Tremaine's Raven
1
Lee Venture undid the locks of her apartment door and stepped inside. She put her handbag in the closet next to the door. That day in June 1955, was the hottest that Boston had recorded so far. Her window fan waited for her to turn it on as she went to the kitchen for a snack.
Lee worked as a secretary for one of the universities in nearby Cambridge. It never ceased to amaze her how much paperwork was involved in processing students and professors through the system.
Lee searched her refrigerator for a minute before deciding that a sandwich would do until she returned home after she looked into something.
She had felt something on the university grounds as she was leaving. It had drawn her attention to the campus library. She had decided to investigate later, after darkness had fallen.
2
Lazarus Tremaine rolled into Boston, Massachusetts as the sun began to sink beyond the horizon. He had worked his way north from New York City after his encounter with the Owlhoot, and Carrie Brubaker. He had been able to support himself with his new abilities as a medium finding lost things.
It was a trivial thing for the use of his abilities, but he was alive again and had to pay for things like food and shelter. You forgot how things tasted when your diet became specialized to raw human beings.
Tremaine watched the streets shimmer as he pulled into a gas station to fill up the motorcycle he had inherited with his new life. Something was in the air. It tugged on his sensitive nerves as he paid for his gas and filled the bike's tank.
He was going to have to deal with whatever had awaken. He could feel it drawing closer to his future as he stood there.
Better to find it first.
3
He walked the campus grounds, disguised in a long coat and hat. He had cast several spells to divine the presence of the Book of Circles. Once he had locked on it, it had been child's play to move when it moved.
That was the only thing that had been child's play.
The book had settled somewhere close by, but he couldn't quite fathom where. Something was disguising its aura from him, even as he tried to locate it. He couldn't decide why it would do such a thing.
If it could do such a thing.
He knew there were others out there like him, looking for powers to use as he did. Dr. Long, Wayfarer, The Ringbearer and The Tarot had arisen since Mr. Destiny had retreated from the world of men. Their rivalry had caused him to search for the book in the first place.
And Nebiros the wizard planned to find it.
4
Lee Venture drew her cloak over her shoulders as she looked out her apartment window. The cloth mask she used already covered her face as she waited for the sun to go down. Black birds sat on the tree limbs outside as if waiting for her.
Lee pulled her crimson cowl forward as the orange light turned to a pink belt of light. She opened her window. She drew her cloak around her, vanishing into a black shadow winging across the Boston sky line.
Perhaps her feeling was wrong. Maybe there was nothing to what her instinct told her. Sometimes it indicated things that had resolved themselves before she could take a hand.
She preferred it that way sometimes.
The Crimson Raven flew in her borrowed form to the campus, descending to the top of her building. She let the facade fade as her long skirt swirled around her legs. Lee walked to the edge of the roof, her closed cape emphasizing her avian profile as she peered from under the lip of her cowl.
Something was on the grounds, something that needed her attention.
The Crimson Raven concentrated on the birds that patrolled the campus. She let her mind roam free as her eyes jumped from one point of view to another. The animals couldn't see everything, only a narrow slice that Lee could concentrate on at any one time. Still her quarry wasn't in plain view as far as she could tell after several minutes of searching.
Lee didn't want to expose herself, but she would have to use her magic more actively to search for the cause of her distress. Any mage with a minimal amount of skill would detect that probing if he was present. She couldn't see any way to avoid that.
Lee raised her gloved hands in front of her. She looked through the frame formed by her thumbs and index fingers. A silhouette of a bird with wings outspread grew in that space. She focused on the library first.
The vault underneath the building held a collection of valuable books. Any single one would pay Lee's salary for years.
The interior of the library glimmered to life in the bird shape that Lee held between her hands. She focused it down underneath the structure. Someone was there at the vault door. He was dressed in a suit with a cape slung over his shoulders. A horned mask covered his face, but not his dark hair.
He turned as soon as Lee's probe fell on him. His mouth and chin, left exposed by the mask, set in cold anger at the thought of another mage in the area. He raised both of his hands. Spiny shells blocked Lee's view of the room as soon as he willed a cloak in place.
That was bad.
The Crimson Raven frowned, letting the scrying symbol break apart as she pulled her hands away from each other. It was a wizard as she suspected, and he was looking for one of the valuable books under the library.
