And the Stalking was Hung Ch. 03

The morning of Christmas Eve showed some promise of ending the snow storm. For awhile the sun was even out and brightly shining, but it apparently wouldn't last. More snow expected for later this evening, according to the weather report.

Still, since there was sunshine for the moment, the odds of another Shadow attack soon were remote at best. Most Shadow creatures don't possess a whole lot of self-will, but they have a strong sense of self-preservation. There isn't a big enough whip to force virtually any Shadow creature to go out into broad daylight.

I told Gloria to stay outdoors in the sunlight for awhile so that I could go run an important errand. I vaguely hinted that I was off to find something that should stop any future attacks, and it was only a slight exaggeration of the truth. In actuality, it was time to go pay the wicked "ex" a visit. The sunshine only lasted outside about as far as the first traffic light and by the time I got to my destination the daylight was gone and things were back to being dark and dreary.

***********

Donald, the soon to be ex-husband, didn't live that far away. I'd found the address while rummaging through Gloria's mail downstairs on the dining room table last night. He had been a busy boy it seems and had filed several flavors of complaints against Gloria, including a restraining order that included a prohibition for her to use magic in any form against him. Apparently, the ex seems to have been aware of a thing or two and a visit to him might get a few more questions answered. Unregistered magic use was bad; using magic to attempt to murder someone is far worse. The BMA loves these kinds of cases, but there was no indication that Donald had filed a separate complaint with them.

Finding the exact house wasn't at all difficult, since at the moment, Donald was having no shortage of problems of his own, namely a menacing trio of Shadow Hulks chasing him down in the snow in front of his house. Looks like I had arrived in just the nick of time!

Shadow Hulks are creatures imbued with elemental earth abilities and powers. They're wicked, nasty and foes, capable of suddenly rising out of the ground and attacking without warning. Not quite Major League talent, but darned close. Three of them were going to be a handful for me. One of them alone would be enough to handle any normal human, even in murky daylight. I'd arrived in the very nick of time.

I had one good spray left in my ionizer, but I wasn't going to need it for these guys. They're big and strong, but all offense with no defense game. No brains to speak of and not even very fast moving in their material form. One on one, I'd normally just use my sword-cane against them and not sweat about it overly much. Pulling three of them off of a potential victim was going to be a tad challenging though.

There is no point in being a self-confessed gadgeteer unless you go to work loaded for bear, and anything else that might cross your path. Most normal mundane PI's will wax lovingly about their .38 Colt Revolvers, and so will I in just the right mood; especially when it is loaded with silver bullets, just like the Lone Ranger (said to be one of Lovett's Rangers during the days of the Mexican Wars, before the Texas Rangers were established years later).

Some folks might criticize my use of a revolver, preferring instead the extra stopping power and clip capacity of a .45 APC or 10mm automatics but they would be wrong. Kinetic stopping power is certainly useful against normal people, but against Visitors it is the silver grain weight that is of much more importance. Also, revolvers do not automatically eject shell casings everywhere, and sometimes you don't have time to stop and pick them all up.

Sometimes, it can be very important not to leave strong traces of where you have been. A very skilled enemy could use a spent shell casing I'd recently handled to be able trace my movements and whereabouts, thus it is better to never leave any.

There is nothing quite like the bang of a gun, the smell of gunpowder, and the agonized cry of a Visitor just discovering for the first time the joys of an acute case of internal silver poisoning. I could have dropped one for good with three or more shots, but I decided to play conservatively and popped a pair of slugs into all three, just to get their complete and undivided attention. Their previous goal of pounding poor Donald into a mush was now quite forgotten.

I probably had plenty of time to back up and reload, or draw one of my secondary weapons, but they were moving slower now towards me, fighting off my Commands of Banishment, and facing me in a staggered line, approaching one at a time. Damned vanity… I pulled out my silver runed sword cane and performed a good bit of directly applied chastisement to their rapidly shrinking and dissipating forms. A minute later and all three had been Banished and made to permanently Depart.

