A rubber ball made what was probably its hundredth trip across the reception desk of the Dayspring Art and History Museum. Each time it reached the end of its journey; a pen would flick down and send it back in the other direction.

Cyn’s chin almost rested on the desk as she watched and waited to flick the ball again; a white haired, female Poseidon for an Odysseus purchased from a vending machine. “Bored.” She declared without taking her eyes off the ball. When this elicited no reaction, she repeated herself, louder. “Bored.”

Juniper was putting another zero down on the visitor log for the four o’clock hour. Granted, the museum didn’t see much patronage during summer session, and it was a Friday afternoon, but she still managed to be surprised at just how few people had come in.

“Bored.” Cyn announced again, letting the word rise and fall in a kind of one word song. “What time is it anyway?”

“Four ten.” Juniper had just checked her watch herself. “I don’t see why you’re complaining; you didn’t have to do this.” What would have sounded like a scathing indictment of Cyn’s attitude in anyone else’s mouth was just a calm, offhand observation coming from Juniper. “Warrick cleared his time off with Professor Demetrius.”

“Yeah.” Cyn caught the ball and tried unsuccessfully to roll it around on the back of her hand. “But you know like I do that Warrick wouldn’t have taken off if it meant leaving you here alone. It’s the whole chivalry deal he’s got going on.”

Juniper straightened some fliers on the desk. “He promised his little sister she could come down this weekend. I don’t think he’d let her down.”

“True, but he’d still feel bad about it.” The ball refused to stay on the back of her hand, so she bent her fingers backward to catch it before it fell off and rolled away for the tenth time that day. “This way, he doesn’t feel bad.”

“But now you’re bored.” Juniper pointed out. “I don’t see how one person feeling bad instead of another makes it better.”

Cyn cocked any eyebrow at the brunette. Always with the innocent, muddled statements that became far reaching philosophy if you stopped and thought about it. As always, she picked the path of least resistance and ignored it. “Speaking of feeling bad, are you okay? I’ve gotta imagine that cold must have really kicked your ass to have stopped you from coming to Arizona with us. Superheroics and full sun? Sounds like heaven for you.”

Juniper frowned and bowed her head apologetically. “I’m sorry I missed it. I’m glad you guys didn’t need me.”

Giving her a thousand watt smile, Cyn shook her head. “We always need you, Snowball but we’re not going to be mad at you for getting sick.” She threw the ball up and caught it again. “What time is it now?”

“Four fourteen.” Juniper replied after a glance at her watch. “Wait, sorry, four thirteen.”

Groaning, Cyn put her head down on the desk. “This is going to be forever, isn’t it? This weekend is going to be great; Melissa’s going to be off to see her family with Laurel, Ian and the taskmistress are going to pitch the school to that kid with the non-super power—“

“I thought Ms. Brant said he flies.” Juniper interjected.

Cyn shrugged. “I don’t know, I kind of nodded off after ‘maximum human strength and reflexes’. The point is that we’ve got all weekend with fun little sister and absolutely no authority figures. This is going to thrash hardcore.” She turned to look at the clock above the desk and could swear she saw the second hand hold position for a three count. “Or it would if this hour would hurry up and end!”

A mischievous glint came to her eyes and she tossed the ball into the cup used to hold the pens. “You know, this would have been a lot more fun if instead of filling in for Warrick, I impersonated him.” Surreptitiously, she hid one hand behind her back.

“I don’t think that would have been a very good idea…” Juniper fretted.

“Come on, Jun, it would be awesome! Lookit!” Holding up her previously hidden hand, she revealed a sock puppet version of Warrick complete with black button eyes. She made the puppet talk with an exaggerated Brooklyn accent. “Youse don’t thinks I’s can mans a desk?”

Juniper suppressed a giggle. “That’s so cute! Did you make it yourself?”

Cyn and the puppet looked at one another, then glanced to the side. “Yes…” Cyn said in the puppet voice. She didn’t call attention to it, but she never hid that she shifted clothes et all and was frankly stunned Juniper didn’t figure this instance of it out. She was about to explain when The glass doors opened and someone entered the museum’s entry hall.

He was probably in his twenties or late teens, with dark skin and about a week’s worth of beard on his face. He had an average build, made even less impressive by his slouching and the courier bag he carried. Still, Cyn saw a handsomeness in his face that made her take notice. Instantly, she made like she was stowing the puppet in a draw when she was actually just shifting her hand back to normal.

His dour expression gave way to a slight smile as he approached. Gears turned in Cyn’s head, searching for something clever to say once he reached the desk. Juniper beat her to it.

“Hi, Auggie.” She said cheerfully, “I haven’t seen you all week.”

Auggie shook his head, “Yeah, uh, I’ve been having a bad week. I’ve been too busy thinking about things to come by and do some sketches.”

“Auggie’s an art student.” Juniper explained to Cyn, “He sketches some of the pieces for practice.”

“Oh, an artist.” Cyn smiled. “So how’s the art department here… Auggie, right?”

“Short for Augustus. You can call me either or. Doesn’t matter. And I’m not really a student here yet. I will be this coming fall. I just live in the area.”

“I like Augustus, personally.” Cyn tried looking coy. “It sounds royal.”

Augustus avoided eye contact. “Yeah well… I should get to work.” He started to head for the elevator, but then paused. “You girls should be careful though; people around campus have been talking about all kinds of weird things going on lately.”

All thoughts of flirting were suddenly burned from Cyn’s mind. “Weird things? What? Why haven’t we heard of this?”

Augustus turned and shrugged. “Just a lot of weird things. Two sophomores on summer session dropped out because they thought their room was haunted. A couple of my classmates in Abnormal Psychology said that something threw a garbage can at them when they were leaving Monday night. Er… ‘something’ as in it was still light out, but they said they didn’t see anyone. There’s a lot of stuff like that going around this past week.”

“Do you believe any of them?” Cyn pressed.

Augustus shrugged. “Not really, but better safe than sorry. Maybe one of the summer session kids is a psionic or something. I know I wouldn’t want to cross someone like that.” He gave another shrug and disappeared into the elevator.

Cyn narrowed her eyes at that last remark. “’Someone like that’? What does he mean ‘someone like that’?”

“I don’t think he meant it in a bad way.” Juniper offered.

“Yeah, or it could be that he’s got a problem with ‘someone like’ me.” Cyn pouted. “Why are the cute ones always bigots?”

“What?” Juniper frowned at this and blinked as something dawned on her. “Cute? You thought he was cute? Is that why you were so forward with him?”

“Duh.” Cyn crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at her. “What other rea—did you just say ‘forward? What are you, eighty?”

“Renee says it all the time to Winter on Malady Place.” Juniper defended.

“Renee claims to have been around when Jesus was around. And I went to Sunday School every week until I was twelve, so I know that was way older than eighty.”

After a long beat, Juniper tried to get back on track, “It’s too bad Auggie has a girlfriend then. Deborah’s a nice girl. But I’m sorry if you liked him, Cyn.”

Cyn knitted her eyebrows for a second, and then pouted, slumping in her chair. “Figures. All the cute ones are also taken.” Juniper could guess who else that referred to, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how he was a bigot. “I’m just tired of being the only one without someone around here. I mean you got someone, even if he’s as interesting as wet paste. Even Melissa has Terry now.”

“You set her and Terry up. It was really nice of you.”

“Yeah, I’m the best friend ever, right?” Cyn said. “But where’s my reward for it?”

“Doing nice things for people is its own reward.” Juniper said cheerfully, but with sympathy in her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay with dinner? I know Tina’s going to be there, but… you’re really upset already.”

Cyn frowned and slumped in her chair. “It’s not that, Jun. Trust me, I’m over that. I’m happy for him and, well, Tink isn’t the harpy-bitch I wanted her to be. It’s just that…” She looked mournfully at the wastebasket containing the trash from six meals worth of food for a normal person, all consumed at least two hours earlier. “Gold prelate needs food and entertainment badly.”

“Transrail Departure 563, non-stop to Los Angeles, will be departing in two minutes from track six. Final call for boarding for Transrail Departure 563 on track six.” A recorded female voice declared to everyone in attendance at Grissom Memorial National Station, Mayfield.

Cyn munched contentedly on the sixth of a full dozen donuts Juniper bought for her from a shop at the terminal. “So how late are Warrick and little sister going to be?” She was looking up at the big board, but the actual times and departures were lost amid the advertisements flashing between them.

“They’re not late yet.” Juniper said, checked her watch and glanced down the track Warrick’s train was supposed to be arriving on.

