[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I post new chapters about every two weeks, and the next chapter is planned for around November 9th.]

Previous: Chapter 12

The wind had picked up slightly, and a larger than normal wave broke and flowed up the beach, sending foam sliding over the sand.

Flicker tried to recall information she’d only ever skimmed, because it was rated as barely above rumors by the Database reliability metrics. She wanted to respect Journeyman’s wishes, and not interfere with Stella’s security work. So consulting her visor comp, or asking DASI, were off limits for now.

“Vi the Knife, the Demon of Vandalham,” she said. "That was the name I was trying to remember.“

"Yeah, that was Sylvi.” Journeyman sighed. "And now you can give me hell for hypocrisy. For starting a relationship with an adult when I was fourteen, and then saying fifteen was too young for you. But I still think the risks were–“

"No, I won’t.” Flicker shook her head. "Osk set me straight about that. It’s not hypocritical to think it would be a bad idea for someone else to do what you did–only if you claim it’s always wrong, then make excuses for yourself. You didn’t–you were just evasive. With good reason, because of how volatile I was. Which means you were probably right about me, however frustrating I found it.“

"And we didn’t come here to talk about me.” She smiled again. "This is about you–in the real world, not some hypothetical perfect one where everything worked out the way we wanted. So tell me more about Sylvi, and your time together. Good or bad, I won’t yell at you.“

"Heh. I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Some of the things I did…”

“Were you happy when you were with her?”

“Most of the time, yeah. Much happier than I’d have been alone. The job was just her way of setting boundaries, in case we needed them. But she had a big problem.”

“If she was a demon, then–”

“She wasn’t. Though she wanted everyone to think she was, because that was better than having them guess the truth.”

“What was she?”

“A dryad–a tree spirit.”

“In the middle of Vandalham?” Flicker frowned. "That… doesn’t sound very pleasant for her.“

"It often wasn’t. But her real problem was that she couldn’t go anywhere else. Remember the tree, out in front of the building? That was Sylvi’s tree. There wasn’t another one for miles.”

“How did it get there?”

“The usual way–it was planted as a boulevard tree about a century ago, along with a lot of others. But they died. Because they were elm trees.”

“Dutch elm disease,” said Flicker.

“Yeah. That one tree survived. Sylvi’s first conscious memory was waking up inside it. She liked to say they were both fighters who didn’t know when to give up, but no one’s really sure how long dryads develop inside their trees before they can manifest. Her presence might have been the reason it lived.

"She put down deep roots, both physical and magical. She wasn’t going to abandon her tree just because it was stuck somewhere shitty, and by the time she might have been able to reach out to other, far away trees, she was in too deep–she couldn’t leave.”

“That’s… heartbreaking.”

“Being stuck in a city drove her more than a little crazy. But she made that tree, and the couple of blocks around it, her home. Her turf. She owned it, for more than thirty years, taking on anyone and everyone who came there unwelcome. Gangs. Demolition crews and hired thugs. Cops. Mobsters. Feds. Nonhumans and superhumans.

"She was the toughest goddamn dryad in the world.”

Journeyman turned his head to look at the edge of the beach, where the lush greenery of the island started. "A world that played a nasty joke on her. I could port anywhere–and Sylvi couldn’t go more than a few blocks from that one spot in Vandalham. Not and live.“ He looked down. "I loved her. We didn’t spend all our time together, but I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.”

Flicker shivered a little. She didn’t want to think about how claustrophobic she’d have felt in Sylvi’s place.

“How did–” No. I shouldn’t ask about the end if I want to hear the rest. "How did you get along with the other magician that–“

"What other magician?” said Journeyman.

“She supposedly worked with another magician who was never caught. There was a pic in the Database. He was wanted for–”

He turned to meet Flicker’s eyes. "What other magician?“ he repeated, and flicked the edge of his hat with a fingertip. Her heart lurched as he transformed into an older stranger with greasy black hair held back by a bandana, an acne-scarred face, and crow’s feet around hard, suspicious eyes.

