Aach! Aach!
Lachlan turned towards the direction of the squeaking call, and saw through the glare of the glass building across the street, a brilliant blue Marabou stork circling overhead. With its unique sound, the bird was beginning to draw attention, so he moved in between the coffee shop behind him and the pet emporium next door before putting two fingers into his mouth and blowing. The whistling sound he produced was ultrasonic in frequency, and soon after the stork dove into the alley with him, folding its wings and landing right in front of him, bowing its head.
He ruffled the feathers on its head. “Good boy. Enjoy your break?”
The stork spread its wings a little and let out a loud cry of happiness.
“That’s what I thought. Did you see her?”
It cried again, and turned to point its beak at the pet emporium.
“That way? Good job. You can go back whenever you like.” He opened a small foil packet, and tossed some dried fish to the birds. It tossed them with its beak, and swallowed, flapping happily. “There you go. This is the good stuff they make at the markets down here. What do you think? Should I get some for the others?”
The phone in his pocket buzzed, and Lachlan switched the screen on.
Almost there. Where are you?
“Stay put,” he said to the bird, heading out of the alley and looking towards the corner of the intersection westwards, where Onari was standing, looking around. He waved, and she spotted him right away.
Onari looked both ways before jogging across the road, the large duffel bag on her back swaying back and forth as she reached him. “We got an out?”
“Naturally.” He nodded at the bag. “It’s in there.”
“I didn’t bring the entire body. If anyone checked they’d know it was missing from the locker.”
“Show me.”
“Not out in the open like this. I’m in enough trouble doing this as it is.”
“At the bar then.”
“We’re going to bring this to a bloody bar?”
“A specific bar. Come on.” He whistled again, this time audibly, and the stork took off down towards the other side of the alley. Lachlan headed the same way, making a beeline across the smaller street on that side and knocking on a door across the street with a slot in it.
It slid open, revealing a pair of bright yellow slitted eyes. “Password,” the man on the other side growled.
“Fuck you O’Malley, you can see it’s me.”
The door unlatched, and swung open to reveal a short and pudgy goblin man, his skin barely having any hint of green pigment in his skin. Though technically part Fae, it was likely so diluted he was more human than anything.
Lachlan stepped past him. “She’s with me, so don’t ogle. I don’t pay you to.”
Onari muttered a half-hearted apology as she filtered down the steps in the building as well, moving into the basement with him. “Since when do you have safehouses?”
“Overstatement. I don’t like having to trek five kilometres into every urban hub in the UHE from a cairn or a fort in the forest.” He flicked some light switches, and the old bulbs overhead flickered to life to illuminate a large pile of stones carved with some faded Gaelic nobody spoke anymore just sitting in the middle of an otherwise spacious basement. “Ready?”
“No need for any preparations or anything?”
“So long as you’re with me, no.”
She took a deep breath.
Lachlan snapped his fingers, and the space where the cairn was folded in on itself, creating the corridor of infinite images once more. “After you.”
Onari took a few steps forwards, and as she approached the portal, vanished.
Lachlan followed after her, expertly maintaining his balance in the tunnel of everything there ever was, and casually stepped back out in front of another cairn, this one buried in the very snow that was blowing towards them on a gale. Onari was nowhere to be seen, but then the ground shifted, and she was pulling herself out of the knee-high snow she had fallen into, holding her head.
“Fuck…what the hell was that?”
“Have they told you at D5 that some things are safer if you don’t think about them?”
“I think?”
“Same rules apply here. Better to not focus on any of those images if you’re not at least part Fae.” He pushed through the snow, away from the edge of a chain-link fence that the cairn was situated against, and towards a low building in the distance. Through the blizzard, they could only glimpse its slanted roofs, the warm amber light leaking out from between the curtains on the inside, and something rather very large and orange that seemed to be curled around the building, the snow easily slipping off it.
Onari stopped walking for a moment, before realising what it was. “Is that a giant fox’s tail?”
“Don’t think too much about it!” He stepped out of the pile of snow and into the little heated area before the front door of the building, where the snow had all melted into throughs along the wall. He tried the doorknob, and it swung open easily. Up above, a small painted said read:
The Foxhole.
