Shit! What Happens Next?
Well you can figure that out right here.
Chapter 8
Boots had tackled Kenyan into hiding behind the couch before I had even realized what was going on. Then something in my brain switched on and i threw up a wall of energy in front of my self just before the grenade exploded.
I dont know if you have ever been in an explosion before, but I hadn't before this one. I was um... unprepared for the amount of force the little grenade put out. My wall of energy was designed to stop bullets and arrows (yes those are still being used) not the wave of force that accompanies an explosion. The shield handled all of the shrapnel just fine, but the force just plowed right through the shield like it had never been there and slammed directly into me. I was hurled through the living room wall and into my bedroom where I smashed my head against my bed frame before coming to rest laying face down on my floor.
"Owie," I said. I know, mature right? Next thing you know I might be calling cuts 'boo-boos' and adding "w"'s and "d"'s onto words like brother.
Then the fact that I was spending time contemplating my childish choice of words after I had just been blown up sunk in.
I tried to get up and failed. Miserably. Then I noticed the pain. My right side hurt, bad, that must have been the side that smashed through the wall. There was something hot and sticky running down my face and into my right eye. Blood, I dimly reasoned, probably from hitting my head on my bed. I managed to get myself into a sitting position leaning up against my bed. From there I could look out the hole in my bedroom wall and survey the wreckage of my apartment.
The door to the bathroom, where the grenade had gone off, was now a ten foot wide chasm leading down into the apartment below mine. All of the furniture in the living room had been tossed to the other side of the room, and most of it was smashed up and on fire. The windows had all been blown out and as I surveyed the damage all I could think was 'Well, at least we'll save on windex.' Just call me Mr. Optimism.
Then I heard one of those lion-bear roars from outside, accompanied by a huge thud and the wall right next to the door crumpled in and the Sasquatch lumbered in. my new found positive outlook on life daissapeared about as quick as my security deposit.
Squatch's eyes scanned the room and stopped on the couch which was flipped over, propped against the wall, and... moving? Oh shit, Boots and Kenyan were under there trying to dig their way out of the rubble left from the explosion oblivious to the brand new danger that arrived along with the three hundred pound furball.
I panicked.
Please allow me to take a minute to attempt to rationalize the completely irrational behavior that follows. Wizards in movies and books always have some sort of master plan. Something that even when all else fails, they can pull out a super awesome ingenious spell or something along those lines and still save the day. I have no ability to perform this task whatsoever, which puts me at a significant disadvantage in situations such as the one i found myself in now. Not only does this mean that i almost never think of a clever knockout punch when faced with overwhelming odds, it also means that I usually panic in these situations and forget to use magic altogether. Hence...
I panicked, and I forgot to use magic.
My eyes moved frantically around the floor of the apartment searching for a weapon of some kind to use against the Sasquatch, but all they found was pieces of what used to be my wall. Meanwhile the furball had begun a slow walk, more like a prowl, towards the couch and my trapped friends. I picked up a foot long section of two by four and plywood from the floor of my ruined apartment and hurled it at the Sasquatch's head.
It hit him square in the chest, not a bad toss for me, and his attention immediately shifted from Boots and Kenyan under the couch to me, standing unprotected in my bedroom.
Squatch ran his tongue around his gorilla lips like he was about to eat a particularly delicious steak and started a new prowl in my direction, slowly moving between myself and the door blocking my only means of escape.
"Fuck, I really need to start thinking these things through." Then I turned and ran to the closet where I keep my wizarding stuff. I grabbed my staff and my emergency bag off of the floor then turned around and sprinted towards my bedroom window.
Furrface had prowled his way into my bedroom and within striking distance of me while I was side tracked in the closet, and he took a swing at me that was designed to take my head clear from my shoulders. I used my forward momentum to roll under it, but once again Sasquatched proved to be much quicker than I am and this time his claw sliced completely through my belt and my pants, drawing a large gash down my side.
When I popped back up again and moved to get closer to my window, now my only way out of the apartment, my ripped belt finally gave out and my jeans fell down around my ankles tripping me up and causing me to careen head first into the window. I had been planning on breaking the window with my staff then jumping out feet first in order to have as soft a landing as possible, but instead I smashed the window with my head and fell the three stories headfirst with my pants down. As the ground rushed towards me I had just enough time to contemplate how shitty of a way to die this would be before there was a crash and things went black.
I dont know if you have ever been in an explosion before, but I hadn't before this one. I was um... unprepared for the amount of force the little grenade put out. My wall of energy was designed to stop bullets and arrows (yes those are still being used) not the wave of force that accompanies an explosion. The shield handled all of the shrapnel just fine, but the force just plowed right through the shield like it had never been there and slammed directly into me. I was hurled through the living room wall and into my bedroom where I smashed my head against my bed frame before coming to rest laying face down on my floor.
"Owie," I said. I know, mature right? Next thing you know I might be calling cuts 'boo-boos' and adding "w"'s and "d"'s onto words like brother.
Then the fact that I was spending time contemplating my childish choice of words after I had just been blown up sunk in.
I tried to get up and failed. Miserably. Then I noticed the pain. My right side hurt, bad, that must have been the side that smashed through the wall. There was something hot and sticky running down my face and into my right eye. Blood, I dimly reasoned, probably from hitting my head on my bed. I managed to get myself into a sitting position leaning up against my bed. From there I could look out the hole in my bedroom wall and survey the wreckage of my apartment.
The door to the bathroom, where the grenade had gone off, was now a ten foot wide chasm leading down into the apartment below mine. All of the furniture in the living room had been tossed to the other side of the room, and most of it was smashed up and on fire. The windows had all been blown out and as I surveyed the damage all I could think was 'Well, at least we'll save on windex.' Just call me Mr. Optimism.
Then I heard one of those lion-bear roars from outside, accompanied by a huge thud and the wall right next to the door crumpled in and the Sasquatch lumbered in. my new found positive outlook on life daissapeared about as quick as my security deposit.
Squatch's eyes scanned the room and stopped on the couch which was flipped over, propped against the wall, and... moving? Oh shit, Boots and Kenyan were under there trying to dig their way out of the rubble left from the explosion oblivious to the brand new danger that arrived along with the three hundred pound furball.
I panicked.
Please allow me to take a minute to attempt to rationalize the completely irrational behavior that follows. Wizards in movies and books always have some sort of master plan. Something that even when all else fails, they can pull out a super awesome ingenious spell or something along those lines and still save the day. I have no ability to perform this task whatsoever, which puts me at a significant disadvantage in situations such as the one i found myself in now. Not only does this mean that i almost never think of a clever knockout punch when faced with overwhelming odds, it also means that I usually panic in these situations and forget to use magic altogether. Hence...
I panicked, and I forgot to use magic.
My eyes moved frantically around the floor of the apartment searching for a weapon of some kind to use against the Sasquatch, but all they found was pieces of what used to be my wall. Meanwhile the furball had begun a slow walk, more like a prowl, towards the couch and my trapped friends. I picked up a foot long section of two by four and plywood from the floor of my ruined apartment and hurled it at the Sasquatch's head.
It hit him square in the chest, not a bad toss for me, and his attention immediately shifted from Boots and Kenyan under the couch to me, standing unprotected in my bedroom.
Squatch ran his tongue around his gorilla lips like he was about to eat a particularly delicious steak and started a new prowl in my direction, slowly moving between myself and the door blocking my only means of escape.
"Fuck, I really need to start thinking these things through." Then I turned and ran to the closet where I keep my wizarding stuff. I grabbed my staff and my emergency bag off of the floor then turned around and sprinted towards my bedroom window.
Furrface had prowled his way into my bedroom and within striking distance of me while I was side tracked in the closet, and he took a swing at me that was designed to take my head clear from my shoulders. I used my forward momentum to roll under it, but once again Sasquatched proved to be much quicker than I am and this time his claw sliced completely through my belt and my pants, drawing a large gash down my side.
When I popped back up again and moved to get closer to my window, now my only way out of the apartment, my ripped belt finally gave out and my jeans fell down around my ankles tripping me up and causing me to careen head first into the window. I had been planning on breaking the window with my staff then jumping out feet first in order to have as soft a landing as possible, but instead I smashed the window with my head and fell the three stories headfirst with my pants down. As the ground rushed towards me I had just enough time to contemplate how shitty of a way to die this would be before there was a crash and things went black.
Chapter 9
I woke up about a minute later and panicked when I couldn't breath or see. I spazed out, thrashed violently and ended up rolling myself onto my back. Light filled my eyes and I had to blink a few times to get them to adjust then I had to blink a few more times to get the blood from my previously sustained head wound out of them. When I finally found myself able to see one thing was abundantly clear - I owed Boots big time.
