“I’ll go and see what the plans for breakfast are.” Gaia said, and left.
And then it’s time to look around.
* * *
I had never eaten filet mignon and quail eggs for breakfast before, but the chef offered and I couldn’t turn him down. Jack was certainly pleased.
Afterward, I notified Tiffany that I would like to wander around for a bit. She straightened her uniform and sidearm and told me to lead the way.
I walked down concrete corridors randomly before coming upon a door labeled ‘Warehouse #3-C’. I raised an eyebrow at my escort.
“Anything especially dangerous about this one?” I asked.
“Everything in here is dangerous in some way." Tiffany replied. "But there's nothing really… reality-bending in there."
I nodded and pushed the door open. I soon stood in a tall… probably three stories… room stacked with crates of varying size. It looked very industrial, with colored tape on the floor of wide aisles marking spaces for forklift, handcart, and pedestrian traffic.
I could see that the walking path would keep us safe from the various people loading and unloading wooden crates all around us, so I walked down that path, Tiffany two steps behind.
I eyed a crate on one stack that we passed, and saw ‘G11-assault’ stenciled on the side.
“So this is a weapons warehouse?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“One of a series.” Tiffany answered. She grinned at me. “So, you know weapons?”
“Please!” I grinned back, waving my hand. “Watching my boyfriend and Jack play Black Ops for two weeks straight has some of them burned on my memory!”
“I always liked my Spas-12 in Modern Warfare two.” Tiffany said.
“Oh Gods!” I mocking exclaimed, my hand to my forehead. “Another one!”
We both had a good laugh, and moved on. I saw a woman on a forklift pick up a crate of surface to air missiles and drive them to a freight elevator. I also saw muscled men picking up crates of rifles to put them on a motorized transport. A couple of physically powerful-looking women… one with a shaved head, the other with the most gorgeous mane of jet-black hair I had ever seen… on a human, anyway… tied back in a french knot… were chatting at a water cooler about some ‘squirrely merchandise’ in warehouse four-seven as we passed by. All in all, I saw people of every shape, size, and skin tone imaginable.
“You have a pretty diverse crew around here.” I observed.
“Uncle Jex is a brutally practical man.” Tiffany replied. “While that can make him difficult to work with sometimes, it has other, more progressive, results.”
I could see her swell with pride. “He honestly doesn’t care who you are, what you look like, how you identify…” she continued, “any of it. If you can do the job, and do it without being a massive asshole, then he’ll hire you. And he will move heaven and earth to make sure you have the tools you need in order to do your job safely.”
“It sounds like he really cares about his people.” I said.
She smiled. "He'll say that it's just good business, that it's just not cost-effective to have to train new people all of the time, but I know… deep down… he cares a lot.”
“I originally thought that our greeting,” I said, “you know, with all of the guns? I thought that it was a little overblown, almost comically so. But now, with the pain that the body counts from Trevor’s misadventures must have caused… it’s actually a rational response.”
“He physically destroyed a metal desk over the soul-sucker thing.” Tiffany responded, shaking her head. “I swear, if you hadn’t been with him, he would not have let Hawkins in.”
I thought back to the briefing in the parlor just last week, where this mission had been started. I wasn’t originally included in the team I thought. Now, if the hellephants would have attacked regardless, then it was a good thing I came along. If they only attacked BECAUSE of my presence, then… well then it gets more complicated.
I shook my head. “Why the reverence?”
“I don’t know how universal it is in the occult underworld,” Tiffany said, “but the legend of the Sorceress… this powerful woman who draws her magick from life itself… in my family, it was told and re-told to each generation. My father and uncle heard it from their father, who got it from his father, and so on. Uncle Jex told it to his daughter, and then to his grand-daughter, and then to me.”
We stopped by an elevator. Tiffany turned to me, completely serious.
“I want you to know that my Uncle didn’t assign me to this detail, I demanded it.” she said. “I never thought that I would ever meet a Sorceress, and… “ She trailed off for a moment, smiling.
