The Rift Chronicles: The Complete Series

by BR Kingsolver

Genres: Paranormal; Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

My name is Danica James. My grandfather broke the world, now I have to deal with the consequences.

I'm a cop with the Arcane Division. . Most mages have the ability to manipulate the elements - fire, water, air, earth, electricity. My magic only works on machines and electrical devices. They call me a magitek. That doesn't help much with demons and vampires, let alone criminals with lethal magikal powers.

My job is to protect humanity from monsters - whether they be human or creatures from the Rift. It beats sitting in a factory cubical all day, which is where magiteks usually work.

Most of humanity hates the magik users who rule the world, but the Magi stand between humans and the creatures who came across the Rift. For a hundred years, the Magi have kept the demons, vampires, and other monsters in check. But now one Magi Family has allied itself with the demons in a bid for world domination. It was ugly before, but now it's getting worse.

Magitek
War Song
Soul Harvest

All together in one volume.

 

Read more

Release date: April 25, 2023

Print pages: 949

Sample

Magitek

BR Kingsolver

Chapter 3

 

It wasn’t a bad area of the city, although it used to be better before the pandemics and subsequent wars. And it had seen an increase in drug trafficking in recent years. Probably because a lot of college students and single young professionals lived in the area. It was also fairly near the location where the Rift had opened a few years before. That always messed up a neighborhood. 

I parked and flashed my badge at a uniformed cop, hoping he would keep my car from being broken into. As soon as I walked into the alley, I knew why Tompkins asked for Arcane. Blood was splashed everywhere, and the corpse barely resembled anything human. He—I assumed it was a man due to the short hair—had been shredded.

“It’s bad,” Tompkins said as he came to meet me. “The girl is over there, on the other side of the dumpster.” George Tompkins, with his craggy face, hair graying at the temples, and a long overcoat covering a cheap brown suit, looked like a cop, and he was a good one. He’d been working Homicide for more than ten years.

“Well, obviously not a vampire,” I said. “George, this is Mychal Novak, my new partner.”

Tompkins led me farther into the alley and stopped, pointing at a footprint in the blood. The print wasn’t close to human. I judged it at about size thirty-three, with six clawed toes, and it looked as though the thing that left it was hairy.

The girl had long blonde hair, and other than having been disemboweled and having her face bitten off, she hadn’t suffered as much damage as the man.

“Any idea why they were here in the alley?” I asked.

With a gesture to his right, Tompkins said, “We found drug works.”

I took a few steps in that direction and saw a syringe, a spoon, a lighter, and a small baggie with white powder lying on the ground next to the dumpster.

“I wonder if whatever ate them got high on the dope,” I said.

“Doesn’t look like they had a chance to shoot up,” Tompkins said. “I think whatever did this was back here waiting for them.”

“Ever seen something like this?” I asked.

“Dunno. Demon? Werewolf? Some kind of monster, but no, nothing quite like this. Doesn’t look like it was hungry.”

At that point, I noticed that Novak was looking a little green. 

“Out! Go on, get out!” I pointed to the street where we’d parked and gave him a shove. “If you puke and contaminate the scene, I’ll kick your ass!”

He went, stumbling a little.

“New to major crimes?” Tompkins asked.

“Yeah. Came over from narcotics.”

“Novak? One of the Novaks?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “No good deed goes unpunished. You know the brass has it in for you.” Luckily, the cops on the street respected me because they knew I took care of business.

I wandered around, checking the walls of the buildings, and especially the dead end. One way into the alley, one way out. I finally found blood stains that indicated where the killer climbed out. Holes in the brick wall that looked like claw marks and the distance between the holes weren’t encouraging. The being had to be at least six to eight feet long or tall, with claws on all four extremities. And it climbed a sheer brick wall, so not a werewolf. But demon didn’t make sense either. The damage to the victims didn’t match what I was used to seeing from the run-of-the-mill common demon. And it hadn’t fed.

The rest of the alley didn’t reveal anything interesting, so I talked to Tompkins until Novak came back. He still looked pale and shaky, but more like a man who had just puked than a man getting ready to.

“What’s your affinity?” I asked him.

“Aeromancy.”

“Really? Maybe Whittaker did me a solid after all. Come.”

