by Kate Danley
Killian began running his hands over the columns, dare I say with affection and perhaps a little bit of envy. But instead of replying, he answered Fritz's question with a question. "When did the things you carved start coming to life?"
"Oh man... since I was a kid. I mean, my parents found out and told me to never tell anyone. Said if I did, I'd have to go live on the Other Side with all you Other Siders. So, I kept it to myself."
"It is very difficult to bring this magic forth on Earth," Killian explained. He was saying it to Fritz, but I realized it was also for my benefit so that I would understand the untrained power we were dealing with. "On the Other Side, there is magic infusing everything, so it is merely a matter of releasing it through the carvings, but here on Earth... well, magic is supposed to operate differently."
Fritz stared at Killian with interest. "What do you know about bringing carvings to life?"
Killian shrugged. "Let us just say that I have been acquainted with the art form."
"Well, it seems like those vampires out there were acquainted with the art form, too, because they've been sniffing around this place." He began wandering around his shop, picking up blocks of carved wood and setting them down again. "So, yeah, they've been asking for magic stuff. And I decided that I needed to arm myself. So, I've just been making whatever I can to keep them away. All of the folks here in Little Bavaria who need protection, we hide in here."
"Which side does Gerta, the women who runs the costume shop, fall on?" Killian blurted out.
I tried to smooth it over. "We have a wager. A friend wager."
"Who, Gerta? She's a great ol' gal," said Fritz. He laughed. "Oh, wait. You went in there looking for uniforms. She hates that tent. Tries to scare off new recruits. She was trying to do you a favor."
"A shame," I said wistfully. I was sort of hoping for an excuse to 'thank' her for giving me a super shitty costume.
"So, the magical people of this community, they gather here in your shop?"
"It's just not safe in Little Bavaria anymore," said Fritz. "There are vampires holed up in our reception hall and crazy creatures walking around all day. There are so many people in and out of our shops, we can't set a threshold. The... whatever they were... I mean... were those vampires that were walking around in the light?"
"Werepires," Killian and I said in unison.
"Well, whatever the hell they were, I'm not a fan." He pointed to the great big clock. "Only thing keeping us safe is this bad boy. I've been arming it to the teeth. The carvings all come to life and do whatever needs to be done. I'm just hoping that'll be enough."
All I could think was that it would take one three-alarm fire and his security system would go away. "Fritz, maybe you should skip town," I suggested. "Close up, head down to Baja or somewhere with a lot of sun and not a whole lot of shadows."
"I can't leave my shop anymore," he confessed.
"What?" I asked.
He pointed at the soldiers. "Because the danger is so heightened, they have become hypersensitive. I so much as step out of that front door and they have something to say about it."
"Wait, so you have been trapped in your shop as a prisoner?" Killian asked. "How have you eaten?"
"Do you know how many delivery options there are available in this city right now?" Fritz replied, looking at Killian like he couldn't believe it hadn't dawned on him. "I get along just fine. Taking out the trash gets to be a bit of a challenge." Fritz leaned back and looked up at the ceiling like he really didn't want to tell us the next part. "But there's more..."
"There's MORE?"
"Well... you know that whole thing about the enemy of my enemy is my frienemy?"
"Yeeeeesss...." I said slowly, dreading the next words that were going to drop out of his mouth.
"Well, so, we're a magical community. And if the undead vampires of the Dark Dimension were setting up shop in our village... some of the people here thought that maybe it would behoove us to get a bigger dog in the fight. Even if it wasn't someone we would normally do business with."
"Oh no..." I said.
"Who did you partner with?" Killian pressed. "It is all right. Whatever you are about to say, we will understand. I have made some poor partnership decisions in my day."
I socked him in the arm.
Fritz wet his lips. "Have you ever heard of a thing called a battle of the bands?"
"Does a teenager use too much hair product? Yeah, I think we've all heard of a battle of the bands."
