THE EPIC.
OH MY GOD IT'S DONE.
WELL SORT OF.
YOU'LL SEE.
Not at all edited, formatted in a hurry - PLEASE SUGGEST CHANGES I MIGHT MAKE.
Sarah was exhausted by the end of the day. It was only great fondness for both Jamal and Rex that had kept her here after two hours' overtime, but Jamal was still absent and she was starting to feel a bit like Rex must have been.
It had been over a month, maybe more than two, since Rex had contracted some weird form of narcolepsy (or so Sarah presumed). Jamal had been trying to get to the bottom of the situation since then, although if he had discovered anything he wasn't telling. But the extra work hours Sarah had offered to take were taking their toll. Between work and school, she found herself without a single moment of free time. And sleep deprivation - lots of that.
She would never resent Rex, especially since ze was obviously apologetic and worried about the situation, but sometimes Sarah just wanted to let it be someone else's problem. For one day at least, she would've liked to just go home on time, do some leisure reading, skim some forums where a bunch of biology majors talked about the things they were researching. Get to sleep at a reasonable time. Eat a proper dinner.
But she wouldn't go back on her word; she remained in the shop late, sorting and shelving and running admin with Rex's sometime help. Sarah wanted to ask hir opinion of the ring Jamal had given her - it couldn't really be some kind of magical protection, could it? But Rex was spacey and even more prone to dozing than usual, even when constantly dosed with strong black tea, and so finally Sarah gave up and sent hir to sleep on the couch near the fireplace.
Really, though, she had no idea what Jamal was thinking. Obviously it meant something to him - that much was certain. And Jamal was generally speaking an in-the-know kind of guy, so she wasn't really sure where this whole 'magic' business was supposed to go. Maybe it was some sort of code? Maybe Jamal simply didn't want to say the real reason for these things. Maybe they were tracking devices so that if they were in trouble he could come after them. That made more sense than 'magic'.
If that were the case, though, Sarah was even less inclined to wear it. Jamal might have the best intentions in world, but she liked having privacy. Well, the ring was on the kitchen counter, and it wasn't as if Sarah really went anywhere besides her place, work, and class. Especially these days.
Which reminded her - she had a test tomorrow. Better get home and sleep, she thought, suddenly devoid of all energy. And it would be all right to leave Rex here, right? Ze was asleep, the doors were locked, and Sarah had no doubt that as far as bookshops went this one was the epitome of safety. It was probably the best place for a narcoleptic to be. And if ze woke up, there was tea and even some food in the back. They had taken to keeping a stash when Rex began voraciously devouring whatever was edible and present after waking up from any episode of slumber.
"Goodnight," she said aloud, feeling silly for it immediately after. Then she grabbed her key and put her coat on and left through the back, locking the door behind her. It was a cold, wet night, but the rain had stopped for now. The street was quiet. If only it were like this all the time, Sarah thought. Maybe she would take her time going home. It wasn't often she got a chance to see the streets like this.
Then she heard footsteps, somewhere ahead of her. It was difficult to see past the glare of the streetlight, but there seemed to be someone there. "Jamal?" Sarah called.
The figure paused, barely visible but clearly there, and then took two steps toward Sarah and into the light. Whoever they were, they certainly were not Jamal; beneath a dark cloak that swathed their head and body was pale skin and glinting hair. The face looked familiar, though from her distance Sarah couldn't tell. It could have been anyone.
Sarah backed up a step, another. Whoever this was, she didn’t want to deal with them. She wanted to go home and sleep so that she could ace the test tomorrow. There were back ways she could take. It wouldn't be that difficult to go the other way. And she wouldn't have to face the stranger, who for reasons unknown was frightening the hell out of her. Suddenly, foolishly, she wished she had Jamal's ring with her. Or better yet, Jamal himself.
She was taking another backwards step when the figure spoke. "Sarah Challis," it - she - said scornfully, and to her horror Sarah recognised the voice. Not well enough to place it - but she had heard that tone of disdain before. If only she could remember from who…
The strange woman stepped forward again, and again, and Sarah realised that she was walking quickly backwards, now running. Somehow the woman was gaining on her. It was as if she wasn't moving at all, despite all efforts. "Stop," she protested as the strange woman neared. "I don't want any trouble. Get away from me."
Her words had seemingly no effect, for soon the woman drew close. "Of course you don't," she replied in the same scornful tone. "But you're going to get it, because you didn't listen when I told you to stay out of matters too big for you to understand." She reached into her pocket, ignoring Sarah's gasp.
"But you're -” Sarah began, and then there was a strange scent in her nose that she mentally catalogued as 'chloroform' before losing consciousness.
--
Rex woke to darkened shop and rubbed at hir eyes idly. The teakettle was cold, so ze started up the woodburning stove again to reheat it. While ze waited, ze retreated to the register desk where a volume of Arthur Conan Doyle's best lay. Turning to page 264, Rex settled down to read until the kettle whistled.
But no sooner had ze settled in when ze heard a noise from the front of the shop. A man in a costume that bordered on ninja chic was closing the door gently, perhaps to prevent the bells from ringing. A burglar? Rex wondered, picking up the stick that Jamal had thoughtfully left behind the desk. "I'm sorry, but we're closed," ze announced.
The burglar looked over toward hir and abandoned the door without replying. Rex gripped the stick a bit tighter and repeated, "We're closed. You'll have to come back later."
Then suddenly the burglar reached into his belt. Before Rex could move, he had pulled out a gun, cocked it, and fired once. Rex felt as if in slow motion the shot blast through hir shoulder; an eternity later, it seemed, the pain followed suit. It felt hollow and obligatory, though, and Rex merely switched the stick to the other hand. There would be time to worry about that later.
"Please leave," ze said calmly. "If you keep waving that around, someone might get hurt."
The burglar, surprisingly, backed up a few steps. Rex stepped out from behind the desk, stick trailing unthreateningly. Then, less surprisingly, the burglar fired another two rounds. One grazed Rex's rib cage and the other bit through hir thigh. Dimly ze noticed that hir shirt and now pants were rapidly being soaked with blood, and that it was dripping down hir leg and from hir right arm onto the floor. I'll have to clean that, ze thought in resignation.
"You were shot three times!" the burglar shouted, speaking for the first time. His voice was surprisingly young. A shame, Rex thought. Poor kid had his whole life ahead of him.
