Vivien woke naturally, feeling like he didn’t sleep at all. He got up from the couch and folded the blankets he’d been using, walked into the small kitchen, and got some coffee going. Outside the kitchen window, he saw hints of the sun rising above the mountains. He looked at his phone, it said it was 6:30 AM.
He looked in the fridge. There were only eggs, half a package of bacon, and a single beer.
Well… that narrows it down.
He opened every cupboard looking for a damn pan, it was the last one he looked in. Butter was on the counter already, he greased up the pan and turned on the electric stove. He’d never cooked on electric before.
While it was presumably heating up, he went to Erin’s room and knocked on the door lightly, before opening it with a creek.
He poked his head in. He heard her say “Ugh!” and raised up from the bed like a zombie, her short black hair a mess. “What year is it?” she whispered, rubbing her eyes.
“I’m making coffee and breakfast,” he said.
“You better have not used the right front stove top…”
A fire alarm went off in the front of the house. Vivie smiled, and ran down the hall to the stove.
It was shooting out flames. It was electric.
He panicked, turned off the stove and grabbed a small cup, trying to fill it with water, when Erin shoved him out of the way. She reached under the counter and grabbed a fire extinguisher, professionally pulling the pin and spraying white powder all over the place, including in the bacon.
“I’m sorry…” he said, scratching the back of his head.
“It’s the thought that counts,” Erin said in a sleepy haze, bags under her freckled eyes. Somehow the thought counting didn’t assure him much. “I’ll just take eggs…”
“Eggs it is! How do you like them?”
“Mmm—I want it over easy.” She took a seat at the dinner table. “Get me coffee, please, with concentrated milk.” It sounded like her last dying request.
Vivie carefully poured some coffee and looked in the fridge. There was an open can of concentrated milk.
“Here you go,” he handed her the cup and the can. His phone rang in his pocket. It said Peaches was calling. He answered.
“You answered, so that’s good.” Rowan said. “Are you safe? Where are you?”
“I’m at Erin’s house… she’s the girl that saved me,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Wounded, at my house with Avery, that girl’s boyfriend. My leg’s are all messed up, but why don’t we make some sort of plan? My place isn’t safe anymore.”
At that moment Nina walked through the door. “Hello, hold the presses,” she said. “I bring news from Yumiko.”
“I’m putting you on speaker phone,” he said, pressing a button and putting the phone out in front of him.
“We’re making an assault on the mystery, bleeding eyes man,” Nina said emotionlessly. Walking up to Erin, she handed her a large, cut gem. It looked like an emerald with strange interconnected symbols inside it.
“What’s it do now?” Erin asked.
“Whatever it’s supposed to do, originally.” She shrugged. “It’ll only work on Avery, whatever it is.”
“What did Yumiko say?” Erin asked.
“A lot of things. But that’s the plan she told me, we’ll make a joint assault against this man… tonight.”
“We’ve got a problem, a vengeful monster is out to get me and Avery!” Rowan yelled through the phone’s speaker. “Or it might be… I haven’t seen it since I kicked it.”
“Kicked it?” Vivie said.
“It’s a long story, for another time. I put a powerful blessing on my legs… thing is I can’t use them while they heal over the next couple days.”
“This is Rowan?” Erin said into the phone, “tell us how you knew so much about the city in the sky…”
“I guess you all need to know. I’m the daughter of two Druids,” she said. “I was blessed in a moonlit city when I was a child, to get rid of a terminal illness. But, as things go for Druids, I don’t know much about actually being one.”
“Well, well… Doesn’t that work out well? I happen to know a lot about Druids. I helped one, probably a year ago now,” Erin said.
“You did… help me get somewhere safe, we’ll contact my parents!”
“I never could get her into contact with her parents… we could only send a message.”
“Um, excuse me,” Vivie said. “Anyone want to explain what the hell a Druid is? I thought they were a part of fairy tales…”
“They’re a bloodline, probably the oldest bloodline imaginable, tracing back to the beginnings of the human race,” Erin said. “They’re parents always leave their children, it’s something of a curse on them for their power.”
“The moonlit city is used by Druids, does that help you at all?”
“I’m not certain, if anything it might interfere with contacting them… but we’ve gotta try anyway.”
- - - -
The three of them were carousing the local Armory, and it was crowded, almost shoulder to shoulder with all three checkout lanes open. People were buying bows, crossbows, swords, kevlon, steel plates, you name it, someone had it under their arm in piles and shopping carts full.
