Gentry triple-checked the carvings on the bloodied finger stump for the final time, then attached it to the plumb line and carefully pulled it towards himself. He held it in place long enough to finish his chant, then released it, setting it swinging freely above the blood-spattered phone book below as he lit the string with a cheap lighter he'd stolen from a convenience store. The cheap string caught fire immediately, blazing up and falling to ash within seconds, and the dismembered digit dropped onto the phone book and left a gory fingerprint directly above one name in particular. Gentry nodded, satisfied, and pulled the book closer to take down the address.

He'd had quite a difficult time getting ahold of this ritual; combing through his grimoire had yielded only five other functioning spells, two of which were entirely useless (a love spell and a ritual for ensuring the sex of an unborn child), and another of which was situational at best (a charm against venereal disease). But there had been two spells he found useful: an incantation which sensed the aura of a person in his field of view, and an erratic but inclusive general divining procedure. The former allowed him to easily find and follow people who were affiliated with the occult, and the latter had allowed him to locate objects as diverse as wallets and spare keys in a dizzying array of disparate settings and circumstances. By combining them, he had steadily worked his way through a number of minor practitioners, procuring a new spell or two each time. Every new acquisition added to his already-impressive capabilities, and by this point he was able to amass a new list of potential targets almost every day; killing his victims was also becoming easier as he mastered new attacks and defenses. He still wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with all this power he was accumulating, but he liked having options.

His most recent encounter had been with the elderly proprietor of a curio shop in Yuma, which had been packed to the rafters with exciting-looking artifacts; as usual, most of them were worthless knick-knacks and decorative artworks, but a handful had been positively overflowing with magical power. He'd found another two tomes of spells, a pair of enchanted spectacles that let him peer into some sort of ghost realm or something, and a particularly enticing sealed box that radiated an excitingly ominous and baneful miasma when viewed through the spectacles. He'd left that one alone for now, but a series of highly successful divinations had led him towards what he hoped would be the first of the necessary steps to discovering how to open it safely. Packing his spoils into a sumptuous leather steamer trunk, he embarked for the local train station with a spring in his step. America, he reflected, really was the land of opportunity for the self-motivated.

Returning to his eighteen-year-old body and correspondingly truncated astral presence had reduced or eliminated many of Orton's most impressive capabilities, but his mind was still at the peak of its power; and so, it only took slightly less than a second for him to iterate through a large list of possible actions. Each time he contemplated a course of action, the inchoate and vestigial remnant of his sight beyond sight either did nothing or went numb with a sort of prognostic vacancy which meant that taking that action would result in his immediate and certain demise. It was slow and clumsy compared to a holistic battlespace visualization, but it was a great deal better than nothing; Orton had already learned that virtually any attempt to move or defend himself would be met with instantaneous death, as would a large number of possible attempts at conversation. He was obviously in very deep shit.

"Look," he began, feeling his way through the sentence haltingly, "I don't know what this is all about, but please, leave Miss Little alone. She's just a friend who helps out kids in trouble."

The blonde man sniffed. "She sure was quick on the draw with that scattergun for a shopkeeper."

Natalie's hands were held up high in a gesture of surrender, but if her expression had been a weapon, the blonde man would have been distributed evenly across the shelves of canned goods behind him. "When a white boy like you brings two big-ass guns like this into my shop and heads right for my back room without even askin', I know exactly what sorta trouble you're up to." She scowled and looked for a moment as though she was about to spit, but the blonde man's left thumb clicked back the hammer on the massive revolver nonchalantly, and she blanched so pale that she looked ashen.

Orton winced. "Hey, let's all be cool. She was just trying to protect me. That's not something you'd want to hurt her for, right?" The blonde man's steely gaze, which showed all the warmth and humanity of a block of solid ice, never wavered, and Orton shut up. The tension built further as all conversation ceased, and he couldn't resist a nervous gulp of anxiety.

Unexpectedly, a plaintive vocalization interrupted the taut silence, and Chester emerged from the shadows to twine around the gunman's legs, purring. The blonde man's eyes flicked down, but Orton did not so much as twitch; his oracular perceptions were telling him very clearly that the man had no chance of missing or dropping his guard. Then, abruptly, the tension drained away; the man holstered his revolvers in the blink of an eye and bent down to pet the cat, and Orton's predictive senses flooded with non-fatal avenues of possibility once more. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and sagged back against a rack of postcards, trying not to pass out.

"Sorry for the disturbance, ma'am," the man declared, reaching into an inner pocket of his coat and producing a badge, which he flashed at Natalie with the easy motion of long practice. As soon as her eyes fixed upon it, her gaze went glassy and she sat down gently behind the counter, looking bemused and peaceful. Orton averted his eyes out of caution as the man put the badge away. "Anybody who'd go out of their way to try to save a bystander like her ain't so bad I can't at least try talkin', I reckon," said the man, scratching Chester under the chin. Chester closed his eyes, luxuriating in the event without even the slightest apparent care for the welfare of his owner.

Orton nodded, trying to keep calm. "Thanks, I guess. Is she going to be okay?"

The blonde man nodded. "Just a little ol' amnesia directive. Handy on normals; cuts down on them psych ward admissions." He grinned. "But I don't imagine it'd work on you, would it?"

"Uh... probably not." Orton hoped it wouldn't, at least. "Listen, can we go somewhere else to talk? I'll answer any questions you have; I'm not going to give you any trouble. But this place is too conspicuous."

The man nodded. "S'pose you can treat me to a meal, on account of the bill you racked up in my hotel room." He gestured for Orton to lead the way; Orton swallowed his anxiety and did so, shuffling out onto the street and heading for a cafe a few stores over. The two of them slid into a booth, facing each other, and Orton managed to palm a quarter as he did so; at least he wouldn't be completely unarmed for the entire conversation.

