King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  Yip shook his head. ‘Let's see if we can find whatever came through and chase it back in. That way, we only have to use nails for the fracture, not the creature and the fracture.’

  ‘You're being stingy with saving the world.’ Swan said.

  ‘We’re running a budget same as the world does. The university isn’t paying for our materials, our pager call outs are off the books remember.’ Yip said.

  Gale shrugged. ‘He’s got a point. Oh and Swan….try not to wreck so much this time.’ Gale ducked as Swan threw a rock at him.

  ‘Well, what are you doing here, friends?’ said a familiar voice.

  Forks stared daggers at them from across the town square. He was in suit and tie but wearing a bandana to cover the lower half of his face. He looked like an idiot, what did he think he was an outlaw? Knives stood flanking him, also wearing a bandana over the lower half of his face. From behind him, Bella and Hotaru, poked their heads out of the general store and waved. They wore their suits but remained barefoot.

  ‘Special assignment.’ Gale said.

  ‘Well toss off, this is our pager job. What are a bunch of first years doing out here anyway.’ Forks said.

  ‘Those two are first years.’ Yip said nodding to the Wyldfell twins. Then he quirked his head and stared at the bandannas on Forks and Knives. Something was scratching at his brain about them.

  ‘Bella and Hotaru are under our specialised sup…er…vision. First years are allowed to accompany seniors on missions.’ Forks said.

  ‘Yeah, we get to tag along.’ Said Hotaru. ‘How cool is that!’

  Bella just gave them a cheeky wink.

  ‘Maybe we should put a call in ay Forks…see why these four are out here.’ Knives said.

  ‘Now hold up boys,’ Gale said, raising his hands. ‘How about a friendly wager. If you find and fix the fracture first, we will pay you the same amount of coin the job pays. If we find it first you pay us, either way, you keep our little secret.’

  Forks and Knives shared a look.

  ‘This place has bad hoodoo Forks. You know what happened to the last registrar who took a gig here.’ Knives said.

  Forks rubbed a bruise on his scalp, still present from Walkabout. Forks glanced at the house solvent symbol, coins in a beaker, our price is gold. Forks slowly stepped forward and reached out his hand to shake Gale’s. Yip jumped up and ripped the scarf from Forks face.

  Forks had a nose four times its normal size. It dominated his face, like a mountain rising from a flat tundra and its craggy outcroppings bristled with pimples and hairs. Swan collapsed laughing.

  ‘Well that's bloody new.’ Titus said.

  Forks snatched the bandanna back from Yip and re-tied it. Yips books swarmed around him, sketching and notating. Bella and Hotaru kept very straight faces.

  ‘You’ve already seen what it is we are hunting, haven’t you?’ Gale said.

  ‘You’ll find out.’ Forks said. ‘Get our money ready.’ The House Solvent team moved off hunting.

  Gale scratched his chin. ‘Righto. Yip and I will check the outskirts of town. Swan, Titus, ask around the shops and see what's up.’

  Swan gestured to the closed stores of a country town on a Sunday morning.

  ‘It's alright.’ Gale said. ‘I’m sure the pubs open.’

  Titus pulled Swan away.

  Swan and Titus entered the threshold to the pub, the soft tunes of Aussie rock blending with the sounds of a footy match. The stale waft of last nights spilled beer, hopes and dreams mixed with the astringent waft of sanitiser.

  ‘Maybe let me take the lead Titus, you aren’t great at lying.’ Swan said.

  ‘Lying is unmanly.’

  ‘Its part of our job numbnuts, start getting better at it.’

  ‘Alright you can take the lead, but I get to pick the names’ Titus said.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Can I help ya?’ The owner of the pub asked.

  Titus swept in front of Swan and removed his sunglasses. He leaned on the bar with one arm and gave a crooked smile. ‘Agents Strongarm and Pumpernickel, wildlife service. We hear there have been some wild animal sightings.’

  Swan patted Titus on the forearm. ‘Yes Pumpernickel here got a call this morning,’ Swan said.

  Titus’s forearm slipped off the bar. ‘Errr..yess…that's right…Strongarm.’

  The publican slowly cleaned a glass with a rag. ‘You ain’t locals are ya.’

  ‘We are as Aussie as shrimp on the barbie.’ Swan grinned.

  The bartender stared at her, brow creasing.