Killian leaned over and muttered, "What is a battle of a band? Do the guitarists attack the drum players or do your rock musicians attack the jazz groups?"
Fortunately, Fritz continued before I had to inform Killian now was not the time. "We joined forces with the sirens."
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" I said, holding up my hands. "Sirens? Listen, there is one siren in that tent and he is a guy. Emphasis on the 'guy' part of that sentence."
"You didn't see the girls?" Fritz asked. He looked at me with skepticism. "You're supposed to be some all powerful force that’s supposed to save me and you didn't see the sirens?"
I looked at Killian. "What the hell is going on? I missed that there were sirens here?"
He patted his breastbone absentmindedly as if he was thinking. "So strange," he remarked.
But I knew what he was saying. He was coming to the same natural conclusion I was reading: we might have a case of some residual bleed over from his amulet to contend with. The good news is that if it was enough to blow out my sensors, it was probably doing the same for all the magical creatures around us. Maybe that was the reason why we were still alive. But it meant we were both gonna have to watch our backs.
I tried to pretend everything was under control. "I guess I must've been distracted. So, you have some sirens here."
"They're nuts," said Fritz.
"Seems like it runs in their family," I remarked.
"We didn't realize how nuts they are!" said Fritz. He stopped himself. "Let me start from the beginning. Some of the other shopkeepers heard that there was a war going on between the vampires and this group called the Bringers of Light. Turns out these Bringers of Light are faeries. And not faeries like... your run-of-the-mill average faeries. The ones from the land of Faerie. But we've got an infestation of vampires and a boss who wasn't interested in hiring an exterminator, so we thought, what's the worst that can happen?"
Both Killian and I choked on our laughter.
"HEY!" said Fritz, defensively. "We just didn't know!"
I held out my hand to calm him. "No, listen, it isn't you. We almost got our asses handed to us by the king of the faeries just about a week ago. What you heard was a choked laughter of identification."
"Okay," said Fritz, calming down. "So, these sirens are here and we're like, can you sing your song to keep the bad guys away? And they're like, 'Sure!' But then they find out about Oktoberfest and how it is this festival commemorating a wedding of some king and they're like, 'Hey! We have a king! Weddings are awesome! Let's do this!' And they began to prepare a royal palace for their king here in Little Bavaria."
"Here?" Killian asked, flabbergasted. "Why would a king of the entire faerie realm wish to come here?"
"He likes places with a little imagination and whimsy and, well, look around."
I still wasn't buying it. "King Cole wants to turn a fake Bavarian village in the middle of a Torrance parking lot into the seat of his power?"
"It has good freeway access."
Fair enough.
"So then our festival, which is usually just a... I don't know... a goofy little Oktoberfest in the middle of a parking lot in Torrance. But this year? Those sirens take the stage and start yodeling and the tent instantly fills up double its capacity. Management loved that. More people. More beer sales. Right? Except the sirens start talking to their neighbors in the hotel, the vampires, and they start thinking maybe they could join forces for a common goal."
"And what would this common goal be?" I ask
ed, already knowing what the answer was.
"To kill the Queen of the Elves and tear down the boundaries between all four dimensions."
Killian and I locked eyes. "Again," we said in unison.
"But why team up with the vampires?" I asked.
"Even if they tear down the boundary between Faerie and Earth, they somehow have to get to the Other Side. They heard the vampires figured out a way to form portals with enough death. Supposedly, the Bringers of Light have a man on the inside. Stan. Dan. Someone on the Other Side. He's supposed to be tunneling one direction and they'll meet him coming the other way."
Great. The head of the World Walker Association, the guy who destroyed our guild and started turning members into marble statues with the aid of a medusa had his fingers in this pie, too. "The faeries do realize that the moment they tear down the boundary between Earth and the Other Side, the vampires will be able to open portals to the Dark Dimension and bring all of their loser friends over."
