“I had indicated that it required mortal blood to anchor it,” Doloise began, carefully.\u00a0 She walked towards a column, and I followed her.\u00a0 After a moment, she put her hand in the purple flame, unconcerned if it would burn her, I guess.\u00a0 I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t, actually.\u00a0 She seemed to be caressing something, maybe a subtle elemental or wisp of some sort.\u00a0 I’d seen them in ceremony, but only as diffuse lights that generally disappeared at a direct look, not even as clear as a Froudian silhouette.<\/p>\n
I am mostly content to be in the league I’m in, but sometimes when the world shows me wonders I get a wistful covetuousness.\u00a0 It seems so easy for these creatures, surrounded as they are with so much magic it is in the very air they breathe.\u00a0 I don’t even know how to strike up a conversation without it being fraught with danger.\u00a0 I mean, I’m an everyday normal kind of guy, ‘cept for the knack and a little too much esoteric knowledge.\u00a0 I don’t have the kind of tarot reading that is heavy with major arcana, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n
“Which made me wonder, because humanity isn’t the only thing out there that qualifies.\u00a0 You could have picked up a pigeon in a back alley, or something.\u00a0 So you needed something that could also close a portal.”\u00a0 I’d heard of a Wizard of the Pigeons, but he lived somewhere near Seattle and I hadn’t made it that far west in a while.\u00a0\u00a0 “Someone decided I fit the description.\u00a0 What kind of trouble are you into, and is it just you or your whole family?” I gestured towards the others.\u00a0 This close to the column we actually had more privacy than out on the…rug.\u00a0 Field.\u00a0 Field of tiny golden shagflowers.\u00a0 Shaggrass?\u00a0 Shagweed?<\/p>\n
“Your questioning makes me uncomfortable.\u00a0 There is only so much I am allowed to say,” she said, still not looking at me.<\/p>\n
“Is it Hospitality or politics?” I asked, bluntly.<\/p>\n
I didn’t expect her to answer, but she let go of the strange fire, and turned towards me.\u00a0 “Yes.\u00a0 And.”\u00a0 She tilted her head, and it was more feline than human.\u00a0 “It is difficult to tell an invited guest it is no longer invited.\u00a0 It is more difficult to tell it that it was never requested in the first place when those with more authority have contradicted this.\u00a0 It is even more of a challenge when the guest turns to have more power than expected, including that which was granted by your own authority.\u00a0 Penultimately, it is a Power Between.”<\/p>\n
“You save the best for last,” I noted, wryly.<\/p>\n
“Yes.\u00a0 If we cannot send it home, we must keep it from ever returning there.\u00a0 That is the task with which I was charged, and it is made all the more difficult as we know it knows our conundrum and we cannot determine which scheme it has determined most disadvantageous to our survival.”<\/p>\n
“A Power Between,” I repeated.<\/p>\n
Her glance was the equivalent, I supposed, of a nod.<\/p>\n
I was past the point of panic.\u00a0 I mean, just because they wanted my help to close the gateway to or exorcise a minor deity, it was just another day in the life, right?\u00a0 Some people go home, crack open a beer, and watch the game.\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 I get to play hooky from work, hang out with a righteous looking babe, and tell a god to shape up or ship out.<\/p>\n
I must be living wrong.<\/p>\n
So many questions to ask.\u00a0 I wanted a name, but a trickster would just have used someone else’s… or his or her own, just to be perverse.\u00a0 Besides, it didn’t have to be one of our gods.\u00a0 It could have been one inimical to humanity, or belonging to something else entirely.\u00a0 What kind of grudge would it carry, should we manage this?\u00a0 And politics were involved; did this authority want them removed for sure, or was it just her and her family’s opinion that this was a bad thing?\u00a0 Exactly who was I crossing, and how deep would this go?<\/p>\n
“What matter of compensation do I receive for this boon?” I asked.\u00a0 I realized that for all they could bluff it out, I was doing them a favor.\u00a0 I didn’t have anything invested into whether or not an old one sat on a fey doorstep and hung out past the end of the party.\u00a0 Mankind and the world as I knew it wasn’t in danger.\u00a0 I wasn’t the only hope for my world against the combined might of the forces of darkness.<\/p>\n
“You are confident,” she noted.<\/p>\n
Actually, I was so far beyond the bend into the countryside of “Clowns Will Eat Me”-sville, I’d almost wrapped around into, “Sure.\u00a0 I can do anything,” bravado.<\/p>\n
But it wouldn’t do to tell that to a girl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Actually, I was so far beyond the bend into the countryside of “Clowns Will Eat Me”-sville, I’d almost wrapped around into, “Sure. I can do anything,” bravado.<\/p>\n
But it wouldn’t do to tell that to a girl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}