But he had brought a gun into Jamal's bookstore. And Rex wasn't about to let him hurt someone or something here. Bringing hir bleeding arm around to grasp the stick, ze closed the remainder of the distance between the two of them and then swung the stick in a deadly arc toward the burglar's head. As ze felt the stick make contact, the world turned white, and once again Rex found hirself dropping into slumber.
--
The bookstore was dark when Jamal returned. Of course, there were plenty of reasons for this to be so, but Jamal's gifts lay in premonition. He knew already that something had happened here. He just didn't know what.
He almost tripped over something leaning against the wall by the back door; upon close inspection he found it to be Sarah's legs. Sarah herself was unconscious, and still smelled faintly of the chemicals that had been used to bring her to this state. Jamal felt cold fear as he examined her. There were no signs of injury, but under the chemical lay a more delicate odour.
Jamal knew the scent of magic anywhere. But this one was disturbingly familiar.
Not too long ago, Jamal had known something was coming. Great forces of nature were converging upon this city, and on the winds that heralded their coming, a bevy of unsuspecting souls were tossed into the mix. Jamal had seen this coming, had begun to move to gather the lost pieces of the puzzle in. First it had been Shell, who had been fortunate to live here in the first place, and then Candy, who had turned up years before the events would happen. Jamal had then assumed that it would be enough to survey from afar - he could not afford to become embroiled in events, in case he was not able to protect the city from such a position.
But he found that he wasn't content to simply watch. Somehow he became invested in his charges' wellbeing. He couldn't walk into the record store and announce himself, of course. What he was doing could be considered stalking. But when he happened upon Rex one day on a sidewalk, Jamal had acknowledged a lesson learned, and drew the third piece in.
That day on a very mundane sidewalk, in unexciting weather, Jamal had caught a whiff of something potent, some magic presence that surrounded Rex. At first he had assumed it to be a protection, for it surely seemed to be guarding something. And then Jamal had assumed it to be some sort of innate ability, dormant and merely protecting itself.
What he had refused to contemplate, and should have, was that the action of guarding was not for Rex's benefit, but rather someone else's.
A deep cold settled itself around Jamal's chest as he lifted the unconscious Sarah and carried her inside, onto the same couch he had used for Rex when the narcolepsy had begun. The pieces were beginning to reveal themselves to this puzzle, too. Things were escalating now, if Sarah had been vulnerable to attack despite the ring he had crafted.
Having set Sarah down safely, he left his office and walked into the faintly-lit shop proper. Rex was not on the ground anywhere, but the stoveside couch was just as empty. Jamal was not surprised. There was one place left to look, and he walked quickly to the register.
He was expecting to find a prone Rex, similarly scented to the unfortunate Sarah, perhaps bound in spell-canceling rope. He did not expect the strong metallic reek of blood to fill his nose, or to find the papers on the desk spattered with red, the floor slick with it. It took a great deal to really unsettle Jamal. This was more than enough, though, and he found that he was shaking as he traced the bloodstains toward the front door.
There was a body there, but it was wrong. There was no bleeding wound. And it wasn't Rex. Whoever it was, they were dead, and had been for about ten minutes. In one hand, they held a gun.
The bloodstains continued to the door. Its handle possessed a thin coating of it, and then all traces of the tangible trail were lost to the rain. The door itself was unlocked and ajar. Jamal wasn't a swearing sort of man under normal conditions. But as he stared at the door, he found himself hurling every curse in every language he knew at whoever had orchestrated this turn of events.
Someone was going to pay before this was over.
--
Shell woke from a distressingly upsetting dream to the piercing shriek of the telephone. Though he was relieved to be awake, there were appearances to maintain, and so it was with sharp vehemence that he growled out a "What the fuck do you want?" to whoever had decided it was a good idea to call him at this hour.
"I want you at the bookstore as soon as possible," Jamal told him, and to Shell's profound surprise, his voice was tight and demanding. In any other situation Shell would've snapped a "Fuck you" and hung up, but now he found himself acquiescing. Jamal never sounded like this - almost like he was afraid. And if things were bad enough that Jamal was afraid, Shell could give up some sleep to find out what was going down.
"I'm calling the others, but go collect them on your way. I don't want anyone on their own tonight." This said, Jamal hung up, and Shell knew it was more serious than he guessed, if he was being called upon to act as a guardian. And that's me, the fucking protector. But he didn't mind, not really - after all, someone had to look after the group, since they never seemed to see reason to do so. There was Sarah, who didn't watch her drink in bars, and Candy who flounced around town like no one would resent her for who she was. The first time he'd met Rex was after ze had been thoroughly decked out by a mugger. And then Hiro was way too nice for his own good.
Well, no one was gonna fuck with them on his watch. Not without dire consequences. The wrath of a werecat, Shell knew very well, was nothing to be trifled with.
Within five minutes he was dressed and slamming his locked door shut behind him as he ran out into the cold, rain-soaked street. He very nearly slipped on the slick concrete, but no puddle was going to get the best of Shell. Flinging a curse at it (metaphorically, of course), he kept running. He wasn't sure why he was running, Jamal's urgency notwithstanding. But he ran anyway.
Candy's door was locked and the light was on, and when Shell looked in through the window she was asleep in a chair. The light was blinking on the answerphone, next to the digital clock that proclaimed the time to be six in the evening. Muttering under his breath, Shell fished out the key from a pocket of his raincoat and let himself inside.
After some shaking, Candy opened bleary eyes. "This is no time to go nocturnal on me," she protested.
Shell somehow managed to get her properly dressed and running while he explained what little he knew. They passed both Sarah's and Rex's flats - no sign of life. Hiro's flat was dark still, but Shell figured that Jamal wouldn't want to drag someone so new to the city into what seemed to be important and possibly dangerous. There was no one else Shell could think of, so they hurried for the bookstore as quickly as they could.
The street outside was lit by light through the window, bright enough to hurt Shell's darkness-accustomed eyes, and so when he walked in he was not really looking where he was going. Then he nearly tripped over the long object wrapped in white cloth on the floor. After a moment of disorientation, the knowledge of what it had to be sunk in and Shell swore an oath that left Candy immensely impressed. "Jamal," he growled, "What the fuck is going on?"
