Instrument of Chaos

by Rebecca Hall

  “What kind?”

  “Raspberry and white chocolate.” Mitch was reasonably sure that that was Cullum’s favourite or it had been eight months ago. Nikola had rolled his eyes at the non-committal answer and made them anyway. They probably would be Cullum’s favourite by the time they were finished; Nikola was freakishly good at baking. Mitch wasn’t sure how he found time for it, let alone how he’d found the time to learn.

  “So what are we doing today?” Cullum asked around a mouthful of muffin. Mitch almost told him not to talk with his mouth full.

  He shrugged, it was already mid-afternoon and Good Friday was one of those annoying public holidays where everything was closed.

  “Do you want to see the aviary?” Mitch asked, figuring it would be a hair more appealing than ‘Do you want to walk through the botanic gardens?’ Still, it was a reasonably nice day and Cullum had spent it in a succession of planes and airports. He probably wouldn’t care for the flowers any more than Mitch did, unless that was another thing that had changed, but Mitch didn’t know what else to do with him.

  “Sure,” Cullum said, one hand creeping towards the muffins. Mitch snatched them out of reach.

  “Nikola’s going to decorate them later,” Mitch said when Cullum pouted. “And he’s cooking us dinner.”

  “Where is he anyway?”

  “Asleep,” I hope, Cullum seemed to have forgotten what an inside voice was.

  “It’s three o’clock,” Cullum said, his voice whiny though Mitch couldn’t see what he could possibly be whining about. Cullum had never warmed to Nikola.

  “He’s been sick,” Mitch said, “he needs to rest. And I said no.” Cullum was trying to sneak another muffin.

  “I don’t care if they’re decorated,” Cullum said. He was definitely whining now.

  “Nikola does.”

  “He’s such a girl Mitchell.”

  “I happen to like girls,” Mitch glared at him.

  “Why couldn’t you have stayed friends with Bates? I liked him.”

  Because Bates was dating a sociopath and had refused to talk to him after he became a vampire. Hell, Bates had barely been talking to him before he became a vampire.

  “Go put your shoes on,” Mitch ordered. It was going to be a long week.

  #

  The house smelled of roast chicken when they returned. Mitch had dragged Cullum all through the botanic gardens and up Baldwin Street, neither of which he’d appreciated. He probably would have like it better if Mitch had told him that the condemned house that was currently being torn down had once housed a demon. At least he’d been too breathless to whine after trekking up that bloody hill.

  “I was beginning to think that we’d have to send out search parties,” Amelie said, setting aside her book and smiling at them.

  “Sorry,” Mitch said. “When’s dinner?” Nikola was doing something excessively fiddly with muffin decorations instead of slicing vegetables so it couldn’t be that far away. Mitch had mostly worked out his routine by now.

  “About twenty minutes,” Nikola replied.

  “Want to play cards?” Amelie asked. “If we don’t stop him soon those muffins will be too pretty to eat.”

  “If that worked I would never have bitten you,” Mitch said, sitting on the floor and pulling the cards out of the coffee table. They were Faerie cards with their two extra suits and faces that seemed to change at random.

  “You bit her?” Cullum asked, wide eyed.

  “Nikola?” Mitch said, ignoring the dozens of questions Cullum was probably dying to ask.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Nikola sighed. “No complaining about the decorations later or next time I won’t share.”

  “As if you’d ever turn us down,” Amelie said. She batted her eyes at him and slid off the couch to sit on the floor with the rest of them.

  “We won’t,” Mitch said, surrendering the deck to Amelie for shuffling, not that it mattered much with cards that were constantly changing.

  “What are we playing?” Amelie asked.

  “Snap,” Mitch suggested, he didn’t want Cullum whining because the cards in his hand kept changing. Nikola’s sigh sounded suspiciously like a yawn despite his nap.

  “Last card?” Mitch tried.

  “We might as well play hangman,” Amelie said, beginning to deal.

  “I’m not making that mistake again,” Mitch muttered. Playing hangman with Nikola was a nightmare, he didn’t see the point in confining himself to one language, or even saying what language he was working in. Mitch considered it a win when he was using English characters instead of Ancient Greek or Cuneiform.

