by C P Sennett
I was tempted to say something partially threatening as well. After all, it was likely that Tommy was having some of his essence lovingly kissed out of him now by Fern’s dark-haired accomplice Ali.
That thought pissed me off. If so, she might have felt something when I kissed her hand earlier as sometimes the touch of powerful creatures from the other side can alert them to magical nature of someone like me.
Also, Ali, if she was a mephit, was hardly a powerful denizen of the elemental realms. She was the more dominant one of the two for sure and perhaps older, but I didn’t know how much of a threat a mephit could actually be at this event. Then again, Ali was wearing gloves which would have kept her body from the power of the ring on my hand and my own power. “Balls” I cursed aloud. This was all getting more messed up by the hour.
My ring has saved me many times. It hurts when it’s used but it does alert and protect me, warding off things trying to affect my mind. It’s saved me on more than one occasion, but it was only triggered by Fern and not Ali. I concluded that Ali’s gloves probably masked her or that she was using whatever abilities she had on Tommy and not me.
I looked at the bottle, suddenly aware that I was still wearing my mask. “Fern, listen.” I said. “I need to go and check on Tommy and if he comes to any harm, know this…you will.” The colour in the bottle dimmed and I didn’t know if it was a good or bad sign for Tommy or Fern.
Ok Eddie…I thought, think!
How can I keep Fern in the bottle and not arouse suspicion? Also, I need to hide this bottle somewhere. “Shit, come on boy!” I said aloud trying to come up with something. Then an idea came to me. Back to my car.
I quickly got back to my black Range Rover. What can I say, I like my cars and I need something durable doing this job, I named her the Beast.
I knew that Fern couldn’t exactly get out of the bottle as the entrapment spell was holding her, not a lid or cap. You see, the bottle is just a vessel which makes the spell easier to cast. I always feel safer with my hand or thumb over the top but in truth it makes no difference, it’s only a psychological comfort as it’s the spell holds the creature inside.
The bottle wouldn’t last for too long though as when doing magic off the cuff like this it taxes you more and any items used in the entrapment spell will break down over time. Having something to anchor her to, like the bottle, meant I could leave her for a bit and see what else was going on inside. I needed to make sure Tommy was ok and hopefully find out where this Tabitha girl had been taken.
Just before I went in I remembered something. It’s always good to enjoy the little things in life when they occasionally go right. Like this, if it all goes well I’ve potentially got a real life mephit!
At my car, the bottle hidden inside my jacket to mask the light emanating from it, I still had my hand over the top, the boot opened with its keyless entry and I lifted the fake floor panel which held the tools of my trade.
I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me. It was all clear. Then, I checked the integrity of the bottle to make sure it was still holding up. I needed to hurry and get back inside to be sure Tommy wasn’t in any real danger. Also, I had a fucking job to do, and as far as I could tell, none of this had anything to do with who I was actually here to find!
I looked at my options in the back of the Beast. What I needed was some cold iron. A lot of supernatural creatures hate iron as it hurts them. Also, cold iron works particularly well on many fey and most elemental beings. It slows them down and they will go to great lengths to avoid the touch of it.
I opened the small cool box in the back of my car. Then, I grabbed the cocktail mixer which was already chilled from the ice it had been sitting in in the cool box. The mixer is a cheap thing I bought online. A plain cocktail mixer but it serves the purpose very well for field work. I opened it, lifting the dimly glowing bottle to it.
As I did Fern seemed to know what was coming and she flared up in a furious bright light. Much more than even I thought she could from within the dark brown bottle. I couldn’t take a chance here, time was against me and without hesitation I put the second half of the mixer jar on and trapped the bottle inside it. This instantly killed the bright glow Fern had made but not before she emitted a final surge of light. I’m not sure if it was fear or anger that caused her to glow so violently, but Tommy was my priority now, not her. I threw the closed iron mixer back into the cool box and moved some ice over it, as best I could. Then, I closed the lid and put it all back in the boot of the Beast.
Fern would begin to feel the cold soon but that was how it had to be for the minute. Yes, it may seem a little cruel but believe me it’s best to try not to think of a mephit as a person. They aren’t, they don’t feel things like pain quite the same way as we do.
I took in a deep breath as I checked my reflection in the rear windows to make sure I didn’t look too dishevelled. Quickly, after fixing my top button and straightening of my bow tie I headed back to the ball as I took off my dinner jacket and dusted it down.
****
I had made my way through the hotel giving a final brush off to the grit on my wet trouser leg. I paused for a moment considering trying a divination, not for the girl I was looking for but to find out if there were any other mephits here. I decided against it as I doubted mephits were part of the problem, they are a nuisance but not my problem, not tonight. The trouble was, like a lot of jobs I had recently done for the Broker, information was sparse. Someone had taken this girl and I had to see if she was still here, that was it, just to get the intel and report back.
The main function room bit with the bar was empty with long red velvet curtains cascading down from the ceiling. There was the smaller bar to the right where I had been standing earlier but now the crowds were gone, on the other side of the curtains apart from an older portly man, trying with difficulty to gather up the four drinks he had ordered at the bar.