The bookshop's proprietor emerged from behind a shelf, towing a dazed-looking Sarah along behind him. "I'll get there," he said ominously. "But first, did anyone of you see Rex?"
--
"You're telling me that all this blood is Rex's," Shell said slowly. Sarah had both hands over her mouth and was looking like the world was about to end, while Hiro's expression was a great deal less extreme. Candy was glaring at the dead guy like she was about ready to kill him again. Personally, Shell was angry, but not with the corpse. He'd had to have been paid by someone: few burglars would actually attempt to kill someone unless it would save their necks. Their success lay in bluffing.
"And somehow ze was able to kill the boy and walk out into the rain," Jamal repeated tightly. "While Sarah was otherwise occupied."
"I'm sorry," Sarah whispered around her hands. "I shouldn't have left hir alone asleep like that. I can't believe I was so stupid."
For the first time that night, Jamal smiled. For an attempt to be comforting at a time like this was, the smile was actually quite masterfully executed. "As I told you, you were under a compulsion. A strong one, too, if it got around the ring I made you."
The guilt on Sarah's face did not subside. If anything, actually, it deepened. "I didn't wear it," she said in as small, miserable voice. "It seemed pointless. Like a placebo or something. Not something important. I'm sorry."
Candy spoke up before the silence grew to be uncomfortable. "I can't see Rex killing someone at all," she announced. "The first time I met hir, ze was getting beat up by some mugger. And ze wasn't even fighting back? So how could ze suddenly be some easy killer?"
"Far too easily," said a woman, and they all turned to the door to see Kathleen standing there, dressed all in black and dripping all over the bloodstained floor. "About as easily as Sarah could be lured outside and the front door can be picked."
"Get out," Jamal told her cordially. "I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time. And we are closed."
"You did what to Sarah?" Candy demanded.
"What I said," Kathleen replied. "Had things gone to plan, you all would have been just fine. Sarah would've been a bit disoriented, but it wears off by morning. But no, you people can't even manage to avoid screwing yourselves over when you don't know anything's going on."
"Then tell us," Shell growled. "What the fuck is going on?"
Jamal stepped forward. "She's not telling anyone anything. I said to leave." The look he sent Shell was disapproving and probably calculated to shame him into silence, and on anyone else probably would've worked. He knew, too, that Jamal undoubtedly had an excellent reason for disallowing their furthered conversation. But he was way too angry at this point to care about any of this. Kathleen had fucked with Sarah and probably knew something about where Rex was - at least, more than Jamal knew, which while couched in fancy speculations was pretty much nada.
"Fuck you very much, Jamal," he said. "Maybe you have answers, but I sure as hell don't, and I want to know what she knows."
Jamal gazed at him for a moment as if contemplating overruling him, but then to Shell's surprise backed down. "Right then. Talk. And then go away."
All eyes on her now, Kathleen crossed her arms with surprising discomfort. "I told Sarah once that there were things about Rex I had no business telling her," she began. "Except I guess you're all involved now. The first thing to know is that he isn't who he thinks he is. The real Rex is… different."
"So we gathered," Sarah snapped, probably annoyed at her lack of knowledge. And she'd talked about Kathleen in a similar tone before, Shell recalled.
"Tell us," Jamal commanded.
"I first met Rex on a scouting mission," Kathleen said almost fondly. "For the group I'm with. He was in some sort of trouble with the police about busking, I think. And then there was a mess about him not having any sort of papers, because he was an illegal immigrant… But something ended up exploding, I think. And Rex was really upset. More than the situation seemed to warrant. I think the explosion was his fault."
"Hir," Sarah muttered under her breath.
"How?" Candy demanded, obviously incredulous in regards to Rex blowing anything up at all. Shell had to agree: it was a difficult notion to get his own head around. Mild-mannered Rex, lashing out in a fit of strong emotion? Hardly believable.
But Kathleen shrugged. "I don't know. He was pretty desperate to get out of his dilemma, though, so I offered him a job with us. Admin, paperwork. I pulled some strings to get him in without a fuss. The hiring itself was easy for us to keep secret from beaurocracy, since Rex didn't officially exist in this country.
"Some time after, they started using him for something else. Classified, of course, so I still don't know a lot, but within six months Rex was suddenly promoted to a field agent and was out on missions even I didn't have clearance to know about. He couldn't tell me, since they hypnotise the field agents back so that they never remember what it is they do. Anything else would be too dangerous for us. We all learned this - the hard way."
Jamal frowned, obviously not impressed with her dramatics. "Do you know anything about the nature of these… missions?" he inquired, voice understandably troubled.
"Peacekeeping," Kathleen replied easily. "It's what we do. Keeping the level of supernatural turmoil as low and regulated as possible. Getting rid of dangers. And we're good at it, too - we haven't had a mage battle in years, and nearly all the vampires are compromised."
The look on Sarah's face clearly spoke of disbelief; Shell made a mental note to have a word with her later about things, unless Jamal got there first. Biologist that she was, she couldn't go ignoring the lesser-known species and variants of humans that inhabited the city - and the world. Especially since at least two of her friends were such people, and it was looking like a third was going to have to be added to that list.
Jamal was looking pretty skeptical too, but that was undoubtedly for entirely different reasons. "Continue your story, then," he said slowly.
"Well, a series of stories in the news started hitting a little too close to home. Documenting… things we were doing. They didn't say it was us - they hardly knew - but a photographer got lucky. Caught Rex as he was leaving the scene of the… story coverage." Kathleen looked uncomfortable, but Shell could piece it together. Whatever Rex had been doing hadn't been good, and Kathleen knew it.
"So then what?" asked Candy. "The suspense is killing me! Spill!"
Kathleen looked down. "He found out when he got the paper that morning. Horrified, he confronted the people in charge and demanded that they stop. They told him that of course they wouldn't. Rex just didn't understand the bigger picture - it was an essential step to peace within the city. It still is. But he wouldn't understand, he couldn't, so he said he wanted out.
"They refused, of course. We couldn't have him free - he'd remember too much. And the hypnotism did strange things to his brain, so we apparently couldn't wipe his memory."
"He remembers all this?" Shell couldn't see the impact that kind of shit would have left Rex with. If Kathleen's 'group' had wiped hir memory, that would have made more sense - Rex gave the impression of not being all there a lot."
