After one eventful week whose endeavors included a transfixing battle with a myopic basilisk, ridding a witch's potion garden of wobbling, gelatinous black slugs that belched orange venom, and scaling the boughs of a carnivorous tree to rescue a mewling cactus cat, and shrouds of ghouls so numerous, he was weary of the festering, putrid things and scowled back just as hideously if one drew near, Adam Van de Groot, one of Brighton's emerging Supernaturals of undeclared class was passable at wielding his zweihander and proving himself a worthy fighter . He had also exchanged phone numbers with Octavia,as he didn't care for the Supernatural means of communication,on, and though Edgar was reluctant to give him his phone number( provided he eventually exhumed said clamshell from beneath the vials of potions and bottles of herbs in his attic lab), through a fusion of Magickal spells and Mundane engineering, the warlock had modified Adam's phone to transport him to wherever he was summoned with the touch of a key. He had gotten closer to his two mentors and even forged a friendship with Octavia,as there was a certain harmony achieved over purging the public bathrooms by the Mill Pond from a gargantuan Snoligoster turned loose into the sewers after outgrowing its pond. While the perpetual struggle against evil, or unremarkable Supernatural mischief, was attended to, there was a concurrent battle in the Mortis house, with the armies of one Octavia Tessitore against the hordes of dust bunnies lurking in every crevice, against the towering mountains of dirt uneroded by the stagnant atmosphere, still for a century, against the dank verdant mildew and niter crawling across the wainscoting and encrusting it in unsightly splotches, and against the pungent miasma that permeated every room in the house, the musty stench redolent of mold, petrichor, and myrrh. In this fight, she had rallied every last industrious spider, beetle, and ant on the grounds, among the Mundane beasties, a scuttling force of a million at least and set them to work on cleaning, then gentrification. Her other housemate was of dissident opinion, and perhaps it was his rural upbringing that gave him greater tolerance for the mold and dust, as Edgar preferred to have the house as structurally sound as it was a hundred years ago with the utilities of the current day, starting with a secure foundation, as a Midwest winter was unsuitable for tearing out walls or roofing the house. Adam had actually been around to witness and laugh at the two eternal teenagers bickering foolishly, Octavia complaining that she couldn't stand the darkness or filth and wanted more than a candle to illuminate her path while Edgar, more practical in his thought, kept on repeating that summer would be over in September and he wanted all exterior work complete before frost clung to the morning grass. Octavia eventually triumphed after pointing out she had control of the finances, and their fight shifted on how to execute their plan. Edgar had brought out one of the few expenses he could spare, a thick book on home renovation for after the cleaning, and was reciting the proper way to float cement and tile the floor while Octavia rolled her eyes and scoffed at his unwavering insistence on precision, resulting in an indignantly spluttering warlock. The Mortis House though, was no longer worthy to bear such misleading epithets such as decrepit,creepy, dilapidated, haunted or waste of taxpayer money, among the Mundane locals, but rather evoke words of admiration and awe at it's renewed splendor, and even Adam was entertaining whimsical notions of what the house would be like when complete.
This Thursday found Adam not on the grounds of the Mortis House, but rather caught up in a third battle, one against the third-largest lot in his subdivision whose lawn had grown thanks to the rainfall, humidity, and sunlight guaranteed by the Midwest climate that encouraged verdant vegetation until fall. After carefully coiling up extension cords and hoses as to not circumcise them further, then plugging them back in, armed with a shovel as he stalked through the grass, scooping up dog droppings, and moving the benches and chairs his mother decorated the backyard with, he had finished that half and had started on the front and sides. This consisted of scooping clumps of jumbled wads of grass out of the bag on the heap in the side yard and mowing between his mother's rosebeds, then around the pine tree, whose mighty roots were encircled by bricks and dipping between the smaller shrubs planted at intervals along the sidewalk fence, and finally the distance of their front lawn. There were three more plots of grass afterward, sans the expanse that ran parallel to the sidewalk and street, though this he could finish in under an hour. Afterwards, he had other affairs to tend to. As he started on the final plot of land included in the Van de Groot's property, pushing the mower up over the bulging roots of the colossal maple tree growing out off the grass, he had lost himself in excited anticipation of discovering more Supernaturals, wondering just who was masquerading as a Mundane student who he had attended school with for eight years, and soon he was done. His face ruddied and drenched in sweat, Adam sank down into the glider on the back porch with a glass of water as he waited for the mower to cool before putting it back into the shed, and he idly fingered the sword around his neck, smiling to himself when stocky Brendon came plodding out the back door with his usual bullish grace, tackle box in one hand and fishing pole contracted into a bundle of pipes and a reel strapped to his backpack, and Adam shoved the charm beneath his shirt. Brendon took no notice of this, only fixed his younger brother with the same heterochromatic stare that all three Van de Groot children and their father bore and ordered before mounting his bike."If you're going to go out, wait til mom gets home so Angie's not alone, and make sure you put those chicken drumsticks out on the trailer to thaw. I'm going to the Mill Pond and I've got my phone if mom asks."
