Whichever Direction

[Do You Know]

(@Sycophant + DYK )


The weather had called for snow and it had arrived, dumped from the atmosphere in droves of twisting, tumbling snowflakes. It had been beautiful at first. It sprinkled the grey city landscape like diamond dust, or powdered sugar. It was the simple sort of pretty. Not gaudy, just... nice. Winnie liked just nice. She giggled when the powered sugar fell in her auburn hair, chilled her rosy cheek. She grinned and smiled, for an hour or so. Then the cold started seeping in, first down into her rubber boots. Then it crawled up her legs, slithering down every inch of her body, leaving her chilled to the very core. The silver-and-white landscape of her city home turned to a white, white Hell. Everything was white. Even the sky seemed white as snowdrops came flooding in like enemy drones. Winnie was disoriented to the point where she forgot where she was. Her mind went blank, blank as the white, white ground and white, white sky. All she felt was cold, all she saw was white, and soon all she knew was numbness and quivering fear as she realized no one was coming out for her now that the snowstorm was at its peak.

 

[Sycophant]

"...What in the world am I going to do with your heart, Maddie?"


He mumbled to himself as he loomed over a lifeless construct. The room was as dark as dark could be, the only source of light being the adjustable overhead, as a concentrated beam blanched out the subject on the table. With the lamp's position, he was able to get a clear view of the convoluted arrangement of wires, tubes, pistons, and valves, densely compacted and interwoven with nodular circuitry as it all formed an artificial nest for its prized egg: a compacted orb that weakly pulsed its own ethereal green light between the cracks of its many facets. He, veiled in a thick cloak dyed mahogany red, his dark hair spilling in tresses over his ears, looked to the side of the steel table at the tray of sharp and jagged instruments with which he intended to use for the operation. Reaching out slender fingers to pluck his way through the arrangement, the man grunted upon finishing his count: he was missing one.


The door to the back room swung open as the man pushed through. Now illuminated by the lights of the main store, the tall, broadly-shouldered man briskly made his way between high stacks of boxed parcels and heavily-packed racks of all sorts of mystic and arcane novelties, until he made it out of the make-shift corridor and onto the floor. There in the clearing was a young boy, hair oddly colored a faint mauve and cut to a medium length, and solemnly dressed in a black turtleneck and pants. He was sweeping up dust and black shed fur from the ornate tiling.


"Maverick," called the man. His firm tone shocked the boy to attention, apparently having been lost in his own thought. The startled expression on the lad's face make the man smirk out of amusement, though with no ill intention. "Maverick, have you handled any of my tools in the back, lately? I'm missing something important that I need to fix Maddie, and I can't treat her with care if I don't have the right instrument."


The mauve-haired boy shook his head, and lowered his similarly-colored eyes back to the collective pile on the floor.


"Well," sighed the man, sliding his fingers through his slicked dark hair, "Find it for me. It has to be in here somewhere. I'm off to the post office. The snow is going to get bad later, so I hope they haven't already closed up for the day. Maddie's heart was supposed to come in yesterday, but now this is going to be an issue. Normally I wouldn't mind the wait, but I need her to perform a maintenance spell, and--Well, you get the gist." The man made his way over to the young boy, and from the conic shape of his cloak broke forth a lean arm clothed in a black woolly sleeve, and reached to rustle up the boys hair. Maverick breathed a faint sound of exasperation that made the man laugh aloud. "If you practiced every day like you're supposed to, Maverick, maybe you'd be skilled enough to help me at least prepare the sealing circle. Wouldn't that be exciting?"


"...Yeah." The mumbling boy treated the word like a throwaway.


The man didn't seem to notice the lack of enthusiasm, his playful mood far from deterred. He instead made his way over to the front door of the store, one hand reaching for the crystal knob while the other plucked up from a coat stand a pointed, over-sized hat with a large "X" design slashed along the edge of the broad brim. Setting it snugly on his head, he pulled open the door to the outside, the motion making a hanging bell tacked up to the door frame rattle. "I'll be back soon," he called back to his young assistant, before leaving, nothing but a burst of freezing wind in his wake.


