Now, Tennessee
“Motherfu—”
“Wassup?”
“Nothing,” Casey mumbled.
“Oh? Thought you was sayin’ some shit. You should announciate yo words.”
“Enunciate,” he muttered.
“Huh?”
Casey regarded the much larger man stabbing the stick into the muck slowly drifting down the nearly stagnant sewer water.
“Nothing. I was just saying that this is a bullshit job, no?”
“Better than that farm shit or the mine. You ain’t gonna fuckin’ find me crawlin’ in the dark with all those monster. ‘Sides, big boy like me ain’t supposed to be in no tiny tunnels. Only thing I’d be gettin’ in that tight be a woman,” he chuckled.
Casey pretended to laugh along. He agreed with the general sentiment. It was just that he absolutely despised this mouth-breathing hillbilly despite only knowing him for a few hours.
They continued breaking up the most egregious chunks of sewage in relative silence until they reached the end of the tunnel. That was just about the only good thing about this particular part of his new job. The section of sewers that people had to physically move through wasn’t that large.
“Hey?”
“What?”
“You new ‘round here, yeah?”
Casey nodded.
“How’d you end up here? It ain’t exactly a prime postin’.”
“What about you? Why are you here?” Casey didn’t want to admit that he had been essentially fired from the grocery store warehouse job. The worst part had been the smug look on that old fuck’s face. He hadn’t been fooled. The old man had said all the right words. Talking about it was ‘just a bad fit’ and that ‘he hoped that Casey would find the right place’. Fuck that guy. Once the cabal moved in Casey vowed to make the old man eat his words.
The big hick shrugged.
Casey hadn’t bothered to remember the man’s name. There wasn’t a point.
“Like I says… ain’t wanted to be on no farm or mine. Ain’t got the patience for any of the other shit. This ain’t bad. Ain’t got to deal with no bosses. So long as I do wut I’m ‘posed to they don’t bother me none.”
“Yeah, but you’re breaking up chunks of shit all day, all week. The fucking stench.”
“It ain’t just that. Ain’t actually most of the day. A lot of makin’ sure dem gutters and drains ain’t clogged. I’ll learn ya.”
Casey blinked and spent too much effort translating the hick-speak.
“Yeah… okay.”
“Wut you do before?”
Fucking hick didn’t want to drop it.
“Grocery store.”
The hick nodded like that was something profound.
“Inside or warehouse?”
“What does that matter?” Casey tried to keep the irritation from escaping.
“Damn kid, you wound up. Just makin’ conversatin’ is all. Tryin’ be friendly and shit,” the big man shook his head. “They was sayin’ you got an attitude problem.”
The irritation became hate in an instant.
A spell of pure, crippling pain was on the tip of his tongue ready to make the big hick regret ever opening his dumb mouth.
Somehow, Casey managed to pull back from the edge.
He feared the consequences of failure more than putting up with the countless indignities these backwoods people had inflicted upon him in just a few short months.
“I’m going to go check again. Make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
“Whatever you want, kid. It’s ‘bout time for my break anyways. You got fifteen then we got to start our rounds before lunch.”
Casey’s gaze stayed locked to the big hick’s back as the other man exited the sewer.
“You’re on the list too,” he mumbled.
Casey took his stick and trudged back to the other end of the sewer tunnel. The fetid, slow-moving water could only be loosely called that. It was entirely too brown and thick.
The smell was truly horrendous.
Not that he hadn’t smelled terrible things as part of being in the Cabal.
But at least that was in the service of gaining greater magical power.
He didn’t mind it too much that tortured people pissed and shit themselves.
The power, the levels gained outweighed all other concerns.
What he had to endure in this backwoods town… now that was true torture.
So many soft people going about without a care in the world.
He couldn’t understand how they had survived this long. Why the mutant animals and monsters in the surrounding woods and mountains hadn’t swept through and ate every last one of the useless sheep.
There was something that they weren’t seeing. Something they had continually failed to discover. After all, they had been sent here for a reason and he wanted to be the one to discover it.
Which wasn’t going to be likely considering how they kept conspiring to push him further away from the important parts of the town.
“Fucking Scarlett, slut spends her nights getting trains run on her. Bitch Sandy’s sucking off old dicks. That pussy Brent just jerks off—” a slight surge of magic danced across his fingers. “Shit!” he clamped down on it. Their instructions from Cambion had been to not use any magic at all. The 1st Finger had claimed that the Vitiator had said it himself. “Fuckfuckfuck!” he scarcely dared breathe. He eyed his surroundings waiting for… something.
