Post by Non Compos Mentis on Apr 25, 2016 16:52:39 GMT -5
If I was drinking Absinthe, this would make sense. All the old masters drank that Wormwood concoction to open their minds and rot their insides, they used it to see the other side... I only wished I had that excuse.
The otherworldly object sat on the table of the small hotel room, projecting myriad colours over the peeling wallpaper. Yet even in it's effervescence it had been remarkably inactive over the last few days.
”What do you want from me?”
Did I expect a seed to talk back? Was it strange that a talking seed would not have been that unusual given recent events?
”Yes, that would be fucking strange!”
I spoke to myself, something that was growing increasingly normal over recent weeks as the demented seed on the table became my only friend and confidant. As if it heard my thoughts the seed vibrated, rumbling the rickety table and sending another burst of vibrancy over the wallpaper.
LSD, a prolonged bout under the influence of the drug, could that explain it? Of course it could, but had I been dropping acid over the last month? Of course not. That couldn't explain the sudden inclination toward the colour palette of Kelli Starr.
No, the seed was not a product of any drink or drug fuelled binge. It was real, or as real as a multi-dimensional pseudo-weapon could be. It really sat on the cheap furniture, casting technicolour images along the Durham, North Carolina hotel room wall that sent the native right-wingers of the area into a red-faced fury.
In those images I found myself bedeviled. In it I saw the birdlike angular face of the man who had recruited me into the Order by force. I saw Calder and visions of his torture of Ezra. My poor Ezra, his body shrivelled beyond humanity, kept on the brink of death by hands deftly expert in the art of pain.
And next, what came next? The spider. The Black Widow creeping, never sleeping, always killing. Alexa Black. Her shadow-strewn form made it's way not through the myriad colours but behind them. It skulked in the background, sliding through a sea of blood and agony. My blood and agony.
”Excuse me? Mr... Umm... Fillmore. Millard Fillmore?”
The thirteenth President of the United States of America did not, in fact, inhabit that hotel room. His name had, however had a suitable enough pseudonym to live under for a few nights. The gormless night attendant stood, doubtless, right outside the door and his cracking voice broke my concentration quite harshly.
”What do you want?!”
I snapped. The great affinity I shared with the seed was broken, for the moment at least. It jarred the senses and brought me to anger, but he was there for a reason, one I had expected for some time.
”Mr... Fillmore, we've been having complaints about the light coming from your room.”
The locals had objected to the flamboyant lilacs and turquoises, who would have guessed? Perhaps they thought the inhabitant of the room was going to invade their bathrooms with their depravity. Either way, somebody had seen the colours through the pathetically small window and had made their obnoxious voice heard.
”I told you this was a bad idea.”
I stared at the seed, the seed somehow stared back an eyeless stare. I talked to it again, didn't I? Somehow I got the impression that the seed gave me an affirmative reaction, a nod maybe, perhaps a curt bow. Then I remembered it was a seed and how ridiculous that notion was.
”Sir?”
The confused attendant remained a nuisance at the door and, briefly perhaps, had glimpsed a moment of degenerative madness or hallucination. I knew insanity, I'd been there more often that anyone would be pleased to admit, and this was a disturbing simulation of that sensation. Yet, still, only a simulation.
”I'll... I'll turn the TV off. Sorry.”
I muttered quickly, hoping it was enough to satisfy the lukewarm porter. After a few moments his bargain basement shoes made their wet-slapping noise down the corridor and I returned my gaze to the kaleidoscopic kernel on the table.
It seemed to exude a feeling of happiness, as if glad we were left to our own company once more. Despite my promise of respite to the dishevelled employee of the even more dishevelled hotel, the seed cast an ever brighter collection of colours over its surroundings.
In the colours I found another figure staring back at me, one that would become incredibly familiar soon. Shifting my weight in the flimsy wooden chair, I flexed the knee that had taken the brunt of Alexa Black's wrath just a week earlier and I wondered how it would hold up in another week when I would have to face the man I was staring at now.
