by Al K. Line
Before we ducked into a thicket of undergrowth, I saw a wide leaf wrap tight around his head. The cries were cut off. Sweating, frantic soldiers struggled and pulled at the leaves, trying to rip them, but they were as solid as leather.
"You know what, Mack? Sometimes people really get on my tits."
"Yeah, mine too," he said, seemingly unperturbed by the fact the city was now eating people alive.
I still hadn't managed to make my call.
Rain
You know when a day starts off bad and you try to stay positive? You tell yourself it can't get any worse, and it's all about a positive mental attitude, right? Sometimes it works like a charm, other times, no matter how upbeat you are, the world conspires against you.
I was having one of those days. It felt like I was having one of those lives. The Rift had put me through the wringer, no doubt, but I'd managed to stay strong, come through victorious if a little—a lot—shaken, and stirred by the presence of Pumi. But I needed a proper rest, to recharge my low batteries. Otherwise, I was gonna make mistakes, and making mistakes in my line of work can lead to being very dead, very quickly.
All these years, the things I'd been through, seen and done, it has a lasting impression on the psyche. It warps you, I know that, how could it not? Laughing at death, joking when all around you is seriously gross stuff—sometimes it's the only way to stay even half sane.
So, as the heavens opened and the day switched from unbearably hot and humid, weird and wonderful in its own way, and rain like someone had seriously royally pissed off the Almighty hammered me until I couldn't even stand upright, well, I just had to laugh.
I was standing best I could, surrounded by a fast-forming jungle, trees already reaching above the tops of houses, the canopy floor becoming shaded and the plants now stunted because the light was dappled. I raised my head to the heavens to let the downpour do its worst. Actually, it was rather bad.
Great globs of steaming water pummeled me, battered my face and shoulders as though I was in a car jet wash or a high-powered shower designed to blast the skin right off you. I stood and I took it and I laughed. I knew it was gonna be about the best fun I would have that day, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to at least try to get the day off to a better start.
Sheltering under a plant shaped like an umbrella, and with Mack clean of goop as the water ran off him like a waterfall, I texted Pumi, asking if he fancied a visitor and could I come over?
He replied in seconds, which was a good sign—showed he was keen—and gave me the address. I knew the street, and I was impressed. But then, half the city had left when the Rift came, so maybe he'd just been there first and nabbed it before anyone else.
Immediately I panicked, thinking of the stress the city would be under if everyone decided to return once this jungle was hopefully dealt with. But then, we'd managed before, so why not again?
Because there were less Strange humans then, that was why. With the Rift came curiosity and many Strange and Regulars had come and stayed, wanting to be close to such a momentous, once in a lifetime event. It would be one hell of a headache to deal with if everyone did come home. Everyone fighting over property, arguing about who owned this and that.
One thing at a time, Swift. For now, before you go chasing the craziest woman in the city around, and I knew it would be rough, go see the shifter monster and try to relax.
Thinking about Pumi made my belly flutter, even though he also if not scared me then made me apprehensive. Such violence he'd unleashed when a monster, the things he'd done. But only to save us, and the terrible sadness I saw afterward told me more about the man than most are ever willing to share.
Yeah, I trusted him, knew there was something genuine about him, and I wanted to get to know him better.
Okay, yes, and I was horny as hell. Using magic, wielding powerful, elemental forces of nature at its rawest, it awakens something in you. Makes you crave more life, more experience, and what better way to feel alive than being naked and sweaty for reasons apart from the weather?
Mack did his best to clear our passage, pulling down vines, trampling the lower plants, trying, and failing, to push aside thick tangles of roots that sprang up like prisons, ready to snare and offer you as a prize to the carnivorous plants. It was evident that some of the plants were after flesh. As we made our slow progress through the city, there were signs of things changing once again.
Huge goblet-shaped plants with clusters of towering flutes had sprung up in the gaps on the jungle floor, insects and mammals buzzing or scratching at the leathery hides inside the sweet-smelling plants. Now half-full of water, everything drowning and slowly being dissolved by a weak acid. Food for the plants that seemed to be doing damn fine without the extra nutrients.
Other plants would follow our progress, the leaves turning in the direction of any heat source. Ready to grab us with thick tendrils if we remained motionless for too long. Without Mack with me I think I would have been using a lot of magic to stop myself being plant food.
Even Mack was looking worried, and he was the kind of creature to take everything in his stride and always look on the positive side. Damn annoying in other words. As the morning heated up and the city sprang to more and more life of the unwanted kind, I wondered how long this could continue. Surely if this was a reaction to the Rift then it should be dissipating by now? The after-effects of the communal pull on the Pool waning, everything returning to normal? But it showed no signs of doing so. It was merely getting hotter and wetter and increasingly hazardous to move.
It wasn't an impenetrable jungle, though. There were pockets of the city that were hardly touched, random patches where the road still remained. Just the odd sapling struggling for life but stunted, ugly, and dying. As if the ground were poisoned. Maybe it was. Maybe there was something about certain spots that meant the jungle would never grow, but what this was I had no clue, and the rain hammering hard on my head made logical thinking difficult.