He flicked the edge of the bandana, and Journeyman’s face was back. "That’s the thing–if someone masters illusions and learns to act, it’s very hard to be sure who they really are. Lots of folks wanted to talk to Sylvi’s magician, but there was never enough evidence to charge him with anything except possibly obstruction of justice, and the statute of limitations for that is up. I was pretty careful.”

“Oh.”

“It was easier for me to manage it long term in Vandalham, though.”

Flicker frowned. “Why was that?”

Journeyman leaned back in his beach chair and put his hands behind his head. "How much do you know about Vandalham?“

"Not much. Database info is usually too crappy to let me do anything useful there without talking to people–and you know how bad I am at that. Um… Everyone talks about it like it’s one big city instead of parts of several. The districts are named after Senator Vandalham, who set up this commission to try to help some older slums on the east coast after World War II, but that didn’t work out the way he wanted. There’s a lot of crime, and political fights over how to fix it that made my eyes glaze over.

"And Nighthaunt lives there–that’s the one thing everyone knows. He doesn’t like me, which is another reason I don’t go there often.”

“Heh. He doesn’t like most other superheroes.” Journeyman smiled. "What you’re missing is that the crime, the hostility to outside law enforcement, and the insular communities make it a handy place for anyone who wants to live in a city without attracting unwelcome attention. What Vegas was for legal magicians, Vandalham is for illegal ones and nonhumans. And it’s been that way for a long time.

“The higher level of background magic is probably what pulled in Sylvi. And the history is why she was able to get along with the locals. Vandalham’s unofficial motto is ‘None of your damn business’. Nighthaunt mostly keeps a lid on the crazier stuff, which lets everyone who doesn’t live there pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“If they want.” Journeyman’s smile faded. "Sylvi had been there for a quarter century before I met her. A lot of what she did was misdirection. She originally dressed punk so she had an excuse for her green hair–that was her natural color and it wasn’t healthy to dye it, because it was photosynthetic. She smoked to mask her scent and give an excuse for a rough voice.

“It didn’t just hide what she was–it made it easier for her to get the respect she needed to survive in Vandalham without being gratuitously violent. She learned that early, and adapted. But she ended up… Well, if she’d been human, I’d say she was bipolar. Most of the time she was a joy to be around, though sometimes she had a scary manic edge. Other times, I was fortunate that I’d already learned the hard lesson about things I couldn’t help from my parents.”

He waved a hand. "That’s why she stayed away sometimes, back in our online days. She didn’t want to share depression.“

"What did you do when she was like that?” asked Flicker.

“It depended. It was more common in winter–she had Seasonal Affective Disorder, though we were never sure how much of it was reaction to her tree being leafless and dormant. Usually she’d curl up in bed, or the roof greenhouse when it was sunny, and if I was around, I’d sit next to her with whatever I was reading or practicing. If she was awake I’d tell her jokes–dark humor. She liked that.”

He looked down. "And as I learned more magic, I tried to find a way for her to travel. One that she would accept. Pretty early on, I figured out something that might let her move to a different tree, but it would severely weaken her at best–and kill her tree. No way she’d do that–it was family.

“That was my original motivation for portal research. I never did figure out anything satisfactory. And when I was eighteen, four years after we’d first met, the choice got taken out of our hands.”

Flicker thought for a moment, then chose her words carefully. "I heard about the aftermath. I was twelve, and people were panicking and asking Doc for help.“

"Everyone heard about the aftermath.” Journeyman pressed his hands together in front of his mouth. "Want to know something about keeping secrets? Sometimes the hardest part is letting a lie become common knowledge–because you can’t tell the truth.“

"Um. Are you… willing to tell me what really happened?”

“Yeah. Now I am. But it can never go in the Database. And don’t try to defend Vi the Knife, if someone brings her up in conversation. Because you aren’t a good enough liar to get away with it. Just say all the Database information about her is too bad to be sure of anything, which is true.”