Adam was about to point out that he had been allowed to stay home alone from age 11 and Angie, intelligent, responsible, and more sophisticated than her older brothers, would be 13 in August, but Brendon moved swifter than someone so burly was expected to and was through the gate, and he sank down into the glider and grumbled. He envied Edgar's illusionary Magick, imagining himself skiving off with an illusionary Adam in his place to bear all responsibility-it would make being a Supernatural easier and lessen his guilt about being away from his family and Mundane friends, but he lacked the Magickal talents that defined spellcasters. Fiddling still with his shrunken Zweihander. he eventually sighed and padded inside, patting Spinner on his head and climbing up the stairs in search of his backpack. Angie was surely capable of staying home alone, and his mother didn't run errands so much as she went on hours-long expeditions and returning with tenfold the groceries listed on the board, and he had been having foreboding suspicions about this day . About a week ago he had received a string of numbers with letters interspersed among them, and he had been troubled enough by it to apply all two methods of deciphering he knew to them, but no shifting or assignment of letters to numbers worked. Edgar, disturbingly eager, had glanced at it before returning to his standard soberness and announced it was just a set of unremarkable coordinates as well as a time and date, Adam. Said points weren't far from his house, about a mile east by one of the railway lines cleaving their way through Brighton, and about forty feet down gushed a small river that was either the furthest trickle of Woodland Lake in the west or a branch of Ore Creek, and he had an hour or so to meet there. "Screw it. Hey Ang,I'm going out, you good with that?"Adam called outside his sister's room next to his, and he pushed the door open to find Angie laying on her pink bedspread reading a magazine, and when she didn't respond after her name was called thrice from the earbuds she had in, Adam stalked towards her with soft, barefoot steps sneaky as a cat, crouched down and tucked his head in the crook of his elbow and made a thunderously loud sound mimicking the fearsome flatulence his clan was known for. She jolted and unplugged her earbuds and Adam repeated himself only tò'be dismissed by a gesticulation shooing him off, and he snickered all the way out the door in the manner that siblings whose communication was harmlessly obnoxious could. " Guard the house, Spinner."
Thankfully, he made the trek in half that, and Fortune must have spun her wheel upwards as he continued on intact. The tracks were known to be traversed by blase teenagers with muddled brains, and there was a pair too jumbled in expression to acknowledge him as he descended slowly down the grassy slope, pausing halfway on a bed of surplus ballast from the railroad above so he didn't tumble down given the incline. At the bottom of this ravine was said water, the waves no greater than a foot in crest but still frothing white around the weirs, and another stretch of trees that cast a murky verdant gloom across the plain.Adam's head pivoted as he searched from hill to river to the copse of weeping willows and maple before him for flitting movement, ears twitching for the scampering of claws in the grass or the hissing, steaming exhale of a festering grey ghoul but there were only the foaming bubbles and the blare of cars above punctuated by a sway of boughs.
