Knocking Over an Anthill
You sat in your car watching Cedric walking towards you. It was three in the morning, and he was disturbingly, unnaturally awake.
As he opened the passenger door and got inside, you wordlessly thrusted your hand towards him. He blinked, and his face split in a positively shit-eating grin.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You'd need to use your words if you want something from me."
You emitted a sound not unlike an angry wyvern in its death throes. He held your gaze for a few more seconds, grin still in place, but before you could move your hand to strangle him, he sighed and fetched you a flask from his bag.
You drank it greedily, and immediately could feel blessed wakefulness spreading over your body, washing away the cobwebs from your mind. A distilled, Platonic ideal of coffee bound in a physical form, bitter as lost love, strong as duty.
"You know you can just request this stuff, right?" he asked after taking the empty flask back from you. "Not to downplay my immense mastery over alchemical mysteries, but it's not exactly the immortality elixir you're drinking. There are plenty of people in the Cult who could brew it."
You shrugged. "The Cups know you're my Dagger, so they drag their feet whenever I request anything alchemy-related and suggest 'using assets at my disposal.' Even when what I request is actually beyond your abilities."
"At least someone has faith in me." Cedric sighed dramatically before giving you a sidelong glance. "So what is this about, anyway? I assume you didn't drag me out in this unReasonable hour just because of your caffeine addiction?"
"Yeah," you said, "there is a situation. We don't know yet how serious it is, though."
You started the car and started driving to give yourself a few moments to think over what to say.
"This evening, the police received a call from a distraught child, Nicolas Wells, talking about how his parents, Jonathan and Lucille Wells have 'disappeared into the hole in the basement'. Nicolas is in custody now, though he doesn't know much more than that. The police has sent Commissioner Bilsheim to investigate and-"
"Wait," Cedric interrupted. "That name is familiar."
You nodded. "Yeah, Bilsheim is unofficially in charge of investigating weird calls. Mostly mundane stuff, but he did stumble upon a few genuine unnatural phenomena, and we've decided it worthwhile to bring him in as an agent rather than dance around him with the usual distractions. I've worked with him before on a few cases. He doesn't know that much about the moonlit world, but he knows to call us up when he encounters something beyond his pay grade." You gave Cedric a sidelong glance. "Try to behave as if you're a part of a mysterious government agency dealing with spooky shit when you meet him."
"I
am a part of a mysterious sorta-government agency dealing with spooky shit," Cedric said in an affronted tone.
"Yes, but try to behave like that."
He gave you his most offended look, but you pretended not to notice it as you changed lanes.
"Anyway," you continued, "after he arrived, he discovered a steel reinforced door in the basement. It apparently took a few hours to crack. The door led to an unnaturally long staircase ending in another door covered in what he described as 'occult symbols'. He quickly cordoned the place off, told no one to go in, and called us."
You stopped at the red light and turned to watch Cedric, awaiting his response.
"Okay." He frowned. "So, a scary door in a spooky basement. That's not much to go on. Do we know anything more? Like where that staircase could lead? Is the house built near some secret tunnels that could be reached with some digging or something?"
"Nothing like that that we know of." You shrugged. "But there is indeed more," you said in the tone of a magician preparing to show off your next trick. "For you see, before Jonathan and Lucille
Wells moved in, it was the residence of none other than Edmond Wells himself!"
At Cedric's blank look, you deflated and sighed with the weight of ages and mysteries long forgotten on your shoulders.
"...Who was before your time, I suppose, so you missed all the drama he brought to the Cult. In short, he was a pretty bright Pentacle who, among other things, have contributed to the refinement of the Phantom Engine by utilizing several select cathedrals as focal points of the divination spell, but, more importantly, he was a legendary asshole and managed an impressive feat of alienating virtually every other Pentacle he ever worked with. He's driven Raoul Razorback himself out of the Cult-" Another blank look from Cedric. "-and one day I'll explain to you why it's impressive. Eventually, he's pissed off enough of his superiors that he was forced to retire. Shortly after, he died from being stung by a whole hive of bees."
At that, finally, Cedric's eyes went wide. "Whoa, he really stung someone then."
You gave him a dark look. He beamed at you. "Yeah, well. There was an investigation, of course, but it was very clearly a token effort. Richard told me that his then-superiors all but openly stated they didn't want to know the culprit's name."
