Priest & Hawthorne Investigations
Prologue: Don’t Feed the Plants
——
Spring had taken its sweet time to come to Seattle. The rains had lasted longer than anyone had expected, the skies staying a stubborn iron-grey. Still, despite the colder-than-usual temperatures, the trees had unfurled their leaves weeks before, flowers of every kind opening to loft pollen on those rare dry days. Here, in the city’s suburbs, Spring’s arrival was somewhat less marked than in other places, with manicured green belts and carefully-arranged stands of trees between developments being the most-visible indicators of the changing seasons. Still, there could be no denying it - the world was returning to life, the surge of a new year bringing the promise of new beginnings. And though the night was cloudy with only a few strips of pale moonlight making their way across the ground, for the man’s purposes, tonight, between spring and summer, was perfect.
He left the bolt cutters to one side and squeezed in through the hole he’d made in the fence. The fingers of his right hand wrapped around something small, barely larger than a chicken’s egg. He could feel the shapes carved into its surface pressing into his palm, and its age seemed almost to pull with a weight that had nothing to do with the thing itself. His hands shook, partly from excitement - after all this time, he was being trusted to take part in one of the Workings. Of course, he didn’t understand the shape of the entire plan, and he didn’t entirely understand the part he was playing, but that hardly mattered. The thing in his hand seemed to buzz against his mind, now that he knew how to listen and feel for its power. He could feel something inside, waiting to be awoken, like a seed waiting for water.
The man moved between tall shadows, quick and furtive. The lights were, of course, dimmed for the night, but that didn’t mean he could linger. Being caught, either in person or on camera, would only hamper their plans, even if it wouldn’t stop him now. He would only need a moment, after all. On quiet feet, the man slunk between enormous, foul-smelling stacks, an earlier shower having only made the scent more pungent for the moisture. To every side, the smells of soil surrounded him - decay, dead leaves, and small, low plants thriving on rich loam. He slid between two of the largest patches of darkness, cast by huge structures to each side, and there he found what he was looking for.
With reverence, awe, and infinite care, he set the thing he carried on a surface in front of him. The smell of soil was strong here, stronger than anywhere else in this place, and only a few feet away were trees, plants, and flowers of a dozen kinds. It would thrive here. The Working would succeed. His fingers unwrapped from the stone he’d carried all this way, and his hand suddenly felt cold, like he was leaving part of himself behind. He shook his head and reached into his coat and pulled out the other treasure he’d been trusted with.
The smallest lances of golden light shot out from between his fingers, even as he tried to keep his hands wrapped around a tiny copper cage, the bars engraved with impossibly fine detail. Inside, a ball of light hovered, bouncing off the bars with small, bright sparks. The man shivered, and he could feel the power trapped inside the cage. Thoughts and words filled his mind, emotions he had no place for and didn’t understand. He set the cage aside for the moment, then took a knife out of his trouser pocket. This was the part that thrilled him, what he’d been so carefully taught. A dozen other Initiates had burned their minds out trying, but not him. He slid the knife across the back of his hand, and scarlet blood welled from the shallow wound.
He moved quickly, pulling the final tool from his coat - a wooden stick carved with a riot of runes along its length. He hadn’t made it - no, the strange one had, the man who talked to himself and dug at the ground with his fingers. The man didn’t like him, but he couldn’t deny his usefulness. He dipped the end of the wand into the gathering blood on his hand, and started working. A circle, a few lines, runes here and there, just so - and with a snap against his mind, he felt the Working take form. It took something from him, the Working’s construction, and he felt suddenly dizzy. His knees gave out and he fell forward, his arm flailing, and he knocked something over with an enormous clatter.
No time now. Someone would have heard that. The man pulled himself to his feet, cleared his head. He moved the wand into his right hand, and touched its bloody tip to the edge of the Working. In his left, he held the tiny, golden cage. The ball of light inside flickered and bounced harder against the bars, and the man felt prickles of fear, panic, terror and loss crackle up his arm and into his mind. They were meaningless, of course. His will was the one that mattered, his mind, his intention. The man closed his eyes, and felt power rush through him in a wave, surging from one side of his body, through his mind, and out the wand, into the Working. Runes on the wand flared into brilliant golden-emerald light, and the designs he’d drawn slowly filled with the same energy.
