Chương 46: Hidden Currents

Mary was a wizard, while Robert was a cultivator. That became obvious once they showed the pair the container and prepared to clear out the Eaters inside. Which wasn't even a fight. Val, Kenzo, and Enzo each took their positions, ready for anything. Murph pressed against his good leg, growling low. Then Robert took a deep breath. His heart thumped loud enough for Enzo to hear, and he bulked up even more. Like instant magical steroids.

Mary invoked "Armament," and body-conforming plates of purple barrier snapped into place around him, laced with gold and silver. Enzo almost called off the Eater-clearing mission then and there so he could study the magic. Instead, he popped open the container with Lock followed by Telekinesis. Eight Eaters. Each of them restrained at the throat, wrists, and ankles by chains welded to the internal walls. Eight Bolts later, and the fight was over. Murph whined with what sounded like disappointment.

The smell drove them away from the container within seconds. Dead Eaters carried the same rancid sweetness as any corpse, but concentrated in a metal box that had been sealed in the midday sun, it was worse. Much worse. Murph jumped over it into the front yard and began exploring the overgrown garden, while Val, Kenzo, and Robert drifted to the middle of the street, already asking Robert about his cultivation technique. Kenzo launched into a demonstration of Burst, the explosions rattling the air with each punch.

Mary pulled Enzo aside near the fence to ask about Bolt, so he pulled his journal from his coat pocket, handed it over, and walked her through the design. She studied the spell form in silence for a long moment, head tilted, fingers tracing the geometry on the page.

"This is very different from how I work," she said. She handed the journal back.

"I'm a seamstress. Forty-two years. Robert and I had a tailor shop in San Rafael." She held up her hands and flexed her fingers.

"Arthritis. Not terrible, but enough that the fine work was getting harder even before all this. When magic happened, I started playing with mana, and my first spell was just moving my needles. The Guide called it Weaving." It sounded like Telekinesis, just with a different name. Perhaps more specialized.

"And Armament?" Mary glanced at the others. She smiled warmly at her husband, who was flexing next to Kenzo.

"He started getting big. Fast. Within a few days, nothing fit him anymore, and I was letting out every seam in his wardrobe. One night I was repairing one of his shirts after a bad day with Eaters, and I thought, what if I could wrap him in magic instead of just cloth?" She turned back to Enzo.

"Both of my spells are based on weaving threads into patterns. I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're doing with the circles and lines." Enzo nodded. First Signe, and now Mary. Even his work and Sumi's had started drifting apart the further they delved into what magic could do.

"The gold and silver mana," Enzo said.

"What are those?"

"Oh. Well, it took me many nights to make the spell work, you see? The arcane to protect him was easy, but it wouldn't shape around him properly." She giggled.

"So he couldn't move. You should have seen it. I had him all wrapped up in magic, stuck in the living room." Enzo laughed.

"I stumbled into mana conversion because I wanted the mana to move when Robby needed it to. The silver is from the mind mana woven through it." Enzo blinked. They'd theorized it was possible, but Sumi had so far been unable to convert it, and he hadn't even bothered trying since the first time it failed. Mary continued, turning to watch the cultivator's antics again.

"The gold is flesh mana."

"What?" Enzo's outburst drew looks from the others. Mary waved away her husband's concern.

"I use it to tailor the arcane to fit him perfectly." That made little sense. Why wasn't it just body mana? Anchor the arcane to the body itself. It sounded viable. Enzo frowned. Unless you couldn't. Sumi's spells were both reliant on body mana, but they targeted specific bodily processes, not the body itself. Did that mean there was mana for blood and bone, too? Robert walked over.

"We'll come. I'll convince the others." Enzo raised an eyebrow. That was fast.

"There are plenty of empty houses on the streets we control. We'll get some of our people to help you with the move, and picking out some new homes." Robert's jaw worked.

"Don't love the idea of settling into someone else's place." The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Nobody does. Half of our people have had to do the same thing, but everyone needs four walls and a roof." Mary touched Robert's arm.

"At least we'll have showers again, Robby. And they sound very organized. Maybe you can help them with the Eaters."

"We have groups of people doing different work," Val said.

"Watch groups. Hunting. Not to mention all the day-to-day stuff. We can use all the help we can get." Robert's expression softened.

"Send someone over when you can. We'll start organizing our people." Then he nodded once, took his wife's hand, and headed off. Enzo watched them go. Then he turned to Val.

"I need you to ride back and speak to Frank about getting things underway. Take Murph with you."

"Okay." Val's eyes narrowed. She glanced between Enzo and Kenzo.

"And what about you two?"

"Kenzo and I are going to sweep the streets for any suspicious mana drifts." He jabbed a thumb at Kenzo.

"The big lug and I can handle chained Eaters alone." Kenzo smacked Enzo on the back.

"I'll keep an eye on our resident adrenaline junkie." Val studied him for a moment.

"Alright. Just be safe. And don't take too long." She grabbed her bike, and together with Murph, took off without looking back. Enzo tucked his cane against the frame of his own bike, threw his leg over, and started riding. Kenzo fell into an easy jog beside him, keeping pace without effort. They swept the streets in a slow grid, Mana Sense active, the world tinted in shades of purple. Most of the mana flow was ambient. They were looking for the pulls.