“And what?” I asked gently.
“I had a great childhood.” she said confidently. “I really did. But… well, let’s just say that para-military mercenary compounds aren’t exactly teeming with little girls for me to play with. I could get some of the younger adult women… maybe nineteen or twenty… to play ponies with me when Uncle Jex would let me raid his inventory, but otherwise I was on my own.”
“Sounds lonely.” I said, my heart breaking for her.
“But it wasn’t.” she smiled. “It wasn’t because I had the Sorceress to keep me company. I had my idea of the Sorceress, anyway. She was someone I could talk to, cry to, tell the things that I was afraid to tell other people.”
Tiffany paused and took a deep breath. “She was the first person I told that I was gay.” she continued. “It was the first time I said it out loud.”
“Wow.” I said, exhaling hard. “I never knew that being someone’s imaginary friend could make me feel so good.”
“It made me feel good, so… there’s that.” she said, grinning. “But that’s the thing… you’re not imaginary anymore! You’ve come, and have crossed our paths… I wasn’t going to miss a chance to get to know you, even for a little bit.”
“I might disappoint you.” I said, myself serious this time. “I have the potential for great power, but I’m still a young woman from Ohio at heart, warts and all.”
“That just makes this even cooler.” she said, still smiling. “You can’t be friends with an ideal. You can be friends with a person, and I’m hoping we can be friends.”
It was my turn to smile.
* * *
We stepped out of the elevator into another tall room, this one labeled ‘Warehouse 4 – K’. I took a quick look around and my jaw dropped a little.
It was the strangest warehouse I had ever seen. Narrow shelves, stacked far too high to be safe, sat on either side of wide aisles. A scaffold with mechanical lifts on either end hugged one side of each row, and the top two shelves on each stack held items behind a glowing orange force-field of unknown origin.
“There’s no way those shelves are stable.” I said, concerned.
“They look tall and wobbly, yes.” Tiffany said. “But they’re the work of Fae contractors. You could crash a jet into them and they’d hold.”
“Does that include the enchantment up top?” I asked, gesturing to the orange force field.
“All original equipment.” she replied. “It’s tricky. Nobody can touch any item behind the citrus wall if they have deception or malice in their hearts. That includes my Uncle. They’re the most dangerous items in our inventory… dangerous mystical items.”
“Wow.” I said, looking around. “How many warehouses like this one are in this facility?”
“There are four categories, numbered accordingly." Tiffany answered. "Ones are My Little Pony collectibles, twos are art, threes are munitions, and fours are mystical-slash-paranormal items. There are three level ones, six-level twos, eighteen level threes, and thirteen fours."
Daaaaaamn! I thought. “And how many facilities in the world?”
“Seven.”
“Similar numbers?”
“Pretty much.”
“There are people trying to attack us.” I told her. “We don’t know if they’re coordinated
or not, or how dangerous they really are. But… “ I grinned, “… if there’s going to be a fight, I get the idea that you guys are good to know.”
Tiffany grinned back. “You have no idea.”
* * *
I reached into the wooden box that our host had left on the coffee table in the seating area of our suite and pulled out two joints. I went to hand one to Tiffany.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I’m technically on duty… “
“I have full authority to make any request of you I wish, correct?” I asked her.
“Yes, fully.” she replied.
"Well then, I am declaring you off duty for every responsibility except ensuring my comfort, which includes smoking a doob with you and getting to know you better." I said, patting the sofa next to me. "I'm talking full-on, let your hair down hanging out."
Tiffany smiled and pulled out her ponytail as she sat down next to me. “Yes mam.” she said as she lit the joint.
“Jesus, Annabelle.” Jack said, laying with his head on Katsu’s lap across from us. “Are you corrupting the boss’ niece again?”
“Damn straight!” I replied, exhaling.
“Ha!” Tiffany snorted. “Like you could corrupt me more than Becky Bowman!”
