by Dante King
“And if this mysterious Inscriber ally of ours is able to help you open up your slots,” she purred innocently in my ear, “I guess that means we get to do this again, and I’ll open up my very special slot for you, honey bunny.” Her voice dropped an octave lower. “And then, I’ll show you what I can really do.”
“That,” I said, “sounds extremely enticing. And I suppose that this was only day one of the Yuletide festivities.”
“That’s right,” Leah said, running a finger around my nipple and then pinching it hard. “So, it’s only right that we ease into things.”
If the first day on Chaosbane Ranch was anything to go by, our time here would see me and the rest of the gang as busy as moths in a mitten.
“Care to tell me what tomorrow might have in store for us?” I asked Leah, draping my arm around her and squeezing her nipple in return. It hardened under my touch, and the pink-haired beauty next to me gave a little moan.
“Do you need to prepare yourself, you delicate bloom, is that it?” Leah teased gently.
“With you fucking wackos? Absolutely,” I said.
Leah leaned forward and casually bit me on my pectoral muscle, leaving a perfect ring of teeth marks. Then she licked me.
“Oh, tomorrow!” she whispered enthusiastically. “Tomorrow, you’ll get to experience a real treat! You’ll be taking part in a genuine Chaosbane family tradition; the Hunting of the Eggnog Gnomes!”
The fire spat, the logs crumbling and settling down for the evening. I had no doubt snow was falling outside, but inside the tent, all was calm, all was peaceful.
“Right,” I said, staring up at the enchanted night sky above me. “Eggnog Gnomes. Right. Just another day on the ranch, then.”
Chapter 6
The next morning we were up at a time that would have been offensive on any normal day, had it not been for a trifecta of key components that took the edge off the extremely early hour.
The first integrant was that the one doing the stirring was a half-naked Leah Chaosbane.
The leggy Chaos Mage stood next to the bed, peering down at me, her pink hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves that were at once both messy and, somehow, stylish. She was wearing her usual blue woollen sweater that rode up her navel, with its usual assortment of small rips and burn holes. From the hem of that sweater down, she was buck ass naked.
My sleep encrusted eyes opened a little wider. The contrast that the sexy young woman presented, with the top half of her looking like she had been dressed by a doddering grandmother while the bottom half revealed a tight ass and a perfectly shaved love-box, was one that even my drowsy libido could get behind—and in front of, for that matter.
Leah grinned down at me, looking as bright-eyed as if she had gone to bed with a mug of cocoa and a bedtime story and got a full eight hours into the bargain, instead of partaking in an all-night bender in the forests of the Chaosbane ranch. She held out her hand, and the second little bit of metaphorical balm was applied to my brow; she was holding a steaming cup of—
“A Chaosbane kickstarter,” Leah said.
I took the proffered cup gingerly. Probably in the same manner that I might have taken receipt of a claymore mine.
“What’s a Chaosbane kickstarter?” I asked.
“Coffee, silly,” Leah said. “A very rare djinn blend that Aunt Ruth gets smuggled in through the Port of Delaborg, but shhhhhhh, that’s our little secret.”
“Coffee?” I asked, sniffing at the steaming brew, which was as dark as sin.
“Coffee,” Leah assured me.
I took a sip.
“Mostly,” she added.
I swallowed.
“A very little bit of coffee, maybe,” Leah said.
Whatever alcohol was acting as the kick in this Chaosbane kickstarter ran across my tongue and down my throat like lighted petroleum. I gasped, waiting for the hammerblow to the cranium that surely must come next.
“Better?” Leah asked.
I opened my eyes, which I had unintentionally screwed up against the nauseating alcoholic punishment. To my incredulous delight, I felt fine—better than fine. I felt like a man who was ready to face whatever crap the day cared to fling at him.
“Yeah,” I said. “Much better. What’s the kick?”
“Twisted Dog Lips,” Leah said, turning around and bending over so that I was given a view that would have put a horn on a jellyfish, before she straightened up and started pulling on her pair of high-waisted trousers.
