprung from his loins.   There was no doubt that Calvin was his father’s son – they looked alike – but where his father liked hard manual labour, Calvin wanted to be something better.

He glanced at the clock and scowled again.  Being late for school was hardly a problem for him, but the teachers would eventually complain to his parents and there would be another embarrassing discussion with his father.  His dad thought that Calvin should be on the football team, with a girl on his arm, and never seemed to grasp that Calvin was a social outcast who considered himself lucky if he escaped school without bruises.  

“Come on,” he said, to Mindy.  She looked cute – naturally – in her school uniform.  At least her school had a school uniform.  “Let’s go.”

He kept a wary eye out for Moe as they made their way towards Mindy’s school.  The bullying asshole rarely bothered to show up on time for school, but as a jock who played hard on the field the teachers chose to ignore it.  Calvin felt himself burning with resentment as they reached the gates to Mindy’s school, saying goodbye to his sister before starting the long walk to his own school.  There was a shortcut, but he knew from bitter experience that it was used for smoking by the older kids, including Moe.  If there had been any justice in the world, Moe would have dropped dead from lung cancer by now.

There was no sign of any trouble until he reached the gates, when he heard a shout behind him.  Moe was charging after him, loping along the ground with effortless ease, his face twisted in an evil grin.  Calvin fled for the main doors, praying that he could stay ahead of Moe just long enough to get into the building.  Even Moe was unlikely to do too much in front of the teachers themselves.  Part of the reason they dismissed all of Calvin’s complaints was that they rarely saw Moe in action.  

Something slammed into his back and he found himself falling forward, desperately thrusting his arms out to save himself from crashing face-first into the ground.  He yelped in pain as his palms struck the ground, feeling gravel jammed into his flesh.  Moe laughed at him and then ran off, leaving Calvin to pick himself off the ground, brush as much of the gravel away as he could, and then stagger towards the door.  No one would care, of course.  They were all laughing at him, either because they were evil shits themselves or because they were too scared of Moe to say anything.  He hated them all with a cold helpless rage.

The principal was blabbering about something unimportant as Calvin entered the hall and took a seat at the edge of the room.  He was a short man who was desperate to see his school do well in the forthcoming games, or something like that; Calvin honestly never paid much attention to him.  The principal seemed more concerned with appearance over substance, which was no doubt why he tolerated Moe and his merry band of thugs.  Winning games seemed to be more important to him than actually ensuring that the children in his care received a good education.

“And finally, the Mayor seems convinced that we do have a werewolf plague,” the principal concluded.  Calvin rolled his eyes.  The internet had been buzzing with speculation, but none of it seemed very real.  All it had done was give Moe yet another charge to throw in his face, even stupider than the others.  If Calvin had been a werewolf, he would have torn Moe’s throat out by now.  “I think we would be better off thinking about our studies rather than supernatural creatures.”

Calvin snorted as the assembly broke up and the students headed for their first classes.  Literature wasn't so bad, apart from the minor detail that every interesting book seemed to offend someone or other.  And then, after they’d read the books, they had to discuss them publically, trying to derive deep-seated meaning from the original text.  Most of the acceptable answers, the ones in the textbooks, seemed to make no sense.  Others seemed a clear case of the textbook writer missing the point.  He’d once mentioned a short story about Shakespeare coming forward in time to attend a Shakespeare class – and flunking it – and the teacher had told him not to be a smartass.

An hour passed, during which he tried to read while listening to the teacher babbling on about the true nature of The Catcher in the Rye.  Calvin, who already knew all there was to know about social alienation, was not impressed.  It beat PE, however, and PE was coming after lunch.  The jocks loved PE, but for those kids who hated physical exercise – that served as an excuse for more bullying – it was hell on Earth.  By the end of the period, he was tired and wanted nothing more than a drink of water, so he walked to the toilet.  Naturally, Moe followed him inside.

“Gotcha, punk,” Moe said.  Calvin turned, frantically looking for a way out he knew didn't exist.  Moe alone was bigger and tougher than Calvin – and two of his thugs were outside, just ready to catch Calvin if he managed to slip past Moe.  “Now...”

Calvin stumbled backwards as Moe advanced, feeling his heartbeat starting to pound inside his chest.  What had he done to Moe to deserve constant bullying?  They’d never even met until they’d started High School.  Moe had just seen him and decided that Calvin would make an appropriate target and just started having a go at him, every single day!  He didn't want money, or anything that Calvin might be able to steal for him, just to have some fun tormenting the smaller boy.  It just wasn't fair!

Moe reached out and caught Calvin by his shirt, pulling him closer.  Calvin felt absolute panic racing through his mind, but he couldn't move.  His legs seemed unwilling to respond to his mind’s pleas.  Besides, there was nowhere to run.  A flash of blinding white pain danced through his skull and he winced just as Moe peered down into his eyes.  God alone knew what he had in mind.  Another flash of pain flickered through his mind, followed by a burning sense of sheer rage that tore through his terror.  And then the world exploded into white-hot fire.

Calvin recoiled, covering his eyes as Moe was thrown backwards, his body burning with eerie white fire.  The bully opened his mouth to scream, but it was already too late; the flames tore though him and sent him crashing to the floor.  His two thugs stared at Calvin in horror; Calvin, for the first time, realised that the flames were crackling around his hands, but he was not burned.  Somehow, without quite knowing what he was doing, he lifted his hand and flames surged across the gap between him and the bullies.  They were caught in the fire and burned to a cinder.  Just for a second, Calvin saw their skulls glowing with fire before their bodies collapsed to the floor.

The fire alarm sounded, followed rapidly by a tinkling sound as the sprinklers came on, scattering water and foam over the bodies.  Calvin was suddenly very aware of the stench of burned human flesh; he stumbled over to the toilet and threw up into the bowl.  The act brought him back to his senses and he stepped back, flushing the toilet as he ran towards the door.  All three bodies seemed to stare at him accusingly as he ran past and out into the corridor.  The sprinklers were still pouring water down into the school, even though the fire had gone out.  Part of his mind stated that was a good thing.  There would be nothing linking him to the fires.  He ran down the soaking staircases and out through the door leading to the playing fields, knowing that he had to get as far from the scene of the crime as possible.  Whatever had happened – and he didn't have the slightest idea what had happened – he wanted a chance to think about it before the police got involved.  No doubt they would blame him for incinerating three football jocks, even if they had deserved it – or worse.  

He ran around the corner and into the long lines of students where the teachers were trying to take roll call, not helped by the fact that some of the children were evidently playing hooky.  Calvin joined one of the lines and watched, as dispassionately as he could, the arrival of the fire department.  There seemed to be some doubt over what had really happened – the fire alarm was triggered deliberately on a regular basis – but the firemen walked into the building anyway. Calvin silently prayed that they would find nothing connecting him to the deaths of three students.  It was nearly thirty minutes before the fire chief exchanged words with the principal, who took a loudspeaker to address the students.

“The school has to be closed down for the rest of the week,” he said.  Whatever he might have said next was drowned out by the cheers from the students, none of whom knew what had really happened.  The principal looked pale and shocked; no matter what else happened, a death on campus would be disastrous for his career.  “Those of you who have parents at home may go there, the rest of you are to wait here until we arrange something for you.”

Calvin shrugged and joined the exodus.  There was no one at home to greet him, but he had a key and he had no intention of waiting to see what happened next.  The world seemed to be different somehow, he realised as he walked home; he’d killed three people, as easily as blowing out a candle.  It should have bothered him, he knew; three people had died at his hands, burned to a crisp by...what?  What was he?  A mutant?  Mutants didn't exist.  Nor did superhumans.

Werewolves seem to exist, part of his mind mocked.  

Moe had thoroughly deserved it, he told himself.  The memoires mocked him; Moe kicking him, punching him, shoving his head down into the toilet, mocking him, calling him all sorts of unpleasant names...and utterly destroying any chance of a normal life.  He had deserved to die.  Whatever power had suddenly unlocked itself from his cells had done exactly what Calvin had wanted it to do; it had wiped Moe and two of his friends completely out of existence.  It should have bothered him, but it didn’t.  Moe had tormented him for too long and Calvin found it hard to care what happened to him.  The bully had deserved his fate.

Opening the door, he stepped into the house and walked into the kitchen.  His mother had left two dishes of pasta and meat for Mindy and himself, so he took one of them out of the refrigerator and put it in the microwave, before picking up the paper and glancing down at the front cover.  Apparently, a man with a cell phone had managed to film someone transforming into a wolf before running for his life and uploading the footage to YouTube.  The paper’s experts had looked at it and decided that it seemed to be real, partly because of its poor quality.  A fake, they claimed, would look better than the grainy footage they’d received.

Chewing his way through the meal, he read the rest of the paper with growing puzzlement.  There was nothing, unsurprisingly, about someone who had managed to incinerate his enemies, but there were a whole series of puzzling reports.  A young woman EMT who seemed to be able to heal by laying on hands.  Several reports of surprisingly effective curses, all of which seemed to have worked exactly as advertised.  One child who had managed to get up to the roof of his house without any way to climb, who had claimed to have flown when the fire department rescued him and carried the kid back down to the ground.  A boy who claimed to be able to foresee the future.  A girl who seemed to have grown three bust sizes in a single day.  A mother who seemed to have become a living lie detector.  Sightings of inhuman creatures all around the world, along with ghosts, goblins and vampires.  

It sounded like madness.  Calvin would have dismissed it as madness, except for the stench of death in his clothing.  It was a miracle that no one had sniffed him and asked him just what he’d been doing before heading home.  Walking upstairs, he pulled off his clothes, bagged them up and headed to the shower.  After he’d changed, he’d take the clothes to the dump and throw them into the incinerator; no one would be able to prove anything by finding them.

Afterwards, he sat on his bed, cupped his hands in front of him and stared down at them.  They looked...different, somehow, even though he couldn't put his finger on exactly what had changed.  But he could feel the power inside him, swelling up through his cells and just waiting for him to direct it.  Carefully, he concentrated, unsure of exactly what he was doing.  Closing his eyes, he visualised a flame in his palm.  When he opened his eyes, he saw a dancing candle-sized flame right in front of him.  The power seemed to dance around him, ready to power the fire, or to do something else...

On impulse, he shifted from fire to water.  A column of water sprung out of his palm and reached up towards the ceiling, before gravity took effect and it fell back towards the bed.  Calvin cursed as water splashed down over him, breaking the spell and shocking him back to full awareness.  If he could do both fire and water...he pushed the thought aside as he stood up and started to change the bed.  Any further experiments would have to be done a long way from his books, and his house.  A single mistake and he could burn down the entire building.  Coming to think of it, he asked himself, why hadn't he done that when he’d incinerated Moe?

“Wow,” he breathed out loud.  This opened up all sorts of possibilities for someone who wanted a little revenge for how he’d been treated.  “What am I?”

That night, the dreams began.

Chapter Five

New York, USA
Day 5

“All right,” Matt said.  “What the hell happened here?”

Fairview High School was surrounded by fire trucks and police cars, unsurprisingly.  The report the FBI had forwarded to the task force – now it was watching for anything unusual – had stated that there had been a fire, which had rapidly turned into a serious investigation when the remains of three school children had been found in the debris.  There had been enough strangeness about the whole report to puzzle everyone who had looked at it, even before the FBI got involved.  Caitlyn had insisted on going to see the scene at once and Matt had followed her, rather like a lost puppy.  

“Hey, Matt,” a voice called.  The NPYD had sealed off the school for the moment, having sent the kids to their homes or to temporary facilities in another school.  Matt suspected that the ones who had gone home would be happier than the rest of the kids, but it hardly mattered.  “I thought you were still suspended.”

“Dave,” Matt said.  They’d gone through training together.  “I seem to have been attached to the FBI for the moment.”

Caitlyn held up her badge.  “We need to find the incident coordinator,” she said.  “Can you let him know we’re here?”

“Sure,” Dave said.  He keyed his radio and reported their arrival.  “They’re sending down someone to escort you to the scene of the crime.  It’s weird, just as weird as your werewolf.”

Matt sighed.  He had received official notice that Internal Affairs had finally managed to wrap its collective head around the concept of werewolves, at least after the other reports had started to flow in from the rest of the world, and they had officially cleared him of any misconduct.  They hadn’t stipulated any time he was to return to duty, which rather suggested that some of them still had some doubts.  Unless, of course, being assigned to the FBI trumped the NYPD.   He’d probably wind up having to fight to get paid for the time he spent with them.

A policewoman arrived at the school doors and waved to them.  Matt and Caitlyn identified themselves and followed her into the school and back up a flight of stairs, into a male toilet.  It was easy to see why the forensic detectives were so puzzled; there were three charred bodies, lying on the ground, but the floor was barely scorched.  Anything that burned so hot should have set the entire building on fire.  One glance at the room told him that it wasn’t fireproof.

He wrinkled his nose at the smell and studied the scene.  All three bodies had been effectively destroyed, almost completely broken down to ash,  There was no sign that anyone else had been present, but what did that prove?  The forensic researchers would check for traces of anyone else, yet Matt knew better than to hold out much hope.  They were in a room used by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of schoolchildren per day.  There would be so many traces that isolating anything would be a nightmare.

“The bodies are too badly damaged to get an immediate DNA reading,” an officer said, “but we checked the list of missing pupils and we have three possible identifications.  Moe Levisohn, Ian Murray and Andy Montgomery.  They didn’t show up outside the school when the fire alarm sounded and they were marked as missing by their teachers.  We’ll compare the teeth against the dental records when we get them.”