“Was she hot?” Gaia said, entering the room and sitting on the chair between the sofas.
“I was seventeen, she was nineteen." Tiffany said. "I was horny as hell, and she was sex on a stick. We had just shuffled personnel around the globe, and we had a temporary lack of young ladies in our dating pool around here. The next youngest after Becky was forty! I mean," she paused, "it's not like older women aren't attractive… Cassie is damn near fifty and someone I would sell my sibling just for a chance to experience her embrace for a night! It's just..." she trailed off, looking for the words.
“Generational.” I said. “It’s generational. I’m sure that there are lots of bodies that are nice to rub against for an hour or two, but there comes a time for conversation, and it’s nice to do it with someone who shares your pop culture language.”
“Exactly.” she said, shifting in her seat. “You know,” she continued, “Becky asked me if I loved her once.”
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“I said that I loved her like a friend, but a really dear friend, you know?” she replied. “One that I trusted so much that I would be extremely physically vulnerable around so that we could both get some physical satisfaction, as well as soothe the human need to be touched.”
“And did she take that badly?” Jack asked next.
“Quite the opposite.” Tiffany answered. “She was glad that I felt the same way she did. She had been terrified that she was going to break my heart by having to move on someday, and she could enjoy our time together better since she knew that I might miss her when we part, but I wouldn’t be devastated.”
“Damn!” Gaia exclaimed. “That is impressively mature… doubly so since you were two humans!”
“Excuse me?” Jack said, slightly offended.
“Please, sweetie.” Gaia replied. “I love your sexy little hairy asses, but you humans put the ‘tional’ in ‘dysfunctional’, tional being an ancient Fae word for ‘relationship’.”
“So we’re the relationship in dysfunction?” I asked, confused.
“Well,” she replied, hesitant, “it’s more like it’s ‘you put the relationship in dysfunctional relationship’… it’s not perfect, but really zings in Fae!”
“Amazingly enough, I see your point.” Jack said, nodding.
“So what’s up?” Katsu asked Gaia.
“I have nothing.” Gaia sighed. “Trevor sent me a text that they’d have info tonight, but that’s all.”
“You have a cell phone?” Jack asked, surprised.
“Why not?" she retorted. "I mean, sure I can communicate with other Fae psychically, or open a portal, but those kinds of things take effort, as well as time to hyper-focus. And they don’t work with drunken Brits! Sometimes, cell phones are just easier.”
“Again, point taken.” he nodded.
The outside door opened once again, and Trevor and Evelyn walked in.
“Hello, my lovelies.” Evelyn said.
“You’re all here, good.” Trevor strode to stand in front of the fireplace, his sister sitting on the hearth.
“So you have news?” Gaia said, grinning.
“Yes!” Trevor said, rubbing his hands together. “The hellephants are indeed gone, probably picked back up by whoever sent them.”
“And the cameras are still intact.” Evelyn added.
“Thank the makers!” Gaia sighed.
“That’s good.” Jack chimed in. “Because I am NOT going back out there to replace them!”
“So when do we go back home?” I asked.
“Well, we can’t travel via Fae gate within the compound.” Trevor said. “There are too many enchantments, many put there by the Fae themselves, to allow that to happen. We’ll have to go outside, about a hundred yards away, to travel. We want to make sure that there’s no trap waiting to be sprung as soon as we step outside.”
“We’re thinking two, maybe three days.” Evelyn said, wobbling her hand a bit.
“We’ve been in contact with the fang gang back home, and they know what’s up.” Trevor added.
“So we have three days to be lazy and relax!” I said, snuggling down into my side of the sofa. I looked at Tiffany. “And three days to get to know new friends.”
“Here here.” she said softly, raising her joint.
The sound of lighters echoed around the circle as more joined in.
* * *
We dined in that night, knowing that we would have several opportunities to dine with our host before leaving. We wanted to revel in the familiar as much as possible, as well as introduce new friends to our group dynamic.
