by Al K. Line
"But you could have stopped it?"
"Yes. But I wanted to know what was going on. Got to keep your finger on the pulse at all times, Spark, it's how you stay ahead of trouble."
"Right, okay, go on. You let wizard vampires take you, then what?"
"Then I played along. Oliver really was a fool. He told me what he was doing, thinking he had me contained. How he imagined that he could keep me I have no idea, but there you go. Guess that was Yrjo. Probably thought I was some fat dope playing wizard rather than who I really am, and that is his worst nightmare."
"I think you'll find that would be me," I said.
"Haha, you are probably correct. Tonight is the night they had it all planned. Get you out of the picture, then Taavi, and Yrjo would be in charge. But Yrjo is rash and impulsive, didn't stop when he should have. What a fool."
"After you escaped, you mean?" My head was spinning. Trust me, this isn't even as bad as it gets sometimes. Why do you think I take to my bed after jobs? It's not just the use of magic, it's because Rikka always seems to mess with my head.
"Of course I escaped!" Rikka said, indignant. "I'm a nine-hundred-year-old mage and Oliver was a three-hundred-year-old fool who happened to get help from powerful vampires. But they were amateurs. He kept me locked in a box. Me! In a box!"
"I guess you got out," was all I could manage to say. I tried to picture a box large enough to hold the old form of Rikka—it took some doing.
"Of course I got out. I'm a nine—"
"Yeah, yeah, old wizard. Blah, blah, blah. Just tell me what happened."
"Don't get smart, Spark, it doesn't suit you."
I'd had enough. "I'll tell you what doesn't suit me, Boss, it's all this bloody confusion and craziness. There have been way too many people involved in my personal affairs lately and I am sick of it. I want to know what is really happening and I want to know now." I may have overstepped a little, but I was just so tired, and to be honest I think I wanted to just go visit Kate and slip into bed next to her. Maybe sleep for a few lifetimes and wake up when it was all over. Plus my house was trashed, and it was mine. My personal, private place, away from all this crap.
Rikka frowned, then nodded. He understood. He knows I'm an Alone, work jobs for him mostly solo. I'm a people person, but for short bursts. There had been too much activity and it drains me worse than the dark magic.
"They took me, Spark, stuffed me into this box as soon as they could. None of them would come near me, wouldn't risk it, so they left me there. To die. Clearly that didn't happen."
"Clearly."
"As I lay inside this damn thing, all carved and full of magic, it was quite the treasure, actually. Hidden have been searching for it for millennia and it was a true work of art. Do you know some of the runes go back to—"
"Boss, please." Like I was in the mood for an antiques lesson.
"Fine, I'll skip the details. They locked me up, my magic was draining as though I was being starved, and I knew I had to get out. So I did. I could hear them, my magic was strong enough to listen to Oliver dealing with Yrjo. The fool was standing on the damn box, smug idiot. Making calls and tapping the lid. Too cocky by far, that one."
"Still a nasty way for him to go."
"It would have been worse if I'd got to him first. When Oliver left, I did a little magic of my own. It just, um, didn't turn out quite how I expected."
"You did the consuming spell, right?"
Rikka just raised an eyebrow. Of course he did—he'd lost a good few hundred pounds at least.
"I've always hated being fat, Spark. I know I've never said, and you probably just assumed I was greedy, but it's helped on a number of occasions. This one was the worst though. I used my body, my own flesh, and burned through it in minutes. It nearly finished me off, but the magic of the flesh is the strongest there is and I sank deeper and deeper into the Empty and drew all I could, until I broke the magic of the box and emerged as you see me now."
"What, even with new clothes on?" I said, trying not to smirk at the corduroys.
"I will have you know these are very stylish. No, I went to the all night supermarket and picked up a few things. I got some funny looks, even though I made sure to mask myself properly. Do you know they sell TVs too, even magazines and all kinds of things."
"You don't get out much, do you?"