Zweihander aloft and golden and under the glamour of a red fishing pole, not an uncommon sight in Southeast Michigan, Adam stalked into the trees, eyes scouring the knotted, murky brown bark for the unearthly phosphorescent gleam of a ghoul's stare or the heralding the supernatural. Beneath the latticework of maple boughs casting scant hazy light on the grass below, the June sun was tempered . Jolting as something prickled his thickset calves, Adam reached down to scratch the stretch of skin between socks and shorts, wondering if his choice to forego full-length jeans in the sizzling swelter was wise if it meant his bare legs would be dotted with birdox. Brambles and spiked burrs not where what his fingers found, but rather a firm,fleshy vine exotic in breed as thick as his meaty calves in girth, with a velvety texture from the innumerable hairs brushing it, and Adam cocked his head in confusion before letting out a bellow. In the incement of a second his vision was inverted and his head was abuzz from the blood accumulating in his skull, his ankle ensnared by the vine that hoisted him twenty feet in the air. Summoning all of his surprisingly impressive upper body strength, Adam bucked and squirmed until he could muster enough momentum to propel himself forwards and upright, grasping his shrunken sword and holding it to his side to let it spring forth, but it slid out of his slick palms as he jolted, and he cursed,twisting and thrashing about. By now, the vine was flailing in turn as it���s complete form emerged in a font of displaced clods of earth, terrified worms, and rocks, and Adam cried out when he saw it entirely.
Over twice as tall as him in height and three times that in weight, it was an overripe mottled green bell gibbous in silhouette and blotched black as if festering full of moldy,soggy flesh,with a sunken maw in it's center full of knotted shards of bark asymmetrical in hedge and from which depended ropey,acrid yellow saliva,some of which collected in pools beneath it. Adam was unsure, but there appeared to be two shrivelled phosphorescent orbs ringed in white that appeared to be eyes, and it had about a dozen vines for locomotion radiating from it's body, six thinner as the one that had Adam captured and the others wide in girth as trees with club shaped appendages at their tips to shove their way forwards.
" That's strange, Vampire Vines are native to Nicaragua and are a controlled exotic Magickal beast due to their poisonous sting and the fact that they're an invasive species in the southeastern United States," came a voice from behind, and the vine was incinerated. Adam 's fall was cushioned by his ample hindquarters and the charred dust that the tendril had been, but he had little time to register this as he had to avert his eyes, wincing as the peach fuzz on his second chin sizzled away in the heat, the sound of viscous bubbling in his ears."Those are much too big to be houseplants, don't you think, Adam ?"
His savior manifested in the form of Eirik Petersen, approaching with slow, deliberate steps, a pouch of gummy worms in one hand and his other positioned to cast ( Adam blanched, thankful for his emptied bowels ) a ring of viscid orange magma surging outwards and cooling with a fine-grained crust blooming black. While the sole tendril had frizzled into a dusty brown smoke, the others swung in a frenzy,and Adam blanched at Eirik, his fuzzled mind awhirl with confusion and questions.
"You're a warlock,Eirik? Like Ed Falkenberg?" Adam asked flatly and Eirik flinched as if insulted before reverting to his characteristic sweetness." The alchemist? Of course not, I'm a wizard, thank you very much. I happen to specialize in fire and earth-based Magick, or to be more specific, anything tectonic and volcanic. I take it you're new to the Supernatural world?
Adam nodded, feeling the peach fuzz on his second chin sizzle away from heat, and he looked up to see Eirik regard the Vampire Vine placidly as his hand was wreathed with blazing red and orange energy. Though inscrutable as always, his lavender eyes were attentive and hinted that his clever mind had formulated a strategy, and the verdant menace hoisted one of the larger tentacles high, about to squash the wizard when he struck.
"Lithos píesi̱,"Eirik declared, and Adam realized this was a spell as the ground quivered ominously below, the foreboding tremors making theVampire Vine halt, two thicker tendrils plunging into the earth for stability, though there was nothing more. Emboldened it gave a beastly cry, raising it's twitching tendrils, and the atmosphere grew hot and sultry as a jungle, the sky blotted out by the green and the grass around the duo began to sprout forth from the ground,soon eclipsing Adam in height, and he jolted when he backed into a strand of grass edged with stiff, fibrous hair. A glint of gold flashed in the corner of his eye, and he ducked another clubbed tendril, the grass curling around his calves as he grabbed his zweihander and hacked the blades away mid furl. Eirik meanwhile, was encircled by a moat of viscid lava that burned away the grass, palm dripping with the syrupy , sizzling orange fluid and a blazing sheen reflected on his round red glasses, obscuring his eyes as he cast it towards the Vampire Vine."Lava Rocket!!!!" . Adam tucked his head down,shielding his closed eyes with his meaty forearm as the lava gave a vicious hiss as it hit the Vampire Vine, it's ovveripe flesh bursting apart in a crackling spray of sickly phosphorescent pulp, then melting back into the ground as the grass reverted to a less impressive height. "Yowza, Eirik!"
