Gremlin Night, Dale Smith [easy books to read in english .txt] 📗

garage filled with vehicles glimmered, lit by overhead lighting just out of my field of view.

My stomach flip-flopped as I stepped through the doorway. An instant later I stood in the garage.

Behind me was blank concrete wall. Steel girders spanned the ceiling above me, holding the roof up.

My stomach settled down. I glanced around me, and rubbed my hands together. I knew exactly what vehicle I needed.

I didn’t just wear the biker chick jacket because I liked how it looked. I loved bikes. I didn’t get to ride often, which was to say, almost never.

My heart beat faster when I saw the Ducati Monster. All black, except where it wasn’t, and where it wasn’t, it was carbon-fiber. My heart pounded just looking at it. Down girl, I told myself. But, still this was the perfect motorcycle for tonight. Okay, pretty much every night for me, but especially tonight.

A locker nearby held various sizes of helmets. You had any choice of color you wanted, as long as it was black, which suited me just fine.

The button to open the garage door was emerald green, set in an ancient oaken base on the wall beside the motorcycles. Sigils shaped like scales were carved in the wood. This was troll magic, perfect for bridges.

I straddled the Ducati. My right hand twisted the throttle, and I felt the engine’s rumble between my thighs. The open garage door showed a clear night, street lights illuminating a deserted street in the industrial district. I reached to flip down my visor and zoom off when a comet trailing golden sparks flew into the garage and over to me.

The new messenger sprite was back. It looked the same, not surprising since it was brand-new.

“What now?” I groused.

“Update,” it replied, its high-pitched little voice cracking.

I cut the engine so I could hear it better, and focus. “What is it?” I hoped the Gremlins hadn’t started manifesting in multiple locations simultaneously. That had happened once to me and Tomlinson with shadows. It had been a royal pain to clean up.

“Another manifestation at the bank site.”

Worry wormed its way into my stomach. “Not a gremlin?”

“No—unknown exactly what, but it is complicating matters. Genie unable to provide more intelligence.”

If Therese had been alive she likely could have I.D.’d the new player. If I hadn’t sent Tully off to find Sylvas, he’d have been able to spot the new player from a distance.

I shrugged to myself. I’d just have to do it myself, in my own way.

“Thanks for the update. Get some rest,” I told the sprite. “You look terrible.”

“Must do as the circumstances require,” the sprite said. It suddenly looked ancient, tiny face covered in wrinkles, hair gone white.

“You need to rest and recharge. Or you’ll be gone long before morning.”

“We do what we must,” the sprite said. “Our duty is to bring messages, no matter how little mana there is for us to absorb.”

It departed, slower than it had arrived, trailing fewer sparks.

Could whoever or whatever was siphoning mana be doing it on a city-wide scale? It seemed impossible, but something had apparently sucked up much of the mana in the vicinity. That said, arcane nature also abhors a vacuum, so more mana would move in. But, it wouldn’t be fast enough to save the new sprite. My chest ached.

“Never get attached to manifestations,” they told me at the Academy. Especially new ones. I’d failed that test as well.

I flipped my visor down and started the Ducati again, and roared out of the garage, the door rolling shut behind me.

The police were already on scene when I arrived. I parked the Ducati on a side street a block away, and peered around the corner at the bank across the street, rubbing my arms. There was a small crowd of people clustered around the two ATMs on the outside of the building. People snatched at the clouds of twenties spewing from the ATMs. The paper money swirled around in little mini-dust devils, blowing out into the street.

A passing car screeched to a halt. The driver jumped out, and started snatching at the twenties that rapidly covered his car.

People stuffed money into their coats, purses, backpacks. The ATMs continued spewing torrents of paper money. More people ran up, grabbing at the flying bills.

But that wasn’t even the weirdest part. The weirdest part was, even though the ATMs had to be malfunctioning, there was no sign of gremlins. The street lights shone like normal. The two police cruisers parked in front of the bank were empty, and there was no sign of the police.

This was where I really missed Tully’s magical sight. He could have pinpointed the gremlin and whatever this other manifestation was. And, annoying though he seemed to be, at least at times, he was someone to bounce ideas off of.

Something moved in the shadowy space between the bank and the next building, across from me. I squinted, trying to make out what it was. For an instant, I thought I glimpsed a silhouette of a tall, skeletal figure, but I blinked and it was gone. I really could have used Tully right then.

I crossed the street at a half crouch, passing the man plucking twenties off his car and shoving them inside his coat. He ignored me. I reached the planters and crouched down just as the doors to the bank swung open.

The lights inside flickered madly. Obviously, gremlin or gremlins cavorted inside the building, spreading malfunction and chaos. I narrowed my eyes, trying to focus on the faint, wispy tendrils of magic I thought I glimpsed streaming from the bank.

Silver light flickered inside.

Two police officers walked out, casually, like they were heading for coffee. My hackles rose. What gave? That made no sense at all. They went to either side of the bank steps, and stood, hands on hips. They were both women, trim and about my age. Both were blonde and white.

“Deal with her,” I heard a male voice say nearby. I whirled around but there was