IN THREES

Bellamy was no stranger to vaudeville theatres, silent movies, and even the occasional drama when money wasn’t so tight – which was most of the time before Spearhead up and died. Regardless, Bellamy liked to think of himself as artistically inclined and more than a little worldly. There was, apparently, a lot more that went into the Opera.

“A tux?” Bellamy pinched the bridge of his nose as he set down the meatloaf provided on the coffee table.

“Well for one don’t call it a tux.” Cassandra chuckled through a hand covering her dinner.

“Tuxedo.”

The sharp featured woman cringed slightly, “Just call it a dinner jacket when we go out.”

Bellamy scowled, looking between Cassandra and the elephant in the room.

“Are they so. Preoccupied? To have so many names for a jacket?” the elephant with the head of flaming shadows spoke.

“Sorry. Did we miss the part where no tux -”

“Dinner Jacket” Cassandra corrected

Bellamy wished he was fighting The Jackal again.

“Whatever. Is going to stop people from calling The Wardens as soon as he steps onto the street. Honestly. I’m amazed you both even made it into the city.”

Cassandra nodded rhythmically, “a good point. I agree that would be the normal case, but I’m also a Harbinger. That’s more my domain.”

Bellamy nodded, content to let the explanation end there, something Cassandra was obviously dissatisfied with, “how about we do a classic manifestation trade. I’ll explain my ability if you explain yours. We’ll be partners for this mission after all.”

Harbinger etiquette, there weren’t many things that bound Harbingers together. The un-instrussive rules passed from Harbinger to Harbinger was one of the few things they all shared.

“I agree to a partial trade.” afterall, spatial manipulation was not a manifestation easily ignored. The closer a manifestation came to a universal constant the more dangerous it was, but also the more unstable the individual's pseudo-core. In short, a lower threshold of becoming an Essence Beast. Wouldn’t do any good for the mysterious pair with a powerful boss to learn of his ability.

“Fair. I call mine Conceptual Lattice. It allows me to create metaphors into reality.” She flipped a notebook towards Bellamy, tapping on the margins, “look here.”

Bellamy squinted, studying what she was pointing at. Which was a blank sheet of paper. He frowned. There was clearly something at play, surely she wasn’t just messing with him. He traced the margin, up and down the page with the intensity of a scholar. One, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine ten.

It was difficult to explain, but Bellamy felt a pit in his stomach which mixed with an odd frustration. As if his mind was meld in place, unable to move no matter how hard he pushed.

Another pass of the page, nine more seconds counted. Nine. Nine?

He scanned again, and this time, caught the place where his thoughts skipped over. On the page, written in intricately beautiful cursive. “Neat huh? I made the words be Lost in the Margins”

It actually made him chuckle. Her manifestation was clever word play. His mind raced with all the ways she could use the ability and not for the first time he grew jealous of another Harbingers manifestation.

“Functionally,” he began his part of the trade, “I can displace any two objects that I can see. Grabbing for an empty plate, Bellamy pulled at his core, teleporting the rest of Cassandra’s meatloaf onto his plate.

“Hey!” a hint of incredulousness drifting into her voice “I need the hours. It’s rude to steal a fellow undead's time like that!”

She began reaching for the plate, but just as shortly he teleported it back onto her plate.

“IndeeD.” Johan’s blue eyes bore into Bellamy. “Our abilities are similar. You are truly blessed by The Unbound Dominion.” The last words caused Bellamy to reel back, as Essence coarse through his system. The words themselves were fine. The Elder Gods names had no power, at least not when reduced and translated as they were. No, it was Johan’s voice. It snapped into focus when he said the name, no longer the far off tinny radio sound, but as if the shade in front of him wasn’t covered in the smoke.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Did that mean something? He didn’t know. Manifestations behaved in strange ways and their connections to the Elder Gods and the Titans of those Gods more so. In the end he decided not to question it.

“So what play on words gets Johan into the Opera with us?”

“Oh that’s easy.” Cassandra started through bites of meatloaf. “We’ll all be using it. We’ll just be another face in the crowd.”

“Alright” Bellamy nodded, “so why the tu-” he caught himself as a tiny pinprick of blood appeared on his arm as Cassandra literally stared daggers at him. She at least has the honor to look abashed after realizing she had activated her manifestation.

“Dinner jacket” he corrected, “at all? Seems we could get away wearing whatever”

“More complicated than that” she set her plate aside, giving Bellamy her full attention. “It’s easier to nudge a boulder off an eroding cliff than it is to move one on flat ground. The closer their expectations align the more I can nudge them.”

“The cult providing the outfits then?” Bellamy had meant it as a joke, but when Johan and Cassandra nodded as if it were the most natural outcome he was forced to consider it as truth.

“So this takes me to the other important thing I wanted to talk about.” She slid over a small stack of papers that she had brought out from the back room earlier. On it were paragraphs of clauses and chapters and sub chapters. A contract.

“I take it this isn’t my ticket stub” Bellamy grunted, poking the stack of papers as if they were going to come alive and bite him.

“It very much is. Just not for the Opera.” Her voice darkened considerably, taking on an air of caution despite her earlier joviality. “You said it yourself – Johan sticks out. So do I, in certain ways you do too. At least if anyone’s looking close enough. The best way to keep things going smooth is to make sure we’re all on the same page. Literally.” She nudged the contract closer to him.

