No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical

No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. -Niels Bohr

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The rental SUV’s four wheel drive was not sufficient for desert travel. While, thanks to their reinforcement, the tires were intact, the vehicle had gotten stuck in the sand for the fifth time in the past quarter-hour. It wasn’t that vehicles for driving across the desert didn’t exist. In fact they were very popular with various governments for desert warfare and with the many princes of Saudi Arabia for joyriding. But the Vegas rental facility hadn’t had any such vehicle. Possibly it’s owners had believed anyone visiting Vegas would have better things to do than go driving through the desert.

Celeste sat meditatively on the hood of the car while Mr. Jamison considered the entrapped wheels and the other three idled. Before long the two younger girls had begun one of their whispered conversations and the boy had separated himself, making his way quietly around to where Celeste was perched and crouched by the front fender looking out into the desert. After a few minutes like this, Celeste began drumming her fingers on the car beneath her. The boy looked up.

“Can’t think of a way to fix the wheels for the sand?”

“Not yet, give me another minute.”

“Good luck. Wheels aren’t meant for sand like this. The wider the better, of course, but the granular dispersion properties will still-”

“Oh be quiet, Timony. What do you know?”

He smiled. “Not much.”

Mr. Jamison had been listening to the conversation and chose that point to walk over and raised his voice so as to catch the attention of the two girls at the back of the car as well. “We’ll just have to walk the rest of the way. The car will be fine here; we can come get it when we’re done.”

He started walking, and Celeste slid off the hood to follow him. The other three quickly caught up, Timony moving up to stride beside Celeste.

“What do you think the interference is?”

“Probably just faulty infrastructure. We’ll patch it and get out.”

“You think faulty infrastructure pulled the line out here? I think something’s siphoning the power. How else do you explain the movement of the line?”

“And what do you think would siphoning the power? A warlock? Give me a break.” Celeste lengthened her stride but Timony hurried to keep up.

“It’s been since one was caught in the states, I know.”

“Decades.”

“Still, this is isolated. And though it’s not quite as lawless as the other places they’ve been turning up, it’s practically in Vegas, right?” Celeste snorted at this. “I’m mostly joking, but you see my point. In any case, there are other things it could be…endless possibilities really.”

“And none of them remotely likely.”

“All the little things add up though. Think about it statistically. What are the odds that it’s a warlock? Let’s say 1. What about a dragon? Maybe a hundredth of that. Less even. But a slight shift of the tectonic plates that went unreported, caused no earthquakes, but managed to slip the line out of place? Maybe 3 probability. And there are many other unlikely causes. So many, in fact, that one of them is more likely than the probable solution.”

“Mr. Jamison?” The shortest girl in the group was looking out into the storm.

“What is it, Anna?” The teacher, to his credit, only sounded slightly vexed.

“We’re supposed to be on the lookout for strange things, right?”

Celeste responded. “Why yes, that’s exactly what we’re here to do. Look for odd-”

“Does an owl with pants qualify?” She pointed to the sky.

Mr. Jamison looked up and muttered something under his breath. Then, “Get down, everyone, get down and stay out of sight.” He tried to find a places to hit the deck which was unoccupied by anything sharp.

“No, damn it, freeze.” Hissed Celeste, standing stock-still. “Their eyes track motion. Don’t move and you’re good as invisible.”

Everyone froze as the owl passed overhead, burden flapping below it. The owl continued on for a few hundred meters before dropping it’s load to a stone and landing next to it, a slight silhouette on the horizon. And then the shape on the horizon changed.

Most of the group was speechless, staring. Timony elbowed Celeste lightly, causing her to jump and glare at him. “What did I tell you? Warlock.”

At this, Mr. Jamison stuttered into action. “Ah, ah, alright, everyone, I hope you realize the situation here. That, that was a class six, no, maybe class seven, transformation you just witnessed. That means this guy, this thing, whatever it is, is really good. Probably been doing this a lot longer than any of you.” A lot longer than me, too, he thought. “So you’ll have to be very careful. Now I want us all to stick together-”

“Timony!” Celeste hissed as the boy began to trot off. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Shhh, just getting around him so he can’t escape. I’ve borrowed some of that stuff you used on Mac and Isaac last semester, too. Be quieter.” He looked up and met Mr. Jamison’s eye, daring him to contradict this solution.

“Errm… right. Sara, go with him, but be careful! We’ll come from this end, and try to take him by surprise. Remember we want-”

Timony rolled his eyes and loped off to circle round their unsuspecting target, who had pulled on his clothes and contemplating his next move while resting from the exertion of carrying his bag and clothes which, at the time, had accounted for an uncomfortably large percentage of the weight he was carrying. But he’d need the contents of the bag for his work tonight.

There was a sound like a balloon popping, magnified a hundred times. Howahkan, hand in bag, looked up and rose to the balls of his feet. Someone cursed and the shaman coughed and sputtered as mace stung at his eyes, nose, mouth. A shadow ran forward out of the night and swung- Howahkan felt the impact against his head once, twice, and all senses stopped.