Soft jazz flowed out from inside the building, and Lachlan let out a breath of relief as he pulled his coat off, and tossed it to one of the chairs close to the bar. “Anyone home!?” he called.
Onari stepped in as well, shuddering from the cold, and shut the door behind them. “Why do I smell cinnamon?”
In a grey blur, a grey, fluffy cat that was the size of a large child mantled up onto the end of the bar counter, purring softly at them. “I’m coming!” someone said, and a door in the back opened. A man with long, unkempt hair that went past his shoulders, a growing beard and moustache, and brimmed white hat came walking out, putting on his apron. “What can I get for-” His eyes met Lachlan’s and then Onari’s, and his face fell. “Dude, you know we’re closed today right?”
“There’s an urgent matter, Lucas. I need the services of a phosphoromancer. Material analysis, so your exact field of specialisation.”
“Lovelace does it better.”
“And where is the good professor at this time?”
“Up in the mountains, with the eagle handling guy. They’re trying to survey the weird lights in the sky.”
“You’re not talking about comets, are you?”
“No, just auroras. They’re very unnaturally pink.”
“Guess I’m stuck with you then.”
“Do you want a drink or not?”
“I could use one,” Onari piped up, stepping up to the bar. “Long time no see.”
“Likewise,” Lucas said. “Before you say anything, how about we don’t talk about the Divisions? It puts me in a bad mood.”
The large cat purred.
“See, even Butler agrees. I’m not getting involved with that anymore. I have this land where they can’t do anything to me, and I’m just gonna live out the rest of my days here.”
“This isn’t UHE business,” Lachlan said, sliding a small pouch over the counter. “I’ll get your strongest vodka. My nerves have adapted to the last one.”
“Good choice. And for you, doctor?”
Onari shrugged. “Can you make a purple margarita?”
“I can do a red one that turns purple as you drink it.”
“Even better.”
Lucas poured Lachlan a shot and set it in front of him. “If you need me to analyse something it’s got to be strange.”
“Show him.” Lachlan nudged Onari.
She took the duffel bag from the floor and placed it on the counter, before unzipping it and removing two large glass jars full of off-yellow fluid. Inside each was an insectoid limb, folded up, but clearly would be longer than any human limb if fully unfurled.
Lucas made a face as he shook her margarita. “That’s gotta be one big fucking bug.”
“Doesn’t matter where it’s from.” Lachlan began writing on one of the bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. Numbers and constants and ranges. “I just need to know if its properties are within a reasonable domain. These domains.”
“We know it’s otherworldly,” Onari added, moving her phone with the photograph of the dead woman from Logan lab over to Lucas.
He winced as he caught sight of it. “Urgh. What a rotten way to fucking go, huh?” He tumbled some purple ice cubes into a glass rimmed with salt, and filled it with a bright red margarita, setting it in front of Onari. “Here you go.”
“On his tab.” She nodded at Lachlan.
Lucas pulled off his gloves and binned them. “Raya!” he shouted into the back of the shop. “Can you take over for a moment? I need to do some material scans!” He scooped up the jars and Lachlan’s napkin.
“Yeah okay!” came a half-shouty, half-drowsy voice. A woman with dark brown hair and fox ears that seemed to have white fluffy fur at their tops can shuffling out, in her pyjamas and pink bunny slippers, rubbing her eyes.
Lucas gave her a peck on the cheek and went into the back.
She squinted at Onari. “Is that…”
“Hey,” She said softly. “How are you holding up?”
She yawned. “Good enough. I never get asleep babysitting all of these cats. Have you said hi to Daedalus yet?”
“Who?”
Raya pointed behind them, at the ceiling.
Lachlan turned around in his stool, to see the largest fan in the room was turning slowly, and on one of the blades was a calico kitty, purring softly as it rotated past them repeatedly. He waved awkwardly. “That one’s new.”
Unsure of what to do, Onari found herself also waving.
“She just got medically cleared by the Archamages. Half a dozen more on the way, from what I heard,” Raya said.
