by Al K. Line
"Done," she said, smiling.
"I think I have been," I said with a huff.
"I'd have taken five," said Vicky with a smile.
"And I'd have gone up to twenty percent," I said, smiling wider. Her smug grin was replaced with a frown and then the tears began. I saw them well at the corners of her eyes, big pools of sadness ready to burst and tumble down her smooth, childlike cheeks.
"Fine, twenty percent," I said out of sheer desperation.
"Cool," she said brightly. Somehow the tears vanished and she poked her tongue out at me.
"Why you little bi—"
"So what's Ræth Næg?" asked George, interrupting the negotiations.
Vicky would be one hell of a poker player, especially if she played against wizards. We hate tears, makes us full of shame even if it's not our fault. Although that's probably because so much is.
"It's a bad thing, you can bet on that, and I do not want this job. But seeing as Elion asked so nicely, and I have no choice in the matter, then I guess I'll go steal it."
"We'll go steal it," corrected Vicky.
"But what is it?" asked George again.
"It's a belt," said Sasha.
"Oh," said George, deflated.
"Ooh," said Vicky, imagination running wild. "Does it make you invincible? Give you the power of invisibility? Deflect all magic, something like that?"
"No," I said, feeling beaten down already. "Nobody knows what it does. And that's the problem."
"How do you know it does anything then?" asked Vicky.
"Because more people than I care to think about have died trying to get it, and more people that did get it have died than I want to know about."
"You should be careful," warned Sasha, looking unhappy about this job.
"I should be," I agreed.
"Don't get it," said Vicky. "What's so special about a belt if nobody even knows what it does?"
"Okay, story time," I said, and gathered my thoughts. I could hardly believe I was so calm after all that had happened this morning, but one thing this band of misfits was good at was getting excited about the next adventure. George was a different girl, and I couldn't believe that after our years together I'd missed out on this inner child. This happiness that was present in her every gesture, her smile, the lightness that shone from her now her abuser was dead. She was a girl reborn, no longer afraid of the bogeyman.
"Arthur, Arthur. Wake up!" Vicky shook my shoulders—it was becoming a very annoying habit—and I jolted awake.
"Sorry, it's been a stressful morning. Stressful week. Life. Existence, whatever. Where was I?"
"The belt," hinted Vicky.
"Ah, yes." I told them the story of the Ræth Næg.
Ræth Næg
The Ræth Næg, pronounced wraith naje, came in part from the sword called the Næġling, Beowulf's sword from the epic Anglo-Saxon poem in which Beowulf himself broke the sword in two when he fought a dragon. It wasn't snapped by the dragon, but because of Beowulf's own extreme strength.
The buckle was forged from the tip of the sword, the belt itself fashioned from Beowulf's sword arm bracer, thick leather that protected the forearm. The whole thing supposedly strong with a magic nobody knew about. Could it be imbued with the magical power of the dragon he fought? Or Beowulf's strength? After all, he was so mighty he broke his own damn sword.
This ancient poem, be it legend or truth, had Beowulf become king of the Geats for fifty years, dying after a mortal wound by the poison horn of the dragon he slew. He was then buried and that was the end of the dude.
From there things got rather murky. The poem itself is a thing of beauty, the oldest surviving written example of Old English. Set in the fifth century in Sweden, Beowulf wasn't actually written until around the year one thousand by an unknown scholar.
Beowulf's name had many interpretations, chief among them being War Wolf, but then, other scholars thought it derived from a Dutch word for woodpecker, so there is that. Either a mighty warrior or an annoying bird—that's history for you. Historians don't know anything; they make stuff up so they've got things to argue about.
So, five hundred years passed before the poem was even written, but no mention of the belt in this epic masterpiece. We're looking at a lot of history here, harking back to times when magic was very different and part of everyday life. He fought a dragon so that right there tells you how things were back in the day.
