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Fourteen, Part Two

Throughout the annals of history, a single line of dialogue has sparked the fires of revolution, summoned the hammer of war to fall heavy and hard, obscured kingdoms, erased dynasties, and plunged nations into nightmarish darkness.

But in all the world's millions of years alive, none had witnessed this. Peneloper's fury was so righteous, so fiery, her aura, after expanding to fifty times its size, consumed the Luric residence. The air sizzled, and Crispen found he had no words to describe this moment other than these:

Miss Auttsley, at having been defiled so thoroughly, so completely, that her soul would need several runs in a washing machine to get the slimy, putrid stink of the word, that will, hereafter, not be named, did not take a chill pill. She took the pill that caused her essence to explode and threaten the safety of everyone present.

"Well," Peneloper said, dusting off her hands. Lyabelle ran up the stairs, her trembling sister trailing behind her. "Forgive my outburst, it was most untoward." She curtsied.

Mrs. Luric, with the help of a sturdier Mr. Luric, picked her jaw off the floor and finding her mandibles still worked, forced out, "I never knew you could be so fierce." Admiration and awe wove through her words.

Peneloper gave a sheepish bow and smile. Her aura returned to normal, a small smattering of paisley print, her embarrassment, bobbing through the tempered sea of purple. "I guess I get it from my mother."

Mrs. Luric smiled. "And your grandmother. Mildrea was a terrifying creature in her day."

Peneloper sank to her seat and nodded. "Yes, I remember a little."

"I find women are always more fearsome than men," the Luric matriarch stated, "because we're often put in situations where we must fight for what we love."

"Surely that's biased."

Mrs. Luric craned her neck to stare up at Mr. Luric. "Well, Cas, what say you on this? Have a defense for your gender?"

Castor Luric eyed his wife and slowly set down his spoon, pudding dribbling off his chin. He cleared his throat. "As I'm no ambassador to male-dom, you can't expect what I say to ring true for the majority. But I have seen what you have fought for, my dear," he reached out, grabbed his wife's hand and planted a kiss on her knuckles, "and I have heard great stories about your grandmother and mother, Peneloper," Peneloper puffed with the pride of a narcissistic peacock, "so yes, women fight for what they love, but I think, all of us fight for that which we love. We just happen to go about it differently."

Mrs. Luric leaned in and gave her husband a quick, bashful peck on the cheek. "Watch your words, honey," she cooed, "or you're liable to make all the women of Potter Oaks come knocking on our door, looking to claim you for themselves." She smiled. "I can fend off several, maybe forty or so before breaking a sweat, but I couldn't fight them all." She snarled sweetly. "Not without cracking a few skulls."

Chant, embodying the disgust of all children when faced with a blatant display of parental grossness, thrust his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes. "We have company."

Mrs. Luric turned her eyes upon her dinner guests, a not-so-embarrassed blush on her cheeks. "Everyone, eat up. I've got seconds cooling the fridge." She plucked up her spoon and tore into her pudding. "Chant go wrangle your sisters, and make sure you-know-what is never uttered in Peneloper's vicinity again." Ten clocks behind Chant chimed in unison signaling it had turned five. "Peneloper, do you still have a curfew?"

She nodded. "Eleven on weekends."

"Then we have enough time to tell you all you want to know, but first," she raised her spoon in the air. Mr. Luric followed, Peneloper. Chant raced up the stairs to fetch his sisters. "We finish our puddings."

After their feast of chilled puddings concluded, and warm mugs of coffee were taken in the living room, where the Luric family's cat clock continually eyed Crispen with every swish of its plastic, black tail, Mrs. Luric readied herself to address all of Peneloper's questions.

She relaxed in one of two recliners, bringing her mug of half-drunk coffee to rest on her lap. "Which of your hundred questions do you want to ask first?"

Peneloper chewed her bottom lip. Then, after a pause, said, "Who's conscripted you into the 'protect Peneloper' cause?"

Mrs. Luric snorted. "Leave it to you to ask the one question I can't answer."

"Mrs. Luric," Peneloper leaned in, imploringly, "If someone's trying to protect me, why can't I know who it is?"

"Because I've promised to keep their anonymity, Nell, and since I consider myself trustworthy, I find I have to oblige." Her tone sweet, her aura more so - blushes and delicate mauves radiated compassion. "Ask anything else, anything, and I'll tell you what you want to know."

Peneloper settled against the couch, deflated. Chant, who had sandwiched himself between her and Crispen, while his sisters, after being convinced to come back downstairs with the promise of hot fudge sundaes, sprawled out along the carpet, chocolate smeared across their mouths as their spoons scraped the bottom of their sundae dish. "This Refracted, this creature that's after me, it got a name?"

All eyes turned toward Crispen. Of course, Gideon would be his area of expertise. He nodded and said, "Gideon Darquish."

"Don't know it." Peneloper rubbed her head, thoughtfully. "Why has he decided I should die?"

