Post by namjai on Jun 16, 2009 22:33:09 GMT -4
INDEX CARD
TITLE: Phoenix
AUTHOR: namjai
TYPE (one-shot, chapters, part of a series): chapters
RATING: (K, T, M, MA): T
LEAD CHARACTERS: Bianca, Wyatt
ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Valerie, an innocent; and Kovart, a demon
SHORT SUMMARY: In the changed future, Bianca lives on -- and must still choose between evil and good, between her heritage and a new path.
Bianca watched her mother chop tomatoes with the same precision she used for potion-making. Lynn was preparing marinara sauce from her own recipes, one she had never written down but made it just so -- and Bianca had been relegated to boiling pasta.
Waiting for water to boil is not the most mentally taxing task, which left Bianca free to silently obsess over the events of the day and on the questions she wanted to ask her mother, if her nerve did not fail her.
As it happened, Lynn broached the subject herself as she minced garlic and her daughter listlessly watched the pot of water faintly steam.
"Did you deliver the potion today?"
"Of course," Bianca answered. "Why would you think I wouldn't?"
"You were late. Our client called to ask where you were."
"Your client," Bianca muttered, but before her mother could catch that, in a rush of bravery, she pushed on. "He made sure I knew I was late. But you never told me it had to be delivered in the morning. What is it, for some noontime ritual? That's not usually a demon's style."
"I don't know why he needs it in the morning. It's enough that he does, and you'll make sure to be there by noon tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? You mean Friday, right?"
"No, I mean tomorrow. He asked for a special delivery, and I agreed. Even though he never told us he needed the potion delivered before noon, he seems to think we need to make it up to him. So we will. We can't get on his bad side. So I'll be making a potion tonight. It won't be as strong as it could be, because it won't sit for two days like it's supposed to, but it will work well enough." She glanced at her daughter and seemed to realize: "You have classes tomorrow. You shouldn't skip. I'll make the delivery."
Bianca had, in fact, been worrying over her full schedule tomorrow morning, about to protest. But no sooner had Lynn preemptively relented, Bianca changed her mind. There was more at stake here than her grade in sociology.
"I'll go. I have a break in my schedule around ten. No big deal."
Later that evening, Bianca set aside her reading for the class she now meant to skip, and returned to the kitchen, where her mother now worked at concocting something very different from marinara sauce. The hum of the dishwasher underscored the occasional pops and hisses as Lynn added ingredients to her potion. The Grimoire lay open on the counter, but she did not consult it -- she had made the potion repeatedly in the past two weeks.
Bianca had had no part in the preparation, and had wanted no part. Making deliveries was enough of an imposition on her time, but her mother insisted Bianca take some responsibility in the work that kept this apartment, paid her tuition. It was only the two of them, mother and daughter in the destined calling of magical mercenaries: Phoenix witches, a line seeded in fury and revenge centuries ago. They were not alone in sharing the distinctive mark of their kind, but it was not as though they all got together in a cozy coven to chant "Blessed Be" and trade potion recipes, or whatever good witches did. Bianca had met other Phoenix witches from time to time, when her mother made a call for assistance or consultation. But more often, Lynn worked alone, and trained her daughter to follow in her footsteps alone.
Sometimes Bianca wished she could have studied full-time, graduating two years earlier, and she often felt run ragged by the extra load of work her mother gave her. And other times she felt insulted that her job was to be nothing more than a delivery girl while her mother did the magical heavy-lifting for her most powerful clients. That's how Bianca had felt this time -- at the beginning. It had turned into something different now.
Now she was going to push for information.
She read the Grimoire's open page, and asked, "So why does Kovart want a 'Psychic Enhancement' potion? Trying to read people's minds?" Bianca spoke casually, but the idea worried her, considering her own traitorous thoughts when in the same room with her mother's demon client today.
"No, that's not what it does. It enhances mental energy of the one who consumes it, causing nightmares, hallucinations."
"Why would anyone want to consume it?"
"Some demons do get off on it, but it's more likely Kovart is using it on someone else, an enemy, obviously -- someone he wants to incapacitate."
"Who?"
"I didn't ask, why would I? And he's certainly not telling."
"I'm just wondering about the potion, how it works." Bianca backed these words up by examining the Grimoire's recipe and then the simmering cauldron -- and hoped her mother was buying it. "You said demons get off on it -- it's just for demons then?"
