Gremlin Night Dale Smith (comprehension books txt) 📖

A gremlin darted past the bank’s open doors, skidding to a stop between the police officers, grinning its stupid grin. The police didn’t react.

“Hee-hee!” Its laughter was an insane giggle.

The money snatching mob also completely ignored the gremlin.

Another hide-the-magic spell like back at the strip mall? I looked around again, trying to see if I could see any signs of a spell. Nothing.

The gremlin was right here. I could deal with it then figure out what was cloaking it from the ordinaries.

I drew Tully’s exquisite wand and gestured at the gremlin, ending with a snap of my wrist and the wand’s tip pointing straight at the center of the gremlin.

“I banish you!” I commanded in Italian. The gremlin turned to black smoke.

I braced myself for the cops’ reaction.

They ignored the whole thing, continuing to standing there at the top of the steps.

Another gremlin ran from the bank, then a third. A fourth.

My hand shook as I clenched Tully’s wand. Spellfire, but this didn’t look good. The sprite had said one other manifestation was here, and strongly implying it wasn’t another gremlin, so what was the deal?

The four new gremlins flickered and my hand stopped shaking. Level zeroes. Brand new, still only-barely-here manifestations. These I could deal with.

I cast a simple Dispel. My head throbbed, but not with the avalanche of pain it would have been if I’d been forced to do another banish so quickly after the first.

The four gremlins vanished in a shower of sparks and I let myself grin.

There, that was easy.

But that left the crowd and the cops. The thing was, none of them paid any more attention to my spellcasting than they had the now-vanished gremlins. But they should have reacted. They probably wouldn’t have seen the full deal, but still some strangeness would have intruded. They certainly would have seen the sparks and heard my words. Their minds would have tried to make sense out of what they did see. A few who had greater intrinsic awareness of the arcane might have seen the blue and purple glow of magic.

That’s when I spotted a familiar-looking figure cowering behind a lamp post. I frowned. It was the guy I’d last seen cowering outside the strip mall a couple of hours ago. What was he doing here?

His face was ashen white and his eyes wide.

He was the single ordinary who had reacted to what I’d just done. He stared at where the gremlins had been and then at me. The crowd continued to snatch at the swirling cloud of money still spewing from the ATM.

“What’s going on?” he wailed. The crowd ignored him.

Curses. “Sir! Remember me?” I asked him, giving him the fake name that I’d used before. I walked over, and crouched beside him, trying to look reassuring.

He gestured at the police. “Why aren’t the cops reacting? They are just standing there.” He brushed his long hair from his eyes. “What were you doing? And what were those strange creatures?” He looked at me desperately.

Strange creatures. Double curses. Not just monkeys, but creatures. I had to come up with a rationalization on the spot. This wasn’t my forte. Not one bit. Binders don’t have to persuade ordinaries that the bizarre thing they are seeing they really aren’t seeing. That’s what Persuaders do. Not my type of sorcery at all.

But, what choice did I have? I had to come up with something, like it or not.

The man’s eyes were wide. He held on to a walking stick. Silver rings flashed on his fingers.

I’d seen rings like those tonight, but where?

I tried to make my fuzzy brain remember, but just then a tall, slender figure appeared out of the shadows. It wore a tall, old-style black hat and matching black suit. The hat and suit were fashioned from a fabric that gleamed like a crow’s feathers, and what may have been a feathery fringe, it was hard to tell in the dark.

The man shrank against me, eyes wide, filled with panic. “Wh-at i-s that?” He asked in a tiny voice.

The clothes it wore were out of the nineteenth century, but the wrap-around sunglasses were modern.

“I’m here to help with this play.” The figure brought two fingers to its mouth and whistled. It was a piercing sound.

Strands of silver light played like lighting over the crowd, which began glowing silver in turn and then blinked out of existence. The two blonde police officers, the car in the road, the scattered fortune of twenty-dollar bills, all of it, vanished as well. The bank’s doors were closed, the ATMs sat silent.

“There, that’s better,” the figure trilled.

I shook myself, swallowed. “I request your identity,” I said, my voice a squeak. “I invoke the Compact.” I said the spell in English. An illusion. The whole thing had been an illusion. I’d been messed with. The question was, why?

The manifestation smiled a wide smile. “Your compact doesn’t apply to me.”

That wasn’t how it worked. My spell must have fizzled. Had I already used English three times this night? I couldn’t remember. There had been too much craziness along the way.

I could try the spell again, but it would be harder.

It stretched its arms wide, in an overblown gesture. “I am the Lord of Chaos.”

I blinked. He didn’t seem like an arcane lord. But I couldn’t tell. If Tully were here, he’d be able to, but somebody had sent him off on a different mission.

“Name, please,” I said.

Crazy pants laughter erupted from the manifestation.

“Sorry, but sounds are not a substitute for a bona fide name.” I felt like an idiot quoting from the Laws of the Compact, but I didn’t know what else to do. “Please declare yourself.”

The manifestation loomed. “Call me Mister Trickster.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. You’ve got to be kidding me.” This was ridiculous. This thing was way too over the top to be an actual trickster.

It bowed from the waist. “At your service.”

I snapped my fingers. “Hah! If you were a trickster, that