I led him over to the wall where I suspected our monster had absconded. “I think that’s where our murderer escaped,” I said, pointing upward. “Let’s go.”

He looked at me like I had lost my mind.

“What?” I couldn’t figure out why he was hesitating. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“You want to follow that thing?”

I took a deep breath. “That’s what we do. Now, either you take me up to the top of that building, or we call DC Whittaker and have him send me another partner. Your choice, Mr. Novak.”

He looked like he didn’t know whether to cry or get angry, then he grabbed me by the upper arms, and we rose into the air. The problem was, my back was to the wall, and I wanted to face it so I could inspect it for further evidence. My new partner was going to be a chore to break in.

We passed the roof and stopped, hanging there like a couple of stationary targets. Cops, even if not in uniform, weren’t the most popular people in most parts of town.

“Can you see anything?” I asked in my sweetest voice. I knew the answer as we were face-to-face, staring at each other.

“Uh, no.”

“Then perhaps you could set us down on the roof before someone decides to use us as target practice.”

“Huh?”

“Put me down on the roof. Gently.”

We started to drop.

“Not there! Over to the left.” He had started to land right on top of the killer’s trail. Didn’t the boy understand anything about preserving evidence?

As soon as my feet hit the roof, I shook out of his grasp. “We need to have a long talk about proper procedure,” I muttered, turning to look at the deep scars in the bricks on the edge of the roof where our prey had pulled himself over the top.

We followed its trail, the amount of blood diminishing by the step, across the roof and onto that of the next building. It sort of tipped me off that none of the blood belonged to my quarry. I reached the edge and looked over, down five stories to the busy street below. No way it had gone that way unless it had wings. After a quick look around, I took off to my left, crossing several more roofs until I looked down on another alley three stories below.

Our monster was purple. It also had more muscles than a professional wrestler.

“Okay,” I said, “hold me from behind this time. You can do an air shield, right?”

“Yes.”

“I think it would be a good idea to have one in front of us before we touch down.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist and stepped off the roof, holding me to his chest. A small part of my mind noticed that it was a very nice chest, and that his arms were well-developed. Too bad he hadn’t spent as much time exercising his mind.

The creature didn’t notice us at first, but we drew its attention when we were about ten feet from the ground. It scrambled out of the dumpster it had been rummaging through and stood facing us when we landed. As soon as Mychal loosened his grip on me, I drew my pistol.

“Hold it right there! Metropolitan Police. Lie down on your face with your hands above your head.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shocked expression on Novak’s face. I think he expected me to blast the creature on sight, but one must observe the niceties. It might be someone’s pet, or someone’s brother. Besides, a cop never knew when a media drone might be recording from overhead.

“What for?” The creature’s mouth wasn’t really shaped for human speech, but its English was understandable. Its head was shaped a bit like a horse’s, and its mouth was filled with alligator teeth. At least seven feet tall, bipedal, and covered with long, silky fur, it had six fingers on its hands and six toes on its ape-like feet. From that close, and since it wore no clothes, it was obviously male. And purple. Did I mention purple?

“I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering two humans this morning.”

“They interrupted my meal.” As if that was reason enough for murder. “I was just protecting my food.”

I prayed he hadn’t been eating another victim. Having to go through his belly to identify a person wasn’t my idea of a good time.

“What food?”

“The restaurant there puts out a box lunch for me every day. Tasty stuff.”

I envisioned the alley again and almost heaved. His idea of gourmet dining was the rotting food a pizza joint tossed into the dumpster.

“That’s not an excuse for murder. Now, lie down and give yourself up.”

He snarled and started toward me. I pulled the trigger, and the magikally enhanced explosive-incendiary round blew a hole in his chest the size of my fist. It rocked him but didn’t stop him. I heard Novak’s gun go off three times before I pulled the trigger again. My second round blew a large hole in the beast’s abdomen, and he stopped. He stood there swaying, then he snarled again, and his knees bent as he prepared to leap at me. My third bullet caught him between the eyes, and he fell in a heap.

“Call for forensics and have dispatch tell Tompkins that we got his murderer,” I said, holstering my sidearm and walking over to the monster crumpled on the ground. When I got closer, I found that it stunk like garbage, proving once again that we are what we eat.

