Blinded Eyes and Broken Moments
22st of July 2006 A.D.
After a moment's thought you give a fair accounting of the powers you are likely to use in a duel, not only are you likely to use them in a duel thus making any secrecy moot, but if Marcone interrogated Ace and his ilk Gard would know about all of that already. When it comes to subtler arts though... "I have some skill in divinination enough that I can track Katrina's car in real time."
Lost 1 Essence
"Her car, not her?" Gard asks with what sounds like nothing more then professional interest.
"Her car is a several ton hunk of steel hurtling through the air at speeds that few things that large do in nature. It disturbs the ambient magic a
wee bit more than she does." That is technically true even if it's not how you track the Black Rider.
You had been a little worried your dad would give the game away, but he keeps his poker face firmly in place and your new ally does not seem suspicious. She launches into an account of her own prowess, bluntly explaining that she is skilled enough with an axe to have sent many people to their gods as well as being a fair shot with a gun. In terms of magic, what she terms seid Gard prefers warding and protection, being able to deflect spells and curses raise and empower circles as well as cut off her enemies from her magic, though she is just as frank with the limitation of the last one. "I think Katrina and whatever maggot-master she has with her are beyond my power to seal away from their magic."
Lastly she is able to cast a Ward of Warning if you have time to prepare the battleground, basically a ward that instinctively drives ordinary people away from the warded place while also guiding them a little as to the easiest and safest way out. So not only will it not drive someone into oncoming traffic, but it would even make them avoid hidden dangers like landmines.
Part of you is really curious as to when she had to fight with magic next to landmines, but this is not the time for twenty questions you have an enemy to deal with.
"In her mortal life Katrina was a seer as well, far did she see and subtle was her mind, yet as her sight grew stronger, her bitterness grew also, she saw herself going down the cold halls of ages made less than she was, less than she had been promised while the people of Midgard forgot us, while the memory of gods twisted into giants and trolls like an old tree gnarled in poisoned soil. Like a cup with poison she was filled all in secret..."
The blonde woman looks down at the table as though the worn plastic holds the secrets of the universe, then she shakes her head and in a voice even softer explains. "Katrina wished for more than the wisdom of seeing the threads the Norn's weave, she wished to hold them in her hands, to change and to warp them. But what seid we may master is not our choice, not even the Allfather's. Yet in the end she found a way though it cost her station and her honor. She killed three of our sisters and anointed herself with their blood in black rites I do not know the name of nor do I wish to. She gained powers over time, among the rarest and most perilous of magics. Firstly she can entrance the weak of will by changing their perception of time so that they waste minutes in what seems to them an instant, secondly even a strong warrior who faces her might see her limbs slowed as in encased in lead or even halted altogether as if they had been turned to stone. This she can do in and instant, be one veiled even in the arts of Loki himself. "
"Er... wow," you breathe, used to being the one with the magical bullshit rather than facing it. "So if she freezes you how do you get unfrozen. Does it take a spell or...?"
"The lightest touch can break the spell thankfully, anything more than a raindrop. That is the reason why it is a fool's errand to attack her without trusted allies at your back and likely the reason why she decided to come to Chicago now. None of my sisters are available to help until Tuesday at the earliest. Perhaps Katrina thought I would not dare confront her with only mortal allies at my back, or perhaps she hoped so. Katrina never had much respect for mortals."
"So she cannot simply trap multiple foes at once?" you dad asks.
"She can, but it is more difficult for her and she does not have eyes on the back of her head no matter how quick she is to react," Gard explains grimly, though there is a gleam of something bright almost hungry in her eyes, the hope of vengeance after who knows how many years.
"How is she in a fight without the time-warping bu... er nonsense?" you ask, as though you had tripped over your tongue. To be fair you do that from time to time, but now you get the sense hat seeming young is one way to get Gard to open up a bit more.
"Skilled enough to hold me off for a while, not skilled enough to best me." The tone makes you suspect she had the opportunity to test that at some point.
You nod thoughtfully, trying to take another sip of the Coke only to realize it's empty. "I don't suppose you have a better guess of what might be with her other than 'necromancers'."
Gard can only shake her head. "It very much depends on what her task here is, but you can be sure she will have allies with her of one sort or another."
"Her task is to consume the Eldest Ankou. I don't suppose you've met..." You have some suspicions about Lydia, but that's all they are and you would rather have someone without your... aura initiate diplomacy.
"Ankou... those are Mab's death guards right? I haven't met their leader no."
Darn, there goes that idea. After explaining what you understand and that you had seen of Matthews' magic you ask one more question: "What does the Wanderer do these days?"
For the firs time in the conversation Gard smiles, though the twitch of her lips is gone so fast you might have imagined it. She hands you a business card with marked with a circle bisected by a straight line.
Omega and Iota overlapped, you realize looking more closely, every last detail, but it also kind of looks like an eye and a cut over it, the blind and all-seeing eye. The card also have an address in thick gothic lettering and of course a phone number. "I'd rather let him explain it, he's better at it than me"
"In other words it is likely her patron has a proposition for you, but one she does not wish to make before your sire," Usum hisses in the back of your mind.
"Thanks," you quickly put Odin's business card in your purse. you would be lying if you said you are not curious. That still sounds surreal to think... but probably not as much as it should.
What do you do next?
[] Search for Cindy with the Crown if you can get her out Katrina loses her leverage on Matthews
[] All this talk of old Welsh spirits turned winter's fixers make you think of Lydia and in particular her globetrotting father. This is probably not how Daniel anticipated introducing his girlfriend to dad, but needs must
[] Ask Gard if Marcone would be inclined to lend a hand, from the sound of things more bodies will at least distract Katrina and might divide her power
[] Try to ambush Katrina by her car, you know where it is and by all appearances she does not know you know
[] Write in
OOC: Not all the answers you guys hoped for, but more than you had preciously. 