  ‘Errr….are you alright…Agent Strongarm?’ Titus said, holding up a glass to her.

  Swan grabbed the glass and gasped. Her eyebrows, although distorted in the pint glass, now flowed, beard like down her face. They drooped down her chin, like some sort of eyebrow fu-man-chu.

  She heard a low rumble of laughter from the corner. A bipedal creature like a platypus with spikes running down its back slapped its thighs. Atop a keg of beer, it clapped its paws together and stomped its foot. It winked, then dissolved into a murky brown shadow and flowed out the door. Blue Penumbra trailed off it, distorting its appearance.

  ‘Frakking possums,’ The bartender muttered, turning away with a glazed look.

  Swan slammed the pint glass down on the counter. ‘Let's get the little frakker.’ Swan said.

  ‘What do you think caused Forks’s nose-job?’ Gale asked.

  Yip guided his floating library around the area, sweeping the outlying area with his books.

  ‘Could be a defence mechanism. Hard to stay focused when you see that on your teammates or in a mirror. Anti-stealth measures by laughter. Sounds like something from Tangentius or Wyldfell.’ Yip said.

  Gale nodded, that rainforest coming through the fracture sure as heck looked like Wyldfell. Damn, the twins would have an advantage.

  Yip directed his books like a master conductor leaving Gale to guard him. ‘You shouldn’t trust Swan,’ Yip said, without turning away from his survey.

  ‘What’s your deal, mate? Swan’s seems a good chick.’

  ‘The Swan’s are arms dealers. Her father owns the biggest forge empire in Locomotyr. He’s grown it rapidly. Some say impossibly rapidly for an honest business.’

  ‘People need weapons to defend themselves.’

  ‘They don’t just sell weapons though, worst kept secret in Locomotyr. The Swan’s are big players in the black market. They even bootleg Salt.’

  ‘Well, you keep saying take every opportunity. Isn’t that what the Swan’s do?’

  ‘Take every opportunity Gale but own the consequences.’

  ‘Yip stop,’ Gale said.

  ‘No, you need to hear the truth.’

  ‘No I mean…your ears.’ Gale said.

  Yip’s ledgers swirled around his now dinnerplate-sized ears. ‘Fascinating.’ Yip said.

  A platypus like creature with spikes cackled behind them.

  ‘Ekiddina’ Yip said.

  The ekiddina melted into murky shadow and darted away. Yip murky stepped after it, playing a game of shadow tag, his books flowed after him in an organised flock. Gale summoned his harpoon and gave chase.

  Gale chased after Yip and the ekiddina, losing pace with them. He turned back into the main square of the town, still deserted on a Sunday morning. Blue Penumbra danced around the fracture.

  Swan was trying to swat the beast, now complete with drooping eyebrows and a set of ridiculously oversized biceps. She lumbered around after the ekiddina ineffectually. Yip murky stepped back and forth, trying to herd it towards the fracture. Titus had chest hair that puffed out like a tumbleweed, blocking most of his view.

  Then the ekiddina turned its gaze on Gale.

  Gale’s butt cheeks erupted into two beachball sized lumps. He tried to move and toppled over on to his arse. He rolled on his back, like a turtle tipped over. He rolled onto his side and saw the ekiddina dart away towards the fracture. Hotaru held a jar of Vegemite out in front
of the break, lid off, wafting the scent. The ekiddina shuffled up to her and dipped its nose in the pot.

  Bella leapt from a rooftop and slammed a grip-rock cast on the ekiddina. It froze, trapping the vegemite with it. Bella and Hotaru banged fixation nails into the cast and reality re-aligned. They high-fived and looked over at Team Lighthouse.

  ‘Wyldfell trick, the little things love the salt dense vegemite.’ Bella said.

  Forks and Knives appeared from the shadows and threw a receipt at Gale. ‘Always a pleasure friend.’

  Gale looked at averyhigh number. Then he tried to roll off his buttcheeks without success. Swan lumbered over on her bulging biceps, now top-heavy like a gorilla. Titus and her grabbed Gale and helped him right himself. With a sigh, they stood around the pager and hit the recall button.

  This would be a fun one to explain to the nurse.

  Click.

  The copper locket clicked over from a girl’s portrait to a silhouette. Admetus spat on the ground where the fracturesmiths had fled. Glenrowan’s streets were starting to fill with the slow trickle of people, good people, god-fearing people. People like Sadie.

