A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “Yeah, well you obviously haven’t spent much quality time in a tomb if you think that. You can have my old coat.” I turned the light on and then ripped his shirt open to expose the wound. “And shirt. Now hush, this takes some concentration.”

  Taking a deep breath, I opened my inner eye to examine the damage. Within a few minutes, I knew exactly what was wrong with him. “You need to stop smoking, that's going to kill you sooner that some punk's gun,” I quipped, only half joking. He didn't have cancer or anything; these days no one did, but he did smoke. Humans are pretty fragile and they really shouldn't tempt fate. They may have to regrow his lungs someday if he ignores it.

  “Then I'll die free.”

  “The way cigarettes are taxed? Dream on.” During our banter, I was readying my hand over his wound, and when I thought he was distracted I slipped it in, my hand passing through his skin as if I was a ghost.

  “You know, if you took my offer you could heal this yourself,” I muttered as my hand found the bullet. At my touch, it too became insubstantial and I lifted it out if his body with no resistance. As my hand pulled out, I could see the wound closing up. “Okay, psychic surgery complete. I hope your insurance covers this.” The tiny slug was completely flat. The coat must have almost completely stopped its momentum, unless Jeremy’s hide was a lot tougher than I thought.

  “No way, I have enough on my table as a PI,” he said as his fingers ran down the side where the wound had been. “Good work as usual, Professor.”

  “Stop calling me that,” I snapped. “I hate nicknames. If you cracked a book occasionally, it wouldn't be such a shock that someone actually wants to look at one.” These days the ‘old tech’ was a holographic display, and everyone looked at you as if you were a human anachronism if you didn’t have a neural interface. My entire home was a museum.

  “Ah, come on, I heard someone calling you that already.” I winced at hearing that. Too late to discourage it I guess. Probably some smartass bookstore owner. I hate smartasses... other than me, I mean. “Besides you play it down, but you have some serious powers.”

  “Well, I play it down because the fewer people know what I can do the fewer idiots I will have after my head.” I waive a finger at him condescendingly, only half teasing. “Besides, there's always someone stronger than you.”

  “Voice of experience?”

  “I really don't want to talk about it. You saw the aftermath yourself.”

  Jeremy was one of the people that found me some time after I had been thrown out of my world. Apparently, I was quite a sight at the time.

  “I thought you just got caught in a mugging.” I grimaced at the thought. What the hell did he think could have done that to me? A delinquent velociraptor looking for a score? To be fair, at the time he had no clue of my less than mundane state.

  “Oh no, it was... er... I guess you would call it a demon.” How do you describe an ancient dragon and a magic portal to a guy whose only frame of reference was the contemporary 2090 AD urban landscape and perhaps a few fantasy and science fiction books? Well, and old movies. “Anyway, I don't really want to talk about it.”

  “Damn, should have known that you had a story behind it,” Jeremy offered. Now I knew he was fishing. I was only slightly annoyed, he's a PI, being nosey is his life. Fortunately, he handled me not talking about things gracefully.

  “Oh, come on, I've known you for almost a year.” Okay, maybe not always that gracefully.

  “Maybe I'll tell you later, now shut up,” I grunted. This world was weird. I had heard things could be different in the various dimensions. Back home the ambient magic was so great that my very structure oozed with it, fortifying me and my abilities and psionics. So much so that I could take a small nuclear bomb at ground zero and get up again if I was near a node or a ley line. Here, I had all my abilities sans the ones that the runes repressed, but I wasn't nearly as tough as I once was.

  “So who is it that's calling me 'Professor'?” I tacitly changed the subject.

  Jeremy wasn't fooled, but he let it drop. “You know people in the bad parts. If you're going to take on the muggers, you better expect people to talk.”

  “Crud,” I grumbled. I have been using the same shape and face to visit the poorer parts of town to get my books. I guess people were finally starting to notice that if they try to mug that guy he's going to hand you your ass. I could change faces, but then I would have to deal with the additional mugging attempts. Yeah, some parts of town were so bad you knew you were guaranteed to get jumped. For a city that was named to be the pinnacle of the modern concept of a megalopolis, Arch had some pretty crappy places. Some of them are pretty darn close to the upscale places.

  “Oh well, how bad could it be?” I asked philosophically.

  “I heard some rumors,” Jeremy offered quietly, as he walked over to the sink and started using a wet cloth to get the caked blood off his skin. Great, another thing I need to buy. I hate shopping.

  “The mayor is thinking of forming a new police force using supernaturals,” Jeremy said, while frowning at the stains on his pants.

  I am not sure if it contributed at all to parts of the city sucking so hugely or it was just natural for a city this large, but people have been saying that ever since the vampires and the various shifters came out of the shadows, and somehow got civil rights, the city has gone to hell and the police can't control them. Both are almost immune to normal weapons, so who can say they are wrong.

  “Well, that sounds like a good idea.” I looked at him closer. He didn't seem pleased. “Okay, I give up. Why isn't it a good idea? This city is hell on earth in some areas. Just because I don't want to play hero doesn't mean it's not a good thing if someone else does.”

  “There's talk about him cracking down on freelancers and vigilantes.”