Nathan Saniti's face stared back at me, as surreal as it had ever appeared and yet perfectly in place among the wormwood nightmare on the walls. A more eccentric competitor there was not, and neither was there a more formidable opponent for the Icemann Invitational.
It seemed fate was at a crossed purpose with itself, simultaneously dragging me toward Alexa Black and away from her. I met with her wrath in the form of a steel chair and then I was torn in the direction of the Icemann Invitational tournament where fate would see me become the first successive champion in the trophies history. I knew that Cleric Altman would have me sacrifice the glory of the tournament so that the evil of Alexa Black could be vanquished, and yet the tournament offered a different satisfaction.
Beyond Saniti's bizarre challenge, beyond that of Brenna Gordon, Dan Fierce, Jury and Kelli Starr, lay the temptation of a World Title shot against a certain Adrenaline King. Only months earlier a five match series had been cut short because the new World Champion had not been able to withstand the assault I had given, and now he sat inexplicably atop the mountain.
Like absinthe, the bitterness sat at the back of my throat, providing a sickening after-taste when I swallowed. It was a bitterness that could be remedied with a sweet taste of justice, but only if I could beat the man in the wall.
Saniti glared through the limp wallpaper, meandering as he did through what seemed to be fields of flora unknown to man or beast from this earthly realm. His prim and proper ever-present hat seemed slightly jilted and jaded and his expression troubled, a state with which I had cause to fear for my own safety. Many a man and woman had met this malevolent magician and been left laying at the use of a simple hat pin.
It was a fate that could be waiting for me, especially with half a leg and spiders on the mind.
”Mr Fillmore?”
How had the blockheaded caretaker snook up on me yet again? Ripping my eyes away from Nathan's visage, I caught one last corner-eyed glimpse of the mad hatter as he gallivanted off into the wilderness of the unknown dimension the seed was showing me.
”I'll turn the television off, I promise!”
I shouted, hoping the harshness would scare the attendant into leaving me in peace for just a few minutes more. The lights around the room flickered with a distressed darkness as the seed showed its dislike for the man hovering outside the door.
”Sir, it's not that, you have a visitor...”
A visitor? I shot a glance at the oversized pod as if to ask “are they with you?” and it gave a flutter of the light that represented, as best I could tell, a teenager's non-committal shrug.
Without warning, the door to the deeply unsatisfying hotel room swung open and in its place stood a vision of beauty far, unbelievably far, from home. The middle-aged woman, adored in a luxurious red satin dress, must have travelled all the way from Italy itself because the last time I'd seen her was several months before in Chieti, Abruzzo. Then she had seemed desperately close to putting an end to her days, now she looked reborn.
”Nice to see you again, Sean... I see you have Altman's present.”
Adalina Gatti's Mediterranean accent was strong but her English was impeccible, as it had been during our first encounter. The Spellslinger of the Order had spent much of her life in the cold, American arms of the shady global organisation until her exile back to her homeland. Her sultry eyes naturally glanced at the 'present', sat on the cheap table emitting its perplexing rainbow rays.
”Is he going to be ok?”
I cautiously climbed to my feet and felt the stiffness in my knee scream at me to sit again, but I ignored it. Gesturing to the attendant I couldn't help but notice the glazed look in his eyes and remember Altman's story of the unwitting scribe who had turned to smoke after the tiniest tough of the seed.
”Oh dear.” Completely casually, Adalina placed her hand parallel to the side of the attendant's head and closed her eyes. ”You'll want to forget about this, sweetie.”
Within a couple of seconds a strange light of Adalina's own emanated from her palm and invaded the orifices of the attendant's skull. In pleasure, or admiration perhaps, the seed's light began to fluctuate as it somehow watched the act. Suddenly, silently, the hotel employee slumped backwards and collapsed against the corridor wall in a heap.
”I'm not sure that's totally safe.”
Ignoring the act of magic, the appearance of an acquaintance I was sure had been due to drink herself to death with the never-ending sweet red wine of the Italian nation, and even the pulsing pod on the table, I focused on the pathetic figure drooped over himself on the ground.
“He's a hotel attendant in North Carolina, I don't think we're in danger of inflicting any significant damage.”