The hyperawareness was the only reason that he caught the movement of something small in the turgid water.
He deftly stabbed his stick out and fished the object out of the muck.
It was— “… a piece of shit, of course,” his lip curled in disgust, then wonder when he realized that the piece of shit was loosely-shaped in a humanoid form and was moving its arms and legs as though it was swimming. “The fuck!”
Back at the apartment Scarlett crawled out of bed and slinked into the kitchen.
“Any luck last night?” Brent was already eating at the table.
“Where’s mine?”
He shot her a two-fingered salute, which she returned blandly.
“So?”
“Food first. Since you didn’t make me any you’re going to wait like the bitch you are.”
“We all know you’re the biggest bitch there is.”
Scarlett snorted.
Brent and the rest had gotten comfortable around her over the last few months sharing a living space. She couldn’t do anything about it now, but once the Quest was over she’d remind them of her higher standing.
She took her time preparing her lunch drawing it out. She could feel Brent’s discomfort at the wait. Good.
She sat down to eat across from Brent and spent several minutes eating. She chewed slowly and deliberately. She held Brent’s gaze with her own until he looked away.
Dominance asserted, at least for now.
“I have nothing different to report,” she said lightly.
“Thought as much. I can’t say any different. We need to get into the inner town.”
“The magic school is the key. One of my… clients… related a story about it. A few days old and I don’t know if it matters.”
“What was it?”
“The class tends to take place in the park next to the school. Rain or shine, and yet the kids never get wet. There was some sort of disturbance. A crazy old person. Apparently, it’s a pretty regular thing.”
“Could we maybe use that? As a distraction,” Brent mused.
“We can’t sneak into the inner town without using spells or Skills, which is a failure condition for the Quest.”
“Is it though?”
“Yes,” she blinked at Brent, regarded him as the himbo he was, “it is. The Quest literally warns of the dangers of being discovered using them.”
“I guess. It’s been another week and everything’s still pointing toward that school. So, we need to actually get eyes and ears on it. Which we can’t do unless we get into the inner town. I don’t know about you but I’d like to get done with this sooner rather than later. The Quest might be worth a ton of points but we’re also wasting away doing nothing here.”
“We have time. We’ll still come out ahead if we succeed within the next two months. Maybe, Sandy will have better news now that she’s going to be more… assertive.”
“That’s about all that bimbo is good for,” Brent snorted. “You know, I thought it was gonna be her doing whore duty at the brothel instead of you. It was surprising that you picked that one. I never took you for a slut,” he grinned lightly.
She regarded him mildly. “Then you truly have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Brent’s eyes narrowed. He stood without a word and left his empty plate.
Yes. She was going to need to teach several lessons when they completed their Quest.
For her part, Sandy had failed. She had been failing all week. A progression of shorter and tighter dresses had done nothing to tempt the eyes of her target.
The mayor was old, but he wasn’t that old… was he?
She wasn’t sure. She didn’t normally bother with anyone over the age of 40.
She vaguely knew that old people had drugs for that and Skills.
Actually, she knew that latter existed for a fact through her experiences in the Cabal with its older members.
Perhaps the mayor wasn’t into women?
But then again he always talked about his grandchildren.
It was all too confusing and hard for Sandy.
She wasn’t supposed to be stuck behind a desk doing monotonous tasks for eight hours a day, five days a week. Who did that anyways? It was such a boring way to live. It wasn’t truly life as far as she was concerned.
She couldn’t wait to stop doing it. She had so much frustrated energy to expend.
The mayor’s grandchildren were a perfect target.
He always bragged about how good they were with their magic.
Well, she’d show them what real magic could do.
Their pain and suffering would make her own grow.
She wanted to use a spell to entrap the mayor’s mind, but that was a big no no.
Cambion had so. As did the Quest.
She might’ve ignored or ‘forgot’ to listen to the former. Not the latter.
“Hey, Sandy!” the mayor smiled as he approached her desk.
“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” she fluttered her eyes and leaned forward pushing her chest out by squeezing her arms together.
The old man didn’t even break eye contact for a second.
“Why don’t you go home early,” he smiled. “My grandkids have a special presentation and I’m calling it a day.”
