Story: Chimera: Class of 666
Mage: The Awakening
Authored by:
Hannah Nyland (The Irreverent Revenant)
All Rights Reserved.
Chimera: Class of 666
Book 7: Of Corgis and Cold Iron
By Hannah Nyland, starring Eos!
Christmas Break 2014, Jamestown North Dakota
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever
heard.”
“No, really.”
Chimera groans. “I believe you. But what
else am I supposed to say to ‘fairies kidnapped your dog’?”
“You could say: ‘That’s terrible Emily! My
poor doggie! Fairies? Just another name
for dogknappers. Let’s go after them and
save Griff!’”
“What did I say about real names? I’m
trying to be serious about all this second and third secret life shit and you keep
yanking my chain.”
“I am being serious. Hand to god, Tinkerbell and her gang just raided
your house.”
“Fine,
Eos. Tiny pixies carried off my dog.
Please continue.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure he went
willingly. Police found no signs of a struggle at the crime scene.” Eos smirks.
“Nope. Not buying
it.”
It’s snowing in Klaus Park; the two young
women sit side by side on a park bench, one bundled up in multiple layers of
winter clothing, the other barefoot. At least the temperature is above zero,
and the wind-chill isn’t too bad. For
North Dakota, this counts as pretty nice weather for the time of year. A few
half-hearted attempts have been made to inspire holiday cheer; a handful of red
and green ribbons tied to bare tree branches, a flickering light-up reindeer by
the merry-go-round. But between the bare branches, lack of human presence and
empty stretches of white, the place just looks desolate, like everyone left the
party and went back inside hours ago.
The cold wind rushes past again, and Eos
retreats further into her fuzzy blue jacket. “Indoor heating actually exists,
you know,” she says pointedly. “It’s not just some sort of NoDak urban legend.”
Chimera
stretches lazily, bare feet trailing through the snow. Her boots were left at
home. She said it was more comfortable. Eos said she was nuts. “We don’t have a
Forces user handy right now, which means we don’t have the luxury of any decent
sound-proofing. I’m not risking having to memory-wipe my own family if they overhear
us talking about supernatural weirdness. Griff is missing. You say
fairies. So spill it, princess. What
else have you worked out?”
The proximus gets
a smug look as she rattles off the facts: “Your parents said that when they
came home from the evening movie yesterday, your dog was gone and the house was
clean. Immaculate in fact, which I am lead to believe is unusual for your
place. Everything was in order, save for one thing – all the milk in the fridge
was completely empty. And this-” she rattles one of said empty jugs, brought
along for study, “has a weird resonance stuck on it. Almost slippery, and it
resonates strongly with Fate. It’s like some kind of unsaid agreement was
struck, but the details didn’t make any sense.
So then I hit web. Crowd-sourcing
says brownies.”
“Right, tiny
fairies that do people’s household chores, but only when no one’s watching. At
least, that’s what I’d heard.”
Eos nods. “Brownies
often take some sort of small payment for their services. They favor honey,
porridge and most of all, milk. In this case, it looks like they also decided
to add your dog to the tab.”
“And they wanted
him why?”
“From what I’ve read most Fae are irredeemably
narcissistic and insane by human standards. Azazel said they operate not on
morality but on what is most entertaining at the moment, and nothing is
entertaining unless it’s of their own making. There could be a billion reasons
why. They embody the chaos aspects of Fate and tend to break the rules of how we
expect things to work. Might’ve been why your post-cog came out all fuzzy; Time
and Fate are native to Arcadia, and so are they. Brownies in particular must have
at least some element of time manipulation going for them; they’re legendary
for completing chores and mundane work impossibly quickly.”
The Mastigos face
goes blank as a slate. Processing. “There’s something else odd about this, Eos.
My dad’s got a friend who does a lot of work up at the Jamestown Humane
Society. I gave her a call this morning after we came into town to see if
anyone had brought Griff in. No sign of him, but she also runs the local
listing for missing pets. There have been four corgis – and corgis specifically
- reported missing this week in the Jamestown area. In a town this size, that’s
probably most of them. For some reason, these brownies really have a thing for
corgis.”
