Lucky lady

Chapter 1

I am late. Again. I am not even sure why I am bothering to show up at all, they can fire me just as easy over a phone. That way I won't have to deal with their bullshit explanations. I mean, it's not like I don't know why. Not like I don't understand, hell, I even agree. If I was my boss, I wouldn't put up with my bull either. But then, it's not like I have much choice in the matter. I guess that isn't really true. I could choose to make it to work on time every day. I could.

I pull into the lot, wearing my brown and black uniform and slipping the goofy cap with the cow horns on my head while I lock the car and head toward the door. Two and a half hours late. Third time this week. To top it off, based on the cars it looks like Bessie Burger is slammed, and probably has been for a while. Any forgiveness I might have gotten tends to hit a sharp decline about the time the manager has to come out of his air conditioned office and actually deal with a customer. Oh look. There he is now. At the register. Sweat causing his forehead to shine like it was recently taken to an automatic car wash that scraped off the hair but slathered him in wax. The look he gives me could kill a cockroach at thirty yards. I open the door and come in, he is at the same time getting somebody else to watch the till and I just start walking back to the office.

I have heard it all before. From lots of people, most of whom did a far worse job of keeping their cool than he did.

He steps in to see me already seated in the visitor chair, having already pulled a term paper out of the file cabinet and halfway done filling it out for him. I try to be considerate when I can.

He looks at me, then at what I am doing. He sits down. Waits for me to finish. After filling out a half of a dozen fine reasons for canning me and then signing at the bottom, I hand it to him with a flourish and a lowered head. He reads it. He shakes his head.

He says “Kyle, what the hell is going on? You only work four days a week and six hours a day. We all like you here, but if I can't even count on you to show up I can't use you.”

Then he sets the paper aside and pulls out another form from his desk drawer. This one is also already filled out. This one is not a term paper though. It is one for a requested leave of absence, dated from today and for a month.

“Look, I am not kidding. We all think you are great. When you show up you work like a maniac. Take the month. Straighten out your life. Find a new job if that's what you need. Get your s**t together. If you still need the work after the month come on back and we will see about getting you back on the rotation. And Kyle? If you don't have your crap sorted out by then just don't come back. Don't make me fire you.”

I nod my head and walk out of his office. What could I say, really? Nothing. I ran out of things to say to people over things like this a long time ago. He is just doing his job, after all.

On the way home in my four wheeled death machine, (My death, and soon, if one was to believe my mechanic.) I stop by another couple of fast food joints and pick up applications. My last boss was way cool in the way he handled things but I still need to eat. When I get home I dump my uniform into the wash, I will clean it up and take it back to the burger joint tomorrow. Then I look around at my wondrous living accommodations. Three rooms. A bathroom/laundry room, a bedroom, and a living/dining/kitchen/den/whatever area all shoe horned into a space not much bigger than a mens bathroom at the high school of your choice. I hate it. But it is what I got. Hard to save up for a deposit when you have this much trouble holding a job.

I am halfway through the second application when the phone rings. The one luxury I cannot function without, a cell phone with a caller ID. I don't recognize the number, but since it is in the same area code I answer it anyway.

“Kyle?” The voice is female, hesitant, and sweet.
“Who is this?” My witty reply, plausible deniability that I took the call at all being the only defense I have against my creditors these days.
“I was told I could reach a guy named Kyle at this number. Is that you?”
Apparently this chick is a little slow on the uptake. “It might be. Who is asking?”
“Umm... Nevermind.” There is an audible click, like a receiver hitting something, and then the line goes dead.

Okay... Well. Apparently somebody thought they might want to talk to me and then changed their minds.
A minute and a half later the phone rings again. Same number in the caller ID.

“Heya sweetie, if you are gonna keep calling like this I am gonna need to start charging by the minute.”
There is a pause, and then “I need to speak with Kyle if he is there. About a problem.”
Hookay. Yeah. This is the kind of call I get every now and again. Joy.
“What kinda problem?” I say, standing up and pacing across my expansive living accommodations.
“I really need to know if you are Kyle before I start talking about it.”
I roll my eyes. I am not sure why, since nobody can see me, but I do anyway.

