- 29 -

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

The scent of wet earth was heavier than usual in the tiny tattoo parlor. Afternoon sunshine beat through the front window, warming the clay pots and planters, glittering over the various cases and displays hidden between the overgrown plants. I came through the front door to find Saule on her stool manning the counter, her headset slung around her neck as the static of her music issued loudly into the mild quiet of the shop.

"Welcome to Baba Ya—," the witch began before recognizing me. Her nose wrinkled and her small mouth puckered as if she'd tasted something especially bitter. "Oh, break my branch, why are you here again?"

"Hello, Saule," I said, giving a weak wave as she crossed her arms and spun on the stool to effectively ignore my presence. Great. I was barely two steps into the store, and the witch was already being difficult. Today she wore a plaid skirt and a ribbed lavender tank top, chunky bracelets layered past her wrists on both arms with a silver medallion tucked into the neckline of her top. Her attire was a sharp contrast to my white jeans and black shirt.

"I told you before, I'm not supposed to tell you stuff. Don't you listen?" She glanced over her shoulder as if checking that I was still there. I was, and I had moved closer to the counter, not yet ready to give up. "I'm already in trouble with the coven Mistress after that demon took one of our grimoires." Saule's posture stiffened and the indignant blush was leeched from her face. "He's...he's not coming, is he?"

I shook my head and simpered. "No. He doesn't know I'm here." At least I hoped not. If Darius suddenly popped out of thin air, Saule would probably die of a panic attack.

Saule wasn't reassured, but she was relieved. She turned to the counter again and slouched over it with a loud exhale. "Oh, bless my blood. I don't think I could handle that again." With half her face molded to the scratched counter, she continued "I still can't tell you anything. I can't tell humans stuff they aren't supposed to know. It's a rule."

I shrugged as I fiddled with my bangs. "Well, I didn't see a sign on the door that said no humans allowed, so I can be here—or at least I'm guessing I can?"

The witch snorted. "Yeah, because a sign saying 'no humans' would go over real well."

Her sarcasm tugged my lips into another grin. I kind of liked Saule. She was a bit of a coward, but her snarky humor fit well with my jaded mentality. "You know, Pride told me something the other day. He said that as a host to a Sin, I'm subject to the rules and judgments of the syndicates. So, I figured if I can be persecuted and tried by the laws of your society, why can't I be educated about them as well? Seems only fair, doesn't it?"

Saule brightened. Her brown eyes perked up, and she straightened from her slouch to lean on one elbow, her bracelets sliding down her arm with a clatter. She considered me for a long minute as her foot bobbed behind the counter in time with the tinny beat radiated from the headset. Abruptly, her foot stopped and, defeated, the witch gifted me with a sour—but indulgent—grimace. "It's not my society. The laws of the syndicates don't rule the covens, as much as those flash-bang mages wish otherwise. If it'll get rid of you, I'll tell you what you want to know."

Finally. "If it makes you feel better, you could always say I threatened you. I do have a mean-spirited Sin at my beck and call, after all." I was only half-joking. If something were to happen to me, I actually had no idea how I'd contact Darius, and I also had no idea if he would suddenly deign to make an appearance. I was worried he might. My comments about Saule hadn't gone unnoticed this morning.

Saule let out a weak laugh. "Yeah, then I'd have to admit I helped you and that thing in the first place. Thanks, but no thanks. I had to lie to the Mistress and say I lost that grimoire, you know. What did he do with it, anyway?"

I winced as I reached out to touch a potted fern spilling over the counter's side. "Burned it."

The witch groaned. "Royal bastard. Probably my fault; I shouldn't have shown him the book in the first place, but I was startled. My mentor always said 'Saule, don't show your hand. Keep em' ignorant. It's a mark of a good priestess.'" The witch's voice rose in mocking falsetto as she dropped from her stool, picked up a cardboard box, and stomped to one the displays. I followed, noticing again how short Saule was. How old is she? "But I bet the witch never had one of them walk in here before. She would've pissed her britches. Seriously—I thought I was dead for sure. I mean, that's not supposed to happen, is it? They're supposed to shun the covens and syndicates and keep away from us. But you wouldn't know, would you? Being human and all. Bloody book was worthless and I still got my ears pinned back in a lecture."

