Ironline's Din (Part 1)
Their only hope of escape led through the bathroom. At least he was pretty sure it was.
They, their luckless trio, had trapped themselves between a sturdy wall of bricks, steel, and for some damnable reason, a clay baked fresco material showing a smiling blond woman with pig tails and windmills and an old hardwood bar made of long, sturdy planks coated in a natural resin vanish. In most circumstances, he would have been happy to be surrounded by such natural products in the “real” world. Almost everything now was something made from something refined from something, created in a lab from something. No, the earth and wood of the pizza store eatery was comforting. Which brought him back to the windmills and blond girl of the fresco. What the hell did they have to do with Italy?
Something that had once been a bench obscured his focus on the girl, smashing into her smiling face. The fresco shattered and rained down on him in hard edged chips and dancing motes. One eye stared brightly up at him from the floor. He sighed in the continuing splintering of eatery accoutrement. It would be comforting if a formless spriggan weren't barring their only real escape into open air.
Spriggan were a troublesome lot in their line of work. They guarded their treasure with a morbid sense of finality, as if each piece of treasure - regardless of the mundanity a piece of brightly colored string held - would bring about their ultimate demise if taken. Add this strident sense of duty to the fact that they almost never holed up anywhere that made the remotest sense with regards to safety or seclusion (See exhibit A - a well trodden pizza parlor in the middle of the city), and it was almost certain a party of hunters was going to stumble onto a least one shape-shifter in their normal outings.
His little trio had been lucky of late, most spriggan holes were well labeled in the scrawl of street graffiti and the naming of road signs. Road signs because as strong as their sense of protection was, it paled in comparison to their tenacity to cling to life. They were almost impossible to keep dead. Kill, easy. Keep out of this plane of existence, nearly impossible - unlike the lovely etched alcohol mirror that flew into a million sparkling shards and the projectile garlic shaker the spriggan had hurled with what he assumed was a hand. It could be anything right now. None of them had looked at it before diving for cover. They had established that immediately after assuring each other they were alive. Nox, on his left, growled a negative and Lodestone, on his right, had said something that resembled “no” between teeth clenched so tightly they squeaked. He hated that sound.
So at the moment, the spriggan was still some formless mass of potential death. All they had to do was keep from actually thinking about what it might be and it couldn’t actually form itself into a beast. All it could do was hurl stuff around like a poltergeist and try to draw out a wandering eye, because then you’d have to decide what you saw in it’s amorphous being. And it would have a means to rip out your throat like a… he caught himself… like a formless thing that likes lollipops, puppies, and hugs. He held his breath for a second. The echoing creaks and groans of a Formica table bending in two answered his half-assed attempt at avoiding a fight.
Lodestone looked at him between slitted eyes and shouted over another roar of the spriggan. Her left hand pointed from its position near her chest clutched in her right hand to an old street sign hanging in the corner impervious to destruction. It had been blue with white piping, but rust spots and poor polishing had dulled the finish. It looked to be one of the original street signs of the city stating the name Ironline.
“Well,” he stated evenly, “now we know its name.”
His half-smile died before it made it across his face. Lodestone’s withering stare dripped down her face and curled the edges of her mouth, “You told me you scouted. I asked, Grin, did you scout the location? And you said you did!”
Her voice had risen as she spoke from a guttural creak to a gale. That last sentence was loud enough that even the spriggan Ironline stopped its rampage for a moment to listen to what was happening behind the bar. He held up his hands defensively and apologetically waving away her admonishments. Biting his lower lip he nodded solemnly.
“You are right,” he said, “I did scout. I spent an entire night at this bar. The entire place is covered in signs. I missed that one.”
Lodestone didn’t speak, her mouth opened and closed and her eyes got wide. Grin cowered a little from her. He knew her voice was going to crack pavement.
“MISSED ONE! There are barely,” she looked around quickly taking in her limited view of the room. Even in her anger she knew not to look over the bar, “ 4 things with words not associated with some product in here. The most notable, with a placard, decorative lights, and pictures of patrons photoed with it, is an old city street sign saying Ironline!”
Upon hearing his name screamed, Ironline bellowed it in a chorus of voices. Grin wondered if it had multiple… nope, tricky bugger… siblings. He wondered if it had multiple siblings somewhere in the city. Lodestone’s left hand caught him between strong forefinger and thumb around his chin. She drug his face very close so that he could feel the air moving in and out of her lungs on his lips.
“If I die behind this bar,” she began.
He took a deep breath through his nose and smiled. The lean, muscled woman to his left growled at the glint of his teeth in the flickering lights. The muscles of her arms tensed between contrary muscle groups. Her yellow eyes narrowed to almost slits hiding the cat like pupils.
