Moving swiftly through the fog, Dara reached out with her senses, trying to feel for the odd energies that had been playing around the park.

Nothing. Behind her, Millie was watching the way the fog parted around them, letting the two see their immediate surroundings. But beyond that perimeter, everything else was lost in the thick, gray fog, the occasional dim park light shining through.

“I can’t really feel a locus,” Dara finally said. She had her staff out, its sigils glowing with a silvery light.

“Which means?”

“There is something here, but it’s either hiding or different from anything I’m used to.” Dara frowned, kneeling and touching the cool concrete. “Maybe because there’s so little active magic around here?”

“Wouldn’t that make it stand out?” Millie asked. “I mean, super magic oogie boogie would seem to be noticeable.”

“Oogie boogie?”

“Ah, it’s a movie that traumatized me as a kid.”

“Movie.”

Millie blinked. “Damn, kid, for a world of magic, there doesn’t seem to be much to do where you come from.”

“There is.” Dara said. “Plays and research in the library and songs…”

“Wow. Do you read a good book on Friday nights?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Millie just shook her head. “You poor, deprived child.” Then she glanced around. “But beyond that, let’s hurry. London fogs aren’t exactly common in LA and just because the guards left, doesn’t mean someone might not come back.”

“Don’t worry,” Dara said. “We’ll be done soon, and then I can lift the fog after we leave.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“A circle,” Dara told her. “A ritual circle that will let me scan for magic. It’s more involved than my own senses, but it is what we use to find things that might be mystically active.”

“Sort of like a find the magic ring thing?” Millie asked.

Dara giggled. “How did you know? When I was first learning these types of rituals, our instructor had us look for a magic ring with it. First one who got it won a prize.”

“Nice.” Millie looked around. “We need to do anything special? Sacrifice a bird, dance around in body paint, that sort of thing?”

Dara stared at her, saying nothing.

“Dara?”

“You have a strange view of how to create a working.” Dara shook her head. “No. All I have to do is make the circle. It’s not even that complex, so just stand back, please.”

Millie backed off and Dara held the staff, the lower tip starting glow. She lowered it to the concrete pathway and drew first a circle, then other sigils within it.

Right, okay, I’ve defined the inner parameters now… it’s surrounded by a fence, so that works to define this place as ‘inside’… Dara smiled. Once, she’d have to go to the fence and inscribe the limiters there, but it had been a long time since she’d been that inexperienced. Now she could just define them using her mind. Sure, maybe you had to shove a little more power into it, but it was worth it. To say nothing of not having to spread the fog beyond the boundaries of the park. Given the way people here liked to jump into their cars and see how fast they could go without hitting something, Dara didn’t want to imagine how people would react if the fog spilled out into the streets.

“Right.” Dara stepped back and then thrust the staff into the center of the circle, the foci channeling her power in to the circle. She closed her eyes for a moment and murmured the last words to complete the ritual and…

Her senses exploded outward. She could feel the mystic energies in the park, some of them from her fog spell, and others from…

“This is strange,” Dara said, her eyes still closed.

“What?”

“I can feel that there’s magic, but it feels like it is cloaked somehow?”

“Your bad guy?”

“It doesn’t… I don’t know.” Dara opened her eyes, staring down at the circle. “It doesn’t feel like any kind of magic I’ve ever worked with before.”

“Okay… well, remember, we don’t have all the time in the world.”

So what do I do? The working was a passive ritual, but if she put more power into it, maybe she could provoke a response. But if it’s the thief, that might bring him out. On the other hand, she hadn’t felt anything like a human mage since they’d come to the park, and if he was here, he probably had noticed the fog spell.

Right. So he’s not here. Maybe it’s something he left behind? A tool? Dara glanced over at Millie and bit her lip. I really didn’t think this through. But they were here now, so all she had to do was find out more information and she could find the sorcerer, or maybe find a way to go home and then she could sick some real mages on him.

Dara mentally pushed, and the glowing circle grew brighter, the silver light playing over the billowing fog around them. She could feel something responding to it, a powerful, but strangely unformed essence.

“I feel something.”

“That’s great, Kid. Is it something that is going to solve your problem? I’m getting a little nervous.”

“Why?”

“Dunno, I just feel like this is gonna go sideways.” Millie was looking around. “So hurry things up.”