He opened his eyes, and breathed out. Steam billowed from his mouth with that breath, the last pieces of the power he’d harnessed. He looked down at the object within his Working, and smiled. He turned and left, tossing the wand to one side, its purpose complete. In his other hand, he crushed the copper cage and threw it aside, putting his hands in his pockets. Behind him, a door rattled open, spilling a square of bright light across the dark structures, but by then the man was gone.
In its circle, the carved stone rose, viridian light filling the carvings. A few feet away, green shoots exploded from the soil and began to twine together; thickening, growing, spreading.
——
There were, to Morgan’s mind, few stranger places than a Wal-Mart. She could never decide why - was it the buzzing fluorescent fixtures that didn’t even approximate daylight? Or the slow shuffle of the employees, a gait matched, over time, by the customers? It could have been the strangely-precise pyramids of produce so waxed and spot-lit that they looked more artificial than actual plastic fruit. Still, though part of her suspected that some dark engine beyond the forces of corporate bureaucracy was at work in the Renton Super Center, what she saw tonight had left her very close to speechless. She pulled her phone out of the inside pocket of her jacket and glanced at the time - nearly two in the morning - then tapped numbers into its face. Ahead, another light exploded in a shower of sparks, followed by a chest-rumbling sound like the mating call of tectonic plates. Morgan tapped the call button.
The line connected a moment later, and without waiting for a greeting Morgan spoke, “You know, sometimes I think you keep things from me on purpose.”
“Why, good morning, Agent Blackwood,” came a deep, smooth voice, untouched by the late hour, “You’ve Miss Grey on the line as well. I apologize for rousing you so early.”
“Mm,” Morgan said, bringing a coffee approximately the size of a diver’s air tank to her lips, “Now, you said this was a guardian spirit.”
“Yes,” Shiloh said, her voice tinny over the phone speaker, “At least, based on what the man who called in described.”
“Mmmm,” Morgan said.
“Now, to be entirely honest,” Sol said, “He wasn’t precisely…shall we say, entirely within his right mind. Based on the way he talked, I suspect he had been partaking of…recreational substances. Quite a lot of them, were I to make an otherwise-uninformed conjecture.”
“And you gave me the address,” Morgan said, her eyes drifting back to the parking lot.
“Of course,” Sol said.
“Sol,” Morgan said, her voice going a little flat, “Tell me honestly. Did you not tell me that we’d been called on a
guardian spirit of a Wal-Mart because you thought I’d hang up on you and go back to sleep?”
“We don’t know that it’s-“ Sol began.
“Part of its chest is the Garden Center sign,” Morgan cut in, “It’s made a body out of bags of topsoil and decorative shrubs, and it’s pulling shade trees out of the parking lot to make arms and legs. If it wasn’t
of this place before, it bloody well is now.” She took another sip of her coffee, and tried to push down the sense of exasperation and disbelief swirling through her mind.
“How big of a body?” Shiloh said.
“I’d guess…four meters or so,” Morgain said.
“In real units, Blackwood,” Shiloh said.
Morgan sighed, “Fourteen, fifteen feet? And heavy, it’s been kicking cars aside.”
“Can you see anything else about it?” Shiloh said, “Any markings, symbols?”
“I’m not nearly that close,” Morgan said, “But I expect you’ll want me to change that.”
“With expediency, Agent Blackwood,” Sol said, “Do you think you shall require assistance?”
“You’re kidding,” Morgan said, her voice flat.
“As reluctant as I am to wake
you up, Agent Blackwood, even you pale in comparison to rousing the entire staff. McAllister alone, I expect, will release a sting of invective that would make anyone else blush.” Sol said.
Morgan looked at the creature and thought for a moment. She’d dealt with out-of-place guardian spirits before - they were a handful, without exception. And, after all, she wasn't
entirely alone - Sol had insisted Morgan pick up one of the other Agents on her way out. From her place sitting on the hood of her car, Morgan turned and looked behind her and saw that her...partner? Chaperone? had fallen asleep, the seat laid all the way back. Even with her help, though, Morgan suspected they'd be outmatched. She turned back to look at the guardian, which let out another nearly-subsonic hoot.
“Wake them up, Sol," Morgan said, "Tell them I'll buy breakfast."
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