Serenity read the rest of the description for the Hegemon Worm Queen’s Breed skill. It was very detailed and after reading it and Dominate, it made far more sense. This apartment complex must be the Hegemon Worm Queen’s breeding ground. Most of the residents were likely Dominated; if it needed a body for the brood to hatch and grow as larvae, it would kill a resident and use the body.

When it had enough of a brood ready, it would bring a living being in and infest them with enough Hegemon Worm offspring to create an “individual colony”. It was extremely likely that many of the residents of the apartment complex were Dominated but not infested; it looked like the Worm Queen bred profusely but that it took a huge number of worms to control a human without the Worm Queen present.

It explained what’d happened to Made; her memory loss started when Dominate took her over, and continued because she’d been infested.

Serenity was growing more and more convinced that these Hegemon Worms needed to die. It was possible (even likely) that there were some out there that were civilized, but these were simply a pest.

He made his way back into the passenger compartment. It was easier the second time since he had some idea what to feel for inside the ducts. He didn’t think it was a good idea to shift in front of these people, so he settled on the driver’s seat as the sword hilt before he started searching for who else in the city was infected.

Hopefully this time he’d notice before Lancaster moved him.

Lancaster was puzzled as he returned to his cruiser. None of the dead bodies was Serenity, and no one had stumbled on him as they searched the complex and removed the unconscious residents. Why had he left, and why wasn’t he answering his phone?

All he could do now was hope Serenity turned up. He’d have some questions for him when he did; what was he thinking to go off on his own?

Lancaster landed on something hard as he dropped into his seat.

He jerked upwards after a yowl of pain he wouldn’t admit to anyone later; there was sensitive flesh there!

He lowered himself carefully back into the seat next to whatever he’d sat on. It seemed to be the crystal hilt. Why was the sword hilt on the driver’s side instead of the passenger side? Who would pull such a minor prank in the middle of an emergency like this?

Lancaster reached down and pulled the hilt out from under himself.

Almost immediately, he heard Serenity’s voice. “Oh hey there. Lancaster?”

Lancaster dropped the hilt and it clattered to the floorboards under his feet. He looked around to see where Serenity was, but there didn’t seem to be anyone nearby. “Serenity?”

When Serenity didn’t reply, he shook his head and assumed it was his imagination. He must be more worried than he thought.

He couldn’t leave the hilt under his feet, so he picked it up again.

“Lancaster? Please don’t drop me again.” It was definitely Serenity’s voice.

Lancaster stared at the sword. No. It couldn’t be.

“Yes, it is. Could you take me somewhere private? I’d really like to shift back to something that isn’t immobile, but I didn’t want to be seen and this place seems really busy.”

Lancaster couldn’t tell how the sword was talking. There was no way it could be talking; swords didn’t talk. He really was losing it.

“No, it’s telepathy. Look … just put me on the passenger seat and go wherever you were going. I’ll shift while you drive, hopefully no one will be looking.”

He was headed to the hospital to get checked for worms. He really needed it, too, if he was hallucinating. Was this how it started?

He set the sword on the passenger seat and started the car. Once they were out of the parking lot, he reached over to grab the sword without looking. It hadn’t actually been talking to him, right?

His hand met soft, warm flesh instead of the cold, hard sword hilt he’d expected. The “Urk-” noise from the other seat as he snatched his hand away told him exactly what he’d accidentally hit.

Lancaster whipped the car into another parking lot and pulled to a stop so that he could face Serenity. “Sorry. Uh. You were-”

“A sword, yeah. It’s … well, I think I can shorten the story. I ended up in a fight with the Hegemon Worm Queen where most of my tricks didn’t work. That one did. Thanks for getting me out of there.” Serenity looked like the near-stranger he’d shown Lancaster before they headed to search for Made’s boyfriend.

Something about him puzzled Lancaster for a moment, then he realized what it was and couldn’t resist commenting. “I didn’t know you were a Vulcan. Nice ears.”

“What?” Serenity reached up to grab his ears. He felt them for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “Figures. At least they aren’t too obvious.”

Lancaster felt better now that he knew he hadn’t abandoned his partner, even if Serenity wasn’t another cop. He hadn’t known that, so he’d just been lucky. “I left you up there alone. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve stayed nearby when you went in.”

“I told you to. It’s fine. It worked out, didn’t it?” Serenity didn’t seem to understand the problem.

Lancaster shook his head. “No. Partners shouldn’t abandon each other; just because it worked out doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. People are stronger when they support each other. That’s why we have partners.”

Serenity seemed uncertain if he believed Lancaster or not, but he didn’t challenge the statement. After a moment, Lancaster started back towards the hospital.

They were pulling into the parking lot when Serenity suddenly spoke again. “You don’t have any Hegemon Worms.”

“How do you - do I even want to know how you know that?” Lancaster was used to Serenity pulling some surprises out of nowhere, but this was a fairly large surprise. Was there a spell for detecting them or something?

