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mnight asked me to run a small game. I told her I'd run anything on my shelf. She asked for the new Changeling. I also told her to invite who she wanted to play with. As it turns out, she invited a small cadre of ladies to play with her. So, my every-other-Wednesday-night is occupied with entertaining a group of women.
The players are:
mnight as the Bird Girl Beast, Kiera,
bella_surena as the Wizened, Lilith,
paintscribe as the Darkling, Bess/Misty (mult. pers.), and
grace_fades as the Fairest, Melanie.
___
I warned them. Gave them ample warning. At the end of last session I gave them a name and told them, "Google it."
A couple of them recognized the name and a couple didn't. But I warned them. I told them what was coming. I warned them.
The evening also started off with a warning of sorts. Just outside our apartment complex, I spotted a large pillar of smoke reaching up to the sky. We went out to take a look. Just behind the complex is an abandoned golf course. Hasn't been used in years. Kids and junkies hang out there: kids during the day, junkies at night.
In the center of the golf course was that pillar of smoke. The source of it was a circle of fire. We called the fire department. They spent some time figuring out how to get to it. Finally, they pulled out shovels and put the fire out. An auspicious beginning...
___
Their pretty Fairest was gone. His chair was empty.
The smell of cookies was still in the room, being washed away by the night air creeping in through the open window. The Bird Girl--Kiera--leapt out the window while the others ran downstairs. They spotted someone running down the street, but he was headed in the wrong direction. He was headed toward St. Paul, not Minneapolis (where they found him).
One of them asked, "Why is he going that way?"
Another answered, "He never said
which Prince he belonged to..."
They started after him. They did their best, but he reached the other side of the bridge before they could reach him. They stopped at the edge of it. They considered going after him. But they were very drunk. And it's 2:00 AM. Too late for the city...
(And just then, words come into my head.
It's 2:00 AM. The fear is gone. I'm sittin' here waiting. The gun's still warm...) They thought about it for a while. The Oracle tells them she can try to find him so they can head out in the morning when it's safer. Everyone heads back to their rooms. The Oracle does her thing and gets a vision of a large bookstore in St. Paul.
The next morning, they head out.
More buses. One of them laments that they don't have a car. The Fairest says, "My fetch has a car..." That plants a seed.
When they arrive at the book store in St. Paul, it's huge. It's one of those buildings that takes up the entire corner of a city block. Three stories tall. I remember, being a boy, when that book store had porn on the upper floor. I tried sneaking up there once but got caught. I remembered my con man rules and pretended I got lost and didn't know where I was. They escorted me back downstairs. These days, though, the old book store looks more like a quirky version of Bookmans or Barnes and Noble. But you can't find anything. You ask, "Where are the plays?" They show you, because the whole place is a maze, and you wonder, "What the hell is it doing here?" Like walking around in the Doctor's Tardis. There's no way they could fit all these books in one place.
The Glamour Girls start wondering why the Oracle's visions sent them here. They search the place. No William. Up and down, all three stories. Maybe they're in the wrong building? Then, they spot a door behind the cash registers. Beside the small, wooden door is a sign with a picture of a person walking down steep stairs.
The Fairest distracts the cashiers and the other three--the Beast, the Wizened and the Darkling--all head to the door.
___
I warned them. I told them what to look for. But sometimes, you can't recognize it, even when it is standing... right behind you.
__
The stairs are narrow and steep. There's a single light bulb, hanging naked from a wire in the ceiling.
The ground here, well, it's ground. Not concrete. Earth. And in the corners of the rooms are books. Old, old books.
The Girls get the bright idea to get the hell out of here. That's when the light, the only light, flashes out. They hear the creak of the door at the top of the stairs and hear a heavy bolt slide shut.
In our apartment, I turn off the light. The Girls are in near darkness. They turn on their cel phones, giving the place a dim, creepy moonlight. In the darkness, I put on the hat, brush the hair in front of my eyes.
The voice in the darkness asks them what they're doing here. I'm just behind the Darkling's ear. She's never heard the voice before. She nearly jumps out of her chair.
They try to explain that they're looking for someone. The voice is unimpressed. "In my home. Without my permission," it tells them.
They offer the voice a gift: one of the Bird Girl's bracelets. She reluctantly gives it up.
The voice takes the gift. "What are you doing here?" it asks again. They explain they followed the Oracle's vision, looking for a friend. The voice asks a few more questions and then tells them, "I know where that friend is. And I will tell you... if you promise me a favor." The girls don't like the sound of that, so they tell the voice they'll do it on their own.
The voice tells them to
GET OUT THEN. And they rush up to the top of the stairs and get the hell out of the book store.
Outside, they consider what to do. The voice in the basement says it knows where Tamerlane is, but they don't want to make a deal with it. They consider calling Barnabus... yeah, that's not a good idea. They can't call Jack because he'll tell Barnabus... so they decide to call Detective Walker.
Meanwhile, Barnabus has been calling them on the Fairest's cel phone. Seventeen messages in one hour. They ignore him.
They call Detective Walker. He says, as a matter of chance, that he's in the bookstore right now. They find him in the little coffee shop. They tell him what's going on. (The Darkling wonders why he's always around when they need him.)
And Walker listens. Then, he tells them, "My best advice? Give up. He's addicted to vampire blood. You'll never cure him. There is no cure. What are you going to do? Tie him up for the rest of his life?"
They don't like the sound of that. They're going to find a cure. Detective Walker shakes his head. Then, he sees the urgency in the Girls' eyes. "We can't just leave him," one of them says.
He nods and puts his coffee cup down. Then, he walks into the store, walks up to the registers and shows them his badge. He goes behind the registers, opens the door and goes down the small flight of stairs. "Where are you?" he asks.