“H’smiles,” she stated angrily in a gravel voice, “H’smiles, Lodestone.”
Lodestone flung his face away from hers with a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. She hunkered lower and gathered up debris to form some cover form the renewed onslaught of restaurant paraphernalia flying through the air. He returned to his resting position with his back against the bar and glanced to his left. Nox was perched on all fours, knees almost in her armpits staring at him. He imagined her tail flicking with agitation back and forth across the rubble strewn floor. If she had a tail, which right now she did not. When was the last time she had a tail? Was it the skyscraper job? It was definitely before Lodestone joined their little band of hunters. She needed extra balance for that one and that had been her wyrd of the Feygift. No tail this time though. Same irritation.
“What did you choose this time, Nox?” he asked as another section of benches flew over their hiding spot and shattered into a rain of splinters and planks mixed with paint flecks, mortar, and cheap plastic veneer. That last bit felt the worst. The other pieces at least had something tying them to the wilds of his land. That veneer, it was so fabricated, so fake.
“She’s TANKING,” the woman on his other side gasped from beneath the shelter of a chair seat she held over her head. Her dark eyes blazed looking at him filled with the fire of… oh, irritation. Again, “and before you ask. NO, she didn’t beg off the cost. She’s a tad thick right now.”
“Don’t li’e when h’smiles,” Nox hissed as if on cue. The woman named Lodestone raised her eyebrows and made an “I told you so” expression. His grin grew into a smirk punctuated by a low guttural growl from Nox.
“I says bathroom,” his voice was calm, but a bit elevated to be heard over the roar from the room across the other side of the bar. The woman crouched low as something metal rebounded over their heads and flew back over the counter-top. He noticed stray strands of her long black hair had become undone from the spherical bun at her crown, drifting in the restless air torrents caused by the rampaging creature they had cornered or had cornered them. He wasn’t sure at the moment. He cleared his throat and tried again, “I says bathroom, what say you, Lodestone?”
“Says we fight,” answered Nox. She had crawled up to the bar and was about to peek over when both Lodestone and Grin shouted of her to get back. Ironline shrieked in impotent fury at the near success. Her eyes had gone wide and her cat pupils were blown taking in all the light they could to better hunt her prey. She dropped back to all fours and Her hips began to shimmy back and forth, her feet drawing close together, strong thighs flexing to spring.
“Troll spit,” he cursed placing a hand under Lodestones’ chin, ”Bathroom! LODESTONE, what says you?”
Her sneer was breathtaking in its ferocity. It sharpened all her features enough to make the muses blush in awe. He was always amazed at the way she wore her emotions. Strong and open for all to see. Not even Nox in her most difficult costs had been that unguarded with her soul. Her sneer melted away as she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath through her nose. She exhaled and he could almost smell the Feygift drift from her nostrils. He glanced at Nox to make sure she hadn’t gone yet. Their tank was looking at them both with wavering control. The tip of her triangular, animal-like ear closest to the destructive beast twitching. He smiled encouragingly and gestured to Lodestone with his free hand. Nox barred her teeth. The sharp ones were especially pointy in the dim light and glinted eerily. He looked back to the other woman in time to catch her eyes snap open.
“I says Aye,” she breathed quite winded, gasped and added, “why do we always end up hiding behind a counter, Grin?
“My father would say we’re just…” he stopped and let out a little whoop of glee. He began to stand without thinking, so pleased with his new escape plan. Before he could speak, Nox’s dense form flattened him to the ground. A line of pizza platters embedding themselves halfway into the wall behind them.
“STUPID SIDHE” Nox yelled in his ear. She was quite heavy, keeping the air from reentering his lungs. Her hands were crushing his shoulders into the rubble strewn floor. He could feel the bones and sinew grinding beneath her weight, small bits of matter cutting and grinding into his skin.
“Can’t breathe,” he choked weakly. Nox spit something in a language he didn’t quite catch and rolled off him. A well placed knee and elbow reminded him of her displeasure, but didn’t break anything.
“Smart,” Lodestone mocked, “you wanna fill me in on your plan before you die so at least she and I can go home?”
He nodded getting his hands beneath his chest and heaving his slender form up on top all fours. The lights dimmed as the creature ripped a pair of ceiling fans out of their housings and shredded them with what sounded like teeth, but only if they reciprocated. He pushed the image from his mind, no need to give it ideas.
The air returned to his lungs and filled him with warmth. He realized it was radiating from his shoulder where Lodestone had placed a hand. He looked up and her sneer had gone, replaced by her typical anxious expression.
“I’m good,” he smiled, “we good?”
She rolled her eyes and gave rueful laugh, “yeah, Grin. We good.”
“Nox? We good?”
