David West had spent the st several hours writing code to protect Sandra’s sister, FBI agent Amanda Prescher, from discovery by the evil Elgarin, and had emailed the code to the work email accounts of both himself and his roommate Malcolm Eisenstein. He decided to grab dinner on his home world before returning to Sandra’s native world Pyrroth, when his cell phone rang. It took him a few seconds to remember what that sound was, but when he did, he answered it and heard: “Dave? We need to locate that guy from the other night, the one who chased us after the game at Hendrix’s.”
“Hi, Malcolm,” David replied, “I am not sure how much help I can be with that. I never saw the guy, for one thing. For another, to get a sympathetic magic search, I would need something he handled, like that evil knife. For a third, I would probably have to log into the server directly if he is not at the prison closest to where you met him.”
Malcolm was a little defted. “So, unless you could pull his image from one or more of our brains, the only way we will locate him is through some ridiculous stroke of luck?”
“Yeah, I ... hey, is the line ringing? Did you activate a conference…”
“Hello? I do not know how you got this number, but you have fifteen seconds to either expin yourself or hang up before this call gets traced back to you and you run into all sorts of trouble!” A woman’s voice announced ftly.
“Wait, is that Aman… ah Special Agent Amanda Prescher? This is David West…”
“And Malcolm.”
“What the heck? I only gave you guys my work number, not this one... how did you get this?”
“I think it is because I am a Trickster,” Malcolm offered after a few seconds of silence.
There were a few more seconds of silence and then both of the young men heard a sharp, barking ugh. “That tracks. You know, dad was convinced that the Trickster would be a woman and the World Walker a man from the other side. He was freaking brilliant but he sucked at reading prophecy it seems. But why are you calling my personal number at this hour?”
Malcolm chimed in with: “we need to talk to the guy who was chasing us the other night, Daniels or Donahue or whatever his name really is.”
“The guy with the demon weapon? I hear he is being shipped out to Interpol tomorrow, because he only has a half dozen outstanding warrants in the US and over thirty between Europe and the Middle East.”
“Exactly. We need to know if he targeted Audrey intentionally two years ago when he dated her briefly. And if he works for Elgarin or if there is another pyer we need to worry about.”
“Mmm. And if I could get a location for you - and that is a big if - you would need to take me along. How would you get there?”
“Audrey can probably cover any transportation needs, especially since you had her car fixed,” Malcolm said, after a questioning gnce at Audrey resulted in a nod.
“Yeah, that could work. Stay by your phone.” And she hung up.
“David, you think you can get over here, or should we come get you?”
“Send me the address. I can leave my car keys with you when we’re done.”
“Done,” Malcolm said, hanging up and texting him the address.
About ten minutes ter there was a knock on the door. Pickles sat up at attention as Malcolm went to answer it. He was a little surprised to see: “Special Agent Prescher? Thought you would call first.”
“Was going to, but remembered I set up the stone to allow me to travel to the car whenever I might need to, so here I am.”
The cat walked slowly towards her and made a “mwow” sound. Amanda knelt down to pet her and Pickles jumped back and ran to Audrey. “Don't read anything into that,” Audrey said, “it’s her normal reaction to strangers.”
“She probably smells my dogs anyway,” Amanda replied, smiling.
Malcolm was about to close the door when he saw Dave’s car pull up and decided to wait outside for him.
“Hey, dude, sorry to be keeping you here so long,” he said in greeting to his roommate.
“Not a problem. Got nothing important to do until midday tomorrow anyway.”
“Oh, right you two have to stay apart. Man that sucks. Tomorrow they test to see if she is pregnant, right?”
“Yeah. Things will change after tomorrow. Hopefully in our favor,” David replied as they both walked in. Pickles jumped up on all fours when David entered the house, arched her back, and hissed, then fled the room.
Audrey looked surprised but Amanda said: “cats can sense magic auras. His is very strong, and a little confusing, not like Mal’s which is oddly comforting, or the ones you and I exude which are both minor except when our powers are immediately active, and they love Healers. She would probably also run away from a Battle Sister but then creep back cautiously out of curiosity. Anyway, I am going to try something and if it works, we should be good to go “
She had spread out a map on a coffee table, took a small “pocket” drone out of her purse and fired up an app on her phone. The drone purred to life, lifted up and flew over the coffee table. It circled the table in a series of patterns that looked vaguely familiar to David, and then it dove down, and literally disappeared into the map.
“Air, Earth and Spirit?” David mused aloud.
Amanda nodded while fumbling with the controls on her phone and a clear image appeared. She then tapped something on the phone case and a three-dimensional projection of the area around the drone materialized above the screen. “This shows the area just beyond the security cameras. This is where we need to warp in and then drive to the main building. My credentials will get us past the front gate but unless one of you can py a convincing wyer, I am not sure how much farther than that we will be able to get.”
“Malcolm’s sister is a wyer. I think, between us we can fake being international attorneys for a few minutes. I may need to upgrade our clothes a bit though. Basic illusions should be sufficient.”
“Audrey, you and I will probably have to wait at the security checkpoint. Doubt they’ll let either of us accompany them.”
“Yeah,” the red head replied. “I can’t say I like it, but I understand. Well, everyone, get out to the car and let’s go to jail!”
