I leaned my head back against my chair, letting the smooth aroma of coffee steal over me. Coffee had a tendency to be comforting and just make everything better. I was propped up in one of the comfier chairs at Starbucks, my body much resembling that of a cartoon character more than anything else. One of those characters who has just been run over by a steamroller or something, and now has as many bandages as a mummy.
My right arm was in a sling and covered up in gauze, while my left one had various bandages all up and down in no particular pattern. My right leg had some kind of brace on it to stop me from injuring it, and I had to wear some kind of funny, soft little shoe on my left foot until the swelling went down. My ribs were wrapped round and round with more gauze, since one was broken and at least two were close, making all of my movements stiff and awkward. And though I habitually wore my Snoopy Cap at all times anyways, I was a little bit more reluctant than usual to take it off, since it hid the shaved patches on my head where doctors had stitched me up.
Moving a little bit slowly, I took the Cap off my head and studied its slightly burnt edges. I couldn't even remember when it had fallen off during my adventures at Took Manor, but the firemen who'd eventually put out the blaze had found it lying innocently on a small patch of unburnt carpet.
I put it back on my head, smiling, and awkwardly picked up my coffee with my left hand, since my right didn't seem up to doing much. I took a sip. It tasted bitter, but good. Then I laid my head back, still smiling, and just listened in contentment to the flow of conversation around me.
Melany Took, Silas's distant niece and the person responsible for me being at Took Manor to begin with, was filling in Ariel, Seabass, Londra and Tara on the details of the Took family curse.
"No, no, no, it's nothing like that!" she said to Ariel, shaking her head. "The spirit that Nil here named Mr. Slither just kind of hated my family as a whole. Silas never did anything to anger it as far as I understand things, it was all the fault of some bozo named Jonathan Took who lived almost two hundred years ago."
"Two hundred years!?" Seabass replied with interest, putting his Frappuccino down on the table with a small thunk.
Melany nodded.
"From what I could find out, the story went like this. Jonathan Took was the first in our line, a very arrogant and rich man, who once went under a different name that is now, alas, lost to history. He changed whatever his name had been, probably to escape the law, and chose the name of 'Took' because it summed up who, and what, he was. If he wanted something in life, he took it, whether it belonged to someone else or not.
I raised a hand, interrupting, and Melany shot me an annoyed glance.
"Yes, Nil?"
"I'm going to hazard a guess, that what you're about to say next is that he took the wrong thing one day."
Melany smiled at me, as if I were one of her students who had answered a particularly difficult question. Which was fair enough, since I was, I just had a tendency of skipping class all the time.
"You are correct, Nil. He took the wrong thing one day. For whatever reason, he wanted a piece of land, the one that Took Manor is built upon. Or more, was built upon before you burnt it to the ground."
I grinned sheepishly.
"Anyways, my jerk ancestor slaughtered an entire Indian village when they refused to move, just so that he could slap down a mansion and show off to all his rich buddies."
"But the Indians put a curse on him," I added, nodding.
Melany frowned at me, her black eyes growing just a little blacker.
"I'm the one telling the story here, Neems. Don't ruin the punchlines."
"So, what happened then?" Tara chipped in, smoothly getting the conversation back on track. Melany shot me a warning glance, and then continued.
"Anyways, so he slaughtered all of these Indians, but one of them got away. Their medicine woman."
"Who I'm guessing is the one that cursed him," Londra said.
Melany looked about ready to lose it, her facial features drawing downwards into a scowl.
"As I was saying, they had this medicine woman. A woman who wanted vengeance. So, she bided her time, waiting, waiting, and then came back, three years later after the mansion had been built over the remains of her village."
"And cast a magic spell on him?" I guessed, earning a look of fury from Melany. I think she would have thrown something at that point, but a barista named Delilah walked by, reminding Melany that she was in a public setting. We already had one barista hanging out nearby, a cute redhead named Anastasia, who had been pretending to clean an empty table so she could listen in.
Melany closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. I could see her lips moving as she counted to ten.
"So, what did the medicine woman do?" Seabass asked.