"Fuck. She is never gonna let me live this down." I complained to myself as I finally realized the reason Boots made me get this particular apartment. You see, two and a half years ago when me and Kenyan were looking for a new apartment we decided that we really liked this complex. It was close to 540 (too close) and also near all of our favorite hangouts (there's only one and I'll give you three guesses as to what it is). Upon hearing that we had narrowed our choices down to this complex Boots insisted, violently, that she be involved in picking which unit we moved into. Why? Good question. Her answer was, and I quote; "Because you two nutmunchers are too damn stupid to do anything important on your own." Yeah. Ouch. Anyway, so she ended up choosing this one, seemingly the worst unit in the entire complex. A third floor apratment way in the back of the complex positioned over the only two dumpsters in the whole place. Originally I had thought that that particular feature was the worst, but as I lay in one of those dumpsters I decided that it actually was probably a very good feature that both of the bedroom apartment windows are located directly above said dumpsters, and as such they provide a relatively safe landing to a fall that would otherwise leave me... severely put out.
I started trying to climb out of my trash filled landing pad when I heard the Squatch bellow from above, but this was a different sound, not the lion-bear roar from before but a higher pitch almost panicky roar. The same roar he used when I severely limited his mating abilities that morning. It was a roar of pain. Boots must have finally gotten her shit together after the explosion and started kicking ass like she is want to do.
When Boots gets into ass kicking mode there is just about nothing that can slow her down. I don't know where she learned all of the cool ass kung fu shit that she does but I'll tell you this, it is damn effective because a second later Squatch came flying out of where my living room window used to be and landed on his head in the parking lot dissolving in a wave of ectoplasm as the damage to his body broke his connection with the Neverland.
I finished climbing out of the dumpster as Boots leaned down out of the window with a concerned look on her face. When she saw me that look changed quickly to relief then smug satisfaction.
"You are the sexiest woman I have ever seen," I called up to her.
"Damn straight!" she called back. "How do you like my apartment choice now?"
"Ask me again after I've showered." I said while flicking a rotten piece of lettuce off of my shoulder. "Care to join me?"
She laughed, and as she did I caught a glimpse of what she had done the squatch ass kicking with; a damn shotgun sawed down to an illegal length. "Shit Boots, where the hell did you get that?"
"What, this old thing?" she nonchalantly indicated in the direction of the gun. "I always keep a few of these handy." She smiled devilishly as Kenyan stumbled up to the window next to her.
"Hey guys we should get out of here before the cops come or we will all be spending a few nights in jail," he said.
"Why? We didnt do anything wrong."
"Yeah, but I've been letting Sarah store some of her excess inventory here, so we need to clear that out before the cops come or we are in it deep."
Leave it to Sarah, Kenyan's drug dealing girlfriend, to further complicate an already complicated situation, and worse, she wasn't even there for me to bitch at. Mike was though, "Dammit Mike!" I said while Boots said, "What the fuck Kenyan?"
"Sorry!" He said defensively. "I didnt know the house was gonna be blown up by a fucking mythological creature!"
"Touche. But hey, do you believe me now?"
"Fuck off."
Boots and Kenyan spent the next few minutes gathering up any potentially illegal substances from the wreckage of my apartment while I got Boots' car started. Then I pulled as close as I could to the bottom of the stair case to pick them up when they were done.
"You know, something just occured to me," Boots said as she was loading up an extremely sketchy looking trashbag into the back of my car.
"Sarah has way too much weed?" I suggested.
"Well, yeah, but that wasnt what i was thinking. I don't remember Sasquatch ever using any grenades. In fact, I dont think I've ever heard of him usng anything but his claws and teeth."
"Maybe he has finally joined the twenty-first century." I said as I closed the trunk and started getting in the passenger seat.
"Or maybe there is a bad ass horse man with grenades strapped across his chest and an AK-47 in his hands helping him out." Kenyan provided.
"Well that was oddly specific Kenyan, what made you think of that?"
"Cause he is coming around the side of the apartment right now."
Me and Boots glanced at each other then both looked in the direction Kenyan was staring only to see a full blown, half horse, half man centaur lift an AK-47 and take aim at us.
We all jumped into Boots' old civic as he opened fire and the back window shattered under a hail of bullets. After a moments hesitation Boots managed to get the car started and peeled out as the centaur finished his magazine and started loading a second one. He only got one more burst of semiautomatic fire at us before we had turned a corner and were out of range.
"Everyone alright?" Boots asked. Nobody answered. "Ill take that as a yes."
"Fuck. She is never gonna let me live this down." I complained to myself as I finally realized the reason Boots made me get this particular apartment. You see, two and a half years ago when me and Kenyan were looking for a new apartment we decided that we really liked this complex. It was close to 540 (too close) and also near all of our favorite hangouts (there's only one and I'll give you three guesses as to what it is). Upon hearing that we had narrowed our choices down to this complex Boots insisted, violently, that she be involved in picking which unit we moved into. Why? Good question. Her answer was, and I quote; "Because you two nutmunchers are too damn stupid to do anything important on your own." Yeah. Ouch. Anyway, so she ended up choosing this one, seemingly the worst unit in the entire complex. A third floor apratment way in the back of the complex positioned over the only two dumpsters in the whole place. Originally I had thought that that particular feature was the worst, but as I lay in one of those dumpsters I decided that it actually was probably a very good feature that both of the bedroom apartment windows are located directly above said dumpsters, and as such they provide a relatively safe landing to a fall that would otherwise leave me... severely put out.
I started trying to climb out of my trash filled landing pad when I heard the Squatch bellow from above, but this was a different sound, not the lion-bear roar from before but a higher pitch almost panicky roar. The same roar he used when I severely limited his mating abilities that morning. It was a roar of pain. Boots must have finally gotten her shit together after the explosion and started kicking ass like she is want to do.
When Boots gets into ass kicking mode there is just about nothing that can slow her down. I don't know where she learned all of the cool ass kung fu shit that she does but I'll tell you this, it is damn effective because a second later Squatch came flying out of where my living room window used to be and landed on his head in the parking lot dissolving in a wave of ectoplasm as the damage to his body broke his connection with the Neverland.
I finished climbing out of the dumpster as Boots leaned down out of the window with a concerned look on her face. When she saw me that look changed quickly to relief then smug satisfaction.
"You are the sexiest woman I have ever seen," I called up to her.
"Damn straight!" she called back. "How do you like my apartment choice now?"
"Ask me again after I've showered." I said while flicking a rotten piece of lettuce off of my shoulder. "Care to join me?"
She laughed, and as she did I caught a glimpse of what she had done the squatch ass kicking with; a damn shotgun sawed down to an illegal length. "Shit Boots, where the hell did you get that?"
"What, this old thing?" she nonchalantly indicated in the direction of the gun. "I always keep a few of these handy." She smiled devilishly as Kenyan stumbled up to the window next to her.
"Hey guys we should get out of here before the cops come or we will all be spending a few nights in jail," he said.
"Why? We didnt do anything wrong."
"Yeah, but I've been letting Sarah store some of her excess inventory here, so we need to clear that out before the cops come or we are in it deep."
Leave it to Sarah, Kenyan's drug dealing girlfriend, to further complicate an already complicated situation, and worse, she wasn't even there for me to bitch at. Mike was though, "Dammit Mike!" I said while Boots said, "What the fuck Kenyan?"
"Sorry!" He said defensively. "I didnt know the house was gonna be blown up by a fucking mythological creature!"
"Touche. But hey, do you believe me now?"
"Fuck off."
Boots and Kenyan spent the next few minutes gathering up any potentially illegal substances from the wreckage of my apartment while I got Boots' car started. Then I pulled as close as I could to the bottom of the stair case to pick them up when they were done.
"You know, something just occured to me," Boots said as she was loading up an extremely sketchy looking trashbag into the back of my car.
"Sarah has way too much weed?" I suggested.
"Well, yeah, but that wasnt what i was thinking. I don't remember Sasquatch ever using any grenades. In fact, I dont think I've ever heard of him usng anything but his claws and teeth."
"Maybe he has finally joined the twenty-first century." I said as I closed the trunk and started getting in the passenger seat.
"Or maybe there is a bad ass horse man with grenades strapped across his chest and an AK-47 in his hands helping him out." Kenyan provided.
"Well that was oddly specific Kenyan, what made you think of that?"
"Cause he is coming around the side of the apartment right now."