Eirik gave a small smile of acknowledgement before scrunching his nose up like a rabbit, violet eyes sweeping across the roots, and he was still as if concentrating."Adam, would you be so kind as to please count down from ten for me? "
"Uh...sure...10,9,8..."
Adam rattled off numbers but was balked as the grassy earth began to quiver violently and something burrowed up from the resettled dirt and grass. Enormous pincers black as sloe with venomously bright aposematic markings clacked as scorpions with tails erect for stinging emerged, their size too great to stomp out. Zweihander angled downwards to impale the vile arachnids, Curtis continued to count-something compelled him to trust Eirik inherently, and the wizard seemed undisturbed, his only motion blinking as the scorpions clawed their way upwards and it happened. The same spell he had cast at the beginning of the battle had taken effect, the ground quaking with seismic energy and knocking Curtis onto his fleshy backside, the scorpions either crushed to an eerie blue sludge or retreating back into the earth.
"Serket's Deathstalkers," Eirik explained with a shrug, and then reciting as if from a book. "They're a subspecies of Giant Scorpion native to Egypt with a potentially fatal venomous sting that causes respiratory and gastrointestinal failure, though healthy adults can usually survive, and their venom can be used to treat tumors in very diluted doses. Dad had some of the pygmy variety a few years back for studying and he didn't let any of us go near their terrarium."
Adam cringed at the idea of Egyptian scorpions the size of horses. He and Erik were hardly close friends, but he recalled the silver-haired boy mentioning in passing that his father was a zoologist."This sure ain't the Sahara, what's are they doing here?" "The exotic familiar trade,"Eirik lamented ."It's like the pet trade for Mundanes, but ours are more dangerous and some are even banned. Those, Serket's Deathstalkers are on a no import list unless you have a permit, and even then, there's size restrictions and you usually can't take them across state lines, much less international borders-those were definitely illegal." Adam opened his mouth to ask Eirik a question, but both boys were interrupted by a blast of cobalt blue energy shot through with inky black that they managed to leap away from, and the brunet whirled around to pinpoint the source. Eirik had been serene, only mildly amused as if dealing with a slow child when fighting the Deathstalkers and Vampire Vines, but was skittish at the sight of the energy, which resembled murky water. " Adam, why don't we continue this somewhere else? Preferably somewhere with four walls where we won't be on the recieving end of a long distance spell? There's a restaurant on the Mundane side of town that has excellent desserts, and I'm on good terms with the owner's daughter.And there's a restaurant in Ore Creek Crossing where a lot of Supernaturals from all over Livingston County congregate- you might recognize some!" "Ore Creek Crossing?" --- "So you're a wizard,"Adam began, reasoning that phelgmatic Eirik was far more receptive to being questioned than Edgar, who flinched if he was asked so much as what he was doing. The two were downtown by the Mill Pond, and Adam was tempted to see if Jake and Buford were fishing or getting ice cream, guilt surging through him at how distant he had been. Once he had finished his Supernatural errands for the day, he would search for them and apologize, then see about integrating Eirik into their group if they were to be teammates."You're not what I expected where's the pointy wizard hat and robes and broomstick?"
"Yes, well, when you're trying to keep your world separate from the Mundane realm, it's best to integrate into the culture and adopt the customs, especially in the olden days when your life could be threatened,"Eirik said."Thankfully, the worst thing that could happen to you today if you said you were a wizard would be to be laughed at-most Mundanes would think you were a fantasy fan. And as for broomsticks, I have a preference for solid earth below my feet, though most of my family rides."