  “Dealer’s choice it is then,” Amelie said, dealing out all the cards.

  “Which is?” Mitch asked.

  “Cheat.”

  “Oh god.” Cheat was bad enough with normal cards. With the constantly changing Faerie cards it was some sort of torture. Nikola had once won a game playing only eights and they’d bloody well been eights every time Mitch called him on it. Card counting was completely useless with Faerie cards, instead you had to try and change what the cards were and that wasn’t usually a game you could win with a telepath.

  “Hey,” Cullum said, “my cards changed.” Mitch sighed and began to explain.

  Predictably Nikola was the first to finish and he went to put the finishing touches on dinner while Amelie manipulated the cards so that Cullum could come second. She showed Mitch no such consideration and proceeded to ruthlessly crush him. Mitch glared at her, she could have at least given him a fighting chance in front of his brother. At least by the time it was over, dinner was set out on the table, the actual table, not the coffee table where they usually ate.

  “What do you specialise in?” Amelie asked once they were settled.

  “Compression,” Cullum said sulkily. “They’re making me memorise the density of everything. It’s so lame.”

  Nikola smiled, “I bet you could use it to out-shoot Mitch with a water pistol.”

  “What?” Mitch choked on a mouthful of roast potato. He did not want Cullum sulking all night but there had to be better ways of keeping him happy.

  “You could make things explode as well,” Amelie said, “or walk on water.”

  “Cool,” Cullum said, “I hope I get to try those later.”

  “We’ll get you a water pistol tomorrow,” Amelie promised.

  “I think they’re out of season,” Mitch said though he supposed The Warehouse might have some.

  “The two dollar shop will have some,” Amelie said. “You can use it to wake up Mitch when he sleeps in.”

  “You never get me toys,” Mitch grumbled. The water pistol didn’t concern him too much, Amelie wasn’t above using ice-cubes and other trickery when she felt that he was sleeping in too late in the weekend.

  “We got you a little marquee so you could practice ice sculpting without anyone seeing,” Amelie replied, helping herself to another serving of chicken.

  “I wish you couldn’t see,” Mitch glared at Amelie.

  “I was almost right,” Amelie said. “You just need to work on your ornithology a little.”

  “I do not!” Mitch said, “It was a perfectly good swan.” At the other end of the table Nikola sighed.

  “Looked like a goose to me,” Amelie said.

  “No one makes ice geese.”

  “I guess you’re no one then.”

  “Amelie,” Nikola said between mouthfuls. “I will separate the two of you.”

  “Well it did look like a goose,” Amelie said. “You’d think a mathematician would be better at proportions.”

  “She started it,” Mitch said at the same time.

  “I’ll send you both to bed without dessert,” Nikola said, beginning to clear the table.

  “I want to see the goose,” Cullum said.

  “From now on I’m sticking to pretty lights,” Mitch muttered, staring at his place mat. A muffin appeared in front of him and he grinned up at Nikola; Amelie and C
ullum were still waiting for theirs.

  #

  “Did you have to get him that water pistol?” Mitch asked, smothering a yawn as he picked at his pancakes. It was a tiny two dollar shop toy and normally it could only shoot a couple of metres at best but Cullum had spent all of yesterday afternoon practising with it just so he could wake Mitch at an ungodly hour of the morning. He’d actually heard birds singing and seen hints of pink in the sky. Two things he’d hoped never to experience.

  He had to admit that boosted by Cullum’s magic the water pistol achieved an impressive range but it would have been much more impressive if it had been aimed elsewhere. At least he could console himself with the knowledge that it would probably be confiscated or broken within a few days of his return to the academy.

  “No,” Amelie giggled, “but it was worth it.”

  “Remind me, why am I dating you?”

  “Because Nikola isn’t actually a girl,” Amelie replied. Cullum had the decency to look embarrassed for as long as it took Nikola to put a bowl of whipped cream on the table.

  “I got you a water pistol as well didn’t I?” Amelie asked, telekinetically slicing a banana.

