Grandpa’s body had already been reduced to ash by the time Rory and his parents arrived to Branson Gulch three days later. What was left of him now sat in a decorative vase, surrounded by pictures of his life, artifacts of his career, and flowers that Rory thought looked both expensive and exotic.

He kept his head bowed in the chapel, unsure of where to look. The soft crying among the crowd was uncomfortable, because it made him feel like he was uncertain of how he should feel. He loved Grandpa. So much. Grandpa was awesome. So… why wasn’t Rory crying himself?

What was wrong with him? He shook his head lightly and kept his eyes downward, hearing the soft sobs of his mom to his right.  His dad was next to her, his arm draped over her shoulders like a shawl, squeezing her occasionally. He glanced to his left at Nana, and she was sitting stoically, her face was like an imitation of her real face. She was a marble bust dressed in black, staring miles into the distance, perhaps over an entire lifetime, through the wood and stone of the chapel, perhaps the very earth beyond. And yet, she was beautiful in her profound sadness, as if it could not touch her. Not the way that it touched Rory’s mom, or the others arranged haphazardly in the pews behind.

Rory reached over and put his hand on Nana’s folded hands, she did not move her face or her eyes, but her hand shifted over to squeeze his own.

Pastor Clemens waited for the music to stop, a Simon and Garfunkel song that Grandpa had loved but Rory did not know the name of. He knew who it was, but that was about it. The last note trailed away amongst the soft murmuration of the crowd.

“How can one measure grief? The progress of it? The movement and shift and sway of it?” Pastor Clemens said, folding his bible closed, and touching the podium thoughtfully. “The way that grief overwhelms in a single breath when it had been on lock down just moments before… there was that sense of assurance it was so far away, like knowing that rain is somewhere out in the world, but you needn’t see it or acknowledge it to know that it existed. Then, as if by invocation, it rains! Torrential, end times sort of downpour that breaks the levees, drowns the weak and infirm, and sends wildlife scurrying for parts unknown. That grief that threatens to overwhelm, the real shock of it is the terror that accompanies it… will I feel this forever? Will I ever be free? Will the sorrow eat at me until I am nothing?”

Pastor Clemens took a step back from the podium and shook his head. “Time heals all wounds. But we should never consider ourselves free of it. Grief is part of us, and we have to make it our own… internalize it and take solace in the knowledge that grief is just proof of how much we loved him. He was a good father, a loving husband, a reliable friend, and a great ecologist. At this time, if anyone would like to come up to the microphone and say a few words, you are more than welcome.”

He sat down in the front pew, among the people, and the chapel was silent but for the rustling of clothing, an occasional cough, and the sniffles as people dabbed at their leaking eyes and noses.

An older gentleman limped up to the lecturn, swinging behind the wood podium carefully as if he was about to topple over. Rory realized the man was probably drunk, his nose was the color of dozen roses, and his cheeks matched, but above them, his eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark pits where his bright blue eyes sat, red and watering. His face was heavily lined, his hair was long but kempt, brushed and slicked back. A few silver streaks started at his temples and wove their way backward. He appeared to be barely keeping it together.

“Morning all. My name is Hugh Tobias. I knew Robert there as Bobby and he called me Toby. And Bobby was a spitfire the moment he blew into my life at Evarist Academy. He had that nickname ready to go in his back pocket, not even two seconds into the introduction. It was a declaration that my identity was wrong, and he was correcting it. When I met him, I was all of eighteen? And I thought I knew so much about the world, the way things were, and the way things should be. I was so certain! And Bobby… it was his nature to set things as he saw them, eh? He set my life on fire. Both figuratively and literally. Bobby was my roommate, and a bit of a wild one, wasn’t he?” Tobias laughed lightly, and a few in the crowd joined in. “My favorite memory of Bobby was when we were on assignment, field work for Botany. Many of you know how hard Dr. Tell was.”

Another smattering of laughter.

“So Bobby grabs me in the middle of the night and informs me that he found some Leckerweed. Now most people would know that young people do stupid things when they smoke the Leck, and I assure you that is what I would have done. But not Bobby! No. No. No. Bobby thought it would be a great time to light up that Leckerweed and pump it into Dr. Tell’s tent instead.”

“No…” Someone exhaled loudly from rear of the chapel.

“Oh, sorry Dr. Tell, I didn’t know you were here.” Tobias squinted out into the crowd. “Man… you were sooooooo high. Dr. Tell is a great sport, but I have never seen such a hard-assed straight laced professor that… uh wild, man. He woke everyone in the camp up, dancing around a fire he had turned into a bonfire claiming he was communing with his ancestors through the flames. Half naked too.”

“I knew it was him!” Dr. Tell shouted defensively. “I knew it!”

Rory glanced back at the a withered old man in a simple green flatcap, round spectacles on his large hawkish nose. He appeared to be smiling widely at the recollection.

Dr. Tell added proudly, “One of the best nights of my life! The hangover on the other hand… and I was so hungry after.”

A few more laughs ran through the crowd.

Tobias nodded with a smirk. He continued, “He was the life of the party, wasn’t he? One of those people that just make the best of those around him? He made me so uncertain about the world. He made me ask different questions, look at things in a new way. He helped me see possibilities where I did not see them before. He helped me find my partner, Charles. Bobby was my best man at our wedding. And he always found the fun in things, even when he struggled. He was a good friend and I will miss him terribly.”

Tobias wiped at his nose with the back of his hand and walked back to his seat, shuffling his leg as if it didn’t quite work the way it should. What was it with Grandpa and his friends? That they all seemed to have injuries even though they looked not much older than his own dad? Rory wondered about it. Even Nana did not seem as old as she actually was. Rory appraised her profile again, and then to his own mom. They could have been close sisters if Rory did not know any better.

A middle aged woman with bright red hair draped over angry looking burn marks on her neck nimbly strode up to the lectern and blew a kiss at the oversized portrait of Grandpa. She moved like a dancer, nimble and fast.

“Hello. My name is Glory McMahon, and I had the privilege to work with Robert for thirty years?” She looked over at Nana, and Nana shrugged and nodded at the same time, in some form of hesitant affirmation. “Thanks Vera. Yes, about thirty years! Wow. Time flies. As you know our job is not the easiest or safest occupation. Being an ecologist takes bravery and strength, both of which Robert had in spades. I don’t have a single story, I have hundreds. I can’t share any of them up here because not a single one would do on its own. Just know that Robert was one of our best. I don’t know if we will be the same without him. I… uh…” Glory McMahon looked up at the ceiling of the chapel, blinking furiously. “Grief, huh? Just like the good father was talking about. I… guess I do have a story. But it is not about Robert. It is about the Clochan Green we have up at the Howards Conservatory? She is a beauty named Miss Fleck, and Robert is the one that saved her. They had a bond… as happens sometimes.”

Glory paused heavily, swallowing to regain her composure.

“Miss Fleck knew. I don’t know how she knew, but we found her sullen that morning. Like she was grieving a sibling or mate’s death.” She paused again, her eyes shifting downward as she reflected on some truth. “With all of our knowledge and all of our history… and we still don’t know these fundamental truths of the universe beyond the recognition that they exist. And above all that, the universe knew that Robert Ryanson Blue had left our world, and that Clochan Green? Well, our Miss Fleck grieved. That is something profound, isn’t it?”

She stepped down and hugged Nana in her seat before making her way back to her own. An ancient looking man got up and very slowly made his way to the front, using a long cane with a practiced ease. His foot came up with a shuffling step, then his cane, then his other foot would nearly make the same distance with a little stomp. It was a percussive beat as he made his way to the podium, shuffle-tap-stomp, shuffle-tap-stomp.

“Hello Vera,” the old man addressed Nana from the lectern, pulling the microphone closer to his gnarled face. The man looked older than time itself. “Hello all, I think I know most of you, but some of you may not know me. I was one of the teachers that falsely assumed that we had tamed Robert, but to my utter delight, I discovered that I did not tame him at all, I merely redirected his wildness to the wide world where it belonged. As many of you know, my own last name means ‘of the wild’, and to think that Robert deserved that name more than I did was a revelation of its own sort.”

Rory marveled at the man’s accent. It was either Irish or Scottish, but it was fierce, like it had to be its own thing, and neither of the two. You would think it would be hard to understand, but it wasn’t. It was clear and vibrant, completely mismatching his old, twisted form. There were thousand year old trees out in the world that looked younger.

“I met Robert when he was only an ornery toddler. His mother, another prior student of mine, had visited for tea, and she brought this absolute terror of a child along with her. I believe her thinking at the time was that a rabid boy like that needed to meet someone that could eventually temper him into a strong young man that he could become. Here was a promise of a man that he could be… if you will, but I assure all of you right now with God as my witness, that he accomplished all of that by himself and through his own choices. He was a force of nature, much like his wife, Vera here, and all I did was proudly marvel that the world continues to bear these young folks of such talent. In short, he was brilliant. I shall miss him as well. We thank you, Robert. For the good you did, at the time you did, acting for all of us when we couldn’t.”

Rory marveled that a man that old sounded as young as he did. It was if the voice and the temper did not match the frame it was contained within. He leaned over to Nana and whispered, “Who was that?”

“That is Professor Myrddin. My boss. And he taught your grandfather and I, years ago. Saying he was a brilliant man does not even begin to cover it.”

A familiar face took the podium next, and Rory could not place where he had seen her before. She was an older woman, stooped with age, but she had a caring face. A face… the recognition made him feel like his head rang like a bell. It was Mrs. Givins. How did he forget Mrs. Givins? She was here when he was a little kid. His bike… the… path?

Rory shook his head confusedly. He caught Nana looking at him strangely, and he tried a weak smile.

“Robert! I can speak volumes. He worked for my father you know… conservationist to his absolute core. An ecologist like none other! And, if I may say so, a wickedly talented dowser. I watched him scrub lines and create lines like they were putty in his hands. Sure, many of us can do it… sure, many of us are good at it even. But Robert? Every single one of you know that his talent was beyond compare! Robert was able to shift lines like he was out for a stroll? Any of you remember when the Department had to redirect the ley fault in Wyoming? The entire fault! A hundred years ago, that would have been a team of talented folks, and Robert flew in, made the changes like he was turning a knob and flew out the VERY next day! My father knew he was a talent. Absolute talent…” Mrs. Givins blotted at her eyes with a tissue. “I… uh… I wish that we… uh…. had the courage… the..”

Mrs. Givins stopped dead after trailing off, her eyes locked on the back of the chapel. Her face went through a wave of emotions, and Rory didn’t understand what he was witnessing. A pulse of something like fatigue washed over him for a split second, but then it was gone. It was like a suggestion of tiredness, but he knew he wasn’t actually tired, so he ignored it.

“You don’t belong here!” Mrs. Givins shouted, raising an incriminating finger at whomever just entered through the doors.

There was a slight commotion at the back of the room, and rough murmurs and isolated muttering emanating outwards like ripples in a pond. Rory went to lift himself out of his seat to look, but Nana pushed his leg down with a firm hand and shook her head warningly.

“Eyes front.” Nana whispered insistently. “Do not look.”

A genteel honeyed voice rose from the back of the room, “I came… to pay… my respects.”

It sounded like a man’s voice, deep and resonant, but the tone was strangely feminine, soft at the edges, with a lilt in intonation that did not feel natural.

Mrs. Givins face was turning red. “You turn around right now, Lumen. This very moment. Or so help me God, I will call on every power of earth and heaven to turn you into a pillar of salt where you stand.”

“So informal. In a chapel, Merry!? Holy ground!? Aren’t we all the same in His eyes?” The voice called out. His voice sounded reasonable… as if it made all the sense in the world. “You won’t. Coward. You are all cowards.”

Rory really wanted to turn his head to look at the source of the voice, but Nana’s eyes were locked on his profile. She was staring at him like her life depended on it, and for some reason he felt as if he didn’t dare move. His joints were like ice, his muscles had become steel.

Mrs. Givins made a face. Disgust. “Lumen, if you are a child of God, then you have, uh, pardon my French everyone… you have absolutely fucked it sideways. It is said not to judge others, but you are remiss to believe that you are beyond our collective judgement. You are quite literally the antithesis to everything that Robert stood for. And you… dare… to come here?”

There was a shuffling of noise behind and another familiar voice spoke with authority. Rory knew it was the older gentleman Nana had named Myrddin.

“Mr. Lumen, say what you need to say and then leave.”

“Ah. Myrddin! You deigned to show up here? For this sap? All the way from your foggy highlands? How absolutely wonderful. It is like a family reunion…” The honeyed voice dripped with sarcasm, and something underneath. It felt malicious. “Is that Robert in that jar over there? Excuse me, sir.”

The ‘sir‘ was said as an epithet. The insult was dripping with disgust.

The man’s feet could be heard on the carpet runner as he approached the front of the chapel. Each step was soft, but there was a weight of reverberation that could be felt through the floorboards. It was if he weighed a thousand pounds and every movement was a warning to world around him. It said, flee.

Rory felt as if he shouldn’t attract the man’s attention. He ventured a glance to his right and with a shock realized both of his parents were asleep. Dad’s head was straight back so he was looking upwards, snoring gently, and Mom had her head on Dad’s shoulder, a bit of drool at her bottom lip. Rory felt his eyes go wide and he turned to look at Nana, but her hand was still on his knee, and she squeezed firmly as if warning him.

Rory didn’t know what to do. The man in the aisle finally strolled past laconically, and the scent of vanilla and mesquite wafted over Rory. The man was very tall, towering at what had to have been seven feet tall, and was lithe as a kickboxer. His skin was as white as snow, with a long silver ponytail bound at the back of his head. The man approached the table, and raised a hand as if trying to get Grandpa’s attention. He had rings on many of his fingers, and number of woven bracelets around his wrist at the cuff of his silk jacket.

“Robert? I have come to pay my respects. And to gloat, of course. I am allowed, right? When one wins, they should be allowed to celebrate their hard earned victory?” There was more rustling and murmurs in the pews behind. “You were a worthy opponent. I still to this day am not sure how you managed that whole thing on Hokkaido? That was deft! Brilliant even. I cannot deny brilliance, even when it is not solely my own. And… I shall miss our little talks. The ones that measured each of us, although, in our last meeting, you were found wanting, eh? Never recovered? Such a shame. I know you are not here, Robert. I know that this jar is not you. I know that your pattern has retreated back to the waves above and below. But still, if a glimmer of your pattern remains, know this… you are a fucking loser.”

The man turned and faced the now absolutely silent audience. A dog barked outside lonely and stark, while somewhere in the distance a car horn sounded. Rory noted the man’s eyes were so dark brown they almost appeared to be black from iris to pupil. It was a stark contrast to the porcelain white skin and tightly bound silver hair. He was strikingly handsome, with a cut chin, sharp cheekbones, and a high brow. He looked like a royal elf from the Lord of the Rings movies, if an elf wore silk suits that David Bowie would have envied. And his smile was like an imitation of a smile. He didn’t look human. He looked like something that ate humans. What was that called? The uncanny valley? Not quite human enough to trick his animal mind in accepting that he was one. This was a monster. A real monster.

Rory felt a shudder run through him.

The man’s eyes wandered the audience, as if taking it all in for a delicious memory. He took a deep satisified breath and headed the way he came, and the chapel door slammed lightly as the piston closed it at his passing with a wheezy relieved cough. A couple human coughs followed, also in relief.

A monster, like a dragon. Dragon? Memories came roaring back, a flood of impressions were unlocked simultaneously. Rory sifted through his memories of what had actually happened with Mrs. Givins. The memories of his visit all those years ago had popped into his head as if they had been wrapped up and hidden away. The more he thought on it, the more things unvieled themselves. How did he forget? How could he forget? Wella! He had seen a dragon. A goddamned cockatrice! He had seen a dragon and her eggs. He had looked her right in the eye!

Nana shifted in her seat and leaned over hurriedly to whisper in Rory’s ear. “You are rippling, Rory. Calm down… I will explain later. Deep breaths! Now!”

Rory felt a whip of reluctance and then a quick glimmer of rebellion, but Nana’s firm hand was still on his leg, and her stare was made of fire. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it, and then exhaling slowly. After a few rounds of breathing, Nana finally lifted her hand from his leg.

“Good. Now, act attentive. Your parents are waking up.” Nana observed.

“Oh god, did I fall asleep?” Mom said aghast, wiping at her mouth. “Mom, I am so sorry.”

“Hit your husband, dear, he is snoring.” Nana replied, facing front.

There was a light smack and the snoring cut off abruptly. A grunt of something, it could have been an apology, it may have been a protest.

It didn’t seem to matter. Rory could only focus inwardly. Her eye. In the clearing of the trees… Wella had looked at him and had known.

The dragon knew.

Rory woke up in a panic, strangling in his own sheets, mired in the octopus-like constriction of untucked sheets, blankets, somehow coupled to his own clothing. He angrily pulled the wrapped corner of his sheets from around his neck. It flickered away like a dismayed python.

Sweat beaded at this forehead and the back of his neck, and his heart rate was running a mile a minute.

The nightmares had gotten worse. He would wake up and then couldn’t remember what they were about. Just flashes of impressions that provided nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of something… wrong. Something that he could not fix no matter how hard he tried. He squeezed his eyes shut, fiercely attempting to pry something loose from his mind, some clue as to why he was on his second straight week of shit sleep.

He had his last final tomorrow. It did not matter nearly as much as his SAT had, but they were still important to close out the senior year of high school. Not getting the rest he needed was going to take its toll. Rory sat up, freeing more of his body from the wrath of the unintentional slumber knot that used to be his bed. He pulled his leg free and a sock stayed locked up in the sheets.

“Fuck it,” Rory mumbled, yanking the matching still attached sock off his other foot. He stood, lengthening his frame upwards, feeling the muscles stretch and hit their limit, their release flooding his nerves with some form of remotely felt satisfaction of their own. His heart finally had slowed, and the sweat was evaporating quickly. His well-tuned runner’s constitution at least made recovery fast.

The clock on his phone attested it was 2:17am on Thursday, May 14th, and Spotify had a new release from one his followed artists.

“Great. Thanks Spotify,” he mumbled.

There was a missed phone call too. His grandmother. Fifteen minutes ago?

Rory felt his stomach drop. He hadn’t been able to get his Mom or Dad to spring for a visit to see Nana and Grandpa. There was always an excuse. Some reason they couldn’t visit. Some other trip or vacation always took precedence. As a result, it had been literally years since he had seen his Nana and Grandpa. But Rory had made a habit to call them every week. Every Sunday, after dinner, religiously.

Grandpa had some sort of injury at work a couple years back and had been forced to retire. He had been sick the last few weeks? Right? Not the flu. Not covid. Something else? Nana had been dismissive two weeks ago, and they had not answered their phone this past Sunday. Rory had thought it odd, but sometimes they missed each other. It happened. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Rory rubbed his eyes, cracked the door to his room to look for signs of activity in the house. Something that would assuage his gut feel or at least confirm it? Something? Anything? But the house was silent as a crypt. His parents were not pacing the house, Mom was not calling anyone, and Dad wasn’t sitting at his customary position at the end of the kitchen island furiously tapping on his laptop.

It was eerie, actually. Like time had stopped. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Not even the typical house noises of a fan running or the furnace cycling could be heard. Rory shook his head, attributing the weirdness to the nightmare. He closed his door slowly, letting the latch catch its home silently and then he paced back to his phone, unplugging it from its charger.

He flipped to Nana’s contact and hit dial. It did not even ring once.