Me and Boots glanced at each other then both looked in the direction Kenyan was staring only to see a full blown, half horse, half man centaur lift an AK-47 and take aim at us.
We all jumped into Boots' old civic as he opened fire and the back window shattered under a hail of bullets. After a moments hesitation Boots managed to get the car started and peeled out as the centaur finished his magazine and started loading a second one. He only got one more burst of semiautomatic fire at us before we had turned a corner and were out of range.
"Everyone alright?" Boots asked. Nobody answered. "Ill take that as a yes."
Chapter 10
As Boots' car careened out of my apartment complex I started thinking about what we should do next, then quickly abandoned that in favor of just brooding over the situation. I mean, that shit sucked. I was dog tired, I had been blown up, mauled by a mythological creature twice, shot at, and fallen out of a three story building into a dumpster. I'd flown from two different crime scenes already and it wasn't even nightfall. Not to mention my freaking brother was in town, which, I was getting more and more sure was not a coincidence.
Shit sucked.
So, I sat in the back of Boots' car and brooded. After a few minutes Boots slowed down to normal speeds, having deemed us far enough from danger to stop putting ourselves in danger. Which was bad for me cause that meant she would have time to notice that I was brooding, and then the nagging starts, and that's not fun for anyone. Sure enough, after not even another full minute Boots said, "Bob, I think you should leave town."
Nag nag nag. Wait. What?
She continued, "I think all this stuff has gotten too real, you're putting others in danger by staying here and being a target."
The initial shock of not being nagged wore off and was replaced by anger. I exploded, "The hell with that! Whoever is doing this shit needs to fucking pay! I'm a fucking Wizard goddammit! And I'm the most powerful one in North Carolina. If these people think they can just go around killing people and summoning big furry things in my town then.... well... they can't."
Kenyan was smiling at me, "Good rant."
"Screw you!"
Boots looked at me in the rear view mirror with a concerned look on her face, "I'm just worried that you might be over your head on this one. I mean you can handle Sasquatch, but the Squatch and a Centaur and whoever is conjuring them? It seems a bit much. Even for you."
What in the world was going on? Normally its well... everyone else who tells me I can't do it but not Boots. She is usually the only one who supports me no matter what ridiculous shit I've gotten myself into. Its the main reason I continually bombard her with sexual advances, that and her fantastic boobs. But if she was telling me to turn tail and run then nobody believed I could do it, and when nobody believes I can do something is precisely when I finally get motivated to do something. Healthy, right? Oh well.
"No Boots. I'm going to stop these people... but I agree this is too dangerous. You should sit this one out."
There was a moment of silence. Then Boots busted out laughing. When I glared at her she only laughed harder. This vicious cycle continued until she was laughing so hard she had to pull over.
Kenyan who had been sitting relatively quietly through the whole exchange started laughing too. While still laughing he managed to wheeze out, "Her... leave while you... stay... too funny!" He calmed himself a little and then said, "Everyone knows you can't do anything without Boots, Bob. I mean, do you even know where our spare key to the apartment is?"
"Under the potted plant outside, duh," I said.
This elicited new peals of laughter. "Bob, we don't have a potted plant outside. Where do we live? Palm Beach? Now, Boots, where is our spare key?"
"Duct taped under the railing on your balcony."
"Thank you Boots. Bob, you can hardly even make decisions without consulting Boots first."
"That is not true!"
"Yes it is, shut up," Boots said.
"Alright that might be true, but I still think that you should sit this one out Boots, these guys are clearly out for blood, and I would rather not have you supplying it."
"Bob, I very much appreciate your concern, however misguided it is, but if your bitch ass is staying then I'm staying, and you are sure as hell staying."
"I thought you were just telling me to turn tail and get out of here."
"Bob, there are two things about you that every one but you seems to know. One, you are useless without me. Two, the only way to get you to do something is to tell you that nobody thinks you can or should do it."
"You manipulated me!"
"Of course, I do it like every day. You just don't normally notice."
I sat for a few minutes in silence thinking about how everything they said was most likely true. then I said, "You're wrong about one thing."
"Oh?" Boots said as she tilted her head mockingly, like a confused boarder collie. "And what is that?"
"I already knew that the only way to get me to do something is to tell me nobody thinks I should," I said triumphantly.
"And yet you still fell for it."
Shit sucked.
So, I sat in the back of Boots' car and brooded. After a few minutes Boots slowed down to normal speeds, having deemed us far enough from danger to stop putting ourselves in danger. Which was bad for me cause that meant she would have time to notice that I was brooding, and then the nagging starts, and that's not fun for anyone. Sure enough, after not even another full minute Boots said, "Bob, I think you should leave town."
Nag nag nag. Wait. What?
She continued, "I think all this stuff has gotten too real, you're putting others in danger by staying here and being a target."
The initial shock of not being nagged wore off and was replaced by anger. I exploded, "The hell with that! Whoever is doing this shit needs to fucking pay! I'm a fucking Wizard goddammit! And I'm the most powerful one in North Carolina. If these people think they can just go around killing people and summoning big furry things in my town then.... well... they can't."
Kenyan was smiling at me, "Good rant."
"Screw you!"
Boots looked at me in the rear view mirror with a concerned look on her face, "I'm just worried that you might be over your head on this one. I mean you can handle Sasquatch, but the Squatch and a Centaur and whoever is conjuring them? It seems a bit much. Even for you."
What in the world was going on? Normally its well... everyone else who tells me I can't do it but not Boots. She is usually the only one who supports me no matter what ridiculous shit I've gotten myself into. Its the main reason I continually bombard her with sexual advances, that and her fantastic boobs. But if she was telling me to turn tail and run then nobody believed I could do it, and when nobody believes I can do something is precisely when I finally get motivated to do something. Healthy, right? Oh well.
"No Boots. I'm going to stop these people... but I agree this is too dangerous. You should sit this one out."
There was a moment of silence. Then Boots busted out laughing. When I glared at her she only laughed harder. This vicious cycle continued until she was laughing so hard she had to pull over.
Kenyan who had been sitting relatively quietly through the whole exchange started laughing too. While still laughing he managed to wheeze out, "Her... leave while you... stay... too funny!" He calmed himself a little and then said, "Everyone knows you can't do anything without Boots, Bob. I mean, do you even know where our spare key to the apartment is?"
"Under the potted plant outside, duh," I said.
This elicited new peals of laughter. "Bob, we don't have a potted plant outside. Where do we live? Palm Beach? Now, Boots, where is our spare key?"
"Duct taped under the railing on your balcony."
"Thank you Boots. Bob, you can hardly even make decisions without consulting Boots first."
"That is not true!"
"Yes it is, shut up," Boots said.
"Alright that might be true, but I still think that you should sit this one out Boots, these guys are clearly out for blood, and I would rather not have you supplying it."
"Bob, I very much appreciate your concern, however misguided it is, but if your bitch ass is staying then I'm staying, and you are sure as hell staying."
"I thought you were just telling me to turn tail and get out of here."
"Bob, there are two things about you that every one but you seems to know. One, you are useless without me. Two, the only way to get you to do something is to tell you that nobody thinks you can or should do it."
"You manipulated me!"
"Of course, I do it like every day. You just don't normally notice."
I sat for a few minutes in silence thinking about how everything they said was most likely true. then I said, "You're wrong about one thing."
"Oh?" Boots said as she tilted her head mockingly, like a confused boarder collie. "And what is that?"
"I already knew that the only way to get me to do something is to tell me nobody thinks I should," I said triumphantly.
"And yet you still fell for it."
Chapter 11
I mulled over that one for a while and came to the conclusion that it says no good things about my intelligence, then I got distracted because we were pulling into a bar. "I like the way you think Boots, I always deal with life threatening situations better with a beer."
Kenyan looked at me like he'd never really seen me before, or like I've changed profoundly, or maybe that look means I'm being stupid as hell again. It's a toss up really. "You really do deal with this stuff all the time don't you?"
"Well, I don't know about 'all the time' but 'more often than I should' certainly applies." Good lord, has all of this finally worked it's way into Kenyan's thick ass skull?
"So, two years ago, when you said that you were being chased by a troll...?"
"I was actually being chased by a troll, those things are not nearly as gross than you would think, but much much much less pleasant."
"And last year, when you borrowed my tent to go camping because you were 'Nymph hunting'...?"
Boots gives me a dirty look at this one, but I just grinned, "Ye-yah! I got some crazy wood nymph action that weekend. And I think I invited you on that one."
"Yeah you did, but I didn't go because I thought it was some sort of sex cult."