“Mmm. I wonder-”
An old, obscure legend on the Fae springs to mind, and Eos grins. “Well, never
mind. We’ll see soon enough, right? How are we going to get them back?”
“I doubt we can.
They’re likely long gone into the Hedge or even Arcadia by now. And even if
they aren’t, it’s not a good time for me to run all over town looking for
fairies. I mean, I love my dog, but I came home for my family. I can’t just
vanish for a while. They need to know that they can trust me . . .” She turns
away, but not quickly enough for Eos to miss what’s written across her face.
Regret.
“Screw that noise,”
she says cheerfully, pretending that she didn’t see. “No one gets away with
stealing my boss’ dog. This sort of thing is why you keep minions around. Set
me on it! I’ll have ‘em back in no time.”
Chimera smiles faintly.
“Hey, I appreciate it. But you’ve got your family too. I don’t want to take
away your time with them or anything, especially not around Christmas.”
“Nah, it’s no
biggie. We’re not close or anything.”
“Well . . . okay.
But you don’t think that-”
Eos face darkens. “We’re
not close,” she snaps.
Chimera blinks. It
occurs to her that the amount she knows about Eos’ family could fit in a
thimble with room to spare. She’s never talked about them. Not even dodged the
topic, but skillfully kept it from ever coming up until now.
She decides to
ignore the outburst.
“It’s your call. Don’t
go through any pathways or doors leading anywhere strange. If you end in fairyland it’s very unlikely that
you’ll be able to get out. There’s a
reason there’s so few Awakened Hedge Cartographers.”
“I’ve been reading
up on the Fae and those they kidnap ever since the Nightmare.” Chimera adds.
“People vanish for decades and come back changed. If you run into any of their kind be very
careful what you promise them. Hell, I don’t need to lecture; you probably know
the stories better than I do. Just be careful. Use the earring if you need me
and don’t do anything too risky without back-up. And you’re free to join me and
my family, you know? They like you. My mom is convinced that you’re a good influence
on me.” She chuckles.
“Wow!
She’s a terrible judge of character.” Eos rises to her feet, empty milk jug in
hand, a smile plastered on her face again as though nothing had happened. “I
wonder what they would say if they knew that it’s more that you’re a corrupting influence.”
Eos
is all keyed up, ready to dabble in the occult once again, and Chimera knew
there was no helping it. Her research, penchant for the supernatural, and
obsession with self-improvement; it all came down to the semi-Awakening that
made her a Proximus, the half glimpsed watchtower of silver and thorns. She was
pushing it, hoping she’d get a second chance to make the big decision and
scrawl her name across the cosmos this time.
Well, Chimera thinks. I’ve done stupider things for the sake of
pride.
“Wait.
Take this,” She digs around in her pocket and hands Eos a folded up
switchblade. “It’s cold iron. I don’t think I need to remind you of the
benefits of having it when dealing with the Fae. I’ve been keeping some on hand
ever since our run-in with the Nightmare.”
“Thanks. This shouldn’t take me long.” Eos
pockets it and trudges off into the snow.
“How much trouble can a few fairies be?”
“Why
did you have to say that?”
*****
Jamestown’s one
and only barber gives the girl an odd look as she struts out the front door,
clutching a plastic garbage filled with white blonde hair. That haircut is not
at all flattering on her and short cuts (bordering on shaved) aren’t exactly in
vogue this side of December, but she was insistent. Requesting her chopped off
hair once he was done was just the cherry on the weird cake. The girl beams at
him through the front window, and with a little wave, is gone into the wind and
blustering snow. He smiles and shakes his head. What a strange person . . . nice, but strange.
As he’s closing up
shop that evening, the man is befallen by an unfortunate and entirely unlikely
accident. He slips and falls on a tangle of hair on the floor, lands face first
on the pair of scissors in his hand and impales himself through the cheek. His holiday
is spent in an ER room. If a mage were to examine the scene closely, they might
see a faint silver cloud hovering nearby - residue of a Proximi family curse,
some kind of unconscious manipulation of luck and entropy, and virtually
impossible for any but the greatest investigative magi to pick up.