I leaned closer. Novak was a pretty good shot. I could see where all three of his bullets had hit the creature in the chest, not that they had hurt it any.

Novak hung up his phone but didn’t seem to be inclined to inspect our kill any closer. I walked back to him.

“Let me see your gun.”

He handed it over. “Is this department issue?” I asked. It was a standard, unmodified nine-millimeter automatic with a twelve-cartridge magazine.

“Yes. It’s what I carried with narcotics.”

That didn’t make any sense to me at all. “I thought you were with narco in the Arcane Division.”

“That’s right.”

I was stunned. “What kind of cases did you work?” 

“Drug trafficking. You know, people selling magikally enhanced drugs in schools and colleges. I helped break up that ring out in Howard County.”

Understanding dawned. He had worked upper-class cases. Humans dealing drugs to humans. Mages and witches enhancing drugs and peddling them to rich people’s kids. Soccer moms sharing magikal highs at the country club. That was a long way from the streets where I worked narcotics, and very different drugs. Not to mention very different drug dealers and mules.

“When we get back to the office, we’re going to trade this popgun in for something with some stopping power,” I said. “Carrying this will just get you killed.”

 

War Song

BR Kingsolver

Chapter 1

 

“Everyone’s in place,” the voice over my radio said. “We go at sixty.”

Sixty seconds before a force of Metropolitan Police and guardians from half a dozen Magi Families stormed the block-long warehouse housing Lucifer’s Lair, the most notorious nightclub in the Mid-Atlantic.

I did a last-second mental check of my weapons and armor. Since I knew the inside layout better than almost anyone, I would be in the second wave, following the assault teams who would breach the entrances and secure the building. We had no idea how many demons were in the building. We only knew that the listed owner, the demon lord Ashvial, was dead.

Most of the force were there to capture or kill the demons inside, but my primary mission was to take control of the computer systems, paper files, and the human employees who managed Ashvial’s finances. Of course, that was all located in a part of the building I’d never seen.

“Go!”

Aeromancers used battering rams of compressed air to blow the front doors open. Bolts of lightning crashed against the doorframe, shorting out any electronic defenses. And then heavily armored men rushed into the building.

The sound of large-caliber automatic weapons echoed inside, diminishing to occasional shots, the crackle of lightning, and the whoosh of fireballs. From where I was standing outside, the interior of the building looked as though a fireworks show was going on inside.

When things quieted a little, I led my small team in and took an immediate right toward a door in the wall opposite the bar. We crossed the large room without any resistance, although I noted the bodies of three demons. I didn’t expect many of them to be downstairs in the middle of the day. Most of them would be on the third floor, where the red light was more welcoming to their eyes.

The door had an electronic keypad, and I sent a spell into it. The door clicked, and I cast another spell into the room beyond to disable any nasty anti-intrusion devices that might be installed there.

Normally, the business offices would have been full of workers on a Wednesday, but our surveillance indicated that only a few employees had entered the building that morning. As a cop, I was paid to have a suspicious mind, and my guess was the humans in charge of the business operation had figured out Ashvial wasn’t coming back.

And if it were me, I’d be working overtime to loot the assets and destroy any evidence the authorities might use to connect me to Ashvial’s illicit activities. In their own world, demons didn’t use money the way humans did, and as far as computers and technology were concerned, they were total idiots. They just couldn’t wrap their minds around physics and chemistry performing tasks that demons did with magik.

Sure enough, the reception desk was unmanned, and the cubes in the large room beyond were all empty. That meant any people who were present would be in the offices lining the outside walls of the building.

I sent my team to capture anyone they found, while I headed toward the computer room The plans on file with the Building Commission showed me where I needed to go.

A spell disabled the keypad on the door, and I slipped inside. One man sat at a console with his back to me.

“Don’t even think about touching that keyboard again,” I said in my sweetest, gentlest voice, placing the muzzle of my Raider 50 against his skull. “Put your hands in the air, or I’ll blow your head off.”

It was rather gratifying how quickly he obeyed.

“Now, stand up, and walk toward the wall to your left,” I said. 

Again, he obeyed. I followed him, handcuffed him, then made him sit down against the wall. A pair of ankle shackles made sure he wouldn’t run away. I put a small silver-colored box on the floor a few feet in front of him.