Cyn helped herself to another donut. “So anyway, do you think we should look into this weird crap Augustus was talking about? Haunted room, invisible garbage tosser… Sounds like a telekinetic to me.”

“But we can’t.” Juniper looked conflicted. “No one’s around but us and Kareem and we can’t just leave Tammy at the house to go check it out.”

“So? We take her with.” Cyn said as if it were the obvious solution. “You remember that Aces High thing. She’s practically a hero already.”

“But Warrick’s parents said she can’t do that anymore.” Juniper countered, already coming to the unsteady realization that once Cyn had thought the idea up, she would do everything in her power to make it happen. “Also, she was technically signing up to be a supervillain that time. She was sitting next to your nemesis.”

Cyn scoffed, “As if Shine was cool enough to be my nemesis. Come to think of it, we need a better class of evil female around so I can have one. Maybe a murderous catgirl or a good girl gone bad. Think Urban Ranger is due for a heel turn?”

“I really don’t think we need more villains.” Said Juniper in an almost pleading tone.

“I was just joking, Jun.” Cyn smirked. “Hey, how come they have a lame name like ‘prelate’ for us, but not for supervillains?” Before that conversation could start, the recorded voice Announced that Omni-Trac Arrival 122, Warrick’s train, was arriving on track two.

The sleek, black mag-lev announced its arrival with a low hum and a gust of wind. Red warning lights and chimes came into play along the length of the track as steadying devices for the levitating train deployed from sleeves hidden in the platform and locked into place. Finally, the doors whispered open and the passengers getting off at Mayfield exited.

“Hey!” Warrick shouted as he exited a door further down the track. He was lugging a suitcase.

“Cyn!” A redheaded flash wove past passengers on the platform to reach where Cyn and Juniper were sitting. Tammy Kaine didn’t stop or slow until she had caught her favorite playmate in a big hug. “I’m going to be here all week! Isn’t the great? And you and my brother can show me the whole city! I didn’t get to see anything interesting last time, but now we can do everything!”

Grinning from ear to ear, Cyn sat her donuts down and returned the hug. “Slow down, okay kid? You’d think it was you that’s been eating sugar all afternoon.”

“She has.” An out of breath Warrick finally caught up. “Omni-Trac has vending machines in the passenger cars. She’s been bouncing off the walls since Jersey.” He gave his sister a big-brotherly glower. “And why am I carrying your suitcase?”

“I could have knocked someone over if I’d have run pass all those people carrying that thing.” Tammy shrugged. She suddenly noticed Juniper and grinned. “Hi, Juniper. I haven’t seen you since you broke that guy’s—“

Warrick’s hand covered her mouth before she could finish. “You promised, no talking about… us in public.”

“Eh, let her talk.” Cyn shrugged. “We were talking shop before the train arrived. No one’s going to pay any attention. People in train stations don’t care about anyone else; they just care that their coffee’s hot.” She recalled what they were talking about before the train’s arrival. “Hey, you read comics. How come we’re stuck with the stupid ‘prelate’ thing and the bad guys get to still be supervillains?”

-- • --

“And remember,” Warrick said from the furthest back seat of Cyn’s humvee, “when we’re around Tink, no powers and no hero stuff. Even at Freeland House.”

Tammy pouted and sunk low in her seat. “You keep telling me that, but I still don’t get why. I mean, if I had a boyfriend, I’d totally tell him.”

“Oh, no you wouldn’t.” Warrick countered. “Tammy, it’s a secret identity for a reason. It’s okay if you’re just a regular psionic, but when you’re a prelate, you’ve got enemies who’ll hurt the people you care about if they get the chance.”

“Don’t we already sort of have that?” Tammy shrugged. “The Academy?”

“Extra enemies, Tammy.” Warrick struggled. “Plus, think about how she’d react…” he briefly recalled his dream from before their trip to the beach and shivered. “What if she doesn’t want the kind of life that comes with being a hero’s girlfriend? Remember Dora Dean, Heliophage’s wife from Taskforce: Earth? How she was always being kidnapped or mind controlled?”

“Is that what’s going to happen to Tink?” Tammy asked, eyes wide.

“What?” Warrick blinked. “No! I mean not as long as no one knows Warrick Kaine is Alloy.”

“Or Damascus.” Cyn chimed in from the driver’s seat.

“Right, or Damascus.” Warrick nodded. “As long as I’ve got the secret ID, she’s safe.”

“But Dora kept getting kidnapped even before she knew Donald Dean was Heliophage.” Tammy pointed out.

Warrick patted her on the head, “That’s what we call bad writing.”

“You said mind controlled.” Juniper was in the front passenger seat. “Weren’t you the one who…”

Pressing his temples with two fingers, Warrick groaned. “Don’t remind me. Tink still counts defeating Alloy was her crowning moment of glory.”

Tammy giggled. “She defeated you?”

“I was in a suit of metal armor.” Warrick defended, “Of course a big magnet’s a problem. But I got out of it, didn’t I? Besides, that’s one more reason she shouldn’t know I’m Alloy.”

“I don’t know,” Juniper stared at the passing scenery. “Maybe you should tell her. If she really does have a problem with who you are or what you do, wouldn’t it be better to know now?”

Warrick scoffed. “No. I got dumped and turned down for being me enough me before the Academy. I’m not going to risk the one time a girl likes Warrick on the chance she might not like Alloy.”

Cyn glanced across at Juniper’s aimless staring. “So. Would you?”

“Would I what?” Juniper asked innocently.

“Tell Adel. It’s real easy to preach to Warrick, but would you do the same thing?”

For a moment, the brunette gave her only a cornered stare. “Well… I mean if I was sure I really liked Adel that way and wanted to you know… spend my life—“

“You don’t?” Cyn pressed for her own amusement.

“I don’t know.” Juniper mewled. “I like him, but I don’t know if I like him like him or if he’s just really cute.”

“Sure can’t be the personality.” Cyn muttered.

“You don’t talk to him like I do.” Juniper countered softly. “He’s… he’s nice. Even if he is quiet.”

“I know I’d tell my boyfriend.” Tammy behind them.

“You mean if you had one.” Warrick said.

“I could have a boyfriend.” Tammy sniffed.

“Dad would have something to say about that.”

“Fine, I don’t. But if I had one, I wouldn’t lie like some brothers I could mention.”

Warrick winced at that. “It’s not lying, it’s just—“

“Give him some slack.” Cyn came to his defense. “It’s like with Jun, right? Maybe if he was sure she was the one.. But maybe he’s not. So why go and tell her if it could kill things before they start?”

“But Warrick really likes Tina.” Juniper said, turning around to look at him. “Right?”

Squirming in his seat, Warrick avoided her gaze. “Well… she’s great. She’s fun to be with and smart and pretty. She actually thinks the things I say are funny or interesting instead of weird.” He evaded Cyn’s eyes in the rearview and found himself looking at the back of the seat in front of him. “I like her. A lot. A whole lot. I just don’t want to screw things up with the hero thing.”

Juniper was about the reply, but Cyn beat her to it. “You know where you guys fail?”

“I fail?” Tammy asked incredulously.

“You’re fishing in the wrong waters.” Cyn continued. “Normal people, even normal psionics are never going to get us. Our whole deal. We need to find some nice superhero guys and girls.”

“Aren’t you guys like the only prelates your age?” Tammy shot a hole in the concept.

“Then we start new chapters!” Cyn announced dramatically. “Descendants West! Descendants: Canada! Descendants In Space!”

That got a laugh that lasted the rest of the way to the scrapyard. Cyn pulled into the dirt lot and everyone got out with Warrick leading the way.

Tammy glanced around the mounds of junked machinery and screwed up her face. “Question.”

“Shoot.” Warrick said, on guard for another prying.

“Why are we meeting your girlfriend in a junkyard?”

“It’s a scrapyard.” Warrick insisted, “And it’s owned by a guy that served under her dad back during the war. He lets her use whatever she wants to build stuff. Like her car for example.”

“She built a car?” Tammy blinked.

“Not exactly. She’s tricking out an old police flier.”

“Or at least trying.” The group rounded a tower made of crushed cars to find Tink frowning down into the engine compartment of a partially gutted cruiser. She wore a complex set of goggles with a dozen lenses hinged off to either side in place of her glasses. “It’s taking forever right now.” She gave them all a distracted wave.

“What gives?” Cyn stopped at a makeshift table upon which scattering of parts and scraps of paper had been arrayed. “Warrick said you had this thing street legal weeks ago.”

