by Logan Jacobs
“Thanks Kal,” I replied as the dwarf headed toward the van.
“HC, you’re driving,” Ariette ordered as she tossed me a set of keys and pointed to my dream car. “The guild is letting us borrow an extra car for tonight’s mission.”
“Awe, hell yes,” I breathed as I took in the sports car.
It was sleek, dark gray, with thick black tires and four doors. The headlights on the front were LED, and even though they were off, they were a brilliant blue color that made my stomach jump in excitement. I couldn’t wait to rev that engine and take off down the road.
“Why do you guys get the fancy car?” Kalista complained as she and Maaren headed to the van. The hunter giggled, which earned her a harsh glare from Kalista.
“Because someone decided to paint all the windows on the van black, and no one else can drive it,” I said pointedly.
“Oh right,” Kalista replied dejectedly. “That. I only did it because I wanted to protect my baby.”
“On that note, guys, if I die on this ride, just know that I love you,” Maaren said in a serious voice behind Kalista before she shot Ariette and me a wink. “I know that every ride with Kal could be my last.”
“Now you’re in for it,” Kal asserted as she marched inside the van. “I’m gonna drive twice as fast, and I’m going to make sure I hit every curb I can find. Every. Single. One.”
“My will is in my top drawer,” Maaren said carefully before she turned around and took off after the dwarf. “As are detailed feeding instructions for Jake.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Jake if you die in a horrible car accident,” I called before I turned excitedly to Ariette and tapped the hood of the sports car. “Let’s take this baby for a spin.”
“HC, we do have to actually get to the farm, you know,” she pointed out with an arched eyebrow.
“Oh, I know,” I responded with a broad grin, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun while we’re at it.”
Ariette flashed me a smile that lit my stomach on fire before she dove into the passenger seat as fast as lightning. I laughed as I opened my own door, and then I sat down on the soft leather seats that instantly molded to my butt and the back of my thighs. If I’d been asked what heaven felt like in that moment, I definitely would have said that heaven felt like the cushions of this sports car.
The high-tech navigation system in the dash reminded me of the one in Maaren’s car, and it lit up as soon as I put my thumbprint in the small pad next to the steering wheel. The car rumbled to life, and heat spread out along the leather seats.
Heated seats. Hell yes!
Ariette busied herself with the navigation screen and entered in the address for the wizard’s farm. I pressed down on the pedals, and the engine revved up with a loud roar.
“Are you as excited as I am?” Ariette asked with a wide grin. The sparkle in her eyes told me that she was both amused and excited to see what this thing could do. “Because I’m practically getting wet over here.”
“You are, are you?” I asked with a sidelong look at her. “I didn’t know you were a car girl.”
“What can I say, I like to ride things that are powerful.” She chuckled and pointed at the gates of the guild. “Now drive, HC.”
“As you wish,” I said and slammed on the gas. The car roared through the gates and out onto the road with a loud screech of the tires, and I spun the steering wheel to the right as the mechanical voice read aloud the directions to the wizard’s farm.
The car handled beautifully. I had never driven anything other than my delivery van and the beat-up old clunker my high school used for our Driver’s Education classes, but I was still completely sure that this car was the smoothest ride in the world. Every little tick of movement from my hands turned the steering wheel, and the car immediately followed suit. I put a bit of pressure on the gas pedal, and the car leapt forward.
“That’s the turn,” Ariette said as she pointed to a turn off the main road we were on.
I took it, and the car bumped along as the road became uneven. It clearly hadn’t been paved in a while, and I could see why. We were already on the outskirts of Jefferson City, and the road took us even farther than that, far out into the country. The houses that lined the road started to grow farther and farther apart until there was only a house every half mile or so. They were set back from the road quite a way, and then eventually, there weren’t even houses in sight.
We traveled down the unkempt road for miles as we passed orchards and pastures full of animals.
“Approaching destination,” the mechanical voice of the GPS finally said, and the directions stopped next to an old dirt road full of potholes and dips that led up to a rickety old farmhouse.
