Conceal Me What I Am Ch. 09

I believe that all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world -- but some worthless pieces of shit do sometimes need killing, but in those instances God will put down the firewood for us to take, but that every man must gather and light it for himself.

I also hold that men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number of its common people and not the urges of the high and mighty, but to instead protect the weak and the innocent, for sooner or later... somewhere... somehow... we must settle our final account with the world and make payment for what we have taken and done, for all things change, but the truth, and the truth alone lives on forever.

Now with the help of God, when trails are steep and passes high, I swear I shall ride them straight the whole way through, until into the falling dusk I get that final call, to ride with my friends into glory, and we shall ride one and all!"

And swear they did, and it was better than a Hallelujah after a sermon. I'd won them all over and they would willingly ride with me into the pit of hell. Well, most of them anyway. The pit of hell was pretty appropriate, from what I'd seen of the forces of Deseret over the years.

**************

With the overflow of recent events, the FBI was quite nearly out of additional manpower. More FBI agents were already on the way to Chicago, especially high ranking ones, but with the seizure of the secret underground munitions factory and the red-hot gang war enveloping the city streets, their current available manpower was depleted. Every agent not already with Janice was already out in the streets trying to stop the gangwar, and being outnumbered probably by a hundred to one, their chances were laughable. At best, they could protect a few places that they'd rather not get burned down or shot full of bullet holes, but I figured once the bosses were all out of sight they'd hasten off to protect their own families first. Certainly the CPD and CFD already had that thought. The boys in blue were mostly home for the duration until the shooting was over and the fire department was letting most of the fires burn and only fighting the really major blazes.

After a lot of extremely lengthy wrangling that lasted further into the afternoon that I would have preferred, Janice announced that despite the extreme importance of arresting Mason Probert, her field office could now only spare her two junior agents to assist her. With the remaining four minor wizards and the dozen adepts that Bel had corralled into service, I hoped this would be enough manpower to raid both the farm and storage facility in Rockford, but Miranda had other ideas. With a quick phone call to her father, she obtained the grudging release of six of his own personal bodyguards, to be accompanied by his faithful lieutenant, the most fashionable and formidable Jerome Standish, who arrived in his usual sartorial splendor complete with a large Tommy gun complete with numerous one hundred round drums of ammunition, which made it quite the Chicago typewriter and street sweeper of legend indeed.

When at last we were all assembled and ready, we formed up a caravan of official government cars with a large heavy van (allegedly armored) containing Standish and his mob 'volunteers' in the rear, we finally pointed our noses west, out state highway 90 the seventy or so miles to Rockford, which we hoped we could do in two hours, but a flat tire and a busted radiator hose delayed our convoy another pair of hours until we faced the setting sun in our faces just as we drove into the outskirts of the small city.

I admit, despite the fact that we were already far behind schedule, the real need for swiftness had already probably passed us. I had wanted to assault both properties during the day but obviously now we were going to be too late, and the majority of our already tired strike-force wanted a bite of dinner first. As I'd only had an early breakfast myself, I grudgingly went along with the majority vote. Their reasoning now for waiting until full darkness was that a covert assault under the cover of darkness might be safer for everyone concerned. I was still worried about the bastard Probert getting away unseen in the dark, but truthfully I now considered myself responsible for my own team and I was half expecting to find a Deseret support team at one or both places as well.

For any important foreign operation, Deseret had zealots always assigned to handle the security, such as the Eyes of the Prophet, the masters of espionage, who in turn commanded Hands of the Prophet that did most of the actual dirty work. Both the Eyes and the Hands were composed of magicians usually of adept level power, but highly skilled in the arts of battle magic. Then, for a more conventional threat, there were the Missionaries, the very expendable warriors that invariably fought to the death and killed with the pure lust of the slaughter of battle. I'd fought against a few of these before and I hadn't enjoyed the experience much.

If I was very unlucky or Probert's operation was of extreme significance to Deseret, there could even be some 'Anointed Ones', the wizard level magicians who oversee the Shepherds of the Faithful, Deseret's feared secret police. They'd forgotten more dark magic than I could ever learn in a lifetime, and they weren't even the top magical acts of their wickedly evil circus. These magicians within the hierarchy of Deseret were still relatively small fish, members of their minor nobility of the Fourth to Sixth Circle. These guys were trouble enough... I'd never faced one of their top wizards, ones from their First to Third Circles, but even the mention of them was enough to give my associates in the Army and back home in the BMA a queasy stomach. They were legendary, and obscenely nasty to face in battle, and I hoped I'd never have to.

***********

With our assault crew fed and watered at the trough of a pretty decent roadside diner, we assembled ourselves in strike formation and we charged forth, hell bent for leather towards the apparently quite remote grounds of Probert 's Warehouse and storage, which was a good ways apart from any other nearby building. If I had needed to hide a whole lot of important and rather treasonous items, this place would be near the top of my list. It was a big singular barn-shaped metal structure with a determinedly solid external appearance, and a distinct scarcity of lower windows suitable for a sneak and peak. It looked more like a military storage bunker than a commercial warehouse and something about it just didn't look right even from my first glimpse of it.