“That’s a magitek box,” I said. “If you move to either side, or attempt to stand up, it will electrocute you. Do you understand?”

He nodded enthusiastically, but managed to ask in an aggrieved tone, “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Lieutenant Danica James, Metropolitan Police, and this is a raid.”

The way his eyes widened told me that he was far more upset that I was a police officer than he would have been if I were a fellow crook.

I sat down at the console, and using my cranial implant, jacked into the computer system. The first thing I checked was what my captive had been doing, then I patted myself on the back. He had been transferring funds from one of Ashvial’s bank accounts into a private account in Switzerland, and I was willing to bet it was a personal account that he owned. He wasn’t shy, either. The transfer was set up to move ninety million dollars.

I immediately stopped the transfer and changed the passwords to both accounts. Then I accessed the rest of Ashvial’s accounts and did the same thing. After changing the passwords to the internal computer system, I locked the console and pulled my consciousness back into the real world. I would give the new access codes to the police’s forensic accountants, and let them take care of the detail work.

I dragged my captive out of the soundproofed computer room and into the noise of the raid. Gunshots and the sounds of magikal weapons came from overhead, along with the snarls, roars, and screams of demons. I was still sore from my last fight with a demon, so I gladly turned away from the stairs. 

I hauled the computer genius out the door to a waiting paddy wagon and accepted a cup of coffee from a cop standing there. We discussed the weather for a while until all the noise inside stopped, then I went back in to supervise the arrest of the other humans and the cataloging of Ashvial’s business records.

When I got the final tally of demons captured and killed, the numbers seemed small compared to how many I’d seen on my previous visits there. I figured some had escaped, and some had probably decided to find other living arrangements after Ashvial died.

I did go up to his office on the second floor. I grabbed a couple of newbie detectives and took them with me. There weren’t too many humans who read demon, and most of them worked in research institutions, not for the police. 

When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was the statuette. I was a little surprised it was still there. The body of a woman—a human woman—with the head of a dragon. Sharp ridges ran from the top of her head between her horns, down her back to the tip of her tail, which was curled around her feet. She looked almost alive, as though her skin would be soft and warm. Her eyes were demon red, glowing, and just as when I’d seen her before, I felt as though they followed me.

I pulled out my phone and called Kevin Goodman, head of the Arcane Forensics Branch.

“Kevin, remember that house up by Pimlico? The drug house where the demons were massacred? Can you send the magik detector who was at the house that day over to Lucifer’s Lair? I have something I want her to look at.”

After I hung up, one of the detectives with me said, “That thing isn’t alive, is it? I feel like it’s watching me.”

“Yeah. I don’t know, but don’t touch it.”

I started going through the papers in Ashvial’s desk and filing cabinets, handing it to the detectives with instructions on how to catalog them. We’d been at it for about an hour, when Kevin’s magik detector appeared at the door.

“Lieutenant James? You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah. Take a look at that.” I pointed to the statue.

She sucked air, then cautiously approached it. I watched the young mage lick her lips, then extend her arm. She stopped with her hand a few inches from the statue, held it there for a minute, then pulled her hand close to her body and tucked it between her breast and armpit.

“Well?” I asked.

“That’s it,” she said. “That’s the magik I felt at the demon house that day.”

I took a deep breath. “I had a feeling. I think we just closed that case. Thanks.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Now, that’s a question, isn’t it? Ward it and transport it out of here.”