Nobody even heard of the belt for a long time, but from what I'd been told, and read, there were hints of it centuries before the poem ever existed.
Jump forward to modern day and as with many magical, or supposedly magical items there were countless rumors and even tales of ownership and deaths of said owners. Not to mention all kinds of nasty things happening to those who tried to steal it.
But nobody had ever discovered what it did. Apparently. I didn't believe that. What I believed was that any owner that had discovered its power had kept the information to themselves for whatever reason. Probably something epic and dangerous, as is the way of mystery magic items.
The Ræth Næg was an enigma and I was gonna get a million buckles, I mean bucks, if I found it and gave it to a Fallen elf who pretty much insisted I get it. No chance to say no if I wanted to keep my life and my wits.
So, that's the history lesson.
Of course, it could all be a load of crap. After all, Beowulf was a poem written well over a thousand years ago by an anonymous man who was clearly a good storyteller. It could have just been an old belt that never did anything; I'd come across supposed magical items like that before. I once got paid a lot of cash for delivering what turned out to be nothing but a plain old stick, not a wand from one of the most powerful wizards of all time.
Now all I had to do was find out where it was, go steal it, and not get killed along the way.
Easy peasy, please excuse me.
Begin Again
"So there you have it, a belt that may or may not be worth the million Elion is offering." Part of me got that tingly feeling when I had a job, anticipating the rush of the search and the theft itself. The high that came with taking what wasn't yours. Not to mention getting paid. But part of me was thinking about the last handover I'd gone to, about being shot at and double-crossed and almost losing George, which kinda put a damper on the whole thing.
"What's first?" asked Vicky.
"Yeah, it's about time I got to come on a job too," said George, clearly still buzzing from the morning's casual murder.
"Absolutely not!" I got up and arched my back until it cricked loudly. I swear each day I got stiffer and new things ached. So much for the longevity a powerful wizard was supposed to enjoy.
"Dad, come on! I'm old enough now."
"No, you aren't. Will someone please tell my daughter she isn't old enough, and this isn't the future she has waiting for her." I didn't give anyone time to speak. "George, you can do and be anything you want. Stealing stuff isn't the career path I had in mind for you."
"Oh, what is?" she asked all sweetness and light.
Damn, she had me there. I knew her future lay with magic, there was no getting away from that, and the life of practitioners was usually dark. Most existed on the wrong side of the law, with very, and I mean very, few exceptions. It was too damn tempting to do something dodgy when you could make things blow up by pointing a stick at them, make yourself nigh on invisible, or any manner of things that eased the struggles of life. Problem being, it changed you inside, made you think you were above the citizens, and I'd seen many a strong magic user turn into something cruel and full of superiority until they crashed and burned in spectacular ways.
"Um, a secretary maybe?" I ventured, before a tirade of abuse came my way about sexism and what century was I living in and didn't I know George was smart and would run the company, not answer phones and chase around after some man.
Outshouted, outwitted, and out of ideas, Sasha saved the day.
"You've forgotten, my dear, ha
ven't you?" Sasha smiled so sweetly at George, then winked at me, that I wanted to give her a big kiss. Just to say thanks, though, nothing funny.
"Forgot? Oh, damn."
"Ah, your day out. Gonna go buy more shoes?" I asked.
After another avalanche of abuse for being sexist and that not all women like to go shoe shopping, which I knew was a lie as otherwise how come each of the three women in my life had enough pairs to keep the whole country from getting cold toes? Sasha said, "No, I have something more interesting than shopping in mind." She shot me daggers but I pretended not to notice.
"Nothing dangerous I hope?" I asked, knowing the last thing George needed right now was anything to hype her up even more.
"Of course not. Arthur," lectured Sasha, "I am your faery godmother and thus I am also George's faery godmother, so I would never—"
"Don't you mean faery grandgodmother, or is it great godmother?" I wondered.