“Rory? Is everything alright?” Her voice was far away. Tinny. Like she was in a tunnel of aluminum foil.

“I’m fine, Nana. It’s two in the morning? You called me.”

A sigh at the other end. A heavy sigh. Then silence.

“Nana?” Rory tried.

“Your, uh, Rory, your grandfather passed.” Her voice was solemn, but not a sound of emotion. Her voice was carved from granite.

Rory realized what that meant. Nana had cried every tear she could harbor at the moment. She was exhausted. This was the sound of his strong, powerful Nana exhausted. Something he had never heard or seen before.

“Did you call Mom?”

“I…” Silence again, like Nana was trying to think of how to say something that she knew had to be said. “Your mom. Yes. I will call her later.”

“You called me first?” Rory felt his heart pick up its pace again.

“I had to know. I mean, uh, I have to know. Did you… did you feel it? The tear?” Nana’s voice was low, like it was secret that would be made real if spoken to loudly. “The last two weeks?”

“What are you talking about?” Rory said. “Tear?”

Nana ignored his question. “Have you felt… off? Sick? Bad dreams?”

Rory felt a chill climb his arms and turn into a shiver that made him want to curl into a ball under his messy covers. “I… yes… I have been having nightmares. Bad ones. For about two weeks. I thought it was end of year crap. How did you know?”

“You have your finals tomorrow, right?” She asked tentatively, uncertain with her own words.

“Yes. Nana, are you ok?”

“Rory, dear. I have lost the love of my life and the father of my only child, so no, I am not ok.”

“Nana, you know what I mean.” Rory smiled over the phone as best he could.

“Yes, I am ok. There is just so much to do. I thought I would have him longer. …That we would have him longer. I needed him, I needed your Grandpa, Rory.” Still no tears. No hitch in her voice.

“How?” Rory asked the dreaded question. “I know he has been sick… but he sounded good a few weeks ago.”

“That is why I need you to come stay with me after your finals are done. I… uh… I will think of something to tell your Mom. When are your parents dropping you off at Drummond?”

Nana was asking about drop off at his chosen college in the Fall. “Mid-August, sometime?”

“And your heart is… nevermind. We can talk about that later. When you get here. Love you, Rory. I am going to call your mom tomorrow. Later in the morning. Try to sleep. Good luck on your finals, dear.”

“I will try.” Rory did not sound confident.

A pause, no goodbye. “Take a deep breath,” Nana said instead.

“What?”

“Take a deep breath. Hold it. Do it. Now.”

Rory inhaled loudly and held it.

“Close your eyes. Imagine the dark around you is holding its breath too. Every corner of your room is collectively holding it, waiting for you to breathe. You are going to release your breath, slowly, counting to five. When you release it, imagine your breath filling the room and the ripples returning to you, reinforcing you.” Nana paused. “Now breathe out.”

Rory exhaled slowly, again loudly so Nana would hear it.

“Good. Now. When you lay down in bed, I want you to repeat that, think of nothing else. Understood?”

“Yes, Nana.”

“Promise.” She ordered.

“I promise.”

“Sleep fast, dear.”

“‘Night.” The call ended with a click in his hand. It was strange that his Nana did not have a smart phone. She had an old land line, and it clicked so loudly when she hung up. It always sounded so final.

He tried to not think about Grandpa. The final click had happened two weeks ago and Rory hadn’t known it at the time. He fixed his sheets and his blankets, tucking them at the corners like his Grandpa had shown him when he helped with chores all those years ago. He folded them tight, making sure the crease followed the angle it should. He could almost see Grandpa smiling in the dark.

Rory laid down, breathed in slowly, imagined what he was told to imagine, paused and exhaled slowly. He did this a few times and awoke suddenly to his alarm going off, its cascading volume getting louder with each pulsing tone.

He got up, got dressed, skipped his customary breakfast, instead grabbing some bars from the pantry, and immediately headed to school before his mom got the phone call that he knew was coming. He did not want to be in the house when that phone call came. His mom was an ugly crier. It was uncomfortable. His dad made it worse. He just hovered around mom like an uncertain pet, not knowing whether to run in for comfort or flee in terror.

As instructed, Rory left his phone in his locker with the ringer off and tried his hardest to focus on the last few official steps of high school. He went through it in a daze, as if he was on autopilot. He did what he was supposed to, took his final, then sat down with his counselor, signed off his paperwork, was made promises about transcripts and the graduation ceremony… and he knew he didn’t care. He knew that he wasn’t going to graduation, but he signed all the forms anyway.

Mr. Nunez shook his hand and made a comment. Rory smiled and replied, knowing that the real trial was about to start and not entirely sure his response matched what Mr. Nunez had said. It didn’t matter. His phone was sitting in his locker, waiting for him. The future was sitting in his locker, resting calmly on a shelf of bent metal, painted gray, with the small carved figures of someone’s initials nearby. Walking down the hallway towards his locker happened in slow motion, even his on-again, off-again ex-girlfriend Casey, in her short cheerleader shorts and her tight ribbed tank top, did not distract him. She probably didn’t even notice his lack of usual attention… hence the reason they weren’t together anymore. She was a bit of a bitch. Unintentionally, it was just who she was. Rory thought there was a chance she would grow out of it.

Rory’s fingers alighted on the dial to his locker. He turned it once, twice, then reversed it, and reversed that until the combo was in. He lifted the latch and paused.

This was the end of his high school life. This moment. It wasn’t walking out the doors. It wasn’t saying goodbye to friends or making empty promises to meet up at some point over the summer. It wasn’t getting in his car and driving off the senior lot for the last time. It was right here. When he pulled this door open, and picked up his phone, the next step would arrive like a specter on the wind. Blown in furiously into his life, ready to pick him up and carry him back to Branson Gulch. Back to the Blue’s house at the end of Fairview Lane, where Mr. Robert Ryanson Blue had lived, slept, had a happy marriage, raised a daughter together, and had passed away last night.

Rory knew him as just Grandpa. He felt the heat on his cheeks, the flush, the brimming of unbidden tears at the edges of his eyelids. He tilted his head down and let the silent drips fall. He pulled the latch, swung the door open, and grabbed his things for the last time.

He flipped his phone over and the screen had a myriad of notifications, but only one mattered.

It was from his mom. ‘Nana told me you know. Hope your test went well. Packing now. Love you.’

He typed a response, ‘omw home.’ Hit send, and the little icon for being unread stayed there, forlorn. She was busy as usual.

Rory turned on his heel, dumped the last of his papers in the trashcan and headed to his car.

High school was over.

There came well known sounds that required no investigation. The garage opening. A truck pulling in slowly, a rough idle turning to silence. The muffled whump of a door closing. The garage closing, its terminus leaning into a resounding echoey thump.

Grandpa walked in from the garage looking exhausted. He glanced at Nana, then to the table set for dinner, and sighed contentedly. Yet, he shook his head sadly, patted Rory on the head, and headed upstairs without saying a word. His boots lightly thumped up the stairs, and each foot fall sounded like he carried a weight that he wanted to put down, but simply couldn’t.

“What’s wrong with Grandpa?” Rory asked.

Nana looked concerned for a fleeting moment, but smiled brightly in spite of whatever she was thinking about. “He had a long day… I am sure he just needs to shower and have a nice long sleep and he will be his normal self in the morning. And tomorrow is Thanksgiving! Aren’t you excited to see your parents?”

Rory fiddled with his napkin.

“Rory?” Nana pressed. “Aren’t you excited to see your Mom? Your Dad?”

Rory came to a sudden conclusion as if his mind was being driven by someone else. “No.”

“No?” Nana grinned as she put the finishing touches on the salad at the kitchen counter. “Why do you say that?”

“I can’t leave. I don’t want to leave? I…” Rory furrowed his brow, and his napkin tore. “I am confused. Mad. Thats it. I’m mad.”

Nana put the salad on the table, next to the bread, and squatted next to Rory. She pulled him into a hug. Rory hadn’t realized he was crying, feeling the wet tracks smear against his cheek was a surprise.

“Hey, hey, hey, no crying in Nana’s house,” Nana whispered and held him tightly. “You have to go home with your parents, love. It is ok to miss Grandpa and I. We will see each other again.”

“But what about the… the…” Rory waved his hands around.

“Oh is that what you are worried about? The Touch? Think of it as a present, Rory. You are at the start of an amazing journey… but, for right now, you are only a kiddo. Enjoy it. Be a kid! We can worry about the other stuff down the road.” Nana pulled away but kept her hands on him. She looked in him over carefully. “In a few days, it won’t feel as strange. And in a few months you will barely remember why it felt weird in the first place.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Nana patted his head. “Let’s eat! Then maybe play… a game?”

Rory’s eyes lit up. “Sorry?”

“Sure. We can play Sorry. I am just glad you didn’t pick Monopoly.”

“Monopoly?” Rory amended with a grin, wiping at his eyes absentmindedly.

“Hey mister. You said Sorry first. Sorry it is.” Nana teased.

After a light dinner and a game (Rory won, of course), Rory got ready for bed. He said his good nights, falling asleep quickly. And like magic, he rolled over and discovered it was four in the morning. He laid in bed, unable to find the blanket of drowsiness again after waking up to a very early morning yet to find the sun. The wind outside was insistent upon itself, informing the neighborhood that a front was moving in. The uncharacteristically warm weather was about to turn and the chilly nights were only going to get colder.

It was not the wind that kept Rory up. It wasn’t the creaking of the house, nor the scrape of the tree branches, nor the shifting call of the wind blowing through the eaves, measured from a fierce howl to a muted muttering.  It was the unseen Cockatrice deep in her fortress of tree stands.

Rory felt it through and through. He had to see the cockatrice. He felt it deep in his bones as if it was calling to him. Her. Wella. Wella had to be calling to him on the wind. Rory thought it over. Turning it over and over in his mind. If he was super slow, super sneaky, and stayed upwind… he would be safe. Mrs. Givins had mentioned that Wella was lethargic. But once the weather changed, that would opportunity would be gone. Because she would have to warm up to keep her eggs protected.

First thing in the morning, he could sneak into the stand of trees. He could make sure everything that had happened in the last few days was… real. It didn’t feel real. It felt strange, like he was having a fever and just hadn’t woken up yet. Rory wasn’t sure, but that sinking feeling that it was all his overactive imagination made his stomach flip over. He wanted it so badly to be real. Any of it. All of it.

Rory slunk out of bed and changed his clothes in the dark. He had to take his pants off and put them back on when he realized the pockets were on his butt. His jacket was in the mud room, and then he could sneak his bike out of the side garage door. The door was quiet enough. He tied his sneakers and tip toed towards the kitchen, the mud room, and the promise of escape through the mud room door.

He slid down the hallway, and the shadows were familiar, safe. The walls held their secrets and the pictures hung kept their vigilance in the early morning silence. Only the roof made any protest, and it was a complaint to the winds of the sky, not the house beneath. Rory turned into the kitchen to find Nana sitting in a chair in the dark, dressed and ready to go outside.

“About time,” Nana whispered. “Did you put your pants on backwards the first time?”

He had, but he didn’t want to admit it. All he said instead was, “Nana?”

“If you want to see Wella, you must listen to me. And you obey me. If I tell you to stand still, you stand absolutely still. If I tell you to run in front of me, you run in front of me. If I tell you to fall to the ground and play dead, you play dead. Understood?”

“Really?” Rory whispered.

“Yes. Really. Promise me.”

“I promise.” Rory nodded once as if he was signing in blood.

“Good. Grab your coat. Here are some of Grandpa’s old gloves and hat. Bundle up.”

Rory did as he was told and Nana pulled the weird twisted walking stick from the hall closet.

“Out the side door,” Nana waved him forward. “Let’s try not to disturb your grandfather.”

They walked out the gate and towards the sidewalk. Nana laid a hand on his shoulder.

“What?”

“Grab here,” Nana lifted his hand to grip the walking stick.

“Uh, ok?” Rory clutched the walking stick below his Nana’s hand. He wasn’t sure why or even how two people could operate a walking stick at the same time.

“Alright. When I tell you step forward, step in time with me. I will count. Three, two, one… step.”

Rory lifted his foot and when he put it down he stumbled forward as if he had been pushed. He was dizzy.

“Take a deep breath. Let me know when you are caught up.” Nana laughed lightly.

Rory looked around and realized they were not one step down the sidewalk, but at the end of the street. “What? How?”

“Turn toward the Gulch. This way. Ready? Three, two, one… step.”

Rory lifted his foot forward and stumbled again, trying not to let go of the stick and instead using it to balance. Now they were no longer at the end of Nana’s street but a mile and half down the path to where it branched towards the Gulch.

“Better. See? You are a natural,” Nana winked proudly.

“How?” Rory reiterated.

“Energy is prevalent. It abounds. We can harness energy to do all sorts of neat things. Like farwalking.”

“But its not speeding us up?”

“More like tricking the world that this step and our next are in the same stride. Like folding a piece of paper, we fold the way forward. It snaps back and we alight over the hump.”

“That is why it feels like I am falling in the direction we are facing.” Rory thought it made sense. It was consistent to how it felt, the stumble as his foot touched the ground, like running too fast down a hill.

“Good observation. Let’s see here,” Nana licked her finger and lifted it into the air. “Breeze is coming in front the north today. The prevailing is typically west-by-northeast. So we will need to go into the stand from that side of the Gulch. Ready? Three, two, one… step.”

Rory stumbled forward, but was able to maintain his balance better than before. “You far can you walk like that?”

“The longest step is about five kilometers. Past that will lead to… injuries.”

“Five kilometers?” Rory raised an eyebrow.

“About 3 miles.” Nana continued. “You could walk a very long way in a single day, but most of the time, taking a plane or a car is easier. Now. Stay close, stay quiet. Try to step where I step.”

“Ok.” Rory nodded once again, but this time if felt as if he was about to march into battle.

The sun was an hour or two from cresting the horizon, but the moon was full and reflecting its light brightly through the trees.

Nana stepped down into the gulch, the wet dead leaves allowed her to gracefully slide down the side of the hill in relative silence. Rory copied her and discovered that is was easier than he had thought. As he slid, the smell of old leaves and rotting wood assaulted his nose heavily as if it was mist sulking against the ground, upset it had been launched towards the open sky. A pressure slid over his ears and he felt a faint ringing as if he had heard a firework go off days ago.

“Nana?” Rory whispered and pointed to his ears with confusion on his face.

“I will explain later. Keep moving. Stay close.” Nana started creeping between the trees, waving her hand near her knees.

Rory realized she must have had her cadaceus, doing something to the ground at her feet. From here, it looked like she was waving off invisible mosquitos from attacking her kneecaps. Rory stayed a step behind, putting his feet in her wet footprints. The ground was not frozen, but it could have been in places, the leaves were firm underfoot as if they were carved from wood.

Nana walked for what felt like fifteen minutes, pausing occassionally, holding an open palm out towards Rory’s chest as if she was preventing his movements. He realized that he only thought that he was stopping of his own accord, he tried to lift his hand, but it was like it was tied at his side. Nana side-eyed him as she shook her head and he did not dare to try again.

He heard Wella before he saw her. It was like a humming noise, deep and resonant amongst the trees. He could almost feel it more than he could hear it, as if a part of him was also her, vibrating in time. Nana knelt at a tree and slowly Rory crept up next to her to look.

There was a nest. It was set into the ground as if it had been dug out, and the edges of the nest were formed by woven branches and sticks. Each looked like it had been sharpened to points, but Rory realized they had been chewed, like how a beaver takes down a tree. Each stick had been carved away from the tree it belonged to. In the nest, curled in a tight circle, a feathered form laid in a tight circle, a brightly plumed head tucked under one wing. The plumage was brown and white, with streaks of red feathers forming a pattern of lines radiating from her shoulders.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Nana whispered lightly at Rory’s ear.

Rory nodded and realized his mouth was hanging open. He closed it slowly, and a branch moved along the edge of the nest, and a clump of feathers followed. It was her tail. It settled around her in the nest, like a soft sigh. The skin was not the snake skin he had imagined. It was supple and brown, more like the skin of a cow, with small bristles… but Rory noticed they were larger at the clump. They were feathers. Tiny little feathers. Her breathing was so slow, and that was what the vibration in the air was. She was purring like a kitten. He grinned.

Nana smiled and leaned over again. “She hasn’t thermoregulated yet. She is going to be very sleepy… nestled in like that. I think we are can get a little closer. You want to take a peek at her clutch?”

“Is it safe?”

“No.” Nana shook her head solemnly, but her eyes were bright and shining in the early morning twilight. The sky above was shifting to a dark blue, and somewhere to the east, a glimmer of sun was near cresting. “But you will never get a chance like this again.”

Rory thought it over but found himself nodded enthusiastically regardless of what his brain concluded. He discarded it before a decision even formed.

Nana stood cautiously, and waved her hand at her knees again. She stepped very carefully, but her steps were completely silent. Not even her clothes made noise. Rory stepped were she stepped and they crept up nearer to the nest.

Wella was not some small snake crossed with a chicken. She was much larger than she had appeared from the trees behind them. Her side went up slowly, and Rory realized it was like a car door raising into the air and then falling back down for a long stretched pause before rising again. Wella was larger than any dog he had ever seen. Her legs looked powerful, and the end of her foot, a long bone white dagger from the middle toe, cocked upward. From here it looked like it could slice through anything. Her wings were draped around her like a cloak, hiding most of her form, but with each step he realized that anything that Wella wanted to eat probably did not stand a chance.

His gut dropped. He had been crazy to think he could do this on his own. He would never stray off the path ever. Never. Ever.

Nana pointed excitedly. At the edge of Wella’s neck, just under the wing, Rory could make out two oblong shapes. They were a dull red color, speckled with white dots. He glanced at the eggs, then up to Wella’s face, most of which was still buried under her wing.

The eye facing him was open. And staring right at him. It did not blink. It did not move. The eye looked like it was made of crystal, bright red of a stop sign, with a corona of blue at the edges. The colors were in a spoke pattern in her eye, each radiated outwards from the black iris. And it beheld Rory with careful scrutiny.

Rory snatched Nana’s hand and dared not to breathe.

Nana made eye contact with Wella, and squeezed Rory’s hand lightly. “Bow slowly. Look at the ground. Now.”

Rory immediately bowed, ducking his head slowly and holding his glance at the edge of his boots.

Nana squeezed his hand again. “You can look up but keep your face pointed down.”

Rory raised his eyes to come face to face with Wella. Her head was only feet away from his own. Her beak was the length of his arm, its edges scalloped like a carving knife. Wella’s head swung back and forth between the two of them, and Rory could feel her exhales over his neck. Wella was sniffing them. He was being measured and weighed by a dragon.

Finally, Wells made a soft chirp as if deciding something and put her head back under wing. She did not close her eye.

“Back up, slowly. Once we get to the trees we can turn and walk the way we came. No running.”

Nana pulled him along gently, and sequestered him behind the nearest tree. The cockatrice did not move.

“This way, Rory.” Nana walked slowly, retracing her steps. Rory did exactly what he had been told. He glanced back occasionally, but there was no movement from the nest hidden there.

The sunlight above finally shifted the sky to a purple and a flutter of pink upon some far off clouds. Rory’s heart felt like it had been going a million miles an hour, and yet his feet felt like he was walking on air.

Nana took his hand and put it on her gnarled, knuckled length of walking stick. “Three, two, one… step.”

Rory stumbled forward and found himself on the gravel path at the top of the embankment. Rory felt like he had just stepped off a roller coaster. “Nana?”

“Yes, dear?” Nana’s face was bright, and her eyes reflected the dawn.

