Owl leaned back in her chair and threaded her fingers together, resting them on her lap. It looked like she was relaxing but I could see her using her thumb to trace things on her other palm. I didn't know what she was doing but when she answered me I could tell it was taking up much of her concentration, “That was one of the oldest vampires alive. It's very resourceful and has survived quite a few assassination attempts. Why do you ask?”
“That didn't feel like a vampire to me.”
“It is one. I've tried killing it a few times. All the weaknesses of vampires apply to it. Doctor Kathor has records of it feeding in his library. Anybody who is anybody has tried killing it. I once angled mirrors in orbit and vaporized it with concentrated sunlight. It showed back up a few months later.” Owl replied.
I chewed on my lip in thought, “That didn't feel like one to me… Vampires come off as… ageless but ceasing. They are around until something kills them. That thing didn't feel like them at all.”
Owl paused in her writing on her palm, “You can feel things like that?” I nodded and she continued, “Do you mind if I tell Doctor Kathor? He might have a better idea of what that might mean.”
“That doesn't matter to me. Go ahead.”
People started filtering in below us. They started taking random seats and I could see the other rooms like ours across the room being filled. It was a random assortment of people, anywhere from mob bosses to people wearing business suits. The guy with the cane was sitting on one of the balconies across from us and Peter was tucked near the stage. I nodded towards the guys with the cane, “Who is that then?”
“He's a free mage. His name is Jimmy Foestar. He does random work for people around Angle City.”
“What's a free mage?”
“A mage that hasn't gone to one of the schools of magic that are around. Doctor Kathor is a fully accredited doctor.”
The lights dimmed and Lessa walked out from the side of the stage. “Welcome to Angle City Auction House! Tonight we have quite a few things on the line up.” She waved her hand to the side and a cart was wheeled out with something on top covered in cloth. “We have something that was donated freely to the auction house.”
There were some chuckles in the crowd. Lessa walked over and grabbed the cloth then jerked it off. On the cart was a little hold and a weird looking gun. It was boxy and had a nub where the barrel would be. Lessa waved at it, “From the hands of Doc Awe.” She pointed up and above the stage a display lit up with a number on it, “Bets starting now.” and then she started speaking rapidly. From the way she was shifting her weight I could tell she was using her superspeed to do what auctioneers did with skill.
It felt cheap to me. I turned from the auction to Owl. She didn't look like she cared for the auction either, “Do you have a doctorate like Kathor?”
She nodded, “I got one when I was fourteen. My parents were very proud because I was the first person in our family to get one. Now there's a whole wall in their house full of doctorate degrees.”
Someone won the gun and the next item was wheeled out. Lessa pulled the cloth off and i felt indignant. “That's the knife she tried stabbing you with. Why is she trying to get rid of it?”
Owl paused in her writing on her palm and glanced up, "I've seen it so she knows it won't work.”
“Would it have worked in the first place?”
Owl shook her head and rapped on the stomach of her power armor, “It might have pierced one or two layers. I was fine.”
The auction was starting to heat up. People were throwing out bids rapidly. Owl reached down to her belt and pulled something off. It was a little grey cube. She underhanded it at the opening in front of us and it hit the lip of the balcony. It didn't fall off and stuck to the lip. Owl stood up and headed for the back door, “that's a projector. It will make a projection of us talking. Let's go get that stone.”
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I rolled out of my seat and followed her as she opened the door. The hallway was empty and we turned away from the way we had entered to get to our balcony. Owl led us through the building. From the direction we were going I could tell we were headed behind the stage. I could still hear Lessa speaking from hidden speakers all over the place.
Owl was leading us around people as we walked. Her pace would vary. We slowed down before turning a corner and ahead of us I watched a door shut. We would speed up and I knew we were walking ahead of something.
We got closer to the back and walked down a few levels. I think we were lower than the sewers we had teleported into. It was darker down here and the hallways had turned into concrete.
Owl held up her hand as we approached a corner and we came to a stop. She crouched down, paused for a few seconds then leapt forward at the wall ahead of us. She twisted in the air, slightly landed on the wall then pushed off and vanished around the corner. I heard a grunt of her hitting someone then a thud of the two of them hitting the ground. Stepping around the corner showed me Owl down on the ground trying to get some guy into a rear naked choke. He saw me and his eyes got wide, letting Owl slip his guard and choke him out. Owl rolled him off and stood up, “We are on a time limit now. Lets go”
I followed her jogging form, “Why were you struggling to get that choke?”
