The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

Late night walking through the shopping district wasn’t likely to get anything violent done, unless maybe gimping a pickpocket or mugger or two counted. I favored cleaning the pickpockets out of their wallets and subway tokens and any jewelry they had, just so they knew what it felt like.

The muggers got broken bones, and all the above. I might cut their clothes down to their underwear.

If they used guns, I’d shoot them with them.

Drug dealers were always fun, too, cleaning them out of their cash. Yep, they’d get in big trouble when that happened with their bosses, but it was the risk of the job.

I could also inspect some of the clothing and stuff on sale. New York had a lot of Eurocentric fashion, staying far away from anything that seemed Tribal or indigenous as simply barbaric... which didn’t stop the kids from wearing it, but it was never featured in the pricey shops here, remanded to the secondary shops well off Times Square.

Dum de dum, nice shoes there, if you were a normal woman who wanted to break her ankles and crush her toes. Designed by a man, of course... eh?

I stopped, and fortunately there was no one directly behind me. I slid back a step and looked in the mirror of Jenzinea’s, one of the leading fashionistas who dressed a lot of high society in the city.

The phantom was sitting there in the middle of the street, ignoring the traffic of humans and cars alike, as immaterial to him as he was to them. He was staring at me, and didn’t seem to realize that I had seen him, probably thinking I was window-shopping.

I turned my head to look at the middle of the street, and raised an eyebrow when I couldn’t see him.

I should be able to see an astral form, so he wasn’t that. Had to be a ghost, and he was ethereal.

I filed Detect Invisibility under the things to be made Permanent and concealed immediately thereafter by Astral Ward, which would take care of both issues, although Susan Storm might not be happy I could see her all the time. She’d just have to upgrade.

I turned to look directly at him again, and then, annoying a couple passersby, pointed right at him.

It still took him a second to realize I could see him. He looked pleasantly startled when I curled my finger for him to approach, watching him in the mirror as he drifted closer.

He looked like an old-school monk, with the homewoven rough robe, rope belt, tonsure, and cross upon his chest. There was scarring I recognized as smallpox on his face, meaning he definitely wasn’t from the modern age.

His lips started moving, but I heard nothing. I held up a hand for him to stop.

“Can’t hear you.” I turned to look at him directly, saw nothing. “Can’t see you without the glass.” I turned back to the window, looking like I was talking to myself. “Nod if you can hear me.”

He nodded eagerly, clutching at his immaterial cross.

I expected he was having difficulties because of my Astral Ward defenses, even if they were selective. “Having problems maintaining corporeality or something, or you just new to the whole spiritual status thing?”

He actually looked a bit abashed.

“If you know any exorcisms, invoke a prayer to say and reveal any spirits in the vicinity, but instead of sending the power out, send it into you. It should allow you to selectively manifest.” I eyed the crowds, and moved away from the glass. “One moment. Follow me.”

I strolled into the nearest alley, ignoring the smell and the motion down further where a couple was making out. Tensing my feet, I leapt and Repulsed, hopping up five stories, kicking off and across the alley parkour style, bouncing back and forth for altitude.

Twelve stories higher, I came to a rooftop, clearing the lip and standing on the gravel on tarpaper there. “Okay, try it now.”

There was a swirl of magic, not very strong, but enough to do the job. Clasping his non-existent cross, the monk swept into view as if a concealing cloth had been pulled off him. He opened spectral eyes, bereft of the negative energy and dire hatred of a cursed soul, and met my gaze.

“It works!” His rather hollow voice sounded rather surprised. “Well, this is certainly unexpected...”

I considered him calmly, as he mumbled for a moment, attention drifting for a couple breaths before visibly recentering himself. “Oh, my apologies, I have been quite rude! I’m not trying to haunt you or anything, Miss! My name is Magnus, called the Pious. I have been dead nearly fourteen centuries, wandering the world in timeless manner, waiting to discharge my duty!”

Magnus the Pious-? I scrunched up my face and sifted through some comic book memories.

Oh, him! My incredulity that he actually existed here and wasn’t a product of some writer’s lack of imagination and tendency to heap stupid shit on female superheroes was kept nicely buried.

“Well, considering that I didn’t exist back then, I don’t know why you’d be following me, Magnus the Pious. Do you need help finding someone? I can probably assist you with that if that will release you.”

He shook his semi-transparent head as he floated there. “No, no, Miss. I am definitely looking for you. You are in great danger!”

“Is that so?” My utter lack of panic probably made him think I was skeptical. “Source, type, timing?” I went on.

“The source of danger to you is a being of great power from what you call legends!” He paused to judge my reaction, saw nothing but patience, and went on. “You are being tracked and watched by the greatest sorceress the world has ever seen, Morgan le Fey herself!”

I tilted my head sideways. “Uh-huh. And what does le Fey want with me, considering she should also be dead for a lot of centuries?”

“She has been preparing you for decades!” he went on quickly, doubtless thinking I was being skeptical. “Your childhood, your forced sleep, was all done to prepare you as a vessel for her spirit!”