The place wasn't quite deserted, as there was a pair of armed guards standing just in front of pair of heavy metal iron doors and some additional discrete observation revealed another pair of roaming guards that constantly circled the entire property line, just inside the tall chain link and barbed wire fence.

This was rather quite a bit too much obvious security for any normal warehouse or moving and storage sort of operation. The guards were all rather too overly heavily armed as well, each with military grade rifle that should have been impossible for any civilian to possess. It was less than a surprise when our senior gangleader Jerome, identified the patrolling goons at once as Harrison Group thugs. Apparently the bowler style hat complete with an attached yellow feather that they all wore was their trademark. This was a bit of a relief, and I had wondered how we could safely and quietly take out all of the guards without unnecessary bloodshed. Now, it didn't matter... they were very expendable.

Jerome and his six lads were quite eager for some rather gratuitous violence and with a shrug, Bel and I tossed up our hands and let the gangland boys have their fun. Jerome quickly assigned his men and gave a few quick whispered orders, and with each man assigned to take a specific guard, with two of his soldiers still in reserve, the signal to take out all four men was given and nearly instantly accomplished. With all four of the guards down, Bel unfastened the lock on the swinging gates of the perimeter fence with just a touch and a bit of light concentration. That was a really neat trick and I made a note to myself to ask her later just how she did it. Miranda, just right behind me as always, perked up at this brief demonstration and had a similar look of interest.

After making sure that the guards had been disposed of to a remote corner of the yard, Jerome had a pair of his men put on the identifying bowler hats and remain out in front, just in case anyone suddenly arrived to check up on things. After a quick perimeter search, the grounds were declared secured and then Bel and Janice, along with her pair of additional FBI agents, moved over to inspect the lock at the main doors of the warehouse. I had wanted to be right there with them, but was delayed significantly by getting my posse of magicians sorted out into two strike groups, one to come up and join Bel and Janice and the other to remain near the gate to stay on defense. Unfortunately, this took more micromanagement than I had expected, and by the time I was read to head up to the big steel doors of the warehouse proper, I was already tail-end Charlie.

I think Janice had been itching to take a big crowbar to the door and make a pronounced forced entry, but with another touch of her finger and a slight burst of magic Bel beat her to the punch with her opening charm and the great doors swung right open. At once all hell broke loose and the entire entry group disappeared into an massive explosion of magical flame!

***************

Being a bit behind most of the advance crew of federal agents I was playing rear guard with Miranda and really hadn't gotten quite close enough yet to the doors to sense the massive firewall of magical protections that secured it until it was nearly too late. Still I had just enough forethought to blanket Bel, Janice and the other two FBI agents as they became shrouded by the rushing humongous wall of searing flame.

This was a serious firetrap, designed probably to both eradicate any intruders and any stored evidence inside. Even shielded, the sheer force of the explosion threw the agents back at least about ten feet onto their backs, and none too gently. Bel's own shields were now down, but mine had held. Not bad for a split second effort, as hers could never have held against the severity of the explosion.

The rest of us were now eating concrete as well, since nearly at once boxes of ammunition began to cook off and explode from the extreme searing heat inside. Anything paper was going to be instantly toast from the heat of this inferno, as was the ammunition, but I had vague hopes that any stored rifles and guns might survive another minute or two before becoming slag, assuming I could think of anything clever to do first!

The security wards across the door had been too carefully concealed to notice until it was too late. Like the wards at the two Chicago gunshops, there were obvious protections that had been meant to be seen and disarmed, which in turn triggered more cleverly hidden wards. This was absolutely wizard-class magic, and done by someone at least as competent at protections as I was! This was not at all the easy-squeasy slam-dunk operation that we had planned for.

Bel was now decidedly in an extremely foul mood once she managed to regain her feet, just as I was about to reach her side to better shield the fallen but mostly unhurt agents. Then to make things worse she found herself faced with a pair of the largest and most powerful fire elementals she'd ever even read about, let alone before witnessed. She tried a quick powerful word of banishing, but the pair of Greater Elemental Lords just laughed at her and enveloped her and Janice in another searing column of magical flame. The two other FBI agents, having seen what was coming, turned and run like hell itself was on their tail.

Knowing at once she was completely overpowered, Bel clutched on to her lover and tried to get her own shield back up again, to support mine and they began to retreat the last dozen or so steps towards me while I kept them shielded. It's hard to shield others at a distance, especially with the kind of power that these two top-shelf Elemental Lords could exert, which was way above normal mundane human Wizard level power. I didn't know either of them by name, their magical secret names, which unfortunately was almost the only means of banishing any elemental from the seriously upper nobility. These two weren't just spear carriers back at their home, the Elemental Plane of Fire, but were serious major players of the court and I wondered just how Probert had managed to obtain their limited contingency service, to be summonable at his calling.

Still, I'd played with the big boys before and fought one of their masters, a God even, the Zoroastrian deity of primal fire - Yazata Adar... and I'd kicked his divine ass and sent him crying home. And I could do it all over again, if necessary.

I let Bel and Janice flee past me and gave a completely unnecessary warning to Miranda to get her cute young ass behind some cover, way, way back behind me, along with everyone else, because it was time for the top cats to play!