“What the hell is Twisted Dog Lips?” I asked.
“Great Granddaddy’s homebrew.” Leah pulled her pink locks up into her habitual messy pigtails. “He calls it Twisted Dog Lips because he reckons it makes your brain feel like how a dog’s lips look when you give it a spoonful of peanut butter.”
I twisted around and saw that Enwyn was already up and dressed, running a brush through her raven locks.
“Not bad stuff that, is it?” she said to me as she twisted her hair up into a very proper and dignified bun.
“Not bad at all,” I admitted.
I kicked off the blankets and took another slurp of the coffee concoction. The effects didn’t lessen. If anything, they increased.
“All right,” I said, “let’s go hunting for… What’re we hunting for again?”
“Eggnog Gnomes,” Leah said, sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull her boots on.
“Yeah,” I said, “those things.”
I always found myself being grateful for Igor’s morphing cloak when it came to getting dressed after a big night. The magical garment made getting ready an absolute breeze. I just slung it over my shoulders, pictured the sort of gear that I wanted to be dressed in that day, and pop, there I was attired in the very garb I had imagined. The magic held itself in place until I made a conscious decision to change it or remove it, which also gave me peace of mind that I wasn’t about to find myself with my pecker on show for the public during some inopportune moment, like a fight to the death.
We stepped out of the tent a couple of shakes of a lamia’s tail later, and I was greeted by the third thing that made waking up early today a wonderful thing.
The sun was just poking its face over the eastern horizon. A few fingers of crisp, early morning light managed to sneak their way through the pine boughs and the shaggy branches of the trees surrounding the ranch. The golden shafts of sunlight were so clear cut that they looked newly minted, almost like no one had laid eyes on them and sullied them. A few early birds called to one another. Except for them, there was not a single other sound, not even the wind.
“What’s the time?” I asked, looking around at the incredible peaceful stillness blanketing the forest like an invisible miasma.
“Why does that matter? Leah said, coming to stand next to me.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled happily. Her breath smoked in the air, drifting out to hang in the frosty halcyon air.
“It’s early,” the Chaos Mage said. “Fucking perfect o’clock in the morning, sugarplums. Time for us to go up to the house, get changed, and have breakfast.”
Leah started striding away through the trees, cutting through the sparse woods instead of taking the path with a confidence that told me she knew exactly what direction the ranch house lay in.
“Get changed?” I called after her.
“Oh, yes,” the long-legged stunner replied as Enwyn and I began to tramp after her through the creaking snow. “You don’t think that you can partake in something as steeped in tradition as the Chaosbane family Eggnog Gnome Hunt and not dress for the occasion, do you?”
Somehow, despite the warming glow that had suffused my brain and intestines after that Chaosbane kickstarter, her words still managed to fill me with trepidation.
We ate breakfast together around an enormous dining table in one of the ranch’s ludicrously appointed rooms. Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock presided at the head of the table, of course, with Aunt Ruth to one side of him and Mort to the
other. Reginald sat at the other end of the table. The rest of us were spaced between them. The table was heaped with all the sorts of food that you crave after a night on the libations; fries, hamburgers, bacon and eggs, pancakes, pizza that looked like it had been taken out of the fridge and reheated, and curry.
Across from me, Igor was constructing a dish out of a selection of ingredients that I would not have thought would go together.
“What are you working on there, Igor?” I asked.
Igor looked up. His eyes, which were usually bloodshot to the point where the whites of his eyes could more accurately be called the reds, were surprisingly clear. His mustache was free of its usual powders, twigs, and bits of miscellaneous fluff and crumbs.