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“Oh, really! What kind of presentation? It’s at that special magic school thing right?”
“Yup!” he beamed proudly. “I don’t know much about magic stuff, still can’t believe it’s real, but you can’t really deny it can you?” he laughed.
Sandy laughed just as heartily.
“I don’t know what it’s all about but they’ve been working all weak on getting their little Play-Doh men… oh, make that ‘woman’ for Jennylyn’s, not that I can tell the difference. Between you and me, it looks like a lump with arms and legs. They’ve been doing something to make them move around. Darnedest thing. I know I’ve seen some weird things since those god-forsaken spires showed up, but my precious babies making Play-Doh dance around…” he shook his head.
“Oh, but isn’t that dangerous?”
“Some folk might think so. Call it the Devil’s work, but I don’t. I’ve seen enough to know that we need that magic if we’re going to survive. The kids’ll need it more. That’s why Ms. Teacher is a godsend far as I’m concerned. I don’t care much about me. I’m old and seen more than I’d want. I just want Jennylyn and Willy to get the same chance that I did.”
“Awww… I’m sure they will,” Sandy beamed.
“All we can do is pray to Jesus that’ll be true,” the mayor smiled. “I’m off, lock up when you’re done and have a good weekend. I’ll see you Monday.”
“Good luck… I mean for you grandkids’ presentation! They’ll do great!”
“Oh, don’t I know it! See you, Sandy!”
“Bye bye, Mr. Mayor!”
Sandy cursed as soon as the mayor had left the office.
That news sounded important.
Unfortunately, what could she do with it without access to the vaunted magic school?
Oh well.
All she could do was report back to the others.
On the plus side she had only been forced to do her stupid job for a little over half the day.
It was the most excitement she’d had in a while.
----------------------------------------
“It’s been three days and we’ve been stuck in this motel room the whole time,” Nila mused.
“There’s a pool,” Cal replied warily.
“I’ll cut you some slack since you can’t gauge the temperature, but did you forget it’s November.”
“Yeeessss…”
“That means it’s cold,” she eyed him.
“There’s a hot tub…”
“And the one time I used it a bunch of guys watched me from behind their curtains.”
He had been aware. There was no right thing to say so he remained silent.
“Don’t you have anything to say about that?”
“You’re strong…”
She nodded seemingly satisfied.
He was tempted, but refrained from taking a peek into her surface thoughts. That would’ve been wrong and disrespectful even if it would’ve made things easier.
“How much longer are we going to be stuck in here? I’d like to at least walk around and explore the town a bit. I’ve never been in a place like this.”
“What’s there to discover? It’s a quiet mountain valley town. The setting of many a movie, TV show and novel.”
“We all don’t have mind powers that lets us learn all that there is to know in a few seconds, right?”
“Right!” the little guy said. “What right?” he eyed Nila.
“See,” she nodded toward the little guy jumping up and down on one of the beds, “he gets it.”
“I could go force a meeting with the elf lady… except I feel like that’d be the wrong move. This is just a test, probably. You know one of those measuring contests. Testing guest etiquette. Manners. Respect. That sort of thing. In a way, I don’t mind. It hasn’t been too bad just sitting here without having to deal with horrible people or monsters.”
“Well, it’s getting boring, right?”
“Yay! Boring!” the little guy dived across the gap to belly-flop onto the other bed.
“See,” Cal remarked lightly, “he’s enjoying himself.”
“Children are innocent. He enjoys an empty cardboard box.”
“That labyrinth we made was fricking awesome!”
“You filled two floors.”
“Awesome!”
“You cut holes in the floor,” she rolled her eyes.
“Had to put in some slides.”
“I don’t know how he wasn’t traumatized by those puppets you,” she wiggled her fingers, “puppeted around.”
“Cause he’s a brave monster slayer, right?”
“I slay monster!” the little guy roared then leapt off the bed.
Nila caught him with enhanced reflexes. “I think you need to start learning what is and isn’t dangerous, right?”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No!”
Come to me.
“Oh… seriously…”
“What is it?” Nila’s finely honed intuition didn’t miss much when she wanted to pay attention.
“Well, you got you wanted. Just got a cryptic message in my head.”
“Through your walls?”
“Not exactly. It’s like someone whispering from the other side of them.”
“But it’s not supposed to work that way.”