My world became one of fire and for just a moment I thought I was once again back at the old El Marvelo, that doomed and once famous theater as I turned it into cinders and burned a crater around it deep into the bedrock. Their fire, hot as it was perhaps nearly to the surface temperature of the sun, could bear me no harm I now realized and with a dramatic flourish I dropped my personal shield entirely. Smiling the nastiest and most wicked shit-eating grin I could manage, I advanced towards them while reaching underground for a weak Water Ley that coexisted quietly inside of an underground aquifer about four hundred yards below me in the ground. With this in hand, I began carefully bringing this reservoir up to the surface but I'd still need another minute or two. Playing with water can be just as dangerous as dealing with fire, and quite as destructive. Done crudely, I could dry up every farmer's well and stock pond for miles and miles, and I thought for just once, I'd like to solve a problem with some marginal amount of subtlety.

The Fire Lords burned their displeasure and the concrete around my feet became molten as if it were molten lava, but still I came. This was going to ruin my boots, shielding or not and I wanted to teach these two eminences a quick lesson or two. Despite being quite entirely inhuman, the greatest of any of the true elementals, the true lords of air, earth, fire and water, tend to assume human form, and have adopted at least some of the minor peculiarities and traits of our race. The more powerful, the more humanist their traits tended to be. Being of an indeterminate physical nature, over the millennia they've tended to assume at least some of the bearing and attitude of the wizards they have served. In this case, despite their otherwise inscrutable elemental nature, I could now strongly sense their growing fear. Never before had a mortal been immune to the power of their flame, even when shielded, and the fact that I bore them no fear whatsoever as I stared them down, being apparently quite defenseless but yet invulnerable, was enough to quite totally unnerve them.

"Enough of this." I rather calmly stated. "This is become irksome and most annoying. You know of course who I am." This was not really a question, but a not quite so subtle hint that they should know... and be very, very concerned.

"We are here as of a proper summoning, from which sacrifice has already been made and promised further in addition. We shall leave your realm without further disturbance, but upon the completion of our duty. Those that broke the barrier must burn for it and their souls taken in payment back to our realm."

Ah, this meant that they didn't have a clue who I was, but they were just barely concerned enough about the situation that they were going to hold tightly to the exact terms of their contract, and without any extra clever embellishment. Still, they didn't quite understand yet the situation they were in and it was time to start correcting their ignorance.

"This is unfortunate... for you anyway. It is most unseemly for one of the Dux-Ignus to be driven home in defeat, with your physical form destroyed. That would mean an exile from our world for a full thousand years, and not just the usual hundred years and a day, if I were to just merely just be inclined to banish you both home. Both embarrassing to your betters and those beneath you, but that will be little of my concern should you continue to flout my powers and continue to be irksome to me, for I am the Zephyr, he who summoned and banished with but a whim your divinity, Yazata Adar, whose will is nothing to my own, and now if you persist in vexing me further my winds shall surely blow you to either misfortune or non-corporeal irrelevance."

Now, with a great deal of ready water waiting to be wielded at my command, I slowly forced enough water to the surface of the bubbling lava pit around me to cool the molten concrete and even provide me with a small shooting fountain of water from which I took a carefully staged drink. Water power now flowed obviously around my fingers and if two Fire Lords could have pissed themselves, they indeed would have.

"We bow to the might of the Zephyr! And we would seek your benign indifference to our immediate and complete departure, harming none as we leave." They both declared, each making entirely acceptable bows to my august personage.

"Be it so, good Lords, for your words are pleasant to mine ears and I bear you no ill-will. I give you thanks and my leave to make your farewell, but first I would have you kindly inform me, but as a courtesy, the name or names of your summoners, for I would much like to have their acquaintance."

"Great Zephyr, the pact was made by the wizard known as Mason Probert, but he had the able assistance of two great wizards of Deseret, Jamil Great-Lord Wizard of the Second Circle, and Xolhua, Lady Sorceress of the Third Circle. Their acquaintance can be readily made, as both can still be found at Wizard Probert's residence, which is of no significant distance from here. Now with your permission, we shall abjure ourselves willingly and without prejudice from this realm."

I nodded my head slightly, as a superior would give farewell to an inferior, and they at once were gone, returned to their own plane. The fires inside the warehouse still raged, but now with an abundance of water at my hands, they were quite quickly extinguished, leaving indeed just enough useable evidence that the FBI could trace the origination of some of the weapons to the underground factory they had secured (from us) in Chicago.

**************

Since our element of surprise, no pun intended, had been quite blown... and roasted to a temperature of about 28,000 degrees, or near the heat of lightning for about five minutes, our anger was quite cooked to perfection. We decided hastily to leave the pairs of FBI agents and our two faux-guards to keep the facility secured while the rest of us dashed off to Mason's farmhouse, which was only about five minutes away. The local fire departnement had noticed the fire, hard not to with a column of flame hotter than the surface of the sun that reached nearly a thousand yards into the sky, and were now on their way. The local police or sheriff would be arriving soon as well and the FBI could use them to help keep the crime scene under control.