Rory exhaled heavily. “Best. Thanksgiving. Ever.”

Nana laughed brightly as the birds in the trees seemingly agreed.

Rory sat on the edge of the overlook, his new shiny bike parked against the stout rock and mortar wall. His feet dangled out over the space of the grasses, shrubs, and occasional cotton tails that clumped together in the old lake bed. The cotton tail heads were bent, broken, and splayed, most of their dark brown fluff lost to the wind.

Mrs. Givins walked up slowly as not to startle the boy, her cane clumped and her orthotics crunched over the gravel path. She could move fast when she needed to, but she was feeling her one hundred and forty two years today. The air had the snap of autumn, the end of the harvest season was drawing to the close, and the elderly like Mrs. Givins often felt the coming of winter like death was standing near, looking on in empathy.

As it was, Old Cross was always in the corner of her vision now, his arms interwoven with each other across his chest, a soft sad smile on his face. He never waved, he never changed his expression, as if the image was a moment in time hidden within the waters of time, and her perception was just the same moment carried forward like a burst of light that never faded away from her vision.

Odd thought that.

That timelessness was nothing but a single moment to her as she was stuck within the flow of time. Old Cross would probably think it funny. He was a bastard. A kind bastard, no doubt, but still a force of nature as harsh as a storm and unrelenting as the tide. Mrs. Givins had spoken to him twice before. Once when her Gerald had passed, and again when her own son Michael had lost his battle. Both times Old Cross had sat there, or stood there, and allowed her to speak with him. She did not see her husband or her son behind him, but she knew. She knew they were there. And yet, she could only pierce the veil so far. There was a limit, even for the ones that Touched the fabrics of reality. Because human nature was both human and nature. An indelible connection that could not be broken… until it was. And Old Cross would be there to take your hand and lead you onwards.

She did not want Old Cross to get this boy. And Wella could give a shit less if the boy was innocent or not. Wella could be hungry, and an easy meal is an easy meal. The boy needed a reprimand, even the edge of the wall was not safe. He had to be on this side of the curtain that hung over the Gulch.

Mrs. Givins prepared her admonishment, opened her mouth to say something, and then stopped dead.

Rory was different today. His center field had shifted downwards, attuned and aligned to the earth. Mrs. Givins felt a smile spread across her face. Vera must be ecstatic! After all these years! Why did it take so long? The boy was nearly ready to hit puberty? And the Touch manifested now!? An oddity out of all the oddities in Branson Gulch to be certain.

She let her well formed criticism fade from her mind and instead tapped her cane against the bench to get his attention.

“Rory, child. Be a dear and get off the wall.” She smiled warmly as he turned and made eye contact. He was so young.

Was she ever that young?

Old Cross nodded once out of the corner of her eye. She had been, a long time ago. On a different continent, in a different country, looking on a field of green where a herd of sleeping Axaoras drowsily nibbled on the leftovers of their recent livestock kill. She loved watching the black dogs with the faces of hooked tentacles hunt in those early days of her life. With a pang of remorse, she remembered that they had been extinct by the time she had married Gerald. Such a shame. Beautiful creatures. Proud. Strong. But not survivors. The world had changed too fast.

Rory spun around, and yet stayed on the wall as if performing a level of defiance that was new to him. “Hey Merry. So… you are like my Nana.”

Mrs. Givins slowly lowered herself to her bench and exhaled heavily. The cold was quick to leave, but for a moment, her butt felt a chill like she had just sat on a block of ice.

“Yes, I am.”

Rory looked over his shoulder at the stands of trees that populated the old lake bed, covering it from end to end. “I keep looking for Wella, but I haven’t seen her.”

“She is in there, I assure you. Just quiet for a key reason… but near the solstice, her calls rattle the trees. Her species, Draconis Galliformae, have a unique adaptation for surviving both harsh winters and sweltering summers. Can you guess what that is?”

“Uh…” Rory thought through some guesses. “They hibernate?”

“Ah! Very close. It is very similar to hibernation, but instead of reducing their metabolic rate where they fall asleep for months, her species shifts their blood chemistry to a point of being either cold blooded or hot blooded. Cold blooded, or ectothermic, creatures like snakes, lizards, and the like rely on their environment to help regulate their metabolic rate. Endothermic creatures…”

“So warm blooded?” Rory added as if on cue.

“Right. Endothermic creatures self regulate their metabolic rate, so they maintain a level of a steady body temperature, like you and I. Wella is in a near ectothermic state with the change of seasons, so she is feeling lethargic.”

“Lethargic?” Rory jumped off the wall and walked to the bench to sit next to Mrs. Givins.

“Sleepy. She is going to shift from ectothermic to endothermic, typically once the nights get cold enough that her two eggs are at risk. Any day now.”

“Then she won’t be slow and sleepy.”

Mrs. Givins nodded at the boy. He was intelligent. “That’s right. She will actively hunt, and populations of other creatures in the area will drop until they can replenish their numbers in the spring. Hibernation, for them at least, is a survival benefit. Hibernating creatures won’t fall prey to a hungry cockatrice.”

“Does she hunt… us?” Rory asked timidly.

“You mean children, dear? Or just people in general?”

“People in general, I guess.”

Mrs. Givins shrugged, and out of the corner of her eye, Old Cross nodded enthusiastically. “Not so much. If she gets a person it is because that person did not follow the warnings.”

“Like staying on the path.” Rory’s voice dropped.

Mrs. Givins realized her admonishment was not needed after all. He understood intuitively. The flows were waking up within him. “That’s one of them. One should stay on the path. Wandering into that stand of trees would be a one way ticket.”

“Ooh, ooh! Does she breathe fire?” Rory’s eyebrows were high.

“Not her species. She lacks both the organs that can digest the fuel and create the gaseous or viscous flammable materials. She also lacks the tongue.”

“What does the tongue have to do with it?”

“The source of the flame is not from the dragon. They produce the flammable materials, depending on the species, but all of them have to create the spark. Can you imagine walking around with fire inside of you? Even for hardy creatures, maintaining any temperature above a certain point would be evolutionary suicide. Its all in the tongue.” Mrs. Givins flicked her hand out like she was snapping a towel. “The sides of the tongue lay down a crystalline lathanide over time. They flick their tongue against their rear teeth and that material flakes off and oxidizes very rapidly. Sparks! A heavy exhale, and fwoosh! Fire!”

“Wow,” Rory’s eyes were wide. “You know a lot about dragons, Merry.”

“I should. It is my life’s work.” Mrs. Givins smiled. “I have been studying and protecting them for a very long time.”

“An ecologist?” Rory said. “Like my grandpa?”

“Ah, yes. I am an ecologist. But no… your grandfather does something even more important. He is a Ranger. They go out and find the ones that need protecting. It is hard work. Dangerous work. What I do is simple in comparison. I am a scientist. Studying. Making notes. Observing. Your grandfather is out there doing a bit more than that. Most of us conservationists are very boring in comparison.”

“And this is the only dragon you study?”

“At the moment. She has a special place in my heart. My father helped raise her mom, Ember. She had been abandoned as an egg, and my father took it on himself to help her hatch. Crazy man. But somehow he was successful. And Wella out there is alive because my father decided to help a poor creature on a cold night. So I… guess… watching her connects me back to my own dad in a way.”

“You have studied others… not just Wella and her mom?”

“Oh, yes. I am a draconist by trade and I spent decades helping the conservation reserves get built and then populating them with complimentary species.”

Rory grinned. “That sounds cool.”

“Oh it was quite ‘cool’. Best job ever. But it was hard work, hence the limp.” Mrs. Givins tapped her cane against the bench again. “You have a lot of questions today. You rode off in such a hurry yesterday, I thought I had scared you off permanently.”

Rory laughed nervously. “I, uh, was a little scared.”

“A little?”

“Yes, just a little,” Rory said defensively. “I thought you were teasing me about Wella, and then hearing that noise, it made me jumpy.”

“I would say.” Mrs. Givins agreed. “She is a big girl.”

“How big is big?”

“Sixteen feet in wingspan, half that in length from beak to tail, and probably about four hundred or so pounds at this point in her brooding cycle. We can estimate her size well enough, but it is just an estimate. Her species is protected, meaning that we don’t get close to her unless absolutely necessary. We have protocols not just for our safety, but mostly hers.”

“I wish I could see her.”

“Oh you will. Most folks don’t. You will. It’s inevitable.” Mrs. Givins stated matter-of-factly. “You will see her because you are looking for her. On the other hand, we can direct behavior of these creatures and the ones that aren’t looking, but it takes time and effort. It takes patience and hard work to protect them from the plebians and vice versa.”

“Plebians? Is that another kind of dragon?”

Mrs. Givins laughed, a deep chuffing sound that was nearly a cough. “Oh my goodness, no Rory. Those are all the humans. The people. The terrible masses that cover the world.”

“But I am people?”

Mrs. Givins sighed. “We all are. The problem isn’t that we are human, Rory. The problem is that we aren’t one tribe. We all have different experiences that lead to different beliefs and opinions, and that is why the plebians do what they do… and ultimately that is why we do what we do.”

Rory silently sat in the sunlight, watching the stands of trees next to Mrs. Givins. Birds twittered in the distance, and the occasionally there was a buzz of an insect on the air.

“Do you have a caduceus?” Rory asked, breaking the easy silence.

“Of course I do. Its my cane, silly.”

“But… I can see your cane?” Rory observed.

Realization dawned on Mrs. Givins face. “Oh, the actual rod… that is inside the cane, dear.”

“So I really can’t see them? I thought Nana was pulling my leg.” Rory sighed.

“How much did your Nana explain? I don’t want to misstep here, Rory. Your grandmother is one of the best, you should listen to her.”

“One of the best? Best what?”

“We each have our roles to play, Rory. Some of us study and document. Others go out and preserve. And some of us… teach. Your grandmother has been teaching the Society’s talented for many decades.”

“I didn’t know she was a teacher. I guess I never thought about it. She is just my Nana.”

“Ah well… I suppose that is about to change, isn’t it?” Mrs. Givins nudged Rory. “Lots to learn now.”

“I guess? My mom and dad are on vacation, but they are coming to Thanksgiving and then I think we leave to head back home. Our flight is on Friday night I think. I don’t know how much she can teach me in three days.”

“You have the rest of life to learn, Rory. And…that could be a very long time indeed.”

Rory burst into the kitchen, leaving the mud room door to the garage wide open.

“Hey hey, there mister… shut that door. We don’t want Bixby getting out!” Nana admonished from the sink, elbow deep in pie making adjacent mixing bowls.

Meanwhile, and notably not moving a single muscle, Bixby laid on her customary memory foam mattress near the sliding patio door and barked once loudly as if discounting the whole idea of any escape.

Rory turned on his heel and in a smooth spin slammed the door shut and faced Nana in a panic. He held his hands out as if he was about to stop the room itself from spinning.

“A DRAGON? SERIOUSLY. NANA!?” Rory was yelling. His eyes were wild, and his hair stood at strange angles from yanking off the bike helmet so roughly. A small line of spittle was dripping from his lip, dangling precariously.

If Grandpa had been within earshot, he probably would have smacked Rory for yelling at Nana. Rory did not care. There was a capital G, capital D dragon in the capital, underlined, heavily emphasized F-ing neighborhood. And to be clear, while a raised voice felt appropriate at the moment, using actual swears would definitely be the wrong choice.

“Its barely a dragon,” Nana laughed dismissively. “You have a little something hanging from your lip, dear.”

“Yeah I puked,” Rory wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked over her shoulder again, her eyebrow raised. “You puked?”

“Don’t worry about that! Nana! The draaaaaagon!?” Rory felt like he was the only sane one. What would his mom and dad think? “What would my mom and dad think?”

Nana shook her head. “Well considering your mom was raised in this house, she would probably think that her son puking is a bit of a concern, silly. Your dad did think it odd, but I think he had the hots for your mom, so it didn’t really matter.”

“Oh my god, I must be crazy. Why am I the only one that thinks this is crazy?” Rory was walking in circles in the kitchen, pacing without even realizing it. “Does the military know?”

“Out of all things that are crazy in this world, young man, having some neighborhood wildlife is the least of all of them.” Nana said, ignoring his other questions as she shifted rinsed bowls to the drying rack. “Where did you puke?”

“In Grandpa’s trashcan,” Rory looked over his shoulder as if looking towards where he did the deed. “Its fine. Its just… Nana! Its not a flock of turkeys.”

“I know, she is definitely not a turkey. She eats the turkeys.” Nana rinsed off a platter, moving it to the rack. She wiped her hands on a towel at her waist and turned to face her grandson. “You will need to hose it out.”

“What?”

“The trashcan.”

“Oh my god, Nana. Can you please forget about my puke. I’ll clean it up. But. What. About. The dragon!?” Rory tried again, he felt flustered that there was not a bigger commotion about this.

“A cockatrice, Rory love, and her name is Wella. She is mostly harmless.” Nana shrugged.

“Mostly harmless? Doesn’t she eat kids?” Rory felt his voice rising again.

“Oh that was decades ago, she has plenty to eat.”

“Nana!” Rory stomped his foot. Angrily.

Nana tried to suppress her grin, tucking her lips between her teeth and clamping down.

“ITS NOT FUNNY.” Rory exclaimed, his fists shaking at his sides.

“From where I am standing, love, I would say otherwise. This is a show.” Nana teased. Her tone shifted to something more authoritative. “Go clean out the trashcan and then come back when you are calm. I will be glad to tell you everything you want to know. I have some cookies that Grandpa doesn’t know about. Good ones.”

“Nana!”

“Rory!” Nana imitated him and she did not budge. Her hands were on her hips, which meant she was all business.

“Dammit.” Rory groused.

“Trashcan.” Nana raised a singular finger and with it waved him out of the house.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He trudged out the door and let it close behind him. He went about cleaning out the puke like he was washing a dog against his will. He threw the hose down, he threw the trashcan down, he threw the nozzle to grass, and the universe allowed him to throw his little fit without interrupting.

He could see the trees that were standing over in the other lake bed over the top of Nana’s house, and they seemed to move in the wind. Or did they? Was that actually wind? Was it the dragon moving around? What if it got hungry? He was out here all by himself, hosing out a trashcan into the runoff drain, a tasty little snack in a jacket and jeans, just ready to be stripped clean. They would find a running hose, an empty, mostly clean trash can, and maybe a singular sneaker, just lying there alone in the browning grass. Accusingly.

He shook his head, clearing the thought away. Nothing but the breeze spoke in the distance, and the call of far off birds was carried upon it.

Rory finished rinsing his crime down the storm drain. He tipped the trashcan on the rocks to dry out in the afternoon autumn sun of late November, and put everything away as he had found it, just like Grandpa told him time and time again. Rory trudged in, kicked of his wet shoes in the garage and sat at the kitchen table, where a plate of cookies and a glass of milk was sitting and ready.

Nana sat on the other end, drinking a cup of tea and reading her book. She took a heavy sip, marked her spot with a clipped coupon and set the book down. She watched Rory carefully as he sulked to his seat, huffed as he sat down, and ate a cookie in sullen silence. Not for the first time she was reminded that her grandson was a lot like his mom had been, but for some reason, even more adorable? The volume of personality contained within the child was nearly volatile.

“So you are obviously fine. Why did you vomit?” Nana asked with a smirk.

“I went too fast.” Rory grumbled around another bite of chocolate chip.

“Too fast?”

“Adrenaline? Got all excited? Scared? I don’t know. The trees moved… and Mrs. Givins spooked me, I guess.” Rory tried. “I pedaled home as fast as I could, and I must have… ah… overdid it.”

“Oh?”

“And Mrs. Givins says hi,” Rory added.

“Ah, well that is good.” Nana said. “But you didn’t see her? Wella?”

“No. I didn’t see her.”

“Ah. But you did see or hear something,” Nana ventured. Her face was making an odd expression.

“I heard it.”

“That will do it,” Nana smiled at some form of confirmation. “Have another cookie, love.”

“Have you seen her?” Rory looked up from his cookie.

“Of course. It is hard to miss a dragon, Rory. She sometimes flies over the house to get to the big lake.”

Rory’s eyes went wide. “How is this not national news? Isn’t a dragon… I don’t know… a bit of huge deal, Nana?”

“No, silly. Lots of things happen every day and never make it to the news. Too many news stories about fat old white men stealing power and money from other fat old white men… and then everyone gets all fired up about which political party is doing what when they never stop to think that all the parties are there to protect the fat old white guys on both sides. Who would ever care about a dragon? Especially a good girl like Wella? She minds her business, we mind ours, and everyone gets along fabulously.”

Rory leaned back and nibbled the edge of his cookie, thinking it over.

“Probably lots of dragons in the world, but everyone is too busy fighting over the silly things. They never look up to see it fly over their house.” Nana smiled graciously.

Rory frowned and nibbled another bite from his cookie. He felt famished all of sudden… the excitement was starting to wear off and it was turning against him.

“Is it a secret?” Rory’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Wella is a ‘she’ not an ‘it’, and no dear, she is not a secret. What your grandfather does is a secret, but Wella, she is no secret. How would one keep a Cockatrice a secret?”

“I suppose,” Rory thought it over. “Does she really eat kids?”

Nana laughed brightly, looking years younger than she should have been. “Only the naughty ones. She has good taste.”

“Wait.”

“What?” Nana raised an eyebrow.

“What does Grandpa do and why is it a secret? I thought he was a Forest Service Ranger? Isn’t that like the ones at the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone?”

“You have to keep this a secret.” Nana finished her tea and set it down on her place mat.

“I promise.”

“Your grandfather is a Ranger, yes, but he is not employed by the US Forest Service. He is a… different… sort of Ranger.”

“The park kind still?” Rory said.

“Oh yes, most definitely. Still the park kind. He is a… conservationist.” Nana smiled as if waiting for a reaction.

“That doesn’t sound like a secret.” Rory admonished is grandmother. He was disappointed.

Nana reached over and pulled a drawer open, she pulled out a stubby length of wood, something that almost looked like a burnt length of tinder.

“Do you know what this is?” Nana asked, handing it over to Rory.

Rory held it in his hand, feeling the texture of it, the weight as it rested between his fingers. It was strange. Like it was delicate in one moment, but unbelievably heavy the next. He had the impulse to drop it, but it was locked to his fingers like they were sticky. The length was nearly black, but he noticed a fine webbing of cracks all along its length, they flickered like they had gold nestled in its hidden folds.

“Is it a pencil of some sort?”

“The technical name is a caduceus. In make believe books, it is called a wand. We most often refer to it as a rod.”

“Like a magic wand?” Rory’s eyes went wide.

“Sort of. Wands give the wrong impression. This is not used to wave around and cast silly spells with funny words. No, this rod is a conduit for energies. The energy is prevalent all over, but in some places it is stronger. It collects. It attracts certain types of creatures, plants, and… people to it.”

“Like a Cockatrice.” Rory made the connection.

“Yes. And…” Nana’s voice trailed off.

“Like you and grandpa.”

“Yes.” Nana appeared to be very proud of something all of a sudden.

“And grandpa protects those places… doesn’t he?” Rory asked. But he knew the answer. It was like a light turning on in his head. “He is a Ranger for creatures like Wella.”

“We both are. In our own way. Especially Mrs. Givins… And most other folks around here.”

“That’s why.” Rory sunk back in his seat. The world returned to a sudden level of normalcy in nothing but a mere moment for him and he felt a sense of peace about it, still holding the rod in his hand.

“What’s why?” Nana asked.

