by Lee Isserow
He reached into his pocket, rooted around in the bag of holding sewn into the lining, and came out empty handed. He tutted to himself, rolled his eyes in futile admonishment. It was foolish to expect a pair of red/blue glasses to be hiding amongst the coins and notes floating around inside. In his last pocket, maybe, a relic from the past that he had kept as some kind of memento of better times―although better was relative.
He was happier freelance than he ever was as a Circle operative, happier still for having Ana in his life. For a moment, he considered ringing her to open up for him, but wouldn't let himself do so. He had bugged her enough over the course of the night, and turning up to interrupt her drinking was bad enough, without having to get her to open the door to enable him to ruin the rest of her night.
He sighed gruffly and started a slow, steady pace around the garden. Any minute, somebody would come out, or somebody would make to go in. Whichever way they were headed, he was going to grab their damn glasses and get into the club.
Another glance at the map, unfolding and refolding as the congealing blood and guts that symbolised the brood came ever closer. Still too far away to be a problem, for the moment at least.
There was a ripple in his periphery, a change in spacial dimensions that only the magickally inclined would be aware of. Even though he was low on mystical juice, he still had a lingering second sight, albeit much fainter than it once was.
The two houses began to compact, pushed into one another, brickwork cycled around the conjoined building in alternate directions, left and right, left and right, from the ground all the way up to their rooftops. The slate tiles slotted above and below one another, finally the red and blue doors converged, forming one purple door. But there was no door handle, no entrance possible for anyone without magick in their blood and red/blue glasses on their face.
The door swung open, and a merry old man wandered out, his arms looped around those of two remarkably young nymphs. Rafe recognised one of the entourage as a water nymph, her skin pale and blue, a ripple washed across her entire body with every step she took. The second looked as though she might be an earth or tree nymph, but Rafe always had trouble telling the difference between the two―both tended to have cracks across their dark, hard skin, and green, mossy eyebrows and hair.
Their genus didn't matter, he was more concerned with the glasses sticking out of the old man's jacket pocket. He walked towards the three of them as they wobbled with unsteady footsteps towards the gate, crossed right in front of them, his hand slipped between the man and the water nymph, grabbed hold of the glasses and he whipped past them to head for the door, which had separated back to their natural state.
Rafe took a quick glance over his shoulder, he watched the three of them step through the gate and on to the street. As soon as the group crossed the threshold, their latent enchantments kicked into effect, the two nymphs transmutated from creatures of nature into normal human women. Albeit very intoxicated human women.
His thievery unnoticed, Rafe slipped the glasses on, and the two houses merged once again, but with the red and blue lenses in front of his eyes, he could see the door handle and take hold of it. Rafe took a deep breath, and spat it out with a growl as he twisted the knob. He tried to convince himself he had a plan, and if not a plan, at the very least he wasn't going to make a scene. The situation called for a calm and collected attitude.
The bar was busy, people flocked around the stage. Smoke hung in the air, disappearing off up into the endless darkness of the ceiling. It looked as though one of their hourly stage shows had just ended. Rafe remembered the stage shows, and for the briefest of moments, wondered if they'd changed them up since he was last there. Then he remembered that he didn't care, and had more pressing matters to attend to.
He walked past regulars loitering at the bar and shot the satyr a polite smile, in which he feigned recognition, before darting his gaze across the room in search of Ana.
There were all manner of magickians present, a couple of other former Circle operatives that he recognised by sight, but couldn't put a name to. In one corner a bunch of six inch tall dvergars were standing on each other's shoulders to reach the surface of a table, playing cards against a saggy-fleshed man that Rafe reckoned was a panotti. The little men seemed to be getting angry, accusing the man of cheating, hiding cards in the folds and flaps of the long, heavy ears that dangled all the way down to the ground. In another life, another time, Rafe might have stepped in to stop the impending fight. But, he reflected, he wasn't that guy any more.
The commotion from the card table grabbed attention from others concealed in booths, heads popped up one by one to see what the noise was about. Rafe caught a glimpse of Ana in a corner booth against the wall. Lincoln's big, dumb face appeared alongside it, his arm disappearing behind her.
Although anger bubbled in his gut, he took a cool, calm pace towards the two of them. Their attention was fixed on the argument between the sub-dwarves and the floppy eared man, and he got close enough to see where Lincoln's arm disappeared to, resting on the back of the booth behind Ana, practically wrapped around her.
An automatic response took over. Rafe's fist flew through the air before he realised what he was looking at, let alone before he knew that he was seeing red.
His knuckles cracked Lincoln in the jaw, sending him hurtling out of the booth onto the stony floor. Everything in his being was telling him to kick the guy while he was down, plough a boot into his gut and knock the air right out of him―but before he could act, the gravity in the room shifted.
Not for everyone, just for him.
Rafe fell upwards towards the infinite darkness of the ceiling―then the gravity shifted again, throwing him against the wall with a resounding thud, that felt as though it fractured at least three of his bones in the process.