Matt nodded.  Basic procedure when dealing with school fire alarms was simple; the building was evacuated and a full roll call was taken.  Anyone missing was assumed to be still in the building until the firemen had searched it from end to end.  With a genuine fire, if one that had remained oddly limited to a single room, the fire department had taken the possibility that someone might have remained trapped in the school very seriously.  

Caitlyn looked over at the investigators.  “What caused the fire?”

“We don’t know,” one of them admitted.  “The level of damage to the three bodies suggests that the fire was immensely hot, but it should have done far more damage to the room than it actually did.  Hell, it should have set the entire school on fire.  Our preliminary checks revealed no chemical compounds that might have caused self-immolation...it looks as if all three of them simply burst into flame, for no discernible reason.”

Matt snorted.  “Spontaneous human combustion?”

“It’s been known to happen,” the investigator said.  “Or it is possible that whatever struck them burned so completely that we won’t find any traces until we do a full autopsy, but that seems a little unlikely.  I don’t understand what I’m looking at, I freely admit.”

He sounded frustrated.  Matt couldn't blame him.  Forensic research was an integral part of modern policing, allowing detectives to build up a picture of just what had happened and why, but this was turning into another werewolf mystery.  Caitlyn had probably been right to assume that the mysterious fire was covered by the task force’s somewhat vague remit.  It was definitely in line with the other supernatural events they’d been logging for the last five days.  

“There are no traces of any flammable chemicals outside the burned zone,” another detective put in.  “Maybe they were experimenting with something in chemistry class.”

“I doubt it,” Caitlyn said.  “These aren’t the days when one could actually do proper experiments in science classes.  The most dangerous things this generation sees in science class are custard bombs.”

She shook her head.  “Have the bodies moved to the lab, where they can be studied properly,” she ordered.  “Is there any CCTV footage available?”

“I’m afraid not,” the incident coordinator said.  “There were no cameras inside the toilet and most of the outside cameras had been wreaked by students.  Apparently, the school gave up after spending thousands of dollars replacing the same camera time and time again.”

“Typical,” Caitlyn said sourly.  “And I take it no one saw anything?”

“No witnesses have come forward,” the incident coordinator said.  “There may be someone who saw everything in the groups that were sent home, so I was planning to ask when I sent out the parental leaflet.  Someone might come forward.”

Matt nodded.  Parents of school-aged children tended to become alarmed when schools became crime scenes.  Some of them were so neurotic that they kept their children out of school for weeks, or wasted vast sums of money in sending their kids to psychiatrists.  The NYPD tried to reduce the level of ungrounded panic by keeping the parents informed, even though the officers joked that all they were really doing was causing more grounded panic.  

He shrugged.  “How long is the school going to remain closed?”

“Depends,” the incident coordinator said, thoughtfully.  “We’ll move the bodies later this afternoon, and then search the school thoroughly for anything that might have caused the fires.  After that...I have a feeling that the principal will want to reopen as quickly as possible, so probably Monday at the latest.  That gives the kids two free days before they return to school.”

“They’ll be grateful to the burned kids,” the forensic detective said, dryly.  “Kids can be so cruel.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed.  “And how do we know that it wasn't another kid who did this?”

Caitlyn looked up at him, sharply.  “What makes you say that?”

“There’s much more violence in schools than any of us want to admit,” Matt said, remembering his own schooldays.  He’d been big enough to deter anyone from trying to bully him, but he’d seen enough to know that kids could definitely be cruel.  Children were undeveloped, to the point where they were effectively sociopaths.  “Maybe this was deliberate, a bullying incident that got out of control.”

“Maybe,” Caitlyn agreed.  “Or maybe it was something far worse.”

***
“I’m looking at a total mystery,” Doctor Singh complained, two hours later.  “Do you understand what happened here?”

“No,” Caitlyn said, as patiently as she could.  One glance at the bodies and her instincts had begun screaming in panic.  Something about them was wrong on a very fundamental level.  If it hadn't been for Matt’s steadying presence, and her own training, she would have fled from the washroom.  “What happened to them?”

“As near as I can tell,” Singh said thoughtfully, “almost every cell in their bodies ignited of its own accord.  There’s no trace of anything that might have caused the fire, not like those dowsing cases we see in the inner cities.  The fire seemed to come right out of nowhere.”

Caitlyn shuddered.  Inner-city gangs had rituals to blood new members and make it impossible for them to back out.  One of them involved finding a homeless person, drenching them in something flammable and having the new recruit strike a match, burning the victim halfway to death.  Sometimes, they even made mistakes through being drugged up and burned themselves as well.  It was no consolation to the victims, most of whom died of shock if the burns didn't kill them.  

She leaned forward.  “No chemicals at all?”

“Nothing beyond some hair gel, which shouldn't have been flammable,” Singh confirmed.  “The level of damage inflicted on the bodies is quite high, almost remarkably high.  Do you realise that it took nearly half an hour to get a proper DNA sample?  That’s how much damage was inflicted on those bodies.”

“At least you managed to get positive identification,” Caitlyn mused.  The NYPD would follow it up by visiting each victim’s home and making inquires, although for the moment Caitlyn was unsure what they could ask.  It looked like they’d been victims of a tragic accident, but her instincts were screaming at her that something very bad had happened.  “How long did they take to die?”

“This isn't bloody CSI, you know,” Singh said.  “My best guess is that they died almost instantly, given the level of trauma inflicted on their bodies.  However, I cannot actually say for certain.  There’s just too much about this case that doesn't make sense.  For example...”

He tapped a computer, bringing up photographs he’d taken during the autopsy.  “A burned body tends to be charred on the outside, but much less damaged on the inside,” he explained, seriously.  “Most burn victims look surprisingly healthy if you discount their skin.  These victims, however, seem to have been charred everywhere.  It looks to me as if something in their bodies ignited, but I honestly cannot explain it.  Anything that could have caused this should have burned down the entire school in the process.  Even if it burned very quickly, the heat should have ignited the rest of the washroom.”

“I think I’m going to get very tired of hearing that,” Caitlyn said, ruefully.  Every single investigator had said it, time and time again.  The FBI knew perfectly well that some cases never had a proper solution – something that hung together perfectly tended to be a cover story made up in advance – but she had a feeling that this was merely the beginning.  “Is there anything else you can tell me about the bodies?”

“One of them had a burger and fries for breakfast,” Singh said.  He grinned at her.  “I found the remains in his tummy.”

Caitlyn sighed.  “Something useful,” she stipulated, with a sharp glance at him.  “Something I can actually put into my report.”

Singh considered it.  “There isn't much I can tell you,” he admitted, finally.  “Cause of death; massive burns.  Cause of burns; unknown.  I’ve sent an inquiry to a friend in the military – he works as an investigator for the military police – in the hopes that he might know something, but I’m not hopeful.  This isn't another claymore pattern.”

Matt blinked in surprise.  “A claymore pattern?”

“I only heard part of the story,” Singh said.  “There was a soldier who was deployed to Iraq; unknown to him, his wife took advantage of the opportunity to have an affair.  He came home, he figured it out and killed his wife and her lover with a claymore mine.  And he would have gotten away with it if someone hadn't noticed that there was something about it that suggested that a claymore had been used.”

“I see,” Matt said.  “But wouldn't they have found traces of explosive?”

“That’s why I think I’m missing part of the story,” Singh admitted.  He looked over at Caitlyn.  “My report will have far too many question marks to satisfy anyone, I’m afraid.  It may remain a mystery.”

Caitlyn nodded.  “Thank you,” she said.  “Let us know if you find anything that points to the cause of death.”

She led Matt back to the office and poured them both cups of coffee, waving for Matt to sit down.  “Poor kids,” she said, grimly.  “What happened to them?”

“Something else weird,” Matt said.  He picked up a copy of a newspaper and waved it at her.  The weird events sweeping the nation had crowded everything else off the front page.  “After werewolves and vampires and things that go bump in the night, what is human combustion?  Or six thousand people winning the British lottery?”

Caitlyn took the newspaper and read it, thoughtfully.  The United Kingdom had been running the National Lottery for years, something that Caitlyn considered a tax on stupid people.  But the most recent draw, only two days ago, had produced no less than six thousand people with the winning numbers, most of whom seemed to believe that they were in line to receive millions.  The reporter, who seemed to be unable to quite believe what she was writing, had listed incidents where employees had quit their jobs or schooling, only to discover that they would be sharing the pot.  And if there were more than six thousand winners...

It wasn't the only weird incident that had occurred outside the United States.  There were strange reports of odd sightings in the Middle East, Russia and even China, although all of the local governments were doing their best to cover them up.  An American patrol in Afghanistan had discovered a massacre that seemed to be another werewolf attack, a slaughter so bloody that even the Taliban would have been horrified.  The report stated that every man, woman and child in the village had been torn apart – and the vast number of shell casings scattered around suggested that they’d tried to fight, only to discover that it was futile.  And there were stories from regions that still performed traditional magic that their rituals were actually working...

Absently, she wondered what Tomlinson was thinking.  Her superior had given her the task force when he’d suspected that she was wasting her time, or that it was just another outbreak of craziness that would go away very quickly.  Right now, he had to be wondering just what was going on – and how he could take credit for being proactive by assigning a Special Agent to head a task force.  She’d heard rumours that there were intensive discussions underway in Washington, but so far nothing more concrete.  Chances were that someone more senior would take over the task force, sooner or later.  Unless they couldn't find someone willing to have the affair splashing shit on their careers...

Her cell phone buzzed and she glanced down at the message.  “They just tested the healer under scientific conditions,” she said, in some disbelief.  She would have liked to do it herself, but she’d wanted to keep an eye on the investigation in New York.  “She proved able to reproduce her success in the lab.”

Matt broke into a smile.  “That’s good news,” he said.  “Whatever is going on, at least it doesn't just bring terrors...”

Caitlyn nodded.  “They want me to go to Washington,” she said.  “You’re going to come with me.”

She couldn't have put her reasoning into words.  Yes, she did find Matt attractive, but it was something else, something more instinctive.  Her instincts kept insisting that she needed him with her, even though there seemed no logical reason for it.  But then, it had been a long time since she’d dated, or even gone out with someone for the night. 

“Very well,” Matt said.  He hesitated.  “Do I have to keep Internal Affairs informed?”

“It might be a good idea, even if they cleared you,” Caitlyn said.  At least she'd already done the paperwork for having Matt as part of the task force.  Now that there was more proof that something very weird was going on, it should be easy to get more manpower assigned to her.  “And while you’re telling them, I’ll see what else has been going on all over the country.”

She opened her laptop, logged into the FBI’s database and started reserving plane tickets for the flight to Washington.  It wasn't that long a drive, but she hated long car journeys and did whatever she could to avoid them.  Besides, she had a feeling that they were going to be needed in Washington quickly.  She would have to report in to her superiors as well as requesting additional manpower.  Five or six people couldn't investigate all of the suspected incidents of weirdness, as Matt had dubbed them, in anything like an effective manner.

There were several dozen reports that might have signified werewolves, a vague report that seemed to be a vampire and several incidents where ghosts had been sighted.  She had no idea how seriously to take any of them, which meant they all had to be investigated.  Chances were that some of them were just people trying to cash in on the sudden reports of supernatural events, but still...they’d have to check them all.  If they were dealing with real vampires to add to the werewolves, there would be national panic.  Apart from the idiots who thought that bloody-sucking monsters were actually sexy...

Shaking her head, she looked down at the photographs from the crime scene – if it truly was a crime scene, rather than a horrific accident.  Poor kids, burnt to death before they even knew what had struck them.  What, if anything, could deserve such a punishment?  

Chapter Six

New York, USA
Day 5/6

He was dreaming.

Calvin knew he was dreaming, even though there was an uncanny sense of reality running through his mind.  And yet it wasn't real.  In his dream, he strode over the world wearing a sorcerer’s robe and carrying a staff that was, somehow, the reflection of his power.  The people he passed bowed down to him in fear and awe, knowing that a single word from the mighty sorcerer could end their lives.  Calvin looked upon the scene of total submission to his power and found it good.

Ahead of him, he saw Moe and his cronies, their bodies warped and twisted into vile shambling parodies of humanity.  He’d done that to them, he knew, broken his enemies before him as easily as a man might step on a bug.  They dropped to the ground and prostrated themselves in front of him, begging for his mercy and forgiveness.  Calvin looked down at them for a long moment and then shook his head.  They could have treated him well – or even ignored him – when they were at school, but instead they had treated him like dirt, before he’d come into his powers.  Moe had thought it was funny to steal his pants and force him to run to the changing room without them.  Who was laughing now?

He strode onwards, leaving the former bullies in the dust, heading towards his castle.  It was a towering structure right out of a fairy tale.   From a fertile landscape, the hill rose like a breaking wave, leaning so far that the castle at its crest had empty space below it.  The mere existence of the castle, held up by magic, was a demonstration of Calvin’s power to the unwashed masses who’d laughed at him.  Who was laughing now?

The thought drove him onwards as the great doors opened, allowing him to walk into his castle.  Serving maids, all naked by his command, ran to greet him, throwing themselves at his feet.  They had once tormented him too, until he had come into his power and broken them to his will.  The girls that had once kissed football jocks while sneering at nerds were his now, allowing him to do what he pleased with them.   And it pleased him to use them in any way he saw fit.  The spells he’d placed on them kept them obedient, while allowing him to drink in their suffering.  They deserved everything he'd done to them.  Where had their mercy been when he'd needed it?

He dismissed the girls with a wave of his hand and walked into the tower itself.  Every pleasure he could ever want was there, waiting for him.  There were girls and computers and books and everything else, sent to him by those who feared his might.  Calvin looked around, smiling at the vision, and then felt the dream shifting around him.  The next moment, he was standing in the middle of a darkness so profound that he recoiled from it.  Who knew what was lurking in the shadows?

