Update
Today, I finished up the scene where Morgana and her client, Maxwell, first meet, and realize they might be facing something really unpleasant. I also introduced Morgana's friend and assistant, the Japanese snow woman Jessica Tanaka.
Current Word Count: 21,122
Scene of the Day
Mention of the recent fight sent a spasm through my arm
before I could stop it.
Getting punched through a brick wall had left that, and
a number of other fun happenings, in my body even after I’d been healed.
Most people who came face-to-face with that kind of
horror usually didn’t come out with their soul intact, much less with a live
body.
In a certain light, I could use it for bragging rights,
in the right circles.
Evidently, those circles included beings both big and
small from the Umbramundus, the realm where a majority of Earth’s horrors had
originated.
“So you are worth a bit, then, yeah? Well, alright,
then. I’ll pay your fee, Miz Lugus, but I’d better get results.”
Nodding, I pushed thoughts of my recent near-death away
and pulled out a legal pad.
“Alright. Can ya’ describe any of the men that’ve been comin’ around?”
Just as he was about to answer, the air pressure in the
room shifted.
Tension sent the hairs on the nape of my neck to a full
stand, and my internal alarms screamed bloody murder.
An actual sound, a very distinct buzz, soon joined them.
“Jess, down!” I screamed.
I could only hope my assistant and long-time best friend
heard me through the thick wooden door, if she hadn’t already felt it coming.
Collin and I both dove to the ground, as though we’d
choreographed it, right before the magic exploded in my office.
A loud bang sounded,
echoing through the room.
Suddenly, having nothing personal in my office besides a
picture of me and Jessica paid off.
The air became heavy, and my desk gave a loud crunch.
Our chairs, so recently occupied, gave similar, though
more metallic, sounds before their frames suddenly bent inwards.
If we’d still been sitting by that point, our spines
would’ve been turned to dust.
My desk took the full force of the attack surprisingly
well, with only a spider-web-like fracture along the top to show for it.
I got the impression that Jessica might’ve given my
furniture a bit of magical protection, with how little the magic had scratched
it.
The atmosphere in the room grew heavier by the second,
as though the attack wouldn’t be satisfied until it crushed us to pulp.
“Any suggestions, Lugus? I’m of a mind that it’ll keep
goin’ until we’re not among the living,” he growled.
“You, too? Give me a second, I’m working on it.”
As I talked, I dragged the bottom drawer from the
cabinet at my side.
Rooting around while keeping flat to the floor was
difficult, but I finally managed to find a small, glass vial.
Grinning, I popped its lid.
A second later, bright silver powder was in the air, and
cast an eerie glow around the room.
"Iarraim arm o draíochta a caitheadh an taint ó
mo fearainn, agus ar ais ar a mháistir!"
With a clap of thunder, the pressure vanished.
At the same time, the powder became a single, long arc
of blinding white fire, which vanished the second later.
I was already out the door by the time Collin had forced
himself up, and had cleared the exterior door before he’d managed to clear his
head and follow me.
Down the road, a black van was pulling away with a loud
screech, and I gave a curse.
“Well, that was interestin’,” Collin sighed. “Quite the
bindin’.”
“Careful, now. Ya’ almost sound impressed. They followed
ya’ here, an’ they’ll be back. Fer you or me, I doubt it’ll matter.”
With a huff, I headed back inside to really look at the
front of the office.
Paper and scraps of wood were scattered everywhere.
A solid chunk of iron was the only thing completely
unmarked.
Jessica Tanaka was sitting in her desk, her hair mussed
and a slight red mark fading on her cheek, but looking completely unfazed.
“You alright?”
She ran a hand through her hair, and the room went
through a flash freeze.
The cold vanished just as quickly as it had shown up,
and her hair was now in a very neat, but soaked, curtain down her back.
“Came through the front, first. I was just about to give
you the warning when you shouted.”
Collin came back inside around then, and his attention
was grabbed by the inch-thick sheet of ice coating the doorframe.
“Naiad?”
“Oh, please. Way too
boring.”
“Don’t let Missy hear you say that.”
Her tanned skin, made of a skin tone you wouldn’t expect
in a snow woman, flushed.
“Yeah, I’ll pass on that. Anyway, I’m a yuki-onna,
actually,” Jessica huffed as she wrung her hair out.
Collin blinked at that, seeming the picture of
confusion.
“Uh…”
“Japanese snow woman. Reputed for killing people lost in
snowstorms,” I explained.
“I swear, a few kinky relatives, and you never live it
down,” the Asian woman scoffed.
“As the woman says. You could relate, I’m sure, Mr.
Maxwell. Me, too, actually.”
Jess snorted in response, before she pushed to her feet.
