SAGN: Chapter Three-The Oblong Dome free porn video

Chapter Three: The Oblong Dome ================================================= The rain that had been plaguing them for the better part of a week had picked up some force while they were inside the station. Mostly it was coming straight down like a curtain with very little wind to blow it in any direction. The runoff was now flowing noticeably wider from the edges of the road as the sewers backed up and discharged the excess water into the street. "If this doesn't let up soon we may be looking at some nasty flooding before long," Mitch said as they left the station's underground parking and the sheets of water hit the windshield like a high power shower head. "I understand they've considered closing some of the older bridges across the river already," Jim said. "City engineers are having some concerns about them being able to handle the stress from excess water load." Pantra had dropped her shimmer and flitted to the dashboard so as to get a better view. Now that she was closer to him Jim could see that she was wearing a dark lavender women's suit. The skirt was cut a little wider where it narrowed at her knees and she wore the jacket unbuttoned. The pearl white blouse she wore open throated beneath the jacket was just so ordinary Jim thought. If it were not for her size and the wings that were folded against her spine now he would have seen little difference between Pantra and any other female detective. "Are you sure you want to be doing that?" Mitch asked her. "Someone would have a better chance of seeing you up there than in the back." "I don't think so," Pantra said. "Most people are too busy driving and anyone that would see me will think I'm just some silly dash ornament or a kid's Barbie doll." "As long as you're sure then," Mitch said. "Besides its safer having me up here like this anyway," she said in a guarded manner. "How do you mean that?" asked Jim. "Pantra gets carsick if she rides in the back," Singh said. "And a carsick pixie does not a pretty sight make. I speak from experience on this matter." "Thanks Armin," Pantra chirped. "I really didn't want to share with them that the backseat turns me into a barf volcano, but now that's it out in the open I'll make sure I hurl in your direction if something comes up." "My umbrella will be on standby Pantra," Singh said dryly. Mitch tried to ignore the resulting back and forth between the pair and concentrated on the wet road ahead instead, but from time to time he found himself having to suppress the occasional laugh when she zinged him. By the time Mitch turned the car onto Magnolia Street the rain had slacked off a bit and had diminished to a steady drizzle. That was one of the strange things about this particular storm pattern. It had, for the most part, maintained a steady downpour, but it seemed to slack off at intervals as if it did not want to really blow its strength out. It seemed to Jim that it was almost as if it was taking a break just to re- gather its strength before resuming its renewed fury on the earth below it. 212 Magnolia Street was one of the smaller mill houses. The faded yellow paint was peeling along the side of the building and Jim could see where part of the wood facing on the side of the roof had rotted and given way. The remains of the wood had been gathered and stacked on one side of the yard against the fence. The open area that hung like a ghastly slash along the roof line gaped at them through the falling rain. When the three men and the pixie exited the car they could see that it was one of those houses that the landlord had installed a dividing wall to convert it into a pair of smaller rental units. The smaller porch was open with a pair of doors facing the street. One of them was the original door, but the other was a cheap one that had been fitted into the hole that carpenters had carved into the wall of one of the rooms. Jim checked his file just before they got out and then put the folder back into his bag. "Which one is it Jim?" asked Mitch. "212 B," he said. "Hank Phillips, the missing person rents 212 A." There was no fence in front of the house and unlike the homes on the next street over the yard was level with the street in front of it. A cheap concrete path led up to the short flight of stairs in front of the porch and other than the struggling grass overgrown with weeds on the edges there was little in the way of decorative bushes or trees here. Both of the lawns were cut short and even with the neglect of the owner they could see that the tenants kept up the property regularly. The porch was clear except for a pair of old chairs set offside of the window beside Hank Phillip's door. The lights on the porch on that side of the house were dark of course. They didn't expect that any of them would be on. The outside light of the apartment next door must have come equipped with a sensor though. In the dim rainy gloom of the morning it was still shining. Jim knocked on the door. For a moment there was nothing, but at his second knock