Out on the street,
Eos’ smile turns into a scowl. “It just had to be hair.”
On reflection, she
grudgingly acknowledges that a headful of her hair is perhaps not the worst price her sources on the other
side of the mirror might’ve asked for. It could’ve been a pint of blood
instead. Or a basket of flayed puppies. Flayed puppies beat out everything.
Still, her admittedly conspicuous sense of vanity is prickling at this. It’s
going to take some work to pull this look off, and right now she doesn’t have
the time. She tugs her hat over her shorn head self-consciously. She could
probably get some “likes” and renewed attention from this stunt with her hair,
but what would she claim as the cause of this radical rebranding of herself?
Eos crosses the
street at a red light and makes her way down Main Street to a small park on the
corner. A few drivers stop briefly to look at her. Ever since her near-Awakening,
Eos has become accustomed to receiving extra notice, and for the most part
enjoys it. Before Germany, it wouldn’t have been like her depression wouldn’t
have allowed that. But something changed on that trip; a sudden piece of
enlightenment, a burst of light that cut her past away. Attractiveness,
charisma, her social media fame - whatever the reason, people are paying
attention to her. If Chimera is a shadow, Eos is a star, exuding presence and
pulling in attention.
Later that day one
of those drivers, an appreciative young man of eighteen, is involved in a bad traffic
accident. While fortunately not fatal, the collision breaks both legs and a
collarbone; he’s laid up in the hospital for months. The man with his scissors
and the boy with his car; when those accidents happen, Eos feels them - a
little twinge in the back of her mind, a flare of silver around if her Fate
Sight is up, though she doesn’t know what happened exactly. Someone hurt,
someone dead, all because of her curse and a bad turn of kismet? The effects of
it could even manifest as a simple inconvenience, but she’ll never know. When she feels it this time,
she does what she always does: slap a smile back on her face and swears to god
that one day, she’ll find a way to be rid of it, no matter how impossible such
a thing is supposed to be.
Because what else
can she do?
The park’s
construction was funded by the local Art Center after a fire on the lot burned
down King’s Studio, a photography business that Chimera’s great-grandparents
once had ties to - Jack King was one, and Casstiel still carries the last name.
When Eos arrives, no one else is there. It’s a nice enough little place now,
dotted with trees, benches and flower beds in spring, but for some reason
people tend to avoid it; Eos has speculated that there’s spirit or ghost
activity there that makes even Sleeper’s intuitively uncomfortable; she feels
an unbidden surge of loss as she steps foot on the lot, and the sensation of
being watched. But the any inhabitants there may be are peaceful enough;
nothing has ever actively harassed her here, and she came here precisely
because she was certain that no one else would be hanging around. The feeling of observation isn’t caused by
living eyes; best to ignore it if it isn’t hostile.
She takes a seat
at one of the benches and removes something from her backpack; a gothic style
hand mirror, blue glass full of splinters and breaks. At times when she looks
at it, she swears she sees the shadow of something writhing and wriggling under
the surface. It might not even be her imagination.
“Burn it,”
the mirror whispers.
And it speaks.
There’s that too, though only Eos has ever been able to hear it. Under Mage
Sight it resonates familiarity, comfort, and death. The mirror was a gift from
her late grandfather; she’s held onto it a long time, but it wasn’t until her
semi-Awakening it started to reveal its secrets – ask it a question and if the
mirror knows, you’ll get an answer. For a price.
Mirror mirror on the wall…
She takes out a
lighter from her pack and clears the nearby snow away with her foot, forming a
small circle of bare grass. Then she dumps the contents of the black garbage
bag on the ground and lights it up, gagging on the odor of burning hair.
When the flames
have licked it all up, Eos murmurs “I hope my payment is worthy.” After a moment’s
thought, she adds irritably, “You loonie.”
