DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Dragonbane
HTML https://dragonsbane.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Creative Corner
*****************************************************
#Post#: 169--------------------------------------------------
Black Ties: Part 7
DIR By: Gallowtree
Date: September 27, 2020, 7:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 7
I took my time, standing under a hot shower for a while until
the aches from the evenings festivities died away. It was just
like after a fight; I hardly felt the bump on my head now. My
hair hung in front of my eyes – it was getting long. I kind of
stopped giving a damn about it after I quit fighting. I mean,
how often is it going to matter about someone grabbing your hair
when they could eat you whole anyway? We had fought ghouls a
couple of months back, and I learned pretty quick not to get
close to them. I hate the nasty things, all tooth and claw and
dirty as hell. I was glad when we finished them off. The
beasts tonight reminded me a bit of them.
I was pretty curious about what Gage wanted. I usually didn't
get many requests to help her with her work unless it was
something serious. She was very capable, even for her age, of
amazing insights into the world of the supernatural; her
knowledge of beings from the Nevernever was very strong, and
broad. The Nevernever was a place just behind the veil of our
own, a world of dangerous beings that often cross though to
cause trouble here. Many were held back by the deals that the
Council had made, but there were more and more lately that were
willing to risk the consequences to make a grab for power on
this side. We were getting busier all the time. Influence was
the name of the game over here. Those beasts were probably
someone's idea of throwing a little chaos into the world. Some
kind of magical practical joke? A curse, maybe? There were
many creatures who could pull of that kind of transformation,
although many of them stuck to their own little pieces of the
Nevernever.
Other than that, I couldn't figure it. We were led to them by a
police report from a couple of joggers that said that they were
chased out of the park by “giant beast-headed dudes.” The fact
that we really didn't have a better description than that after
taking them on was a bit disquieting.
After toweling off, I put on some jogging clothes, a pair of
running shoes, and threw some gear into a backpack. I included
boxing gloves just in case I could squeeze in a workout. I
walked out of my room into the common area where Dante was
reading a novel of some sort. He put it down when I came in.
“Hey,” I said, walking towards the hallway.
“Howdy Max,” he said, grinning up at me, “what's shakin?”
“Just heading off for a workout,” I replied, “you?”
“Not a heck of a lot,” he said, putting his feet up on the
coffee table in front of him.
“Good book?”
“Riveting. It's a page turner.”
“Well, that's cool. Have a good night,” I said, wanting to get
on my way before I got sucked in.
“Happy trails,” he said, with that same big grin.
I frowned a little, but kept a straight face while I left the
room and entered the hallway. Dante hadn't been that happy
since his little mishap with black magic. He had moped around
the place for most of the time we were at home, and kept to
himself a lot. Lately, he had changed – he was almost chipper.
I really hoped it was just a matter of him finally getting used
to the idea of living here and doing what we do. If not, then
we might have a problem.
I went downstairs into the basement, walking past the heavy
iron armoury door where one the Warden's guard dogs stood
watch...it was made of stone, and looked like a rottweiler. It
responded to commands that only the Wardens knew. I could feel
its eyes on me as I passed it, and I swear I could hear a slight
grinding as it's eyes moved to follow me; it always gave me the
creeps. I'd never seen one in action, but I imagined it would
be like fighting a wrecking ball. Yikes. I made my way down to
the next door, which led to the lab slash blast room, and went
inside.
The lab was pretty neat, laid out across one huge oak table
that was lit by a pool table light that hung a few feet above
it. Several books were open, and two glass beakers full of
viscous green fluid stood a few feet away on the table. A
slight smell of sweat and ...something flowery pervaded the air.
Gage stood not too far away, dressed in a blue robe, her feet
bare on the concrete floor. She was standing close to the iron
containment rings we had put in the floor for work like this –
it made it a hell of a lot easier to contain dangerous beings
for, well, interrogation purposes and observation. The beastmen
were inside the circle, the pig pacing around while the cat sat
on the floor, it's leg in a brace. Gage was making some notes
on a pad, looking the creatures over and scribbling in her
shorthand scrawl. I walked over to her, dropping my bag on the
floor near the table.