I listened as the witch continued to vent, the woman evidently pleased to have someone listen to her gripe about Darius' sudden appearance and the true fate of that burnt text—even if that someone was just a human like me. She stuffed plastic-wrapped talismans from the box under her arm onto a display. One fell and I picked it up, flipping the thing over to scrutinize the strange markings. Saule didn't notice as she was still harping on about her cowardly mentor.

"Saule," I interrupted, handing back the fallen merchandise. A tingle of energy wrapped itself around my hand and I curled my fingers under after she took the talisman. "You mentioned that the covens don't follow the laws of the syndicates. So witches aren't the same as mages?"

"Oh gods, no. Whole different bag of trouble there." The witch shook her head and adjusted her grip on the box. "Witches and mages are about as opposite as you can get. I mean, those flash-bang mumblers will tell you differently. The syndicates have always believed the covens should be subservient to them, but fat chance of that. For one, mages are all male. Witches are all female. Can't get much more different than that, can you?"

I wondered where new witches and mages came from if they lacked the opposite sex in their species, but I refrained from asking. I had another question I needed to be answered. "Is there a syndicate in Verweald?" If there was, I needed to know so I could avoid it. While Darius had shown disdain when speaking of Verweald's coven, he had spoken of the mage syndicates with clear caution. If Darius thought the mages were dangerous, then I needed to be aware of their presence.

"No, thankfully. They're not allowed to set one up here, what with the Sin of Lust basically running the city. He pays off the syndicates and they let him do his thing, but he won't let them put a syndicate here, and that earns him the cooperation of the coven. I mean, we get envoys from the syndicate down in Los Angeles all the time, and at least once a year a liaison from Blue Fire will roll through, checking things out, but for the most part, there aren't many mages in Verweald."

That was a relief. It was one less thing I had to worry about as Darius and I hunted down the cult—though, I found it interesting that Saule thought the Sin of Lust was a man. It was evident that while the supernatural creatures of this city knew the Sin was here and in control, they didn't actually know who she was. This anonymity probably afforded Amoroth some protection from aggressive mages and true-faith believers. I also found the animosity Saule expressed between the mages and witches interesting. The conflict there was prevalent in Saule's casual distaste. Darius had been correct when he said the mages believed themselves this realm's enforcers—and the witches weren't pleased by that. I didn't know how long this ill-feeling had been brewing between the two species, but I wagered it had been festering for many, many long years.

Saule fussed with the display when a phone rang somewhere behind the counter, the loud shriek ripping a startled yelp from me. Saule rolled her eyes and set down the box, saying she would be a minute before going to answer the ringing siren.

Massaging the painful stitch in my chest, I wandered the store as I observed the stocked merchandise and half-listened to the witch on the phone. I wasn't an idiot; while I understood the coven to be the lesser of evils, I still held Darius' warning about my criminal status in my thoughts and kept a wary eye on Saule. She seemed to be discussing a tattoo appointment, haggling over the price with the occasional, irritated huff.

There was a deck of cards on one of the metal racks, the edges worn and the card backs bent from being shuffled. Curious, I drew the top card and flipped it over, revealing the image of an inverted man hung from a silver tree by his ankle. The Roman numerals 'XII' emblazoned on the card's top. Frowning, I pulled another card, this one displaying the numerals XVI and a dilapidated, slanted tower. A prickling sensation drew my hand short, and I realized I had picked cards from a tarot deck, not a deck of playing cards. Shaking the ugly feeling off, I quickly replaced the cards I'd taken and straightened the deck.

By the main window stretched a wall left bare of foliage, a clunky bulletin board bolted right to the studs. The board filled the space from floor to ceiling and was riddled with fliers, business cards, and various detritus, the cork all but destroyed by the multitude of colored pins holding everything together. Mundane people such as myself probably perused the board and found the requests for various tinctures or potions charming—never realizing they were real.