“Okay.”

“First, you need to understand that the local cops had an understanding with Sylvi, brokered by Nighthaunt during the 80s: They left her the hell alone, and she didn’t kill them. And she handled any problems on her turf–nothing bad ever spilled out. Which was why Nighthaunt ignored them when they complained about being unable to deliver warrants and subpoenas.

"But that didn’t extend to the Feds. Sylvi ran a few safe houses, and did a little money laundering, but her main income was from something else. She was good with plants–go figure–and kept a bunch of indoor greenhouses where she grew some interesting strains with a touch of added magic. She invented Bounce and Vandalham Green.”

“I don’t know what those are,” said Flicker, embarrassed.

“Vandalham Green was just a very potent strain of medical cannabis, optimized to be ingested rather than smoked. Variants have started to show up elsewhere in the last decade or so with state legalization, but Sylvi’s was always the best.

"Bounce was to amphetamines what methadone is for opiates–a less lethal version that worked for maintenance therapy and addiction reduction. It had a very flat dose-response curve and side effects that limited abuse potential–people weren’t generally interested in Bounce unless they were addicted to meth and didn’t want to be. As far as I know, no one else has ever managed to duplicate it.”

Flicker frowned again. "Both of those sound like they would actually help people.“

"They did–that’s why Nighthaunt never went after her. But Sylvi came out with them during the early War on Drugs hysteria era, and obviously without any sort of official approval, so she was targeted by the Feds during the Lost Years. They sent a task force after her, against all local advice. When they got to Sylvi’s neighborhood, she sent up a haze–it’s fog for most dryads, but Sylvi’s was more like smog–they lost radio contact, and no one ever saw anyone who went into it again.

"Because she killed them all, and disposed of the bodies and equipment so thoroughly no one ever found them. The people who ordered it could never prove what happened–but they suspected, and held their grudges. Every couple of years, they’d try to send in someone undercover, and Sylvi would kill them, too.”

“Why was she so ruthless?”

“Self defense. They weren’t going to leave her alone if she let them live, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re guilty, or of what, if an arrest on suspicion or a court appearance is a death sentence. Both of those would take her too far from her tree–and no cop or judge would believe that if they didn’t see it. So she killed to protect herself.

"And that’s how things stayed, for a couple of decades.”

Journeyman took a deep breath. "Then something finally happened that I’d dreaded since I met her. She’d been fatalistic about it for a long time–it was one of the reasons for her bouts of depression. A local political faction opposed to Vandalham, and backed by outside money, hired someone who was smart enough to figure out what Sylvi was–and her weakness.

“They called in the Feds, who quietly put together a team to go in. And just before they did, and quite illegally–because it was premeditated murder if they expected it to work at all–they sent a plane over and bombed Sylvi’s tree with a fast acting herbicide.”

Flicker put her hand over her mouth.

“I wasn’t there when it happened. I got a panicked call from one of her henchman when the Feds showed up and Sylvi didn’t answer her door. I ported in, and Sylvi…”

Journeyman stared out over the waves. "She was sprawled on the floor, and not quite dead–but she couldn’t move or talk. I checked the one way glass, and there was an armored bulldozer out front, just moving in on Sylvi’s tree. A bunch of agents with guns were guarding it, and a few were holding people back–there was already a crowd.“

"I looked down at the people who had come to kill Sylvi, and thought about all the others that had sent them there and helped. And then I reached out through the dying tree and Redshirt cursed every damned one of them.”

*****

“Stella?”

Doc looked into the darkened room. He’d finally completed his diplomatic efforts. His last conversation had been with a representative for a group of Russian kleptocrats or organized crime leaders–the distinction was a bit hazy–and it said a bit about his day that it had been both the easiest and the least unpleasant. The person he’d spoken to had been smart enough to concentrate solely on verifying information.