“You are going about this all wrong. At this point, I could be “Binky the Rapist” spunk-covered clown and I would say yes simply because you have me curious. If you need me, then you gotta spill. Otherwise quit bugging me. I am bored of this game.” I hang up. I count to ten, slowly. The phone is ringing again at eight. I answer it.

“Tell me you have money. Tell me this isn't gonna be another charity service.” I am a little annoyed at this point, although there is a bratty inner child in me somewhere that is giggling a little bit. I can hear a ragged breath being drawn on the other side. Maybe I was being just a little bit too much of an a*****e. Tone it down a notch.

“Look, what is the problem? For real this time. Yes, this is Kyle. Now what do you need?
“I need help.”
“I gathered that. Help with what?”
There is a pause for a few seconds, like she is catching her breath, collecting her thoughts.
“I think I am being hunted.”
“Then go to the cops. I pay my taxes like anybody else for just such little problems.”
“I can't, I am in trouble. The police won't listen to me. I already tried to talk to them, they recommended I see a psychiatrist.

I stop pacing. “What is it then?”
“I don't know what it is, but it isn't human. Help me. Please.”
And there it was.
“OK. What is your name, and how did you hear about me?”
“My name is Cleo, and I heard about you from a friend of mine.”
“Who? Who told you?”
There is silence for thirty seconds or so, and then. “Umm, she told me not to tell you. She said that the more names got passed around the more likely we were going to all get into some kind of trouble if word got around. She also said that you told her that.”

Well, poop. This one might be on the level.

“Cleo, huh? That your real name?”
“Yes.”
“OK “Cleo” meet me at the merry-go-round at Jefferson park in an hour, and I will hear you out. Come alone. I get twitchy around lots of people I don't know.”
There is a slight pause, and then: “OK”
I hang up. Why can't I ever get calls from rich people?

I make it to the park a half hour early and park it on a bench off to the side a bit from the merry-go-round. I watch the kids play. I watch the moms. Jefferson park is on a main road, and a major divider of the rich and poor areas of town. So I get to see former crack w****s with their hollowed out eyes and slightly feral looks wandering around with sickly looking kids, soccer moms with three running around and a bun in the oven, and the occasional stuck up one that plants her a*s on a bench and her nose in a book and tries to ignore her child while it wanders through the playground attempting to make friends. I get looks every now and again. Being a male without a kid is grounds for suspicion at a public park with a playground these days. Sad.

I spot her coming into the park. Not hard really, she is showing up at the right time and is the only adult there without a kid besides myself. Brunette, tall. Awfully skinny for my tastes, but eh. It takes all kinds. Once she is at the merry-go-round I get up and saunter over to it. She looks up, suspicious. Then she looks like she is about to say something, so I say:

“Nope. Not here. Follow me.”

She gets an odd look on her face as I lead her across the street to a coffee shop, order a double shot mocha with a shot of Irish cream and wander into the last booth in the way back and motion for her to sit.

She does, then looks at me expectantly, like she is waiting for permission to speak.

“OK, now. What is hunting you? What does it look like?”

She looks at me, her eyes going a little wide. “Are you sure you want to talk about it here? With all these people?”

I point to a group of teenagers in the front of the shop. “I wouldn't worry about it. Those guys are role playing. Our discussing your problem is not likely to be heard over their dragon slaying and demon smiting. Now spill. What is the problem?”

She looks almost embarrassed, but does look up finally and opens her mouth. “Something is following me and breaking things. Things I have touched.”

I nod. In my world this is not that uncommon.

“What kinds of things? Stuff you own, stuff other people own?”

“Mostly my things. It sucks. First it was little things. My bookshelf fell over and a half a dozen snow globes my dad had given me from his business trips when I was little shattered all over the floor. Then one of my kitchen cabinets fell off the wall while I was opening it and nearly fell over on me. Busted up all my dishes and dented in the top of the stove. This morning I went out to start my car and it wouldn't turn over, so I opened up the hood and every hose in it had rotted out and fallen apart since last night. My car is two years old with fifteen thousand miles on it. I tried to take a bus to the park and the thing broke down halfway here, I ended up springing for a cab. All this in the last four days and that is not even counting a hundred smaller things. Leaky pens, my refrigerator stopped running, you name it. In four days. Nobody's luck could be this bad. A couple of days ago I called a friend and told her what was going on, and before the phone died she gave me your number. She said maybe you could help."