Stepping off from the awning-covered step and onto the sidewalk, thick snow crunched under the man's pointed black leather boots, crisply breaking under his weight and leaving him just above ankle-deep in it as it brushed against the base of his cloak. Fat flakes flurried from the sky and stuck to his clothing, lacing him with white frill before melting into the cloth. His vision was left clear from overhead snowfall for the most part, thanks to the brim of his hat. As he walked not barely a block down the quiet city street under the pale, featureless sky, he came upon a young girl with reddish-brown hair and galoshes, shivering as she stood about with as blank an expression as the snow before her.


"Hello," he greeted jovially as he approached, hoping to call her to attention just as he always did with his young assistant. "How's the weather treating you?"

 

[Do You Know]

Winnie had traveled more than just a block. At least, that was what this man's appearance implied. The cloak gave him away, a great shaded giant against the ivory-white backdrop of the city landscape. He smelt of rust and mystic trinkets. The scent of a witch--- no, a warlock. Just as bad, were they not? At least that was what the humans like her claimed. The ones too pure to tamper with the dark arts their God warned them against. Winnie was not to speak, to touch, to interact with one of the sinful ones. She was not to cross into their part of the city for their territory was laced with the black sorcery that raced through their veins. But she'd broken that simple rule, even if unwillingly.


She was probably to turn to stone or melt into sludge, just as the other schoolchildren warned. Maybe her throat would burst into flames once she spoke, that was what Grandmother claimed. Yet, she felt not sense of impending doom, no pit in her stomach preventing eye contact or sealing her mouth shut. Something was driving her to look this monstrous warlock dead in the eye. Daring? Curiosity? Idiocy?


She said, "Well, not good at all, as you might already know. I've been out here for hours and I'm rather cold."

 

[Sycophant]

The tall, looming figure laughed heartily at her matter-of-fact reply.


"Well little missy," he began, his rich voice as warm as the puff of condensation that formed at his mouth to every word, "Out hours in weather like this is going to be bad for your health."


Out from under his cloak slipped his hand, and he briefly pinched his whiskered chin between the crook of his thumb and forefinger, thinking momentarily. Despite the abysmal temperature, it did not seem to phase the man, his bare, olive skin still warm with color. He would have asked her where her parents were, but to be out for hours by oneself at her young age, he began to question if she even had parents--or even the shadow of a parental figure nearby to keep her care. The girl looked to be a little younger than his assistant back at the shop, Maverick being twelve years old. It gave him an idea, since he was in such a rush.


"I'll tell you what: why don't you stop by my shop and stay out of the snow for a little bit? I've a helper about your age who can keep you company. Tell him his boss told you that you can order him around however you like, and he has to comply." He beamed at the thought of the girl putting Maverick to work on such a dead business day. "And we have a phone so you can call someone to come pick you up, if you can."


His arm slipped back under his dark red cloak for a moment, only to return with a small business card in hand. The card was beige with red print on it, the top of it showing a detailed illustration of a store front, and to the side was a realistically-inked portrait of the man just as he is was now: in his draping red cloak and large X-emblazoned witching hat, its brim casting a shadow over the man's eyes, almost obscuring them. He handed her the card, and his arm return back to the underside of his garment and out of sight.


"See there? I'm the owner of The Eldritch Emporium, right down the street here. My name is Salem Komissarov, but my last name is a little difficult for some people to pronounce, so you may just call me Mr. Salem. It's a pleasure to meet you." Just then, his hat in a flourish lifted itself from the man's head and swept under and against his chest, just as in a courtesy bow, while he himself nodded forward with head lowered in humility. He glanced up at the young miss with a smile, his amber eyes now plainly visible in the even light of day, no brim to cast a shadow over them.


"I've to hurry now. Just look for store that's on that card. Have a good day, miss."


And all at once, his cloak rustled as if by a separate wind, his hat returned to its proper place upon his head, and leaving behind a plume of powdered snow, he drifted himself by on a sorcerer's current and down the block, fading into the white, leaving trace footsteps in his wake.