Stella had reclined her chair, taken off her interface helmet, and returned her hair to normal. She also had her eyes closed, so it wasn’t immediately obvious she was awake.

“I’m done for now,” she said. "DASI is rather upset, and there are far too many things we’re going to have to reverify, but I’ve put in a temporary patch. If you want to access anything in the new partitions when I’m not with you, or change security priorities, do it in your workshop, and run a manual security check first.“

"Why? DASI can run it much faster.”

“Because it’s not about conventional security, it’s about blocking magic. And a security ritual by the Maker in his place of power is the most straightforward way to do that. I suggest you run one a day as a preventive measure, and if DASI asks you to run another one, don’t argue, don’t ask why, just do it. Then you can talk.”

“Ah,” said Doc. He walked over to stand by Stella’s chair. "Security theater as sympathetic magic?“

"Not quite. Sympathetic magic is exactly what this will stop.”

“I see. Awkward, but workable. Thanks.”

“Thank Journeyman–he’s the one who did the legwork.” Stella sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Did you deliberately leave information about him out of the Database from the beginning, or did he ask first?“

"He asked, but I hadn’t made any effort to update non-public data on magicians since One-Eyed Jack died. I didn’t have any other good sources, and I didn’t want to poke around on my own. With the amount of paranoia floating around in the magical community after the Lost Years, asking the wrong questions unnecessarily could get someone killed.

"Journeyman’s offer was very welcome–both his experimental work and his anonymous verification confidence ratings filled important holes. So I was very careful about respecting his privacy after I started working with him. It was the least I could do.”

*****

Flicker stared at Journeyman. "The curse was you?! I thought– Everyone thinks it was Vi the Knife’s death curse, some kind of magical disease.“

"I know. And I’m not about to correct them.”

“But– You called it a Redshirt curse? What is that? I thought curses were really dangerous for a magician to cast.”

“They are. But there is a kind of blessing, called a scapegoat blessing, where you reduce the chance of something bad happening to someone by increasing the chance for someone or something else–the goat. A Redshirt curse is a just a scapegoat blessing for a lot of people at once with the target as the goat. Sylvi’s tree had deep roots in Vandalham, and it was Sylvi’s home. So I scapegoat blessed all of Vandalham, as strongly as I could manage, as Sylvi’s tree died.

"With the killers as the goats. And I used sympathetic magic and contagion to get the ones who weren’t there in person.”

“Oh. That’s scary. Can many magicians do that?”

“Not most of them. And it was special circumstances that let me do it–essentially I gave Sylvi’s tree a death curse. And over the next three days, over a hundred people in six states died in various unlikely ways–including every single agent who came into Vandalham, the crew of the plane, the chain of command that ordered the raid, four corrupt city councilmen, some lobbyists and political aides, and a few real estate developers that were hoping for a cheap chunk of newly available property.”

Journeyman smiled grimly. "But for that same three days, only fifty or so people who lived in Vandalham died. The blessing worked too–about four hundred would statistically be expected to die over that period. So if you want to be coldly utilitarian about it…“

"Did Sylvi’s death increase the effect?”

Journeyman’s face went flat again. “No. Because Sylvi didn’t die.”

“What? But–”

“Sylvi was tough. But I knew she didn’t have long. And… it wasn’t clear what she wanted. She never cared to talk about the possibility of outliving her tree, even if I could get her to a new one in time. But once when she was drunk, she said if her tree died she’d only want a new one someplace so cursed that humans would be afraid to go there for centuries, and she didn’t think there was anywhere like that anymore.”

“So what did you do?”

“The best I knew how. There are still quite a few places that have trees without people. But only one that’s universally feared. So I picked Sylvi up in a fireman’s carry–which was hard enough, because she was bigger than me, and I was already wobbly from the curse–and ported there, found a tree, and collapsed in front of it.

"And, just barely, she lived.”

“Where did you take her?”

“Chernobyl.”



Next: Chapter 14