“Street legal isn’t sky legal.” Tink’s voice echoed under the hood. “And getting there with nothing but spare parts is a challenge to say the least.”

“You’re going to have a flying car?” Tammy’s eye lit up as she practically ran to peek at the engine. “That’s so cool!”

Startled for a second by the unfamiliar voice, Tink looked up. “Oh hi! You must be Warrick’s little sister, Tammy.”

Tammy nodded and seized hold of Tink’s engine grease stained hand to shake it. “I’m Talia. But my dad’s name is Tommy, so everyone calls me Tammy.”

“And I’m Christina, but I played the wrong part in Peter Pan a few years back, so everyone calls me Tink.”

“Not because you tinker with things?”

Tink shook her head and adjusted her goggles so as to actually see the other girl instead of a magnification of her nose. “No, that’s just why I keep letting people call me that.”

“Cool.” Tammy observed. “So you’re my brother’s girlfriend.”

“Unless something’s changed in the last day.” Tink gave Warrick a wry grin.

“So do you guys do it?”

The grin froze solid on Tink’s face. “Uh… I… what do you mean by that?” She tried to recover from the ambush.

“You know. It.” Tammy refused to let the issue drop. “You’re boyfriend and girlfriend, right?” She rounded on Warrick. “You, know, like Rory and Captain Jacoby on Sea Seekers, Or Renee and Kevin on Malady Place or Renee and Nick on Malady Place, or Renee and Tony…”

“Boy,” Juniper commented, “When you put it that way, Renee really gets around…”

“Eh,” Cyn shrugged. “Four guys in two years isn’t anything bad. Plus, she’s been with Tony for like five seasons now. Also, Nick wasn’t her fault, Alex Sagan only had a two year contract and the writers wasted one playing the ‘will they or won’t they’ dance.”

“Not answering my question.” Tammy turned back to Tink.

“And we’re not.” Warrick ruffled his sister’s hair. “Sorry, Tink.” Tammy scowled and wandered off to see at what Cyn was doing.

“It’s fine.” Tink shrugged. “She’s your sister, she’s curious about stuff. We don’t have to tell her anything though.”

There was an awkward beat. “So…” Warrick recovered, “What’s the problem with the engine?”

“Well, it’s not the engine, it’s the flight control. Know what a Gibson Unit is?”

Warrick nodded, but his eyes betrayed his ignorance. “Not at all.”

Tink nodded understandingly. “Hey, Cyn? On that table, there’s bunch of boxes with plug holes on the end. Can you bring a couple over?”

Cyn looked down to see about a dozen boxes, each about twice the size of her fist. “You work too, half-pint.” She smirked, passing a few to Tammy to carry as well.

When they got there, Tink lightened Tammy’s load by one and held it up for Warrick to see. “They’re a safety circuit back-up that shuts off the hover mechanism in a crash so the first responders don’t have to deal with floating wrecks. There’s a tungsten filament in there that gets fried if there’s a collision. Needless to say, most junked cars don’t have a working one, but some do and there’s only two ways to test them.”

She pointed to an identical device at the heart of an open casing just behind the engine. “Take twenty minutes opening up the casing panel, replacing the old GU with a new one and closing it down properly again, then see if it works…”

“That’s a needlessly long time.” Cyn said.

“That’s why mechanics use a tester.”

“So get a tester.” Cyn countered.

“They cost three thousand dollars.”

“That’s a good reason not to have one.” Juniper interjected.

“Three thousand dollars for a thing that only tests this one little bugger?” Cyn gaped.

“That’s why I’m stuck at method number one.” Tink shrugged.

Warrick glanced at the G Units Cyn and his sister carried. His metal sense told him all of them were history. A quick sweep of those still on the table meant they too would prove useless and waste Tink’s time too.

Tink sighed. “But I better wash my hands if we’re going to get dinner before I have to get to class. She waved causally at the device already in the engine. “I’ll test that one tomorrow.”

“Geez, what a waste.” Cyn said, surreptitiously elbowing Warrick in the side as Tink walked around the car to where she had some cleaning agent stashed. “And you have no way of knowing which ones work or not. Why, none of them at all could work… or the very next one you try could work. What a roll of the dice.”

Warrick mouthed ‘I know’ at her before concentrating on the GU already in place. Of course, Cyn would decide that this was entirely her idea and Tink would have no idea that he’d done it. Such was the thankless life of the hero: thankless except for getting to ride around in a cool flying car. It took very little urging to coax the frayed pieces of tungsten together and strengthen them with his power. He gave Cyn the thumbs up.

Every observant, Tammy saw the exchange and exclaimed happily.

“What was that?” Tink asked. “Did I miss something?”

“Uh, nothing.” Cyn said, giving Tink a warning, but amused look. “Tammy saw a lizard. She really likes lizards.”

-- • --

“This is the closest we can park to the Humanities Building?” Cyn groused as she pulled into the Easton Street parking lot and eyed the stairs leading up to Campus Drive. The stairs were almost as daunting as those leading from the street to Freeland House’s front door. Dinner had been pleasantly uneventful.

“Usually, you can park in the D lot.” Tink said apologetically, “But they’ve got it closed for line painting.”

“If we had parked at the Museum, at least it would have been a downhill trip.” Cyn said.

“You don’t have to get out anyway.” Warrick said. “I’ll just walk Tink to class and come right back.

“Actually, Juniper was just talking about how she’d love to take a good look at the campus.” Cyn said with a forced smile.

“I was?”

“Yeah, Jun.” Cyn chuckled. “Remember? You said senior year won’t be as long as we think and we should take a good, long look at the local college?” She shot the brunette a meaningful look.

“Oh! Yeah.” Juniper finally caught on.

“Good, so you two go on. We’ll just take a walk and watch Tammy.” Cyn shooed the couple out of the car.

When they were out of earshot, Juniper gave Cyn an inquisitive look. “Why are we really doing this again?”

“It’s like our sacred duty to investigate this ‘weird happenings’ business Augustus mentioned.” Cyn said sagely. “I checked out the campus newspaper’s website when I was bringing the car around, and everything’s centered on the library or the dorms near it.”

“Awesome! We’re going to do detective work like the Shade?” Tammy lifted herself over the seat until she was hanging between the two.

“We can’t just leave Tammy here while we go do that.” Juniper pointed out.

“Of course not.” Cyn shrugged. That’s why we take her with.”

“But Tammy’s not supposed to be doing any kind of prelate stuff.” Juniper fretted aloud.

“Hey,” Cyn asked, opening her door. “Do you see any costumes? We’re just doing reconnaissance. Right?”

The redheaded youth bobbed her head excitedly. “Besides, I’m just not supposed to use my powers in public. Mom and Dad never said anything about looking around.” With that, she bounded out of the car.

“I have a really bad feeling about this.” Nonetheless, Juniper found herself getting out of the car as well.

“Chances are we won’t even run into anything.” Cyn tried to ease her worry. “These weird happenings aren’t reported every day.”

“Thanks for walking me.” Tink stood with Warrick before the Humanities Building. “It was great getting to meet your little sister. Do you think she liked me?”

“How could she not?” Warrick asked. “Even if she didn’t—which she does—we can always convince her this weekend. We’re still on for that, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Tink said enthusiastically. “But right now I can’t miss class.” She gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Are we still meeting at the Dungeon?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Warrick said after her as she hurried up the steps. The clock in the plaza in front of the building stuck seven. He hoped he hadn’t made her late. Best not to dwell too much on it. There was more than enough to keep him occupied just thinking about keeping Tammy entertained for a week. The timing couldn’t have been worse with Ian, Alexis and Laurel gone. Even Melissa was AWOL, leaving him with no one to turn to if she got hurt.

And of course, keeping Tammy’s burning desire to be a prelate at bay meant removing all temptation. He wouldn’t be patrolling while she was visiting. He was sure Mayfield could handle missing Alloy for a week without going to seed.

“Going to seed…”

Warrick stopped and looked around for whoever it was that had just voiced his thoughts. The nearest people to him on the plaza were three college guys, heading toward the campus center. Even on the off chance one of them had telepathy, they were too wrapped up in their conversation for him to use it.

Kareem? Warrick mentally sought out the only telepath he knew. There was no answer. He slowly got up and started back for the car. Maybe he’d just thought he’d heard that. Or he’d caught a snippet of someone else’s conversation and misheard it. Nothing to freak out about.”

