Sorceress, Interrupted - By A. J. Menden Page 0,54
are.”
She gave him a look. “You’re going to make your wife call your ex-girlfriend?”
“Fine. Selena can call both of them.”
Selena gave him a sharp look. “I can call my ex, but you can’t?”
Paul threw up his hands. “Can’t we be grown-ups in the middle of a crisis?”
“Babe, what team have you been on for last twenty years?” Mindy asked.
Paul sighed. “Give me a headset.” When his wife tossed him one, he started dialing. “It’s going to take forever to track down where they’re both—”
“Luke was in Tibet last time I talked to him. Kate is still with her brother and sisters in Olympus,” Wesley said, appearing in the doorway. He moved quickly forward to stand in front of a man hunched over a computer to my left. Cyrus. His back was to me.
“Do they get cell phone service on Olympus?” Paul muttered.
“You can’t get phone service in my pocket dimension, so what makes you think you’d be able to reach Olympus?” I asked. They all ignored me.
“Any luck, Cyrus?” Wesley asked.
“Possibly, but it’s going to take a while.” He still had his back to me. “Whoever sent this is taking great pains so it can’t be traced.”
“Is the world ending?” I asked, just a bit louder than before. “Or can I interrupt with my own possible doomsday?”
Wesley stopped what he was doing and glanced at me. “We’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands right now, Fantazia.”
Cyrus swiveled in his seat to look at me. “Where have you been?”
I threw up my hands. “Where do you think I was? I was in my bar where I said I’d be. Where have you been?”
“Stuck here trying to break into Chad’s computer. At least, I was before this mess. Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Why didn’t you contact me?” I retorted. “This partnership thing works both ways, you know.”
“I was working!”
“So was I, in my way.”
“Sending other people to do your dirty work?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Exactly. And I’ve learned a thing or two.”
Cyrus gave me half a smile, which did strange things to me despite our argument. Strange, glorious things.
Paul interrupted. “Can you two not do whatever this is right now? Some of us are trying to work.”
“Yeah, what exactly is going on here?” I asked the EHJ leader. “You all look to be in crisis mode.”
“A few moments ago two messages were sent out across the Internet, radio and television stations,” Cyrus said, clicking several keys. “The first only hit a select number of systems. The last was broadcast worldwide.”
A hazy image came up on his monitor. It was a shadowy figure, hard to tell if it was a man or a woman, and its voice was obviously warped so as not to give any extra clues.
“I am working with an organization that plans to bring change to the world,” the figure announced. “Up until now, we have only targeted magic-users. That ends today. A few moments ago I sent out a broadcast. Those who saw it are probably lying in drooling masses on the floor somewhere, as you ordinary humans are a lot less sturdy than we magic-users.”
The figure paused for effect. Several of the EHJ glanced over to see my reaction before the mad magic-user continued.
“Do not fear! My associates want you to know that this sacrifice is not in vain. You droolers will help usher in a new world, an age beyond the ken of mortal men.” The figure chuckled, and the noise sounded even more twisted, electronically modified as it was. “That’s all well and good. I’m all for change and progress. But for me . . . ? Well, I’m a bit more capitalistic. So, here’s the deal. We’re going to have to make another withdrawal from the human race in order to usher in this new world, and I can take more of you than we really need. This first time I only hit 1 percent. Unless you want me to make it 50 percent of the world’s population, you’ll pay me the sum of five trillion dollars. You have until the end of the week.” The transmission ended.
I glanced at Cyrus. “What’s the first transmission?”
“Can’t show you,” he said. “Every ordinary human who so much as heard or glanced at it instantly went insane. It’s the same spell as before, kicked up a notch or twelve.”
“I’m not ordinary,” I said.
“They are.” He motioned to the EHJ surrounding us. “And they’re kind of necessary right now.”