Lee summoned her bird shape around her, vanishing in the blackness of it. She soared across the university heading toward the library. Scrying into the building would do no good now that he knew that she was there. He would block any attempts to gather information while going about his business. Mundane locks would be no problem for him.
Lee had to get in there while he was still empty-handed. She didn't want to chase him all over the city to recover anything he might steal.
It didn't help that she thought she heard hoof beats on the asphalt below as she flew toward the library's walls.
5
Lazarus Tremaine coasted on his bike, letting his feelings lead him through Boston and its neighbors. His skills had grown since his release from the Cloak's enslavement. Riding along while concentrating to find the source of his dread was not something he had been able to do when he had first reentered the real world.
Now it was almost second nature.
Tremaine rode his bike around the outside of the Harvard grounds. The source of his discomfort was among the buildings glaring at him. He parked his mount under a tree, so he could walk around the university. That would allow him to fully concentrate his talent on the problem.
The feeling that haunted him reminded him of the aura of the Cloak's home. It was a sense of hunger waiting to be released on the world. He knew it was a gluttonous thing, wanting to devour the world, many more worlds than he knew about.
And it called to him, challenging him to try to stop it, whatever it was.
Tremaine concentrated, blue flame leaking from his eyes as he tried to fathom the nature of his hidden foe. Images of books chased each other in his mind's view as he considered where he needed to be. He compressed his expanded view of the surrounding area as he rolled on.
That one clue pointed Tremaine toward the library. Somewhere in that building was someone wanting to release one of the Cloak's cousins on the living world to devastate it. That couldn't be allowed. He had assumed a responsibility to prevent harm when he had been released by that stranger that had helped him defeat the Cloak.
A bird-like shadow passed overhead in the direction that the medium was running. It didn't seem to notice him, but he knew this was a complication caused by whatever was in the library. He didn't want to deal with a wizard, but would if he was forced to do it.
Tremaine saw the shadow land on the roof of the edifice, becoming a cloaked woman. The new arrival disappeared from view in a moment. One glance told Scratch's heir that the bird lady was not the cause of his feelings, but was there to stop whatever was about to happen just like he was.
He ran faster, hoping he was not going to need his talents beyond being able to understand his fellow man.
6
Lee Venture knew that she would be engaging in a wizard's duel in a few minutes. A hand gesture opened the roof door. She climbed down the access stairs, composing a selection of spells that might be useful.
You didn't know what was the best spell to use until you were dueling. By then it was almost too late to try and compose something especially needed.
Lee descended the stairs through the building toward the basement where the forbidden text vault was located. The library muted her steps as she walked. The other knew she was in the building, was preparing spells of his own, so she didn't try to walk softly. It just happened that she did walk silently in her crimson boots.
Lee felt the build up of forces as she paused at the basement door. Her long cloak folded around her like the wings of a sleeping bird. She made sure the door wasn't trapped before pushing it open with a gloved hand.
The room beyond looked the same as usual, but the vault door was open. Light danced inside the storeroom as Lee walked to the open cage door in front of the vault area. It was additional security that had been breached by the intruder.
"Excuse me," Lee said. "Can I ask you to stop doing whatever you are doing and leave?"
"Away, gnat," said a voice that sounded like two people speaking. "I have no time for you now that I have this in my hands."
A man wearing a brown suit and cape stepped out of the light show. A half mask with horns reaching above his receding hairline covered his face. He held a book in his hand, while a circle of dead language spun at his feet in neon green and pink.
A swarm of symbols erupted from the book like a swarm of mad insects. Lee raised her cloak to shield her face as the fire letters wrote themselves in the cloth. The material shredded under the assault as Lee fell backwards.
"I have the Book of Circles, and it is mine to command as I wish," said the man in his double voice. "You may leave and survive a few more minutes, or challenge me and die."
Lee raised her hand, triggering one of the spells that she had prepared. A swarm of shadowy fragments erupted from her hand, enveloping the man and his nimbus in a veil of darkness. It resembled a flock of aggressive birds attacking a cat that had come too close to their nesting trees.
The man raised his hand. Flames and letters wrote themselves in the air around him. The spell vanished from the double onslaught, shadowy facsimiles exploding as the wave pushed outward.
Lee recognized her opponent then. She jabbed with her index finger, a bird foot stretching across the small battlefield with jagged talons. The claw clamped around the other wizard, pushing the book down to his side.
