Svartalf security

I started instructing my daughter in the fine art of pancake flipping. We had just gotten the second one started when a tiny bell began to ring very rapidly from somewhere in one of the walls—the apartment’s security alarm.
Mouse whipped his head around to the source of the sound and let out a low growl. Maggie blinked and then looked at me uncertainly.
Thomas came off the wall in a tense little bound of tightly leashed energy. He glanced at me and then went to the kitchen and took one of the big chef knives from the block.
“Someone’s coming,” I said. “Let’s see what’s happening first. Now, just like we practiced. Take Bonnie, go to my room, and put her in her box. Stay in there with her, stay low to the ground, and keep quiet. Okay?”
Maggie looked uncertain but she nodded. “Okay.”
“Go on.”
I shut the bedroom door behind her and picked up my wizard’s staff from its spot near the fireplace. I suddenly wished that I’d found a way to spend more hours on my personal magical arsenal. I hadn’t, because I’d been busy being a father, which took up way more time than I had believed possible. There’d been very little time to actively work on my gear—a very wizard-hours-intensive endeavor. All I had was the staff I’d carved out on the lost island of Demonreach in the middle of Lake Michigan, my blasting rod, and a slapdash version of my old shield bracelet—but they would have to do.
Whatever had set off the alarm, it seemed unlikely that it could march all the way through the svartalves’ security—but if it hadn’t done so, then why was my security alarm ringing?
“What do you think?” Thomas asked.
“I think anything that goes through svartalf security to get here has me a little edgy,” I said.
“Oh, so it’s not just me. That’s nice.”
A few seconds later, a heavy hand rapped hard on the door to the apartment.
I checked to make absolutely sure that the door to the room with my daughter inside was firmly shut. And then, gripping my staff much like a rifle, I paced silently forward to answer the door, my brother falling into step beside me.

Peace Talks Chapter 2, Page 19-20


I summoned my will and channeled power into my staff. The runes spiraling along its length smoldered with emerald fire, and tiny wisps of smoke rose from it. The clean, smoky scent of fresh-scorched wood laced the air. Runes and sigils of green light spangled the walls.
A wizard’s staff is a versatile tool. I could use one to project any number of forces or effects as the need arose, and I made sure mine was ready to wreak havoc or reflect energy as needed. Thomas moved in utter silence to the wall beside the door, where he would be within arm’s reach of anyone who came through it. He gripped the knife low along his leg and nodded to me when he was ready.
And I calmly opened the apartment’s front door.
An old man stood there. He was a couple of inches shorter than average, and stout. Like me, he carried a staff, though his was a good deal shorter and, like him, stouter than my own. Some wisps of white and silver hair drifted around his otherwise shining head, though there seemed to be more liver spots on the skin than I remembered from the last time I’d seen him. His dark eyes were bright, though, behind his spectacles, and he wore a plain white cotton T-shirt with his blue overalls and steel-toed work boots. He was my mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, senior member of the White Council of Wizardry.
He was also my grandfather.
The old man eyed me, his brow furrowing in thought, studying me as I stood there, and then my green-glowing staff.
“New work,” he noted. “Dense, though. Maybe a little rough.”
“All I had was a pocketknife,” I said. “No sandpaper. Had to use rocks.”
“Ah,” he said. “May I come in?”
I looked past Ebenezar to where Austri stood in the hall, one hand inside his suit, a couple of fingers pressed to one ear. His lips were moving, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. “Austri? What’s with the alarm?”
Austri apparently listened to something coming into his ear that only he could hear and nodded. He didn’t take his hand out of his coat when he answered me. “This person is known to the svartalves,” he said. “He is an enforcer for the White Council of Wizardry and is known to be extremely dangerous. He did not follow security protocols.”

Peace Talks Chapter 3, Page 21-22