Kate Daniels 05.5 - Magic Gifts

your basic human default.
    "Is that the necklace or Roderick?" Curran asked.
    "It's the boy. He has power and it's obscuring whatever magic signature the necklace is giving out." Doolittle pointed to a point on the graph. I squinted. A series of paler sparks punctured the blue.
    "This is probably the necklace," Doolittle said. "It's not enough to go on. We need a more precise measurement."
    We needed Julie. She was a sensate - she saw colors of magic with more precision than any m-scanner. I stuck my head out into the hallway and called, "Could someone find my kid please and ask her to come down here?"
    Five minutes later Julie entered the medward. When I found her, she had been half starved, skinny, and had anxiety attacks if the protective layer of grime was removed from her skin. Now at fourteen, she had progressed from skinny to lean. Her legs and arms showed definition if she flexed. She was meticulously clean, but recently she decided that invention of brushes was a waste of time, so her blond hair looked like a cross between a rough haystack and a bird nest.
    I explained the necklace. Julie approached the boy. "Hey. I'm going to look at the thing on your neck, okay?"
    Roderick said nothing.
    Julie peered at the metal. "Odd. It's pale."
    "Pale yellow? Pale green?" Any tint was good.
    "No. It looks colorless, like hot air rising from the pavement."
    Transparent magic. Now I had seen everything.
    "There are runes on it," Julie said.
    "Can you read them?" Curran asked.
    She shook her head. "It's not any runic alphabet they taught us."
    Dolittle handed her a piece of paper and a pencil and she wrote five symbols on it. Runes, the ancient letters of Old Norse and Germanic alphabets, had undergone several changes over the years, but the oldest runes looked the way they looked because they had to be carved into a hard surface: all straight lines, no curves, no tiny strokes. These symbols definitely fit that pattern, but they didn't look like any runes I'd seen. I could spend a day or two digging through books, but Roderick didn't have that long. We needed information fast.
    Curran must've come to the same conclusion. "Do we know any rune experts?"
    I tapped the paper. "I can make some calls. There is a guy. Dagfinn Heyerdahl. He used to be with Norse Heritage Foundation."
    Norse Heritage Foundation wasn't so much about heritage as it was about viking, in the most cliché sense of the world. They drank huge quantities of beer, they brawled, and they wore horned helmets despite all historical evidence to the contrary.
    "Used to be?" Curran asked.
    "They kicked him out for being drunk and violent."
    Curran blinked. "The Norse Heritage?"
    "Mhm."
    "Don't you have to be drunk and violent just to get in?" he asked. "Just how disorderly did he get?"
    "Dagfinn is a creative soul," I said. "His real name is Don Williams. He packs a lot of magic and if he could have gotten out of his own way, he would be running the Norse Heritage by now. He's got a rap sheet as long as the Bible, all of it petty stupid stuff, and he's the only merc I know who actually works for free, because he's been fined so many times, it will take him years to get out of Guild's debt. About two years ago, he got piss-drunk, took off all of his clothes, and broke through the gates of a Buddhist meditation center on the South side. A group of bhikkhunis, female monks, was deep in meditation on the grounds. He chased them around, roaring something about them hiding hot Asian ladies. I guess he mistook them for men, because of the robes and shaved heads."
    "And why didn't anybody pointed the error of his way to this fool?" Doolittle asked.
    "Perhaps because they are Buddhists," Curran said. "Violence is generally frowned upon in their community. How did it end?"
    "Dagfinn pulled a robe off one of the nuns and an elderly monk came up to him and hit him in the chest with the heel of his hand. Dagfinn did some flying and went through the monastery wall. Bricks fell on his face and gave him a quickie plastic surgery. Since the old monk had raised his hand in anger, he went into a self-imposed seclusion. He still lives near the Stone Mountain in the woods. He was greatly revered and the monks got pissed off and went to see the Norse Heritage Foundation. Words were exchanged and the next morning the Foundation gave Dagfinn the boot. The neo-Vikings will know where he is. They kicked him out, but he's still their boy."
    Curran nodded. "Okay, we'll take a Jeep."
    "They