by Mark Malcolm
house,” he said, waving his hand toward the bar.
Karyn didn’t turn and look, but she wondered if the bartender had. She sat rooted to the spot. She emptied the dregs of her wine glass trying to calm the flush that filled her cheeks and wondered why she hadn’t been concerned about being out in public in her fuzzy footy pajamas before this point.
The man laughed again. “Look closer at the patrons of my establishment again. This time, see what they’re wearing.”
Karyn did as instructed. The man at the bar, drinking, was wearing a blue robe embroidered in silver with matching stars, crescent moons, and other shapes. The edges of the robe were embroidered with silver thread as well. Next to his drink on the bar sat a flopped over hat of the same material that Karyn thought might actually be a conical shape. Suddenly, she realized he looked just like that wizard logo from a role-playing game she’d enjoyed as a child. Her attention snapped to the chess game and the two people sitting there.
Jesse wore a white robe, and actual wings unfolded from his back, spreading out behind him as though he were sunning himself in the dim bar. His opponent, Natasha, appeared dressed to the nines for a night out on the town with only one thing on her mind.
Movement at the bar caught her eye. The bartender simply replaced the wizard’s drink. Azor wore a tight black vest over a pristine white button down shirt. He had a thin bowtie, but with tails hanging down almost like it was a piece of ribbon. His hair was slicked back on his head, and he had a wide mustache. He looked as though he’d just stepped out of a John Wayne western to take his place right behind the bar. Karyn wondered if he had a shotgun hiding back there with him.
She shifted her gaze to the waitress and host, talking by the podium at the front door. The waitress seemed just as normal as could be. The host appeared normal enough as well in blue jeans and t-shirt, but then she realized he was the first impression everyone got as they entered the establishment. Why wasn’t he dressed more formally?
“Go talk to them.” The man gently pressured her shoulder in the direction of the podium her to go over to the podium. “Get a menu because I know you’re hungry. Swing by the bar on your way and get that glass filled, too.”
Karyn hadn’t thought about it until the man said something, but she was hungry. Her stomach gurgled and saliva filled her mouth at the thought of food. She rose without further urging and headed toward the bar.
Azor just happened to be at her side of the bar as she approached. “Hey Karyn. Finally made it into the ole Bar None. Let me get that for you. Good stuff, isn’t it?” He pulled the cork from the sweat-covered bottle readying to pour. “Special house vintage we make out back. Nobody else’s got it.”
Karyn placed her glass on the bar silently and held it as he began to pour. The wine reached the level of a usual serving, but still he poured until it was just to the top. “He always tells us to fill the cups until they runneth over, but we all know that’s just a figure of speech. He does that a lot you know, tries to make a point with a figurative story. Gets that from his father he does, but nobody here takes him literally most of the time,” he said, then hefted the wine. “Besides, that would be wasting great wine, wouldn’t it? Name’s Azor. I know you knew that, but now we’ve been formally introduced.”
Karyn smiled and sipped the glass carefully. She had to take two or three drinks just to get the level of the delicious, golden liquid down to where she thought she could walk with it and not spill any. Embarrassment flushed her face again. She didn’t have any money to leave a tip, and he had poured such a great drink.
“Don’t worry about a tip. It’s just a pleasure to serve. Besides, the boss takes good care of me,” Azor said inspecting a glass and wiping away an imaginary smudge with his towel. Then he leaned over to whisper something, and Karyn instinctively leaned in. “And no shotgun back here. Sorry.”
Karyn took her drink without a word, still embarrassed about not paying despite Azor’s assurance to the contrary. Her feet seemed to move of their own volition, heading straight to the host’s stand by the door.
The young man in blue jeans and black button down was nodding his head as the well-built bouncer pointed and spoke softly. The bouncer took notice of her approach out of the corner of his eye and adjusted his stance instantly keeping Karyn in view. This one was worth watching.
“You no tip for free drink? Azor too kind to you. Staff no work for charity here. You tip or you go,” the bouncer said.
The host slapped the bouncer’s muscular chest and scowled at him.
He cringed with mock injury at the false blow. “Ow, no touching. You know I not like touching, Grayson.”
