“One last question before we go, Mr. Rothmer.” The TV host’s bright smile blurred with the four other interviews Serenity had done in the past three days. “You’ve exploded in notoriety within the past month or two. Are you planning to turn that into something? A new business, or perhaps a Presidential run?”

Serenity knew he had to be careful how he answered that one; people were watching, and even a minor inconsistency would be called out as “lying” by some people. He didn’t think most people believed them, but he was certain that some did. He’d seen synonyms called out as proof he was lying recently. It was nuts.

Each of the news hosts had asked a similar question, but this was the broadest. Fortunately, he could answer it equally broadly.

Serenity smiled widely at the host. She’d been relatively gentle throughout the interview; he was starting to be able to tell the difference between the ones that were out to get him and the ones that were trying to do their job, and she was definitely in the second category. “Not directly, Kenzie. We need to finish dealing with all of the invasions and get back on an even keel before looking at anything else. That doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping an eye out; I do need to make a living, after all. I doubt it’ll be off my popularity, though; as they say, easy come, easy go. I don’t expect to stay in the limelight. As for a Presidential run … talk to me in three years, it’s much too late for this election!”

Kenzie Myers stood and shook Serenity’s hand before he waved and walked off the set. Serenity wondered how humans handled it; the lights were bad enough for him, and he could see without using his eyes.

Rissa was waiting in the car with Janice by the time he got out; it was pulled up next to the curb waiting for him already. “Weren’t you in the audience? How’d you get out before I did?”

Rissa gave him an impish grin. “We left before you did, of course. We got up when she asked that last question, only stayed long enough to hear the answer. Good job.”

Serenity leaned back in the seat. A spike of pain from his wing reminded him he was in his chimera form, not his human form and he quickly shifted. “I hate this, you know. How many more of these do I have to do?”

“One more tomorrow, then none til next week,” Janice informed him. “It’s a good thing we were able to fly back so early this morning or we wouldn’t have gotten that one.”

That wasn’t quite what Serenity had meant, but sure. He could keep his attention focused on the near term. “Were you able to get a round-trip to Dallas set up?”

“Only with Mr. Baxter. You’d need an overnight, normally. It’s simply too far. He’s not available until Thursday, but he’ll be able to accommodate anything from two to four hours on the ground. Any longer than that and he says you’ll need to make it at least ten.” Janice’s eyes didn’t leave the road as she spoke.

“I don’t need long, just long enough to visit the Traa portal. Half an hour, an hour there? It shouldn’t take that long to get its signature. So that should be plenty of time.” Serenity sighed. “It’s worth it; I only have two sets of coordinates now. Three should help me figure out where the Denver portal is. We’ve got time on that, though; it sounds like it’s going to take another week and a half to get the Sterath moved and situated. Most of that will be spent gathering them up; I’m glad I don’t have Azev’s issues.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to just get the coordinate on the way to Denver?” Rissa set her hand on his shoulder. “I know you want it quickly and you want to spend some time here helping out Dad, but surely that would be better than a round trip.”

Serenity wanted to follow her suggestion, but wasn’t certain it was the best option. Having the coordinates earlier would be better; it’d let the portal detector wander the Denver streets with some idea where to look.

Unless there was a large antenna in the Denver area like the one Dr. Allen Ridge used in DC? “Janice, remind me to call-”

As he was speaking, his phone rang. It was his future father-in-law. Serenity answered and put the call on speakerphone through the second cellphone he had in his pocket so the others could hear. “Russ? What is it?”

“You’re done with the interview, right? I didn’t call too soon?”

Serenity wouldn’t have answered if he weren’t. “Yeah, we’re on our way home now. Ita, Katya, and Raz should already be there.”

“Can you meet me at the university? There’s something I want you and Rissa to see.”

Serenity started to get an odd feeling as he walked into the shiny glass-and-metal building. There was something that wasn’t right, something that was trying to push him away. Serenity was paying more attention to the oddity than to where he was going, following the direction of the strongest push; anything that didn’t want him near was something he wanted to know about.

He stopped when getting closer would have run him into a wall and concentrated on the sensation. He could have gone around, but he wanted to make certain he was on the right floor, first.

He couldn’t see any magic, but he could feel the hatred. It was the oddest sensation. It suddenly occurred to him that Rissa was an empath. “Are you feeling that?”

Rissa wrinkled her nose as she turned her head towards him. “Feeling what?”

