Kathy's nose twitched as the heavenly scent of baking goodies flooded the house, and she rolled over in the bed, reaching over to rub Tigger's belly. He remained on his side, eyes cracking slightly open, purring appreciatively. When she stopped to sit up, he swatted at her elbow. "Hey! Come on, woman, I wasn't done!"
"Yes, you were," she retorted, yawning. "And don't call me 'woman' unless you want me to take away your collar."
"Sorry, Kathy," he said, rising and swooping his upper body low, stretching torso and mouth. "I've just been a little starved for attention, I guess. Selena's had you so busy since we got here a few days ago, and Daggeuro isn't exactly my first choice for company when he's home."
"He grows on you," Kathy said, climbing out of bed and getting changed. She put on loose white trousers and a dark blue Chicago Bears tee, her cloak over it all, tied at the throat.
"So do fungi with enough damp and dark," Tigger grumbled. He followed Kathy as she traipsed out of the guest room and down the hall, nipping into the kitchen with a bounce in her step. Selena stood at the counter, a seating chart sprawled on the kitchen table.
"Morning, Selena," Kathy chirped. The elven woman curtsied to her quickly in her checkered print housedress, looking back down at some dusty cookbook. "Whatcha making?"
"Muffins," she said, sounding annoyed. "This is the third batch this morning. I burned the first two."
"Did you set a timer," Kathy asked.
"No, although I know what you mean," Selena said, rummaging in a drawer near her knee. "Ah-ha! Here we go," she said, setting a plain white egg timer on the counter. She took the fresh batch out of the oven, set them aside, put a new one in and set the timer for thirty-eight minutes.
"Why are you baking, anyway," Kathy asked, grabbing a mug from the cabinets and pouring herself coffee from the stovetop percolater.
"Because everybody at the north station is supposed to bring something for this big to-do they're throwing for the Rangers at the end of the week. Charlie Unit is coming in for a month-long relief, reservists filling in for them."
"Ah, kind of a welcome home the troops celebration," Kathy said. She poured sugar and creamer into her mug, putting the creamer tin back in the ice box with a 'clang'. "I get it. But why muffins? Wouldn't cookies be easier?"
"Ye gods, yes, but Erma Melencroix already picked those by the time I made it to the sign-up sheet. It was these or caromen, and I haven't the patience to catch wild crabbits." Kathy just eyeballed her. "It's a kind of stew with crabbit meat in it. Too gamey for my tastes."
Selena poured out some cat food for Tigger into his dish, earning herself a thankful meow and twirl through her legs before he started eating. Daggeuro came in from outside, his armor and blades clanking as he strode over to Selena for a quick kiss, then to the percolater for a cup of coffee.
"Haven't long," he announced, slurping at his beverage. "There's a pair of humans who arrived at the city gates an hour ago being held at the south station, both Awakened. We know the one, Sheldon Burke," he said, speaking mostly to Selena. "He brought a companion this time, though, name of Byron Torg, from Engelesh."
"Whoa, that's way out east, isn't it," Kathy asked, intrigued.
"Yes. In your terms, think New York City. When they were asked what their business was here, they both claimed to have been attacked by the very same thing that went after you, Kathy, and the other Awakened. They believe they will get answers here."
"We're all hoping for that, then," she said. "So, are you going to talk to them?"
"Yes, after I finish this," he said, drinking more. "I also had to stop a riot from developing over at Gutley's Greens Market. Spirit creatures were being harrassed, started throwing produce around." He shook his head, saying something greasy in a foreign tongue. Selena gasped.
"Language," she chided. Daggeuro blinked at her.
"Sorry, love," he said. "I'll be back, tell you all about these two humans as soon as I can." He finished his coffee, gave Selena a short hug, then headed out again. Selena watched him go, a smiling wistful expression holding her features.
"You really love him, don't you," Kathy asked softly.
"Yes. Yes, I do."
Sir Daggeuro knew a little about madness. He'd been living a precarious balancing act for a long, long time, and it had given him his own eccentricities. The necromancer, Burke, had told him in confidence in one interrogation room that his traveling companion was as mad as the proverbial Hatter.
Daggeuro didn't get that impression when he entered the room where Byron lay stretched on the table, ankles crossed, whistling to himself with his head propped on his hands, laced together underneath. Irreverant, yes, and perhaps cheeky, but hardly mad.
