Chapter Seven - Tammy

“I’m here to see Mordo.”

“Mmhmm, sure you are. They’re not doing a show tonight, and even if they were I’d still need ID. Nobody under 21 when it isn’t Tuesday. We’re a bar, not a daycare.”

His hand was still out and waiting for the ID.

“Look. I should be on your list or whatever. Tamara Aufrey.”

He smiled, a lopsided laconic grin. Then he made a big show of patting down the skintight pants, turning his head, and shrugging. “I don’t see a clipboard, don’t see a list, and don’t see an ID. What I do see is you holding up the line. So either get lost or follow the rules. A big name like that isn’t worth shit here, and if you were invited, the boss would’ve told you what to say.”

He followed up with an ethereal wink. His eyes didn’t move, but a spark of light flashed across one of them as he made it obvious he had magic. Which meant he should’ve known why I was here. And he was just being stubborn, getting in my way and treating this like a joke. With that smug fucking smile.

The bracelet’s itch doubled. His eyes flashed down to it, widening as I felt heat prickling up my arm, magic roiling under the skin like it did before I cast one of my spells. He stepped back as I pushed down the surge of anger, pain in my palms trying to take the edge off.

“I came here. Even with all of the fucking shit that’s happened. Because I was asked to. If you’re going to fuck around and make me say some ridiculous password just to get in? Screw every last one of you.”

The thick, cloying smell of ash overpowered the perfumes that lingered over the street. Pressure and static bore down on us as I stared him down. The way both bouncers were pulling back. The confusion in the bystanders’ eyes. It felt good. They should be scared. Didn’t they know I was…

My nails broke the skin. Blood smeared across my thigh and the coppery tang burned off the grey haze that I hadn’t even noticed creeping over my vision. The powdery coat of ash on the ground faded into nothingness as I fought to keep the heat in my arm down. The bracelet, as I seized that wrist with my branded hand, was writhing.

This had been a bad idea.

“Things are complicated. Will you please take me to see the Council?”

He swallowed, thickly. The conversation back in the line started up again as the other bouncer watched, one hand behind his back. Then he nodded.

“Right, right. Will uh – will your sister be joining us Miss Aufrey?”

I twitched. He took that as an answer, but his desperate look to his partner only got a headshake and a muttered, “Shit. Alright, follow me.”

A roar of sound and a wall of flashing lights engulfed us as we stepped inside. He shook as his fingers traced out a pattern on his pants. The fabric went from dull to shiny, and my eyes itched when I went to focus on the figure. It was like trying to find the portal, but more localized. The second it was complete, a faint pulse of magic rolled out. People stopped looking at us – stepping out and away to open a path across the dance floor.

A second symbol joined the first, familiar purple sparks dancing out of his fingers and sinking in as the music died into a low buzz that left my teeth tasting like static. Even the dancers’ shouts only filtered through as low whispers. The staff – from back at the bar and at the handful of tables – were the only ones to look at us. One ducked out and ran off ahead of us at a stiff gesture from my guide.

Just staring at his back and the way he walked was enough to tell he was terrified. Whenever I sped up, he would edge away and move faster too. What had he seen? Why had I been so happy to see him afraid? He didn’t say a word and I didn’t trust myself to try to start a conversation. Whatever was going on – I was getting more and more sure that I needed whoever was on this Council’s help. They hadn’t done anything before. But maybe if I asked…

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We went into a maze of small hallways the second we got off the dance floor. The place felt bigger than it should have been, and most of the doors weren’t marked with anything. Nobody else interrupted us until we came up to a door with a golden Mickey Mouse cap embossed at head height. He opened it and pointed down.

He was fast-walking around the corner before I’d even gotten up to look down the stairs. Rude. Not that I could blame him, specifically. Whoever was in charge could’ve done something. If they’d just talked to us. Or sent a regular fucking letter. It’s not like we didn’t check the damn mailbox.