The mirror apparently deems such insults
beneath its notice, as it continues on without skipping a beat. Its voice is a
viper sliding through the grass, the slow certainty of death headed her way. “Nickeus
Park. You’ll find them there in the dead of night, in the place where the land
meets the river.”
Eos claps slowly, playing off a shiver.
“How poetic! Good for you. Now if you don’t mind, you’re going back in the bag.
No offense, but you’re kind of creepy.”
The mirror has nothing to say about that.
Eos stuffs it into her backpack, climbs to her feet, and hightails it out of
the spirit and/or ghost infested park. Not for the first time, she wonders what
the hell is wrong with Jamestown. Undead monstrosities in Cavalry Graveyard, a
demonic church, swarms of vice-eating spirits all over town, and now
obsessive-compulsive fairies like midgets on Adderall. It’s a wonder that anyone
has the gall to call the small Midwestern town “peaceful”.
That night, when she
comes across the riverside clearing that the fairies call home, Eos has to
clasp a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping or laughing; she’s not sure
which.
There’s an old Welsh legend that corgis
are in fact, a magical breed of dogs… that they once served as the valiant
steeds of the Fae Nobles of Wales. They say that if you look closely at a
corgi’s back and shoulders, you can see the markings of a fairy saddle.
That legend is proving itself to be more
of a reality than a fiction, as legends are so wont to do these days. A battle
is playing out before her eyes; two lines of pointy eared, toddler-sized
soldiers are rushing at each other, four of them seated in saddles on the backs
of the kidnapped dogs. The corgis, for their parts, seem to consider the fight
a particularly entertaining game; they dart and leap across the field, tongues
lolling and tails wagging as their riders swipe at opponents with their
weapons. Said weapons are . . . unconventional; long handled forks, sewing
needles, torn out sections of wire fences, broken glass, and charging cables
wielded as whips and garrotes. The armor is equally varied. Some wear child
sized bicycle helmets, others sections of towels and blankets fashioned into a
kind of hide armor, and still others have cobbled together shields from plates
and pie tins.
According to lore, she shouldn’t be able
to see any of this; Eos isn’t sure why some sort of fairy glamour hasn’t fuzzed
her brain by now. Maybe it has to do
with being a Sleepwalker, or her Fate Sight. Maybe it has to do with the
mirror. Maybe they’re just exceptionally careless, in which case they’ve
probably got bigger problems than her to worry about.
Eos gathers up her nerve and strides
purposely into the center of the fray, warriors and dogs scattering around her
as the fight slows to a stop. A few cries of confusion and surprise ring out,
and then there’s just a long, irritated silence. A rough two dozen brownies
simply stare at her, frozen in their positions.
At last, the biggest one dismounts his
corgi and swaggers over, his scale mail fashioned from soda tabs clinking as he
walks. He’s plump, almost round, and holds a metal shish-kabob, the kind you’d
use to skewer grilled meat or vegetables. He puffs out his chest, clears his
throat and exclaims:
“I am WEAVER,
first of my name, exile from Arcadia. My kin and I have gathered here to
commemorate the Battle of the Black Thorn! Our historical accuracy is truly
unparalleled!” He gestures grandly at
the corgis and the brownies’ assorted weaponry and costumes.
That’s when Eos
gets it. They’re reenactors. She’s
heard of people recreating Civil War battles as a pastime, but this is
something else.
“Why have you
disturbed this most holy of rites, MORTAL?”
Weaver bellows, taking a step closer and brandishing
his shish-kabob threateningly. His voice rings like a silver bell.
Eos looks coldly down at them, smiling
without showing any teeth and with one smooth motion, pulls the switchblade
from her pocket and flips the blade out. Cold iron gleams in the moonlight.
Weaver and his lackeys instinctively recoil; one of them lets out a quiet hiss.
“Me? I’d just like to have a little chat.”
*****
And so the negotiations begin.