“I’m going as fast as I can. This thing… I feel the energies, but they’re different from anything I’ve ever felt before.” She paused. “Not a spirit, not a normal one, and not a spell, or at least not a normal one.”

“Great, it’s weird.” Millie didn’t say anything for a moment. “You think it’s related to our bad guy?”

“I don’t know.” Dara pushed more power into the ritual. “Let me try with a little more energy.”

“Right,” Millie said. “Just sitting here with a wizard casting a spell. Not at all suspicious…”

“Nobody’s going to come in here, you said so yourself!”

“Remember my story about how I deep-sixed my expensive legal education? I am not the one you should be looking to for well-grounded decisions.”

Dara ignored Millie and focused on the spell. The magic was responding to her and now it did feel like a spirit, but a… strange spirit. Every culture put their own mark on magic. The blood mages of the Western Isles cast spells that felt different when she’d observed them with the other students, and this was the same, but to an even greater degree.

It’s weird. It doesn’t feel at all like the man I fought. He’d been skilled, but completely normal in the feel of his magic…

Millie tried not to pace. Dara was kneeling, the glow from her magic stuff illuminating her face. Around them the fog was twisting and writhing, odd shapes appearing in it. Further away, Millie could see the barely visible glow of some of the park lights.

This fog is weird for LA at the best of times but in July? She’d figured that Dara would just need a few minutes and then they could leave.

Okay, maybe nobody’s noticed… Millie decided to check to make certain. Dara was doing fine, and it wouldn’t take more than a minute to open up her phone browser and check. She was probably being an old wom—

FREAK FOG COVERS HANCOCK PARK!

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Millie stared at the images coming up on the little screen. People were pointing, the camera obviously a phone camera, as it showed the growing crowd, and then panned back to the park across the street. The park that had a wall of fucking fog that wasn’t moving one foot beyond the fence.

There is no way in hell people think that’s natural.

The voices coming from the phone made that clear.

“…Someone making a movie?”

“Nah, man, it’s a publicity stunt for a magic show…”

“Don’t the tar pits give off gas? Maybe it’s them—“

This is bad. Really bad. Their car was in a parking lot across the street. Millie had assumed that at worst, people might think they were a pair of homeless who had been in the park when it closed and wouldn’t bother to chase them.

But now, with all the people looking at the park, if they tried to get out, people would want to know why they were there…

“Dara!” Millie snapped. “Magic time’s over. We have to get out of here.”

Dara shuddered and then shook her head. “No, I can feel something. Something unusual.”

“As unusual as ending up on the 11 o’clock news? Half the city is looking at your magical fogbank!”

“Why?”

“Because fog doesn’t generally stay penned in by a fence!”

Dara turned to look around at the walls of fog surrounding them. “I did not consider that.”

“Yeah, neither did I. But the whole city is expecting this to be some kind of movie reveal!”

“How many?” Dara asked.

“Lots.” Millie looked around. “Did you hear that?”

“I was focusing on the ritual.”

“Yeah, well, I heard something over towards the big tar pit. What does your spell say?”

“It’s weird. The magic is—” Dara fell silent as the sound of failing metal filled the air. “What was that…”

“I have no idea,” Millie said. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her pepper spray. “But whatever it is, it’s big.”

“Yeah…” Dara stared in that direction. “Maybe we should leave.”

One of the dim glows from the park light flashed and went out, as another echo of twisting metal filled the air.

“Right,” Millie said, backing up. “Can you at least raise the fog a little big so we can see whatever it is?”

“I can banish it.”

“No, raise it up, but don’t get rid of it. I don’t want a helicopter flying overhead to get a look at us.”

“Right,” Dara muttered, and gestured with her hands. The fog started streaming up, turning into a thick mass of low clouds rising up just over the lights of the park.

Most of them were out. One of them was a hunk of twisted metal, partially stuck in a semi-humanoid form made out of tar and fragments from the park, including the fence around the tar pits.

“What the hell is that?” Millie asked.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like a spirit,” Dara said. The creature was standing, then it turned to look at them, a pair of glowing lights seeming to be where its eyes were. For a moment, it stayed still.

But then it roared and started to charge them.

How the hell can it roar? It doesn’t have a mouth! Millie thought.

And then things got very busy.