"Don't you dare even go there! I am her faery godmother by blood, yours, so if you want to keep that blood in your scarecrow of a body you better start behaving. As I was saying, I would never put George in danger. I had planned to show her a little of my world today, she is old enough."
I was speechless, kind of astonished. This was some serious shit right here. I found it hard to swallow but managed a weird gurgling sound then got the words to form, although they came out embarrassingly squeaky. "You're gonna show her faery land or whatever you call the place? How come I've never been? Won't she melt or explode or cause some kind of major time dilation or paradox or something?"
"Haha, you are so silly, Arthur. We've been over this countless times." Sasha drew George close and put her arm around her shoulders protectively. "She will be fine, otherwise I would not be able to do what I will do. I can only interfere or be here at all as I have already done so and everything works out perfectly. I'm here as a guest, you know that, and can only do what I am permitted to do."
"By who?" asked Vicky, hardly even pouting or looking put out about missing the trip.
"By the universe," said Sasha, looking at Vicky funny, as if the answer were obvious.
"Don't you wanna go too?" I asked Vicky, crossing my fingers and silently running, please, please, please, on repeat in my mind.
"Sorry, too dangerous. Only George, and only because she is your blood," said Sasha, smiling at Vicky.
"Shame," said Vicky, moving close to Sasha and George and getting in on the cuddle action.
I stared at the three of them and with a, "Oh, what the hell," I ran to them and got us all in a group hug no matter who protested.
But all good things must come to an end, and this was no exception.
With more fussing and chatter than I would have liked, it wasn't long before everyone was ready. Sasha boosted my wards, layered hardcore faery magic around the place that she promised would stop just about anything, and that was that. I was close to asking her what she knew about the belt but knew it was pointless—if she had information she could share then she would have done so. It was enough that she was even here, as she hated the mud outside and seldom came closer to my home than the front door in the city.
"Okay," I said trying to sound positive and not just huff and tell everyone to go away and leave me alone for a few decades, "let's get this day started again."
"Yes!" said Vicky punching the air in what was becoming a very annoying habit. It was like she'd won Wimbledon or something. I think she thought it was something a sidekick should do before things went down, but it just made her look like a muppet.
"Oh boy," said your favorite downtrodden wizard.
We left to go pay the local friendly heroin dealing gangster a visit.
Getting Personal
My appointment with Ivan, once known as Brains and now de facto head of all things criminal in the city, and spreading his influence far and wide at a frankly astonishing and rather worrying rate, wasn't something I was about to skip.
He'd done me a solid and I owed him—it's not every day a gangster morphs into a wolf, saves you from vampires who've kidnapped your daughter and then, to top it all, offers himself as a blood sacrifice in her place. What can I say? I would have done it if I'd thought they'd accept. The sacrifice bit anyway.
The one drawback to Ivan's magnanimous sacrifice was that he gladly accepted the vampires' offer of joining the family of neck biters, and I'd watched it happen. What they'd all been up to in the meantime was anyone's guess. The vampires had been as quiet as quiet can be. Nobody in the underground knew what was happening apart from that there were currently a metric shit load of them in the city and you could bet it wasn't just for a Class of (insert your own century here) '86 reunion.
No, rumor had it they were all becoming Seconds, taking the venom or blood of Mikalus and becoming if not as strong and immortal as he was—yeah I know, you either are or you aren't, but you know what I mean—then damn close to it. The result would either be a bunch of powerful yet still mostly benign vampires, or thousands of homicidal maniacs high on power and bloodlust soon rampaging around the world killing indiscriminately and taking over every seat of government, every throne, every board of every company, and ruining the damn world. Or maybe making it better. The humans that ran the world at this time were parasites and bloodsuckers too.
So, yeah, I was a little nervous as Ivan would now undoubtedly be a Second himself and he ran the city I if not lived in then at least played in.
