“I’ve been having these aches, you see,” says the woman in a high-pitched, grating voice, surreptitiously I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. She’s wearing a paisley shirt. Ugh.
“And my doctor recommended I take a few beginner’s Yoga classes,” she continues.
“How forward thinking of him,” Gabriel mutters quietly.
“But the problem is,” she goes on. “I have absolutely no clue where to start. I thought I’d purchase a book first to learn the basics before booking a class.”
“Very wise,” says Gabriel. “But I’m afraid I’m no expert in this area.”
I get up from my crouched position by the shelves and walk over to the counter. “You should probably go for Hatha,” I tell her, shoving the extra blank price tags into the cupboard below. She glances in my direction when I speak, looking grateful for any advice. “Ashtanga is very fast-paced and intense, Hatha is more slow and gentle, better for a beginner,” I plaster a smile on my face.
“Oh,” she says grinning, causing the skin around her eyes to crinkle. “That’s great, thanks. I’ll take this one then,” she says to Gabriel, handing him the Hatha book.
“You do Yoga?” Gabriel asks casually, after he’s taken for the book and popped it into a bag for the woman.
“I did,” I answer. “I’ve been meaning to get back to it, but I’m just too lazy.”
Gabriel smiles, eyes lingering on my face, he shakes himself and looks away. “I forgot to mention, Marcel wants to do some spell casting at lunch, you up for it?” he continues.
I hesitate. “Actually, I can’t. I have plans for lunch, sorry.”
Gabriel’s green eyes find me again as he glances up from the book he’s been skimming all day. He studies me a minute. “You aren’t so keen on this whole thing, are you?” he asks.
“Well, I’m not exactly over the moon about all the expectation.” I reply. “It’s too much. Ethan and Marcel are so eager. I don’t like all eyes to be on me like this, I more a wallflower type.”
“I find that hard to believe,” says Gabriel, in a quiet voice.
I wonder at his remark but don’t question it. I’m not lying about having plans for lunch either. I called Rita this morning and organised to meet at a café down the street. I’m curious to ask her about this Sorcerer Theodore character, since she seems to be in the know with magical goings on.
“I’ll let Marcel know you can’t make it then,” Gabriel continues. “But are you sure you can’t put your plans off until tomorrow? Marcel’s excited to make a start, and you know how busy he can be, who knows when he’ll next have the free time to do it.”
That’s what I’m counting on, my mind adds. “Sorry. I’m meeting Rita. It’s important so I can’t put it off.” I tell him.
“You’re meeting Rita?” Gabriel asks in surprise. “I hadn’t realised you two were friends.”
I shrug. “We got talking when she dropped in the other day. She’s actually quite nice underneath it all,” I plaster a smile on my face. “We Goth girls have to stick together you know.”
Gabriel cocks an eyebrow. “What’s that like, some kind of solidarity of the disenfranchised?”
I laugh. “Something like that.”
Gabriel appears as though he wants to say more but is holding back. Perhaps my becoming friends with Rita isn’t something he wants to happen. I’m almost certain Marcel wouldn’t like it if he knew. Nobody wants two clever girls with no proper loyalty to anyone putting their heads together. All sorts of mad hat schemes could be thought up. And that’s precisely why I plan to cultivate the relationship. What can I say, I’m not fond of these men thinking they can control me because I’m young and somewhat ignorant. I’d been dazed by all of the new truths. But now that I’ve finally gotten my head round it all I plan on being a lot less malleable.
Rita’s sitting by the window knocking back a shot of espresso when I get to the café. Coffee and Mexican food, I always thought that was a strange combination. The place is called “The Sombrero Bean” whoever came up with that name deserves a good kicking.
“Aye, Aye Captain,” she calls in a singsong voice when she sees me approach, giving a little hand salute, I sit down as she remarks. “I have to say I am intrigued, if I wasn’t I probably wouldn’t have bothered showing up.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel wanted.” I tell her sarcastically, though I’m not so put off by her rudeness. I’m beginning to understand it’s simply a common aspect of her personality. I don’t think she can help it.
“You’re welcome,” she grins.
I shake my head and a waitress appears a second later to take our order. I go for the quesadillas but decline on combining it with coffee and ask for a coke. Rita gets tacos and another double shot of espresso. I think I might be sick. I’ve never had the stomach for strong coffee, but some people just seem to love it.
“So,” says Rita, after the waitress saunters away. “Hit me. What’s the big scandal?”
I take a deep breath, and then give her an account of what happened last night after I’d left her place. Of course, leaving out the part when Ethan took me home. I finish on the bit where the deranged homeless guy acts out his spiel about the Sorcerer Theodore and then lunges for Herrington with a knife.
Rita appears to be holding her breath. “And – what happened then?” she asks in one rapid swoop.
“Herrington’s guards stopped him,” I tell her. “I don’t know what they did to him after they took him out of the office, and really, I don’t think I want to know.”
She half shudders. “Yeah me neither.”
“So, who is this Theodore character, and why were the vamps so freaked by the mention of his name?” I ask, getting to the crux of it.