“She’s a wandering spirit, too?” I asked, arching an eyebrow, not disputing any of that.

“No, no,” he waved his phantasmal hands quickly. “She would never subject herself to centuries of torment if she could avoid it. She weaves her spells from far in the past, back in the days of the glory of King Arthur, where she has been trapped in her tower by the Curse of Merlin himself! If she sets foot outside it, she will perish immediately!

“Instead, le Fey has sent her astral form into the future, past the time of the champions who once opposed her, and where the world might be a place where she can enjoy herself and wield her power in a newer, younger body, and so avoid Merlin’s Curse!”

I wanted to burst out laughing. Whatever had bound me here had effectively hijacked le Fey’s machinations... or maybe le Fey had simply failed with Sama and Briggs disrupting things, as I was pretty sure this girl was supposed to be dead.

“She can timeskip with her astral form, so she’s probably not going to bother with me until I’m a bit older, I imagine? Unless you’ve some indication that this is happening soon.”

He seemed a bit taken aback that I wasn’t expressing any disbelief or hesitation, and instead had skipped ahead of his warning. “That... seems reasonable. I’m not sensing her presence strongly enough to intend to leave her body behind her. She probably has more spells to weave about you...”

“And she’s having a hard time tracking me,” I mused, considering things. “She also must be totally sure of her choice, and doesn’t know what’s actually going on with me.”

I was definitely catching him off-guard with my ready acceptance of all this. “I... do not know what you mean?” he asked, politely. “I can feel her influence on you...”

“I’ve been suborned by a Spider Totem and tied to the Underweb.” I didn’t hide my amusement. “She’s a classical sorceress, right? She won’t have any of her magic if she manages to Possess me, and the Totem won’t let her access the Underweb. She’d Possess me and end up being nothing but a normal woman in a new modern age where she doesn’t know anything and has no friends.

“Oh, wait, I think her son is around somewhere.” I tapped my chin as he stared at me in disbelief. “Regardless, this is a bad career move for her, and I don’t feel like becoming her free ride to a new life.” I was already playing that particular movie. “I’ll make some plans. I have the current Sorcerer Supreme on my phone. He can probably help with things.”

“I...” He didn’t seem to know what to do next. “I would like to help, if I can...”

“No offense, but I don’t want you haunting me. I imagine you won’t be released until she actually dies in this age. No problem, I think I can whip something up that will get rid of her for good. Astral Projecting across centuries has certain risks attached to it...”

He looked both alarmed and confused. “You seem... remarkably well-informed about matters magical...” he murmured.

“I have a very weird life,” I assured him. “Hey, I don’t know if you like being a poltergeist peeping tom, but I can probably get you a shell to interact with the material world if you like. If not, I imagine if you can gain entry to the Sanctum Sanctorum, there’s enough condensed mana there you’d be able to manifest with something approaching physicality.”

He blinked alertly. “You... you could do that?” he asked in some disbelief.

“Sure. Follow me. You know where the Sanctum is?” I inquired, pointing.

“It is difficult to miss, such as I am,” he half-laughed, sliding through the air as I leapt for the sky, Repulsed the air, and began to power-glide southwest under atmospheric pressure. He studied the interplay of my powers as I soared smoothly between the buildings of Manhattan. “That... is a very interesting display of power,” he commented, sepulchral voice carrying perfectly, spiritual thing that it was. He was probably speaking Old English, too, but I could understand him regardless.

Or maybe he’d picked up the modern language over the centuries. Who knew?

“If you can’t fly, go with the next best thing,” I replied to him easily, as we headed towards Greenwich Village. “Just encouraging the air to treat me like a bird is all.”

“Indeed. Is this part of the gifts the Totem Spirit has bestowed upon you?”

“Yes, but keep the Totem thing quiet, please. I don’t want people to start making associations.”

“Understood.” The ghostly monk, who looked to be in his forties, definitely on the thin and deprived side, just stood there in the air as I moved up and down in the air, pushed along by atmospheric pressure on my heels, taking my time. “I must confess, I am surprised you are taking my words so seriously, Miss-?”

Whoops. “Apologies for my rudeness. Dyna is fine, Brother Magnus.”

He smiled despite himself. “Named after the Greek goddess of the hunt. Very auspicious.”

“Indeed. The gifts provided me are quite powerful, if not at nearly the level of a sorceress of le Fey’s reputation.”

“Perhaps she believes she will be able to keep them, and use your gifts, as well as her own powers,” he mused darkly.

“Bodyjumpers are always after the best one they can get,” I snorted, picking out the Sanctum already. “Youth, looks, inherited money and power; why not add super-powers to the mix?”

“Indeed...”

He followed me down as I glided along the street, touching down on the burned building Mr. Hill was buying, and then dropping to the ground out of sight of passersby on the street.

Perhaps unremarkably, the gaping crater in the middle of the street was gone as if it had never happened. Didn’t need people thinking this place was special or anything, after all.

Magnus knew enough not to test the Wards about the place, centered on the massive Seal in the glass window of the building’s roof, and waited, little more than a wisp, at the edge of the sidewalk as I walked up to the door.