Without another thought Adaline walked into the room and closed the door behind her, walking straight past me toward the curious seed.
”Fair enough.”
I muttered and turned to watch the Italian lean over the seed, taking in every detail as if studying it for a thesis. I wondered if I should tell her about Altman's story, but she seemed careful not to touch the object as if she knew the danger already. I thought about asking why she had come here, how she even knew I was holed up in this shithole hotel... but somehow I knew the answers would be tied up in knots, as they always were with the Order.
”Cleric Altman thought you might need a little help with your little spider problem.”
Adaline spoke as if she'd been reading my mind, which of course was entirely possible in her line of work. She'd already hard-wired herself into my mind at least twice before, it could certainly be done again. At this point my brain may as well have been a revolving door.
I didn't just have a spider problem, though. I could handle Alexa Black, I'd done it at Mass Destruction. My problem was what Altman needed me to do; to kill her using the only weapon that could finish the job.
”And maybe my seed problem? What the fuck am I supposed to do with this thing?”
A violent pulse of colour, deep reds descending into insidious blacks, spat out from the seed for a moment until Adalina appeared to mutter sweet nothings to the alien object. Quickly it calmed down, a child listening to the soothing tones of a mother.
”It is a powerful object, but one grounded on a plane few of us have any contact with.”
Her words mirrored those of others. The stern warnings of Cleric Altman. The whimsy of Nathan Saniti who seemed to live constantly in the lands Adalina could merely grasp at. In the midst of that much magic and unseen power, how could I harness enough of it to come out victorious? Not just once, against Saniti. Not even twice, against Alexa. But thrice, as Calder hid in the shadows for me to make a fatal error in attacking him.
”The plane of reality this comes from is a particularly... eccentric one. I see glimpses among glimpses. My spells have a limited ability with it.”
Her exotic-tinged words spoke with optimism even as their true form told of limitations.
”Then why did the enlightened Cleric send you?”
He must have seen something important in her, something that could help me win these battles. She had been exiled by the Order Heirophants for her rebellious opinions, going against their mind-bending of myself. I suspected Altman had gone behind their backs, believing the judgement of the Heirophants themselves to be clouded by Calder and his aura of darkness. Adalina was in enemy territory herself now, and for what?
”Because limited is better than... whatever this is.”
She pointed at my knee and then at the unavoidable fact I had been holding myself up using the back of the chair. As flimsy as it was, it had been keeping me vertical for a couple of minutes. The knee, it was time to admit, was in incredible agony still.
”A steel chair to the knee repeatedly by a fucking spider?”
Admitting defeat I crumbled into the chair and gave my knee a rest just as the seed emitted a low wave of sympathetic light that seemed almost friendly. It reminded me just how fickle the object could be, and yet how it had not harmed me despite my harsh words to it on occasion.
”If that's what you want to call it. I'd call it failure. Your only chance to get your lover-boy back is to dispose of Alexa Black and Cleric Calder, and you can't do that if you're on one leg. You can't do that if you let the seed overpower you instead of controlling it yourself. That is why I'm here.”
Adaline perched herself on the side of the table, staring at me with the look of a teacher giving a motivational pep-talk. She could make me better, stronger, faster. Like the Six Million Dollar Man with botany instead of cybernetics.
”I don't have your magic, I don't live in other worlds like Nathan Saniti... what do you expect me to do?”
I nursed my knee, feeling the points where each chair shot had landed and done immeasurable damage. Could it be permanently injured? Did I care? I'd fought through worse and won before. Saniti would do his best to exploit it, I was sure, but I'd be doing my best to knock his hat clean off his head too. One thing I had always had was an undoubted will to fight, no matter what injuries I had or how many opponents there were. You could put me down, but nobody could keep me down.
”You might not be a spellslinger, or an ethereal being, but Calder was right to believe there is something powerful within you. The seed knows that, if it didn't you'd already be dead. Believe that when you use the seed and you'll stand a chance.”
Altman had said as much too. I was no Seeker as Calder had intended, that much was clear, but I had faced the wrath of Calder and his minions, I had faced and beat the darkness of Alexa Black and walked away victorious. The otherworldly had challenged me and I had come through victorious. I could do it again.
