The Infamous Beast

by T Shadow

  “When I joined the Guard, I was roughly three-hundred-years old. It took me a few hundred years to move up the ranks, so when your father joined the Guard out of spite he was two-hundred years old, so I was nearly six-hundred.” She takes a breath whilst we all sit there and do some mental maths, but then she drops the bomb, “That was about four-hundred-and-fifty-years ago, give or take.”

  Basically, Remi’s saying she’s about a thousand years old. But even that information is subject to scrutiny considering she doesn’t remember her fucking birthday. This is ridiculous. My mate is prehistoric, and in comparison, I’m prepubescent. We’re all prepubescent, except Leland, who’s considered to be a damn fetus. While all of us sit, pale faced and slightly in awe of being mated to an ancient-as-fuck dragon, some of us are just intimidated. Like Landon, who looks like he’s seconds away from shitting himself.

  Remi though? Oh she just carries on like no one is confused as fuck, answering Leland’s questions in a rapid fire session. “My favourite colour is azure blue, but on a sunny day, I love all of the greens that you see in the woods. My favourite food is definitely Victoria Sponge cake, but as for an actual dinner? Normally anything covered in cheese and as to how I got Lucius? One day he turned up on my porch, freezing, wet and shivering like he’d ran fifteen miles in the rain. It was just after I’d moved here and it was like he was sent to me as a friend. I took him in and he’s ruled the house ever since.”

  Whilst learning a little about Remi helps us all with our understanding of her, I’m stuck on a little tid-bit of information that my beast brings to light.

  “If we hadn’t found her soon, she would’ve gone mad.”

  I know… it’s truly a miracle that we found her before the sickness set in.

  “It’s because, in our old age we become complacent. We don’t feel the need to shift often and we have only a certain amount of time before finding a partner, let alone a mate, to help stop the sickness. Normally it happens years ago, you’re lucky, in a sense, that Remi found Lucius. Maybe he’s a familiar rather than just a fox.”

  Dragon’s don’t have animal familiars, or familiars regardless.

  “Familiars present themselves in a time of need. Stranger things have happened.”

  “So,” she pipes up, knocking me out of my own thoughts. “Tell me a little bit about you guys. Just a snippet, I don’t have all day to listen to you lot.”

  We all laugh a little at that, but I start the get-to-know us section with a small section about myself. “Well, alright. A bit about us… Uh… so, my favourite colour is navy blue, my favourite food is steak, medium-rare, or if we’re talking about dessert, I really like arctic roll ice cream.” Pausing before I carry on, I notice a small smile playing on Remi’s lips, “I learned the art of swordsmanship when I joined the Guard and am insanely interested in battle tactics.”

  “I like computers.” That's what Leland starts with. “Code is a whole different language that only I’m fluent in and it’s like its a universe that only I created. My favourite colour is neon green, and my favourite food is pepperoni, chicken and sweetcorn pizza.” He blushes slightly, pulling us away from his geeky-persona, “I got my stutter from when my siblings tried to drown me in the bath the first time. They tried multiple times after that because of the stutter.” Remi lays her hand on top of his, thankful that he shared a hard bit of his past with her.

  Landon coughs, breaking the tension that has settled around us like a heavy fog. It's enough of a break that it allows me to get up to start clearing the table. I’ve done my part for story time, now it’s clean-up time.

  “Yeah, well, are we all sharing our favourite colour? Well, mine’s yellow. Canary yellow if we’re going to be exact. My favourite food is cereal, any kind, as long as the milk is ice-cold and straight from the fridge. I used to be in the Lord’s Guard until they kicked me out for ‘possible treason’, and because of that, I spend most of my time working on cars at my house out in the Wastes. I live on one side the Wastes and someone who I’ve never met in the last twenty-odd years I’ve been there resides on the other side.”

