Before returning to Manhattan, Iris rests for the night in Coney Island and dreams of an encounter with Oliver Van Holland. Shieldmaiden has lunch with a disguised Merlin at Bubbles. James takes out a rival.
We've come to the Season 1 Finale!
After reaching the Coney Island slipspace portal out of Brooklyn, Ty, Deirdre, Bryan, and Iris take refuge in an old freezer for the night. In her dreams, Iris relives a training session with Arawn and a terrible fight with Darling. Also an escape attempt from the Axis Mundi with Oliver Van Holland that Iris cannot recall ever having happened.
Shieldmaiden, in her Katie guise, recognizes a disguised Merlin John Baltimore at Bubbles and joins him at his table.
Still angry about losing both ORD and his Avalon hostages and looking for someone to take it out on, James raids a rival's drug lab in Queens.
__________
Written by Steve and Robin Pool
Voiced by Emily Woo Zeller
Sound Design and Editing by DSS (Dissecting Sound & Soul). Sound effects provided by ZapSplat
Intro song “Plastic Stars” by Corey Distler https://soundcloud.com/deadmentalkingpdx
Outro song "A Good Boy" by Luna Lee https://linktr.ee/Lunaleemusic
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Copyright (c) 2023 by Uncle Robot Media, LLC
SAYONARAVILLE: MANHATTAN
EPISODE 10: FIGHTING IS MOVING
INTRO: The following series contains adult themes, strong language, violence, sexuality, and drug use. Listener discretion is advised.
[INTRO MUSIC: "Plastic Stars" by Corey Distler]
The next morning, everyone woke weary and irritable. The previous night, the magicked-up, acidic droplets of a rainstorm had dissolved through the grocery store roof, their tents, and their sleeping bags, and reddened their skin. Following the downpour, magically corrupted and mutated rats, stirred up by the corrosive rain, had swarmed the camp. The whole following day, impatience then bickering then loud arguments, followed by apologies and awkward silence, repeated every half hour.
After spending half a day searching for a means to transport Oliver Van Holland’s mystically-sealed steel coffin, they’d found an old, battered four-wheeled cart with a pull handle in a ruined home improvement store’s garden section. Ty had spent another good hour magically mending its rotted tires and rusted steel to get it in shape to carry a man-sized box weighing more than a thousand pounds. While he had been preoccupied, Deirdre, Iris, and Brian had explored the store, looking for anything useful to add to their supplies. Though much of the old, magic-damaged stock could not be salvaged, the three had stumbled across a gigantic, carnivorous plant with tree trunk-sized, thrashing tentacles and poisoned barbs that fired like bullets. Once they’d begun to describe in detail, with agitated voices, their encounter with the plant monster, Ty had declared that “he didn’t want to know.”
It was sticky and hot under a sweltering, late-afternoon sun when they finally reached Coney Island and the Broken Root grotto entrance located in the back of a ruined restaurant’s long-dead industrial freezer.
“What do you mean we have to stop for the night?”
The demanding edge in Deirdre’s voice that Ty had been enduring over and over all damn day, fired Ty’s imagination for a brief moment. Responding to her latest complaint with an exploding fireball in the middle of the tiny room where they all now gathered sounded just about right.
Instead he said, “Dee, there’s a time shift between where we are and where we’re going. It’s not even six here, but, on the other side of the portal, it’s like two or three in the morning. The woods around the exit can be dangerous in the dark. If we wait until it’s daylight there, it will be much better once we start the trek to the village of Broken Root. Unless you are all eager to get attacked again.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Iris snapped.
Ty was thoroughly disabused of his earlier belief that Iris was an accommodating person. She’d been the prickliest and loudest of the group. “Nothing, Iris. It doesn’t mean anything. Sorry I said it.”
Brian was rooting around in the communal dimensional storage sleeve that Ty had set up, removing items and throwing them on the ground if they didn’t interest him. “Where’s the damn MREs?”
Deirdre chided, “Bri, you’re making a big mess. Step aside.” She pushed in front of him and put her hand and arm, all the way up to her shoulder, in the sleeve.
Brian laughed seeing her arm disappear. “Now I know what you’d look like if you had your arm cut off.”