“Maybe. It depends.”

“On what? Money? I don't have much after spending everything I have over the last few days trying to keep up with the destruction but I can pay you later if you can make it stop.”

She is about to cry. She has that look, that kinda puffy eyed look of somebody getting ready to just cut loose with the waterworks.

“No, it depends on what it is. Even with all of that, it really could still be just bad luck. It happens. It could also be somebody you know. If this is an ex-boyfriend or something there really isn't a whole lot I can do for you that couldn't be done by the police, and my doing it has a good chance of getting you unwanted attention from all kinds of things, normal and otherwise. But if it really is something from the spooky side of the street, I can find out easily enough tonight for you I suppose. We can discuss payment when you actually have something to pay me with, and if I am able to solve the problem. Fair enough?”

She nods through tears. “Yes. That would be fine. So where do you want to do whatever it is you intend to do?”

“Your place. You are out of your mind if you think I am letting you get anywhere near mine while this is still happening. Now lets go wander a bit before you manage to destroy this poor coffee shop.”

Conversation is light as we walk around the park. Turns out she is single. No kids. Just out of college. She has been working and living in the same place since she got done with school about six months ago. Picked up a job working at the downtown library while she pays off a few outstanding debts. Wants to get them out of the way so she can “Start her life the right way.” Her plan is to get into movies as a decorator or some damn thing. Honestly I stopped listening really attentively about this time, but it sounded like she had dreams of getting paid huge amounts of money to put together sets for movies. We grab some fast food and nibble on grease and bread while we walk. She is a little twitchy. Listens when I have something to say but if I am silent she has some kind of pathological need to fill in the gaps with chatter about whatever. I am reasonably certain if I had to live with her I would kill her in a week. She just doesn't shut up. A couple of hours later we make it back to her place. Fourteenth floor apartment in a sixteen story building. Considering the nature of her current predicament I choose to take the stairs. Her apartment is a disaster of broken glass and scratched paint. A hundred little things wrong. There is a smell coming from the kitchen that turns my stomach. Rotten things. Must be part of her fridge being dysfunctional. When I try to shut the door it gets almost there and then the dead bolt pops out, causing the bolt to smash against the door frame and leave a big a*s dent. The door itself is a fairly decent metal job and since I don't want to get trapped in here I just move a chair that was in the entryway against the door to keep it from opening all the way.

She glances at me, “Okay, so what are you going to do? My friend didn't tell me what you actually did.  Just that you were able to help.”

I look at her, “Take me to your room.” She gives me a look. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I just need somewhere to work where you aren't and it might take a while, so your room.”

She arcs an eyebrow, “You aren't going to be drawing pentagrams on the walls or anything are you?” I look around at the near apocalypse-esque view in front of me and say “Would it matter if I did?” She holds her head in her hand for a second and says “I guess not.”

She leads me down a back hall to a pair of bedrooms, one of which is currently being used as an office. I walk into the bedroom and go to shut the door. She is trying to come in. I stand in the way.“Remember when I said I needed you to be in another room?'

“But what are you going to do? This is my bedroom, I can't know?"

I sigh. “I am going to step into another world that is an echo of this one and see if I can find and discourage the spirit that is giving you such a hard time. If you really want to see, I guess I honestly don't care but generally speaking people don't really want to know how this kind of thing gets done, they just want it over. Now, are you sure you want to come in?” To her credit she does think about it. For about four seconds.

“Yes. I do.”