I was about to make a move to pick up the seed and test out some new-found faith when I was beaten to it. Before I could warn her about the consequences, Adaline reached out and took hold of the seed herself.
I expected her to evaporate into thin air, to be haunted by a disembodied voice as the legend was told by Altman. At the very least I expected a pile of ash to materialise where the beautiful Italian Spellslinger had been standing.
None of that happened.
”Huh... I think it likes you.”
I choked out, shocked that Ms Gatti was still standing exactly where she had been, now holding the seed in her magical hands. I could never tell for sure, but I couldn't see any hints of magic escaping her to control the seed and keep herself alive. It was, it seemed, all in the character. Her finger did, however, caress the casing of the seed, as if massaging it or imparting some long-lost communication of touch.
”Of course it does. It might like you too if you stop thinking of it as a tool.” She threw the pod suddenly, forcing me to react and get to my feet to stop it slamming into the wall and shattering. Instinctively I leapt to my feet to grab the volatile object and saved it before it passed the point of no return.
On the brink of anger I turned back to Adalina, wishing to shout her down for being so reckless with the only object capable of killing not only Alexa but Cleric Calder too. I wanted to, but when I looked at her face I saw the amusement light up her featured. I was standing, little pain in my leg, protecting the seed I had thought of as a trinket mere minutes before.
”I think it's time we should leave, I have somewhere more suitable for us to stay.”
Adalina pushed herself off the table and walked toward the door with her satin dress fluttering behind her. I didn't doubt that she had a far more luxurious place to stay than Durham, North Carolina and I went to follow her with the seed in my possession, all anger forgotten.
And then, as the door opened, I saw what I was sure we had both forgotten. The night attendant, slumped helplessly against the wall outside the room, drooling on himself slowly.
”What about him?”
I spoke as I tucked the seed carefully inside my jacket, noticing it cooperating for once by dimming the 'Kelli Starr Rave' colour scheme to a manageable level. Adalina stared down at the victim of her magic and smiled.
”Oh he'll be fine in a few hours. After you, Mr Fillmore.”
The otherworldly object sat on the table of the small hotel room, projecting myriad colours over the peeling wallpaper. Yet even in it's effervescence it had been remarkably inactive over the last few days.
”What do you want from me?”
Did I expect a seed to talk back? Was it strange that a talking seed would not have been that unusual given recent events?
”Yes, that would be fucking strange!”
I spoke to myself, something that was growing increasingly normal over recent weeks as the demented seed on the table became my only friend and confidant. As if it heard my thoughts the seed vibrated, rumbling the rickety table and sending another burst of vibrancy over the wallpaper.
LSD, a prolonged bout under the influence of the drug, could that explain it? Of course it could, but had I been dropping acid over the last month? Of course not. That couldn't explain the sudden inclination toward the colour palette of Kelli Starr.
No, the seed was not a product of any drink or drug fuelled binge. It was real, or as real as a multi-dimensional pseudo-weapon could be. It really sat on the cheap furniture, casting technicolour images along the Durham, North Carolina hotel room wall that sent the native right-wingers of the area into a red-faced fury.
In those images I found myself bedeviled. In it I saw the birdlike angular face of the man who had recruited me into the Order by force. I saw Calder and visions of his torture of Ezra. My poor Ezra, his body shrivelled beyond humanity, kept on the brink of death by hands deftly expert in the art of pain.
And next, what came next? The spider. The Black Widow creeping, never sleeping, always killing. Alexa Black. Her shadow-strewn form made it's way not through the myriad colours but behind them. It skulked in the background, sliding through a sea of blood and agony. My blood and agony.
”Excuse me? Mr... Umm... Fillmore. Millard Fillmore?”
The thirteenth President of the United States of America did not, in fact, inhabit that hotel room. His name had, however had a suitable enough pseudonym to live under for a few nights. The gormless night attendant stood, doubtless, right outside the door and his cracking voice broke my concentration quite harshly.
”What do you want?!”