It seemed festivities had moved into the seating area and they had closed the curtains to the bar area. I quickly approached the long dark curtains. Standing there, hidden behind the long drapes, I scanned the room. Again, looking for anything that looked out of place and equally for Tommy.
Inwardly I was beginning to get the feeling that this could be another shitty job from the Broker. If so, it would be the third one this year and they were a waste of my time.
I took some minor comfort that as at least one mephit was here then something else was likely to be going on and therefore the job was probably legit. With all the other naff jobs I had been on there was no sign of anything supernatural at all. So, the mephit was at least a plus, even if my groin still disagreed.
I caught sight of Tommy, watching the Master of Ceremonies as he was part way through his opening address. Tommy looked fine and Ali was sat next to him. On counting the seating arrangements, their table didn’t match the ten places allocated as with the majority of the other tables in the room. Tommy’s table was lopsided with just nine diners seated and all with plenty of elbow room. I guessed they had thought I had gotten lucky with Fern and that they had asked the staff to remove her place.
The Master of Ceremonies made a few quips to the friendly crowd as everyone looked on, smiling and laughing at the appropriate times.
Inwardly I cursed. There was nothing here, nothing out of place except a lowly mephit or two. Bloody Broker, I’d pretty much been hung out to dry again it seemed, as I quietly sighed.
I had to be sure though, so before I got the chance to get too downhearted about another lame job. I used the time to get a slow, methodical look around the room. With everyone sitting down and facing in the same direction I could see more than I could earlier in the evening. I couldn’t see much facially due to the masks but what I could see of their faces helped.
I calmed myself, aware of how fast my heart was beating and the need to slow it. Us wizards are human as far as any of us know and like normal people. So, when our heart is racing we can make mistakes just the s
ame as anyone else.
The Master of Ceremonies continued with his speech. “This evening couldn’t have been done, as ever, without our corporate sponsors.” Then, he went through a few names, mostly antique-related publications I occasionally read. The two he mentioned obviously had at least one table each allocated to them as there was a lot of back slapping and approval among those on the tables he thanked.
Tommy at least looked himself as I got back around to his table. He was enjoying a glass of red as he filled some glasses with the bottle in his spare hand and passed them around. There were a couple of males I thought I might know by their hair style and colour, but I wasn’t totally sure due to the masks. Tommy had a few pictures out the back in the office of his shop, pictures of him with his close customers on corporate golf days. It’s also the place he keeps the decent whisky and where his big paying clients, like me, get to go and enjoy a glass.
The Master of Ceremonies didn’t look out of the ordinary, an older guy in his sixties unusually without a mask. He was a slim man with grey receding hair, his shadow was normal, no strange symbols visible and no spells in effect that I could see or sense.
The sensing is an odd thing. At times, you can sense things without trying and I know this sounds a bit Jedi-like but you can open up your mind and senses to what is around you when you reach a certain level of expertise.
This is done without resorting to anything as formal as a divination spell. Divination magic is something else, this is more like an extension of your normal senses. Now, I’m ok at divinations but there are plenty of better diviners around than me. What I was doing now was one of the things you learn early on when messing with magic, you can pick up on the ambience around you. A bit like when you feel someone is watching you. Yeah, it’s like that but bigger.
Sadly though, I was drawing another blank on the room…
Then my eyes were drawn to table four, something didn’t fit. I noticed something which interested me about a shaven-headed man at the table. Perfectly normal at first glance, apart from the masquerade attire, smartly dressed and wearing what looked like a fairly common white Venetian mask. A Phantom of the Opera style half-face mask, lower on one side of his face than the other. He looked fairly athletic, as did a few of the men on his table. What marked this man out as interesting was a fairly subtle mark on his hand.
It was a tattoo, a plain golden band tattooed on his little finger, but this wasn’t a ring, it was an inking. It almost looked like a wedding band, so it appeared inconspicuous at first glance, but this wasn’t something I wanted to see.
I opened my senses further to see small, thin, black tendrils invisible to the naked eye appear before me all sprawling across the back of the same hand. This person was marked both with a tattoo for mortals to see but also a magical brand as well. This wasn’t good, it wasn’t good at all and worse still, it wasn’t a mark I recognised.
Typically, marked people were often marked by a scar or an inking by creatures in the supernatural world. It’s certainly something vampires use but it wasn’t all that common in Essex. There wasn’t much overt activity from the big vampire bloodlines or houses in Essex that used inking’s. They were here for sure, but it was all hidden from most people. Even those who knew about the supernatural wouldn’t see much of the big power plays in the county.
All you would see even if you knew what you were looking for in vampires was that Essex is a haven of new vampires, the lesser, younger ones. There are no really old souls around here thankfully and the bigger houses usually kept their work and problems in house. Essex tends to attract or bring out the more brash style younger vamps. Ones like in that old comedy movie with the two Corey’s.
Anyhow, this guy was marked as owned but I really didn’t recognise the mark and what was worse, there was a magical branding. The man was only sitting ten feet away but mostly with his back to me and the mask covering what little I could see of his face, so I couldn’t get as much information as I wanted.
