By the time Millie pulled into her driveway, Dara was curled up in her seat, asleep.

“C’mon Kid,” Millie said. “You’ll have the worst backache in history if you stay in that position.”

“I’m fine,” Dara murmured in her sleep. “Just need to finish this book.”

Oh God, a type A student. Millie shook her head, got out of the car, and then walked around to Dara’s side. “Up we go,” she said as she opened the door and undid Dara’s seat belt.

Dara was shorter than Millie, but she wasn’t exactly tiny. Maneuvering the half-conscious teen to the door, then keeping her from slumping to the floor while Millie dug for her keys and opened the door, and then moving her to the bed in the guest room. Millie let Dara down and the girl just toppled onto the bed, sighing once before she reached out and grabbed the pillow, curling her body around it.

“Sleep tight, Kid.” Millie shook her head and went back to the living room.

Whatever she did really took it out of her. I’ll let her sleep and see what they think about our little adventure. I really hope that it’s just gonna be listed as more crazy in LA.

With that, Millie picked up the remote and turned her TV on.

“TERROR WATCH 2022!” Millie swore and turned the sound down before it woke up Dara. She stared at the image of the park, covered in a fog that seemed to cling to the park, not moving into the surrounding streets at all. Then that scene shrank to one corner while a bleached blond smiled, her eyes excited. “What may very well have been a botched chemical attack occurred today at Hancock part, near the Tar Pits. Although the police have stated that there is no danger in the region, they have temporarily closed the park to the public while evidence is gath—“

“The governor’s office has no comment as yet—“

“We need to consider that this could have been an unsuccessful attack—but what if that explosion had gone off three hours earlier?”

More images, showing the explosion punching up through the fog, chunks raining down through the park.

“Possibly an IED, although anonymous sources in the LAPD are not ruling out a more advanced bomb that possibly was detonated early…”

“…anyone who has information regarding suspicious persons or packages in the park at any point before the incident should call…”

Millie turned the TV off and leaned back in the chair. “We are so screwed,” she moaned. All the way up to the governor, and that means the feds are almost certainly involved. Nobody was going to just sit back and go, ‘hey nobody was hurt.’ Nope, they were gonna take steps, and big ones. Millie tried to remember if they’d parked the car near a camera. Or hell, had a cop seen them drive in? They could go through the dashcam footage.

Maybe they won’t. That’s a lot of footage.

Millie didn’t even bother to follow up that train of thought.

On the other hand, ‘two people fighting a pissed off magic golem’ probably isn’t their first theory about what happened… But if something like this happened again, the cops wouldn’t need to worry about a theory. They’d just figure out who was at the first place, and who was at the second place, and then one Millie Green would be in for a world of hurt, and Dara would probably vanish into some black site somewhere.

The smart thing to go would be to tell Dara she was on her own. Millie had already helped her and well, you couldn't expect Millie to just…

“Yeah, that doesn’t even sound good thinking about it,” Millie muttered. “She wouldn’t last a day without someone to be her guide.”

Option two, find out what that ‘heart’ meant. Maybe Dara could use it to go home, or phone home, or hell conjure up a pile of gold.

“And option three? Go to bed, because I’m sure not coming up with any ideas sitting in the living room.”

Yeah. Go to bed. Easy. Go to sleep? Not so easy. Because Millie knew that she’d be spending the entire night waiting for the cops, the national guard and half the army to knock their door down.

When Dara opened her eyes, she was blinded for a moment before she rolled out of the beam of sunlight falling across the bed. She was still wearing her clothes from last night and…

Everything rushed back. The fight, the explosion, Millie dragging her through the streets. Dara shot upright, then groaned as a spike of pain ran through her head.

I never felt this bad after tests! On the other hand, nobody had ever turned a golem loose on her during a test. Dara had a bad feeling that nobody had expected a student to need to fight like that. After all, if things got that bad, you just called the guard. Dara blinked the gummy residue out of her eyes, and got up off the bed, swaying once. She turned to head to the living room, only for Millie’s voice to stop her.

“Shower first, and there’s plenty of hot water in here. I don’t need you stinking up the place with golem funk.”

“Right,” Dara said. She sniffed her arm, then winced. Right, I do smell like tar and dust and… golem funk.

Nearly an hour later, Dara got out of the shower, finally feeling clean. There were new clothes for her, a pair of jeans, and a big sweater, with another piece of art on it. Two men, running from a big, furry animal. Underneath that were the words, “I don’t have to be faster than the bear…”

Dara turned the sweater around and giggled. There was the image of the fat furry animal, this time with a leg in its mouth. One of the two men was sitting safely in a tree, and under that were the words “I just have to be faster than you!”