I snapped. The great affinity I shared with the seed was broken, for the moment at least. It jarred the senses and brought me to anger, but he was there for a reason, one I had expected for some time.
”Mr... Fillmore, we've been having complaints about the light coming from your room.”
The locals had objected to the flamboyant lilacs and turquoises, who would have guessed? Perhaps they thought the inhabitant of the room was going to invade their bathrooms with their depravity. Either way, somebody had seen the colours through the pathetically small window and had made their obnoxious voice heard.
”I told you this was a bad idea.”
I stared at the seed, the seed somehow stared back an eyeless stare. I talked to it again, didn't I? Somehow I got the impression that the seed gave me an affirmative reaction, a nod maybe, perhaps a curt bow. Then I remembered it was a seed and how ridiculous that notion was.
”Sir?”
The confused attendant remained a nuisance at the door and, briefly perhaps, had glimpsed a moment of degenerative madness or hallucination. I knew insanity, I'd been there more often that anyone would be pleased to admit, and this was a disturbing simulation of that sensation. Yet, still, only a simulation.
”I'll... I'll turn the TV off. Sorry.”
I muttered quickly, hoping it was enough to satisfy the lukewarm porter. After a few moments his bargain basement shoes made their wet-slapping noise down the corridor and I returned my gaze to the kaleidoscopic kernel on the table.
It seemed to exude a feeling of happiness, as if glad we were left to our own company once more. Despite my promise of respite to the dishevelled employee of the even more dishevelled hotel, the seed cast an ever brighter collection of colours over its surroundings.
In the colours I found another figure staring back at me, one that would become incredibly familiar soon. Shifting my weight in the flimsy wooden chair, I flexed the knee that had taken the brunt of Alexa Black's wrath just a week earlier and I wondered how it would hold up in another week when I would have to face the man I was staring at now.
Nathan Saniti's face stared back at me, as surreal as it had ever appeared and yet perfectly in place among the wormwood nightmare on the walls. A more eccentric competitor there was not, and neither was there a more formidable opponent for the Icemann Invitational.
It seemed fate was at a crossed purpose with itself, simultaneously dragging me toward Alexa Black and away from her. I met with her wrath in the form of a steel chair and then I was torn in the direction of the Icemann Invitational tournament where fate would see me become the first successive champion in the trophies history. I knew that Cleric Altman would have me sacrifice the glory of the tournament so that the evil of Alexa Black could be vanquished, and yet the tournament offered a different satisfaction.
Beyond Saniti's bizarre challenge, beyond that of Brenna Gordon, Dan Fierce, Jury and Kelli Starr, lay the temptation of a World Title shot against a certain Adrenaline King. Only months earlier a five match series had been cut short because the new World Champion had not been able to withstand the assault I had given, and now he sat inexplicably atop the mountain.
Like absinthe, the bitterness sat at the back of my throat, providing a sickening after-taste when I swallowed. It was a bitterness that could be remedied with a sweet taste of justice, but only if I could beat the man in the wall.
Saniti glared through the limp wallpaper, meandering as he did through what seemed to be fields of flora unknown to man or beast from this earthly realm. His prim and proper ever-present hat seemed slightly jilted and jaded and his expression troubled, a state with which I had cause to fear for my own safety. Many a man and woman had met this malevolent magician and been left laying at the use of a simple hat pin.
It was a fate that could be waiting for me, especially with half a leg and spiders on the mind.
”Mr Fillmore?”
How had the blockheaded caretaker snook up on me yet again? Ripping my eyes away from Nathan's visage, I caught one last corner-eyed glimpse of the mad hatter as he gallivanted off into the wilderness of the unknown dimension the seed was showing me.
”I'll turn the television off, I promise!”
I shouted, hoping the harshness would scare the attendant into leaving me in peace for just a few minutes more. The lights around the room flickered with a distressed darkness as the seed showed its dislike for the man hovering outside the door.
”Sir, it's not that, you have a visitor...”
A visitor? I shot a glance at the oversized pod as if to ask “are they with you?” and it gave a flutter of the light that represented, as best I could tell, a teenager's non-committal shrug.
