Ursula still had me in a hold and in the gazebo, Olive, Queen Cypsela and Onion, King Surmium were looking at a chart on a table but switched to looking at Ursula and me.
Ursula let go and stood in a quick spinning move. “We were just doing some combat training. I don’t even like humans.”
She looked at me and then at Olive. “I mean not that way. I mean, humans can be all soft and cute but--.”
She stopped and looked back at me and I started to get up.
Olive said, “You know that Josh panics around girls he thinks are cute and comes here without even thinking.”
Ursula said, “Good idea.” and then spun. Her leg sweep took my legs out from under me and she caught me as I fell.
#
We were in a Fairyland that consisted of concrete rubble with water in the gaps.
Ursula set me down on a cement slab. There were cat tails growing around a cement and gravel island a few hundred feet away across an expanse of open water. There were jumbles of rebar rusting and expanses of cracked cement with rebar sticking out of them. In the distance there was an island of cement pipes, some intact most broken.
Ursula helped me to my feet and said, “Step where I step. This place is trapped.”
I followed her and noticed a pattern in the stepping stones she was walking along. She took us to an island that was hidden behind taller islands of cement and clay pipes.
On an expanse of cement road bed and sidewalk chunks fit neatly together was a neatly spaced garden of huge mismatched ceramic and cement pots. In the center of the garden was a building made of large and mostly intact cement. There was a splash behind me and I saw a large fish swimming off through the water.
Ursula said, “Welcome to my main Fairyland. It’s all real stuff. I got a great deal from some Gleaning Fairies. They even gave me some potting soil, but it got taken over by grass so I moved my garden to pots and put it on this island.”
She gestured to the building, “I’d show you my place but it’s a mess right now. I have been trying to build a third story so I won’t have to sleep with mosquito netting but getting culverts up there isn’t easy.”
She lead me down another path of stones through the water. “This trail is safe too.”
We got to an island that was overgrown with grass. It had cement walls with chains coming down and steel cables between more walls. As I looked at exposed rebar sticking out of a cement wall and bent over, and I realized that it had been bent into a set of monkey bars and this was her exercise area.
She said. “We’ll have to go out for food. I don’t have power for cooking and my gas grill rusted out.”
She shifted position and pulled my elbow. I fell against the grass and she had me pinned. “You have to be ready for surprise attacks.”
I looked up at her and tried to fight my fear of her. I failed.
#
In the Fairyland with the gazebo, Onion said, “That was fast.”
Ursula rolled off me and stood. “I was training him to resist surprise attacks.”
Olive said, “Of course you were. How is it going?”
She said, “He doesn’t even see me coming yet. He is going to have to become a lot more wary.”
Onion laughed. “I don’t think that is his exact problem, but carry on. Joshua, can you take a break from training and do some shopping for me? We want some beer from Germany, bread from Paris, butter from Ireland and some Scottish short bread and smoked fish from Scotland. Among other things.
“You can take your girlfriend with you, she looks hungry.”
Ursula said, “I was working out.”
At the same time, I said, “Not my girlfriend. She’s out of my league.”
Onion held out a slip of paper. “Your shopping list.”
Olive said, “Don’t go to Real in human form. Your not ready to duel any Deaths.”
I said, “Ursula doesn’t like my Daemon form so I’ll have to go shopping without her. Ursula, what can I bring you?”
She helped me up and held my arm. “It’s okay, you can turn into you as a Daemon. Are we really going to all those places to shop?”
I led her to a gateway to Scotland. “Yeah, I put in a few gateways.”
#
While I started emptying all the Smoked Red Leicester Cheese into the cart she asked, “Am I really out of your league?”
I said, “Hot red head, smoking figure, athletic without looking like an anatomy lesson in muscles and veins? Yep, that guy over there just ran into a display looking at you. You are way, way out of my league. Not that I even have a league.”
I started collecting all the various Stilton cheeses and realized we were going to need at least one more cart just for the cheese. “If you want anything, just grab another cart and start filling it. I’m buying.” She came back with a cart and took a few of the cheeses from my cart and asked, “How long do you think this will keep without refrigeration?”
I shrugged. “If it’s refrigerated here, it probably needs to be eaten quickly.”
