by Dante King
Nigel considered this. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “that’s a fair point.”
“I thought so. Plus, I didn’t want to bring the frat house down around our ears this close to Yuletide, you know. I’ve grown pretty fond of the old place.”
“Yeah,” Nigel said. “Me too.”
“What are you lovebirds chatting about?” Damien asked loudly, striding around the corner of the house and waving merrily at us.
“Just discussing whether or not it’s true that you were the reason that the middle finger was invented,” I said.
Damien laughed and came to stand in front of us.
As he knocked the snow off the bottom of his Doc Martens, I thought to myself that there were a couple of things that the passerby might notice about the young, black haired man.
The first thing that might have piqued a stranger’s interest was that Damien, despite looking quite human, was not at all dressed for the inclement weather. He was wearing a pair of scorched black jeans, boots, and no shirt—hardly usual for a day that would have been lucky to touch forty degrees thus far.
The second thing was that the falling snowflakes were melting as soon as they touched his naked torso. You would have, were you blessed with acute enough hearing, been able to hear the pretty little things sizzling as they touched the Fire Mage’s skin.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you all morning.”
“You missed waffles. Apparently,” said Nigel morosely.
Damien grinned and swept a few strands of black hair out of his face with a beringed hand.
“Oh, I ate some serious waffle this morning, boys, don’t you worry about that,” the L.A. native said. “I was munching on waffle like it was going out of fashion.”
“Judging by the stress that you’re putting on the word ‘waffle’ and the criminally dirty way that you’re waggling your eyebrows, I assume you’re alluding to vagina?” I asked.
Damien feigned shock. “Was it that obvious?”
“You could have possibly knocked together some sort of incantation that set fireworks off when you said the word ‘waffle’,” Nigel proposed.
“Food for thought,” said Damien, cradling his chin thoughtfully in his hand.
“You were out getting a last little bit of action before you head back to L.A.?” I asked. “Who was the unfortunate female or farm animal, then?”
Damien ignored the jibe. “You know that nymph who works in the apothecary on Haswa Lane?”
I thought I knew the girl that Damien alluded to; a pretty thing with sapphire blue skin and a smile that could stop a charging rhino in its tracks. I nodded in the affirmative.
“Body like a golem, face like the back end of a troll?” Nigel asked.
Damien flicked a tiny fireball at the Wind Mage, but Nigel deflected it with a gust of air and sent it into a snowdrift with a soft sizzle.
“Well, she and I had been exchanging flirty looks over the past few weeks,” Damien continued, “and I needed to go in there to get some burn-reverse for some of my clothes. I saw her, standing there dressed in these candy cane pants, which were so tight that if she’d farted it would have blown her boots off—”
“Charming,” Nigel said.
“—and I thought fuck it, it’s Yuletide,” Damien finished. “So I asked her out. Next thing you know, she and I are out the back engaging in what I can only describe as a full-blown pornographic coupling.”
“Beautiful,” said Nigel.
Damien shrugged and grinned. Then he said, “Are you ready to go, Nigel? We have to be at the Portal Station in half an hour. Our shit is already down there waiting for us.”
“Forty-one minutes,” the halfling corrected him.
“Whatever. Shall we make tracks?” Damien said.
“Sure,” Nigel said and got to his feet.
Just then, when it looked like I was going to be left all on my lonesome, yet another voice rang out of the growing whiteness.
“Off on your Earthbound foray, boys?” Janet Thunderstone said.
I glanced up and saw a quartet of my favorite people crunching down the garden path. Janet led the way, followed by Cecilia Chillgrave, Enwyn Emberskull, and Alura, Princess of the Gemstone Elementals. Alura, a being with a glittering diamond-like skin that was practically transparent, looked particularly dazzling and otherworldly as she walked toward us. With the eddying billows of snow and the diffused light, she was almost invisible.
“That we are,” Damien said. “And, if you’ll excuse us, fair maidens, we have to be stepping.”
