Chapter 3

When Gemma returned home– it had taken her nearly three hours to fill out all of the paperwork and coordinate with the specters on the recovery team– she was exhausted.

Not that the Bureau cared about that. Plenty of her colleagues slept in their offices on cots.

Gemma used to do that, until she realized she could be just as efficient at home and if the Bureau wanted to call her in for a job, they’d have to make a little bit of an effort. Maybe they’d decide someone else was just as capable.

Besides, she liked her apartment.

Yes, she wanted to move. And yes, her upstairs neighbor was a troll who stomped around at all hours of the night, and yes, the landlady did have a howling problem– that wasn’t her fault, her fault, she was a banshee after all, but it was her own place. She’d never had her own place before and everything in this little apartment was hers and hers alone.

So she wasn’t going to sleep at the office anymore.

When she’d left, the sprites were politely putting away their cleaning cart and there was no sign at all of the baby. Gemma had left it out of her reports. It was much easier that way. She really didn’t want Willow to lose her job, but she also didn’t want to explain to upper management what had happened.

Best to just sweep this one under the rug and call it a night.

Gemma was poking around the kitchen for an early breakfast/very late dinner. She’d been gone most of the night and there was nothing in her icebox– kept cold by Elf magic, rather than whatever wires and electricity the humans were fond of– was pretty bare.

She groaned and slammed the lid shut. Despite the early hour and long night, she didn’t feel like sleeping. Every time she closed her eyes, she thought about that baby and her dead parents, which was not what she was supposed to do.

No one was supposed to get attached because humans were always getting killed in ridiculous ways. Or, like this group, trying to summon beings that were far beyond their comprehension.

There were truly evil things in the Void and Gemma knew that no amount of work from the Bureau would keep humans away entirely, but they worked hard to keep more humans than necessary from getting hurt.

Plenty of denizens of the Void found their work stupid. Why did they bother looking after humans? Gemma couldn’t ever make them understand that it was bigger than just the humans. She worked to keep everyone on the side of the Void they belonged.

But most of the beings that lived in the Void were just regular beings like her.

Suddenly, Gemma felt that she didn’t have much of an appetite, so she left the kitchen and decided to use the relative quiet of the morning to try and practice her magic.

Elf magic came easy to her of course, but she’d never been properly taught. She had not been raised by Elves, nor did she know any of her family who would have traditionally been responsible for passing down the magic to her.

She sat down on her overstuffed sofa and tried to calm her mind. While the magic was innate, its practice was a little more complicated and she wanted to be better at it. Gemma crossed her legs beneath her and took a deep breath.

And what better place to practice than the privacy of her own home, before anybody else was up? Sometimes it felt like these little moments were the only breaks she ever got. She worked long hours at the Bureau and it felt like they were getting longer every day.

Gemma closed her eyes. She imagined the magic inside of her, as vital as her own blood, and pictured it spreading throughout her, from the tips of her toes to the last strand of hair on her head. It was warm and comforting.

The troll was awake. She winced and tried to block out the sounds. What was he doing up there?

The magic Gemma, focus on the magic.

Outside in the hallway, she heard footsteps. Too light to be the troll, who sounded as if he were currently throwing boulders at the ground, she wondered who was out there at this hour, then decided it didn’t matter. What mattered was the feeling in her.

It all fell away. The noise from upstairs. The stress of her job, the paperwork, the baby, even the horrible argument she had with HR last week in the office’s breakroom. Magic held her gently, reminding her of who she was and what she could do.

The magic swelled up, like the last strains over a symphony and her chest felt like it might burst. She could reach out and touch it. She could cradle it in her arms. The Void was her oyster and her magic was, for this moment, limitless.

What would she do first?

Before, however, she could do anything at all, there was a scream in the hallway. Not the familiar keening of the landlady. That didn’t bother her anymore. Actually it was kind of a nice sound. She didn’t know anyone could reach such a high note without the proper training.

No, this scream, well, it sounded like a baby. It sounded like one very specific baby.

Which of course it couldn’t be because Willow followed her instructions and left the child with adult humans and returned to the Void empty handed, like she was supposed to. Obviously Gemma had to be hearing things.

Perhaps she should visit a healer and see if there was something wrong with her.

Perhaps she should visit a healer for a lot of things, because she suddenly felt very strange. Instead of peaceful, the magic in her felt like it was buzzing around her brain like an oversized insect. Her body reacted to the sound of the hopefully-not-a-baby’s wailing without her permission.

Everything was spinning and with a very faint pop Gemma was no longer Gemma sized. She was the same size as that baby had been. The human infant’s cries– because that’s what it was, she was certain– had somehow taken over her control of her magic.

Thankfully she still had an adult brain. It was enough for her to get her bearings. She looked around at her now much bigger surroundings. Her pudgy baby hands were hard to use and she was far too unstable to actually stand up.

Still, that piercing cry echoed around her. She heard the pitter patter of footsteps outside.

If she was able to speak, then she would have let out a string of curses that would have alarmed every adult in the vicinity, coming from a baby like her. She was swimming in her clothes and her shoes had fallen right off.

With every effort she had, Gemma rolled over, slipping onto the floor. Her table was now at least a foot taller than her. It was like walking around a giant’s home.

The baby stopped crying all of the sudden and Gemma immediately became full size again. She had no idea what kind of a creature that baby had to be to interrupt her magic like that, but it was extremely dangerous. What if she’d been using magic to keep herself alive against some horrible eldritch being? What if she’d been surrounded by humans who would start asking too many questions if she suddenly turned into an infant?

Dangerous. Like she’d told Willow in the first place. This just drove her point home. Her legs suddenly burst forward, smacking into the table, sending a sharp pain through her shins. This was one of many reasons why living creatures were not allowed to be transported through dimensions. You never knew what kind of an effect they’d have in a reality that was not their own.

It was at this moment that someone knocked on her door.

Gemma pushed herself off the ground, ignoring the growing bruise on her calf from her sudden case of rapid aging.

She stood up, smoothed her clothes, shook her hair back from her face and walked over to the door, doing everything she could to keep composed.

“I hope that I didn’t hear what I thought I heard,” Gemma said.

Willow looked up at her. “Well that depends. What did you hear?”

Gemma narrowed her eyes. Willow had produced, from Void knew where, a small carrying pouch for the baby, which was currently strapped across her baby. The baby didn’t seem harmed or even particularly upset. She was giggling to herself while Willow bounced on her heels.

“Don’t let her cry anymore,” Gemma said.

She held open the door and yanked Willow inside, wondering how she was possibly going to deal with this.

“I specifically told you not to bring that child back here,” Gemma said through half gritted teeth.

“Well you didn’t say anything about your apartment specifically.”

Gemma sighed.