“Nothing’s perfect,” he shrugged. “Off I go.”
“Be careful. I’ll armor up just in case,” she eyed the Threnosh-made armor standing next to the television.
“Don’t worry. I’m getting the impression that we aren’t meant any harm.”
He bid them goodbye and walked out the door and into the sky.
He landed in a park next to a school just as the message instructed.
To his surprise there was a fairly large gathering.
A bunch of adults in chairs sat watching a slightly raised stage with a large table in the middle.
Children sat next to the stage in orderly rows. They all had boxes on their laps.
“Show and tell, really?”
Watch.
“I don’t—”
Or leave… without answers.
He walked over and found the closest empty chair.
People eyed his t-shirt and jeans but didn’t remark.
He didn’t see any sign of a tall, glowing elf lady.
He considered scanning the crowd but decided against it.
“We shall begin. I ask that you refrain from cheering until after each child finishes their presentation,” a voice like music spoke from nowhere and everywhere.
He stiffened.
It was a little too close to the way Zalthyss spoke.
Although, he felt no danger at the moment.
“Jennylyn, please step up to the stage.”
The girl stood from her seat and rushed up the steps.
He didn’t need powers to see that she was nervous.
She laid the box on the table and stepped to the side.
“Um… hi… um… my name is Jennylyn and this is my project.” Her voice wavered and her hands shook as she held them toward the box.
A pregnant pause ensued then the box suddenly began to shape.
The crowd gasped.
Strangely, he didn’t detect fear or concern, but rather delight and excitement.
It was odd that an ostensibly god-fearing town didn’t appear to have any problems with the summoning and binding of spirits.
He supposed small clay figures didn’t really inspire fear.
For that was what climbed out of the box to totter back and forth across the table.
He felt a surge of energy and a projection of the six-inch-tall clay figure appeared several feet above the stage.
The crowd clapped and cheered as though Jennylyn had just managed to spell squamulose to win a spelling bee.
The tiny clay golem was misshapen but he could clearly tell that it had a body, two arms and two legs, and a lump of a head. It marched back and forth in front of the box swinging its arms stiffly like a soldier on parade.
“Well done, Jennylyn!”
The disembodied voice spoke with genuine pleasure from what he could tell.
The girl beamed as she picked up the golem and placed it back in the box before returning to her seat.
Cal had a ton of questions.
How?
How were kids doing that?
What level were they?
And what was the cost for them?
What did the elf lady gain?
Unfortunately, for him he was going to have to wait for the 30 children to finish their presentations before he could try to get those answers.
----------------------------------------
“Psst!”
“What?” Rand whispered.
“Don’t do it, everyone’s watching, you’ll be grounded for life, you’ll be expelled!” Rupert hissed.
“Shut up! I’m already grounded,” Rupert muttered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing…”
“Randall, it is your turn. Please step onto the stage.”
Ms. Teacher’s voice jolted the two boys to attention. Hearing her as though she was standing right behind them made their hearts race like when they were caught sneaking cookies and candy out of the cupboard.
Indeed, Rupert turned around in his seat reflexively.
Cammi waved with a smile.
Which he returned after a moment of the heat rushing to his face.
He spun back around just as quickly. His heart hammered faster.
Rand shook his head and with one last disgusted look rose.
Rupert watched the gigantic projection above the stage as Rand sullenly dumped his creation onto the table.
He couldn’t help but groan for his friend.
It was definitely the worst one so far.
Still a small, guilty part of him was relieved. Rand’s creation was also worse than his.
The small pile of dirt and mug had two twigs sticking out of each side as if they were supposed to be arms.
Rupert wasn’t sure.
The thing remained still until Rand prodded it with his finger.
It moved… slowly. Like a slug trailing residue across the table.
The twig arms waved, although that might’ve just been an incidental part of the dirt pile’s lurching crawl.
It could’ve been worse, Rupert told himself. He hadn’t smelled anything amiss earlier, but he sniffed the air again just to make sure.
“Thank you, Randall. Please return to your seat,” Ms. Teacher said. “Rupert, please take your turn.”
The crowd’s applause was… polite.
The red never left Rupert’s face as he displayed his own creation.
The tiny Play-Doh man wasn’t as good as someone like Jennylyn’s but it walked across the table at his prompting. One leg was longer while the other was fatter which gave it a limping gate and one arm had partially fallen off. Still, all things considered he was satisfied.