“That’s why you are all acting so normal about it. Because it is normal.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Is it normal for my mom? Or my dad?”

Nana shrugged. “I love your mom and your dad, but sometimes, modern life snatches our family away from us. Your parents don’t see things the way we see them, Rory. Which is fine, it just makes us a little bit different.”

“Like what do you mean?” Rory’s brow furrowed.

“Like that caduceus you are holding.” Nana waved her hand. “Your mom can’t see it. Or your dad. But you see it. You are even holding it correctly. Over the centuries, they have been called all sorts of things. Divining rods, dowsing rods, holy staffs…”

“Ca-de-se-us?” Rory tried the word, it felt strange on his tongue.

“That’s right.”

Rory waved the strange rod around in his hand, feeling the weight change as he moved it. It was like it was attached to something at one end. He yanked on it a little, and Nana’s hair fluttered around her head.

“Huh.” Rory grunted. He felt a set of senses that overlaid his own like he was seeing, smelling, hearing, and touching with a new set of limbs and sensory organs he had never used before. He felt duplicated in place, like there were two Rory’s occupying the same seat. At first, he felt a sense of panic rush over him, but the next there was a sense of peace, as if it was supposed to be this way and somehow he had just forgotten that fact somewhere along the way.

He felt ageless. Like he had always been here. But at the same time he knew that he was nine years old.

Nana watched on quietly, her lips pressed together in the semblance of both pride and happiness. She looked fit to burst.

The ancient at the hearth watched on passively. He wanted to say something, but it would break the bounds of his altar, which would decouple him from his vessel. So he watched as well, carefully taking in the scene so he could give his opinion later on. Aron wasn’t surprised that Vera’s grandson had the Touch, but it was odd that it had taken this long to manifest. The Touch was usually present from birth, not something that came on later. That was exceptionally rare. Aron knew that if the boy pointed the rod at the hearth, the boy would inadvertently satisfy the conditions of the altar and Aron could finally say something aloud. His voice bubbled in his head like a geyser needing to fount.  

Nana sensed Aron watching and turned her head towards him as Rory played with the rod, sensing the currents in the room. She shook her head softly as if telling him to relax. Aron would have curled a lip if he had a lip, but he was just a skull in an ornate box.

She held her hand out to Rory and took the rod back, she made a strange movement and the rod was gone from sight. “Tell me what you felt?”

Rory’s head felt like it was spinning again. The cookies and the milk sat forgotten, and he was staring at his palm in wonder.

“Nana, I could see you. But not with my eyes. It was like I could see…” Rory tried, but he found he didn’t have the words to explain it. “When can I get one of those?”

Nana laughed again, her joy was sparkling at the corner of her eyes, something that Rory had never seen before. Nana wasn’t just happy, she was jumping out of her skin happy.

“You have to make your own.”

“Like a lightsaber?” Rory’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Are you and grandpa like Jedi?”

“I suppose we are. I have never thought of it like that, though. Because what we are is far easier to understand. We are ecologists.”

“Is that like a tree hugger? Dad is always saying that the tree huggers are ruining this country.”

Nana rolled her eyes. “Yes, I would expect that, I suppose.” She paused. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Can I hold it again?” Rory asked instead.

“No. You won’t be able to. The test was passed, and that caduceus was not meant for you. You will have to make your own to hold one again.”

Rory growled. “That seems like a stupid rule.”

“A rule? Not a rule, just a fact.” Nana waved an arm like she was shaking a bug off, and held out her hand. “Take it.”

Rory looked at Nana’s open, empty hand and then to Nana’s face. She was serious. “There is nothing in your hand.”

“My caduceus is right here, Rory. In my hand.” Nana nodded to emphasize she was telling the truth. “You will see it again someday, when you make your own.”

“But I saw it once!”

Nana nodded patiently as she waved her hand away again. “You did.”

“I want to see it again.” Rory argued.

“You will.”

“Why not right now? I don’t understand.”

“Do you understand the rising of the sun or the position of the moon?” Nana’s face was serious again. “Do you know the tides? The shift of the mantle beneath you? Do you feel the forces that act on your body, right now, as you sit there, Rory Masters? Do you know the gravity that pulls at your mass? Do you approve of the magnetic orientation suffusing your cells? Do you allow the bouncing of light waves in this room? Or agree to my voice reaching your ears through pressure changes in the air?”

“Huh? Uh? No?” Rory tried again. He felt unsettled. Nana’s eyes were fierce all of a sudden, far different than the joy and happiness she was radiating a moment ago. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, love.” Nana softened. “It is just important for you to learn these things in order. There is a reason that most people can’t see or feel or understand the whole of reality as it is. It would cause madness. The human mind is structured to survive… while the human soul is designed to connect. It takes time to build the understanding that allows one to bridge wholly to the other, and to do so in right way. That is why some things are as they are. It is the glimmer that we see on the edge of our vision… the sensation that something is just on the edge of our understanding, but then we ignore it and go about our day.”

“I… I…” Rory paused. “Does mom know?”

“No.” Nana’s voice was soft and brittle. “She does not have the Touch.”

“But I do.” Rory finished.

Nana looked up. “What?”

“I do. And that is good, Nana. You don’t need to be sad about it anymore.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly as if she was evaluating her grandson for the first time. “No, I guess I don’t. Your grandfather should be home any moment. Go wash up for dinner. You can help me and cut the lettuce. Hurry up. I need my sous chef.”

“Yes, Nana.” Rory pushed away from the table and ran past her towards the half bath to wash his hands.

Vera picked up the plate of cookies, took one in her hand and thoughtfully took a bite. “I know it is killing you stay quiet, but I think for the time being, you should keep your mouth shut, Aron.”

The box on the mantel rattled once, but it stayed mute.

He definitely would remember this birthday because of the new bike. Nana had given him fair warning before he set out for his first ride.

She grabbed him by the shoulder and looked him over carefully, her brown hair and barely lined face made her look like she was only but the older sister of Mom, something that Mom always grumbled about saying that Nana just had great jeans. Rory had no idea why blue jeans made Nana seem a lot younger than Rory’s friend’s grandmothers.

“Wear your helmet and mind my neighbors’ cars.”

“Yes Nana,” Rory replied dutifully.

“Ring your bell if you pass anyone, even if they see you ahead of time.”

“Yes Nana,” Rory repeated. He just wanted to go ride his new bike. Dad had set it up for him before they left for their mom-n-dad holiday. Lots of hugging and giggling involved, Rory had rolled his eyes every time they said it.

“And whatever else you do, remember to stay on the path around the Gulch.” Nana tugged on his shoulder sleeve to get his attention. It was straying like a kitten. “What did I just say, young man?”

“Stay on the path at the Gulch. Is that the first one or the second one?” Rory always got the ponds confused. They were called lakes, even though they were just ponds, but they all had different names, even though they were nearly the same. It didn’t make any sense.

Nana smiled kindly. “The big one across the street is Reservoir Three, that’s called Prince Lake, the dried out one behind the neighborhood is Reservoir Two, that’s Branson’s Gulch, that has the paved path around the big wooded area.”

“Where is Reservoir One then?” Rory shook his head. Another reason why it was confusing.

“There is no Reservoir One. Only two and three.” Nana stood up straight and adjusted her apron. She was baking a bunch of pies for Thanksgiving. “Stay on the path.”

Rory’s mom and dad were coming back from their holiday for Thanksgiving, and eventually, trudge back to the city to return to normal life. And that meant he had to go back to school. School was ok, but not going to school was way better.

“Yeah, yeah, I will stay on the path, Nana.” Rory wrinkled his nose and made one of his classic faces.

Nana grinned and lovingly patted his head. “I will know if you don’t. Grandmothers are given special powers when their grandbabies are born. We see everything.”

Rory was already running to the garage by the time she finished her declaration of grandmotherly super powers. He snapped the helmet around his chin, pushed the kickstand up, and tore out of the open garage and down the long driveway. Wind whistled through his handlebars and he turned towards the first lake. That was actually the third lake. Prince Lake. The other one wasn’t a lake because it was dried out, but it was still called a lake, but also Branson’s Gulch.

Rory shook his head. Adults could be silly with such things. They said odd things that just did not make any sense.

He turned down the street, and looked both ways for traffic (even though there were rarely any cars on the street), and pedaled his way towards the gravel path around the lake. He could see the other side, so it was not a like an actual lake that he was used to, the kind that disappeared at the edges as it carried onwards, blending into a fuzzy horizon. This lake was too wide to throw a rock across, but big enough that riding around it took a good twenty minutes or so. Prince Lake was also a wildlife sanctuary so there was no fishing allowed, no boats allowed, and there were birds everywhere. Little tiny birds all the way to owls, hawks, and storks… but the most of it was stupid geese and those mismatched ducks where the girl is an ugly brown and the boys have all the bright colors.

He biked all the away around the lake on the wide rolling gravel path, and turned between neighborhoods to follow a pavement path to the other reservoir that was not a reservoir, but still had a number, but was not a lake at all, just a wide forested area. It was about the same size as the actual lake though. If Rory squinted, he could imagine it filled with water.

Strange thing was this empty lake that was called the Gulch had hardly any birds. Just grasshoppers, crickets, and those invisible bugs that buzz buzz way up in the tree tops. The path was mostly paved on one side, with houses on the far side, and long empty creek bed that blocked off another side. It was nestled in between things, like it was a forgotten place. That is why Rory liked riding around it… it was ignored by all the moms with strollers and the fat joggers and the old ladies with their tiny white dogs that barked too much. It was just Rory, the stands of elm and cotton trees, and the thick tangled brush that kind of looked like a tree and a bush had babies all over the place. It looked like a place to have an adventure.

There could be treasure out there! Something like a long lost castle crumbling above with a kingly sum hidden deep in the earth somewhere in it’s courtyard. There could be a secret encampment of thieves in that brush, hiding away while they plan their next big job!

Rory pulled off the path onto a small overlook and pushed the kickstand with his toe. The overlook has a statue of what looked like angry chicken. He walked up to it, and laid a hand against one up raised claw, letting his hand rest on the burnished bronze. He glanced out among the brush and the trees, listening to the murmur of a breeze moving among the convoluted twisting maze of intertwined branches.

“The statue is a local legend…”

The voice came out of nowhere and Rory jumped nearly out of his skin. He spun in a quick half circle to find an old woman reading a book on a secluded bench peering at him with sly smile on her face.

“Sorry to startle you, young man. You must be Dennis and Leanne’s grandson? Rory is it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rory finally managed. “I-I am.”

“You like the statue? My father made it.” She peered curiously at Rory over her half-moon spectacles.

“It is a nice statue. But why is that mad chicken a local legend?” Rory dropped his hand guiltily from the raised talon as if suddenly remembering it was there.

The old woman laughed brightly. “That’s not a chicken, its a dragon.”

Rory glanced back to the statue and studied closely. He had not noticed before, but the chicken was longer than it should have been and it looked like it had a long tail with a clump of feathers at the tip. Those details were hidden in the base if you weren’t looking for it. At first glance, yeah, just an angry chicken. Beak open, claw extended, and one wing raised in the air as if it was warning a rattlesnake off. The wing had talons too… that was odd.

“A particularly clever dragon species at that,” the old woman touched the side of her nose. “A survivor! Most places have their local wildlife… racoons, coyotes, maybe a bear or a mountain lion. Here at Branson’s Gulch, we have ourselves a Cockatrice.”

“That sounds like a bad word,” Rory grinned.

“I suppose it does.” She nodded thoughtfully. “My name is Mrs. Givins. But you can call me Merry, I don’t mind at all.”

“Merry?” Rory’s eyebrow went up.

“Like Christmas. Are you staying for a while?”

“I am out riding my bike… Merry.” Rory replied hesitantly.

Mrs. Givins laughed again. “I meant for the holiday, not here at the overlook. You are welcome to stay here as long as you want though. You are not bothering me… feel free to ‘hang out.’ Is that what it is called still? It has been a long time since I have ‘hung out.'”

“Yeah. I hang out all the time,” Rory grinned.

“‘Cool’ still a word?” Mrs. Given winked. “It was when I used it in the sixties.”

“Yes.” Rory nodded appraisingly.

“Cool,” she nodded in return.

“Why is the Cocka… Cocker… Coker-” Rory tried.

“Cockatrice.” She finished for him.

“Cockatrice, right. Why is it a legend?”

Mrs. Givins folded her book carefully into her lap and set it aside. “In Kenya, if you can across a Giraffe… would that be weird?”

“No?”

“And if you were above the arctic circle and came across a polar bear?”

“Definitely not. That would be normal, right?” Rory shrugged.

“A long time ago, other creatures roamed the world, and those creatures would be right at home in a place like this. Humans learned very early on to leave them alone, just like a human would avoid a mountain lion or grizzly bear. Some creatures are not worth disturbing.”

“Dragons aren’t real.” Rory grinned.

“What about dinosaurs?”

“Those are real, but they are not around any more. They died out millions of years ago.”

“Some dinosaurs died out, but some just changed along the way,” Mrs. Givins smiled a secretive smile, one that implied she was letting something slip. “You think all those birds at the Lake are there because birds have been always been around? They are just miniature dinosaurs, millions of years removed from their ancestors. And some didn’t die out or change.”

“Like the Cockatrice,” Rory said.

“Yes. Exactly. A little imagination and wonder is good for everybody, Rory. Even us old folks. Imagining that there are bigger, scarier things in the world helps us remember our own pasts when there were those scary things beyond our hut. There is a reason the dark is a primordial fear for all human beings. Because we are wired to remember that there are bigger things out in the dark. Things with sharp teeth, sharp claws, and large stomachs.”

“But not any more.” Rory smiled hesitantly.

“Maybe. Did your grandmother tell you to stay on the path?”

Rory felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Yes?”

Mrs. Givins raised an eyebrow and made a humming sound. “Good advice for Branson’s Gulch, Rory.”

There was a soft rumble as if on queue from deep in the tree stands, something that sounded like the earth had resettled itself arbitrarily.

She smirked at Rory again.

“And that is Wella. Her mother,” Mrs. Givins pointed at the statue, “was called Ember. Dark red feathers, like crimson. Nearly. Wella has beautiful plumage, but not like her mother. Wella should be fairly active while you are here.”

“What.” Rory asked deadpan. He felt like Mrs. Givins was teasing him, but there was something in her voice that sounded like she was not teasing at all. Like a teacher sounded. Reliable. Truthful. It kind of made his stomach do a loop and then fall into his knees.

“She is brooding. Most likely there are two eggs in the clutch. They both hatch, the strongest one survives. Life goes on. Sometimes there are three and the strongest two make it, but it has been a lean cycle. Cockatrices are nothing but survivors, so three is very unlikely.”

“What.” Rory repeated. His stomach was now somewhere in his shins.

“She hasn’t eaten any kids for decades, but it could always happen. So stay on the path?”

Finally something broke in Rory and he jumped for his bike. It was mad. “Uh, bye, Mrs. Givins.”

“Say hello to your grandmother for me!” She called after him.

Rory rode like hell. His legs pumped until he screamed into the driveway, climbed off his bike in the garage, and puked into Grandpa’s garbage can.

Milos craved Areti’s paintings as a diver craved air. It went beyond a desire or an impulse. It was a part of himself that would die without her. A primal fear awakened, thrashing about, knowing that if all things were kept equal, it meant death.

Remembering her hair, her smile, her skin, he felt a crush in his chest. A desperate longing from lifetimes ago that he had thought he had forgotten. It must have only been slumbering, waiting for the right time to emerge from its dark hiding place deep in his core. Milos had to have her paintings. He was but an addict with deep solace that knew he was finally gazing upon his next score. He was nothing but a series of moments from where he was without to where he would be within.

Captured by bliss. Elated and floating. Above all things… because he would have her back. At least the memories of her would belong only with him.

It was a comforting thought that each of the crew longed for an object in a similar way, even if they didn’t feel the visceral emotions as Milos did.

Shirin desired her first Domain, a relic that had been passed on from King Solomon and as important objects typically are, lost to time. Not the best of her Domains, but easily her favorite. And so many of her Domains had already been irretrievably lost to the unrelenting grinder of history.

Then Al, who longed for the comb from his first nation, the First Nation of what would become British Colombia once the colonizers had their way. It appeared to be silver inlaid whale bone carved into a simple hair comb, but it was much more than that. It was said to carry the touch of the Old Ones, a touch that would be like a salve on the open torment of his condition. The Old Ones were long dormant powers that may have been the Creator himself, but then again, they may have only been the lucid dreams as the Creator had slept on the seventh day.

Shirin could have known, since she was one of the Fallen, but she had been cast out long before God had the breathing room to dream about rest in the first place.

And finally, there was Liz, who coveted the necklace of her eldest cousin, Lady Eleanor, the one and only true love of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the Last Leader of Wales. The death of her cousin had basically had given birth to what Liz would become. If Eleanor hadn’t died, the crucible that Liz had fallen into would never had been fired to life in the first place.

Each of them finding something that they had thought lost only to realize it was just out of reach. Because of the fucking Accords.

Out of all of them, was the abject denial of desire the worst for Milos? He pondered the question as he walked the halls of the Met.

Vampires were not human. They were once human, yes, obviously. But being a vampire was like being an artist’s imitation of a thing. The result is only a creative representation of what came before, because the created objects was its own thing, a reflection of a thing, but still a thing of its own. Vampires looked human, could pass for human, but they were not human. Any more than a painting of a rose is also a rose itself.

Human and Vampire are inextricably connected, but one is not the same as the other, and the transition leaves little if anything of what came before intact. Vampires could be held akin to humans that had become grossly obese or extremely geriatric. The changes that lead to the outcome happened by degrees. Small changes over time.

A thin human does not wake up suddenly fat, shocked to find that they had tripled their bodyweight overnight. No, it is a battle of attrition, admitting to oneself every day that they should do something about it, but never fully committing to what it will take. Instead, continuing the pattern of behavior that leads to the small daily measures of inevitable weight gain. They wake up fat because they had woken the day before deciding that the comfort of food was worth more than a healthy body weight. Not the best example, but aging does not align wholly either. Obviously, one does not wake up in a body of ninety year old, wondering where the preceding seventy years had wandered off to since they had been in their prime. Aging is not a choice, where as consuming too many calories is. The uncurable condition of vampirism falls somewhere in the middle.

It is not a choice. But at the same time, it very much is. The changes are miniscule, taking place with every feeding, slowly evolving what was the prey into what will become the apex predator. The virus was an animamorphic curse, meaning it was both physical and spiritual in nature, the physical manifestation acting on the cells and systems of the human body, and the spiritual manifestation twisting and adapting the spirit of the person. Vampires have souls too. But they are unbound souls after the virus does its job… when the host dies, the spirit goes with it, released back to the cosmos. Only oblivion awaits a vampire at their end. As the virus propagates through the body, it is fed by the act of hunting in both ways, and it in turn morphs the carrier from their previous self to the next self. Every day, every hunt, it is small measure of iterative change. Vampirism is a slow gradual descent towards the impenetrable darkness of becoming ‘other’. Something that is forever apart from what it had been before.

Being a vampire, there is a day where one wakes up and realizes that they are as much a human as a fucking unicorn. Milos had hit the ‘I am a fucking unicorn’ stage somewhere around Ottoman conquest of Athens. By the time he met Areti, he had been a divergent ‘other’ for centuries.

Did Areti care? Did she look at him and think of him as a vile monster? Did she wonder how God could exist if this fucking thing was allowed to stalk and kill thinking, feeling, human beings such as herself?