The last remaining Took snapped her eyes open. She looked from face to face, and then grinned.
"She hid a root deep in the basement of Took Manor."
Me, Tara, Londra, Seabass, Ariel, and both our baristas, all gave Melany blank looks in return.
"Are you sure?" I asked, doubt coloring all over my voice.
Melany grinned, happy that she had recaptured her audience.
"Yes, a root. But not just any root. Gwelhb'hot, an herb spirit who had taken the form of a root. And so, this little root grew, burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth beneath Took Manor, just waiting for its time."
I frowned.
"But what provoked it to act?"
"It saw the chance it had been waiting for, the chance to end the Took family line once and for all. If it had acted at any other time, it merely would have killed some of the Took's, whoever happened to be living at Took Manor during the time. But by waiting until my family had shrunk to just me and Silas, Gwelhb'hot was left with only two of us."
My eyes went wide with understanding.
"Except it wasn't you, because you sent me in your place!"
"Exactly!" Melany shouted with triumph, thumping the table and knocking my coffee over. "Poor old Gwelhb'hot didn't confirm who he was going after before he went all psycho. Even if he'd managed to kill you, his plan still would have failed, since this particular Took remains very much alive."
"Errm..." I began, not really counting the fact that I'd nearly died as a 'failure' in the bad guy's plans.
"I should teach a class about my family curse!" Melany said cheerfully, ignoring me. "Oh, wouldn't that be so much fun?"
I kind of tuned her out after that, as she went off on a tangent. Since I happened to be one of her students, I didn't really look forward to taking a whole class on what I'd just been through. Still, all's well that ends well I suppose, though I would certainly remain some the worse for wear for a while.
Still. I was alive, Melany presumably owed me a big favor and all A's in her class, and I even had four new friends, Londra, Tara, Seabass, and Ariel. Other than my wounds, life was looking up. At least, until Tara opened her mouth.
"Hey, I have a great idea!" she said with a dangerous amount of enthusiasm. "There's this old coal mine that my grandfather owns, but nobody has been there for ages because they all say it's haunted. Once we've all healed up a bit, wouldn't it be fun if we went on a little adventure?"
Slowly, I brought my head down till it rested in my hands and groaned. There was such a thing as too much adventure...
Elsewhere.
I lay my head back against the chair. It was cozy and I needed the rest. My hip was bugging me again. Not to mention the rest of me. Having just come through the disaster of Took Manor, I was lucky to be alive and home in my apartment. Or maybe unlucky, as I glanced over at the man seated across from me. His mouth was just a slash across his face, his face itself oddly worn, as if exposed to a harsh desert wind for years.
"Sabin Blackwood..." he said to me quietly. All kinds of threats were spoken within those words, and I tried very hard not to shudder.
"There was this girl," I began, but the man held up a hand to silence me.
"You were hired to confirm the existence of the Took curse..."
I closed my eyes, trying to foresee what I should say next. Once I'd learned of the curse from Rain Brutal, I'd been dumb enough to try and make some money off of it. I'd figured that surely someone in the world would be willing to pay for a curse, especially if he could find a way to use it to his advantage.
"The curse was real." I told him. "I saw it with my own eyes."
He paused, steepling his fingers like I'd seen villains do in movies when they wanted to be unnerving. I hated to admit it, but it was working.
"You say it 'was' real?"
"I told you, there was this girl. Nillium Neems. There was nothing I could do."
In an instant, the man was off his chair, on his feet, and had both hands around my throat. He seemed to take great pleasure in strangling me, only letting go when I started to see black. He dropped me to the ground, letting me gasp for air, and started pacing back and forth.
"I have heard of this Neems before. I believe that I owe her... a visit. You shall keep an eye on her, Sabin. Do you understand?"
I nodded, unable to speak, just wanting the man to leave.
Smiling, he did just that, heading for the door. He turned to look at me one last time, a sharp sort of smile on his face.
"Don't fail me again, Blackwood."
And then he was gone. I lay on the floor for a while, my throat burning, then staggered to my feet to get a glass of water. It looked like I wasn't through with Nillium Neems quite yet. Her days were numbered. Or mine were...