“Good luck,” she said, backing out of the room without taking her eyes off the statue.

~~~

“Dani, wake up! It’s happened again!”

I felt like I had just fallen asleep, and I was deep in a dream.

“Dani, come on!” Kirsten grabbed my shoulder and shook me.

I cracked an eye, and sure enough, it was still dark. Well, maybe a little light shone through my bedroom window.

“Is the world coming to an end?” I muttered.

“Maybe. Damn it, get the hell up!”

She took hold of my arm and literally dragged me out of bed and into the kitchen where we had a large screen hooked to the datanet. The picture on the screen was of the Palace of Commerce in downtown Baltimore shortly after it was bombed.

“What about it?” I asked, trying to pick up what the commentator was saying.

“That’s not Baltimore,” Kirsten said, “it’s Prague. This morning.”

At that point, I woke up and started listening to the announcer.

“…Human Liberation Army, HLA, called media outlets and claimed responsibility for the bombing. Their website has a manifesto with a list of demands, and it threatens more mayhem to come. At this point, authorities have said nothing about casualties, but the bomb went off at ten o’clock in the morning local time when the building is usually full of people.”

There were four different Palaces of Commerce, all tied together with a common computer system. The one in Baltimore had been destroyed a couple of weeks before, and only the ones in Buenos Aires and Nanking remained. All except the one in Nanking were built from the same set of plans, the buildings nearly identical.

“I thought you said the Akiyama Family and Ashvial were responsible for the bombing here in Baltimore,” Kirsten said.

“That’s what all the big Families and their intelligence services seem to think,” I answered. “No one has claimed responsibility for that, and the riots stopped when Ashvial died.”

Not only had the riots stopped in the Mid-Atlantic but also in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, and Kansas City. They continued in Vancouver, Dallas, and Mexico City—all cities under the influence of different demon lords.

“I knew some HLA people at Cambridge,” Kirsten said. “Just a bunch of socialist idealists. I can’t imagine any of them committing mass murder.”

I had never paid much attention to the HLA. I knew they opposed Rifters—especially demons—as well as magik users and the magikal hierarchy that controlled most of the world’s wealth and resources. I grabbed a keyboard and tried to check out their website, but got an error.

Kirsten looked over my shoulder. “What does that mean?”

“Either the amount of traffic crashed their server, or the authorities took it down,” I said.

Soul Harvest

BR Kingsolver

The rumor was that a new demon lord had come across the Rift and taken control of the Metroplex. That, the rumors said, was why the demons had stopped fighting on the side of the Akiyama Family in the Magi’s civil war. The new lord was more interested in consolidating his rule than in sacrificing his minions to the machinations of human mages.
I had no ideas if the rumors were true. I heard three different versions of the story from three different vampires. I hadn’t tried to look up a demon to ask. In spite of most people’s opinions about me, I was in favor of self-preservation.
I was on my way over to Enchantments—my roommate Kirsten’s shop—when a demon stepped out of a doorway and confronted me. He was tall, even taller than an elf, and his face was dominated by horns that grew out of his forehead and swept to the side and back, curling like a mountain sheep’s. His skin was red, which often indicated a fire demon, but not always. He was dressed in a tailored purple suit, and his grin showed teeth that could easily tear the flesh from my bones.
“Danica James,” he said, his voice a rumbling growl. “I am Besevial. You have something that belongs to me.”
“I don’t think so, but what do you think I have?” I took a step back and placed my hand on my Raider, prepared to draw.
“An avatar of Akashrian.”
“I don’t know who or what that is.”
His eyes narrowed and he leaned closer. “Take care, daughter of Lucas James. You play with the fires of hell.”
And then he was gone. Besevial. That was the name of the rumored new demon lord of the Mid-Atlantic region. And I had a very bad feeling that I knew who Akashrian was as well.
I continued on to Enchantments and got there as Kirsten was showing her last customer out the door. Her likeness on the store’s sign—a painting of her wearing a pointed hat and riding a broomstick sidesaddle in a miniskirt—had been joined by Santa and his reindeer flying next to her. Colorful lights outlined the windows and the door, and the window displays showed cheerful winter scenes.
“Good day?” I asked.
“Business is picking up. The more they clean up the neighborhood, the more comfortable people feel coming down here. If you can just convince the Rifters to riot and pillage a little less frequently, all the merchants down here would be very grateful.”