"No," Kathleen replied, and there was a guilty and desperate tinge to her tone. "They locked him up. Maximum security. But I got in one night, and got him out. I was going to give him amnesia - not erase the memories, but make him forget. And I did, and I thought it was okay. I gave him a whole new set of memories to explain why he was suddenly twenty-six. Then I got him an apartment and left him to function on his own."
Jamal nodded, his expression one of comprehension to Shell's profound disgust. "Except it didn't work like you thought it would."
Looking even more miserable, Kathleen nodded. "The hypnotism kicked in again. Except without direction, Rex wouldn't know when to start, when to stop. So whenever he fell asleep, it activated, and he went about his assigned duty. The more this happened, the more he needed to sleep, and it kept going."
Obviously horrified, Sarah protested, "But ze sleeps here all the time! Just sleeping, too!"
"That's because of the wards," Kathleen retorted as if it were obvious.
"I'll explain later," Jamal said, and his voice was not the gentle thing it had been before, but full of steel. "Continue."
"I've been taking extra time on missions and time off to find him. I didn't realise what was going on at first, but I figured it out in the end, and so I had to stop it." Kathleen looked even more miserable than ever as she spoke, and Shell had a slight inkling of what had to be coming.
"What's this 'it'?" he asked, to confirm his suspicions.
But Jamal answered first. "Genocide," he intoned in a voice that rumbled like thunder and shook them all.
Jamal wasn't a particularly intimidating guy, usually. Yeah, he was scary, but that was because he knew everything about everyone, and could see the future, and never missed a beat. But he wasn't big, he wasn't physically menacing, and he normally wore a smile. But when he didn't… he was threatening in a way that even Shell didn't quite understand. Shell wasn't into any sort of magic - changing unexpectedly into a feline was enough for him. But Jamal was, somehow, and now it was showing.
"Genocide," Jamal repeated just as terribly. "Purging the nonhuman species. I haven't seen a vampire in years here. When you said 'compromised', that was a euphemism for 'dead'." He seemed to grow taller, so that he roared down upon the others, although his voice was not particularly loud and his height stayed the same. "I will not tolerate that in my city!"
"It's for the common good!" Kathleen sniffed, although she looked shaken. "Not that I would ever bother explaining things to you. You're even worse than Rex about that, I bet. But that's not what I'm here for." Her face softened, saddened; her voice went quieter. "I need to eliminate him before he gets out of hand. You saw the papers, the girl who died - she was human. Rex isn't ours anymore - he's a killer. A monster. Mindless. He needs to be brought down." She exhaled, then seemed to collect herself, and just when Shell thought she had shut up for good so he could bash her skull in, she spoke yet again. "So that's the story, take it or leave it. And now, I hate to say it, but I need your help. Bring him down, or let him bring you down." Kathleen's face showed no emotion, but her voice possessed a hardness that made Shell want to punch every tooth out of her mouth. No one was supposed to talk about Rex like that. No one was supposed to talk so easily about that kind of slaughter.
He glared at Kathleen with every curse in his vocabulary and then some. "I won't help someone like you, and you're fucking batshit if you think otherwise," he shouted. "I won't do it. Get the hell out of here before I take you down."
Immediately Candy moved to stand beside him; Sarah was staring vacantly ahead, face frozen in some sort of extreme shock. But everyone else's attention was immediately upon Jamal. Shell was breathing hard, glaring at him, daring him to object.
But Jamal did not speak. After a moment, he stepped slowly behind Kathleen, anger and resolution still apparent in the very way he held himself. He remained silent.
Shell inhaled. "You lay a finger on hir, I kill you," he said, and was not at all certain to whom he spoke. "Don't think I can't."
After a beat, Kathleen laughed. It was a slightly hysterical sound, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Shell felt more than a little nonplussed. "You think - oh, you think you can do anything to stop me?" She laughed again, louder and more hysterical. "You actually want to fight?"
"If that's what it takes," hissed Shell.
"Don't bother," Kathleen said, and then suddenly the pressure around him increased and he found himself locked in place. He could scarcely breathe. "You won't be able to reach me. Your protections are pretty good, I'll admit, but not at this range. Not inside this place." She laughed a third time, crazily, and turned from Shell as if he didn't matter at all. "I'll be going now. Jamal, you understand the situation. At least one of you is sensible. Come on."
Jamal did not budge, but for his eyebrows that rose in a gesture of total lack of amusement. "You're not going anywhere," he said calmly.
"I'm leaving!" Kathleen snapped. "And you're coming with me! We're going to finish this before it gets worse!"
"You'll find that you are mistaken," Jamal replied.
Kathleen was losing it even more so now, twitching as if she were about to rush Jamal and take him down. But something was holding her back even as something held Shell back; it was like she was up against an invisible barrier. "Let me go!" she screamed, finally snapping Sarah out of whatever daze she was in. The latter looked wildly around and then hurried to Shell, obviously concerned.
"You - will - not - pass!" Jamal intoned, and if Shell had been able he would have thumped his head against something very hard. As it was, he only glared. This was not the time for humour.
It had the desired effect though. Kathleen had doubtlessly never bothered with high fantasy. She froze, back to the others, staring at Jamal in what was probably disbelief and fear.
Then Jamal brought his fist down on her head, and Kathleen crumpled where she stood, dropped to the floor. Shell mimicked this movement a second later as the pressure around him relieved, and then sat up, watching the room spin wildly around him.
"Sarah, I want you to tie her up and lock her in the second storage room," Jamal instructed shortly. "Then stay here. Keep the doors locked, and make sure no one comes in or goes out. Don't leave the shop. If something happens, lock yourself in my office. It's the safest."
"You're keeping me out of things!" Sarah protested. "I don't want to just sit around -”
"You're fucking seventeen!" Shell snarled. "Someone's got to keep an eye on that bitch, and you're still a fucking kid, so shut the fuck up!" He caught the look on her face and softened his tone - somewhat. "That's at least one killer out there."
"We actually need you here," Jamal added. "Or she could escape."
Sarah sighed. "You'd better not kill him," she told them.
"Hardly," Candy replied. "Come on, men! We're going to save the princess! Tally-ho!" She pushed past Jamal and into the night; a few seconds later, she popped her head back inside. "Where to, Jamal?"
But the bookshop's proprietor shook his head helplessly. "I don’t know," he said. "Look anywhere. Everywhere. But start looking now."
