“I’m keeping you around,” I announced, generously.\u00a0 “Not only do you have my back, but you make my muddling around sound good.”<\/p>\n
“Muddling?” he asked.\u00a0 He seemed pleased, though.<\/p>\n
“Yeah. I was just trying to figure everything out, you know, get one step ahead of the competition.\u00a0 You made me sound like a fast food meal described by a gourmet restaurant.\u00a0 You know, instead of, ‘Meatballs with red sauce and cheap overcooked noodles,’ I’m ‘prime Kobe sirloin ground rounds nestled in a savory sauce made of fire roasted tomatoes, sauteed garlic, with a hint of organic basil on a platter of angelhair pasta served al dente.’\u00a0 Or something like that.”<\/p>\n
“I guess it’s better than `acerbic beefcake with dreads.'”<\/p>\n
“Totally not my type,” I said, amused.\u00a0 It was an immediate retort but I was reminded of my gold star. I sighed, getting up from the table and putting the rest of the pizza in the refrigerator.<\/p>\n
“You continue to overthink it,” Wrecks said. “And that much garlic will give you bad dreams.”<\/p>\n
“Really?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Nah.” He made a noise.\u00a0 “Would you categorize this as part of the Lovecraftian mythos?” he waved Foucault’s Pendulum<\/em> towards me.<\/p>\n I shook my head. “Not without a spoiler alert. I always think of Templars as anti-magic warriors.”<\/p>\n “You’re ruined by popular culture,” he sniffed.<\/p>\n “Or made by it into a god,” I said, majestically raising my arms as if filled with inner power. I laughed, after a moment.\u00a0 “Alright.\u00a0 I have things to do.\u00a0 Answers to seek.”<\/p>\n “Quests to conquer?” he asked.\u00a0 “Fair maidens to rescue?”<\/p>\n “The next line is likely ‘Dragons to slay,’ and I’m out of that business,” I said.<\/p>\n “Really?” he repeated my question back at me.<\/p>\n I did not slam the bedroom door, but only because it would mean he won.<\/p>\n I slept fine, although I spent extra time with the toothbrush getting the garlic out. Even without girls to impress, maiden or not.\u00a0 I did not dream.<\/p>\n I woke up once in the night, as I heard a loud warbling noise, like a nearby siren.\u00a0 I listened to see if it would continue, but the doppler faded, and so did my consciousness.<\/p>\n In the morning, I did most of my ablutions, decided to skip shaving, and got dressed.\u00a0 I made some calls, re-activating myself at the temporary agency, some odds and ends.\u00a0 The things of life.\u00a0 The bits of the adventures that aren’t played through in the games unless that one guy is there insisting on telling everyone how he makes a toothbrush out of an aromatic root, and how he’s making sure to eat the rations that give him regular bowel movements.\u00a0 It’s always a guy.\u00a0 I did play once with a lady who discussed breastfeeding at the table, but she was playing a character who made it work, especially with the demigod baby strapped to her back.\u00a0 Good times.<\/p>\n Wrecks was passed out on top of the books.\u00a0 I growled when I noted he was bending the cover of my signed copy of Imajica<\/em>.\u00a0 I guessed he wasn’t the useful kind of fey who cleaned up after himself.\u00a0 I gently moved his leg and pulled the novel out from under his knee.\u00a0\u00a0 I took some time to pick things up.\u00a0 “Some bodyguard you are,” I muttered under my breath.<\/p>\n I suddenly felt like a thousand little eyes were staring at me.\u00a0 This is an uncomfortable feeling.\u00a0 It’s like paranoia that makes itself known with electricity.\u00a0 I looked around slowly.\u00a0 Nothing seemed to be there, but the feeling continued long enough for me to decide it wasn’t born of guilt.\u00a0 I heard the sounds of things moving, bits of paper, the crinkling of a plastic bag, all like you’re just about to fall asleep and something in your room moves… despite there being no wind.\u00a0 The feeling receded.<\/p>\n Wrecks opened one eye at me, lazily.\u00a0 “I have to rest sometime, man,” he said.<\/p>\n “What was that?” I asked.\u00a0 “It was really disturbing.”<\/p>\n “Friend of mine.\u00a0 Poltergeist… kind of.\u00a0 They don’t like anything mortal …and sane.”<\/p>\n “Guess we’re all good friends, here.”<\/p>\n Wrecks snickered.\u00a0 “You said it, not me.”<\/p>\n “You can tell by the company I keep,” I added.\u00a0 I sat at the computer chair and wrote a message to my sister.