Janet laughed and held her hand up for a crisp high-five as Nigel and Damien passed the girls on the path. “I think calling any of us a ‘maiden’ is a bit of a stretch,” she said, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Catch you guys, later!” I called after Damien and Nigel’s retreating backs. “And remember, Nigel! Thinking positive is all very well and good, but in Los Angeles, you want to make sure that you’re testing negative too!”
“What the hell is he talking about, Damien?” I heard the halfling say to Damien, “and what is Figueroa Street?”
Then their voices were lost in the thickening blanket of snow.
“What are you ladies doing here?” I asked the four women as they stamped snow off their boots and came to stand on the decking of the porch.
“Just thought we’d walk Enwyn over here and say goodbye to you at the same time, darling,” Cecilia said.
I knew that Cecilia, Alura, and Janet were going to spend Yuletide with Cecilia’s family. The girls looked super excited, and had been for the past week or so, because the Chillgraves were famous for throwing one of Avalonia’s premier Yuletide balls.
It was one of those luscious, glittering, regal affairs, from what I had gathered from Cecilia’s description. The sort of fancy hoedown that was simply stuffed to the rafters with pretentious guys who thought the sun rose just to hear them crow, and the sort of girls who walked around with their noses stuck so high in the air that they wouldn’t go out in the rain for fear of drowning.
Although the three girls were about as down to earth and badass as any trio of females I had ever met, there were times when even they needed to lock themselves in a bathroom for four hours to do their hair and makeup, wrap themselves in jewels and silks, and have a night of unadulterated glamorous hobnobbing.
“Well, you know I always appreciate a visit from you ladies,” I said, “but I have to warn you, I’m supposed to be getting picked up… Well, an hour ago actually.”
Enwyn stepped forward. I noticed that she had a leather backpack slung over one shoulder.
“I’m glad to find you’re still here,” she said, “because I think you and I are catching the same ride together.”
“You’re coming to the Chaosbane ranch too?” I asked.
Enwyn nodded.
“Nice!” I said, with genuine delight. “Have you been there before?”
“No, never to the family ranch,” Enwyn said. “I believe that even the Chaosbanes only all get together there at this time of year. The only member of the family who lives there full time is the patriarch, Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock Chaosbane. From what Reginald has mentioned of his grandfather, the man sounds quite… cantankerous.”
“Hm,” I said. “A crusty old grave dodger, huh? The sort of crotchety bastard who’s kind of like a slinky—not really good for much, but they’d bring a smile to your face if you were allowed to push them down the stairs.”
Enwyn cocked her head to the side. “What in the world is a slinky?” she asked me.
“I just mean, he wouldn’t be the first crabby old fart that I’ve been introduced to,” I explained.
“There’s one thing that I think you should take into account though,” Enwyn said to me.
“What’s that?”
“The fact that this crabby old fart is a Chaosbane,” Enwyn said.
I puffed out my cheeks. “Yeah,” I said, thinking of the four members of t
he clan whom I had met thus far. “Good point.”
“Is there any more of that coffee, Justin, darling?” Cecilia asked me.
“I think so,” I said. “Should be sitting on the stovetop in a big-ass pot, unless Rick inhaled it on his way out.”
Cecilia squeezed my shoulder, leaned down, and gave me a lingering kiss. “I think the girls and I are going to sit inside and stay out of the cold.”
I raised an eyebrow at the Frost Mage. I knew for a fact that she felt the cold about as much as Damien did. Where Damien’s Fire Magic combated the frigidity, Cecilia’s Frost Magic absorbed it and embraced it.
The beautiful blonde elven aristocrat rolled her eyes and gave me a small smile.
“You know what I mean, darling,” she said. “Unless you want Alura, Janet, and I to bring our coffees out here and start discussing what awful skanks are going to be wearing what divine gowns at my parents’ party, of course?”
I considered this. For all of two nanoseconds.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“We’ll be cozying up inside, then,” Cecilia said. “Have a lovely vacation, darling. Try not to get yourself embroiled too deeply in the fecal matter while you’re away.”
“I can but try,” I said.
“There’s a good boy,” Cecilia said softly in my ear, as she stooped to give me another peck on the cheek. “See you when you get back.”
