Beyond the Stone, page 8
Bane looked at his glass. It was filled with a pink liquid that was dotted with rainbow-coloured sparkles. Bane made a face. “Gods, your drinks are always so gay,” Bane said wryly.
Myko shrugged. “Still, tastes like sunshine. Drink up.”
Bane tipped the contents of the glass into his mouth. A thousand flavours and scents filled his body and he felt heat warm his skin. Sighing, Bane had to admit that the drink, gay and sparkly as it was, did taste like summer.
“Fuck,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
“Fuck,” Bane said.
Either the days were getting longer or his patience was getting shorter. He had just walked into the office and was looking forward to forty-five minutes of silence, but Madison was there at his cubicle. Worse yet, she had brought Claude. They looked up when he entered.
He walked toward them. “No, no, absolutely not. Go away. I haven’t finished my coffee yet. Come back in five years, would you?”
“Man, if it takes you five years to finish that cup of coffee, it must be the best cup of coffee in the world.”
Bane and Madison gave Claude a withering glance. “What?” he said. “That was a joke.”
“How about I shove a stick up your ass?” Bane asked. He smiled when he saw Claude’s shocked face. “That wasn’t a joke.”
“What is it with you and shoving stuff into people’s asses?” Madison asked. “You have some serious anger issues, Bane.”
“I just think it would greatly improve some people’s outlook on life, you know, if they were taller than everyone else.” He grinned. “Because of the stick.”
Madison sipped her coffee. “Thank goodness I put some Frangelico in this coffee this morning. Do you have to be such an asshole so early in the morning?”
“I’m kind of an asshole at any time of the day,” Bane said. “It’s kind of my thing.” He noticed a pained look on Claude’s face. “What’s wrong with you? Had a fight with your friend the tree?”
“No, I’m still wondering why you would want to shove a stick up my ass. What if that stick belonged to a tree?” Claude’s face wore a grimace of horror. “I mean, ripping a branch off a tree is like ripping off your arm!”
“Yeah, but only if I have like a thousand arms,” Bane said.
The horrified look changed to a confused one. “I don’t follow you.”
“So, the stick is like one of thousands on a tree, right?”
“Right,” Claude said, the look of confusion deepening.
“So, if the stick is like one of its arms, the tree is like some kind of mutant octopus from outer space or something? Is that how it works?”
Madison and Bane watched Claude think this through for a moment and then, after about two minutes, Claude said, “You can be a real douchebag, you know. Your life would be better if you considered the feelings of other people instead of just yourself.”
“Aw, you want to give me a bowl of granola now?”
“Hey, I keep granola at my desk for when I need a quick hit of energy!”
“Relax, Claude,” Madison said, putting a hand on Claude’s arm and giving Bane a look that said to shut up. “He likes to joke with the people he likes the most.”
Bane thought that he would throw up for a moment, but a second later Claude’s face split into a happy grin and he let out an “Awwww, that’s so sweet. So you use laughter to mask your true feelings of love and companionship.” Claude took Bane’s hand. “I do the same thing, except granola is really an extension of my feelings, so I am in reality eating my feelings because I feel too much.”
“Isn’t that like emotional cannibalism?” Bane asked. “Or is it some kind of self-cannibalism? Is that even a thing?”
A blank look passed over Claude’s face and it stayed there for a minute or two but then he smiled widely and let out a laugh. “Oh, you’re so funny, Bane! Madison didn’t tell me you were so funny!”
Bane looked at Madison. “Give me some Frangelico in this coffee.” He shook his head. “Scratch that, just give me the fucking bottle.”
“Hush now, Mama’s got your medicine.” She took a small mickey out of her purse and added a generous shot to a third cup of coffee..
Bane gulped down some boozy coffee and said, “Fuck that’s good.”
“I know, right?” Madison said. “It should be a sin.”
