The Saint of Liars, page 21
Rune’s eyes followed him as he stopped in front of a new black fedora, shaped much like his battered grey one. Automatically, her brain noted the shape of his shoulders and how they tapered into his waist. Secretly, she admitted to herself that she was loving this. Rune hadn’t been on many dates, though walking around like this wasn’t really a date. She simply enjoyed the feeling of him being near her. Really. Yet the high schooler in her squealed that this was exactly like a date. An accidental date was still a date. Of course, standing there staring at him while her mind continued its irrational party was a good way to get caught in the act. Instead, she joined him at the table, picking up a stylized top hat to try on.
“Are you disappointed?” Good. That sounded nonchalant enough.
He gave a half shrug. “When you say something like Magic Guild Headquarters or Wizard’s ConClave, I guess I pictured something more fantastical. You know, people flying back and forth on broomsticks or talking plants, sparkles everywhere. This is all pretty … mundane.”
“I’m sure we can find the table with some talking plants if you want. They don’t usually say much, maybe two or three phrases. Like parrots.”
St. Benedict arched an eyebrow at her. “Seriously?”
“Hey, magic folk have their gag gifts, too. We are people.”
“Like those people?” he asked, nodding toward a pair of green humanoids wearing superhero t-shirts. They seemed to be in the midst of a lively debate as they passed.
“Scientific magic? That makes zero sense,” said one as she tried to open a box of candy.
“What else would you call it?” her more androgynous looking, tree-like friend asked.
“Superpowers are not magic. They are two very distinctive things.”
“Flying and laser vision and super strength caused by fake radiation that turns you colors. Sure, that’s not magic,” the other’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Rune nodded. “Dryads.”
“Are they?” St. Benedict squinted at the couple as they moved away. “They don’t look so much like trees as tree huggers. I mean, the green hair could be dyed.”
“But it isn’t. Their hair is actually a filament that allows for photosynthesis, much like other plants,” Rune said, replacing the tricorne hat she had been messing with on the stand. She moved away to go to the next table.
“Do they change color in the fall?” he asked. He may have been going for mirth, but it came off a little sarcastic.
“Yes,” Rune said carefully. She studied his body language again. He had stuffed his hands into his pockets as he followed her, and seemed to hunch in, trying to make himself as compact as possible as people passed him. It gave him a veneer of cool hostility.
“Who are you supposed to be?” a kid asked the Saint before they had taken a few more steps.
“Excuse me?” St. Benedict blinked at the kid.
“He’s from Werewolves of Chicago,” the kid’s probably older sister said as she herded them both away. “Come on, Mom’s looking for you.”
“Werewolves of Chicago?” St. Benedict asked, turning back to Rune.
“You’ve never heard of that show?” Rune asked.
“It’s a show?”
“Yes, it’s a thing that you watch on this other thing called a TV. Many, many people have them.” Rune’s voice adopted a sing-song quality frequently heard on children’s shows.
He narrowed his eyes at her, an amused smirk creeping on his face. “Isn’t TV a technology thing?”
“Oh! So you have heard of it?” Rune asked, cocking her head to the side, keeping her voice light and airy. “Well, you see, people have this thing called money and whether they are magical, hominal, or otherwise, they can exchange that money for goods or services. And since TVs are easy to make and almost anyone can use them, they tend to sell a little better.”
They continued strolling side by side.
“I see, so you’re saying magic can’t do everything better after all?” He nodded as if he was having an epiphany.
Stopping by a table with a variety of wands displayed in racks under a glass counter, Rune’s face grew more somber. Dropping the sing-song voice, she said more seriously, “There is a very real danger that technology will replace magic completely, like Malachi said, isn’t there? You get the rest of Justin’s work, and all this will dwindle into nothing. Be obsolete. And you’ll all be rich and laughing.”
They stood silently, looking at the various woods and inlays of the wands.
“I’m going to destroy it.”
Rune blinked and looked up at St. Benedict.
“Maxamillion thinks this technology is something that can be used for good. I’m going to see it destroyed.”
“Is that really possible?” She looked down at his hand, thin scars criss-crossing over the surface in no particular pattern, simply the sign of the price he paid for his life. “Once a knowledge is discovered, isn’t it only a matter of time before someone else figures it out again?”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he nodded at the glass case. “I thought all your magic was done with crystals?”
“Crystals are only one way to do magic. Wands work too or silver or gold or skulls or whatever. Different schools of magic use different tools. Crystals are a universal constant. So they became the most economical way to store spells for everyone to use, our attempt at streamlining, but there are lots of magic users who are better at using wands to do magic outside of their Talent.”
“Would you like one?” he asked.
“A wand? No, no, thank you,” Rune giggled at the thought. “I’m more likely to poke my eye out than actually get it to work.”
“Is there anything here that you would like?” he asked, turning out toward the sea of booths. Rune followed his gaze. There were many things she would want, but it felt uncomfortable to say it out loud seriously.
“All of it,” she tried to quip, and they both giggled politely. “I don’t know… what is the price limit?”
His grin would have made a Cheshire cat jealous. “Maybe keep it under $1000.”