“Freak out a lot…”

That was no echo. Warrick turned around quickly to try and catch the phantom speaker. He almost knocked down a young woman approaching him from behind. They gave a mutual start. “Sorry.” He chuckled nervously. “Caffeine. Hell of a thing.”

“That’s okay.” She was shorter than him, and heavily built with a cascade of blonde hair around a plump face. “I was just going to ask you if you’d like a flier.” She inclined her head and Warrick finally noticed the stack of yellow fliers she was carrying.

“Uh… sure.” He took the top sheet. It was for a comedy open mic night at a club just off campus. “That looks cool, actually. Thanks. Sorry, again.”

“I understand.” The flier girl nodded, “I mean all the weird things going on lately on campus…”

“That wasn’t… What strange things?”

“The hauntings, the lights in the classrooms blinking… I heard that something pulled a girl’s hair out last week outside the library.”

Magical world, Warrick thought. Minor, low level supernatural hi-jinx had become a steady topic of chatter on the internet ever since Morganna had failed at casting her spell. Occult seemed more than happy to deal with the poltergeists, goblins and the mercifully rare more dangerous things had crossed over. It’d be funny if it wasn’t horrifying.

“Horrifying…”

Both Warrick and the flier girl jumped at the noise.

“You heard it too?” They said in unison. “Guess so.” She added.

“You should probably get far, far away from here right now.” A chill was settling over the area and Warrick really hoped it was heralding Zero’s arrival. There was no argument. Clutching her fliers, the girl took a step to run.

There was a screech of metal being torn apart and Warrick felt a mass of iron move in his metal sense. “Watch out!” he shouted, stepping up to shield her. A bench, wooden planks in a steel frame, came flying at them from where it had been bolted to the concrete.

“Horrifying!” The disembodied voice roared.

Instinct kicked in where thought failed and Warrick threw everything he had against the oncoming projectile, willing every ounce of metal there to move violently away from every other ounce of metal. The wood came along for the ride. A shower of splinters rained down around Warrick and his erstwhile protectee as shards of iron clattered short of their mark.

Luckily, the girl didn’t realize that the destruction of the bench was Warrick’s doing and not the unseen attacker’s. She took no time in bolting for the other side of the plaza.

Warrick watched her go, keeping alert for another attack. None came. There were no other voices, not flying debris and most telling of all, the chill in the air had dissipated. “Haunting huh?” He scanned the plaza. Magical world activity was only one explanation of course; it hadn’t been long ago that he and the others had locked horns with a psionic called White Shadow who could turn invisible.

This didn’t match White Shadow’s agenda, but it was perfectly likely that Dayspring was playing host to a prankster who was going too far to get attention. Even if the previous ‘hauntings’ hadn’t, the thrown bench could have seriously injured or even killed someone. And a supernatural individual becoming a threat to innocents was the domain of the Descendants. He glanced back at the Humanities Building. That went double when it could endanger someone he cared about. He struck off back toward the car

“What a gyp.” Tammy thumped her head lightly against the seat in front of her. The three girls were back in Cyn’s humvee, waiting for Warrick to return. “We didn’t find anything weird. What kind of haunted college is this?”

“I know, right?” Cyn was turned around in the driver’s seat, to talk to the younger girl. “But that’s how it goes sometimes. We have to patrol for hours to find one criminal or person that needs saving.”

“We only searched for about twenty minutes.” Juniper was secretly content that they hadn’t been forced to battle ghosts. Supervillains and street crime was fine, but the idea of fighting a ghost sent a chill up her spine. “You can’t expect to find trouble right off the bat like that.”

At that moment, Warrick threw open the rear passenger door. “We’ve got trouble.” He announced.

“Or maybe you can.” Juniper amended.

Tammy was more excited than concerned. “What kind of trouble? And why do you have splinters in your hair?”

Unconsciously, Warrick dusted the wood debris from his hair. “Something attacked me and this girl.” He explained.

“What’d it look like?” Cyn asked, latching on.

“It… well, it didn’t. It was invisible. But it’s strong. Strong enough to pull a bench out of concrete and toss it. And I think it may be psychic too. It read my mind.” He closed the door and sat back in the seat. “What’s worse, the girl I was talking to said that there’ve been weird things going on here for a few weeks now.”

“Oh, we know.” Cyn said. “We just found out today.”

“Auggie told us.” Juniper added.

“We went looking for it while you were up there kissing Tink.” Tammy teased.

Warrick’s eyes narrowed. “You guys told my little sister, but not me?”

“Well, we didn’t want to bother you.” Cyn tried unconvincingly to look innocent, “This week’s a big one for you. You’ve got little sister to worry about. I figured Jun and I could take care of it if it panned out.”

Getting narrower still, Warrick’s eyes drilled into her. “Then why did you take Tammy with you to check it out?”

“You’d rather I left her in the car?” Cyn asked, sounding appropriately shocked. “I assumed you’d appreciate that I was looking after your sister for you. I men, who would have put stock in what some hot, but really nervous guy thinks about urban legends anyway?”

Warrick and Juniper blinked. Tammy giggled. “Hot?” Warrick asked.

“I don’t see what that had to do with anything.” Juniper honestly tried to connect the dots.

“Moving on then.” Warrick said, “We’ve got to call Ms. Brant. This sounds like Magical World stuff and to deal with that, we need the Book of Reason, right?”

Cyn frowned. Laurel was certainly the one she’d call, but a weekend free of adult supervision was too precious to give up unless it was absolutely necessary. Besides, she knew there was another person with a copy of the Book. “But we don’t know that.” She pointed out. “Wouldn’t it suck to drag her back here—maybe cut Melissa’s trip home short—if it turns out to be some jerk psionic or a spark jockey thug?”

The line about cutting Melissa’s visit short was a low blow. Cyn knew Warrick’s thoughts on the importance of family and played it like a fiddle. He only nodded.

“Right.” Cyn announced, “We have to learn more about what’s been happening to figure out what the hell we’re dealing with.”

“So we’re still doing detective work?” Tammy asked hopefully.

Cyn nodded. “You guys should go find Augustus or someone else at this college that’s heard all the rumors and shake them down for information.”

“That should be easy.” Juniper said, “He works the night desk at the campus library.”

“Wait,” Warrick raised an eyebrow. “What are you going to be doing?”

Winking, Cyn made a gesture as if that was obvious. “I’m going to see if I can hunt the thing down, duh. No better way of knowing what a thing is than fighting it.” Warrick opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a finger to silence him. “Immortal, remember?” she illustrated the point by making a hole in her hand and looking at him through it. “I’ll be fine.”

Tammy looked at the spectacle wistfully. “I wish I had your powers instead of making sparks.”

Cyn gave her a thoughtful look and patted her on the head. “Don’t be jealous, kid. You’ve got superpowers; let other people be jealous!”

-- • --

“Honestly?” JC asked rhetorically as he shook the ice in what had formerly been a cup of cola, “I don’t remember.” The pair was walking along the Riverside Trail in Wagner Park, not headed anywhere in particular, just enjoying the day and each other.

Lisa playfully gave him a sock in the arm. “Some romantic you are. I remember when we first met perfectly. It was seventh grade.”

“I don’t even remember seventh grade.” JC said sheepishly.

Lisa continued without acknowledging his admission. “You tried to copy off me in Civics and Mr. Cameron thought I was letting you. That’s the first time I ever got in school suspension.”

“Yeah, and you punched me for it.” JC recalled.

“I thought you couldn’t remember back then?” Lisa smiled.

“The memory of pain just rushes right up to the surface.” JC said, holding an imaginary wound in his side. “You were pretty violent back in middle school. We used to joke that when we got to high school, you’d join the wrestling team.”

A nervous laugh escaped Lisa. She briefly reflected on the night before when she’d kicked out a goblin’s kneecap and used her staff to brain two more after they’d proven resistant to her offensive spells. All three had bawled and mewled in pain as she drew the magic circle to send them back to Faerie. “Good thing I grew out of it.”

“You just hit me in the arm two minutes ago.” JC smirked. Lisa stuck out her tongue at him. “Oh, I just remembered!” JC slapped himself in the forehead for almost forgetting. “Next week is the annual Slate Family BBQ. Wanna come?”

Lisa smiled. Despite having broken up with JC several times in the past, it seemed that they were always together for the barbeque. It sent a warm feeling of nostalgia through her. “Of course. I’ll—“

Her cell phone started playing Made of Weird by Escape is the Only Option; the tone she reserved for Cyn’s ‘work’ phone.

