Finnigan

I sit on the flimsy bed they issued me, staring at the still painless burn on my hand. The sickly, milk-white skin had already blistered, leaving a black wound the size of a peach pit. I’d read the words dozens of times over, they made little sense. Tenebris Vincit Malum in a circle around the edge of another circle.

Morganna walks in, looking as if she had fallen asleep in a washing machine on ‘spin’.

“move.” she growls, shuffling to the foot of my bed.

I do not want to challenge her, so I oblige.

I move a few seconds before she falls face first onto the solid mattress. I have a feeling that even if I hadn’t moved, she would’ve done the same thing.

“Morganna? are you all right?”

she lets out a loud throaty hum that I comprehend as a ‘no’

“N’ don call me morgrirama,” she spoke slowly and stumbled over her words, “you sound like a butler. M.G. is fine. You have a stuffy voice... now go to sleep Jimmy.”

“I can’t, you stole my bed.”

“What. This isn’t your bed. It’s mine.”

“What should I do instead of sleeping?”

“Nothing, do nothing without me.  I have to be there to kick your butt.”

“I won’t, I swear.”

“Don’t swear at me, boy I’m your elder. Now shut up.” She mutters as she shoos me out of the room.

I leave the room at her groaning bequest and end up wandering through the hall kicking at sawdust. I get very bored quickly. I study the mark again. It’s still circular, still cryptic, and still not painful at all. I swear the flame was so hot it had given me nerve damage. And what did that girl mean when she said—

“I know, I know you’re in pain, darling, but I need you to stick it out for just a few more days.” said a compassionate voice from somewhere.

I now wonder where this hallway leads.

Another hallway.

“Pose better dammit!”

“What if I’m sick of your little power-trip?”

Two different voices yelled.

“I couldn't care less what you do or don’t do. I thought you would be a good model, all right? So pose better, Morrison.”

“You know what? Screw you! I will not do this anymore!” the fabric of the  upcoming acid green curtain swished and out ran a disgruntled boy in a flowered silk kimono.

“Screw you, Cas!”

“Tch, you would.” A smaller, graphite stained boy also emerged from a curtain smugly smiling with an unlit cigarette in his lips.

“You can’t just play that card whenever you want something from me. I am a goddamn performer! What are you?”

“Smart enough.”

The taller boy in the kimono, Morrison I’m assuming, shook his head and smiled, “You are a coward, Cas, a goddamn coward! I told you everything! I confessed my love to you so deeply and poetically, that my bloody eyes turned white! What do you respond with? Or do you not remember?”

“I remember, ‘you’re kidding, right?’”

Morrison scoffed “‘you’re kidding, right,’ I retort to you now, and to myself I ask ‘Is he worth it?’ are you, Cas?”

“No. run while you can, let someone else break your glass heart. Go away, I’m too cautious, as you say.”

“I will ask you one more goddamn time; Do you love me?”

Cas laughs a heavy and sad laugh, “I will see you later, my dearest.” the acid green curtain swishes once more and Cas disappears into the rotunda.

I can see a tear or two glisten in Morrison’s eye. He looks down, then at me, does a double take and seems startled by my presence.

He draws the collar of the pink kimono closer in his hands. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long enough to care, but just long enough to wait.”

“I  apologize.”

“What for?”

“My appearance, my… supposed lover, making you wait.”

“No sweat, mate.”

“Really?”

“You’re going through some serious tin.”

“Yeah, um” he sniffs and draws the kimono tighter “That’s normal lately, he’s been very cagey, and just...”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

He sniffs and nods.

I needed something to do anyway, why help some poor soul?

“Come to the greenhaus, It is quieter.” he says, drying an eye on his hands.

Once in the greenhaus, we talk for a while. Not really about anything, but mostly just about nothing.

The conversation did eventually take a turn for the worse.

“I, um,  I apologize once again.”

“What for?” I ask flatly.

“Disrupting your afternoon with an incessant crying and annoying feelings.”

I shrugged, “If not you, then somebody else.”

He nods, “This place is filled with drama. People just want to be numb and avoid it, but in the meantime it thrives in its own absence.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

“You know, there’s Something else you could do for me...” he says coyly.

Oh crap, again? Why does the world wish this on me?

“I know what this is—” I say, standing

“Do you?” he says standing up and stepping toward me, his eyes now a glowing, pupil-less silver.

Now I wish I just sat on the floor and threw push-pins at the ceiling

Anathema

I hate the people here.

Screaming from every room! I swear, It’s like this is some kind of torture chamber...Oh wait, it is.

Yeah, I’m here in the goddess of death’s torture chamber or, the conference room adjacent to the torture chamber (why these were placed so close together I don’t have the foggiest) And not to brag or anything, but I am the youngest there.

