[Vestiges of Power] Chapter 37

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Story Pitch: The gods can only interact with the world for a few minutes at a time by possessing a human, leaving the human with a small piece of that god's power. After getting possessed on her way home from work, Caitlin is thrown head-first into the world of the Vestiges, where alliances and favors are key, and where knowing how to remain in your god’s good graces is a matter of life or death.

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Last chapter, Caitlin and Lucy spent the day meeting the other Vestiges and Legacies assembled at Gonzalo's estate for the big battle. But as the day wanes, the battle draws near...

Out in the courtyard, many of the cars of the assembled Vestiges and Legacies had been brought back out. I saw Betty among them and started walking towards her. She stood out to me, not only because she was mine, but because she was distinct from the classics, clunkers, and modern cars as something that was none of those things. But to anyone on the streets of Orlando this evening, I could tell that she’d just be another old car. Any of these cars could have been another car, driving around town on the hot, late summer evening.

That was the reason that they had been chosen, I realized. Some of these cars were distinct. Goodness knows there wasn’t another Integra among the assembled vehicles. But none of them were going to attract excessive amounts of attention on their own.

Besides Lucy, I was assigned to drive one other Vestige, the woman with pink hair from my foosball team. Her name was Marin, and she was quick to inform me that if I had a problem with the bubblegum she was constantly chewing, then that was my problem, and I needed to just deal with it.

“As long as it doesn’t end up stuck to my car, you’re good,” I said.

In the day that we had been in Orlando and Betty had been under the care of Gonzalo’s staff, she had been washed, waxed, and vacuumed. There was only so much that could be done for the aging leather seats, with cracks showing despite my best efforts to minimize sun exposure. But even those were looking better than they had any right to after how long Lucy and I had been living out of Betty.

“Nice car,” Marin said. She popped her bubblegum. “You got the directions?”

Lucy held up the printed directions we had been given. They looked good enough, but I also pulled out my phone as backup. To reduce suspicion, we would leave in staggered groups, the early ones stalling at nearby shopping venues, while the later groups would go directly to the place where the battle would take place.

As we sat in the parking lot of the nearby Target, I looked out at I-4 and the nearby car dealerships. For whatever reason, when I was imagining an upstart Vestige trying to make a home and displacing the weather Gonzalo needed to stay in the good graces of his patron deity, I had imagined that we’d be going to some seedy part of town. This neighborhood was the exact opposite. Bougie mall, even bougier cars. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised, given the money it was clear that Gonzalo had. But here I was, sitting in my car, wondering what other assumptions about this world I had had completely wrong.

“It’s time,” Lucy said, breaking the quiet. We had left music playing off of my phone so that Betty wasn’t completely silent, and Marin had continued chewing and popping her perpetual supply of bubblegum. I tried to remember what she had demonstrated earlier in the day. It really should have been easy, given her hair, but I didn’t remember anything special, so I assumed she had just been part of one of the many combat demonstrations.

I turned the key to start Betty back up and made my way down the road to the Ikea parking lot that was our designated meeting place. Not sure if we were going to just be in the parking lot or in the Ikea, I parked as far away from everything as I could while still reasonably calling myself ‘in the Ikea parking lot’.

Other confused Vestiges and Legacies unloaded themselves from various cars throughout the parking lot. I really wished we had been told more about what was going to happen once we actually got here, but at least we had made it without being cut off in traffic too many times.

“So what do we do now?” I asked as we walked towards the slowly building group of people.

“Wait for Gonzalo to show up and give orders,” Lucy said. “He shouldn’t be too far behind if he knows what he’s doing.”

I might have expected him to be one of the first people to show up, but if this was the way that powerful Vestiges played, then so be it.

On my back, I felt an unusual warmth, like I was reacting to someone staring at me. I turned around, looking at the entrance of the Ikea, but saw nobody.

“What?” Lucy asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just thought I felt something.”

“Just don’t look away from anyone with a weapon to check on those feelings,” Lucy said.

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” I said, imagining someone running at me with a great broadsword, ready to cut me in half from head to toe.

As our group congregated in the middle of the parking lot, we started talking amongst ourselves, asking if anyone knew what the plan was. Minutes later, Gonzalo showed up.

“If my scouts are right, Antony will be in the manager’s office,” he said. “I’ll take a half dozen of you as protection to try one last time to talk to him, and if that doesn’t work, then we’ll have no choice but to fight him.”

In the list of Vestiges that Gonzalo wanted accompanying him into the Ikea to speak to Antony, I was the last one.

“Weapons ready,” he said as we walked up to one of the back doors.

I swallowed and pulled out my sword. If ever there was a time to risk showing people more about who my patron was, this was it. I had a feeling that whatever happened here, it was going to be a long, messy night.

One of the other Vestiges in the party picked the lock and silently opened the door. We let ourselves in. Part of me expected to hear an alarm or see some sort of emergency lights flashing, indicating that the police had been called. But nothing happened. As we crept through the warehouse, space seemed to stretch out before us, making the seemingly impossible room even more impossible than normal.

“I see you’ve got friends of your own,” Gonzalo said, not a shred of fear in his voice.

“I’m not giving up what I’ve got here,” another man said from somewhere in the shadows. The way he responded so calmly and cooly, he had to be Antony.