"No, it will work on mortals, witches, warlocks, magical creatures -- the effect would be stronger on mortals, though, since they'd have no magical defenses."
"All the same, I'd better not try it, huh?"
"No. It would not put you through the same mental stress and dangers of permanent insanity, but that doesn't mean it would be fun. You're not a demon."
"I have demonic powers."
"You're not a demon. Why are you so interested in this? Am I going to have to start hiding the potion ingredients from you?"
Without intending to, Bianca had distracted her mother into suspecting potential potion abuse. Kind of a brilliant plan, if it had been on purpose. Now that it was intentional, it was harder to fake it, but Bianca tried to play the affronted daughter. "Calm down, Mother. I was just curious. I thought you'd be glad I'm interested, but forget it. I'll go back to sociology."
Before her mother could reply, she stalked off back to her room, hoping she had learned enough.
Just as she shut her bedroom door Bianca's mobile phone sounded, and she answered it as quickly as she could, in hopes it wouldn't draw Lynn's attention. Because Bianca had an intuition who it was, without even glancing at the caller ID.
Sure enough, she recognized the young woman's voice, however panicked and near sobbing it was.
"Bianca, it's happening again. Worse than before. You said you could help..."
"I will, Valerie. You're at home?"
"Yes," came the high-pitched, terrorized reply. "They're all around."
"They" made no noise, however -- because, as Bianca now guessed, they were potion-induced hallucinations.
"Just stay put. Can you do that for me? Stay where you are, and I'll be there quicker than you know it. I think I know what's happening to you, and we'll figure out a way to stop it."
Bianca just paused long enough to throw a sweater on before shimmering out of her room and into the chilly alley behind Valerie's apartment building.
Only then did she remember she didn't actually know the girl's apartment number. They weren't friends, just casual acquaintances who had chatted when Bianca made her potion deliveries to Kovart in the office building where Valerie worked at the reception desk in the lobby. Then three days ago, Bianca had encountered Valerie, choked with sobs, in the women's bathroom.
"You'll think I'm crazy," she told Bianca, her voice trembling.
"Trust me, I've known a lot of crazy things in my life. If you can tell anyone, you can tell me."
So Valerie explained how her apartment was "haunted -- or possessed. Can an apartment be possessed?"
"I don't know -- maybe. What do you see?" Bianca had asked over coffee at a nearby café.
"Shadows of horrible creatures, just out of the corner of my eye. I can't ever quite see them, but they're there. And sometimes in the night, these howling, screaming noises wake me up -- then it's silent. I thought maybe I was going insane, except ..." She shuddered. "This morning, when I got up, my bedroom door was covered with claw marks. Dozens of them."
That part didn't really fit, Bianca thought now. If the potion was to blame, these monsters only existed in Valerie's head. Unless the claw marks were also in her head, or Valerie had made the marks herself in some kind of hallucinatory fit.
In any case, Valerie had begged Bianca to come see the marks, desperate to prove the reality to someone, even if that someone was a near-stranger who had shown the slightest pity.
Even if that someone is the one who did this to her, Bianca thought.
She didn't need to worry, as it turned out, about the apartment number. Valerie was out shivering on the stoop. Unlike Bianca, who was dressed for an evening of studying in sweatpants and a T-shirt covered with a shapeless sweater, Valerie was still in her work clothes, the ill-fitting navy blue suit that was the receptionists' "uniform." Bianca wondered if she had been too afraid to come home until late, and had called for help not long after.
"I can't go back in there," Valerie said without a greeting. "You said you could help, that you knew people who could help..."
This was true, Bianca had said that, without thinking much past the idea of asking her mother and consulting the Grimoire.
It was a poor idea to begin with and it had been shot to hell by the realization that her mother's potion could be causing this. Phoenix witches didn't do this, they didn't help people. They worked for pay, not the gratitude of sobbing mortals. That was for other, lesser witches. And Bianca didn't know any of those sort.
But she did know of them -- of one family in particular. Her mother had mentioned these women with scorn.
Seek sanctuary with sworn enemies? Bianca knew where they lived -- that was common knowledge in the magical community.
"Do you think you can drive?" she asked Valerie. "Are you up to it?"
"I think so. It's better when I'm outside." Her unsteady move to stand up gave lie to her words, but she looked a little hopeful. "Are we going somewhere safe?"