She said, “I mostly eat out. So you think I’m pretty?”
I glanced at her and wheeled my cart over to the smoked fish. She grabbed a couple of packages before I emptied the rack.
“You were assuming I was ogling your perfection just a while back. Are you fishing for compliments, teasing me or just insecure?”
She said, “I don’t have large breasts.”
I finished with the smoked mackerel and started getting the smoked salmon. “I’m not looking at you and I am not even going to say anything. I’m the furthest thing from smooth with women and even I know that is the most land-mined subject ever.”
She asked, “You can’t just give an opinion?”
I said, “Seriously? Just assume I said something that made me sound judgmental, pervy, sexist and crude. That’s why I avoid women. There is no safe ground ever.”
She asked, “Okay, then, am I your type?”
I said, “You’re everyone's type. Apart from asking questions like that you are perfection. If you aren’t a mans type, after seeing you he will change his type to match with you. Then after he hears you asking him this sort of question, if he is smart, he will run away and never look back.”
“So you don’t like my personality?”
“I’m a bachelor and plan to stay one. I would run in fear from you but if you can possibly train me to manage any of those moves you make I may have a chance of surviving. I don’t dislike your personality, but if you keep asking this kind of question I am going to decide to run away anyway, since you will kill me no matter how I answer.”
The rest of our shopping went marginally better since it was just the hell of hearing all about her ex boyfriend, how much I looked like him when I looked down and if I thought she would look good dressed in that or that way every time we passed a display with a pretty girl, a pretty girl or clothing.
While eating fish and chips she said, “You know, I am emotion blind. Well you may have noticed that I don’t have any sparkle either. All the other Daemon girls all know what to say and do, and I just put my foot in my mouth every time I talk. I got all the magic and none of the charm so I had to learn to fight early. I studied dance to try and learn a bit more grace but then I met Michael and I really didn’t have time to keep studying dance.
“Michael wanted me available whenever he was free so--”
I asked, “Can we not talk about Micheal?”
She nodded. “Sorry. It’s just I was only thirty-five when I met him. You know I am only five hundred and fifty, and I have only had the one boyfriend. Can you believe it? Five hundred years and when I complain that all he gets me is skimpy clothing and shoes with points, he walks out. He stops answering my summons and all our friends won’t even talk to me.”
I said, “Your still talking about Micheal.”
She asked, “Do you turn into a rat much?”
“First time was when that lady turned me into one.”
“Do you like being a rat?”
I asked, “Why?”
She said, “I could carry you as we walked. I mean, if you don’t mind being a rat.”
“Really?”
“Micheal didn’t let me have pets.”
#
She was carrying me as a rat, with her hand in her pocket curled around me. When I woke up she was stroking my head with her finger and holding me in front of her face.
#
In the Fairyland with the Gazebo, Olive snickered.
Ursula put me down. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake him. Josh, we lost our place. We were right outside the bakery.”
I changed into me as a Daemon and we went in to purchase short bread.
#
As a human, I was beginning to see her moves as they were coming and as a Daemon I could keep her from putting me in a hold for nearly thirty seconds. As a Daemon I was helping her build the third floor of her house. As a human I was cooking the meals and trying to build up speed and muscle.
As a human and as a Daemon, dread was building in me slowly. I was falling in love with a woman with attachment issues. She could break my neck in a moment and probably would given provocation. I was giddy, happy, stupid and constantly looking forward to the next time she was going to throw me to the ground. I was probably going to start yelling the next time she started to go on about her ex-boyfriend and then she would break my neck to make me shut up. That might be less painful than the moment when she found out I had fallen for her and she started ridiculing me in front of her friends.
I kept a rotation of laptops charging so I could work on programs while resting. She would lean against me and quietly watch as I programmed so I could sort of pretend I had a girlfriend. Admittedly a girlfriend who was over five hundred years older than I was, but she didn’t look a day over twenty. Despite all my issues, I figured I was probably a bit more mature than she was so I wondered just how long it took a Daemon to mature.
#
She yelled at me. “You had an opening, you maneuvered it and for the first time you could have ended up with me in a hold. Are you to scared to hold me?”
I sat and pried a stone out of the grass. “You would have been bruised.”