For a few moments, you drove in silence, contemplating the fragility of life among dwellers of the moonlit world who insist on offending people capable of controlling bees with their minds.
"Okay," Cedric said eventually. "Does the 'token effort' cover why that spooky door wasn't found after Edmond's death?"
You frowned. "No, not quite. It probably contributed, but his home was investigated, and nothing was found. The door was either hidden or didn't exist back then."
"How plausible is it that he's managed to conceal his atelier from the Swords?"
"He specialized in divination magecraft," you said. "Scrying and protection from it. As I said, he worked on the Phantom Engine. So, yeah, it's possible he's erected some kind of defense that fooled us back then, but has now decayed."
"So it could just be an accident? A boundary field giving up the ghost, people stumbling in and getting stuck? Wait, no, they're his family, right? Are they magi?"
You shook your head. "They were never initiated to our knowledge. As for your guess, yeah, that's the best case scenario."
A couple moments passed in silence before Cedric deigned to take your bait. "And the worst case?"
"Undead magus," you said dramatically. "Waiting to exact revenge on the Cult for rejecting his genius."
Cedric looked at you with suspicion. "Huh, you aren't joking."
You shrugged. "It's a possibility. A knowledgeable rogue magus who had a few years to develop his craft away from the eyes of the Cult… There are things he could have done to himself in that time."
"So, what can we expect from him in this scenario?"
You tapped your finger on the wheel, gathering your thoughts. "Edmond's greatest ambition was to create an Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge, a mystic code that was supposed to open a path to Akashic Record for him. If he were to complete it, he would have access to any knowledge he desired. Even incomplete, it would presumably be a powerful divination tool of unknown capabilities."
"Wait, isn't the search for Akasha, like, forbidden for the Cult members?"
You shrugged. "Not so much forbidden as frowned upon. The search for the Root is a distraction from real, tangible work we could be doing in the world we're living in. The chances of success are minuscule, and there is no evidence that the magi who purportedly reached it - the so-called Invisible Clergy - are actually capable of doing anything or even remain conscious. All reports of their influence on the world can just as easily -
more easily - be attributed to coincidences.
"But it's a very attractive distraction for the kind of magi who become Pentacles, so it's tolerated so long as you keep it on the level of a personal project and don't divert too many of the Cult's resources to it. And Edmond was good on that front, at least, probably because he was habitually secretive when not bragging about how he's going to overturn modern conception of magecraft any day now."
"Huh," Cedric said. "He sounds like he'd be at home in the Clocktower. Kinda surprising he didn't sell out to them after retirement."
You focused on the road ahead, studiously not looking at Cedric.
"Well, there are certain precautions we take to avoid such things from high-ranking members who can't be trusted." You could feel Cedric's gaze burning the side of your face, so you quickly continued. "Perhaps more importantly to our case, though, Edmond was taken by grand projects. Aside from divination, he was fascinated by architecture, by weaving spells into the foundations of buildings and street layout. He was a great admirer of Le Corbusier-" You both shuddered involuntarily. "-and sought to incorporate his ideas into our work with ley lines.
"Those kinds of projects require collaboration, cooperation of dozens of magi bending their power to a singular purpose. It's not something you can find among the egoistic Lords of Clocktower or their flankies. For all that he loathed every single colleague he had in the Cult, he also needed them."
"Maybe that's why he loathed them," Cedric said thoughtfully. "A guy thinking himself a lone genius above all others and yet relying on them to make his visions come true."
"Maybe." You sighed. "In any case, that about covers his specializations. Divination of all kinds, architecture, boundary fields. There
shouldn't be anything too dangerous there unless that staircase is deep enough to reach depth where darkness takes form and unravels Reason, but that's a remote possibility. Edmond was still a Cult member, after all, he wouldn't want to play with primordial forces like that."
"Well, now you went and jinxed it," Cedric said, but you could tell his heart wasn't in it. "So, what's the plan?"
"We go in, evacuate the people from the apartments using the standard gas leak cover, then go investigate the door. If we're dealing with Edmond Wells himself, we can assume he knows we're coming, so there is no need to conceal our presence. Don't forget to project your Voice into the environment: if there are any illusions brought about by boundary fields, that would thwart them. Keep an eye on any surprises, but-"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Cedric went so far as to flail his hand in the air in his interruption. "Wait. You're saying it's an apartment complex? I thought it was a family house or possibly a mansion or something. What kind of magus conducts his probably-revenge-driven sinister experiments in an apartment complex?"
