by Robert York
The origin of the Bane is still unknown, but many point the finger at the world of Normal’s and their “so-called” scientists. I on the other hand don’t agree with that line of thinking. Most of the world’s population doesn’t know of the existence of the magical community or the creatures that are part of it and those Normal’s that do, choose to ignore us all together. For some reason people in general will choose denial over facing the truth. I can’t say I blame them. If humanity knew what sorts of weirdness and danger existed so close to them, they’d freak out on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the witch hunts in Europe centuries ago. For what it’s worth, my money was on the Vampires. Those two races have never gotten along and I know the Vampire’s would love to see all Werewolves’ dead. If it weren’t for the efforts of Barnabas and a few other Wizards’ like him Werewolves would’ve died out altogether. Sadly, many Werewolves are so addicted to Wolfsbane that many continue to get sick from eating the plant. Which is the main reason that Barnabas and I were out until all most three this morning.
“Is this all the Goblin hair you have,” Orm asked in his thick French accent thrusting a small glass bottle under my nose.
I recoiled away from the bottle when I got a whiff of what was inside. Goblin hair smells like ammonia with a hint of almond, a fragrance Glade won’t be offering as an air freshener anytime soon. I was glad my stomach was empty at the moment.
“Yes,” I said. “Barnabas gave you all we had,”
Orm shook his head disappointedly corking the bottle.
“This won’t nearly be enough,” he complained.
“You can get more at Nabi’s in Stumpwater’s,” I suggested.
He made a disgusted sound.
“Nabi’s,” he said offended. “They are far too expensive and the quality is not as good,”
I nodded sympathetically even though I really didn’t care where he got his ingredients. He wasn’t exactly the best customer and let’s face it the man was cheap.
“Where is James today,” Oswald asked curiously. “Doesn’t he usually fetch your potion ingredients for you,”
“Humph, that no good clumsy oaf,” Orm scoffed contemptuously. “I would not trust him to fetch water,”
He placed a small wooden box filled with dragon fire ash down a little to forcefully onto the glass case startling Glum from his examination of a scuff on the hardwood floor.
“I have him perched upon a fifteen foot high stone pillar practicing his wand balancing technique over a pit filled with shards of broken glass and rusty rug tacks, that should keep him busy until I return,” Orm said amused.
Oswald and I exchanged perplexed looks of incredulity.
He went back to checking off the items on his list.
God I was tired. Judging by the look on Oswald’s face I could drop to the floor at any moment.
“Why don’t you just make an executive decision and put the “Out to Lunch” sign in the window, lock the door and take a short nap?” Oswald said with a noticeable - I won’t tell inflection in his fatherly tone.
I chuckled halfheartedly. It was tempting. Very tempting. Hell, why not? Business had been slow all day, but then again if I did close the shop, Barnabas would have me do some unpleasant chores for the next two months. Such as, cleaning out the brood worm tank, God how I dislike even looking at those nasty things. Brood worms are black in color, but turn bright red when they’ve fed. They’re seven inches long before they feed, expanding to over thirteen inches when full. They can ingest a pint of blood at a feeding. Brood worms are roughly an inch in diameter, eyeless, but equipped with three circular rows of jagged teeth in their mouths. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about them. The only reason we keep them in the shop is because their blood contains high levels of sulfur, which is used in potion making.
“No. I’ll tough it out. Barnabas wouldn’t appreciate it if I did that. Besides he should be back at any moment with lunch and my hunger outweighs being tired.”
“Food?” Glum smiled, his ears perked up at the mention of his favorite subject, food.
“Glum hungry.”
Oswald and I exchanged a grin. Then Oswald turned patting the big guy on the forearm.
“Soon Glum... Soon.” He said to him reassuringly.
“Food...” Glum said once again only softer this time. I think he meant the word only for himself.