These specific guys wouldn't be returning anytime soon for a repeat visit. The more powerful an entity is, the more it damages their internal essence to be 'killed' on this plane, and forced to Depart for home with their tail between their legs... figuratively and literally. There are lots of other nasty fish in the sea, but these three good sized fish won't be paying anyone, anywhere a visit for at least five to ten years, at minimum, plus they would be too stupid to remember me and hold any particular grudges.

The grateful ex, Donald, was more than happy to forgive my last second appearance to save his hide and refrained from commenting on the products of my misspent youth, spent watching entirely too many Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn movies.

He was willing to swear to any great number of Oaths, and soon did, that he had never in any way threatened his wife… and certainly never by magical means. His BMA card demonstrated exactly how impossible this accusation was. His score was a flat Zero. Null. Naughta.

Not a chance in seven hells that Don was trying to off his wife, at least by this means. Heck, by this point I was about willing to hold her down myself so that he could strangle her himself with his bare hands… but I had a still valid Contract Oath that would last until she intentionally directed some harm at me. Since I was not the original intended target of this particular summoning spell, my options remained fairly limited still.

After swearing a limited Contract Oath with me, my new client Don wasted no time filling me in on the particulars of their settlement. He had all of the money in the marriage, and if he were to die before the settlement was finalized in two days, his estate would still entail to her. In short, pretty little unhappy Gloria had about ten million dollars worth of reasons to lie and wish her husband dead – and fast! Time was now starting to run out.

By the terms of the two Contract Oaths, I was required to protect the lives of both clients, but I could not actually at this point forcibly restrain or prevent Gloria from performing any more summoning against Donald. I had to keep frustrating her attacks until she decided on her own that I would make a better target than her ex. The moment she launched a direct attack on me, either in person or via another summoning, the Contract would be broken and the kid gloves could come off.

Magic has a lot of karmic rules and there are reasons for a good many of them. Smart mages learn to work with the system and that sometimes involves waiting for a long time on the defensive when you'd rather be on the offensive dishing out some payback instead… but the long term rewards are usually worth the delay.

Gloria apparently had gotten her greedy little fingers on a full blown Artifact with more than enough oomph to summon and control anything up to a major level entity. By all rights, I could have stopped right then and there and picked up the phone to call in a crisis report to BMA, and let them deal with her. That was the safe move. I wouldn't win any hero points but no one would be (openly) second guessing me much either.

On the other hand, our local Austin BMA office was relatively small, and the minor Wizard technically in charge of Major Banishments there wasn't all that much more capable than I was, in my own opinion. Most of our big guns are either at the Imperial Spring Residence of Galveston, the School of Wizardry at Lovett, or the six main field offices in Dallas, El Paso, Elkart, Houston, San Antonio or Tulsa.

Plus my ego really wanted the credit for handling this case for them. Someday there would be likely to be a really big "Oh Shit!" in my official records. Weird and nasty stuff happens. I decided that having a few "Attaboys" in the file wouldn't hurt for when that day comes.

I girded my loins and mentally prepared myself for battle.

*********

I had two choices now. My first thought was to take the time to build an elaborate Protection Circle (with lots of light) for Donald to wait inside of safely while I settled accounts.

Tactically sound, but I just wasn't sure how much brute force the demented woman could muster. If she tossed safety to the wind in a fit of rage or insanity and summoned some Major entities, or heaven forbid a 'Named' extra-planar personage, those protections could be brute forced.

The alternative was to just stay with Donald until the divorce became final, but this wouldn't stop her from summoning. Who knows what she'd do next… or where it would go. If she summoned more Hulks and released them to go eat the neighbors, it would be me who would probably get the final blame after all of the investigations were completed and the paperwork stamped. It was going to be on my head now regardless of what happened.

I decided that I really needed to confront and stop her now, hopefully by getting her to break our Contract Oath first.

The next issue was how best to protect Donald. I could take him to my own home 'panic room', which I was 99% sure could hold out against anything I could think of, or else I'd have to bring him along with me for the ride, and a not so pleasant probable altercation with the ex-missus. My own need for privacy and internal security won the debate, and Don hopped into my front passenger seat for the ride to Gloria's.