 

[Do You Know]

Now Winnie had a lot she'd wished to share, now that the giant-of-a-man had gone one with his response. But, before she could go into a tiffy, he went crunching off after giving her the dinky business card. She tore it to shreds, back turned towards his figure, retreating steadily into the now-dying snowstorm. The little ripped pieces blended with the dirtied snow underneath her galoshes.


The man was as quick as he was nice. Well, "nice" wasn't an accurate way to put it. Winnie's vocabulary was just as limited as a soon-to-be eight-year-old's should; she meant the false sort of nice. He had the smile, the gestures, but none of it was... sincere! Yes, that was the word. The man was, in lack of any other better terms, a bit fat phony and Winnie was now driven to hate him even further. It was out of reluctance and desperation-- to escape the now-excruciating cold-- that she now trudged down the snowbank, following the stranger's tracks while vexed mumbles escaped her mouth.


Everything he said had left her irritably spitting clouds of condensation. Of course being left out in near-negative temperatures would be dreadful for her health! It wasn't her fault she'd been caught in a blizzard that bad! And what had he said his name was? Salem? That wasn't a name! Joshua was a name. Johnny, Drew, Jacob, Henry... those were all names, but "Salem" was not a name, not that she should call a smelly ol' warlock like anything. Especially "Mr. Salem" which implied he was a superior, worthy of respect. That was simply not the case. It would never be the case because magic-users will below her, and that was that. Especially "Mr. Salem" with his stupid, swish-y cape and suspicious-looking hat. He looked like a criminal, though he was technically a bad guy.


But Winnie arrived at the little witchcraft shack--supposed a store, but she expected it to be a wreck inside. Fuming still, she stomped up the front steps and practically slammed her little gloved hand on the door. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to be involved, so she was going to give the monster on the other side of the door a piece of her mind.


"Now, open up, Witch Boy!" she yowled. "Your 'boss' sent me! Don't put any spells or funny hexes on me either, 'cause my Daddy'll get you good! Now let me in!"

 

[Sycophant]

The knocking and yelling at the door, made Maverick reflexively jump a little, spilling a little hot cocoa onto his lip. He pulled away the large, festive mug from his mouth and quickly licked at his mouth before the drink dribbled onto his shirt. Since Mr. Salem was gone, he had taken the time to break from sweeping up the floor and had made himself situated atop of the store counter, legs dangling over the ledge as he sat beside the store pet--a black, shaggy coon cat, whose attention was also roused from the ruckus outside.


Hearing the derogatory term witch boy and laughably demanding both entrance and assurance not to be harmed sounded like stereotypical things one who wasn't Adpet would yell. Maverick rolled his eyes and went back to sipping his cocoa. He certainly wasn't opening up for a whiny voice on the other side of the door. Mr. Salem would never even think to knowingly send someone as pushy and rude as this other bratty little girl over to the store. He just wouldn't believe it. Maverick would let the girl stand out there in the cold until she went away.


When she mentioned the threat of her 'daddy', Maverick couldn't help but snort. The mauve-haired boy set down his drink and shouted, "Oh yeah? Well, run back to 'Daddy', little girl. Nobody wants you here."


All the shouting made the black house pet stir from its resting position and stand up on all dainty little toes. The long-haired cat pawed at Maverick's side. His attention caught, he looked down at the feline, locking with its sea-blue eyes and inquisitor's stare. Maverick narrowed his gaze at the cat and wrinkled his nose at it, crossing his arms.


"She can freeze for all I care," he told it, begrudgingly.

 

[Do You Know]

Winnie had been provoked before, but now, she was fuming.





The stranger's heated response was halfway muffled by the locked door, keeping her from bursting in and utterly hammering him. Still, the message was clear, and Winnie did not particularly take to the edginess of it. "Why you...! You can't keep me out here! Open the door right now you big... fat... MEANIE!"


