Ironline's Din (part 2)

“Boys,” Lodestone screamed over and over, barely audible in the growing cacophony of the pizzeria being ripped apart and the many voiced horror of the spriggan. Grin turned abruptly to his left, following the voice and feeling the wind of something heavy, smelling of old gum, and hot wood as it brushed his cheek leaving a little burning sensation.

 “Boys room,” he repeated as calmly as he could. He was sure it didn’t sound anything like the panicked screaming that was coursing through his mind right then. Something heavy landed to his right. Unoiled door hinges squeaked somewhere in front of him. Strong arms lifted him from the ground. Lithe fingers dug into his arms. Then he was flying.

 Until the hard tile of a wall met his face. He crumpled to the gritty floor. A solid sounding door slammed behind him. The stench of weakened cleaning products and poorly aimed waste products filled his nose. Nox grunted from closer than the now muffled sounds of violence were coming. Grin slowly opened one eye and was staring at the black and white tiles of the toilet floor. He got up slowly, massaging his bruised face. Nox was pinned against the door, bracing it from the unseen force in the main room. Lodestone stood, arms crossed, dirty, clothes torn, and looking expectantly at Grin.

 “We’re here. Now what?” she asked glancing anxiously at Nox.

 “Now I need a tag,” he began searching the walls and exposed plumbing.

 “Like shopping? Or luggage? Did you plant something. Did you actually plan for this to happen?”

 “What?” he stopped his search shortly and raised an eyebrow at her, “how could I have planned for this to happen? Why would… nevermind. No, I’m looking for graffiti.”

 “Why?” Lodestone questioned exasperatedly.

 “DOESITMATTER?” Nox growled from between clenched teeth. Her fingers had dug rivulets into the hard wood of the door. Paint flecks gathering around her feet and swirling in little twisters with each blow of the spriggan on the other side. The screws of the hinges creaked and pulled a little more out of the wall with each earsplitting hammer.

 They both took her meaning and began the search in earnest.

 “I got a’if you feel luck..’” Lodestone called from the stall.

 “No. Too generic and specific at the same time.”

 “I got a Killroy”

 “Definitely too vague. Who knows where we’d end up.”

 “This might go faster if you just told me what we need!”

 “Got it!”

 The grin pointed at a small name etched in intricate letters into the steel of the urinal piping. The name could have been any number of things but was defiantly lost in the swirls and hard angles of the artists hand. Definitely a name, though.

 “That? Why that?”

 DOES. IT. MATTER?” Nox growled and repositioned herself against the onslaught.

 “Right. Now I need a map. You got one, Lodestone?” he kept a finger pointed at the graffiti, but looked directly at her. She stared back at him. Her bottom jaw dropped, and her eyes were swallowed in the shadows formed of her dark brows and deep-set eye sockets.

 “Do I have a map? Why would I have a…” she stopped in mid-sentence and dropped to her knees, unslinging her backpack and rummaging around in it. As the searching became more frantic, increasing with the screaming of wood and metal of their protective doors and the yowl of pain from No. Articles from here backpack - lighters, chopsticks, papers, assorted candies - began to litter the floor. Grin stooped down and snatched up one of the mints smiling to and himself earning a scolding look from Lodestone. He quietly put it in his pocket.

 “NOW. NEEDS’TA’BE NOW!” Nox shouted, the tiles beneath her feet splintering.

 Lodestone drew up to her full height, fist raised triumphantly as she swung her pack back on. A subway schedule, crumpled, ripped, and worn from use hung limply in the air.

 “MAP!” she shouted as grin snatched it from her hand and began chanting. The spell flowed from his mouth like music on tablature, punctuating the stream with his stressed syllables and wavering in and out of visibility. His hand hovered over the graffiti.

 “Ladies, grab my coattails. We are leaving!” he shouted triumphantly. Lodestone snatched the hand not involved in spellcasting and held out her free arm for Nox. The bruiser waited for the next blow to land, then leapt into the air. Her body twisted at the shoulders then the hips, so she was stretched out fully in the air, one long arm grasping out for Lodestone, belly to the ground.