She took the stone from me and threw it into the water. She took my hand, leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. “That spell makes your joints and muscles tougher. Always, especially in human form, throw it before you throw a speed spell so you don’t rip your muscles away from your bones or break your bones. Here is the speed spell.”
She leaned in and kissed my brow again.
#
Olive and Onion where sitting in the gazebo looking at us.
Ursula took her cross legged position and spun to standing in a spin that continued till she stopped it with arms extended. “I was just gifting him with a few spells. Nothing was going on.”
Olive said, “You know Onion, they are practically perfect for each other.”
Ursula disappeared. I would have disappeared too but I was already where I usually disappear to.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
#
Speed, toughness and strength didn’t add as much when used as a Daemon, but I managed to get Ursula in a hold before Onion and Olive got to laugh at us when I took us to the gazebo.
Ursula disappeared. Later when I summoned her she wouldn’t answer. I expected this moment to come. Knew it would. That didn’t take away the hurt.
#
In the club Samuel said, “Well someone had a montage.”
Dalan said, “He has an angry, lost and hurt feel to him too. I don’t remember when our dear Lithos looked more toned and more ready to break someone in two.”
I asked, “What’s a montage?”
Samuel patted my hand. “Recent Daemon slang. In a movie they show a bunch of short scenes of exercise and training to show a person getting into shape. Now when someone goes to Fairy and speeds time to buff up we call it a montage.”
I asked, “Any good rumors?”
Dantin looked over to the table where Bradster was sitting. “No one has been able to locate Mr. Bear so he has either gone to a Fairyland and gotten him self frozen or sped up in time, or he has disappeared into the cosmic recycling bin. Personally, I think it is more that a bit of a coincidence that when a person is situated to embarrass the Deaths, he disappears from the cosmic coil like this.
Boswell came over to our table, “Mind if I join you?”
I gestured for him to sit. “Delighted to have you join us.”
Boswell sat, looked over at Bradster and raised his eyebrows. “Bradster was asking around to see if there might be enough votes to blackball the folk at this table. We have all seen these battles and while at times we need to keep order and decency, this is getting out of hand. What I think he wants is a duel or two to try and get popular again, but that hasn’t really worked the last twenty years.”
Samuel said, “I don’t want to go back to how it was in the fifties, but the whole world seems like it is on edge right now.”
Boswell said, “Bradster could apologize and promote that Bear fellow to membership, but instead, I think he really is looking to duel him. That’s just bad form considering how overgifted we Deaths are. Plus the odds are, if Mr. Bear dies, he goes away, but Bradster would have the best care recovering him and probably restoring him to life.
“But that brings up another issue. If a Death just dies, he will probably stay dead, but in a contested and public thing like this would be, Bradster would probably be brought back just to show how powerful the North American Deaths are. Thing is, dying along with his ancient status and his long deferred retirement, could put him in a place where he was technically retired, still working and free from a lot of his vows.
“If that happens, I will be one of the first ones he makes disappear so if you find Mr. Bear, tell him to stay hidden. He could free Bradster to be the monster Bradster always wanted to be. Even if Mr. Bear won the duel fairly he might still find himself on the run. After the debacles in the seventies, eighties and ninety's does anyone really think a person could win in a fair duel against a Death and live to celebrate it?”
Boswell got up. “Excuse me, I am trying to put a few bugs in a few ears and have them think about things. I don’t want things returning to factions like it was in the bad old days, but here I am finding myself needing to wake up a faction since the other faction is already making moves.”
Samuel got up. “Lets’ go to Boston.”
Dalan and Dantin got up. “Good plan.”
I got up and joined them. In a long hallway with alcoves on either side three of the alcoves had signs.
I pointed, “Why just the three?”
Dalan said, “We planned for more but the great America wizard, Whipple died before completing any but London, Boston and Chicago. Do you know any wizards that could manage setting up a gateway? Unless they were a woman, became a woman regularly or just didn’t belong in fine company, we would offer them a membership in a moment.”
I smiled at Dalan. “Didn’t I hear something about Mr. Bear making gateways? Must have been just a rumor. Pity we can’t find him.”