Rita’s eyes sparkle with untold knowledge, and I can tell I’m in for a good story. “You want the long version or the – no wait actually there’s only the long version, so sit tight.”
“Go on,” I say.
Rita grins again, sort of mischievously. “I really am becoming your go to girl for information, aren’t I?”
“Whatever. I’ll buy you a new pair of Doc Martens some time, just tell me.” I say on a sigh.
“I want a red pair,” she replies smiling. “Okay, well, it’s a good thing my mum is so big on storytelling, or else I probably wouldn’t know a thing about this guy. So, you know how Tribane is divided these days, into vamp territory and dhamphir/warlock territory?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I answer simply.
“Well, it hasn’t been like that for very long, only since like the late sixties. Before that, I suppose you could say there was a kind of dictatorship under the rule of the Sorcerer Theodore. And before you ask, because I know you will, a sorcerer is a very rare kind of warlock, one who has surpassed an extremely high level of expertise in magical practice to the point of becoming immortal through magic and very near indestructible. I mean, not just a thousand years immortal like the vampires, but immortal immortal. As in they never die.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I think I got that Rita.”
“Well you are so very in the dark about a lot of things, I just thought I’d drill the point home,” she laughs. “Anyway, Theodore ruled Tribane from 1939 until the sixties, he had this massive estate on Ridley Island.”
“You mean the one just a mile off the coastline? The deserted one?” I ask.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” says Rita. “And you have to wonder why it’s been deserted for so long. If you ask me, it’s all the bad magical residue leftover from when Theodore died. My mum says you used to be able to see his mansion from the city, every night it was lit up by all sorts of colourful lights from the carnival rides on the grounds.”
“Carnival rides?” I ask, bemused.
“Apparently Theodore was crazy for all that fun fair stuff, he collected old rides, antiques like the big wheel and the chair-o-planes, and he had this big creepy carnival just inside the gates of his estate. He used to hav
e his servants turn them on every night, with music and all, you know that kind of old piano and accordion fair music.”
This provokes a memory in me, something recent, but I can’t place it so I brush it off as random meaningless déjà vu. “It’s doesn’t sound that creepy,” I interject.
Rita sighs. “It is when you consider the fact that the rides went on and on without anyone ever riding them. Like a ghost carnival. Moving but empty.”
“Okay, I suppose that is a little bit spooky,” I admit.
“You think?” says Rita, shaking her head. “So back to the story, Theodore was brutal in his dictatorship. My mum said he’d kill you for so much as a dirty look. The vampires resented him for the fact that he enforced massive taxes on them, you know how they’re always such enterprising business people. So in following, they had big income which got taxed by Theodore through the roof. He got rich off of their hard work. If they refused to pay he’d make sure their business went under with a spell.”
I nod in understanding, though the only vampire businessperson I know is Ethan, still, he is fairly successful.
Rita continues. “The warlocks resented him too, but more because he had such powerful magic. They were envious of his power and also despised the authority he held over them. The warlocks like to think they’re superior to everyone else, if you hadn’t noticed. The fact that Theodore, one man, could control all of them as well as the vampires and the dhamphirs, well that just really stuck in their craw. In the early sixties those who hated Theodore began to get organised, secret societies formed with the sole purpose of bringing him down.” Rita pauses and shrugs.
“You know how revolutionary people were back then. Anyway, everyone says that Theodore knew about this but didn’t care much, since he considered himself so far above them as to be untouchable. I guess that was his one big mistake. He didn’t bother to keep the societies in check and before he knew it they’d managed to construct an all-powerful blocking spell. You know the whole section of Tribane that makes up Little China?” Rita asks, pausing in her story. I nod.
“Well that used to be the stomping ground of the Blue Society, just one of the anti-Theodore groups. They had some young hot shot leader, Peter something or other, he was an exceptionally talented magic user, and so, under his leadership the Blue Society concocted a magical formula strong enough to prevent Theodore from using his magic on the whole area around their street. The blocks started out small, they tested it on a short stretch of land and then another. When it worked successfully, the Blue Society began selling the formula to other groups, and soon there were little or no places left for Theodore to control.”
“The vamps got in on it too, but their blocks weren’t as strong since they weren’t as skilled in magic as the warlocks. The dhamphirs have somewhat of a natural affinity for magic, like Gabriel, but the vampires are fairly clueless, at least they were back in the sixties. So Theodore lost all the control he had over the magic using population, as well as a serious amount over the vampires, though not completely since they couldn’t block him like the warlocks could. For a while Theodore disappeared off the radar, and supernatural society went on as normal.”
“Then, on the last day in December, when the New Year’s festival was being held down by the port, it used to be a tradition where all supernaturals put their differences aside for one night and welcomed in the New Year together. People were partying the night away and having a good time, but when the fireworks display was about to begin, Theodore appeared on a twenty-foot high podium holding a tank of petrol in one arm and a flame-thrower in the other, grinning down on the crowd like a maniac. Don’t quote me on this, but apparently he said something like. “You came for a fireworks display, good people of Tribane, well I’ll give you one then.” And he poured the petrol all over himself, before lighting it on fire and leaping from the podium. He crashed to the ground, pulverising himself while he burned.”
