Chapter One: In The Wake Of The Unfortunate Circumstances
About a week had passed since Peter had grown an oak tree beside their house when he was awoken by a girlish shrieking.
At first, he groaned, rolled over, and pulled his pillow over his head. He didn't mind it so much when one of the others had a girl over, but sometimes it got a little ridiculous. It wasn't even fully light out.
Then he realized that the person screaming wasn't so much a girl as they were Micky.
Peter's first instinct was one of concern - his friend sounded as though something horrifying had just happened, like a murder. He really should get out of bed and rush to Micky's aid. It's what friends were for, right?
But then again, it could be any number of things, considering who was doing the screaming. Maybe Micky had decided to give one of Peter's energy shakes another chance. Or maybe he'd gotten his foot caught in the ceiling fan again. Or he'd just found out they were cancelling Dark Shadows (which Peter would have been very grateful of - it was a terrible show).
Before he could talk himself into either investigating or ignoring the ruckus, however, there was a great pounding at the bedroom door.
"Peter! Davy! Which one of you little jerks left a dead bird in my boot!?"
Peter sat up at the same time Davy did, looking over at his roommate with a frown.
"A dead…" Davy blinked, scratching the back of his head.
"Bird," Micky shouted as he flung the door open, his face twisted in disgust. "A dead! Bird!"
He held out the offending corpse by the wing with two fingers. It swung pathetically, mangled and ratty, in front of Peter's nose.
"That's a sparrow," he murmured as a couple of the bird's flight feathers fluttered onto his lap.
Micky sighed through his nose and waggled the dead bird a bit. "I don't care what it is, Peter. I care that I just stepped on a dead bird. Do you know what it's like to step on a dead bird? It squished and crunched at the same time. Do you know what that sounds like? What that feels like? I will tell you," he barreled on, ignoring Davy's hesitant cough. "It feels very. Not. Good. I would go so far as to say it feels bad. Very bad. So very bad that I don't think I've felt any sensation worse, and I have gotten broken bones. I am going to have nightmares about this," he finished, trying to purse his lips angrily and ending up with a somewhat ludicrous pout.
Peter regarded Micky calmly, fairly unaffected by the tough expression Micky was trying on. People liked to say that Peter was not capable of being threatening. Micky liked to say it, too, when Peter was trying to make him return whatever bits or pieces the drummer has pilfered for his inventions. It was true, he was sure - Peter just didn't really have it in him to be intimidating, but neither did Micky. Micky's version of intimidating someone was talking as fast as he could, as loud as he could, for as long as he could until they wandered away in confusion.
Really, the only one of them who did have a knack for it was Mike. The Texan could cow anyone just by looming conspicuously with a general air of not-pleased-ness.
Speaking of, Mike had poked his head through the doorway at the start of Micky's rant, and was now holding out a paper lunch bag for Micky to drop the offending cadaver into. "It's okay, Mick," he was saying soothingly. "I'm sure nobody put it there. It probably got stuck there in the middle of the night or something and died."
"If I got stuck in something that had touched Micky's feet, I probably wouldn't last long, either," Davy grumbled, flopping back onto his pillow and pulling up the bed sheets determinedly.
"Ha. Ha," Micky deadpanned. "And also? Ha."
"I think you forgot 'ha'," Peter offered absently, staring at the paper bag contemplatively. Dead sparrows were never a good thing, after all, and with all the weird energy hanging around…
But it was only one bird, and Gran had always warned him about getting too caught up in studying omens. You started seeing them everywhere, under every ladder and in every pile of spilled salt. She hadn't held omens, good or bad, in much esteem, because sometimes things just happened. People dropped forks, people sneezed more than once, animals died in all kinds of ways. There was nothing mystical about it…usually.
He offered to bury it anyway, because the idea of tossing any kind of animal in a dumpster, no matter how dead, just didn't sit right with him. Tossing an animal that might be carrying some heavy bad energy was just not a good idea. So he dug down as deeply as he could amongst the roots of his oak, bundled the little corpse in white cloth, and laid it in gently.
"You know," Mike drawled as Peter tipped spade after spade of sand into the grave, "I could have sworn we didn't have any trees by our house."
Peter swallowed his knee-jerk panic response and shrugged, patting at the little mound with the spade. He could feel the roots of his tree twining around the little bird welcomingly.
"I mean, you don't really see a lot of trees on the beach, especially like this one. They're hard to miss."
"Well," Peter said simply, "you must have done, because there's one right here. It couldn't have just popped up overnight, right?"
Mike raised an eyebrow when Peter looked up at him defiantly, hands cupped palm-up in his lap. There was another long moment, like the one in the kitchen a week ago, where Mike simply stared.
"Okay, Shotgun," he said eventually, stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking away.
Groaning, Peter let himself fall sideways until his head knocked against the tree trunk. He reached out, tugging the roots around the sparrow until they encased it entirely.
If it was a bad omen, he could only hope that would help counter it, at least for a little while.