"Faeries tend to ignore details," Fritz replied. "I mean, they're laser focused on loopholes and ways to exploit an agreement. But as far as future fallout? They're more concerned about living in the moment. The here and now. They aren't going to care about the impending doom until they're halfway down a dragon's throat. They think they're powerful enough to handle anything the Dark Dimension can throw their way."
"Idiots."
"They have no idea how bad things will get," Fritz replied.
Thinking of Mortimer, I said, "So, somehow, they all figured out that the sirens have a brother who has a special ability to rip through the space/time continuum under the proper circumstances. And that explains why he's in the band."
"I don't know about special skills, but I know they had me track down Gabriel's Horn for them."
"Oh shit..." I said. I jumped up and began pacing. "Oh PLEASE tell me that you didn't actually hand over Gabriel's Horn to the forces of evil."
"I didn’t KNOW. They were extorting me and I hadn't figured out yet that it wasn't going to get any better."
"Gabriel's Horn?" Killian asked, quizzically.
I broke it down for him. "So, okay, back when the Earth was a playground for a whole bunch of superhuman assholes like Graham, the good guys had almost been wiped out, but there was this trumpet and it brought the dead back to life."
"Like zombies?"
"Mmmm... the details are a little sketchy. It was in the days before written history. Some folks have tried blowing the horn to see if they could recreate the moment, but so far, it has just been a big, dumb trumpet."
"Oh. That is why they needed Mortimer," said Killian. "He has the magic to turn it into something greater."
"That'd be my guess."
"Who is Mortimer?" asked Fritz, trying to keep up.
"The sirens' brother," Killian and I replied simultaneously before going back to our discussion.
"So, the other thing is that Gabriel's Horn is a doomsday device. The shape is infinite, even though it can only hold a finite volume–"
"I do not understand..." said Killian.
I decided we'd skip over the physics lesson. "Don't worry about it. Just know it tears down walls between worlds and raises the dead. Both tools in the hands of the vampires is no bueno."
"So, on our M-Team 'to-do' list is..." Killian said.
I put up one finger. "Well, we have to get rid of the sirens."
Killian held up two fingers. "We must vanquish the vampires."
I put my middle finger. "And not get fucked by the Bringers of Light."
"It might be too late for that," said Fritz.
He had all my attention. "What do you mean?"
Fritz looked like he was scared to add on to the pile of shit that was turning into Mt. Shitmore.
"Whhhhat?" I asked.
"Okay, so the sirens tested the horn out a few times just to see if they could get it to work and they maaaaay have created some holes in the boundary between Earth and Faerie."
"Oh no..." I said. "Is Faerie already starting to bleed through?"
"Faerie is already starting to bleed through," he confirmed. "You'll be walking along and suddenly the sidewalk has turned into a dirt path lit by pixies."
"Pixies are not so bad," pointed out Killian, trying to be positive.
"The Other Side got the good pixies. These are not good pixies." Fritz sighed.
I held up four fingers, adding to our to-do list. "Rebuild the boundary."
"Maggie, how do you propose rebuilding the boundary? It took legions of the ancient World Walkers to do such a thing."
"Quit your worrying! We're the M-Team! We've got me, my dad, a drunk Irish priest, a cranky Chinese dude, and a blue cat-woman, so we're in great shape."
"Be serious," said Killian, reaching out and taking my hand. "Too many people have been imprisoned in boundaries since I have known you. I really do not care to lose you to this boundary."
The thing about boundaries is that if you play in them too long, you get swept inside like an exhausted swimmer in a riptide. It is a well-known fact as a World Walker that if you don't retire at a healthy young age, getting eaten by the boundary is the barrel of the gun you're staring down. But why dwell on the future when there was plenty of stuff threatening to kill you today? "You're not going to lose me to the boundary, Killian," I said, waving him away. "This is my job. Closing up boundaries is what I do." I turned to Fritz. "Can we take a look at this boundary bleed-thru and see how bad it is?"
"Have at it. Head out the front door, turn left and you'll run right into it," he replied. "I'll just be here. With my cuckoo clock. Trying not to get eaten."