“Okay, can you both tell me why you’re here so early in the morning, again?” Bane said. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t love talking to either of you, but I really don’t like talking to either of you. So, what’s going on? What’s the haps?”
Claude looked at Madison with worry. Bane let out a laugh. “Shit man, I’m not a Seer or a psychic and I know what you’re thinking. You’re going to have to learn to hide your feelings some more. What’s up?”
Looking at Madison with even more worry etched across his face, Claude said, “There was a disturbance in the force last night.”
“What?”
“There was a disturbance in the force,” Claude said, again.
“What are you, fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi?” Bane said, gruffly. “What are you talking about?”
Claude let out a loud sigh. “The force, the force of Earth that blankets us all like a web. The force that holds the earth in one piece. Well, something ripped through that force last night, it ripped a hole in the atmosphere.”
“You can see this spiderweb thing?” Bane asked.
“Yes, all Dryads can. It is one of our gifts.”
“So, what do you want me to do about it? Why come to me so early in the morning?”
Claude looked worried and turned to Madison again. She let out a sigh of her own and said to Claude, “You know, you’re perfectly capable of speaking, but by all means, let me answer your question.”
She turned to Bane and motioned at his cup. “Drink up, lover boy. Claude called me when he felt the atmosphere rip and he got a signature of the energy involved.”
“I didn’t think that Dryad’s worked like Seers,” Bane said.
“We can if we are outside. We don’t get clear pictures, but we get feelings and left-over emotions and residual memories.”
“He saw a lot of blackness and a lot of shadow, but he also saw you,” Madison continued. “He called me to ask if I could look for you.”
A chill ran down Bane’s spine. “And what did you see?”
“What do you think I saw? I saw you, talking to some leather dude, totally hot by the way, and you were both staring at some magical shadow cloud of doom. Then the vision went black.”
“I thought you had to be close to a person to see thoughts and shit,” Bane said.
“To hear thoughts and things that aren’t being said, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see visions. When did you see the shadow thing?” she asked.
“Who says I did?” Bane asked.
“I’m a fucking Seer, Bane. I know what I saw,” Madison said.
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Bane replied.
“Bane!” Madison yelled. “I’m a fucking Seer! I can see inside your head!”
He should have been ready for it, but when she slammed into his head, Bane stumbled. Claude grabbed onto him to keep him upright even as Bane could feel Madison flipping through his memories, the things that he had seen, things that he’d done. He pulled a few items away from her, could feel her frustration at having thoughts grabbed out of her hands, but there was no way that he was going to let Madison see him naked, thank you very much.
Opening her eyes, she glared at him, her green eyes aflame with a fire that he hadn’t seen before. “You can stop me,” she said, whispering with either rage or awe. He was going with rage.
“What?”
“I felt you in there!” she said, her whispering almost like yelling. “Normally whatever I want to see is mine to take in, but you picked and chose what you wanted me to see.” She shook her head. “This shouldn’t be possible. I’ve never met anyone else that can do this.” Madison looked at Bane with something like fear in her eyes.
“What’s the problem?” Bane said. “I play dumb a lot because it’s easier that way, but there have always been parts of myself blocked off from all of you Seers. I thought it was the same way with everyone else.”
Madison shook her head. “You don’t understand. A Seer can see anything, know anything, feel anything that someone else has felt, seen or known. That’s why people don’t like to commit a lot of crimes in the Clocktower district. Because a Seer can always find them out if there is something to link them to the crime.”
“My cousin Therry once tried to hijack a car, only he crashed it into a house. The patrol found him within hours with the help of a Seer,” Claude said.
Bane gave him a look. “He sounds like a douchebag.”
“He kind of is. My mother says I remind her a lot of him.”
Bane waited a moment. He looked at Madison and saw that the shocked look had been wiped off her face. Instead, a large smile lit up her face and Bane watched it contort as she tried not to laugh.
