I looked around for any sign of Matana.\u00a0 Peredur Gillikin had called her a “vesper.”\u00a0 I liked that a lot, actually.\u00a0 It meant “evening,” as well as a handful of other tricksy things, including a drink.\u00a0 (As I said, I was a college student once.)\u00a0 It was a lot subtler than the other things I might call a vampire.\u00a0 (And a lot more printable.)\u00a0 I looked up, under the eaves, over the bannister, around the tower, and around the tower…that’s an old joke from my gaming days when the Dungeon Master would like to break our party by exhausting them with stairs just to get our adventuring permits.\u00a0 (What, your DM allows your party to freely poach on the King’s land?\u00a0 We had to fill out forms just to claim found treasures and lost artifacts!\u00a0 Why, when I was your age…)<\/p>\n
I didn’t see any sign of any bats, unusual fogs, or hot naked chicks hanging around on the roof.\u00a0 (But you know I looked.)\u00a0\u00a0 It was one of those days that was best described as “partly sunny,” rather than “partly cloudy.”\u00a0 At least, the way I measured it, somewhere near the “half-full” line, of course.<\/p>\n
I didn’t have to go far to connect with a bus stop.\u00a0 Really, I should have thought ahead and called on the bike.\u00a0 I only needed a little misdirection spell to keep it legal, even though I’m sure it was recorded as stolen property by now – not being in the same state, I’d have to do something pretty blatant to be caught even without the witchery.\u00a0 Of course, it’s a slippery slope.\u00a0 If I’m willing to break the rules on this, where does it end?\u00a0 Next I’ll be asking my twitchy-witchy friends to help me hide the bodies.<\/p>\n
So, the bus it was.\u00a0 I know it lacks a certain panache, especially as I was looking dashing and ready for action, but even if Sunday service was limited, I could still get where I was going with a little patience.\u00a0 Besides, I brought my notebook and\u00a0a pencil and could get some brainstorming in, even if I had to keep some attention to watch for my stop.\u00a0 I presumed that’s why superheroes learned to fly – they got tired of taking public transportation.<\/p>\n
I didn’t have long to wait, and I flashed my little permit to the driver.\u00a0 This wasn’t one of the fellows I recognized, and we exchanged terse greetings so that I could find a seat in back.\u00a0 I pushed past an older gentleman either talking to himself or with a subtle bluetooth device, and found a spot just before the lady who was resorting her groceries.<\/p>\n
The bus shuddered and jerked along its route, partly caused by the damage to the street, partly because the bus wasn’t in great shape.\u00a0 I had overheard an argument one morning that pointed out that all the fares collected in a single day by the city wouldn’t pay for that day’s bus fuel consumption.\u00a0 This was why I didn’t mind paying my sales tax.<\/p>\n
The Earth continued on its merry way, giving a cold shoulder to the sun as it turned around and focused on the outward darkness.\u00a0\u00a0 I felt a chill, but it could have just been the air conditioning, quite unnecessary in the coolness starting to settle over the city.\u00a0 The Almanac said it would be a cold winter with heavy snows.\u00a0 I wasn’t looking forward to that.\u00a0 Love the city, hate the driving in slush, SUVs splattering my windshield with their castoff slurge.\u00a0 “Slurge,” of course, being one of those words for the heavy snow dirty from the street that slops back off of the tires of vehicles taller than yours.\u00a0 I just made it up, I think.<\/p>\n
We picked up some people in uniforms who had had to work today.\u00a0 We dropped off the grocery sorter, and her four boxes of fiber cereal.\u00a0 We were making decent time, even given the evening traffic.\u00a0 The traffic surprised me, given that it had been so light the day before, and now it was a Sunday night.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a living city, even if there are days I despair that we roll up the sidewalks far before the real metropoli.<\/p>\n
I spent the time I had intended to use in making plans playing on my phone, instead.\u00a0 It’s always a careful balance, whether to undershoot or overshoot your stop when you know basically where you’re going.\u00a0 I took a roll of the dice and managed to stop just across the street from the restaurant.\u00a0 Lights declared that it was open, although there were a lot of open spaces in the parking lot.<\/p>\n
I didn’t have any concerns crossing the street, or even ringing the chimes attached to the door when I opened it.\u00a0 The restaurant was nearly empty, but there was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen.\u00a0 I didn’t see a server, so I let myself wander towards the back.<\/p>\n
Maybe it was the silence that gave it away.\u00a0 Usually there’s a certain level of noise even when people are not talking, in the chewing of their food, in the clink of forks against dishes, in the placing of glasses against the table.<\/p>\n
I was the only movement in the front of the restaurant.\u00a0 The unfortunate diners who were here would not be returning to those few cars in the lot. I suppose our host could have told me what they wanted.\u00a0 I don’t see dead people, and I certainly don’t talk to them.<\/p>\n
I should have been scared.<\/p>\n
I felt the portal bring me into the kitchen.\u00a0 It sounded the way I expected it would.\u00a0 Ivan sat, slowly cooking on the burner.\u00a0 I think he was still alive, but what was normally within him that could feel or care was in the realm of a Dragon.\u00a0 The portal beat slowly, functioning as his heart.<\/p>\n
I turned off the burner.\u00a0 Is this what being shocky felt like?\u00a0 It took the twisting of several knobs.\u00a0 He lay there, exposed, his eyes rolled up, his arms open as if he had seen something that had left him awestruck.<\/p>\n
I approached the portal.\u00a0 Do or die time, E.<\/p>\n
I called it to me, with a whistle I didn’t know I knew.\u00a0 I felt it absorb me, and the loss of place, of anchor for a moment, and then again, I was through, without Guide or Guardian.<\/p>\n
But I would find her.\u00a0 I promised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, the bus it was. I know it lacks a certain panache, especially as I was looking dashing and ready for action, but even if Sunday service was limited, I could still get where I was going with a little patience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-four"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","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=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}