“Ha, fuck you, ha.” As she raised her reappearing arm, she threw a meal pack into Brian’s face.
Brian looked at it and grimaced. “Shit. Turkey and gravy? I wanted pork ribs.”
“Just eat the damn thing already.”
Eventually the four settled in, pulling out their singed sleeping bags and locking the freezer door behind them, setting a sigil that would electrocute anyone or anything that tried to open it. After eating, they were all soon asleep.
Standing in a chilly patch of trees in the Penn Mountain State Forest, an hour east of Syracuse, Iris shivered, and her teeth chattered as she tried to take in everything Arawn said. But it was all so damn hard. This is love, she kept telling herself. Sometimes that means doing shit you don’t like to benefit your partner.
She’d always liked nature, or so she thought. But it wasn’t until she’d hooked up with a group who were essentially wood elves that she realized she didn’t really love nature very much at all. It seemed nature didn’t care much for her, either. That message came through whenever the temperature got too hot or too cold or too humid or things got too wet. Camping in dirty, damp clothing — while trying to sleep in stuffy-and-hot-until-they-were-freezing polyester sleeping bags, always smelly, inevitably on uneven, bumpy ground, inside paper-thin tents, mostly without power or hot water — really sucked. She hated all of the motherfucking, bloodsucking bugs, waiting to feast the moment she flashed any skin. She hated all of the poisonous, itchy plants that seemed to lie in wait for her stumbling feet. And she was always tripping over things, as if the ground with its plants and trees really had it in for her. She didn’t like feeling stupid when she didn’t know what to do in stressful simulated-combat or a fake-emergency scenario or which way to go to move quickly through rough terrain. She didn’t like how easy it was to get turned around, or worse, lost, whenever a stand of trees grew too thick to see through and the light grew too dim. And the act of chasing down something extremely dangerous through a confusing tangle of primeval shit at top speed seemed to her both crazy and all-but-impossible. Just what the hell had she agreed to when she said she’d learn to hunt like a real Hound?
This is love, she reminded herself again.
“Iris!” Arawn, apparently in yet another bad mood, snapped, “Are you listening to me? Because this is..."
“Yes,” she replied, cutting him off. She was not interested in yet another lecture. “I am listening to you, because I know that this is important, that this will one day likely save my life and the lives of my teammates.”
Arawn crossed his arms. Several Hunt members, including Eve and Marvin, stood behind their leader, amused yet slightly bored by this latest episode of “Iris’s Ongoing Humiliation Show”. She hated the contemptuous expressions of Arawn’s buddies whenever they looked at her. Like she was his fucking Yoko or something. Even poor Yoko wasn’t Yoko, but you know how people are. She had endlessly asked Arawn if they could just train by themselves, at least until she’d improved. Somehow, though, according to her mate, these embarrassing training episodes were actually making her tougher, helping her build rapport with the pack, and, believe it or not, earn their respect, all while keeping herself properly motivated. She wanted to call ‘bullshit,’ but her guilty feelings and her not-yet-dispelled fears of dragging him down wouldn’t let her. So she tried to endure it all without complaint. Irritation, however, was apparently allowed.
“Fine,” she began, with a mix of hurt feelings, embarrassment, and steely determination to prove all of the naysaying bastards and bitches wrong, “Number one...when faced with an ambush, stay in control of your emotions. In a stressful situation, your emotions will want to control you: fear, anxiety, anticipation, anger, and even compassion. Don’t let them. They can all be lethal distractions....”
Darling struggled to escape from Iris’s grasp. In the past, Iris had shamefully just let her. It was easier to give in, and, truth be told, Darling had always been better than her in a fight. But Iris now understood that had been a mistake. Darling was the loaded gun of Iris’s mana-fueled madness. Letting her loose on the world was the height of irresponsibility.
In the past, Iris had allowed herself to believe that it was okay to release the wolf from time to time, to blow off some steam. That had made her less temperamental. But the most recent near disaster had shattered that illusion, hadn’t it? Darling was not okay. Iris was not okay. It was a miracle that Darling hadn’t killed anyone when she’d taken control, but Iris was sure that she would now.
A voice that was more beastial than human gnarred, a wolf straight out of the worst of nightmares. “...What...are you... doing...,you cow? Let...me loooose....”