“Good,” she snorted in reply. He could feel the Feygift grow in him and knew they could also. It was too general a glamour to give them much aid against the formless thing out there, but it was enough to start them on their path. Lodestone’s repositioned hand on his arm stopped him. He looked back at her, locking her steely searching gaze.
“This is such a well frequented place,” she said slowly ignoring the debris falling from the ceiling where a wire pizza stand embedded itself halfway into the wooden beams, “why is Ironline awake now and not when the Untouched are here doing things I used to do before I met you?”
The Grin pulled out a folded piece of old parchment and a worn leather-like bag from the inside of his increasingly dusty and weathered jacket. He shook it issuing a small jungle of metal and rock-like objects. Ironline roared. Grin secreted the items back into their resting places and cleared his throat.
“When did he get those?” Lodestone hissed across Grin to Nox. The other rolled her eyes, shrugged her shoulders. Lodestone removed the cover from her head, crawling on hands and knees she began searching through the rubble, throwing errant pieces of pizzeria back over the bar until she gripped the edge of a hole ripped into the floor boards. A crowbar was laying neglected by the hole. She looked up and up, and found herself directly under the old street sign displaying the spriggan’s name.
The Grin had watched his companion through her entire search. As she turned he cleared his throat again and shouted the spriggan’s name. Lodestone shot frozen contempt from her eyes at the man. And mouthed the words “didn’t notice?”. He knew that once he started his wyrd she knew not to interrupt. It wouldn’t stop her from bringing it up later, but for now…
“I bet you’re used to the people, just humper-dumper-dooing their way into your lair and looking right at you after they touch your things, aren’t you,” he laughed at the end. Ironline punctuated the sentence by slamming a wave of floor tiles, into the bar. Everyone on this side hunkered down a little more. He continued in the same mocking tone, “you wanted to conjure up something horrible from their mind through their eyes and rip them into little neat snack-sized chunks, didn’t you?”
“Yesssssss,” howled the spriggan, “Look at me now, so you too can seeee.”
The grin smiled relievedly at the two ladies, both of which were on the one side now. Neither returned anything but blank expressions and dangerously increasing irritation. “At least it can speak” he whispered at them. Nox growled and Lodestone sucked her teeth and rolled here eyes. Ironline, continued to repeat the word “look” over and over with different stresses on each letter. Drawing one or another out into a long howled syllable.
“I bet you’d like us to look, huh?” he jibed. The noise of destruction stopped. The furniture stopped flying. Splintering and crashes slowed and trickled into silence as the spriggan listened.
“Yes,” it spoke softly now, metal grating on stone like chips and scraps forming words.
“Get us to show you how we’d fear death?” he took a deep breath and held it. Lodestone cast a worried glance at Nox, who presented her anxiety by chattering her teeth. The clicks tattooing a loud cadence in the stillness.
“Yes!” Ironline said louder rasping air in anticipation.
“Get back these lovely pieces of treasure?” he crossed fingers on both his hands. Nox followed suit. Lodestone looked first at his hands, then at Nox’s and repeated gesture, using the fingers of her left to help her right.
“YEEEESSSSSSS!” the Spriggan bellowed. Ceramic tiles dusted under the impacts of fists… tentacles… teddy bears… yes, teddy bears…
“For someone to last this long against someone as powerful as you, you’d have to agree they were extremely lucky? Right?”
“YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS! Lucky, but soon DEAD!” reverberated off the walls, shaking their insides. And with the agreement, the feygift’s cost was paid.
Everything in the world slowed to a halt. The Feygift poured out of the Grin expanding out to envelope first Nox, then Lodestone. It’s diaphanous form, stretching and reaching, then pulling taut like a vacuum sealed package around the three, each connected by a shimmering wall of force. The world slammed back into action with the wails of outrage Ironline hurled from multiple possible throats sensing the sudden magics.
All three smiled and even Lodestone laughed and the coursing power of luck filling her entire being.
“Bathroom’s to the left of Ironline as we approach, yes?” asked Lodestone around the enormous smile. The other two agreed with small whoops of elation. Nox purred a question about which door, vibrating in anticipation. Lodestone opened her mouth, but Grin cut her off with a quick, “Boy’s room. Definitely boy’s room.”
The three all shook simultaneously with a shiver that played fingers down each vertebra of their spines. Nox inhaled deeply stretched out to her full length in what looked like a yoga pose to Grin. Lodestone covered her mouth like a child suppressing exuberant laughter at some joke an elder told. The Grin could feel the edges of his mouth nearly touching his ears, his smile was so wide.
“No peeking!” he reminded trying not to laugh, “Go for the boy’s room and only open your eyes when you are facing the doors. Just do whatever it is that you feel like you should. Don’t think about it. Just go.”
And with that, he leapt over the bar, eyes tightly shut.