Without warning, the door to the deeply unsatisfying hotel room swung open and in its place stood a vision of beauty far, unbelievably far, from home. The middle-aged woman, adored in a luxurious red satin dress, must have travelled all the way from Italy itself because the last time I'd seen her was several months before in Chieti, Abruzzo. Then she had seemed desperately close to putting an end to her days, now she looked reborn.
”Nice to see you again, Sean... I see you have Altman's present.”
Adalina Gatti's Mediterranean accent was strong but her English was impeccible, as it had been during our first encounter. The Spellslinger of the Order had spent much of her life in the cold, American arms of the shady global organisation until her exile back to her homeland. Her sultry eyes naturally glanced at the 'present', sat on the cheap table emitting its perplexing rainbow rays.
”Is he going to be ok?”
I cautiously climbed to my feet and felt the stiffness in my knee scream at me to sit again, but I ignored it. Gesturing to the attendant I couldn't help but notice the glazed look in his eyes and remember Altman's story of the unwitting scribe who had turned to smoke after the tiniest tough of the seed.
”Oh dear.” Completely casually, Adalina placed her hand parallel to the side of the attendant's head and closed her eyes. ”You'll want to forget about this, sweetie.”
Within a couple of seconds a strange light of Adalina's own emanated from her palm and invaded the orifices of the attendant's skull. In pleasure, or admiration perhaps, the seed's light began to fluctuate as it somehow watched the act. Suddenly, silently, the hotel employee slumped backwards and collapsed against the corridor wall in a heap.
”I'm not sure that's totally safe.”
Ignoring the act of magic, the appearance of an acquaintance I was sure had been due to drink herself to death with the never-ending sweet red wine of the Italian nation, and even the pulsing pod on the table, I focused on the pathetic figure drooped over himself on the ground.
“He's a hotel attendant in North Carolina, I don't think we're in danger of inflicting any significant damage.”
Without another thought Adaline walked into the room and closed the door behind her, walking straight past me toward the curious seed.
”Fair enough.”
I muttered and turned to watch the Italian lean over the seed, taking in every detail as if studying it for a thesis. I wondered if I should tell her about Altman's story, but she seemed careful not to touch the object as if she knew the danger already. I thought about asking why she had come here, how she even knew I was holed up in this shithole hotel... but somehow I knew the answers would be tied up in knots, as they always were with the Order.
”Cleric Altman thought you might need a little help with your little spider problem.”
Adaline spoke as if she'd been reading my mind, which of course was entirely possible in her line of work. She'd already hard-wired herself into my mind at least twice before, it could certainly be done again. At this point my brain may as well have been a revolving door.
I didn't just have a spider problem, though. I could handle Alexa Black, I'd done it at Mass Destruction. My problem was what Altman needed me to do; to kill her using the only weapon that could finish the job.
”And maybe my seed problem? What the fuck am I supposed to do with this thing?”
A violent pulse of colour, deep reds descending into insidious blacks, spat out from the seed for a moment until Adalina appeared to mutter sweet nothings to the alien object. Quickly it calmed down, a child listening to the soothing tones of a mother.
”It is a powerful object, but one grounded on a plane few of us have any contact with.”
Her words mirrored those of others. The stern warnings of Cleric Altman. The whimsy of Nathan Saniti who seemed to live constantly in the lands Adalina could merely grasp at. In the midst of that much magic and unseen power, how could I harness enough of it to come out victorious? Not just once, against Saniti. Not even twice, against Alexa. But thrice, as Calder hid in the shadows for me to make a fatal error in attacking him.
”The plane of reality this comes from is a particularly... eccentric one. I see glimpses among glimpses. My spells have a limited ability with it.”
Her exotic-tinged words spoke with optimism even as their true form told of limitations.
”Then why did the enlightened Cleric send you?”
He must have seen something important in her, something that could help me win these battles. She had been exiled by the Order Heirophants for her rebellious opinions, going against their mind-bending of myself. I suspected Altman had gone behind their backs, believing the judgement of the Heirophants themselves to be clouded by Calder and his aura of darkness. Adalina was in enemy territory herself now, and for what?
