Sunday 24 December 2017

Chapter 30, Part One: A measure of Brandy.

As usual, warnings apply: This is the rough draft of a story with adult themes and situations. If you are offended by bad language and grammatical errors, gentle reader, read no further! For those of you who have decided to stay, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy this week's chapter!




The familiar form of Magnon alighted on the bare branches of a nearby tree and cawed loudly at him.
“You have to be fucking with me!” he told the crow, drawing looks from several passers-by.

“Get away from that alley. Honestly, the one place I tell you to stay away from is the one place I find you.”

“No shit! what was that?”

“I don’t know her real name, but everyone calls her Lucy Cobbles. Blood Alley is hers. You should avoid her.”

“That’s a fucking understatement. Where were you?”

“I was scouting.”

Sensing that he’d get nowhere with it, Stirling chose to drop that line of questioning for the moment and motioned to the restaurant. “And, this is the place where we’ll be safe?”

“Welcome to the Skeleton Club.”

“The Skeleton Club,” he said flatly. “It says L’Abattoir, it’s a restaurant.”

“And Strangefellows says A&M Transmission on the outside. Don’t believe everything you read.”

“Isn’t it all a bit on the nose? L’Abattoir? Blood Alley? It won’t take a genius to figure out that there’s a bit of a deathy vibe going on here.” He said, beginning to walk toward the front door of the restaurant.

“Sure, the Guild knows where The Skeleton Club used to be."

“So why are we here then?”

“Two reasons. They don’t know it’s still here, and even if they did realize it’s still around, there’s no expectation that you could know about it. They have no idea I’m still around.”

“Alright, if it’s like Strangefellows, how do I get in?”

“Go inside and ask the bartender for a measure of strong brandy, then tell them you’ll pay on the way back.”

“Will I?”

“Will you what?”

“Pay on the way back.”

“That’s up to you. The brandy isn’t important.”

“Says you.”

“It’s a pass-phrase, it’s also what the condemned asked for before their trip up the scaffold steps to see the hangman. Incidentally, back in my day, the gallows was just a few hundred feet from here.”

“That’s a bit macabre.”

“You talk to ghosts, macabre is hand in hand with the job,” the crow reminded him.

“And smart-assed crows, apparently. Hold on a second though,” He stopped on the sidewalk outside the eatery. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m the first necromancer in a while, yes?”

“Yes, eighty years, give or take.”

“Then why, in the name of Angelina Jolie’s pouting, yet supple lips, would the barkeep know about the password. It’s been the better part of a century since it was used.”

“They might not,” the crow conceded, “but there’s a chance they might. When this place was first built, it was written into the building’s deed that all future employees were to know about the password, sign a contract explaining what to do should it be used, and swear to keep it secret. It was to be passed on from owner to owner as a condition of the sale. Can we go in now?”

“Let’s do it. The absolute worst thing that could happen is that I get a glass of brandy.”

Magnon hopped onto his shoulder and Stirling opened the glass door.

“Or they could kick you out for looking like a transient who French kissed a vacuum.”

“They’re mostly back to normal now,” Stirling said, touching his only slightly swollen lips.

Warm air smelling like the best kind of coffee, sausages, and pancakes wafted over his face, and Stirling was reminded it had been a long while since he’d eaten anything more substantial than a hot dog. The warmth was at odds with the arcane coldness he could feel getting stronger as he made his way deeper into the building.

He crossed the black and white tiled floor to stand at the bar made of a blond wood. Behind the bar, there was a truly exceptional assortment of bottles, and Stirling decided, Skeleton Club, or no, that he would have to come back and check it out what it had to offer in his free time.

The bartender did a double take when he saw Stirling, whether it was from his slept-in clothes, his swollen, yet kissable lips, or from the crow that rode on his shoulder, Stirling couldn’t decide.
The barkeep approached briskly, wiping his hands on a white hand towel, he was a man in his mid-thirties with a trimmed beard and wearing a red plaid shirt. “Out, no birds allowed,” said the bartender, waving a finger at Magnon.