“This, young man, is my patented pancake sandwich,” Igor said happily, picking up the maple syrup bottle. “Sausage, eggs, bacon, and chocolate wafers sandwiched between two pancakes. Liberally doused in maple syrup.” He poured about half a gallon of syrup over the gastronomic heartstopper on his plate. “It’s a breakfast designed to stave off even the most dogged of hangovers. Step two in my two-step system, which enables a mage to rise early and without a morning head that makes them feel like if they sneeze they’ll have an aneurysm.”
“I can’t believe that I’m sayin’ this, sir,” Barry Chillgrave said, from where he was floating a couple of places along from me, “but ye don’t look hungover to me.”
“Ah,” Igor the wisenheimer said, “that would be thanks to step one in the two-step anti-hangover program.”
“And what’s step one?” I asked.
“At least a quart of Demon’s Mouthwash,” Igor replied at once. “Administered to the gullet and sent down to the stomach on the moment of waking.”
Igor picked up his pancake sandwich, syrup dripping all over his fingers. He took a bite and sighed appreciatively. He swallowed and said, “Best make sure that you don’t have a candle burning on the bedside table when you put step one into practice. Demon’s Mouthwash is one of those potent little numbers that’s roughly ninety-five percent alcohol.”
I laughed, shook my head, and applied myself to my bacon sandwich.
“Pass the ember salt will you, Idman, old chum?” Reginald asked Idman from his end of the table.
Idman took a sip of the tea that he was drinking and prodded with a finger the salt cellar. The glass and silver shaker set off sedately down the table, meandering its way through the maze of dishes, cups, and implements that littered the table until it came to a halt next to Reginald’s plate.
“Thanks kindly,” Reginald said, applying the ember salt to his meal.
“What is ember salt?” I asked the Headmaster. I was always intrigued by these small details of mage life. The more in your face things such as murderous trolls, Eldritch prisons, and regenerating after dying in the War Mage arena were preposterous aspects of life, but easy to understand. For some reason, the everyday, household things like this held their own little mysterious allure.
“Well, you know smoked salt, mate?” Reginald said. “That fancy seasoning that the swanky inns and eateries are all about at the moment, even in Nevermoor?”
I nodded.
“Ember salt is fancier still,” he said, “and packs a tiny bit more punch to the tastebuds than the smoked stuff.”
“Right, that’s enough of everyone’s blather,” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock said, banging his coffee cup on the table in place of a gavel to call for order. The cup shattered and spilled coffee everywhere, but the old man paid it no heed.
“All my clan know what this hunt of ours entails,” he said in his cracked and cantankerous voice. “For those of you who are new here, I shall give you a brief explanation.”
The patriarch of the Chaosbane clan got unsteadily to his feet, unhooked his walking stick, which we all knew was his vector, and began pacing around the table, all the better to say his piece.
“The reasons that we Chaosbanes take part—and have always taken part—in the Eggnog Gnome Hunt around this time of year are twofold,” the crusty old fellow said. “The first reason is because the Eggnog Gnomes are annoying little shits. I’m a man who calls a broomstick a broomstick, and that’s the truth of the matter: they’re the sort of nuisance that makes my damn crotch itch! They’re—”
Leah snorted into her bowl of chicken and mud-nut noodles. “By the gods, it’s a bit early in the morning for talk of itchy crotches, Great Grandaddy!”
The old man scowled. “Oh, I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “did the middle of my sentence interrupt yours?”
Leah rolled her dark eyes and blew Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock a kiss.
“As I was saying,” the grumpy codger continued, “the Eggnog Gnomes are overpopulated in this area and cause no end of mischief in the winter months when their sex drives make them a damned penance to the locals.”
I had a lot of questions already, but I knew when to keep my lip buttoned.
“To try and keep the numbers of the Eggnog Gnomes down and to stop the creatures from rampaging around the district stealing everyone’s underpants and raiding liquor cabinets,” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock carried on seriously, “the first Chaosbane that built this fine settlement organized a hunt to be partaken by the family, and so the tradition was started. A few generations later, it was decided that the hunt could also be used as a point scoring system to decide who had the honor of carving the Yuletide Log on Yuletide Eve.”