  “Okay, that is going to suck for some of the other more hated vigilantes but I still don't see how it's that bad. If anything it'll burden the police even more. It will probably go back to normal in a few weeks after enough police drop dead.” Jeremy gave me flat look. I shrugged; if mortals want to make stupid decisions then by their god, Darwin, they will be weeded out.

  “Yeah, it's going to be bad for everyone, but I think you should be worried about yourself... Professor.”

  I was momentarily distracted by thoughts of the bloodbath. It was then that his words finally reached my brain.

  “Profess... wait a damn minute here,” I exclaimed hotly. “I am not a hero or vigilante. I have work to do! I don't have time to waste.” My words faded away as I saw Jeremy raise an eyebrow. “Okay, it's not a waste, but I have other things on my plate. I don't have time to spend chasing after supernatural genetic waste.”

  “So you say, but you have had your share of heroic actions since you got here.”

  “That was all self-defense. They were in my way,” I complained. I think there might have been a hint of a whine in my tone. I hated that. I may be young for my race, but I am still manly. “Let the police hire a few werewolves they trust. That should balance the system a bit.”

  “And Kingston,” Jeremy asked as he moved into the living room and put his feet up on my table. Damn, he is such a slob. If he tried to light up, I was going to toss him out on his butt. Then I froze. Kingston? He knew about Kingston? I knew Jeremy was good, but how did that happen.

  “You're guessing,” I accused.

  “I was until you responded,” he grinned smugly.

  Kingston had been a fairly successful mob boss that had disappeared off the crime scene about six months ago. That was when I had come into a very significant amount of cash. Okay, I suppose it really wasn't that big a stretch when someone goes from living out of the YMCA and the government provided housing, to owning several properties and placing Jeremy on permanent commission.

  What had actually happened was less than glorious justice. I had knocked out one of the lower level thugs, checked his mental health, and then merged my mind with his. After that, I had shape chan
ged into his form and walked into Kingston’s hideout. I had to work my way up the ladder a little, but they really didn't have any defenses against a psychic shape shifter.

  The only really hard part was the actual mind merge. This is a grueling mental talent where you and the target actually share all your memories with one another. For the next few hours you know everything that your target does. It's also incredibly dangerous. If you bond to someone that is insane, it is very likely you will come away suffering from the same mental illness. If he is nuts enough and your unlucky enough, he may just put you in a coma. I had to be very careful picking my targets.

  The other down side is that the bonding is a full exchange. For several hours they know everything about you too. I had to force my ‘donors’ into a temporary coma. When it wore off in a week they didn't remember a thing about me.

  The other hard part was once I was close to Kingston, and I examined his aura, I realized that, yes, he was nuts. So I abducted him, forcibly cured him of his psychosis through another very exhausting and time consuming psionic procedure and then bonded with him. The cure I know is only temporary without reams of therapy afterward, and it doesn't really change that you’re a bad man. I put him in a temporary coma, transferred his money through several accounts, changed faces, walked in a bank and physically walked out with it, changed faces again and moved it bit by bit into other accounts. I did this using Kingston's own skills as a very unscrupulous but imaginative bookkeeper to cover my tracks and set up alternate identities. He was a very talented man.

  I never did figure out why he vanished afterward; when I left him, he was safe and sound in a hospital occupying a temporary bed in the coma ward. I looked into it afterward and he checked himself out a week after I checked him in, and then just vanished. His organization sort of fell apart, and I am guessing another good fellow took over. I did all of this not because I wanted to be a hero, but because I was destitute and needed to change this status without harming anyone that didn’t deserve it. I am still not sure whether to be guilty about what I did, so I usually avoid thinking about it. Denial is comfort food for the brain.

  So when Jeremy dropped his bombshell I suppose it was silly to be surprised. I have always admired his skills as a sleuth, and although strangers may not have noticed anything, to him I may as well have been waiving a red flag. After a moment’s reflection, I just sighed. “No comment.”

  “Anyway, if people ever find out that you took out Kingston they may jump to conclusions about your orientation.”

  Damn, I hate politics. Back home in post holocaust-ville all I had to do is worry about whether our patrols would run across hostile neighbors.

  “I'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I have plans in place but I kind of like my life as it is.” I paused a moment to clarify this statement. “As frustrating as my research is.”

  “Dead end,” Jeremy prompted politely, as he got up and walked into the back room. Once he left the room, I surreptitiously sidled over to where he had sat and noted the scuff marks on the table. I was going to have to buff that out as well as get the carpet cleaned. Sometimes, friends are a real pain in the butt.

  He came back a moment later with a shirt and jacket that vaguely fit him, though perhaps a little baggy. He usually wore loose clothing so this was actually not a big change for him, except the better quality material. “Well, not completely. I am going through the last stack.” I winced at the thought of the last twenty books. “But I think in the time I have been looking for something real about magic, I have found maybe five books. And they weren't very helpful,” I added sourly. A couple cantrips and wards for evil spirits. I could light a cigarette with my thumb; home dimension here I come!

  “It could be that I have a lead for you,” the rumpled PI dropped with nonchalance.