That was all that Bane needed. He let out a bark of laughter and Madison’s laughter followed. Soon, they were holding on to each other to remain standing. Claude looked at them open-mouthed.
When they continued to laugh, he said, “It’s not that funny.”
They laughed even harder. Madison had tears sliding down her face and she was doing her best to try and get a breath in. For his part, Bane was trying to take big gasps of air and was holding on to his sides as if to keep them from splitting open.
“It’s really not that funny,” Claude said. “Screw you guys.” He actually crossed his arms.
“Okay, okay,” Bane said, taking a deep breath. “Okay, we’re sorry, Claude. We are.”
“We are sorry.” She took a deep breath and tried to keep from smiling. “But can you see why we laughed? I mean, you said your mother said that you remind her of a douchebag.” She gave another hiccup of laughter.
The laughter continued until it began to dissipate and Madison and Bane both wiped at their eyes. Each of them took a long swallow of coffee and Frangelico and Madison took a long breath, letting it out slowly.
“Oh, thank goodness. That’s so much better. Thank you for that, Claude! I needed a good laugh.”
“You guys are assholes,” Claude said, morosely. “Serious douchebag assholes.”
A loud “Ha!” snuck past Bane’s lips before he reeled the laughter back in again. “We’re sorry, Claude, we really are. We didn’t mean anything by it. We just meant that you are naturally funny. See what I did there? Naturally? You’re a Dryad and you like to commune with nature?”
“Har-dee-har-har,” Claude said. He uncrossed his arms and took a deep sip of his coffee. “Thank goodness this is mostly booze. You guys are serious fuckwits.”
“Agreed, we’re being assholes.” Madison put an arm around him and pulled him in for a hug. “Really. We just needed a laugh, and you were the one to give it to us.”
“Seriously, Claude,” Bane said, looking at the Dryad’s hurt face. “You’re actually really cool, you know? So, are we good?”
“Yeah,” Claude said, still pouting slightly. “We’re good.”
“So, what did you want to bother me about anyways?”
Madison tapped him lightly on his head. “Honestly, do you have a brain like a sieve? What do you think we came here for? To ask you what you were doing with that leather-clad guy when the darkness was released.”
Bane shook his head. “I can’t talk about that.”
“Can’t, or won’t? Look, you better start talking, otherwise I will dig so far into your head that you would feel me in there for the rest of your life.”
Bane shivered. “That would be disgusting.”
Grimacing, Madison said, “I agree, and I’d really rather not do it, so you could save both of us the trouble and tell us what the fuck is going on.”
Bane thought of the dark cloud that he had seen in the mirrored magic, of Jackson’s face as he kissed Bane, the golden flecks in his dark eyes lighting up the dark. He thought of the patrol and how they had frightened his mother and put that look of fear upon her face, the sparkling of her magic at her fingertips. Bane thought of the task force that he was supposed to be setting up to help the Clocktower district, but he knew that it would have to be fake, that they would have to dig deep into the patrol and everything else to find out what was going on.
He thought of all of this and of the people that he had around him. He thought of Jackson and Myko and his mother. That was it; essentially, he was alone. However, he didn’t have to be.
“Can I trust you?” Bane asked. “Can I trust both of you?”
“Yes, of course you can,” Madison said. “You know you can trust me, Bane.”
“I know you don’t know me well,” Claude began, “but you can certainly trust me. That’s what friends are for, right?”
Bane looked at their faces, bright, honest, and open, and wondered why he had been pushing them away for so long. “Okay,” he said. “It’s a long story.”
“Oh, honey,” Madison said. “Let me fill up our cups with more booze before you begin. It sounds serious.” She went to her purse to grab the bottle.
“Won’t Edwards mind us getting sloshed so early in the day?” Bane asked.
Madison let out a little laugh. “Bane, it’s Friday. Half the office will be baked or drunk today. We’ll fit right in!”