there was a muffled voice coming from inside that asked who it was and Jim responded that it was Stafford P.D. They heard the sound of the interior locks turning and woman in her mid- forties with short blonde hair just starting to grey answered. She only opened the door a crack, they could see that she still had the inner door chain in place while she spoke to them. Her eyes were red and puffy and Jim half expected that she might be wearing bed clothes. She wasn't, but that didn't mean anything. "Are you Ms. Carol Desilva? Jim asked her. She responded that she was and Jim told her that they were here about the report she had filed concerning Hank Phillips, her next door neighbor. The woman slid the chain off of the door and opened it. She pushed open the worn wooden screen door and ushered them into the living room. A cat was lounging in the center of a battered yellow sofa. Jim wasn't sure if it was something that she had for a long time or if it was a product of curbside shopping. It could have been either and he didn't really care which one it was. His own family hadn't had to stoop to doing that, but he had known enough good people in his life that did that and he didn't hold that against someone who was in the same boat. Ms. Desilva brushed her cat off the sofa and offered them a seat. As he sat down Jim took another quick look around the room. Ms. Desilva had some clutter on an end table and a few other spaces that could use some tidying, but it spoke more of someone who was busy rather than someone who didn't care. Jim reached into his bag and took out his leather notebook and opened it so that they could start their interview. As they were settling in the cat that had circled around Ms. Desilva's legs crying in protest about being evicted from his throne suddenly stopped mewing. Jim looked down at the animal and knew immediately that the cessation of his cries was caused by his eyes zeroing on Pantra who was perched on Singh's shoulder. Pantra had called up her shimmer to cloak herself again as they were walking up to the house and Ms. Desilva was still unaware of her presence. The cat however, had no such problem and as soon as his eyes locked onto Pantra he had moved into stalking mode and was steadily approaching. "Shit," the pixie said in a barely audible voice. "Armin I forgot to tell these guys that there are certain animals that can still see me when I'm like this." Ms. Desilva turned and asked what they had said; apparently she had heard the sound of Pantra speaking even if she didn't hear what she said. "If you don't mind Ms. Desilva, could you take your lovely cat into the next room for the duration of our stay?" Singh said. "As much as I enjoy them, I'm afraid I have a slight allergy to cat dander." "It's okay," she said. "I'll be right back." She quickly bent and scooped up the cat right in the middle of his pre-pounce wiggle. The cat gave out a great howl of protest at being interrupted and leaned over her shoulder as she carried him away so as to keep his eyes on Pantra. "Thank you so very much, Ms. Desilva," Singh said to her when she returned. "I confess that I do feel a bit of jealously toward you. I find cats to be such fascinating creatures, even if I can't be around them for very long." "That's alright Mr...?" "Singh, Detective Armin Singh," he answered her. "Now that we are here, could you perhaps tell us about what is was you saw regarding Mr. Phillips disappearance? "That's the thing," she said sitting down in a worn recliner. "I didn't see anything. All I did was hear it." "Then tell us what you can about Mr. Phillips and just what is was that you heard last night," Mitch said, taking out his leather notepad. "Hank's a handyman; he picks up a lot of day labor. He's always gone every day. He'll pick up a couple of days work here, a week or so there. He goes all over the city that way you know?" Mitch nodded at her and kept writing. "Please continue," While Mitch was taking down the particulars of what she said, Jim was writing down his impressions of how she was saying it. "Hank's always busy. He has to be, doing what he does. He does alright for himself, but he does drink a little bit from time to time. Nothing serious, but he's still likes his beer on the weekend unless he has some kind of job." "And what is your relationship with Mr. Phillips?" Mitch asked her. "If you're asking if we have anything going on between us, the answer is no. He's just my neighbor and we have a good relationship that way. He's a nice enough guy and he doesn't mind giving me a hand with things when he's not lit. We look out for each other like that." Listening to her Jim was already sure that there was a little more to it than that. In his experience most people were loath to outright say anything bad about the people they knew in situations like this unless they were feuding with them or they knew you as well. Unless he missed his guess, Carol Desilva and Hank Phillips were much more involved than she let on. "And what about what you heard last night?" Mitch asked her. "According