Magnon lifted a wing as though seeing it for the first time, and rocked back on his talons in a pantomime of being surprised.

The man blinked at the bird. Magnon blinked back.

Ignoring the interplay between barkeep and crow, Stirling took a seat at one of the stools and looked directly at him. He hoped this worked, he really wanted that glass of brandy.

“I need a measure of strong brandy,” he told the man, “I’ll pay on the way back.”

That stopped the bartender dead. His eyebrows went up, and Stirling knew he was in luck at last.
“Say that again?”

Stirling did.

“Right,” said the bartender pausing for a few long beats, looking stunned now. “Um, yeah. Follow me.”

“I’d also like a brandy.”

“What?”

“A brandy, it has been one shit show of a few days.”

“So just to clarify, you want a brandy.”

“And the other thing as well,” Stirling confirmed.

The bartender looked uncertain.

“Look, let’s start this again.” He held out his hand. “I’m Stirling.”

“Brian,” the bartender approached and they shook.

“Brian, I’d like a measure of strong brandy, I’ll pay on my way back. If you know what I mean.” He gave him an exaggerated wink. “I’d also like a glass brandy because in the last two days I’ve been robbed, had part of my house burned down, been framed for murder, and nearly kidnapped.”
“Uh, which one first?”

“Robbed, I guess.”

“No, the brandy first, or…” Brian trailed off here.

“The real brandy, then we can deal with the other thing,” said Stirling.

Brian went to the wall of bottles and scanned what was there, Magnon and health code violations now apparently forgotten. “Do you have a favourite?” he asked, looking at the wall of bottles in front of him and dry washing his hands.

Stirling could tell that Brian was just itching to begin geeking out about how long this one had been in the cask, and where the fruit from that came from. He was going to have to crush his feelings.
“Right now, it’s whatever you’ve got that’s strongest, Brian.”


*




There was still a pleasant heat swirling in Stirling’s belly as he followed Brian around tables filled with people enjoying a late brunch, and to the rear of the kitchen to where a trap door with a black iron ring set into the wooden floor waited.

While he’d been drinking his brandy at the bar with Magnon, Brian had quietly left and spread word to the rest of the staff. Apparently, the password and the instructions on the deed had fallen into the realm of staff legend. When Brian announced his intention to go and speak with the staff of the Irish Heather, a pub across the road, which had until a few years ago occupied the space L’Abittoir did now, Stirling put his foot down. He let it be known that it was a secret that could get them into some serious trouble. While he spoke, he let a whiff of arcane BO seep out, hoping a bit of fear dampen Brian’s enthusiasm.

Whatever he was going to find, he didn’t think he’d be able to keep it secret from the staff here, but with the Alchemy Guild, and who knew how many others looking for him, the fewer people who knew, the better.

Stirling was lead down a set of worn wooden stairs to a basement supported with massive wooden beams the size and thickness of which he’d only seen on old wooden sailing ships. Following them were as many of the staff as could get away from the business of looking after the customers, watched and followed.

Brian clicked on a dusty overhead lamp to reveal a space filled with steel racks stacked with boxes of spare cutlery, mixing bowls, and all the other things a busy restaurant might need in a pinch. None of that was what caught Stirling’s attention though, because in the very centre of the room, in a space miraculously free of storage boxes or spare industrial-sized mixers, was an upright wooden door.
It stood on its own, a black-stained oak door with grinning skeletons carved in relief on its upper panels. Stirling knew as soon as he saw it, that it was one of those things that he could see and that the others could not. It exuded the kind of arcane vibe that he’d felt around ghosts, his hunting decoys, and up until recently, the gun safe in his workshop.

Brian looked at him expectantly. “It’s treasure, right? There’s treasure buried in here.”

“No treasure guys, but I’ll give you fair warning, if you need to pee, go to the bathroom now, this is going to get spooky.” Nobody moved.

“It’s your drycleaning bill.” He walked the last few feet to stand in front of the door.

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