No. She has looked through him, penetrating him with but a glance. It was if his severed soul was a mere plaything that she could pull from his chest and inspect any time she wished. She would look over his heart, his mind, the very threads of his being and come to the conclusion, that yes, this peculiar being was worthy of her love. She had loved him selflessly, with passion and fervor, and had loved him from the day they had met to her last shallow, rattling breath. A cruel joke to watch her spirit so freely fly from the world of men when his own was forever bound to the shell he was born into. A handsome and powerful shell thanks to the virus, but it was a dead end. There was no continuing on.

Perhaps it was being up past his bedtime, knowing there was an obliterating sun hanging in the sky outside, and that it would only take one thing to go wrong among a thousand possibilities of things going sideways for everything to be fucked… maybe all that weighed on his mind and it made him introspective. Thinking of his own death and the unfortunate consequences of the wisdom gained from a long age spent on the Earth.

What would the human version of Milos think? That version of himself was definitely not to be found in the wide halls of the Met. There was no method to pull the old human Milos up in some form of a memory and ask him either. That version of himself was lost to time, much like Shirin’s many Domains. Milos would like to think that his human self would not be horrified, but he knew that wasn’t true. It was horrifying.

The moments prior to death. A stretching conflated canvas of tumbling moments that feels like an infinite amount of time that lasts only a few breaths.

The moment of death. By itself, one of the few places in the universe where no measure of time exists. Nothing but an indivisible point on the timeline.

The moments after death. Measured by overwhelming moments of madness, despair, and wonder that has lead to every moment, every choice, every event afterwards. How does one measure a single lifetime, much less the span of a thing that lives for many lifetimes.

Milos had lived for nearly a thousand years. His memory did not stretch that far.

That was horror, wasn’t it? Knowing that you had known something, and that it was gone. Just gone. Evaporated in place, fleeing the sanctity of the pure mind, an inmate no longer contained by the walls built to contain it. Neurons surely had the shape of the memory somewhere, and they had forgotten how to retrieve it.

Memories like books of an abandoned library, moldering on a shelf never to be perused again. As Milos passed through the Armory exhibit, he laughed to himself, realizing that he had more in common with the Met than he had realized. Most of the collections were not on display, hidden from view. Just like his memories.

What was it about Areti? What made her so singular?

Milos strolled through the crowds, feeling the ache of being awake during the day deep in his bones, the dragging fatigue of daywalking grasping at his limbs like the air itself was water and he was a deep sea explorer figuratively out of his depth. Even his teeth ached. He groaned at the imposition of physical discomfort and tightened the straps of his simple backpack.

He listed and made small comments into his earpiece as the team performed their work, but he was lost mostly in his own mind, counting random things… the number of tiles in an alcove, the sconces in a hallway, the number of Flemish knots on a particular piece of armor, the number of eyes on the paintings in a single room. His mind flashed with arithmetic formulas for aggregating and collating data as his eyes drank in everything around him, yet he was disassociated from that as well, thinking about life, death, and the meaning to be had when you are lost in a world that does not want or need you.

He heard Al torch vampires at the offsite Network Operations Center. He heard Shirin disable security in the local office in the Met. He heard Liz confront an old front and handle him like the amateur he was.

Did he ruminate on what the Family would do when they found out about the room of torched vamps at the NOC? Did he wonder why the Watcher was no longer a consideration for Shirin? Did he marvel at the long history that Liz carried around with her, but so effortlessly, he should be feeling a sting of jealousy?

He didn’t. Because he had absentmindedly wandered right back to Areti.

There she was.

Hanging on the wall.

She was the sun.

She was the sea.

She was the light and the foam and the crest and the wash and the crash and the spray and the glimmers of flying beads of water as they scattered the light like laughter.

She was in every brush stroke. Every dot. Every tap from a brush that had turned to dust centuries ago. Yet here she was.

Liz’s voice sounded far away in his ear, but his name pulled him out of his trance like state.

“Milos. Are you ready? When I let go, our comms will be offline. Everything will be offline, at least until the Wards realign.”

Milos looked at what was left of Areti and smiled widely, letting his teeth show like the predator he was. “I am ready. See you all at Liz’s tonight.”

The lights flickered all at once.

Milos pulled the earpiece from his ear and slid it into his pocket. He crossed to the front of the small alcove of the gallery and pulled the rope across to block anyone from entering. He stepped into the larger hall and took in the chaos unfolding.

Like a herd of cattle looking upwards at a stormy sky wondering what thunder was, the humans had no idea that the Wards regurgitating the flow of their interrupted magic into the real world was epically fucking the devices that they so depended on. Like a wave of confusion, every person with a smart device pulled it out, looked over it in dismay, and compared the results to their neighbors.

Mutters and harsh whispers started, wonderings and assumptions flowed between human minds that were not equipped to understand the chaos the Wards were dumping throughout the entire Met. Small quiet voices overlapped in suppositions.

“It isn’t a terror attack, you think? Some middle east whackadoo?”

“No, no, I bet it is just an outage… it will come back up any second…”

“Power outage? Did you see all the lights flicker? They have generators?”

“I bet it the Governor’s fault, he is a Democrat. They can’t do anything right.”

“I bet a backhoe jockey hit something over on 5th. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Con Edison is ran by Republicans, and you know they can’t get anything right.”

“Attack on the power grid. I bet it is China.”

“Oh I read about cyberattacks, it could be one of those.”

Milos wondered through the comments like they were floating bits of ash on the wind. The humans couldn’t feel or see it, but the reverberations of the Wards were wild to witness first hand. Milos watched as ultravoilet flickered like fairy light amongst the metal objects in the room, sparks jumping into being as quickly as they faded away. The pressure waves against his psyche was like air pressure changes from a fan the size of an airplane propeller, washing over him and enveloping him in its propwash. His other senses, the ones that made him what he was, shirked in the onslaught, but in its own way, it was a glorious show of power. Real, absolute, unassailable power that most humans could only dream of.

Watch a tornado for fun up close and one might understand.

But it was a tornado that Milos could fucking ride. His smile stretched wider, and his mulling over the deep questions were washed away in the baptism of redirected power.

Milos pulled on the fountains of free energy the Wards were dumping off, as they shook the very fabric of the building and everything contained within it. Milos’s lethargy faded away as if it was nothing but a bout of anxiety.

Daytime outside? Who gives a fuck?

Sun in the sky that can end you permanently? Not today, Sun.

Surrounded by terribly fragile humans in a place of protected sanctuary? Who cares?

Protected under the Grand Accords of All That Occupy? Not rules per se, more like guidelines.

Milos unleashed himself from the constraints that humans have to deal with. He moved faster than their cow eyes could understand, rippling through crowds as if they were nothing. His feet did not touch the ground, and no part of his body brushed against any person he passed. He was like a ghost given flesh, tempted to interact with the world, but ultimately disgusted by the physicality of it all.

To the young boy in the Native American exhibit, a man materialized out of nothing, like a magic trick. Then, like a whole another magic trick, he lifted a display case with one hand like it was made of air, took a white comb out from the display and without any effort, put the case back. By the time the little boy got his mother’s attention, the man was gone again as if he had never been there. Just like the comb that had been in the case. The little boy gave up on his mom, who was enraptured with her malfunctioning phone, and he slowly read the tag in the case.

‘Whale Bone Comb with later inlaid silver, First Nations of North West Coast, British Columbia, circa. Comb 15000-25000 BCE, Silver inlay unknown.’

In another part of the Met, the lights popped in order from the entrance of the Hall to the other end, as if a ripple of a power surge took every light and rendered it useless. The crowds yelped and shrieked with timid smiles as they left the space in a hurry, rushing for the exits. His fingers smoking from smashing the lights in quick succession, Milos moved aside the glass, gently retrieving Liz’s necklace in a movement that was so fast, it was near breaking the sound barrier.

In yet another hall, a man wandered in casually, passed a plinth, and then wandered out just as casually. No one noticed that the small exceptionally detailed Assyrian vase that had been on the plinth had been replaced with a replica from the gift shop. There happened to be a naked woman nearby wandering just as casually and everyone watched her warily as a large crowd of security guards followed closely behind wondered what to try next.

And as if no time had intervened, Milos stood again in front of everything that represented Areti.

He shifted his backpack off, careful not to damage the vase, the necklace, or the comb within, and reached out to take the small paintings from the wall to add them quickly to his haul.

“Stop.”

Milos looked around the small gallery. Not a single person stood or sat nearby. Was it his imagination? The power of the malfunctioning Wards was making him giddy.

He reached out again, and he felt her hand on his own. He stopped and his sharp breath tore at his chest. How could he have forgotten her touch?

“My love. Stop.” Her voice was unmistakable. He felt a tear form at the corner of his eye.

Milos cleared his throat, feeling like a child. “Who is this?” He asked foolishly.

“Stop, Milos. They are where they belong.”

Milos spun in a quick circle in panic, looking everywhere for his assailant. He was alone in the closed off gallery, no one outside the entrance was even looking in on the olive skinned man standing alone appearing to have a panic attack.

Milos rubbed his hands together in frustration and reached out again for the small painting of the ocean sunrise.

“They are where they are meant to be, Milos. Just as I am. Don’t you remember?”

The tears came unbidden, the tightness in his chest rushed up his throat, and attacked his eyes. Milos realized these were the first tears he had since before the founding of United States. Everything is too long.

Milos felt her touch on his face, one hand on each cheek, just as she had all those centuries ago.

“I am my paintings, Milos. I am here.” A hand, invisible, traced the path of his tears and touched his forehead gently. “I am also here.”

“I will never get another chance, Areti. I have to take them now or I never will.” Milos managed through the first hitch in his chest. He forgot how physical grief was. It manifested itself in his body painfully.

“Then you will have to come here and remember me. How many do I touch now? How many will I be with in the future? How many people need me and not know it? I did not paint for only myself, my love. Milos. I painted for you. For them. For everyone.”

“I needed you. I need you.” Milos managed. He gently fingered the edge of the painting, temptation electrifying his fingertips.

“Yes. Yes you do.”

Milos waved his hands around trying to touch the untouchable. He wanted to grab her and pull her close.

Another touch on his hands. Stilling them both. “Stop.”

“And leave?”

There was no answer. Then he felt the presence of her immediately in front of him, at the tip of his nose, and her lips brushed his own. He felt her kiss.

He kissed her back knowing his answer. Then she was gone.

Milos gave another longing look at the paintings and sighed knowing he would be back to look at them until they were moved somewhere else. Then he would look at them wherever that was. And so on, until time either ended or he was lost to the cosmos.

He would never forget Areti again.

He grabbed his backpack and headed for the basement. No one saw him pass and no one saw him exit.

When the security systems finally came back online and a young naked woman was taken away by ambulance, and the security team finally reconnected to the NOC, and the consultants finally showed up…

That is when someone finally noticed something was missing.

It was four days later. And Milos had already been back twice to sit on his bench, wave at Martha as she wandered by on her duties, and stare at the paintings, knowing he was with her.

And she was there. In her own way.

Arglwyddes yr Wyddfa, the Lady of the Mountain, was a typhoon of power completely defined by, and paradoxically in turn defined the true meaning of femineity. Not the soft, weaker sex that feigned distress and played coy games behind folded hands in Court, no, she was everything that women were in the long history of the Earth. That being primarily in the appropriate management of men, the co-opting of leadership opinion, and shaping of world events. Nothing that would be as what men proclaimed to be as a ‘woman’s place.’

‘A woman’s place’ was but a worldview of sad men that was solely defined by the pathetic men that believed it, and they were the ones that made their worldview real for the rest of the civilized world. The women had to be kept in check, in their place, behind the chair, off to the side, in the bedroom, working the kitchens, or minding the children, that was the natural order of things. They were weaker, softer, and more emotional than the men, so of course, that had to be the natural order.

Might made right.

Yet, most men would acknowledge that women held some form of power, even if it was not the open power that men flaunted without care and with unexcused privilege. Woman had power. But it was a silent one. A reserved one. It managed quietly at the neck. The head could not turn without a neck. Men were loudly arrogant about their power, real or imagined, swinging it about like their sexual member, proud of themselves for nothing that warranted pride.

Both in might and pride, the Arglwyddes yr Wyddfa was nearly a man by both measures. She was unrepentant and brash, wholly herself and willing to swing her power wherever she felt it was necessary or needed. She had many roles across Wales, Scotland, England, and further abroad in places like France, Austria, and Italy. Her locus was within Mount Wyddfa, and was always bound to it, but she flung herself where ever the winds of her soul bid her to go. In the great houses of the European powers she was the Lady Snowdon, and she was a force to not be taken lightly or who’s counsel was to be discounted.

Lady Snowdon was a brazen force of fyccin nature personified. And by consequence, she was greater than any man. And so far, every man that Liz had encountered in the presence of Lady Snowdon knew exactly what the Lady represented.

Terror.

After watching her teacher at work, Liz was certain that the imps of hell would refer to the Lady as their Queen. The Lady Snowdon did not suffer fools, which included Liz. In becoming her pupil, Liz’s world had opened up like a lightning torn sky that had unleashed the floods of the Old Testament. The heavens, the earth, and things behind and beneath them were slowly unveiled through the tumultuous, and often painful, instruction.

Trauma is a powerful rogue wave. Like a rogue wave, it often appears to come from nowhere, a fist of a swell that towers over the oblivious ones that preceded it and the meek ones to follow. It crashes against the beach, the wall, the cliff with a fury that the land is not capable of withstanding. Caves collapses, arches fall into the ocean, and entire beaches get swallowed by the tumult. Trauma is the same.

The death of a loved one. The diagnosis that no one expected. The fall of a powerful trusted leader. Trauma comes in many forms.

For Liz, trauma was watching her beloved cousin die in childbirth. Watching her bleed to death right in front of her, while everyone rushed to help a situation that could not be real. And in it, Liz was taken by the rogue wave. It picked it her up, buried her head beneath the foam and froth, and dared her to occasionally take a breath in order to survive the tumbling wash. Liz felt her head break the surface every so often, and she would gasp for a breath of normalcy, for routine, for the comfort of the life that came before, and she would realize that the air was poisoned by the very wave she was carried by. It was nothing but salty spray and bitter remnants of a life destroyed.

Her madness of being lost within her trauma set her up for something either terrible or something profound.

Liz had a touch of madness in all of her learning with the Lady. It was if she was a tiny whirlwind of her own creation that spiraled in the wake of the great storm that Lady Snowdon created. The Lady perhaps witnessed that in the dark, on the edge of a dying fire all that time ago… a young woman that was spiraling in her trauma. Not downwards towards destruction, but instead something much more rare, a thing that was spinning upwards in power, ferocity, and impact. Liz’s madness was ever nearby as Arglwyddes yr Wyddfa invested of herself into Liz, keeping lockstep with Liz’s ardent stride towards learning the ways of the deeper universe.

Liz discovered that reality was but an angry scab that settled on the fervent energies that lay below, churning and interlacing in the deeps of all of creation. Most humans were content camping idly on the mantle of reality, but there were a few that were either born of that chaos, or yearned to reach for it, to seek it out. Liz learned just how far her reach could go. And it turned out the madness was necessary component to keep her world in order with that reach. And because of that… the overwhelming regret that the Lady Snowdon had promised at that same fireside never seemed to arrive.

Liz’s teacher was just as shocked as Liz was. Regrets are often borne of trauma, and instead of discovering them, she released them. The trauma started to fall away in bits and pieces and the rogue wave retreated sullenly back to the sea from which it arose.

Liz discovered power. She fell in love with it. And in turn Liz became a lover to magic, as a nun gives themselves to the Church. Had the Lady Snowdon foreseen this? Could she have known what she was going to create through the process?

Liz had always wondered. And to her fault, she had never asked. By the time she discovered all the questions she had never had the time for, her teacher’s own time had given out. Whether by cruel circumstance, a choice of God, or the proverbial luck running dry, one witch carried on while the other had been destroyed, sacrificing all she was to save the mad girl she had found by the fire on a cold Welsh moor.

Ironically, the aforementioned regret did eventually arrive in some form. But it was not a profound wave of destruction, but the slow etch of a river on a mountain, more of a widening scar than a traumatic wound.

All of this had occurred before the one two punch of the Great Famine and the Great Mortality descended upon Europe with fury. Both of which gave Liz a reason to believe that she had been born at the highest point in Mankind’s history. When the Famine arrived in Northern Europe, she was already a solid 100 years old. Being 130-ish when the Great Mortality arrived, (she would be about 500 years old before it was called the Black Death,) she felt she had made all the right choices.

Any additional Regrets were few, and most were men.

She settled in Cardiff after the fall of King Ne Peris in 1315. Very few understood that the Great Famine was not caused by a shift in the planet’s tilt or by a variation in sun exposure or a change in atmospheric composition… It was because one of the major kingdoms of Fairie, under the auspices of Fairie King Ne Peris, had been completely eradicated by a great human host. An army of ten thousand men had vanished into the forest in France, and when they successfully executed their revenge and slaughtered the Fair Folk on their own lands, the stupid short sighted humans found themselves unable to come back home. Every portal between the realms snapped shut, and the reverberation on the natural world was cataclysmic. Every plant, every animal, every living thing felt the implosion of that connection, and the world would feel its effects for hundreds of years.

After that, human beings swept the world like a virus, exploding in numbers with their advances in technology, and in revolt, the other beings of the world tried to fight back. They fought with famine. They fought with disease. They fought with monsters. They ended up hiring people like Liz.

Work, work, work all the time.

But word would get out that a certain King had hired a certain person for that kind of work, and then the other opposing King would hire their own person for that kind of work. An arms race of a sort, long before there were superpowers and nuclear weapons, there were the other forces one could bring to bear to keep enemies at bay.

That is exactly how Ysabella “Elizabeth” de Montfort, now the Lady Snowdon, met Anton de Lionne for the first time. Unfortunately, Liz remembered the day down to the minute details.

It was spring. Versailles was in full bloom, and the rampages of the late winter had finally worn off. However it was France, and it was a royal palace, so of course the place smelt like shit. Liz was in a far corner of the gardens pretending to listen to some pompous ass that had some provincial holding that apparently had other courtiers lifting their skirts.

Liz desperately wanted to turn the vile little man into a toad and leave him in the fountains. If that were to occur though, others in attendance would probably intuit that Liz was a witch. And not just some random witch, but one of immense power, because they would all be turned into toads as well. Then Liz would use the pompous ass’s cane and see how the Scottish sport of golf played out on the palace grounds. She was daydreaming splendidly about hitting green and black toads as far as she could imagine, painting statues and walls alike in viscous remains of high velocity amphibians, when a strange blond gentleman took her by surprise.

He knew her name and his command of French was exquisite.

“Pardon the interruption, my lady. I have it in on good authority that you are the exceptionally famous Lady Snowdon? Your family line is something of a legend to my own. Not to be presumptuous, of course.”

Liz narrowed her eyes shrewdly, glad that she had aged down the last few years, appearing to be in her mid-twenties and not a day of her four hundred years. She could use the inexperience of her apparent youth to gain advantage with a handsome, as she sniffed, well-smelling… strapping young man.

Her interest was piqued to say the least. And at worst, she was immensely glad for the interruption. Anything to save her from the astoundingly boring country nobles pretending to flout about in fancy dress. She was the Lady Snowdon for god’s sake, she had more class in a single fingertip.

“One should not leave an introduction one-sided?” Liz nodded politely, dipping the edge of her unfurled umbrella in acknowledgement. “If one were to do such a terrible thing, wouldn’t I be at a terrible disadvantage with such an impolite introduction?”

