Like the fence, the tower looked new and the unpainted metal dully reflected the sunlight. There were no power lines leading to the tower that I could see, but there did seem to be some kind of gadgetry at the top. I zoomed the eye in as far as it would go but still couldnât make out any details.
I couldnât see magic through the eye, but I could sense the ley line running under the factory, and I could feel somethingpulling at that magic, drawing it up through the earth to the surface.
I could also see that the entire site inside the fence was crawling with gangbangers. Papa Danwe had thugs out front, guarding the gate in the fence. There were patrols moving along the perimeter of the fence and the walls of the factory. There must have been at least thirty outfit guys in there, and those were just the ones I could see. They were armed to the teeth, in broad daylight. Even in Inglewood, that kind of thing draws attention. Clearly Papa Danwe felt the time for subtlety had passed.
I had no idea what this place was, but I knew I didnât like it. I also knew Iâd have to get a better look at it, and that meant getting inside. I dropped the eye and spun my wallflower spell. It wouldnât make me invisible in any physical sense, but Iâd go unnoticed by the gangbangers as long as I didnât get too close.
The warding spell was encircling the factory site, forming a massive cylinder of invisible force. The spell was powered by a small portion of the juice flowing into the site, tied into the graffiti network in four placesânorth, south, east and westâalong its perimeter.
The ward was solid work, but it wasnât the kind of first-rate craft I would have expected from Papa Danwe. More likely, one of his henchmen had constructed the spell. That was good, because it meant I had a shot at disabling it. The simple approach would be brute force. If I hit the ward with enough chaos magic to undermine its structural integrity, it would come apart like a spiderweb in a strong wind.
Of course, the simple approach would be really stupid. It would drop the whole barrier and it would probably set off alarms. It would likely alert all the gangbangers that they wereunder attack. And while it would be simple, it wouldnât be easy. It would take a lot of juice, and I wasnât sure there was much left that wasnât already being pumped into the factory.
The easy approach was to pull the plug. If I severed each of the four connections between the warding spell and the graffiti network that was feeding it, I could probably drop the whole thing. I didnât really want to do that, either. In a best case scenario, it might be interpreted as a failure rather than an attack, but I didnât think the best case scenario was very likely.
Fortunately I had another option. I went around to the east side of the building and crept up to the fence. A gangbanger stood on the other side about thirty feet away from me. He had a MAC-10 slung over his shoulder, and his rings, gold chains and even some of his tats were juiced. He didnât look to be a particularly strong sorcerer, but he was prepared.
The gangbanger looked right through my wallflower spell as I went to work on the ward. The endpoint of the graffiti network charging the spell was a telephone pole about ten feet outside the fence. It was layered in tags, grabbing juice from the incoming flow and rerouting it into the spell. It was decent work, but I couldnât help noticing it wasnât as elegant or efficient as the tags Jamal had put down. Some of the juice was bleeding out of the glyphs, evaporating into the air. I started pulling in that lost energy to power my spell.
The chaos magic I hit the graffiti node with was about as complicated as a typical computer virus. It infiltrated the arcane structure of the tag and overrode it with conflicting instructions. It wasnât sophisticated enough to actually reprogram the tag. It just
I couldnât see magic through the eye, but I could sense the ley line running under the factory, and I could feel somethingpulling at that magic, drawing it up through the earth to the surface.
I could also see that the entire site inside the fence was crawling with gangbangers. Papa Danwe had thugs out front, guarding the gate in the fence. There were patrols moving along the perimeter of the fence and the walls of the factory. There must have been at least thirty outfit guys in there, and those were just the ones I could see. They were armed to the teeth, in broad daylight. Even in Inglewood, that kind of thing draws attention. Clearly Papa Danwe felt the time for subtlety had passed.
I had no idea what this place was, but I knew I didnât like it. I also knew Iâd have to get a better look at it, and that meant getting inside. I dropped the eye and spun my wallflower spell. It wouldnât make me invisible in any physical sense, but Iâd go unnoticed by the gangbangers as long as I didnât get too close.
The warding spell was encircling the factory site, forming a massive cylinder of invisible force. The spell was powered by a small portion of the juice flowing into the site, tied into the graffiti network in four placesânorth, south, east and westâalong its perimeter.
The ward was solid work, but it wasnât the kind of first-rate craft I would have expected from Papa Danwe. More likely, one of his henchmen had constructed the spell. That was good, because it meant I had a shot at disabling it. The simple approach would be brute force. If I hit the ward with enough chaos magic to undermine its structural integrity, it would come apart like a spiderweb in a strong wind.
Of course, the simple approach would be really stupid. It would drop the whole barrier and it would probably set off alarms. It would likely alert all the gangbangers that they wereunder attack. And while it would be simple, it wouldnât be easy. It would take a lot of juice, and I wasnât sure there was much left that wasnât already being pumped into the factory.
The easy approach was to pull the plug. If I severed each of the four connections between the warding spell and the graffiti network that was feeding it, I could probably drop the whole thing. I didnât really want to do that, either. In a best case scenario, it might be interpreted as a failure rather than an attack, but I didnât think the best case scenario was very likely.
Fortunately I had another option. I went around to the east side of the building and crept up to the fence. A gangbanger stood on the other side about thirty feet away from me. He had a MAC-10 slung over his shoulder, and his rings, gold chains and even some of his tats were juiced. He didnât look to be a particularly strong sorcerer, but he was prepared.
The gangbanger looked right through my wallflower spell as I went to work on the ward. The endpoint of the graffiti network charging the spell was a telephone pole about ten feet outside the fence. It was layered in tags, grabbing juice from the incoming flow and rerouting it into the spell. It was decent work, but I couldnât help noticing it wasnât as elegant or efficient as the tags Jamal had put down. Some of the juice was bleeding out of the glyphs, evaporating into the air. I started pulling in that lost energy to power my spell.
The chaos magic I hit the graffiti node with was about as complicated as a typical computer virus. It infiltrated the arcane structure of the tag and overrode it with conflicting instructions. It wasnât sophisticated enough to actually reprogram the tag. It just
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