"I'm a Head Mage, Spark. I don't do shopping. Anyway, I broke the box, which was a shame. I checked on a few things today, then came to get you. Thought the goblin thing would be funny. Give me a way in without everything going too crazy right away."
"Oh, so no hurry then? Rikka, things have been going nuts." He shrugged, as if he knew everything would turn out all right. "Ugh. Right, so Yrjo is making a play to eliminate Taavi, so why don't we let them fight it out and then deal with the victor?"
"Because Yrjo is so much worse than Taavi that it will be bad for us if he wins. Best to deal with things now before it escalates."
"Okay." I started the car and pulled out into the empty streets of Cardiff.
Great, just great. I was off to deal with a vampire hostile takeover in the middle of the night when they are at their strongest and I was nothing but tired, confused, and bewildered by my passenger.
"Straight to Taavi's then? Ask if we can come in, and by the way, anything we can do to help?"
Rikka stared at me like I was mad. "Um, no, Spark, you know how this works. I have a job for you."
"Of course, wouldn't want you to put yourself out on my behalf. Where's my receipt?"
"That's my boy. And later, I'm good for it," said Rikka, slapping me on the back. "I have a lot of other business to attend to. I bet everything has gone to chaos in my absence."
Yes, I was saying I wanted to be paid. It's one thing trying to find Rikka, another if he wants me to risk my life to sort out vampire infighting. Never mind that Yrjo had kidnapped him and wanted to kill me, plus my house was ruined. I wanted a receipt for services to be rendered, mostly because I was feeling grumpy and fed up with people keeping me in the dark.
"Actually, and I hate to admit it, but Dancer's been doing a pretty good job of keeping everything running."
"Has he now? Well, that's good to know. Drop me off at his, he can get me up to speed."
"Yes, Boss. Anything else before I stamp out a vampire war so we can get back to normal?"
"Yeah, you can ditch the attitude. I'll come if you want, Spark. But you and I both know that you would rather deal with your enforcer jobs alone. You think better, and act faster, when working solo. Your choice."
He had me there. I do work better alone, it's just sometimes, like at that moment, maybe a little help wouldn't go amiss. But if I was on my own I would probably do better. That, or die.
The roads were quiet, but it didn't mean that things weren't happening. Vampires would be out, scouring the alleys and the hidden places for those that would never be missed. Other Hidden would be resting, while some would be like me, trying to stay sane as reality crumbled around them and nothing made sense.
We spoke quietly as the emptiness weighed heavily, then it was just the sound of the damp road and the cool night air through the partially opened windows.
Soon enough we were at Dancer's. Rikka got out of the car with assured and sprightly moves I'd never seen before.
"Good to have you back, Boss."
"And it's good to be back. Stay safe, Spark, and don't forget about my offer. A new house, somewhere quiet."
"Is anywhere quiet?" I asked, wondering if I'd ever have peace again.
"Quiet is what is in our hearts and our minds, not what goes on around us."
"No, Boss, quiet is not having vampires destroying your home and not being worried sick about your family."
"Hmm, maybe you're right." Rikka smiled. He understood. We are, after all, family in all but name.
"See you later."
"I hope so." I paused for a moment, then asked what I had to ask before it ate me up inside. "Rikka?"
/>
"Yes?" He's a clever one. He came back and peered in through the window, knowing something was up.
"Oliver, he said something about my parents. Last week. Do you think it could have been him, that killed them? Or maybe it was Taavi, or..."
"Spark, I moved heaven and hell to find out who did it, and I can tell you for a fact it was not Taavi, and it most certainly wasn't Oliver."
"How do you know?"
"Because Oliver was much younger then. He wasn't the way he became in the intervening years. He wasn't so bad at all back then, as a matter of fact. No, it wasn't anyone we know. Believe me, Spark, I made sure to do what I could to find out what happened. I'm sorry."
"It's okay, I just wanted to ask. Bye." I drove off into the night.
