When I got home, even though I hadn’t fought in the spawn battle, I was hungry. I rummaged through the fridge, pulling out sliced ham, cheese, mayo, and sweet pickle relish, and slapped together a couple of sandwiches. It was the quickest thing I could make without having to think about making it.

  Pouring a fresh cup of coffee to wash it down, I grabbed one of the apples we’d bought yesterday and a saucer from a cabinet. After cutting it into crisp slices stacked on the saucer, I sat at my kitchen table, chewing one slowly. I stared at a blank page on my notepad. The one I’d left there after making my character.

  “How bad will it get? How fast? How can we get more people ready? What needs to happen next? Will this ever end? Who do I know who can step up and do more? My problem…and not my problem…all at once. What more can I do to get ready?”

  These were the reasons I hadn’t wanted to be in charge. Too many questions. Too many problems to solve. Too many mistakes I could make was the biggest reason.

  After finishing my food, I cleaned up the kitchen and topped off my coffee. I planned to head out to the garage to make more MANA BATTERIES. I’d just opened the door when a chat message came in.

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [How are you doing? Plans changed. Associate Deputy Director Bledsoe is here from Washington. He wants to meet with you today. We’ll be heading your way in about 2 to 4 hours. Got to pick up stuff at my apartment. It’s two hours to your place unless we hit problems.]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [Reports of creatures attacking cars and trucks on the highways and interstates. Semis just keep rolling through them, but there’ve been wrecks and deaths. Numbers are adding up. President plans to give a speech sometime later today.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Thanks. Give me an ETA when you have it. Where do we meet?]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [Your place. I want to offload my stuff before anything else happens.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Gotcha. What’s he want to talk about?]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [How you knew what to do so fast and why it worked. They’re using some of what we did yesterday as model responses, along with stuff from other states. He hinted the FBI’s looking to write a best practices manual.]

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  While we were talking, I sat down at my workbench in the garage. The warm air smelled faintly of old stuff ignored for too long, wood glue, and the oil from sharping my rapier. I started gluing the rest of the dowel rods into the handles I’d prepped. I planned on sticking to my cane as my main spell focus for now.

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Hope they don’t expect me to keep coming up with new ideas. I’ll run out eventually.]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [Don’t know. One of his departments is handling it. They’re passing out jobs at the federal level so every agency gets something.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [And nothing gets done fast?]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [LOL. Probably. They say the President’s appointing a Czar to run everything. I already told Bledsoe you wouldn’t do it.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Damn right I won’t. Thank you. What’s Bledsoe like?]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [Matthew Bledsoe. Associate Deputy Director for Training. My uncle worked with him years ago. Uncle says he’s smart, steady, not fast, but usually right. Good guy, so far.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Got it. Thank you.]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [How’s Eddington holding out?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Not too bad so far. A few deaths from spawns showing up in houses or businesses. A few others, too. Under half a dozen last I heard. Haven’t heard of any deaths in the county yet, but we don’t have enough people ready to handle this on their own. Maybe in town. County…I don’t know.]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [I’ll pass that on. I just checked, and they told me Homeland Security and the Joint Chiefs are handling the national response for now.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Thanks.]

  That went out just as I wiped the last bit of glue off a finished wand, setting it to the side on my workbench to dry.

  Thinking about what she said, I made a couple more batches of batteries. In a day or two, I’ll have to get more materials for batteries and wands if I want to keep making them. I also looked around the garage for what else might be useful for me, or someone else. I stacked most of what I thought was needed, or could be used in an open spot I cleared on the floor next to the freezer.

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [OK. We should be there about 6. I’ll let you know when we’re close.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [Got it. Spawn’s across the street. If the pattern holds, around 7pm. Does Bledsoe want in on it? We found out 2 parties of 5 can fight the same spawn and both get EXP.]

  [Blaze:] [William of Brinsford] [I’ll pass that on. I’ll ask. I know he’ll want to watch. Talk later.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [I’ll cook something for dinner. Bye.]

  Thinking about what to make, I went back to making more batteries. And worrying about how bad it would get, and how fast. And what to make for dinner.

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