Iris, in her mind, was straining to hold an eldritch chain looped around the scarily-large, bloodthirsty black wolf. “Goddamnit, no! You’ll kill Sian! I need her alive to tell me.”
Darling turned towards Iris. Her eyes blazed with unnatural light, and saliva oozed from her muzzle. Like acid, the moisture burned the ground where it dripped. “Tell...you...what?”
“I need her to tell me why. Why did she bring us back? Why couldn’t she leave us both dead in the shadows of the world, where we no longer had anything to worry over, hurt over, fear, dread, feel lost or confused about. Why the fuck couldn’t she just leave us be?”
“You...think...her telling you...will satisfy you? So what if..she tells...you...everything? Do you...think...that will... give you...closure? Does it even matter...now...why...she did it? She brought us back...you and me...through a torrent of...horrible pain and suffering. It no longer matters...why.”
“It does matter! So I can’t let you out. You’ll take away the only chance I may get to understand.”
Hatred, and beneath that, hurt and a sense of betrayal hung heavily over the wolf. “I...despise you. I despise...sharing a body with you. But I hate her...more than you do....Not for bringing you back...but for bringing me back...! I was...free of you! But now, I am...trapped and suffocating...and suffering...because of you!
“I’d...kill you...if I could. But I can’t..., so I will instead...kill everyone else...that gets...in my fucking...way!”
Laying low into a crouch, the giant black lupine Darling pulled against the chain with everything she had. Even as she gasped and gagged, the chain choking her to the point of unconsciousness, Darling did not relent.
Iris should not have been able to hold Darling back. Iris had never been strong or brave. Had she ever been anything in life other than a selfish, bitchy, attention-addicted, drug-addicted, cowardly, party drunk? Had she ever done anything that had any meaning? Even when she had deluded herself and others into thinking she was heroic, playing at being a Hound, placing herself in harm’s way to protect the helpless against the dark evils hiding in the world’s shadows, she’d been nothing but a mirage. Remembering it left a bitter taste in Iris’s mouth.
Darling was a cold-blooded killer who’d once broken the mighty gods that had foolishly dared to chain her. Darling was fire and blood and death, a symbol of all of humanity’s night terrors rolled together. Iris was....
No. Too many bad thoughts and memories were getting in the way, clouding Iris’s judgment, lethal distractions that would keep Iris from doing what she had to. Iris clinched Darling’s chain harder. She was not letting go. She was the one who was going to get Oliver and her out, then find that bitch Sian.
...Iris continued, under the skeptical gaze of her new pack and the stoic pride of her lover. His look told her to go on.
“Number Two...always consider your entire surroundings, and keep as many of your foes as you can in your line of sight. When you find yourself in an unfamiliar space, pay close attention to your senses. They want you to know what they know. Focus on really small details, the shift of an enemy’s stance, a twitching hand, a change in the direction of that enemy’s head or gaze, or any visible signs of anxiety. Listen for signs of movement, no matter how small: the rustle of clothing, crunching leaves, or snapping twigs, changing heartbeats or blood pressure. Give the air a really good sniff. Scents move, too, often before a body actually does. They signal changes in intention and can trigger memories of past fights, giving you a form of precognition.
“Fighting is moving, forwards, sideways, and backwards. Keep moving backwards if an enemy or a group of enemies advances towards you. Don’t let them flank you...”
Iris looked around at a room that had been bent and warped in impossible proportions at impossible angles. Their prison was like a huge hangar. It dwarfed them. The ceiling and surrounding walls seemed so high, so far that she couldn’t say if they actually existed. Way above her hung endless curving loops of multicolored lights, twinkling like dim constellations. Before and around Iris and Oliver were countless cages, stacked into skyscraping columns and unending rows. These cages, she knew, had once held other captives. Most were likely empty now, though some might still contain a few candidate prisoners.
Outside, waiting for them, was a hellish, frozen landscape. Even inside the prison, ice, obscured by a cold mist, crunched beneath her feet. What would it be like to be outside here? Where there’d be no sun, no daylight, to guide them or keep them warm. And winds strong enough to pick them up and pull them into the darkness. Even if they did manage to slip away and avoid freezing, they could easily end up wandering lost in an endless frigid, devouring night. One thing at time, she reminded herself, as she looked to make sure that Oliver was still with her. They’d done a real number on him, bastards.
