Two 10 Minute Pieces
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Title: Protection
Author: eponine254
Fandom/Character(s)/Pairing(s): Original
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: PG
Words: 686
Challenge/Prompt: fictionland #13: 10 Minutes
Warnings: Unedited writing ahead!
Notes: An Unreal City extract, written for this challenge and to be included in the story when I actually get to this point.
Summary: Pixie isn't usually the superstitious type, but then, people around her don't usually get magically murdered. She goes to visit the only place in town for top quality magical protection - Hernon's.
Protection
Pixie was not, as a rule, superstitious. As a seer, obviously she believed in the supernatural, but she really didn’t pay heed either to the fact that the universe cared enough about her to be out to get her, or to the idea that various hokey bits of jewellery would help her fend it off.
But now things were weird. And things were scary. And Pixie didn’t have time to sneer at anything that might help her stay alive long enough to work out what was going on and put an end to it.
“Is this really necessary?” Luke asked, looking at the shop with a sceptical expression on his face.
Pixie sighed. “Sadly, yes,” she said. “Do you want to be magically murdered today?”
“Well, I did only have it pencilled in for next Friday...”
“Very funny. You wait here.”
“Fine,” Luke said, crossing his arms and standing awkwardly by a rack of overpriced striped socks and feigning interest in the equally overpriced leather wristbands behind them.
Pixie stepped into the gloom of the shop. She ignored the proprietor and the racks of over the top gothic clothing sold at a price only tourists would pay, and pressed on towards the back of the shop to where a scarlet curtain delineated a small changing cubicle. She pulled back the curtain and stepped inside. She felt more than a little bit silly, but there was too much at stake for her to pay any heed to her self consciousness.
She looked at herself in the cracked full length mirror that leaned against the wall. God, she looked awful. The lack of sleep had taken its toll, and the face beneath the messy blonde hair was pale.
She raised a hand and knocked on the glass. “Pixie Brown,” she announced herself. “I’m coming to see Eric Hernon.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Pixie hoped she had the right shop - it would be super awkward if she didn’t.
But then, the glass seemed to ripple, and a neat, round handle appeared in the surface, made of the same reflective glass as the rest of the mirror. Pixie reached out a tentative hand to turn the handle, and the mirror swung open like a door, revealing a flight of steps leading down into a cellar of sorts. Without giving herself time to second guess the wisdom of this plan, Pixie stepped into the mirror and down into the darkness beyond, letting the mirror swing shut behind her.
She felt like one of those people she shouted at in horror movies for making obviously bad life choices, but there was nothing for it. Keeping a hand on the wall, she descended the staircase, which was mercifully short, and brought her out into a dimly lit room beyond.
“So this is Hernon’s,” she said, looking around at the place. She had heard about it from some of the others she had spoken to, but she had never visited it herself. The decor was as over the top as that of the shop above it, all dramatic drapes and flickering lighting, as if the owner had seen The Phantom of the Opera too many times and thought that this would be a great look for a shop.
She jumped as she felt, rather than heard, someone approaching her from behind. Her hand automatically jumped to the pepper spray she had taken to carrying everywhere with her.
She relaxed at the sight of the old man. Not that he wasn’t creepy, but he hadn’t tried to murder her yet, which was, all things considered, an improvement on the alternative.
“Hernon?” she asked him. The man nodded and smiled, indicating the merchandise that littered the shelves all around the room.
“Yes, madam, How can I help you? Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”
Pixie shook her head and swallowed. How could she even begin to explain? “I just need... protection,” she said, which, given the store’s primary purpose, was the magical equivalent of walking into Waterstone’s and asking for a book. “There’s something out there. Something evil. And it’s after me.”