to your initial statement you reported him as being assaulted about two o'clock this morning, but you also mentioned that he disappeared around eight in the evening. Can you go into that in a little more detail?" Jim watched her closely. She didn't do anything right away, but he could see that the tension of talking about it was affecting her almost from the moment that Mitch shifted the conversation in that direction. "Well Hank gets around on foot most of the time. He doesn't have a car; neither of us does, so he catches the bus over on Lily Street a couple of blocks from here. Anyway when he leaves and comes back home he's usually walking. And when it's just him he cuts through the woods in the back of the house. It doesn't shave much time off of the walk doing it that way in my opinion, but he likes to do it anyway." "Usually I'll know when he gets back at night, because the gate on his side of the yard has a really squeaky set of hinges. So if I hear them screeching that's when I know he's heading out and the first thing I think normally at night is that it's him coming back." "So you heard someone opening the gate last night then?" "No, I had my ears open, cause I knew he should be back before too long and I needed to ask him to take care of something for me if he would. But I didn't hear the gate open. What I heard was nothing like that." "Then what did you hear?" Mitch asked. Ms. Desilva face dropped down at her hands she had started tightly clasping them in each other. "I heard Hank screaming," she said. There was a tremor in her voice when she said it. "Screaming?" he asked. "Yes, screaming. I've heard Hank laugh, shout and yell, but I have never heard him scream like that before and as sure as you are here I knew it was him. It was coming from over in the woods there and as loud as he was I still couldn't understand anything that he was shouting; it was just an awful screech." "How long do you think it went on?" "Not as long as it felt like it did. It was probably only just a minute or two, but it felt like it was longer." she said. "And then what did you do?" he asked her. "What do you think I did? I called the cops, locked my doors and grabbed Charlie and stayed as quiet as I could the rest of the night. I like Hank, he's a good neighbor and a nice guy, but I didn't want anything to do with whatever it was that made him sound like that. That's what you guys get paid for." "But not right away," Mitch said. "Why did you wait for so long to call in your report?" Ms. Desilva was visibly trembling now and had a hard time it seemed trying to answer. "Why did you wait so long?" Mitch repeated. "Because I was too scared to move," she finally said. "I'm just a housekeeper in a hotel; I try to keep my life as peaceful as I can. I've seen a lot of weird shit that people do when they are away from home and even with whatever that is I don't let it bother me. Whatever made Hank sound like that made me freeze in the house and regardless of what kind of guy Hank is there is nothing that would make me move from where I ran to after I heard that sound. Not for anyone. I wasn't going out of where I was last night for anything. I didn't leave my house. I didn't even leave the room I was hiding in. I just stayed put. You understand where I'm coming from? " "I think we do understand Ms. Desilva," Singh said quietly. "Now do you remember anything else after Mr. Phillips stopped crying out? Anything you recall could be very important." "Just that it got so quiet after that. I've never heard it so quiet. Usually around here you hear crickets and cicadas at night, but not then. It was like someone hit the mute button on the whole world outside the house. It was like with everything else gone suddenly you could hear everything all around you." "Has anyone else been by since the officer took your initial report, Ms. Desilva? Another neighbor perhaps that also heard him and perhaps wanted to see if he was alright?" "Nobody on this street," she said, "the next three houses that way are empty and the family on the other side of the house isn't home right now. They went to a funeral out of town a week ago; I've been picking up their mail for them." They asked her questions for another twenty minutes, but it didn't take them long to determine that there was very little more that she could tell them. Jim gave her his card and told her that if she recalled anything or if anything else happened to call them as soon as possible. As they walked away from the house, Pantra dropped her shimmer again. "Thanks for getting rid of the cat Armin," she said. "Little furry buzz saws always think we are some kind of toy made just for them." "He looked like he was more serious than that to me," Mitch said. "Nah, he was just ready to play is all. If he was serious you'd have known the difference. Most cats don't want to get serious with Fae, but I couldn't have maintained the shimmer for long like that," she said. "What do you think about Ms. Desilva, Singh?" Jim asked. "I think that even now she is barely managing to