To be continued...
WELL SORT OF.
YOU'LL SEE.
Not at all edited, formatted in a hurry - PLEASE SUGGEST CHANGES I MIGHT MAKE.
Sarah was exhausted by the end of the day. It was only great fondness for both Jamal and Rex that had kept her here after two hours' overtime, but Jamal was still absent and she was starting to feel a bit like Rex must have been.
It had been over a month, maybe more than two, since Rex had contracted some weird form of narcolepsy (or so Sarah presumed). Jamal had been trying to get to the bottom of the situation since then, although if he had discovered anything he wasn't telling. But the extra work hours Sarah had offered to take were taking their toll. Between work and school, she found herself without a single moment of free time. And sleep deprivation - lots of that.
She would never resent Rex, especially since ze was obviously apologetic and worried about the situation, but sometimes Sarah just wanted to let it be someone else's problem. For one day at least, she would've liked to just go home on time, do some leisure reading, skim some forums where a bunch of biology majors talked about the things they were researching. Get to sleep at a reasonable time. Eat a proper dinner.
But she wouldn't go back on her word; she remained in the shop late, sorting and shelving and running admin with Rex's sometime help. Sarah wanted to ask hir opinion of the ring Jamal had given her - it couldn't really be some kind of magical protection, could it? But Rex was spacey and even more prone to dozing than usual, even when constantly dosed with strong black tea, and so finally Sarah gave up and sent hir to sleep on the couch near the fireplace.
Really, though, she had no idea what Jamal was thinking. Obviously it meant something to him - that much was certain. And Jamal was generally speaking an in-the-know kind of guy, so she wasn't really sure where this whole 'magic' business was supposed to go. Maybe it was some sort of code? Maybe Jamal simply didn't want to say the real reason for these things. Maybe they were tracking devices so that if they were in trouble he could come after them. That made more sense than 'magic'.
If that were the case, though, Sarah was even less inclined to wear it. Jamal might have the best intentions in world, but she liked having privacy. Well, the ring was on the kitchen counter, and it wasn't as if Sarah really went anywhere besides her place, work, and class. Especially these days.
Which reminded her - she had a test tomorrow. Better get home and sleep, she thought, suddenly devoid of all energy. And it would be all right to leave Rex here, right? Ze was asleep, the doors were locked, and Sarah had no doubt that as far as bookshops went this one was the epitome of safety. It was probably the best place for a narcoleptic to be. And if ze woke up, there was tea and even some food in the back. They had taken to keeping a stash when Rex began voraciously devouring whatever was edible and present after waking up from any episode of slumber.
"Goodnight," she said aloud, feeling silly for it immediately after. Then she grabbed her key and put her coat on and left through the back, locking the door behind her. It was a cold, wet night, but the rain had stopped for now. The street was quiet. If only it were like this all the time, Sarah thought. Maybe she would take her time going home. It wasn't often she got a chance to see the streets like this.
Then she heard footsteps, somewhere ahead of her. It was difficult to see past the glare of the streetlight, but there seemed to be someone there. "Jamal?" Sarah called.
The figure paused, barely visible but clearly there, and then took two steps toward Sarah and into the light. Whoever they were, they certainly were not Jamal; beneath a dark cloak that swathed their head and body was pale skin and glinting hair. The face looked familiar, though from her distance Sarah couldn't tell. It could have been anyone.
Sarah backed up a step, another. Whoever this was, she didn’t want to deal with them. She wanted to go home and sleep so that she could ace the test tomorrow. There were back ways she could take. It wouldn't be that difficult to go the other way. And she wouldn't have to face the stranger, who for reasons unknown was frightening the hell out of her. Suddenly, foolishly, she wished she had Jamal's ring with her. Or better yet, Jamal himself.
She was taking another backwards step when the figure spoke. "Sarah Challis," it - she - said scornfully, and to her horror Sarah recognised the voice. Not well enough to place it - but she had heard that tone of disdain before. If only she could remember from who…
The strange woman stepped forward again, and again, and Sarah realised that she was walking quickly backwards, now running. Somehow the woman was gaining on her. It was as if she wasn't moving at all, despite all efforts. "Stop," she protested as the strange woman neared. "I don't want any trouble. Get away from me."
Her words had seemingly no effect, for soon the woman drew close. "Of course you don't," she replied in the same scornful tone. "But you're going to get it, because you didn't listen when I told you to stay out of matters too big for you to understand." She reached into her pocket, ignoring Sarah's gasp.
"But you're -” Sarah began, and then there was a strange scent in her nose that she mentally catalogued as 'chloroform' before losing consciousness.
--
Rex woke to darkened shop and rubbed at hir eyes idly. The teakettle was cold, so ze started up the woodburning stove again to reheat it. While ze waited, ze retreated to the register desk where a volume of Arthur Conan Doyle's best lay. Turning to page 264, Rex settled down to read until the kettle whistled.
But no sooner had ze settled in when ze heard a noise from the front of the shop. A man in a costume that bordered on ninja chic was closing the door gently, perhaps to prevent the bells from ringing. A burglar? Rex wondered, picking up the stick that Jamal had thoughtfully left behind the desk. "I'm sorry, but we're closed," ze announced.
The burglar looked over toward hir and abandoned the door without replying. Rex gripped the stick a bit tighter and repeated, "We're closed. You'll have to come back later."
Then suddenly the burglar reached into his belt. Before Rex could move, he had pulled out a gun, cocked it, and fired once. Rex felt as if in slow motion the shot blast through hir shoulder; an eternity later, it seemed, the pain followed suit. It felt hollow and obligatory, though, and Rex merely switched the stick to the other hand. There would be time to worry about that later.
"Please leave," ze said calmly. "If you keep waving that around, someone might get hurt."
The burglar, surprisingly, backed up a few steps. Rex stepped out from behind the desk, stick trailing unthreateningly. Then, less surprisingly, the burglar fired another two rounds. One grazed Rex's rib cage and the other bit through hir thigh. Dimly ze noticed that hir shirt and now pants were rapidly being soaked with blood, and that it was dripping down hir leg and from hir right arm onto the floor. I'll have to clean that, ze thought in resignation.
"You were shot three times!" the burglar shouted, speaking for the first time. His voice was surprisingly young. A shame, Rex thought. Poor kid had his whole life ahead of him.