“Hatred. It feels like it’s aimed at me, but I don’t know why or what. Eyes on the back of my neck, only…” Serenity stopped and looked up. Yes, up was the right direction. That was where the feeling came from. “We’d better find the stairs.”

They couldn’t be too hard to find; this was a classroom building, after all. There would be several sets of stairs, especially in such a new building. Serenity walked farther down the hallway and found a large central stairwell that led both up and down.

“I don’t feel anything.” Rissa sounded concerned as she followed him up the stairs. “I don’t understand how someone would project it at you and I wouldn’t be able to feel anything.”

“Maybe it’s not a someone? The only time I’ve felt this before …” Serenity knew he’d felt something like this before and for some reason he thought it wasn’t a person, but when it happened escaped him. He’d been hated enough times that narrowing it down to why this felt familiar wasn’t quick.

“Rissa! Serenity! Over here!” Russ waved the two of them over to a table set a little ways out of the traffic flow. The protected power cord that ran along the floor to the outlets in the table made it obvious it was a retrofit; it looked like it had been designed as open floor space, but someone had since added a table and chairs since they didn’t block anyone’s movement.

The pressure increased as Serenity approached the table.

There was a second person at the table, a young man, probably in his early twenties, with two bandaged hands. Serenity thought the hatred was coming from him at first, but as he got closer he realized it was coming from directly in front of the young man, from a brightly-colored box that sat on the table with its lid next to it.

Russ started to introduce the young man as they walked up to the table. “Rissa, Serenity, this is…”

“Close the box. Close it now.” Serenity snapped the moment he caught a glimpse of the vase. He still didn’t know why he was reacting the way he was, but it wasn’t just the whatever-it-was that hated him; he hated whatever was in the box.

Russ reacted faster than the boy did, grabbing the lid and setting it on top of the box. The feeling of hatred didn’t disappear, but it became much weaker.

The boy didn’t move for the box at all. Instead he looked puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

Serenity took a deep breath, then let it out. He felt much less tense than he had a moment before. “I don’t know, but there’s something in that box that hates me … What is it?”

“A vase. Just an old vase. It was in the box, buried in the roots of a tree.” The boy stood up, holding his bandaged right hand out as if he expected a handshake. “I’m Rube, by the way. You’re…?”

“Serenity.” As he focused on the hand, he could feel something strange from the hands. It wasn’t the same hatred, but it felt similar even though there was clearly no emotion backing it up. It was … offensive but more like a bad smell than something heretical like whatever was in the box. “Did … whatever’s the the box, a vase you said? Did it spill something on your hands?”

Rube looked surprised. “No, there isn’t anything in the vase. I opened it up to check, the stopper was already broken anyway.”

Serenity took a deep breath and reminded himself that the kid hadn't known it was potentially dangerous.

“It’s magical, and I wanted to see if the magic was part of the vase or if it was something in the vase.” The boy looked over at the box. “It’s strange, the box seems to block the magic but it’s not magic itself. The lid was off when I found it, that must have been why I saw it.”

“You touched a magical item with no idea what it did?” Serenity tried to keep his voice level but doubted he succeeded. “That’s … hazardous. Especially something that doesn’t fit; that’s often a trap. Was the box that clean when you found it?”

Rube nodded. “After I got it out of the tree roots, I just had to brush off some dirt. It’s a beautiful box.”

The box couldn’t have been in the woods for long. Not only was it far too clean, wood didn’t survive that well in a wet environment, exposed to the elements. If it was “in some tree roots” the way the boy described, it had to have been left there recently; having only a little dirt on it just backed that up.

Serenity reminded himself that Earth-humans, especially many Americans, were used to living in a safe world. A world where people didn’t usually leave random brightly-colored magical traps around.

Not that they were common on other worlds, but they were something you learned to be wary of. At least, Vengeance had. Perhaps his experience wasn’t normal?

Whether or not the young man was an idiot, he was correct; it was a beautiful box. More than that, it seemed to stop whatever Serenity was feeling from the “vase”. He doubted that was a coincidence. Most likely it was there to either hide the vase or protect people from it.

Who would have left such a thing in a place like “between some tree roots”? That sounded like whoever it was wanted someone to find it and assume it was abandoned. It didn’t line up with the vase being in a protective box.

Serenity looked back at Rube. “Why did you bring it here?”

Rube shrugged. “Well, it’s old and the box looked Indian. I thought maybe it was something with some meaning to someone? That’s what you’re supposed to do with old artifacts, right?”