The smell of decay wafted down the hall, riding on creeping tendrils of death magic. Riordan grimaced. His enhanced senses became a double edged sword in situations like this. On one hand, he sensed danger sooner. On the other, danger stank.

De la Fuente rummaged through his mage kit. The man cast worried looks towards the hallway as he scribbled in magic on the top of the lounge coffee table. “We must have triggered something,” he muttered, “I would have sworn we had disassembled any spells before they took full effect.”

Quinn joined Riordan staring down the hall. His gaze flickered to the remaining charmed objects in the room, which were insidious slow-acting mental effects and not immediate threats to life and limb, and then back to the magic unfolding deeper in the building. Riordan could sense a spell of one of his affinities and generally had a sense that it was cascading through other smaller effects in the building, but he couldn’t tell what any of it did.

Aside from the sounds of movement and the smell of death.

“This seems to be a linked series of spell triggers,” Quinn said, pausing to quickly consult with Ingrid before continuing, “A central effect tripped, I’m not sure why, and it’s causing what appear to be failsafes to go off. If I’m not mistaken, it’s targeting the offices first and spreading out from there. If we want to have any pertinent information intact, we need to stop it.”

“What sort of failsafes?” Maudy asked. The guard settled into a reassuringly steady combat stance, though Riordan wouldn’t have chosen an unarmed style for this. Not that, he realized, he had a weapon either.

“Killing electronics, for sure,” Quinn answered, “and a whole lot of magical activity centered in what I’d guess would be that hidden room or rooms we were looking for. Which appears to be a basement, if I’m reading the direction correctly, but that’s not really a surprise.”

De la Fuente and Ahlgren took that information in, both turning it over in their heads, and then arrived at very different conclusions.

“We’ll need a safe zone. I’ll enchant--” De la Fuente started until Ahlgren’s clipped voice overrode him.

“Let’s go,” the taciturn agent said shortly, already striding towards the hall and drawing his pistol. “Quinn, watch for magical traps.”

Frankly, Ahlgren being in charge relieved Riordan. The man largely observed trouble until it was time to act, but when it was time, he didn’t hesitate. That trait translated well to a tactical leader. It also translated well for a handler, so it really shouldn’t be a surprise to Riordan. Of all the positions that couldn’t hesitate, Riordan suspected handler was high on the list.

Behind them, De la Fuente hesitated, not quite sputtering. “What? But-- It would be better to wait and handle this sequentially from a position of safety.”

Ahlgren nodded acknowledgment of that fact, but didn’t slow his steady steps. “For clean-up, yes. For investigation, no. If you are confident you can quickly set up a safe zone, please stay and do so. Otherwise, stick with the group and provide magical support. Riordan, Ms. Smith, please stay behind Quinn and I while staying alert for threats.”

Quinn was already falling into position half a step ahead of Ahlgren, half jogging to keep up with Ahlgren’s steady pace. Ingrid and Zeren swept ahead of them, on watch. Maudy seemed surprised to be included in these tactical considerations, but didn’t dawdle when she saw Riordan moving to join the pair of field agents.

Riordan felt conflicted at how familiar it was to fall in with a team in a crisis situation, though he admittedly usually took the vanguard position rather than back-up, largely because his previous targets possessed mostly physical threats. Here, feeling the magic spreading like a stain through the community hall, Riordan was reminded how out of his depths he was for the new role that had been thrust upon him.

With his new affinities, Riordan should be operating as magical support, spotting and countering the magical effects. Already, Quinn held a charm in one hand that he somehow used to bend the tendrils of death magic away from their small group. Riordan was torn between watching him to learn what he might have to do in the future and ignoring him to focus on what he was capable of doing now.

Training and practicality won. Distraction in an emergency got people killed. Riordan turned his enhanced senses outward, concentrating.

De la Fuente cursed quietly behind them before settling into more rapid scribbling on the coffee table. “I’ll set up a safe zone here. It won’t be as large or stable as I’d like until I can fetch some proper anchors from my vehicle, but it should give you a place to retreat or recover if you can’t handle something.”

“Set up a physical barricade as well,” Ahlgren called back to De la Fuente, “Just in case.”

Given the scratching noises had progressed to sounds of slamming and smashing somewhere ahead of them, Riordan thought that a wise order.