 The world shrunk and sucked in through the sigil. Bits of debris and grim pulled in with them through the spell. Shattered bits of wooden door, flecks of paint, sludge from beneath the uncleaned toilet all drew into that scrawled name.

 And then they were standing in a similar bathroom, equally as grimy. Nox fell to all fours in the red painted room with black stalls. The sludge fell wetly to the floor as did all the hanging debris from the other bathroom, having lost its momentum in the transfer. Grin stumbled and pulled his hand away from the glowing, nearly identical symbol. It had also been etched into a urinal pipe, but in a different place. This one was on the cap of the water main, not the silvery pipe leading to the wall. Grin sucked the tips of his fingers where he had been touching the symbol.

 “Hot” he said nonchalantly.

 “Gross,” replied Lodestone motioning to the urinal and his mouth. He quickly removed his burned fingers.

 “Where now?” questioned Nox.

 “Only one way to see,” grin responded and made for the door. The ladies followed in step. Grin cracked the door opening into a large room filled with people, pool tables, and a bar. Smoke curled up from ashtrays and patron’s mouths. Only a few had cigarettes or cigars. Others belched brimstone or other noxious vapors from their own lungs.

 “Smokekin,” hissed Nox.

 Others had wild hair, elaborately styled in all assorted ways. Some spiked up and out, others slicked back and down, and everywhere inbetween. Each coif was unique and blood red. They all wore similarly styled, worn leather jackets bearing names in a cracked brown, reminiscent of dried blood.

 “Redcaps,” sighed Grin and let the door close.

 “Rather deal with spriggan again,” Nox complained.

 “Well, luckily none of them saw us,” Commented Grin flippantly.

 “Can’t agree with you there,” Lodestone stood frozen, pointing at the man paused in doing up the elaborate straps of his pants. His hair was a red fauxhawk pointed into very sharp looking points running the middle line of his head. He finished his task, rubbed his hands on his pant legs and looked up. At first, his eyes were black pinpricks, but after fixing on Grin, they expanded as did his mouth into a sharp, brown-toothed rictus.

 “Grin,’ he coughed, “gave me a fright. Thought you might be that brimmer I just filched a 50 outta in there.”

 Grin burped and a little more of the feywyrd drifted from his mouth and disappeared in an ephemeral green cloud.

 “No no,” Grin smoothly pushed past Lodestone, extending a hand gripping the redcap’s forearm. The dirty, solidly built man returned the gesture, “I still got all my…”

 Grin paused. The redcap’s toothy smile gleamed with extra saliva, eyebrows raising in anticipation of Grin’s next words. Grin patted his chest pocket, shooting a side glance at Nox. The feral tank knitted her brows and shrugged at him confusedly. He cast his hopeful glance at Lodestone. Barely suppressing a sigh, she glid up smoothly and draped herself across Grin’s shoulder. One hand rubbing up and down his chest. He barely felt her palm the stolen bag of spriggan treasure from his pocket.

 The tiny man released Grin’s arm, which stung a little from his grip and rudely brushed past him. Unlike Lodestone, he felt the redcap’s hands check every pocket he could without being too obvious. The mint was assuredly gone.

 The noise of the bar flooded the small bathroom when the redcap opened the door. With a half turn of his head, he checked that he was being followed by the group. The Grin made a slight motion for the door. Lodestone released her grip on him, which also left a bit of a stinging sensation to stand near Nox. Their easy meander from the back hallway came to a stop in a dusty corner of the bar near a torn felted pool table.

 “Whotha new fren, Grin?” Nox very nearly purred closing in on the redcap. The deep rumble had a more lizard-like quality that could made one’s neck hair stand on end. Lodestone repositioned herself a short distance away, better able to see everyone’s face in the conversation. Grin was scanning for this redcap’s crew amongst the other patrons. Lodestone drew in a deep breath gathering the feywyrd, as well as all of the redcap’s attention.