reign in her fear over whatever it was she heard last night." "That's what I thought as well," Jim said "Did you see how she was white-knuckling it the whole time she was talking about what she heard? You can't fake that." "I think it would be best if we got a good look at Mr. Barnes's home now. These two incidents occurring this close together is no accident," Singh said getting into the back seat of the sedan. "It's just around the corner," Jim responded as he cranked the engine and put in into drive. As he pulled away the rain began to slacken even further and by the time they had parked in front of Barnes's house it had receded to more of a hanging mist even though only a few minutes had passed. "I haven't seen that happen that quickly before," Mitch marveled as he exited the car. "That's because it was my doing," Singh said from the back seat. Both of the men turned back to face him and saw that his eyes still held a dimming glow to them. "I am a shaman after all and more to the point I don't care to traipse around in the woods in a downpour if I can help it. The rain is still coming down. It has just been shunted away from us and reduced in volume a little." He turned to face Barnes's home. The yellow crime scene tape was still wrapped around the area and the door was sealed. "Oh, my word," he said softly. "What is it?" Mitch asked looking at the slightly stunned look on Singh's face. "Gentlemen, there is so much more to this than you are aware of," Singh said looking toward the house. "And what does that mean?" Jim asked. "It means there is a giant, honking ward over this house," Pantra chirped from the dashboard. "Why didn't you detect it before?" Jim asked Singh. "Probably because it didn't kick in until we crossed the edge of the ward's border," Pantra said. "Before we did that it wasn't there." "Pantra is correct, gentlemen. There is a conditional ward anchored over this home. It activates when something or someone with a connection to the Aether comes within range. Pantra, I'm afraid will not be able to enter this house." "Will you be able to?" Jim asked. "My being is rooted in the physical world, I will be able to enter it for a short time, but I will experience increased discomfort the longer I am there," Singh replied. They started up the stone walkway, ducking under the crime scene tape. Pantra was still perched on Singh's shoulder, but before they had gone more than a dozen steps; she tugged on his ear and told him to stop. "This is my stop Armin," she told him, "I get any closer and it would be bad." "I feel it too Pantra," he said, "Perhaps it would be best if you did some aerial reconnaissance while we continue on inside. Map out the diameter of the ward and see what you can glean from a higher perspective." Singh had taken a few steps backward while he was talking with her. She nodded at him and with a deep thrumming buzz shot up from his shoulder and soon disappeared into the murky sky overhead. "Let's continue gentlemen," he said. As they entered the house both men could see Singh was staggered when he crossed the threshold. Jim asked him if he needed to step away, but Singh waved him off. He reminded them that neither of them was capable of doing what he was here to do and that he would leave if it became too much for him. The two men followed Singh as he meandered through the house. They had spent their first moments upstairs, but they had quickly returned to the ground floor when Singh informed them that he found very little there that was relevant to their investigation. As he passed through the different rooms Jim thought he began to see a pattern to what Singh was doing even if he didn't have much of an idea of just what that was. The rooms that they passed through the quickest were those that he supposed resonated with the memory of everyday actions. Ordinary days that layered on each other and repeated variations of a theme to infinity. But then there were the rooms that didn't do that. Rooms that gave off a different tone to Singh as he passed through them. Those were the ones that Jim saw him linger in the longest. The big living room was one of those spots. As he entered the room he seemed to be bracing himself against something Jim neither felt nor saw. He moved around the edges of the room and then turned to the center of it. Near the fireplace on the east side of the house, he bent as if under a strong wind and could go no further. He shook his shoulders as he turned away as if he were throwing off a heavy snow and retreated toward the kitchen. He lingered only a few minutes there. Apparently there was just not that much that stood out to the stocky man other than his appreciation for the aesthetics of the place. The Florida room just off of the kitchen was a different story. Jim could see Singh visibly cringe upon entering the spare Spartan room. Drops of perspiration were starting to form on his brow and his face was starting to show the strain of being within the boundary of the ward. Singh refused to leave though. He paused over an open spot on