The four of them quickly left De la Fuente behind. The layout of the community hall reminded Riordan of most such buildings, the blandly carpeted hallway leading first to an entrance into the main hall and then turning to lead to office spaces and then, presumably, to the covered walkway to the school building he had seen before.

Posters and more art were scattered intermittently along the walls of the hallway. When the tendrils of the larger spell touched the charmed tapestries, Riordan could feel them come awake, though their effect felt more like someone staring daggers into the back of his skull than anything directly threatening.

Which sort of made sense for a hallway. This wasn’t some fantasy dungeon crawl. Spikes weren’t about to burst from the floor nor were poisoned arrows going to shower down on them. Setting up shit like that in their home turf only harmed them for the most part. Riordan expected that might change in any hidden or restricted areas, but not the front hallway.

“What are we dealing with?” Riordan asked quietly.

“The spell that went off and is spreading is one designed to trigger all the smaller charms at once. Or perhaps ‘rapidly in sequence’ is more correct,” Quinn reported, “The spell feeds off the smaller charms to continue spreading. That means all the magic here will drain and go into meltdown far quicker than normal. It also means that an unspecified amount of chaos is about to occur, followed by magical fallout that is a pain to clean-up.”

“What kinds of threats are we looking at for the short term?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Quinn said grimly, his lips pressed in a thin line made all the more alarming by his black lipgloss. “If these death mages developed their gifts independently and naturally, I’d have a guess. Most death mages pick an area of interest to study and base their preferred spells around. And their efforts would have been cruder. These death mages--”

Quinn drew up short, stopping his explanation as he stared at the doors into the main hall. “Don’t touch those doors.”

Ahlgren studied the unassuming double doors into the main hall, trying to peer through the small windows in them. “Is that space a priority?”

Riordan focused on his own senses. The sounds of movement came from further into the mess of smaller rooms. The tendrils originated from off that way and then down, though that didn’t really indicate how to reach the heart of that spell. The main hall felt… poised and nasty, but not because it was immediately important.

Apparently Quinn agreed, pointing to where the hallway went left and then turned just past the edge of the main hall. “No. It’s dangerous, but not the center of what is currently happening. We should go that way.”

“Oh yes,” Maudy grumbled, quiet enough that Riordan wasn’t sure the others would hear her without shifter senses, “let’s just head towards the shuffling smashing noises in a death mage lair. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.”

She was grinning though. Riordan sympathized. He’d once been young and hungry for excitement too. He’d grown out of it. Now Riordan just felt coldly determined. Which, given his temper, was better than heatedly determined, though he knew one could morph to the other easily enough. He would have to rein his temper in, should it rear its head. When it reared its head. Let’s be fair. He’s a badger. Conflict made him belligerent.

In truth, though, Riordan couldn’t afford to be hot-headed here. He didn’t know how to work with this team without thinking through each step and actively communicating. They possessed respect, but not an instinctual understanding of each other’s methods. That came with time and experience they’d likely never get, given the agents were temporary additions to the area.

After the hall turned, it had a door before the hallway continued, breaking up the space. Quinn confirmed it clear of traps before gesturing Ahlgren forward. The agent took a step, frowned, glanced at his pistol and then to Riordan.

“Stand guard, please. Something feels wrong ahead and I want to scan--” Ahlgren began.

“If you think there are some sort of physical enemy ahead, you are correct,” Riordan interjected. “Sounds indicate two legs but an uneven gait. Which brings me to a question: are zombies real?”

Riordan frankly had no idea. Myths blended with fiction and his direct experience with death mages had been fairly non-existent before recently. The smell of rotting flesh combined with the sound of shuffling evoked not forgotten teachings of his past, but rampant media representations of the zombie apocalypse. Those movies left an impact, watching the bodies of loved ones turn against the heroes.

“Zombies are an advanced technique, or rather, a range of techniques since the term is used to refer to any animated corpse,” Quinn replied tightly. “They are rare and normally only seen by death mages who specialize in corpse manipulation, focusing on the death magic and resonance in the physical remains of a person. Normally, I would say there would be no chance of this set of death mages using such techniques, since their main priorities were on effects to use on the living, but that damned grimoire changes everything.”

“I was honestly hoping for a ‘no,’” Riordan grumbled.