I was waiting patiently for Barnabas to get back with our greasy and extremely unhealthy fast food lunch, when Oswald walked into the store with Glum followed by Orm a short time later. Being up since five thirty that morning I never really got to bed after a long night. Skipping breakfast was something I did on a far too regular basis. Working on only a few hours sleep made my mind wander again. I could hear the echoes of an old public service announcement playing around in my head with a slight mocking undertone.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,”
“Bite me,” I thought in a not so humorous mood.
Orm packed the last of his ingredients back into a cardboard box after painstakingly checking the items three times. Sometimes I wonder if he suffers from OCD or he’s just a jerk. He picked the box up off the counter tucking it under his left arm.
“Put this on my bill,” he said. “I will settle my account with Barnabas at the end of the month,”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he made a gesture with is free hand abruptly vanishing before our eyes.
“Someone should teach him some manners,” Oswald said disappointed.
I shrugged sighing. Orm always did things like that. He treated everyone like they were beneath him, well not everyone. He’d never treat Barnabas like a peon. I really didn’t need this crap at the moment. There were a thousand different things I could’ve been doing right at that moment. Well, maybe not a thousand, but a few to be sure came to mind; catching up on my movies and book lists, riding my mountain bike or rebuilding my 1969 Buick Skylark Custom Convertible that sat in Barnabas’s garage. The car was in bad shape. Bad might be too generous a word for the condition it was in, but all the parts were there. Sadly I knew next to nothing about cars or how to rebuild them, but it was free. I mean how could I pass it up? I really enjoyed working on it and so what if it took me years to make it cherry again, it was mine. When it was finished it would be a head turner. I won it playing poker a few months ago at the Laughing Goblin Tavern. One of the few times I actually won at the damn game. I’m well known in gambling circles for my long losing streaks and my money is highly sought and welcomed at any poker table.
Barnabas thought I was insane for bringing it home, he’d have rather seen it taken to a junkyard. The man has absolutely no imagination. However sleep, glorious sleep was at the top of my list of things to do. Followed closely behind was devouring two hot dogs just the way I liked them with mustard, relish and extra onions. The fries are wrapped inside with the hot dogs combining for a perfect storm of greasy delight. Washed down with a medium Dr. Pepper from Deli Dogs, one of the best hot dog places here in Detroit. The antique clock on the wall ticked by painfully slowly. The hunger pains, though unpleasant wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been Monday, twelve thirty in the afternoon and I was engaged in a lengthy, yet somewhat boring conversation with Oswald Gleason; our most regular and devoted customer. He never missed a Monday.
Ever.
Now, let me start off by saying, Oswald wasn’t a bad guy. He was just very old, very dull and a tad on the peculiar side. Then again, who isn’t. Oswald was always kind and generous toward me however. He’s sort of like an uncle to me. I’ve known him since the age of fourteen when I came to live with Barnabas. The more time I spent around Oswald a soft spot developed in my heart for him, so I’d listen to him prattle on about any subject, until he was ready to go on his way.
On this particular Monday he was talking about how difficult it was to find good apprentices these days. The only thing that kept my mind in the conversation was the painful gurgling sounds emanating from my s
tomach, almost like the noise two dogs make fighting over a piece of bacon.
“Well,” he said interrupting my musings. “I’m sure that Abner and his followers appreciated the time and effort you and Barnabas made on their behalf.”
“I know,” I said. “But...”
“But nothing,” he said briskly cutting off my complaint. “Don’t ever take lightly what you do to help others... Abner and his followers will never forget your kindness and that is something you should never discount, because,”
Something caught Oswald’s attention and he abruptly broke off the conversation. Whatever it was, his attention was concentrated on the woodcarving to his right. It made him an even paler shade of white than I was use to seeing. My brow furrowed in contemplation. Oswald raised his hands, glancing at his rings. Eight gold rings with green colored stones set in each rode on the four fingers of each of his hands. I noticed one of them had changed color, from green to red, very peculiar. As long as I’ve known Oswald the stones in his rings have always been green. His eyes returned to the woodcarving, his lips parting in apparent dawning realization. Then again I was tired and could’ve been misreading his expression. I turned looking to where Oswald’s attention was concentrated. The wood carving depicting King Arthur removing Excalibur from a stone appeared to be exactly the same, except one of the eight emerald stones arranged in an arc had turned from green to red. That was odd as well. I never knew that the mural was enchanted, but living and working in the world of Wizards I wasn’t really surprised.