"Well... It kind of was, but it was the good kind of sex cult."
He laughed but still looked unconvinced, or maybe unnerved, or maybe just confused. Geeze, I must have hit my head pretty hard if I can't even figure out what Kenyans looks mean. We've lived together for years now, I normally have him pegged.
"And that time you..."
I cut him off, "Yeah, it was all true, I never lie to you buddy." Both he and Boots gave me dirty looks so I hastily corrected myself, "Almost never lie to you."
Boots laughed and said, "Thats more like it. Now don't get to excited about being at the Taproom. We are just here to drop Kenyan off so he can stay with the S-train tonight." Kenyan and I both let out a sigh of disappointment. When I shot him a quizitive glance he said, "I'd rather stay with you guys while you fight bad shit, that was the most fun I've had in months!"
I laughed and was about to tell him he can come with us if he wants when Boots, the all powerful destroyer of all things fun, said, "No one is fighting anything tonight, Bob. You are spent and you've hit your head so many times today I'm astonished that you can even speak. And Kenyan, you have no training with any sort of weapon whatsoever. You would be more of a liability than an asset to us."
Ouch.
Kenyan looks genuinely hurt, but then Boots added, "For now, but I promise, now that your clued in, kinda, I'll start training you if you want."
Kenyan cheered up so much, so quickly that it was comical, "Really? Hell yeah, will I get to shoot some cool guns and stuff?"
"Dude, totes." And with that, he gets out of the car, grabbed the obnoxiously sketchy bag out of the trunk and headed off to the bar to see Sarah, still wearing a ridiculous grin.
Once he went inside Boots pulled out of the parking lot and I looked over and say, "Thanks, I would never have been able to tell him no without hurting his feelings."
"That's because you're an insensitive douchenheimer."
"Well, at least I'm not a cold hearted bitch." She smiled, and I closed my eyes. I was asleep before I knew it. I woke up as we pulled into the driveway outside Boots' house. She inherited this house from her grandmother, and her grandmother was rich as shit. The house is beautiful, located just inside the belt line, which basically contains the downtown portion of town, and yet still near North Hills and all of the other north Raleigh hangouts. It is also gigantic, I know less than nothing about architecture, but its got this kind of neo-victorian style that manages to be both imposing and inviting at the same time. It has this big spire like thing in the front to the left of an inviting porch that guards the front door. I love this house. Very... I dont know, wizardy.
As we walk into the entry Boots said, "You can take the downstairs guestroom, you don't look like you would be able to make it up stairs right now."
She's right; if anything I am more tired after my nap in the car. Magic is exhausting, and even though I'm an idiot and forgot to use it for the most part today I got myself beat up more than bad enough to make up for it. "What? The guest room? You don't want to snuggle?"
She just gave me a pretty half hearted death stare and I said, "I know, I had to make at least one come on tonight though."
She laughed and I shuffled to the guestroom where I have spent many a night sleeping one off and passed out.
Kenyan looked at me like he'd never really seen me before, or like I've changed profoundly, or maybe that look means I'm being stupid as hell again. It's a toss up really. "You really do deal with this stuff all the time don't you?"
"Well, I don't know about 'all the time' but 'more often than I should' certainly applies." Good lord, has all of this finally worked it's way into Kenyan's thick ass skull?
"So, two years ago, when you said that you were being chased by a troll...?"
"I was actually being chased by a troll, those things are not nearly as gross than you would think, but much much much less pleasant."
"And last year, when you borrowed my tent to go camping because you were 'Nymph hunting'...?"
Boots gives me a dirty look at this one, but I just grinned, "Ye-yah! I got some crazy wood nymph action that weekend. And I think I invited you on that one."
"Yeah you did, but I didn't go because I thought it was some sort of sex cult."
"Well... It kind of was, but it was the good kind of sex cult."
He laughed but still looked unconvinced, or maybe unnerved, or maybe just confused. Geeze, I must have hit my head pretty hard if I can't even figure out what Kenyans looks mean. We've lived together for years now, I normally have him pegged.
"And that time you..."
I cut him off, "Yeah, it was all true, I never lie to you buddy." Both he and Boots gave me dirty looks so I hastily corrected myself, "Almost never lie to you."
Boots laughed and said, "Thats more like it. Now don't get to excited about being at the Taproom. We are just here to drop Kenyan off so he can stay with the S-train tonight." Kenyan and I both let out a sigh of disappointment. When I shot him a quizitive glance he said, "I'd rather stay with you guys while you fight bad shit, that was the most fun I've had in months!"
I laughed and was about to tell him he can come with us if he wants when Boots, the all powerful destroyer of all things fun, said, "No one is fighting anything tonight, Bob. You are spent and you've hit your head so many times today I'm astonished that you can even speak. And Kenyan, you have no training with any sort of weapon whatsoever. You would be more of a liability than an asset to us."
Ouch.
Kenyan looks genuinely hurt, but then Boots added, "For now, but I promise, now that your clued in, kinda, I'll start training you if you want."
Kenyan cheered up so much, so quickly that it was comical, "Really? Hell yeah, will I get to shoot some cool guns and stuff?"
"Dude, totes." And with that, he gets out of the car, grabbed the obnoxiously sketchy bag out of the trunk and headed off to the bar to see Sarah, still wearing a ridiculous grin.
Once he went inside Boots pulled out of the parking lot and I looked over and say, "Thanks, I would never have been able to tell him no without hurting his feelings."
"That's because you're an insensitive douchenheimer."
"Well, at least I'm not a cold hearted bitch." She smiled, and I closed my eyes. I was asleep before I knew it. I woke up as we pulled into the driveway outside Boots' house. She inherited this house from her grandmother, and her grandmother was rich as shit. The house is beautiful, located just inside the belt line, which basically contains the downtown portion of town, and yet still near North Hills and all of the other north Raleigh hangouts. It is also gigantic, I know less than nothing about architecture, but its got this kind of neo-victorian style that manages to be both imposing and inviting at the same time. It has this big spire like thing in the front to the left of an inviting porch that guards the front door. I love this house. Very... I dont know, wizardy.
As we walk into the entry Boots said, "You can take the downstairs guestroom, you don't look like you would be able to make it up stairs right now."
She's right; if anything I am more tired after my nap in the car. Magic is exhausting, and even though I'm an idiot and forgot to use it for the most part today I got myself beat up more than bad enough to make up for it. "What? The guest room? You don't want to snuggle?"
She just gave me a pretty half hearted death stare and I said, "I know, I had to make at least one come on tonight though."
She laughed and I shuffled to the guestroom where I have spent many a night sleeping one off and passed out.
Chapter 12
It must have been noon by the time I woke up. I am blessed with usually not remembering my dreams (I think it has something to do with alcohol consumption), but I do have a few recurring nightmares that stick with me. I had one of them that night. My nightmares usually only show up when I'm in the middle of one of these bad situations, which is really poor timing, but that's me for you, when Bob Burns is in trouble his worst enemy is almost always himself. Oh well. My nightmare that night was particularly bad because it was real, and it was the worst memory I have. The night my father died.
I shook it off as best I could, no sense dwelling on the past, and followed my nose into the kitchen. On the way I took stock of how I was feeling. Shitty. My head hurt, and I could feel three separate lumps each already the size of a golf ball. The hair over one in front was matted with blood and my eyebrow felt crusty with it too. Both of my sides had large, deep cuts running down past my waist line, evidence of my not being nearly as quick as I think I am. Those stung whenever I moved, but weren't that bad. Overall, I was in pretty good shape, considering how bad the previous day was.
I still wasn't in the kitchen yet, (geeze this place is huge), so I turned my attention from myself to my stuff. Wizards are severely limited without stuff. Technically they are called "foci" or "focuses" or whatever the plural of that is but i usually just go with "stuff" because it seems to fit my random collection of things better. I almost always have enough stuff with me to get almost any magical thingy I might need to do done. For instance, my staff helps me focus the evocation magic i can do. Evocation is the kind of magic that makes things go boom, its kind of a specialty of mine because it requires little sustained focus. I checked my pockets, I had my chalk, some salt packets, five birthday candles that had all been smashed at some point yesterday, a compass, my pocket knife and some old string. This might not seem like much, but a good wizard can do almost anything with these supplies, and even I can do some pretty cool stuff with it.
I also had my emergency bag, though I had left it in the car the previous night, which contained some clothes, some back up supplies for the things I had in my pocket, along with some medical supplies, and a few random potions that I thought might come in handy if I were in trouble like an energy potion and a pain killing potion.