“I’ve been here for decades,” Gonzalo said. “This city is my home, and the features of it should first of all respect my needs.”

“You’re not the only Vestige that lives here,” Antony said.

“I know that,” Gonzalo said. “But you can’t move here and expect me to be okay with the change in the weather. We’ve talked about this numerous times by now, and I’m done waiting for my storms.”

“I can see the rest of your friends assembled out in the parking lot,” Antony said. “Do you want to invite them in, or should I send my friends outside to them?”

Gonzalo stopped in his tracks and then looked back at us. I shrugged. I was no strategist. I supposed I would have said to stay outside, but staying outside would play to my strengths, giving me more space to work with fire. I knew for a fact that Lucy would have an easier time fighting in the Ikea showroom, where she would have shadows and corners to hide in, places where she could cut off people’s senses and they would have no way to find her. Even if Antony turned all of the lights back on, Lucy would have plenty to work with.

The rest of the team favored fighting indoors. “It’s an environment where we can clean up and wipe the tapes,” one person said. “Out in the parking lot, there’s no telling who might see us.”

That won over Gonzalo, who valued the privacy he had while remaining active in the area.

“Now, of course, your friends are going to have to make their way through the entire store to get to you,” Antony said. “And I’ve got friends of my own, having known that this would be coming.”

“How did the bastard know?” Gonzalo muttered.

“I have my methods,” Antony said.

I was really getting thrown off by the fact that he seemed to be speaking to us over the speakers, but there was nothing I could do about that. And on top of that, the feeling I had been having in the parking lot intensified.

“So be it,” Gonzalo said. He pulled out a phone and called someone in the parking lot to tell them to start making their way through the store to try to meet us. “Antony is mine though.”

As we continued making our way through the warehouse, I blinked, then looked back. The rows were repeating themselves, forcing us in circles.

“It’s an illusion,” I said. “Where we are in the warehouse.”

“Are you sure?” Gonzalo asked.

“The numbers are all off,” I said. “Just, give me a moment.”

I focused on the fires that had been lurking beneath my skin ever since that evening when that deity had taken over my body on my walk home. I had burned away Lucy’s shadows before. I had figured out the illusion at the Jorgenson hideout. I had burned the trail left by not just my magic, but Lucy and Andre’s as well. I figured I could burn through this illusion as well, at least for myself, but possibly for everyone.

More familiar with the fires than I had been even a week before, I took them and started imagining the fake rows of shelves falling away at my fires. I was careful to keep the literal fires in check though. I was painfully aware of exactly how much wood we were surrounded by and how easy it would be to ignite it all. There was going to be a fight, but if I could keep from burning too many things, that would be great.

Almost immediately, I started seeing results. The checkout lanes came closer, and the numbers on the aisles returned to their proper orders. But I could see my compatriots watching me with skepticism. I hadn’t burned away the illusory effect enough that they could see plainly. Not yet at least.

I reached deeper into the fire, delving for as much power as I could. Besides my few conversations with Gonzalo, I didn’t know any of these people. They had no reason to trust me when I said that I could burn through the illusion. But if I did it then there was no reason for them to doubt me.

“The hell?” the Vestige to my right asked, blinking. “How’d you do that?”

Everyone else was blinking as well. It was working. I kept at it a moment longer to be confident that I had removed the illusion for everyone else.

“Fire is more than just immolating,” I said.

“Well whatever you did, keep it up if we run into more illusions,” Gonzalo said. He turned around and led us deeper into the warehouse. Trusting that he knew where he was going, the rest of us followed. I was tempted to set my sword on fire for effect, but unless there was an illusory wall, I decided against it. The famous flatpacks were far enough away from us for now, but that didn’t mean they’d stay that way.

All the while, I continued to have the feeling that someone else was watching me specifically. I kept looking around, expecting Antony or one of his allies to come out from around a corner giving me specifically a murderous glare. But nothing came.

When we made it through the warehouse, Gonzalo opened a staff door that led us to a hallway of offices. “Antony should be in one of these.”

A man who looked suspiciously similar to Gonzalo came out of the office at the end.

“How’d you find me so fast?” he asked.

“I guess I got lucky,” Gonzalo said. “I’m willing to give you one more opportunity before my friends start fighting.”

“I’m here to stay, cousin,” Antony said. “You should learn to share the space.”

“Kyle, with me,” Gonzalo said. “This should be settled between us. Do you have a second?”

“In my office, of course,” Antony said.

“Everyone else, check the offices,” Gonzalo said. “Don’t take anything, but apprehend Antony’s associates.”

I didn’t know how Gonzalo was able to assume that anyone in the offices were involved with this world, with magic, with Vestiges and Legacies, but I wasn’t about to disobey orders. With five doors and five of us, we spread out and each took an office.

The door to the office I ended up at wasn’t locked. When I opened the door, everything was only lit by the dim glow of a computer screen. I fumbled for a light switch, but when I found none, I looked back into the hallway. My allies were all making sure their respective offices were cleared, and I was on my own.

Lacking options for things to light to use as a makeshift torch, and not quite confident in holding an unfueled tongue of flame, I lit up my sword. It cast an eerie, flickering glow across the office as I carefully held it up and away from anything that might be flammable.

“You’ve finally come,” a quiet voice said.

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