“Hold that thought.” She gave JC a reassuring smile and flipped the phone open. “Hey, Cyn.“ She stressed the other girl’s nickname to tell her that she wasn’t alone.

Wandering aimlessly along the sidewalk on Library Row, Cyn split her attention between looking for ghosts or other lurkers and the phone call. “Hey, Lisa, really hate to bother you, but we’ve got nasty happening.”

Lisa held in a sigh. Of course it wouldn’t be a social call. “JC, this is about… uh… girl problems.” Lisa made up a lie guaranteed to make sure JC didn’t want to overhear, “You might want to walk on ahead.” JC didn’t need to be told twice and headed off at a trot.

“Okay, Cyn, what kind of nasty are we talking about? Do you guys need… me?”

“Not yet.” Cyn replied. “I’m calling to see if I can rule a theory out. What can you tell me about ghosts?”

Making sure there was no one in earshot, Lisa stopped walking and leaned on the railing overlooking the river. “They’re not dead people for one. They’re what happens when a lot of stray emotional energy clumps up on the Astral Plane. Think ‘dust bunny’.”

“Dust bunny with big, pointy teeth?”

“Not usually.” Lisa shook her head. “Most of them aren’t even strong enough to affect the Material Plane, much less hurt anyone. The number that can has gone up after the thing at ConquesTech, but the worst I’ve had to dissolve was breaking windows and babbling.”

“So none that, say for example, threw a two hundred pound bench at someone?”

“Cyn, what happened? Is someone hurt?”

“No, Warrick did his metal bendy thing and kept it from coming to that. We’re not even sure if it’s a ghost yet.” Cyn continued on her way. “Is there any way we can tell if it’s a ghost or not?”

Lisa chewed her lip. The magical problems in Mayfield had been few and rarely harmful. The goblins, for example, were just on a stealing spree. All of them had been sort of Occult’s defacto domain. It felt weird to not be involved. Still, she wasn’t one to mislead her friends when she could avoid it. “A real ghost will be easily visible from the Astral side.”

She didn’t have to tell Cyn who she was talking about. “Looks like I’ve got another call to make. Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know how it turned out.” With that, she hung up.

For a few moments, Lisa simply stared at the phone. Was it really her responsibility to police the magical world in Mayfield? Was that what she had appointed herself to when she decided to become Occult in memory of her aunt?

More importantly, did her friends need her now? She knew Laurel wasn’t in town, which meant they wouldn’t have access to the Book of Reason. But she also knew, from Cyn’s colorful interpretations, how Kareem could attack extremely efficiently from the Astral side. He would probably be better against ghosts than she was.

Unconsciously, she touched the outline of the Digi-book of Reason that was always in her purse next to the prepared illusion that made her into Occult. There was no guarantee that the thing they were dealing with was even a ghost at all and then they really would need a Book of Reason…

She sighed, envisioning JC’s face when she lied to him about going to help Cyn with her ‘female problems’. Another Friday night down the tubes.

Much like the museum, Dayspring College’s Central Library was effectively dead over the summer. The only difference was that the museum closed, but the library was open twenty four hours a day.

This arrangement was the perfect job for Augustus. Not a fan of going to sleep before three or waking before noon, he found it was also a good excuse to sit and read in relative quiet without being called anti-social.

Of course, having a girlfriend sort of automatically dispelled accusations of a lack of social life. At least it had until she’d broken up with him with neither reasons offered nor warning given. And so he’d returned to the books.

At first, he’d looked for advice there. But the library had an ironically small number of self help books. Then he’d discovered that the rare books vault wasn’t locked in any serious way and used the thrill of reading things very, very few people had or would to take his mind off things.

That’s how he came to be reading from a vellum bound tome, and how he didn’t notice Juniper, Warrick and Tammy approaching until they were almost on top of him.

“Hi, Auggie.” Juniper offered a casual wave.

Instantly, the book was snapped closed. “Hey, Jun. Hey, Warrick. What brings you guys to this side of campus?”

“Actually, we wanted to ask you what else you know about the strange things happening around here.” Juniper said. “We think we may have just seen something like it.”

“I’m Tammy.” Tammy pouted because she hadn’t been introduced. “Warrick’s sister.”

“Uh… hi.” Augustus waved back to her. Returning his attention to Juniper, he shrugged, “I really don’t know much more than I told you. What happened to you guys?”

“I was crossing the plaza in front of the Humanities Building,” Warrick related, “And this girl was passing out fliers when I heard a voice shout ‘terrifying!’ and then we almost got flattened by a bench that got heaved at us.”

Augustus had stopped listening at the part with the girl passing out fliers. “Girl with fliers…” he echoed. “Was she about yea high, blonde?”

“Yeah.” Warrick said, wondering what that had to do with anything.

Shoulders sagging, Augustus frowned. “Deborah.” He stated flatly. Worry crossed his face. “Is she okay?”

“Your girlfriend?” Warrick blinked. “Yeah, she’s fine. The whole thing missed and broke up on the ground.”

Tammy cocked her head as if hearing something strange and peered over the top of the desk. “Weird book.” She said, noting the interlocking geometric shapes interrupted by wavy lines embossed on the cover. “Looks like the Nerconomicon or something.”

Augustus blew out a relieved sigh. “Thank god she’s alright.” He remembered part of Warrick’s earlier statement. “But she’s… she’s not my girlfriend anymore. We broke up a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh.” Juniper said. “I’m sorry, Auggie. I didn’t know.” A brief span of silence passed through the room. “Well, the good news is Cyn thinks you’re cute?”

“Huh?” Both men present were shocked, more for Juniper’s matter-of-factness than from the actual content. Augustus shook his head though. “That’s nice, but It’s a little too soon for me.”

Warrick shrugged. “Hey man, I see where you’re coming from, but I think you should keep that in mind. Cyn’s a great girl. Any guy would be lucky to have her.” A perverted portion of his mind added ‘especially if he finds out about the shapeshifting’.

This is where it is coming from.

“Oh shit.” Warrick whirled and came on guard for another attack.

There was an apologetic and embarrassed feeling and then Warrick clearly recognized Kareem’s mental voice. I am sorry, Warrick, Juniper. It is only me. Cyn called me and asked me to investigate the Astral Plane around the college.

“Are you okay? Did the ghost make you spaz out or something?” asked Tammy, who was not included in Kareem’s mental communiqué. Augustus also looked concerned.

Warrick tossed them a dumb grin. “Yeah, I think I’m a little jumpy. I mean I did just have a bench heaved at my head.” To Kareem, he thought, And something’s here?

Most certainly. Kareem replied, there is some sort of strong emotional energy emanating form this place. I cannot explain it, but it seems to sharpen my ability to sense the Material Plane.

“That’s completely understandable.” Juniper reached over to pat Warrick on the shoulder. Can you tell exactly where it’s coming from? She asked Kareem. The only people I know of here are us and Auggie and he can’t possibly be the one attacking people.

The source is not human. Kareem confirmed. And I am not convinced that it would be harmful to humans or anything on the Material Plane. It is simply the only thing out of place on the Astral.

Warrick pretended to catch his breath from his earlier reaction to Kareem’s entrance. Something broadcasting on the Astral Plane… if it’s not something Ms. Brant made, then it has to be magic, right?

That is what I am told. Kareem gave a mental nod.

Warrick’s eyes scanned the area. Aside from the worried looking Augustus, there really wasn’t anything out of place—except a book that had reminded even his sister of something out of Lovecraft.

Juniper, however, was already out in front of him. “Maybe we should change the subject. What’s that book about, Auggie?”

Casting one more concerned glance in Warrick’s direction, Augustus gestured toward the closed book. “Oh, that? Well, don’t tell anyone, but I borrowed it out of the out of print section.”

“Isn’t that against the rules?” Juniper asked innocently.

Augustus shrugged, “I’m going to put it back and it’s never left the library anyway. As for what it’s about, it’s weird. A lot of fantasy stories but every time someone uses magic, it goes into a lot of detail about how they cast it. Tech manual kind of detail. Here, take a look.” He cracked the book open to a random page and displayed it for them to see.”

“Uh…” Warrick squinted at the blocks upon blocks of bizarre symbols. “What language is this?”

“Cuneiform, maybe?” Juniper offered.

A frown came to Augustus’s face. “Come on guys, don’t mess with me. It’s English.”

“How old is this book?” Warrick tilted his head as if that would help. “Maybe English was different back then.”

A snort came from Augustus. “You guys are having fun with me. Look, right here. Tell me if that heading doesn’t say ‘To Conjure Flame Into Varying Shapes’.”