I thought about giving him my reloaded revolver, but decided I couldn't trust the nervous git to not to shoot me in the back by mistake if things got exciting. He did look extremely stressed out and would likely try to shoot anything that moved. I have several minor armor spells enforced in my suit that ought to stop a .38 slug, but I wasn't about to risk my life on that theoretical assumption.

We drove back to Gloria's rental house without even slowing down for lights or stop signs. The snow was picking up again and the sky wasn't going to get any brighter anytime soon. I didn't think there were any red light ticket cameras out in this neck of the woods, but this was sort of an emergency. Besides, that's a very justifiable expense anyway that I could collect from my clients, or their estates if things didn't work out so well today.

I parked near the street entrance to her small residential cul-de-sac. Close enough to see the house fairly clearly even through the snow, but more than likely safe enough out of the way if things went kaboom! I locked the doors and gave Don extremely firm instructions to "Stay in the car and don't get out of the car – no matter what happens!"

I repeated this order three or four more times for good measure just on the off chance that Gloria's stupidity had infected Don in any way. I think he got the hint.

Walking towards Gloria's house I immediately noticed at least one new change. A grouping of five fresh, newly made snowmen lurking and sulking on the front lawn. Yes, Virginia, magical snowmen can sulk and these specimens were oozing menace and annoyance out of every pore of their icy bodies. I didn't even need to extend my magical senses in that direction to detect the foul taint of fresh Shadow magic. I was going to need a better plan… or a much bigger gun.

Ideally, a shotgun with silver buckshot was the preferred way to deal with these guys, but mine was at home. I made a note to myself to file the damn concealed carry permit paperwork so I could tote the damned thing around with me in the future. I had plenty of room for a good small barreled shotgun inside my duster coat.

Really, there is very little taxonomical difference between these sorts of Greater Shadow Hulk elementals. If you've seen or fought one, you're pretty much ready to handle any of them. Instead of earth, these Hulks were composed of snow, i.e. they were basically water elementals. They would be big and slow, just like their earth-made cousins, and share the same weaknesses more or less, with the exception that these guys wouldn't like fire very much at all.

Fire magic isn't really one of my specialties, and only know just enough on the subject to make me dangerous. In fact I'm pretty awfully weak at handling fire at all. I've really only managed to learn one fire spell that can in theory focus some fire up close and personal. Unfortunately I have serious problems controlling it and if I screw up bad (again) I could break out the equivalent of a tiny tactical nuke that would torch the house for sure, and probably both of the two empty rentals next door. This is more or less what happened during the Incubus/Succubus disaster last summer when I just about torched the entire block.

I decided to save that option for a tighter emergency, but I really didn't like these odds.

The odds didn't improve much when the first Shadow Snow Hulk turned its head to watch me as I approached the walkway to the front door. I stopped – it stopped. We exchanged baleful glances, but they didn't move to approach me as long as I stayed in the street.

I guess Gloria had given very precise orders for them to guard the front door. That's alright, I decided that I'd be a lot happier if I were to become her backdoor man, instead. I walked down a few houses and went into their backyard and started to climb fences until I could look over and see Gloria's back yard.

No Snow Hulks there. Not really a surprise, even with her artificial boosts, this was a great deal of summoning done in a rather short time. She may have made most of her preparations alone the previous day, but this was still a tremendous strain on her resources. I for one would never have attempted this myself, but I rank self-preservation unusually highly. I had good, but very firm teachers in school and took good notes during the 'discretion is being the better part of valor' lesson.

With no threats in this yard, I moved right up to the back of the house and listened hard for approaching angry hopping snowmen, and was pleasantly delighted to hear none coming. The door was locked, but unlocking spells are childishly simple to use and it was the work of a moment to open her back door. Also, this spell being considered as non-offensive magic, this would not cause me to default on our Contract.

Soon after I opened the door, I greatly wished I hadn't. The stench of Major Shadow powers was overwhelming. I just prayed that I was in time to stop something that everyone was otherwise going to regret.