Overall, I was fairly confident that with the materials on hand and a little forethought I would be ready to face the squatch, the centaur and the wizard who conjured them. Now, if only I could get some forethought, but that's where Boots comes in.
I finally made it to the kitchen where Boots was heating up leftover Chinese for what I suppose would be considered lunch by most people. I didn't even ask her for some, that would have only resulted in a fork through my hand, so I went to the cupboard which is bigger than my kitchen and got some cheerios. I ate them dry. Breakfast of champions.
While I was munching on cheerios, feeling decidedly un-cheery or not cheery or whatever, man I really hit my head hard, Boots brought up the subject I was dreading most; what I was going to do today. "So, whats your plan today Bob?" See, I told you.
"I have no idea Boots. I don't know who or what I'm after, who or what is after me, or what they're after. I have no idea." Damn that came out more whiney than i wanted it too. Oh well, it was true.
"Good thing you have me numbnuts, I did some research on the things we know are attacking us..." She went on to explain a bunch of stuff about Sasquatch and how he blah blah blah, and how a centaur is a weapons master blah blah blah. It isn't for lack of interest that I tune her out, honest, I just have an extremely poor attention span. As my attention was slipping my mind drifted toward my nightmare.
I was back in my dads house in Vermont. He wasn't big on people so he built his house up in the isolation of Green Mountain. The house was a two story log cabin set miles away from the nearest human. It had no electricity, and was a lot smaller than you would expect a man who had three hundred years of compound interest on his bank accounts to have. I only visited my dad twice a year for a week each time, and it was a time I dreaded, but my mom thought it was good for me so I went. My dad ignored me when I was at his house like I was the plague, so as the cab I was in pulled to a stop at the end of the two mile driveway i prepared myself for a two mile hike through the snow and for being completely ignored and bored out of my mind for an entire week.
I trudged down the driveway through the snow. My dad never plowed the gravel drive and he sure as hell never shoveled it so there was about eighteen inches of untouched snow that i had to walk through on my ten year old legs. When I was about two hundred yards away from the house I was pretty sure I had frostbite and the icicles forming on my nose were like seven feet long. Then the right wall of the house exploded. I stood dumbfounded for a few seconds as fire and smoke billowed out of the hole in the wall. There was a bizarre moment of supreme quiet when the only noise was the crackling of the fire, and then the screaming began.
I jerked back into reality in Boots' kitchen. Boots was still talking about how Centaurs have for centuries been the weapons teachers to nearly all the other monsters and how they are one of the few mythological creatures who have consistently embraced the destructive power of mortal weapons like guns. She hadn't noticed my daydream. In situations like this her lawyer side turns on and she can talk for days, and by the end of it i never know what she said but I always agree to her plan. But that was probably good, I wasn't in a mood to share, or think, or plan, or move.
Once she was done with her presentation, though maybe lecture is a better word we(she) decided to go back to my ruined apartment, avoid the cops hopefully, and see if we could find the centaurs trail. Hopefully that would lead us back to whoever summoned him. "And then what do we do?" I asked.
"What you mean, after we follow the obnoxiously strong mythological creature back to the wizard who summoned him, who by the way is almost certainly more powerful than you?"
Gulp. "Yeah"
"I don't know, we'll figure something out. we always do."
"Yeah but what you figure out almost always gets me hurt."
She grinned devilishly "I know, its like ninety percent of why I hang out with you, to get you back for all of the inappropriate comments."
"But those comments are like ninety percent of why I hang out with you, well that and your perfect ass."
She punched me playfully and said, "It's a vicious cycle."
Her playful punch hurt really bad but I could not let her see that, so I bit my lip, nodded and tried to ignore the dead arm she just gave me.
I shook it off as best I could, no sense dwelling on the past, and followed my nose into the kitchen. On the way I took stock of how I was feeling. Shitty. My head hurt, and I could feel three separate lumps each already the size of a golf ball. The hair over one in front was matted with blood and my eyebrow felt crusty with it too. Both of my sides had large, deep cuts running down past my waist line, evidence of my not being nearly as quick as I think I am. Those stung whenever I moved, but weren't that bad. Overall, I was in pretty good shape, considering how bad the previous day was.
I still wasn't in the kitchen yet, (geeze this place is huge), so I turned my attention from myself to my stuff. Wizards are severely limited without stuff. Technically they are called "foci" or "focuses" or whatever the plural of that is but i usually just go with "stuff" because it seems to fit my random collection of things better. I almost always have enough stuff with me to get almost any magical thingy I might need to do done. For instance, my staff helps me focus the evocation magic i can do. Evocation is the kind of magic that makes things go boom, its kind of a specialty of mine because it requires little sustained focus. I checked my pockets, I had my chalk, some salt packets, five birthday candles that had all been smashed at some point yesterday, a compass, my pocket knife and some old string. This might not seem like much, but a good wizard can do almost anything with these supplies, and even I can do some pretty cool stuff with it.
I also had my emergency bag, though I had left it in the car the previous night, which contained some clothes, some back up supplies for the things I had in my pocket, along with some medical supplies, and a few random potions that I thought might come in handy if I were in trouble like an energy potion and a pain killing potion.
Overall, I was fairly confident that with the materials on hand and a little forethought I would be ready to face the squatch, the centaur and the wizard who conjured them. Now, if only I could get some forethought, but that's where Boots comes in.
I finally made it to the kitchen where Boots was heating up leftover Chinese for what I suppose would be considered lunch by most people. I didn't even ask her for some, that would have only resulted in a fork through my hand, so I went to the cupboard which is bigger than my kitchen and got some cheerios. I ate them dry. Breakfast of champions.
While I was munching on cheerios, feeling decidedly un-cheery or not cheery or whatever, man I really hit my head hard, Boots brought up the subject I was dreading most; what I was going to do today. "So, whats your plan today Bob?" See, I told you.
"I have no idea Boots. I don't know who or what I'm after, who or what is after me, or what they're after. I have no idea." Damn that came out more whiney than i wanted it too. Oh well, it was true.
"Good thing you have me numbnuts, I did some research on the things we know are attacking us..." She went on to explain a bunch of stuff about Sasquatch and how he blah blah blah, and how a centaur is a weapons master blah blah blah. It isn't for lack of interest that I tune her out, honest, I just have an extremely poor attention span. As my attention was slipping my mind drifted toward my nightmare.
I was back in my dads house in Vermont. He wasn't big on people so he built his house up in the isolation of Green Mountain. The house was a two story log cabin set miles away from the nearest human. It had no electricity, and was a lot smaller than you would expect a man who had three hundred years of compound interest on his bank accounts to have. I only visited my dad twice a year for a week each time, and it was a time I dreaded, but my mom thought it was good for me so I went. My dad ignored me when I was at his house like I was the plague, so as the cab I was in pulled to a stop at the end of the two mile driveway i prepared myself for a two mile hike through the snow and for being completely ignored and bored out of my mind for an entire week.
I trudged down the driveway through the snow. My dad never plowed the gravel drive and he sure as hell never shoveled it so there was about eighteen inches of untouched snow that i had to walk through on my ten year old legs. When I was about two hundred yards away from the house I was pretty sure I had frostbite and the icicles forming on my nose were like seven feet long. Then the right wall of the house exploded. I stood dumbfounded for a few seconds as fire and smoke billowed out of the hole in the wall. There was a bizarre moment of supreme quiet when the only noise was the crackling of the fire, and then the screaming began.
I jerked back into reality in Boots' kitchen. Boots was still talking about how Centaurs have for centuries been the weapons teachers to nearly all the other monsters and how they are one of the few mythological creatures who have consistently embraced the destructive power of mortal weapons like guns. She hadn't noticed my daydream. In situations like this her lawyer side turns on and she can talk for days, and by the end of it i never know what she said but I always agree to her plan. But that was probably good, I wasn't in a mood to share, or think, or plan, or move.
Once she was done with her presentation, though maybe lecture is a better word we(she) decided to go back to my ruined apartment, avoid the cops hopefully, and see if we could find the centaurs trail. Hopefully that would lead us back to whoever summoned him. "And then what do we do?" I asked.
"What you mean, after we follow the obnoxiously strong mythological creature back to the wizard who summoned him, who by the way is almost certainly more powerful than you?"
Gulp. "Yeah"
"I don't know, we'll figure something out. we always do."
"Yeah but what you figure out almost always gets me hurt."
She grinned devilishly "I know, its like ninety percent of why I hang out with you, to get you back for all of the inappropriate comments."
"But those comments are like ninety percent of why I hang out with you, well that and your perfect ass."