“Greetings,” a voice said.

Calvin turned.  There was a single light behind him, illuminating a woman with long dark hair and a vaguely Japanese face, although it was so pale as to be almost albino.  Her eyes seemed lost in the shadow, no matter how much he stared at where they should be.  She looked odd, even in the dream world, and yet he was not afraid.  It was only a dream.

“You may call me Harrow,” the woman said, as she stepped closer.  There was something odd about her, something that Calvin couldn't quite grasp.  She looked youthful – indeed, he wouldn't have thought that she was much older than himself – and yet she seemed far older than she appeared.  “I am to be your tutor.”

Calvin stared.  Up close, Harrow seemed to be cloaked in shadow, as if her dress was as dark as the darkness surrounding them.  Her voice was soft, almost melodious, without being seductive.  It was hard, almost impossible, to think of her as sexual.  Her face was attractive and yet there was something wrong with it.  Perhaps it was the shadow where her eyes should be, or perhaps it was something else.

“You...”  He found himself stuttering and started again.  “You are to be my tutor?”

“You have come into your magic,” Harrow said, patiently.  Calvin remembered the first part of the dream and smiled.  “I trust you enjoyed your vision of what the future holds?”

Calvin considered.  He’d never really wanted to hurt anyone, even Moe and his cronies, but on the other hand the world just wasn’t fair.  Moe had taught him, time and time again, that the only thing that truly mattered was power, and the will to use it.  And besides, no girl would show any interest in him until he demonstrated his power.  The temptation – and he was smart enough to realise that it was temptation – was almost impossible to resist.

“Yes,” he admitted.  His enemies broken, girls kneeling at his feet, the entire world in awe of his power...yes, it had been enjoyable.  No one would laugh at him, even behind his back, if he commanded such vast power.  “I enjoyed it.”

“That can be yours,” Harrow said.  She took another step forward, until she was almost close enough to kiss.  “You have the power to make the kings of the world kneel before you and beg for your favour, to shape the course of history at will.  Or you could make the dead speak, or create monsters from the shadows, or break the cattle to your will.  You have the talent, but you need the training.  I can train you.”

She didn't breathe, Calvin realised suddenly.  Her lips were bare centimetres from his ear and yet he couldn't feel her breath.  But it was a dream.  Who expected it to work like real life?  

“Yes,” he said.  Some basic caution forced him to ask a simple question.  “What do you want in return?”

Harrow laughed, a simple tinkling sound that echoed in the air.  “You do have potential,” she said, seriously.  “Everything comes with a price.”

She stepped backwards and looked down at him.  “I will ask you for one favour in exchange,” she added.  “I and my comrades have been imprisoned unjustly, by a man who thought himself the lord of all.  We need your help to break free.  I will train you until you can help us.”

Calvin looked back at her.  “Why were you imprisoned?”

Harrow smiled, rather sadly.  “Once, there was a time when those who could master their minds possessed vast powers,” she said.  “No muscled thug could ever hope to best a sorcerer, for sorcerers had the ability and intelligence to master magic and bend the universe itself to their will.  The world allowed those with the right abilities to rise high, while keeping those who never worked to develop themselves down.  Those who were smart could become the masters of the world.”

Calvin found himself believing her.  He was smarter than Moe, perhaps one of the smartest boys in the entire school.  But intelligence hadn't helped him when Moe had been beating him up, or shoving his head down the toilet, or when he’d watched the girls fawning over the football jocks.  How could he help it when his talents were intellectual, rather than physical?

And it wasn't right.  It had never been right.  And if Harrow was telling the truth, it was a subversion of the natural order.  He wanted to believe her.

“There were thirteen of us who dared to bring forward a world where all of us would share in its power,” Harrow continued.  “We were the most powerful magicians in existence; if it could be done, we could do it.  But there were those who opposed us, including one magician who was sly and sneaky.  He created a trap and imprisoned us before we could realise what had gone wrong.  His treachery was so great that the remaining mana drained away and broke civilisation, until the swordsmen put it back together with themselves in charge.  The way they treated you is the way they treat everyone with smarts, because they know, deep in their hearts, that you are superior.

“And we waited for countless centuries until the mana started to return and the bonds on our prison weakened.”

She smiled, openly.  “And now there is a new generation of magicians,” she concluded.  “I will teach you and you will free us from our prison.  We will walk this world once again.”

Calvin hesitated.  The story seemed believable; hell, he wanted to believe it.  He’d always known that he was something special, although he’d never dreamed of the truth.  And he’d incinerated Moe and his friends...it was his first taste of real power and he wanted more.  He could avenge all the taunts, punish the tormentors...Peter Parker would have said that great power brought great responsibility, but Peter Parker had never been seriously bullied.  Why should he serve the world when the world had knocked him down time and time again?

It was intelligence that separated mankind from the animals.  Intelligence had taught humanity how to master fire, to work metal and to start the long process that had eventually led to computers and space rockets.  But throughout all of recorded history, it had been the strong men who had taken command, bending the intellectuals to their will.  Men in jackboots, unable to comprehend what the intellectuals could do, had ruled – and the world was not a better place.  It was the same everywhere; men with strength, men with connections, ruled...and everyone else had no choice, but to suck it up.  He felt the power dancing through his head and knew that things could be different.  It might be hard to learn to master his power, but he would learn.  And then there would be revenge.

“I will free you,” he promised, and meant it.  Harrow’s friends could hardly be worse than the men who ruled the world.  “Can we start learning now?”

Harrow smiled.  “Of course,” she said.  “The first step is learning how to channel mana through your mind.”

She took his hands – hers felt cold to the touch, almost skeletal – and smiled again.  “Mana is spreading through your world, touching those of you who carry traits that respond to mana,” she continued.  “As a sorcerer, you absorb and store mana within your very body, just waiting for use.  If you concentrate, you will become aware of its presence.”

Calvin nodded, closing his eyes.  He’d sensed something ever since he’d first used magic, but it was only now that he realised what it actually was.  The mana seemed to shimmer through his body, as if it was trapped by his skin.  Slowly, be became aware that there was more mana outside his body, drifting through the air.  It seemed the easiest thing in the world to reach out and pull it into his body.

“Learning to focus your mind is very important,” Harrow informed him, as he opened his eyes.  “The Magicians Council used to use specific words to utilise their magic, once they had taught focus and discipline to their apprentices.  However, you must master focusing your power first.”

She looked at him and then produced a small wooden ball from her robes.  “I want you to focus your mind and tap your mana, directing this ball to rise up into the air,” she added.  “Focus your mind, imagine what you want to happen, and then tap your mana.  Concentrate...”

Calvin tried.  It was easy to imagine the ball flying up into the air, but tapping his mana seemed impossible.  He was aware of the mana seething inside his body, yet he couldn't quite see how to use it properly.  And yet he’d been able to incinerate Moe...  Slowly, it dawned on him that the mana was being held in check by his own mind.  The trick was to weaken the containment field – for want of a better term – and let the mana flow out...

The ball shot into the air and vanished into the darkness.  “Too much power,” Harrow said, dryly.  She produced another ball and held it up in front of him.  “Again.”

It felt like hours before Calvin had the trick mastered.   Harrow was proving to be a good teacher, but there were things that he just had to learn to develop for himself.  She’d told him that the more he mastered, the easier the next step would be, yet it was still complicated and more than a little counter-intuitive.  The trick seemed to be to relax and concentrate, rather than being tense and concentrating.  Pushing too much determination into the magic either did nothing or produced wildly spectacular results.  

“Good,” Harrow said.  She studied him for a long moment.  “I think it’s time to teach you a few more tricks.”

Calvin would have groaned, if he had had the energy.  He knew that their lessons were taking place in dreams, rather than face-to-face, but he still felt tired.  Harrow seemed relentless, however, and some of the spells she was outlining for him promised to be very useful.  The ability to make himself invisible, the ability to influence a person’s actions, the ability to spy on someone...oh, he could imagine all sorts of uses for that spell.  Whatever qualms he might have had about it had faded away as he realised just how much Harrow’s enemies had stolen from the world.  He could have been one of its masters if they hadn’t drained away the mana, destroying their own civilisation out of spite.  

“We will be meeting every night until you are ready to free us,” Harrow said, afterwards.  It felt as if they’d been training for years, yet he had the feeling that he’d barely scratched the surface of what was possible.  The mana levels, Harrow had said, weren’t high enough to support some of the greater acts magicians had carried out in the forgotten past, but it was only a matter of time.  Calvin was already planning his personal tower.  “And now, I suggest that you have some fun with your new spells.  Just remember to be careful how you use them.”

She snapped her fingers and the dream vanished.  Calvin jerked upright in bed, suddenly very aware that he was tired.  A quick glance at his watch revealed that it was 4am, and yet he was utterly exhausted, mentally if not physically.  His head was spinning and, now he was fully awake, he could sense the mana flowing through the air.  In a way, the ebb and flow of mana was almost beautiful.  

It had happened.  He had no doubt of it, not after remembering what had happened to Moe.  Mana was real, magic was real and Harrow, his tutor, was real.  Oddly, he felt a spurt of affection and respect for Harrow that he had never felt for any other teacher, even the one who had taught him how to read.  Perhaps it was receiving her full attention, or perhaps it was because she actually made sense.  Few of his other teachers had been so capable.

He was tired, but somehow he managed to pull himself out of bed and stagger into the bathroom, driven by an urge to test out at least one of the new spells.  Closing and locking the door, he turned on the light and poured water into the sink.  Harrow had warned him that the spell required concentration and a small amount of mana, but unlike some of the other spells it wasn't prone to damaging anything if it failed.  Carefully, he dipped one finger in the water and closed his eyes, concentrating on a single thought.  When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking down into Marie’s bedroom.  A shiver ran down his spine as he realised that he’d succeeded, completely.  He was living one of his dreams.

Marie had been one of the girls he'd known from elementary school, but she’d barely even known he'd existed.  She had a reputation for having done everything a girl could do at high school, rumours that Calvin had been quite prepared to believe.  Like far too many girls, she had fawned over the football jocks and acted as though they were gods on Earth.  He peered into the bowl and caught his breath as he saw her tossing and turning in her bed.  Her nightgown covered her breasts and groin, but he saw enough of her legs to know that rumours didn't lie.  She was enchantingly beautiful.

Calvin felt his heartbeat racing as he stared at her, feeling lust and desire burning their way through his mind.  It was suddenly very hard to think clearly as Marie twisted, exposing her upper thigh and the lower half of her bum to his gaze.  The blood in his brain washed elsewhere, just before she moved again and her nightgown slipped, exposing a nipple.  Calvin lost concentration completely and felt the spell dissolve into nothingness.  The water in the sink was steaming slightly, hot enough to scald someone if they plunged a hand into it, but otherwise there were no signs of what he had done.  No one would ever know what he had done.

Carefully, he pulled out the plug and allowed the water to drain, before creeping back to his bedroom and climbing into bed.  The tiredness had returned in force, urging him to sleep, even though visions of Marie’s body were dancing in front of his eyes.  It was easy to believe that the jocks had seen more of her, but he found it hard to care.  There would be time enough for exploring the rest of her body later.

Smiling, he drifted off to sleep.  There were the other spells he wanted to try, including some that promised to be even more fun.  Who knew what would happen in the morning?

Chapter Seven

Washington DC, USA
Day 6

Golem looked down at his notes, feeling something he suspected was akin to human frustration.  Four days of research in a public library had answered some of his questions, but the answers had somehow opened up more questions.  At least he’d been able to charm the librarians into leaving him alone, allowing him to remain in the library overnight.  Unlike a human, Golem didn't need to sleep, any more than he needed light to read books.  

Two of the librarians were also researchers, or so they’d explained, and it had been simplicity itself to convince one of them to assist him.  The other had a trace of magic, enough that Golem had decided to keep his own magic quiet around him, even though he suspected that the librarian didn't have the slightest idea of what he could do.  There was so little magic in this world...no, he corrected himself, there had been so little magic in this world.  Right now, all the reports his researcher had found for him in local newspapers – and something called the internet – suggested that the magic was definitely coming back.

It was odd that werewolves had been the first to discover what their ancestors had been, thousands of years ago.  Golem actually suspected that the modern world had a mental block when it came to considering magic, judging from the tone of the first news reports; it was quite possible that magic had been coming back for some time, only to be ignored until it became impossible to avoid.  Some reports actually suggested accidental magic, including a vague report of three kids being burned to death at a school.  This society didn't think to test its children for magic at an early age, nor did it segregate mundane children from those with magical talents until the latter had learned control.  Someone – accidentally or otherwise – had managed to trigger a spell and killed three children.  It wasn't the only unexplained death over the last two weeks.

The real question was what, exactly, should he do.  Enchanter hadn't given him very specific instructions, pointing out that the world might be very different and any instructions might become invalid.  The only real order Golem had been given had been to protect the world against the Thirteen, an impossible task unless he received help from other magicians.  Human magicians, those with the ingenuity to do more than recite spells by rote.  Enchanter had bent or broken a great many rules when he’d created Golem, but he hadn't given him a human soul, or a spellcasting ability equal to a trained human mage.  In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.

It was clear that the locals didn't have the slightest idea of what was actually going on.  The news reports on politics made that clear, even though the news appeared to be hideously slanted one way or the other.  Golem had read an article attacking the President and praising one of his political opponents, and then another article that did the exact opposite.  It made no sense to have a system which seemed to work by throwing mud at the other side in the hope that something would stick.  Maybe a human could have understood it, but Golem found it strange and unworkable.  And then there was the endless series of political codewords, none of which made any sense at all.  Why didn't they just say what they meant?