“Feeding time at the zoo?” I asked, joining Gage.
“Funny you should say that,” she replied, with a little smirk.
“What?”
“You'll see,” she said, stuffing the notebook into her robes.
“Aren't you cold?” I asked, looking down at her feet.
She looked down and laughed.
“A little,” she said, “but I find shoes, gloves, and so on too
confining when I'm working. Bra too, actually.”
“Uh,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush.
“I'm so sorry Max!” she said, her hand covering her mouth, “I
really should've skipped that glass of wine...it hits me so much
when I forget to eat. I get kind of giddy.”
“No problem,” I muttered, fighting with my brain not to use my
imagination.
“So, what's the story on these two?” I asked, desperately
wanting to change the subject.
“Ah,” she began, “well, I tried to match them up with the
bestiaries, and they don't match up with anything faerie-like,
which was my first hunch. I looked a little further into other
things that can work the transformation, and most of them are
either a real long shot because nobody's seen them in a couple
hundred years, or they rarely leave their homes on the other
side.”
“Sounds bleak,” I said.
“You'd think so, and so did I until I decided to go back to
basics.”
“How basic?”
“Well, I just opened my eyes and looked,” she replied, smiling,
“or rather, my eye.”
“Seriously,” I exclaimed, “you used your sight?”
Gage rolled her eyes and grabbed me by the arm.
“Come and look with me,” she said, pulling me closer.
“This is not a good idea,” I said, but she had already opened up
her sight, and I could see how wide her gaze had become.
A wizard has what people call a 'second sight.' People that
claim to see auras and colours have a bit of it, but luckily not
all of it. We can see emotion and spirit in a physical way; we
see representations of the true form of everything that once
seen can not be unseen. The downside of being able to see what
things really are is that some things, as they really are, can
break your brain. You'll never forget how ugly or horrible that
simple old man looks, because you didn't know when you looked at
him that he was a murderer, a child molester, or something that
manifests in a way that is equally unpleasant under the
surface. We use it sparingly – otherwise we'd go insane. I
really hoped what Gage wanted me to see was worth it. I opened
up my 'eye'.
The room changed, overlayed by electric blue lines of power
from the protection wards that ran through the facility that
flew down the walls, rippled across the floor, and marched along
the containment circle to return back onto themselves. Inside
the circle, things were really...funky. The beastmen were still
there, but they looked like black and green balloons,
transparent and covered in swirls of black and green ribbons.
Their eyes were blank, windows looking into the inside. And
inside, past the shell, were little pink forms that huddled and
whimpered. One looked like a house cat, its one ear ragged, its
eyes a mismatch, one white and one bright green. The other was
a pig, missing its right forelimb, it's flanks heavily scarred.
“What the hell?” I said, turning to her.
Gage was the same as she always was, a figure dressed in
several layers of gossamer silver robes, her head shrouded by
gold butterflies that never stopped flying in a circle around
her. I've never told her what she looks like – like a
Botticelli. Likewise, I had no idea what I looked like, and I
never asked. The first time she saw me though, she flinched a
little. I've done some things that I'm not proud of, and I
really didn't want to know what she was seeing.
“What does it look like to you?”
“Well, it looks like a pair of rejects from a petting zoo,” I
said, closing down my sight.
She blinked and frowned at me.
“What?”
“I like animals, Max,” she said, skewering me with her gaze.
“Uh, sorry,” I said, “I didn't have pets...orphan, remember?”
“Okay, but you know what this means then?”
“That we were looking at this the wrong way, and that this is a
case of animals becoming human, rather than the other way
around. It doesn't get us any closer to finding out who did
this though,” I replied.
“I know,” she grunted, looking at the beasts again.
“Good work on getting this far,” I said, walking over to the
table, “any thoughts on where we go next?”
She walked over to the table and held up one of the potions.
“Yeah, but you're not going to like it.”
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1