“The Yuletide what now?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“Log, Mr. Mauler,” Reginald said. “The big, long, steaming Yuletide Log, yet another Chaosbane family tradition.”
“Do you bake it?” I asked speculatively.
“In a manner of speaking,” Mort said.
“Enough blather!” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock said once again. “Now that the reasoning behind it has been explained, how about we ruddy well get out there and get to blasting those little heathens out of the sky. Is everyone ready?”
“I feel a bit iffy,” Igor said thickly through a mouthful of pancake sandwich.
“Oh, Igor,” Aunt Ruth said, dabbing at her lips with a napkin, “don’t worry, dear. The first forty years of childhood is often said to be the hardest.”
Leah stood on her chair, walked across the table, and dropped nimbly down to stand next to me. She took me by the hand and pulled me toward the door. “Come on, you,” she said enthusiastically, “let’s get tooled up. We don’t want to get lumbered with the shitty thundercusses, do we?”
“I don’t know,” I said as I was dragged out of the room and down a hallway. “Do we? What the shit is a thundercuss?”
Chapter 7
Our group of ten was dressed in striking matching outfits: long robes over warm trousers tucked into our boots, warm woolen mittens, and the types of deer stalking hats made famous by Sherlock Holmes. All in a lurid, safety-orange color.
When I had asked whether the color was to protect us all from accidentally popping one another if we got separated, Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock had looked at me seriously and said, “Gods no, boyo, it’s because those little devils, the Eggnog Gnomes, can’t see this shade of orange for some reason. Means we can nail more of the pests before they can figure out where the fire is coming from!”
“So, you meant a blunderbuss?” I said to Leah as we walked across the untouched snow of the lawns, our footsteps the first things to mar the surface that day.
“I don’t know what you’re going on about with all your talk of blunderbusses,” Leah said, “but what you’re holding there is a thundercuss, a weapon of Chaosbane design that is only brandished to do humane battle against the Eggnog Gnomes.”
I turned the formidable-looking weapon over in my hands. It certainly looked like a blunderbuss, almost exactly like one. The device had a stock that could have been taken straight off the most expensive bespoke Purdey & Sons shotgun, all beautiful hand carvings and intricate etchings. The part of the thundercuss that passed for a barrel looked
more like a brass instrument of some kind, a trombone possibly, or the horn from a gramophone.
“This is a Chaosbane design?” I asked.
“That’s correct, Justin,” Mort said quietly from behind me.
I almost jumped; the guy was just so quiet that you literally never heard him coming. No wonder he was one of the best and most infamous bounty hunters in Avalonia.
“It’s not going to explode in my face, is it?” I asked, only half-jokingly.
“Ye of little faith,” Leah scolded me theatrically. “You should know by now that genius lies along the edge of lunacy, honey-kitten.”
I had to smile at that. I didn’t think a truer description could have been given about any one of the Chaosbanes.
“Okay,” I said, “I trust you, so tell me how to work it and why we’re using these things instead of magic.”
“There would be no challenge, no honor, in using magic to pluck the Eggnog Gnomes from the sky,” Mort said.
“From the sky?” I asked.
Mort frowned slightly and stroked one long, pale finger down a wispy blonde-white sideburn.
“Of course, Eggnog Gnomes are tree-dwellers, Justin,” he said. “As the elder Chaosbane, Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock rouses them from their nests with the Hoodwinking Horn. Being nosy creatures, the Eggnog Gnomes exit the trees, gliding between their little hideouts on membranes of hide that are attached from their elbows to their ankles.”
I made a face. “They fly? I thought we’d be lying up by the lakeside somewhere, waiting for them to come down to do a spot of fishing while they sat on a toadstool or… something.”
Mort was looking at me as if I had gone completely bonkers.
“No,” he said simply.
Leah tapped the little sack of powder that hung at my belt. “Take a handful of blasting powder, drop it down the barrel, point and fire.”