Contemplation
Things didn't quite ring true. Not what Rikka had said about my parents, but about almost everything else. There were pieces missing, important pieces. Like why the hell he'd let himself be taken in the first place. Surely he wouldn't risk that just to find out what power struggles were occurring with the vampires? Maybe he would.
It's easy to forget just how powerful Rikka is at times. He's supremely confident in his abilities, so maybe it was exactly what he would do. Maybe it was just politics—I gave up trying to understand the machinations of those in charge a very long time ago.
Or, and this seemed more likely, the more I thought about it, maybe he was fed up being in charge and pretty much untouchable and wanted a little excitement of his own. It was certainly possible. I also wondered just how long he'd been out of his magic box for. Thinking back to the fight with Drugi Doles, I couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that it was Rikka I had fought.
Would he have done that? And why? To stay close to the action? No, surely not. Or maybe, yes. No, that was just me reading too much into things.
I put it out of my mind. The mysteries were solved. Grandma and Rikka were back. It wasn't the first time they'd got up to mischief, and I doubted it would be the last. Ours is not the normal world, and we are not normal people. Long lives do funny things to people, and at times like this I wondered just how insane we all were.
After all, we are forbidden creatures. We use, and abuse, magic that isn't ours by birthright. What kind of effect does that have on a person, especially people as old as Grandma and Rikka? No wonder they get themselves involved in all kinds of schemes and madness. Do they even know what they are doing would be regarded as extreme by outsiders? Maybe, and maybe they don't care.
We live this way by choice, because we cannot contemplate a Regular life when we know there is so much more. So I guess we are all just lost, looking for answers. But, as is the way of things, everyone ends up looking in all the wrong places.
Still, I had a job to do. Faz Pound, Dark Magic Enforcer, was on the case once more.
You know what? It felt like a relief. Almost as if life was back to normal.
I drove through the dark streets of a sleeping city as the rain beat down and the windscreen wipers worked overtime. I smiled to myself. Just another job. Just me, the night, and the anticipation of magic flowing through my veins making me feel alive like nothing else could.
I would pay for so much magic use, and it was far from over, but, for now, I was buzzing. There isn't another feeling like it in the whole world.
I went to see the Chemist.
Meeting the Chemist
"...all for being here. Have a great night and don't let the lesser demons bite." The Chemist took another bow after his second encore and left the stage. The mostly inebriated crowd clapped and there were a few muted conversations before they went back to what they were really there for. Drinking.
The Hidden Club—once again our kind showing just how unimaginative they are concerning naming anything to do with our world—was half full, which is about as busy as it ever gets.
The single room was as dark as a vampire's umbrella and as smoky as a room filled with a hundred vanishing and reappearing imps. It didn't smell much better either.
Most nights there is comedy, every night there is trouble, but it's old-fashioned trouble—fistfights and general drunken behavior. It is also the only club I know of in Cardiff where you can still smoke. The ban on cigarettes did not go down well in the Hidden world, as many species had taken it up over the years, and to be told, by humans, that they could no longer do it almost caused an outright revolt.
I kid you not, there were serious discussions in the Worldwide Councils regarding whether it was time to come out to the world if for no other reason than to smoke where they damn well pleased.
Wizards were hit hard, as pipes were almost an obligatory part of the deal for centuries, and goblins, imps—all the demons really—along with most witches, and especially the dwarves, took it as a personal insult to have their habit curtailed.
The Hidden Club ignored the rules, making it a feature instead. Nobody did anything, yet everybody knew. It did no harm, at least only to Regulars, that are as much a fixture as Hidden.
Everyone was puffing away on cigarettes, cigars, pipes, or just swilling cheap beer, sitting around neatly aligned tables that would probably need replacing by the morning as the drinking got more frantic and the last act was now done for the night.
Each table had a cheap light with a red lampshade, as Brewster Bunker, the owner, thinks it makes the place classy and gives it a nice atmosphere. The clientele couldn't care less but it gives them something to throw in the early hours when they run out of chairs and the beer depression takes hold once they realize they are out of cash.