"It's the place where people go to get help -- 1329 Prescott Street."
TITLE: Phoenix
AUTHOR: namjai
TYPE (one-shot, chapters, part of a series): chapters
RATING: (K, T, M, MA): T
LEAD CHARACTERS: Bianca, Wyatt
ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Valerie, an innocent; and Kovart, a demon
SHORT SUMMARY: In the changed future, Bianca lives on -- and must still choose between evil and good, between her heritage and a new path.
Chapter 1
Bianca watched her mother chop tomatoes with the same precision she used for potion-making. Lynn was preparing marinara sauce from her own recipes, one she had never written down but made it just so -- and Bianca had been relegated to boiling pasta.
Waiting for water to boil is not the most mentally taxing task, which left Bianca free to silently obsess over the events of the day and on the questions she wanted to ask her mother, if her nerve did not fail her.
As it happened, Lynn broached the subject herself as she minced garlic and her daughter listlessly watched the pot of water faintly steam.
"Did you deliver the potion today?"
"Of course," Bianca answered. "Why would you think I wouldn't?"
"You were late. Our client called to ask where you were."
"Your client," Bianca muttered, but before her mother could catch that, in a rush of bravery, she pushed on. "He made sure I knew I was late. But you never told me it had to be delivered in the morning. What is it, for some noontime ritual? That's not usually a demon's style."
"I don't know why he needs it in the morning. It's enough that he does, and you'll make sure to be there by noon tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? You mean Friday, right?"
"No, I mean tomorrow. He asked for a special delivery, and I agreed. Even though he never told us he needed the potion delivered before noon, he seems to think we need to make it up to him. So we will. We can't get on his bad side. So I'll be making a potion tonight. It won't be as strong as it could be, because it won't sit for two days like it's supposed to, but it will work well enough." She glanced at her daughter and seemed to realize: "You have classes tomorrow. You shouldn't skip. I'll make the delivery."
Bianca had, in fact, been worrying over her full schedule tomorrow morning, about to protest. But no sooner had Lynn preemptively relented, Bianca changed her mind. There was more at stake here than her grade in sociology.
"I'll go. I have a break in my schedule around ten. No big deal."
* * * *
Later that evening, Bianca set aside her reading for the class she now meant to skip, and returned to the kitchen, where her mother now worked at concocting something very different from marinara sauce. The hum of the dishwasher underscored the occasional pops and hisses as Lynn added ingredients to her potion. The Grimoire lay open on the counter, but she did not consult it -- she had made the potion repeatedly in the past two weeks.
Bianca had had no part in the preparation, and had wanted no part. Making deliveries was enough of an imposition on her time, but her mother insisted Bianca take some responsibility in the work that kept this apartment, paid her tuition. It was only the two of them, mother and daughter in the destined calling of magical mercenaries: Phoenix witches, a line seeded in fury and revenge centuries ago. They were not alone in sharing the distinctive mark of their kind, but it was not as though they all got together in a cozy coven to chant "Blessed Be" and trade potion recipes, or whatever good witches did. Bianca had met other Phoenix witches from time to time, when her mother made a call for assistance or consultation. But more often, Lynn worked alone, and trained her daughter to follow in her footsteps alone.
Sometimes Bianca wished she could have studied full-time, graduating two years earlier, and she often felt run ragged by the extra load of work her mother gave her. And other times she felt insulted that her job was to be nothing more than a delivery girl while her mother did the magical heavy-lifting for her most powerful clients. That's how Bianca had felt this time -- at the beginning. It had turned into something different now.
Now she was going to push for information.
She read the Grimoire's open page, and asked, "So why does Kovart want a 'Psychic Enhancement' potion? Trying to read people's minds?" Bianca spoke casually, but the idea worried her, considering her own traitorous thoughts when in the same room with her mother's demon client today.
"No, that's not what it does. It enhances mental energy of the one who consumes it, causing nightmares, hallucinations."
"Why would anyone want to consume it?"
"Some demons do get off on it, but it's more likely Kovart is using it on someone else, an enemy, obviously -- someone he wants to incapacitate."
"Who?"
"I didn't ask, why would I? And he's certainly not telling."
"I'm just wondering about the potion, how it works." Bianca backed these words up by examining the Grimoire's recipe and then the simmering cauldron -- and hoped her mother was buying it. "You said demons get off on it -- it's just for demons then?"