“Dude,” Tammy shook her head. “It’s says ‘square with a little man, circle with a squiggly line, circle with… water or something… snake, snake, smilie face without eyes, triangle with loops on the end’.”

With that, Augustus pulled the book toward him. “Guys, this isn’t funny. I know what it says. I don’t get it, we don’t know each other well enough to pull practical jokes on one another.”

This could be very bad. Juniper relayed to Warrick via Kareem. It’s another magic book.

But how can he read it? Warrick replied, worried.

Something is coming. Kareem suddenly interrupted. Tunneling through the Astral.

A gust of wind from the center of the room confirmed his statement. A magic circle, filled with a jumble of overlapping sigils that glowed a dim rose color against the faux wood floor, came into being and slowly lifted into the air.

As it did, the sigils drew the form of Occult until the mystic prelate stood there, bathed in rose light, her head bent to gaze at a handheld electronic device.

When the circle faded, she looked up and swiftly got her bearings. Her eyes locked on Augustus and the book. “Get away from the Book, now.” She commanded. Everyone there distinctly heard the capital ‘B’.

Frozen in fear, it was all Augustus could do to stand his ground and clutch the item in question.

“Seriously, now!.” Occult’s voice boomed, enhanced by the magical power she was gathering to her. “That’s the Book of Passions and—“

The glass doors of the library shattered, giving way before a golden body that bounced and skidded end over end on the floor, flopping like a rag doll. Before she had even come to a complete stop, Facsimile was shaking the glass out of her wings and rejoining broken bones. She didn’t let the surprise of seeing Occult touch her eyes.

Instead, she fixed her with a spiteful glare and groaned. “Dust bunnies. Four dangerously glowy dust bunnies are out there trashing Library Walk.”

-- • --

The view from the former library doors told Occult the whole of the tale. At least one… thing loomed outside, its form a mere outline of staticy whiteness. It was twice as tall as a man, with a head shaped like an anteater’s and trunk-like arms that it used to batter the bike rack out front flat.

“What the hell is that?” Warrick was looking out an unbroken window. From his vantage point, he could also see a smaller quadruped, looking like a splay footed giraffe with a birdlike head, galloping face first into a hedgerow and tearing it apart.

Occult pointed at Augustus. “You. We need to get the Book out of here.” She crossed the distance that separated them and reached for it. A painful spark leapt from the Book to sear her fingers. Startled, she flinched from it.

Augustus couldn’t believe what was happening. The book was clearly pressing itself further into his arms, like a frightened animal. He wanted nothing more than to toss it to Occult and bolt, but for some reason, his arms refused to obey

A transformer just outside the window exploded in a flurry of angry sparks. The coursing electricity revealed a creature that had been directly in front of the window the entire time.

“Another one!” Juniper exclaimed needlessly. A four legged, low slung monstrosity with a pair of flat fingered hands and a leonine head stood there. The lights in the library died.

Occult chewed her lip in the shadows of her illusory disguise. Kareem? She probed telepathically. Are those creatures Astral entities?

Kareem answered in the affirmative, which gave her more food for thought. They were almost certainly ghosts, but the presence of the Book of Passions was doing something to them. Electrical current revealed them and they stayed visible for at least a while. She glanced over at Facsimile, poised to go back into the fray.

“They’re retaining charges.” Occult announced out loud as if she was certain, “That’s how we can see them.” She pointed to Facsimile authoritatively. “I’ll hold them off. Get the guy with the Book and the little girl to safety.”

Facsimile gave here a look that told her she’d pay for ordering her around later and half leapt, half glided to the desk and seized Augustus under one arm. She held out a hand to Tammy. “Come on, Squirt.”

Tammy pealed her eyes off the rampaging ghosts long enough to shake her head furiously. “No way! I’m not going to miss seeing my—“

Warrick quickly clamped a hand over her mouth. “Heh, she’s got the separation anxiety. We’ll find someplace safe to hide, Fax—I mean Facsimile. Don’t you wor—ow!” He cut off as Tammy bit the silencing hand.

“Don’t put your dirty hand over my mouth!” Tammy shot him an accusing look.

“Suit yourselves, puny citizens.” Facsimile shrugged. “Out the side way then?” She asked Augustus.

“There is no side way!” Augustus said breathlessly.

Facsimile flexed her free arm and a two foot long blade of bone nearly as hard as diamond emerged from the back of her wrist. “There will be in a minute!” She crowed jovially as she took wing.

Watching them go, Occult turned back to the remainder. This had all sorts of awkward potential. She’d chosen not to reveal her identity as Occult to her friends, but Cyn had found out anyway and Kareem had probably always known. But Warrick and Juniper were still in the dark and having no reason to trust Occult, had every reason not to become Alloy and Facsimile in front of her or the little girl she now realized was Warrick’s sister.

“You three go hide.” She said, observing the three monsters still rampaging outside. Soon they would press forward into the library. “I think I can hold them off until the Descendants arrive.” She only hoped that she had dropped the hint that she couldn’t do this alone sufficiently before she barged out the door, casting a spell to attract the beasts.

Even before Occult was out of sight, Tammy set a hot glare on her brother. “What? You’re going to let another hero save the day? Why didn’t—“

“It’s complicated, Tammy.” Juniper said in a soothing voice. “We can’t show her who we are, even if… even though she’s another good guy?”

“But you’re just going to sit here and not do anything because of your secret identities?” Tammy looked on the verge of tears.

“No one ever said that.” Warrick said. His metal sense picked up the two large, white painted racks behind the reception desk. “Though the library’s probably going to wish we had. “ He hurried around the desk and pressed his power against the racks, causing books to shower down around him. Within seconds, a breastplate, pauldrons and visored helmet took shape around him.

It was somewhat less impressive than his usual fair because of the pealing paint all over. Alloy frowned down at his creation. “Man, why couldn’t we have been born like a hundred years ago when they had lead paint?”

Tammy only nodded her approval and turned to Juniper. “So what are you going to do? Are we going to have to go down to the car and get your stuff?”

Shrugging, Juniper put a hand over her face, freezing the humidity in the air into a crude rendition of Zero’s usual half mask. The room became unbearably cold as a thin layer of what Tammy could only call ‘freezer fuzz’ obscured the yellow floral print and blue jeans she was wearing. “I’ve learned to improvise.” She declared as if she’d said and done something mundane.

Testing her movement, she gave an apologetic look to Alloy. “I’m going to be a little stiff in this.”

“Best we can do.” Alloy nodded.

“Cool!” Tammy beamed. “Now what am I going to do?”

“Stay here.” Alloy said sharply.

“You can’t be serious!” Tammy whined.

“I’m totally serious. You heard mom and dad: no prelating until you’re out of school.” Secretly, he hoped the parental kibosh on Tammy’s superheroic activity considered ‘school’ to include college. He loved it, but he didn’t like the idea of his sister risking life and limb. “Besides, this isn’t a good idea for your first fight. We don’t even know what these things are.”

“We know being shocked lets you see them!” Tammy said after a split second of thought. “And I’m the only one here with electric powers.”

“Occult can probably cast Bolt2 or something…” Zero thought aloud.

“Not helping.” Tammy said with irritation to the older girl.

“Not coming.” Alloy stepped in. “Stay. Put.” He motioned for Zero to follow him toward the ‘side entrance’ Facsimile had cut. Isp and Osp unfurled from his arms as he went.

Alone now, Tammy pouted. It wasn’t fair at all. A real, live hero-on-monster battle was taking place and she was left watching on the sidelines like… not even like a sidekick; more like a towel boy. No one ever let her prove herself at anything, especially not her powers. If she had a chance…

Across from her, she saw something that gave her a brilliant idea. After all, Alloy had said that she couldn’t leave the Library. He never said she couldn’t join the fight…

From the Astral side, the monsters were clearly visible, with or without the illumination of electrical current. Kareem saw all four, plus the glowing astral forms of his friends. Occult’s blue glowing form was moving toward the intersection of the brick covered Library Walk and the flagstone paved Campus Lane.

At some point in time, a gazebo had set at the center of that intersection. Kareem didn’t know how long it had stood, or when it had been torn down, but it had been the crux of so much emotional energy, its astral body remained full and solid.

“You can see it too, can’t you?” He asked Occult. With a thought, he was next to her, keeping pace despite being on the other side of the planar divide.