Burke had spent twenty minutes reading to Daggeuro notes he'd taken during the four days he'd spent traveling with Byron. Daggeuro was fascinated by the description of Byron's unique powers, which he'd never heard of before. But Burke went on to tell him that the freelance journalist frequently muttered to himself, carrying on some sort of sketches without an audience or other cast members. Three times, Burke said, Byron had led them off the road in search of specters to do battle with.
"He's insane," Burke had warned, almost in tears. "You have no idea how happy I was to see this city's walls again!" But when Daggeuro cleared his throat, Byron ceased whistling and looked over at him, smiling.
"Ah, good day, sir," the human said, working way off the far side of the table and sitting down in the dimly lit stone chamber. "You must be Sir Daggeuro. Pleasure to make your acquaintance." He held out a slightly trembling hand.
"Likewise, Mr. Torg," Daggeuro said, shaking hands with him. In that contact, the kennin knight felt a hidden strength, and the fur on his arm bristled under his armor.
"Byron, please."
"Byron. Have a seat." Daggeuro sat down across from him with a thin folder, only two sheets of parchment within. "We don't know much about you, Byron. We have a basic information sheet from your Ether nation of origin, Engelesh, and a bio sheet from the various papers you've written for in the Ether Plane. Burke tells me you have a rather interesting magical talent, however."
"I wouldn't go so far as to call it interesting, per say," Byron demured. "Would you like to see it?"
"Sure." Daggeuro brought his left hand down onto the handle of Boon, undoing the tie-down keeping the blade in its sheath. Byron pulled a deck of yellow cards out of his cloak pocket, rifling through it for one card. He pulled it out, holding it between thumb and forefinger. He squinted at it, and Daggeuro felt the thrum of power in the air, coming from the human. The card blinked in a flash of orange light, and between them on the table now stood a tiny, green-furred werewolf, snarling up at him.
"What the hell is this," Daggeuro asked. Byron snapped his fingers, and the critter flashed back into a card with the words 'Tiny Green Werewolf' on it. It turned to ashes a moment later, falling apart on the table. "Well, that's interesting to me, even if you don't think it is."
Byron snapped out two more cards, one becoming a purple velvet crown which he donned, the other a bizarre golden scepter with a fish for a head. He planted one foot on his chair, struck a triumphant pose with fists on hips and said, "Everything interests the Emperor of Zamzabam! Behold the mighty Scepter of Carp Diem," he shouted, thrusting the carp-shaped head of the scepter at Daggeuro. The kennin High Knight just stared in disbelief at him, and a moment later, the room filled with two more flashes of orange light and the smell of cinnamon. When Daggeuro unshielded his eyes, Byron was sitting down once more, feet propped up on the table. "Or something like that," the human said casually.
Daggeuro cleared his throat, closed the file folder, and offered a friendly grin. "Right. Well, sit tight, and someone will come around shortly to let you and Mr. Burke be on your way," he said, confidently striding to the door. As he opened it, Byron spoke behind him in a grave voice.
"There's going to be blood, sir," he said. Daggeuro turned and looked at Byron, who was sitting up, elbows propped on the table, chin in hands. Shadows seemed to stretch up from under the table around him, lending him an ethereal presence. His eyes shone with a grim intelligence, his brows furrowed as he smiled like a wolf. "This creature that attacked my people, we Awakened, is up to something most foul. There will be corpses aplenty before the end."
Byron leaned back again, the shadows receding. He once more looked mostly harmless, just a slightly pudgy human with a rare Awakened power. Daggeuro left him, dashing through the station as soon as he was out of direct eyesight. There was something deeply wrong with this human, and it had unnerved him.
When Daggeuro finished relaying his encounter with Byron Torg to Selena, Kathy and Tigger, Kathy scoffed at his suggestion that the human was probably insane. "Please," she said, setting her can of Coke, brought over from her world, on the kitchen table. "So he's silly. That doesn't make him crazy. I'm silly, and you don't think I'm insane, do you?"
"Your sense of humor, while outlandish, doesn't have the same quality as this man," said Daggeuro. "There's a menace laced through his invective, Kathy. I wouldn't go so far as to say he's evil, but he's certainly dark in the gray scale."
"I agree with Kathy," said Selena, sipping tea. She had a handkerchief wrapped on her head, her hair tied back to keep it out of the food she was preparing for dinner. "I think you're blowing things a little out of proportion. I've studied humans most of my life, dear. This man just sounds zany." Daggeuro glowered at the ladies for a moment, then snuffed through his canine snout.