He’d have to talk to the local government, but to whom?  Back when he’d been created, anyone could go petition the local king for an audience, yet it didn't seem as if the President allowed visitors from the common folk.  Golem suspected that he could break into the White House, but there were so many technological surprises in place of the familiar wards that he doubted he could do it undetected.  Enchanter had designed him to be indestructible, yet Enchanter had never dreamed of machine guns, laser beams or flying objects that flew under their own power.  No, he would have to find someone else to talk to, and quickly.  Matters were already getting out of hand.

A final possibility had occurred to him, one that bothered him more than he wanted to admit.  His time had had almost no technology; magic had handled almost everything.  But...what would happen if science and magic started to collide?  It was easy to imagine spells that would damage technology; indeed, it was possible that the presence of mana had been deterring the development of science.  What would happen now that the mana was flowing back into the world?

He stood up, picking up his notes and stuffing them into a bag he’d taken off a thug who had tried to rob him.  Any footpad from back home would have known better than to try to steal something from a clay-man, but these footpads didn't even have the ability to sense magic, let alone the glamour that hid Golem’s true face from watching humans.  He’d snapped the man’s legs and stolen everything in his pockets, along with his bag and coat.  No doubt he would learn a few lessons as he crawled to hospital.  The healers here seemed to be far more capable than non-magical healers had been back home.

One report had attracted him, so much that he’d read it time and time again.  A policeman, armed with one of the strange guns, had killed a werewolf.  And that should have been impossible; werewolves could be killed by silver and fire and beheading, but not tiny slugs of metal.  Unless, of course...lycanthropy wasn't the only magical condition that might have been passed down from the era of magic to the return of mana.  It was just possible...

With a new objective in mind, Golem strode out of the library and headed towards the river.  There were some spells he had to cast, and then he'd know where to look for the policeman.  And if he was lucky, he would have his first ally.

***
“Charming place,” Matt muttered.  He’d never been on a military base before, even when he’d arrested soldiers who had been caught drinking themselves into a stupor, or fighting with protesters who thought that the team ‘peaceful protest’ included throwing insults, stones or even brandishing live weapons.  “Do you really think we can do some good here?”

“I very much hope so,” Caitlyn said.  She sounded on edge too, as if there was something wrong about the building.  But then, Matt had never liked hospitals of any sort, even when he’d been escorting wounded arrestees to be treated before taking them back to jail.  “My boss had to call in a few favours to convince the hospital director to allow us to experiment here.”

She grinned over at Kaleen, who looked back at her nervously.  Matt wouldn't have taken her for an EMT if he’d met her in the streets; she looked barely sixteen, with long dark hair that framed a brown face and a rather shy smile.  But she was a qualified doctor who had been working in an emergency department when she’d discovered that she could heal the sick simply by laying hands on their wounds.  She’d reported her powers, proved them to a whole series of sceptical doctors, and then found herself forwarded into Caitlyn’s care.  Matt was mildly surprised that she hadn’t been scooped up by one of the hospitals in Washington, perhaps the one that handled the President, but perhaps they were still doubtful of the long-term effects of her treatment.

“Welcome,” a voice said.  Matt had expected a military doctor to be in uniform, but he wore a white coat over a white shirt and trousers.  The only thing about him that suggested the military was the ID badge he wore on his coat.  “I am Doctor Hamish Watson.  Is this the young girl you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Caitlyn said briskly, as Kaleen shrank away from Watson.  “I understand that you have patients who need treatment?”

“Right this way,” Watson said.  He led them down a long white corridor and into a small office.  “You do understand that whatever happens here cannot be discussed outside the building without my permission?”

“I understand,” Caitlyn said.  “I’ll copy you into my report and you can edit it, if there’s anything classified inside the paper.”

Matt had a different question.  “What made you so eager to invite Miss Patel here?”

Watson studied him for a long moment.  “There was an...incident at a nearby military base,” he said, finally.  “We have four men who were wounded, one quite badly.  I heard about Miss Patel and thought that she might be able to help them.”

He opened a second door and led them into a small ward.  The first patient was lying on his side, one leg covered in bandages.  A pair of attractive nurses were feeding him from a bowl of mush, something that he didn't seem to like at all.  Matt caught his flat stare and knew, instinctively, that this was a very dangerous man.  Kaleen seemed to recoil away from him before plucking up her courage and stumbling forward until she was standing by the side of his bed.

“Training accident,” the soldier grumbled.  “Some REMF faggot managed to fuck up his gun and put four bullets through my leg.  I’ll kill him when I get out of here.”

“Try to heal him,” Watson said.  “His grumblings are driving everyone else insane.”

The soldier actually grinned.  “I try, sir,” he said, mischievously.  “But I guess I’ll never play football again.”

Kaleen ignored him, her fingers touching the bare skin beside the cast.  “We’ll have to take it off,” she said, bluntly.  Matt watched in some amusement as the shy persona was pushed aside, replaced by someone who could remove a cast without difficult.  The soldier sucked in his breath as she exposed the flesh underneath, and then pressed down on it with her fingers.  A tingle ran down Matt’s spine as he sensed...something flowing around Kaleen, reaching down into the wound and slowly healing it.  The soldier let out a gasp as his leg twitched once, and then started coughing.  Kaleen stepped back and admired her handiwork.

“Try to stand up,” she ordered, holding out a hand to help him to rise.  The soldier tottered slightly, but otherwise remained upright.  Doctor Watson was staring at Kaleen in absolute disbelief, as if he hadn't really believed the reports when he’d read them.  “And I...”

Kaleen staggered, slightly.  Matt caught her before she could hit the ground, while Caitlyn produced a chocolate bar from her handbag and passed it to Kaleen.  The experiments had proven beyond all doubt that whatever Kaleen did – they’d started to call it healing, for want of a better word – cost her energy.  No one was quite sure how her talent worked, but no one could deny that it did work.  And who knew what else might be just waiting to be discovered?

“The next patient was wounded in an IED explosion in Afghanistan,” Watson said, when Kaleen had finished the chocolate bar.  “We patched him back together, but there are wounds and scars that we cannot deal with quickly.  I thought that you might like to try.”

The next healing went as simply as the first healing, although it was clear that it cost Kaleen plenty of energy to heal two people so quickly.  Watson insisted on running a few tests, including x-rays, only to discover that pieces of shrapnel that had lodged themselves inside the IED victim’s body had disappeared.  There was no clear sign of where they’d gone, but they certainly didn't seem to be life-threatening any longer.  The third soldier had lost an arm completely, thanks to a terrorist sniper in Afghanistan, and had been waiting for an artificial replacement.  Kaleen started to heal him, but then collapsed on top of his chest and had to be rushed to a bed herself.  Matt couldn't help wondering if they’d overstrained her before Doctor Watson pronounced that she’d simply depleted her body’s natural reserves of energy too far.  All she needed was rest and an IV containing an energy solution.

Leaving Caitlyn to take care of Kaleen, Matt wandered forward, guided by an instinct he didn’t fully understand.  The military hospital had dozens of tiny rooms, each one holding one or two patients, but his senses led him unerringly to the last room in the corridor.  Peeking inside, he saw a middle-aged man reading a paperback book with a picture of a young lady wearing Victorian dress on the front.  Oddly, there were airships flying through the sky behind her.  

“Come on in,” the man called.  Matt couldn't see any wounds on him, but he guessed they were probably covered by the hospital robe.  “Did you bring me any smokes, or booze?”

“No,” Matt said.  The sense of wrongness was growing stronger.  “I’m just visiting the hospital.”

“No one brings me anything,” the man bemoaned, with a sly smile.  He held out a hand and Matt shook it, gravely.  “Specialist Joseph Buckley, 3rd ID.  I go to Iraq and don’t get scratched; I go to Fort Hood and get bitten on the bum by a oversized mutt some idiot brought into camp.  And then they insist that I get sent up here for observation.  I think the CO must have realised that I was buggering his daughter on the side.  What did you do to get sent up here?”

“Matt Coombs, NYPD,” Matt said.  He found himself liking Buckley, yet he couldn't banish the sense that something was badly wrong.  “What exactly happened to you?”

“I thought this was Washington,” Buckley said.  “I refuse to go to New York on moral grounds and because of several outstanding warrants..oh, I shouldn't have told you that, should I?”

He laughed.  “Butt Monkey – that’s my tank – needed some servicing,” he added.  “We’re meant to be exercising against the jarheads in a couple of weeks and the CO insisted that everything had to be perfect, or the Marines would kick our asses, so we were checking and rechecking everything.  I was bent over and fiddling with the tank when something bites my bum and won’t let go, so I scream like a little girl and look behind me.  There’s a fucking great black dog there with eyes like burning embers and it won’t let go.  My partner smacks it with a wrench and the dog-thing howls and runs for it, leaving me bleeding out on the tarmac.”

Matt frowned.  The dog-thing sounded alarmingly familiar.  “Next thing I remember,” Buckley said, “I was in the hospital.  There’s nasty marks on my bum, but everything else seems to have healed.  I want to go back to duty and instead they ship me up here.  God alone knows what is going to happen to my tank without me to look after her.”

“I see,” Matt said.  Now Buckley had told him where the marks were, it was alarmingly easy to isolate the sense of wrongness.  Something very unpleasant seemed to be spreading through the Specialist’s body.  “Have you been watching television?”

“The bastards don’t let you have television in this dump,” Buckley said.  He snorted.  “Come on!  It was all I could do to convince them that I needed a book to read.  I’d bust out of here in a moment if I had my clothes.”

“I think they may have made a mistake,” Matt said, tightly.  “How long ago was it when you were bitten?”

“Five days,” Buckley said.  “Why?”

Matt scowled.  That meant that Buckley had been bitten around the same time as he’d shot the werewolf girl.  But how had a werewolf gotten onto a military base?  Stupid question, he told himself, a moment later.  One of the soldiers had been a werewolf without having the slightest idea – and, if he or she hadn't come forward afterwards, they probably still didn't know that they were a werewolf.  And Buckley had been bitten, and Matt was sure that he could sense the taint...there was no escaping the conclusion.  Buckley had been turned into a werewolf.

Buckley must have seen something in his face, for he reached out and gripped Matt’s arm.  “What happened to me?”

“It’s a long story,” Matt said.  He wasn't sure if he should say anything, but Buckley deserved to know.  “You may be a werewolf.”

He ran through the entire story, from the werewolf he’d shot to the other strange reports and Kaleen the Healer.  It struck him that they could ask Kaleen, once she woke up, to see if she could do anything for Buckley, but if not...he’d done some reading on werewolves after shooting one and discovered that legends tended to disagree on some details.  Some werewolves only transformed during the full moon; others, it seemed, could transform at any moment they chose.  God alone knew how reliable the legends actually were.  

“That’s not possible,” Buckley said, when he had finished.  “They put me in the freaking madhouse, not the hospital.”

“I wish I was lying,” Matt admitted.  The world had definitely turned upside down.  Meeting someone who was effectively from a time before the world turned weird had brought that home to him, even though he was surprised at how quickly he’d accepted the change.  “I think that you had better be put somewhere safe before the next full moon.”

“It’s still bullshit,” Buckley said.

Matt stood up, walked over to the end of the bed and retrieved the medical records.  He was no doctor, but learning to read them was an essential part of police training, mainly for when criminals claimed to be ill, insane or tried to make other excuses for their crimes.  

“Read this,” he said.  The first doctor had written a whole string of question marks; the second had written a note questioning the first doctor’s competence.   He hadn't believed that someone could recover from having their butt cheek torn free so quickly.  Matt, who had seen how odd the first werewolf’s body had been, believed it.  “I think that you’re not entirely human any longer.”

He passed Buckley the record and frowned, inwardly.  If Buckley had been tainted by magic, and Matt could see the magic...what the hell was he?

Chapter Eight

New York, USA
Day 6

Calvin awoke at 11am, much to his surprise.  His mother normally bellowed at him to get out of bed to go to school, but she hadn't said a word in the morning.  Puzzled, half-convinced that the events of the night had just been a dream, he pulled on his shirt and jeans before walking down to the kitchen,  A pair of notes sat on the table; one from the school, informing his parents that the school would remain closed until Monday, the other from his mother, telling him to behave himself.  Calvin found himself chuckling as he realised that it had been real after all.  Moe and his cronies would never pick on him again.

Pouring himself a cup of milk, he picked up the paper and looked at it.  The front page was dominated by a story about a woman who had developed the power to heal people with her bare hands, something that he would have found unbelievable if he hadn't somehow incinerated Moe with his own magic.  Glancing inside, the next few pages constituted of related stories, some of them thoroughly confusing.  Strange lights had been sighted at legendary places of power, followed by a number of incidents and deaths.  The paper was short on detail, but Harrow had told him enough to read between the lines.  Magic was flowing back into the world and the old places of power were coming back to life.  

And his powers were real.  Feeling a strange sensation in his chest, he picked up a bowl of water and triggered the spying spell, looking for Marie.  Unsurprisingly, she was running down the street with a pair of girlfriends, exercising for cheerleader practice.  Calvin fought down a flash of disappointment, almost laughing at himself.  It was nearly noon; she wasn't going to be naked right now, was she?  Some fiddling with the spell allowed him to see her covered breasts, bouncing invitingly under her shirt as she ran, but it wasn't quite the same.  Shaking his head, he looked for three other girls he knew from school; two of them, like Marie, were taking advantage of their time away from school.  The third, Sandra, looked up the moment the spell formed, as if she was looking back at him.