Vicky was a chatterbox the whole way and I was torn between annoyance and nerves. Not just about my meeting with Ivan, and the day to come, but about George. She was one messed up kid. I'd been unaware how damaged she was. She was wise beyond her years, the life she'd had would do that to you every time, but I failed to understand who she really was, how she thought.
I was worried because she was more like me than I'd realized. And that scared the bejesus out of me. She'd acted how I knew I would if I was young and too petrified to confront my demons myself. I'd be glad for someone to kill 'em, kill 'em good. Was it my fault? Because I was a criminal? When I thought back on my admission of involvement in things not quite legit, she'd taken my way of life in her stride, never batted an eyelid at the craziness. She was already dabbling with magic then and had seen her fair share of nastiness, having made her choice at a young age. I forgot that this underworld wasn't the default setting for citizens and those in their care, so normal did it seem to me.
Would I change? Should I? I knew the answer to that one, may God forgive me. If I ever get to meet Him, which is certainly questionable.
"Arthur?" said Vicky, switching from babbling to serious in a disconcerting heartbeat.
"Yeah?"
"What was it like for you growing up?"
"How'd you mean?" I asked. I knew my jaw was clenched and my stomach churned like when I was asked to stand up in front of the class in school and wanted to vomit or go hide in a cupboard, probably both.
"You know, family? Where did you live? What were your parents like? Do you have brothers or sisters? Any family? You never talk about it."
I focused on changing lanes, pretending to be distracted so I could push down memories and emotions, then glanced at Vicky with my best neutral expression.
"Why are you crying?" asked Vicky using her best sympathetic mom voice.
"I'm not, the sun's in my eyes."
Vicky glanced behind at the sun but left it at that. "Okay."
I was thankful for the silence but knew she would be bursting at the seams now. It didn't take long.
"So, no brothers or sisters?"
"No, Vicky, nothing like that. It was a long time ago, in the past."
"But you did have parents?"
"Of course! I am human you know. Yeah, I had 'em, and there were, are..."
"What?"
"Another time, okay? Look, we're here."
Vicky gave me the silent treatment combined with a look mastered only by parents of young children and I almost broke down, but weeping unc
ontrollably into the tiny shoulder of your new sidekick outside the headquarters of the new Big Boss isn't good for the image, and I really didn't want to talk about it.
"Okay, but I'm here for you. You know that, right?"
"I know, and thanks." I leaned across and planted a wet one on Vicky's shiny forehead. She smiled up at me.
"Love you."
"Love you too, Vicky. But please, pretty please, don't fuck this up. You're on the team now and there are rules. And the only one you need concern yourself with now is that you don't fuck things up. Okay?"
"Roger that." Vicky slapped herself in the eye as she tried to salute, then pretended like she'd meant to do it and said, "Must have dust in my eye."
Sighing, I said, "Just get out the car. And try not to talk too much."
I crossed my fingers and hoped Ivan was in a good mood now he was top dog.
Very Ghetto
Ivan had switched premises since he took over, and that wasn't all he'd changed. I'd heard the news through the gangster grapevine, and it made for compelling, if grisly, listening. He'd ripped through the ranks of his old boss's militia like a whirlwind, showing no mercy and cutting over a third of the goons into itty bitty pieces so there'd be no doubt who was in charge.
The men had grumbled and protested at first about the change in boss, but when Ivan acted and showed them what he was capable of they either fell in line or fell off the face of the earth. He was a good guy in some regards but he'd grown up under the tight leash of Merrick so crime and death were all he knew.
I was pleased to discover he'd eradicated large swathes of the sex trade and the human trafficking that came along with it, although he increased the high class stuff where the women were treated well and it was entirely voluntary, which still made me shudder. It was done within days, everyone shocked and stunned by the number of women who were freed and the horror stories they told upon release. Even Ivan hadn't known about this side of Merrick's business, at least not the scale of it, and if the stories were true then those behind the kidnapping and enslaving of the women, and some men, died in ways most people would only wish upon said abusers.