Okay, I suppose I should remember that in case I ever meet a bear. Finally, dressed and feeling slightly more human, Dara walked out to see Millie staring at the heart of the golem.

“It fell out of your pocket,” Millie said. “So I stuck it on the table. It isn’t going to, you know, come alive and murder us, is it?”

“No.” Dara shook her head. “But there’s something in it.” She held her hand out over the obsidian heart and, for a moment, a glow flickered within it. “Normally, hearts are woven around the essence of the animating spirit, to protect it. That’s what makes golems, most of them, so hard to hurt.”

“So what’s powering it?”

“I…” Dara frowned. “You know, there is no way I’m going to be able to enjoy breakfast if I don’t find out.” She put the heart in the center of the table and frowned. “Do you have a big sheet of blank paper?”

“Yeah, I think I have some, but this isn’t going to blow up my house, is it? It’s not paid for.”

“No.” Dara paused. “I don’t think so. I, um… maybe we can do this in the back yard?”

“Sure, nobody can look over the fence.” Millie stared at Dara. “Unless we’re talking explosions and screaming and giant tar-monsters.”

“No. It…” Dara stared at Millie. “How many hours do you have for me to explain it?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll trust the teenager with the magic staff. But if it doesn’t work, this me saying I told you so.” Suddenly, Millie’s expression changed. “Seriously, Kid. We attracted a lot more attention than we should have.”

“I know.” Dara looked away. “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

“Neither did I, but the cops here? We’re not just dealing with them, we’re dealing with the feds. If something like that happens again, they might catch us, and that wouldn’t be good.”

“Right.” Dara frowned. Feds? Are they like the royal guards? It didn’t matter. She had to find out what was in the golem’s heart. Normally, making a heart took time, but this one felt strange and she didn’t think the thief would have been able to do it. After all, he’d must have shown up about the same time she had, wherever he landed.

So how did you show up here? There were records of hearts spontaneously forming, but usually that only occurred in places where magic was very powerful. And long before you’d get a heart, you’d get elementals forming and nobody said anything about that!

Right. Millie had several sheets of white paper, according to her, something a student had left in the house. Then they went outside to the home’s large back yard. Leaves whirled in the warm midmorning breeze, while Dara saw a dry fountain sitting in the back, an empty little creek leading to an equally empty pool, a table and a ratty couch sat on the neglected patio.

“Place used to be a hangout for some college kids,” Millie said. “One of them was into landscaping and stuff.”

“Right.” Dara walked to the table and, with a quick working, sent a gust of wind across the surface, blasting the dust and leaves from it. She touched it with one hand and nodded. “Not a lab table, but it should do.”

“You need magical tables?” Millie asked.

“Sometimes you need a surface that has been purged of any magical residue.” Dara put the paper down and then pulled her scriber out, sending enough energy into it to charge it, the tip glowing with a bluish light. “But this is fine.” She put the heart down and started inscribing the surrounding circles. The first circle, to contain whatever magic the heart might possess, was coupled with an outer circle to protect it from any external mystic influences. That was especially important for something like this. Dara didn’t want some passing spirit to suddenly inhabit and make use of the heart once she cracked it open.

That would be bad. Dara closed her eyes and infused the circles with her energy, their glow nearly invisible under the sunlight.

“Do I… need to hide behind a barricade?” Millie asked.

“No.” Dara shook her head. “I mean, if we were summoning an elemental, and the circles were bad, maybe then, or perhaps—“

“Just… no is good, Kid. No need to say all the other stuff to terrify me.”

Dara glanced over at Millie and sighed at her smirk. “Right. No. You don’t need to hide.” With that, she raised the scriber and said several short, sharp words. Moments later, energy collected around the tip of the scriber. “A heart isn’t invulnerable. That’s why it’s buried in the core of a golem.” Dara stared down, muttering calculations, and then drew a glowing line on the heart’s surface. Another line joined it, also glowing.

I wonder who made this heart, and why? Was it spontaneous? But an obsidian heart, if it forms spontaneously, normally needs a volcano. More importantly, such hearts almost always manifested golems of fire and lava, not what they’d seen. Granted, Dara hadn’t taken advanced golem crafting, not yet. The college said that she needed more experience in the lesser arts first.

I could have taken the class. Saraphia took it and the only thing she has experience in is all of her dates. Dara shook her head and completed the last line. Now the heart had dozens of glowing lines on its surface.

“Ready?”

“Yeah, totally ready,” Millie said. Then she sank down behind the threadbare couch until only her eyes were visible. “Fire away, Gridley!”