Calvin cancelled the spell frantically, irrationally convinced that Sandra had sensed the intrusion, perhaps even sensed him.  She was the smartest of the cheerleaders, a group for which he normally had nothing but abject contempt; it was possible that she too had the smarts to make magic work.  Or maybe she had some inherent talent that was coming to life as magic flowed back into the world.  Calvin found himself shaking as he poured the steaming water into the sink and found himself something to eat from the fridge.  What if Sandra drew the connection between Moe’s death, someone spying on her, and Calvin himself?

He mulled it over in his mind as he ate breakfast and then wandered back upstairs.  What exactly was he doing?  Magic, Harrow had said, and he had no reason to doubt her, but how did it actually work?  He’d burned Moe to death, along with two of his cronies, and later somehow created water from nothing.  Or had he?  The water had been real, but where had it actually come from?  A little imagination provided too many ideas for comfort.  If he could make something out of nothing, where could he stop?

“Mana is the source of magic, the power behind the spells,” Harrow had said.  Calvin took that to mean that humans, magical or mundane, didn't produce mana for themselves.  That had to be true, or the utopia where brains, not strength, determined social position would never have fallen.  There had to be an outside source of mana that, for whatever reason, had stopped working for thousands of years.  And now it was back.

Thoughtfully, he opened his wallet and produced a ten-dollar bill.  Harrow hadn't mentioned any spells for counterfeiting money – there might not even have been money when she’d been free, although he found that hard to believe – but more money would be very useful.  Calvin’s family might not have been living on the streets, yet he’d felt the shame of poverty and of being bombarded by the taunts of those who were granted bigger allowances by their parents.  What if he could produce a duplicate ten-dollar bill?

Concentrating, he tried to focus on what he wanted.  There was a surge of mana and a second bill appeared in front of him, only to fall into dust when he caught hold of it.  Calvin swore out loud and tried again, but the second result was no more successful than the first.  But then, he was trying to get something out of nothing.  Snorting, he picked up a sheet of paper, held it behind the original bill, and tried again.  This time, he produced something that looked like a ten-dollar bill, and remained fairly stable, but it felt wrong, as if an incompetent forger had tried to print out fake money on ordinary paper.  Calvin experimented with crumpling it up, rumpling the paper, before admitting that forgery didn't seem to be very easy.  There had to be some trick he was missing.  

Or maybe there just wasn't enough mana in the air yet.  Harrow had said that the mana was flowing back into the world, enough to trigger dormant werewolf genes in people who had had no idea that they were werewolves.  And many other mystical creatures too.  The newspaper had reported vampire attacks in Chicago and San Francisco, sightings of mermaids in the Potomac and even zombies in Haiti.  How long would it be until there was enough mana to turn someone into a snail?

He allowed himself a long moment to imagine Moe being turned into a snail and being crushed underfoot, before pushing the thought aside.  Magic didn't make someone all-powerful, or whatever had happened to Harrow and her friends would never have happened.  The thought was entertaining, but if someone happened to be turned into a snail, what happened to the rest of their body mass?  Even the smallest human was a giant compared to a snail, far heavier than the crawling creature.  Did mana interface with reality itself and change things, or were some magical tales nothing more than legends?  

Harrow had told him to practice, so he started by summoning fire and – this time – trying to deduce what actually happened when he used his magic.  The air seemed to grow very hot, very rapidly, before the flame actually came into existence.  No wonder Moe had burned so fast, he realised, as he cancelled the spell.  The mana had generated so much heat that the real question was why the school itself hadn't burned to the ground.  Or, for that matter, why Calvin hadn't been scorched by being so close to the fire.  Clearly, there were laws at work that he didn't even begin to understand.  

Twenty minutes later, he had run through every spell Harrow had taught him that could be used without a human target and felt tired, almost dizzy.  Magic clearly exacted a price, he realised as he walked back downstairs and retrieved a bar of chocolate from the fridge.  His mother would be unhappy to learn that he had eaten a whole bar, but there was no choice.  He needed a sugar rush and he needed it now.  Mana ebbed and flowed around him as he ate the chocolate and drank a glass of milk, before walking back upstairs and turning on his laptop.  Logically, he couldn't be the only magician whose magic had started coming to life – and if there were others, they might be trying to reach out on the internet.  He knew better than to make contact after what had happened to Moe, but he could certainly browse the bulletin boards and see what they said.

The internet had never been as restrained as the mainstream media.  Where the newspapers had reported werewolves, vampires and outright magic in a tone of mild disbelief, the internet gleefully picked up and magnified each and every rumour.  He looked up the incident at his school first and recoiled in shock when he discovered that a number of internet forums had made the correct deduction; Moe had been a bully who had finally been killed by one of his victims.  Any rational discussion was effectively obliterated by two sets of trolls; one in favour of killing bullies on sight, the other shocked by the deaths and the seemingly tacit approval offered by many posters.  But there was nothing, thankfully, that linked Calvin specifically to Moe.  

Breathing out, he concentrated on reading as many stories as he could, even though it was impossible to determine which ones might be true and which were nothing more than the product of mass hysteria.  Police departments had reported a higher percentage of people winding up trapped outside naked, as if they’d been drunk – or werewolves.  The federal government was still flapping about just what was going on, but various police departments had asked people who thought they might have been werewolves to report to them for medical attention.  One rather sarcastic poster pointed out that they’d been swarmed with people claiming to be werewolves, including several who hadn't transformed at the light of the full moon.  The real werewolves were either unaware of their true nature or were keeping their heads down.  They might be charged with murder because of what they’d done while under the influence.  

Those weren’t even the weirdest tales.  A doctor reported a girl who seemed to have drowned, in the middle of the Nevada desert.  The police suspected that it was murder, but they didn't have any clues that might lead them to the perpetrator.  Calvin couldn't imagine what sort of spell would do that to someone, if it hadn't been a case of the poor girl discovering her hidden heritage at precisely the wrong moment, but he suspected that he could learn.  Clairvoyants were reporting that they actually could talk to the dead, although the dead weren't always happy about being disturbed.  One report stated that a clairvoyant’s house had been torn apart by invisible forces, while the woman herself – and her clients – had been stripped naked, pinched so badly that their bodies were still bruised, and then dumped outside.  Calvin would have found that absurd, if he hadn't read the line that stated that the clients wanted to know where their uncle had hidden his money.  Maybe you could take it with you when you left after all.  

And then there was the story of a girl who had grown bigger breasts, or the girl who had suddenly become the most attractive woman in the world, or the folksinger whose voice seemed to be able to perform magic, or the swimmer who had grown gills and a tail...

A crash from downstairs interrupted his musings.  Calvin stood up, wondering if the police had finally drawn the connection between him and Moe and come to arrest him.  Killing Moe had been a service to humanity, but he wouldn't expect the police to see it that way.  They served the established order, the same order that wanted to keep the nerds and geeks and everyone else with brains firmly under control.  Feeling magic billowing around him, he advanced to the top of the stairs and sighed in relief when he saw Mindy.  His sister might be irritating as hell – little sisters always were – but she wasn't the police.

“You’re so lucky,” Mindy said, as Calvin walked downstairs.  “They didn't cancel my school.”

Calvin shrugged.  “You don’t go to the same school,” he reminded her.  “No one died at your school.”

“Petal might have,” Mindy said.  She smiled, expecting her brother to listen to her.  “No one has seen anything of her for three days and the teachers are worried.”

“I bet they are,” Calvin said sardonically.  No one had given a shit when Moe had treated him like dirt, but someone as attractive as Petal...well, it would be a different story for her.  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“She normally goes on Messenger or Yahoo Chat as soon as she gets home from school,” Mindy said, seriously.  “Right now...she’s been completely silent.  No one knows what has happened to her.”

“She’s probably ill,” Calvin said.  He found it hard to care.  Petal was seven years younger than him and went to a different school.  Either one would have put a barrier between them, even if Mindy and her friends hadn’t tormented him during one of her birthday parties.  It had just been another reminder that he didn't have any friends to attend a birthday party of his own.  “Why don't you go see her after school?”

“Because mom says that I am to come home and not dawdle on the way,” Mindy said.  Their mother hadn't quite believed most of the reports sweeping the nation, but she’d believed enough to insist that her children came home before dark.  God alone knew what was going to happen during the next full moon.  “And I have tried to call her and there was no answer.”

Calvin sat down at the table as Mindy started to prepare canned soup.  His kid sister got to come home for lunch, unlike him, something else that rankled even though his school was too far away for him to get home for lunch and then back again before classes resumed.  There were times when he wondered if he had been adopted, or if there was some dark secret behind his conception; Mindy took far more after their mother than Calvin did after their father.  But they did look alike...if only he’d had their father’s muscles instead of the face.  His life would have been much easier.  What if his mother had cheated on his father and the man he’d been raised to call daddy wasn't his real father?  The fact they shared the same looks could be the product of wishful thinking.  Or maybe it was the other way around.

Or maybe he was just being silly.

“You want some?”  Mindy asked.  “I used the whole tin.”

“Yes, please,” Calvin said, rolling his eyes.  Mindy was such a kid.  Any fool could tell that an entire tin of soup was too much for one young girl.  Their mother would throw a fit if she found out that Mindy had wasted half the liquid.  She might even save it and insist on Mindy reheating the soup at a later date.  “And some toast as well, if you please.”

He waited while Mindy finished cooking lunch and then spooned it out into a pair of bowls, before sitting down facing him and tucking in.  Calvin ate slowly, enjoying the taste, while reading the newspaper again.  Mindy chatted about nothing until she finished eating, whereupon she brought up a friend of hers who believed in magic.  Calvin found himself listening with new interest as she spoke.

“Dana has this charm her Indian grandmother gave her,” Mindy informed him.  “She says that it protects her from evil.”

“Oh,” Calvin said.  He considered pointing out that they were supposed to be called Native Americans these days, before deciding that it was a waste of time.  “And does it actually work?”

“She says it does,” Mindy admitted, doubtfully.  “But she was also saying that her grandmother invited her to the reservation for a ceremony, one that might be very important for her future.”

“Oh,” Calvin said, again.  It was easy to fake disinterest, even though he had the feeling that Native American magic rituals might start working now.  Harrow had implied as much.  “Maybe you should ask her for a protective bracelet for yourself.”

Mindy glared at him.  “You’re not taking me seriously,” she protested.  “You’re weird.”

Calvin fought down the sudden hot surge of rage that threatened to consume him.  People had been calling him weird, or worse, for his entire life, yet it hurt the most coming from his kid sister.  Mana started to boil around him and he forced it down hastily, fearing that he might lose control and incinerate Mindy too.  He couldn't do that...slowly, the mana came under control, fading back into the background.  And then he opened his eyes, unaware that he’d even closed them, to see Mindy staring at him in horror.

“What...what happened?”

He would have cursed himself for a fool if there had been time.  Mindy was his kid sister; they shared the same genes.  Whatever had made him a magician might have done the same to her.  Maybe she didn't have the benefits of Harrow’s teachings, but he hadn't needed his tutor to kill three bullies.  He could teach her...but he couldn't take the risk of her tattling to their parents, or to the authorities.

Calvin concentrated, summoning a spell Harrow had taught him and holding it firmly in his mind.  “Nothing happened,” he said, casting the spell.  Harrow had warned him that mental manipulation required practice, for the human mind was often unpredictable and difficult to control, but there had been no time to practice on someone else.  “You saw nothing.  You came home, you ate lunch with me and then you went back to school.”

Mindy looked...dazed, almost hypnotised.  Calvin felt a flash of concern, one that was driven away by the grim awareness that he had come very close to exposing himself.  This power might be fun, if less spectacular than burning Moe to a crisp, but using it on his kid sister...

But there was no choice.  He told himself that he had no choice.

Afterwards, Mindy ran off to school, seemingly unaware that he’d cut a slice out of her memory.  Calvin hoped that the spell had worked, knowing that there was no way to be sure.  Even the Demon Headmaster had had trouble with hypnosis, and Mindy was smart.  Would she notice that her memories didn't quite make sense?

Shaking his head, he washed the dishes and headed upstairs.  Harrow had told him to practice and practice he would.  And then he’d work out how to get a living subject for his experiments.

Chapter Nine

Washington DC, USA
Day 7

“They don’t want me to come with you?”

“I'm afraid not,” Caitlyn admitted.  “I’m rather surprised they invited me to the meeting.”

Matt had to smile.  “I thought that you were going to present it,” he said.  “How could they have it without you?”

Caitlyn didn't smile.  “Politics,” she said sourly.  “The FBI got a jump on everyone else because I convinced Director Tomlinson that looking into the whole werewolf affair was a worthwhile use of our time and resources.  Everyone else dismisses the werewolves as just another example of people going crazy and looking for supernatural explanations, so when they can't ignore it any longer the FBI looks good and they look bad.

“But Tomlinson only put me in charge because he didn't take it very seriously himself,” she added.  “Now that they know that whatever is happening is serious, someone more senior might want to muscle in and take command.  Or the FBI might find itself pushed aside by the CIA, or NSA, or someone else.  They played politics with 9/11.  Do you really think they wouldn't play politics with this too?”

Matt heard the bitterness in her voice and nodded.  They’d been told that Caitlyn would be attending the meeting at the White House – and she’d been ordered to prepare a presentation for the President, if the President attended the meeting – but there had been few other details.  And, given that Caitlyn was the Special Agent in command of the FBI’s task force, that boded ill for the future.  Or perhaps it was merely a reflection of just how uncomfortable Official Washington felt with the whole affair.  Just like the media, the government had refused to take the matter seriously at first.  Why should they have?  Matt wouldn't have taken it seriously if he hadn't shot a werewolf.

“I’ll be wandering around Washington,” he said, with a grin.  “I’ll keep my cell phone with me at all times, so just call me when you get out of the meeting.”