  Behind him, two of his best were tending Darra the Publican. Darra’s memories, of course, were gone. The blue Penumbra trailed off Darra and darted towards Admetus. Admetus let the Penumbra play over his hands. With a clenching of his jaw, he shrugged it off. Once he would have avoided this like the plague. Once he couldn’t have risked losing his memories, his plan.

  But not any more

  Now he was finally ready to act.

  ‘Why not take care of them, boss?’ One of his lieutenants asked. ‘Bunch of filthy fracturesmiths.’

  ‘Not now, not after everything we’ve worked towards.’ Admetus said.

  Admetus gripped the copper locket tight.

  ‘The Equaliser is almost ready, then no-one will forget.’

  And the locket clicked to the image of a young girl.

  Gale - The best defense

  Man will no longer bow before the gods

  The Lost Book of King Canute

  Lying in wait to ambush was really frakking overrated, Gale thought. He creaked his aching neck and thought back to all the romanticised highwayman novels he’d read. They didn’t talk about the sore muscles and boredom. Gale rubbed his butt cheek, still slightly swollen from the Ekiddina’s magic yesterday. His harpoon lay beside him, ready for use. He checked his watch, two minutes to eight. A week of planning came down to this.

  One shot.

  From the rooftop, the alley below him looked well maintained with only a few piles of trash. The back entrance to Haversack’s bakery faced the alley, dead-bolted closed. Fire escapes and scattered exhaust vents line the walls. The waft of fresh bread came from behind the metal door of Haversacks bakery, and Gale’s stomach rumbled. Honest to goodness salted bread. None of this purified nonsense. They hadn’t eaten all day to save money to pay off Forks and Knives.

  The Golden Palm of Ionhome rose behind him. Haversacks was close enough to the rich to tempt them with its ‘street food’ and close enough to the poor to show them what they couldn’t have. Haversacks threw away it's leftover baked goods at precisely 8 pm every night. The food wastage was incredible. It wasn’t stealing, to take a loaf of bread someone was going to throw out. That was just doing good for the environment, avoiding food wastage. Really if anything he and Yip were the heroes here.

  The deadbolt shifted in the door.

  The door slowly swung open. A portly man in a chefs outfit looked both ways down the alley. The chef checked the stunning rod at his belt and stepped out towards the blazing bin at the back. The bin was the dumpsite for most businesses in this area, obliterating their trash in magical fire.

  The chef paused at the blazing bin and turned up and down the alleyway again. He swung the bag full of baked goods, croissants, rolls and mini pizzas. The chef launched them into the air above the blazing bin. Yes, he and Yip were the heroes here.

  Too bad everyone wants to be a hero.

  Three things happened simultaneously. A goblin, camouflaged into the wall, leapt at the chef. A crossbow bolt shot through the bag and slammed it into the wall beneath Gale. Three hulking Komodos erupted from mounds of refuse on the roof opposite Gale and in the alley below.

  Frak, of course, why would there be piles of trash in an alley with a garbage disposal.

  Yip lowered his crossbow, looked at the three komodos, the goblin jumping the chef and back at Gale. He murky stepped away.

  ‘Mother frakker.’ Gale said. He reached down and ripped the bag of baked goods from the wall. Gale took off running cursing Yip. Of course, Yip had stuck to the plan. Yip was a stickler for the rules.

  Behind him a Komodo lurched across the rooftops, its lizard tongue flicking the air. They looked like House Baxtro students, probably just as desperate for a free feed. Gale pumped raw Script through his limbs and leapt across the alleys, the rooftops a blur beneath him. The Komodo’s footsteps boomed across the roof behind him. Komodos were strong, with jaws like hydraulic presses and resistant to flame and heat. They had a natural scale of brown and red. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a Komodo with the silver scales of burnout.

  The rooftops came to an abrupt halt, and Gale leapt into the open air. He slammed into a canal, pushing his Script into the water, sinking to his waist then stopping. Gale held the bread above his head with great care. He bobbed back to stand on the water than ran across the canal.

  The komodo paced at the edge of the water then growled at him. Komodos hated the water. He stalked off to find a bridge. Gale ducked back into the alleys and ran onwards.

  Yip murky stepped beside him. ‘Good job.’

