Halloween - Ownership #4

Halloween – Ownership #4

WEEK #23 (10-23-11 to 10-29-11): OWNERSHIP
GBE 2: Blog On

We immediately met at the coven house.  The five of us.  My three brothers, sister and I. The coven house is used by a lot of people, witches actually, on a daily basis.  The coven house is a huge warehouse. Just like any other business, there are office cubicles, desks, copy machines, lots and lots of computers and telephones ringing like crazy. Scarlet greets us at the door and ushers us into her personal office. 

Scarlet, being the Mother Superior, Grand Dame, Head Honcho, Mutha of all Muthas…oh, I go a little too far?...well, her office is a little bigger than a cubicle.  A lot bigger.  Big enough to hold not one, but two overstuffed leather couches facing a wall of television screens.  I really like those couches, they are so soft and well worn.  The burgundy of the leather is almost an old rose.  I hop over the back and plop onto her lovely leather couch. But I digress.  She has a kitchenette (hidden unless you know where to look) and a bathroom that is bigger than my apartment.  She does ok.  It’s family, it’s political.

Scarlet slammed her polished, manicured hand onto her desk.  Startling all of us, even level headed , cool as a cucumber Julian jumped.  “Do we know anything?”, she demanded, pointing a blood red polished finger nail at each of us,  “Who is responsible for the release of that spider? Who is at the bottom of this?  Someone or some group had better step up and take ownership!”

In my own way, older sister, gotta poke the hornets’ nest way I muttered, “And what if they don’t step up?  If we don’t know who they are, we sure can’t hold them accountable.  Makes us spend all of our resources looking everywhere all at once and not honing in on the real bad guys”.  I got the glare.  You know, head tilted ever so much, eyebrow raised.  Like she’s all that and a bag of chips too! Evil Eye doesn’t bother me, I wear a charm for that. 

“Logan, how in the world did you find that thing?  Or did it find you?  Where were you?  How did you know to go to Eva’s apartment?  How did you get caught by that thing? We need a complete debriefing.”  Scarlet turned her attention from me, and poured all of her domineering, overbearing, A type “A” personality onto poor Logan. 

Did I mention I’m not part of the coven?  I’m no witch.  That’s for the other four.  I’m a sorceress and proud of it.  I mostly work alone.  But, when push comes to shove, we are family and basically working towards the same end.  I just tend to work a little more “undercover” than the rest of the family.  Getting my hands a little dirty for the overall good of a project….never mind.  It’s family, it’s political.

We run through our lists of “known” bad guys.  Every organization has a list.  You know, a list of who owes who a favor; country to country or millionaire to millionaire or Earthly to other worldly.  We try to stay on top of those “favor” trades.  Politics and favors tend to go hand in hand….and usually, it’s not “for the good of the people”. 

We divvied up the “contact” list not only by geography, but by contact availability.  I’m not sayin’ Miah made promises he couldn’t keep a certain Elfin Princess….I’m just saying he can’t go back to that realm any time soon…like in the next lifetime!  Elves live a very long time and it seems their memory lives on even longer.  He better hope she falls in love with someone who will keep those promises, and soon! I don’t envy that mistake!  So, Miah was happy to take on a few of our alien allies.   I gave him the “slimy” category….lucky him! They always want to embrace…gross!

Valiant Logan determined to get to the “bottom” of this, decided to contact his amphibian friends; toads, newts, salamanders, fish….I don’t ask how my siblings have made their contacts….I’m sometimes scared to know.  So, literally going underground…Logan was off to talk.

Julian, like Logan, has a knack for the unusual.  He is friendly with some of the most unusual folk.  He likes to “dance with danger”…at least that’s what he calls it. 

I knew Scarlet would be talking with the dead….and looking into her crystal ball.  The problem with the crystal ball is that it sucks you into its “energy” and it shows you what it wants to show you.  The ball is not always co-operative and extremely time consuming.  I don’t always have the patience and the time at the same time.  Crystal balls prefer to show you the present rather than the future or the past.  With the future or the past, you can sorta figure things out.  But, with just what’s happening today…well, you might just catch the bad guy doing something nice.  Like, playing tag with baby dragons.  Or petting a cute little dogmite.  You don’t always get to see that that is the same dogmite the bad guy kidnapped.  So, the ball is really open to interpretation….Scarlet’s forte!