the red brick floor and spent several minute kneeling over it. He held his hands side by side as if warming them at a fire. Jim and Mitch watched silently while he did this, as they had done while he examined the other rooms. At length, he rose and just said that he had gotten all he could from these rooms and they had best go outside for now. The two men followed him out the front door. While Jim walked with him back to the car, Mitch lingered behind to reaffix the police seals on the door. The further away they got from the house the more that Jim could see the pressure it was exerting on Singh fade away. When they reached the car, Jim opened the door and watched Singh sit heavily in the back seat. He sat there not speaking and breathing heavily for a few long moments. By the time Mitch made his way down the incline to join them he seemed to be breathing a little easier, but he still had not said anything. "Do you think he's going to be alright Jim?" Mitch asked him quietly. "I will be quite fine in a moment Detective Travers," Singh said from the back of the car. "I have an extremely painful headache from being within the ward's boundary. I'll be fine in a few moments." "Can I get you some pain meds for it?" Mitch asked. "That won't be necessary. If you would be so kind as to go across the street and bring me a double handful of the earth there, that should be quite sufficient." "Earth?" Mitch asked, not sure why he had made such a request. "Yes, some clean earth and some stone as well if you should find some; gravel would do," Singh said to him. Jim stood beside the car and looked around while Mitch crossed the street and walked up and down the sidewalk until he found a likely looking patch and then knelt and began dragging his hands through the bare wet earth. He returned a few minutes later, a large mass of dark earth mixed with small gravel chunks dripping from his mud stained hands. "Thank you, Detective Travers," Singh said taking the mess of muddy earth and rocks from him. Jim handed Mitch a cloth from the glove compartment so he could clean off his hands as best as he could. Both of them were watching Singh though. As soon as Mitch had handed him the earth he had sat leaning out of the passenger door, his bare feet on the wet macadam. Jim hadn't noticed him removing his shoes while Mitch fetched the earth he asked for. As he cradled it in his palms they both saw the dim glow begin to shine from his eyes. As they watch it grew a little stronger until it faded away after a few minutes. Singh let out a deep sigh of relief and let the earth and stone slide from his hands onto the grass beside the road. "That's much better gentlemen," he said brushing off the smears of earth from his hands and leaning back into the back seat. As they watched him don his shoes he looked up at them. "Thank you for your offer of medication, but as you can see a little earth and stone is a much more effective remedy for someone like myself." "I guess so," Mitch said, "looks like it beats the Motrin I have all the way down." "Thank you for the offer anyway. Now if you'll excuse me for moment I need to verify something and for that I'll need to converse with Pantra before I can go into what I saw in Mr. Barnes's home." Singh settled down in the back seat, his legs crossed at the ankles and his palms pointed down and facing outward. His eyelids drooped and barely flickered until they were hanging heavily half closed. "Loan me your eyes Pantra," they heard him whisper. "Let me see what you see." Jim and Mitch stood beside the car as the long minutes began to crawl by. Singh had not moved after he had begun his communion with Pantra where ever she was in the sky overhead. One of the residents drove slowly by them. The driver, a man, glanced over them as he passed before continuing on to the end of the street, pulled into his driveway and went into his home. Singh opened his eyes and looked at them both. The mist was starting to saturate their coats from standing exposed to its moisture. "Pantra is on her way back here now gentlemen. There was not a great deal for her to see there, but she did identify a few points that I think may be of relevance to us." "I have no idea what that...ward you called it, was doing to you, but it didn't look like it was very good," Mitch said quietly. "It most assuredly was not, Detective Travers," Singh said. "In fact if I had not been here in the flesh, I could no more have entered it than Pantra could. That ward is particularly crafted against those who inhabit the Aether. Even with that in my favor I'm still feeling the aftereffects of defying it." "So someone who is like you couldn't really get in if they tried to do it that way?" Jim asked gently. "Not entirely, certain powerful types of Aetherial dwellers may be able to force their way past it, they might even be able to enter the house itself. But it would cost them and there are not many who would be willing to pay such a price as that I think. But it does tell us some specific things though." "And what would that be?" Jim