On the final word, she thrust her arm forwards like a loaded catapult. Its contents--a icy ball of snow--flew her once-crumpled hand and splattered against the door. Again, she repeated the process: collecting hardened balls of snow and throwing them as hard as they could. They THUNK-ed and CLUNK-ed against its surface, allowing not a moment of peace for whatever magician lay inside. This was a way for Winnie to unleash her anger and it wasn't stopping anytime soon, now that her face was tomato red and the weather was cooperating with her again.

 

[Sycophant]

Maverick balled up his frustration into fists at the sound of the door being mercilessly pelted. If whatever she was doing nicked the door and Mr. Salem noticed, well, Maverick could only imagine nagging teases that beat a worse sound than whatever it was that girl was doing. With an exasperated huff, the boy slipped off the checkout counter and trotted over to the display window right beside the door. In the window were taped a few promotional sale signs, and on the bench-like sill were stacked small and unusual trinkets, instruments, and ornaments, all with a rustic and antiquated look. He pushed aside some of them to give himself room to kneel as he climbed up onto the sill and ducked around the posters and flyers to peer through the fogged windows. There wasn't much to see but vague shapes and colors, so he took his sleeve and rubbed into the thin veil of condensation on the glass. With a patch of window now cleared, he peered outside.


A red-faced girl was chucking snowballs left and right. If they stuck, he was going to have to clean that all off the door. It was all just more work for him to do.


"Okay, okay!" He shouted through the pane, his annoyance apparently shaped on his pale face. "Quit it! Listen! Stop it and I'll let you in, okay?"


In his mind though, this girl had proven to be formidable, but also dangerous. If she decided to penetrate the safe haven that was this shop, she could madly attack him at any time, no oak door barrier to protect him at that point. He needed something on hand to defend himself if it ever came to that. He needed his training wand.


"Cashmere," he called out as he turned around to look back at the counter. "... Cashmere! Quit it, that's mine!" His cutting half-whisper caught the attention of the fluffy black coon cat, whose snout had plugged Maverick's mug of hot chocolate. The cat stole a few more laps before pulling away, its tongue licking its nose and its eyes intent on the boy. Maverick continued, voice still lowered. "Go get me my training wand. Go on, shoo." He fanned dismissively with his hand out toward Cashmere. The house pet gave him its perpetually indifferent look before taking its sweet time to stroll along the counter and finally drop off behind out, out of sight.


Maverick returned to the window, now expecting a more cooperative response from the barraging girl outside as he stretched out his arm and rested his hand tentatively on the lock beneath the doorknob.

 

[Do You Know]

Words exuded from a clouded window and Wendy broke away from her barrage in order to listen in. She saw the desperation etched on his face retorted with a smirk. It seemed her anger had attracted a pleasant change after all. Thank heavens she'd violently expressed herself with wads of snow! "That's what I thought."


The snow did have a sort of durability about it. It wouldn't easily slip off the front door. The frostbiting cold kept the snowballs firmly stuck where they'd been thrown and, now that Winnie had cooled down, she felt the blunt of the weather again.


It was a relief that the shop-keeping spell-castor moved from the sill to the doorknob. She let the snowy remains fall from her gloved hands, ready to embrace the supposed warmth of whatever realm these witch-people inhabited. Oh, how her mother would cry out if she saw how pleasantly her daughter stood on a stranger's doorstep. Though Winnie could earnestly less now. Her mind felt half-frozen; she couldn't bring herself to really consider. The cold was frankly unbearable.


Muffled voices signaled the boy was not alone. "Cashmere"... Was that a witch-y name? And she swore the word "wand" slipped through. It only made Winnie cross. "Quit your witch talk and let me in! It's cold!"

 

[Sycophant]

The tall oak door swung open, and succeeding a gush of warm air that plumed out from inside stood a boy, dressed in black with pale purple locks and matching eyes glowering beneath. Standing a full head taller than the girl, we tried his best to impose a presence to be heeded as he straightened his posture and stared down his up-turned nose.


"Call me a witch one more time and I'll let you freeze," the boy demanded, his breath condensing warmly but his tone icy. His eyes glanced over to see the damage done to the door, and when he saw the tumorous amalgamation of white solidly clumped to the surface, he uttered an audible "Ugh." He immediately turned his back to her with a curt "Shut the door behind you," before retreating from the threshold.