An ageless beauty with bright pink pigtails running silkily to her shoulders put her electric blue platform boots on the table, That is Veriviane, the goddess of love. There is a lady with a lot of multi-colored hair fixed with many shining diamonds meant to be stars, this is a matron demigoddess, A necromancer named Evelyn. Three immature meatheads in the corner played the ‘penis’ game, those are the Fates. Together we wait for Accira, the queen of the underworld.

The plywood door opens letting a few blood-curdling screams escape around the petite, timid nymph tip-toed her way in, and found a chair along the wall to sit with her notepad.

Immediately following the nymph was the lady herself, Accira entered looking the most determined and peeved  that I’ve seen since I’ve met her.

“That Necromancer boy is nothing but trouble! He skipped half of the timeline!”

A collective ‘what?’ made its way around the room.

“That’s right, he skipped half the stuff he was supposed to do! He’s met a siren, a real siren! and—”

“He was supposed to do that.” says one of the fates

“Adam, I swear—”

“I’m Chaz.”

“I don’t care! Just fix it, do your job for once!”

“We don’t work for you, lady.”

“For now you do, so do your job, or I’ll...” she fell short of what she might do. I mean it’s not like she can smite them. Can she?

“You’ll what? Smite us? Please, like we haven’t been smote before.” one of the Fates jests

She looks annoyed, but an idea pushes an uppity smile into her face.

“No, but I can tell the cops about your fake IDs.”

The three turn into a sputtering mess, visibly afraid for what she might do.

“Now, if we all can agree... Fix the damn timeline!” she takes a deep breath  and puts on a calm composure, “Now, Veriviane? How are we doing with Saoirse?”

“Well... enough.”

Accira’s face falls flat. “What do you mean, 'well enough'?” she rages

“I mean, She delivered the message, but he’s not at all attracted to her.”

“Oh.” She is visibly ticked “Send her in one more time, and I want this kid begging at her heels, however high and hooker-ish they may be.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Accira smiles sweetly, “Then get him to Evelyn’s sanctuary, line up all of your skanks and find out which one he does like!” she progressively gets angrier through this sentence. 

Her cellphone buzzes.

“What?” she says boredly into the brick of a machine, her previous demeanor forgotten completely.

“Shit. Which level? Six? Shit. Yeah,” she nods to me “Yeah I’ll tell him. Whatever, Damion.”

The second she’s off the phone, she turns to me. “She bolted, killed Curt and Tony. Explain.”

“Don’t waste the time or the guys, she’s harmless as a mermaid in the dessert, send out two guys, they’ll find her in a day." I say.

“You better be right. Also, you’re our pull with the Guild of Stars, so set up a trial for tomorrow. Necromancer, full show. I need them to like this kid, make it go smoothly.”

I sigh, “I have to call them, they won’t be very pleased, but I can do it.”

“Yay, somebody around me will do their job.” she speaks up “And as for you others, Eve, get the led out, two days to plan a killer monologue, make him think you care. Be the villain! Acting! Veriviane, Get on the Saoirse thing, I don't care what you have to do I need him to be wrapped around her finger and yours by extension. Fates, fix the timeline. Nath, I’m counting on you to start this whole thing, don’t let me down, now go! Do your jobs!” 

Finnigan

I’m swept with… well not fear, but more confusion. Yeah, confusion is right.

“What are you?” I ask the thing with blank white eyes.

“I’m here to convince you, to charm you.”

“So you’re a siren?”

“What? No! I mean, I am, but that’s not the point—”

“So you’re a siren, here to… seduce me?”

“Well, no, but—”

“But you just said you were.”

“No! I’m not here to seduce you! I’m meeting with you to convince you not to go to

“Oh, this is a meeting. I thought it was—”

“Will you shut up and listen to me!” He sighs. “You shouldn’t go to Eve’s… whatever because, she just wants to use you as a champion.”

“Explain.”

“To rescue her daughter. She just wants somebody to senselessly run into the underworld and break her daughter free.”

“I see…” I put my hand to my chin. “This doesn’t change my thought process, but I can see it. On an unrelated note, how can I get somebody I can’t pick up from one place to another while they sleep?”

“What? Oh, I guess you can use a sack truck. Are they heavy or are you just not strong enough?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, then the sack truck. But as I was saying, Don’t go there, she just wants to use you for cannon fodder. I can’t tell you how many heroes I’ve seen die trying to break her snobbish daughter out of the underworld. It got so bad that she has eighty-six hour guards surrounding an iron cage. It’s insane.”

“Why are you telling me this?” 

“Because I have a guilty conscience? I don’t know.”

“Guilty conscience?”

He nods.

“I still need a sack truck.” I say.

He nods and looks relieved.

“By the way,” he calls as I’m pulling up sacks of potting soil “You’re not my type.”

I laugh, he laughs, the wall laughs.

We both glance over, Out steps a Painted nightmare known as Saoirse.

“Aw, but you two are so cute together! Aren’t you, Cynth?”