In the end I pulled on the Pool, felt a tinge of invulnerability as I protected myself with a weak shroud that allowed me to slowly get my mind into gear while the rain fell around me, fizzing and hissing as it hit the magic barrier, leaving me if not dry then at least no wetter.
"Ooh, swanky digs," said Mack as we stood the other side of the fence, staring at what would once have been an impressive garden, and was now an impressive jungle.
"Yeah. Either he's rich or has taste and grabbed it the moment the owners left."
"Bet he's rich. He's well old, babes, probably been saving and building up an empire. That's what I'd do. Yeah, I'd be like a billionaire playboy tycoon or something. Have loads of hot chicks wandering around my pad in bikinis and laughing at my wicked jokes. I'd be well minted, innit."
I turned and looked at my demonic friend, who smiled back at me, waiting for me to agree that yes he would be a playboy billionaire if he spent a few thousand years in our world. But I didn't, because he wouldn't, and because hardly any Strange ever ended up having loads of money or being so rich they were in the public eye.
"Mack, it doesn't work like that. Most Strange end up living pretty average lives. You forget, as you're immersed in all the technology stuff at the moment, the TV and the Internet, but that's all so recent it's like a blink of an eye. Most people are poor, and most Strange are nothing special, just live longer. Some of us, anyway. But vampires are obsessed with being vampires, the blood thing, and witches, wizards, all the rest, most live extended lives but usually much less than a thousand years. Then they get old and die. And most never have the drive or interest to spend a hundred, two hundred years, trying to build up any kind of empire. Where would you start? If you're poor then chances are you stay poor, even if you live to be a thousand."
"Maybe, but I'd be rich. I'd be a playa, and get a big gold chain with Mack on it. Maybe a baseball cap. Hmm."
I shook my head at the warped mind of my friend. He'd definitely been watching way too much TV. He needed to stop ac
cessing all the information in the Pool and get a reality check. The truth was, most wizards and witches in Strangetown had lived a considerable amount of time, but were just average people apart from their skills.
Unless you took to being a criminal, then the world offered few chances for the likes of us. Less than many average people, because there was always something about us that made people edgy and uncomfortable, even before we came out to the world.
We are loners, the untouchables. The outcast of the village that people shunned or secretly came to for advice and information, but never just another regular person—Strange, even if back in the day nobody knew we carried magic inside.
"Right, I'm going in to see Pumi, and then I guess I should go look for Blue. Damn, can this day get any worse?"
"You'll be fine, just don't get eaten by any plants."
"Right, see you later. You don't have to stay with me, you know? Go do, er, what you want to. I'm glad you decided to stay, Mack, but there must be things you want to do now you know you're staying." I wondered what that might be, now Mack was seemingly a permanent resident.
"You sure? Cool. In that case I'm gonna go back home and catch up on a few things."
"Like what?" I shouldn't have asked.
"I gotta find out if Chandler and Monica get it on. Have you seen Friends? It's the most awesome show ever. So real, just like I imagine life to be. Ooh, so exciting."
I rolled my eyes, but said nothing. If that's what the height of fun was for him now he was here then so be it. At least he'd keep out of trouble. And, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what happened to them in the end. I'd have to ask Mack, if I made it home.
We said our goodbyes and I pushed on through the open gate to Pumi's little slice of paradise.
Visit to Pumi's
The garden was like a tamed jungle, as if the Shift had come then gone into stasis. It was there, but seemingly growing to a set of rules only it understood. Banana, and coconut trees, fig and numerous unidentifiable plants, all growing to create a majestic front garden that was beautiful in a wild way.
It fronted the impressive house perfectly. A long oblong of glass and steel, modernism with a flourish, with a pergola running its length over a nice courtyard area with seating. A huge vine, trunk thick as a leg and as gnarled as Pumi when a monster, offering shade. Bunches of unripe grapes hung low, hinting at lazy afternoons spent reaching for fruit and sipping on cool drinks. It was damn perfect. The kind of modern home I'd dreamed of living in the last few years, but had never pursued as there was something inside that drew me to the communities of witches and wizards where we can be close and help each other if need be.
I'd lived in nice places not dissimilar to this over the years, at least in terms of idealism if not materials, but there was always something missing, and it never worked out. Lifetimes worth of memories came flooding back. Of men, of husbands, of the mundane and the exciting. And the sadness. Such sadness. However much I tried to lead a normal life, there was always an emptiness inside, as if I was playing at being a regular person. A hole that only those like me could fill.
Maybe it was the need for excitement and danger. A side-effect of knowing I could touch the Pool at will, feel the elemental forces of nature flow through my veins, that meant I could never truly relax and settle into a simple life. I always craved more, yearned for my own kind who understood the pull the Pool had on me, as it did the same to them.
And always the need to help. Strange would lose the plot, run rampant, and someone had to clean up the mess or rein them in before things escalated. Why I felt responsible I don't know, but that probably goes back to my upbringing where magic was part of my life from a very delicate age. Seeing how my mother abused her position, felt scorn for Normals, as if they were second-class citizens, never accepting that it was us that were the outcasts, the ones that caused so much trouble.
