Sell you a Bridge chapter 266

June 5th 2016 The Moon 5:00 PM EDT

I  had no fucking clue where we were supposed to go. It wasn't like back in  the Nightside where my aura sight couldn't be used, or like Lex's base  where it was somehow blocked. It was that EVERY fucking direction was  full of powerful magical shit. I turned to look at Taylor. "Ok, who the  fuck is this guy? The amount of powerful items here make it seem like we  wandered into that warehouse from raiders of the lost ark. Hell, I  think the ark of the covenant might actually BE in this base somewhere."  I pointed in a random direction. "Probably over there."

Taylor  snickered. "The world's most fanatical hoarder. The Collector is just  what his name sounds like. He collects. He's like those old people who  spend all their time on QVC, except in this case, QVC would be the sum  total of human history. He spends all his time either looking for  expensive or rare objects, or hiring people to find them for him. That's  what he was doing working with Tommy. If there's something ancient or  impressive you want it's probably in here somewhere, though it might  also be somewhere else. I suspect he cheats by snatching forgotten  versions of things from later in the timeline when people don't care  where they went."

I snorted. "Well that's definitely not  going to make finding the things we need more difficult. If there's this  much ambient power floating around I can't help look for anything  though. You're going to have to use your gift to track down the gear we  need. At least the ward scanner. I can find shit that goes boom if we  get close. Ambient magic or no looking directly at an item will still  tell me what it does."

Taylor just sighed, rolling his  eyes before closing them and taking a deep breath. A deep breath that  preceded the use of his gift which I was seeing for the first time with  my aura sight open. I yelped in pain and reeled back, my brain on fire  from the massive overload of power when I looked at Taylors gift. I  slammed my eyes shut, falling to my knees in agony as I tried hard to  forget the sight of the gift in my enhanced vision. I could still see it  behind my eyelids though, a twisting mass of energy that existed in far  too many dimensions.

Taylor's gift wasn't void magic, but  it WAS something that existed on a much higher level of reality. I was  pretty sure wherever he got it, it wasn't from something human or even  human related. That kind of power almost definitely came from a higher  dimensional entity. It hurt my brain to even look at, and that was after  twisting it in knots for literal months to enable myself to manipulate  reality. I was pretty sure a normal person's head would have exploded  just from seeing that, and I cursed myself silently for forgetting to  shut my aura sight off when he did that.

When I opened my  eyes I saw Zee shouting at Taylor, who looking mortified by his dead  first love's daughter being angry with him, and Drea at my side checking  on me. She'd pulled me into her chest, stroking my hair and making low  shushing noises that told me I'd been screaming almost as well as my dry  mouth did. I groaned and looked up and she pulled away. "Are you  alright Morgan?" Her lilac eyes were wide with fear and concern. "That  sounded horrible, what just happened? I've never seen you like that."

I  smiled up at her, pecking her softly on the lips. "I'm fine, love. I  just looked somewhere I shouldn't with my aura sight. Here, help me up?"  She did, and I put an arm over her shoulder. Less because I needed to  and more because I wanted to. She was looking around worriedly, and I  grabbed her chin and pulled it up so I was looking her in the eyes.  "Hey, you alright? Not just because of this, but in general. This whole  trip has been nuts. I talked to Zee about it but we've been kind of  ignoring you given all the stuff she has going on."

Drea  leaned in to kiss me again, this time longer and slower before pulling  away. "I'm fine. I realize Zatanna has a lot to deal with, I don't  begrudge her the attention." She hip checked me. "We're all going to be  together a long time. I don't mind being patient as long as I get my  attention in the end. We have a daughter, Morgan. Things aren't exactly  casual, and being in a serious relationship takes work and commitment.  The fact that you thought to check on me shows you know that, and as  long as you do I don't need to be the center of attention at all times."

I  put my forehead against hers. "How are you so damn perfect?" I paused.  "Well, you're a literal goddess and the physical manifestation of the  concept of a 'dream girl' so that probably doesn't hurt. But still. I  love you Drea. You're the kindest, most patient, most thoughtful woman  I've ever met, and Zee would agree with me on that. Once this is over I  want to go on vacation, just the three of us." I gave her a hot once  over. "Somewhere beachy. I you in a bikini for as long as humanly  possible."

She pouted at me fetchingly. "A bikini? I don't  think that's really appropriate." I raised an eyebrow, put off by the  sudden derail in the mood until she grinned wickedly. "Even tiny scraps  of fabric would get in the way of what I have planned. Better find a  private island somewhere and just enjoy ourselves completely naked."  With a twinkle in her eye she leaned up to peck my lips again before  darting away. On her way off to calm Zee down she stopped and looked  over her shoulder. "Oh, and Morgan? I love you too."