Inside, he made his way over to the counter, where he had propped up his broom and left a dusty pile beside a dust pan waiting to finish the job. Picking up the broom, he swept up the grit and bent down to pick up the pan. As he did, he felt something firm pounce on his back and then spring off. Just as he was going to react, the culprit ambled into view right under him, leaving behind a scarce spread of shed fur with it. Cashmere the cat peered up with its cool eyes and communicated something like a look of knowing, as in its mouth it held a thin metal instrument with a uniquely-hooked fixture to the end.


Maverick, still in his half-stooped position, made a face. "That's not my wand," he whispered. "Where did you get this?"


The cat, of course, didn't answer. Instead, it set the tool beside itself, it's coon-like tail contentedly brushing along the ground, spreading more shed fur as it resigned to watching Maverick's annoyed reaction to the additional mess of hairs.

 

[Do You Know]

His voice was colder than the winds whipping outside and, just like the cold, it pricked under her skin like little needles. It loomed abominably overhead, as if his black magic gave him superiority. The boy didn't look much older than Winnie, now that no foggy window nor any other boundary lay between them. He had frosty eyes and bizarrely-colored hair, not of the normal browns, blacks and blondes. He clearly was a magical entity but Winnie didn't want to be caught studying him. She was... infatuated, in a sense, but he didn't need to know that. She'd just never seen anything like him.


He was probably as ugly as the witches the good townspeople talked about. Winnie had only sneaked a glance before marching pompously through the door, plowing past with little concern for whoever stood before her.


She did not shut the door.


Her eyes shifted up and around and around once more. The shop was odd: musty-smelling and lined with all sorts of trinkets. Her nearly-eight-years-of-age hands itched. She wanted to touch them, to run her hands along them. But as she stood before the display window, eyeing the little suspicious objects, she felt halted by a sort of caution. The same caution felt when looking over a patch of flowers whose vibrant, inviting petals could sprout from stems lined with nasty thorns. The knickknacks could be laced with poison. Perhaps a spell lingered on their glassy surfaces that would hex Winnie, turn her into... a frog! A big, warty toads with gnarled horns atop its pimply head! Or, they were bombs! When a human touched the bomb, it would explode! But witches were irregular, unnatural demons escaped from the Badlands so the bombs didn't harm them, as they should.


So Winnie did not touch, even if her hands were protected by gloves. And, speaking of which, they were cold despite the padding around them. Her stubbornness regarding the door only left cold air gushing into the room. Reluctantly, she moved to shut it, but not silently. That purple-haired boy was mouthing off to his cat now. Could witches speak to animals? Oh, no. Not witches. He didn't want to be called that, the perplexing fool.


"Well if you aren't a 'witch', what are you, then?" she asked, an edge in her voice as she made a larger point of slamming the grand oak door as hard as she could. Her earlier fit had been solved, but now, she was upset again. Probably because she was envious of the "witch's" hot cocoa. It smelled divine.

 

[Sycophant]

Maverick had made his way over to the wicker-basket waste bin near the side of the counter to dump the load on his dustpan when he cringed up at the loud slam of the heavy door and the burst of freezing air. Even Cashmere jumped--quite literally--and was now scrambling to lift itself up from the edge of the counter, adding even more nicks and scratches into the dark, varnished wood. At any rate, the little girl's reaction was just as Maverick had planned, as the force probably saved him from having to go back out there and scrape off the snowballs she threw at the door in the first place. It was easy to outsmart a kid when you had all the brains of an eleven-year-old, after all.


Maverick rolled his eyes and turned back to look at her. His face was slim, and he rubbed a sleeve across his narrow, slightly upturned nose before addressing her. "I am an Adept." He stood up tall and with broom and pan in hand, held them akimbo. "And Adepts are just born with magical talent." He dropped his dustpan on the floor and resumed sweeping, though not without continuing a little smugly, a slight smirk on his face. "We can do stuff like fly and shoot lightning bolts and turn invisible if we wanted to. But you can't." He crouched down to hold the dust pan firmly as he swept up the line of dust that didn't properly push along with the rest of the pile. "And since you can't, you're called an Inept." Having properly swept up the area around the counter, he emptied the final pan load into the waste bin. He looked over his shoulder back at the girl and shrugged flippantly. "We're basically the only reason everybody isn't dead yet--from monsters."