asked. "It tells us your missing Mr. Barnes has very rapidly developed a considerable facility to be able to deploy such a ward," Singh said looking up toward the house. "It also tells us that whatever his reason for doing so, he had a strong need for it." Jim and Mitch looked blankly at him from where they were standing beside his open door. They were both having a little difficulty grasping the idea that the effect of whatever it was that the ward had on Singh was man-made. Singh sensed their confusion and reminded himself that this was something outside of their experience. "Perhaps, it would be better if I walked you through it step by step?" Singh added. "Please get in the car for the time being gentlemen. There's no point to you standing in the mist getting damper each moment while I go over this. And we won't be able to continue our examinations until Pantra has returned in any case." Both Jim and Mitch nodded and slipped into the front seat of the sedan. "You told me that you found evidence that Mr. Barnes was experimenting with black lotus, yes?" At the two men's acknowledgement he continued. "Black lotus is one of the prime paths to unlocking the doorway into the Aether. It has been for centuries and even a minor use of it can allow changes to be wrought in almost anyone," he began. "With Mr. Barnes it seems to have unlocked a great deal of untapped power within him, but at the same time it placed him it great danger as well. When I entered the house I was hoping to locate the keystone of the ward. I hoped that if I were to do so I would be able to deactivate it for a short time. Usually such things are located in the hearth of the house, but as you saw I could barely approach it there," he said. "That tells me that when he placed the ward, Mr. Barnes was very fearful. It was a ward specifically crafted so that someone attempting to do just that would be unable to even approach with touching range. That matched the undercurrent I sensed throughout the house. One thing was permeating it and that was the fear Mr. Barnes was feeling during his last days within its walls." "I also found a second weaker ward in the Florida room. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to me that it was the older of the two. And more so it was much simpler in its form. Mr. Barnes apparently learned a great deal in a very short time. I wish I could have had more time to examine them both, but with the weight of the stronger ward overlying it, the both of them were far too much for me to bear for long." "We could see that Singh," Jim said. "It was pretty obvious to both of us." "That room is the source of Mr. Barnes's fear. Whatever it was that grew here was born on those bricks. The room is saturated with Aetherial energy and I could almost see him lying entranced on the bricks while we were in there." "But the thing that stood out most of all was there was another flavor of Aetherial energy there as well. Around the room, just outside the walls. Stronger, darker, Primal. I think that in his experiments Mr. Barnes caught the attention of something he did not expect to encounter and it came looking for him. I don't know the character of it, but I could sense that it was very hungry." "Whatever happened here in the last few days is intertwined with what Cecil Barnes was doing in that room. We should have a look at the outside of the house before we leave," Singh concluded. "Are you up for that? It looked like just going into the house almost wrecked you," Mitch said to him. "I think that I may be able to do so for a short time. But I will need more earth and stone to attempt it. I hope it will bolster me somewhat during the time we need to examine the back of the house." Mitch opened his door. "I'll get it for you; my hands are dirty already anyway." Pantra arrived and returned to her perch on the dashboard of the car to rest for a time. There was no need to bring her up to date; Singh told them while she settled herself that he had kept part of his link with her active so she could hear him as he spoke with them both. While Singh began packing the earth and stone Mitch brought him in various pockets of his clothing, she told them what she had seen in her flight overhead. The ward was in an oblong dome that ran the length of the house and extended in the front to the street level. Part of it jutted out toward the fence where Mitch had first found the footprints and she swore she could feel a trace of something Fae that had passed nearby recently. When they asked her if she could identify it, she told them it was hard to do so. Whatever it was, appeared to have been gone for some time, but she did think that it wasn't that far away. While she couldn't see anything at the moment that leapt out at her, she was confident that this Fae visitor was somewhere in the woods behind the house. As they approached the house again, they saw the effect of the ward on Singh's face as its power washed over him once more. His movement seemed labored, as if he were walking at the bottom of the sea with the