I sighed as I rubbed my temples, moving my jeweller’s loop off of my eye as I looked down towards the watch in front of me, making sure all of the stones I had set into the settings around the clockface that I hand-carved from a piece of quartz and hand-sculpted the gold numerals around the edges of the face.
“Something wrong, Mister Brown?” one of my employee’s asked
“It’s just…not been able to sleep well the past few days” I said
“Well, you do live upstairs.” She said as she bounded over the counter and sat on the wall lining desk where I was sitting at with all of the clockwork, I was either making or repairing. I sighed and laughed a little.
“Christina, you know that I am not bothered by the sound of all of this” I said, she shrugged. Christina has been my employee sense day one of opening the Bronze Peacock, I didn’t pick the name, it was the name of a winery that used this warehouse back in the 1700s and lasted till about two-three decades before I took up shop in this place, I just felt like…I should honour the history of the building and keep the name. Christina is one of the few species of magical folk known for their innate magic and abilities over technology, she’s a gremlin: she is extremely short, maybe a metre tall or so, she usually lives in her full form and not using magic to make herself look a normal human height, she’s quite pale, but her skin fades to burnt orange over her limbs, the sides of her neck, her pointed bat like ears and the contours of her face, short swept back black hair, ears and face fill of piercings, sharp needle like teeth and long, sharp black claws and piercing black eyes. Dressed in a flannel, black ripped jeans, boots and a vest-top patterned with airplanes.
“Still, you never know when all of the bells finally start hurting you” she said before softly flicking me in the forehead making me softly shake my head as she laughed and just grabbed the edge of one of the swinging pendulums and was pulled and swept across the shop’s floor. I sighed as I grabbed my phone as I walked to the back of the shop before out the back door into the back alleyway as I lit a cigarette with a spot of hellfire. I sighed as I leaned on the backwall as I looked up towards the sky.
“Why the fuck did I have to be next?” I asked myself as I pinched the bridge of my nose with my other hand. “First Kal, then Vivi…then fucking Vlad of all people…now me, why…why the fuck me?” I asked, it’s not that I don’t mind having a Bond or anything like that, I like dating and it’s been a while sense I’ve had a boyfriend or girlfriend or significant other. It’s just…I also like my sleep and the nightmares I’ve been having the past few days have been making me get maybe four-five hours of sleep a night and I’ve already had to buy another bag of coffee, plus I’ve also had to buy another carton of cigarettes because of the stress of no sleep making me want to smoke more.
It also doesn’t help that yesterday I felt this bolt of pure electricity rock through my back as my magic over Towerblock told me that the person who is my Bond just stepped into the city, I don’t know who they are, what they could be or anything of that sort. All I know is that my magic told me that they were in Towerblock. A few hours ago…the bolt of electricity hit my back again and as time has progressed, I’ve felt this weird feeling of like a constant lighting strike moving about the city as they seemed to be…exploring the city before the burning hot feeling of the lightning got closer and closer to me making me grip the wall hard making my talons sink into the brick to my fingertips. I took my phone out as I flicked through contacts before I called Kal.
“Hey, Princy.” Kal’s thickly Hungarian accent voice answered
“Please, do not call me that” I sighed at the nickname, I hate being called Princy or something along those lines.
“How can I assist you?” he asked
“Did…did you get nightmares…before you met Anthony?”
“I did” he said, “They never showed me him or anything, all I saw was this hazy shape in his magic, nothing else…and you know Anthony had a horrible situation of Eros making him constantly have nightmares of drowning to make him afraid of the ocean and water to try to make him afraid of me. Are you having nightmares?”
“I am”
“How long?”
“Two days maybe.”
“From what I recall with Zavi and Vlad, Zavi had nightmares for three days before they saw Kain the first time and Vlad had nightmares for upwards of a week, but…we both know what Vlad was doing to himself to keep the Bond at bay.”
“Yeah, now look at those two.”
“Well, Vlad and Aden are happy with themselves and how they are. Zavi graduated Paradise last January and for the past year has working at one of Jewel’s restaurants overseas to start accruing the money they’ll need for when Kain is done with school so they can open up their dream teahouse and bookstore.” He explained
“How are you and Anthony?”
“Same old, same old…though to be honest, we are looking at moving out of the penthouse”
“Really? You’ve lived there sense like the twenties.”
“My “family line” has lived here sense the twenties.” He said making me laugh at the inflection he used, “Anyways, I own some…well, I own a good chunk of land just outside the city, we love being here, but…Manhattan is quite hectic and loud, so…we just want to get somewhere a little quieter, even the charms are having trouble with the sound. And even with that, we’re not selling the penthouse, it’ll just be a weekend home out of the city or something.”
“You are one of the few of us who got a handle of that whole…taking out life insurance policies on yourself and faking your death and claiming to be a child or relative of yourself to collect all the money.”
“I’m not proud of myself, but it was the great depression and I had to do what I had to do” he said with a laugh, “Back to the point though, you think you’re having Bond-mares?”
“Bond-mares?”
“Just made up the term, kind of like it.”
“Makes sense…and yes, I do. Yesterday, I’m guessing they stepped into Towerblock the first time because it felt like I got struck by lightning which because of you I know what that feels like.”
“It was an accident.” He said with a laugh, I sighed as I rolled my eyes
“I know, I just like picking fun at you, it’s one of the few ways I can that’s not your age.”
“Well, I was also in my actual form and huge chunk of kelp got up my nose.” He said making me laugh
“And I happened to be in the radius of lightning.”
“At least you weren’t in the line of fire for my sneeze.”
“Very true.”
“Still, felt them enter Towerblock?”
“Yeah…and they came back today…and I feel them getting close.”
“How close?”
I closed my eyes as I focused on the Bond, “Maybe a few miles away?”
“I’m guessing that they are feeling something pulling them close to you or something along those lines…just prepare yourself and…please, do not pull a Vlad.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“True, you are the one who hates the idea of getting sick.”
“Yeah and knowing that resisting this will make me vomit magic terrifies me…my magic is metal.”
“How do you think Zavi would feel…their magic looks like mercury”
“Touché”
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