I turned back to ask Oswald if he knew about the woodcarving, however to my surprise he and Glum were gone. They’d just vanished, not even making a sound. I wasn’t startled at Oswald and Glum’s abrupt exit. They’d often do things like this, popping in and popping out of the store all the time. His rings though, that was odd. Along with what happened with the woodcarving, that stone had changed color as well. I turned back to the woodcarving to find another of the green stones blinking to red. I still didn’t have a clue as to what any of this meant, but like the check engine light on a car, this couldn’t be good. At that precise moment the mailbox bell rang. I heard a metallic tang of a letter dropping into the bottom of the empty metal box. The mailman wasn’t normally due till three o’clock so it had to be some sort of magical correspondence. I paid the letter no mind. Barnabas could get it when he got back with lunch.
I blearily blinked my eyes, sleep driving the thought of the changing stones from my mind. I’d ask Barnabas or Oswald about them later. I sighed in relief that I was finally alone, that I didn’t have to listen to Oswald any longer. I pulled up a nearby stool sitting down on it. I leaned forward on the counter, folded my arms and laid my head down on them closing my sleep-deprived eyes for a few minutes of peace.
I started to drift away into the river of sleep; sadly a loud crash of glass shattering in back of me startled me out of my doze. So much for my few moments of peace, I groaned thumping my forehead frustrated on the counter before lifting my tired head. I had to investigate what happened and clean up whatever it was before Barnabas returned. I got off the stool walking down the dried ingredient aisle to my left. There I found a glass jar containing dried toadstools had fallen off the shelf and shattered, scattering its contents everywhere. Right beside the broken glass and toadstools was the unconscious form of a Cob Elf sprawled on his back with a nasty bump forming on his forehead just above his left eye. The Elf possibly snuck in and somehow was able to get through the shops defensive wards.
Great, another shoplifting ingredient thief.
It happened from time to time. Ingredients for magical potions tended to be rare, well some of them anyway and very expensive. Sadly if you couldn’t afford the prices for them, a person either looked for the ingredients on their own, which was a dangerous endeavor or they would try to steal them. However, no one had gotten so far into the store like this before. Ordinarily the store’s wards would immobilize any would be thief, setting off alarms notifying us that an intruder had been caught. Fortunately, he had some trouble opening the jar. Which resulted in him knocking himself out cold.
The Elf was about twenty-four inches in height, on the short side for a Cob Elf. Dressed in a deep red suit, reminiscent of the fashion a man might have worn during the late eighteen hundreds. The condition of his clothes and the Elf himself appeared to have been through a hard scuffle. The fabric of his red coat was torn in places; there were black scorch marks around his head and shoulders. As he lay there I took in his facial features. He had the face of a kindly old uncle, full of life with a hint of good-natured mischievousness despite his haggard appearance. Surely he wasn’t a threat to anyone. What was he doing here? How did he find himself in this state, more importantly who did this to him? I knelt down beside him taking hold of his left wrist checking for a pulse. He was still alive. His pulse was slow and steady.
I lowered his hand gently; the back of it touched the floor causing the fingers to open. A small yellow crystal rolled out onto the floor making a faint tinkling sound like ice being dropped into a glass tumbler. My attention was fixed on the crystal. It wasn’t very large, maybe a few inches in length, no more than a half inch in diameter. I could feel power pulsing inside it. I hesitated, not wanting to pick it up. All the warning bells inside my head went off at once, warning me that it wouldn’t be a good idea to pick it up. Before I realized what I was doing I watched my hand reaching for it. A compulsion I couldn’t resist pushing me not to listen to the warnings sounding inside my brain. I couldn’t stop myself or stay the motion of my hand. It acted separately of my consciousness, the thing mesmerized me and I wanted to pick it up.