"Fine, fine. I'll chalk it up to nerves on his part. He is a foreigner, perhaps he just gets like that when he's uncomfortable, on edge. I know what that feels like, after all. I've gone a little soft in the head a few times like that myself." He nodded, mostly to reassure himself. "Yes. I'm reading too much into it. Thank you my love, and my friend," he said to Selena and Kathy, respectively. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to get out of this armor. My duties are done for the day."
Kathy reached down to scratch Tigger's ears. She looked over to Selena. "He's never reacted like that to a human before, has he?"
"Just one," Selena said, pushing her chair back from the table. She stood up and walked over to the oven, dropping it open to stir around the food in her large glass casserole dish. "Gilbert Jerouek. That was almost sixteen years ago."
"What was the deal there?"
"Well, Gilbert was an Awakened human with a powerful affinity for earthen magic. He was also a paranoid schizophrenic who was convinced that the Ether was Hell and that he'd been sent by Jesus to destroy the demons inhabiting it. He was a danger, but Daggeuro dealt with him swiftly enough. He was worried about him, but never afraid of him."
"This Byron guy doesn't sound paranoid," Kathy said. "Just a little weird, is all."
"Maybe so, but what I didn't want to mention around him is this, friend Kathy," Selena said, closing the oven. "I've only ever seen or heard Dag react to two people like he just did. The first was King Ovin, and the second was Luga."
"What's that mean," Kathy asked.
"It means he's afraid of this human, Kathy," Selena said somberly. "If he's afraid, we probably should be too."
"This doesn't seem like a great idea," Tigger mused aloud, head poking out of Kathy's backpack and resting on her shoulder.
"Sorry, I should have put a shirt over the figurines. Are they poking you?"
"I meant going to see this man," Tigger replied dryly. "Duck." Kathy ducked as a tall owl-man carrying his staff over his shoulders swung around on her left, entering the stream of market-goers packing the street. "You heard Selena. Daggeuro thinks this guy is dangerous. I would tend to trust his judgment of these things."
"He's faeryfolk, Tigger, like everybody else here. They don't know what to make of humans who are different. I mean, they still all treat me like a wild card, and I'm not some weirdo."
"Eye of the beholder, sweetie."
"I could always let you walk."
"Point taken, you're a glowing beacon of hope and joy," Tigger said quickly. "Still, wise to bring the axe. Sure you're not worried?"
"You call it a weapon, I call it insurance," she retorted. The mixed scents, sights and sounds of the marketplace streets intoxicated, a panorama of every combination of animal-men the imagination could conjure, and some it couldn't. Spicy snaps of aroma tickled her nostrils, haunting tones played her ears, reminders of why she loved the Ether Plane so much.
She arrived at the imposing stone block that was the City Watch north station twenty minutes after leaving Selena's house. She'd told the elven woman to tell Daggeuro, if he asked, that Kathy had gone to visit Kelliko, a plant-woman she'd made friends with on her previous visit, to catch up. It was a plausible excuse, and would hopefully give her time to not only meet Byron Torg, but to also do some shopping.
Kathy climbed the steps and headed through the open double doors into the front chamber of the Watch station, getting in line at the duty desk behind two fellins and an elven officer checking in a gotrin in restraints. The desk sergeant, a gnome with a wild, bright red mohawk and red dyed beard, scribbled in the log book and pointed to the left. The elven watchman hauled his ward off, the rat-man spitting and cursing in his native tongue.
"Next," the desk sergeant called. The first fellin stepped up, speaking quietly with the sergeant. Tigger patted Kathy with a forepaw to get her attention.
"What's up?"
"Move a little closer to that woman," Tigger whispered in her ear. Kathy looked at the fellin in front of her, realizing finally that it was a female. "I want to take a closer gander."
"Don't be a pervert," Kathy admonished, pushing Tigger's head down into the back with a grunt.
"You're killing me, Kathy!"
"Get over it," she said, petting him as he popped his head back up. The desk sergeant dismissed the first fellin, calling up the second. Kathy stepped up to the red line painted on the floor to wait. When the gnome called her up, he smiled broadly at her.
"Ah, Lady Potts! Friend of King Ovin's court! What can I do for you, Miss?"
"Oh, wow," she said, clasping her hands over her heart. "I've been recognized! I feel like a celebrity!"
"And why not," said the gnome, reaching under the desk and pulling out a square, fat black rock. He touched the bottom, and the surface flared to life, showing a screen of text.
"Oh, you have one of my tablets," Kathy said.