The voice doesn't respond. "You want to make a deal with the girls?" Walker asks. "Tell you what. You make a deal with
me. Tell them where the kid is and
I'll owe you a favor."
The voice says, "Very well."
The Girls don't like this, but Walker assures them everything's okay. The voice tells them the boy is up in the house on Battle Creek Ridge. That makes Walker shudder. He tells them, "You shouldn't go up there." They say they're going to do anything to get William back. Detective Walker tells them he can't go with them up to the house. "I'm not allowed up there," he says.
The Girls decide to go anyway. They also decide that if they want to get up there quickly, they need a car. So, they decide to steal the car owned by the Fairest's fetch. They drive up to the house. The Lancaster House. (Based on the
Alexander Ramsey House.)
The Girls break the lock on the gate leading up to the place. Of course, those of them who grew up in the Twin Cities know all about Doctor Lancaster. How he caught his wife sleeping with another man in their own bedroom. How he shot both of them and then hung himself off the banister. How every family who moved in moved right back out within a week or two. How the house has stood empty for at least fifty years.
They break the lock and start up the long driveway. The dark, overgrown trees on either side seem to reach out to them. Perhaps to stop them from going any further. When they reach the house, they find it unlocked. The windows have all been covered with soap to prevent teenagers from peeking inside. The interiors are covered in dust and cobwebs.
Kiera calls to a nearby raven. He tells her, "Bad! No! Bad!" They all go in anyway. The raven follows them in, perched on Kiera's head. Searching the house for William, they find nothing. They split up into two groups. One group heads up to the attic.
In the attic, the Wizened finds an antique gun in a desk. Four chambers. Two of them are empty. The Darkling finds a secret door. Under the desk is a button. They push the button. It opens the door. And there's William, wrapped around the body of a ten year old girl. A ten year old vampire. They call for the other two. Together, they try to figure out a way to get William out without waking the vampire. They try moving him. Slowly. Slowly. Tying up his feet with the rope they brought. Covering his mouth with the duct tape. Every action they take, I roll four dice. "If any of them rolls a ten," I tell them, "the vampire wakes up."
One roll. They have his feet tied.
Two rolls. They have the tape over his mouth.
Three rolls. They begin dragging him out of the little secret room.
Four rolls... ten. The ten year old girl wakes up.
Her eyes shine light red stars. She looks at Kiera and speaks in a language she doesn't know, but in her mind, she hears the word and she understands perfectly.
FLEE
And Kiera does. She runs. Straight out of the room and straight to the window and straight out the window and she begins gliding down to the ground.
The other girls panic.
The Wizened has the pistol. She holds it in her hands and feels Glamour pour from her fingertips into the metal of the gun. It isn't a dusty relic any longer. It's something else.
She squeezes the trigger and the pistol nearly dislocates her shoulder. But the bullet hits the vampire and the creature's skin burns.
The vampire looks at Lilith, holding the gun, and she speaks in a language Lilith doesn't know, but in her mind, she hears the word and she understands perfectly.
DIE
And Lilith is filled with the dread that her mistress from Arcadia is here. Right now. In this very room. And she's going to take her back to Arcadia and
punish her for running away. The pain of this fear fills her bones, freezing them to the inside of her skin...
Meanwhile, the Darkling and Fairest have been pulling William toward the window. Toward the sunlight. They toss him out the window ("He's fallen further and survived," they tell me) and the Darkling runs for the stairs. But the Fairest won't leave. She won't leave Lilith behind.
But the Darkling is already down the stairs. And she reaches the banister and she turns to see something fall. A body. A man. And his fall is stopped short by a rope around his neck. His eyes bulge out of his head and he stares at her. And our multiple personality Darkling blacks out...
Two down.
Outside the house, as she drifts toward the ground, the open sunlight clears Kiera's mind. She remembers who she is. She remembers why she's hear. She floats to the second story and rushes back into the house. She calls a flock of ravens to her side and commands them to attack the vampire. The birds distract the vampire long enough that the pain in Lilith's bones subsides for just a moment.
She squeezes the trigger a second time. The bullet hits the vampire squarely in the chest. They all smell flames. They smell burning oil. The vampire crashes to the floor, motionless.
For a moment, they wonder what to do. Should we drag her into the sunlight? Should we leave her?
When they lift the vampire's body, it is stiff and cold. Like a dressing dummy. In the sunlight, her skin begins to peel and burn. That smell again.
They run from the attic and find Bess/Misty wandering around in a daze. They snap her out it. She tells them she doesn't remember anything. Then, the Fairest asks, "What are you doing with that noose?"
And the Darkling looks down into her hands, and yes, she's carrying a noose. She drops it quickly. "Let's get out of here," she says.
They gather up William, throw him in the trunk and drive back to Dinkytown. They make it across the bridge just as the sun is beginning to set.
Upstairs, they find Barnabus waiting for them. He's silent. He waits for their explanation. They tell him, with enthusiasm, that they rescued William, that nobody saw them do it, that they didn't have to make any kind of deal to find him... and that they killed a vampire.
He waits until they are finished and then, he shows them a blank piece of paper.
"What's that?" they ask. "It's the contract we had with the vampires. It's been broken."
"How is it broken?" they ask. He tells them, "Because one of us killed a vampire."
___
I warned them. I gave them a name. I told them what they would be meeting this evening. I have to admit, I distracted them just a little. The name didn't take the exact form they were expecting. The name I gave them?
This one.
And here's the song that was stuck in my head all night. It's the radio edit, but the video is appropriate. So very appropriate...
It's 2:00 AM...
accomplished
angry
balloon-headedly thougtful