But he had brought a gun into Jamal's bookstore. And Rex wasn't about to let him hurt someone or something here. Bringing hir bleeding arm around to grasp the stick, ze closed the remainder of the distance between the two of them and then swung the stick in a deadly arc toward the burglar's head. As ze felt the stick make contact, the world turned white, and once again Rex found hirself dropping into slumber.
--
The bookstore was dark when Jamal returned. Of course, there were plenty of reasons for this to be so, but Jamal's gifts lay in premonition. He knew already that something had happened here. He just didn't know what.
He almost tripped over something leaning against the wall by the back door; upon close inspection he found it to be Sarah's legs. Sarah herself was unconscious, and still smelled faintly of the chemicals that had been used to bring her to this state. Jamal felt cold fear as he examined her. There were no signs of injury, but under the chemical lay a more delicate odour.
Jamal knew the scent of magic anywhere. But this one was disturbingly familiar.
Not too long ago, Jamal had known something was coming. Great forces of nature were converging upon this city, and on the winds that heralded their coming, a bevy of unsuspecting souls were tossed into the mix. Jamal had seen this coming, had begun to move to gather the lost pieces of the puzzle in. First it had been Shell, who had been fortunate to live here in the first place, and then Candy, who had turned up years before the events would happen. Jamal had then assumed that it would be enough to survey from afar - he could not afford to become embroiled in events, in case he was not able to protect the city from such a position.
But he found that he wasn't content to simply watch. Somehow he became invested in his charges' wellbeing. He couldn't walk into the record store and announce himself, of course. What he was doing could be considered stalking. But when he happened upon Rex one day on a sidewalk, Jamal had acknowledged a lesson learned, and drew the third piece in.
That day on a very mundane sidewalk, in unexciting weather, Jamal had caught a whiff of something potent, some magic presence that surrounded Rex. At first he had assumed it to be a protection, for it surely seemed to be guarding something. And then Jamal had assumed it to be some sort of innate ability, dormant and merely protecting itself.
What he had refused to contemplate, and should have, was that the action of guarding was not for Rex's benefit, but rather someone else's.
A deep cold settled itself around Jamal's chest as he lifted the unconscious Sarah and carried her inside, onto the same couch he had used for Rex when the narcolepsy had begun. The pieces were beginning to reveal themselves to this puzzle, too. Things were escalating now, if Sarah had been vulnerable to attack despite the ring he had crafted.
Having set Sarah down safely, he left his office and walked into the faintly-lit shop proper. Rex was not on the ground anywhere, but the stoveside couch was just as empty. Jamal was not surprised. There was one place left to look, and he walked quickly to the register.
He was expecting to find a prone Rex, similarly scented to the unfortunate Sarah, perhaps bound in spell-canceling rope. He did not expect the strong metallic reek of blood to fill his nose, or to find the papers on the desk spattered with red, the floor slick with it. It took a great deal to really unsettle Jamal. This was more than enough, though, and he found that he was shaking as he traced the bloodstains toward the front door.
There was a body there, but it was wrong. There was no bleeding wound. And it wasn't Rex. Whoever it was, they were dead, and had been for about ten minutes. In one hand, they held a gun.
The bloodstains continued to the door. Its handle possessed a thin coating of it, and then all traces of the tangible trail were lost to the rain. The door itself was unlocked and ajar. Jamal wasn't a swearing sort of man under normal conditions. But as he stared at the door, he found himself hurling every curse in every language he knew at whoever had orchestrated this turn of events.
Someone was going to pay before this was over.
--
Shell woke from a distressingly upsetting dream to the piercing shriek of the telephone. Though he was relieved to be awake, there were appearances to maintain, and so it was with sharp vehemence that he growled out a "What the fuck do you want?" to whoever had decided it was a good idea to call him at this hour.
"I want you at the bookstore as soon as possible," Jamal told him, and to Shell's profound surprise, his voice was tight and demanding. In any other situation Shell would've snapped a "Fuck you" and hung up, but now he found himself acquiescing. Jamal never sounded like this - almost like he was afraid. And if things were bad enough that Jamal was afraid, Shell could give up some sleep to find out what was going down.
"I'm calling the others, but go collect them on your way. I don't want anyone on their own tonight." This said, Jamal hung up, and Shell knew it was more serious than he guessed, if he was being called upon to act as a guardian. And that's me, the fucking protector. But he didn't mind, not really - after all, someone had to look after the group, since they never seemed to see reason to do so. There was Sarah, who didn't watch her drink in bars, and Candy who flounced around town like no one would resent her for who she was. The first time he'd met Rex was after ze had been thoroughly decked out by a mugger. And then Hiro was way too nice for his own good.
Well, no one was gonna fuck with them on his watch. Not without dire consequences. The wrath of a werecat, Shell knew very well, was nothing to be trifled with.
Within five minutes he was dressed and slamming his locked door shut behind him as he ran out into the cold, rain-soaked street. He very nearly slipped on the slick concrete, but no puddle was going to get the best of Shell. Flinging a curse at it (metaphorically, of course), he kept running. He wasn't sure why he was running, Jamal's urgency notwithstanding. But he ran anyway.
Candy's door was locked and the light was on, and when Shell looked in through the window she was asleep in a chair. The light was blinking on the answerphone, next to the digital clock that proclaimed the time to be six in the evening. Muttering under his breath, Shell fished out the key from a pocket of his raincoat and let himself inside.
After some shaking, Candy opened bleary eyes. "This is no time to go nocturnal on me," she protested.
Shell somehow managed to get her properly dressed and running while he explained what little he knew. They passed both Sarah's and Rex's flats - no sign of life. Hiro's flat was dark still, but Shell figured that Jamal wouldn't want to drag someone so new to the city into what seemed to be important and possibly dangerous. There was no one else Shell could think of, so they hurried for the bookstore as quickly as they could.
The street outside was lit by light through the window, bright enough to hurt Shell's darkness-accustomed eyes, and so when he walked in he was not really looking where he was going. Then he nearly tripped over the long object wrapped in white cloth on the floor. After a moment of disorientation, the knowledge of what it had to be sunk in and Shell swore an oath that left Candy immensely impressed. "Jamal," he growled, "What the fuck is going on?"