She and Oliver were now facing down an army of men and women who looked simultaneously their same height and also much, much taller. Next to her, Oliver bravely stood, eyes blazing, ready to strike at whoever approached. But he was still weak and frail, looking very much on the verge of fainting. They had drained so much of him from him. If Iris and Oliver were to have any chance of escape, he’d have to find the strength to fight the phalanx of half-giants now advancing. She couldn’t hold them off on her own.
Taking a deep breath, Iris scrunched her eyes shut. Oliver noticed, but before he could say anything, she stretched her arm out across his chest and shushed him. Iris had always fought better with her eyes shut or, better yet, blindfolded. The thought of tearing off a sizable strip of fabric from her already admittedly tight-fitting, insufficiently insulated jumpsuit was both hilarious and tragic, so she’d have to forgo the blindfold this time. It had been ages since she’d fought blind, anyway. It was likely that she’d need to sneak a peek or two before this was over.
As her heartbeat slowed, her already inhuman hearing sharpened to a razor point. From the sounds alone, a true picture of the field appeared in her mind, one immune to visual distortion and illusion. Sound always knew. Sound wasn’t fooled by special effects. She imagined bubbles around Oliver and herself, as she’d been taught, and bubbles around her nine and ten-foot tall opponents -- that’s how tall they really were. When they moved, the bubbles in her mind also moved, and she readied herself for the chaotic venn diagram collisions that they’d soon be making.
As she took a deep breath, information from a thousand different scents flooded her magically-reinforced orbitofrontal cortex, her insula, her piriform, and her amygdala. That she’d fought these kinds of half-giants before was fortunate. Memories of those past battles flowed back to her, informing her decisions as she made her plan of attack. Key chemical changes in the air telegraphed her enemies’ intentions. It was now or never.
“Oliver?”
“Yes.” He answered her with no stress in his vocal patterns, no smell of adrenaline or cortisol or any of the other countless stress hormones pumping into his bloodstream. He answered her stone-cold calm.
“We’re going to have to keep moving. Can you follow close to me? Things are going to get a little crazy, and it’s best if we don’t get separated.”
“You sound like you’ve done this before.” He sounded pleased.
“I...I have.” She felt a bit self-conscious admitting this to Oliver but shook her head. No time for this. “Hey, I, uh, don’t really want to leave before we get a chance to question Sian. That probably sounds stupid, but..."
White hot radiant flames of pure mana ignited in a band between Oliver’s two hands, surprising Iris. “Nope. Understandable, all things being equal. I got your back.” Rotating, Oliver now stood exactly behind her. The circle of enemies surrounding them compressed.
...“What else?” Arawn sounded gruff, but Iris knew he was pleased with Iris’s ambush reaction recitation.
Suppressing a slight smile, she gazed around the group of Hounds, making eye contact with each one. “Always know which way leads you into the heart of a fight and which way leads you out. Exits are lifesavers..."
“I can’t see any obvious ways out except for the door far ahead in the distance, Oliver...!" Iris yelled as she punched square into the chest of one of the half-giants trying to bring her down. Her clenched fist, charged with explosive magic, sent her assailant staggering backwards.
Oliver interrupted. “Then let’s open up a path right down the middle and make a run for it. Avoid having to fight every enemy here, just tackle the ones who get in our way.” Streams of fire burning in great arcs from Oliver’s hands drove back the half-giants who had been trying to grapple him.
“Well, that works, too...”
...“Never stop moving....” The memory of her husband’s words continued to speak vital admonitions.
“Oliver!” Iris called out, breathing heavily.
“Yes!” Oliver replied, also breathless.
“Once we reach the door, I’m going to tear open a hole to the outside. Then we’re going to find that bitch, Sian. My nose will lead us to her.”
Oliver nodded before calling down a huge pillar of explosive flames onto a large mob of half-giants blocking their way. Divine energy seemed to pour straight out of the ceiling, incinerating everything directly in its path. Iris clamped her hands over her ears, trying to silence the terrible screams. Nothing could block the stench of burning flesh. The column of fire ignited everything it touched. A rapid, flaring conflagration devoured all in its path as it spewed out thick, noxious, black clouds.