"Friggin' genius this is, Lady Potts! There's a lot of demand for these among my people," he said. "I heard tell you based these off of a gadget in your world."
"Yeah, the Kindle," Kathy said. "Um, I'm actually here to see one of the humans you guys brought in this morning. Byron Torg."
"Ah, yes, him," said the sergeant. "Seemed a friendly fellah, asked a whole lot of questions about the nature of our politics 'ere in the kingdom. He was released about ten minutes ago, love," he said, rechecking the log book. "Yup, right here. Corporal Dugan filled out the release, you want to talk to her?"
Kathy said yes and was directed through a doorway to the right, which opened on a wide hallway stretching back through the station house. The main squad room opened up from the first archway on her left, and she approached the first officer she could find, an elven private in boiled leather armor.
"Excuse me, is Corporal Dugan here," she asked.
"Yeah, follow me." Kathy followed the lithe officer to one of the twin sets of desks, where sat a broad, hybridized lionness in heavy obsidian half-plate armor, her sleek fur glowing atop her head, whiskers twitching as she handwrote some kind of report. "Meredith? Someone to see you," said the private, darting away. Dugan looked up, sharp eyes piercing Kathy, who smiled awkwardly and gave a breast-level little wave of her hand.
"Um, hi," she squeeked. "Kathy Potts," she said.
"I remember," Dugan said, her features relaxing, opening up a friendly countenance. "I served with you during the assault on Celia by Luga's forces. I was a private then." She stood up, towering over Kathy by just over a foot, and when she embraced the human woman, Kathy felt like she might be inadvertently crushed to death. Dugan released her and sat back down. "What can I help you with, Miss Kathy?"
"I'm trying to find the man you just released, Byron Torg. Did he happen to mention where he'd be staying?"
"No, but I did recommend he head over to the Phoenix Inn. He said he'd give them a try." Kathy thanked her for the tip and departed, using non-market streets to make better time to the Phoenix. It still took her half an hour to get there, but ten minutes of that time was spent convincing Tigger to do his toilet in a narrow alley.
"It's uncivilized," he objected when she set him down and suggested it.
"You're a cat."
"It's rude."
"You're a cat."
"This alley is filthy."
"You use your tongue to wash your crotch." He finally had no arguments to make. That last reply stood as a brick wall, and he could only huff and puff so much. When he was done, he pawed her calf so she'd turn around and put him back in her bag. "Better," she asked.
"Ask me again when the bacteria from that alley floor has made camp in my small intestine."
"Drama queen." She arrived at the Phoenix with sweat on her brow and armpits, regretting her choice of cloak. She owned a lighter one, but she'd gotten used to the heavy, darker green cloak during her first trip into the Ether. Baron Dimanche, the voodoo spirit who had accompanied her and Daggeuro during that first adventure, had observed that humans in Ether and Spirit Plane tended to become attached to their first gifts in those places. She understood easily; who wouldn't want a memento of their discovery of the world of magic and fey folken?
In the wide, open lobby, she walked to the smooth oak check-in counter, where sat a bored elven man in brown tunic and green cotton trousers. He had his nose in a book, not even looking up at her until she rang the silver bell sitting there. His features remained slack, like he had taken a pill that removed all emotional capacity. "Welcome to the Phoenix Inn, how may I serve you today?"
"Wow, Ben Stein with pointy ears," she quipped. "Is there a man named Byron Torg staying here?"
"Miss, we don't give out guest names or information to non-family or civilians," he said, eyes inclining back toward his book. Kathy had been prepared for this. She slapped five drakes on the counter. The clerk's hand snaked out and slid the money towards himself slowly. "Room 217," he said, still monotone.
Kathy headed up the nearby stairwell to the second floor, then down the long central corridor until she reached the red wooden door bearing the number 217. She knocked rapidly and stepped back. The door creaked open slowly, one set of fingers clamping one by one around the edge, followed by the top of a man's head, past his spectacled eyes and to his nose, which pressed flat to the door. His eyes bulged at her as he said, "Yeeeeeees?"
"Byron Torg?"
"Last I checked, yeah," said Byron, stepping out around the door. He was dressed in faded blue jeans and a black Dropkick Murphies tee shirt, his feet bare. She noticed that he had hair all the way to the knuckles of his toes. "Can I help you?"
"Kathy Potts," she said, hand extended. "And this little guy is Tigger." He shook her hand and reached up to pet Tigger, who rarely refused the attention.