Meanwhile, I have to check out the elves and fairies.  I don’t mind too much, I know not to look into Queen Maub’s eyes.  I know not to enter into any kind of agreement or exchange.  I know not to take any dares.  Whew…why am I going there?  Oh yeah, to make an agreement or exchange for information and that will probably mean some sort of challenge….think I might be headed for trouble.  Before I do anything, I need to check out my apartment and change out of these nasty spider egg sack clothes!  I stink!  And, now that I am paying attention, I’m feeling a bit sticky. 

Back at the entrance to my apartment building, I didn’t get that “hair standing up on the back of my neck” feeling.  I did, however, smell something that just seemed “off”.  It smelled like something had been dead for a while.  Something big….it reeked over the smell of vehicle exhaust.  It reeked!  Sadly, the smell was a bit familiar, and not coming from my laundry room. 

I entered my apartment with some hesitation. Naturally, I have a first floor apartment so I can make a quick exit when needed.  Stuck up high, with only one way out isn’t my cup of tea.  I double checked the protective wards I had installed.  I double checked the dead bolts I had installed.  I double checked all the windows and even under the bed.  You can just never be too sure there aren’t any boogie men…and we all know they like to hide under the bed!

Shucking my clothes, I stepped into a nice hot shower.  Washing away the spider gunk was a little harder than expected.  It sorta turned to cement when I got it wet.  The lufa sponge did take it all off, eventually.  As I was scrubbing, I wondered at the makeup of this gunk.  It’s nearly as strong as a steel and yet pliable. May have to see about exploiting that stuff – great way to keep the kids in one place – maybe make some sort of flexible playroom stuff.  I’m not smelling the stink from outside the apartment building.  At least it hasn’t permeated inside, yet. Just like skunk smell, you know it’s only a matter of time.  Why is it the bad guys always want to hit you where you live?  Can’t they just wait until I’m out in a field?  Someplace without people or MY stuff? 

Yes, I have a sorcerers robe. Got it when I graduated.  It is a deep purple and nearly indestructible.  But, it’s just not fashionable enough, I don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb. It hangs in my laboratory. Yes, it’s not just a cliché.  A good sorceress has a laboratory.  I will admit, mine is by far the cleanest lab I have ever been in.  Even the wizard I studied under had quirks about cleanliness.  You just never know what can ooze out of a spillage left untended.  It may turn into a worm hole, or an inter-dimensional window, or something might grow out of it.  I keep it clean and organized.  When I need to create, I want to know I have all the ingredients needed.

With that smell in mind, I went to my lab.  I had made up a new batch of charms and spells to sell to the local lonely hearts club.  I had also created a few wards, protective charms, a few things that explode, and a couple of disguise charms.  I shove some of the charms into the pockets of my yellow and  purple flowered rain coat.  The rain coat has a lot of pockets!  And I have made several inter-dimensional.  I can move nearly anything into my pocket dimension, anything I can pick up that is.  I once tried to move Scarlet’s Volt into my pocket. As small of a car as they are, it was just a little too big.  And, because I was struggling, she caught me red-handed.  Whew!  Talk about no sense of humor!

Nothing came near me.  Checking all around, nothing out of usual outside.  I decide to grab the next bus, just to see what follows me.  The next bus is pulling up to the stop and I hop on.  No one else gets on the bus with me.  I can still smell it.  That nasty, something died, fire and brimstone, it’s gotta be some sort of demon.  Now, do they want to know where I am going or do they plan to ransack my apartment?  I have some “playthings” waiting for them if they plan to ruin any more of my clothes!  I have a thing about fashion.

