by Nazri Noor
Who could say if there were plenty of triggers that could be considered more dire than a knife through the heart, but I suppose that counted as extreme enough. It was the Lorica that took me in after that whole bloody incident, and it was the closest thing to stable employment as I’d ever gotten. The biggest perk, of course, was getting to learn more about what I could do – what I am – and how I could use that to make the world a little less crappier in general.
My stomach grumbled again. That was right. I still had the truffle I’d appropriated from the Pruitts’ kitchen. I pried it out of my pockets, fumbling to unwrap it, maybe a little too excited to pop it in my mouth. Give me a break, okay, that sandwich I had for dinner clearly didn’t last. I let the truffle sit in my cheek, the cocoa powder spreading across my tongue, dark chocolate slowly melting.
I wondered how many of these Hank Pruitt liked to eat in a day. I wondered if he had any inkling last night that he didn’t have much time left to enjoy more truffles, or much of anything else. I shook my head and sighed. It was like Thea and the Scions always tried to impress upon us at the Lorica. We did our jobs to make sure people like the Pruitts didn’t end up the way they did.
Protection was our purpose, and that was what the word Lorica actually meant: armor. Thea had told me that the day she recruited me, and I looked it up after, just to be sure. It was body armor, specifically, the kind that the ancient Romans wore as breastplates. So the Lorica was the torso, and the rest of us functioned in concert as its parts, the Hands, the Wings, the Eyes, and so on, working together to guard both the regular world and the arcane underground from the very worst that magic could do. But I couldn’t help thinking that we had stumbled. We had three corpses on our hands, after all.
Still, we couldn’t very well save everyone, and we were doing everything we could to mop up in the aftermath. I sighed, my breath tumbling out in a puff of fog. Valero could get pretty chilly in the morning, and I was lucky at least that it wasn’t so windy out in the streets that particular day. I eyed the shadows cast by the buildings in the neighborhood, so sorely tempted to step into them and make my commute that much shorter, but that would have been about as subtle as taking off my pants and screaming “Look I’m a wizard” while streaking down the boulevard. Sure, I was entering a commercial district, and not a lot of people were up and about just yet, but it was the type of thing that Thea would have been quick to label as showboating. The Lorica didn’t like that.
They didn’t like it when their people got too flashy, or took dumb risks, especially when the risk wasn’t just exposure. I was told that I could make greater leaps, bigger steps once I had a better handle on shadowstepping, but I was supposed to stick to line of sight for now. I’d heard way too many horror stories about Lorica Wings and teleporters who bit off more than they could chew and ended up shifting themselves into unfamiliar spaces – like the middle of the ocean, for example.
I very briefly reconsidered calling a car, but after finding myself a little bit out of breath from having walked just two miserable blocks, decided that I probably did need the exercise after all. Not so far now anyway, I told myself. I could just make out HQ from where I was walking, this squat, ugly building just on the edge of Central Square. It made me chuckle every time I saw HQ from this vantage, how it looked like a lumpy sack of potatoes next to the glamor of so many glitzy office buildings, hotels, and restaurants.
I pushed the white plastic button on the facade of the little structure the Lorica called home. It had a concrete exterior, the kind that looked like it was studded with pebbles so that it was all knobbly, making it seem almost vintage, nostalgic. It made the building just shy of hip enough to fit in with the heart of Valero, despite being so bland and uninteresting. The best word to use to describe HQ was nondescript, just the way the Lorica liked it. In modern parlance, it was very “Meh.”
A static-muffled voice sounded out through the ancient speaker, its yellowed plastic in stark contrast to the faux dark stone finish of the facade. “Password,” the voice asked.
I looked around to make sure no one was in earshot, recalled it was a Tuesday, then bent in closer and whispered. “Manticore.” A different word for every day of the week, and sometimes the sequence changed, which wasn’t much of a pain when admin remembered to email us a fresh batch of codes.