A few people eyed them with suspicion as they went, but compared to the first day they'd arrived back in Mill Valley, the streets felt empty. There were fewer and fewer holdouts every day. People were setting out to look for or join family, or joining up with the Steel Soul Riders for the promise of food and safety. They found three more containers. One in a backyard two blocks east. Another dumped in an alley closer to town. The third in a garage with the door pulled shut and a padlock on the outside.

Same setup every time. Paint and crystal dust. Chained Eaters inside. They destroyed the enchantments and killed the Eaters without difficulty.

"Where do you think they're getting the Eaters from?" Kenzo asked as they moved on.

"They got cleared out in the first week all around Mill Valley, as far as I know." Enzo pedaled in silence for a moment.

"Seemed that way in parts of San Francisco too. But Signe said Santa Rosa was completely overrun. I'm guessing some places were hit a lot worse than others."

"You think they're bringing them from Marin? Or up north?" Enzo nodded.

"Maybe. But there's another way." He kept his eyes on the road.

"Val told me that two more people went through the seizures since the rain. Like you did. They didn't make it, and their families had to..." He didn't finish the sentence. Kenzo was quiet for a few steps.

"Oh." He frowned.

"Oh shit, bro. They might be using these containers to find more mages among their people. And the ones that don't make it..."

"Fuck." Enzo's hands tightened on the handlebars.

"I didn't even think about that." They continued in silence for a minute, then Enzo turned down one last road. A short cul-de-sac that curved back on itself with three houses set back from the street. They'd checked it in the early days and found the houses empty, which was why both street and cul-de-sac sat just outside the territory they'd claimed. But the mana here was different. Enzo slowed the bike. The ambient flow wasn't drifting aimlessly the way it did everywhere else. It was moving.

Toward the house at the far end of the loop, a single-story with a sagging porch and a tall wooden fence around the back. The pull was subtle from the street, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. But the area behind the house was denser. Like the mana was pooling there. He dismounted, pulled his cane free, and nodded at Kenzo. Kenzo went first. The tall gate into the backyard wasn't locked. Kenzo pushed it open, and they walked around the side of the house.

The yard was overgrown, weeds pushing through cracked paving stones, running up fences and the side of the house. A rusted barbecue sat against the fence. Nothing out of the ordinary. The cellar door was set into the ground at the back of the house, angled against the foundation, and locked shut with a heavy chain and padlock. It was made of thick steel, red with rust but solid. The frame was wood. And one corner had rotted through. Enzo looked up.

The roof's drainage ran along a gutter that had clogged with debris, and the overflow point sat directly above the cellar door. Water would have sheeted off the roof, run along the gutter, hit the clog, and poured straight down onto the wooden frame below. He crouched and examined the gap where the wood had given way. The pull was stronger here. Much stronger. Funneling through the damaged frame like air through a cracked window.

"Lock." The lock clicked open. Kenzo removed it, then pulled the chain, rattling as it went, before tossing it aside. Then he gripped the steel door and hauled it open. The hinges screamed, and a rush of air that smelled faintly of raw steak and pennies hit them. It was a familiar scent. Unforgettable. The stone steps led down into darkness. Kenzo descended first, each step deliberate. Enzo followed, ducking low under the frame.

The steps were coated in a fine layer of reddish dust that puffed into nothing the moment their boots touched it. Dried blood rain residue, reduced to powder in the sealed space. The only marks on the stairs were Kenzo's footprints ahead of him. No one had been down here in a long time. Kenzo stopped four steps from the bottom.

"Bro." His voice was quiet.

"You need to see this." Enzo stepped down beside him and looked. The basement was small. Stone walls, low ceiling, a concrete floor covered in the same red dust. Old wooden wine racks lined the far wall, bottles still sitting in their slots, labels faded and curling. A forgotten collection, undisturbed. Behind the wine racks, the air rippled. The rift hung in the space between the shelves and the back wall, a vertical tear that shimmered with contained energy.

It was smaller than the one they'd fought through in the valley, but the mana density pouring off it was immense, and the pull from this close was strong enough that Enzo could feel it tugging at his reserves. They couldn't go any closer. Not without risking being swallowed. Enzo tapped Kenzo on the shoulder and turned back up the stairs. Kenzo followed without a word. In the yard, Enzo turned to the chain.

"Telekinesis." One end of the chain floated between the cellar door handles, then wrapped around them a few times. Kenzo grabbed the padlock and snapped it into place. Kenzo turned to him.

"What now?" Enzo looked up at the clogged gutter, the rotted frame, the rusted door. He thought for a moment. Then he made for the gate.

"Let's head back. We need to expand our territory to include these streets." He pushed through the gate and held it for Kenzo.

"And we'll need Frank to put a permanent guard on this place. Nobody enters." Back on the street, he tucked his cane against the frame and climbed onto the bike.

"What then?" Kenzo asked.

"We keep it under wraps, and use it to farm mana crystals." Kenzo nodded.

"Good idea, bro. Was thinking the same."

"I have those sometimes." Enzo sighed.

"But before that, we need to deal with Gus and the Riders."