“Ha!” Rune was floored, but that was probably the idea. “I… I… why?”
St. Benedict half-shrugged. “Because I feel like it.”
“Wait. Are you… are you secretly rich?” Rune asked, looking at St. Benedict in a new light. She had always assumed he had money, but she had never really seen him use it, either.
“I have some, but I don’t usually get to spend it since I never need to,” he conceded.
“Because your company gives everything to you?” Rune gave the word company a nice varnish of contempt.
“Yes. And also there is nothing that I want.” They rounded the corner at the end of the row of tables and continued around to the next row.
“That must be nice. Having all your everythings met. I can barely keep my bar afloat and in my possession. If I buy a designer coffee, I feel wasteful.” Rune couldn’t help thinking about the state of her bar and all the things falling apart there. Several of the booths here had the more expensive crystals available and with an unlimited credit account, a bag full would go a long way to fixing everything quickly and easily. Her thoughts danced over the business card associated with her OmniSin, but buying these things wasn’t exactly a Corinthe business expense. She imagined she’d have to validate her purchases later. She would have to wait until she fulfilled her agreement with Maxamillion if she wanted extra cash.
“Then what would you like? On me, I promise. Don’t even worry about the price tag. Anything on this whole floor.”
Rune shook her head. “Thank you, no.”
The Saint bounced on his feet. “Oh, come on. Please?”
She laughed at his little-boy antics. “I said no. Thank you.”
“Why?” He genuinely looked a little crushed by her refusal.
“It’s just… Justin used to do that all the time.” She ran her fingers through a bin full of polished wood pieces, focusing on the sensory feeling, rather than the familiar pain that accompanied the memories. “I mean, I’m sure you mean it differently than he did, but whenever he wanted to show off or he was feeling bad about himself, one of his tricks was to flash money around to impress me. Or whomever. He would take me to stores and tell me to buy whatever I wanted, go to fancy dinners, spontaneous trips. And it worked too. I’d eat it up. I don’t like the person it made me, nor how it made me feel. Because … in the end, he never gave me what I really wanted.”
Rune stared down into the wooden pieces, looking gently sad yet sweet, as if she could divine a better world in the chaotic wooden patterns.
“What was that?” St. Benedict asked softly, barely able to breathe to ask the question.
“I don’t want to sound like a sappy cliché.” She withdrew her hand from the bin to walk away and shut the dark thoughts away, but she made the mistake of meeting his haunted eyes. They stopped her, requiring her to answer.
“I wanted him to love me. But he didn’t.” She shrugged and smiled, having paid her toll. She walked away from St. Benedict so she didn’t have to keep meeting his eyes. She didn’t want to know what he thought about what she said. It was her pain and none of his business.
“Hey, before,” she said, following a thought she had earlier, “you said you had worked with my ex on the ‘Masterson Files’? Why do you need them then? Couldn’t you simply remember the formulas yourself?”
The Saint smiled, or rather he tried to smile, his teeth forming more of a grimace than a grin. “Yeah. You see… I, uh, ha… I have brain damage.”
Rune stopped in her tracks, blinking. He noticed and turned to face her, still smiling, unfazed.
“What do you mean, you have brain damage?” she asked. After glancing over his shoulder at nothing, St. Benedict tapped the side of his face. “When they took us… they weren’t gentle about it. I took several blows to the head, and some memories were … damaged. I can’t remember any of the formulas or what happened exactly. At least, it’s really fuzzy and partial at best. It was why we tried to develop the memory scanner, using the implants they put in here to try to fish out the memories. Didn’t work.”
“St. Benedict. I’m so sorry,” Rune said and tried to touch his face, yet he shifted to let another patron behind him get past, effectively dodging away.
“I’m fine. Better than fine most of the time. The implants help regulate things, and I can read at an incredible speed now.” He winked at her, turning to keep walking by her side.
“Excuse me. That is beautiful work,” a voice interrupted, as they passed a leather-crafting table. A large, buxom woman in a top hat emerged from her booth with a kind smile and genuine interest. She indicated Rune’s leather belt with two fingers.
“Oh! Yes. Thank you,” Rune said, surprised.
“It’s Faerie-work, correct?” The woman wiggled her fingers at the scrolling on one of Rune’s pouches as if she desperately wanted to run them over the surface. “Would you mind… and it’s fine if you do, but could I take a look at the maker’s mark?”
“Um,” Rune set her fingers on her belt, strangely loathe to take it off, but there didn’t seem to be a good reason not to. “I guess…”
“Why do you want to see it?” St. Benedict interceded, edging closer to Rune.
The woman blinked at him, only then noticing the Saint standing next to Rune.
“Oh, yes. Faerie Masterworks are very rare. I’ve never seen one walking around in the wild before,” she added, smiling wide, like a small predator. It put Rune in mind of a dog’s smile, or actually … a fox seemed more accurate.
“I suppose it would be nice to know more about it.” Rune unbuckled the belt and held it out. Delighted, the woman turned back to her booth, flicking what was clearly a fox-tail back and forth that emerged from under the edge of her bright red tunic. She ducked under the overhang she had erected for displaying her goods, her black leather top hat barely clearing. The booth smelled strongly of leather and the oils used on them as Rune and St. Benedict followed her inside. There were so many items that the few people perusing made the space feel tight. There was an array of colors, from common brown and black to bright reds, blues, greens, and purples.