I ride this bus three more stops, get off and hop on another going parallel to the last direction.  I can still smell it.  I ask a nice little old lady next to me if she can smell smoke.  I tell her my home recently burned and these clothes had been salvaged.  She tells me there is no noxious smell to my clothes, but that I have bad breath.  Nice lady. Guess it’s time to up my oral regime and hit the dentist again.  I hate the dentist almost as much as I hate spiders! I try very hard to take good care of my gums and teeth…because, I really don’t like to go to the dentist.  All that lean back and trust me stuff.  Not me!  I don’t get that relaxed.  I don’t like someone sticking things inside of me that I don’t know what they are….seems too much like torture!

Something flickers in the corner of my eye.  Just my peripheral vision. Something blue.  I have seen that before too.  My little Fairie contact.  A little flicker of sky blue out of my right eye.  I wouldn’t call her a friend…all fairies, nice or not, are accountable to Queen Maub.  This particular one I have helped before.  She’s a fairly good contact as far as fairies go.  I haven’t caught her in a falsehood, yet.  I know to ply her with pizza and wine if I want something from her.  Although sometimes, she wants carrot cake.  Carrot cake with lots of cream cheese frosting.  And always, milk.  No matter what else she wants to eat, she wants at least a thimbleful of milk.  I can’t pronounce her real Fairie name, so I just call her Blue Bella.  She seems to like it and will answer to it if I need to “call upon” her.  Yes, to contact the Fairies, you must perform the ritual.  If you aren’t sure of the ritual, don’t try.  What you conjure up, you won’t like. 

Trying to appear nonchalant, I walk to the nearest café.  Ordering a small personal pizza, a glass of white wine, a piece of cheesecake (no carrot cake today) and a glass of cold milk, all of this to-go.  I had to take it someplace Blue Bella could actually eat it and not be noticed.  The general public still thinks she is mostly “Fairy Tales”, whatever.  Best to keep them ignorant!

Blue Bella gobbled, I poked the food around to make it appear normal.  She told me there was trouble brewing.  I could have guessed that.  She told me there was a few factions working together to destroy human kind.  Apparently, they want Earth for themselves.  They feel humankind has become some sort of parasite and our numbers should be greatly reduced…zero is the number being touted.  Blue Bella doesn’t “tinkle” like Tinkerbelle…she sorta hums more like a large blue bee.  As she ate more and more, she hummed less and passed a lot of gas.  Fairies are a gassy bunch!  She laughs and tells me that’s how the wind got started.  Fairie Farts. 

Blue Bella tells me there is going to be a gathering of the important parties tonight.  The Fairies are invited, that’s how she knows anything about it.  However, we both know she’s not too high up on the “need to know” list, so we are fairly certain it’s some sort of a trap.  Now, do we go expecting a trap?  Or, is the trap that we ignore it?  How devious are the bad guys that they might double cross the double cross?  Expect the worst. 

Blue Bella also informs me that the spider was sent to divert our attention .  From what, she didn’t know.  Her glimpse of the “what’s to come” was due to the dimensional short cut we created.  We created that back when there was enough trouble for the Fairies they sent for me.  They owe me, a little.

Blue Bella asks me to tuck her into a pocket.  She’s become too full to fly.  Typical, now my coat is going to smell like Fairie Farts for days.  I slip her into an inside pocket for extra protection from the city’s pick-pockets.  Just what I need, some half baked pick-pocket going off the deep end with an overstuffed blue Fairie in his possession.  The headlines on the local news would not be pretty.

Blue Bella snores.  Full belly, Fairie Farts and snores.  I am just so lucky to have friends like this.  As I make my way back to my apartment, I can smell it again.  It has either picked up my trail, or been lead to us.  Either way, we have a stinker on our trail.  I wake Blue Bella up.  She isn’t very pleasant when awakened.  But, quickly she gets the gist of what’s happening.  Safety is a little more important than comfort.  At least I have that.  If she knowingly was double crossing me, she wouldn’t have gorged herself so full she couldn’t fly straight.  She can smell it too.  She confirms, Demon.  Now, which type of demon?  Why?  Are the demons a party to the group meeting tonight?  This could be bad.  Real bad.  I had better summon my siblings.