Chapter #8Dreams of Days Past by: Seuzz   "For heaven's sake, child, don't slouch," Kali says. She straightens your shoulders and raises your chin. "Head up. You've never looked so much like a bag of loose bones."
"Maybe because I don't usually travel looking like this." You tug at the knot around your neck and shrug inside the tight suit jacket.
"I remember when people dressed up to travel," Kali snaps. "Instead of like they'd just stumbled awake with a hangover."
"How old are you, Kali?" Rick asks from the sofa.
"I'll thank you not to ask personal questions, Rick."
"Then don't drop veiled remarks about my travel dress."
"I wasn't making a veiled remark about your travel dress. I was explicitly referencing the way you always dress."
"And I wasn't talking about this suit," you whine, and scratch under a pit. "I'm talking about my face."
"It's a nice face, Will," Kali says, and fixes you with a bright but penetrating smile. "It's yours."
"They're all mine. You've said so yourself. This isn't my real face any more than-- Why won't you let me wear my Nick Martin face? That's the one I put on when--"
"Because you're going to meet Charles," she says. "It's only respectful to meet the head of our Order under your own face. Well, the face you were born with. Other people brought your other faces into the world. You brought this one."
"No I didn't. The Libra put it on me, and fucked it up, too."
"It's yours, child. The Libra-- Well, it set it on you backwards." She straightens the lines on your suit, and plucks at invisible dust motes.
That's me, you sigh to yourself. A walking abomination. A seventeen-year-old dipshit turned inside out and stripped clean so a God-damned grimoire could imprint itself on me. "I guess I should just be glad it didn't put my butt where my face is," you say aloud.
"I'll drink to that," Rick says, and takes another deep slug from his tumbler.
Kali steps back. "Well, I can't stop you from slouching between here and Olympia," she says as she eyes you critically. "But keep your head up when you meet Charles." You must have shown some emotion, for she gasps slightly. "Good heavens, child, you're not afraid of him, aren't you?"
"Shouldn't I be? He's the head of the Stellae."
"Yes."
"He's got Glundandra and Arbol for ousiarchs, right?"
"Yes."
"So shouldn't I be scared?"
"Good heavens no, child! There's no reason to fear him."
"Why, is he like bears? He's more scared of me than I am of him?"
"Don't be insolent."
But Rick laughs. "No, tell him that when you meet him. He'll get a kick out of it." He ignores the look Kali has shot at him, and stands with a sigh. "Okay, I think I'm liquored up enough to face the LA traffic. Come on, let's-- Oh, for the love of-- Don't be looking like that when you meet him!" Rick's lip curls in disgust.
"Like what?" you whine.
"Like you're gonna piss yourself. It's enough you pissed yourself the first time you met me, squirt. Don't do it with him."
You turn with a sigh, but freeze when the penny drops. You turn back with a dirty look. "Is that how come you always call me 'squirt'? Because I pissed myself when you tried fileting me with that knife?"
Rick's eyes widen, and his mouth tightens. "Out of the monkey suit, squirt. Now!"
"What's gotten into you?" Kali exclaims.
"You only now figured out where I got your nickname?" Rick jabs a finger in your face. "I want another month of field work before sending you on to the old man. I got a case now you can help me with. Sharpen your skills until you can make the obvious deductions!"
* * * * *
"For heaven's sake, child, don't slouch," Kali says. She straightens your shoulders and raises your chin. "You never looked so much like a bag of jelly."
"I don't usually travel looking like this." You tug at the sleeves of your suit jacket.
"I remember when people dressed up when they travelled," Kali snaps. "Instead of like they'd been caught betwixt bed and bidet."
"I'm not talking about-- Oh, what's the use. And this jacket. I think I've grown since we bought it."
"It's been only two months, and with your metabolism I don't think you have growth spurts anymore."
"Well, maybe I could just shift this imago a little, so that--"
"It's not within your power and you know it. You're just fighting the suit." She peers into your face. "When did you last shave?"
"Yesterday."
"I mean when you were last looking like yourself."
"I don't know! I never look like this anymore. That job Rick had me on--" You look to him for support, but he's either meditating or passed out. The tumbler in his hand looks in imminent danger of spilling across Kali's immaculate white sofa.
