Robert drifted into awareness slowly. There was an IV in his right arm and multiple lead wires going to softly beeping machines on metal stands. His left arm was partially sheathed in a blood pressure cuff.

As he was looking around at the off-white walls, a stern looking woman in a doctor’s coat walked in the, overly secure looking door to the room. Her dark hair was lustrous, if interspersed with grey. Since she was a bit short, the bed did not have to be lowered for her to look him directly in the eyes. Her nametag said ‘Michelle Lee’. “Hello, Mr. Housen. We have much to talk about.” She was speaking calmly like this was not a suspicious situation. As abductors go, she was strikingly nonthreatening.

“Will we beat around the bush? Or can we get to the point of why whoever you work for has abducted me?” I responded evenly.

“I see that sharp mind of yours is very active. That was probably the reason you were chosen.”

“Is there a reason your people did not simply call my agent? I’m not booked THAT tight these days.” he asked as his mood darkened.

At that point, the pressure cuff quietly inflated. It must have been on a timer. A harsh beeping began to issue from the unit connected to the cuff. “Sir, we need you to calm down and tell me your medications. It seems that your blood pressure is elevated.”

Robert rattled off the list and dosages. She left briefly, only to return later with bottles of his medications. Once he had taken them, the robust man was careful not to allow himself to become enraged by these obviously stupid kidnappers.

“Now that I am calm and medicated, what do you people want?” Robert said with a glare.

“I will let them know you are ready to have a conversation.”

She left the room, and he could hear the lock engage as the door closed. Oddly enough, she had not had to use a key to open the door, and there was no knob. She had not even had to touch the door to open it.

Robert was running back over what little information he had as he waited, not very patiently, for Michelle to return. There was a polite knock on the door. “May I come in?” was asked in a polite British man’s voice. He sounded like a librarian. His accent was an upper class London one.

“Why not?” Robert answered with a touch of snark.

The door opened slowly, and a small, middle aged man with a very small amount of wispy hair on his head entered carefully. “My name is Dr. Lesley Lyons. It is a great pleasure to meet you Mr. Housen. I understand why you are a bit upset with us. I will try to explain why we needed to act a bit abruptly…”

“Abruptly? You abducted me from a public event. Now, you want a polite conversation?”

“Apologies. We had no time for pleasantries. If you had validated that man’s claims, many people would be at risk.”

Robert looked at the silly little man in exasperation. “At risk of what? Getting fleeced by a con artist? Made to look silly in public? What was so important to prevent that you would commit federal crimes?”

The little man went a little pale as he straightened to his full five foot height. “I will have you know, Sir, Mr. Rouge plans to steal more than the money of his victims. That man is building a special kind of cult. His victims follow him until he takes everything from them and discards their remains.”

“So, you want me to do what? Claim he is a fake when I know it’s a lie? You know that people will believe what they want to. Politicians lie to the public openly and they fall for it no matter how much of the truth they are told. On top of that, I am not in the business of telling lies.”

“Mr. Housen, maybe you could think of it as an illusion? Besides, his stated goals are not his actual goals.” replied Dr. Lyons.

“Illusions are not lies. My audiences always knew they were being tricked. It’s part of the show. I also don’t do that anymore. I tell people the truth when I find them being lied to,” said Robert as if speaking to a child. “Besides, what is his goal and how would you be certain of it?”

With a shake of his head, the little doctor looked at Robert with an unhappy expression. There was pain in his eyes. “I know his intent because he used to be one of us. We exiled him after he hurt some people. He wanted to use regular people to fuel a plan to make many of us immortal.”

“We need to start over at the beginning. Who are your ‘people’?”

With a sigh, the little man wiped sweat from his brow. “I am the spokesperson for a group that calls themselves ‘The Magi’. We are a group of people trying to restore arcane and eldritch knowledge and wisdom to the world. Herald was one of our brightest people. One of the people he respected most in the world died of natural causes. He wants to make certain important people unable to be killed. We need to stop him at any cost. Human beings are not safe to give unlimited time to. We have people who have seen visions of what would happen and it is not good. They confirmed that your confirmation of his power would lead to too much of humanity falling under his power.”

“Fine. Introduce me to the people you want me to lie for.”

“Follow me, and I will show you around. These are good people. They just want humanity to be safe, so they can do their own thing.”

He turned to the door, and it opened before he reached it. Robert followed and then walked together down a hall with colorful flowers painted on the walls. The painted flowers were stylized and childish in design, but lent a cheerful feeling to Robert’s abduction.

The men walked quietly down the hall and past over a dozen hospital rooms until they reached a set of double doors. The corridor beyond the doors maintained the theme of almost manic cheer and color. They stopped at another set of double doors on the right side of the hall. A strange sound came to them through the door that reminded Robert of Gregorian chants.

As they entered the room, the chanting got clearer. Dr. Lyons whispered into Robert’s ear as he pointed out the dark robed people who had formed a large, thirty-foot circle in the dark room, “This is a group that is trying to use another approach to solving our problems. They are trying to call in help from another universe.”

“Is this one man big enough a threat to justify that? What if they bring someone here who is a bigger problem than Herald? What will you do then?...”

Just as he finished the question, the chanting reached a peak. A sphere of dark blue light began to form in the center of the circle. An arm reached out of the ball. The arm was covered in black scales that reflected the blue lights seductively. As the arm extended further, it was suddenly pulled back, soon to be replaced by the legs of a man and then the rest of his body. He floated down to stand in the center of the circle and glared at the people who had been chanting. His purple eyes revealed contempt. “You absolute IDIOTS!” he bellowed. “Do you have any idea how stupid this action was?” as soon as the question passed his lips, the circle of chanters fell onto their backs and lay still.