The Power of Ten

I slid over several pages of very white paper, upon which were written some very complex sigla in the Language Arcane in some very dark, very rich red blood... his own blood, which he had supplied to me to Write these spells.

The Mick pulled out a set of glasses that had nothing to do with fine eyesight, as Blooded didn’t suffer visual degradation with age, and looked the spells over slowly and somberly.

He said nothing as he studied the first one, moved on to the second, the third... and after a whole hour, finally finished with the seventh.

It was 4 AM. I didn’t much care, and he was born a night owl. There were plenty of Blooded of Fuilcroi in Detroit, the mishmash clan formed by survivors from other, destroyed clans of Blooded, now enthusiastically claiming and holding the city. With the blessing of Heavensbound Hall, as long as their conduct remained upright, no other clan dared to challenge them here.

Or rather, didn’t think of taking power here. Bloody conflicts with the Clans of the Tomb who had moved here to escape persecution in the shadow of the Hall and those outside the city who didn’t pass muster were not uncommon in the slightest, and occasionally their own fell to their inner demons and had to be dealt with, too. There were Withered, Glutton, White, and Juju Clans here, all finding places where they could work and live like normal folks, regardless of appearance, and without discrimination.

Indeed, given that their Racial Levels brought the least of them to Six, they were superior workers. The Juju made incredible line workers, able to do mindless tasks for hours without any difficulty, while the Whites and Withered made nigh-tireless general laborers... and despite their appearances, the Gluttons did extremely well in food service. A family of them ran the café we were in, and obviously knew The Mick well, refilling our cups quietly and withdrawing equally discreetly. There were plenty of alchemicals and magic to deal with their natural odors, and teaching them all the magic to do so was basically required in the modern age.

“Blood magic without corruption attached to it, all of them,” he said thoughtfully, looking over his little spectacles at me. He tapped the third and fifth set of pages. “These use positive energy. They have the feel of holy magic about them...”

“Martyrdom tends to involve a lot of blood. Of course, most martyrs don’t have Fast Healing.” He smirked acknowledgement of the fact.

He gathered up the spells calmly, noting that they were the perfect size to be bound into a standard Libram. “I can’t even cast four of these, lass...”

“Well, that’s partly because you’re Blooded, and it takes you more Karma to Level than others, and partly because you’re not studying the right kind of magic for you,” I agreed. “No reason not to give you a taste of what is coming.”

“This Blood Magery of yours.” He couldn’t hide his interest.

“I have to reach Five before I can break it down for you and instruct you in its essentials. Sorry, you’ll have to wait.”

“I have the feeling I won’t have to be waiting too long, all things considered,” he said agreeably. “I hear you have been selling some improved basic spells for significant amounts of income.”

“And I’ve already burned away over seventy goldweight on stuff. Money comes, money goes.” I tapped my finger. “Do the Blooded have their fingers in rubies?”

He grinned widely. “The Clans have fingers everywhere, but rubies are by far the favored gems of the Blooded clans, so they do deal in them widely. Are you looking for pigeon’s-blood rubies or somesuch?”

“Actually, I’m personally looking for about this size worth of crappy ones.” I made a Holo of an orb about the size of a tennis ball.

He blinked. “Junk rubies?” he confirmed archly.

“Specifically, ones with the potential to be red, but mixed with impurities.”

He laid heavy, dark eyes on me. “You have a way to refine out the impurities,” he muttered under his breath, and I grinned despite myself. “And dare I ask... does that appreciate the goldweight value?”

“Oh, my, yes. Often by an order of magnitude or more.”

He studied my smile. “There’s more. Ye’re beyond eating shit with that smile. Yer pissing champagne and puking caviar.”

“Stone Shape properly Heightened to a V Slot can affect gemstones.”

He looked at me, then looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, lips moving without saying anything. “Ye’re giving me the chance to make a LOT of money, then.”

“You’re going to need it.”

“That’s true!” he agreed immediately. “How much capital do I have to work with?”

“How much do you need?” I inquired.

“Crap gemstones aren’t that hard to get ahold of. I can probably get a pickup full of poor diamonds, emeralds, sapphire, rubies, and amethysts if you have the money. If it’s low on the goldweight scale, they only want to get rid of the stuff.”

“An immediate ten to one, up to a hundred or more to one, a thousand in rare cases, return on investment...”

“And... you’ve got to be able to cast a V Slot spell, which, what, five people on the planet can do right now? And they don’t even know that spell?” He was studying me intensely.

“Six, seven weeks away.”

“Fuck me running!” he blurted out. “Is that even possible?”

“If my Bloodline wasn’t jerking me around like an arse, I could do it in two weeks!” I declared with feeling, and he just looked at me and the two monster heads I didn’t have, wondering what he was dealing with here.

“Okay. The best thing, then, is to set up a long-term supply at low prices, so that when they realize their crap is potentially worth a lot of money, we can still get it cheap... or can stockpile a bunch of it. That is going to take serious money.”