“The powerful concentration of astral energy?” Occult’s reply came. She was holding a blazing torch of crackling red energy in her hand, a beacon of some sort that felt very similar to what he sensed from the Book of Passion. For Kareem, it was no different to receive mental communiqués than to hear the words. “Yeah, part in parcel of the whole witch thing. I’m hoping I can use it as an anchor for my spell.”

Kareem, for a moment, was speechless. He’d never considered how the Astral came across to those who sensed it from the Material Plane. Occult… Lisa didn’t know that the ‘build up of energy’ was a tangible thing to him, built from the emotional resonance of dozens, possibly hundreds of people. But now was not the time to contemplate the philosophy of the situation. He was there to act. And to help.

“I will try and stop them from attacking you.” He informed her. “You can stop drawing them to you now.”

“Thanks, Ephemeral.” Occult assented, both verbally and mentally. With that, she threw the beacon to the ground where it lay guttering like a torch on wet stone. “Wish me luck. Not that we need it; looks like the cavalry has arrived.”

Kareem turned to see the blazing white aura and twin dingy grey auras that were Alloy, Isp and Osp, followed by the nearly solid, blue aura of Zero. He was thankful to see them, but knew that they had no hope to even touch the Astral based enemies.

He must have been thinking this though particularly hard, because Occult replied verbally, “They will in a minute…”

There was no time to ponder what she meant; the fastest of the four ghosts; the giraffe-with-a-bird-head was bearing down on the beacon and was poised to go through Kareem if necessary. Exercising control over the shape of the Astral, Kareem threw up a palisade of pillars before the oncoming creature, which slammed into them with a painful din.

Shaking its head, the bird-giraffe clamped onto a bar with its beak and much to Kareem’s surprise, began tearing it from the ground.

Alloy, with an assist from Isp, landed behind the hexapod with the wide hands and lion head. “I don’t know which one of you things attacked me and that girl, but I kind of figure all of you did something or other to deserve a beating over the past two weeks, so allow me to introduce my assistants, Isp and Osp, who have a few words to say to you.”

Both tentacles snapped out, their leading edges forming wicked blades as they crashed through the monster’s shoulders. ‘Through’ being the operative word, as neither found anything to physically contact. But the electrical charge built across the ghost’s body found ground and a surge of painful electricity tore through both Isp and Osp and into Alloy.

Wincing in pain, Alloy registered the ghost’s static covered outline fading away only vaguely. The ghost, however, turned its focus on its attackers. The first invisible blow slapped Osp into the ground. The second actually dented Alloy’s armor and threw him on his back. Isp quickly latching on to the ground and pulling saved Alloy from an attack that cracked the brick walk.

“What happened?” Zero asked, coming to his side. Her own attempt at throwing ice daggers into the strangely distracted giraffe-bird had been totally ignored.

“It disappeared.” Alloy coughed and reformed the dent in his armor. “I think we discharged the electricity.”

“So we can’t touch them?” Zero asked, “How are we supposed to fight them?”

“I don’t think we can.” Alloy got to his feet, only to take another invisible palm to the chest, which slammed him into a lamppost. “But discharging them gets their attention.” He realized, more than stated. “Maybe we can buy time for Ephemeral and Occult to come up with something.”

“How am I supposed to discharge them?” Zero asked, confused.

Chemistry class, plus knowing Tink, multiplied by the general realities of being a metal manipulator allowed Alloy some understanding of conduction and water, even ice was conductive. The problem however, was that the ice Zero created was undoubtedly very, very pure, having been coalesced from water vapor, and pure water had a very low conductivity.

There was very little likely hood of finding a salt water aquarium in the next thirty seconds, but another source of the necessary salts and metals mixed with water came to mind. It wouldn’t be plentiful, especially given the particular source, but it should be enough to get the ghosts’ attention.

“Z, this is going to sound really gross…” He dodged and ducked randomly to avoid attacks from the invisible attacker that was still focused on him. “But you’re going to have to use your sweat for ice.”

Even under her ice mask, Alloy could see her blanche at the idea.

Occult didn’t stop running until she was standing at the approximate center of the build-up of Astral energy. Despite really wishing for a chance to catch her breath, she knew she didn’t have that luxury. For whatever reason, the local ghosts around Dayspring College had become extremely powerful feeding off the emanations of the Book of Passions.

And like lab rats, the supernatural detritus given semblance of life had learned that their newfound ability to interact with the physical realm allowed them to create more emotions to feed on. Every second they continued to engage the others; they fed on a little more emotional energy and became a little more resilient. Her whole plan hinged on them still being vulnerable to the one thing the Book of Reason seemed to think no ghost could survive: Reality.

In her hand, she held a wooden chit cut so that it was easily broken into five equal parts, each marked with a magical symbol. The Book of Reason called them instantaneous runes, though it took upwards of two hours to make just one. It was worth it though, because otherwise she would have to take half an hour to draw out the proper runes whenever she wanted to use ritualistic magic in the field.

She used her fingernail to scratch a line across the chit, completing the ritual purposefully left unfinished. The rune cracked into its five constituent pieces and each rocketed on a silvery tail of flame toward the five designated points of what would soon be a pentagram.

Nodding to herself and trying to remember the incantation, Occult prepared to get down to some serious magic.

-- • --

With a last snap of its beak, the bird headed giraffe pushed through Kareem’s barricade and loped toward him. The disembodied psionic was ready for it, having ensconced and armed himself in an astral-wrought equivalent of roman legionnaire armor along with a spear and shield.

“I do not know if I can defeat you.” Kareem beat back the razor sharp beak with the shield. “But I will not allow you to pass me even so.” With that, he jabbed with his spear. The blade failed to penetrate the monster’s tough hide, but it was knocked off kilter.

His broad sense of the astral plain alerted him to an attack from the side.

A fourth monster, looking like a gigantic spaniel with an oversized, slack lower jaw and long, slender arms tipped with three talons each sprouting from its back, leapt at him, pressing its full weight on the shield and forcing him to take a knee.

The beaked ghost took advantage of his plight and charged his exposed flank. Kareem turned a baleful glare upon it and even as he pushed the spaniel away, he formed a wall out of the Astral stuff as high as its legs. Shrieking, the ghost went down face first.

With the time he’d just purchased, Kareem struggled to his feet and put the spear to the doglike ghost with little more success than he’d had before. Occult hadn’t been exaggerating how much stronger the Book of Passions had made them. The spear simply couldn’t penetrate their bodies.

Whirling, he brought the shield up to fend off the bird-thing. Except, there seemed to be no need. A tremor rant through the thing’s body and it swiftly cut off it’s assault in favor of setting its sights on the astral form of Zero.

“Okay…” Zero looked at a thin dart made of ice formed of her own sweat with disgust. “I hit it… and now we don’t seen any of them. And we can’t touch them.” She gave an imploring look at Alloy. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Her answer came with Isp unfurling and pulling her aside just as an invisible force tore up the hedgerow behind her.

“We keep moving.” Alloy breathed, dancing a zigzag pattern only just ahead of what seemed to be sourceless explosions in the ground around him. “And we hope Occult hurries up!”

The attempt to spur her on was noted, but in no way welcome as Occult continued to chant what to her were the nonsense syllables that set the form and purpose of the circle. The pieces of the instantaneous rune sketched silvery patterns in the air, driven by the words of the spell.

A pentagram was traced, a symbol of the five elements. A circle followed, each point of the pentagram touching part of the circle. Then came a smaller circle, centered within the larger. One circle to define the formula for effect, one circle to define the parameters; who, what, when and how.

Shapes, some geometric, some sinuous, some incomprehensible to the untrained eye, were drawn into the circles. The formulae that would take effect. Finally, all five chits returned to the air above Occult and drew two overlapping squares; a symbol of confinement and control, followed by an intricate knot at their center, a sigil of activation.

To this, Occult spoke a word she did know. “Abralo.” The moment the command word was set, the entire magic circle pulsed a brilliant white before disappearing.

“Was that it?” Alloy asked, taking a hard blow that knocked him on his side. “What’d you do?”

Occult glanced around the area, using sight no other human possessed. The magic circle was still there, just not active. “I’ve set it up.” She said, hurrying to get out of where the circle was sketched. “But I have to explain some things first.”

“We can’t see what we’re fighting!” Zero said, narrowly avoiding another unseen attack that cracked the planks in a bench nearby. “We need help now, please!”

“Then listen up.” Occult said, “I’ve set up an Astral Gate, which allows things to cross between this world and the Astral Plane. You see—“ She didn’t get to explain before something grabbed her across the arms and waist and lifted her off the ground.