You gave him an annoyed look and said, "The kind of magus who lives on Cult's pension after pissing off every one of his superiors."
"Huh."
"Indeed."
You spent the rest of the ride going over fine details of your strategy for approaching Edmond Wells' atelier before falling into nervous silence.
Eventually, you arrived at your destination: an unremarkable apartment complex at the outskirts of Paris. Despite his proclaimed love for Le Corbusier, Edmond's old home bore no resemblance to the vision of the infamous architect. It was an old, cozy place drowning in untamed grass and shielded from the road by great trees.
Two police cars were parked at the doorway, and you could see numerous people watching them - and now you - from their brightly lit windows.
Putting on your best I-am-the-government face, you disembarked from your car, immediately spotting Commissioner Bilsheim waiting for you at the front door, anxiously dragging on a cigarette. You frowned. You didn't remember him to smoke.
Stepping closer, you noticed it wasn't the only thing about him to change. Gone was the jovial man with a perpetual bewildered half-smile on his face, and in his place stood a mannequin with the blank face ready to crack in a scream and eyes that looked at you without seeing.
"Agent," he greeted flatly as you approached.
"Commissioner," you said cautiously. "Was there any new developments in the case?"
He nodded stiffly. "You'll have to see for yourself."
Without another word, he turned and walked through the door. With a quick glance at Cedric, you followed.
Despite your expectations, he didn't lead you to the basement, but rather up the stairs. On each floor, doors opened, residents cautiously peeking outside, watching you go.
Bilsheim didn't drop his cigarette, and its smoke sworled in the air, seeming to encompass far more space than it should, choking the light of fluorescent lamps.
Bilsheim led you to the last, fourth floor, and walked into an apartment door hung ajar.
You followed in, but stopped in the foyer at the sight of Commissioner Bilsheim standing still and looking with the same unblinking eyes into the dark depths of the apartment.
Motioning to Cedric to close the door behind you, you placed your hand on Bilsheim's rigid shoulder.
"Commissioner," you said softly. "You still with us?"
He turned slowly, your hand slipping off of him.
"Yes, I am. I have a message for you, agent."
Your eyes widened, but before you could react to the movement you perceived under his skin, his jaw unhinged, and hundreds of ants the color of blood flew out in a cloud of smoke.
You jumped back in an instant, but Cedric was slower to react. The ants reached his face, his eyes and nose and mouth, and he screamed.
Three things happened almost simultaneously.
With your right hand, you grabbed Cedric by the neck and threw him away from Bilsheim towards the door.
With your mind, you sent your Voice into Bilsheim, your eyes widening at your expanded perception, costing you a moment, letting a dozen of ants land on you, each bite as a bullet piercing your flesh.
With your left hand, you conjured a blade of ice and sent it straight into Bilsheim's skull, into one point you knew it must reach.
Bilsheim crumbled on the floor, his expression never changing, his eyes never blinking, smoke and ants pouring out of his mouth, disoriented now, their movements chaotic, the purpose behind them gone.
Patting your face to get the last ants off, you went to Cedric, who was sprawled on the floor, choking, shaking off the ants, and blindly grabbing for his bag.
As you started helping him with the ants, he shook his head and thrust his bag at you.
"B-blue. Blue one," he wheezed through a swollen throat.
You quickly opened the bag and located a bright blue potion in a small vial, one among many like that. Uncorking the vial, you gently placed it in his hands.
Carefully, trying not to shake his hands covered in bites too much, he drank half the potion in very small gulps, and splashed the rest on his face.
Immediately, the swelling disappeared, flesh shifting before your eyes.
Cedric took a few deep breaths, blinking his now clear eyes and spitting out the last of the ants.
"Reason," he said shakily. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
Then his gaze fell on Bilsheim, his head wide open with your blade gone, ants crawling in and out.
You held his hair - he still had that ridiculous ponytail back then - as he puked his guts out, dinner and potions and bile and ants all mixed together.
"He was dead before we arrived," you said sadly once Cedric was in a condition to listen. "I've looked at him with my Voice. His skull was infested with ants and filled with smoke. His brain was repurposed as a sort of hive. It was still… used by them, somehow. They had his memories, I think. But all cognitive functions were carried out by the ants. There was one, a queen I guess, that served as a focal point of the system. I've struck her, and everything fell apart."
