Running a bit late this week. I'm getting to the point in the story where the changes I've made further down the road are affecting the parts we're getting to now. A lot of this is now new material. Still rough drafty, but new. Again thanks for reading!
A narrow hallway led to a well-lit room where the crucible that powered Strangefellows quietly roared. A woman with bright yellow and red hair had her arms up to the shoulder in the burning charcoal, her face less than a half foot from the glowing embers. The updraft and flame from the inferno blew the hair back from her face making it look like her head was reentering from orbit as she felt her way around the inside of the clay container. A streak of ash ran from her nose up her forehead. A man with dark features sat in a lawn chair against one wall with his head held in his long-fingered hands.
“This doesn’t look good, Dimitri, the woman was saying. The temperature rose too fast, some of these sigils are seriously fucked. Holy crap! This Ehwaz is acting like a Mannaz now. I’m not even sure how we’re still getting eighty percent efficiency. We’re going to need to begin work on another one ASAP.”
Sam cleared his throat and Sue finally turned her head to see Aleph standing in the doorway. “Aleph!” carolled Sue, pulling her arm from the crucible and brushing off a few live embers back into the clay vessel. Dimitri lifted his head to look at them with tired, haunted eyes.
Sue straightened and dashed toward her with her arms wide. “Oh my god, it’s amazing to see you!”
“You never get tired of that joke, do you?” Aleph asked, smiling and holding her own arms open.
Sue threw her arms around Aleph’s shoulders and burst into tears. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she sobbed into Aleph’s shoulder. “It was horrible.”
Aleph held her and let her cry for a few long moments before carefully untangling herself. “I want to hear all about it, I really do, but I need to speak with Dimitri first.”
“Dimitri?” Sue sniffed, looking over at him.
Dimitri stood from the couch, his hair was standing up in all directions and his face looked ashen.
“What happened?” Aleph asked.
“Yeah, Dimitri. Tell her,” Sue challenged him. “Tell her how your new friend nearly got everyone killed.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Dimitri shot back.
“It was exactly like that,” Sue hissed, advancing on him. Behind them, the crucible began to roar noticeably louder. “People I liked are dead because of you. You brought him here and those things followed,” she said jabbing a finger at his chest. Tears began to leak down her face again, but now she didn’t look in the least bit sad. Maybe homicidal.
“Prove it,” Dimitri demanded right back at her. Aleph winced. That was the wrong tactic. Sue looked like she was ready to launch herself at him and claw his eyes out. The crucible began to howl like a tortured soul.
Dimitri’s eyes flicked to the glowing crucible and grew wide. “Or are you honestly trying to tell me that you think someone managed to get that many brainjacked zombies together on a moment’s notice?” he quickly continued. “This wasn’t something someone could just pull off in a few hours, or even a few days, this was a planned attack with lots of legwork.”
“Zombies, Dimitri, doesn’t that tell you anything? How many people you know can make zombies, because I’m thinking there’s only one kind. Necromancers.”
“Why would he make them just to kill them all again. It makes no sense.”
“How should I know?”
“I know you’re pissed and scared, but use your head! Who has been chasing him? Who has been trying to recruit him? With my own two eyes, I saw Rag and Bone try to snatch him. We all know who those two work for.”
Sue glared at him, but Aleph could see Dimitri was getting through to her. She waited to see if, between the two of them, they would put the rest of it together.
Sue just glared at him. “Maybe,” she finally admitted, “but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t here because of him, it just means that he’s got organized enemies.”
“Sure, I’d be willing to admit that might be true, but I believe Stirling when he tells me he’s clueless, I mean, just look at the guy. He shaved his head and put on a charcoal bag as a disguise. Those aren’t the actions of an evil overlord. Maybe a doofus, but not a new Francis King. I think what happened here tonight is about something bigger. I think tonight has a lot more to do with an old alchemist than it does with a new necromancer.”
A loud banging came from the door at the end of the hall and Sue broke her glare at Dimitri to answer it. She rushed back into the room with one of the gothy-looking necro girls from the common room carrying a bundle wrapped in a long woollen jacket. She looked to be around seventeen, had asphalt coloured hair, wore pale makeup and a stud in her nose. Sue directed her to the coffee table in the centre of the room and cleared off the remotes and books with a swipe of her arm.
“Sam! Get the first aid kit!”
She carefully set the jacket on the table and opened it to reveal a limp black furred form. It had a strange mix of human and feline features and it looked like it had been run through Satan’s wood chipper. One eye was swollen shut, patches of fur were ripped out, and open cuts oozed blood from a number of deep gashes.
Dimitri came to stand next to the table.
“That’s part of the barkeep, right?”
“Minnaloushe!” Sue corrected him, giving him yet another glare.
“Minnaloushe,” he agreed.
Sam arrived in a storm of flannel, a heavy plastic first aid kit in his hand. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had this out tonight. I haven’t had time to restock it,” he warned, “but you can use whatever’s there.”
“He was hidden under the bar,” said the necro girl, whose name Aleph knew was Arachne. “We couldn’t take him to the hospital, you know since he’s part cat and stuff. Do you think he’ll be alright?”
Sue had snapped on a pair of blue latex gloves and was running her hands over Minnaloushe’s limps.
“His breathing sounds alright, he’s not bleeding out, and I don’t feel any broken bones. He might be bleeding inside though.”
“Oh!” Arachne put her fingers to her lips. “Poor thing.”
Aleph walked over and looked down at Minnaloushe. He was a Kellas Cat, and they could be complicated. She carefully opened an eyelid and examined his moon-shaped pupils. The right side of the pupil was dark against the golden iris and only a horned moon remained in the far left. It was a waning moon. That was not a good sign.