She raised a hand, and icy wind swept through the air.
All of the papers rushed up and landed right in her
hand, in a large stack.
“Efficient. So, you’re the muscles, but what does she
do?” Collin asked.
“I’m good with research, networking, recordkeeping, general
red tape bull-”
“She does all the things my ADHD makes me incapable of
doin’,” I supplied.
With a nod, he passed by her and went back into my
office.
“We’ve got an interesting one,” Jessica quipped when we
were alone.
“Isn’t it always?”
Heading after Collin, I started scrawling on the pad I’d
just managed to get out before our interruption.
“Alright, Maxwell, here’s a list of things I’m going to
need. Since your club’s also a bar, I figure ya’ve got plenty of herbs in
stock. If there’s anythin’ ya’ don’t have, yer fee will cover the cost. I’ll
come to the Zodiac tomorrow, and I’ll see what I can do ‘bout findin’ the
source of yer problems. We’ll go from there.”
He eyes the list, eyebrows quirking in surprise as he
smirked.
“Onions, garlic, an’ candles are fine. But clover? Really? I thought for sure you’d be
trying to cook up something to locate the source of my problems, not hope they
go away,” he stated, seeming less impressed than moments before.
But the fact that he knew what all of it was for at all
told me that he was more competent than I’d been thinking, at least where magic
was involved.
“If anyone needs luck, it’ll be people tryin’ ta’ bait
thugs throwing chaotic magic around.”
“Fair enough. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Alright, then. I suppose I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,
then, Miz Lugus,” he said before making his way out.
Jessica was in my office nearly the second the front
door closed.
“What do we have?”
“He’s the Black Zodiac’s owner.”
She turned to stare after him, and let out a low whistle.
“Really? I always figured there’d be someone more…
disarming… owning a neutral zone, and all,” she mused.
“Me, too. Someone’s lookin’ ta’ shut it down. Hopefully,
I can handle it.”
“You’ll be fine,” she scoffed with a wave of her hand.
“Jackasses just bombed my office. I might need you ta’
keep me in check.”
“Uh-uh. Lexi’ll kill me if I go on the field with you
again, after the last time.”
Smirking, I leaned over my desk and poked her.
“You do everythin’ Alex says? I’ve got some cream, if
yer welts from tha’ whip act up.”
“Funny. I think I’ll happily leave any aftercare to her,
thanks.”
I fell silent, which amused her enough to bring a peal
of musical laughter out of my friend.
“While we’re on that subject, your wanting me to be out
there with you doesn’t have anything to
do with being worried you’ll get distracted, right?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I retorted,
though my growing blush said otherwise.
“Your aura going supernova says otherwise. He seemed
pretty eager to pay the full fee, too. You’d think someone who negotiates down
gang leaders would be a bit better with the silver tongue, unless he had
something else on his mind,” she pressed.
“I’m nothing if not professional. I can handle it just
fine.”
“Oh, I’m sure. He helps keep the peace around here,
plays to your thing for leather, and he’s got a wee bit a’ tha’ Celt in ‘im,” she mocked, affecting my accent at
its heaviest with disturbing ease. “Definitely not going to be a distraction.”
“Shit up,” I groaned. “I don’t get it on with clients.”
“At least until the job’s over,” she agreed.
“Til’ ever. It’d give me a bad reputation.”
“Uh-huh…”
It’s amazing, how much skepticism she could put in two
syllables, and I felt like my face was on fire by that point.
“If I say I’m sorry for mockin’ yer total state of bein’
whipped, will ya’ shut it?” I asked hopefully.
She merely giggled in response, making the blush grow
even warmer.
Somehow, she remained every bit as skilled at doing that
to me as she had when we’d been kids, and it wasn’t an easy feat, by any means.
That she may have possibly been 100% dead-on didn’t
help.
“Alright. Enough. Serious fer a minute. I’m going ta’
need some charms.”
Her smirk vanished, and she straightened up.
“I can write up some sutras. You really think it’ll come
to that?”
“They got past the wards here, with an offensive spell.
They might be stupid as a sea spud, but they’re able ta’ throw around some
serious weight to their spells. If it comes down to it, I want everythin’ I can
get. Think I’ll be takin’ the old bird along, too.”
“Damn. Sounds like a whole lot of don’t wanna’ be there, for me,” she mused.
With a nod, she left the office, probably in search of
untouched paper that could hold her special kind of magic.
I really hoped I wouldn’t need it…
Translations
"Iarraim arm o draíochta a caitheadh an taint ó mo fearainn, agus ar ais ar a mháistir"- Gaelig: "I call on my magic to cast this taint from my domain, and back upon its master!"
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