No, check that… I needed to pick it up.
My fingers wrapped around the crystal. A brilliant warm light blazed from it. I averted my eyes. I felt dizzy, like the feeling you sometimes got when you were a child, spinning around in an office chair too long. My body tingled with an overload of sensation. Though uncomfortable the feeling wasn’t painful. My stomach churned. I could feel bile rising in my throat. My skin felt like there was a river of hot wellspring water flowing beneath it. My vision blackened around the edges, dimming. At one point the sensation of fire was so intense, I thought my skin was going to melt. Then as suddenly as it began the sensations I was experiencing simply vanished.
The crystal’s yellow color dimmed giving way to a clear color. I shook the cobwebs out of my head. I placed the crystal inside the Cob Elf’s coat pocket with shaking hands. I picked him up moving him away from the mess of toadstools and broken glass. I placed him gently on a stack of neatly folded packing pads, which we kept in the back. He was still out cold. I turned to clean up the mess, but something caught my eye. Turning back, I noticed a thick braid of metal around the Elf’s neck. A medallion was attached to the end of the metal braid. I reached down to see if there was an inscription upon the medallion. Grasping it with my thumb and forefinger I turned it over. An intense bolt of electricity shot up my arm right through my body down to my toes. You’d have thought that I’d learned my lesson about touching strange objects after the crystal incident. No… not me. Not Mr. Thickhead. I blame the lack of sleep. This just wasn’t my day.
The front door opened, chiming the strand of tarnished brass bells. Sweet! Barnabas had returned with lunch. Cleaning up the mess would have to wait. I was hungry. Walking to the front of the store something didn’t feel right. There was a cold energy flowing around me. A dark energy. Goose flesh rose on my skin causing me to shiver. I stopped a few feet away from the counter realizing where the feeling I’d been experiencing probably originated from. It wasn’t Barnabas that came in, but a tall albino man flanked by rather attractive identical twins of the female variety. He smiled when he saw me. His teeth however were not something he should’ve been proud of. They were yellowish brown almost the color of Dusseldorf Mustard along with having large gaps in between each tooth. Obviously he hadn’t heard about the advances in modern dentistry or simple teeth whitening product
s. I couldn’t see his eyes; he was wearing a dark pair of round-rimmed glasses, which wrapped around his eyes like fancy ski goggles, concealing them.
“Good afternoon’” he said in a gruff high-pitched tone. “I was wondering if you had seen a Cob Elf anywhere about? He took something that doesn’t belong to him and I’m here to collect it.
Chapter 4
Cob Elf?
How did this guy know there was a Cob Elf here? I thought. Rather puzzled by his question, trying my best not to show it. The Elf took something. That crystal. Maybe that’s what he was after. This guy, whoever he was had the look of someone that didn’t like to play games. So it might be a good idea for me to just bite my tongue and be a good magic shop employee.
“Pardon me, I don’t recall you or your friends…” gesturing to the twins. “…Ever being in the store before, who are you again?” I said moving to the counter, placing both hands palms down on its surface.
The albino took a step forward. He tapped the end of his cane once upon the floor before lifting it to a horizontal position at his side. The man’s skin and hair were the color of new fallen snow. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen lustrous chin length hair quite like his. He must’ve used some sort of professional hair care product and spent a lot of time in front of a mirror to get it that symmetrical. He was dressed in an unremarkable black business suit, a gray over coat draped over his left forearm. The cane he held looked to be an antique, ornately carved wood with a gold handle in the shape of Medusa’s head. The snakes in her hair coiled down wrapping around the shaft about three to four inches where the metal joined the wood.