“Are they really all Parabel’s?” Onari asked.
Raya sighed. “Yeah.” She scratched Butler on the head. “Lucas raised this one like his own child so he jumped at the opportunity. It’s not that hard, really, since they’re all yokai.”
“I have a bunch of messenger birds the same way,” Lachlan said. “Intelligent enough to take care of themselves most of the time.”
“Not Daedalus. She’s scared of heights and cursed with unreliable levitation. Butler has to feed the poor girl every day.”
“Aww.” Onari looked up at the cat on the fan, but her attention was shifted to the door to another room in the side of the pub flying open, and a very drunk woman with auburn hair stumbling out. She moaned, and against all odds, made her way over to one of the tables, setting herself down with a half empty bottle of rum.
The two of them recognised her immediately.
“Oh. What a pleasant surprise, Miss Urquhart,” Lachlan said. He took his shot of vodka, not even feeling it, and walked over. “You’re an oddly difficult person to find.”
She flipped him the middle finger. “Piss off.”
“You don’t seem to be in such a good place.”
Catriona Urquhart scowled at him through her messy hair. “Really? What the fuck gave you that bright idea?”
“I really thought you’d try harder to kill me after the whole wedding thing.”
She laughed mockingly, and sat back in her chair. “Who cares? What’s the fucking point? I destroyed everything.”
“In particular your liver.”
“None of your business, cunt. They don’t want me anymore on my homeworld. Might as well just die here.”
“Your prerogative.” He strode back to his seat and dropped his voice. “I know this wasn’t part of the deal, but…checkup?”
Onari looked at him, and then at Raya. “Yeah, okay. But not this week. Call me if it gets worse or something.”
Raya shook her head. “She can’t stop blaming herself. I’d call Cardinal but I don't think she’d like that.”
“Me neither. What happened?” Lachlan asked.
“I don’t have the whole story, but…Isabella kind of broke up with her.”
“Damn,” Onari breathed. “Yeah I was there. Yeah, calling Cardinal would be a terrible idea. He was the one who…”
Lachlan and Raya both stared at her.
“I think I’ll let her tell the story when she’s ready.” Onari took a sip of her margarita.
“I can respect that,” Raya said. “Lachlan doesn’t look so good.”
“It’s been a long day,” he said nonchalantly. “Almost got impaled once. Also got impaled once successfully.”
“Maybe I’ll ask about that some time when you’re not in a hurry.”
Lucas emerged out from the back, holding both jars. “Okay, they’re good for your specs. Very minor gravitational lensing around them. I know these numbers are for manufacturing something to do with time magic. What the hell for?”
“He’s trying to save his girlfriend,” Onari said before Lachlan could even open his mouth.
Raya’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t know you had someone!”
Lachlan rolled his eyes. “Finish your drink, Karina.”
“Her name’s Chloe,” Onari added, downing what was left in her glass.
He scowled.
Lucas smiled. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Just introduce her when you’re ready, man. Maybe when we have more yokai cats. She might like some of them.” He gasped, staring off into nothing. “Oh my god. Yokai…Yokats…”
“Ignore him.” Raya took their empty glasses. “Best of luck to both of you, yeah? Though not a teamup I ever expected.”
“We’ll swing by next week.” Lachlan put his coat back on. “This means a lot, guys. Thanks.”
“Anything for a friend.” Raya smiled, her fluffy white tail swinging behind her. That was an awful lot of fox-people he was running into recently. Maybe even a suspicious number. “Safe travels.”
Lachlan nodded at her.
Onari said her goodbyes, grabbed the jars and the bag, and put a hand on a passed out Catriona’s shoulder before heading to the door. “That’s the last thing we need, right?”
“Yes.” Lachlan took a deep breath just outside the door. The snowstorm wasn’t letting up just yet. “Are you nervous?”
“Clearly not as much as you are if you’re asking that.” She rubbed her arms for warmth, in anticipation of the trek back through the snow.
“Heh. You’re probably right.”
They headed back towards the cairn.
Comments (5)
See all