This time, Dara didn’t look as panicked as she had been.

Maybe she’s getting used to driving with me.

Or maybe she was still taking in the fact that California was just a little bigger than her hometown.

“So, kid, I take it there aren’t as many people where you come from?”

“No.” Dara said, looking out the window at the passing houses.

“Why, dragons eat ‘em all?”

“No! It’s just… most people don’t have that many kids,” Dara finally said.

“Not even farming families?” Millie shrugged. “I figure you’d need a lot of hands to farm.”

“Not if you know the proper rituals,” Dara replied. “I mean, not everyone becomes a mage and is granted their scroll, but how could you even farm if you didn’t have a hedgemage around to spell the bugs off of your crops?”

“Wow, here we use pesticides.” Millie shook her head. “Sounds like an interesting place.”

“It is.”

“You know, you’re going to get back,” Millie said. “Once you get your bad guy and his big gem.”

“How?” Dara asked. “I don’t even know what spell he used. He may not even know what he used?”

Ah shit, teenaged despair. Now I remember why I hated high school. “Look, Dara, I doubt he came here with no way to get back home. And the fact that you were able to get here at all sort of implies there’s a way back, right?”

“Yes…”

“And the people on the other side, are they just gonna shrug and go back to their work?”

Dara shook her head. “Oh no! I mean, this is proof of something that we thought was a myth for years and years. Nobody’s ever been able to make a portal, but now that it’s proven, well, the applied thaumaturgy department, the spirit relations department, the… why all of them would be interested!”

“So even if you can’t get back by yourself, you’ve got people looking for you, and they won’t stop until they find you.”

“Well, find a way to make the portal,” Dara said. “But yes, they’ll also be looking for me.”

“Well, there you go! No reason to get depressed. Just focus on what we can do here, so when your people do show up, you can greet them with one tied up crook.”

“Right.” Dara paused. “Millie?”

“Yah?”

“What’s it like, living without magic?” She gestured at the freeway they were driving down. “You have things that are… like magic, sort of, but nobody uses magic.”

“Eh, we’ve got good enough. I mean, we fly, I can watch cat videos all day, we’ve been to the moon…”

There was a pause, and then Millie winced at Dara’s squeal.

“Wait, you’ve been to the moon?”

Oh boy, Millie thought, as Dara started hitting her with a torrent of questions. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. On the other hand, at least she’s out of her funk.

By the time they got to the home of Mike, Dara’s mind was whirling. Cars were one thing, they were incredibly fast, but well, Dara had ridden in carriages all her life. Airplanes? Mages flew and birds had always flown.

But to go into space? Dara had seen her own moon using the telescope at the college, and she’d always been amazed by the fact that it was a place everyone saw, but that nobody had ever been able to travel to—and that nobody could travel to. And the people here had gone to their moon! They’d walked on it.

And they hadn’t gone back.

Dara couldn’t quite get her head around it. “But why not?” She asked.

Millie sighed. “Because it was super expensive, and people don’t like to pay for super-expensive rocks that you put in a museum.” She glanced at Dara. “Look, you can check it out on the Internet at home I—whoah!” Millie hit the brakes as a car tried to murder them, zipping through the intersection faster than any charging horse.

Dara squeaked as she once again grabbed the dashboard.

“Hey, how about we talk about this later? I need to focus on driving.”

“Yes. Please.” Dara took a deep breath. “That would be a good idea.”

Millie didn’t say anything else as she wove through the traffic, finally turning the corner into one of the complexes of low houses. They almost reminded Dara of home, even if there was far less wood in their construction.

They also looked the same, and Dara suddenly realized that every house was built to the same design, the only difference being the ornamentation. They were all built at the same time? How could that be? Dara couldn’t think of a single city back home where everything would be built that close together.

Before she could ask Millie, the older woman pulled to the curb and gestured at a house. There were…

“Those are plastic birds,” Dara said. “Why are there plastic birds there?”

“Those are flamingos, and I have no idea.”

“And the one with… metal on its head?”

“Oh, that’s easy. That’s an assimilated flamingo. Yeah, Mike’s sort of… unique.”