"So," said the blonde man, leaning forward in a nonchalant-but-assertive posture, "let's start with your name, son. Even if you're the sort of fella I think you are, you're mixed up in a mighty heap o' trouble."

"Dennis. Dennis Wilkerson, although my friends usually call me Denny." Orton wasn't about to give this guy his true name. "But I'm guessing 'Mr. Lytton' is an alias? Probably referencing Edward Bulwer-Lytton?"

The blonde man nodded, smirking. "It's a bad habit, but you gotta have some way to remember what you book things under. Folks call me a lot of names, but the one my mama gave me is Cameron." Orton noted that he didn't specify whether it was his first or last name. "And, as you are likely aware, I ain't exactly a member of the unwashed."

Orton drew in a deep breath. "Yeah. I'm guessing that gang of robots in suits at your hotel room was after you."

Cameron nodded. "Mighty impressive how you took 'em down. I don't know what trick you used, but it did a number on 'em; usually the damn things are so fast and strong they can dodge bullets and throw trucks."

"The thing I can't figure out," Orton continued, hoping he wasn't about to get shot, "is how they worked at all. The tech inside them was like something from Plan Nine From Outer Space; there's no way an actual functioning android could be built with those ancient components. I've fought everything from bog trolls to vampires, and I've never seen anything like that."

"Older'n you look, huh?" The other man's eyes seemed to pierce right through Orton. "Normally, I'd blast you fulla holes for lyin', boy... but I can tell you ain't. And that interests me a lot more than twenty dollars' worth of vodka and orange juice." He signaled the waitress and put in an order for a Bloody Mary and an egg sandwich; Orton had a Diet Coke. Cameron scowled, but didn't object.

Orton spread his hands. "I mean, what do you want to know?"

"Well, fer starters," replied Cameron, examining his cuffs, "I'd like to know what you were doin' in my room in the first place. I went through a lot o' trouble to square that reservation without anybody bein' any the wiser, and you can just about imagine my dissatisfaction when I found it fulla dead agents."

Agents, thought Orton, just like in The Matrix again. Is this guy from the future too? He sighed and shook his head. "You probably won't believe me, but it was just a stupid coincidence. I tricked the front desk into letting me in -- just a dumb con, breaking into a random posh hotel room for the luxury of it."

Their drinks arrived; Cameron took a sip, then stirred his Bloody Mary idly with the stem of its celery stalk. "Mmm. Somethin' tells me it weren't no coincidence -- maybe not your doin', but maybe someone else's. Somebody in the El Federale club, if'n you take my meanin'."

Orton frowned. Is he seriously saying that the United States government is performing clandestine magical and hypertechnological experiments? "I... think I do, but it seems a little far-fetched to me," he managed at last.

Cameron raised an eyebrow. "More far-fetched than bog trolls and vampires?" Orton had to admit he had a point there. "The other thing I'm particular innerested in is how you took 'em all out. They was breakin' down into scrap by the time I got there to investigate, but I could tell whatever you did weren't as simple as buckshot."

Orton levitated his fork over his plate and spun it around in response; Cameron's steely gaze watched it impassively for a long moment before the man let out a slow, impressed whistle. "Well, that ain't somethin' you see every day. How you do that, magnets?"

Orton blinked. "Uh, no. It's magic. Are you saying you don't use magic?"

The other man grunted. "Well, not to go all skeptic on ya, Uri Geller, but I ain't never seen any magic that couldn' be explained by a good two-fisted helpin' o' science or a bottle o' liquor." Cameron watched the fork spin and rotate through an impressive gymnastics routine impassively. "But I ain't so stubborn I won't credit the possibility." He put down his drink and began eating his sandwich with one hand; Orton imagined the other was ready to draw and fire a pistol under the table at the slightest provocation.

"What about that badge you flashed at Natalie -- I mean, Miss Little? The shopkeeper?" Orton expended a tiny flare of power to reify the fork into a diamond-encrusted silver trident heavy with glowing blue flames, just to regain a little authority in the conversation. Let's see you blame that on moonlight and swamp gas, shitkicker.

"Just a lil' post-hypnotic imperative -- works on anybody that ain't had the trainin' to resist it." Cameron watched the trident float above the table for a few seconds before it turned back into a fork; Orton's power was so tapped out that he couldn't sustain the reification for longer than a few moments. "I thought I'd seen just about all the crazy stuff the spooks had up their sleeves -- robots, aliens, weird religious shit, you name it -- but I ain't never seen any magic before." He finished his sandwich and took a long gulp from his drink, then sighed contentedly as he wiped his mouth. "Guess I can add that to the list, then."

Orton shrugged. "Well, I'd never seen androids before -- what did you call them? Agents? -- and I've certainly never seen any aliens. I've definitely seen my fair share of 'weird religious shit' as you call it, though." Orton sipped his Diet Coke, wincing as the aspartame hit his palate. Christ. Three more years until I get that repletion spell and can live off water and rice again. Knowing what he knew now about his body's holistic workings, Orton was generally not a fan of modern food and drink options.

Cameron chewed the last of his sandwich thoughtfully, then finished off his own beverage. "Mmm. Reckon I need to do some legwork." He stood up, straightening his coat, and gazed at Orton imperiously. "Son, I don't rightly know how you're mixed up in this, but I suspect it'd be a mite wise for you to lay low for a while. If'n I find somethin' I think you need to know, I'll catch you up."

Orton raised an eyebrow. "How are you going to do that if I'm lying low?"

The blonde man winked. "Oh, I got a trick or two up my own sleeve, Mister Wizard." He tipped an invisible hat towards Orton, then turned to leave. The waitress passed in between them to drop off the check, and Orton grinned appreciatively; in the split second he'd been obscured, the other man had vanished without a trace.