Samuel led us through the gateway and gestured for us to follow. We left the mens room and went down a hall into the coffee shop and out onto the streets. He stopped and watched the entrance and led us up the road. “Because the gateways are a possible source of invasion, everything said near there is monitored and recorded. Can you really set up a gateway?”
I said, “It isn’t easy, It takes twenty minutes in Fairy and another twenty in Real. I can’t do it if I get interrupted either.”
Dalan said, “And the door opens. Everyone in the club has a favorite place somewhere in the world. You offer a couple of gateways, and anyone who suggested we cast a vote on your membership would get blackballed or called out.”
Dantin said, “Most of the gifts to make a Death are still out there in the club. Odds are good that if we lamented that our poor Mr. Bear was a bit nervous, what with the Deaths trying to get rid of him, he might end up with the gifting to be a Death or more.
“Best thing is, that since you mentioned that in the hall of gateways, it is quite certain, the rumor will get around.”
Samuel said, “Our Lithos, just keeps coming up with more delightful twists. I hate the though of your absenting yourself, especially after we nearly lost you, but if you keep disappearing and Mr. Bear shows up, it will eventually become obvious. Since no one can summon Mr. Bear, the only way we can contact him is to summon you, but if you are here, then you will have to suddenly leave if you catch my drift.”
I nodded. “Such is the life. I guess we should part ways here.”
#
I walked for a while. Got a dinner out and thought of Agnes. “Agnes, Joshua summons thee.”
Agnes asked, “Could I return to the states for a while. I could put gateways around. There are a lot of nice places.”
I brought her through. “Your dressed well.”
She backed up. “Where is Joshua?”
I said, “He’s in hiding.”
Agnes disappeared into shadow. She didn’t answer when I summoned her. Great, I had scared her off again. I didn’t even think about being a deamon when I summoned her. I needed to start being a bit more careful.
#
I had gone for cheap on a powerful used m otorcycle and I was regretting it. I had been warned it didn’t have the best braking and now I knew how important brakes were.
I didn’t get the biggest motorcycle since I wanted to be able to pick it up and put it in a form as a Daemon, but I should have done more research and not been sold on the fast and pretty.
#
I made it to the old Cypsela estate. It was sad really. I sat by the boat house since everything else had a pretty good appearance of having burned down. It was never really mine but still I missed it.
I thought about my cat Harvey. Every indication was he was a liar and traitor and he wasn’t all that likable, but he was still, for a while, my cat. If he was a traitor, I didn’t want to give myself away, but I hadn’t seen him for a while.
I summoned Harvey. “Harvey, this is Lithos, a friend of Joshua’s.”
Harvey stepped out of the bushes. “I know you’re Josh. I smelled your clothing in the cottage before it went to Fairy.”
I said, “I know you’re Needleteeth.”
Harvey sat a short distance from me. “Yeah sorry about that. My master, rescued me when I was little and arranged for me to be a familiar. He wanted free of his vows so he came up with this plan and your showing up in the Fairyland made it easier than recruiting Fairies to do the work.”
I looked him over. “Your looking thin.”
He said, “I’ve been living off the land. In other words, I got worms. Don’t worry, I am staying distant. I haven’t been able to summon you or my old master. I thought you were both dead.”
I said, “The Deaths are still after me, so it could still happen.”
Harvey said, “Don’t go and try to help my master. If he is still around, his order of wizards would make mince meat of you and he can’t gift you. He was ordering me to bring you anyway. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t properly gift you and he couldn’t without breaking vows, so it wouldn’t happen.
“Since I betrayed you I might as well let you know what I figured out. Mostly by scent. Frog and Snake both work for the Fairy king we shouldn’t mention. Not that the Fairy king is really a bad guy but he likes to stir up ants and watch them run around.
“In any case, it’s good to see you are okay. Me, I’m going to head into town and look for a new owner. I’ll probably get caught and put down. At the very least be neutered and have an ear clipped. I’m not real interested in having a chip in me, but it beats having worms.”
I said, “I can get worming medicine and some cat food at the feed store. Anything else I can get you?”
Harvey said, “Damn. Your too good to me. If I get eaten by something, and a few years later you find a kitten, that won’t leave you, take pity on it okay?”