“I see.” Well, I can handle this. Remember, Professor Jaris wouldn’t teach a class unless the stars were right. We have weird back home. Dara nodded once, undid her seatbelt, and got out of the car, ignoring Millie’s snort of annoyance at the finger marks she’d put into the plastic dashboard.

They walked to the front door, with a little mat with the words: STAND HERE FOR DEATHTRAP.

Dara stood to the side of the mat.

Millie reached out and pushed a button on the side of the door.

Moments later, a deep voice sounded: “One does not simply walk into my house!”

“That doesn’t sound…”

“Like I said, unique.” Millie reached out and smacked the door. “Mike! It’s Millie. Open the door, I have a job for you.”

A few moments passed, and Dara started wondering if anyone was going to answer, when the door was flung open. The man who filled the space was tall, broad and muscled, with close-cropped blond hair.

“Millie, you know that usually we pay people for the last job before—” He paused and stared at Dara. “Nice blue dye-job for the hair. Who’s the short-stack, Millie?”

“Seventeen, Mike. Her name is Dara and she’s seventeen.”

“Right, no touchie.” He glanced at Dara. “I’m Mike.”

Dara shook her head. She had no idea what that was about. “I’m Dara. I believe Millie said you could help us?”

“Help you to do what?” Mike asked. He folded his muscled arms. “Millie may not have told you, but I’m not running a charity.”

“I…” Milly shook her head. “I don’t know what it is you actually do. We are looking for, um, ah, information.” She looked over at Millie.

“Right, anything weird happening in the last say, three days,” Millie said. “You’re my info guy.”

“Millie. I hate to be that guy, but what about my payment for the last time?”

“I’m going to have it for you,” Millie said. “This is an emergency. Dara here really needs information, and it may help her get back to her family.”

Mike frowned. “How is…”

Dara dug in her pouch. Maybe she had… “I have a silver crown,” she said, holding out the coin. “Is that enough for your time?” Mike looked at it and shook his head. “Even if it was pure silver, it wouldn’t be enough. Nice fantasy work though. You sell at renfaires?”

“Ah…” Dara glanced at Millie.

“No, she’s not working at renfaires,” Millie said. “Look, Mike, I know you, and this is the work of thirty minutes. So why not give me a hand?”

Mike sighed. “So you found another stray who needs something and can’t pay you, which means you can’t pay anyone else. Fine. One more time, but Millie, after this, I gotta start charging in advance.”

“Right Mike.” Millie shook her head. “But for now?”

“C’mon in,” he said.

The interior of the house was cool and dark. Dara saw leather-bound books that wouldn’t be out of place in the library next to sculptures and pictures of fantastical places. Some of them looked like they could have come from the wild-lands back home. There were TV’s and monitors scattered here and there, some showing images of people and places, some dark.

At the end of the hallway, there was a large room, one wall covered with monitors, and a wall made of glass showing off a pleasant back yard. A large white cat stared at Dara from its rest, then yawned and curled up again, ignoring her.

“So what do you need?” Mike said, sitting down in front of a complex keyboard.

Once again, it seemed that when she was confronted with it, the formerly meaningless word now made sense to her.

“Anything weird.” Milly gestured to the screens. “Last three days.”

Mike paused. “Anything weird. In Southern California. Millie, Unless you want me to bury you alive in data, I need something a little more specific than that.”

“A man,” Dara said. “Appearing out of nowhere and seeming confused.” She paused. “Maybe doing… unusual things.”

“Yeah, that’s a whole lot of nothing when it comes to narrowing things down. Millie, tell you what I do?”

“Ah, no, just that you can help us.”

“I’m a brave explorer of the Internet. I probe the wilderness of rule 34, so you don’t have to.” He stared at her, evidently waiting for a response, then shook his head. “Wow, you really don’t know what I’m talking about. Okay, here’s the thing, there are billions of people on the Internet, millions of posts an hour. Every time something happens, it either blows up and buries everything else, or it gets buried.” He shrugged. “So most people start and stop with a search engine, but to really find stuff…”

“We need the magic of Mike,” Millie said. “Okay, look for a guy, or stuff that sounds like magic.”

“Millie… what are you looking for?”

Millie glanced at Dara. “It’s confidential, Mike. Not just for us, but for you.”

“Fine, Millie, but it’s not going to get the FBI showing up, is it?”