“Have fun, and think of me when you’re admiring Lincoln’s statue or something,” Caitlyn said ruefully.  She smiled, suddenly.  “I’ve never been to the White House before, Matt.  I’d be excited if I didn't feel as if I was reporting to the principal for a lecture on misbehaver.”

“Good luck,” Matt said, seriously.  “I’ll see you when you get back.”

Caitlyn had put him up at her apartment in Washington, allowing him to sleep on the sofa at night.  Their relationship was growing deeper, even though it hadn't become sexual; they felt comfortable with one another, no matter what happened.  Besides, he reflected as Caitlyn left the apartment and closed the door behind her, it wasn't as if she had much for someone to steal.  Like Matt’s own apartment, Caitlyn’s apartment had a permanent air of transiency, as if the occupier knew that they might be leaving at any moment.  But then, FBI agents often had to move around the country on short notice.

He pulled on his jacket, strapped his holster to his belt and walked out of the door, closing it firmly behind him.  It had been years since he’d last visited Washington and there had been little time for sightseeing, so he’d decided that he needed to take a look at his country’s monuments before Caitlyn returned and he learned about what they were going to be doing next.  He had a feeling that they were going to be very busy.  The media had finally cottoned on to the legal implications of werewolves and vampires and had raised so much hysteria that he doubted that any werewolf would come forward willingly.  At least they knew that Joe Buckley hadn't hurt anyone.

Yet, he reminded himself, grimly.  

It wasn't a long walk from Caitlyn’s apartment to the centre of Washington, but it was long enough for Matt to become convinced that he was being watched.  He’d always had good situational awareness – the NYPD tried hard to train its officers to be aware of their surroundings at all times – but this was different.  There seemed to be no one following him, at least as far as he could tell, yet the sensation refused to fade away.  One hand dropped to his holster as he started to glance behind him and scan the crowd, looking for the shadow.  It took several minutes before he realised that his follower was using...something to hide himself.  

Matt turned right into an alleyway and glanced around, looking for a place to hide.  He found it in a smelly door that clearly served as a toilet for drunkards when they were staggering home from the bars.  Ignoring the smell, Matt concealed himself and waited.  His shadow came up to the alley and turned into it, still intent on remaining in sight of Matt at all times.  Matt smiled, drew his gun, and stepped out of concealment.

“Stop right there,” he snapped.  “I...”

He broke off.  The shadow was strange.  He looked average, so average that there were no distinguishing features on his face at all; indeed, Matt felt his eyes starting to slide past the man, as if he wasn't quite there.  If Matt hadn't been able to sense his presence, in the same way he’d sensed the werewolf infection spreading through Joe Buckley, he would have questioned his own sanity.  

The shadow raised his hands, allowing Matt to see that they were empty.  “I apologise for following you,” he said.  His voice was...average.  It was somewhat disconcerting.  “My name is Golem.  And we need to talk.”

Matt didn't lower his gun.  “What are you?”

“I am Golem,” Golem said.  “We need to talk.”

“Right,” Matt said.  “And what, exactly, are you?”

Golem’s form seemed to shimmer.  When the shimmering was gone, Matt found himself staring at a humanoid figure shaped entirely from something that looked like clay.  The face was both human and very alien; bright red eyes burned in the eye-sockets, as if they were illuminated by a fire inside his skull, but the rest of his appearance was disconcertingly human.  Matt stumbled backwards, still keeping the gun aimed at Golem’s head.  But if he was made of clay, part of his mind asked, what good would a gun do?

“I am Golem,” Golem said, patiently.  “We need to talk.”

“So we do,” Matt agreed.  He was no stranger to interrogations, or to dealing with drugged up gangsters or people from very different cultures, but Golem seemed almost...alien.  It was easy to believe that a clay man would have thought patterns very different from the average human.  “I think...”

He hesitated.  “Can you disguise yourself again?  I need to take you somewhere safe.”

Golem’s form shimmered again, creating the illusion of an average man.  Now he knew that it was a disguise, Matt could appreciate just how neat a trick it actually was, however it was worked.  No one would look twice at Golem, or remember what he looked like, if they remembered him at all.  And yet the more Matt stared at him, the easier it was to see that something wasn't quite right.  The figure didn't seem to move like a human being.  

Back in New York, he would have taken Golem to the nearest police station; in Washington, he wasn't entirely sure what to do.  Caitlyn would have known, but Caitlyn was in the White House and he couldn’t call her there.  In the end, he led Golem back to her apartment, praying that he wasn't making a terrible mistake.  Golem thumped his way up the stairs – Matt hadn't realised just how heavy he was until he heard his footsteps – and into the apartment, showing little curiosity at all.  A human would have glanced around, just to see where they’d been taken.  Golem just walked into the apartment and stopped.

“Please, take a seat,” Matt said.  Even hidden behind some kind of magic spell, Golem was disconcerting.  “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“I require no nourishment,” Golem informed him, as he sat down on a chair that creaked alarmingly under his weight.  Matt had the impression that he would have remained standing if he hadn't been asked to sit – and, unlike a human, wouldn't have found it insulting, or worrying.  “Your world is in terrible danger.”

Matt felt a chill running down his spine.  “What danger?”  He asked.  “And just what is happening to us?”

Golem’s protective illusion vanished.  Matt found himself staring into two bright red eyes, burning with a power beyond comprehension.  “The mana is returning,” Golem said, “and the Thirteen will not be far behind.”

He spoke the words as if he expected his listener to understand them, but they made little sense to Matt.  Or maybe they did; mana was an old word for power, hijacked by fantasy writers to represent the force behind magic.  For a moment, he wished that he had spent more time reading fiction rather than playing football at school; it might have prepared him better for coming face-to-face with a mythical creature.  But who were the Thirteen?

“I think you’d better start at the beginning,” he said.  “What exactly is going on?”

***
The Hunter didn’t understand.  Golem felt surprise, and then felt surprise at feeling surprise.  It was logical that the Hunter, far removed from his ancestors, would have no idea about his heritage.  So many generations had passed that it was unlikely that the Hunter realised that his bloodline could be traced back over thousands of years, right back to the original set of humans who had been...altered by sorcerers and turned into Hunters.  In fact, Golem’s research had suggested that recorded history simply made no room for magic.  He had no idea how long he’d been sleeping, waiting for the first trickle of mana to restore him, but every time he looked at the modern histories he added another thousand years to his estimate.

But that still left the problem of explaining what was happening to the modern world.

“Once, the land flowed with mana,” Golem said.  “Many thousands of years ago, the gods walked the world and sowed their seeds upon the land.  They created humanity and many other creatures and set them free to build their own lives.  And then the gods faded away as the mana levels could no longer support them.  In their place, humans who had learned to manipulate mana built the first global civilisations.  It was truly a time of wonders.”

He tried to read the Hunter’s expression, but it was difficult.  “There were dragons flying through the sky, mermaids swimming through the seas; dwarfs and trolls digging their way through the mountains, deep underground.  And there were the sorcerers who built and powered civilisation.  It was the sorcerers who led the battle against the other creatures created by the gods; it was the sorcerers who created beings such as yourself to defend humanity.  And so it was a golden age.

“And then disaster struck.  Thirteen sorcerers, each one powerful beyond imagination, believed that they could harness the power of mana directly and become gods themselves.  Other sorcerers moved to stop them, realising the danger of what they were trying to do, but they were already hideously powerful.  They raised vast armies to their banners, using them against their enemies and innocents alike.  It took seventy years of war to contain them and yet we could not remove them from existence.  They had done something to make themselves immortal.”

The Hunter leaned forward.  “What did they do?”

“I do not know,” Golem said.  If Enchanter had ever worked out the secret, he had kept it to himself.  It was temping to imagine that his creator was somewhere around, but preserving a human life in a world without mana would be far harder than preserving a clay-man.  “They could not be killed.  My creator eventually managed to seal the Thirteen into a prison that isolated them from the world, holding them in a realm where time didn't pass.  But their defeat came at a terrible price.”

He had agonised about how to explain the fall of civilisation to someone born long after the fall, so long afterwards that civilisation itself was nothing more than a myth, if that.  “Maintaining the prison required vast amounts of mana,” he explained.  “Over the years, the prison sucked in more and more mana from the source of power.  Eventually, the mana in the human world started to run out.  Spells that had endured for centuries collapsed, structures that had been held up by mana started to crumble into dust, sorcerers who used rejuvenation spells to keep themselves alive died...it was the end of civilisation.

“My creator was one of the few who understood the truth.  He knew that the Thirteen had to remain sealed away, even if the price was civilisation itself.  But he also knew that the prison would weaken and the mana would start to return to the world.  And when it grew strong enough to support them, the Thirteen would be able to return themselves.  That is the danger facing your world.”

The Hunter studied him for a long moment.  “You said that they created beings like myself,” he said, finally.  “What am I?”

“Your ancestors were Hunters, humans gifted with a raw talent for killing supernatural beings,” Golem said.  “Your weapon would not have killed a werewolf, had it been fired by anyone but you.  A sword would have had the same effect.”

“I...see,” the Hunter said.  He sounded stunned, leaving Golem to wonder if he’d given too much information too quickly.  Human mentalities were complex, not given to cool and rational analysis.  Golem would have accepted the information and moved on, but a human...?  They were distracted by emotional responses.  “And why...why now?”

“The mana is returning,” Golem said, patiently.  “All of the twisted humans – the werewolves, the vampires, the gorgons and many others – are going to start discovering their true natures as the mana grows strong enough to support their existence.  Werewolf magic is linked to the moon, which is probably why they appeared first.  The others won’t be far behind.”

“There’s a girl in Memphis who grew a mermaid tail overnight,” the Hunter mused.  “What will happen to her?”

“She will have to learn to live underwater,” Golem said.  Part of his mind noted that the girl herself might find the concept terrifying, but it was just a fact.  He moved on.  “She will find that she can breathe normally while deep under the waves.”

The Hunter looked shocked.  “And...why does the moon affect werewolves?”

It was a pointless question, but Golem tried to answer it anyway.  “According to legend, the first werewolves came from a tribe that attacked a temple belonging to the Children of the Moon, a female cult that considered the moon to be a god.  The priestesses cursed the tribesmen, using magic to ensure that they became monsters whenever the moon rose in the sky.  As they tried to steal silver, the curse included a component that turned silver into deadly poison for a werewolf.  Their descendants became the first wolf people.  Later, the curse would have lost its power as the mana faded away.”

“But now the mana is coming back,” the Hunter mused.  “How many people are descended from werewolves?”

“I could not even begin to estimate,” Golem said.  Humans often asked themselves pointless – or unanswerable – questions.  “The curse will have been passed down through the families until now.”

The Hunter seemed shocked into silence, so Golem pressed ahead.  “But the werewolves are hardly the main problem,” he said.  “You have magicians already developing their powers.  It will not be long before the Thirteen can return to the world and resume their mad scheme to gain supreme power for themselves.  You have to prepare to stop them.”

“You want us to stop unstoppable magicians,” the Hunter said.  Absurdly, he started to laugh.  “And how exactly do you want us to do it?”

He paused.  “Maybe an atomic bomb would work,” he added, musingly.  “Do you think so?”

“I do not know,” Golem said.  His understanding of what an atomic bomb actually did was somewhat hazy.  “However, you may have to prepare for other problems.  Some of your magicians, without proper training, are likely to hurt themselves, or others.  One of them may have already done so.  Worse, you may discover that magic interferes with technology.  Your society may wind up threatened by the same collapse that destroyed the one that created me.”

The Hunter stared at him.  “That isn't possible,” he said.  “If magic interfered with technology, wouldn’t we be seeing the effects already?”

“I do not know,” Golem said, unsure if it was another pointless question or not.  “I merely raise it as a possibility.”

“I need to bring you into the labs,” the Hunter said.  “And I need to have you speak to some others.  Can you stay here for a few hours?”

“I am here to assist you in preparing for the Thirteen,” Golem said.  Logic said that it was unlikely that the strange new society could kill the Thirteen, certainly not with Mana returning to the world, but they might be able to return them to their prison.  Or even seal it, if they found the cells in time.  “I am at your disposal.”

“That’s good to hear,” the Hunter muttered.  Golem recognised it as sarcasm and said nothing.  Sarcasm was yet another pointless human concept.  “My name is Matt.  Pleased to meet you, I think.”

“You should be,” Golem said.  The Hunter had sounded ambivalent about his own heritage, which puzzled him.  Back before he’d been put to sleep, women had often seduced Hunters in the hopes of bearing a Hunter child.  Even an untrained Hunter could be deadly dangerous to the supernatural.  Their resistance to magic alone gave them a significant advantage.  “Without me, you would be walking into the darkness without a candle to light your way.”

The Hunter nodded, thoughtfully.

Chapter Ten

Washington DC, USA
Day 7

Caitlyn had known, in theory, about the layers of protection around the White House – and the President, but nothing had prepared her for the reality.  The Secret Service agents fingerprinted her, scanned her retinas and compared both to her FBI file, before carrying out a blood test, putting her through a metal detector and searching her handbag.  She was mildly surprised that they didn't insist on a cavity search as well, but by the time they cleared her to enter the building she felt as if she had been stripped naked, scrubbed clean and then dressed in something that marked her as a human sacrifice.

“They always do that when someone visits for the first time,” Tomlinson said.  “And you’ll have to give your USB stick to the agents before entering the conference room.  The whole building is completely isolated from the internet.”