Chapter Fourteen
They still had an hour or two until everyone else showed up in the office, so Bane just sat down right there and told them what was going on. He hadn’t planned on letting it out, on telling anyone, but Bane knew that somehow he could trust Madison and Claude...even if Claude was a bit of a douchebag.
“I don’t have many friends...” Bane began.
“Why am I not surprised by that?” Madison asked.
“I for one am shocked,” Claude deadpanned. “Shocked and dismayed.”
He gaped at them then closed his mouth. “I guess I deserve that.”
“Well, I could go on,” Madison said.
“Please don’t.”
“It’s all good. I can save it for later,” Madison replied.
Bane tried again. “I’ve been working with the black market for months. I’ve been covering Myko’s back. He helps me out when I need it.”
“Your mother,” Madison said.
“Yeah. Gives her shit that makes her sleep when the madness is too much. There are times when she’s fine. She’s okay now, I think Jackson brings out something in her that has been hiding for a long time. He calms her in a way that I can’t.”
“He has that effect on a lot of people,” Madison said. “It’s one of the reasons I like him so much.”
She was quiet again, giving Bane the space he needed. Madison knew how difficult it was for him to speak, not just to them but to anyone. She gave him the chance for his words to grow before he set them free into the air.
“She hasn’t been well for a long time. Not since she killed my father. I think my siblings drove her to the edge, but when her magic killed my father, it just threw her off.” Bane took another swallow of mostly Frangelico. “I’ve been holding her together ever since.”
“Your mother is a Black Widow Witch,” Claude said quietly.
Bane said nothing but he noticed the looks that Madison and Claude were giving him. Claude’s was one of shock and Madison’s was one of wonder.
“What?” Bane said. “Don’t look at me like that. She can’t help what she is, much like I can’t help what I am. You are looking at me like you’re both afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Claude said. He placed a hand on Bane’s shoulder and, feeling the warmth of Claude’s touch, Bane wished for Jackson. “I’m just sorry that you had to go through all of that alone. One death is hard enough to deal with, but dealing with the death of three others, especially your immediate family?” Claude shook his head. “You are stronger than you know, Asher Bane.”
“Yeah, well, whatever.” It was easier for Bane to put on the tough guy act than have this conversation. “And you? Do you feel pity for me because of what I’ve been through?”
Madison shook her head. “No, only worry. And there’s something else. I’m getting a nudge from the ether. You need a Dryad and a crystal ball on your team, that’s Claude and me. I know it is. You need a lightning bolt and a star, and I don’t know who those are yet.”
“Myko has a star tattooed on his left wrist.”
“There you go, then. But Jackson and your mother are also part of this.”
“Part of what?” Bane said. “It sounds like you’re preparing for war.”
Madison looked at him with exasperation. “And you’re not? You saw that fucking shadow thing up close. Knowing that that’s what is coming for us and what, your plan was to do nothing?”
“No,” Bane said, pouting slightly.
“Then, what?” Madison asked. “What are you going to do?”
“My mother can’t be part of this, she just can’t be.”
“I see a group of us, one of each of us. A Rook, a crystal ball, a tree, a star, a lightning bolt and a spider’s web holding us all together.”
“Yeah, then what about Jackson? You told me that he was part of this too, but where does he fit in the web? He’s a mortal. He’s not a star or a fucking tree...no offence, Claude.”
“I know that, Bane. I just see him with you, beside you and your hands are joined. I don’t know what’s coming, but if it’s that fucking shadow, we have to be ready. We have no idea what something like that can do.”
“It will devour us,” Claude whispered. He took another sip of his coffee. “What I felt last night...I didn’t sleep a wink. I have never felt anything like that before. I was always told that Dryads are brave, that with roots that went far underground, we could withstand anything, that there wasn’t anything that could take us down...”
He looked at Bane and Madison with fear in his eyes. “I didn’t feel bravery. There was no courage there. I only experienced a rush of terror.” He paused. “I think I peed myself a little.”