The gentleman doffed his hat and bowed at the waist, a tightly flourished hand flair at his right knee as he dipped downwards in a formal bow. He had been well trained. Liz was still enjoying how clean he smelled, it was a rare delight to her senses.

“If such a disadvantage existed for the Lady Snowdon, which I sincerely doubt, why wouldn’t one take advantage of it? It is said she withers strong men down to their bones, and shatters all conceptions that would normally have any other person evicted from Court and wasting away in a pit somewhere. But I hear it said that the Lady Snowdon continues her consequence free reign. I would dare to maintain such advantage if it was to be had.” He smirked with only the corner of his mouth, tilting the edge of his full lip upwards devilishly.

Liz felt certain parts of herself start to warm up. She did not appreciate how her animal brain was reacting to the handsome man with the silver tongue. She walked down a path of the garden, and the gentleman followed a half pace behind.

“But alas, dear sir,” Liz curtsied formally in response, stepping away from the currents of conversation that carried on amongst the previous group. “I would say you are being presumptuous, counter to your previous assertion. I am indeed the Lady Snowdon, as my mother was before me, and while I have more titles than most men currently sweating in these gardens, I would think it would be any of their interest to not leave me wondering whom I conversing with.”

His smirk lowered as he worked through the veiled insult. Then as if a decision was suddenly made, it reversed course and his smile was wide and welcoming. “Anton de Lionne.”

“Choosing not to use a family name? No titles? Pray, what sort of Court am I attending?”

“One could say it does not fit the work,” Anton shrugged. “I find it better to trade on my own name these days instead of relying on my stout and oppressive lineage. Also, I should note that coming from the family that I do, such lineage is not the best help to my endeavors. This country is imprisoned in a regime that is slowly and painfully willing itself to death.”

Liz walked away from the group, and Anton followed at a respectful distance to her side. “And what endeavors are those, sir? “

“Have we already arrived at that level of trust with one another, Lady Snowdon?”

“Categorize it as discovery.”

“Ah! In the interest of discovery then. I am in employ of the King as an Advisor. Particularly in the location, isolation, and destruction of foreign agents that seek to undermine his Crown. One could say that I am a witch hunter.”

Liz’s breath caught in her chest, but felt she managed to hide it well enough. “A witch… hunter?”

Anton laughed. “Yes as crude as it sounds. Sometimes you just have to find the witch, or warlock, whichever it may be. Those nefarious agents of Satan himself abound.”

“And then what?” Liz feigned ignorance. Liz turned her head and she caught the shimmer in his aura. He has prepared to confront her. He was wearing a ward. Something old. This fucker had just twisted his chance of getting the best lay of his life into having his insides and outsides switch places, preferably through this pores of his skin.

“Well I usually start by binding the witch to an object, as to remove them from their locus, and then forcing a confession of sorts, for the courts of course…”

“Of course, of course.” Liz amiably agreed. “It is critically important to have legal standing in such things.”

“And then we convert them to faith, assist in the repenting for sins, and commit them to God.”

“You splash them with water, have a priest pray for them, and then execute them, if I am translating correctly.”

“Often all three at the same time,” Anton shrugged. “As the good book instructs, ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'”

“Yet.” Liz nodded sagely.

“Pardon?” Anton stumbled at the interjection and had to quicken his step to catch up.  

“One must be a part of what they hunt, no? A hunter must understand their prey. And that implies that one must suffer a witch to live.” Liz took the chance to look him over more closely, acting coy, all the while as she folded her fingers out of sight and uttered a small invocation under her breath.

‘Seven brushes by seven folds by seven depths, all untold. Six to witness, five to lie, four to death, three to sign, two to follow, and one…‘

“Divine.” Liz said aloud. The trigger rang like a bell in her head, and power flowed through her attacking whereever the nearest threat was.

Anton stopped walking. His hands lifted suddenly, scratching at his throat as if he was being licked by fire underneath his jacket.

“What ever is the matter?” Liz asked in a haughty tone.

“Damn necklace under my clothes. By the devil, what is this?” Anton ripped his buttons, one hand pulling his tunic open while the other threw his jacket to the ground. “My sincere apologies Lady Snowdon…”

He pulled a glowing necklace from his chest and dropped it on the ground. He blew on his fingers with a look of dismay.

“My father is going to kill me.” Anton whispered. The necklace curled in on itself, the metal fusing into a series of molten pellets, clicking lightly as it cooled.

“That is a protection ward?” Liz played up her ignorance all the more. Was was this Anton de Lionne’s game? He was either the stupidest man she had ever met, or this was the cleverest ruse she had ever been a victim of. He was an an admirable package and probably had an admirable package to boot. Her mind wandered back to the chances of a romp. It had been a while.

If she was going to get caught by a witch hunter, she could have some fun first. Right?

“It was a protection ward. Damn. My father carries a notion that I become some version of his uncle. He was a great hunter, worked for the Church, found some notoriety in Eastern Europe eliminating vampires or some nonsense like that.” Anton pointed at the ruined amulet. “Supposedly that was my great uncle’s.”

“Well congratulations, Mr. De Lionne, you have found a witch in the Court! You are a success!” Liz curtsied as sarcastically as her tone.

Anton’s eyes went wide. “Well, shit.”

…

“Well, shit.” The same voice, hundreds of years later, but the response was an exact match to her memory of the day she inadvertently made Anton de Lionne both a convert and an unlikely, yet strangely formidable, competitor.

Liz hated competition. Especially when they were people that were exceptionally resistant to her normal charms. Like Anton having a thing for his own gender. That made it all the worse. She would have to play nice.

Gag.

“Hello, love,” she replied from her alcove table in the Grand Gallery of the Met. Her fingers were smoking from the work on the Wards, and let them glimmer and spark as she took a small sip from her coffee cup.

“You are the one that is fucking with the Wards.” Anton smiled. His retinue of three assistants spread out behind him, taking flanking positions on every side they could to keep her from escaping. “After all these years, I find the one time Lady Snowdon fucking about with my shit. You know this is my job, right? I get paid for this, Ms. Montfort.”

“Elizabeth, please. And you must calm down, Anton, and have a seat. How many fellow gays you got running with you these days?” Liz turned her head slowly, getting small reads on every person he had with him. “Mixing work and pleasure? Do you take turns fucking each other? How does that even work?”

“You know, my sexuality aside, I remember a time when you thought I was worth a turn in the grass, Ms. Montfort.” Anton pulled a chair out slowly, and settled into it like a leaf on the wind.

Ignoring the fact that Liz had asked for first names was an annoying move. She deflected her anger as best she could. “Don’t remind me. It still irks me.”

“Versailles?”

“Forget about it,” Liz rolled her eyes.

“Come on.” Anton insisted.

“Yes, Versailles, obviously. How was I supposed to know? Now, can you let it go?”

“Sure, Ms. Montfort. Now tell me why you are fucking with the wards on my fucking building.”

“Anton, dear, the wards are intact. If you took a half measure to look, you would see that nothing is wrong.”

“At this point, if the Wards were to grow mouths and scream obscenities at our guests, I would not be surprised. I am instead fucking surprised to find Elizabeth de Montfort, of all people, sitting here, with her trademark shit eating grin spewing lies in every direction. Why are you trying to break them? I mean that is asking for an epic shit storm.”

“Break is such a harsh word. I am not going to break anything. Like so many of the works in these hallowed halls, the Wards are works of art themselves. I am only admiring them.” Liz smiled innocently.

“Yeah, right.” Anton scoffed. He waved one of his assistants over. “‘Admiring’ them. Keep your hands were I can see them, please.”

Liz rested her wrists on the table, setting her coffee cup down gently. “Now Anton. We don’t want to make this… problematic.”

Anton raised his own hands in response. “Look at my hands, Ms. Montfort. Now look at your hands. You have been caught red-handed. Literally.”

“It’s only literal when it is written down, Anton.” Liz eyed the assistant approaching the table.

“Then I will write it down and I will tack it to your fucking forehead. Stop what you are doing. Now.”

The nearest assistant pulled what looked like loops of hair from his satchel. Liz was impressed they were so well prepared. How many witches did they incarcerate at the Met on a yearly basis? To have Bindings of Morgane prepared and on hand to tie a witch up to restrict the flow of magic? Liz nearly wanted to ask who made the rope of hawthorn and the yew bark, since the person that makes it determines just how effective it is. But since she was not here for the pleasantries…

“If you want to write it down, perhaps, you should write this down,” she said instead.

“What is that?” Anton held his hand over his shoulder for his assistant to hand him the bindings. He sounded borderline annoyed he was having to interact with her.

“You. Are. An. Idiot.”

“Duly noted.” Anton sighed heavily. The assistant handed over the Bindings and stood behind Anton’s chair glaring.

“You didn’t write it down.” Liz said in a teasing voice. She noted the assistant was cute, in a confused Greenwich Village teenager sort of way. More rebelling against his parents than a true pupil of the art. His stylish pomp of curly hair was definitely ensorcelled. And once she got the smell of it, she knew those Bindings were his as well. Amateur hour at the Met.

“Kindly fuck off, Ms. Montfort. Now I am going to put these on, and I am going to escort you off the premises, and if you come back, I will notify the New York Accords Chapter to file a grievance.”

“Oh, no, a grievance. How terrible.”

“I mean it, Ms. Montfort.”

Liz dropped her voice to an sharp grating whisper. “For the last fucking time, Anton. You. Can. Call. Me. Elizabeth.”

She shifted her right hand to her left wrist in a blur, sending the half full coffee cup skittering across the table and falling to the floor. She laid her middle finger on the bracelet’s emerald. She winked at Anton and she knew Anton’s assistant would remember this day for the rest of his goddamn life.

Liz felt the dump of stored magic across her chest, a flash of warming through her lymph nodes as the energies she had carefully stored unfurled themselves through her nervous system. Her blood felt like it was sparkling under her skin, and she reminded herself that she did not have to pee, it was just a sensation.

Sure as the sun rising, she felt the urge to release her bladder. Liz pushed the urge away and instead… touched Anton’s hand.

Three things happened.

The assistant leaned forward in surprise, probably trying to invoke something idiotic while one hand pulled his boss out from harm’s way. Anton looked at his own hand as if he was just introduced to static electricity for the first time. And lastly, the spell hit the Bindings as if they were made of high yield detonation cord.

Magic is a powerful flow, like a river. It is the first thing a student of the art learns. It was the first thing Liz had learned. It is the movement of energy from all things, through all things, to all things. It is both of the world and apart from it. Magic flows through everything because it is separate from it. Like light passing through glass. The glass is real, and light is real, but because of the properties of both glass and light, one passes through the other. Magic flows through. Some things can handle it. Others… well, not so much.

Magic flowed through Anton. It flowed through the Bindings. It flowed through the assistant. And all of it was lashed to Liz’s will. Her eyes flashed, her retina’s glowed red momentarily as she released her invocation word.

“Calanthe,” Liz exhaled.

The Bindings had not been meant for this level of power. They were fashioned by an amateur that was not prepared to meet someone like Liz. She refactored their creation, and they flowed down Anton’s arm and up the assistant’s arm as if they were alive. Their eyes went wide as the bindings flowed under their clothing and around their bodies. Other strands leapt through the air as if they had been loosed as arrows from a bow, their sinews hitting the other assistants in a flash, writhing down underneath their clothing, to nestle against their skind and surround them as well.

It was over in about half a second. Human brains typically don’t process information that fast, but in the realm of magic, it could have been a lifetime. For the four of them, it probably had felt like a lifetime as they were put into submission in every single way that mattered.

To all the other patrons crowding the Met, nothing had happened. Three people were chatting nearby, two sitting and one standing. One moment, it looked as if someone had spilled their coffee, knocking if off the table as they were talking animatedly, and the next, the woman was apologizing for the spill.

“I am so sorry, Anton. But I was telling the truth, I am not trying to break anything.” Liz stood slowly, making eye contact with the other two assistants nearby. They were standing just as still as Anton and the assistant behind his chair. All of them were eerily still, as if they were waiting.

Which they were. Liz wiggled her fingers and all four of them wiggled a bit where they either sit or stood.

“Honestly, having marionettes is so much fun.” Liz grinned as she stood. “I should find a cliff.”

Anton could only blink and move his eyes. He did both a lot. Liz knew he must have been freaking out.

“Oh you shush, you will be fine,” Liz admonished.

She waved her hand, and the other two assistants wandered over. They were walking stiffly, but no one noticed. She made them pull chairs up and sit at the table clumsily. She stood and commanded the nearest assistant with the curly hair to take her previously occupied seat. “There. Now you are all the best of friends! You can sit here, stare at each other, and think about what you have done. I will let you all go when I am done admiring the Wards. Anton. Admiring them.”

Liz walked towards the core of the original building to finish her work. She was nearly done before she had been so rudely interrupted. Shirin had done her part. Al had done his.

Now it was her turn so that Milos could do his part. The vampire thief.

Liz laughed to herself. That sounded like a book title. The Vampire Thief by Anne Rice. Milos was about to do something that had never been attempted since the Met had been built. Oh sure, things had been stolen, and likewise, things had been recovered.

All of that was by humans. And normal humans were oblivious. Oblivious to the real world. The underlying complexity of it all. The ones that cared, the ones that figured it out, those humans reached a nirvana of sorts. They turned into familiars and scholars, into witches and warlocks, some turned into other things, all of the groups defining themselves for the very Accords that were written to maintain the balance between them. But most humans just assumed their reality was actual reality and blundered about in their sad little lives, waiting for payday and binge drinking their upcoming weekend away.

Those that were within scope of the Accords, that were the sorts that the Met was designed to keep out. The primary target of those protections were against the Fey. How does one keep the Fair Folk out? Especially since they typically ignored such preventions?

The Sentinels were there to detect them if those bound by the Accords tried to enter. Thanks to Al, and a little help from Liz, the Sentinels in question were quite crispy and unable to perform their duty.

The Watcher was there to trap those bound by the Accords if they attempted to sneak in. Thanks to Shirin, the Watcher was no longer watching anything.

And lastly, the Wards had two functions, one to repel those bound by the Accords if they had any intent to defy the Accords, and second, to contain them if they violated the same Accords. Breaking or destroying the Wards would have massive consequences, again, because of the Accords. It is a self referential trap that would collapse on anyone trying to fuck with it.

Liz thought about how silly it all was. How it simple it was in the end.

Magic is a flow. Technology is not counter to magic, per se. But magic flows. Technology is man’s attempt to infuse rocks with lightning and force the rock to think on their behalf. Of course, if you submerge something as delicate as micron level integrated circuits into a directed flow of any sort energy, then of course, things are going to get wonky.

One would wonder how a thief would steal anything in a well protected museum. It was about timing, preparation, and execution.

Liz could feel the Wards trembling. She had overlaid the same spells on top of them, inverting them in layers, subverting them by small degrees. Her work was ephemeral in nature, temporary and fleeting. The underlying work of the Wards worked into the very fabric of the building, carved into the stone and arrayed with design, that would persist. Her own work was meant to redirect it.

The flow. She was redirecting the flow of a powerful river, and it just so happened that the building was full of technology. Technologies that normal oblivious humans put so much stock into.

She knew it was ready. She just had to push. Liz pushed the commlink connect button on her ear.

“Milos. Are you ready? When I let go, our comms will be offline. Everything will be offline, at least until the Wards realign.”

Milos came back instantly, his voice sounded like he was smiling ear to ear. Which would be bad in the company of humans, even in his weakened daytime state. She didn’t know his part, but Liz assumed he had it covered.

“I am ready. See you all at Liz’s tonight.”

Shirin and Al both vocalized their sign offs and Liz did the same. She pulled the commlink from her ear and threw it into the nearest trashcan she passed.

Liz closed her eyes, waved her hands in her final invocation, and released the framework she had built. Mentally, it was like a powerlifter completing a rep and setting the bar down. She just released it.

The Wards gasped at the strain instead. All the weight that Liz had been shouldering in her work was immediately transferred to the ancient Wards, and the energy that flowed through them stopped, and instead went sideways.

Every single light in the Met flickered at once.

Liz turned on her heel, walked through the Grand Gallery, and out the front doors as every single cell phone, computer, camera, laser, sensor, server, and network collectively decided that lightning in rocks should not, would not, and could not work at the whim of any mortal human being.

Because… fuck ’em. That’s why.

Shirin strolled into the Met.

Stop.

Reverse the scene. It is a crude reduction of all the events that lead up to the moment, and not a great representation of what Shirin actually had done. Shirin did a number of things before strolling into the Met. One has to understand how an Ifrit navigates the world.

Going back hours, it is morning in Manhattan. The sun is cresting the towers to the east, illuminating the glass, metal, and stone on the west side of Central Park. The city is murmuring itself awake from a dull roar of the early morning commute to the hustle of New York animating itself to a liminal level of self consciousness. The buildings, the streets, the restaurants, the cafes, the stores, the bodegas, the carts… all of it is a body that is alive because of the humans that move among it all. New York wakes up just like any person does, it stretches in the early morning light, and starts the day.

Just off the bustling thoroughfare of Central Park West, an old man is standing at a street corner, idly watching the crowd stream past. He is waiting for something… special. A spark. A certain je ne sais quoi. A person that is a standout, but for reasons that are not be wholly clear. Beautiful, and distracting, but not overstated. The old man required a person that could be a focal point, and yet, not overly focused on until it was absolutely required. The old man’s fingers were bluish, his eyes bloodshot. His heart was laboring under the strain that he had been under for a day now, waiting for the right time. The old man himself, what made him him, was buried deep within his own subconsciousness, restricted to being only an observer as something else animated him like a marionette. His puppet master was kind and thoughtful, but fierce. The old man ruminated on his life, realized that the being that rode him like a horse was no different than how he had treated his son all those years ago. Now, he realized why his son does not want anything to do with him. He frowns and ponders the realization deep within, as his body betrays none of the internal turmoil and instead watches the undulating crowd pass by unaware.

A tall, graceful woman is finally materializes on the far street corner, among the many others waiting for the lights to change. She is impeccably dressed, carrying broad shoulders under a white jacket, soft-blended satin trim along the edges, highlighted marvelously by oversized black buttons along the front paired beautifully by smaller matching buttons at the cuffs. Underneath, her red blouse is light and airy, suggesting robust cleavage without explicitly showing it, a single gold chain with a pendant of glass dancing ahead of her with enraptured reflections of light. Her white skirt is a pencil, and her legs are anything but, terminating powerfully into a tasteful set of black heels, her shapely calves screaming at anyone glancing sideways to appreciate hjer personal trainer’s hard work.

Her name is Jacinda. She is beautiful, multi-ethnic, and walks with the confidence to make any one blatantly staring to appreciate the fact they took the time to do so. One moment Jacinda is walking down Central Park West like it is her own runway, heading to an appointment that she knows is important, but doesn’t want to hand her cards over too early. It could be the job opportunity of a lifetime, and she knows she will absolutely fucking crush it. She is owed… it is her time. But she is attempting to rationalize it to herself, self denying the hope and the excitement, just so any inevitable disappointment will have a lesser sting.

One moment, striding confidently, the beginnings of a grin at the edge of her mouth… the next… an old man touches her arm, and puts something small and black in her hand. She is confused, but, then, her head grows foggy like she is addled. Or drunk. Or high. Or something… odd. The old man lets go, stumbles away, and Jacinda puts the small black thing in her ear. She has no idea why. She just does it.