There was nothing but empty fields around for as far as the eye could see. If anyone came to steal the flowers, we would see them coming from several miles away. It was already mid-afternoon, and the warm sun hung in the sky and lit up the fields in the most beautiful way.
“Let’s go knock on his door,” Ariette said as she nodded at me to drive down the road. “We may as well be transparent about all of this.”
“I dunno,” I joked. “Have you ever seen how old hermits respond to authority figures? It’s generally not too well.”
I pulled the car to a stop just in front of the garage, but before we could get out, a decrepit old man hobbled out onto the porch with a long rifle and aimed it directly at me.
“Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded. His voice was papery and rough, like a lifelong smoker’s voice. His icy blue eyes were hard as they glared at us from under bushy, wiry gray eyebrows, and one finger was on the trigger of the rifle, ready to shoot at anyone and anything he wanted to.
I stepped out of the car cautiously, with my hands raised in the air and looked him over. The wizard was dressed in worn-out blue jeans and a red flannel shirt, and his long white hair flowed from both his head and his chin freely in long soft waves. There was dirt and grime under his fingernails and across his knuckles, and smears of dirt and oil were dotted around his leathery face.
“I told you he wouldn’t like us,” I whispered to the elf, and then I smiled at the wizard. “Hi there.”
“We’re here from the guild,” Ariette said as she stepped out of the car. “I’m Ariette, and this is Milton. You have a Moly Flower plant here, and there are some people who would very much like to steal it from you. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Ariette pulled her guild badge out from her pocket and held it aloft so he could see it. The wizard eyed it carefully for a long moment before he finally put his rifle down slowly.
“You say someone’s trying to steal my flower?” he grunted. “What makes you think that?”
“May we come inside?” Ariette asked in response. “I’d be happy to explain everything to you.”
The wizard didn’t say a word, but then he spun around on his heel and hobbled over to his rickety door. He swung it open roughly and stumped inside. The door slammed behind him, and Ariette and I shared a brief look before we followed him in.
“Why do they always have to be crazy?” the elf muttered to me.
“Like Professor Limmer?” I mused. “Maybe the Moly Flower just draws a certain type of person to it.”
The inside of the wizard’s farmhouse was surprisingly clean. We entered into a cozy living room with two overstuffed rocking chairs and a coffee table built from stained apple crates.
Across from the furniture was a beautiful red brick fireplace that was unlit in the summer warmth. The wall on the right of the fireplace wasn’t actually a wall but was instead a huge bookshelf lined with colorful books of all shapes and sizes. I caught the names of a few as I skimmed over the bookshelf. There was Tales of the Nether Realm, Living Alone But Not Lonely, and Creating Your Reality all smashed together on one of the lower shelves. The third title took me by surprise. It seemed a bit New Age for the old hermit who had just pointed a rifle in my f
ace.
Then again, this guy was a wizard, so nothing should surprise me.
The wizard stomped into an older kitchen off the side of the living room. The cabinets there had no doors, and I could clearly see the mismatched plates, bowls, and cups that filled the shelves. The tops of the cabinets were lined with pig figurines, lots and lots of them. There were tiny porcelain pigs, painted and detailed by a talented hand, stuffed pigs, needlepoint pigs, and pictures of pigs everywhere in the kitchen.
“Do you want some tea?” the old wizard asked gruffly. “It’s my own special blend, harvested from the leaves of bean plants in the area. It has a good blend of caffeine as well.”
“Beans and caffeine?” I asked curiously. “Wouldn’t that be coffee?”
The old man stuck out his tongue. “Coffee, in this household?” he gagged. “Never.”
“I will take some, please,” Ariette responded. When I didn’t say anything, she shoved her elbow into the bottom of my ribcage and gave me a look.
“Uh, yeah, me too, please,” I coughed out as I clutched at my bones in pain, and then I shot a glare at Ariette and lowered my voice to a hiss. “That wasn’t necessary.”
