The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"It's liable to be worse at Chocolate Weasel," I said, but he shook his head - he didn't think it was possible. I envied him his innocence.

The security guard put down the footbridge for us, and we trooped out. Then the fellow took off his uniform cap and bowed, which made me feel great. The guard might not have know who'd done what, but summoning the Garuda Bird wasn't something you could ignore.

Thanks to the cacodemons' announcing an emergency evacuation, traffic around the dump was unbelievably snarled. We passed Chocolate Weasel's address on to the hazmat team and followed them instead of the other way round: they had constabulary lanterns on their carpets, which helped move people out of their way.

About halfway to Chocolate Weasel, we met head-on a rush away from that area. I gulped, remembering what the constable who'd answered Kawaguchi's phone had said about a war. Maybe he hadn't been exaggerating.

A constable in full combat gear, material and thaumaturgic, was turning back traffic heading in Chocolate Weasel's direction. The hazmat team's lanterns got them through;

Yolanda's shouted encouragement and our EPA sigils did the job for us.

"You know, Michael," I said, "just once today, I'd like to fly away from the scene of a disaster."

"I have considerable sympathy for this point of view," he answered. "However-"

"Yeah," I said. When duty calls, you'd better do it. Doing it and liking it, though, were not the same critter.

When Yolanda asked another constable exactly where we were going, he directed her to a command post at the comer of Nordhoff and Soto's. The reason that was the command post, I discovered when we followed her there, was that it was as close to Chocolate Weasel as you could get without being in immediate danger of getting yourself messily lolled.

Sure enough. Legate Kawaguchi was there, in uniform and helmet - not Constabulary Department standard issue, but samurai-style, with the man of his clan affixed to the forehead to help protect him against malignant magic.

He didn't act surprised to see me. "Good afternoon, Inspector Fisher. I must admit, you were not in error concerning the nature of that building ahead." He pointed east I looked that way myself. A thin column of smoke rose from the Chocolate Weasel facility. Tell me that's not what I'm afraid it is," I said to Kawaguchi.

"I wish I could," he answered. They are tearing the hearts from victims and kindling fires in their chests. We face the apparition not only of Huitzilopochtii but also of Huehueteoti, the fire god."

"In proper Aztedan ritual, that practice occurs only at the completion of the Five Empty Days between the end of one year and the start of the next," Michael said, as if objecting not so much to the slaughter as to its taking place outside canonical limits. Sometimes he can be quite exasperating.

Kawaguchi said, "My guess is that they're going outside the usual pattern to try to bring the Powers to full potency outside their native land."

Michael said, grudgingly, "Yes, I suppose such a procedure might be efficacious. It remains most irregular, however." You see what I mean?

"Where are they getting their victims?" I asked; to me, that was more important than whether they were following all their own rules for the sacrificial rites. I thought about the two guys at the Spells 'R' Us place who'd let me borrow the spellchecker. I thought about them spreadeagled on an altar with their chests hacked open. I wanted to be sick.

"Resistance backed by thaumaturgy of a high order began as soon as our first units responded into the parking lot,"

Kawaguchi answered. "My best guess is that several employees volunteered to become the initial victims to trigger their Powers' presence here."

"Again, this seems likely," Michael agreed.

I nodded, too. Kawaguchi probably had the right of it, despite his curiously bloodless way of describing sacrifices of the bloodiest sort. But constables, who see so much blood in their work, need to ward themselves from the reality of what they do with mild-seeming words. After all, words have power, too.

Then something else occurred to me. "You said those were the initial victims. Have there been more?"

"Unfortunately yes, an unknowable but large number,"

Kawaguchi said. "Because of the strength of the Powers evoked within the Chocolate Weasel building, we have been compelled to draw back our lines several times. The perpetrators have taken advantage of this to raid surrounding businesses and homes. We do not know the precise status of all individuals captured, but some will almost certainly have been employed to nourish Huitzflopochdi and Huehueteod."

I thought about some poor lunk whose stomach decided to growl while he was flying up Nordhoff. He'd spot the Golden Steeples, pull in, grab himself a burger… and end up with his still-beating heart torn out of his body, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You'd have to be a very thoroughgoing Calvinist to find the mark of divine plan in that.