"No, it will work on mortals, witches, warlocks, magical creatures -- the effect would be stronger on mortals, though, since they'd have no magical defenses."
"All the same, I'd better not try it, huh?"
"No. It would not put you through the same mental stress and dangers of permanent insanity, but that doesn't mean it would be fun. You're not a demon."
"I have demonic powers."
"You're not a demon. Why are you so interested in this? Am I going to have to start hiding the potion ingredients from you?"
Without intending to, Bianca had distracted her mother into suspecting potential potion abuse. Kind of a brilliant plan, if it had been on purpose. Now that it was intentional, it was harder to fake it, but Bianca tried to play the affronted daughter. "Calm down, Mother. I was just curious. I thought you'd be glad I'm interested, but forget it. I'll go back to sociology."
Before her mother could reply, she stalked off back to her room, hoping she had learned enough.
Just as she shut her bedroom door Bianca's mobile phone sounded, and she answered it as quickly as she could, in hopes it wouldn't draw Lynn's attention. Because Bianca had an intuition who it was, without even glancing at the caller ID.
Sure enough, she recognized the young woman's voice, however panicked and near sobbing it was.
"Bianca, it's happening again. Worse than before. You said you could help..."
"I will, Valerie. You're at home?"
"Yes," came the high-pitched, terrorized reply. "They're all around."
"They" made no noise, however -- because, as Bianca now guessed, they were potion-induced hallucinations.
"Just stay put. Can you do that for me? Stay where you are, and I'll be there quicker than you know it. I think I know what's happening to you, and we'll figure out a way to stop it."
Bianca just paused long enough to throw a sweater on before shimmering out of her room and into the chilly alley behind Valerie's apartment building.
Only then did she remember she didn't actually know the girl's apartment number. They weren't friends, just casual acquaintances who had chatted when Bianca made her potion deliveries to Kovart in the office building where Valerie worked at the reception desk in the lobby. Then three days ago, Bianca had encountered Valerie, choked with sobs, in the women's bathroom.
"You'll think I'm crazy," she told Bianca, her voice trembling.
"Trust me, I've known a lot of crazy things in my life. If you can tell anyone, you can tell me."
So Valerie explained how her apartment was "haunted -- or possessed. Can an apartment be possessed?"
"I don't know -- maybe. What do you see?" Bianca had asked over coffee at a nearby café.
"Shadows of horrible creatures, just out of the corner of my eye. I can't ever quite see them, but they're there. And sometimes in the night, these howling, screaming noises wake me up -- then it's silent. I thought maybe I was going insane, except ..." She shuddered. "This morning, when I got up, my bedroom door was covered with claw marks. Dozens of them."
That part didn't really fit, Bianca thought now. If the potion was to blame, these monsters only existed in Valerie's head. Unless the claw marks were also in her head, or Valerie had made the marks herself in some kind of hallucinatory fit.
In any case, Valerie had begged Bianca to come see the marks, desperate to prove the reality to someone, even if that someone was a near-stranger who had shown the slightest pity.
Even if that someone is the one who did this to her, Bianca thought.
She didn't need to worry, as it turned out, about the apartment number. Valerie was out shivering on the stoop. Unlike Bianca, who was dressed for an evening of studying in sweatpants and a T-shirt covered with a shapeless sweater, Valerie was still in her work clothes, the ill-fitting navy blue suit that was the receptionists' "uniform." Bianca wondered if she had been too afraid to come home until late, and had called for help not long after.
"I can't go back in there," Valerie said without a greeting. "You said you could help, that you knew people who could help..."
This was true, Bianca had said that, without thinking much past the idea of asking her mother and consulting the Grimoire.
It was a poor idea to begin with and it had been shot to hell by the realization that her mother's potion could be causing this. Phoenix witches didn't do this, they didn't help people. They worked for pay, not the gratitude of sobbing mortals. That was for other, lesser witches. And Bianca didn't know any of those sort.
But she did know of them -- of one family in particular. Her mother had mentioned these women with scorn.
Seek sanctuary with sworn enemies? Bianca knew where they lived -- that was common knowledge in the magical community.
"Do you think you can drive?" she asked Valerie. "Are you up to it?"
"I think so. It's better when I'm outside." Her unsteady move to stand up gave lie to her words, but she looked a little hopeful. "Are we going somewhere safe?"
"It's the place where people go to get help -- 1329 Prescott Street."