Taking his cleaning supplies in hand, he walked over to an out-of-the-way area against the far end of the wall, cluttered and stacked tall with parcels and crates. He squeezed in through a narrow opening, and after a second, the sound of a tumbler unlocking and hinges squealing was heard as he tossed what was in his hands back into the closet. He returned, knocking his hands together as if to say a job well done. His contented expression quickly changed when he spied Cashmere once again shoving its face into his mug of hot cocoa. At this point the cocoa wasn't worth the expected surprise of a wet cat hairs, really.

 

[Do You Know]

Winnie scoffed at the boy's inadequate response, spoken in such a sickeningly magisterial way. "I'm not Inept. I'm human. Besides, my daddy says 'magical ab-il-la-ties' are witchcraft and witchcraft'll take you to Hell."


The word slipped out, leaving her tongue hot in its wake, as if she'd kissed a lump of brimstone. Winnie's face went red hot as well, but otherwise, she played it off. Silently praying the Devil's evil eye had slipped on by: "You don't want to go down there, do you?"


The boy scooped and dipped and swayed like a cartoon character, animated despite the simple act of sweeping. It seemed Winnie, after stepping through the doorway, had waltzed into a fantasy world beyond a plasma television screen. This universe was odd, run by some maniacal force that let demon boys run wild with their little fluffy demon sidekicks prancing around them. Disguised with the skins of humans and animals, they kept to their side of the urban lands, and only when little girls like her got lost did they kidnap them, use them as tools for their nasty magic experiments. Winnie was at the mercy of this devil-in-disguise, but she was not--and could not afford to be--scared. Winnie knew who she was. In the old fairy tales they used to read, in those foreign action shows they used to air, Winnie recognized the brave children who stayed strong, brave and courageous against the evil, neon-haired, sorcery-using villains. Example one was the snowstorm man, inviting her into his "innocent" house of playthings. Example two was the "innocent" little boy, sweeping and tidying up as good little boys should. Example three was his abnormally hairy cat friend that followed him around with pointed objects in its mouth. And could cats even drink cocoa? Winnie had tried feeding a stray cat some chocolate candy and her father had fussed at her.


The point was this: Winnie had to take responsibility for her situation. She had to be like Hansel or Gretel, like Alice in Wonderland, like... Ri-yoo, was it? (The names for that show were all in weird Asian characters.) Her mother might strongly disprove of her choices of inspiration, those "brainwashing works of fiction". But Winnie knew of her a gut feeling, a concept introduced to her by friends and family she trusted. Those fictional influences were necessary now, as they had in turn introduced her to the sort of upstanding bravery. She needed to stay hardy and quick-witted, outsmart these "Adepts" at their own game and escape their gateway to the badlands, back home to Daddy.


It would be easy peasy, no need to acknowledge the squirming in her stomach region. And the topic held between her and the demon-boy still needed to be changed, so she finally piped up. "What do you mean, 'monsters'?"

 

[Sycophant]

Maverick watched as the girl warned him of his own innate talents, and of some place that made her hot head burn up at the word, for whatever curious reason. He raised an eyebrow, but stared out the corner of his eye to think briefly. What was Hell? He had heard the name before, but at the moment it had slipped his mind. In all honesty, he barely interacted with Inept, much less socialized about with them about geography. That wasn't even his favorite subject--at least not the way Mr. Salem taught it.


Maverick shrugged it off and took a few steps back toward the counter again, his eye now on the abandoned sharp, silver instrument on the ground. As a second thought, he haphazardly shooed away Cashmere from his warm cup of milk and cat poison before bending over to swipe up the pencil-thin pick. Straightening his back and brushing the loose strands of his bangs back in place, he took a second to scrutinize what was now in his hand, particularly the odd shape of the hooked ends. It was more of an object to distract him as he ran through what exactly was this Hell and why it was so bad. Then it hit him.


