So, I shot him.

You’re not surprised.  You know what an amateur with a gun is like, and, well, in the words of Xander Cage, “I had my leg in a cast for about three months. All I did was play first-person shooter video games.”

Which isn’t true, but it’s kind of relevant to the story, because a lot of what I know about shooting I learned from beating all the versions I can of “House of the Dead.”

It didn’t prepare me for the feeling of pulling the trigger, the sudden way time stood still (I grasped “bullet time” in a way “the Matrix” hadn’t prepared me for) as the projectile (what was in that spell, Viktor?  An arrow of Apollo and Artemis?) did this crazy shimmery rush towards the Wolf (it was coming at me – that gave it the capital letter) and my instincts suddenly made war on each other, one set demanding, “This isn’t real fighting!  You need to engage!  Go bite it!” and another saying, “Run!  Run while you still can, doughboy!” as well as an actual moral objection, “You’re going to hurt something!  Something that lives and breathes!” along with a dash of, “Wow, it looks like your aim wasn’t that bad,” hubris, and all the mundane bits like, “Whoa.  That had a kick,” and catching my breath from the pace Viktor had taken into the valley, and another beat of Ivan’s ailing heart as his domain began to fail, and well, I was overwhelmed.

Only for an instant, less than a heartbeat, and then some victor was declared in my head because I started running toward and shouting at the beast.  I don’t even know if I had managed words in my first exhale of noise, but I did see Viktor turn, surprised.  I ended up yelling, “You stupid mage! It’s a waste of a good talent!  Why are wizards such idiots?”  I went on in that vein, as the inky darkness of the wolf started to shrink, black shadow turning into black hair, white teeth into drawn skin, only the eyes remaining the same until they closed in pain.

“Stupid sorcerors,” I muttered.  Yeah, I lapse perilously close to alliteration when I’m grumpy.  Or should that be “annoyed and angry?”  Nevermind.

Viktor just grunted. “You spoke his name,” he said. He stared at Artur.

“And he appeared?  That’s not one of my usual tricks,” I said.

“It is a signature of demons,” Viktor corrected.

“It’s a small world,” I pointed out.  “Besides, you have to speak it with will and purpose.”

“It is, as you say, a small world.”  He looked out.  “It gets smaller.”

A lot can happen in a heartbeat, they say.  “What did I shoot him with?”

“It is, as they say, complicated.  A simple enough spell, but it draws on many sources.”

Artur managed something.  I didn’t recognize it, and hoped Viktor understood it.  He nodded.  “He said, `If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go into the woods.'”

“`If you can’t stand a cooked man, don’t go into the kitchen?’  It’s not going to make it into a book of phrases.”  I looked down at Artur.  Then I kicked him, hard, in the side.

“What was that for?” Viktor looked confused.

“They say never to kick a man when he’s down.  I disagree.  It’s the best time to kick him because he’s near my feet.  Besides, I can’t hold him.  I couldn’t explain to the police why there’s a bunch of dead bodies in a restaurant down the street and how Artur, here is involved.  But I can make him take me to Nellie, and I will if I have to kick him every step of the way.”

Artur raised an eyebrow.  “Art going to kill her?”

I shook my head.  “No one’s going to kill anybody.  I’m still sick in the gut from what I’ve seen and done tonight. ”  I kicked him again, and he groaned.  I was making sure to kick him where the shot broke his spell.  “But I’m human and my real power is in adapting to change, so no promises.”

Artur curled up a little, and I aimed for him a third time before Viktor put up his hand.  “Enough!  He is in no pain from your kicking.  He has lost his sense of connection between forms.”  The huntsman looked at me.  “We still must find Ivan.”

Artur started spitting out something more, but Viktor only kicked him in a way that made him really curl up.  Yeah, I was a bit of a wuss.  Viktor didn’t seem worried about say, breaking a few ribs.

“Do you want to stay here?” Viktor asked, ignoring Artur’s whimpering.

“Unless I can leash him, I don’t want to go where I can’t see him.”  I glared at Artur.

“I can leave him with the hounds, but we must hurry.  If he is to be believed,” he gestured to Artur, “Ivan is not far, but he is in not good shape.”