"Family?"Adam asked as the two strode west towards the Old Town Hall, pausing inconspicuously at the corner as the occasional pedestrian passed them without acknowledgement, and Eirik stared idly at the patriotical colored decorations adorning them."Why yes, spellcasting tends to be hereditary, though just what sort of Magick a witch or wizard has varies-for example, my father can interact with any animate object, which can be pretty fun when the houseplants join in the conversation, and my mother can manipulate fluids at the atomic level. "
The wizard gestured for Adam to draw closer as he stood against one of the black, wrought iron lamp posts decorated with hanging bunches of flowers, and Adam felt suffused with a golden warmth, something he inherently recognized as the presence of benign Magick, and stepping in time with Eirik he was in another world.
He recognized the familiar silhouette of Brighton's sparse skyline on the perimeter,hazy as if it were a distance onwards, but was lost marveling at what lay before him. He stood in what looked to be the square of a village, as denoted by the towering ivory font with it's scintillating, clear water and many a copper penny in it's frothing pool, feeling as if he were in a world timeless and ageless. The sinous streets leading to and fro were made of cobblestones, their twists and turns enticing him to venture down each and every side street with no destination or preoccupation with time in mind and there were no harsh, bleak angles or soulless monoliths among the exquisitely antiquated wood and stone buildings. Rather, it was as if Ore Creek Crossing was a sanctuary for Supernaturals from the Mundane world, and Curtis could feel it's essence suffused throughout surge through his veins, leaving him with a sense of power and euphoria. Magick
"Impressive, isn't it?" Eirik said with a fond smile on his face, leading Adam around the cobblestone square, the brunet's head swiveling from horizon to horizon, mouth agape until a fly hovered down his throat, and then gestured to one building. " There's this one teahouse that I like-it has the best cake and they grow all their tea in house-but it's more popular with witches. Ore Creek Tavern's kind of where everybody else meets and they have a decent menu."
Following Eirik's thin fingers, Adam saw a sturdily constructed brick and half-timbered building topped with a roof of red, his stomach giving an excited growl at the tantalizing savory aroma of fried, battered food, and he reasoned that he could indulge himself in a hamburger given his previous endeavors both Mundane and Supernatural melting off some fat. Overhead, the sign dangled aimlessly in the summer breeze and a bell rang as they entered, and Adam was again surprised at how Mundane an establishment it appeared, with the Mundane convenience of electricity, and furnishings that looked suitable for any bar and grill on Main Street.In his mind,the weaponry mounted on the wall alongside tapestries and banners cataloging Supernatural achievements as well as a trophy from the 1968 Port Huron Broomstick Classic and posters for Knights of Jericho, a group of heavy metal bards tastefully complemented the unlit neon and minimalisic yellow light fixtures.What surprised Adam more was how many students from his year who he was familiar with by name and acknowledged him-two boys he was amiable with, Grant and Issac Bauhmauer sat in a booth stuffing their faces with mozzarella sticks while Monica Shoal was walking out lapping at an ice cream cone in one hand and a golden trident inlaid with aquamarine over her shoulder, winking at him when he passed.
"Is that the Mill Pond?"Curtis asked as they came out onto a deck with six picnic tables shaded by blue and green striped umbrellas sat at the perimeter of a lake, Eirik nodded as he sat down an occupied table with tepid greetings from the others."Good afternoon, everybody!" " Well, these are some of my fellow wizards and witches," Eirik turned to Adam, gesturing to the group of five or six boys and girls who Curtis recognized as being from his year."I think you know some of them?" "Yeah I know Adam! We're study buddies! Me, him and Jake have been study buddies since the fifth grade." the nearest one, the perky Aidan Murphy exclaimed, almost knocking over his glass of cola onto the book his neighbor was reading. He was a wiry ginger boy whose spiky copper hair had triumphed over every comb taken to it and wide blue eyes that twitched at the most meagre of stimuli, as many bandages peppering his pale skin as there were freckles from his perpetual mishaps, and his clothes were covered in smudges of ash." I've got explosion based magic! Wanna see?"
" I'll take your word for it," Adam responded wisely, wondering if Aidan's powers were the cause of his perpetual disheveled state and if a spellcaster's power was in any way a reflection of their personality.