“Fuck, Oliver!”
He held up his hands in supplication. “Sorry. We needed the path cleared. Sorry about the smoke, too. We should move quickly before it becomes too much for us.”
The half-giants stopped their attack and began in vain to try to extinguish the flames spreading like a forest fire.
After a seeming eternity of trudging, weary and bloodied, but otherwise intact, they’d finally reached the door on the hangar’s back wall. Behind them, only a roiling mountain of sooty smoke punctuated by occasional jets of towering flame was visible.
“Jesus, Oliver. Look what you caused.”
Oliver only smiled in response. Iris began to strike the door with a savage ferocity. Tears opened up in the membrane of their current dimension. Once a gap was big enough for them both, the two stepped through...
...“As you move through a battlefield, make sure to strike as many targets as you can. Don’t waste any chances to cause harm to your foes.”
The hounds smiled at Iris’s statement. This human woman who’d never seemed willing to hit anything was now sounding like a true hunter...
Iris awoke with a gasp. Deidre leaned over her. “You must have had a helluva dream, there, girl. You were mumbling up a storm.”
Iris sat up and looked around. She was still in the freezer with Ty, Deirdre, and Brian. The men tried to not look concerned as they busied themselves checking their collection of rifles and pistols. “Yeah, um, sorry about that. I...don’t think I normally talk in my sleep. I hope I didn’t wake anybody up.”
“It’s okay,” Deirdre replied, “happens to everyone out in the field at one time or another. Pack up your gear, killer. It’s time we rolled out of this shithole town.”
“Agreed,” Ty added. “Who’s got Oliver?”
Iris grabbed the cart’s pull handle as she said, “I’ll take him.” At her touch, a spark of eldritch energy passed from her hand down the cart and into Oliver’s box, which returned a spark of its own back up and into her, as if a circuit had been completed. Iris yelped and let go of the handle.
“You alright,” Ty called back, not having seen the energy discharges.
“Yep. Just a static shock that surprised me. No need to worry.”
“Alright, everyone,” Ty continued, “we’re about to cross over into Broken Root territory. Just some things to keep in mind, Deirdre and Brian. They are an honorable people but...they don’t think highly of magic wielders like sorcerers and warlocks. So we don’t want to let on that some of us are practitioners of the eldritch arts.”
“Got it. No spellcasting or mentions of it,” Brian said.
“That should be easy for you, non-magical Brian,” Deirdre quipped.
Brian thought to zing her back but, realizing he really was the only one who did not harness magic, he only sneered.
“Also,” Ty added, “The village of Broken Root is a bit of an anachronism.”
“Meaning,” Deirdre asked.
“It’s like an Old West town full of cowboys and ma’ams,” Iris clarified.
Deirdre and Brian looked at each other. Scrunch-faced, Deirdre asked, “Seriously? And how do these wranglers feel about Black folk?”
“You should be fine, Deirdre,” Ty offered. “They’re fey folk first, originally from Otherworld. To say that Anwyn (On Fin) embraces diversity is an understatement.”
The pure, green, life-affirming breeze blowing through the gate from Broken Root reinvigorated Iris, who had struggled with what could only be described as a horror of scents in Brooklyn’s tainted air.
Instead of inhaling the miasma of a crumbling, mystically tainted, desecrated ruin of a city, she delighted in the incense of beeches, birches, dogwoods, oaks, and redbuds. Wildflowers and tall grasses and nearby wild honey. And…
“Oh, shit.”
Iris said it loud enough for the others to notice. Looking back, Ty frowned. “What is it, Iris?”
“No, no, no. No, no. No, no.”
Deirdre and Brian joined Ty.
“What’s going on?” Deirdre asked.
“Ty? Iris? Everything okay?” Edward Loper was waiting for them with a few others on the other side of the open gate.
A tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man, also dressed in western garb, peered over Edward’s shoulder. An all-too-familiar voice called out. “...Iris?”
Ty looked back and answered for his speechless partner. “Arawn?”