Eos wears her smile like a mask and wields
charm like a razor. All of her research urges her to caution when dealing with fairies,
but she’s getting the distinct impression that Weaver isn’t the brightest bulb
in the box and far too brash for his own good. Overblown declarations, blustery
threats, and pompous boasts: he pulls out all the stops. At times, he appears
to be channeling some bizarre combination of a drill sergeant and Brian
Blessed. It’s all she can do not to roll her eyes after his fourth
self-indulgent monologue.
In truth, she’s feeling him out, looking
for leverage. They might be small, but there’s a lot of them, a lot of pointy
objects, and she doesn’t exactly pride herself as a fighter. If it weren’t for
Chimera’s knife, she has the feeling that she’d be mobbed and lying on the
ground bleeding, or being carried off into some in-between place of bramble and
darkness, roped up like Gulliver’s Travels by now. She decides to tread
carefully, even with the implicit threat of cold iron in her hand.
So she strokes his ego, verbally parries,
and waits for her curse to kick in. It’ll be one moment of catastrophic error on
his part, but she can do enough with that to stop him cold. And it’ll be soon;
Eos is giving the curse a bit of a helping hand this time. Her ability to
hinder the curse in nonexistent, but it laps up any advantage she gives it like
a rabid dog, one of the many things about it that makes her suspect the curse
is actually sentient somehow. For once that works to her advantage; the Fae may
be slippery when it comes to Fate and Time, but the curse of a Proximi line is
woven into their very soul, and has been for untold generations. That and
Weaver’s complete lack of Fae subtlety are what she has over him.
She’s beginning to wonder if her curse can
even affect him at all when it happens. He grossly missteps verbally, almost
outright agreeing with her position. Eos seizes the opportunity, augmented by
magically enhanced timing, and goes on the offensive; catching him in verbal traps
that make him look foolish to any of his followers with half the brains he has.
She can see the dawning concern on his face the moment he realizes that
engaging her further is likely going to chip away at his authority. She gives
him a way out, a way to save face; a trade offered with flattering,
self-effacing words.
Thirty gallons of milk laced with honey
and a prick of blood to seal the deal. In return, Eos receives four pure
blooded Pembroke Welsh corgis, a promise that they will be free from the
attentions of the Fae in the future – and one more thing. A brownie trick: how
to work faster than any human should be able to, provided no one is watching.
She had to push hard for that last one, and Weaver still only provided the
barest of details on how it works.
But all in all, Eos feels that she got the
better end of the deal. Of course, she forgot to specify that she needed a way to
contain the corgis as soon as they were released, and as a result spent half an
hour chasing four dogs around the park. She has the feeling that Weaver was
just being spiteful with that part, though to him it probably seemed perfectly
fair. Letter of the law is all that is
required of the Fae’s deals, after all.
Two hours later, she’s walking down Fourth
Avenue with bundle of empty leashes in her hand and Griff by her side. The
corgi pants happily, bounding over and through the piles of snow in their path;
his brief experience with the Fae seems to have left him no worse for the wear. Eos has already brought the rest of the dogs
back to their homes; several of the owners offered her money for their safe
returns, but it’s the Christmas season, and she’s in the mood for giving. So in
the end she played it cool, refusing all rewards.
Eos stops at the house with the white
picket fence, a grin edging onto her face, as it so often does. Chimera’s home
belongs on a cheesy Christmas card; red bows tied on the fence, lights strung
from the roof, and a cheerful blow-up Santa in the front yard. She walks Griff
up to the front door and rings the doorbell. There’s a significant pause. Just
as Eos is about to ring the bell again, the door opens a crack; The smell of
baking cookies and the sound of Christmas songs playing come from inside the
open door. A moment later, a wary-looking Warlock sticks her head out.
Griff lets out a yip of joy and jumps on
her, tail wagging pawing at her with stubby legs. Chimera’s guarded expression
melts like butter as she leans down to pet him, and she smiles. It’s like a
trace of some other person shining through, a person who was mostly gone by the
time Eos got the chance to meet her.
It’s not easy acting the hard-ass where your pets are concerned.
Chimera
looks her over, then still with a smile says: “Thank you. Come on in. I can see
you’ve got a story to tell.”