  As I collect all of the plates and wash them in the sink, Finnegan rounds out our merry band of misfits. “I have a love of books like no other, I’m a scholar at the Institute of Knowledge, but before that I fought in a few of the wars with the Guard. I was dismissed on the terms of ‘over-exerted brutality’ and have been confined to the institute since. My favourite colour is red, and my favourite food is apples and blueberries. Give me a good book and a cup of coffee and you’re likely to win me over in seconds.”

  The conversation ends on a high note and as they all delve into mindless chatter, Leland joins me at the sink to start drying up the dishes and putting them away. It’s the first time we’ve been in close proximity whilst awake since that day at the Café. We don’t say anything, the closeness being enough for us, when a shrill noise cuts through the house. We all look at eachother, not recognising the noise as any of our own ringtones until Landon mentions Remi’s phone.

  Remi doesn’t rush to get it, rather taking her time to get up, pet Lucius and run her hand along Finnegan’s arm before making her way to her mobile phone. We all watch her go, wondering who the hell could be ringing her. The shrill tone stops suddenly before ringing again and this time Remi emerges with it in hand, waving it furiously at Finn. “Can you help me answer this fucking thing?”

  Perplexed, he takes it from her and clicks the green button before giving it back to her. It’s an old style flip-phone that looks in pristine condition, but from her statement, it’s obvious that she’s clueless on how to use it.

  “Hello? Who is it?” Waiting a second, she nods when the person replies, the muffled voice coming through the phone. As she notices us looking at her, she points to the phone and mouths ‘Mika’, before going into the living room to sit on the sofa. As the good little mates we are, we start placing leftovers in the fridge, wiping down the table and putting the rest of the dishes away before joining Remi in her lounge. Leland grabs the grumpy fox on his way in, cuddling it to his chest like a small child.

  “No, well, it didn’t really happen like that… okay yes, kinda like that. Well regardless, I don’t think they’ll be leaving anytime soon… No… Could you do me a favour? Yeah, a favour. No, I don’t need you to go to the shop. I need you to go to the Hotel and grab some of their clothes. No! They’re not naked! But they’ll need new underwear soon. Yes, I’m asking you to grab some of their underwear. Look, I’m sure there's a bag you can stuff their shit in and bring it here. What about if I bribe you? Yes, I have cake. Okay, yes, you can have the whole thing. Alright, see you in an hour or so. No, I don’t know, ask Zachy. Okay, yep. You too. Bye.”

  “She’s going to our Hotel room?”

  “Hmm?” Putting her phone on the table, she looks at Finn. “Yeah, well I doubt you guys would leave. You’d wear the same clothes for the rest of your life if you could.”

  Nodding his head, he mumbles, “fair enough,” before moving over to her bookshelf and taking out a book that has him smiling straight away. Holding a copy of Alice in Wonderland, he hands it to Leland who starts reading it with the fox in his arms, almost like they are reading it together.

  “Do you think Mika could grab our books?” She waves her hand towards her phone and Finnegan takes the initiative to text her to ask. The guy can’t go a day without reading a little bit of his book, but knowing him he’s texted her to bring all of them. Looks like we’ll find out when she arrives in an hour or so, but for the meantime, Remi pulls out a portable DVD player, opens it up, somehow manages to start it and presses play on the episode she’s currently on. She’s watching Supernatural and the rest of us crowd around her, sitting beside her on the sofa as she gets comfortable between us.

  “Why is it always the rich ones? I mean, what are they like, “Croquet’s all right, but you know what would be great? Murder.””

  •°•

  Mika arrives a little over a
n hour later. The knock on the door is quiet, but Lucius perks his ears up and stands his up on his front paws anyway, leaning on the arm that Leland’s holding the book with. It’s quite a comical sight, considering the way that his tail thumps harder against the book that he’s trying to read.

  Landon takes the initiative to open the door for Mika. We all see him grasp the handle and open the door, but we’re not privy to Mika’s response until she makes her way into the house with an expression on her face like she’s just sucked on a lemon. She has most of our stuff though, so she must have some faith that we’re all not fucking invalids. As he shuts the door behind her, he takes the stuff from her hands before bowing at the waist and moving the bags into the back room out of the way. She’s a little bit startled at the bow, we all are, but she recovers quickly. Seeing Lucius sitting on Leland wagging his tail, she mock gasps, her mismatched eyes going wide.