She punched me playfully and said, "It's a vicious cycle."
Her playful punch hurt really bad but I could not let her see that, so I bit my lip, nodded and tried to ignore the dead arm she just gave me.
Chapter 13
I then took one of the most needed showers of my entire life and got ready for what promised to be another relaxing day. No, wait not relaxing, that isn't what I meant. Horrible. Yeah, that's it, horrible. I got ready for another horrible day. I cleaned the blood out of my hair, put on some clothes that weren't in tatters and didn't smell like a dumpster, resupplied my magical focuses or foci or whatever, got my staff, and ate some more Cheerios. I was ready for anything.
Then my brother called.
I sat there looking at the name on my cell phone's caller I.D. until it stopped ringing, dumbfounded. I believe that I have previously expressed that my brother and I do not get along. He blames me for my father's death. I really do not understand how it could be my fault, I mean I hadn't even gotten near the house when it blew up, but whatever.
To say the least our relationship has been... strained. Granted, it had been getting better over the last few years, I think Janus finally realized that I had nothing to do with the explosion, so instead of open hatred and assassination attempts we had moved to simmering animosity and ignoring each other. That is of course until the day before when he showed up to accuse me of murder then told me to stay in my house immediately before a supernatural hit squad came there to take me out.
He called again, this time I picked up.
"You have got some fucking nerve to call me again after yesterday," I growled politely.
"Erm what?" came his witty reply.
"Yeah, you said, and I quote, 'Stay home tonight, little brother.'"
He sounded relieved. "Good, so you got the message, I got worried when I couldn't get through on your home phone."
This was not going the way I thought it would. "Yeah well, that may be because the home phone was obliterated by a hand grenade."
"Fucking what?" He said, and he must have been working on his acting skills, because he actually sounded surprised and worried. "Are you alright?"
I lost it. It was just too much. I can count on one hand the number of times my brother has called me. He avoids talking to me like the plague and since I reached the age of ten has only ever shown up in my life during his various attempts at killing me, and here he was, asking if I was alright, after an centaur threw a grenade at me in my house after that same brother told me to stay home. Too damn much for me to take.
"Fucking NO! I am not alright, and what is with this sudden interest in me being alright? Since when have you ever cared about me? Huh? Or are you just pretending to care so that you can finally finish the job you have tried to do so many times and kill me off once and for all?"
There was what seemed like an interminable silence on the line. When Janus finally spoke he sounded sad and tired, "I am sorry that that is how you think of me. Meet me for dinner at seven thirty at the Chili's in Brier Creek and I will explain everything." He hung up. I sat there for at least a minute staring at the phone trying to process what the hell was happening. I failed.
"Why do I never understand what the hell is going on?" I asked myself just as Boots came into the room.
"Because you're a moron," she supplied immediately. Then she looked at my face and shot me a questioning look. I told her my conversation with Janus. "Well you have to go, you know that right?"
"Go where?"
"To dinner, you have to go meet him."
"Call me stupid, but I fail to see how going to dinner at Chili's with my brother who is the most likely suspect behind the recent attempts on my life is a good idea"
"Well, Stupid, the way I see it Janus will do one of three things. First, and most likely of these options is that Janus will betray you at this dinner and set the Squatch and the centaur on you."
"Agreed, and you want me to go to my death because...?"
"I know its difficult Bob, but you're going to have to use the peanut you call a brain and focus here for a minute. The second option for Janus is that he is going to bring the White Council and somehow try to pin Elaine's murder on you to get the council to do his dirty work for him." My neck twitched in an involuntary spasm of protest. The White Council has a very Queen of Hearts way of dealing with their problems, their punishments start with beheading and get increasingly less merciful from there. "The third possibility," Boots continued, "Is that Janus is telling the truth and he will help us track down the real culprit and save your vacuous head."
I snorted. "That's likely."
She ignored my witty comment and continued explaining. "Of those three options two of them get us closer to finding out who killed Elaine, and that is our only lead right now. You have to go." She looked at me like she would have liked nothing more than for me to argue with her, because she knew she would win.
I thought about it for a minute. She was probably right, she always was which pissed me off, but I still wasn't keen on the idea of acting the guinea pig in a shit storm of this size. One person had already died, and I was not trying to be number two, but at the same time I had a feeling that I would not like what happened if I didn't stop whomever was doing whatever was going on before they got to do it. Call it a vague premonition or whatever you like, but the more I thought about it the more I knew that shit was getting close to hitting the fan and that I needed to stop it. Maybe foresight is part of being a wizard and nobody told me, I don't know, but I did know that I had to do something.
"Fine, I'll go," I said reluctantly. "But first we go back to my place and see if we can find a trail back to whoever is calling out these beasties that keep trying to kill me."
"Deal, though I don't think we'll find anything."
"Neither do I, but on the off chance that we do, I would much rather face the bad guy on my terms than Janus'"
Then my brother called.
I sat there looking at the name on my cell phone's caller I.D. until it stopped ringing, dumbfounded. I believe that I have previously expressed that my brother and I do not get along. He blames me for my father's death. I really do not understand how it could be my fault, I mean I hadn't even gotten near the house when it blew up, but whatever.
To say the least our relationship has been... strained. Granted, it had been getting better over the last few years, I think Janus finally realized that I had nothing to do with the explosion, so instead of open hatred and assassination attempts we had moved to simmering animosity and ignoring each other. That is of course until the day before when he showed up to accuse me of murder then told me to stay in my house immediately before a supernatural hit squad came there to take me out.
He called again, this time I picked up.
"You have got some fucking nerve to call me again after yesterday," I growled politely.
"Erm what?" came his witty reply.
"Yeah, you said, and I quote, 'Stay home tonight, little brother.'"
He sounded relieved. "Good, so you got the message, I got worried when I couldn't get through on your home phone."
This was not going the way I thought it would. "Yeah well, that may be because the home phone was obliterated by a hand grenade."
"Fucking what?" He said, and he must have been working on his acting skills, because he actually sounded surprised and worried. "Are you alright?"
I lost it. It was just too much. I can count on one hand the number of times my brother has called me. He avoids talking to me like the plague and since I reached the age of ten has only ever shown up in my life during his various attempts at killing me, and here he was, asking if I was alright, after an centaur threw a grenade at me in my house after that same brother told me to stay home. Too damn much for me to take.
"Fucking NO! I am not alright, and what is with this sudden interest in me being alright? Since when have you ever cared about me? Huh? Or are you just pretending to care so that you can finally finish the job you have tried to do so many times and kill me off once and for all?"
There was what seemed like an interminable silence on the line. When Janus finally spoke he sounded sad and tired, "I am sorry that that is how you think of me. Meet me for dinner at seven thirty at the Chili's in Brier Creek and I will explain everything." He hung up. I sat there for at least a minute staring at the phone trying to process what the hell was happening. I failed.
"Why do I never understand what the hell is going on?" I asked myself just as Boots came into the room.
"Because you're a moron," she supplied immediately. Then she looked at my face and shot me a questioning look. I told her my conversation with Janus. "Well you have to go, you know that right?"
"Go where?"
"To dinner, you have to go meet him."
"Call me stupid, but I fail to see how going to dinner at Chili's with my brother who is the most likely suspect behind the recent attempts on my life is a good idea"
"Well, Stupid, the way I see it Janus will do one of three things. First, and most likely of these options is that Janus will betray you at this dinner and set the Squatch and the centaur on you."
"Agreed, and you want me to go to my death because...?"
"I know its difficult Bob, but you're going to have to use the peanut you call a brain and focus here for a minute. The second option for Janus is that he is going to bring the White Council and somehow try to pin Elaine's murder on you to get the council to do his dirty work for him." My neck twitched in an involuntary spasm of protest. The White Council has a very Queen of Hearts way of dealing with their problems, their punishments start with beheading and get increasingly less merciful from there. "The third possibility," Boots continued, "Is that Janus is telling the truth and he will help us track down the real culprit and save your vacuous head."
I snorted. "That's likely."
She ignored my witty comment and continued explaining. "Of those three options two of them get us closer to finding out who killed Elaine, and that is our only lead right now. You have to go." She looked at me like she would have liked nothing more than for me to argue with her, because she knew she would win.
I thought about it for a minute. She was probably right, she always was which pissed me off, but I still wasn't keen on the idea of acting the guinea pig in a shit storm of this size. One person had already died, and I was not trying to be number two, but at the same time I had a feeling that I would not like what happened if I didn't stop whomever was doing whatever was going on before they got to do it. Call it a vague premonition or whatever you like, but the more I thought about it the more I knew that shit was getting close to hitting the fan and that I needed to stop it. Maybe foresight is part of being a wizard and nobody told me, I don't know, but I did know that I had to do something.