She strode inside, as if she owned the place. Gods, but I loved that girl’s style.
Janet and Alura both swooped down upon me too, whispering parting words in my ear as they kissed me goodbye.
Then, it was Enwyn and I left, alone on the porch. When the heavy front door had snapped closed behind Alura, Enwyn peered at me through those sexy heavy-rimmed spectacles of hers and smiled knowingly.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just, I look at you now, at the mage you have risen to be… It is a far cry from the young prospect whom I inspected in his uncle’s occult bookstore.”
I snorted softly, my breath pluming in the cold air. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve exploded at least half a dozen people since that first day.”
Enwyn nodded. “Yes,” she said, “but crucially, they have all happily been enemies.”
I made a face. “Yeah.”
A crooning purr emanated from out of a bush to our left. With a gentle sigh of sliding snow, a rustle of branches, and a flash of opalescent eyes, Felicity, the saber-toothed tiger-cum-catwoman emerged from out of the snowy undergrowth in her beastial form.
On seeing the Great Dane-sized creature, I realized that I hadn’t told anyone about the fact that the cat was also a person, or a shapeshifter. Now that I thought of it, I should maybe have mentioned something about it to the fraternity boys, at least. Might save one of them an uncomfortable meeting one night, if one of them was to wander downstairs for a glass of water and find some random naked woman with purple hair and a feline tail drinking milk out of the fridge.
Spurred on by this realization, I said to Enwyn, “She’s a shapeshifter you know. Well, a changeling, I think she said.”
“Who?” Enwyn asked.
I pointed at the saber-toothed cat that stood regarding us, its tail twitching. Snow settled on her thick outer coat.
“She is,” I said.
Felicity padded silently up onto the deck and pawed cautiously at the capture orb hanging at my belt.
I recalled how she had told me that she had been captured by just such an orb, by the orc shaman we had fought and killed on the day that she had decided to come home with us.
I explained this to Enwyn. If I had expected it to shock or puzzle her in any way, then I was sorely mistaken. The secretarial-looking woman merely contemplated the purple-furred creature, as she curled herself by my feet, and said, “Is that so?”
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked the cat. “Or would you prefer to stay and guard the frathouse?” She nuzzled into me, then nodded toward the frathouse. “Alright. I guess you have a lower tolerance for Chaosbanes than I do.”
Suddenly, Igor burst out of the front door, stumbled out onto the porch, and staggered down the steps, his arms pinwheeling madly in circles like someone running down a steep hill. His progress was arrested dramatically by a snow-covered cast iron birdbath that struck him squarely in the balls.
“Morning, Igor,” Enwyn said, surprise barely registering on her face.
“Oooooh yep, right in the snowglobes,” Igor groaned, straightening himself up with difficulty.
“What’s the rush, man?” I asked. “The house on fire?”
“Jumping jackalopes, is it?” Igor said, whirling so fast that his enormous mustache flapped visibly on his top lip. “I’m sure Barry said he was going to take care of that minor conflagration in the bathroom.”
“Minor what?” I said.
“Oh nothing, my dear fellow, nothing at all!” Igor said nonchalantly. He pulled a live beetle out of his pocket, crushed the gleaming orange insect between his palms, and then snorted the residue out of his cupped hands.
“And so it begins,” I muttered to Enwyn.
“I should hope so, I should hope so, I should damn well hope so!” rambled the shabby Rune Mystic, who also happened to be my first Mage Games sponsor and in the running for Avalonia’s All-Time Most Inebriated Human Wrecking Ball.
“I should hope so,” Igor repeated once more. “Otherwise my ears are playing up again.”
“Your ears?” Enwyn asked.
“Yes, my ears, my most beauteous and beddable strumpet,” Igor said. “Do you not hear it?”
“All I hear is a series of splatting noises as shit pours steadily from your mouth, Igor,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
Igor frowned at me, stuck one finger into his ear, and twisted it back and forth ferociously. A faint trace of powder came out with the finger as he pulled the digit free.