The speaker crackled back with something vague and noncommittal, and a low click from the door told me that it was safe to enter. That was crucial, see. The Scions liked to keep a contingency of protection spells active, just in case. They were more like traps, really, and the whole point of buzzing in was to make sure nobody accidentally walked through and took several fireballs straight to the face.
A gust of warm air welcomed me as the door swung inward, a nice change from the cold of the early Valero morning. The warmth wasn’t from an internal heating system, either, but from one of several magic-fed fires kept burning throughout the building, whether from braziers or fireplaces. No wood or coal, so no smoke. Why resort to magical flames, you ask? Who knew. The Scions had their own way of doing things.
That, and maybe the fact that the fire went with the decor, and the reality that everyone who worked at the Lorica was, in some shape of form, a real life frigging wizard. The inside of the Lorica was honest to goodness like the interior of some enormous library, looking like it had been hewn out of only the most expensive lacquered wood, the floors carpeted in massive, sumptuous rugs, all the light coming from eldritch flames flickering in polished brass candelabras, or smokeless fireplaces, or the aforementioned braziers positioned in every corner.
Did I mention that the place was huge? Because that’s important. You could see all the action from the mezzanine, but for the most part every department could be found on one of only two floors. From the outside, HQ looked like it could be about the size and importance of a local post office. The interior, however, seemed to stretch on for at least a mile along both axes. I didn’t know how the geometry of it all worked out, but for whatever the Lorica paid in terms of property tax, I’d say that it was pretty damn worth it.
And the style – the utter, heartbreaking style of the place was something else. It was a magical office for magical people, after all, so it wasn’t uncommon to see paper planes sailing through corridors, or books flapping their pages like birds. Sure, it was just as easy to fire off an email or get a courier to do all that, but this was the Lorica we were talking about.
From where I stood, a sleek, spiny dragon made out of sheaves of documents roared and flew from one end of the library to the other. I guessed that it was heading towards the accounting department. Sure, they had to do tons of paperwork, but they definitely knew how to make it fun.
Further off from the central work area alchemists stirred and scrambled colorful liquids and reagents in bubbling beakers and flasks full of who-knows-what, their laboratory set apart to avoid mishaps, just in case something exploded.
The astrolabes, sextants, and compasses set by the huge, glowing map of the earth that the Eyes used to do their surveillance work made it feel like a proper magician’s study, albeit a massive one. It was every fantasy nerd’s wet dream, and that’s without even mentioning all the cool artifacts and devices they kept in the Gallery.
It was a conundrum, how they fit all that into the building. I had considered that maybe the exterior was just some kind of illusion, versus the possibility that the enormity of HQ’s insides meant that it dwelled within its own pocket dimension. Nobody had a straight answer for me, not even folks who had worked there for years, and the Scions probably wanted to keep things that way. It helped keep the Lorica and its secrets secure.
“Heya, Dustin,” the girl at reception cooed, peering around from behind her flatscreen monitor. Her cheeks lifted as she smiled in greeting, the beautiful bronze of them going just a bit rosier, or so I liked to believe.
I ran my fingers through my hair, black and a little clingy to my forehead, brushing it out of my face and grinning,
because people seemed to like it when I did that. It brought attention to my eyes which, as many women have said, are the best part of my face.
Okay, fine. It was just my mom. Shush.
“Hey yourself, Romira,” I said, giving her my best smile.
She cocked her shoulder, black hair spilling in waves over her back, her lips just friendly enough, but never too friendly. She had all the trappings of a sweetheart, with a pretty smile and laughing eyes, which made her seem totally harmless. The keyword was seem. That was probably why the Scions liked to keep her up front.
Romira just looked like a nice young woman who worked in reception, but she was supposedly one of our most powerful Hands, the literal beast that guarded the gates. She also occasionally put in work as an Eye, which was the first I’d heard of anyone at the Lorica doing double duty. Her specialties were probably what made her so ideal for manning the front desk.