"Fine, I'll go," I said reluctantly. "But first we go back to my place and see if we can find a trail back to whoever is calling out these beasties that keep trying to kill me."
"Deal, though I don't think we'll find anything."
"Neither do I, but on the off chance that we do, I would much rather face the bad guy on my terms than Janus'"
Chapter 14
It took us a solid five minutes to navigate our way to Boots' garage. "Seriously, this place is like Wayne Manor," I said as we finally went through a door and descended the little staircase to the floor of the garage.
"Dibs on Batman!" Boots said immediately.
Son of a bitch. That meant that I was... "ROBIN? You're going to cast me as robin?"
"Of course." she replied as if anything else would be entirely irrational.
"But... I'm a wizard. I'm supposed to be the cool one, not the one who tags along and who says bad jokes and ridiculous exclamations like 'holy bouncing elephants, Batman!'"
She stopped and turned to look at me evenly. "Bouncing elephants? I could not have made a better case for you being Robin if I thought about it for the next thousand years." She laughed, "Bouncing Elephants? I feel like you out-Robined Robin there, Bob."
I thought about it. "Yeah alright I'm probably Robin. But I'm a cool Robin, In fact I feel like im maybe more of a Bucky, from Captain America; snarky and kick-ass all at the same time."
"Holy nerdy conversations Batman!" Boots said as she got into her car. When I got myself into the passenger seat she said, conversationally, "Besides, you're way too broody and bitchy to be either Robin or Bucky, you're more like Supergirl"
Well shit. I froze in the process of putting on my seat belt and looked at her. "Jesus Boots, I didn't realize we were playing full tackle here."
She gave me a look that somehow managed to say "I play to win, bitch.", then she switched it to say, "Just kidding, but not really." She looked at my expression, which must have been somewhere between amusement and horror and started laughing. I joined in, I mean, I wasn't that bitchy and broody was I?... Was I?
"You are joking right? I couldn't be Supergirl, I mean... she's Supergirl. I'm much cooler than that, right?"
She just laughed.
"We need to make this quick." Boots said as we pulled into my apartment complex. She parked in front of another building because the cops had taped off my entire building. I mean the entire building and the parking lot.
"Well, now that just seems like overkill." Boots ignored me and started marching over towards my building, or at least toward what was left of it anyway.
As it turns out, cordoning off the entire building and parking lot may not have been completely overkill. Last night, in the dark, the damage hadn't looked good, but it didn't look as bad as this. All of the windows were blown out on my side of the building, and there was a gaping, ragged hole centered around what used to be my bathroom window. Pieces of the roof had fallen down through that hole and then through the hole the grenade tore through my bathroom floor and into my downstairs neighbors bathroom. One chunk had destroyed the sink and even though someone had cut the water off to the building it was still slowly dripping out the bottom of the hole.
There was only one cop that we could see on guard duty, he was sitting on the bottom step of the stair case up to my apartment. Boots and I hid around the corner watching for a minute to see if there were any more guards, but none showed themselves.
"What's the plan, Bob?" Boots asked.
Plan? Shit. "Um, I think our best bet is to try a tracking spell, but we'll need something to track them with."
"What can you use to do that?"
"Anything that has a connection to something they have with them or to them themselves, like hair, or something like that. The problem is that both the Squatch and Ed are beings of the Neverland, so any hair or blood they leave behind would turn back to ectoplasm and be useless."
"Ed?"
"You know, the talking horse."
"Ahh, of course, but that leaves us up a creek doesnt it?"
"Um sort of, yeah."
"So I once again feel the need to ask why the hell we are here." She glared at me.
"Look, I really do not want to talk to my brother right now."
She continued glaring for a minute, then her face lit up.
"What? What did you think of?"
She said, "The shells, dude!" and then began looking at the ground all around us excitedly.
It took me a minute but then I got it too. See, I'm not completely useless all the time. The spent shells from Ed the talking horse's (I need to work on that nickname) gun might just work to make a connection to the gun they came from, it would be a delicate connection, if it worked at all. Or better yet, if Ed still had some shells from the same box as one that we find that would be an even better connection. Holy shit, this had a real shot at working.
"Boots you are a genius!" I called out to her as I joined her in looking around for some of the spent shells.
She glanced up at me and smiled then went back to searching and said "Fucking duh dude."
We searched for fifteen minutes, being careful to avoid the guard (who was napping, so it was easy) but came up with nothing, the cops must have collected all of the shells for evidence, which made sense, now that I thought about it.
Boots looked over to where the guard was napping on my stairs and said, "Maybe he has them, I mean they're most likely at the station with forensics, but he might have found some more after they left."
"Its worth a shot, I hate to interrupt the guy when he's clearly very busy though."
She smiled, "I'll handle this, you just try not to look too suspicious."
She went to her car and came back like fifteen seconds later wearing a completely different outfit. She was now wearing a short skirt and high heels that made her long, dark legs look longer, and darker, and sexier. Up top she was wearing this white blouse thing with what can generally be considered not enough buttons fastened so that a lot of cleavage was showing. Resting right in the middle of those beautiul brown boobs was a badge hanging on a metal lanyard like what undercover cops wear. I was going to try to say something snarky, but I couldn't get my mouth to work it was too busy hanging open.
Boots walked right on past me and straight towards the guard, and as she got closer her gait developed a more clipped business like stride isntead of her usual lithe grace, transforming her from a sexy and seductive lawyer who likes it rough to a no nonsense detective who will literally shoot your head off if you so much as glance at her well displayed body.
Anyway, long story short, mister dozing guard never had a chance when the "State Bureau of Investigations Detective" came out of nowhere and demanded to know a) what he was doing snoozing on the job, and b) where the hell he had put those shell casing he had found. He was still floundering around, trying to look busy while trying not to stare at Boots' ass when we got back to her car. Poor guy.
Boots tossed me the two casings the guard had found and said, "Get with the magic. He said his watch was ending soon and I would rather not be here when a new, more attentive cop shows up."
So I 'got with the magic.' Magic like this is not really difficult, it just isn't my forte. It requires creating a link between two objects and then pouring magic down that link. Any number of things can be done with that link once it is created, from the very gruesome to the fairly mundane it varies greatly on what you are using to create the connection and how horrible your imagination is. For instance, if you are using someone's blood to make the connection to the rest of that blood you can do any number of things ranging from following that connection to find the person to literally making their blood boil, it all depends on the amount of energy one can spend on it and how black one's heart is, because horrible magic leaves horrible stains on one's psyche. Any way, all of this connection stuff takes a lot of concentration to pull off and I am ADD to an extreme, so I have trouble with it.
The connection I was making was a flimsy one at best, The best I could hope for really would be that all of the shells in the box came from the same sheet of metal when they were formed. Then they would have been part of the same whole at some point, and that is a pretty sturdy connection. But a fresh stamped casing is far removed from a spent cartridge, so the connection that would have been easy to use in the two unused cartridges has been changed, damaged. It would still be there, hopefully, but difficult to find.
I picked which cartridge to start with by playing eenie meanie minie moe, and drew a circle with the chalk in my pocket on the sidewalk. I closed the circle with a small amount of my will. Power circles, no matter how primitive (chalk on a sidewalk) isolate energies. They can work to cut off the flow of power to something, like I did to the Squatch yesterday, or they can work to contain and focus energies; cut out all of the distractions, so to speak, like what I was about to do.
Once the circle was up I closed my eyes. I concentrated on the metal in the bullet, and then pictured it's sister bullets, all lined up in their box, waiting to be put to use. I did it with as much detail as i could, even going so far as to imagine the price tag on the box. Then I pulled out an old compass from my pocket and pictured it in my mind pointing, unwavering, at the half used box of bullets. Then, still holding that image, I released some of my will into that connection, and in my mind's eye I saw a golden stream of energy flow from the spent casing, through the compass and into the imagined box of bullets. I then used my foot to break the circle, releasing that energy out into the world.
Nothing happened. The compass continued pointing North, resolutely, mocking me. "Fuck you" I told it under my breath.
"What was that?" Boots asked.
"Nothing, nothing. the first one didnt work, im going to try the second." So I did, I repeated the process exactly, but this time i poured more energy into the connection, so that in my mind, the golden stream was more like a golden river. Then I released it, and I sagged with exhaustion as the energy left.
Nothing happened for a second, then the compass began swinging ever so slowly to point south west instead of north.
