25

“Thanks ever so much for your concern” I said acidly. “Now how about you tell me what that place was you had me in?” He looked at me with a very neutral expression, apparently trying to decide whether I had really just tried to insult him. “It was a bedroom. Nothing more, nothing less. Was there something wrong with it?”
I ignored his question and threw out another of my own. “What was that silver floating ball?” He looked at me for a moment, and I smelled something that my brain recognized as speculation. “That is a monitor, easily given simple commands to perform, such as waking one up at a certain time.” “So why was it hovering next to the bed I was in?” “It was there to alert my servants that you were awake and to place your” his lip curled slightly as he looked by sweat clothes over, “garments on the bed so you could clothe yourself.”
“So how long has it been since I got hurt?” Keep firing questions, maybe I could sneak one in that would give me an idea what he was planning next. “It has been four days, quite a fast time to recover from a nearly fatal attack.” “Nearly Fatal?” “Yes, the doctor said the attack slashed between your ribs and nicked your aorta. It took all his magick to repair it and hours of work to stitch everything back into place before he was ready to have his assistant encourage healing.”
I guess I did get lucky. “Must have been a good doctor to get me up and ready to go so fast.” He looked at me. I mean REALLY looked at me like a parent would to an idiot savant. It smelled like desire, and contempt, and fear all rolled together. It made me wonder if he smelled me here. He said carefully, “The doctor said that your wounds would take weeks to heal properly. That it took only four days is interesting.”
“Meaning what?” He was making me nervous with that unblinking stare he gave me. “Meaning nothing at the moment. Maybe something later.” He turned and went back into the booth he'd appeared from. I tried to follow but ran into a solid wall when wouldn't let me past. So much for continuing my argument. I hadn't even gotten to asking about what attacked me, which made me think that Cobb didn't want me asking that question. I decided to go talk with Larry and see if he'd figured anything new out about dragons, and if he got lucky, maybe Anolyn.
“Nothing much new here so far, but I'm only about halfway through all the books I pulled, so we might find something out still.” Larry and Fawn had been very happy to see me up and about so quick, and Fawn suggested I come back out to the gym to practice my self-defense in case I really needed it. It was a good idea, and I promised Fawn I'd see her after I was cleared by the doctor for that kind of activity. No sense in pushing things too much.
Fawn shooed Larry off to start dinner and she and I sat down to discuss what might have attacked me. She asked me to turn around and when I did she lifted my shirt to look at the scar. “Uh, Fern, I can barely see the scars, they must have used some pretty potent magick to fix you up.” “Honestly Fawn, I'm not sure. That Cobb guy acted surprised that I was up and about so soon.” “Well, I can't tell what attacked you from the scars, but whatever it was happened to be very sharp. I don't see any tug marks at all.”
“Maybe that's why some of it healed faster, no tears or rips” I said. “Maybe, but it doesn't answer why you were attacked, just what did it if we can even figure that out.” Fawn answered me. She had shifted into cop mode, and had picked up a piece of paper and was tracing the scars on my back while we talked. She had finished the first, uppermost one and was working on the next one. “You said it was flickering? Was that because of the lighting, or was that the creature itself that was flickering?” “I think it was the light, though when I looked at it when it was in the archway, it seemed to flicker with the torches.”
“Best guess without seeing would be some kind of shade then, which would also make sense as it needs shadows to exist and move about. No shadows, no shade. You said it felt like cobwebs when you passed through it?” “Yeah, it was like running into a dense bunch of spiderwebs.” Fawn finished the last scar, straightened and stretched her back, and let me see her drawing.
Three thin cuts ran parallel to my ribs, right in between them. Who or whatever did the cutting knew how to aim or was just lucky. I figured the former. Always figure skill over luck. “So if it's a shade like you say, what can I do to protect myself against it?” “Holy water works best on shades I remember. We've dealt with one or two, but they're fairly rare. But usually they don't attack so much as try to frighten people away from whatever they left behind, or I remember one case where a shade was forced to guard a wooden box for a magician.”