Caitlyn was still mulling that over as they were escorted down a flight of stairs and into a secure room that, according to the printed signs, was TEMPEST-level secure.  Her cell phone, handbag and USB stick were confiscated at the door, the agent in charge promising to copy her files into the room’s computer once they’d been scanned for viruses, spyware or other unpleasant surprises.  That, at least, made a great deal of sense.  The FBI had tracked Chinese attempts to infiltrate secure computer systems with a great deal of alarm, knowing that eliminating all of the spyware was likely to be completely impossible.  Keeping a system isolated completely was the only realistic defence.  Chances were that her USB stick would be destroyed after it had been copied, just in case.

The interior of the room was surprisingly understated.  A long table, surrounded by chairs; a single computer system and a drinks cabinet that, she noted, didn't serve anything that was actually alcoholic.  Tomlinson smirked at her as he poured them both coffee, an odd courtesy that only bothered her more.  He’d warned her that she would be reporting to the President himself, as well as most of his Cabinet.  She still couldn't decide if it would be good for her career or completely disastrous – or if someone more senior intended to push her out of command of the task force.  And she’d just managed to get the first part of the task force up and running.

She took one of the seats reserved for visitors and watched as the room slowly filled up.  The current President wasn't known for tolerating lateness, at least unless there was a very good excuse, and most of the Cabinet arrived fairly quickly.  Tomlinson chatted to them, building relationships with his ultimate superiors, but Caitlyn felt too nervous to talk.  A single word from any of them could probably wreck her career beyond repair...and she had to convince them that magic was real.  And to think that Matt was exploring Washington, safely isolated from the political storm gathering in the White House...lucky bastard.  She took the time to familiarise herself with the computer system as her files appeared on it, waiting for her to use them.  And then the door opened one final time.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” a voice said, “the President of the United States.”

Caitlyn rose as the President strode into the room.  Up close, the President looked like just another man, even though he was the most powerful person in the world.  He looked tired and stressed, nothing like he looked on television – but then, the camera always lied.  Caitlyn, who had spent time studying footage from CCTV cameras, knew that better than most.  It was easy to make a man look brilliant in front of a camera.

“Be seated,” the President said, shortly.  His voice sounded different too.  Every President who went into the White House had their hair turn grey before they left.  “Director Tomlinson?”

“I formed a task force as soon as the first reports came in,” Tomlinson said.  Caitlyn kept her face blank with an effort.  Her boss certainly knew how to try to grab the credit.  “Special Agent Lyle has the full briefing.”

Caitlyn braced herself as Tomlinson nodded to her, and then rose to her feet.  This was just another briefing, she told herself firmly.  She could handle it.

“Seven days ago, there was a rash of sightings of wolf-like creatures all around the world,” she said, once she’d introduced herself.  “Several of these resulted in deaths that, at least at first, were attributed to wild animals.  However, in New York, a policeman shot one of the animals, which transformed back into a human girl.  Once the information was put together, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the girl and the animal were one and the same.

“Later research revealed a number of other oddities,” she continued.  “Various police stations reported discovering people outside their homes, wearing absolutely nothing at all.  When the police asked questions, the naked people were unable to explain what they were doing outside, let alone without wearing any clothes.  With only a couple of exceptions, the general consensus, reached individually by separate police departments, was that they’d been drinking enough to blot out their memories.  No one put it together until I looked at the overall picture.  We have to assume that the naked people were – are - werewolves.

“In fact, the werewolves were hardly the first supernatural event to be noticed.  I did a review of various paranormal researchers and all of them claim that there has been a major increase in sightings of ghosts, UFOs and strange lights over the last several months.  This was largely ignored by the media and it drew no attention from the government until the first werewolves made their presence known.  Events have clearly started to pick up speed in the last seven days.”

She took a breath.  “Apart from the werewolves, and the reported vampire, there have been other strange transformations.  A young girl went into the bath one morning and discovered, to her horror, that her legs had melded together and become a fishy tail.  Another girl has discovered the power to heal people.  Ritual magic like Voodoo seems to be producing actual results.  Several different lottery systems are reporting record numbers of winners, so many that each individual winner may not take home more than a small fraction of the jackpot.  And I have a very strong feeling that we are barely scratching the surface of the events that are changing our world.  This may be just the beginning.”

“This sounds absurd,” the Secretary of State said.  She fixed Caitlyn with a stare that would have made a soldier wince.  “How can this be real?”

“The mermaid girl has been transferred to a research hospital and studied intensively,” Caitlyn said.  “I have a copy of the report here, if you want it, but the basic version is that her legs seem to have effectively vanished.  Her bones have merged into a single structure that allows her to swish her tail effectively; the skin of her lower body has been replaced by scales that seem to regenerate themselves very quickly.  And, worst of all, we’ve discovered that she grows ill if she spends more than a few hours out of the water.  Right now, the hospital is keeping her in the swimming pool.”

There were some chuckles at that.  “The changes are more than cosmetic,” Caitlyn added.  “Physically, she’s stronger than the average teenage girl and she can swim like a fish.  The doctors convinced a Navy SEAL to challenge her to a swimming race and she left him in the dust.  The doctors aren't sure how she extracts oxygen from the water, but she’s been recorded as spending hours swimming underwater, without coming up for air.

“We only have three werewolves to study, but their biology raises a number of other mysteries.  All three of them have strange substances in their blood; the two who were born werewolves, for want of a better term, had no trouble eating human flesh – and seem reluctant to eat anything, but meat.  In human form, they’re stronger and healthier than the average human; cuts and bruises heal with astonishing speed.  Even the dead werewolf, the one shot in New York, was remarkably healthy.”

The President held up a hand before anyone else could say anything.  “And you're convinced that this is real?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Caitlyn said.  “The data may seem frankly unbelievable, but there is too much of it to simply dismiss.”

The President studied her for a long moment.  Caitlyn knew that politicians preferred to keep their options open as long as possible, to avoid backing themselves into a corner, but this was something that might be impossible to control without immediate action.  And yet she also knew that immediate action was necessary.  The mood of barely-constrained hysteria sweeping the nation was proof of that.

“Very well,” he said, finally.  “I assume that you have a plan to handle the situation?”

Caitlyn blinked in surprise, and then gathered herself.  “There are several different problems that have to be handled, one after the other,” she said.  “We must assume that there will be other mermaids and suchlike and they will have to be helped.  Their changes are survivable, but we have to inform the nation so that they get the help they need.”

“Or before someone tries something stupid, like dumping them into the sea,” a man she didn't recognise, clad in military uniform, said.  “Or burning them alive as witches.”

“Quite,” Caitlyn agreed.  “The second problem concerns the werewolves, and perhaps vampires, if the reports are accurate.  One of the werewolves currently in protective custody was bitten by another werewolf and apparently infected with Lycanthropy.  He hasn't yet changed into a werewolf, but he is showing all the other werewolf traits; his body is healthier than the average person, he prefers to eat meat and he heals with astonishing speed.  It is quite possible that the other victims will also be infected themselves.  Not all of the people attacked seven days ago died.”

“Hell,” the Secretary of State said.  “We could have an entire plague on our hands.”

She’d changed her tune, Caitlyn thought, now that the Secretary realised that the President believed Caitlyn’s report.  “It’s possible,” she admitted reluctantly.  “We are working to track down and isolate all of the victims, but we may not round them all up before the next full moon.  We’re also working on a test that will allow us to determine the presence of Lycanthropy.  However, this raises another legal issue: can werewolves be held legally accountable for their actions during the full moon?”

The President grimaced.  Caitlyn had hesitated to even mention the legal issue, but she'd known that she’d need an example to show how quickly the issue would become complicated.  Everyone seemed to have their own personal lawyer these days and, if someone was bitten by a werewolf, that person would definitely try to sue.  Which, of course, raised the issue of responsibility.  Exactly when could a werewolf be sued for biting someone and creating another werewolf?

“That isn't the only legal issue,” she added.  “The Healer we discovered and tested was an EMT, licence to practice medicine.  What happens if we discover a Healer who wasn't in the medical profession when they learned about their powers?  Should we charge them with practicing medicine without a licence?  Or should we insist that they take medical classes before they can use their gift...”

“God help us when the religious fundamentalists get hold of that,” someone muttered.  “Laying on of hands and all that...”

The President tapped the table.  “Can werewolves be held legally accountable for their actions?”

Caitlyn – and Matt – had given the question some thought.  “The interviews we conducted with the born werewolves were inconclusive,” she said.  “One of them stated that he’d been angry all day before the moon rose, for no apparent reason; the other remembered nothing until the bloodlust began to rise.  Afterwards, neither of them remembered why they were covered in blood.  One was picked up by the police on suspicion of murder; the other actually called the police, convinced that something terrible had happened.

“Looking at it, it seems that they lost control completely to the bloodlust,” she continued.  “As such, they might not be legally liable for what they do, but they could be committed to an asylum because they present a danger to everyone else when they lose control.  But...we make knowingly infecting someone else with AIDS a crime.  We could criminalise spreading Lycanthropy the same way.  Someone who knew they were a werewolf could be held accountable if they didn't take reasonable precautions to ensure that they posed no risk to others.”

“And what constitutes reasonable precautions?”  The National Security Advisor said.  “Should we advise them to go to jail for the night?  Or chain themselves to the floor?  Or simply lock the door in a manner that paws can't undo?”

“We don't know,” Caitlyn admitted.  “We’re hoping to get better data from the next full moon, when the werewolves in custody will change again.  But I’m afraid that there will be problems if we don’t try to round up the werewolves before it’s too late.”

“The civil rights groups will love that,” the Secretary of Defence said.  “They’re the ones who bitched about keeping terrorist suspects under surveillance – and all of those suspects did something that attracted our attention.  Werewolves didn't do anything to become werewolves, did they?”

“Not as far as we know,” Caitlyn admitted.  “It’s a mystery.”

The whole issue of just what was changing the world remained an unanswered question.  One of the internet posters she’d read had ranted and raved about junk DNA in the human body suddenly activating, but he hadn't sounded like a very knowledgeable man.  He still thought that the appendix was useless, which would have been considered true ten years ago.  Doctors now knew that the appendix operated as a safe house for bacteria, among other things.  It was vaguely possible that the genes to turn someone into a werewolf still existed in the human body, but that raised the question of just where they’d come from in the first place.  And, for that matter, how they forced a body to warp into a giant wolf.

“It’s a public health issue,” the Attorney General said.  “We do have emergency protocols in place that we could use to round them up and hold them, purely for their own safety.”

“Which were meant for a biological warfare attack,” the unnamed officer pointed out.  “We’re not considering quarantining a city or locking down the entire country, but individuals; individuals who have done nothing to deserve bad treatment.”

Caitlyn relaxed slightly as the debate wore on, even though the politicians were more worried about the political impact of the crisis than the scientific or practical concerns it raised.  Or, for that matter, the philosophical questions.  Kaleen could heal the sick.  Did that mean that she had been touched by God?  

“This matter must be discussed at length,” the President said, finally.  Caitlyn kept her face expressionless with some difficulty.  The matter had already been discussed for nearly an hour already.  “Agent Lyle, you can go relax in the side room, if you wish.  We’ve kept you on your feel long enough.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Caitlyn said.  

It didn't take an idiot to know that they wanted her out of the room, probably so they could discuss her future.  She stepped outside and, unsurprisingly, encountered a Secret Service agent who escorted her into the side room, where she went to the toilet and wiped her forehead.  She’d been sweating hard enough to ruin her make-up, but she hadn’t even noticed.  

There was no internet connection in the side room, so she picked up a notepad and started writing notes to herself, considering the future.  She’d told the President that she’d seen the big picture, but she was sure that she was still only seeing a tiny fraction of the reality.  Nine deaths had been reported in Britain at Stonehenge, just before she entered the White House.  Were they just another outbreak of whatever craziness was sweeping the world, or were they completely unrelated to everything else?  She was thinking – after reading reports of strange lights and stranger sightings near places of ancient power – of recommending that whoever took command of the task force ordered them isolated.  Too many people had died already with no clear explanation.  

Surprisingly, it was Tomlinson who came to call her, nearly an hour after she’d entered the side room to wait.  The second surprise was that most of the people who had attended the meeting had left, leaving only the President and a single uniformed officer in the room.  Caitlyn hesitated, unsure of where to go, until the President nodded to a chair sitting near him.  Tomlinson took one further down the table.

“I will be addressing the nation tomorrow,” the President said, “concerning the crisis.  I will appeal for potential werewolves – and others with supernatural talents – to come forward and identify themselves to the government, where we can help them explore their new abilities in a safe location.”

“And exploit them, if possible,” Tomlinson said.  “If werewolves could learn to tame themselves, just think of the soldiers they’d make.”

“However, I have also decided that we must avoid the shambles that normally results when several different governmental agencies start trying to fight over who takes the lead,” the President added.  “I will not have another 9/11 on my hands.  The infighting back then was quite bad enough.  For the moment, you will serve as the Director of an inter-agency task force that will take the lead.  You have the clearance to handle the situation, reporting directly to me.  Should someone try to start squabbling anyway, feel free to slap them down.”

Caitlyn swallowed.  She’d never really considered that she would be placed in command, even though she had to admit that it was logical.  And she was expendable, as far as the FBI’s leadership was concerned.  No doubt there had been some political horse-trading while she’d been out of the room.  It wouldn't be the first time some poor sap had been pushed into the line of fire to cover a superior ass or two.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” she said, finally.  “I won’t let you down.”

Chapter Eleven

Washington DC, USA
Day 8

“I really don’t understand how this works.”

Doctor Linda Roseburg was, according to the Defence Intelligence Agency, one of the foremost researchers in the country.  Matt had read the unclassified portion of her file and had to admit that the Doctor was clearly a genius.  And, unlike a couple of other researchers, willing to open her mind more to encompass Golem’s existence.  One particular researcher had looked at Golem and decided that he couldn't possibly exist.