 “This fine fellow,” Grin introduced rather loudly, drawing the redcap’s attention back to him,” is Stabbington Seven Points.”

 Stabbington drew himself up and planted a gnarled, dirty finger directly in the middle of Grin’s chest. Nox licked her teeth, looking past the little man and into the crowd of antagonists. The redcap huffed and puffed a few times. Spittle sputtering from between his foaming lips. He punctuated the sounds with more stabbing of his finger. Finally he drew his hand back and angled the middle finger of both hands at his head.

 “Does it look like I have 7 points in my hair, GRIN?” the not seven points shouted a white patch of foam building in the corner of his cracked lips. He motioned to his fauxhawk, pointing to each point individually, “I has 12 points. I’ll have your tongue for that slight, you name-faker.”

 “I hate you sometimes,” he heard Lodestone sigh under her breath, then more quietly “what is our greatest danger?”

 Unfortunately, he could not see whatever the answer was. That was only for Lodestone’s eyes. He was pretty sure it wasn’t Stabbington. It MAY be the small horde of the redcap’s crew setting down drinks and slowly approaching. It might even be the slight flexes Nox gave indicating a particular inclination to start a ruckus. Lodestone was staring past everyone though. He followed her gaze to the Mirrored wall behind the bar counter.

 “The bartender?” he mouthed at her. She only squinted at whatever it was she saw and chewed worriedly at her lower lip.

 Stabbington’s curses grew in intensity and visceral horror. Grin let the punctuating finger stabs push him back toward his seer. She gave a small confused shake of her head, but continued to stare at the mirror. He caught Nox’s posture change and saw a small group of redcaps stop instantly. The rest halted as she contorted each muscle in her body beginning at the tip of her raised fingers down to the heels of her feet. As a cherry on top she cracked her knuckles and then her neck, jerking it sharply from side to side. Stabbington’s rant faltered, drifting into a gaping mumble.

 Lodestone turned from the wall and looked at the Grin. He hoped deeply in that place where a heart should be that his face wasn’t bearing half the open confusion that her’s was right then. Swatting Stabbington’s hand away from his chest where it had paused again during Nox’s display, his frustration appeared in the form of an overly loud “what?” Lodestone’s long finger extended toward the mirror. Almost in unison, everyone turned their heads to look at the wall. The bartender, looked left then right, then slowly moved out of everyone’s line of sight.

 “Stabbington,” Grin asked not looking at the man, but at the wall,” What’s behind that wall?”

 “THE WALL?” he roared, waking from Nox’s intimidating display , “You insult me and then ask for information from me. You want things from me and don’t know the name?”

 “Ofme,” Nox provided helpfully hopping lightly from foot to foot and winking at a particularly scarred and ugly human with a pool cue in the mass of the Redcap’s gang. The rest of the bar had moved away from the groups, setting up a relatively solid perimeter halfway up the bar. Most looked disinterestedly at the coming fracas, but some were simply bidding their time to help whomever seemed to be winning, or get a quick dig in for some past grievance. Or maybe just to stab something, anything, for any reason.

 “Not tellin’ you nuthin!” Stabbington sneered looking at Nox but stepping slightly back when she clapped her teeth at him.

 Grin sighed taking in the concern growing on Lodestone’s face as she watched her feygift. With his palms out he slowly reached into a well warded, jacket chest pocket with two fingers and drew out a coin. He cursed silently at the golden coin between his fingers. He had a number of different denominations in that pocket and had drawn out one of the most valuable. It was the same shape and texture as a coin of considerably less value. He would have to scar the damn things in the future for cases like this.

 “Coin for the first to tell me what’s behind that wall.”

 The bar erupted in shouting. The weak perimeter disintegrated into a clambering mob. Stabbington turned sideways at all the movement. Nox dropped to all fours, teeth barred. Lodestone ducked grabbing Grin and yanking him down to the floor. The wall behind the bar exploded. The howls from a thousand throats screamed a single name, Ironline.