"That's…" He coughed. "That's not how ants work?" He was looking anywhere but at Bilsheim. "I mean, the ant queen doesn't control the hive. Killing her wouldn't prevent other ants from carrying on." He was clearly distracting himself. You let him. "I mean, there was even this post on Twitter - or, I guess, on Tumblr originally, before it got reposted, but who even uses Tumblr nowadays? - about a colony of sterile female ants who fell through cracks in a floor somewhere and built their own society. They didn't need a queen."
"Nobody needs a queen. But that's how it works for these ants, apparently. That and the smoke. I think they can't survive outside of it."
"Oh. Huh." He looked at you, more calm than you expected, and reached for the bag. "I actually have something that can help with this." He produced a few small vials with a thick brown liquid slowly rolling inside.
You looked back at Cedric with a question on your face. He fidgeted.
"It's, ah, it's stink bombs," he said, looking somewhere past your ear.
"Stink bombs," you repeated flatly.
"Yes, well, I have them, and they're useful, and that's all that's important right now," he said quickly. Before you could answer, he took a deep breath and finally looked at Bilsheim once more. Cedric's face took on an unhealthy color, but he held himself together. "You think it's just the police that's… infected, or-"
There was a knock on the door.
"Miss Sword?" An eldery voice, probably belonging to the old lady you saw on your way in. "Miss Sword, are you there? We have a message for you from the great wizard. It's very important that you listen to it."
You quickly looked at the door. It was not air-tight.
"Right," you said. "You throw the bombs ahead, then fall back behind me. Rince, repeat."
Cedric took a few short breaths before getting on his feet and standing before the door, vial in hand. He nodded at you.
You expanded her Voice outward, mapping your surroundings, locating the targets. You winced at what you saw, and without further ado threw the door open.
Cedric threw the vial, and you almost recoiled back into the apartment at the smell that instantly assaulted your senses, an almost physical presence creeping up your skin, but gathered yourself in time to not lose the momentum.
One thrust straight ahead, and an old lady with once-kind face stretched by parasites inside of her into a grotesque grimace fell before you.
Thrust to the left, and a man wearing bunny-ear slippers fell as well.
You motioned to Cedric, and he threw another vial ahead of you, down the stairwell. You followed it with a thrown spike, and a teenage boy with a beginning of a stubble fell.
Step back to avoid the ants falling from the ceiling. One of them landed on your cheeck, sending a spike of pain through your brain, but you slapped it before it could go for the eyes, the crushing of chytin satisfying against your skin.
Down and down you went, four floors of victims trying to deliver a monstrous message to you.
They were dead before you arrived. Edmond Wells did it to them.
You were still the one to put spikes of ices through their skulls.
By the time you got to the policemen guarding the basement, you were almost numb. You could think about how the Cult was going to cover up this mess. Four policemen plus Commissioner dead, so are twenty civilians. The gas leak probably wouldn't cut it. Terrorism? But the political consequences of that…
Your thoughts were interrupted by the policemen actually reaching for their guns, the ants inside them not even trying to get out into the overwhelming stench. Their movement were stiff, though, clumsy. Dolls imitating life.
You glided on a sheet of ice straight into their midth, breaking their aim and delivering one precise strike after another.
They fell together.
Cedric walked up to you, his eyes on the bodies. For a long moment, neither of you said a word.
Finally, he looked at you and wrinkled his nose.
"You stink," he said accusingly.
A slow, uncertain smile cracked your face.
"And whose fault is it?"
He sighed.
"Edmond Wells did it to them, right?" he asked. "We are dealing with an undead magus after all."
"Yes. And it looks like he's learned new tricks since leaving the Cult."
"It would be wise to call that in, request a backup in light of new development, get someone specialized in working with insects."
"Yes."
"But it's a distraction, right? He didn't expect his… hives to stop us. He was 'delivering a message'. He's planning to run now, or he has something he wants to complete, some kind of ritual or mystic code that's almost ready to go off."
"Yes."
"So we aren't leaving, and we aren't waiting."
You looked Cedric in the eyes.
"Yes. We'll get him, here and now."
"Good."
Both of you looked at the door at the end of the basement. A solid metal sheet two centimeters deep with its lock sawed off. Beyond the door, darkness beckoned.
You stepped forward.
.