Shocked, I ask, “But then how could it be Theodore who organised the attack on Herrington, surely if that’s how he died then there was a body, some sort of proof that he was actually dead?”
“There were well over a thousand people all in one small space Tegan, people panicked when he jumped, a riot broke out, chaos ensued, and his body was never found,” says Rita, in a matter of fact voice.
“So what happened then?” I probe, eager to learn more.
“Well, there were a couple months of peace before power struggles began to break out between the vampires and the warlocks, the dhamphirs weren’t involved because their numbers are so much smaller. Eventually there was a stand-off and the decision was made to split the city down the middle. The vampires got one half and the warlocks got the other, while allowing the dhamphirs to share their territory in exchange for their allegiance. The rules were drawn up and there’s been the same segregation ever since.”
“It’s so strange that there’s this whole other history to this city that nobody even knows about.” I say, still comprehending Rita’s account. “This whole other set of politics. It’s really very bizarre.”
“You’ll get used it,” says Rita, picking up a taco and taking a big hungry bite. “Then again, this has always been my truth, so I don’t exactly know how you’re gonna get your head round it. But I’m sure you’ll adapt.”
“Yeah, I hope so,” I reply, before digging into my own lunch.
We eat in silence for a few minutes, allowing the bustling lunch time café noises to drift over us. Then a question forms in my head. “So, what’s your opinion on what happened to Herrington, do you think it really is Theodore come back from the dead?”
Rita pauses eating to consider it. “Could be,” she replies. “But then again, it could just as easily be some fanatic trying to get some attention. The only thing we can do is sit back and wait and see. If you ask me, there are certain people in this city who deserve Theodore as an enemy, a bit of a power shake up might not be such a bad thing.”
I take a sip of Coke. “I suppose.” I answer, while wondering what might happen to me if Theodore has somehow returned from the dead. The vampires will surely be doing everything possible to find a way to become more powerful. And what could be better for a blood sucker under threat than a variety of food which can provide him with strength ten times more potent than that he was born with?
Chapter Fifteen
Quitting While I’m Ahead
Rita walks with me back to the shop once we’ve finished lunch. She compliments me on my outfit, which is a first. I’m wearing black docs over black skinny jeans with a silky black vest top and my long combat green military jacket. Nothing special, but perhaps the simplicity works. My nerves are slightly on edge about going back to work, but I can’t place why. It’s not the shop itself that unsettles me, it’s Marcel. There’s something not quite right about his intentions and his air of cheery frivolity.
Indigo is empty when we step inside, both laughing about the crazy evangelical self-proclaimed prophet who’d been preaching about the end of the world a couple buildings down. I’m sure the joke will be on us if his ramblings turn out to be real prophecies, but come on, what’s the likelihood? Then I remember my own current situation and re-think my answer.
“What’s so funny, girls?” asks Marcel, marching out of the staff door, Gabriel behind him, and behind Gabriel, someone else. Finn Roe. Damn. I’d actually forgotten about him. This city is beginning to feel way too fucking small. Am I the only person who doesn’t know everyone?
“Oh, just another of those homeless messengers of our Lord Jesus Christ,” replies Rita with sarcasm.
Marcel almost completely ignores her, he turns to address me. “It’s a pity you were busy this lunch time,” he says, on the surface his voice is friendly, but what lies beneath, well, that really is the question. “I’ll have to try and free up some time for tomorrow, or perhaps Friday,” he continues, “so that we can make a proper start on our little project.”
I look at Rita for a moment, bot
h of us knowing that Marcel is someone I’m going to have to start trying to avoid. Unfortunately, I don’t think our loaded glances escape the eyes of those present. I look at Marcel quickly, and then at Gabriel. Yeah, they definitely noticed.
“Nice to see you again, love,” says Finn in an overly happy voice, he seems delighted to be witnessing this tension that doesn’t involve him. Oh the joys of being a spectator. “I should have guessed you two would know each other,” he continues taking in myself and Rita together, “the morbid twins, that’s what I’ll have to call you now that you’re a twosome.”
My eyes turn to Finn for the first time. “Excuse me?” I ask in a snappy tone, his little jibes about me are beginning to get old, and this is only the second time I’ve met him.
“Don’t mind Van Helsing over there,” says Rita with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Or do you prefer Buffy?” she finishes with a laugh. I can’t help but to smirk.
Finn grins back at her, unfazed. “Call me whatever you like, darlin’, there are worse names out there.”
I take in the sight of Finn standing there with Marcel by his side, and get the funny feeling I’ve been the topic of conversation amongst them.
“So,” says Rita with folded arms. “What’s this, some sort of boys club?” and she gestures at the three of them.
“Finn came to inform myself and Gabriel of an important development,” says Marcel, “although the very fact that it is important means it is none of your concern, Rita.”
His harshness irks me, and I narrow my eyes in sheer irritation. I’m surprised by my own words when I say, in an icy tone, “Don’t talk to her like that.” Gabriel’s green eyes peer at me, similarly surprised by my reaction.