I move out of the way, step over to the bed and sit on the end of it. I glance at her and say “If you see anything odd happening when I am gone I would get the hell out of here if I were you.” Then I take my head in my hands and I concentrate on this little lump in my right arm that I have been hauling around for six years now. There is no obvious change other than a bright light and then it gets very dark, like the lights have blown out. I look up. The ambient light here makes most things into muted grays with a hint of color. She isn't here. The room is still here, more or less. The same throw pillows on the bed, but covered in a layer of dust and the cases are fading. The walls are covered in prints, small little things that smudge away the dust. Stretched out like little hands, the palms of them maybe the size of a nickel. Thousands of them. I stand up and almost slip and fall in a puddle of black slime. A smear is left by my shoe in the stuff and I can see the carpet for a second until it oozes back into place. Whatever this thing is, it has been here for a while. Maybe weeks, months even to cause this many accumulated prints. The sludge covering the floor I have no real explanation for at all. Why has there only been a problem for four days if there has been something this active here for so long? I step out into the hall and I see a light flickering against the far wall. Looks like it might be originating in the living room. I move up, one step at a time. The decay has caused the paint to peel a bit from the walls, tiny chips of it now lay around the base boards like snow. I can hear something in the living room now. Little breaths, pained. Soft mewling sounds accompany them. When I make the corner into the entryway I see something out of the corner of my eye. Moving fast and out of sight around the wall toward the concrete back patio. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to want to face me openly. But it will probably fight when I corner it. Might be time to get my game face on.

You see, this other place is controlled as much by dreams, desires, wishes, and fears as it is any kind of logic. People that stumble in without a clue usually just die and are kicked back out or are never seen from again. Even the ones that live rarely retain their sanity. It is a shadow land. An echo of reality, distorted and mutable in ways that are terrifying. For better or worse though, I have an edge.

The spot in my arm where I carry that little stowaway piece of metal hurts as I apply my will to myself. Just before the pain would knock me out, there is a shuddering throughout my body.  The armor of my mind flashes up around me. All metal plates and clockwork bits, twisting and turning. Giant crab pincers at the end of my arms, the outer edge of each pincer side a half moon ax blade. My perspective shifts, I am taller by a foot and peering at the world though a giant metal visor. There is the constant ticking sound as my mind continually turns the wheels that make the thing function, for in my mind it takes persistence to attain power and my will is the power for me here. Massive. Heavy, I can feel the floor bend as I walk into the living room. There is a buzzing sound, a screeching cry that originates from somewhere behind the couch. I bend over and lift the couch with a claw, reaching under to grab the thing, whatever it is. It tries to get away from me, flying straight up with a terrified shriek.  I don't think I could have caught it accept it was dragging a thin, delicate chain with a weight at the end. I grab the chain and the thing goes crazy, flying in circles around my arm. The chain keeps sliding off the end of my claw, so it doesn't get wound up on it. I snag the chain with my other claw, loosen my grip on the first, and pull slowly until it is pinned against my first claw, the leg stuck against my pincers by the ankles that are chained. It goes into what appears to some kind of violent seizure for ten or fifteen seconds, and then lays back against my claw, crying. I can see the anklets are causing blood to drain out of it at a pace that physics would not allow were we in a place where they applied. When the blood drips off of it, it changes color as it drops until by the time it hits the floor it has become more of the black sludge that I slipped in earlier. Now that it has stopped moving I can see that it is a small person. Maybe a foot tall, sporting a pair of dragonfly wings. Naked, and very female. Hair that probably went down to it's butt before it was chained and is now such a matted, tangled, filthy snarl that I can't even determine the color. I pick up the weight at the other end of the chain and examine it. It is a sphere of crystal, covered in a film of crud that I know now to be blood. Suspended in the crystal is an image of the girl who brought me here.

Looks like somebody doesn't much care for little miss “set designer” in training.

The kind of will it would take to create something like this chain, and then direct it at a specific person... Well, let's just say that they would not be “bring home to meet mom and dad” material. It does tell me what I need to know though. This little thing was not to blame.

I hold up the crystal before it and it tries to hide it's eyes, then I say:

“She did not do this to you. She brought me here to save you.”

Then I snap the anklets with a quick jerk of my pincers. The whole thing crumbles to dust, the will that was keeping it together broken. The thing zips away from me at speeds that simply should not be possible, hitting the patio door like a little winged missile and shattering the glass outward into a million pieces.

A bit of concentration and my armor fades away, I drop to the floor. A bit more and the world starts to bleed in brighter colors, the last of the setting sun shines in from the patio door. She is staring at me, her eyes wide. She opens her mouth to say something. I hold up a hand and sit down on the sofa.