“Hurry back,” I decided.  “Do you have any more of those guns?”

“The wolves, they will have dissolved with Artur’s spells.”   Viktor pointed at one of the borzoi and gave it some commands.  “This one, I named Nikolai.  He will protect you.  Whatever Artur is,” and he showed teeth, “Nikolai will rip out his throat if needed.”

I felt a little better.  “Like I said, hurry.”

Viktor nodded and was gone.

I got out of where I judged was Artur’s reach, and crouched down a little.  “So,” I said.  “In English, this time, are you a demon?”

Artur grimaced.

“Not much of an answer.  Guess you weren’t needing that throat, which means to me that yes, you’re an Outsider.  Humans like that not-bleeding-from-the-jugular thing.”  I started to get up.

“No.”

“So many things you could be answering, but not very helpful.  Nikolai?” I asked, and I pet the hound as he came near me, eyes never straying from Artur’s form.

“No, I am not all demon.  I helped you.  I thought you would see the beast for what she was and close her gate.”  His words were punctuated with gasps for air.

“I was working on it.  Not all demon, so, what, vampire?  Cursed?  I just ask out of curiosity.”  Well, curiosity and because it meant something more to research how to stop.

“Scry says you were eating with…” he breathed out a few words.  “Witches, not working.”

“My work habits don’t leave innocent folks drained of life force.   Besides, I don’t like people scrying on me.  I’m entitled to my privacy.  It’s in the Constitution, I think.”

He managed an aborted chuckle.  “No innocents.  Ivan called them to trap me.  Took shadows to shape, look like people.  He speaks with the dead.”

I had to admit, it was possible.  I didn’t poke at them and do any lab tests or anything.  “I heard that.”

“I’m… hunter.  He has…bad heart.”  I couldn’t tell if it was any easier or getting worse for Artur to speak.  I wasn’t coming any closer, though.  I’d seen, like, at least one horror movie in my life.  Artur convulsed, and his skin started to crack and peel like flakes of…

Oh, bleepin’ demons.

He was beginning to burn.  “Nikolai, pee on him or something.  I need him alive!”

The dog looked startled, and moved away from me.  I followed the direction he was going, in part not to watch Artur.  It was a good thing I did, because I saw Viktor and Ivan returning from wherever the huntsman had been fetching the necromancer.  Yeah, that’s probably the term for it.

I saw Ivan’s eyes smoulder, literally, from where he was leaning on Viktor.  He looked…old and grey.

“No, seriously, the gate’s still open.  Ivan, don’t–”

He pulled away from Viktor and I saw one of Viktor’s guns from where he had hidden it behind the other sorceror.  It was small in his hand.  He smiled at me, and pulled the trigger.

A lot can change in a heartbeat.

Like Viktor slugging Ivan, and Artur shedding his skin, and the bolt was still coming at me, and I saw it, it was so slow?  Why couldn’t I just move out of the way?  And then as the last of Artur’s skin came loose, and my eyes wanted to make sense of the being underneath it, but then he grabbed me, and Nikolai licked my hand, and I saw all of the light – so much light, light that blinded rather than illuminated, and I felt the gate open and all of us being swallowed, as if the gate was something alive…

…and in my head, all I could hear was a single heartbeat.

“They say.”  They say a lot of things, unless, of course, “they” are a bunch of monkish types who have taken a vow of silence, at which point I don’t know if they’re allowed to text or otherwise make anything quotable.  (If Eco’s The Name of the Rose is at all accurate on the point, they’re allowed to illustrate, but it’s kind of hard to make epigrams from, like, icons.  Although I’m sure the technology will be there someday.  We’ll just walk around with complex emoticons coming out of our foreheads like lasers.  Oh wait, we’ve got those already… they’re called “facial expressions.”  Nevermind.  You know, they say everything old sometimes becomes new again, or at least, becomes the new black.  Which is where we actually begin our story.)