\u00a0 It was a variant on the requests she’d made for me to call, but a lot less demanding, if you asked me.\u00a0 I had manners and she was never a genteel lady. I probably could have left out the, “Still with…what was the disposable’s name? Roberto?” comment.<\/p>\n I kept bringing up pictures of the fires. Waldo Canyon. High Park. Flagstaff. More than five hundred homes.\u00a0 Families.\u00a0 I looked around my apartment.\u00a0 All my stuff was here.\u00a0 My comfort.\u00a0 My activities.\u00a0 My small reminders of things that had happened in my life.\u00a0 Trinkets and bits.\u00a0 The promise ring I never gave Maggie.\u00a0 Ten years of anchoring the topsoil before mudslides would stop being a problem.\u00a0 Those were just the big ones in my state; there were plenty of lightning strikes and large fires all over the country.<\/p>\n “What’s a derecho?” I asked aloud.<\/p>\n “It sounds like a reminder that you haven’t had breakfast,” Wrecks said.<\/p>\n “Thanks, mom.\u00a0 I wasn’t hungry yet, but now that you mention it,” I went and heated up the last of the pizza.\u00a0 I spent the morning looking at scientific explanations for the fires, while Wrecks ate his share and started in on the Wild Cards<\/em> series.<\/p>\n The phone went off in my bedroom on one of my generic ringtones.\u00a0 I didn’t recognize the number, and I didn’t catch it in time.\u00a0 It was a local number, not one of those Caribbean Cruise folks who would fill up my voicemail if I let them.\u00a0 I kept meaning to take down the “remove me from your call list” number, and eventually I’d be mad enough to do it.\u00a0 After a moment, the phone rang again.<\/p>\n I answered it.<\/p>\n “E, we have to talk.”<\/p>\n “Maggie.”\u00a0 I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.\u00a0 “No, we don’t,” I said.<\/p>\n “I disagree.”<\/p>\n “No surprise there,” I retorted quickly.<\/p>\n “Do you even want to know what it’s about?” she asked.<\/p>\n “Not really.\u00a0 I know if you’re involved, it’s not good.”<\/p>\n “It’s about your sister.”<\/p>\n I banged my knee against the desk and spent the next 15 seconds in an agony that really deserved all the words that came spilling out.\u00a0 I took another deep breath.\u00a0 “Fine.\u00a0 You have thirty seconds.\u00a0 Don’t think I’m not staring at a clock.”<\/p>\n “Gossip has it that there’s something big and bad looking for her.\u00a0 I can’t help you.\u00a0 I’m trying to keep my people out of the line of fire, as it were, but I thought you ought to know.”<\/p>\n “I thought you were wrapped up tight with the Shadow King,” I said.\u00a0 I hadn’t meant to say anything, but it kind of came out.<\/p>\n “You never trusted me enough, E.\u00a0 Do you think we wanted this?”<\/p>\n “Your name comes up on a list of significant beings with power that are arrayed against me,” I said.<\/p>\n “And you trust the… the keeper of these names?”<\/p>\n I thought about it, and then laughed.\u00a0 “I guess I believed you when you said you were all that.\u00a0 So hearing someone else say you were all that and a bunch of evil dips, I was willing to believe.”<\/p>\n “Your confidence in me is astounding. You are an idiot.”\u00a0 She hung up.<\/p>\n I glanced wryly at Wrecks.\u00a0 “Well?\u00a0 Ready to slap some arcane wisdom on me that doesn’t actually help?”<\/p>\n “I can’t help you with your women problems, Door-closer.”<\/p>\n I looked him up and down.\u00a0 “I can’t imagine that you could,” I said, with a grin.\u00a0 “But is the use of my title a hint?”<\/p>\n “Why haven’t you shut the door on your relationship with her?” he asked, seriously.<\/p>\n “Because I’m an idiot,” I said.\u00a0 “Can I do that?”<\/p>\n “She’s a witch.\u00a0 Look up on yon magic internetty box and find a thousand spells to cut a relationship clean.\u00a0 You’ve got to know how to use your power, wizard-friend.\u00a0 Secret-caller.” He looked amused.<\/p>\n I considered it.\u00a0 “What do you know about my power?”<\/p>\n He sat back, and his expression changed.\u00a0 “Now you’re talking.\u00a0 I’m your bodyguard, not your tutor.\u00a0 You need to utilize your resources, and get a better teacher.”<\/p>\n “What am I looking for?\u00a0 A wizard?”<\/p>\n “You could,” he said.\u00a0 “A wizard, however, would teach you to be a wizard.\u00a0 And you, no need to repeat yourself, do not want that.”