"Soft hands," Tigger said. Byron's hand went still, eyebrows raised. "What, I got your tongue?"
"No, it's just that the only talking cats I've ever met are usually in armor and threatening castration," Byron remarked. "Please, come in." Kathy followed him into the room, looking over at his gear sprawled on the bed. On the little card table, he had set out a bulky old typewriter, a lime green monster with a flaming skull drawn on the side. "Can I offer you something to drink? I nipped over Mortal-side a few days ago to fetch some soda, still got plenty."
"Coke?" Byron went over to the bed and reached into one of his bags, pulling one out for her and one for himself. He sat in front of the typewriter and indicated the other seat for her. She popped the tab and drank deep. "Thanks. I get to jonesing if I don't have caffeine."
"I know the feeling." He held the can up beside his face, mugging with a huge, dopey smile for her. "'Coca-Cola! At least it's not crack!'" He took a drink, held it up again, and began shaking his hands tremulously. "Caffeeeeeeine, yarg!" He giggled to himself, setting the can down.
"So, you've met Sir Daggeuro, I understand," she said.
"German Shepherd fellow? Yeah, seems like a nice enough guy. Wouldn't want to piss him off, though," Byron said.
"Why do you say that?"
"The guy lets off an aura of power without even trying," Byron said. "And Burke told me some things about him. Seriously, he's a badass."
"I'm actually good friends with him and his fiancee, Selena Barnick," Kathy said. She sipped her soda, then let Tigger out of her bag to stretch his legs and pad around the room. She then took out a little wooden soldier from her bag, setting it on the table.
"What's this, then," Byron asked, genuinely curious.
"My power. Watch." Kathy touched one finger to the figurine, the itch at the back of her head coming on as she channeled her power into it. The soldier came to life, marching around the tabletop, investigating the typewriter by poking its little sword at it. She drew the power back, freezing the figurine in its stabbing posture. She put it back in her bag.
"Pretty neat," Byron said. "I suppose if you're friends with Sir Daggeuro, he told you what I do." She nodded, and noticed the glint in his eyes, a mischievous spark she recognized. This spark was quickly followed, however, by a falling smile, his expression turning crestfallen. "And I imagine he told you about some of my, ah, eccentricities, as it were."
"He did," she said gently. "Are you all right?"
"Not really," Byron said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm aware of how I can get sometimes, especially under stress. I just sort of lose myself and become this Warner Brothers version of me. It's off-putting to people, both here and back in the Mortal Plane." He pinched the base of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. "Makes it hard to make or keep friends."
"I imagine," she said, reaching over and rubbing his right arm. "But you don't seem like a bad guy, just a little 'out there', you know?"
"I know," said Byron with a sigh. "Like in the neigborhood of Jupiter 'out there'." He grabbed his soda and finished it in one long pull. "I wasn't always like this, though. It started with my Awakening."
"Oh? When was that?"
"Sixteen years ago," Byron said wistfully. "Huh, I was fifteen years old. It was," he said, turning his head to look at her from the corner of his eye. Kathy noticed shadows creeping up around his body from the floor, clingy darkness conforming to his frame, making the lines of his face severe. "Awful." He looked at her with his eye wide and suddenly bloodshot, then blinked, and the shadows retreated like smoke, his eye normal again. He turned his attention down to his gear, leaving Kathy a moment to think to herself. Dag was right about one thing; there's something off about this guy. But I don't think it's his fault.
Something else entirely seemed to be at work within Byron Torg, a profane force that hung like a gauzy veil over a bright screen. He seemed charming, witty even, but with a touch of madness that flew like sparks in a frayed wire. One had to use caution when dealing with it, but it worked.
"You need another soda," he asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"Oh, no, I'm all right. Listen, I know you're here for the sages. I was attacked by that chained man too, and they're trying to find out what it might be."
"Excellent," Byron said, seating himself. "You'll let me know when you hear something?"
"I will," she said, grabbing Tigger and setting him back in her bag. "I just wanted to introduce myself. I've only met one other Awakened before, so it's nice to see another human in Celia."
"It is, isn't it?" He smiled at her, a soft expression that made his features smooth out and seem both intellectual and relaxed. She felt the tug of attraction to him, but reminded herself quickly of those shadows. She shook his hand once more and departed, leaving him to set paper in his typewriter and begin hammering the keys.
As she headed to Selena's once more, she realized that her initial impression wasn't much different than Daggeuro's; dark, and possibly a little mad.