"Oh yeah: Hell. Yeah, Mr. Salem goes there sometimes. They have glow-in-the-dark tiger posters."


Despite the proud look on his face as he twirled around the tool, it would appear that Maverick had his places confused.


"And monsters as in monsters," he said, stomping his foot forward for emphasis, a keen look in his eye. "Giants with ten arms and a hundred eyes, huge black dragons that breathe fire and ice; evil shadow creatures and people-hungry demons--Just monsters!" Maverick had orchestrated a wild rush of gesticulation as he spoke, getting his point across rather clearly, if not dramatically. He now stood with his arms spread far and wide, as if to say it was the final presentation of the point of monsters. Then he relaxed, and returned to inspecting the tool in his hand. "And there are bad Adepts too, who only seek power to control everything everywhere. They're the ones who turn into monsters, and they're the worst of them all."


He let that comment hang in the air for a second, before turning to the side, staring at the towering fortress of parcels on the other wall. He glanced back at the girl, and then back to the unpacked mass. "Stay there, I'm going to go put this away," he demanded, showing her the slim silver tool. Without heed to her, he trotted over to the makeshift tower of boxes and slipped his way into the narrow space in between.

 

[Do You Know]

She searched the "Adept". He spoke of the unholy realm in such a casual manner. That was proof enough he and his demon kin made frequent visits. That and he held a peculiar object - some demonic tool, perhaps a torture weapon - and his bangs made him look like a girl. How fascinating demons were. This one was amazingly youthful. I wonder how their costumes work. How do they appear so realistic?





Winnie supposed she should feel hesitant when in the present of a devil but the "boy" was still talking. In a more animated fashion, this time around. He almost seemed excited, invigorated at his own speech. About monsters, ones with fiery and freezing breath, tendencies to eat humans like her alive. And the detail about "bad Adepts", how corruption overtook them and transformed them into monsters, was enough to confirm all her suspicions. If these "Adepts" could turn into monsters, they had to be supernatural. Specifically, supernaturally evil. Winnie was definite she couldn't turn into a monster if she were engulfed in greed, anyway. That made her human, but demons changed their forms on a regular basis. "Adept" and "demon" kinda sound samey anyway.





The great oak door loomed behind the stout little ginger. The sky was clearing, as well as the snowy atmosphere, and the entire landscape seemed to be lightening up. It was the perfect opportunity to run screaming out and away from a confirmed corrupted spirit. But Winnie had already sealed her decision as a private eye of sorts. She was to gather the evidence and run it back to her father and her friends later on, then they'd deal with the plague of fiends just blocks away from them. She'd be a hero, an informer. Not to mention, she was drinking up every word dripping from this fascinating's "Adept"'s mouth, her eyes like big, glassy marbles. The controversy of it all both enraged her and entranced her. She felt the urge to trail him without flying at him. Glow-in-the-dark tiger posters!? Is he alright in the head?





And trail him she did; as if she paid any heed to his demand. Winnie watched him slip past the towering mass of, what was to her, junk. She mimicked the action as best she could, though the thickness of her winter coat made the movement a lot less graceful. Squirming past hopefully didn't topple any of stacked boxes. And, of course, she had something to say in addition: "What are these boxes for? Do you keep your tiger posters in them?"

 

[Sycophant]

Maverick had already made it past the narrow cavern of packaging and made his way a little farther down the hall until he met a doorway, gaping open and waiting for someone new to wander into its mouth and into the darkness. The young boy forcefully blew air and pressed his arms even tighter to his sides as he tried to steel his nerves, peering into the black to see a single still scene illuminated with a beam of harsh light. Dutifully, he stepped inside, knowing only one fact that of the scene that laid before him: this was Maddie's room.