I passed him over a card. He took it, and winced despite himself. “That little knee-biter?” he asked when he saw Pogagee’s name. “Do you know how dangerous a businessman he is?”

“Nobody on the Council of Heavenbound Hall is a pushover, Lord Mick.”

“Mmm, on that I will agree. The number of folk who direly wish it would drop off the face of the Earth so they could go about their business normally is impressive, you might say.”

I had to smile. “The number of people Heavenbound Hall would likewise like to send Down is likewise somewhat impressive, but they have a sense of restraint and hope such will see the error of their ways.”

He put his hands together and bowed his head like a good Catholic boy, the picture of piety in white and red.

“Rise, Lord Mick, honorable defender of the worthy souls of Clan Fuilcroi!” I promptly proclaimed, having gotten better at social repartee in the last few weeks miraculously. “You probably have some business to attend to outside...”

“Cha!” he muttered, barely glancing aside, but the neo-ghoul behind the counter stopped wiping it and smoothly headed back into the kitchen. I noticed the wall there was pretty damn solid. Was that armor plate?

“How many times has this place been blown out?” I had to ask.

“Six, seven?” he answered with a shrug. “How far back do you want to go?” he grinned.

“What are you looking at?” I had to ask.

“At a guess, some rash Night Prowlers, but let me see.” He drew a Baneskull out of the flat coat of his white jacket, and fit it over the pommel of the not-a-warsaber-it’s-a-katana-fool that never left his side. The distinctly wolf-shaped Skull shrank down and fused to it, and a dark red light glimmered from inside the scabbard as he kept his hand on it.

“Six of them. Two are in wolf form in the back of the truck, two and two in the front.” He looked thoughtful. “Elder Fangs, most like.”

“Two different Great Packs? Here for you?”

He rolled his eyes. “I was involved in a bit of enforcement-business that went all kinds of sideways when the Owl Woman woke up a few bit of years ago.”

“Owl Woman...” Yeah, I’d been doing a lot of history-binging, especially post-WWII. The public stuff before then wasn’t any different than the history of Terra-Luna, but the secret stuff hadn’t existed back there, either. I had no idea how histories were so similar if actual vampires were alive here, even if they were incredibly reclusive... “The Walking Forest in Iowa? You were there?”

“Aye. So was Sama. I went down there on business after she forged my Sword for me. Saw the whole thing start off, and was smart enough to drive straight away from it. Happily, three of the natives decided that chasing me down after they finally started to run was a thing, and I got three Baneskulls out of them.”

“Generous of them,” I noted. “So, they don’t know what really happened, they only know you were there, and they just want to talk and ask some questions. Whereupon they’ll find out you took out three of their own, and just kill a wormy neo-corpse like you?”

“You have experience with werewolf political inclinations?” he asked brightly. I just rolled my eyes.

“Elder Fangs, why?”

“They were involved with what went down, and lost a few of their own. Plus they loathe humanity in general, so they might get to kill a few livestock here in the city, far away from their lands, and then run away.”

“Man, did they pick the wrong place to show up.” I shook my head.

“Oh?” He looked at me and my knowing smile. “You have a security detail following your precious, precious self around?” he had to ask.

“Master Fred is pretty discreet, and Sleipner moreso, but what do you think the chances are that the two of them haven’t noticed there’s some non-native werewolves sitting there waiting for something?”

“Given he’s been hanging around your precocious goldmill of a self, I shall render a firm opinion that it is less than the dirt under me mother’s nails.”

“And then he shalt turn upon them the Eyes of Heaven, weigh the hue of the Sins upon their souls, and pass judgement upon them.” I lifted my left arm, which had a silver, gold, and platinum bracer there, all done up in holy Signs, Seals, and Scriptures... and a single row of three Seals which definitely weren’t holy.

“He’s pretty much decided that the wolves are going to die,” I informed the Mick, as I flicked up seven Shards, ROYGBIV, burning with all sorts of nastiness around my hand. He politely averted his eyes so they wouldn’t start tearing.

The Bracer glowed, and my Shards vanished.

The next second, a forked bolt of eldritch Wrath, festooned and shot through with considerably more lights than normal, blew through the side of the pick-up’s cap. It hit the vague shadows inside, which lit up MUCH more clearly in the next second as a whole bunch of deadly and hostile energies tore through them.

The Mick clapped in approval, even as the four men in the front of the pickup bailed out, starting to get furry, and then checked that as their heads turned to follow the arcing path of the motorcycle coasting down and around through the air above and past them, taking up position ten feet off the ground on the other side of the parking lot.

Master Fred, eyes glowing with The Light, Grit in one hand, Idiot in the other, sat up there on Sleipner, staring down on them. They could only look up into the flashlights that were his eyes, gawking and wincing and looking away. His Aura of Menace would be pressing down with a whole bunch of Aw Shitness to make them rethink their choices in life...