  “Only because they were sold in packs of three,” Mitch grumbled. Nikola had declined one when it was offered to him and Amelie got even better range out of hers that Cullum did. It was horribly unfair. “You both out-range me.”

  “And you out-cold us,” Amelie replied. Mitch made up for his lack of range with ice water which hadn’t helped at all when Amelie and Cullum ganged up on him. He should have offered to help Nikola cook or study or literally anything really. At least there had been hot chocolate and muffins afterwards.

  “What are you baking?” Mitch asked, desperate to change the subject before someone suggested a rematch.

  “Hot cross buns,” Nikola replied.

  “Really?”

  “It is Easter.”

  “The Fae don’t observe Easter,” Mitch said. Or Christmas or almost any other holiday. He remembered vague mentions of Beltane and Midsummer but the Fae largely seemed to get by without holidays and festivals.

  “They still like hot cross buns,” Nikola shrugged. “I don’t recall you complaining about the candy canes or gingerbread men.”

  Mitch grinned, he’d been too happy about Nikola and Amelie visiting for Christmas to complain about anything.

  “How do they feel about Easter eggs?” Mitch asked.

  “I’ll give them to you later,” Nikola said, “I don’t want to ruin your breakfast.”

  “How could chocolate ruin breakfast?” Mitch asked. Most Easter eggs were made out of garbage chocolate but Nikola was too much of a chocolate snob to ever touch those. “We already have chocolate sauce.”

  “I was thinking we could go to the market,” Amelie said, “give you and Cullum sometime alone together.”

  Nikola paled slightly. He still accompanied Mitch to the Netherworld each week to get his blood but it wasn’t something that he was entirely comfortable with. Mitch had tried to talk him out of it but Nikola had just pointed out that Rana knew where they lived.

  “You don’t have to go out,” Mitch said, “I know you don’t like the Netherworld.” Oh Fuck, he thought, realising his mistake a second too late.

  “Netherworld?” Cullum asked. “Don’t you have to be dead to go there?”

  “We found a loophole,” Amelie replied.

  “Sorry,” Nikola whispered inside his head.

  “I’m the one who put his foot in it,” Mitch thought back.

  “I want to go to the Netherworld Mitch,” Cullum said, practically vibrating in his chair. “Please.”

  “It’s underground,” Nikola said.

  “Well duh,” Cullum rolled his eyes, his fear of enclosed spaces apparently forgotten, though the nethermarket was a little too cavernous to be described as an enclosed space.

  “C’mon Mitch, I want to see a three-headed dog.”

  “It’s not that sort of netherworld,” Mitch replied.

  “We might be able to find some for sale,” Amelie said at the same time. Mitch groaned, they usually avoided the pet stores due to Nikola’s allergies but he didn’t think there’d be any avoiding them now.

  “Please Mitch? Can you imagine the looks on everyone’s faces when I tell them that I went to the Netherworld and saw a three-headed dog?”

  “Yes,” said Mitch, imagining the looks on the teacher’s expressions with horrifying clarity along with the stakes in their hands and Mum’s ear-splitting shriek. He wasn’t even sure Mum knew where Cullum was spending the holidays but that wouldn’t stop Cullum blabbing at the first opportunity and if anything could convince his parents to contact him again that would be it.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” Amelie asked.

  Mitch shrugged, “Do three-headed dogs have rabies?”

  “No,” Nikola replied. “I wanted to get Amelie one for her birthday when we were eight, I did a lot of research.”

  “Of course you did,” Mitch sighed.

  “It was cute.”

  “Ignore him,” Amelie said, “he thinks all puppies are cute.” Mitch smiled though he struggled to see how razor teeth and demonic eyes could be cute.

  “What stopped you?” Mitch asked.

  “Gawain said that Isane wouldn’t want to take care of it,” Nikola said. “And it would have been lonely when we went to school anyway.”

  “You’ll just have to get one when you graduate,” Mitch said, getting up to hug Nikola before taking his plate into the kitchen. Nikola might not be willing to let anyone else cook in there but he could usually be convinced to let someone else wash the dishes.

