7

All told, this was one of the fastest jobs I'd ever pulled and I was feeling pretty happy with myself for some good planning. This is where you expect the other show to drop, and it did, just not where we could hear it right away. What I was thinking about was the fee I'd get and how the hell anyone would, or could, make another soul bottle. That part bothered me. A lot.
After seeing to my fee, Mr. Cobb and his daughter left, and left me free to do a little re-arranging of all the stuff I have in the office. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was waiting for just the right moment to spring itself into my life. Magic does things like that. It's hard to believe in coincidence with magick around, coincidence can get pretty unbelievable. Kind of like having a cloud solidify over your house and drop on you suddenly coincidental.
I had been hard at thinking of getting another file cabinet to go with the other two when the lights in the building went out. The air-conditioning fans stopped also, and the building became very still. Unnaturally still. My windows let in enough of the noontime light to allow me to easily gather up my possibles bag and put on my pistol, machete, and chicken plate. After arming myself, I went into the outer office.
As I did so, a low roaring sound began back in my main office. I stepped back into the office with my machete in hand to see a inky sliver appear and lengthen, growing into a floor-to-ceiling gash in the air. Then two clawed hands thrust their way through the slit and began to widen it. I didn't wait, but dropped the machete' and pulled the pistol and fired four rounds right into the enlarging hole to no visible effect. Bullets didn't work and I had serious doubts about the machete' being any more effective, so I ran out of my office into the hallway.
The hall didn't have any window to the outside, so it was dark except for the slight glow of light coming through the frosted glass window of my door. The window still had the rebuilding spell on it, and no one had tried throwing someone through it or jumping through since Rynun did that to me. I strode quickly towards the fire stairs, figuring if the power was out, the elevators wouldn't be working either.
I heard a sound like fingernails being scraped on a slate chalkboard, only a lot louder. It spiked my ears with a sharp pain as I pulled the door open. Call me stupid but I ran for the bathroom. My thoughts here were that if it followed me into the stairwell, I was trapped in a large tube with no way out until I reached the bottom floor. We were four floors up and I think in a footrace to the bottom I'd probably lose.
I could however, change the terrain. The building had a hanging ceiling to cover up the unsightly ventilation tubing and electrical conduits, and many a time the repairmen would have to go up into the ceiling to fix a problem. Being a small woman gave me an advantage against a larger creature. Plus, if it was heavy the ceiling wouldn't support it if it tried to walk on the tiles.

6

Glass shattered behind me as Cobb blew a hole big enough for him to get through. He moved almost faster than I could follow, and hit the door like a runaway freight train. The door crumpled and the lintel tore loose from the sheet rock it was anchored to. The wood veneer all but exploded off the door, and Cobb screamed in agony as his body came in contact with the steel.
I ran through the door and dodged to the right in a clumsy baseball slide. I slid almost to the wall and looked around. The door was a good ten feet into the room and looked like a steel banana. Cobb lay just inside the door, his flesh smoking slightly from contact with the steel. He moaned in pain but was starting to get up.
The interior room was large, probably at least forty feet to a side. Two Inside the room was a square six foot by six foot cage. In the cage on a hammock sat a small girl, crying and unmoving. Cobb's daughter probably. Something slithered out of the floor and solidified. It turned its tubular body towards me quickly on six legs and aimed itself, scrunching up like a coiled spring, and opening it's lamprey-like mouth wide. Oh Gods, a wurmling! Two others slipped up through the floor as I watched the first one, and oriented on Cobb.
I thought about the pistol, but as small as the creature was, it was fast and I'm not that good a shot. I pulled the silver machete' as it readied itself to attack. Then it was on me, almost faster than I could react. I swung the blade and got lucky, hitting it solidly and slicing it in half lengthwise. The pieces fell to the ground and started dissolving away. My follow-through rang the blade off the cement floor and, unfortunately, got the attention of the two other wurmlings.
The two creatures hissed and began scuttling into launching range. Cobb was still dazed and in pain, so I was on my own. The wurmlings recognized the silver blade and moved apart, instinctively working to flank me. I backed up into the corner quickly and got to my feet as they closed with me. Now they were restricted to a ninety degree arc that was a lot easier to protect.
The two wurmlings scuttled within launching range, and scrunched up. I debated trying to get my pistol, and then there was a pulse of heat as a small fireball slammed into the wurmling to my left. The other executed a startled leap towards me, but there was no power behind it and it landed three foot short. I took a quick step forward and cut down with the machete' before it had a chance to recover, and cut it in half.
Cobb looked at me from the ground and put his hand down to help push himself off the floor. I approached the cage and returned the machete to its sheath. The cage had a lock on the front. I pulled my pistol. “Sweetie get as far back as you can, okay?” The girl nodded and moved to perch precariously on the far edge of the hammock from me. I aimed the pistol at the hasp of the lock and pulled the trigger.
The nine millimeter slug hit dead on and cracked the hasp. A second shot parted it. I knocked the lock away and pulled the door open, and the girl darted past me and clutched her father in a tight hug. Cobb spoke gently to the child and rested his hands on her shoulders as she shuddered and stifled only partially the sobs of relief.
“We should be leaving Ms. Fatelli. Whomever did this knows we are here.” Cobb stopped speak and tilted his head towards me. The he gave me an almost smile and said, “unless of course, you want to stay and fight the person who can draw upon the power already stored in that bottle.” I shuddered involuntarily. No way I wanted to stick around for that.
“All right,” I said briskly. “Let's get out of here.” we exited back out the way we came in and jumped into my car, and pulled away. I watched as a couple of Hamref watched us leave. They probably had a good look at all of us and there was no reason for them not to offer the information up. Which meant if someone talked to them I might get some guests later.
Paranoia, yes I know, but if that guy DID make himself a soul bottle like the other one, odds are that he knew about my involvement with the gods bedamned thing. That and my sister's. Oh yeah, a lot of paranoia running around. Mr. Cobb and daughter were jabbering away in some language that I couldn't identify as we drove back to my office.