”Because limited is better than... whatever this is.”
She pointed at my knee and then at the unavoidable fact I had been holding myself up using the back of the chair. As flimsy as it was, it had been keeping me vertical for a couple of minutes. The knee, it was time to admit, was in incredible agony still.
”A steel chair to the knee repeatedly by a fucking spider?”
Admitting defeat I crumbled into the chair and gave my knee a rest just as the seed emitted a low wave of sympathetic light that seemed almost friendly. It reminded me just how fickle the object could be, and yet how it had not harmed me despite my harsh words to it on occasion.
”If that's what you want to call it. I'd call it failure. Your only chance to get your lover-boy back is to dispose of Alexa Black and Cleric Calder, and you can't do that if you're on one leg. You can't do that if you let the seed overpower you instead of controlling it yourself. That is why I'm here.”
Adaline perched herself on the side of the table, staring at me with the look of a teacher giving a motivational pep-talk. She could make me better, stronger, faster. Like the Six Million Dollar Man with botany instead of cybernetics.
”I don't have your magic, I don't live in other worlds like Nathan Saniti... what do you expect me to do?”
I nursed my knee, feeling the points where each chair shot had landed and done immeasurable damage. Could it be permanently injured? Did I care? I'd fought through worse and won before. Saniti would do his best to exploit it, I was sure, but I'd be doing my best to knock his hat clean off his head too. One thing I had always had was an undoubted will to fight, no matter what injuries I had or how many opponents there were. You could put me down, but nobody could keep me down.
”You might not be a spellslinger, or an ethereal being, but Calder was right to believe there is something powerful within you. The seed knows that, if it didn't you'd already be dead. Believe that when you use the seed and you'll stand a chance.”
Altman had said as much too. I was no Seeker as Calder had intended, that much was clear, but I had faced the wrath of Calder and his minions, I had faced and beat the darkness of Alexa Black and walked away victorious. The otherworldly had challenged me and I had come through victorious. I could do it again.
I was about to make a move to pick up the seed and test out some new-found faith when I was beaten to it. Before I could warn her about the consequences, Adaline reached out and took hold of the seed herself.
I expected her to evaporate into thin air, to be haunted by a disembodied voice as the legend was told by Altman. At the very least I expected a pile of ash to materialise where the beautiful Italian Spellslinger had been standing.
None of that happened.
”Huh... I think it likes you.”
I choked out, shocked that Ms Gatti was still standing exactly where she had been, now holding the seed in her magical hands. I could never tell for sure, but I couldn't see any hints of magic escaping her to control the seed and keep herself alive. It was, it seemed, all in the character. Her finger did, however, caress the casing of the seed, as if massaging it or imparting some long-lost communication of touch.
”Of course it does. It might like you too if you stop thinking of it as a tool.” She threw the pod suddenly, forcing me to react and get to my feet to stop it slamming into the wall and shattering. Instinctively I leapt to my feet to grab the volatile object and saved it before it passed the point of no return.
On the brink of anger I turned back to Adalina, wishing to shout her down for being so reckless with the only object capable of killing not only Alexa but Cleric Calder too. I wanted to, but when I looked at her face I saw the amusement light up her featured. I was standing, little pain in my leg, protecting the seed I had thought of as a trinket mere minutes before.
”I think it's time we should leave, I have somewhere more suitable for us to stay.”
Adalina pushed herself off the table and walked toward the door with her satin dress fluttering behind her. I didn't doubt that she had a far more luxurious place to stay than Durham, North Carolina and I went to follow her with the seed in my possession, all anger forgotten.
And then, as the door opened, I saw what I was sure we had both forgotten. The night attendant, slumped helplessly against the wall outside the room, drooling on himself slowly.
”What about him?”
I spoke as I tucked the seed carefully inside my jacket, noticing it cooperating for once by dimming the 'Kelli Starr Rave' colour scheme to a manageable level. Adalina stared down at the victim of her magic and smiled.
”Oh he'll be fine in a few hours. After you, Mr Fillmore.”