24

I woke up a little later to an argument going on nearby. “She is incapable of performing the service, and the ebt remains. Either her sister picks up the service, or a volunteer. Or I have my choice of compensation!” I heard Cobb snarl out. “She was attacked on your premises, wounded in your house, and under your so-called protection when the attack occurred. It seems to me that the judge may see that as not fulfilling your end of the agreement, even to the point of deliberately allowing her to be attacked so that you could coerce someone else into accepting the service.” said a familiar voice I recognized as Larry's after a few groggy moments.
“Who's imacabipple of tahrner?” My mouth was obviously not on the same channel as my brain was. It took a few more moments for everything to start working together. “Who's not capable?” I said much more clearly, and the argument outside my room ceased like a light switch being flipped. Larry stepped through the open doorway and walked to the side of the bed. “Hey short stuff, you must be feeling better, I can hear the delicate contrariness in your voice.” He smiled as he talked, and I smiled back, or I think I did.
“Do you remember what happened Fernie?” I went through there myself and couldn't find a trace of anything except your blood starting at the doorway.” I sat up groggily, and despite a pounding headache, told Larry the details of what I remembered, diving through the legs that felt like cobwebs, the flickering of the shadow as the attacker moved around. and the shadow at the doorway after I escaped the library and got back into the main room.
“What I want to know is what the hell it was, and why it attacked me. That doesn't make sense to me at all. What am I digging into that's got somebody so nervous?” I said woozily. It was hard to focus with the headache driving a nail in my skull with every heartbeat. I wanted to go back to sleep, but some stubborn part of me wanted to stay awake just to hear what Cobb was going to say, so I could try and figure out what he was planning next. Even stubbornness though, doesn't trump medications, and I relly don't remember passing back into sleep.
I woke again a few hours later and levered myself back upright in the bed. The room was hexagonal in shape and ornate columns that looked of carved marble stood at each corner. I didn't know any human hospitals that looked like this, so I had to still be in Underhill. There was a small sphere hovering just next to my pillow as I looked to my left. It was silvery and emitted a warming hum as I observed it. When I moved to get out of bed, it rose away from the bed and floated out the archway, and I felt the breeze of it's movement as a brush along my entire body, which is how I came to realize I was completely naked in the bed.
I levered myself off the raised bed and looked for the bathroom. I went in to look for mu clothes or some kind of robe to put on, but I didn't find anything other than a towel, which I quickly wrapped around me. I came back into the bedroom again and found that my sweat suit had been repaired and laid out on the bed for me. No one had come in that I know of. I shrugged and put it down to magick. Underhill is full of it I suppose.
All this time I kept listening for other voices or some kind of activity, but I heard absolutely nothing. I heard my own breathing and my own heart beat. It bothered me that it was so quiet. I walked out into a grayish hall. It was well-lit, but everything had a wispy quality to it, as if the first strong wind would tear it all asunder. My room was at the end of the hallway, so I went down the hall towards what I hoped was the exit.
There was an opaque curtain over the exit , and I brushed it aside and entered.... out of a phone booth and back into Cobb's main hall of booths. Cobb emerged from another phone booth next to the one I had exited and faltered slightly as he recovered from his surprise. “I didn't expect to see you active so soon after being wounded as you were. The human doctor indicated that you would need a lot of rest to heal properly.”