No, this didn’t look anything like a vampire mark and I knew all the main ones just in case I bumped into one.
It’s easier for lycans and other creatures to mark their servants. It reduces the chances of other creatures, or mortals in the service of creatures, from bothering ‘useful’ branded people.
Well, this confirmed there was something here other than mephits. Also, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but I’d never heard or read of mephits marking people and certainly not magically. No, this was something else entirely.
I considered the location of the Essex triangle, but I was well outside of it here. If anywhere, I was nearest to Epping so outside of the most obvious ‘real’ bogey man places in the county.
It was at this point the Master of Ceremonies introduced another speaker to come up and take the mic. It was a larger, old fashioned grey mic, held in the hand, but still cordless. The woman came up towards the stage as I quickly checked her for any branding or strangeness.
Sandra Workings took the stage to rapturous applause and the odd wolf whistle. The slightly overweight but flawlessly made up lady graced the stage.
“Thank you all, thank you.” she began, in her thick Essex accent. “And again, thank you to Justin Bodmin who will continue as Master of Ceremonies after I am done with you all.”
There were a few nervous laughs from the floor but in the main everyone was eager to listen to the new speaker. “I’ve spent hours getting ready as I know each and every one of the lovely ladies in the room has. Now we only have a few rules for the night gentlemen. Love your wife, lady or date for the night and forever more. This also applies to you Lee. We love you Lee but please keep your hands to yourself tonight as your lovely wife’s here!” She delivered the gag with all the theatrics of a crude drag act, but it seemed to draw a lot of applause from everyone, especially the ladies in the room. My eyes followed everyone else’s in the room and descended on the laughing Lee and his equally amused wife. At least they took it in good spirits.
I quickly focused on the branded male again who seemed to be just sitting and watching as Sandra continued to laugh at her own jokes as she descended onto the dancefloor and then among the tables. Everyone kept on laughing as Lee evidently began to play up to his new pantomime villain status.
Sandra, to my surprise, headed over to the branded man I had been watching earlier. Never losing a step in her routine, she then picked on someone called Trevor in the audience saying how she could always recognise him even behind a mask and that she thought the extra weight suited him. As the laughs rang out she had arrived at the branded man and she lowered the mic to her side as she quickly spoke to him. Everyone was still giggling amongst themselves and the man looked behind himself and directly at me.
I was sprung, “shit” was the only decent thought my brain came up with. Well, no point in hiding from here on in.
“Now ladies” said Sandra as she continued conducting the crowd. “On your table is a white envelope and as you know we are collecting for….” I zoned out at this point focusing on the marked man as he stood up. He didn’t excuse himself from the table. He just walked over towards me and I shot him what I hoped was my best and most welcoming smile. That’s the trick, smile when you first meet someone or so people say. It didn’t look like it was going to work on this bruiser though... Crap!
The man closed in on me quickly as he was no more than five steps away. He was tall, about six foot four in height. I backed up a little, forcing him to step through the curtains and back out into the now empty bar area.
The James Bond styled goon didn’t slow his pace at all. He carefully brushed aside the thick curtains and levelled his gaze at me. I pushed my thumb as I often did against the back of my ring spinning it and waited.
“Hello Sir,” said the man, with open arms. His body language was relaxed but his eyes were sharp and I had the feeling he was ready for violence. Then, with a local accent, he said “Would you like to step outside?”
“I have an
invitation.” I replied, still smiling at the shaven headed man.
“You’re not on the guest list sir, so could you politely leave. Through the doorway behind you Sir, I’ll gladly accompany you.”
“Really, is this necessary?” I asked with my arms up showing myself not to be a threat.
“I’m afraid so.” he replied and with a tone I didn’t like, then he added the dreaded. “I must insist.”
“I think you are missing the point. I’ve got an invitation, a legit one. I’m a guest and meant to be here.” I said in my defence, as I fumbled inside my dinner jacket pocket for the small paper invitation.
“Very good Sir but you are not here for the antiques ball, are you?”
“I am, I like antiques, I am a bit of an expert on Roman and Egyptian pieces, I have an extensive coll…” was as far as I got before he cut me off.
He took two long and very brisk steps towards to me. Now, he was close, close enough to strike me if he wanted to. I didn’t want to let rip with any defensive magic in such a public place, but I realised I may not have a choice as I’m not much of a brawler and he looked like he was.
If I had to use magic I could use it to get the fuck out of here at best. You see, people like me have to keep up something we all call the Veil.
The Veil is what lets most people sleep safely at night. It’s what normal people live by, the blissful ignorance that although there are nut-balls in the world there aren’t any supernatural ones that can walk through your walls at home or poison your mind through your dreams. A big part of keeping the Veil in place is containing these supernatural threats but also making sure normal people don’t end up with the power to do magic, rites and rituals and that we all play reasonably well within these rules.
The masked man stepped forward again, so I stepped back to give myself some room. “It doesn’t have to go down like this you know.” I said, as firmly as I could. “If you know who I am then you’ll know to ease up. It’s your final chance.” I added.