After a short-lived war between factions of the Magi, life was, to a certain extent, getting back to normal. Construction crews—many of them including mages—were starting to clean up the debris and the wreckage. Stores and restaurants that hadn’t been destroyed were reopening and putting up Christmas decorations. Trucks delivered food to restaurants and grocery stores. Kids went back to school. And shoppers and tourists filtered back into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor neighborhoods.
“I’ll make sure that I mention it to the new demon lord next time I see him,” I said.
Her head snapped up from where she was totaling her day’s receipts. “You saw him?”
“On my way over here. He wants the avatar of Akashrian. Says it belongs to him.”
“The avatar of who?” Kirsten bit her lip as the import of what I said sunk in. “That little statue?”
“I guess so. That’s the only thing I have that I got from a demon, other than a few scars.”
“How does he know you have it?”
“Beats me, but it’s someplace he’ll never find it. I’m in the mood for oysters, and Jack’s has reopened. Hungry?”
Walking over to Jack’s, we passed an old church. I wasn’t sure if it was being used before our little war, but I didn’t remember the scorch marks around the windows and doors. Someone was obviously working on the place, however. Two large construction dumpsters sat outside partially filled with debris. I stopped and checked the city permit posted on the door.
“Harvesting Souls Church,” I read.
“Sounds creepy,” Kirsten said. “It had a different name before it was trashed during the Rifter riots last fall. I figured after it burned, they’d tear it down.”
“Nope. This permit is for demolition, but also renovation. Looks like they’re going to keep the shell and rebuild the inside.”
We continued on to Jack’s, where we gorged on oysters and steamed shrimp, drank a couple of beers, and then went home.
I didn’t think anything more about the old church until a couple of days later when I passed it again. My partner, Detective Sergeant Carmelita Domingo, and I were on our way to grab a quick lunch. Tiny Carmelita hadn’t been my partner very long. The granddaughter of the head of a top Ten Magi Family, she was sharp and fearless, and I enjoyed working with her.
“Pretty strange crew to have working on a church,” Carmelita said.
I glanced in that direction and stopped in my tracks. Every being I could see who was working around the church was a demon.
“Burn ‘em down so you can build ‘em up? I’m sure your family loves that business model,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. My father would have a stroke if he saw that.” Carmelita’s family was one of the largest financial conglomerates in the world, and had taken heavy losses on their insurance portfolio due to the recent fighting.
“Hey, at least they’re employed.”
“What do they need money for? Food? Most of them just hang around the bars late at night and eat drunken college students.”
“If it keeps the students from driving drunk, that might be considered a public service.”
Carmelita snorted. “You’re terrible.”
On our way back, I made a point to take a look inside the church. All the workmen were demons, and the building was practically gutted. It sort of made sense. Demons were far stronger than humans, or even vampires, and they were very good at destroying things. I wondered who would be doing the construction.
Kirsten had a date that night, and my boyfriend was out of town, so when I got off work, I took the opportunity to go Christmas shopping. Kirsten, of course, was a pagan, as were most witches. I had no idea about Aleks’s views on religion. I had slept at his apartment on Saturday nights, and he had never mentioned anything about church on Sunday mornings. Since I had been raised by my half-elf mother, practically all my knowledge of human religions was secondhand. My grandmother and most of my Findlay relatives went to church on Easter and Christmas but didn’t seem to spend much effort on their religion at other times.
That didn’t mean the pagans, elves, and almost everyone else in my life didn’t want presents. Some celebrated Christmas, others celebrated Solstice, and the Elves celebrated Yule—which was the same day as Solstice.
I knew that other people gave gifts at New Year. At least my list wasn’t terribly long—Mom, my grandfather Joren, my grandmother Olivia, Kirsten, and Aleks. I had bought gifts for my grandmother and Mom from Kirsten. But what do you buy for a four-hundred-year-old elf? And Kirsten? I knew what she really wanted was a marriage proposal from Mychal Novak, but I didn’t have enough money to buy that.
And then there was Aleks. It had been more than ten years since I had a boyfriend at Christmas. It had been never that I had a boyfriend who was the filthy rich scion of a Hundred Family. Kirsten had suggested buying a sexy elf costume, putting it on, and tying a bow in my hair. Then she laughed at the expression on my face. I let her live but still wasn’t happy that she didn’t have a better suggestion.
I had finally fallen back on making Aleks a present—a combination enhancer-converter magitek device for his car. He’d never have to plug it in or add fuel. It cost me about seventeen credits in materials and had a retail price of ten thousand, so I hoped he’d like it.
So, presents for my grandfather and Kirsten were still on my list.