Dara frowned. Who is Gridley? Then she shook her head and lightly touched the heart.

Moments later, the lines flared brightly, and shards of obsidian started to fall away from the heart. Dara smiled, staring down at it.

Now, let’s see what made that golem and I—

No. Oh, no.

Dara didn’t realize she’d gasped until Millie rose up from her hiding place. “Dara? What’s wrong?”

“It’s… It’s part of the gem!”

Millie stared at the girl. Dara had been calm, even annoyingly confident, like most teens, when she’d opened up the obsidian rock.

Now? She was dead pale.

“Kid, what is it?”

“It’s… It’s…” Dara shook her head and reached into the mass of obsidian shards, pulling out a single, flawless gem, that caught the light and returned it in a thousand shimmering rays.

Not just returned—the thing was glowing. It was about the size of a fingernail.

“It’s part of the gem. Part of the gem that brought me here!” Dara staggered back from the table. “That… but that’s been in the tar pits for a long time. The obsidian was cold… And if the gem is broken, how can I get back? When did it come through?” Dara looked over at Millie, her eyes wide. “What if I’ve been in transit for a long time? What if everyone back home is dead? What if I can’t get—“

“Kid, stop!” Millie said. “Sit down, okay? Sit down and take a deep breath.”

Dara obeyed her, sitting down and inhaling.

“Good, hold it, now exhale. Good. Now take another breath and hold it… exhale.”

Dara didn’t look good, but she didn’t look like she was about to have a freak out, either.

“Now, okay, let’s think about this. You have a chunk of the gem, so that’s good. And you don’t know that a lot of time has passed since you left home, do you?”

“I—no, but—“

“No buts. You also said nobody has ever done anything like this before, right?”

“No, they didn’t even think it was possible.”

“Right, so let’s stick with what we know. There was a gem in this heart, in the tar pits. For a long time, right?”

“Right.”

“And the gem could power it?”

Dara looked like she was calming down. She stared at the gem in the palm of her hand and nodded. “It’s not like any kind of power source I’ve seen, it’s… different, but it’s powerful. Almost like solidified magic. Maybe that’s how the heart formed around it.”

“Okay, but I have a question. If it has been there for a long time, why is this the first time it decided to go Godzilla on someone?”

Dara frowned and didn’t say anything for a few moments. “You don’t have magic here, I mean, you have it, but nobody uses it. So the heart is formed, but there aren’t any spirits, any mystic influence to spur it to action… until I come around and cast a spell.” Dara glanced over at Millie. “But that doesn’t make sense, because…”

“Because what?”

“Because I shouldn’t have sparked that kind of reaction and it was doing things before we were there, remember the story your friend told us, from the Internet?”

Millie made an encouraging gesture. “And?”

“And… Oh. Oh.” Dara started sketching out some kind of equations, using symbols Millie had never seen before, muttering to herself as she crossed some out and then added others. “This… I think I know what happened. You don’t have a very active manasphere, because you don’t have people, or at least not many people making use of it. But our world has had magic and mages for as long as anyone can remember. I opened a portal to this world from my world…” Dara paused. “It was like pouring water into an empty container, so I bet it sent out a shock. Most of it would just dissipate, but…”

“But?”

“But if you had another power, like say this gem, it might coalesce around it.”

“Great.” Millie frowned. “How many pieces could there be of that gem?”

“I…” Millie glanced at the gem in her hand.

“Maybe sixty or seventy? A hundred at most?”

“And they’d all act like this critter did?”

“No, don’t be silly!” Dara said. “That was just how this particular gem’s power interacted. I mean, there could be lots of… This could be bad, couldn’t it?”

“Depending on when they came out, and where they are, and what this little ‘shock’ did? Yeah, it could be bad,” Millie shook her head. “Not to mention I take it you need all of them back together?”

“Yeah, I mean, I might be able to figure out how to get home, but it’d take a lot of power—yeah.”

And so now we have a new weather forecast. Chance of nightly monsters, with occasional flurries of Magic. Lovely. I—

Millie tensed as she heard the doorbell ring. “Get that stuff hidden, and stay out of sight,” she told Dara. “If things go south, take the alley behind the house and wait for me at the diner at the end of the street.”

“I—right.”

With that, Millie headed to the front of her house, the bell ringing twice more. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” Well, it probably isn’t a SWAT team. They don’t tend to ring doorbells. She got to the door, looked around, and took a deep breath. Probably just a bill collector. Millie pulled the door open.

“Hi, can I—Oh. John.”

“Millie. We need to talk,” the big man said.

Well. Shit.