  “So can we go?” Cullum asked.

  “This is against my better judgement,” Mitch muttered.

  “Yippee,” Cullum whooped and raced down the hallway to get ready.

  “Everything is against your better judgement,” Amelie said, telekinetically gathering the rest of the dishes and putting them in the sink. “When has that ever stopped you?” She followed Cullum down the hallway.

  “Don’t worry,” Nikola said, hugging Mitch. “We won’t let him get anything dangerous.”

  “I know,” Mitch hugged him back; Nikola wouldn’t let anything crazy happen.

  #

  Mitch frequently wondered how the Netherworld stayed hidden. He’d seen little of it save for the bloodbank, the nethermarket and an endless series of doors but even that was enough to suggest that it was huge. There were probably sigils and wards hiding it from underground scanners and seismographs and god only knew what else. Just thinking about it gave him a headache.

  The nethermarket was held in a massive cavern illuminated by (presumably) artificial stalagmites. The cavern walls were lined with more permanent stores while the space between them was paved over and filled with tents and stalls just like markets everywhere albeit without the risk of rain.

  The market was crowded with Teratos looking over the folding tables of merchandise and queueing up by the tents selling fried bread, hot chips and other foods. The only thing missing was an ice-cream truck and when Mitch had said as much on his first visit Amelie had pointed him in the direction of the gelato stall.

  “I want to see the three-headed dogs,” Cullum said, ignoring the usual array of clothing, jewellery, hand carved bowls and lawn ornaments and the less usual array of potions, talismans and magical artefacts. Mitch was just glad that he was ignoring the swords. Sure, you could hang them over the fireplace but to Mitch’s mind they looked awfully sharp and pointy. Most of the Teratos still believed in pre-gunpowder weaponry. He knew that Amelie and Nikola had both been taught to use swords.

  “They might not have any,” Nikola said, leading them across the cavern to the marquees that housed small pens filled with animals. “You need special permits to trade in them.” Cullum rolled his eyes.

  There weren’t any three-headed dogs in the first tent that they visited though Mitch worried that Cullum wou
ld ask to keep the hellhound. The next tent looked to be even smaller, its cages more cramped and closely packed together and Mitch let himself hope that they wouldn’t have any either, but when Cullum asked the vampire in charge they were directed to a larger pen where the animals could play with their perspective new owners, and a minute later two three-headed puppies were let loose. Mitch supposed that they were cute in the way that all baby animals were cute but he couldn’t help wondering how they kept from overbalancing with their three outsized heads.

  “Do you have to give them one name or three?” Cullum asked, letting the pups sniff and savagely lick his fingers.

  “Just one I think,” Amelie replied. Confident that Amelie wouldn’t actually let Cullum buy one he slunk over to the bookstore where Nikola was browsing tables of secondhand books.

  “We’ll find something that you aren’t allergic to next,” Mitch promised, Nikola was still sniffling after visiting the last tent. “Here,” Mitch passed him a tissue and Nikola gave him a fleeting smile in return.

  “What’s wrong?” Mitch asked. Nikola loved animals, even with his allergies he’d normally be grinning from ear to ear right now.

  “I don’t know,” Nikola said, running one hand through his hair. “I can feel something but…” he shook his head.

  “Want to investigate?” Mitch asked. Cullum and Amelie were still engrossed with the three-headed puppies and it wouldn’t be too hard to find them again.

  Nikola nodded and lowered his head. To someone else it might have looked like he was studying one of the books but Mitch knew that he was reaching out telepathically. Nikola swore suddenly, his head snapping around to stare at the tent Mitch had just left.

  “Nikola?”

  Nikola’s only reply was what Mitch assumed to be a curse in Faerie and then they were weaving across the path and plunging deep into the darkened recesses of the tent. They squeezed between cage after cage of animals. Two-headed dogs, hellhounds, fenris wolves… Mitch’s cyrptozoology lessons hadn’t come close to preparing him for how many magical breeds of dog there were. They certainly hadn’t prepared him for the revelation that there were actually multiple breeds of hellhound.