A young man -- tall, lean, blonde, with a mustache and goatee, thin black-rimmed glasses, dark blue jeans and a black, short-sleeve button-down shirt -- asked to be seated towards the back of the bar. Sitting in Bubbles’s plush booth, fingering a menu, he began to look around, quietly dictating notes in his smartphone. The bar was busy but not crowded, the music low enough that he was able to think without interruption. Until a woman with straight, dirty blonde hair just past her shoulders approached and waved. She wore light blue jeans, a white sleeveless top, and a black, long line, open front knitted cardigan reaching her knees.
“Hey!”
“Oh, hi, yes. I’m still looking at the menu.”
“I’m not your server, Merlin Baltimore.”
The young man looked up, surprised. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry. I should tell you who I am.” She leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, “I’m actually Shieldmaiden’s sim-body, Merlin Baltimore. Her walking-around suit, as it were. But people around here who don’t know that just call me Katie. Katie’s the bookkeeper at Bubbles.” Without asking, she sat down opposite John in the booth.
“Oh, do sit, ‘Katie’.” He studied her for a moment before asking, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Well, Merlin Baltimore..."
He winced, hearing that for the third time. “Please, just call me John. That will be easier on the both of us.”
Katie grinned. “Def! Well, John, I couldn’t help but notice that a preeminent sorcerer and political figure such as yourself had come in..."
“Yes, about that. How did you manage to penetrate my guise, Katie? It’s woven from the strongest illusion magics.”
“Maybe on the outside. Not the inside. There are literally hundreds of physical biological markers that I, with my many augmented sensor arrays, am able to read and..."
“Point taken, Katie. I shall have to work on disguising those traits better next time I wish to move about unseen. I was never much of a tech guy, admittedly, and don’t always think of such things in the moment. Thank you for reminding me.”
“No probs! So what brings you here, John? I’m an easily bored and very curious bot-girl and am always eager for novelty.”
“Well, as luck would have it, I came here hoping to learn more about you. How pleasantly surprising to see that you have an actual sim-body to move around in. It’s incredibly life-like. I’d have never known you weren’t an actual person at first glance.”
“Ty is quite the artist, as you may know, John, and has spent hundreds and hundreds of hours obsessing over the details. I’d tell you that it seems a bit suspect to me, maybe borderline hentai, but what do I know. He has been pretty lonely..."
“I’m sure I don’t need to know those details, Katie. It’s not the suit but you I’m curious about.”
“Oh, I’m flattered. What would you like to know about me?”
“How about we start with something simple. Do you accept friend requests?”
“From you, hell yes.” Katie stuck out her hand and John shook it. “Well look at that, John. I have a new friend. You’re my first.”
“I’m pleased and honored to be the first. Do you...does your sim-body eat or drink?”
“Not usually. But I can. I mean, I won’t digest it and I get nothing from the act, but I can consume food and drink.”
“Well, then, if you are free, will you join me for lunch? What’s good here?”
James sat in the back seat of his limo and fumed. How the fuck did those two Avalon agents -- alright, one agent and one eldritch knight with a badass legendary title -- destroy his recently acquired construct ORD? With sticks and stones and secondhand thrift store separatist army shit no less. James’s fingers nervously tapped his twitching legs. Not only had he lost his Brooklyn guardian, a beautifully brutal machine that sucked up a city’s worth of magic power everyday and could inflict hella damage on any enemy, he’d lost Oliver, as well, the faithless prick. Iris and her rabble had control of him now. What a disaster. At least he was still locked up in his pet crate. But for how long? That sorcerer was too clever, by half. Given enough time, Ty would crack the thing open. James was sure of that.
He needed to get Oliver back. Soon. But, he reminded himself, it didn’t have to be tonight. James had other issues to focus on at present. Let Iris babysit the little “D” demigod for a bit. Maybe she’d have a bad reaction just from being in close proximity to him. That could be fun to watch.
“Sir?”
He didn’t know how he felt about Lancelot working alongside his ex and the Abdicated King of Fomorian-land or whatever the hell it was they called it in Otherworld. That was a more immediate problem than any currently involving Oliver. The teleology of the three of them working together was fuzzy as hell for some reason, and he couldn’t see what their teaming up would mean in the near and medium-range future. Whatever the outcome, he was doubtful that it would be good for Master’s goals.