“I can tell where they all are. All of the worms that used to be controlled by the Queen, at least. They’re all unconscious right now, as are their hosts and everyone it Dominated. But I bet no one will take that as evidence.” Serenity smiled and shook his head.

Lancaster chuckled. “Somehow I don’t think anyone will. Let’s see if we can make this quick. Oh, and you’d better call Rissa. She was frantic when she couldn’t get ahold of you.”

Serenity’s expression of despair was absolutely hilarious.

There was a line, but Lancaster was able to get them past most of it. Serenity spent most of the waiting time concentrating on dealing with Hegemon Worms; he found that he could tell the hosts they felt seriously ill and get them to head to a doctor’s office or emergency room without much effort, but if he wanted to then have a worm reveal itself, he had to do it one person at a time.

He was only able to release one of the people without worms who had been dominated; it seemed far more difficult to let people go than it was to command them, because he had to counter each of the commands they’d already been given. Once he realized that, he decided it would be better to concentrate on dealing with the people with worms first; he could handle them faster and they were continuing to be hurt by the infestations, while the dominated were not.

Two hours later, Serenity called Rissa again and told her he’d finally been released. It was worth her swearing at him; he knew it just meant she was relieved and upset at him for worrying her.

It didn’t help that it was only two hours until sunset.

The Latimers (and Raz) had to hurry to pick him up, then swing by the house for a few things he’d planned to use to fool Frank while they searched the warehouse. Then they had to get there; even knowing where they were going, they were cutting it close and barely reached the warehouse before sunset.

Serenity knew where Liam would have expected to go, so he dropped Rissa and Raz off near Rissa’s parents and their rented pickup truck at the far end of the building; hopefully, they’d be outside the range of any security or no one would be watching. He drove Rissa’s car around to where Liam usually parked when he visited Frank.

The bag of ritual materials was in the trunk, along with a separate bag holding the framework and a fake mentirk; Frank had never seen the real thing, since it’d been delivered to Liam still in bubblewrap. He’d managed to find a bag similar to what he thought Liam carried, but the memory was fuzzy; Frank didn’t participate in many rituals, and the bag itself hadn’t been important to Liam. The poor light was his best hope anyway, since his features and (apparently) voice weren’t quite Liam anymore.

Liam always did the same thing when he visited Frank, so Serenity followed the plan, with the addition of bringing the “ritual supplies” in with him.

He walked up to the wrong door, looked at it, turned and walked over to the correct door, and hit the buzzer. When no one answered after a minute, he hit it again. Another minute later, he texted Frank.

I’m here. Anyone going to answer the door?

There wasn’t a response, but Serenity wasn’t expecting one; Frank never replied. Serenity suspected that keeping Liam waiting was a way for Frank to assert dominance over someone he needed, but he couldn’t be sure. It was always possible that Frank simply didn’t pay attention to the time.

Serenity knew Liam would have been impatient, but Serenity didn’t feel it himself. So far, it was going according to plan. Serenity hit the buzzer again, because he knew Liam would have.

When Frank finally answered the door, he was earlier than Serenity expected. Perhaps he was actually impatient?

Frank was a relatively tall man; it was hard for Serenity to tell exactly how tall since he wasn’t sure how tall Liam was, but Frank had to be nearly six feet in height. He had sandy-blond hair and a slightly lopsided smile. He strongly reminded Serenity of some of the used car salesmen he’d met over the years, with open sincerity hiding a slimy self-centered nature.

Frank ushered “Liam” in, then stopped once they were both in the lit warehouse. “That’s quite an outfit.”

Not-Liam was wearing black pants, a rich purple shirt with large ruffles at the shoulders and wrist, a black blazer, a patterned black-on-black tie, and a hooded black cloak with the hood thrown back. When he headed off to help Lancaster, Serenity had asked Rissa to find him something distracting to wear to the meet, and she’d definitely come through. All of Frank’s attention was on the clothes instead of on “Liam”.

“It’s for the ritual. Clothes matter, you know.” They didn’t, usually, unless the caster believed they did. There were a few cases where things were required or forbidden, but those were for specific rituals. Regardless of the truth, it sounded good as a reason, and Serenity was quite aware that Liam had believed it. “I have some for you too, though you can get away with just a black robe over your other clothing.”

Frank nodded and led Serenity into another room; the room was empty and smelled mostly of sawdust with a slight tinge of oil. “Will this do?”

Serenity didn’t see any obvious traces of remnant magic or essence, so he nodded. “What was stored here? I need to be sure that anything left behind won’t interfere. Also, do you have a broom? We should sweep away residues before the ritual.”

Liam’s partial understanding meant that he had combined the pieces of several traditions into his normal ritual preparation; they were certainly not all necessary, especially for someone who could see magic, but it took time and Serenity was taking full advantage of that. Serenity did plan to do a ritual on Frank, but mostly he was watching and listening for anyone else who might be in the warehouse while he stalled for time. The more time he could give the others, the better.