<\/p>\n I nodded.\u00a0 “So I need to find another door-closer?”<\/p>\n “Take baby steps.\u00a0 Is your magic an inherent power or is it a result of ritual, opening yourself to other forces?”<\/p>\n “Huh,” I grunted. “I expect a Closer doesn’t open himself.\u00a0 So it’s inherent.”<\/p>\n “Where does it come from?” he asked.<\/p>\n “Do you mean, is it like genetic?\u00a0 Am I a mutant and I’m looking for a Professor X?”<\/p>\n “Where does your power come from?” he asked again, sounding each word out as if he was looking for something.<\/p>\n “My soul? My experiences? My good looks?\u00a0 My folks?\u00a0 My having my fingers slammed by a radioactive door when I was but a wee lad?”\u00a0 I growled.\u00a0 “I don’t know what you’re looking for.\u00a0 Give me a hint.”<\/p>\n He sighed.\u00a0 “I am what I am.\u00a0 You are not.”\u00a0 He went back to his book.<\/p>\n “This isn’t helping.\u00a0 I’d rather find out what Dragon is responsible and what it means to the war effort, and what is going on with my sister.\u00a0 Why my sister?” I asked aloud.\u00a0 “I mean, better than my mom,” I pointed out.<\/p>\n “Flame-bright, power-spark, she lights the path of what is dark. Secret-keeper, Closer’s blood, she sprouts the seeds of the flood,” he said, turning a page somewhat…flippingly.<\/p>\n “Is that her song?”<\/p>\n “Mayhap.”\u00a0 He sounded grumbly.<\/p>\n “I didn’t know that maybe was an option.\u00a0 Could I add a chorus and maybe a snappy bridge to mine?”<\/p>\n “No.”\u00a0 He brought his knees up to hold the book there.\u00a0 “And it doesn’t need a guitar solo.”<\/p>\n “Bummer.”\u00a0 I sighed.\u00a0 “Seeds of the flood?\u00a0 Do floods come from storm seeds?\u00a0 Is this the Biblical kind of flood, or like a woman’s thing?”<\/p>\n He ignored me, so I went back to my research.\u00a0 Now that I understood the science more, it was time to look up the magical side.<\/p>\n After about an hour, I gave up.\u00a0 “I can’t do this without real fuel.\u00a0 You want anything from the store?” I asked.<\/p>\n “I must attend you,” he said, sliding a Tattered Cover bookmark between the pages.<\/p>\n “Do you need a booster seat?\u00a0 Should I put you up front in the cart, or maybe get one of those ones with the plastic cars attached?” I asked.<\/p>\n He rolled his eyes.\u00a0 “I am not of this world. I do not need to be coddled as if I were the visage I have taken.”\u00a0 He frowned.\u00a0 “Get your shoes on.”<\/p>\n I did as he asked only because it was my next stop, anyway.\u00a0 I tied the laces, wondering about the frown.\u00a0 When I came out of my room, I didn’t see him.\u00a0 The room was also, somewhat, more picked up.\u00a0 The dishes were put away in the sink.\u00a0 There was a pillow on the couch I didn’t recognize.\u00a0 The TV screen had been dusted.<\/p>\n “Wrecks?” I asked.\u00a0 I felt silly using that name, and it sounded weird in the silence.\u00a0 “I mean, Nen?”<\/p>\n I kept bracing myself for the creepy sensation, the thousand eyes making the hairs on my arms and neck rise with a lightning prickle.\u00a0 It wasn’t there.\u00a0 “Nen?” I asked again.<\/p>\n The door made a noise, opening slightly.\u00a0 I crept up behind it, and then grabbed a ruler from the various gaming supplies I kept on the shelf beneath my octopus cup.\u00a0 I propped the door open, backing up with it as it swept towards me.\u00a0 I heard the yowling of a neighborhood cat, but other than that it was silent.\u00a0 Too silent.<\/p>\n Wrecks had his hand around Peredur’s neck, and they weren’t moving.\u00a0 Smoke drifted from Peredur’s nostrils.\u00a0 Wreck seemed to strain, while the Dragon didn’t seem too uncomfortable.<\/p>\n I let the door close with a sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I’m keeping you around,” I announced, generously.\u00a0 “Not only do you have my back, but you make my muddling around sound good.” “Muddling?” he asked.\u00a0 He seemed pleased, though. “Yeah. I was just trying to figure everything out, you know, get one step ahead of the competition.\u00a0 You made me sound like a fast food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-eight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210","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=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1220,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}