Crispen cleared his throat. He felt a reassuring pinch on his shoulder – one of Genesis's talons. He nodded at the bird and gave him a quick scratch behind his left wing. "You do know him. In fact," he interlocked his fingers and took a breath, "you know me."

Peneloper snorted and some of her coffee dribbled down her chin. "Yes, that's generally how it goes once an acquaintance has been established."

He shook his head. "No. Nells, you knew me when you were little."

Her eyebrows raised, the alarm in her aura blared. He elaborated, "Your memories of when you were little, you've wondered why you have trouble remembering them?"

Her hands gripped her mug tighter, knuckles white. "Of course, I have. Some would say obsessively so," Chant gave her a slight smile, "so you were a part of that time?" Crispen nodded. "And this Gideon, too?"

"Yes," he said.

"Then, I must have been quite kind to you to have you flying back in my time of need," she grimaced, "and quite terrible to the other to have him want me dead."

"No." Crispen scooted closer, knocking knees with the eldest Luric, who so angered by this encroachment of his territory, lobbed a snarl at the boy of crows. Crispen cared not to notice. "You were every bit as you are now," he said. "though in miniature."

Lovely memories floated through his mind. Of her in the sandbox, of her snagged in the branches of the old oak tree behind her house, of him showing her magic by levitating her building blocks in the air, and her, showing her affinity for the craft by manipulating her crayons to scribble all over a vocabulary assignment. Peneloper smiled, while he reminisced. "You probably showed him the same shades of yourself you showed me, though, Gideon's—"

"A monster." Rosen sucked a gob of whipped cream off her finger. "That's why he was put away."

Lyabelle nodded. "Yeah, the Rose and Relinquished is only for the worst of the worst. Heck, even abyss eaters can do what they do—"

"—and," Rosen piped up, "they munch on the fabric of Time."

Peneloper looked from the twins to Chant and Crispen. "There's a magic jail?"

Chant nudged her in the shoulder. "You didn't think regular jails could hold those of us magically inclined? I mean, us werewolves, could snap a jail cell's bars with our jaws."

"Or sink our fangs into the throat of some guard," Lyabelle crunched down on her spoon, splattering the soupy remains of her ice cream onto the carpet, "and then pluck the keys from his corpse."

Chant's upper lip curled into a snarl and a sound like a whimper escaped his little sister. She settled back on her haunches, alongside Rosen, looking as empty as her sundae dish. "Not to mention," Chant continued, "some creatures are just smoke or consciousness. They could just float right out of normal prisons."

"A magical jail is needed to contain the magical bad guys." Peneloper mimed ticking off a box in front of her face. "Got it. And this Gideon escaped from that prison and is coming after me because we were supposed friends when we were little? So, what? Did I steal his pudding? Ruin naptime? Call him a doo-doo head and--"

"Nell," Crispen leaned forward enough to make eye contact. Peneloper's aura blushed and he pretended, out of regard for her feelings and the privacy she kept accusing him of violating, not to notice, "Gideon's not like other Refracted," he shouldn't have been but was, like me, "and though he shouldn't be able to wield magic, he can," though I saw him drained. I felt him emptied and how that gutted him, "he used his magic to pervert the Refinery and he's probably coming here to pervert you."

She quipped, "That's nothing that a marathon of reality TV couldn't achieve."

"Nell—"

"Ahem."

Crispen stiffened and looked around the room. Everything remained as it had: Peneloper exiled to the other corner of the couch in Chant's pathetic attempt to keep her as far away from Crispen as possible, the twins on the floor, the Luric parents rocking in their matching recliners.

But everyone had eyebrows raised, Mr. Luric's eyes, half-hidden beneath eyebrows so low on his face, they almost created a secondary mustache. Mrs. Luric clawed the armrests of her recliner. The twins hopped to their knees, bellies inches above the floor, sniffing at the air while they lie in wait. Chant clenched his jaw into an almost perfect square.

A door materialized to their left, in the Luric's foyer, hovering a few feet from the front door. The word, "Proprietor," marked a pane of glass with blocky, black print.

Every muscle and organ inside Crispen seized. The door opened like the mouth of a silent predator, and a red-haired man of moderate stature and relaxed suit stepped into the living room unbidden.

"Forgive my interruption, Luric pack." Anderson bowed at Mrs. Luric, Mr. Luric, then the twins, who had gone back to more comfortable positions on the floor with legs tucked underneath them.

Playing with a silver pin on his lapel, he turned toward the couch and eyed the three of them. "Mr. Heavensley." Crispen felt as tightly wound as a bowstring, seconds from snapping. "Chantham." The idiot boy growled. "Miss Auttsley." Anderson spoke her name with the most kindness which came with a side of lukewarm smile. She returned it in kind, too amiable for her own good. "The Council of Four has requested an audience with you."

Crispen's hands balled into fists. "Now?" He shot to his feet, the faint white of his magic wafting off him like smoke. Anderson made no show of any fear or worry. "Now?" Crispen continued. He saw his magic before him and reached out. Strands wove around his hands, his forearms. "Of all the times and places, they decide now to intervene?"