I said, “Stay here while I get some stuff.”
Harvey said, “I have a way into the rafters up in the boat house. It’s safe and reasonably sheltered. So yeah. I’ll wait, since your being kind.”
I took the motorcycle to the feed store and bought a range of cat food and thought things over. I got some worming medicine and a few things for fleas. When I got to the boathouse, I picked up the motor cycle and then turned into me with a box of cat food and worming medicine. I stirred some worming medicine into some canned cat food.
While Harvey was eating, I summoned Ursula. “Ursula, Josh here. I am opening the summons so you can see things. I have a talking cat that I just gave some worming medicine to. Poor thing doesn’t have a good home. Right now I don’t have much better and I am traveling by motorcycle and I am at a place the Deaths raided recently.
Ursula said, “Bring me the cat.”
I took off my shirt. I used my shirt as a bag for the cat food and put the box down. “Harvey, get in the box. I’m not picking you up since you have worms.”
Harvey said, “Rude, but fair enough.”
Through the summons Ursula screamed loud enough that I was surprised Harvey didn’t hear it. “Harvey, his name is Harvey. He’s so cute!”
I said, “Yea and no rat we know is going near him in rat form. Harvey, get in the box.”
Harvey said, “Finishing the cat food with the medicine. Give me a moment.”
Harvey finished and jumped into the box. I let Ursula bring me through the summons.
#
“Needleteeth meet Ursula. Ursula this is Needleteeth.”
“I prefer Harvey. Needleteeth was cause I was a kitten and gnawed on people.”
Ursula said, “Stay on this island till you find out where the traps are. Harvey, is so cute, so how long before the worms are gone and I can cuddle him?”
I looked on the bottle. “It doesn’t say but he needs another dose in two weeks.”
I put down my shirt with the cat food in it.
Ursula said, “Not fair coming here with your shirt off.”
I changed into me with the flea collars, powder, soap and spray. “Some worms are spread by fleas, so treat him carefully. Read all the directions. Harvey, tell her if any of this medicine bothers you. I transformed a few more times and dropped off the bags of cat food, the treats and the toys. “I’ll get you some books on cats if you want and look up the worm thing online. Do you need a computer? I have a spare one. You could go to a cafe’ with internet and check.”
Ursula said, “I’m not good on computers.”
I looked at her and looked away, “I could gift you, but it might take a few days practice in Real and several giftings. I guess I should go. Good seeing you.”
I went to the Gazebo. For once Onion and Olive were somewhere else when I didn’t want anyone to see me. My worst fears had already happened. Instead of fear, I just had a knot in my stomach. Ursula’s rejection was going to come soon enough and my world would come crashing down around me.
#
I went to Paris. It was raining hard. I stood, cold and wet under an awning. There was no point in suffering physically while being a wreck mentally so I went back to the Fairyland and went to the gateway I had hidden in a Pueblo near the new place in Spain.
I started hiking cross country. I wanted to clear my mind and think or at least think about something other than Ursula. I had a lot to worry about that didn’t involve Ursula inevitably crushing what was left of my ego, but all the worries somehow led back to her. Overcoming a bit of my fear seemed good at the time but it had just set me up to face the cause of my fears.
I sat on a rocky ridge looking down at the abandoned village the Fairies were setting up to do research in. They hadn’t set up the manor house so I didn’t have a place to stay. The wizards lodge I was at charged for me to stay and while it was nice enough, I could blunder and be challenged without knowing what I had done so that wasn’t a good place to stay either.
What I wanted to do was party and try to forget, but my best friend from school, married a girl that thought I was creepy so that kind of killed anything but sending cards at Christmas.
I wanted to ride my motorcycle but that too had problems. I had a Spanish visa but it was for my human form and I was avoiding that. I didn’t have a drivers license in Spain and my motorcycle was registered in the USA. The States seemed like and easier choice, but The North American Deaths probably made things a bit more dangerous. There could be dangerous Fairies or wizards anywhere, but you didn’t seem to hear as many stories about the Deaths or psycopomps in other countries. Since my identity as a Daemon had no legal existence in Real, and just a set of investments managed by the Falling Sands, I decided to make poor Lithos legitimate.