Ariette paid me no attention. Instead, she watched the old man as he bumbled about the kitchen. Her head was cocked to the side, and I could see the wheels turning in her head.
“What are you thinking?” I whispered to her, so low my voice was almost silent.
“He just looks familiar,” she mumbled back. “I swear we’ve seen him somewhere before.”
“My name is Herm, by the way,” the wizard called from his spot in front of the stove. He placed a bright red kettle over the gas flame before he hobbled over to the pantry. “Do you like herbal or floral?”
“Herbal,” Ariette responded for both of us.
“What’s a human doing working for the Seelie guild?” he inquired with his head still stuffed in his pantry.
“I’m an adept,” I replied as I puffed my chest out with pride.
“An adept, huh?” he repeated as he withdrew from the pantry. He gazed over me for a long moment, and I forced myself not to shrink under his stare. There was something strange about the way he looked at me as if he knew something I didn’t.
“Yes,” I answered, my voice strong. “A fairy gave me his Hand when he died in a battle.”
The kettle steamed and squealed as the water inside boiled, and Herm tore his gaze from me so he could pour three mugs full of steaming water before he placed the tea bags in them. He set the steeping tea cups down with a clunk on his old wooden table, and then he motioned to the mismatched chairs around it, a silent order for us to take a seat.
Ariette plopped into a painted white chair with a rounded back and cupped her hands around the heat of the ceramic mug. I sat next to her carefully in a blue cushioned chair that felt like it had lost its stuffing ages ago.
“Well,” Herm said as he planted himself in a brown chair across from us, “I guarantee that if anyone comes, we’ll be able to hear any car for a good long while before they get here. Also, nobody’s ever been able to get past ol’ Bessy and I.”
“Ol’ Bessy?” I asked. “Do you have a guard dog?”
“Nope,” the wizard grinned. “That’s what I call my rifle over there. She’s served me loyally for nearly thirty years. Unlike that witch I call my ex-wife.”
I had to stifle a giggle at the man’s snarky joke, but Ariette remained unphased.
“Even so, they may be on foot, and a rifle isn’t much of a match against a group of magic users,” Ariette replied with a shrug. “Where do you keep the flower?”
“Just in my garden out back,” Herm said as he pointed to a glass door off the kitchen. There was a clear view of a rectangular garden, and the bright yellow of the Moly Flower was smack in the middle.
“Perfect,” I responded as I eyed the flower.
“Are you two kids going to tell me what this is all about?” Herm took a long, calm sip of his steaming tea. “I used to work for the guild. I can tell when something serious is going on.”
“We can’t really disclose that,” Ariette said warily. “How long ago did you work for the guild?” Her eyes narrowed at Herm, like they did whenever she figured something out.
“Oh, you know,” Herm coughed out as he nearly choked on his tea and waved a hand nonchalantly, “just very briefly about fifty years ago.”
“You wouldn’t happen to be that wizard who got into the yelling match with Hasen over the prophecies, would you?” Ariette didn’t miss a beat as she shot the question at Herm.
Herm took another sip, and then he just about spat his tea all over the table.
“How would you know about that?” he demanded. “Wait, wait, I knew you looked familiar. You’re Dieyre’s kid, aren’t you?”
“The one and only,” Ariette answered calmly, “and he told me that you had quite the problem with Hasen regarding a certain scroll that foretold the return of the Phobos.”
Now, it was my turn to spit out my tea and have a complete choking fit. The liquid burned my throat and shot up my nose as I tried not to die from lack of oxygen. I turned to Ariette with wide eyes, still unable to talk through my coughing fit, but her expression was grim.
“That would be me, yes,” Herm responded coolly as he tried to hide his embarrassment. His voice cracked, but he drank a long gulp of tea to hide it. Clearly, the memory was still painful for him.
“You were right,” Ariette said quietly, and the old wizard’s head shot up when she said that, and he looked at her in shock.