The old man leans against the wall, feeling like he is waking up for the first time in days. His head immediately clears, and his heart starts to slow down. His fingers are so very cold, and he is fatigued in a way that he hasn’t felt for decades. He briefly wonders why he is on Central Park West, but chalks it up to the fallible memory of the significantly aged as he starts walking back to his apartment thinking on the apology he owes his son. The confusion of why is where he is doesn’t seem to bother him, and for some strange reason he lets it go. Maybe he was feeding the birds. Maybe he played some chess in the Park. Maybe he just needed a walk. It didn’t matter. His son mattered. That mattered most. He had to fix it.

Jacinda spun on one of her impeccable heels and walked into Central Park. The sky was blue, the birds were singing, and the trees were in blossom. Yet, Jacinda knew something was wrong. She tried to stop and turn back around, but she can’t. It is like she is an observer in her own mind. Jacinda started to panic, but her stride continued on the path into the Park, passing women pushing strollers, joggers, walkers, lollygaggers, layabouts, and students lounging on the early morning green. There is no panic in her stride, there is no panic on her face, and her body chemistry stays exactly the same. No sweat, no dump of adrenaline, no flight or fight response… just pure easy movement, as if she was on a break and enjoying Central Park.

A hand. It pulls at what defines Jacinda as Jacinda in her consciousness. Then there are two hands. Then ten, then twenty, then a hundred. The hundred handed one pulls at her mind, smothering her and yet, comforting her? It is like being pulled into a hug by an overly present grandmother, you suffocate against her aproned front, but the smell, the feel, and the memory of the last hug all get wrapped up together in the now, and one feels a sense of peace.

Jacinda felt peace. She didn’t seem to care so much about her appointment, or her outfit, or her hair. She just let go. Not that she had much of a choice. An Ifrit was within her. The Ifrit was in control.

Outside of her Domain, an Ifrit had a choice. Be a thief or be obliterated. Shirin did not feel guilty in stealing bodies. She gave them back. Most of the time. Sometimes she found herself in a person that had done terrible things. Sometimes that person did not come back… sometimes an Ifrit makes a choice that should only be reserved for God. As a Fallen would.

Shirin walked Jacinda’s body with assured confidence across Central Park, heading towards the Met along the winding pathways. She strolled the Transverse, then took one of the branching paths towards the only building of its size on the Central Park border.

Being an Ifrit was a double-edged sword. Sure, she could jump between bodies, but she rarely could enjoy her own. It was like living a life buried under a sea of pillows, always a far off participant, like a drug addict viewing their own life from afar, too addled to bring much care or thought about the moment they faced. Shirin faced those moments, but from behind glass, the strangely dichotomic approach of being both the participant and the observer.

But the sky was clear, and in the Park, one could almost feel the old Fey magic in the grass and the stones. The Faeries had tried so damned hard to carve out a place for themselves. They wanted a wildwood, the kind of place that genetic memory had for the humans, when the forests were full of dangers and mortality was but a single failed breath away. The wildwoods were ancient, the throne rooms for the dancers and the courtiers, the battle grounds for the watchers and the watched, the delicate balance between the never ending feuds and petty squabbles that served as the only Fey entertainment until an unwary human wandered in to change the games.

The High Daughter of Mab had been wise in their dealings to get the whole green set aside when they had the power and influence to do so. Not so wise in who they dealt with to bring it about, but still, the Park and by extension, the Met, was a brilliant idea, even though the Fey ultimately were fucked sideways in the whole thing. Typical humans taking and taking and taking, until there was nothing left to take, and yet, humans still found a way. The designer of the Met, Calvert Vaux, had some real balls to fuck over Méabh’s daughter, Cainnear Dearg, all those years ago.

That’s what humans do. They take and think nothing of it. There is a grand balance to the universe. An Ifrit doing a bit of the same between bodies was a trivial thing. An unnoticed thing when the real fucks like Calvert Vaux are kicking teeth in with little regard for who was there first.

‘Manifest fucking destiny’, Shirin thought to herself.

Finally, Shirin strolled into the Great Hall of the Met.

Jacinda was beautiful, striking even, but with a confidence that allowed her to move invisibly in the crowd. She was just another guest in a sea of guests. Some were schoolchildren, some were college students, most were tourists, and then there were the others… the artists, the free willed, the rebels and the dreamers. With those, Jacinda blended in like a fish among many.

The Watcher did not see her enter and it did not note her passing. The wards buried under stone and concrete in the columns that formed the grand entryway did not hum or resonate, but Shirin could feel them buzzing, like hives of bees sequestered behind the walls. Shirin was not worried that wards would hit her, as she was a both a passenger and the captain in her Jacinda-shaped vessel, and she navigated Jacinda deftly through the crowds away from the angry buzzing as quickly as she could muster without looking like she was in any sort of rush. She bought a day pass at the digital kiosk, and wandered towards the security office where the Watcher laid in wait. Not directly mind you, but on an indirect path, following the flow of the crowds one moment, pulling away and joining another crowd.

“I am going in.” Al’s voice whispered in her ear. “Starting the deliveries to the bloodsuckers.”

“Understood. I am heading to my destination. I should be ready when you are.” Shirin replied in Jacinda’s soft and raspy voice. “Liz, the wards are angry. I could feel their hissing when I walked by.”

“I am working on it. Wave at me, love.” Liz replied sarcastically. “They are hot, aren’t they? They don’t like being touched.”

Shirin turned her head slowly, glancing over the crowds to find Liz in an alcove, sipping from a coffee cup with a shit eating grin on her face. Liz waved lightly, her fingertips appeared to be smoking.

“You good, Liz?” Shirin said calmly, turning away from the Witch of Wales and back to her destination.

“Everyone’s fingers smoke a bit, right? That’s normal?” Liz teased. “I have everything under control. You take the Watcher. I can’t deal with both that monstrosity and the wards. I don’t have enough coffee.”

“Well good thing I am here,” Shirin teased.

“No, that’s not the problem. The coffee shop is packed, love,” Liz shot back. “There are sheeple everywhere!”

“Can we use the comms for the right reasons, please?” Milos chimed in.

“Yes, boss.” Shirin smirked behind her hand.

“Milos, if I want to use the comms to tell you that are a cunt, is that acceptable?” Liz asked deadpan.

“No. Liz. It is not.” Milos’s frustration was nearly palpable over the commlink.

“Well you are. A cunt. Now shush. I am trying to twist these Wards so your bloodsucking ass can walk out of here with purloined goods and, honestly, you are distracting me.”

Shirin headed towards the security office. Security was multifaceted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met covered the basics, with thousands of cameras covering every angle of each exhibit and lobby, every piece of artwork, and all the shared public space. One would think cameras would be a problem for any theft, and they would be, if the thief was a human and performing their theft the human way. For the non-human contingent, such thefts would have little concern for such technologies.

Magic rendered technology inoperable.

The real security of the Met was not in the cameras, or the small army of six hundred human security staffers that rotated around the premises, or the space sensors, or the proximity alarms, or even the laser grids that covered a handful of exhibits. All of it was performative theater in its own way, because the real security had been designed and built into the bones of the Met when Calvert Vaux had drawn the engineering design out with a pencil on sheets of oversized vellum. The Met had been designed from the ground up to be secure from the very creatures that would walk in dripping with magic, so human technology, even things that Calvert Vaux could not have imagined back in the mid-1800’s would not have been effective in stopping the Fey from wandering into a human place and taking whatever they may have desired.

Calvert Vaux had had a trump card the entire time. Knowing his significant otherworldly debts had to be paid, he knew he had a chance to subvert those he was owed. He had a newborn son among his many children, his legacy was secure, and he could make sure his family would be safe from those he owed. From there, one could infer where his doomed choices had lead him. Shirin knew the story, and the thought of his choices made her sick. She knew that if she had ever had the opportunity to jump into Calvert Vaux, he would be one of those special few that would never wake up at the end.

Shirin stopped near the grand stair, leaned against the wall, and nonchalantly watched as the crowds moved by. She could feel their minds like glimmers of brightly colored fish reflecting the sunlight from beneath the waves, the outlines of their spirits more prevalent than the clothes they wore, each of them a story unfulfilled, still being written, even now as they moved languidly through the museum. She pushed her senses outward, past the wall she leaned against, and into the security office on the other side.

This was the tricky part for an Ifrit. Maintaining the hold on Jacinda, who had the only working commlink residing in her ear, and finding one of the six hundred security staffers that was mentally weak enough to allow Shirin to take some semblance of control without them realizing it. The security office itself was expansive, larger than most people would ever realize. And in the back, behind a false wall, sat the real target.

The Watcher.

Being this close to the pile of flesh that used to be Calvert Vaux’s son made her exceptionally uncomfortable. But that was nothing compared to how gross is would feel when she was inside that pile of flesh. Jacinda’s arm skin started to pucker with goosebumps at the thought. She had to avoid the Watcher until she was ready.

Liz spoke up again. “We, uh, may be having some problems. Milos, they are not all sheeple.”

“Are you ok?” Shirin cut in. “I can head back?”

“Shirin, stay on your task.” Milos interjected. “Can you do it, Liz?”

“I can do it just fine, Milos. I am a ffycin professional. Its who just breezed by me. With his retinue. And half of them are sniffing at the Wards. They are picking on my work, I can’t just sit here in plain sight…”

“Who’s there, Liz?”

“Anton de Lionne.” Liz’s majestic sneer could be heard through the link.

Like it was taunting all of them, both the comm and Milos stayed silent.

“Did you hear me, Milos?”

“He is on retainer,” Milos finally replied. The admitting sigh of guilt was nearly verbal.

“Did you not think that worth mentioning in the planning stages?” Liz was pissed. “You know, the part where we plan, Milos. And we talk about these sort of things?”

“I didn’t want you to worry about it.”

“Well now is a fine fucking time, then, isn’t it?” Liz started…

… And Shirin’s attention snapped back to her lingering cloud of spirit floating around the impeccably dressed Jacinda. Shirin picked up a glimmer, the telltale sign vibration of a soul heavily burdened. The brush of a person focused on other things, their mind swirling with concerns, worries, and the pressures of modern life. A person ripe for a soft word, a gentle caress, the comfort of warm hands…

Shirin ignored her commlink and pushed away from Jacinda, keeping her hands warm and reassuring, and reaching out for the person as they neared. She could feel their body heat, their consciousness, the light of their small human soul. Precious, like a candle nestled in an alcove during a storm.

Then she was Tommy. Tommy was staring at a report on a tablet, but he was not reading it. His fingers hovered over the email notification, which itself was on his phone, which sat nestled in the corner of the tablet screen like it was nestled against a storm. Life is nothing but irony.

Shirin quickly glanced over the hovering email. Diagnosis of cancer. Tommy’s mother.

‘Poor thing.’ Shirin whispered within Tommy. ‘Everything will be ok.’

‘Huh?’ Tommy thought and said aloud at the same time. “Huh?”

‘The bills? The stress? The time? It’s ok, Tommy. You will figure it out.’ Shirin continued.

“Anyone else hearing that?” Tommy turned and looked at his coworkers. Some were watching screens, some were chatting idly about the comings and goings of the staff.

Mickey, the recent new hire watching the dashboard pulled her airpods out and made a face. “Hearing what?”

Tommy tilted his head and Shirin remained quiet.

“I swear I could hear a voice,” Tommy fake smiled and pretended that everything was normal.

Shirin pushed her mental balm outwards in a healing wave. Everything was normal. Everything was fine. She felt his heart slow, his panic subside.

She stepped to the forefront of Tommy. He felt the hands pulling him backwards, first one, then two, then ten… the a one hundred handed one gripped him gently, pulling him backwards… and he did not struggle. He felt safe.

‘Good boy.’ Shirin commented as he fell backwards in his own mind. She felt the impression that he thought she was beautiful. Like a sun dappled tiger hunting its way through summer foliage. She whispered, ‘And a thoughtful boy. Your mom will be ok. I promise.’

‘How do you know?’ His voice floated from the dark of his subconscious.

‘Faith.’ Shirin replied honestly. She turned Tommy towards the door and walked.

“Tommy, where you going?” Another security guard asked.

‘That is Frank Anderson’, Shirin heard Tommy whisper from the deep.

“Quick bathroom break,” Shirin replied.

“But we have a meeting in five with Myers and that flamboyant chap that they have running inspections.”

Shirin waved it away. “Be back in two mins, Frank.”

“Alright, alright, just hustle? If I have to defend you again to Myers, it’s your ass.”

Shirin guided Tommy out the secure door and headed down the stark back halls of the Met. He exited into the public area, and then made the long circuitous route to find Jacinda leaning against a wall like she was a million dollar artwork herself.

Seeing herself within another with another’s eyes was something that one never got used to. And she had been doing it for thousands of years. It was a self-recognizing contradiction that the Creator never had meant for his creations to do. It was why she was Fallen. She was outside the Grand Design. An exception. An uncarried remainder. She knew why, and she understood the logic of it, but it was a near biological revulsion in being Other and yet whole.

Shirin pulled the ear commlink from Jacinda and handed it to herself in Tommy, who put smoothly into his own ear without stopping. Tommy walked on by, looking the other way, to make the next part look believable.

Jacinda stepped away from the wall, and started to remove her clothing. Slowly. Shirin felt guilty, but it was the plan. They needed a distraction. A big one.

And a beautiful, striking woman walking naked through the Met as if nothing was amiss?

That was literally the definition of a significant distraction.

Jacinda would awake somewhere frightened, starving, and with the blood chemistry of someone in adrenal crisis, but she would awake. If anything, the news may help her career in the long run. Beautiful people could spin their own narratives in this world. Shirin would plant a seed of the thought deep in her subconscious, and hopefully it would help. A small gift, yes, but better than nothing after what Jacinda was going to do.

Shirin pulled her consciousness from Jacinda completely and left her wandering forward dreaming and yet dreamless, striding with purpose, each article of clothing slowly dropping to the floor behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs showing the way she went.

Shirin spoke under her breath with Tommy’s voice, “Ma’a assalamah fi rihlatik.“

She turned and took the long way back towards the security office, avoiding the path that the others would take to locate a naked woman strolling through the galleries, seemingly calm, taking in the sights, and otherwise completely ignoring anyone that tried to engage with her. They would float around her, wondering what to do, and none would dare approach until the police arrived.

“And the goose is off running,” Shirin said.

“She was gorgeous. A good time to be had by all in the next few minutes.” Liz came back first.

“I was disconnected, anything I need to know about?” Shirin replied.

“No. Under control.” Milos replied. “Liz, status?”

“I am on the last one, my fingers are turning to glass from the heat, but nothing a nice cup of tea won’t fix.”

“How are you doing, Al?” Milos asked.

“Dammit Milos, you are going to give me a heart attack.” Al came back, he sounded breathless.

“Oh you sound different. Young one, huh?” Milos said.

“Shut up, almost there. Give me five more minutes.”

“10-4.”

“You sound like an absolute idiot, Milos.” Liz laughed.

Tommy that was Shirin badged a secure door and entered the back hallways that interconnected many of the exhibits, offices, and secure spaces of the Met. Shirin paused at the next junction, and almost as if she had made it happen through otherworldly clairvoyance, nearly the entire staff from the security office emptied into the hallway and hustled off in the other direction.

Shirin allowed herself a small grin. She walked up to the door and badged her way in.

The girl… Mickey. That’s it. Mickey sat at her station still, her eyes wide. She glanced at Tommy. “I am surprised you didn’t want to go help.”

“I have a meeting,” Shirin replied.

“But, yeah, this lady is naked. And I mean, naked as the day she was born.”

“Oh really?” Tommy replied, Shirin tried to make it sound like he was surprised.

“Are you gay?” Mickey replied with a grin. “Because even if you are, it doesn’t matter. This woman is a work of art.”

“I take it you are,” Tommy said. He glanced at the screens and then walked towards the rear of the office.

“I might be now. This has me asking myself some hard life questions,” Mickey laughed.

“I am going to head to the conference room to meet with Myers and Anderson.”

“Yeah, ok. Although I think Anderson was in the group that just rushed out.”

“Thanks.” Tommy closed it off and pulled the rear door open. Ten steps to the right sat a sealed wall that had been closed for nearly a 150 years. Inside, remained some semblance of an entity she was here for. This was going to be the worst jump of her life.

Shirin laid a hand on the wall, feeling for a connection. The Watcher was always there. If the building had a soul, and that soul was living flesh that protected everything within it’s walls, that soul of about a thousand or so pounds of skin, fat, and viscera pulsated on the other side, strung between the webbed artifacts of old magic. The display was an aspiration of an angelic state, a body hung between phasing webs of energy, pulling the body apart, yet keeping it alive, morphing into something that was no longer human, but not classifiable as anything else either. The Watcher was a sacrifice. An ever-living, ever-suffering sacrifice that created a limitless blood payment in an endless ritual.

It was barbarism of legend. The darkest of the cruel ancient struggles pulled forward to exist in a modern age.

And the poor child had never been given a name. It was a Vaux, yes. But it was never meant to have a name. What it was defined it enough. No need to offer it humanity when it was never meant to be human. It was the Watcher.

Shirin felt the movement of it’s attention sweeping near her as she extended her presence. The Watcher had finally found her.  

She flicked the commlink out of Tommy’s ear, let it fall to the floor and jumped. She jumped violently, with abandon, leaping the gap as if an oncoming train was barreling down towards her. She knew she was alone, but at least she would have choices if she could subdue the Watcher.

Tommy sagged against the wall, overwhelmed by a sudden and overpowering sorrow about his mother. He had no idea where the feelings erupted from or why he was in was in Hallway A2, but he slumped downwards, feeling his eyes well and sobs developing in his chest, crawling from his diaphragm through his throat to leave him in wretched gasps.

Shirin was within. She was in the Watcher. And all she felt was overwhelming pain.

She seized. Her mind folded in on itself in the mire of the Watcher’s convulsing consciousness. It was not human. It was not even close to human. It was closer to her own form, and it was writhing around her as if she laid in a pit of snakes, unfathomable and slithering eternally.

A manifold thought washed over her, every phrase spoken at once. In unison with a single voice overlaid with itself countless times.

Shirin revolted inwardly, recoiling as if by reflex to jump back to Tommy, or anyone really, if they allowed her to escape this terror. The slithering was in her own mind, pushing and pulling, convulsing around her. She could feel the anger. The terror. The being of what the Watcher was altogether black. And this was created by man? By a father? A human did this! To his own flesh and blood! His son!

Shirin felt herself slip towards a dark maw, an energetic enfolding of shredding, rendering, all consuming consciousness. Something that had eaten other psychic beings, that pulled in other prey, to digest them and make them a part of their own flesh. The ultimate defense against the Fey, the things that preyed on the humans, here it laid in wait, an apex predator.

She was running out of time.

“STOP!” Shirin screamed. She surprised herself with her fury. It was something she had not felt for a long time. The rage coalesced around what Shirin considered herself. It parted her from the Watcher, and she cleaved as if it was a great scimitar in her hands, carving her space within the mind of the fell creature. “Get the FUCK off of me!”

The Watcher recoiled.

It paused.

And then it wept.

She heard the cry of a child. The cry of toddler, lost. Wandering for decades, wondering why they were abandoned. Wondering why they were in a prison, yet able to see everything. Wondering why they were in tormenting pain, but never free from it. Wondering why they were forsaken, when all the other things they observed were not.

Shirin was Fallen.

She had fought in celestial kingdoms. She had waged war in the darkest folds of space and time. She had taken impossible risks and leapt from realms and loved in and been loved in ways that most human minds will never comprehend and she had touched the hands of the Creator and she had rebuked Him and she had felt terror that would make any thing that deigned to live afraid to enter the sunlight in fear of being smote.