Anyone who miraculously made it past the traps up front had to contend with Romira. I’d never seen exactly what it was she could do, but office gossip told me that the last poor soul who thought they could barge their way through ended up as a greasy black smear on the floor, which they kept covered up with a rug in the center of the room. I tried to stay on her good side, which, frankly, wasn’t that hard considering how she was always nice to me anyway. And I mean really nice.
She leaned her chin into her hand, drumming her fingers on her desk and putting on a piteous expression. “Aww. Rough night, Dust? You look exhausted.”
“Totally destroyed,” I said, shrugging. “But you know how it is, gotta come to work anyway. The boss wants to see me.”
Romira cocked her head, her smile spreading wider. “Lots of people want to see you, Dust.”
“I. Uh.” I chuckled nervously, scratched at the back of my neck, and cleared my throat. “Gotta go.” Like I said, I could be good with people, but only to a point. Being charming was easy until someone tried to be charming right back, and Romira played this game like a grandmaster.
Her eyes twinkled a kind of red as she laughed, her teeth sharp and glinting. “Come back here,” she teased. “I’m not done with you.”
I half-stopped and half-stumbled away from her desk, watching as she muttered and wove her fingers over the reception area, drawing an intricate web out of pale fire. She ended the spell with a snap, and the pattern vanished.
“Take over for me, Mary,” she said.
I knew about Mary by then. That was the name Romira gave to the elemental construct she sometimes used to staff the reception desk when she had to use the ladies’, or, as in this case, when she felt the need to taunt me a little bit more. Mary manifested out of thin air, a wispy silhouette of a woman made out of orange fire. The construct put on Romira’s headset, then answered a call in a voice I could best describe as sultry, and a little smokey.
“Honestly jealous that you can do that, you know.”
Romira smirked. “We all learn at our own pace, Dust. You’ve been here what, a few weeks now? Took me ages to master how to summon Mary, much less get her to pick up a phone. Also to stop her from setting everything on fire.”
Mary penciled something into a legal pad, then gave us a thumbs up.
“Still can’t manifest her for too long, though, I need more practice. But I’m just famished. Gotta take a break. Walk with me to the pantry?”
She didn’t have to ask twice. My stomach grumbled, and I resisted the urge to swipe one of the candies she kept in a bowl on her desk. I’d never seen her eat one, and probably for good reason.
I’d once noticed that the candy bowl was almost empty, only to watch as the leftover pieces just sort of started – wriggling. Writhing against each other, like they were trying to reproduce. The bowl was full again the next morning. When I say I watch what I put inside my body, it’s not about me trying my best to be a good Californian. There really were certain things that I would rather not let slip past my mouth, and several of them lived inside the Lorica.
But the coffee at HQ was pretty good, which was why I happily followed Romira to the break room. She poured us a couple of cups from a device that looked far more like an alchemical apparatus than a coffee press.
They had some muffins set out as well, those ridiculous triple chocolates ones that I liked so much. Romira snatched one for herself, balancing it on her coffee cup, then threw me a wink before trotting off back to her station. That left me alone in the break room, which was just fine by me since it gave me the privacy I needed to shove the muffin straight down my gullet.
I ambled off towards the Gallery, the hub of shelves and display cases the Lorica used to store the artifacts us Hounds retrieved for them. This was where two of my closer friends at HQ tended to hang out. I looked around for Herald, a Gallery archivist who also doubled as one of the Lorica’s best alchemists, and found him wrestling with the Book of Plagues.
Wrestling might not have been the right word for it. Black-haired, bespectacled, and dressed like the snappiest librarian I’d ever seen, Herald Igarashi had his hands thrust out against the book, muttering to himself as violet skeins of light surged from his fingers. The Book of Plagues flapped and struggled in defiance.
I rushed forward, ready to assist when the book jerkily leapt up from Herald’s desk to snap at his fingers. Fury twisted his features, and before I could bother to help, Herald balled his hand into a fist and punched the book square in its leather-bound cover. The book screeched, then fell to the desk, its pages fluttering limply.