"Well, you have something on your lip. Shave it off."
You grumble but comply. Five minutes later, when you've stopped bleeding, you rejoin them. Rick is on his feet, though swaying slightly. "Ready to go, squirt?"
"I think so." You pat your pockets all over. "Shit, where's my boarding pass? You print it out?"
"Boarding pass?" Rick asks. "What makes you think you've got a boarding pass?"
"How'm I supposed to get on the plane without a boarding pass, Rick?" you ask with mock ingenuousness.
"What makes you think we're going to give you one?" he mocks back. "You're getting yourself out there without one. So how are you going to do it?"
"I don't know!"
"You mean you didn't--?" He jabs a finger at you. "Out of the monkey suit. Now."
* * * * *
"For heaven's sake, child, don't slouch," Kali says. She pulls at your belt and pushes your stomach in. "Shoulders back. You'd look like a hedgehog if we hadn't gotten you that haircut yesterday."
"I never travel this way." You hunch over and scratch at the wool pants.
"You never travel at all," Kali snaps. "Despite repeated attempts to get you out the door." She shakes her head. "I had quite my fill of temporal loops when it was Joseph studying with me, thank you very much. I thought I was done with them, but--" She looks over and with uncharacteristic savagery kicks Rick in the leg. "Wake up!"
"I am!" he gasps, and leaps to his feet. "You ready, squirt?"
"I dunno. You tell me."
"How you getting out there?" You recite your planned itinerary, referencing your detailed surveillance of all the airports you'll be sneaking through. "What are you packing?" You list all the books, clothes and toiletries in your bag, and throw in the names of the identities you carry within you. "What are you going to say to the old man?"
"Mr. Brennan, sir, I'm Will Prescott. It's an honor to meet you."
"Good, good. Well, there's the door." He sinks back onto the sofa.
Great. He also wants you to find your own way to the airport.
* * * * *
You make it without incident through the back areas of LAX and around security without being spotted, mostly by using the "cloak" that lets you fade into the background, but also by using a hard-bitten, working-class face and a pair of overalls that you'd picked up during your preparatory scout of the airport. You get onto the plane to Denver and then onto the puddle-jumper to Boise without being noticed by the flight crews. You'd have no time in Boise to scout out transportation options, for Rick has set you a tight deadline on that end. But you'd anticipated him, and sneakily gotten yourself a bus ticket for the five-hour trip to Olympia. "Cheating," technically, but of the sort that Rick himself would approve of.
It's nearly nine in the evening before you trudge up to the tidy little house in the neat little subdivision. The mastiff in the front yard barks at you, but turns friendly once you're through the gate, for you shift into the form of Frank Durras--known to the dog--to get past and through the front door. You change back, though, as you walk toward the kitchen, from which comes the sound of running water.
Charles Brennan, the head of a millennia-old order of quasi-magical warriors, is washing his own dishes. He turns when you clear your throat.
He is small and stout and mostly bald, with patchy white whiskers on ruddy cheeks. He wears a thin t-shirt and baggy trousers and is barefoot. He looks like a dime-store Santa Claus caught out of costume.
"Mr. Brennan--" you start.
"Charles," he corrects you softly, and his eyes twinkle. "And you're Will. Come here, son, and let me look at you." He lightly grasps your elbows. "You look wonderful, Will."
"Kali said I should--"
"I thought so," he laughs. "Kali, always dressed to the nines. But we don't stand on ceremony here. Sit down and tell me about the trip. Would you like a Coke? Some chips? I was about to get me a midnight snack."
"Thank you, sir," you stutter.
He beams and puts you in a cheap dinette chair and bustles out lots of salty and unhealthy fare, and joins you in eating them, and laughs with delight as you relate your journey. "That's fine," he says at the end. "Now, would you like to change?"
"Change, sir?" Your jaw slackens. "You mean--? Miko talked about cutting the book out of me. You know, the Libra."
Briefly, he looks shocked. "Of course not, Will. There's nothing about you that needs changing. I only meant, would you like to change into some of my boys' old shirts and shorts? That monkey suit!" He shakes his head. "Out of it. Now."
To wake from this reverie: "The Boy from Before Everything, Part 2"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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