Osp immediately lashed out in her defense, swinging blindly at whatever was holding her. But as before, its sharp edge found nothing to cleave. In desperation, it wrapped Occult herself and pulled her free, sending her crashing to the ground.

Another attack came Zero’s way, coming so close that it scrapped frost from her clothes. She weighed her options and found she had none left. They were fighting against enemies they couldn’t see or even touch, but who could see and very well kill them. Kareem was obviously unable to kill them from the Astral side, and Occult was now trapped into the same deadly dodging scenario as she and Alloy were. She hopped Facsimile would return soon, but couldn’t think of a way she could help.

She was pondering her situation so hard and was so focused on dodging about at random, she didn’t hear Alloy shout and almost caught what was coming toward her in the back.

What rolled by her was a metal book cart, trialing an umbilicus of braided extension cords. Hastily taped to the case was a pile of office supplies pillaged from behind the library desk; staplers, paper clips, metal rulers and virtually any other metal odd or end Tammy could find on such short notice.

Zero followed the umbilicus with her eyes to find the girl herself, disguised by a long, grey jacket and purple scarf pilfered from the lost and found box. Stripped wires were wrapped around her bare hands and a look of concentration was obvious in her eyes.

“Alloy…” Zero started to say, but saw that Tammy had caught his eye as well. He realized at once what his little sister had planned and gave her a thumbs up.

With a happy exclamation they couldn’t hear at that distance, Tammy held up the wires and concentrated. White sparks began to erupt from the collected metal, followed by purple lighting bolts arcing wildly into the air.

Instantly, the electricity revealed the staticy outline of the lion-thing. It was standing with the cart partially overlapping it’s body, its hands raised to slam Alloy.

“Now I see you, jackass.” Alloy said easily dodging before rushing in to grab the cart. “And now let’s see the rest of you.” Isp and Osp leapt out, whipping the air in crackling arcs across the entire intersection. The electricity revealed all four ghosts.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have told her to stay inside.” Zero said, now easily avoiding the beaked creature.

“Just don’t tell her that.” Alloy replied.

Now able to see the threats, Occult to was able to easily dodge. “Whatever you did,” she opted not to ask the obvious question of ‘who is that’ to save Alloy a lot of grief. “Thanks. Now, like I was saying, we can’t beat them on this side and by now, they’re probably too strong even for Ephemeral to beat them on the Astral.”

“Good news, please.” Alloy said, directing Isp and Osp to swing at the ghosts. The cart and its payload was starting to blacken, curl and magnetize as Tammy’s powers slowly destroyed them.

“The Astral Gate lets things move from one side to the other. If we can get them on this side, it’s like a fish out of water: they’ll dissolve and die because Astral entities can’t keep themselves together on this side.”

“Wouldn’t that be more like sugar in water than a fish out of water?” Zero asked.

“I just punched reality in the throat and told it to call me queen.” Occult said dryly, “Can I get a break on my turns of phrase?”

“Yes, if you open the thing now.” Alloy said, diving to avoid a giant hand aimed to slap him.

Occult nodded and turned toward where the gate would open. “Just remember; do not step into the circle. It’s very easy to get lost on the Astral and I didn’t add anything to the spell to fix that.” She didn’t give them time to answer before clapping her hands over her head. “Abralo!”

A pillar of light erupted from the ground at the exact center of the circle and streaked toward the heavens, widening as it did until it filled the area of the magic circle. Alloy looked at Zero and found her looking back. They nodded as one and struck off for the pillar of light. Their respective attackers came for them in hot pursuit.

Occult glared at the bipedal beast that had stalked her and spat out a short phrase in and arcane tongue. A minor provocation spell, it had its effect instantly. Now I’m depending on you, Ephemeral. She sent to the astral based psionic. We can’t get them into the gate without you.

One the Astral Plane, the gate manifested itself as five blazing fires, arranged in a pentagon, whose flaming tongues twisted and danced together in a chaotic circle. Stray sensation crossed over and tempted his senses. The smell of mown grass, the warmth of the sun, even Zero’s perfume reached him through the breech in what had been his universe for more than a year.

Before him, the spaniel thing padded back and forth at a safe distance, a missing eye a reminder that the spear could still punish it. Beyond it, Kareem saw the others and the astral forms of his friends coming hard across the rosy landscape.

The gate wasn’t that far behind him, but he’d have to deal with the spaniel creature first and the creature hadn’t even gotten close enough to use any of his Astral trickery on it since it had lost the eye. An idea came to him.

All the ghost-dog’s barely formed mind saw was that the hard to overcome shield and deadly spear were gone. It leapt for its prey. But its prey was one step ahead of it. Kareem leapt over the creature, using his command of the Astral to wick away his perception of gravity. Instead of a tasty morsel, the spaniel-beast found itself landing on hundreds of perfectly smooth, round stones that had formerly been Kareem’s spear and shield. It’s own momentum, combined with a kick from Kareem sent it sliding through the gate.

With no time to enjoy the results of his work, Kareem thought fast to deal with the other monsters. Conjuring all of his will, he threw up two solid walls of astral-stuff, the corridor between them funneling the beasts directly toward the gate. He hoped that would be enough, because he felt completely spent.

Alloy took the left route around the circle while Occult and Zero took the right. Before they were even a quarter of the way around, there was a flash within the circle and the spaniel creature manifested physically in the material world. It’s true color, a mottled red and brown, was largely concealed by a brilliant halo of rose colored fire that surrounded and seemed to burned. Strangled and panicked noises came from the pathetic thing as the material world’s physics introduced itself by tearing it apart on a basic level.

“That’s one.” Alloy said, letting Isp and Osp swing him to the far side of the gate. “So we just wait for them to cross over and catch fire?”

“Hopefully.” Occult nodded, still on guard. “As long as—“

“Please don’t say ‘as long as’.” Zero murmured.

A brilliant flash signified the arrival the behemoth with the anteater head on the material plane. The rose flame was weaker on it, only burning in one or two places along its grey furred body and on one side of its bone colored head.

“As long as they haven’t been made too strong by the energy they’ve picked up.” Occult finished. “In which case, it’ll take longer for them to be broken down.”

The corporeal ghost stomped forward, intent on the veritable feast of emotional energy arrayed before it. It made noise between a snort and a slurp before parting its crusted lips and snarling “Terrifying!” With that battlecry, it reached for Alloy.

Isp wrapped it’s arm and applied crushing force. “Oh.” Alloy said, “So that’s which one you are. I didn’t like having a bench tossed at me, guy. Isp, return the favor.” The tentacle obeyed, looping down to find a fulcrum point on the ground before tossing the monster over Alloy’s head and into a bench.

Another flash revealed the lion headed thing. Alloy nodded to Occult and Zero. “I got this one. You two can deal with that guy and his friend.” He headed off to deal with the bipedal ghost.

At the same time, the leonine monster roared and charged toward the two women, huge hands ready to deal out pain.

Occult and Zero stood their ground and prepared to meet the attack.

Watching from the roof of Grant Hall, the dormitory nearest Library Walk, Facsimile grimaced as she watched the horrible creatures materializing through the gate. She glanced over at Augustus, who was wide eyed with fear and clutched the book like a lifeline. “I don’t know what the hell just happened, but they need me. Stay put. You’ll be safe here.”

Barely hearing her words, Augustus nodded. “This is my fault.” he muttered.

Facsimile narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes! Yes it is! You and that stupid book. Don’t you get it? All your angsting is getting turned into a power up for those things!”

Hot anger flashed on his face. “And making me feel worse is helping the situation how?”

Facsimile snarled and bared sharpened canines. “Never mind. I’m going down to help them. Think happy thoughts or something.” She spread her golden wings and leapt from the roof.

For his part, Augustus really wished he could think of something happy to stop what was happening, but found it impossible. Slowly, he sank back to sit on the incline of the roof. That’s when he sensed he wasn’t alone.

He looked up, but the sun behind him turned the man there into a silhouette. All he could even get a sense of was a necklace of rough, yellow stones and an animalistic posture. “Who—“

“Do you really want to know? Do you really care? I don’t. Everyone is so concerned with names and not with the important things in life.” The figure moved his fingers and Augustus felt himself standing without trying.

“What are the important things in life?” he found himself asking. He didn’t want to know and worse, he had a feeling he knew the answer.

“Come on, Auggie.” The figure flashed a wolfish smile that Augustus felt rather then saw. “Don’t you want to learn more about your book? Like why only you understand it?”

End Issue #30