“Hasen’s come around?” he asked hopefully.
“Not exactly,” Ariette replied as she pursed her lips in a thin line. “But this mission has to do with them. The Phobos. That’s all I can tell you.”
That seemed to be enough for Herm. He leaned back in his chair comfortably, a mixture of pride and astonishment on his face. Then the wizard crossed his arms for a moment, lost in thought. The burning in my nose and throat finally dissipated enough so I could speak, and I pushed the offending mug away as I poked Ariette’s shoulder.
“You didn’t tell me Hasen doesn’t believe,” I hissed, but she just shrugged coolly.
“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” she countered.
“Not a big deal?” I all but shouted before I got a hold of myself. “It is a very big deal, especially since, well, you know.”
I made my eyes wide to get her to read my mind. I wasn’t about to say that I was the Racmoth in front of Herm, but I was kind of annoyed right now. The freaking guild master had sent some poor wizard off to a life of seclusion because he believed in me. That seemed like a big deal.
“Oh!” Herm gasped, and I tore my gaze from Ariette’s and found the wizard staring at me in awe. “You’re him! You’re the Racmoth!” Herm leapt from his chair and hobbled over to me so that he could shake my hand vigorously. I felt my shoulder pop a little as he pumped my arm, and then I tried to pull back politely.
“I’m not sure--” I started, but Herm cut me off with a wave of his hand.
“Oh, of course, of course,” he replied with a fast wink. “Forget I said anything, but you just know, if you ever need any help, I’m here for it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ariette replied with a soft chuckle. “If we ever need your assistance, we’ll be sure to give you a call.”
“Well, I’d better let you two get to your stakeout, then,” he said awkwardly as he tried not to stare at me. “I’ll just be in the bedroom down the hall if you need anything.” He patted the sides of his thighs and then grabbed his mug before he hobbled off past the fireplace and through a small doorway to the left of it. The whole way, I heard him mutter, “Racmoth, my goodness. I was right.”
“Are we ever going to meet someone who’s just a regular Joe on a mission, do you think?” I asked Ariette when the wizard had disappeared from sight.
“HC, I don’t think there is such a thing as a regular Joe,” she said with a grin. “Rem
ember the world we live in. Besides, where’s the fun in being normal?”
“Good point,” I agreed. “So, now we wait.”
“Now, we wait,” she echoed before she grabbed her small tablet from the pocket of her pants. “No one’s seen anything suspicious yet.”
“I get the feeling we’re going to see all the action tonight,” I told her.
“Why do you say that?” she looked up at me, her blue eyes puzzled.
“Just a feeling.” I shrugged before I turned to look out at Herm’s garden and sipped my now lukewarm tea. “The Phobos must be getting desperate. We stopped them twice now, and we cut off one of their main sources of Moly Flower distribution. They’ve got to be planning something big, and soon.”
There was a rumbling feeling in my stomach like I’d had too much bad pizza. Maybe it was the realization that the Phobos meant business, or maybe it was the newfound knowledge that my team and I weren’t the only ones who knew about the prophecy of the Racmoth. Or maybe it was just plain old intuition, but the sinking feeling in my gut told me that tonight was the beginning of something very big.
While we waited, the two of us read through some of Herm’s book collection. I picked up Tales of The Nether Realm and quickly discovered that the nether realm was not some place I ever wanted to visit willingly. According to the book, the only way in or out was to offer a living sacrifice to the malicious pixies that guarded the borders, and even then, there was no guarantee a person would get out alive. The place was filled with dangerous vicious creatures like giants and basilisks, and while it was interesting reading, it did little to ease my anxiety.
It turned out that I had every right to feel that way.
It was well after the sun had gone down, when the stars shone out over the field and crickets sang their soft lullaby somewhere in the distance, but eventually, the rumble of a soft motor sounded, and then it grew closer and closer.
“That sounds like a motorcycle,” Ariette breathed as she turned to look out the tiny window of the front door.