  This perked me up right away. “You found something? Why didn't you say something sooner?”

  “I think there was something about bullet wounds,” he said, with a slight edge to his voice.

  “Er... right, sorry about that.” I kept forgetting humans got worried over this stuff. People have actually called me insensitive. Jerks.

  “There's a new shifter in town. Girl called Mei Ling. Some kind of hot shot martial artist bounty hunter.”

  “And she interests me how?” I prompted. Not that I doubted the man, I am just like that.

  “She's hunting some kind of witch or wizard.”

  “Huh?” Disappointment flooded through me. “The wizard is a villain? That does me no good. An evil wizard is more trouble than they are worth. They are notoriously close-mouthed unless you swear eternal servitude to them or some such garbage.” I felt myself on the verge of pouting. “Are you sure it's actually a witch or wizard? I thought they hadn't been outed yet.” I am sure they exist, but they hide far better than the other supernaturals I had found in this world.

  “Not officially, but anyone who's not a halfwit can guess some of what's offstage ready to come into the spotlight. Besides, can't you…” Jeremy tapped the side of his head suggestively.

  “Bah, you can't take magic by force... well unless you're some whack job of a blood mage.” Agitated, my handed gestured to try to get the point across. I had seen Italian mafia in movies do it and it seemed cool.

  Jeremy barely ducked my swinging hands, muttering curses under his breath. It's his own fault, he was the one that insisted I see The Godfather.

  “Well, wizards would have books about magic, right? You're bound to get better stuff that what you’re combing through.”

  That thought stopped me. He was right. Anything had to be better than the useless time-wasters I was looking at now.

  “So are you interested?”

  “Okay, this seems a good lead.” Getting down to business I continued. “Five hundred credits in your account now. If this pans out, one thousand more credits.”

  “Great. She is staying at this address,” Jeremy said, while pulling a stained folded square of nupaper from his pocket. I gingerly took the rather abused sheet between my thumb and pointer finger, and noticed rather fresh traces of blood on it.

  “Okay...” Slightly nonplussed at the tattered state of my directions, I unfolded the cheap plastic textured sheet and began to read. “She's at the Hotel Riviera? That’s across town in one of the upscale neighborhoods.”

  “Well, not everyone stays at the YMCA when they first visit the city.” That earned him a glare.

  “By the way, I assume you took care of the problem you had?” I asked while gesturing at his side where the bullet wound had been.

  “Yeah, it was just a misunderstanding over a client's possession,” Jeremy said nonchalantly, waving away my concern. “Anyway, I have to head home, I need to sleep. We can watch Mad Max later.”

  “You should get some better protection if you won't let me show you a few tricks.”

  “I was wearing protection. That coat you ripped off me kept that thing from tearing me in half.”

  Looking guiltily at the coat lying on the floor in pieces, I glanced back at him. It hadn't felt that armored. “Okay, buy another one. On me. Maybe have a force field built in it.”

  He snorted. “That is restricted military technology. I'll have to settle for armored coats. These days it seems the only time the military lifts a finger to do anything is if they find someone using their tech.”

  I walked him to the door and looked out as he rode off in his old beat up blue car. It was such an old piece of junk that I don't think anyone ever tried to steal it despite it being an antique. He had once extolled me with a detailed description of its history and why it was such a fantastic find. I think I purposely blocked out that memory. Hardly anyone used street cars these days, although with the recent renewed interest in 20th-century fads that may change.

  The sun was well up and the city around me was now active. I suppose some people just like working at night. Just to stretch my legs I walked out and made a leisurely tour around the block.

 
The mostly deserted neighborhood was squarely middle class in appearance and well laid out, which most likely was one of the reasons the crime rate was so low. The streets were wide and empty of cars on the surface; there were no hidden nooks and crannies for criminals to hide. The other reason may have been that I had bought most of the houses around me so there are fewer potential victims. A piercing, high-pitched whine came from the distance, and I saw a mag-lev commuter train barreling by on the tracks several thousand feet away, so fast that it was almost gone before the noise reached me. I frowned. I came from a city full of magic users of various flavors and even now the technologically oriented city threw me off if I paid too much attention to it.

  I turned my attention straight upward to see the various air cars, bikes, and scooters flying high above the street. At regular spacing, there were floating buoys that acted as traffic beacons. I used to love flying.

  Absently fingering my chest where the runes lay under my shirt, I scowled at the hover cars as I turned back to the house. A faint humming sound swiftly grew behind me reached the door.

  “Are you the Professor?” A voice drifted from the lawn at my back and I hunched my shoulders. Damn, I hate it when Jeremy's right.

  Turning around, I was somewhat surprised to see a fully uniformed police officer, complete with rigid light body armor and automatic rifle. “I have heard some people calling me that.” He didn't look hostile, just a bit officious. The armor couldn't be comfortable, even if the morning was relatively cool. Yep, looking closer, a fine sheen of sweat covered his brow. Maybe the ‘advanced’ technology required for refrigerated armor was restricted to the military too.

  “Sorry sir, I just had an address and a title. We couldn't find your phone or vid number,” the officer said pleasantly. It didn't look like I was being arrested, but heck if I knew what he wanted.