“What the bloody hell was that for?” Lincoln grunted, as he pulled his fingers back from the sigil that flipped his attacker through the air.
“You know what, you scheming arsehole!“ Rafe said, picking himself up to his feet, standing upright on the wall, glaring down at Lincoln.
“Really, Rafe old chap, there are more productive ways to deal with your jealousy. . .”
“Jealousy?! You think this is about jealousy? This is about you being part of the damn brood you sent us out on a wild goose chase to track down―” He turned to Ana. “Has he mentioned that? That he only sent us after one damn genus, with hundreds of the bastards still out there!?”
Ana felt a tingle of terror surge across her body. She knew there was something about Lincoln that she found off-putting, but she had put it down to being emotionally confused by the Rafe situation. The magickally-aided alcohol had felt like it had broken down that barrier. . . But she had spent hours with Lincoln, she had been in close proximity all that time. If that was how the brood spread, her change in attitude towards him was making a hell of a lot more sense. The tingle set off a shiver. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come.
“What the hell are you talking about? You're babbling all manner of nonsense Rafe!”
“Nonsense? What do you say to this?” Rafe held up the map, with the brood slowly making its way down the streets towards the single static brood member.
“Old Reva's casting is substandard at best, probably got my hair or skin mixed up in her soup.”
“That's bull, and you know it!”
Ana finally managed to force words from her throat, a froggy mumble of “Am. . . Am I infected?!”
Rafe's glare at Lincoln shifted to Ana, his lips parted, but he didn't know what to say to her. It was possible she was, and if so, there was only one way to deal with it. . .
She scowled at Lincoln. “Is that why you've been trying to get close to me? Trying to breed?”
The word kicked a half-forgotten memory bouncing back and forth Rafe's skull. Something about Teloah breeding patterns. Something important.
“He is trying to breed. . . he's not infected, not like the oth
ers. . . Somehow, he's the brood father, right Lincoln 'old chap'?”
Lincoln said nothing, and made no indication one way or another.
“He knows he's screwed up, the babies will come find their daddy eventually. That's why you wanted us involved, to pass the scent on. . . Spending time in your presence put your stink on us, and you doubled that up by getting me to kill the gestating Teloahs, set off a white cell reaction in the damn brood―They latched on to my aura and have been after me ever since.”
“I'm not infected?” Ana asked, her voice wavering.
Rafe shook his head, “Pretty sure.” And he found a smile appearing of its own volition.
Ana smiled back. “Pretty sure is nowhere near definite, you know that, right?”
“Best I got right now.”
She shrugged. “Guess that'll have to do. . . So how to do we end this? Where do we go? What do we do.”
“First, we get me off this damn wall. . .” He glared at Lincoln, who reluctantly shifted the gravity back to normal. Rafe fell to the ground, and as he did so, brought another fist down into Lincoln's face, which threw him to the stony floor all over again.
Rafe picked himself back up and met Ana's eyeline.
“That was stage one of your plan? Is kicking him in the balls stage two?”
He shook his head, grabbed Lincoln's whisky glass from the table and took a sip. “They're hunting me down. . . so we don't have to go anywhere or do anything for stage two.” He shot a boot into Lincoln's gut, just for the hell of it. ”All we need to do is wait for the bastards to show up, and take them out before they can do any more damage or infect anyone else.”
“That's literally the stupidest plan you've ever come up with.” Ana shot back, with a giggle. She hadn't realised just how much she had missed stupid plans.
“Being holed up with a bunch of rowdy, drunk magickians?” Rafe glanced around the room briefly, before he knocked back the whisky and locked contact back on Ana. “With a hundred infectious bastards out for my blood. . . Can't think of anywhere I'd rather be.”
Chapter 30
Reconsidering the plan
An hour later, most of which had been spent staring at the slow movement along the surface of the map, Rafe was reconsidering the plan he was formerly proud of.
The bar was starting to empty out, the hourly stage show reduced to a swift display that was barely five minutes long, rather than the previous performances that ran between twenty and thirty, and ushered an almost constant choral response of drunken oohs and aahs from the intoxicated onlookers.
Lincoln had been drumming his fingers on the table for the last five minutes, and Rafe was wondering just how far he could shove those fingers down the brood father's throat.
“You keep that up Lincoln, I'm going to make you eat the damn table.”
“Well what else am I supposed to do? I'm bored Rafe, and you won't let me drink any more.”
“You need to sober up. This is your mess, and I need you in fighting form to fix it.”
“Is more violence really going to fix things?” Ana asked. “Didn't killing a bunch of people put you in this mess in the first place?”
“He put us in this mess,” Rafe grunted, with a scowl at Lincoln.
“What if they could have been saved? Like I said before, put in stasis or held in some magickal limbo until a cure could be―”
“That's just yet more of his bull. You can't save people once a Teloah's got inside them.”
“You don't know that for sure.”
“Been on this rodeo before. . . So has he.”
Lincoln smiled wide. “Advances have been made, dear boy.”