“I can’t believe that they got Pizza Hut for us!” Jack said, opening yet another fresh box.
“It’s not really from Pizza Hut.” Tiffany said, taking a bite of mushroom pepperoni. “We bootlegged the box graphics from Google images, and printed the boxes in house.”
“No way!” Jack said, jaw dropped.
“Dude, we can forge documents that fool CIA scrutiny… I think we can bootleg fast food packaging.” she replied, eyes rolled. “Anyway, our food wizards can replicate anything… Big Mac, Whopper, Chicken Quesadilla, and yes, even Pizza Hut pan pizza. It makes the isolation more bearable.”
“So you make everything in house?” I asked. “From scratch?”
“It’s easiest.” Tiffany said, shrugging. “We can get basic staples locally, where everyone’s well paid to not pay attention. We thought of ordering from food service vendors… we could have gotten actual Pizza Hut dough if we had bribed the right suppliers. But it just created too many corporate ties, which leaves way too many tracks.”
“I knew that this wasn’t real.” Gaia said, taking another bite of her pizza. “Ain’t no corporate Pizza Hut has apple and strawberry pizza!”
“I’ve always heard about the Fae love of fruit.” Tiffany said.
“We go way beyond pineapple on pizza!” Gaia replied, her eyes wide.
Tiffany sat up. “I want to try a slice.” she said, looking at Gaia.
“Of apple and strawberry?” Gaia asked, surprised.
“Yeah. I think it looks… fascinating.”
“Okay, but it’s kind of a specialized taste.”
Tiffany picked up a piece of the fruit pizza, and took a bite. She made sure to get a little of everything in the mouthful she tried. She closed her eyes and moaned.
“Mmmmmmm… “ she smiled. “It’s so sweet, yet so earthy!” Tiffany opened her eyes and looked into Gaia’s. “It’s like kissing a beautiful woman after she’s had… something sweet in her mouth.”
“Wow.” Gaia said, chuckling. “You’re direct!”
“Half of the women around here are straight, taken, or both.” Tiffany said, taking another bite.
“I figure I’ll turn on the invitation lamp for certain enticing ladies, and any who want to respond, will.”
“Well, I’ll keep that in mind.” Gaia said, toasting with her pizza.
“We’re going to have to get more of that weed.” Jack said, looking inside the box on the table.
“What, Uncle Jex weed?” Tiffany said, making a face. “I mean, it’ll get the job done, but only after a lot of smoking, and it tastes kind of like ass.”
“Do you have something better?” I asked her.
“Fuck yeah.” she replied. “Want to come help me get some?”
“Fuck yeah.”
* * *
“Daaaaamn.”
The room was twenty by twenty by twenty, and it was half-filled with hydroponically grown cannabis plants of multiple strains. The other half consisted of drying and curing plants at various stages of completion.
“Nice, huh?” Tiffany grinned. “I used to cultivate surreptitiously, honing my craft, until I came of age and could come out about a lot of things, weed included.”
“Can we get something yummy?” I asked, sounding like a kid with candy. “I like the citrus-terpene profiles.”
“Here we go,” she said, unhooking a hanging plant, “Tiger Mints, a combination of Orange Push-pop and Animal Mints strains, and one of the tastiest weeds out there.”
Tiffany broke off a bud and handed it to me. I smelled it and could smell the citrus-mint of the plant.
“Oh sweet Cerridwen, that’s heavenly!” I swooned.
“Let me run this plant through the trimmer.” she said, opening a machine and breaking off large buds to put in there. “This plant has about eight pounds on it, so we should be good for the weekend.”
“I should hope so!” I said as the machine worked.
"Most medical strains of this top out at twenty-two to twenty-six percent THC." she said as she took trimmed buds out of the machine. "I've been working on upping that, and have been getting thirty-five to forty percent."
The Witch: Book Two of The Sorceress Saga Page 27