His little black loafers crept along the bleeding warm light of the hallway outside before it slowly faded into black, the wooden floorboards creaking somewhat with every other step. Even as the rest of the room hid in the absence of light, Maverick could faintly see what was going on. Between walls fenced by lofty racks of objects whose shapes were lost to shadow, before him was the impression of some rigged, railed plane whose position could be modified atop a solid column that rose from the beneath the floor. Deathly silent on this, some humanoid figure laid. It was the size of an adult. The only clear thing that could be seen was shed precise light on by an adjustable lamp looming overhead the body. It shone into something that had opened up, and as he neared, he could see the wiry, knotted innards that all but spilled over, and in the center of it nested a dense, plated little sphere that slowly pulsed green from beneath its fissures. Beside the surgical scene was a small rack, metal by how it reflected what little light it caught. It hosted an array of small instruments, similar to the one in Maverick's hand.


The boy swept his lightly-colored bangs from out of his eyes and approached the side table. As he carefully set the narrow tool in line with the rest of them, he heard a clang from beside him. He wasn't expecting the sound, and instinctively called out in shock, his hand accidentally knocking on the jointed rod of the lamp, which shoved it in such a way to conveniently reveal the source of the fright.


Cashmere had climbed up on the stretcher, staring Maverick dead in the eye with look that could not be read, the lamp from overhead reflecting off of them in such a way as if the familiar held spirits behind its stare. Now, it stood, its trademark raccoon-like tail contentedly flicking about near the head of the subject, now clear in the light.


Just in focus of the light was a vaguely human-like face, made of what looks like a mask of smooth white leather stretched taut. It had no nose, but something like a mouth that hung open from slack. Its mouth was not lined with objects like teeth, but rather behind the thin cut of the bottom lip and farther back to the top palate, there was a reddish stretch of what may have been cloth, lazily suggest the inside of the mouth, tongue and everything all one flesh-tone. On its head there was rough, synthetic fibers like hair, coppery in color and fashioned in such a way as to look like they fanned into up-turned points on either side of the head, like wings. The widow's peak that centered on the brow seemed to have caused some problems when the face was being put together, as a thin split from the point crept down a bit onto the forehead, although a couple tight cross-stitches remedied the matter. There were no eyebrows, but beneath where they would have been were two inset headlamps, like those for a car, with dim yellow lenses that faceted like one would imagine an insects'. The light's hard edge cut off right at the chin, leaving the rest of it in shadow, save the faint glow of the exposed orb.


Maverick was about to chastise Cashmere when he heard the girl shout about his awesome tiger poster, her voice ringing considerably clearer than it should have.


"Don't follow me!" Maverick shouted, storming his way over to the door. "This room is Employees Only! Stay out! Can't you wait?!"

 

[Do You Know]

The "Adept" surged forward before she could even get an eyeful of what lay behind that inquisitive little door. Winnie had approached it with little precaution, but the boy's business went swifter than expected. She flinched, seeing his figure approach from the impenetrable darkness she'd been unable to comprehend, despite squinting as best she could. It was useless; the room was dark as a stale city night without a lucky star. Perhaps that peculiarity was supported by witchcraft? Perhaps some black magic had made the room pitch-black! And as she prepared for the demon boy to wrench the half-opened door away, Winnie set a goal: to break into that room and figure it out. Surely it was of importance to the devils-in-disguise if the youngest was so opposed to her entering.


So, of course, she herself was opposed. "Why ever not!? It's just a room. You were going in so I should go in too, right?"

 

[Sycophant]

Maverick grabbed onto the crystal door knob and yanked it back, fully presenting himself to the light of the hallway. He had on as stern a face as a 11-year-old boy with mauve-colored eyes could make as he stared down the little redhead.


"Don't you know what an employee is?" He crossed his arms at her oblivious and stubborn argument. It was clear to him that it wasn't a matter of equality as it was of privilege and role. "An employee is someone who works here. I do and you don't. Besides," He took a few steps forward, attempting to close the door behind him as he did so, "You're supposed to be leaving now. Go call your daddy alrea--Woah!""


Maverick was interrupted when Cashmere went scurrying out from between his legs, the bush-tailed black cat scuttling past he and the young girl, into the looming cavern of packed goods, and out onto the floor, ignoring Maverick's chiming as it leapt onto the counter and settled itself beside the old black rotary phone.