#
The first step in becoming a real person required contacting a few shady people I had made connections with in Scotland so I made a long reservation in a hotel there. That gave me enough in the way of records to back up being upper management in a corporation I had obtained. The corporation was a serious concern a generation ago but then it gave salaries and titles to a wide range of family members and when it became clear to the descendants that they had sucked it dry, they were desperate to sell it before it totally collapsed.
That’s when I took it over. I ended up not using it, but I still deducted the expense of it from all the gold sales I had managed for the Fairies since the Fairies were in a hurry to get cash, and I was in a hurry and we didn’t know for sure if any of my plans were going to work out. The company was stable without all the hangers on, but it wasn’t growing and while I knew dirty corporate law, I didn’t know how to make a company succeed. Till I found someone with a clue, it was a good company to sneak my existence into since the company had a tradition of not knowing what the company did or who did it.
With connections and a few bits of data that said I existed, I was ready to become a real person. I looked around at options and came up with a really nice one. There were countries where afamily citizenship could be purchased and there was no residency requirement. If I spaced things out, I could make this work for years. If I had, on the books, an infant child, a ten year old and a twenty year old dependent and I put myself down as being thirty, I could become the children as they aged and get away with this for thirty or forty years.
I sent off a slew of emails to investigate and decided I needed to learn Turkish and Maltese. I bought properties in several countries to get set up with residency in, but it looked like Turkey was the place I was going to have the fastest arrangement set up.
I summoned King Surmium, “How hard is it going to be to get gifted with Turkish and Maltese. There are a few other languages I need but those are at the top of my list.”
King Surmium said, “Bring me through.”
He looked over my plans and said, “This should be easy enough, let me summon a few people and see what I can do. Do you mind if I visit your properties?”
I said, “I need them to look lived in, I have directed a company to get help taking care of them, but I would love it if you made them look visited so yes, feel free.”
#
I summoned, Samuel. “Samuel, this is Lithos. I have an interesting idea. I can get a Family citizenship in Turkey without ever showing up in the country. So If I had, on the books, a baby and a few other kids, I could keep a legal existence for maybe forty years without any real issues. Anyone I set up as a child, could probably start showing up in Real in about five to ten years and have nearly the same existence. So does anyone with gifting know Turkish and how do you feel about being one of my kids?”
Samuel said, “That’s brilliant. How many kids can you have?”
“If I have to pay extra for a large family, I may just spread the cost out, I can start the family thing for about a quarter million although I need to look at past histories of real estate and investments in Turkey to be sure. There’s even a visa arrangement with the USA, but I am wondering if there is any real advantage to be anything other than a tourist there.”
Samuel asked, “Are you going to be a widower or have you got a wife lined up.”
I said, “I’ll get back with you on that. Get some pictures of the boys. There’s software out there that will let me reverse age the photos convincingly. I am doing this in any case, but if you, Dalan or Dantin want to legally be my brothers, as we age, let me know.”
After long debate with myself, warning myself just to drop it, I summoned Ursula. “Hows it going Ursula? This is Josh.”
Ursula said, “You ran off before I could thank you. I went to Real and managed time in my Fairyland so I could get to pet Harvey sooner. He’s so cute. He says you can manage converting gold to cash, do you still do that?”
I jumped at the possible connection. “I can, I would be glad to. Right now I am getting a citizenship that I can maintain for thirty years and maybe as much as forty. Are you interested in having a legal existence?”
She asked, “How are you going to manage that? In forty years I’ll still look twenty.”
I said, “Yea, I’m probably going to have issues too. We can definitely go twenty five years though.”
She asked, “Okay, explain this?”
I started explaining and half way through she started giggling. Before I finished she disconnected.
She summoned me, barely got our names out and disconnected again.
Harvey summoned me. “Okay what’s the joke? It has to be rude, she can’t stop blushing and laughing.”
I explained my plans to give us identities in Real and Harvey started laughing before I was a quarter through the explanation. Harvey said, “Seriously, Josh, you two were made for each other.”
He disconnected before I could ask what he meant. Then I figured it out and blushed. In the worst and most technical way possible, I had lain out what could easily be considered a proposal of marriage. I was glad she was still laughing at me and hadn’t decided to kill me yet.