All of us are lost to some degree, and those that can access this magic, we are the most lost of all. We know for a fact there's so much more to life, and we're antsy, always looking for answers to questions we don't even know we have, and that's not conducive to a life of acceptance, of living for what you have and never wanting more.
Still, I wouldn't change it, not for the world. Magic is what defines me. I would not be here without it, and I'm in-tune with the background hum of the universe. But it's a cold and uncaring place, and makes me understand just how insignificant I am as a little human being with my own cares and concerns when I have knowledge of such vast and timeless forces.
Live for the moment, that's what I had to do. Before I chased around the city and bashed heads or got mine bashed, just live for the now. Enjoy this life, this opportunity, take what was given and be grateful.
So when Pumi slid a large panel of glass aside as he saw me approach, I ran to him and leapt. He caught me and I wrapped my legs around his firm body and kissed him.
We were inside and naked in a heartbeat.
I hadn't planned it, wasn't the type to enter into a relationship with anything but caution and yes, mistrust, but if the Rift had taught me one thing it was that life can change, or end, without a moment's notice. So maybe it was time to start living rather than worrying about things outside of my control.
And I'm glad I went for it. Pumi was a compassionate, caring, and eager lover. But it had been a very long while for the both of us, so we didn't exactly break any records, and all too soon it was over. We lay on his cool, tiled floor, wrapped up in each other and sweaty even though air conditioning thrummed away in the background and the expensive glass muted the glare of the sun now the rain had stopped and the sky was blue, crisp, and clear.
"I'm out of practice," said Pumi. "Next time will be more than a couple of minutes."
"Next time?" I asked with what I knew was a cheeky grin on my face.
"Yeah, next time. I have a lot of catching up to do."
So, we caught up, and it did take longer the second time. And the third.
The Monster Inside
Panting, and happier than I'd been in a long time, I traced the scars and ruins that constituted Pumi's flesh. He was a mess, there's no polite way to put it. More of his skin was damaged than was whole. Deep lines like raw rivers tracking across his body—you could read his life through pain.
There were livid gouges in his thighs, the large area on his upper leg where the skin was stripped long ago, signs of breaks and improper healing, lumps and bumps where bone had fused but not quite correctly. How much was from the life he'd led, and how much from the shift that happened when he became what I felt guilty for referring to as the monster, I had no idea, but it told of a hard life. Of a man that refused to give in to anything the world threw at him, and it sure had thrown a lot.
Pumi said nothing as I ran a finger along a deep indent on his leg where it looked like a chunk of his muscle had been cleaved out and healed over badly. I felt him tense, though, a shudder running through him as if it brought back distant memories. Or maybe he was aware of how he looked now we were out the other side of the throes of passion.
"Sorry, is that making you feel uncomfortable?" I moved my hand away, not wanting to intrude on something so personal. "You don't have to talk about it, or feel self-conscious with me. Not now." Suddenly, I felt all too aware of my own body.
I was slim, firm in all the right places, soft in the right ones, too, but my body was no blank canvas either. Endless telltale marks revealed the life I'd led. Of fights won and lost, scars and burns and everything that goes along with living a long and eventful life, but it paled in comparison. Long ago, I accepted myself for what I am, never feeling vulnerable naked—there's plenty of other things to make me feel awkward but my body isn't one of them.
"No, I like it. The touch, the fact you want to. But most women get grossed out by it, think I'm this dangerous guy, all macho and invincible. This," he indicated his legs, the worst of the damage, "shows I'm no Superman, that I've had my fair share of knocks. Worse." H
e winced at memories, maybe at the memory of the reactions of others. I saw disappointment, at how he'd been treated by women, even after they'd shared the most intimate of moments.
"I'm not other women," I said, looking him right in the eye. "This is you, who you are, and if people can't accept you then it's their loss."
Pumi nodded, then smiled. I think I actually said the right thing for once, rather than something stupid that made the situation worse.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Now, what does a gal have to do to get some lunch around here?"
"I'll show you." Pumi grabbed me by aforementioned wobbly bits and I grabbed him by something entirely the opposite and we got practicing for the last time that day.
We were getting quite good at it.
*
I smiled as Pumi got up and padded over to the kitchen area, finally having the time to appreciate the home he'd made for himself, not before first appreciating the firm behind and the rippling muscles. Damn, but he was a powerful man, but also one hell of a mess. Watching him move around the kitchen, at ease without his clothes on after our conversation, or at least trying to act that way, it really highlighted the damage, and I held back tears for what people are capable of doing.
I could picture him, all those years ago, fighting for his life in a gladiatorial arena, cut and hacked at, calling forth the power of the monster he had hidden inside, never letting it loose or others would know what he truly was. Just channeling the energy to come out victorious, but at what cost?
What kind of life had he lived since then? Where had he been, what had he done? There must have been so many different lives lived, like me but multiplied over and over. Loss is inevitable for such an extended life and who did he have to turn to? Nobody, was my guess, for shifters normally live regular lifespans. He was an exception, no doubt, but how? Because he was an aberration, that's why. I couldn't imagine such loneliness, the solitude down the ages. Maybe we could change that, together, if only for a little while.