Seeing his clear hesitation she continued, “I like when myself and the people I’m working with are bound by rules. I can have the word as law and it would bind all of us to the contract. This is the version Johan and I use, but take your time to look over it and make adjustments where you see fit. Afterwards I can go through it with everyone and we can iron out details. The Opera is tomorrow night, so we all need to sign it before then.”

The explanation was made since, and with Cassandra’s power making the metaphor into reality he could see the benefits. Yet his mind wandered, going back to the cold iron room where he grew up and of the deals some of the others made to get out. It made sense, but he still hesitated.

He forced the thoughts out of his head and focused on the reality in front of him now. The way Cassandra spoke, the robustness in her voice, it was clear. No signature, no job. No job, no Callum.

That’s all that mattered.

That evening, Bellamy returned to his flat, stack of paper in hand. He quickly set about making a simple stir-fry – a dish popular in the Atrean Islet that Jun and Annie had taught him one night when the couple was missing home. The key, Jun had proclaimed, was boiling the long-grain rice just long enough so that the firm food became chewy. Apparently after cooking the rice the rest was up to interpretation and to quote the name directly “As long as you aren’t a psycho about it, you can basically throw in anything you want.”

It’s what made Bellamy fall in love with the dish. If he ever didn’t know what to cook and had some leftover vegetables from the night before he could whip up a quick stir-fry and call it a day.

After finishing the meal he separated a portion onto a plate, set it on the table, and knocked on the old lawyers door.

It creaked open, Paul only peaking through slightly before Bellamy spoke, “I’ll trade you food for some advice.”

The lawyer grunted and slid the door open just enough for Bellamy to catch a glimpse of the man's modest decorations – or rather the lack of. A small twin bed occupied one corner of the oddly shaped room, a desk sat against the opposite wall, and every other inch of wall space seemed to be taken up by layer upon layer of filing cabinets.

“You traded food for less rent last time I checked.” Paul muttered, not pressing an issue he didn’t really care about further as he made his way to the table, “Hope you’re not in trouble with the law.”

“Nah. Not that unlucky. Favor for a friend in the Wardens” a bold face lie. One that Paul seemed to not believe for a second as he snorted which devolved into a cough.

“Sorry, go on.”

“There’s a mission he’s going on and they want him to sign a contract. I told him I knew a lawyer and that you could look it over and make any adjustments.”

Paul scowled, jabbing the a fork into the stir fry, “I’m a lawyer, but I’m not your lawyer, and I’m certainly not your friend's lawyer.”

“I agree” Bellamy raised his hands in appeasement, “no one said you were, just figured one set of knowledgeable eyes were better than just mine.”

Paul grumbled, but relented, “Yeah I can look at it. My recent case hit a stand still anyways.”

Bellamy nodded, “good news?”

“Good news?” Paul partially spat. “Never with The Grand Order. You find one contradiction, and they bury you in precedent. Not that they give a bat winged fuck about that. Precedence only matters to them when it goes their way.”

A shrug is all the response Bellamy gave. He had long since become aware that The Grand Order wasn’t there to help people. It would do everything in its power to keep the machine that was Kumere turning, but the specifics. The people caught in those grinding gears. To them those innocent were just numbers. Lubricant even if they died in the right place.

“So no progress on the safe haven laws?”

“No. We made progress. That’s why they’re scared and stalling for time”

Bellamy raised a curious eyebrow, but the burning of the contract in his pack stopped him from continuing that line of thought. He slid the stacks of paper out and put them on the table, only sliding them closer to Paul when he beckoned the papers closer mid bite.

Paul donned reading glasses and began flipping through the papers, skimming the contents before frowning.

For his part Bellamy said nothing, content to let the man work until he asked any questions.

“It’s not a great contract. Insanely conditional and colloquial. The clauses are a mess and there’s a few cases I don’t understand the language of, likely on account of them dealing with Essence. Do not tell me where you got this from. I do not need to know, and if I do know I may be required to tell someone as you … your friend is not my client.”

Bellamy nodded. He had long since suspected the lawyer knew more than he let on, but no one fighting that hard for Verdan’s would throw him under the bus, so he had tacitly accepted their unspoken agreement.

“But is it dangerous?”

Paul took his glasses off, placing them on the table and considering the question. “Potentially, but just in the areas that deal with Essence. I’ll highlight the areas, so you can have another look.”

“I appreciate this. I want you to know that.”

Paul grunted, “Make me a steak next time then.”

Bellamy laughed, a genuine bellied laugh as he stood and was about to head to the door before Paul called out again.

“Is Callum alright? I read the paper. Sounds like you two were involved with some unfortunate stuff.” He hesitated, choosing his words, “haven’t seen him in a few days.”

Bellamy swallowed, not turning back around to look at the lawyer. “Yeah he’s fine. Staying with some friends. Whole thing really scared him. He'll be back soon. I'll drag him back if he stays much longer”

A lie. A partial once. He learned when he was young that all lies had grains of truth to them, and more than that people didn't care if they were lies as long as they understood the underlying truth. Paul didn't know where Callum was --maybe he was with friends and nothing had gone wrong, maybe not -- but in that moment he was sure Bellamy would drag him back no matter what.