And.

And… but.

But she had been an Angel first.

Shirin was an Angel still and this was a broken child needing to be loved. Shirin did exactly that. She rushed in and gathered him in her arms. She folded her hundreds of hands around him and murmured into his hair, she pulled him into a version of what he should have been, a child, with brown shaggy hair and blue eyes and bright laughter at the antics of the ducks snapping at bread in the pond. She pulled his identity to what he could have been if he had been given the chance. As she did this, she pulled at the threads of his body, freeing them from the webs of energy which encased him on all sides.

She knew she would hold him as he died. She had no name to give him. But she tried anyway.

“For this moment, little one, you are loved. For this moment, you are free. For this moment, my little Vaux, you are safe and sound and I have you. Sleep. No pain. No terror. Just blessed sleep, that I rock you in, my little one. You are loved. For this moment, I love you more than anything than I have ever loved.” Shirin whispered.

The Watcher passed. She felt his spirit depart with a sudden tug from all of her hands. Shirin had not tried to talk to the Creator since she had been thrown to the energies of the cosmos. But now, with tears she felt being cried in a form that she could not comprehend, she tried anyway.

“My God, Allah, oh my Father, El Shaddai, I pray you hear your child of the Fallen diaspora. Hear my prayer, my Creator in Heaven, take this child and care for him, hold him and love him. I pray this on your Name.”

The Watcher’s corpse shrunk and Shirin knew that soon the vortex of webbed energies would consume it, causing the ritual to collapse, and the cornerstone to the Met’s anti-magic security program would be gone forever. It was a shame that it had survived a hundred and fifty years. Shirin hoped that in wherever hell Calvert Vaux was currently burning, hopefully the fires would only get more intense. She slowly returned to Tommy, exactly where she had left him, a sad boy in the form of a young man, spinning in an uncaring universe while facing impossible choices.

Tommy sat alone, sniffing morosely, wiping at his nose with one hand as he flicked through the email from his mother with the other. Shirin took gentle control of him, mindful not to disrupt his fragile state of mind further. She suffused him like a wave of gentle summer sunlight, warming him through and through. She wrapped her hands around his psyche, cradling it as she had the Vaux boy, and she pulled him backwards to the safety of the dark.

‘Lots of broken children today,’ Shirin sighed inwardly. She stood, surveying the floor, and finally located the commlink. She picked it up and shoved it unceremoniously into Tommy’s ear.

She could hear Al talking to someone. Sounded like small talk… asking about a missing vamp in the monitoring office.

Shit. Shirin was behind schedule.

She turned back to the security office and walked as fast as she could without breaking into a full on sprint. She slapped the card against the reader, pushed the door open, and was relieved to still find only the lone Mickey at her station.

“FUCKING HELL.” Al announced over the comm.

“You burn them?” Liz was nearly ecstatic.  “Was it spectacular?“

“I did not,” Al sneered back. “Eating one was worse enough. Cutting the feeds in three, two, and one…”

Shirin walked over to the board where Milos had told her to look. Sure enough the remote feed line for the Security NOC, noted with a small green light flicked over to amber.

Shirin spoke quietly, “I see the comm line offline. It’s disconnected. I am shutting down this end.”

She patted Tommy’s pocket and found a pocket knife. She flicked it open and deftly sliced all the network cables coming in to the monitoring desk. Mickey continued to listen to whatever was blasting over her airpods, unaware of the sabotage taking place directly behind her. Shirin pulled the cover off the PC under the desk and popped the CPU and heatsink upwards, bent a few of the pins with the edge of the knife, put it back together, and left the machine unpowered. Replacing network cables was an easy fix. Replacing a machine with bad hardware was quite another. That should keep them busy for a day or two.

Put an obvious problem in front of everyone and the other problems would be take even longer to discover.

Shirin was comforted that even as the world got stranger and more advanced, it was just as strange and backwards as it had been thousands of years ago. The more it all changed, the more it all stayed the same.

That was a comforting thought.

Bhargavian was under bond, an oath that would expire two hundred years after it was pledged. It was not a terrible deal, as it had kept him out of trouble, out of mind, and most importantly, out of sight of the greater powers that wandered the upper eastern seaboard of the United States. There was a time that a monster like him was both a target for the humans and for those that wished to reduce competition in the food chain. Monsters are monsters to other monsters. Not just humans.

Bhargavian was a class of vampire known as an Anchorite. Anchorites were vampires semi-petrified due to sun exposure. Not every vampire makes it back to ground before the sun comes up, and not every vampire is completely eradicated in the crucible of immolating ultraviolet radiation. Some are immobilized. Some get stuck. Some get drunk or high because of a victim that was drunk or high, and in their stupor, they get barbequed.

Bhargavian had picked the wrong victim that night in 1968, although he remembered it fondly. The young man must have had a master class of drug chemistry interactions running rampant through his bloodstream. Two things had happened that night. The shaggy haired young man in the flowered shirt and linen pants had died in bliss, and Bhargavian had met the One True God In All His Glory, Praise Be, Hal-le-lu-iah!

Unfortunately, when he awoke, Bhargavian discovered that his lower half had been reduced to charcoal due to a door that had not been closed during his stupor. Vampires regenerated of course, but it was not like the movies. It was not a rapid regrowth like a lizard sporting a new tail, or a sea creature regaining a limb on the next molting… oh no, it was more like a normal human wound. Cut a finger on a man, it takes weeks to heal. Cut off a limb off a vampire, it takes decades.

So when you cut off your entire bottom half?

By Bhargavian’s estimate he still had a hundred or so more years to go before he could use his legs again. Thankfully the sun had spared his dick. Small blessings, right? But when he had pushed away from the charcoal representation of his former lower half, two things happened. First, his legs detached and crumbled to black resinous piles of ash. Second, he realized he was utterly and wholly fucked. There was no way he would survive without mobility.

What was he going to do? Chase victims from a wheelchair? Hunt from the eaves like some vampiric hunchback of Notre Dame? A legless gargoyle that would be the North American version of a drop bear? Just falling out of trees on top of unsuspecting victims? It was a recipe for self destruction, and that is all that it was. Bhargavian knew the drill.

He immediately called the Family. He put in an oath and he was bonded. But he survived. Just another cog in the great machine of Vampiredom. A bureaucrat that signed his line on the papers, did the little ka-chunk of the stamp, and pushed the paperwork on to the next station in the great machine of beauacracy. Bhargavian did his job, slept in his cubicle, and was given his ration every day at the exact same time by the exact same bondsman that served him the same exact thing every day.

“Barge.” A deft nod from the other bondsman as he pulled the thermos from the cart and set it within Bhargavian’s reach.

“Clint.” Bhargavian replied with his own nod in return, taking the thermos and stroking the side of it like it was his favorite child. A delicious, nourishing, child.

“Hard day?” Clint said.

“Not particularly. Same old, same old.” Bhargavian shrugged.

Clint snorted and moved on to continue his deliveries.

Bhargavian paused and looked at Clint’s back as he moved onwards with his cart deliveries to the rest of the department. He thought it was odd that Clint hadn’t said his customary, ‘Keep on keepin’ on‘ slogan that he used every other day.

Peculiar.

Clint had been delivering Bhargavian’s ration for what? Twenty years? Twenty-five? And he always had said the same thing, every day. The exact same time by the exact same bondsman that served his own function in the company, and by extension, the Family, every day the exact same way. And today he just forgot? Bhargavian felt the compulsion to start counting the tiles in the drop ceiling, even though he knew there were 84.25 tiles in the space above him, and he knew that there were exactly 86,296 perforations in said tiles. But the impulse clawed its way up his neck anyway.

He had to ask. He had to correct the pattern. Bhargavian spoke up with a mild sense of panic, “Clint!? Keep on, keepin’ on!?”

Clint glanced back over his shoulder and gave his customary lopsided grin, “I knew you would notice… Keep on, keepin’ on, Barge.”

Bhargavian grinned in reply and opened his ration cautiously, concluding it was just an odd day after all. Clint must have spaced it… but at least Bhargavian wasn’t compelled to count the ceiling perforations again. Exceptionally tedious.

Clint, whom was really Al, turned back around and continued with the deliveries, trying his hardest not to shit himself. Al had doppeled the young vampire Clint, because the younger ones were easier. Their minds were closer to a human’s own, as the virus had not had a chance to completely warp and distort their brain patterns. Old vampires were another species altogether by the time the virus had completed its full work. Physiology, psychology, and all the resulting patterns of behavior were altered significantly by the thing that made vampires, well, vampires. Clint had been young enough that he only had the beginning phases, the small changes, and yet, even with that, Al had had a hard time reading the mind, pulling apart the information, and interpreting the results. Things had slipped through the cracks.

Like routines. Keep on, keepin’ on? Sheesh.

Al knew what he had to do to Clint’s job, but the interactions with the staff in the office were all completely fuzzy, like viewing interactions through a layer of reflective water on a sunny day. Bits and pieces popped out well, others were lost in the haze and wash of refraction and reflection. And Clint would not be able to be reconsulted, as his remains were scheduled for immolation as soon as the sun came up. Doppeling was never a clean process and Al hated the all consuming manic hunger that accompanied it. Eating brains was the realm of zombie movies, not the passion project of a true artist.

But Al did what he had to do. He had absorbed Clint. He had consumed him, and through the act, became Clint. It was like puppetry in a way. Fatal and irreversible puppetry. Al kept his face still, let the memory of Clint drive Clint as he continued in his job. Al peeked back at the one he had called Barge, and the old Anchorite was going to town on this small thermos, sucking greedily at the straw, and paying no mind to Al/Clint as he continued on.

‘What a close call!‘ Al thought to himself.

The old ones were dangerous. Even when they were immobile. Al/Clint turned the cart down the next hallway and figured he had at least ten more deliveries before he could find a way into the Network Operations Center, aka the NOC, of the security company that provided remote monitoring and operations for the Met. At least 90% of the staff were Anchorites. Which was both good and bad.

Anchorites don’t move much. They are confined to their spaces. They don’t get up to go the bathroom. They don’t need to go on vacations. They don’t need smoke breaks. All they need is the tools to do their job, and a steady supply of blood to keep them well enough to function. Maybe just a bit more to get what they need in order to heal and not be Anchorites any longer, but not too quickly. Don’t want to exhaust the labor pool unnecessarily. Humans may have invented value extraction, but it was the vampires which had perfected it.

One should expect that to happen with the OCD and the arithmomania that came along with the bloodlust and immortality. Numbers, and deep viral compulsions about those numbers, would obviously lead to epic MBA-level outcomes. If vampires would contribute to the Harvard Business Review (which the don’t, for a number of reasons), the world of man would immediately collapse to a singularity of efficiency that would be so powerful, humanity would go extinct due to efficiency gains.

Al shook his head at the silliness in the world. It was a constant marvel.

Getting to the NOC was easy. Clint’s keycard was the highest level of permission, because every staff member needed to be fed and it was Clint’s job to feed them. However, shutting the NOC down was a trick. Al/Clint had to get the tainted blood into every vampire’s hand, get them to drink, and hopefully have all of them collapse at about the same time.

Ideally, that is what would happen. But Al knew it wasn’t an ideal world. He had lived long enough to know that was one of the few certainties of existence. Some things were obvious… Death, taxes, and shit typically went sideways when given the opportunity.

Murphy’s law was a law because Murphy himself was probably an Elder God. He had to be there at the beginning, crufting it up for everything that came after. Murphy had to be the first. Al/Clint smiled morosely as he pushed the food cart towards the NOC. He had some other choices to think through.

He could distribute the meals, wait patiently, let the neckbiter’s hunger take the course and count on the OCD alignment to repeated behaviors for the them all to go down. Clint’s memory was fuzzy here, but it seemed like that was the obvious option, and mostly likely.

Al/Clint did have an option on his person if that plan didn’t work out. It would absolutely piss the Family off, but Liz had provided him a little vial that he could throw at the ceiling if he had no other choice. Sun of the Dragon, a distilled concoction made of pure dragon fire, was flagged as a highly illegal substance in the Accords, because it was so immensely powerful to anything even remotely sun-averse. Imagine a light bulb bright enough to blind God and it put out nothing but UV light… it would give Al a really bad sunburn, but for those vampires unable to move, it would turn them into true anchors. Statues of their former selves, sitting at their desks, in their last moments wondering why the room had suddenly gotten so bright as the UV flashed into their minds right after the thought had.

The flash would last for five seconds? Enough fuel to pour on the fire of immolation for everything nominally alive in the NOC. Then Al would shut down the systems, kill the feeds, set the charge to blow after two minutes and then get the hell out of the building.

“How are you doing Al?” His ear buzzed faintly.

“Dammit Milos, you are going to give me a heart attack.” Al whispered under his breath.

“Oh you sound different. Young one, huh?” Milos teased.

“Shut up, almost there. Give me five more minutes.”

“10-4.”

“You sound like an absolute idiot, Milos.” Liz barked over the channel, barely containing her laughter.

Thankfully the chatter ceased. Al/Clint reached the NOC and slid his badge over the wall reader, waited for the scramble lock to pop up, entered the pin from Clint’s memory, and crossed his fingers. After an eternity, the door finally buzzed and the lock light went green. Al sighed lightly as he pulled open the door and wheeled the cart into the room.

“Clint!” A vampire near the door called out excitedly.

“Hey Faust. How’s it hanging?” Al/Clint replied, he remembered this one.

“It’s not!” Faust laughed. His torso was gone below the ribs, and his spinal cord was fleshy and pink, jutting through his little customized chair with a pink hemorrhoid pillow.

Clint’s memory said something about a car accident… that was fuzzy though, and Al was not going to ask. He handed over the tainted thermos and continued through the rows, handing seven more out.

However, one of the anchorites was missing. Tag? Dag? Tag! That was it. Al thanked Clint internally. “Where is Tag?”

Faust looked up from his screen. “Tag was released yesterday. Sorry, I guess the paperwork didn’t make it to you.”

“He got through his bond? I had no idea.” Al/Clint replied.

“Yeah, lucky bastard. The new guy is barely a vampire. I think he is what… Darcy? How old is the new kid?”

The vampire Darcy looked up from her wheelchair. “Brendan? Not even five years. Had a bad experience at Burning Man a few years ago. Young ones never think the desert is the worst place for a vampire to be. Can’t dig the hardpan very easy.”

Faust laughed. “Idiot. Live and learn, I guess.”

“Where is Brendan?” Al asked carefully. His nerves were starting to pick up, but he covered it by looking very carefully at the coffee cup of pencils on Faust’s desk. He started counting them with his finger tip.

“Oh, sorry Clint. Yeah, calm down. There are 27 pencils in there. 27. Brendan ran a file to the other office, he is mobile enough to run errands for us. Still has most of his legs, and his prosthetics are state of the art. Both an unlucky and yet, a lucky, idiot. I would love to be able to walk. Literally… anywhere.”

Darcy snorted. “You and me both.”

Al/Clint made a mental note of everyone that had opened their ration. The vampires that he passed on his route would already be passed out. It was like a wave of drug induced stupor… Al/Clint just surfed the wave of drug tainted blood all the way to the prize.

Faust had not taken a drink yet. Two minutes. That was the gap. Darcy and the others would start to lean forward or backward, their tongues lolling past sharp teeth, heads bouncing against their shoulders. Faust would hit the alarm and the heist would be over before it could even start.

Al/Clint fingered the vial in his pocket and tried to keep the conversation with Faust going. “So should I leave the new guy’s ration with you?”

“Oh, of course not. I will drink it. Guilty as charged. Put it on his desk.” Faust waved, returning to his monitors, watching the Met like the unsleeping hawk he was. One of many. Eight to be exact. Damn arithmomania. Al/Clint put the last thermos on the empty desk and turned back to his cart, miming the action to continue back on his route.

Faust had yet to open his ration. One minute. Al’s panic went up ten notches. Less than 60 seconds.

Al pulled the vial from his pocket fingering it cautiously, running his finger tip along its slick surface. The black glass was like volcanic obsidian, but it felt like he was holding the sun in his hand made of fragile gossamer. One flick of his wrist and everything in this room was going to be charcoal. Al eyed the desk he would attempt to dive behind.

Thirty seconds.

Faust burped. Al/Clint whipped his head to discover Faust had hammered his ration in mere seconds. ‘Oh thank the Old Ones‘, Al lamented internally.

Darcy’s head dipped, and then the next one dipped, and the next. Faust looked confused at first, but then his eyes unfocused and his head rolled backwards with the others.

“FUCKING HELL.” Al whispered heavily into his comm.

“You burn them?” Liz asked with a hint of glee. “Was it spectacular?”

“I did not.” Al replied with a disgusted tone. “Eating one was worse enough. Cutting the feeds in three, two, and one…”

Shirin spoke up. “I see the comm line offline. It’s disconnected. I am shutting down this end.”

Al watched the board, and sure enough, the large dashboard on the big screen started throwing errors. Al went back to the cart, pulled the small explosive packages from underneath, and walked to the door at the front of the NOC. He badged the door, hit the scramble lock there with Clint’s PIN code, and pushed the door open to the server room. A wave of ice cold air hit him in the face along with the omnipresent hum of many racks of servers doing their seemingly omniscient blinking.

Again, irony struck him that the human world had created magic without realizing it. Making rocks think with lightning. The humans call it science. Let’s be honest, it was dark magic. Some Gods would be envious.

He placed a package on top of each server rack. The thermite would burn consecutively through each server until it reached the floor and melted through into the subfloor concrete. The racks would collapse downwards as they went. That part would be spectacular.

Thankfully, Al would miss all of it. He hit the timers, started to close the door behind him, and turned to find the Burning Man newbie staring over the room with wide bloodshot eyes.

“What happened? Are they o-o-o-k?” The young vampire that must have been Brendan stammered loudly. “I have to hit the button right? The red one? Is that it? Who are you? This big red button right!?”

“Shit.” Clint/Al replied. He pulled the vial from his pocket and chucked it at the wall behind the young one, diving backwards into the server room, landing on the raised floor roughly.

The flash from the shattering vial of Sun of the Dragon nearly burned his eyes out from behind his clenched eyelids, and that was with the door nearly closed, a mere crack allowing the blast to flash into the server room. Al gave it a good five count and stepped out cautiously to find every single vampire in the room a smoking pile of ash.

“FUCK-ING HELL.” Al repeated into his comm, this time with significant marked emphasis.

“NOW YOU BURN THEM?,” Liz picked up on it immediately. “I will ask again, was it spectacular?”

“My eyeballs hurt.” Al grumbled. “Charges are set and I am getting the fuck out of here.”

He pushed the cart back into the hall, closing the NOC door behind him. He noticed that his doppel had slipped to reveal his black on black right hand in its natural state. He used it to his advantage, pulling the scramble lock and the reader free from the metal reinforcements, and shattering them in one squeeze. He pushed his hand under the lip of the cart and headed back the way he came.

All the vampires were sleeping. It was like a daycare for vampires. Naptime. It was kind of cute if you ignored the fact they all had reddish brown stains around their lips and overly long tongues hanging past sharp teeth.

The first explosion was like a heavy cough overheard on a subway platform. The second, third, and fourth were successive, and each was a bit louder than the previous. At least the packages worked as expected even if the vampires in the NOC hadn’t. Al touched the side of his face, realizing it was starting to blister.

“Son of a bitch,” Al muttered angrily.

“I knew it was going to be spectacular.” Liz laughed, her voice tinny and far away.