“Stay down, damn it.” Herald adjusted his tie, then nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“That’s a mean left hook. Uh. Need help?”
“Can’t talk,” Herald muttered, wiping a hand against his forehead. “Gotta get this son of a bitch in cold storage before it starts fighting back again.”
“That sleeping dust you gave me worked wonders before.”
“Oh?” Herald’s eyes lit up, to show that he found my suggestion helpful, or perhaps because he considered it a compliment. He did create the powder after all. He lunged across his workspace, reaching for a phial of the purple dust, then promptly dumped it all over the grimoire. The book’s pages fluttered, then went limp.
“Thanks for the tip,” he said, sighing with some relief. “Gonna go grab a case to put this in. Bulletproof one, just to be safe. I’ll probably chain it up, too.” He cracked his knuckles, then favored me with a small grin. “Talk later?”
I gave him a salute as he walked off into the archives to hunt for supplies. Herald’s work was pretty serious, making sure the artifacts stayed put exactly where they were, especially the ones that, in the wrong hands, could cause widespread disaster.
Eyeing the Book of Plagues and noting that it was pretty much unconscious, I headed over to another section of the Gallery, to a glass display case where a sword lay across a velvet cushion. The blade and scabbard were cast from tarnished bronze, aged to a murky green with verdigris. Deep red garnets decorated its hilt, jewels that seemed duller, dimmer than the last time I’d visited.
“Vanitas,” I said. “Hey. You in there?”
The sword said nothing. Now, I’m going to sound totally crazy, but this was that other friend I was talking about. Some weeks back I’d been tasked to retrieve this very artifact, what I’d been informed was basically a magic sword. Nobody told me it could talk, or fly of its own accord, or even fight, which was how Vanitas and I became friends. I was in the Meathook, a really rough part of Valero, and some thugs were bothering me. He sprang to life, beat them up, then cut off one of their hands. It was this whole thing, and it was so, so awesome.
But Vanitas had gone silent the day I brought him back to the Gallery. Herald tried to tell me that it must have been my imagination, that the sword’s enchantment might have been to cast that very illusion and convince me it could talk, and fly, and fight. But I swear I’m not insane. I could remember Vanitas’s voice so clearly, yet all he’d done for weeks was sit perfectly still o
n his cushion. I tapped at the glass.
“Vanitas. Yo. It’s me, Dustin.”
Still no response. I sighed and turned away, just in time for Herald to come back with a trolley loaded with a fresh glass case and some incredibly sturdy-looking chains. Enchanted, of course, because nobody wanted something as aggressive and vile as the Book of Plagues breaking its way out and wreaking havoc in the Gallery.
It took some heavy lifting, but together we managed to strap the book down and negotiate it into its new home. Prison, more like. I thought of Vanitas again, wondering whether that was why he had gone silent.
“Herald. These cases, are they enchanted or something? I mean, in some way to nullify an artifact’s power?”
He cocked an eyebrow and shook his head. “Never. The point of the Gallery is to keep these relics safe, not to destroy or neuter them completely. The chains are there to restrain the tougher bastards.” He gave the book’s display case a half-hearted kick. “But no. The glass is mostly protective.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to show my disappointment. “Thanks for explaining.”
There had to be another reason Vanitas was lying dormant. But if Herald had no answers, then what chance did I really stand of solving the mystery of the sword’s silence myself?
I left Herald to his work then. It was cool to have a few friends at the Lorica, whether it was him, or Romira, or Prudence. Everyone was happy to help each other out, I’d noticed, and I was always glad to extend a hand whether or not somebody asked. Unless, of course, that person happened to be Bastion.
Who, incidentally, I hadn’t seen since getting to HQ, which was weird considering he probably beat me there on his speeding death bullet of a motorcycle, but that was just as well. I turned a corner as I grudgingly made my way to Thea’s office, dreading what it was that she wanted to talk about, when I came face to face with exactly the person I was trying to avoid.