“...Sir? Mr. Ward?”
He really wanted to break that trio up. He needed to break them up. Dammit. Their teaming up was not good. But if he interfered and was exposed for it? Being revealed would be fraught with unacceptable risks. And there was no telling what Iris would do if he encountered her, anyway, especially if she was angry. He could swear that he still sometimes smelled like burnt toast, even after getting a whole new body. He needed to stay off their radar. The Master would definitely agree with that, as well. He’d learned his lesson.
“Siiir!”
He needed them looking at other things. At other people. Any direction away from him. Didn’t matter what. Maybe he could sell out the Merlin. Sow some mistrust with Avalon itself. Get them questioning that old snake. It might be pretty easy, too. There was definitely something untrustworthy about him. But would it be too soon to make them enemies of each other? Or should he keep that particular powder dry for now?
“...Mister..."
“WHAT!! What do you fucking want!?”
James’s driver flinched backwards. “You...you told me to tell you when we’d arrived at the destination. We’re here, sir.”
“Right. Wait here. I shouldn’t be long.”
They’d parked outside a run-down, filthy, and thoroughly graffiti-tagged warehouse in College Point, Queens. It was three-story masonry brick, from the 1920s, with a building-wide row of large-pane windows, mostly busted out and boarded up. The steel front door, originally black, was now a rainbow riot of spray painted gang tags. A heavy lock closed a heavier chain through the door’s security bolt. The warehouse’s general shit appearance suggested it had been abandoned long ago.
James walked up to the lock and touched it. With a spark of energy and an audible ping, the lock popped open. After removing it and the chain, he tested the door’s handle. Also locked. Like that was going to stop him. Whoever handled the security for this place was either lazy or stupid or incompetent. No warding sigils or invisible guards or entrance-masking spells or even animated gargoyles. Not even a single golem to keep an eye out for unwanted strangers. He sighed before repeating his unlocking spell, then waved to the overhead security camera as he swung the door and entered.
The inner courtyard looked like a demilitarized zone, complete with snipers, tank golems, and some kind of self-firing gun turrets.
“There we go,” he thought to himself. “That’s more like it. False front.” He gave the guards his biggest smile as he approached. “Gentlemen..."
When he walked into the boss’s office, James was holding some of the product the Abramos had produced in secret near the Irradiated Zone in Brooklyn. Guns cocked and pointed at his head suddenly, inexplicably lowered. “At ease, men. I’m impressed with your lock-and-load readiness, but that won’t be necessary now that I’m here.”
Puzzled and angry, hired mercenaries and Abramo foot soldiers strained to lift their weapons. James glanced at an especially mean, battle-scarred, bastard-looking mercenary and said, “You’re with me.”
The merc, now free to move, swung the barrel of his assault rifle between his comrades and employer. James counted off the number of men holding guns, then asked, “You have enough rounds on you for everyone here, minus your ex-boss, uh...what’s your name?”
“Karl Hendricks, sir. And, yes, sir, I do.”
“Then clear the room, please.”
A look of horror seized the frozen mercs and mobsters, as one by one, they went down from Karl’s headshots. A few cried out. Most just went down to the floor. Now only James, Karl, and Monty Abramo, the crime boss overseeing the Queens mana-infused drug operation, were left.
“Good work, K-man..."
James paused. Curiously, a huge winged, three-headed beast -- one goat head, one lion head, and one dragon head -- prowled into the room, growling from three throats at once. Karl turned to shoot. The dragon’s maw, with its long-necked reach, snatched him before he could fire. Karl’s scream was more of a bloody gurgle as the jaws of the beast closed around his throat. The lion’s head, angry at being left out, extended a paw and hooked into Karl’s mid-section, tearing him in two. The two competing predatory heads twisted their malevolent gazes to James while the goat head lowered its horns to smash into the bloody mess that had been a living man.
Monty Abramo, a large, heavyset balding man covered in gang tattoos, snarled. “I don’t know what the fuck you did to my men, you bastard, but you will regret it.” To his chimera, he shouted “Diablo! Matalo!”
But instead of attacking, the creature rolled on its side, begging for a belly rub.
A terrified Abramo pulled his pistol and pointed it, trembling, at James.