The bookshop's proprietor emerged from behind a shelf, towing a dazed-looking Sarah along behind him. "I'll get there," he said ominously. "But first, did anyone of you see Rex?"
--
"You're telling me that all this blood is Rex's," Shell said slowly. Sarah had both hands over her mouth and was looking like the world was about to end, while Hiro's expression was a great deal less extreme. Candy was glaring at the dead guy like she was about ready to kill him again. Personally, Shell was angry, but not with the corpse. He'd had to have been paid by someone: few burglars would actually attempt to kill someone unless it would save their necks. Their success lay in bluffing.
"And somehow ze was able to kill the boy and walk out into the rain," Jamal repeated tightly. "While Sarah was otherwise occupied."
"I'm sorry," Sarah whispered around her hands. "I shouldn't have left hir alone asleep like that. I can't believe I was so stupid."
For the first time that night, Jamal smiled. For an attempt to be comforting at a time like this was, the smile was actually quite masterfully executed. "As I told you, you were under a compulsion. A strong one, too, if it got around the ring I made you."
The guilt on Sarah's face did not subside. If anything, actually, it deepened. "I didn't wear it," she said in as small, miserable voice. "It seemed pointless. Like a placebo or something. Not something important. I'm sorry."
Candy spoke up before the silence grew to be uncomfortable. "I can't see Rex killing someone at all," she announced. "The first time I met hir, ze was getting beat up by some mugger. And ze wasn't even fighting back? So how could ze suddenly be some easy killer?"
"Far too easily," said a woman, and they all turned to the door to see Kathleen standing there, dressed all in black and dripping all over the bloodstained floor. "About as easily as Sarah could be lured outside and the front door can be picked."
"Get out," Jamal told her cordially. "I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time. And we are closed."
"You did what to Sarah?" Candy demanded.
"What I said," Kathleen replied. "Had things gone to plan, you all would have been just fine. Sarah would've been a bit disoriented, but it wears off by morning. But no, you people can't even manage to avoid screwing yourselves over when you don't know anything's going on."
"Then tell us," Shell growled. "What the fuck is going on?"
Jamal stepped forward. "She's not telling anyone anything. I said to leave." The look he sent Shell was disapproving and probably calculated to shame him into silence, and on anyone else probably would've worked. He knew, too, that Jamal undoubtedly had an excellent reason for disallowing their furthered conversation. But he was way too angry at this point to care about any of this. Kathleen had fucked with Sarah and probably knew something about where Rex was - at least, more than Jamal knew, which while couched in fancy speculations was pretty much nada.
"Fuck you very much, Jamal," he said. "Maybe you have answers, but I sure as hell don't, and I want to know what she knows."
Jamal gazed at him for a moment as if contemplating overruling him, but then to Shell's surprise backed down. "Right then. Talk. And then go away."
All eyes on her now, Kathleen crossed her arms with surprising discomfort. "I told Sarah once that there were things about Rex I had no business telling her," she began. "Except I guess you're all involved now. The first thing to know is that he isn't who he thinks he is. The real Rex is… different."
"So we gathered," Sarah snapped, probably annoyed at her lack of knowledge. And she'd talked about Kathleen in a similar tone before, Shell recalled.
"Tell us," Jamal commanded.
"I first met Rex on a scouting mission," Kathleen said almost fondly. "For the group I'm with. He was in some sort of trouble with the police about busking, I think. And then there was a mess about him not having any sort of papers, because he was an illegal immigrant… But something ended up exploding, I think. And Rex was really upset. More than the situation seemed to warrant. I think the explosion was his fault."
"Hir," Sarah muttered under her breath.
"How?" Candy demanded, obviously incredulous in regards to Rex blowing anything up at all. Shell had to agree: it was a difficult notion to get his own head around. Mild-mannered Rex, lashing out in a fit of strong emotion? Hardly believable.
But Kathleen shrugged. "I don't know. He was pretty desperate to get out of his dilemma, though, so I offered him a job with us. Admin, paperwork. I pulled some strings to get him in without a fuss. The hiring itself was easy for us to keep secret from beaurocracy, since Rex didn't officially exist in this country.
"Some time after, they started using him for something else. Classified, of course, so I still don't know a lot, but within six months Rex was suddenly promoted to a field agent and was out on missions even I didn't have clearance to know about. He couldn't tell me, since they hypnotise the field agents back so that they never remember what it is they do. Anything else would be too dangerous for us. We all learned this - the hard way."
Jamal frowned, obviously not impressed with her dramatics. "Do you know anything about the nature of these… missions?" he inquired, voice understandably troubled.
"Peacekeeping," Kathleen replied easily. "It's what we do. Keeping the level of supernatural turmoil as low and regulated as possible. Getting rid of dangers. And we're good at it, too - we haven't had a mage battle in years, and nearly all the vampires are compromised."
The look on Sarah's face clearly spoke of disbelief; Shell made a mental note to have a word with her later about things, unless Jamal got there first. Biologist that she was, she couldn't go ignoring the lesser-known species and variants of humans that inhabited the city - and the world. Especially since at least two of her friends were such people, and it was looking like a third was going to have to be added to that list.
Jamal was looking pretty skeptical too, but that was undoubtedly for entirely different reasons. "Continue your story, then," he said slowly.
"Well, a series of stories in the news started hitting a little too close to home. Documenting… things we were doing. They didn't say it was us - they hardly knew - but a photographer got lucky. Caught Rex as he was leaving the scene of the… story coverage." Kathleen looked uncomfortable, but Shell could piece it together. Whatever Rex had been doing hadn't been good, and Kathleen knew it.
"So then what?" asked Candy. "The suspense is killing me! Spill!"
Kathleen looked down. "He found out when he got the paper that morning. Horrified, he confronted the people in charge and demanded that they stop. They told him that of course they wouldn't. Rex just didn't understand the bigger picture - it was an essential step to peace within the city. It still is. But he wouldn't understand, he couldn't, so he said he wanted out.
"They refused, of course. We couldn't have him free - he'd remember too much. And the hypnotism did strange things to his brain, so we apparently couldn't wipe his memory."
"He remembers all this?" Shell couldn't see the impact that kind of shit would have left Rex with. If Kathleen's 'group' had wiped hir memory, that would have made more sense - Rex gave the impression of not being all there a lot."