The foxy woman went to a worktable she had set up near the back. A portable, adjustable magnifying glass sat there with a light shining down on the surface and her leather-working tools. It looked like she was in the middle of crafting something, but she cleared the piece out of her way and laid Rune’s belt under the light. The fox woman started having a fit of the giggles.
“Oh my goodness and gracious,” she tittered, running her fingers over the leather as if reading its history in every tooled whirl and sewn pocket. “This is beautiful.”
After removing her hat, which revealed a pair of large foxy ears, she readjusted the magnifying glass over the belt and pushed another orange lens into place. A spark made everyone jump, except the foxy woman. She leaned in even more, studying what she saw with intense concentration, then softly started counting under her breath.
“Your belt here has got over a dozen or so spells on it,” she declared. Now Rune leaned in with interest.
“I mean, it is Faerie made…” Rune started to explain.
“Yes, yes. I see all the typical spells,” the foxy woman gave a dry chuckle. “I mean as typical as leather-working goes. This is incredible work. The blending of magic and leather. I’ll never be this good.” She continued to study, not even waiting for a response to her comments. It was more like she was only talking to herself.
“What are the ‘typical’ spells?” St. Benedict asked, since Rune wasn’t going to.
“Oh, you know, protection against wet and heat. Ward against tearing. Don’t prevent it, mind you, but it usually lessens the small stuff. Especially when you have a minor self-heal worked in, which you do. Anything beyond that, I usually need to inlay crystals or something, but there are spells here…”
Then she became somber again as she stared harder through the lens. “You… you also have spells worked into the leather that I don’t outright recognize…” She sat up straight, her eyebrows pinched in worry, before she looked into a bag that rested at the back of her booth.
“Is everything alright?” Rune asked, stretching her own neck out to try to get a glimpse of whatever the fox woman saw on the other side of her lens. Through the amber lens, Rune saw strings of different colored magic floating over the belt, as if it had its own energy field.
“Yeah, yeah. I just want to look something up. You’ve got at least four, maybe five different spells woven in here that I can’t really identify.” She flipped open a worn spell book that looked like it had been printed in the ’70s. After checking a few pages, she stopped to read silently for a couple of tense moments.
“Hey, how much are these gauntlets?” a customer who had been perusing asked, interrupting her.
“$35,” she said, looking up.
“Oh, then never mind,” the customer said and dropped the black and blue leather gauntlets back on the table.
The foxy woman rolled her eyes and sighed. “Everyone wants it for free. It’s not like I’m asking for their eternal souls,” she muttered. “As for your belt, someone has really messed with it.” The foxy woman slid to the side a little and gestured for Rune and St. Benedict to have a look. “You have a slew of spells here, but they aren’t typical leather working spells, and I would say aren’t Fae ones either. On top of that, they’ve been broken. So the magical potential is there, but your energies can’t reach it and the spell won’t activate.”
Rune gazed down through the lens, but other than the fact that she could see magic present, she might as well have been looking at an x-ray for all the sense she could make out of it. As if reading her mind, the foxy woman telescoped out a pointer and started indicating whirls on the surface of the belt. “Do you see this line here? Someone deliberately slashed it.”
“What like sabotage?” St. Benedict asked. Rune could practically see his hackles start to rise in tandem with her own. This was worrisome.
“Yes, I do see it,” Rune said, reaching out a finger to touch the mar in the design. The edges of the leather puckered a little, much like a wound, breaking through three whirls. Through the lens Rune could see that the magic lines mirroring the whirls didn’t move like the other spells did. Instead, they were still.
“Wouldn’t the self-healing spell fix this?” St. Benedict asked.
“Not something like this. It’s too deep, for one, and had to have been done with cold iron. Cold iron can act as a cauterizer for spells if someone knows how to do it right. That and the fact that it neatly interrupts these extra spells without completely dispelling them tells me that this was done deliberately and by someone who knew what they were doing.” The foxy woman started looking at her book again, her face scrunched and puzzled by the mystery.
“Could these be Wizard spells?” Rune asked.
“What are you thinking, Rune? That Maddie did this?” St. Benedict asked. He laid a supporting hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Rune realized he was concerned about her bursting into tears at the mention of her beloved, deceased great aunt. While Rune’s throat felt a little tight, she was in no danger of falling into grief.
“Maddie was the one who gave this to me,” she informed the foxy woman. Good. Her voice was steady. “If she did do this, she’d have a good reason.”
The foxy woman paused and regarded her.
“Sorry, who did you say you were?” she asked.
“We didn’t. You invited us in,” St. Benedict said in that stiff, polite way that came off as a little menacing.
The foxy woman cocked an eyebrow but accepted that, nodding.
“Is it possible to repair this?” Rune asked.
“Oh, yes, easily. Would take me maybe ten minutes?” The foxy woman immediately picked up a squeeze bottle and began shaking it before biting the cap off.