The heat pulsed again and I bit my cheek as a distraction. I didn’t have time to look at the paintings on the side. There were blacklights under the handrail and shaggy carpeting on the steps, and if I thought it was safe I would have taken them two at a time. The stairs were going deeper than most basements were – or at least it felt that way. They ended at a black door with a sparkling, iridescent crystal knob.

This place screamed decadence in a way that Grandad had never been interested in having our house do. That and magic.

My burning hand hovered over the knob as I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. On the other side of that door would be people that knew magic. Not books that I could barely understand. Not a glitching ghost in a mirror that could only give me books and warnings that it was dangerous to ask for things. Not an undead bird. Real, actual people. If I was lucky, someone that might be able to teach me. Or help me save Teresa.

I had to make a good impression. It didn’t matter that they could’ve helped before. What mattered now was doing everything I could to save her. That conviction did something to the brand in my palm. Slowly, the heat drained from my other arm, sinking back into the bracelet and leaving me with a clear, exhausted head. I grabbed the knob, turned, and the door swung open, silently, into a wall of smoke that immediately enveloped me.

It smelled sweet and cloying and bitter all at once. Like grapes, tobacco, cotton candy, and weed dumped into a blender then boiled on the stove. Blurry lights sat in a recessed ceiling, but the room was dim and the pall of fog swirled around the shapes deeper in. People? Furniture? Statues? I couldn’t tell, and the lungful I took before I covered my mouth left me coughing and completely broke my composure.

“Shit. Fucking tits, how much pot are you people smoking?!” I choked and stopped to catch my breath. “Isn’t this supposed to be important? Why’s there a grape scented fog machine?”

Things cleared up, slightly, as a voice rang out of the fog. I could see machines spread across the room pumping out more that draped a curtain across the ground.

“First off, important doesn’t mean serious. Alara and Beatrice here give us plenty of that. Once you’re back in the rotation, you should liven it up a little too.” One of the silhouettes in the fog moved, standing behind what looked like a bar. “Second, it’s about as much as can fit in this vaporizer. Three pounds, maybe? Lastly – religious reasons. Welcome to the Cult of the Drunken God, girl.”

The doorframe was ice-cold. It felt good on my bleeding hand as I managed to stop gagging and look at the room. There was a depression in the center, fog-shrouded but with benches and less recognizable furniture sticking out of it, all of it plush and leather. There were alcoves along the walls, with more familiar furniture. Though – not the sort you’d see in most anyone’s houses. Unless you were rather…intimate. The X-shaped crosses made…very clear what this room usually was.

If it wasn’t for everything else? I would have fucking loved this place. But right now all I could manage was trying to pick out the people. The back wall was a giant bar, an island of tables spread out in front of it. About a dozen figures were there, sitting in small clumps while the speaker moved behind the bar, only the shocking purple of their hair standing out through the intervening mist. But it looked like the seating area was clear – the fog rolled up to the edge and vanished against a row of glowing glyphs.

There was a half-lion, half-woman winged statue sitting just outside the border on one of the weirder-shaped benches.

Then it moved, and it struck home that Grandpa wasn’t the only person in town that dealt with weird things. She, and boy oh boy was this definitely a she, had a loose set of gold-trimmed purple straps running across her chest and back, diaphanous sheets of white draped between them. Her body rippled as she turned luminous golden eyes on me, so much brighter than her fur that the pale gold looked white in comparison. Dove-grey wings flapped once, and suddenly a path from the door to the bar was clear of fog. Then she turned away.

The figure behind the bar spread their arms wide, blindingly bright teeth standing out in their smile. Their shirt was just as bright a purple as their hair. “Well? Come on in – we don’t bite. “

They tapped a finger against ruby-red lips. “Unless you ask. Or you piss off Alara. Just don’t bring up the Riddle-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named and you’ll be fine on that, though.”

With a deep breath, I stepped in. There was a thundering boom and everything went purple, the scent of wine and rotting grapes blotting everything else out as pain shot up my arms, numbness racing behind it.

Purple faded to black, and I was gone.