“I think we’re going to have that feeling for quite some time,” Matt said, finally.  The task force had rounded up as many researchers as it could on very short notice, but they’d had to borrow FBI and DIA research labs until they could move to a disused military base well away from civilians.  “What’s wrong with him?”

Linda snorted.  “You mean apart from the fact he really shouldn’t be able to live?”

She shook her head.  “We do x-rays and they reveal that his body is almost completely made of clay, apart from the bones, which appear to be made of stone.  We can’t pull out a sample for analysis because every attempt we’ve made to cut into his skin – if we can call it skin – heals within seconds.  There’s no logical reason why he should be able to walk and talk, let alone work magic.”

“A wizard did it,” Matt said, deadpan.  

“So he says,” Linda agreed.  “On the other hand, they used to prove that bumblebees couldn't fly.  And bumblebees clearly can fly, so there was something wrong with the research.”

Matt nodded, impatiently.  Golem had put up with being poked and prodded with far more patience than a human, although he had seemed doubtful of the value of the whole endeavour.  As he didn't need to sleep, he was rotated between medical researchers, who studied his physical makeup, and historians who wanted to learn about the past world that history had forgotten.  And, as the researchers invented tests for magical research, he cast spells for their experiments.

“It gets more confusing,” Linda admitted.  “He has two different camouflage spells, both of which make him look human.  The first one fools human minds, but not security cameras; the second fools security cameras as well.  Our best theory is that the first spell works directly on the human mind, therefore not fooling mechanical surveillance devices, while the second creates a false image.  How long is it going to be until humans develop such magic for themselves?”

“Not long, according to Golem,” Matt said, grimly.  Golem was vastly knowledgeable about some issues, but surprisingly ignorant about others.  Or maybe it wasn't too surprising; he’d been ripped from his world, where he’d known how everything functioned, and dumped into a world that had to be very alien to his eyes.  “And does mana interfere with technology?”

Linda hesitated.  “We’re not sure,” she said.  “So far, Golem’s mere existence doesn’t seem to cause problems with our technology, unless the frankly baffling results of x-rays come from magical interference.  We’ve been checking for reports of technological failure and suchlike all around the world, but nothing has popped up that suggests that technology is about to fail.  However, when he works a major spell, something interferes slightly with our detectors.”

“That doesn't sound good,” Matt said.

“Neither does EMP, and that is perfectly understandable,” Linda said, firmly.  “Mana – or rather using mana – presumably produces some energy, just like burning oil produces heat and fumes.  Given time, we may be able to detect magic at long distance, particularly after we puzzle out the laws of science that govern magic.  But that’s quite some time away.”

“Wonderful,” Matt muttered.  The President’s speech had shocked the world – and unleashed a wave of panic.  Everyone had heard the reports about werewolves, and that would have been bad enough, but outright magic?  How could the law cope with someone who used Voodoo to strike down their enemies?  The Secret Service were already panicking over the dangers of someone trying to curse the President.  “Could we detect a magician if we tried?”

“Eventually, yes,” Linda said, “but the laws don’t seem to quite make sense.  We seem to be able to detect something when the spell is actually cast, yet we can't pick up anything when the spell is functioning.  We’re still fighting over just how this works, even without the elves and dwarfs.”

Matt had to smile.  One idea Caitlyn had been able to put into action quickly had been to round up every fantasy writer in Washington and invite them to join the research program as theorists.  They’d rapidly divided into two groups; the elves, who believed that magic existed in harmony with nature, and the dwarfs, who believed that magic could be rendered comprehensible, and then functional.  It didn't help that the elves tended to believe in a bucolic paradise without the presence of dirty technology, while the dwarfs took a more cynical view of the universe.  Judging from Golem’s patient lectures, the world that had birthed him had been far from ideal for the vast majority of humanity.  Those who had been able to manipulate mana had all the power.

He was still mulling the concept over an hour later, as he joined Golem in one of the testing chambers.  The FBI normally used them for analysing compounds mixed together by terrorists, knowing that some compounds might be unstable and explode if handled badly, but this time it was being outfitted for scientific research.  Golem waited patiently as the researchers set up all kinds of equipment and then cast the flame spell on demand.  A tiny column of fire rose up from his clay hand and danced towards the ceiling, almost hypnotically.  

“Interesting,” Linda said, studying the readings from the various sensors.  “The fire doesn't seem to be behaving normally at all.  And there was a surge of heat before the flames flickered into existence.”

Matt glanced over at her.  “What does it mean?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Linda said.  She looked up at him and grinned.  “Cutting-edge research, officer.  Who knows where we will be tomorrow?”

She raised her voice as the fire died away.  “That’s good, Golem,” she said.  “Can you do the water spell now?”

Matt looked over at Golem with interest.  From what he’d said, apprentices to the various sorcerers had learned the fire and water spells before all others, at least when they’d developed their magic and started their formal training.  Matt could understand why they might want the two spells to be mastered quickly – they both held the promise of disaster if they went wrong – but he had the uneasy feeling that it wouldn't be easy to teach others.  Golem simply didn't know what his creator had taken for granted.

“Very interesting,” Linda mused, a moment later.  Golem had created a small stream of water that had risen up into the air, and then splashed down on the floor.  Unlike the fire spell, the water spell had taken nearly a minute to work properly.  “According to the sensors, the level of moisture in the air dropped sharply just after Golem started working magic.  I wonder if the spell really concentrated the water molecules in the air to the point where they could become visible.”

Matt saw the implications at once.  “If the room had been completely dry,” he said, “the spell might not have worked at all.”

“Or it might have sucked moisture out of our bodies,” Linda said.  “Or perhaps it would have started transmuting the atmosphere into water droplets.”

The scientists who were attached to the research program – and therefore knew that Golem existed – were still in deep denial over some of the spells Golem’s creator had been able to cast.  Golem himself – a thinking being, even if he wasn't human – was extraordinary, but they had had the concept of artificial intelligence to work with to help wrap their heads around the problem.  However, Golem had mentioned both transmutation and transfiguration – and the latter, in particular, messed with their minds.  What possible version of reality allowed a wizard to turn a man into a toad?

Some of the other implications were just as startling.  They’d had to explain to Golem that diamonds were expensive, after a misunderstanding involving a research assistant who had been wearing what Golem had taken to be a magic ring.  After some questioning, they’d realised that diamond was little more than altered coal and, back in the past, it had been easy for even a poor mage to create his own diamonds.  It had magical uses – much to the delight of some of the elves, who had been talking about the healing power of crystals – but it hadn't had much worth.  Given time, Matt was sure that some magician from the modern world was going to start trying to sell diamonds or gold and make himself rich before the world caught on.  

“I think there may be several different sets of laws, depending on what you’re doing,” Linda said, finally.  “It may be years before we have a grand unifying theory of magic.”

Leaving her to continue her research, Matt headed to the office that had been set aside for Caitlyn.  Her appointment as head of the task force – which some of the more disrespectful agents had taken to calling the Mage Force – had kept her busy as she tried to set up research programs, outreach programs and coordinate with law-enforcement officers around the country.  She’d even had to work with officers from other countries, which hadn't been quite so bad as working with lawyers.  A woman had been bitten during the first werewolf outbreak and, unlike some of the others, had been infected herself.  She was now trying to sue the werewolf who’d bit her for everything he owned.

“Come on in,” Caitlyn said, putting down the phone.  “Did they come up with a working test for werewolves?”

Matt nodded.  He’d been feeling out of place in the FBI complex – he knew very little about scientific research – but Caitlyn had pointed out that she needed someone to keep an eye on the scientists.  Theory was all very well and good, yet they needed something practical, something they could use to get the country through a very uncomfortable period.  And then there was the threat of the Thirteen.  It hadn't taken too long to establish that Golem didn't know where they’d been imprisoned, something that had puzzled Matt until one of the researchers deduced that they’d been sealed away in a set of pocket dimensions.  The implication was that they could appear anywhere.

“All of the known werewolves have the same substance in their blood,” he said, by way of explanation.  “God alone knows where it comes from” – Golem hadn't been able to assist with that question – “but it seems to be lacking in some of the bite victims.  The general theory is that they escaped infection, although we’ll be keeping them under observation until the next full moon has come and gone.”

Caitlyn scowled.  Keeping innocent civilians under lock and key didn't sit well with her, even though there was little choice.  The government had done what it could to ensure that the civilians would be able to return to their lives, if they turned out not to be werewolves, but it wouldn't be enough.  No doubt the Bolsheviks had started out by rationalising their actions as for the greater good too.  

“One amusing point; one of the people who the police found naked in the great outdoors wasn’t a werewolf,” Matt added.  In hindsight, the police should have known when they’d tested him for alcohol and discovered that he’d drunk himself silly, if only because none of the werewolves seemed to be able to get drunk.  But they hadn't wanted to take chances.  “He doesn't have the werewolf factor in his blood.”

“That's something, at least,” Caitlyn said.  She looked down at the paperwork scattered over her desk.  “Has there been anything on why some people became werewolves?”

“Golem thinks that they were descended from werewolves who lived back when the mana was strong,” Matt said.  He’d said the same about the other warped humans, even the mermaids.  “The doctors keep asking how such traits could have been passed down for thousands of years without spreading to everyone.”

Caitlyn saw the implications at once.  “So we could all be werewolves, or mermaids, or vampires, or...”

“It’s a possibility,” Matt agreed.  He scowled; Golem had raised a point they should have seen earlier.  “They’re also not behaving as they did back in the past.  Golem says that werewolves without the ability to control themselves shifted during the nights of the full moon, not for just one day.  It’s possible that the werewolves and suchlike we saw now are only the ones who need a relatively low level of mana to transform.”

“Joy,” Caitlyn said, rubbing her forehead.  “Is there any more good news?”

“Maybe,” Matt said.  “The analysts started looking at the families of the known werewolves, trying to see if there were any patterns.  One pattern popped out very quickly; every one of the original werewolves came from a family that had some mixed blood.”

Caitlyn blinked.  “Mixed blood?”

“Their parents or grandparents had interracial marriages,” Matt explained.  “Katie Sheehan” – he shuddered at the memory – “had a Native American grandmother, for example, while Ambrose Jackson’s father is black.  It may be just a coincidence, but the researchers say it seems to be the only thing they have in common.”

“We’d better keep that one firmly to ourselves,” Caitlyn said.  “The last thing we need is to have everyone with mixed blood portrayed as a potential werewolf.”

“Some of the researchers have even weirder theories,” Matt added.  “One of them thinks that people with mixed blood become werewolves and suchlike because they combine two different strands of pure magic, while people with pure blood become proper magicians...”

Caitlyn snorted.  “That makes absolutely no sense,” she pointed out.  “Is that code for saying that white magic and black magic are two different things, and therefore they should never be allowed to breed?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said, “but Golem seemed to have real problems coming to grips with the idea of racism.  His society judged by talent and raw power, not skin colour.”

“Lucky them,” Caitlyn said.  Matt could imagine the challenges she’d faced climbing up the ranks of the FBI.  “What do you make of Golem, Mighty Hunter?”

Matt flushed.  Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what to make of Golem’s claim that he was a Hunter, descended from Hunters.  His family had never been anything special as far as he knew; his great-grandfather had left Ireland to emigrate to America, without bringing any records of his own ancestors.  But with Golem’s creation at least six thousand years in the past, an unimaginable span of time, it was hardly surprising that there were no records.  He didn't feel special at all.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, finally.  The psychologists who had studied Golem had reported that he wasn’t human.  When Matt had pointed out that humans were typically not made of clay, and they were wasting his time by pointing out the obvious, they’d explained that Golem didn't think like a human.  “I think he’s telling us the truth, as he knows it, but there are some pretty big gaps in his knowledge.”

“Starting with just what happened in the last days of magic,” Caitlyn mused.  There was a near-total disconnect between Golem’s world and the present day; apart from a handful of legends, Golem might as well have been talking about a fantasy world living at one remove from Earth.  “And with just what the Thirteen did to become immortal.”

One of the researchers had pointed out the flaw in Golem’s story, if it was a flaw.  The Thirteen had presumably made themselves immortal through magic, just as Golem himself enjoyed a kind of immortality.  But logically they should have died when the mana went away, unless their prison had allowed enough mana to leak through to keep them alive.  Golem’s creator had been convinced that they would survive, which was why he’d created Golem, but no one knew for sure.  They had to assume the worst.  

“We keep plugging away at the problem and we watch for signs of their return,” Matt said.  Golem had freely admitted that there wasn't enough mana – yet – to perform some of the more outrageous spells.  “And we keep working on protective tricks for society.”

Caitlyn nodded.  How did someone prove – legally – that Voodoo had been used to cause a person’s death?  The researchers had dug up a handful of cases from the British Empire in the Far East, but most of them had involved trickery rather than actual magic.  Or had there been just enough mana in the air to make them work?

“You need something else to do,” she said, dryly.  “Do you want to go to New York and try to track down whoever killed three kids in school?”

“Detective work,” Matt said, but he had to admit that she was right.  Golem had explained that young magicians manifested uncontrolled magic when they came into their powers and that it often led to injury – or death.  Some magical societies had even pushed their children into developing magic by putting them in life-threatening situations.  “Someone has to do it.”

“I’d go, if I could,” Caitlyn said.  She pointed to the paperwork.  “I used to think that the managers were out to bully us and steal all the credit from our hard work.  Now I look at the paperwork and I find it hard to blame them for being so crabby all the time.”

“Rather you than me,” Matt said.

“Asshole,” Caitlyn said, without heat.  “I’ll give you documents that should clear you to speak to everyone involved.  At least the President ensured that there won’t be any overt disbelief.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed.  “And the number of crazies will have gone upwards too.”