I wasn't. The only minimal good news was that Gloria was no longer going to be a threat to anyone. Our Contract was indeed now most definitely null and void, and that Don could consider himself a widower effective immediately.

The bad news was the huge Shadow Stalker that was mating with her quite dead but still quivering nude body. The really bad news was that he saw me almost as soon as I stuck my head into her bedroom doorway.

Oh, Holy Crap! I didn't even bother to fire off the .38, it would only annoy it.

Running first, then thinking of a suitable Plan B sounded like a really good idea. Those fuckers are fast! I think I just jumped straight down the rest of the stairs and made it out the front door with their vile breath breathing down my ass. No way in hell I was going to outrun it, but I'd already thought of a suitable temporary roadblock. The Snow Hulks!

Shadow Stalkers are as big, mean and nasty as anything on the Shadow Plane gets, or so I hope and pray. Definitely Major League talent that normally requires a group of Wizard level Practitioners in order to Banish. Allegedly, these guys are the enforcers of their world, serving the very top brass "named' guys. They're nearly impossible to Summon, and even harder to control. Obviously, Gloria somehow managed the first, but failed miserably with the final controlling part. She'll have a long time to consider that problem while she's forever imprisoned on the Shadow Plane.

Supposedly these guys are able to take and devour souls, and it undoubted did this before it got too carried away with its other fun. Probably once she arrives at her new home she'll get put into a new body and will be made to do nasty and unpleasant things for a very long time until that body is destroyed and it's time for a new one… rinse, wash, repeat ad infinitum. More pity to her, but she brought it plainly upon herself.

I wasn't going to have a prayer of taking this guy out. Fortunately, I could count on my unexpected new allies to help me out in a pinch. The Snow Hulks got one look at the Stalker hot on my ass and went proverbially nuts. They let me run past them without a scratch as they charged their mortal enemy.

It's apparently a very dog eat dog world, the Shadow Plane. No one has any friends, no nice dinner parties, and definitely no fluffy bunny stuff where everyone sits around a fireplace on Saturday nights holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya' . The strong prey upon the weak… mercilessly, except when the weak have just enough friends around to sort of even the odds.

If I had dropped my biggest fire bomb spell now, no one, not even the highest BMA enforcer, judge or executioner would have faulted my judgment the least bit, even if I did blow up half of the neighborhood, again. Still, my curiosity bug just had to make me wait and see if five angry Hulks were up to the job of at least slowing down a full grown Stalker… or at least long enough for me to help pump it full of six rounds of silver bullets and as many reloads as I could manage. It might take awhile, but the toxicity might get to it, eventually… hopefully.

Actually, the odds were working out better than I had hoped. Snow Hulks were being ripped apart right and left, but not before leaving bloody marks of their own upon the Stalker. He looked a bit the worse for wear with one of its arms dangling uselessly, but the two remaining Hulks were in worse shape still and wouldn't last more than another few seconds probably.

I'd emptied my revolver twice and was out of reloads. I had more ammo in the car, but I didn't like the odds that I would make it there in time and be able to finish off the Stalker before it finished me off instead. The last Snow Hulk was going down and the Stalker was now looking me over to be his next dance partner.

There was a Plan C I was considering, but I didn't like it very much. Sure I had pockets full of nasty things of my own, but not one of them was probably going to really hurt the Stalker very much, let alone kill it. I'm a pretty good Artificer, but this guy really needed Artifact or Wizard power magic to bring down. This thing, even badly wounded, was way out of my league.

It was really a fairly desperate plan, and I only had about twenty seconds or so to implement it before the fucker would rip off my head and then shit straight down my throat. I ran over to the west side of house, next to the outside brick wall of the house chimney, where there was the most ambient sunlight. I grabbed on to the local underground Ley Line like a drowning man would a life preserver, and focused my very limited Manipulation skills to modify the handful of silver coins I had in my pocket into a narrow tapered silver spike, sort of like a stiletto dagger.