"Sage Lundquist, my powers center around chemokinesis," the slim blonde reading next to him replied without prompting, lifting a finger to beckon the fronds of a weed in the planks below forward, and they ascended, thickening in breadth as they grew to snatch up Aidan's drink before the liquid could ruin his book, one sinuous tendril spiked with stiff white hairs smacking Adrian upside his head. The final occupants of the table Adam knew by sight as being close enough to Roger for conversation, or rather his cousin, and he only . Homely Kat Kohler was small, square-shouldered, and thickset with squinting grey eyes and lusterless, mussed dishwater blonde hair that hardly reached past her ears,and she seemed more interested in her tray full of food than him, though she did address his presence with a smile and wave." Heya Van de Groot! Remember me from pre-algebra seventh grade? I;m a witch, and you're not mispronouncing that!" The opposite of the boyish, squat Kat, her best friend Adelaide Frosh was a willowy nymph of 14 with slender dancer's legs and the start of soft feminine contours, her eyes a deep green and her hair long and sleek with a ribbon through it, though she was standoffish and haughty, hardly even greeting Adam and instead whispering something to Kat that made the smaller girl snort her cola and then curse. He believed their gossip to be about him and frowned a bit before a hand on his shoulder made him turn and he was greeted by another wizard.
"Joshua Fenerty-Grey, paper wizard,it's more useful than it sounds, "a tall, green-eyed, robust boy with shoulder-length russet hair bobbed like Gregory Komorowski introduced himself with an extension of his hand, his rosy skin blotched blue and black from carelessly smeared ink, and he realized his gaffe, presented his cleaner hand, the other waving and summoning a sheet of paper. "I knew you looked familiar, you're that funny fat kid who's been wearing Hawaiian shirts every day since the fifth grade! How'd you come to find you were one of us?"
"You know that haunted house-well, it's not too bad anymore-out on Bauer Road,the Mortis place? The last day of school, me, Jake, Roger and Buford to go explore it..." Adam began to recount his fateful visit."...and yeah, I've been like this for about three weeks and it's been fun. Aidan, remember Jake and Greg's birthday, how I ran away halfway through? We went to go clear out that abandoned hospital near Meijer's and I got ambushed by about twenty ghouls and sent them to the afterlife, and the there was this thing-it looked like a grim reaper with chains and a black robe but there was nothing underneath and it caught me and summoned more ghouls...
"Well, you survived the ghoul attack, obviously,"Josh stated, scribbling what looked to be shorthand notes in his scratchy script that bore no resemblance to any language Adam knew, and he spoke on, finishing not with banal platitudes, but what he hoped were confident words seeing as the other tables were listening in." Feh-I'm not afraid of ghouls-they're just annoying. In all honesty this is like a dream come true-I've always dreamed of living in a fantasy world and going on adventures!"
"That was a close shave-you're lucky you had backup!"asked girl from the adjacent table with a studded iron gauntlet wrapped around one strong wrist that flickered between it's Magick nature and it's Mundane illusion as chunky silver bracelets while those seated at the farthest table sharing similar worried viewpoints."And what was that thing that you got the brooch from?"
Adam grinned,feeling he was motoring along nicely and with a rapt audience that made him feel invigorated, even the aloof Sage and Adelaide had looked up to acknowledge him." Something that probably regrets not dying completely! There's a warlock I know who's working on it!"
There was a scoff from the same table, occupied with fighters given the mace from which swung a great studded ball, lance, and simple staff, and a small,buxom, ginger girl one one side of the source groaned in frustration."Garrett..."
"So what, you beat some ghouls? I think you're getting a big head, lardo," the scoffing boy snarled, head leaning insolently on his hand.About 16 or so, his tall, unimpressive spindly build was compensated for with his bilious scowl. His hair was a waxy artificial black and tousled with careless detail, and his hazel eyes were hooded and ringed with kohl, making Adam snort. "And that's an achievement considering that melon you've got on your shoulders!"