“No. Gimme a minute, and I have a couple of questions before you get started with whatever you plan on bugging me with.”

I sit there for a minute and organize my thoughts. Then the smell from the kitchen hits me. “Lets go for a walk, your place smells terrible.”

We leave the apartment and as we are walking down the stairs I say, “So, who hates you?”

She looks up at me sharply and says “What?”

I stop on the stairs. I spend a few minutes describing what I had seen and done. Then I say “This kinda thing just doesn't happen on it's own. Somebody hates you, or just wants you gotten rid of in a way that can't be traced back to them. Somebody with a lot of imagination and not a lot of morals. If you say you don't know who it is, then fine. But with nothing to go on I am gonna have to call this one done. Let me know when it starts up again. But next time if I gotta come out and deal with the same damn thing it IS going to cost you. You have used up your freebie.”

“When it starts up again? What do you mean, I thought you said you stopped it.” She looks terrified, the blood draining from her face and the fluorescent lighting bleaching out what is left until she looks like she might just fade away herself.

I turn to start walking down the stairs again. “Oh, I did. But that wasn't just a random entity or spiteful spirit. That was a faerie. In particular, that was a guardian Fae I think. Probably been following your family around since before they migrated to the States. It was a lot easier to whistle up things like this back then. More people believed in them. If I am right, until recently she was keeping things from going wrong for you. Probably owed somebody in your family a debt, Fae are odd like that. This creature, she was encased in love of your family and nurtured, kept alive by your very existence. Within the last week or so she was thrashed to the point of not being able to see past the idea of making you dead to stop the pain. She is freed now. Probably hiding. But now she owes you twice, once for your family and once for you. Plus, she probably feels like crap for what she was forced to do. So she will come back to try to repay the debt. If this a*****e wants, she is pretty easy meat at the moment. He got to her once. Good odds he can do it again. Make sure you keep my number handy.'

“Can't you stop it? Please?'

“Lady, I am tired. I am going home and I am going to get some sleep. Gimme a call tomorrow if anything odd happens, and call me tomorrow night regardless. There is a couple of things you can do in the meantime though, if you don't mind looking a little odd to anybody that asks what you are up to.

I turn to face her as I reach the ground floor. She is still following me, a couple of paces behind and says: “What? I am ready to try anything at this point.”

“This clown that has it in for you may not care about you. It may be the bloodline he is trying to get rid of. Generally speaking even people back in the day didn't get desperate enough to make blood pacts with Faerie folk unless things were getting pretty intense. Might do us some good if you dug up the history of your family, figured out what the original problem was that made your ancestors decide to cut deals with something like this. The other thing is a little difficult to describe but bear with me. This thing, that is following you around? It loves you. It can't help it. Unless it is being manipulated, tortured like it was, it will do what it can to protect you. Most of the time it is a great boon to have something like that around. But it is like everything else over there. It isn't real. It is an echo of something. In this case I suspect it is an echo of your family, probably an echo of you if it is spending enough time around you to leave that many prints around your apartment. Maybe you are the last one left in your family with a clear enough claim on her to keep her, I couldn't say. But the point is that she gets her strength from your belief in her. Back in the day when people cared enough for guardians like these to go hungry while they left out milk and honey for them, the thing probably could have ripped this clown's head off and s**t down his neck if he looked at you funny. These days it can't even keep itself from being put in a torture lock. My advice? I know it sounds hokey as all hell, but take the day off tomorrow. Clean up the apartment. Buy something for her. Make sure she knows she is forgiven. Give her a chance to get her strength back, give her what she needs to do it, and I seriously doubt you will ever need to call for anybody's help again. Ever.”

I turn to leave, and she says “What... What should I get? I am a little new to this.”

I stop, but I don't turn around. “Ever hear about the fine line between love and hate? I don't think it was an accident she destroyed the shelves that held those snow globes your dad gave you first. Generally, she will probably like whatever you do and I know those had sentimental value that far outstripped their actual value. It will be hard to replace something like that in your heart. But it might be a good place to start.”

Then I walk out and head for home. Going to be a bit of a walk. But for today I think I am going to avoid riding around in anything that could kill me if it breaks. Paranoid? Probably.

I hope.