The man spoke in a thick accent Karyn couldn’t place, though she assumed its origin was somewhere in the Middle East. His name tag read Cathair, though she had no idea how to pronounce it or its region of origin.
The man Cathair had called Grayson scowled again and waved his hand at Karyn without speaking.
“Fine, yes, yes. Grayson says me to tell you I sorry,” he said, then stepped away from Grayson, placing his hands on his hips and defiantly thrusting out his chin. “But I not. So what you do about it?”
That took Karyn by surprise. She hadn’t really intended to do anything about his rude behavior. While he was amply built and seemed quite capable in a fight, she knew any number of techniques to render him neutral if it came to that.
Grayson picked up a small chalkboard off his podium and rapidly wrote on it. When he held it up, she could read the simple phrase he’d written.
Cathair is harmless. Want a menu?
Her stomach rumbled again loudly enough to be heard by both men. Cathair harrumphed but didn’t move a muscle. Grayson nodded, replaced the chalkboard on his podium, and drew out a menu, handing it to Karyn. About that time the man in the blue wizard’s robes wobbled over to the group.
“Pardon me, miss,” the man slurred as he reached to touch Cathair’s shoulders.
Grayson’s eyes went wide, and then the world shifted as though someone were adjusting an old color television set’s vertical hold.
Karyn’s view of the bar suddenly began twisting and jumping. She saw two versions of everyone, just slightly out of phase, as though she were watching things through a twisted funhouse mirror and a kaleidoscope at the same time. She tried to react but her arms and legs moved as though they were encased in gelatin when she tried to move. The actions in front of her had a mesmerizing effect.
One pair of figures showed the wizard laying his hand on Cathair’s shoulder, and Cathair reacting violently to the contact by shoving the wizard backward into the barstools where he fell hard to the floor.
While that wizard was being shoved around, a copy of the man complete with blue-embroidered, star-covered robes moved with dizzying speed to the bar carrying a baseball bat. He then crossed the bar over to the waitress’s computer where he rapidly typed something. Finally, he returned to the group and smashed Cathair in the back of the head with a baseball bat.
Cathair dropped to the floor in a heap, bleeding from a gash in the back of his head. Karyn had seen that type of wound before and assumed the man would be dead before an ambulance could arrive.
However, just as the second wizard struck, the first one picked himself up off the floor and began to wave his arms, chanting words she somehow knew clearly held power.
As the first wizard finished his chanting, the two images of the same man snapped toward each other, colliding at the midpoint into a single copy. When the two wizards became one, Karyn’s vision cleared and the picture settled. The wizard smiled at her just before he contorted and dropped the baseball bat.
“Azor, get Molon. Indal’s used his chronomancy again!” Jesse shouted as he stood knocking over his chair in his haste.
Grayson dove at Karyn, reaching for her, but she deflected his momentum, sending him past her, tumbling onto the floor along with her wine glass.
A snarl drew her attention back around.
The wizard began to
contort and shift before Karyn’s eyes. He grew two feet in the span of just a few seconds, and hair began to lengthen as his eyes took on a pale yellow glow. The lengthening hair thickened to fur. His fingers grew, transforming into claws, and his nose and mouth pushed out to form a snout.
Jesse stepped in just in time to receive a powerful backhand that sent him flying past Natasha’s wheelchair and crashing into the wall behind her.
The creature howled as it ripped the blue robe over its head, revealing a massively muscled chest covered in thick brown fur.
Azor and another figure who appeared to be a cross between the beast that stood before her and the man it once been came out from behind the bar.
“Indal, calm, calm. Cathair wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” the dog-man said holding out his hands, palms down. “We’re all friends here. Good friends. Just calm down.”
“You should have melted those bracelets down and shot him with them like I said,” Natasha said as she absently studied the chess board. The creature snarled as she moved one of her pieces slapping the clock. “Your move, Jesse.”
Karyn slid backward a few feet, giving herself more room to operate if the creature that looked just like the werewolf from those old black-and-white movies John had loved so much, attacked. She bumped into a chair and the leg scraping across the floor drew the attention of the creature. It snarled