"No," Kathleen replied, and there was a guilty and desperate tinge to her tone. "They locked him up. Maximum security. But I got in one night, and got him out. I was going to give him amnesia - not erase the memories, but make him forget. And I did, and I thought it was okay. I gave him a whole new set of memories to explain why he was suddenly twenty-six. Then I got him an apartment and left him to function on his own."
Jamal nodded, his expression one of comprehension to Shell's profound disgust. "Except it didn't work like you thought it would."
Looking even more miserable, Kathleen nodded. "The hypnotism kicked in again. Except without direction, Rex wouldn't know when to start, when to stop. So whenever he fell asleep, it activated, and he went about his assigned duty. The more this happened, the more he needed to sleep, and it kept going."
Obviously horrified, Sarah protested, "But ze sleeps here all the time! Just sleeping, too!"
"That's because of the wards," Kathleen retorted as if it were obvious.
"I'll explain later," Jamal said, and his voice was not the gentle thing it had been before, but full of steel. "Continue."
"I've been taking extra time on missions and time off to find him. I didn't realise what was going on at first, but I figured it out in the end, and so I had to stop it." Kathleen looked even more miserable than ever as she spoke, and Shell had a slight inkling of what had to be coming.
"What's this 'it'?" he asked, to confirm his suspicions.
But Jamal answered first. "Genocide," he intoned in a voice that rumbled like thunder and shook them all.
Jamal wasn't a particularly intimidating guy, usually. Yeah, he was scary, but that was because he knew everything about everyone, and could see the future, and never missed a beat. But he wasn't big, he wasn't physically menacing, and he normally wore a smile. But when he didn't… he was threatening in a way that even Shell didn't quite understand. Shell wasn't into any sort of magic - changing unexpectedly into a feline was enough for him. But Jamal was, somehow, and now it was showing.
"Genocide," Jamal repeated just as terribly. "Purging the nonhuman species. I haven't seen a vampire in years here. When you said 'compromised', that was a euphemism for 'dead'." He seemed to grow taller, so that he roared down upon the others, although his voice was not particularly loud and his height stayed the same. "I will not tolerate that in my city!"
"It's for the common good!" Kathleen sniffed, although she looked shaken. "Not that I would ever bother explaining things to you. You're even worse than Rex about that, I bet. But that's not what I'm here for." Her face softened, saddened; her voice went quieter. "I need to eliminate him before he gets out of hand. You saw the papers, the girl who died - she was human. Rex isn't ours anymore - he's a killer. A monster. Mindless. He needs to be brought down." She exhaled, then seemed to collect herself, and just when Shell thought she had shut up for good so he could bash her skull in, she spoke yet again. "So that's the story, take it or leave it. And now, I hate to say it, but I need your help. Bring him down, or let him bring you down." Kathleen's face showed no emotion, but her voice possessed a hardness that made Shell want to punch every tooth out of her mouth. No one was supposed to talk about Rex like that. No one was supposed to talk so easily about that kind of slaughter.
He glared at Kathleen with every curse in his vocabulary and then some. "I won't help someone like you, and you're fucking batshit if you think otherwise," he shouted. "I won't do it. Get the hell out of here before I take you down."
Immediately Candy moved to stand beside him; Sarah was staring vacantly ahead, face frozen in some sort of extreme shock. But everyone else's attention was immediately upon Jamal. Shell was breathing hard, glaring at him, daring him to object.
But Jamal did not speak. After a moment, he stepped slowly behind Kathleen, anger and resolution still apparent in the very way he held himself. He remained silent.
Shell inhaled. "You lay a finger on hir, I kill you," he said, and was not at all certain to whom he spoke. "Don't think I can't."
After a beat, Kathleen laughed. It was a slightly hysterical sound, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Shell felt more than a little nonplussed. "You think - oh, you think you can do anything to stop me?" She laughed again, louder and more hysterical. "You actually want to fight?"
"If that's what it takes," hissed Shell.
"Don't bother," Kathleen said, and then suddenly the pressure around him increased and he found himself locked in place. He could scarcely breathe. "You won't be able to reach me. Your protections are pretty good, I'll admit, but not at this range. Not inside this place." She laughed a third time, crazily, and turned from Shell as if he didn't matter at all. "I'll be going now. Jamal, you understand the situation. At least one of you is sensible. Come on."
Jamal did not budge, but for his eyebrows that rose in a gesture of total lack of amusement. "You're not going anywhere," he said calmly.
"I'm leaving!" Kathleen snapped. "And you're coming with me! We're going to finish this before it gets worse!"
"You'll find that you are mistaken," Jamal replied.
Kathleen was losing it even more so now, twitching as if she were about to rush Jamal and take him down. But something was holding her back even as something held Shell back; it was like she was up against an invisible barrier. "Let me go!" she screamed, finally snapping Sarah out of whatever daze she was in. The latter looked wildly around and then hurried to Shell, obviously concerned.
"You - will - not - pass!" Jamal intoned, and if Shell had been able he would have thumped his head against something very hard. As it was, he only glared. This was not the time for humour.
It had the desired effect though. Kathleen had doubtlessly never bothered with high fantasy. She froze, back to the others, staring at Jamal in what was probably disbelief and fear.
Then Jamal brought his fist down on her head, and Kathleen crumpled where she stood, dropped to the floor. Shell mimicked this movement a second later as the pressure around him relieved, and then sat up, watching the room spin wildly around him.
"Sarah, I want you to tie her up and lock her in the second storage room," Jamal instructed shortly. "Then stay here. Keep the doors locked, and make sure no one comes in or goes out. Don't leave the shop. If something happens, lock yourself in my office. It's the safest."
"You're keeping me out of things!" Sarah protested. "I don't want to just sit around -”
"You're fucking seventeen!" Shell snarled. "Someone's got to keep an eye on that bitch, and you're still a fucking kid, so shut the fuck up!" He caught the look on her face and softened his tone - somewhat. "That's at least one killer out there."
"We actually need you here," Jamal added. "Or she could escape."
Sarah sighed. "You'd better not kill him," she told them.
"Hardly," Candy replied. "Come on, men! We're going to save the princess! Tally-ho!" She pushed past Jamal and into the night; a few seconds later, she popped her head back inside. "Where to, Jamal?"
But the bookshop's proprietor shook his head helplessly. "I don’t know," he said. "Look anywhere. Everywhere. But start looking now."
To be continued...