I  watched her walk over to drag our girlfriend away from a wilting Taylor  for a second before heading over to get between them. "Enough baby. I'm  fine. It wasn't Taylor's fault. I was stupid and looked at him with my  aura sight when I shouldn't have. I had the sense to avoid using it in  the Nightside, but I forgot that Taylor's gift is one of the more  powerful abilities in that shithole. Even the other Nightside residents  respect it, and I should have taken it as a hint that it might be out of  my depth. Hell, I could consider it training."

She stared  past me for a bit at Taylor, but I could feel through our bond and even  see in her eyes that this wasn't about anger. She'd been scared. It had  been a while since I'd been in bad shape like that, she'd gotten used  to not having to worry about me. I put my hand on her cheek, turning her  head to me and giving her a soft smile. "I'm fine Zee. It's ok. It was a  stupid mistake and one I won't make again."

She pouted  for a second before heaving a sigh. "Fine, but you owe Drea and I a nice  date after this. I don't care if we have to find something in the  Nightside, you better really wow us." She turned an apologetic  expression on Taylor. "I'm really sorry John, I just got so worried  about him. It wasn't fair to take it out on you. Can you ever forgive  me?" Her big violet eyes shone with remorse and apology and her lip  quivered as she stared at him in shame. I almost winced just from  catching the edges of that.

Taylor looked like he'd been  hit by a bus, which I assumed was a factor of Zee's absurd charisma  score. Zatanna uses puppy dog pout, the technique is super effective.  Even with my mental resistance I'd have folded like cheap cardboard if  she looked at me like that. He cleared his throat to get us back on  track. "Of course, I'd never hold that against you. It's a good thing to  take care of the ones you love. No harm, no foul. Besides, I managed to  track down the artifact we need, it's nearby."

I cocked  my head and he gestured for us to follow, explaining what he'd seen. "I  recognized the thing when I saw it. It's called the eye of odin. Gold  eye shaped setting with a bright blue gem in it. You put it over your  eye and it reveals all traps and defenses when looking through it.  Extremely expensive and powerful artifact, and probably one that'll be  guarded. Between Jim and Tommy though I don't foresee a problem getting  our hands on the piece." He led us down a hallway, holding up a hand to  stop us for a second as what appeared to be a robotic sentry rolled by.

It  wasn't as advanced or impressive as the external guards, but from the  aura it looked pretty damn sturdy. Still, with the security system as a  whole treating us like we belonged it wasn't doing more than a cursory  scan as one of the layers of protection. With Tommy taking care of the  big stuff I was able to flex a bit and make sure it didn't notice us.  The scan picking up nothing as it had been all along was a small lie,  and an easy enough tweak to make to the situation with my ability.

Once  it was gone we started moving again. I naturally made zero noise, even  without my ghost powers I still had my old reliable ninja training, and  my ability to move undetected was unmatched by any normal human. The  others were...less stealthy, for the most part. Artemis and Jim were  both moving in silence, but Taylor, Suzie, John, Zee, Tommy, and Drea  were all stomping along like a damn marching band. Luckily without  anyone to hear it that wasn't an issue, but I was still more than happy  when we arrived in the room where Taylor had sensed the eye.

When  I did step inside, I froze in place for a minute. "I...I know this  room." Everyone else froze too, waiting for me to speak. The room was a  wide, domed structure with several small but well lit stair cases  leading up to a stage like level, and a huge metal superstructure over  it that looked kind of like a jungle gym. What really gave it away  though was the huge metal upside down triangle with a stylized E on it.  "This is the fucking moon base room from the second Austin Powers. No  time machine that I can see, but it's literally an exact duplicate  otherwise."

Zee  looked around like a kid on christmas. "Oh my god it is! The chair is  even here, it's got the little joy stick on the arm rest and everything!  That's so cool." She was almost glowing with excitement, and I couldn't  blame her. This was just such a surreal experience. But sadly we didn't  have time for tourism. Aside from the stuff from the moon base, the  walls were lined with shelves covered in boxes, jars, bags, and even a  few orbs of floating substance that appeared to just be hanging in  space.

Taylor  gestured across the room, ignoring the set dressing as he pointed at  one specific shelf behind quite a bit of powerful warding and defenses.  My aura sight was picking up enough energy coming off that thing to deep  fry a sun. On the shelf sat a few impressive and useful looking items,  but the one we were looking for was in a simple wooden box, sitting on a  bed of purple velvet. The box was propped open so I could see the gold  shape of the object, not that I was stupid enough to think it meant  getting it would be easy. We had found the eye of odin. Now we just  needed to get it.