“No, there it is! Just as I thought,” Igor said. “That’s the great thing about snorting fresh vee-beetles. Not only do the little blighters hit your adrenal glands with the speed and intensity of a knife fight in an outhouse, but they also sharpen your hearing to an unbelievable degree. I hear the sleigh bells! The rest of the pestilential gang are almost here! Can you not hear them too?”
I was about to tell Igor that I thought he had well and truly left the reservation when I heard it.
Sleigh bells.
Enwyn and I looked skyward.
A sleigh, or at least a vaguely sleigh-shaped object, was being towed through the stormy skies by six unknown creatures. It kept disappearing and reappearing again, as it dipped in and out of the low snow-laden clouds, but there could be no doubt: it was heading right for us.
The sleigh swept in low and made a pass of the fraternity house, shooting past with such speed that it blew the snow clean out of the fruit trees standing around the front garden. Banking in a nicely controlled turn, the sleigh came back around, the six beasts pulling it slackening their speed sufficiently so that they could touch down and bring the sleigh to earth.
It would have been nice to say that the sleigh touched down with the grace and unruffled precision of a loon landing on a lake. In actual fact, it hit the lawn like a bewitched garden shed being driven by a lunatic.
Snow and mud sprayed in all directions, and more than a few of the hedges, plants, and small trees that had called the garden home were unceremoniously wiped out.
Enwyn, Igor, and I judiciously retreated to the back of the porch until the ice and soil had settled. When it had, I noticed that the sleigh was a great carved monstrosity of a thing. It looked like a cross between an ancient harpooning boat, the likes of which old Captain Ahab tried to puncture Moby Dick from, and a modern day dumpster.
The beasts that had been towing the sleigh, and that were now standing quite unconcernedly where a couple of nice pear trees had been only a moment before, were bulls.
There were bulls though, and then th
ere were these bulls.
The animals must have stood about eight feet high at the shoulder and weighed as much as the entire offensive line of the Indianapolis Colts each. Their hooves were the size of trash can lids, their nostrils big enough to drive a minecart up. Their coats, horns, and eyes were as black as the Duke of Hell’s waistcoat. When one started to take a very loud, very long piss, its urine didn’t just melt the snow but appeared to dissolve the frozen earth underneath too.
“Friendly looking things,” I said faintly, in a voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Ah, I see that you have an agricultural eye on you, Mr. Mauler!” came a voice from atop the sleigh.
Headmaster Reginald Chaosbane was standing at the front of the sleigh, a pair of reins in his hand. He was dressed with his usual piratically roguish panache; crisp white shirt with billowing lace cuffs, snazzy silk waistcoat, tight black pants, and knee high leather riding boots. To defy the cold, he also wore a long coat of rich blue velvet, and to combat the wind, he had a pair of flying goggles over his eyes.
Somehow, flying in the face of all logic, the man looked like a fucking movie star.
“All aboard!” the Headmaster bellowed. “As Mr. Mauler has so astutely observed, these beasts are nothing to be afraid of.”
“Reginald?” Igor said, walking boldly toward the sleigh, picking up one of his eight suitcases and hefting it into the back where Mortimer was standing waiting to receive it.
“Yes, cousin,” Headmaster Chaosbane said.
“Where in the bloody hell did you get this sleigh from?” Igor asked, adroitly avoiding a sideways kick from one of the enormous bulls by bending over to pick up another bag.
“Use that desiccated lump between your ears, my dear man,” Reginald said amiably. “I borrowed it from the Klaus family.”
I had just vanished the black and the white staffs into nothingness again and had picked up my leather traveling bag when the insanity of these words permeated my brain.
“The Klaus family?” I said dubiously. “As in the Klaus family?”
Reginald Chaosbane smiled mildly down at me from his perch on the sleigh. “That’s right, Mr. Mauler. Are you acquainted with the Klauses?”
Behind him, at the rear of the flying vehicle—if that was the right word—I caught a glimpse of the bubblegum pink bunches of Leah Chaosbane. She appeared to be sitting quite unconcernedly on what passed for a tailgate, swinging her legs and smoking one of her black clove-smelling cigarettes.