  Gale flipped him the bird. ‘Thanks for the help.’

  Yip shrugged, ‘You didn’t fall down. I had faith in you.’

  Gale’s stomach rumbled. He looked at the bag of baked goods which even half stale, smelled amazing.

  ‘The plan is to get them safely back to the Lighthouse.’ Yip said. ‘We stick to the plan.’

  Gale wafted the smell towards Yip.

  Yip sighed. ‘Alright just one, then we need to move.’

  Gale reached into the bag and pulled out a chocolate croissant. His stomach rumbled, and he could smell victory. He went to bite down.

  ‘Well assholes, look who came to the wrong place.’

  Three House Laurels students closed off the alleyway in front of him. Behind him, Alisdair and two other sealed off the other exit.

  Gale summoned his harpoon and put his back to Yips. Yip’s books moved into a defensive pose, circling them like a shield. They took cover behind a wall of ‘Spur’s Primer for fracturesmiths,’ ‘The war of brothers,’ and ‘The smith who forged my heart.’ Yip always kept one or two of Swan’s trashy romance novels to sacrifice.

  ‘Should have stuck to the plan.’ Yip said.

  Alisdair shifted a thick warclub in his hands. ‘Sirenspawn, flotsam,’ he nodded to them.

  ‘Frak what do you want Alisdair, I saved your bacon down at the blowhole.’

  Alisdair spat. ‘You made me look like a fool. I am the best first year.’

  ‘Better than Adam, boss?’ a heavily muscled, gap-toothed student asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Brock.’ Alisdair said. ‘You two have no place at this school, and if you won’t leave on your own, we’ll make you. Then we’ll get rid of the bogan and the swan.’

  Something flashed from his peripheral and struck Gale in the head. He dropped his harpoon as black crawled into his vision. His deep Script scattered and he fell to hands and knees. Yip threw off his cloak and chucked aside his crossbows. A murky brown flash erupted.

  Then Gale saw no more.

  Gale’s eyes cracked open. Blinding pain screamed at him from his left skull. He turned to the side and saw the Lighthouse common room. He rose to sit, feeling the couch under him, and apart from the headache found no other injuries.

  Where was Yip?

  What had
happened?

  ‘This is why we stick to plans.’ Yip said. Yip sipped a cup of black tea in a chair across the room. Well, a chair was a charitable term. It was a bunch of milk crates they’d draped a blanket over. Yip didn’t have a scratch on him, but his cloak wasmildly ruffled. Practically a mortal wound for Yip that.

  ‘I got lucky, got us out of there. I lost a few books.’

  Gale’s eyes widened. ‘You pulled me out through six House Laurels students. How?’

  Yip sipped his tea. He swirled the cup considering. ‘By sticking to a plan.’

  Gale stared straight at Yip. ‘I fell down, and you picked me up.’

  Yip took a long sip of tea. ‘You were carrying the bread. I couldn’t take one without the other.’

  Gale remembered Alisdair’s last words and sat bolt upright. ‘Titus and Swan, are they alright.’

  Yip put his cup of tea down and grimaced. ‘You’ll want to see this yourself.’

  Titus was laid out on another couch, covered in bruises. His nose broken, dried blood around his mouth. Bandages and splints over his limbs. Titus’s cuts and bruising distorted the elegant Script of Canuteian marks. Gale had seen a fair share of bar fight lacerations and broken bones while working at the Iron Church. This was a beating.

  Swan was squeezing a hunk of metal into shape like a stress ball. ‘A bunch of canutjobs jumped us. I fought them off, but they blindsided Titus. I patched him up as best I could. It was that little wart Cullen egging them on.’

  ‘I knew they were upset he wasn’t living in Canute’s Tower.’ Gale said, running his hand through his hair. ‘Didn’t think it’d get to this though.’

  Gale placed ice on Titus’s facial bruising, gently probing for broken bones over the face and checking his pupils.

  ‘He should have been able to take them down regardless.’ Yip said. He walked over to Titus and clipped his ears, ‘Why didn’t you use your Script, ya big mug?’ Swan glared at Yip. Yip shrugged his shoulders and sent a book to hover above Titus, examining his wounds.

  ‘Bunch of runts,’ Titus mumbled out through swollen lips, ‘Weren’t worth using my Script. Like a man, I held em off with my own two hands.’