"Garrett,be nice, he's new," the same ginger lass murmured into her salad while a third boy in their party, blond and strapping, reached under Garrett's armpits to subdue him, but the older boy lunged forward, reaching for the iron lance by his table." Come on, Spitzer, save it for the Coliseum after lunch!"
Adam smirked, for the boy, Garrett's words had failed to pierce his near impenetrable hide and he was too good spirited to be disturbed by mediocre taunts, but he was feeling assured in his strength against the gangly lancer. He stood as close as his generous gut would allow, and gave his most irritating smirk, borrowing a phrase he had heard Jake utter to challenge others. " And what makes you King Turd of Shit Mountain, huh?"
"Look who's talking, fatso," Garrett retorted, sinking a finger into Adam's broad chest." Give me five minutes and I'll have you speared like a pig on a spit! You're no fighter!"
"I'd like to see you try, stringbean! I can just sit on you!" Adam exclaimed, thrusting his chest forward to bump him back and Garrett spluttered indignantly, spear at the ready after squirming out of Cody's grasp, then dropped it and stood slack-jawed as a newcomer appeared.
" Hello, Adam,I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Octavia cooed, her arms laden with her purchases, posing in between him and Garret, and twirling an errant lock of wavy hair around her finger. In gratitude, Adam sighed internally for her intrusion as she seemed to enrapture the twenty or so in the perimeter with her smile and teasing gesticulations. Specifically, Garrett had lowered his lance and taken a seat, the presence of an older beauty enough to quell his bellicose nature and render him babbling and foolish, ketchup smeared across his forearm as he put his arm in his tray.
"Hey! Octavia! Short time no see! Where's Falkenberg?" Adam responded, then said to Eirik."This is one of my mentors, Octavia Tessitore-she's an immortal spider knight! "
"So I've heard,"Eirik replied phlegmatically and spooning at his liquid ice cream, melting in his presence, Garret sitting down meekly and gazing up at her through his crusty black eyelashes, infatuated.
" Oh, Ed got bitchy because I wouldn't let him sleep past two in the afternoon so he isn't coming out unless the world's ending-it's his fault for staying up until 7 in the morning doing who-knows-what! He's probably locked himself in the attic and won't be down until night falls or he's playing around with his alchemy set. Funny how he was panicking over the house being redone before winter last week and now he won't get out of bed!"
She turned to Eirik approvingly, but with no flouncing or girlish, syrupy tone to her voice, and Adam wondered if it was because she realized Eirik had a surprisingly stronger constitution than most men and was immune to her coy flirting or if she had no interest in wooing him,
"Ah, well, it's good that you were there to meet Adam-he might be digesting in the fourth stomach of a Vampire Vine or stung to death by now if he was ambushed like that. I'd hate to lose him when I've just met him- he's going to be quite impressive,"Octavia sighed dreamily as if fawning over him, seemingly oblivious to Garrett's subdued looks and squirming, but Adam knew inherently that she had deduded what was going on and was going to torment the lancer for his actions toward one of her protegees."Well, that's all- I was just dropping in because I saw you and wanted to say hi, I'm needed back at the House. I'll call if anything interesting happens, sweetie, but I think you can handle it just fine. Oh, and there was another thing I was going to say..." Garrett looked up expectantly with wide eyes as Octavia tapped her chin as if in deep in thought, Adam chortling as he realized what she was onto as she fixated on the lancer, one hip jutting to the side teasingly as she brightened and pointed to him, drawing near. "Oh yeah! You! Lancer!" "Yes?"a bewitched Garrett squeaked, eager to catch her eye and she beamed deceivingly sweet at him."Don't threaten Adam or anyone I work with when I'm around-sure you hardly have any meat on those noodles you call limbs, but I'm sure your juices are nice and succulent!
And with that she turned smartly on her heel and sashayed away, Garrett fixated on her prominent backside before he regained some semblance of dignity and returned to his insolent slouching and scowling at Adam, who smirked back." Ok, the cannibalism thing was going a bit too far, and I don't think she'd actually do that, but you get the point. I have some good friends behind me!"
"They won't be any help to you this time!"Garret retorted. "Meet me at the Coliseum on the Pond and we'll finish this!"
"Coliseum?..."
To be continued...