23

So I haunted the other white phone booth, and found that all of the books there were illegible. I got frustrated and brought one book back with me to see if I could find anything that I might match up with one of the English books. I found one that had the same type of covering and the same embossed sigil on the front, which meant to me this one was probably identical in content to the other, just translated to English from the original.
I put the book down on the reading table and turned to the front page, and two identical translated pages sat in front of me. I blinked and about feel out of the chair in surprise. I could have sworn it not translated. I went over to the shelf and pulled a book at random, and looked at it. It was complete gibberish. I took it over to the desk and laid it down and opened it. It was in English. The circle must hold a spell that translated the books to English, or maybe to the main language of the reader as long as she was inside the circle.
I decided to go against my instinct and looked with my wizard sight, and just about went blind. Everything glowed, and glowed fiercely to my sight. It hurt like looking at Cobb had hurt. Everything seemed to have magic pouring out, forming a glowing haze that surrounded me like a bright, blinding fog. I shut my eyes and waited for the after flashes to go away. I hate it when my instinct is right and I ignore it. When my eyes cleared I went back to the book and looked it over.
The book I had pulled was one on romantic poetry. I began checking the shelves to see where the books had resided before being placed in that pile by the desk. I found all eighteen locations, and they were clustered on three shelves, which made me think the shelves were organized in some way. I took all the books down from those shelves, and set them by the desk.
As I got ready to look through the first of the books, Cobb came in and looked around. “Are you done yet?” he said, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from tearing into him. “Why didn't you tell me this translated the books? I could have gone through them rather than trying to fine English copies.” I snarled at him testily. I had been reading and making notes that I forgot to eat, and my temper and stomach were both at me to go find something to eat.
Then I smelled something different from him. Chagrin. He actually felt embarrassed that he had forgotten to tell me about the desk. He gave me an explanation sounding like he was bored, but there was a definite odor of embarrasment. “To use the table you just place the book on the table and it changes the script to what you are used to reading. You can ask the table to collect particular books by saying out loud the information you want” he finished saying, and left hurriedly.
That was way out of character for Cobb, and it bothered me to think he might be trying to manipulate me even now that I was working on this service he'd tricked me into. I set aside the books and exited the room and went back home to get some food. I decided to stop by Larry and Fawn's to see how his luck researching things had gone. We had arranged to meet at a small restaurant called “Hole in the Wall” near his shop. We sat down, ordered our food and then got to talking business.
“Dragons are a serious piece of bad news Fernie. I have everything I could find out so far here” he said as he handed me a spiral notebook. It was about a third full of notes. “You can look through it but most of the stuff isn't in any kind of order so it may not make sense. I think I'll need about four to five more days to go through the basic stuff. Probably another month to track down all the esoteric entries and collate my notes into a readable report. How about we set up a time each day to compare notes we have?”
I looked over at my brother-in-law. The thought of Cobb using him to open the Way back up really angered me. That I was used to try and make that happen angered me more, and that helped keep me focused. I shoved those thoughts aside and got a smile to my face and said, “sounds good. I'll bring mine tomorrow. Meet at the downtown library?”
“Yeah, that's great Fernie, I can work until you get there. I have a few friends watching the shop for me while I'm doing this, so I'm not losing any business.” He chuckled and looked at me with his lopsided smile. “I'd forgotten how much fun it is just to do research. Thanks Fernie.” “Thank you Larry, without you, this would be a real pain to do.” I told him. the water brought our meals and we tucked in to a good dinner. I beat Larry to the check. I'd hired him after all, and it was fun to see him grump about me paying.
I went back the next morning and Cobb again escorted me to Underhill, and to his mansion. He didn't say one word to me the whole time, which didn't bother me at all. Talking meant he was trying to manipulate me, so I enjoyed the silence. I went back to the first white phone booth and stepped through. the books had been stacked neatly next to the table, and the torches flickered and the shadows danced on the wall shelves as I walked to the desk and set my backpack down.
As I straightened, i caught a glimpse of something that flickered and sped towards me. Instead of bracing for an impact I pulled the same trick I had used before, dive into the legs. I passed tough some thing that felt dry cold, and cobwebby, and something fell in front of me in complete silence. I rolled to my feet and took a step towards my backpack, and then sprinted for the doorway. I exited into the room just as something shredded the back of my sweatshirt.
I felt a cold impact that had no force and then felt a wet trickle down my back. Then the pain hit, and I screamed in agony and managed to stagger away from the phone booth. I looked behind me and there was a thick, glistening blood trail from the door leading from me to the door, and a vague outline of blackness in the door. It hovered for a moment, then it flicked back into the room and disappeared from view. I tried to stagger back towards the entrance and felt my body go numb as I moved. My arms and legs got hard to move and th wounds felt like fire. I tried to scream for help, but the room spun and tilted crazily, and I lost consciousness.