  “You made another friend? Am I not good enough?”

  Lucius stills for a second, his tail slows until it's as stiff as a stick. He looks at Mika with a worried expression, but then she grasps her heart in a flamboyant fashion and falls to the floor dramatically. It’s the action that makes the fox go wild, his screams bouncing off of the walls as he runs to his friend to check on her. His panicked eyes and heart-wrenching screams tear right through us. That is, until Mika gets up and clutches him to her chest. He nips at her skin slightly, marking it with small teeth impressions as she smiles and laughs. Weirdly enough, he reciprocates it.

  What a weird few we’ve involved ourselves with. But now I’m absolutely sure that these three come as a package deal.

  It’s been a few days since Mika brought some of their stuff from the Hotel, and as I predicted, none of them have left my sight, or my side since. Every time they have left the house, it’s only to come to the shop with me. I’ve recently discovered that Landon hates grocery shopping and Finnegan is a kleptomaniac when it comes to books and stationary. I have one pen in my office and my bookshop looks like it’s currently transferring locations.

  Living with the guys is… odd. They have all displayed their own little quirks and oddities over the past three days, and I’ve learned many of their tells and some of them I haven’t even experienced yet. There’s a lot to learn. Leland likes to stay in bed until the last possible moment and he brushes his teeth after eating breakfast because he doesn’t want to ‘contaminate the eating experience’, Landon likes sleep in the fetal position and then goes for a jog at five in the morning because he’s in-fucking-sane, then has a blistering hot shower afterwards for approximately four minutes to save water. Apparently it affects the polar bears or some shit.

  Remington wakes up in the same position he went to sleep in, which is beyond creepy and he also has a fascination with the daily paper. Some poor sod delivers it from a distance to my house every morning. Many times I’ve heard it hit the door with a thud that can only mean it’s been thrown from a considerable distance. But now, Remington reads it every day without fail. If he’s awake before everyone, he sits down in my favourite armchair and holds the paper in front of his face like a stereotypical dad would do. He even folds the corner down to scowl at us from time-to-time if we’re being too ‘rowdy’ at the table. Whatever that fucking means, last time I checked I wasn’t a cowboy.

  Finnegan… Finnegan has taken over my house and my office. My small living room table has books scattered over it, some stacked on top of others and other times they’ll sit stacked in a pile on the floor waiting for their turn at the table. My office at work has become Finn’s office. Him and Mika have come together and organised the shit out of that space, my finances are squeaky clean and I know where everything is. Also, I can see my desk again, so that's a new development. The biggest development with Finn is that Mika and him have become as thick as thieves. If they’re not bonding over the same book, then they’re plotting to get cakes and gorge on them in the office. It really is nice to see that they’ve become friends when honestly, I thought Mika couldn’t be friends with anyone else. He's also the only person that sleeps at the bottom of the bed like a dog because he doesn’t like sleeping length-ways.

  Weirdo.

  Today, we’re at the bookshop. Whilst I’m in the back getting books out to restock the shelves, Finnegan has situated himself behind the desk with one of the many books I recommended. It’s one about serial killers and a girl with pink hair. We’re on the weird university kick at the moment and it’s a popular theme among books right now. Finn’s reading through all books at the speed of light and soon I’ll run out-of-up to date reading material.

  It’s been quite a busy day and Finn has had to put that book down more than I can count. He mentioned that he served two hippies and a purple witch that bought merchandise in payment of the books she left with. He’s obviously talking about Mr and Mrs Ke-Li, the couple that run the café and Wanda, the crazy witch who reads my palms every time I set foot in her shop. Thankfully she dropped the stuff off today so I didn’t have to go through that uncanny experience again.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if she backed him into a corner and tried to seduce the shit out of him with her witchiness. Apparently there’s a spell and a potion for everything nowadays. Finn told me how she burst into the shop in a storm of violet and indigo, her hair sticking in all directions and smelling of white sage and fermented apples. I don’t know how he managed to pick up on that smell, but apparently there was no escaping it. Whereas the hippies were chill and calm, expressing self-love and talking about environmental welfare. Physical books are better for the environment but somehow, I don’t think that’s necessarily true.