"Fucking right!" I yelled. Boot's just said, "Its about time, that took you ten minutes, Rip Van Winkle. I thought you had fallen asleep on that second one"
"You can't rush miracles, or you get lousy miracles." And with that we set off towards the people who had been trying to kill me for the last few days. Which, in hindsight, seems like it was not a good idea.
"Dibs on Batman!" Boots said immediately.
Son of a bitch. That meant that I was... "ROBIN? You're going to cast me as robin?"
"Of course." she replied as if anything else would be entirely irrational.
"But... I'm a wizard. I'm supposed to be the cool one, not the one who tags along and who says bad jokes and ridiculous exclamations like 'holy bouncing elephants, Batman!'"
She stopped and turned to look at me evenly. "Bouncing elephants? I could not have made a better case for you being Robin if I thought about it for the next thousand years." She laughed, "Bouncing Elephants? I feel like you out-Robined Robin there, Bob."
I thought about it. "Yeah alright I'm probably Robin. But I'm a cool Robin, In fact I feel like im maybe more of a Bucky, from Captain America; snarky and kick-ass all at the same time."
"Holy nerdy conversations Batman!" Boots said as she got into her car. When I got myself into the passenger seat she said, conversationally, "Besides, you're way too broody and bitchy to be either Robin or Bucky, you're more like Supergirl"
Well shit. I froze in the process of putting on my seat belt and looked at her. "Jesus Boots, I didn't realize we were playing full tackle here."
She gave me a look that somehow managed to say "I play to win, bitch.", then she switched it to say, "Just kidding, but not really." She looked at my expression, which must have been somewhere between amusement and horror and started laughing. I joined in, I mean, I wasn't that bitchy and broody was I?... Was I?
"You are joking right? I couldn't be Supergirl, I mean... she's Supergirl. I'm much cooler than that, right?"
She just laughed.
"We need to make this quick." Boots said as we pulled into my apartment complex. She parked in front of another building because the cops had taped off my entire building. I mean the entire building and the parking lot.
"Well, now that just seems like overkill." Boots ignored me and started marching over towards my building, or at least toward what was left of it anyway.
As it turns out, cordoning off the entire building and parking lot may not have been completely overkill. Last night, in the dark, the damage hadn't looked good, but it didn't look as bad as this. All of the windows were blown out on my side of the building, and there was a gaping, ragged hole centered around what used to be my bathroom window. Pieces of the roof had fallen down through that hole and then through the hole the grenade tore through my bathroom floor and into my downstairs neighbors bathroom. One chunk had destroyed the sink and even though someone had cut the water off to the building it was still slowly dripping out the bottom of the hole.
There was only one cop that we could see on guard duty, he was sitting on the bottom step of the stair case up to my apartment. Boots and I hid around the corner watching for a minute to see if there were any more guards, but none showed themselves.
"What's the plan, Bob?" Boots asked.
Plan? Shit. "Um, I think our best bet is to try a tracking spell, but we'll need something to track them with."
"What can you use to do that?"
"Anything that has a connection to something they have with them or to them themselves, like hair, or something like that. The problem is that both the Squatch and Ed are beings of the Neverland, so any hair or blood they leave behind would turn back to ectoplasm and be useless."
"Ed?"
"You know, the talking horse."
"Ahh, of course, but that leaves us up a creek doesnt it?"
"Um sort of, yeah."
"So I once again feel the need to ask why the hell we are here." She glared at me.
"Look, I really do not want to talk to my brother right now."
She continued glaring for a minute, then her face lit up.
"What? What did you think of?"
She said, "The shells, dude!" and then began looking at the ground all around us excitedly.
It took me a minute but then I got it too. See, I'm not completely useless all the time. The spent shells from Ed the talking horse's (I need to work on that nickname) gun might just work to make a connection to the gun they came from, it would be a delicate connection, if it worked at all. Or better yet, if Ed still had some shells from the same box as one that we find that would be an even better connection. Holy shit, this had a real shot at working.
"Boots you are a genius!" I called out to her as I joined her in looking around for some of the spent shells.
She glanced up at me and smiled then went back to searching and said "Fucking duh dude."
We searched for fifteen minutes, being careful to avoid the guard (who was napping, so it was easy) but came up with nothing, the cops must have collected all of the shells for evidence, which made sense, now that I thought about it.
Boots looked over to where the guard was napping on my stairs and said, "Maybe he has them, I mean they're most likely at the station with forensics, but he might have found some more after they left."
"Its worth a shot, I hate to interrupt the guy when he's clearly very busy though."
She smiled, "I'll handle this, you just try not to look too suspicious."
She went to her car and came back like fifteen seconds later wearing a completely different outfit. She was now wearing a short skirt and high heels that made her long, dark legs look longer, and darker, and sexier. Up top she was wearing this white blouse thing with what can generally be considered not enough buttons fastened so that a lot of cleavage was showing. Resting right in the middle of those beautiul brown boobs was a badge hanging on a metal lanyard like what undercover cops wear. I was going to try to say something snarky, but I couldn't get my mouth to work it was too busy hanging open.
Boots walked right on past me and straight towards the guard, and as she got closer her gait developed a more clipped business like stride isntead of her usual lithe grace, transforming her from a sexy and seductive lawyer who likes it rough to a no nonsense detective who will literally shoot your head off if you so much as glance at her well displayed body.
Anyway, long story short, mister dozing guard never had a chance when the "State Bureau of Investigations Detective" came out of nowhere and demanded to know a) what he was doing snoozing on the job, and b) where the hell he had put those shell casing he had found. He was still floundering around, trying to look busy while trying not to stare at Boots' ass when we got back to her car. Poor guy.
Boots tossed me the two casings the guard had found and said, "Get with the magic. He said his watch was ending soon and I would rather not be here when a new, more attentive cop shows up."
So I 'got with the magic.' Magic like this is not really difficult, it just isn't my forte. It requires creating a link between two objects and then pouring magic down that link. Any number of things can be done with that link once it is created, from the very gruesome to the fairly mundane it varies greatly on what you are using to create the connection and how horrible your imagination is. For instance, if you are using someone's blood to make the connection to the rest of that blood you can do any number of things ranging from following that connection to find the person to literally making their blood boil, it all depends on the amount of energy one can spend on it and how black one's heart is, because horrible magic leaves horrible stains on one's psyche. Any way, all of this connection stuff takes a lot of concentration to pull off and I am ADD to an extreme, so I have trouble with it.
The connection I was making was a flimsy one at best, The best I could hope for really would be that all of the shells in the box came from the same sheet of metal when they were formed. Then they would have been part of the same whole at some point, and that is a pretty sturdy connection. But a fresh stamped casing is far removed from a spent cartridge, so the connection that would have been easy to use in the two unused cartridges has been changed, damaged. It would still be there, hopefully, but difficult to find.
I picked which cartridge to start with by playing eenie meanie minie moe, and drew a circle with the chalk in my pocket on the sidewalk. I closed the circle with a small amount of my will. Power circles, no matter how primitive (chalk on a sidewalk) isolate energies. They can work to cut off the flow of power to something, like I did to the Squatch yesterday, or they can work to contain and focus energies; cut out all of the distractions, so to speak, like what I was about to do.
Once the circle was up I closed my eyes. I concentrated on the metal in the bullet, and then pictured it's sister bullets, all lined up in their box, waiting to be put to use. I did it with as much detail as i could, even going so far as to imagine the price tag on the box. Then I pulled out an old compass from my pocket and pictured it in my mind pointing, unwavering, at the half used box of bullets. Then, still holding that image, I released some of my will into that connection, and in my mind's eye I saw a golden stream of energy flow from the spent casing, through the compass and into the imagined box of bullets. I then used my foot to break the circle, releasing that energy out into the world.
Nothing happened. The compass continued pointing North, resolutely, mocking me. "Fuck you" I told it under my breath.
"What was that?" Boots asked.
"Nothing, nothing. the first one didnt work, im going to try the second." So I did, I repeated the process exactly, but this time i poured more energy into the connection, so that in my mind, the golden stream was more like a golden river. Then I released it, and I sagged with exhaustion as the energy left.
Nothing happened for a second, then the compass began swinging ever so slowly to point south west instead of north.
"Fucking right!" I yelled. Boot's just said, "Its about time, that took you ten minutes, Rip Van Winkle. I thought you had fallen asleep on that second one"
"You can't rush miracles, or you get lousy miracles." And with that we set off towards the people who had been trying to kill me for the last few days. Which, in hindsight, seems like it was not a good idea.