I hadn't come for the atmosphere or the smoking though. I'd come to see the Chemist.
I descended the stairs down into the gloom and waved my hand through the dense fog of smoke. Mindful to touch as little as possible, and walking carefully to avoid spilled beer, overflowing ashtrays, or unmentionable or unknowable fluids, I nodded at Brewster Bunker behind the bar.
He is the only troll I know that runs a business, let alone one that is somewhat successful, but he's been a fixture in Cardiff for as long as I've been here and apparently goes back centuries. He's an odd one for a troll, and yes, he is a he. I think the first time we met he made a point of telling me, and all customers know it too. Of course, the Regulars would see him as a man as that is the lot he got when he entered the world of humans—the mask that is permanent and not of your choosing—but he still tells newcomers he's a man. They stare at him but say nothing.
Nobody crosses him, but you know what? I'm not even sure he really is a bloke. After all, trolls don't wear clothes and although to Regulars they appear like they do, I can tell you now that they all look exactly the same when it comes to appendages, or lack of. I think they just decide if they fancy being male or female and that's the end of it—I'm not about to argue.
Brewster Bunker nodded back at me as I walked past the bar, shoes sticking to floorboards stained black after endless years of spilled pints, dropped ash, and the blood of every species you could care to mention.
I like it. It's real.
Humans and Hidden doing what they do best. Laugh, drink, smoke, and fight. No boundaries, just a group of people that can't sleep at night and have found a home with those they share an affinity with.
I nodded at a few familiar faces but resisted the temptation to share the news that Rikka was back. They'd find out soon enough, and I was in no mood for conversations with drunken wizards or trolls half-soaked on lava cocktails from the old country.
Making my way toward the stage, I turned right and headed toward the door—I say door, it's a grubby red drape—that led to the back, to what Brewster Bunker likes to refer to as the dressing room, what the acts refer to as the cupboard.
There was a shout behind me and I ducked from long experience. A lamp, complete with shade, flew past my head and slammed into the wall. I turned and couldn't help but smile as an imp with a tiny glass in hand stood on a table, gesticulating wildly, spilling the drink so it put it down, th
en, while still shouting in that deep baritone all imps have, grabbed the arm of Malefic the Pale and flung him over a tiny shoulder.
Malefic slammed into the adjoining table. It collapsed along with the wizard, and the imp jumped over onto his beer-stained beard and started poking him in the ears with tiny, but very sharp, clawed fingers.
The Hidden either watched or ignored the action, the Regulars the same. Only difference was the Regulars would see the imp as a rather red-faced drunkard of average height rather than an imp of a few inches.
Just another night in The Hidden Club.
I pushed through the "door" and went to find the Chemist.
Let me tell you about him, just so you are warned.
He's a ghoul, and as soon as you mention that it puts people off. But trust me, he's a funny guy. He's been hitting the clubs forever and he's good at what he does, both on and offstage. He lives for making people laugh. That, and what he does when not telling jokes or working on new material. Alchemy.
I heard that once he almost managed the elusive task of transmuting base metal into gold, but the dwarves got wind of it and put a stop to that nonsense—they live for the discovery and the hoarding, so they would never stand for their whole reason for existing being devalued.
Anyway, the Chemist began life as your regular ghoul, a demon that came to our world to feed on the flesh of dead humans and do the usual digging up of graves, robbing of crypts, scavenging battlefields, all that stuff. For reasons unknown, the Chemist took an interest in all things alchemic, maybe as a way to get rid of the hideously long and distorted arms, or the necrotic flesh, or maybe just as a hobby. Who knows? But after endless visits to our world and the ingesting or inhaling of more dangerous self made concoctions than is healthy even for an immortal fiend, he found himself stuck here.
Somewhere along the way, he discovered that he was quite an amusing chap—maybe eating rancid flesh makes you see the funny side of things?—and ever since his revelation he has earned his living via the rather bizarre combination of stand-up and the concocting of all manner of exciting, and often deadly, chemical cocktails.