His power grew, and he knew it augmented the way he looked, transforming him into what he really was. A whisper came to his ear, not in his voice, but Gideon's, "Pervert Mr. Pale's pet. Why not? It's what we do...what we were born to do... "

Crispen snarled, hurled his fingers toward Anderson. "They, who in their great wisdom, have seen fit to sit idly by while Gideon threatens Peneloper—"

"Crispen?" Peneloper's voice, small, distant. "You're glowing."

He stared down at himself and yes, he was glowing. Every bit of skin, even under his nails radiated a pale luminescence. Worry lines congregated around Peneloper's eyes. He severed the connection and returned to normal.

"Mr. Heavensley," Anderson said, coolly. "Do remember who narrates your story." Crispen's mouth slammed shut, and though he'd regained control of himself, he still writhed with anger. His gaze darted upward, reaching far beyond the stained ceiling tiles to see.

I know he's seeing me.

Anderson continued, "I can only imagine how you must feel given your history with our chosen, magical leaders, but I am not here to argue with you their merits or missteps. I am simply here to offer a ride." He stepped aside and swept his arm toward the door. Warm light flickered from within.

Crispen huffed, releasing the last of the anger that had seized control, and breathed out. Peneloper watched him with wide-eyes and a wary aura.

Rosen chuckled, raised one unruly ginger eyebrow. "It would seem even the boy of crows has claws." Lyabelle punctuated her sister's jest with a harsh, bell-like snigger.

"Chant," Mrs. Luric spoke up. "Accompany Peneloper." She nodded at Anderson. "That is if Mr. Pale has no objections."

Anderson smiled. "Chantham is more than welcomed to accompany Mr. Heavensley and Miss Auttsley. Mr. Pale recognizes the boy's particular fondness for the girl who'd helped with his purchase of those vending machine delights."

Chant started to open his mouth, but as the first syllable of what would have been an avalanche of stupid, need-not-be-asked questions slipped from his lips, Anderson interjected. "Mr. Pale knows all he must know, at exactly such a time when it is needed known most." Anderson's eyes narrowed, a peek of fang poking through his gum. "And he does not require so many clocks to do so."

Chant's jaw snapped shut. "Come along then," Anderson beckoned to them, "While time is of no great consequence, it is rude to show up late, and it has come to my attention, Inter-layer Radio, Channel 56, 972 and ¼ is running a seventy-three hour Madonna marathon. I do hope to hear Like a Hotel Concierge played at least once."

Peneloper stood, though with evident trepidation. She sidled up to Crispen and eyed the door and Anderson, who had ceased fighting the crooked nature of his pin in favor of tackling the shallow dimple in his shirt cuff spiked through by a silver dagger cufflink.

Crispen braced for Peneloper's volley of questions, but instead of asking him to clarify the situation or explain who the red-haired weirdo with the restless fingers was threatening to ferry them to the magic high-lords on Puff the Magical Door, she asked, with eyes so earnest they hurt to look at, "Are you all right?"

She fumbled with the sleeve of her hoodie, biting down on her lip, indecision zigzagging through her aura. She debated reaching out for him and grabbing his hand when her arms abruptly landed back at her sides. She'd decided against it and Crispen, who'd thought it would be best if she didn't touch him, found himself disappointed.

He smiled and nodded. And though he wanted to reach out and touch her, feel the warmth of her skin and delight in the way her aura would squirm just as she would, he took both his hands and shoved them in his pockets. Birdseed lodged itself under his nails. "I will be," he said, giving her a half-smile he hoped looked sincere.

Peneloper returned his smile in kind. "What, that's it?" She nudged him in the shoulder. "That's your smile today? Why at only fifty percent you can hardly expect more victims to fall prey to your swoon."

He chuckled.

Chant cleared his throat, and raked his fingers through his hair. "We should go."

Leading the way, as dogs often liked being at the head of a procession, especially any involving sleds, Chant entered the Proprietor's door first. Peneloper was second, her aura more curious than cautious. Crispen, took up the rear, sluggish and oversaturated with Luric pudding.

As he passed Anderson, the man's fingers locked around his wrist. "I don't mean to pry, Mr. Heavensley, but I know this is hard for you." Crispen ignored the urge to armor himself in his magic. "How long has it been since you appeared before them?"

"Ten years."

Anderson nodded and released him. Crispen stood at the cusp of the door, light spilling over his sneakers. The air reeked of vanilla, chamomile, lavender. The soft serenading of Anya found his ears.

Ten years had flown by since Crispen stood before the Council and they'd looked at him with consternation and condemnation in their eyes. Ten years since they cast their votes in their democratic way in favor of his termination. Of Gideon's. Ten years since Crispen's brother had been torn from his arms, drained and locked away.

To him, ten years wasn't nearly long enough.

With a deep breath, Crispen allowed himself to become the door's third victim. 

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