They say that in the beginning there was darkness and then light was brought to it with a word.  Does that mean in the end there will be nothing but light and we will bring ourselves once more to the safety and sinecure of the darkness?  (Darkness is easy.  Light takes energy.  I think this is the basic physics equation that powered too much in the way of ecclesiastical thought.  You’re making it too complicated when you talk about desire, because yes, we as humans crave light.  We push fear into the shadows and should thus find strength in what is revealed.  Except we don’t, which is why so much guilt and pleasure and fear and joy and intellect versus instinct is fused into a confusing knot that we tie around our psyches.  Trust me, while some on the Outside get themselves into bindings, they’re almost nothing on what we do to ourselves and our own.)

While I was laying in the dark, and speaking of confusion of the psyche, I was trying to remember who had shot me.  I had thought it was Ivan, but it was Viktor’s weapon, and it was pretty confused.  It took me a few minutes to realize the point was almost irrelevant because if I was arguing it in my head, I probably wasn’t dead.   Probably, unless I was in a philosophical holding cell in the afterlife. Actually, I wasn’t in any pain at all.  I mean, I still had a bit of a twinge from where the stitch in my side from following Viktor had begun, but nothing like I thought being shot would feel like.

I could have been in shock and total system shutdown, except I was breathing easy.  I must have been feeling good, though, if I wasn’t concerned as to being shot.  The darkness could have been from my keeping my eyes closed.  I had closed them because of all the light.

A lot of mysteries come together and we use the metaphor of pieces fitting into a puzzle.  These were more like drops of rain completing a puddle.  Maybe I had bumped my head as the bolt had pushed me backwards, but no, the being that was Artur had grabbed me, and the spelled hound had rushed forward at my attacker.

Sound came in a shockwave that would have bowled me over if I hadn’t already been lying down.  It was almost like I had suddenly tuned into the world around me, and my supine form had been lazily channel surfing until the connection could be made.  Sound, sight, smell…

“–dead,” Viktor was arguing.

There was a dog panting next to my ear, and I could smell his lovable puppy breath.  (Much better than “New Car” but still not as good as “baking cookies.”)  I was on a cold, hard surface, so I wasn’t home.  Which was good, because I hadn’t invited anyone inside and I didn’t know if I had enough table settings, Hospitality being what it is.

“Nikolai?”  I was rewarded with a slight change in the panting pattern.  Opening my eyes, I saw it was indeed my temporary bodyguard, who was, in fact, guarding me.  I was on the floor of the kitchen at the restaurant, laid out like Ivan, although in much, much better shape.  The huge blackened hole through his chest was evidence bolstering my opinion.  Hey, that was a win, right?

“He may chew me, perhaps, but he will find me a hard morsel to swallow,” argued another Ivan, as he was held partially upside down by Artur’s new form, a large trollish figure with a beak, goat’s feet, and long claws.  This Ivan was in much better condition, even considering the circumstances.

I pulled myself up.  I didn’t find the lingering aroma appetizing, at least.  There was no sign of Viktor’s other dogs, and I could still hear the faint thrumming of the gate linking Ivan to my goal.  So, won some, lost some.  My movement seemed to change the argument some, so I tried to pay attention.

“He apologizes for shooting you,” Viktor said immediately.

“That’s a good start.  So, um, what’s going on?”

Viktor pointed to Artur.  “The Lesiye-born claims a right I challenge.”  I filed the name to look up later.  “Ivan will not give you his Nellya.  You have somehow turned a spell into a real borzoi, after being shot with wizard-kill.”  He shrugged.  “We are going to fight.”  It seemed like a completely reasonable next action to him, but then, he could kick a man hard enough to break ribs, although he wasn’t kicking a man at the time.

“One thing at a time.”  I used my fingers to remember the arguments.  “Artur claims what right?  The right to kick Ivan’s vodka-enhanced rear end?  He can have that right, but no one’s killing anybody.  Ivan will give me Nellie so I can pry my Guide and Guardian out of her temperature-indeterminate draconian fingers.  Part three, I guess that means you have a puppy.  Congratulations.    I’m not a wizard, which is good because someone here has to show some sense.”  I resolved not to shake my finger at the three of them.

“You are not a wizard,” Artur hissed.

“So what?  I don’t have any say?”  I went up to him and poked him in the arm.  He blinked at me with his cold blue eyes.  They matched his skin, a dark azure more like some kind of elemental gemstone than a colour I was used to seeing outside cartoons.  I did not hum the Smurf’s theme, and not just because I was afraid he’d recognize it.  His grasp of Americana was better than the rest of the Red Poets.