“Apparently a city falling out of the sky does a number on weapon sales… What did you want, again?” Vivie turned to Erin. She was wearing a black long sleeve shirt and a mid length dark purple skirt.
“I just wanted to look. Oh!” She pointed to a display of steel chest plates. Pushing her way through the crowd, she took one off the rack. “Will you buy this for me?” She clasped it on, tying up the sides over her shirt.
“You have to buy this for me, it fits perfectly!”
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“Yeah, no problem. Now help me pick out something I can use.”
“There’s always a crossbow,” Nina said.
Vivie didn’t want a crossbow, that didn’t fit the image of the kind of battle they were going to fight. Something caught his eye as they passed the gloves.
A railgun, a handgun model… Now that could work. He wandered over to the display. “Hey, how many of these do you have left?” He asked the clerk.
“That’s the last one. New models like these pack a punch, enough to blow up an elephant, and the battery? That’ll last thirty shots at minimum power. Six on the max. I leave mine on my cigarette charger when I’m not using it.”
“I’ll take it, and get me two extra magazines.”
“Yes, sir.”
Erin walked up. “Can you get me these gloves, too?” The clerk got out the railgun. “Oh, you're getting a railgun! Nice!”
“I can check you out here.”
- - - -
They’re approach was bizarre, to say the least. Erin was on top of the Tesla’s roof, moving slowly through the neighborhood to Rowan’s house.
“I see nothing!” She yelled with the wind blowing through her hair, and dagger in her hand.
“This is her house!” He yelled as he pulled in. He got out of the car. “Keep a lookout, I’ll go get them.” He walked up to the house, when the door opened with Avery carrying Rowan in a bridal carry.
“Let’s get out of here, quick,” Rowan said, looking nervous. She was wearing shorts, with badges wrapped around her legs and feet.
They all half ran back to the car, Vivie opening the backdoor for them as Avery moved her legs for her and Erin getting into the passenger seat. Vivie started the car and reversed out.
“How do we even ‘send a message’ to the Druids, Erin?” Vivie asked what was on everyone’s mind.
“We start a big fire in the wilderness, Rowan says some words… that’s about it.” she replied.
“Sounds like we need beer,” Vivie said.
“And wine,” said Avery.
“I guess we can make it a celebration, nobody said you have to be solemn about it…” Erin said. “But we have to make it a day trip, we’ve gotta be back by the time the moon comes out.”
“Wait, did it say anywhere it had to be in the wilderness? Why not do it in one of our backyards?” So suggested Avery.
“It’s gotta be a place with lots of old trees.”
“Hell, let’s do it in my backyard. I’ve got old oaks and pines for day’s back there, and beer and wine.” So said Vivie.
Erin shrugged. “Let’s try it.”
- - - -
Vivie cracked open another beer, watching the fire in the early morning sun. It wasn’t quite at bonfire level yet, but apparently all the old oaks around his acre backyard should count as ‘wilderness’ enough. Rowan was sitting in a lawn chair next to him. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
“Want some beer?” He asked her.
“No, I want this over.” She was biting her nails, never a good sign in his experience.
Avery and Erin were happy to be back together as they threw some more logs onto the fire.
“Okay,” Erin said, taking a step back from the fire. “This should be good enough. Rowan, all you need to do is pray.”
“That’s all…?” Rowan said. “Are you sure you're not missing a step?”
“That’s it. Pray for communication, your parents, whichever. It’s that simple.”
Rowan closed her eyes and clasped her hand together. She thought of what she remembered of her parents, of her childhood, of the silver city in the sky when she was still growing.
“It’s working…” Avery said somewhere nearby.
She opened her eyes, still praying to get in contact. She thought she could see a face in the outline of the fire. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She closed her eyes again.
Who calls upon me… A voice in her head said.
“Rowan,” she whispered, feeling the fire grow more intense.
Rowan… What do ye need? It rang in her head.
“I call for help, something terrible is going on in this town,” she whispered under her breath.
The fire grew so intense that she had to open her eyes. A woman stepped out of the huge blaze, burning like paper in reverse as she became solid and three dimensional. A nude woman, with curly light blonde hair and a modestly sized chest, shivering in front of them.
“Got any clothes?” She said, trying to smile.
- - - -
They had no clothes for her, but managed to find a blanket quick enough. They told her all the goings on of the silver city falling out of the sky. She seemed surprised the whole while, asking questions throughout.
“Rowan,” the first words out of her mouth that’s not a question. “I’ve always wanted to meet you. I’m your aunt, call me Dierdre.” She smiled, it was a sad smile. She leaned down and hugged her gently, but Rowan didn’t hug back. Shock was written all over her face.