  Thank the Lord that I decided to hide in the back of the office for the rest of the day. Finn’s doing a fine job of managing the half-empty shop but if he sits behind the counter any longer, he’ll start becoming a part of furniture. I feel as though sooner rather than later that I won’t be able to envisage a world without the guys. It’s a thought that scares and excites me at the same time.

  Things at home have already changed drastically. The main thing that changed was Lucius. He used to hate everyone, that stubborn little fox, but now he loves everyone even when they don’t feed him. He’ll happily sit in Remington’s lap whilst he’s reading the paper or a book at night, he curls up on his shoulders like a fox-fur scarf and follows Remington’s hand with his eyes when he turns the pages. Leland plays with him, he even got him a few dog toys when we went to the supermarket the other day. Now they happily sit and play fetch for hours, or when Lucius’ is feeling particularly compliant he’ll sit and learn a few parlor tricks; the little bastard can now beg for treats properly.

  Landon has taken over the ins-and-outs of Lucius’s meal preps. That means that he knows that Landon has the goodies, so he’s always well-behaved around him. He’s still trying to figure out the easiest way to wrap him around his little paw though, but he’s a tough nut to crack. Finnegan is the most impartial towards the fox, he doesn’t really care what he does so most of the time Lucius uses him as a climbing frame when he’s busy concentrating. Finnegan acts like he doesn’t like it, but I bet he does secretly.

  Lucius’s attitude may be the biggest change around the house, but having the guys there is the most significant development. They don’t make a mess and they clean up after themselves, but the void that they fill is one I never noticed until I thought about being alone again. There’s a background noise that I never experienced, a steady hum of activity and always someone to talk to. It’s true, I guess. Misery does love company.

  The chime of the door captures my attention and I leave my self-appointed seclusion to help Finnegan with the latest customer. Exiting the office, I find Finnegan sitting on a stool behind the counter reading a book on schematics. I guess he finished the other one I suggested and decided to move onto more factional works. But the change of books surprises me less than the customer in my shop. Mr. Grigori looks run down, dishevelled and dejected, it also doesn’t help that his
clothes look unwashed, wrinkled and hold a stench that I can smell from across the room. I’m worried about the old guy, considering he’s never been seen without the crispest of suits on, his peaky cap and his signature smile.

  Moving closer, I touch his elbow to gain his attention which he eagerly gives. He looks up at me like he’s disappointed, not in me, but in himself. Almost as though he can’t look at me without crying if his trembling lips are anything to go by. I don’t say anything as I usher him towards one of the sofas and Finnegan gets up to quickly turn the open sign to closed. If something has happened to Mr. Grigori, I don’t want an audience when he tells me.

  “Remi, I’m really sorry…” He sniffs, pulling a handkerchief from the pocket of his tweed blazer, “I need to tell you something, but I need to do it before it’s too late.”

  “Too late? What do you mean, are you ill Mr. Grigori?”

  He laughs, but it's dry, humourless. “No dear, I’m not dying anytime soon, fortunately.” He blows his nose in his handkerchief, the loud obnoxious noise cutting through the silence of the shop.

  “Surely it can’t be anything too serious.” Looking from Mr. Grigori to Finn, I think of anything that could make him so dejected. Maybe his family is ill and he can’t get to them, does he have financial struggles, or could he have been robbed? The possibilities whilst limited, are also endless.

  Finn takes over on the empathetic questioning front, before I explode from the sympathetic curiosity that I’m experiencing. “Did something happen at home, Mr. Grigori?” God I wish he had told us his first name, because this is a really informal setting for such formal language.