“Do not try me, mortal.”

“Didn’t intend to, creature.”  I tried to put the same kind of scorn into it that he had put into “mortal.”  “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you all owe me.  You dragged me into this thing and you took my fairy.  I had another Dragon breathing down my neck in the middle of the night over this, and you know what?”  I took a step back.  “I don’t care.  You took my fairy,” I repeated.  “She liked meerkats and chocolate and wanted to be a real girl.  She’s worth a dozen of you, at least to me, and I am going to get her back.  So take your schoolyard bullying attitudes and get this straight.”

I looked directly into Ivan’s eyes.  “I could cut that gate right this second, and it would kill you.  Yes, even you, master wizard.  You and I alone have that ability.  If you want to get into some kind of sorcerous battle with the big mean nasty monster, and if Viktor wants to get in a couple licks, too, I don’t want to hear it.  Your mistress is unhappy with you.  You could have cleaned up your own house, but no, bring in the Doctor and complain when he wants to give you a bit of his medicine.”  I sighed and moved back to lean against a food-preparation station.  “And you shot me, which didn’t seem to hurt me, but that’s not the point.  The point is, you shot me, so unless you want to become lesiye chow, let’s make a new plan.”  I eyed all of them, including the dog.  “Are you okay with this?  Because I am officially ready to start plan B.”

Or was I on “C” now?  “Get Her” (classic Plan “A”) just hadn’t worked.  Going inside to walk between the worlds had been interrupted.  This, and it was close to my original idea, was probably “C” but I didn’t want to amend my speech given that I had gotten so worked up over it.  I wasn’t even shaking, yet.

Anger can allow you to feel pretty heady about your impromptu speeches.   Its real advantage is that it turns off the internal edit button. 

In the end, though, it comes back to poker.  Well, at least in part.  You see, I can’t bluff.  I’m no good at it.  I can watch my various “tells,” and develop some fake ones (like playing with my chips) but while I can maybe fake some low-level players out, the truth is I know I’m bad at telling lies.  That’s why I’m so ecstatic whenever I get away with something; I keep expecting my opponent to call me on it and watch as I’m left with an eight as my high card.  (Did I mention that luck is at best a fickle ally of mine?)

The fact that I could actually end Ivan’s life wasn’t just my hole card, but the only card I had to play.  I mean, if I was a math guy (I happen to know there’s a fairly specialized wizard working at, say, 538) I might be able to give you the identity of my other cards.  They’d read, “location,” and probably “opportunity,” and I might get a slight bonus for being a “friend of Nikolai”‘s if that was tapped for the encounter, but while Artur and Viktor were players, Ivan was my focus.  He could get me what I wanted, and, if they took a moment from wanting to flay his wizardly buttocks, he could probably solve their issues as well.

“I grow tired of this,” Artur said, and dumped Ivan onto the floor.  The big man was relatively graceful in how he landed, I mean, given the situation.  “I have claim on the wizard.  He will give me the creature Naul.”  He leaned over, ready to pick Ivan back up, but Viktor intervened, giving Ivan a hand to help stand.

“A redress for long ago wrongs will not give you the honour you seek,” Viktor said.  “Your masquerade should become fact, instead.  Be Artur the sorceror, not just another lost son of a dying race.”

It sounded like my kind of story, or at least one in my genre.  A bard’s tale in the making.  “The Story of Artur the Lesiye-born,” and it would discuss the journey of how he came to be here, and what other adventures he had had.  I had a feeling that it took a little more than a plane ride and Tuesday nights at the library.

Those things rightfully shouldn’t discount it, though.  Everyone has their stories, it’s just that some people prefer to squash them in terms that make them seem more, well, landish.  (If “landish” is the term for something that isn’t, well, “outlandish.”)  Any time humans interact can be a drama or a comedy, although it might take the right person to portray it in the angle with the best spin.  That’s what a good author does, though, right?