“I have good news, and I have bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”
“...Start with the bad.”
“The bad news is that there’s nothing I can do for you. I cannot lend you my direct aid. There’s too much going on in the Druid’s realm for me to up and leave.”
“What’s the good news?” Vivie said.
“I can advise you, and perhaps bless everyone here. This Goddess Yumiko, we’re aware of her at least. She’s an ally to the Druids, amongst many others she’s helped.”
“Is she always so pompous?” said Nina.
Deirdre nodded. “That’s just her personality, as annoying as it is… I would advise you, however, that her methods are an end to a means…”
“So… she doesn’t care about how she gets there?” Rowan said.
“Take what she says with a grain of salt, she’s on the right path but there may be a better way than she thinks.”
“So we’re cannon fodder to her, in other words.” Vivie said.
“She operates on strange principles, if someone has to die to ‘balance’ a situation, she’ll kill them herself. It’s just how she works, so be careful.”
“What can you tell us about the silver city?” Vivie asked.
“I’ll try to be brief. When a moonlit city comes, it means that two reality’s are crossing paths, like in a sort of synchronicity with each other. But it’s been long known that these can be summoned, temporarily. It’s in the summoning process that certain things can be arranged for certain conditions of the city that’s summoned.”
“And they set it up so that it can fall out of the sky? How is this done?” Rowan said, leaning forward in her chair.
“It’s done on a computer, nowadays. They’re extremely efficient at running the ritual in the correct order, without mistakes. The thing that doesn’t make sense is that nobody ever figured out how to make them intersect with each other. Until now, of course, and that’s what your group is seeing.”
“What’ll happen if they clash together, fully?” said Rowan.
“Nobody knows… I’m sorry, it’s never happened.”
“What about the spirits?” Avery said, “We came across one last night, remember, Rowan?”
“I completely forgot that detail…”
“Funny that you call them spirits, it’s not far from what they really are. They’re souls. Up in the silver city, they’re frozen in time physically, but those are their actual souls. I would suggest you protect them.”
“So that monster, what’s that?” Avery asked.
“It’s from the silver city, too, think of it as a guardian, a very hungry guardian…”
“That’s my understanding, too,” Rowan said. “It’s actually trying to protect the city from evil-doers. But when it wakes up, it feeds on the same thing it’s trying to protect.”
“Talk about a catch-22…” Vivie said. “What do we do about it?”
“Do nothing, just let it do its job. It might even help you in the long run of things.” She looked up at the position of the sun, saying, “My time is short. Let me bless you all, as a parting gift.”
She walked over to Vivie first, the first in the circle of new allies. She reached a hand out of the blanket pulled over herself and placed it on his forehead.
He closed his eyes, it felt like the only sensible thing to do.
“You may feel like you’re just a pawn, but you’re more bishop than that. Important decisions rest on your shoulders, just try not to doubt yourself. What blessing would you like?”
“Do you know anything about this eye I got?” He almost whispered.
“I do. I could modify it, if you wish.”
“Do that, enhance my vision.”
Sparks of light, like sparkling lightning, shot between her spread out fingers. She moved silently to the next person, Rowan, and put her hand on her forehead. Vivie was blinking rapidly.
“Rowan, my niece. You’ll make a great Druid yet. Embrace that side of you in these trying times, decide for yourself what path you’ll take after this concludes. That man beside you, Rowan?”
“Yes?”
“Rely on him more.”
“Yes.”
Another set of sparks flew out of the cracks of her hand, more intense this time. “I’ve given you the divine blessing of the Druids, you’ll find your innate abilities are enhanced.”
“Thank you, Deirdre.”
She moved onto Erin, who closed her eyes, the third in line. Placing her hand on her forehead, “Young woman, I cannot bless you, but I can tell you this: many trials and tribulations are in your path. Be ready for anything.”
Erin nodded, and she moved to Avery, the second to last. She did not reach out to him, she tilted her head and examined him head to toe.
“A great darkness lurks inside you, something I’m afraid to touch… because I’ve seen it before. You’re destined for even greater things than this, beyond either of our imaginations. Watch your back.”
Deirdre then looked to Nina, who simply shook her head. Deirdre nodded back, apparently understanding at a glance. She threw off the blanket and handed it to Rowan, now standing nude, and approached the fire.
“Goodbye,” she turned and waved, before stepping directly into the flames and disappearing before their eyes with a shimmer.