world's weight of water bearing down on him. He twisted his head to the side grimacing briefly as they rounded the corner and entered the back yard proper. Jim almost thought he saw the skin on Singh's face ripple as a wave of it passed over him. "Are you going to be able to do this?" he asked him. But Singh only nodded in grim determination. "The stone is not helping as much as I hoped it would," he said. "But it's not as bad as it could be." As they approached the fence Mitch stepped a few paces in front of Jim and Singh. He reached the turned earth by the back of the fence and started slowly shaking his head in disappointment. "You can't see very much now," he called to them. "The rain has almost washed them completely away. If it weren't for the bits of plaster the lab rats left when they took their casts, I don't think you could see them at all." "Perhaps not the physical tracks, Detective Travers," Singh said heavily. "But nevertheless, I see them quite clearly. We need to return to the car for now. And I will need to rest." Singh took longer to recover from the second time after he forced himself against the barrier warding the house. By the time they had gotten him back to the car he was dripping with perspiration and for a time seemed too weak to do more than lie in the back seat of the sedan and breath heavily. Mitch brought him more earth and gravel and that seemed to strengthen him slightly, but both men could see that what he had done had drained the man considerably. When he had regained enough strength to sit in the back seat he told them that there were three things he had learned from viewing the far side of the house. "Detective Travers," he said heavily, "you said that the foot prints you found were almost washed away and that is undoubtedly true in your eyes, but I could see the trace of them very clearly lying on the land. Whatever it was that passed that way exited the house from the Florida room. It crossed to the fence and passed through it. The trail was quite clear to me while we were there." "Moreover," he continued, "whatever primal force Mr. Barnes attracted was very strong and it was lingering just outside the windows of the Florida room where he was conducting his explorations. The psychic stench of it lies very heavily in that spot. It's very strong and very hungry." "And lastly I think that the main force of his ward is directed toward that part of the property. I don't know how whatever it is got so close, but I think that when it left, that final time, it did so almost within the barrier itself and its passage caused the ward to bend with it as it left the property. It may very well be that it did so because this being had succeeded in obtaining Mr. Barnes and the ward was stretched trying to prevent whatever it was from taking him. It was hard to measure its strength from where we were." As he talked some of the color returned to Singh's face. He was already breathing easier. His pants were rolled up to his knees and his feet were buried to the ankles in the earth Mitch had brought to him. Jim looked at the man and felt a great deal more respect for him than he had before. It was hard to dismiss him now as someone who was overinflating something real into more that it truly was after watching him endure probing the ward around this house. And at the same time he felt foolish for some of the private thoughts that he had harbored before he had experienced this small slice of what every day must be like for him. Singh looked over in his direction. "You don't need to feel that way Detective Brighton," he said, "I don't blame you for it and you won't be the last one to have your opinion of me flavored by disbelief. Its okay, it really is. I am, after all, used to it by now." Jim looked at him in confusion for a moment and then remembered that Singh was also an Esper and had heard his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken them. His face reddened a bit in sudden self-consciousness. "If you think that's bad now, wait until he overhears one of your saucy dreams sometime. You'll really want to crawl into a hole then," Pantra chirped from the dashboard where she was resting. "When you're rested enough, we'll go behind the fence where Mitch picked up the trail. It should be far enough away from that ward for you to get what you need without it wringing you out," Jim said, changing the subject before he got even more embarrassed. "We'd have to go there anyway," Mitch added. "That's where Ms. Desilva said that she heard everything coming from last night. Maybe we'll get lucky and catch some kind of a break back there." "We should be cautious," Singh said slowly, still worn out from challenging the ward. "Things that swim in the Aether are not to be taken lightly." "That's why I'm here," Pantra said in a low serious tone. As she did so Jim could see a faint glow emanating from her palms as she flexed her diminutive fingers and as she did he wondered just how powerful the little pixie really was. ====================================================