Nebiros was this man's name. He had battled the Demon Deacon many times in the last five years, as well as other heroes taking over from the retired Guardians. The Californian hero had never said what the reason was for their enmity, but Lee knew a transformation when she saw one, and Dean McKarren had been transformed into something not quite human anymore.
Lee readied another spell as her claw started to unravel in front of her. Nebiros was a capable wizard on his own, but the Book of Circles was adding its power to his. The claw shattered as the wizard in the horned mask breathed flame at his new enemy.
Lee conjured a wall of ebony feathers with a wave of her hands. The stream of heated air rebounded slightly, but not without causing cracks in her shield. One more hit and it might collapse before the flame. She saw him take a breath, then blow outwards. The flame hit the wall in a bright explosion, reaching for her like a fiery finger.
Suddenly Lee was to one side of the blast, a man in black standing at her side. His straight-brimmed hat dropped a bar of shadow across his face as he took in the tableau with pale blue eyes.
"Look for your chance," the stranger said in a low voice as he separated from Lee, making himself a clear target for the burning Nebiros.
Nebiros glanced at his new nemesis, pulling a set of threads from the Book of Circles. He hurled them across the room as he slowly advanced across the room. He halted when his spell spread across the basement wall instead of the man in black. Somehow the man had dodged the spell with a simple move of his upper body.
Nebiros hurled a fire ball at the newcomer. He had expected the Crimson Raven to appear, being a minor player, but not this other wizard. Still the book made him more powerful than anyone. It told him so.
He smiled as the man in black caught the ball in his hand, then frowned as the flame seemed to go out with a flicker, and gasp of smoke. That had never happened before. A spell shouldn't expire at a touch. It should have to be countered by the other magician. Perhaps he had misread this stranger's abilities.
Nebiros pulled symbols into the air from his prize, his possessor. He flung them at his enemy, ignoring the woman as he tried to puzzle out this shadowy barrier in front of him. The shadow stepped aside to let the spell explode on the basement wall. Masonry came apart in a rush as the letters wrote themselves across the rows of cinder block in eye hurting colors.
Lee had waited for her chance, seeing it if she could separate the wizard from his book. She pointed at Nebiros, and summoned her dark flock spell again as he tried to kill the other man. The dark fragments cawed and croaked as they filled the air. They didn't attack the man, but instead seized the book in a stream of talons and fearsome beaks.
The Book of Circles screamed as it flipped-flopped out of Nebiros's hands. It landed with a crash, circle of symbols scattering into nothingness like frightened sheep.
Lee swept her hands together, following her spell with a wave of darkness from within her tattered cape. She didn't know how much good it would do, but Nebiros seemed stunned by his separation from the book. The wizard vanished under the darkness, and when it retreated he was nowhere in sight.
"I hope he is happy where he has gone," the shadow man said.
"I doubt it," said Lee, using a spell to put the Book of Circles in a container. "It was a temporary solution at best. Now I have to conceal this from others who want it, and whom it wants."
Epilogue
Lee Venture gazed out over her workplace, smiling slightly. There were things that she would need to do, but at that moment she could say that she had did something to help the world.
The Book of Circles was in a steel box, wards covering its metal surface. Its influence would still call to those it could use, but they would have a hard time finding it at the moment. The box had been buried in the floor of the library, with a powerless duplicate in its place in the vault.
The damage caused by the battle had been repaired with her mystic might, a small chore that had to be done before someone saw it and started investigating what had happened.
Nebiros had been dispatched to a place hostile to wizards. It would take him a while, but he would find his way home sooner or later. That was the best Lee could do, other than killing the man outright. She wasn't ready to take that step against someone unable to defend himself at the critical moment.
When he returned, Lee would be ready to combat him if she needed to. Maybe she would have a better solution than exile for the renegade. It would be something for her to work on while she waited for that event however many years it would take to arrive.
Below her perch, hoof beats became the sound of a motorcycle engine. Lazarus Tremaine waved at her as he rode across the campus grounds toward the street. As he rolled under a streetlight, his monkish face was clearly visible, and he was smiling up at her. He turned his attention back to the road, and a minute later had vanished toward the city of Boston.
Lee smiled back, glad that he had arrived just when she needed him to be there. She watched his aura fade in the distance before gathering her cloak around her. Then her bird form took to the dark sky as she headed home. A bath and a quiet dinner would help her relax so she could sleep, and dismiss the nagging voice that called her name in the back of her mind.