A few wanted posters were interspersed among the rest of the jumble, the larger fliers kept up by daggers jabbed right through the board behind them. The typeface was artful and the images hand-drawn, but I suspected the mocking presentation was to appease fanciful humans, and that the posters and the criminals displayed therein were very much legitimate. Looking over the face of a roguish, dark-haired mage with a ribbon tied about his throat, I wondered if I would land on one of these posters if a syndicate discovered who I was. Perhaps they would kill me outright and not bother with a poster.

Saule still chatted as I came to a stop before a rack of stoppered bottles. The rack was segregated by thin walls, creating cubbies that separated different groups of bottles from one another. Each cubby had an overhanging lip before it, and from what I could deduce, a sample bottle was set out on the lip to tell an interested customer what was stocked in that particular cubby. All of the bottles were different from one another, some as large as my hand, others as slender as my pinkie. Some were comprised of thick crystal with clawed bronze feet keeping them stationary, others created with a thin, filmy plastic I could crush between my forefinger and thumb. None were labeled, though each had a handcrafted price tag noosed around its stopper.

The liquid inside the clear bottles varied in color from bottle to bottle, but they all emitted a subtle glow and a perceptible hum of energy encased the entire rack and the surrounding area. Most of the bottles contained an opaque teal liquid. Bottles of blue were mostly kept in the cheap, plastic vessels. A long-necked bottle burned orange as though it contained viscous lava. A single crystal decanter of effervescent green was kept behind a secure sheet of glass.

Figuring I should inspect one of the more abundant flasks—lest I break something possibly priceless and land myself in debt to a witch for the remainder of my short life—I chose one the teal bottles, surprised by its almost none existent weight. The liquid inside sloshed in a predictable manner, the glass warm against my skin, the entire flask radiating an almost imperceptible charge. It was like holding a humming, low watt light-bulb in my palm.

"Mana pots," Saule said cheerfully at my elbow. I nearly dropped the flask as I spun, startled. The witch seemed curious to find me perusing her selection. That I had one dangling from my hand didn't perturb her, so I figured it wasn't worth much.

"Mana pots?"

"Mhm. You know, mana? I think some species call it an aura, or ether. It's all soul energy."

My brow rose. "I thought they were only supposed to be blue."

Saule rolled her eyes, clearly disgusted. "Yeah, only if you're a basement-dwelling troll existing outside reality. It's flash-bang propaganda." She plucked the teal bottle out of my hand and replaced it with one of the blue ones. It too hummed but in an intangible way the energy whispering in my palm felt...different. Less natural. "You know different souls give off different frequencies of magical resonance and these frequencies get interpreted visually as different colors?"

My lips formed a thin line. "...no?"

She leaned on a shelf and pushed aside the square blocks crowded there. I didn't have a clue what those were, either, but they gave off indignant grumbles when Saule shifted them. "Mana. It's what Sins eat. I'm sure you've figured that out, at least. That's why they hunt hosts and pin them down with contractual ties. They want your soul's energy, not your eternal damnation." Saule snorted, becoming more confident and smug in correcting my puzzlement. She was enjoying this exchange. "They pluck out living souls and wring all the energy out of them before the energy disperses. You can't actually bottle mana. It'd be like bottling lightning. This stuff here is synthesized to certain wavelengths of the soul spectrum, stabilized by a pinch of blood from a person with the right soul. So it's not like your, er, buddy could come in here and start guzzling these down or anything. They work as supplements, augmenting what is already there—and, as we all know, demons don't have their own mana, so this would slide right off em' like water on oil."

Sins didn't have their own mana? But what could that mean? Didn't Darius have a soul?

Unaware of my sudden quandary, Saule continued talking, straightening a few flasks as she did so. "I guess the human equivalent is an energy drink. It's more potent than that, but that's the only thing I can really think of that is similar. When you drink one of those, it's not like you're actually drinking energy, right? You're drinking stuff that gives you the means to make energy. Same deal here."

I rotated the bottle in my hand and studied how the sunlight refracted in the murky liquid. "So this color is for...?"

"Twitch-fingers."

I blinked and Saule grimaced.