“I didn't want him to hurt himself struggling against my suit.” She replied.
We didn't have to go far. A few turns led us to a hallway with a steel door at the end. It was cracked open and a guard was standing outside of it smoking a cigarette. He snapped to attention when he saw us coming and scrambled inside the room. Owl’s arm whipped out and she threw something forward. As the guy tried slamming the door shut the object Owl threw jammed the door. He let out a curse and reached to grab the blade looking thing when Owl slammed her shoulder into the door.
The guy inside fell and Owl stepped past him. He scrambled for something in his suit so I reached down and jammed my finger into a pressure point on his chest. With a burst of chi he took a nap. Looking at the room we had entered showed me crates and things like it. This was the storage room for the auction. Owl was already among the crates looking for something. They all looked the same to me but there must have been an identicator somewhere because she ignored the majority of them.
Owl perked up and headed to an older looking crate. It was made of wood and nailed shut. She grabbed the lid and I saw her fingers sink to the wood then she ripped the top off. I stepped up to the crate as she set the lid aside and saw it was filled with hay and packing material. She started digging through it, taking out big chunks of the packing material and setting it aside.
She pulled out a sword that she passed to me. I unsheathed it then set it aside. It was a nice blade but not something that would stand up to the forces I used when I got going. She eventually found what she was looking for and pulled it from the crate. It was a little ornate lock box. Owl grabbed both ends and twisted. Wood splintered and broke. She tossed one side and tilted the other into her now open palm. A little cloth bundle fell out. She tossed the rest of the box away and started unwrapping the bundle.
From the door entering this room I heard a radio squawk and suddenly a whole lot of people were talking through it. Owl finished unwrapping the thing in her hand showing another piece of sandstone looking material. She rolled it around in her hand before nodding, “This is it.”
“Now that we have it what do we do next?” I asked.
She turned her hand and started fiddling with her forearm, “We leave.”
A few seconds later I felt space start to twist around us. The door to the storage room slammed opened. I turned and saw Lessa there with a frustrated look on her face. She was leaking lightning all over the place and when she met my eyes she bared her teeth and started sprinting at us. She got about half way across the room and suddenly we were elsewhere.
The room we appeared in was extremely well lit. I don't think there was a shadow to be seen. It was a lab of some kind. The floor under my feet was grey and looked to be made of steel tile. There were a few benches and tables around the rooms with equipment sitting on top of them.
The ceiling was white with a light every few feet and one wall was covered in screens. Each one flickered through a few different feeds. Some of them were data, others showed random views from street cameras. Owl stepped away from me and started walking between tables as I looked around. I turned and caught up with her and saw she was headed to something that looked like a computer with a pedestal next to it. On the pedestal was the rest of the stone thing she had been collecting. I could tell she had collected a few pieces on her own.
“Watch this.” She said and held out the stone in her hand.
As the stone neared the bigger chunk it snapped from her hand to the chunk. The stone spun and twisted through the air then snapped into place on the chunk. The seam where the piece met glowed a bit then the seam vanished showing a completed form. I watched it spin slowly on the pedestal she had it on, “You said you think this thing is from off world?"
“It's not.” She shook her head.” That force that connected them and repaired them can be seen on scanners.” She turned to the computer and brought up graphs and charts."It's a few thousand years old and has been broken apart for about that long.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back. The graphs and charts showed a whole lot of stuff I didn't understand. “How do you tell its been broken for that long?”
“Surface debris. Small things like dirt and dust on the surface. Every one has its own signature. When it broke the parts scattered far.”
I looked around the room we were in. It was quite big. “What is this place anyways? Where are we?”
Owl closed down the computer and stepped away from them. She looked around the room with me before answering, “Its one of the labs I have set up around the world.” She waved at the wall of monitors and all of them flipped to show a desert. I could see sand dunes and burms. “This one is below a desert. Away from infrastructure and people. It's where I study things that are dangerous.”
I turned from the room to the stone, “You think that thing is dangerous?”
She looked at the stone for a few seconds before replying, “Every time a new piece is added and it repairs itself, it tries to let out a signal. It's a lexicon. I think it's some kind of communication device. I’m not sure I will let it finish fixing itself when I have everything collected.”
“Wheres it trying to send the signal?”
She raised her hand and pointed straight up.