How would a good author describe this scenario?  The five of us (one of us a canine), and Ivan’s discarded husk on the floor in a kitchen of a small restaurant.  Artur, so tall that he with his horns and pointed ears brush the ceiling and have to adjust to not tangle themselves with the hanging lights, Viktor in his lumberjack clothes, loaded to the gills for metaphorical wolf, Ivan, the necrolocutor, sullen wizard with a stained apron and white jacket, considering seriously razing half the city in order to protect his lover, a dragon, me, and the dog, Nikolai.  If it was television, something or someone would have to blow up pretty soon to keep the drama fairly unreal.

The only question was…who? 

Ivan growled and his hands went together in something not quite a thunderclap.  The smack of his hands covered up the sound of his speaking a Word, and the lumbering form of his husk stood up and ran clumsily towards Artur. 

I grabbed a hanging pan and ducked out of the way.  Artur smacked the zombie into a wall with a lazy backhand, and I heard the queasy way the flesh had excess air slammed out of it.  I really hate those moments when I remember I’m made of meat.

Nikolai chose the better course of valour or whatnot and ran towards where I stationed myself under the sink.  Viktor prepared a course of bright blue fire and drew a chur around himself.  (It’s a boundary line, a kind of border that can lead to portal-making, or as kind of a protective circle.  Not a language guy, but I know the words for my specialty, alright?)

“Drop your erestun,” Artur yelled at Ivan, as Zombie-Ivan collected itself, smashed front and all, and began its return lumber.  “This is over, Ivan.  Who are you protecting?”

Viktor’s chanting drifted towards me.  I could feel the pressure developing as his spell began to develop, and I was not sure the kitchen sink was likely to protect me and the shivering puppy. 

“I am sworn to her,” Ivan said in English, and then followed it up with something that was probably Russian.  I wasn’t able to follow it, but I kind of got the gist, anyway, which was Ivan’s whole argument; not that he was a thrall, but that he had willingly chosen her side.

Bleepin’ dragons.

Viktor shouted the last few words, and a whip of blue fire wrapped around from his hand to Zombie-Ivan.   Several strands of fire grew from it, kind of like lightning, and maybe a bit more organic as with a gesture like pulling a cord on a light switch, Zombie-Ivan fell to the ground, the various cords of magic causing the undead creature to twitch and moan, but it appeared neutralized.

“You too, Viktor?” Ivan asked turning around.  He could probably see me under the sink, I realized.  I had chosen a place where I could see the action and determine if I had to run, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“Your magics have darkened, old friend.  It is touched by a devil, whether it be your friend in dragonskin or your despair at your lost love.  I would not have you go to the Lesiye, but send Artur and E,” he used my name again and gestured behind himself at me, like he knew exactly where I was. “Nellya must defend her own sins.”  It was an eloquent speech, and had the least amount of accent in it I had heard from him.  I expect it was partly for my benefit.

Or maybe it had to do with Nikolai?  I realized I had my hand on the dog, petting it nervously.  A spell to kill metaphorical wolves might have a sympathetic translation form within it, especially if it was to understand its owner.  That was plausible.

“It will likely end me,” Ivan said.  I really missed his “Ha Ha!”s now.  He held his hand over his heart.  “I did not want to die.”  That was to me, I realized.  And it was in English, for sure.

I pulled myself out from under the sink.  “I don’t want to kill you,” I said.  I really don’t know how to lie, so it had to be the truth.

Artur leaned forward on one knee.  “I will accept your surrender,” he said to Ivan.

“Ho, ho!” Ivan said, and I turned to keep from smiling.  “To that I did not agree!  It is the phrase you push your luck,” he pointed at the cobalt blue creature.  “I could still raze your forest, and make every living thing there turn to stone.  I could turn the trees to bone, and then salt the earth with fire!”

Eh, well, I got what he meant, anyway.  It was a mixed metaphor, but at least it hadn’t been so injured as to need to find a place away from its family to die.  Because I knew what that was like.

“And I could still twist off your head,” Artur explained, bringing his giant hands around to demonstrate.  Viktor merely coughed, and the two of them looked a little sheepish.

“It is not a time for men to say merely what they may, but what they will do.  Little girls, they play at relationships over false tea.  They point their littlest fingers up and celebrate imaginary birthdays.  We are magic!  We are not made of little tea parties.  Is it your will to destroy Artur’s home, Father Ivan?  No, or you would have done.  Is it your will, Artur, to squish our Ivan’s head?  No.  It is born of frustration and tastes like false tea without cream and sugar.”  He shrugged.  “So be men of magic born, and not little girls.”