The doom and gloom went completely over Killian's head. He walked towards the door. "We shall be back, my friend."
"I shall count the minutes." Fritz pointed at the clock and clicked his tongue.
We exited through the gift shop and took that left. The path wound through the shopping center. I was reaching out with my tracker senses but it felt like I had cotton in my ears. "All the magic is so muted," I muttered under my breath. "I hadn't noticed it before. We're going to have to find a way around that damned amulet around your neck."
"Please," Killian replied. "If there is any possible way at all to counteract this amulet without letting the queen know where I am, that would be fantastic."
"I wonder if just some good, old-fashioned Wiccan witchcraft would work for you..."
"Beg your pardon?" Killian asked.
I stuck out my fingers. It looked dumb, but sometimes they could act like a divining rod. "It's what the humans use when they want to tap into the source of Earth magic. Not the element, the actual planet Earth. They have a different natural aptitude than what Other Siders have."
"Perhaps that is a path for me," Killian mused.
"They like trees a lot," I offered as a plus.
"That's convenient. It just so happens I hold a great affection for trees."
"This might be a solution made in heaven," I replied.
It didn't matter how muted the magic was feeling, however, when we reached the zone, it walloped me over the head like a gangster knocking an unsuspecting mark with a billy club.
"Oh, we hit it," I remarked, wavering on my feet.
Killian looked around, as if willing himself to see what I was feeling. It was an unassuming courtyard. In fact, it was one of the more unattractive courtyards I've ever seen. There wasn't even a reason for it. The sidewalk emptied into it, then widened into a square with a concrete planter in the middle, and then narrowed back into a sidewalk again. There was a single metal door leading to the public sidewalk on one side. Cars whizzed by on the rundown, pot-riddled road — in both the number-of-holes-in-the-blacktop and legal-dispensaries-on-the-block sense of the word.
Now, this wouldn't have been any big deal except that the view kept fading in and out. The street would disappear and become a foggy, dirt road with skeletal trees and then go back to being just a dirty road and merely drought-stricken trees.
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I sighed. The holes were messy. For about two seconds I considered that if my paycheck continued its downward trend, maybe I should offer my own portal making services for a hefty fee. I mean, not to the side of evil, but to the good guys. It'd prevent awfulness like this from happening.
"Oh, this is going to be a bear." I stepped forward, allowing my focus to fuzz and all my sight to be contained in my body rather than my eyes. "Yep, they have themselves a bunch of sloppy tears in the boundary of the universe. Amateurs."
"Be careful, Maggie," Killian said.
"I'll just bleed a little energy into it," I said. "Sometimes a push in the right place can make the whole thing collapse. If nothing else, maybe I can seal up the ragged edges so it doesn't fray anymore."
I fed just the tiniest bit of fuel into it. The portal responded by gulping it up and asking for more. I was cool with that. I gave it a little more.
"Maggie? Back away," Killian said.
"Wait, what?" I replied.
"Stop, Maggie!"
"Just a little more..."
Killian suddenly tackled me, knocking me to the side. I held my hands up in front of my face, gasping. My fingers were trembling.
Okay, so, portals each have their own personalities. This one was a hustler. It made me think I was just giving over a little bit of energy when it was actually bleeding me dry. I rubbed my temples, trying not to pass out. "Well, that was dumb."
"Yes," said Killian.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence!" I replied, flexing and gripping my hands, trying to get them to steady. "I guess that just proves we're not going to solve this the easy way."
Killian shook his head. "I hate the hard way."
"Aw, come on now, Killian! It's fun!" I replied, rolling onto my hands and knees and trying not to throw up.
"Perhaps we should go back to our hotel."
"Naw!" I said. "There's still so much to be done!"
"No," said Killian, pointing at the sky. "You were working on that portal for several hours and it is almost time to report for our shift at work."
I looked up and then I checked my watch to make double sure. "My watch says about two minutes have passed."