“Monty, put down the gun.”
Sweating, straining, Monty fiercely fought the urge to obey. This fucker was ruining everything. And once the family found out, his life wouldn’t be worth shit.
“Put. The gun. Down. Was I not clear?”
Monty could feel tendons and muscles in his arm start to tear. His fingers began to crack, and the color of his hand started to purple. But still, he strained against the force exerted upon him to drop the weapon. He gasped and shouted, “I will see you dead, sorcerer. My family...will...see you...dead.”
Monty screamed as his forearm twisted sideways and snapped like a broken tree limb. Blood sprayed where the fractured radius and ulna bones pierced his skin. Diablo the chimera raised his three heads. The lion’s head licked its lips.
Seething, James said, “When I command you to do something, YOU DO IT! Watch.” He reached down and stroked the chimera’s lion and dragon heads. “Hey, fuzzy-wuzzy. Who’s a good cat? Who’s a good dragon? You are. Yes, you are.”
The chimera doubly purred in unison.
“Your brother, the goat head, offends me. Tear it off and kill it.”
The creature shrieked as the two heads ganged up against the one, clawing and biting the baying goat head until it fell to the ground, severed. The dragon, to prove its loyalty to its new master, belched out a jet of flame that set the goat’s head ablaze. The creature sat back down on its haunches, seemingly oblivious to the mortal injury it had caused itself.
An odor of urine permeated the space as Monty watched his chimera tear itself apart.
“What’s the lesson here, Monty?”
“Do-do what you s-say.” He was beginning to droop from his own pain and blood loss.
“Hey! No! No sleeping,” James commanded. “Stay with me. I have questions that you are going to answer first.” Despite the fatigue washing over his body, Monty knew that he wouldn’t sleep again until he’d answered all of the dark sorcerer’s questions. ”Wh-what do you w-want to know?”
James made his way to a shelf filled with faintly glowing vials. He began to read labels out loud, one at a time, all strongly addictive, high-value street drugs. “What separates your heroin, your cocaine, your opiates from your competitors, Monty?”
“We...we processed them...in-in a lab on Brook...lyn. Near t-the site of...the big...blast crater. We u-use magically-infused...components...to...to increase the...the drug’s p-potency. It has the s-side effect of...of increasing a person’s...own magical p-power.”
James clapped. “You know, that’s brilliant. And I’m really impressed that you figured out how to make and move product between Brooklyn and Queens using slipspace dimension routes. Kudos to you brainiac cockroaches for figuring all of that shit out under the noses of the authorities. Great products, too. Lots of commercial appeal. But do you know what my problem with all this is, Monty?”
“N-no.”
“YOU DIDN’T FUCKING CLEAR IT WITH ME FIRST!” James threw the vial in his hand and hit Monty in the face. “Pick it up.”
Monty started to reach for it with his ruined right hand and flinched. He stretched out his left hand, instead, and held the vial aloft.
“Open it.”
Monty opened the vial. Fear was etched into his expression.
“Swallow it.”
His hand shaking, Monty swallowed.
“What did it say?”
Monty named a powerful opioid.
“How do you feel?” When Monty struggled to find the words, James interrupted him. “Never mind.” He grabbed another vial off the shelf and tossed it over. “Take this one, too.” He repeated this six more times, leaving Monty a quivering, seizing, glowing, mutating mass of dying flesh.
“Oh, man, that’s gross.” Grabbing one of the many guns lying around and pointing it at Monty, James said, “Open up!”
Monty’s sagging, stretching mouth, more gash than anything at this point, flapped open, eager to receive the mercy-bringing bullet.
James didn’t have to wait long for three trucks belonging to the City of New York to pull up outside the warehouse. “Everyone listen up,” he shouted to the city workers who’d come to clear the Abramo lab out. “All of this contraband shit now belongs to the Mayor’s Office. So let’s get this place cleaned up in 15 minutes and clear out of here. I don’t want to have to be in Queens any longer than I need to be.”
As he exited the now-looted building, before he threw the lit molotov cocktail in behind him, James asked the echoing warehouse, “What do you think of me now, Uncle?”
[OUTRO SONG: "A Good Boy" by Luna Lee]