“It depends. Are you on any more national security watch lists than you were last time we talked?”

“Ha. Ha.” Mike shook his head and glanced at Dara. “Okay, first thing, we’ll create our parameters. Southern California and everything for the last three days. Weird stuff associated with a guy seeming confused…” His fingers flew over the keyboard, as the monitors above him showed the immense land in all its glory… and then there were red dots. Everywhere.

“What’s that?”

“That’s all the weird, confused guys, or reports of them. All the stuff that sounds like magic.” Mike chuckled. “Here’s a good one. A cat in Garden Grove accurately predicted the fact that its owner would crash her car that night.”

“That’s not what we need.” Dara glanced over at Millie. “I was hoping for something more unusual.”

“Hold your horses. That’s where narrowing your focus comes. First thing I do is eliminate any hits that were duplicated before the time period. If Ms. Grumble calls the cops every week about the man in her mirror, we can bet its nothing you're interested in.” Many of the red dots vanished. “Next are things that were followed by police reports involving drugs or booze.” More dots vanished.

Dara leaned forward, fascinated by the display. It’s like he’s a diviner, only using these tools instead of magic. And the tools seemed to be more effective—most diviners were only good at predicting the weather or other natural events, not what people were doing to do.

Finally, there were only a few dots left.

“Well, we’ve got a haunted house in Glendale,” Mike said. “Family claimed someone appeared, then vanished.”

“That’s a hit,” Millie said.

“We’ve got a dog with glowing eyes in Irvine by UCI, could be a student prank, but the girl seemed pretty freaked, according to the police report.”

“Good thing to check, but what do you think, Dara?”

“A spirit dog?” Dara murmured, then closed her mouth as Mike glanced at her. “No, I mean, probably not.”

“And last but not least of the high probability hits, a bum in Hancock park claimed that there was a monster in the park.”

“Losing your touch, Mike. Half the people hanging out in the park after dark see things.”

“Yeah. But he claimed that something came up out of the tar pits, and he had injuries consistent with something big and heavy hitting him.”

“Tar pits?” Dara asked.

“Right, you’ve never been there. It’s a place where there used to be tar pits, where animals got trapped and died. Lots of skeletons there. They’ve got a pretty nice museum.”

“That’s it.” Dara nodded. “That’s where we need to go.”

“Um, why?” Millie asked, but Dara was already heading for the door. “Thank you Mike!” she said. “I will make certain you get paid.”

Behind her, Dara heard Mike’s call. “That’ll be nice, but I’m not holding my breath!”

Moments later, she was out, impatiently waiting by the car. Millie hadn’t given her the key.

When Millie came out, she looked annoyed. “Hey, Dara, when you’re asking for a favor, you sort of need to be polite.”

“We have to go. We have to go now,” Dara snapped.

Millie unlocked the car, but made no motion to start it. Dara stared at her. “Millie…”

“Why? Why do we have to go now?”

“If he was there, bones are common tools that mages animate. It’s easier than other materials.”

“So he’s a necromancer?”

“What? No!” Dara said. “This has nothing to do with the spirit, it’s just that bones were associated with a living being, so they take to being animated easier. If he needs bodyguards or servants, that would be the first place a mage would go.”

“And how would he find out about this?”

“Maybe he landed nearby. Maybe he used a spell that detected the dead. But we know where he is!”

“No.” Millie made no motion to start the car. “First of all, if you go there and start acting all frantic right now, someone’s gonna call the cops. Tell me, got any get out of jail spells on you?”

“No.”

“Secondly, if he’s watching and you go there, what if he sees you?”

Dara had nothing to say.

“Thirdly, the park closes at ten, but the cops don’t generally roust people out, especially right now. We can go in earlier, wander around, without many people getting curious and you can check things out. I assume you have a way to check to see if he’s been there?”

“I can make a ritual circle and cast a working to detect any magic,” Dara said.

“You know, drawing on the sidewalk is another reason we don’t really want to go there until the park isn’t crowded.” Millie started the car. “Last thing. Since the last time you fought him didn’t go so well, got any plans for this time?”

“This time, I won’t be surprised!” Dara said.

“That fills me with so much confidence,” Millie said. “Oh, in case you’re wondering? That’s me being sarcastic.”

Dara really didn’t have a response to that.