He rushed off the stage when he was finished with his older brother’s loud roars drowning out the rest of the crowd’s polite claps.
“Nice one!” Cammi smiled as she went up to take her turn.
“Thanks, you too— uh— I mean good luck—” he stammered out barely coherent word mush.
“You’re being weird,” Rand eyed him.
“Shut up!” he hissed as he took his seat.
Cammi’s tiny man was pretty good. Better than Jennylyn’s and almost everyone else.
It wasn’t too surprising that Emma’s turned out to be the best. Her little Play-Doh man ran, jumped and did flips across the table.
With the end of the presentations the children and their families mingled in the fields.
Snacks and juice were served from several tables along the edge of the park while the children ran and played in and around the playground.
Many eyes searched for Ms. Teacher but she wasn’t anywhere to be found.
“I made, like, a simple skeleton for him out of paperclips!” Emma beamed with her Play-Doh man sitting on one of her shoulders. It waved at the other kids gathered around her.
Rupert watched and listened from the swings. Well, he listened, but he really only had eyes for one person, which filled him with confusion.
Why?
“Ugh… look at her, acting like she’s the queen or something stupid,” Rand said.
“Huh? What?”
“What’re you looking at? Who are you looking at?” Rand regarded him suspiciously.
“Nothing. No one. I mean— Emma’s golem was something else, right? I bet she summoned a stronger spirit than we did.”
“Than we’re supposed to!” Rand’s eyes gleamed. “Ms. Teacher would’ve had to know, right? Emma’ll get in trouble for breaking the rules.”
“That’s impossible,” Rupert shook his head. “Ms. Teacher taught us the spell. We can’t summon anything stronger than the spirit we did. It should be all the same. She wouldn’t let us do something stronger. She said it’s dangerous.”
“Emma obviously cheated. She’s delving into things beyond her. Just like Ms. Teacher warned.”
“No she isn’t,” Rupert rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Rand. Ms. Teacher wouldn’t let that happen. She’s probably watching us.”
“All of us?” Rand scoffed. “No way. She’s powerful or whatever but one person can’t watch what all of us are doing all of the time.”
“How can you be so sure? My brother says he heard from the senior guards that she’s, like, protecting the entire town. How can she do that if she isn’t keeping an eye on everything?” he spread his arms out wide.
“Exactly! How can she watch us when she’s got more important things to watch!” Rand crowed.
“Whatever. I’m just saying what my brother said.”
“Look at her. She wouldn’t be so proud if my dad didn’t catch me.”
“You always talk about Emma. Jennylyn says it’s cause you like her.”
“What? No!” Rand snapped. “Ew… gross!”
“I’m just glad you didn’t go through with your plan.”
“It was working. Then my dad caught me.”
“You… did it?” Rupert gave Rand a flat stare. “You summoned a spirit and binded it into poop?” he sighed. “What kind of poop— nevermind, I don’t want to know. What did your dad do?”
“Made me flush it. Now, I’m grounded for a month and my dad’s going to talk to Ms. Teacher,” Rand said.
Rupert nodded and said nothing.
Upon reflection his friend had been getting a little obsessed with the one-sided rivalry with Emma. Everyone knew that there was no rivalry possible. If the rest of them were shooting stars in the sky then Emma was the sun.
Ms. Teacher was the only one that could nip things in the bud before Rand did something really stupid.
“Who’s that guy?” Rupert pointed across the field by way of distraction.
An unfamiliar man walked toward the school buildings.
“Dunno,” Rand shrugged.
The man wasn’t dressed nicely like the other adults. He had black hair and brown skin, which was pretty rare.
“That’s weird,” Rand said.
The man walked right past the guards and into the school.
Everyone knew that Ms. Teacher didn’t take random visitors. You had to ask and only then would she maybe let you see her.
“They weren’t even looking at him.”
“I know, right,” Rand agreed. “Do you think he’s a bad guy?”
“No. Even if he was then Ms. Teacher will just blast him.”
“You’re right. Maybe she’s interviewing for a gardener or something.”
“Maybe…” Rupert wondered.
Come to think of it. He had never seen anyone cutting the grass. Yet, it was always short.
“Okay… maybe I can’t use shit. That’s kinda messed up,” Rand mused, “but what about glue? What do you think?”
Rupert sighed.