I felt like defending my sister on principle, but the honour of little girls was not mine to bear.  Especially as both Ivan and Artur looked shamed.

It’s serious business, willpower.  Viktor had spoken well, reminding them that their errant thoughts were still significant by their being wizards.  I was small potatoes, here, not even really one of those french fries that you kind of see at the bottom of the paper container and kind of shrug off instead of eating.   I was good with that.  Survived me a shot of “wizard-kill,” which sounded nasty whatever it was, no matter what Peredur intended.

“And you,” Viktor turned around.  “You seem to have made friends with my spell.  I believe you are the one with the new pet,” he smiled.

I frowned.  My place isn’t set up for the four-legged.  I’d have to walk him and let him out, and not to mention I was courting ramen – I didn’t want to have to share dog food with anyone. Hey, I had almost forgotten!  Provided I survived a walk into the Dragon’s cave, the Red Poets had promised to pay me. And wizards, despite the absentminded stereotype, had long memories.

Seeing my reluctance, Viktor wavered.  “He is not a gifting.  You may borrow him.  Who knows, maybe he will put his teeth into a Dragon’s tail.  I will make a place for him at home.”

I nodded.  Nikolai was still ambivalent, standing and waving his tail between the two of us.

“Well?” I asked Artur.

He frowned, and concentrated, closing his eyes for a moment.  I watched him shrink down, further and further into the adolescent male I had met both in this world and in Ivan’s refuge, complete with jeans and leather jacket.

“Come on, old man,” Artur said.  “Let’s get on with it.”

Ivan frowned.  He stepped over the quiescent form of his burnt self.  “Must bring the masters out to take care of that, and our restaurant guests.”  He gestured out of the kitchen.  “Come, let us do this where I can sit my tired bones.”

We followed.  I saw light through the tinted windows of the restaurant.  The sign had been turned around to “closed” on the door, which I didn’t do.  In fact, I remembered seeing that it was open from the bus stop, which put me on guard.

Viktor caught my eye and shook his head.  “None without power could pass through the doors.”

I almost said, “I did,” but that would be disingenuous.  I replayed the words in my head and realized it wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a comfort.

Nikolai made a bit of a whine, and I saw a shadow move across the window.  I bristled along with the dog, concerned.  Viktor made a pass with his right hand.  “You need not see the masters,” he said.  “But they obey Ivan here, as with his household, and they will clean up some of what has passed in the night.”

I decided he was right, and I didn’t need to see them.  Household spirits could be quite creepy, even when they didn’t boggart on you. I focused on Ivan, instead, as he moved some tables and booths around.  I took heart in that things were quite clean, but honestly, he had magical help in keeping to the health codes.

He sat himself in a bench in the middle, kind of like as if he sat on a throne.  I watched as Ivan sighed, and then addressed us.  “I cannot wish you luck without it being a lie.  You go to confront a most different creature, and a woman besides.”   He grimaced, almost a smile.  “Hah!  Should you return and I still take breath, we are quits.  Kaput.  I will not be following you for favours, and you will not be making my doorstep dark!”

I looked as if I would interrupt, and Viktor nodded.

“We have agreed to make payment for the service,” he said.

Ivan tilted his head.  “Not with the spell dog?”

“No,” Viktor said, sounding a little aggravated.

“Oh.”  Ivan shrugged.  “It will be done,” he said, half to me.  He sighed again and stared at a place on the carpet before him.  He was quiet for a minute.

“Ivan?” Viktor asked.

“Silence!  I am concentrating.”  He took off his apron, and revealed his chest.  The silvery darkness shimmered.

“It is a devil’s mark,” Artur hissed.

Viktor agreed with a nod.  I do not know from devils, but it was certainly still a gate.  Not the same one, as the sound was different.  It was more hesitant, a minor chord, but with tenor undertones.  As the gate coalesced, I realized that the anchor was in the way Ivan set up the tables and chairs, as they were painted with the almost hematite hue of his open heart.

“After you,” Artur said, gesturing at me.  He winked.