"Err, mages. Dexterous. Mages have blue mana—see what I meant by flash-bang propaganda? And within that base tone of blue you get different shades associated with different affinities." She tapped the stoppers of several different blue flasks. "I got dexterous, runic, mumbler—err, materialistic, and construct mage mana right here. These—." She gestured at the collection of teal bottles, which I noted were almost similar to the mage bottles in color but remained quite distinct. "—are for witches. Hermetic, alchemical, and blood. Of course, I've got some more exotic stuff mixed in to give the display some drama." She laughed while pointing at the large flaming decanter. "I think that's wyrm. I'd be lying if I said I was sure. I didn't actually make that one. I think my mentor's mentor did. You'd think it'd be really valuable, but it's not like I'm going to have a wyrm waltz into my store and ask for a mana pot, so who am I going sell it to?"

I replaced the blue flask, still lost in thought over her innocuous comment concerning the mana of a demon's soul. Like me, you have sin in your soul. Darius had told me that once. I had heard him refer to his own soul several times in the past. If the Sins had souls, why did they lack mana? Why were they forced to strip the energy from other souls to fuel their own existence?

"What color is my soul?" I asked as my gaze rested on a bulbous decanter filled with a pure, lovely gold color so brilliant it was as though the witch had managed to capture sunshine in crystal. I noticed despite Saule's flippant comment about rare mana pots being virtually unsellable, both the solitary green and the gold flasks were stored behind glass.

"Yours?" she questioned, her petite nose wrinkled in confusion. "Well, you're human. A human's mana is clear. It has something to do with you guys not being cognizant of your souls, so it just flows and ebbs unhindered, picking up no interference or influence. It's why you guys can't do magic. Can't tap the keg, can't drink the beer." The witch smirked as she rubbed the side of her nose. "I've heard of some humans having that connection between their souls and consciousness forged, but even then it's like running water through a motor. Your mana just doesn't have the right substance to it."

"What if I were to drink one of these?" I pointed at the colored pots. "Would my...mana change?"

Saule whistled low. "I don't know, really. Never seen someone drink one that didn't match their mana color. It's not common sense, you know? I think it'd be like drinking gas; it'd kill you that fast. I tell the humans who come in and buy them thinking they're bottles of bioluminescent liquid that the stuff is highly poisonous, and I haven't had an issue yet. The Blue Fire Syndicate always gives the coven grief over our visible profile here at Baba Yaga's, but I've always found that displaying our magical trinkets is less suspicious to humans than if we were to try to hide it. Humans see what they want to see. They ask why the bottle glows. I say it's magic, and they laugh."

Saule had a point—and it was all too similar to the argument Darius and I had exchanged that morning. We humans were intolerably shortsighted at times, but I maintained the belief that generations of conditioning and rationalizing the bizarre should excuse humans for our dismissal of the supernatural. At least partially. If I were to hold an apple before a toddler and tell him for all his life that the apple was an orange, and he went on to teach his son that the apple was an orange, and so on through their lineage—could that first misled fool's descendants be blamed for their mistake? Did people like Darius and Saule blame us humans for not considering the idea that the apple was not an orange, but an apple all along?

Feeling like a dumb, weak little human, I sighed.

"I could make you one, if you like," Saule said, her voice soft and her brows drawn together as she watched my crestfallen expression. She had observed the sudden drop in my mood, and I was surprised by her concern.

"One what?"

She jerked a hand toward the display. "A mana pot. It wouldn't be, um, useful, but it would show you what your soul looks like. I do small pendants from time to time, like little samplers. People like to use them to judge the color of their mana against the product they're buying. The closer the color, the more potent the mana pot."

I brightened. "You would do that for me? I thought I was harassing you."

"You are—but it's not like I have anything better to do, and your Sin did drop three grand on your healing, even though my cowardly potion-peddling ass would have done it for free."

I was flabbergasted, frozen in place as the little witch spun on her heels and started for the counter again. "Th—three grand?!"

She glanced at me, smirking. "You didn't know that?"

"No!" I had seen him hand a stack of bills to Saule, but I would have never dreamt it to be so much—considering the Sin was eating me out of house and home, all while complaining about the necessity of

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net