Minnaloushe’s body suddenly arched, he let out a keening whine but didn’t wake. Sue held up her hands and started back.
“I didn’t do anything!”
“I know. Where is the rest of him?” Aleph said to Arachne.
“The rest of him?”
“He’s a Kellas Cat. There are always nine of them. They can be spread out miles apart, but they’re still a single mind.”
“Oh my god, that is so cool!”
“There were only two of him on shift tonight,” said Sam.
“Where’s the second one then?”
Sam looked to Arachne, but she only shook her head. “That was the only one I found.”
“This member looks beat up but otherwise fine. I’m concerned with what’s happening to the rest of him.”
The room went quiet for a moment. “So what happens when there aren’t nine anymore?” Dimitri said.
Aleph shrugged. “No idea, but it can’t be good for him. Either way, this member is going to need stitches.” She began to rummage through the first aid kit and take stock of what was still there.
Dimitri nudged Sam. “She said, ‘member.’” Sam rolled his eyes.
“Shave and disinfect the area around the wounds,” she told Dimitri.
“Yup, got it.”
“Does anyone have a laptop?”
“Use mine,” said Sam, going to a bookcase and unplugging a large black laptop from its power cord. Aleph took the computer from his hands, sat down, twiddled with the touchpad and typed in some words. A few moments later guitar music rose from the little built-in speakers and she sat watching intently.
Arachne had been standing off to the side came over to watch. “I love your makeup,” she said.
“Thanks,” Aleph responded distractedly.
“You’re learning how to tie sutures on Youtube?” Sam asked with a note of reproof tinging his voice. He paused to watch more. “From a survivalist channel!?”
Aleph shrugged. “He isn’t going to bleed out, I have time to learn.”
“You haven’t done this before?!” he asked, his voice going up an octave. He’d clearly lost his earlier sense of awe.
“Nope. Closest I’ve come is Grey’s Anatomy. Now shut up, I’m trying to watch.”
Sam was able to keep his mouth closed for nearly a whole ten count before he said, “You aren’t talking about the medical book, are you? You’re speaking about the television show.”
Aleph sighed loudly, rolled her eyes, and paused the video. “He’s a Kellas Cat from Fey, it’s not like we can take him to the vet or the hospital. We deal with it ourselves or not at all.” She flipped her fingers at Sam in a dismissing gesture, “Now fuck off, I’m trying to watch.”
It took another half hour to shave, disinfect, then stitch Minnaloushe’s many wounds. This included the time it took Aleph to refine her suturing technique on a dried-out pomegranate they found lurking in the back of the staff fridge. Minnaloushe had to be held down during the procedure, but Aleph didn’t think it was from the pain of being stitched.
By the time they finished, the areas of newly-shaved skin around the wounds made the cat look to Aleph as though, after plumbing the secrets of the universe, Stephen Hawking had decided to take up pet grooming.
“Will he live?” Sue asked in a subdued voice.
“He isn’t dying,” replied Aleph, “I’m not going to commit to more than that.”
Sam eyed Minnaloushe critically where he lay at the epicentre of clumps of fur and bloody gauze. “We should have shaved him all, at least then he’d be even.”
“Do you have any idea how pissed he’d be?” Aleph asked.
“Pissed yes, but I ask you, is there anything funnier than a pissed, newly shaved cat. That’s comedy gold.” Sam smiled expectantly at her.
“If you want comedy gold, draw a dick on his forehead with a marker,” Dimitri chimed in. “That one never gets old. Wait, would it be a cat dick or a regular dick?”
“What is wrong with you two?” asked Sue over the snickers of the two men. “He’s been attacked and injured in defence of this place, where’s your empathy?”
Sam looked a bit shamefaced, but Dimitri kept right on going. “Hey Sam, you know what we just did, right?” he raised his eyebrows suggestively at the shaved cat and grinned. It took a second for his meaning to sink in.
“No. Dimitri, just no.” Sam buried his face in his hands.
“We shaved a…”
“Don’t say it, man.”
“Oh, come on, it’s funny.”
Sue rolled her eyes at him and Arachne began to laugh.
“See, she thinks it’s funny,” said Dimitri pointing.
“No, I’m just laughing at what a creepy douche you are,” she said while still managing to smile brightly.
“Sometimes Dimitri, you can be such a dickhole,” Sue added.
Before things devolved further, Aleph brought up the thing nobody had been speaking about. “So, where is he now?” she asked looking at Dimitri.
“How should I know? I’m not his babysitter.”
“You should know because I asked you to keep an eye on him. You should know because you’re the Webmage who can track people, remember?”
Dimitri shrunk in on himself. “Yeah, but I’ve been a bit busy, and besides, I didn’t mind keeping an eye out when he was flying under the radar. With that display tonight, he might as well strapped on a skull jock strap and marched in the necro pride parade. I’d be surprised if the Alchemist guild hasn’t already erased his ass. He’s made himself radioactive.”
“Oh, you mean Kingsford?” Arachne asked, seeming to finally catch on.
“Kingsford?” Aleph asked.
“Uh huh!” Arachne pulled out a smartphone and cued up a video file that showed a grainy, but very recognizable figure wearing a charcoal bag on his head. He was snapping black necrotic whips at people walking around with obviously fatal injuries. Over the dull roar of the crucible in the background, she could hear a tinny, “Pew! pew! Come out of the phone’s speaker.
“Oh no.”
“Come on now, it’s not that bad! I’ve already got over five thousand hits!”
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