“Advances?” Rafe scoffed. “You were just trying to save your own arse, as always. If there were advances, why didn't you just use them, instead of dragging us into this mess?”
“There we go again, blaming me for―”
“For what?! For ruining my day? For sending things to try to kill me? For getting my magick sapped? Damn right I blame you, you are literally responsible for all of it.”
“Am not.”
“Are bloody too.”
“Jesus!” Ana shrieked, pissed off at the both of them. “You're like children. . . What the hell actually happened?”
Rafe signaled to the satyr barman for a drink, and as soon as the glass was within arm's reach, grabbed it and knocked the whole thing back.
His eyes fell to the floor as the memories started coming to the surface all too clearly. He never thought he'd have to tell the damn story again. . .
Chapter 31
Be the best
“It was a straightforward operation. Straightforward by The Circle's standards, at least, which means it was somewhere on the line between catastrophic and apocalyptic. Closer to the former in this case. . .
“The mission was simple. With the aid of an adept we were to head to the Water Realm in search of a Lotan. Seven heads of pissed off sea demon that had been capsizing boats coming out of Alexandria. It was meant to be a cakewalk: find the thing, calm it down and shift it out of the shipping lanes so it was less of a hazard for normal folk.
“Of course, just because an op is simple on paper, doesn't mean it'll pan out that way. . .
“We anticipated the storm back in the Natural World, our adept assured us it wasn't going to be that big a deal over in the Water Realm. But that shows how useful he was. . . Re-breather casting he put on us didn't even work when we crossed realms, had to do it our own damn selves when we got on the other side―damn near drowned right out the gate.
“The three of us swum out to where the Lotan was estimated to be. Damn thing has Leviathan blood in it, skews with magick, so actually tracking it to a precise location was more guesswork than fact. And the storm sure as hell didn't help. Crystal clear waters are only crystal clear if they're still, with the torrent around you shifting this way and that, you can't see a damn thing.
“Lincoln here spotted the bastard before I did. Soon as he caught sight of one of its heads, rather than alert the rest of us to translocate it, or at the very least wait for the whole thing to become visible, he threw a damn molecular reconfiguration and an elemental blast at the thing,
“Don't think I've ever seen something so bright so close up. His casting ripped the oxygen and hydrogen apart, ignited it. The elemental he threw on top of it was just plain showboating, sending zinc or boron or something at the flames to turn them a bright, searing green. Damn near burned my retinas out, left me blind and thrashing about surrounded by Lotan blood whilst the other six heads came looking for whoever took out the first.
“Of course, Lincoln had retreated by then, swum back to look at his fireworks display from afar, rather than stick around to fish me out of the muck.
“I was in the middle of trying to glyph up and heal when the first set of teeth tore through my chest.
“Thing about Lotans is, their bodies are massive, but they slim up at the neck, their heads are only about the size of a rugby ball. Still, even though their heads are small, doesn't mean that six sets of jaws tugging your flesh in six different directions isn't pure agony. And being ripped open in the sea, you're not putting salt in the wound―you're putting your wounds in the damn salt.
“I blacked out from the pain.
“They told me our adept eventually tugged me out of the Realm, brought me back to the Natural World, kept me alive with glyphs as best they could before they dragged me back to the Epicentre.
“When I came to a month or so later, they told me it had taken three days for them to stitch me back together. Lotans and their damn Leviathan blood. . . The magick in their venom warded off any attempt at mystical surgery, they had to do things the newfangled mundane way. Literally put me back together piece by piece, hooked me up to blood bags to try and fill what was left of my useless, leaking skin sack back up.
“Took me the best part of a year to be able to walk again. Close to another year to be able to have the intricate muscle control re
quired for casting. . . but of course, that'd turn out to be a mess in and of itself.
“The Lotan venom was still cycling through my system, had crawled its way into my damn marrow. They said they managed to freeze the damage during the surgery, stopped it from completely sucking me dry. But as you know, the magick it left me with is. . . limited, at best.
“Worst thing is, I knew Lincoln was a showboating arsehole all along. Knew he was all about blowing things up and being the damn hero. . .but I thought we were friends. . .
“The adept told me as soon as Linc' saw those other six heads coming for me, he got out of there faster than anything. Left me to die. Left me to be the damn diversion whilst he got home safe and sound. . .“
Rafe couldn't bring himself to meet Ana's eye line. His life was changed that day―he was changed that day.
Everything turned upside down and inside out. Putting his faith in the wrong person sent him on a journey of self-discovery, but also on a path of self-loathing. Because of one damn mistake, he would never be able to return to who he was―who he thought he was―all because of one man's selfish desire to be a hero, to be lauded, to be the best.
Chapter 32
Pure, unadulterated intent
Ana got the feeling that Rafe couldn't bear to look at her. His rheumy gaze skirted the floor as he stewed in the memories that he had tried so hard to forget. She couldn't imagine what he was going through, despite knowing what it meant to have a life turned upside-down. Her experience was pretty much the opposite of his trauma, it ushered her into the magickal world, rather than ripping her from it.