I took a run up to my mom’s place at Loch Raven Reservoir to tell her and my grandfather about Besevial and his request for the statuette.
Several elves were hanging around, as Mom’s house was the center of the community Joren had established when he came to protect Mom and me during the war. They seemed to have set up some sort of marketplace, with little booths displaying things they had made and were willing to exchange or sell. I waved hello and parked my bike in Mom’s garage, plugging it in to recharge the battery.
“This is a surprise,” Mom said as I walked into her kitchen. As always, it smelled like heaven. She was baking elitriel—an elven pastry using eli¬—a grain from the elven home world—and filled with a mixture of apricots and raspberries. She told me that in the home world she would have used redfruit, but only a few of those bushes grew in our world.
“I could smell what you’re baking all the way downtown,” I lied, and received a laugh and a hug in return.
I told Mom about my gift dilemma.
“Can you afford one of those demon-killer pistols you carry?” she asked. A Raider .50 caliber fired magikally enhanced explosive-incendiary rounds. Cops often called it a hand cannon.
“Yeah, but why? Joren has enough magik to kill a demon in his little finger.”
“Because sometimes you don’t want to use magik. And your grandfather will love it because it came from you. Remember, he’s a warrior mage. He’d much rather have a weapon than a fishing pole.”
Especially since he could catch a whole boatload of fish with magik if he wanted to. I could get an employee’s discount on weaponry from Whittaker Arms, so I could take care of that the next time I went to work.
Mom didn’t have any good suggestions for a gift for Kirsten. What to get for the girl who has everything except a ring on her finger? We tossed ideas around for a while but didn’t hit on anything we both liked.
My grandfather came in a little later and gave me a hug, and the three of us sat down with tea and those lovely pastries.
I told them about my encounter with Besevial.
“An avatar?” Joren asked.
“That was what he said. He called it an avatar of Akashrian. Have you ever heard of her?” Mom and Joren had watched me stash the statuette in a cabinet in my workshop in the back of the house.
He shook his head. “No, but I can contact someone in Ireland who has spent far more time studying demons than I have. It could either be some sort of demon queen, or one of their pantheon. They do have a large number of gods and goddesses. To my knowledge, no one has ever been able to determine whether their gods are corporeal or not.”
“You mean a real god walking around?”
Joren shrugged. “What is a god? How long do demons live? We don’t know if the being symbolized by that figurine is two feet tall or two hundred feet tall. I’ve never seen a dragon, but our history says the largest of those who came through a rift into Alfenheim were a hundred feet from nose to tail. Maybe they have dragons in the demons’ world.”
“You should write fantasy novels,” Mom said. “You could make a fortune.”
He chuckled. “I know someone who’s doing that. Taking historical tales from Alfenheim and publishing them as fiction. But back to reality. You take care, Danica. The artifact is safely warded, but don’t trust that demon to act rationally. He might decide to eat you out of spite.”
We talked for a while longer, and then they accompanied me out to my car. I paused to take a longer look at the goods the elves were selling. One guy had a sort of display set up with what looked like wood carvings. Curious, I wandered over to see them.
Elves don’t use sharp tools to work. They use magik. I found myself looking at some incredible sculptures by a master artist.
“These are fabulous! Do you sell them?” I asked.
He preened. “Of course. You like them?”
One in particular caught my eye. It looked like an abstract sculpture of a woman. “What do you call this?”
“It’s a depiction of the Goddess,” he said. “I’m asking two hundred for it.”
“Sold. Can I bring the money for it later this week?”
“Sure. I’ll give it to Amelie to hold for you. Just give her the money when you come.” He picked it up and handed it to my mother.
Solstice present for Kristen solved with a day to spare. Life was good.
Mom walked me over to get my bike.
“Where do they get money?” I asked.
Mom grinned. “From people like you. I’ve introduced them to that farmers’ market in Baltimore on Sundays, and there’s a craft market in Towson and one in York on Saturdays. Some of the merchants who buy my wines have taken some things on consignment. Between themselves, they barter labor or services or food for money if they need it. Elves developed trade and capitalism while humans were still living in caves.
“They seem to be settling in here. Do they plan to go back to Iceland when this war is over?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. They like the trees. Joren brought two hundred warriors with him, but there are more than five hundred elves here now. I’ve spoken to your grandmother, and Olivia will help us bargain with the Council for the land surrounding the reservoir. By next winter, there will be a permanent town here.”