It probably would have worked fine, Peter reasoned as he turned down the bed, had it been the only bad omen he'd born witness to that day. Unfortunately, no amount of positive energy would have been able to cancel out all of them.
There had been a small swarm of dead crickets in the bathroom, which Peter had dutifully swept up and deposited amongst the roots of his tree, Micky making weird faces at him the whole time. He'd made even weirder faces, though, when a big black rat had run right across his toes when he'd sat down to watch Dark Shadows. Then there had been the two broken mirrors, which had shattered simultaneously, even though they had all been on the bandstand at the time. And the less Peter thought about the lone lightning strike that had produced a very pretty, yet ultimately evil-feeling glass sculpture that Davy wanted to keep, the better.
The first sparrow hadn't been the last, either - at noon, Mike had found one inside Blondie (and man, did he ever swear a blue streak - Peter's ears were still burning), and around dusk the Texan had also had the misfortune of being at the window when one dive-bombed him, killing itself in a kamikaze run against the glass and startling the bejeezus out of their guitarist.
He'd sworn another blue streak, though this one wasn't so much disgusted as frightened.
The shaman supposed he could have done more to help soothe everyone's nerves that day, but the sudden onslaught of what his Gran liked to call 'shifty juju' had him too spooked. He could barely keep himself level, much less worry about anyone else.
He still felt achy now, hours later, from the constant discharges he'd had to perform throughout the day. He'd already grown a small row of shrubs up one side of the Pad, and now they had a climbing vine creeping its way up the side of the building. About halfway through the day, as they were sweeping up the shards of mirror, Peter had unconsciously caused it to flower in little fluttery pops that had caught everyone's attention.
"What in the world was that," Mike had murmured, narrowing his eyes at the back door.
Davy had shrugged, plucking up the larger shards delicately. "Birds, sounds like," he'd theorized, grinning when Mike shuddered.
"Lord, I hope not," the Texan had answered with a grimace. "I've had enough of birds to last me a lifetime."
"You've had enough of birds?" Micky had snorted at that, gesturing at Mike accusingly with the dustpan. "At least you didn't have to step on one."
"It was in my guitar." Mike had wrung his hands, sounding helplessly pathetic in a very un-Mike-ish way, and Peter wished, not for the first time, that he could explain why that wasn't a bad thing.
Mike's guitar, Peter had quickly realized upon meeting the man, was about the closest thing a non-shaman would get to a personal fetish - the magical sort, not the sexual sort, though with Mike and guitars, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. It had been his for at least a decade, and he had cried, sweat, and bled over it. He had played his heart and soul on it, and it had been his constant companion through some of the roughest times of his life…and through some of the best. And, to cap it off, he'd given it a name, given her a name, which pretty much sealed the deal.
Basically, from what Peter could tell, Blonde Beauty was imbued with all the things that were essentially Michael Nesmith; the guitar carried with it fragments of Mike's aura. It was a powerful item, and a protective item, just like Mike himself was powerful and protective. If there were going to be bits of shifty juju cropping up, probably the least damaging place they could crop up was inside Blonde Beauty, where the guitar could shield them from it.
But he couldn't tell Mike that, couldn't explain why leaving it there until Peter could dispose of it properly would be a good idea. Even if he could, he'd figured that perhaps poor Michael had been through enough that day. He'd been extra-jumpy since the crickets, and Peter certainly didn't want to push things.
"Hey," Davy's voice jerked him from his contemplations of guitar fetishes, "there's an owl outside."
Peter froze. "It's not looking at us, is it," he murmured. He peeked at Davy through his bangs worriedly.
The smaller man was leaning against the doorjamb to their room, arms crossed and looking entirely too at ease for someone who had spent the entire day having to check his shoes for dead things and broken glass. Outlined in the dim light of the kitchen, he looked a bit hazy to Peter, out of phase with the rest of the world.
The bassist blinked a few times, slowly making his way towards the doorway.
"No," Davy said, cocking his head. "It's just perching on the balcony. Why?"
Peter leaned over, peering around the doorway. Dread pooled in his stomach.
It was a beautiful bird, he thought, although he wasn't about to say anything to Mike or Micky, who had sworn off birds for the rest of their lives. It was a spotted eagle-owl, which was a bit incongruous, since they were an African species. He wasn't going to mention that, either.
"It's bad luck if an owl watches you through your bedroom window," he whispered instead.
Laughing softly, Davy nudged Peter with his elbow. "Guess all those mirrors have got you spooked, eh? It's just an owl, Pete. 'Sides, it's at the back door, and we don't have windows in our bedroom, so you can sleep easy."
As he said this, the owl turned its tufted head, its great, yellow eyes focusing on the pair.
Focusing on Davy.
Peter's fingers twitched, and he grasped Davy's sleeve and pulled him into the room, shutting the door firmly. "Um…just to be safe, though, maybe we should…stay here until it's gone."
Davy laughed again, patting Peter on the shoulder, and opened the door again. "It's an owl, Peter, not a government spy. I'm getting a glass of water, and no peeping owl is gonna stop me."
Peter studied the owl as Davy trekked into the kitchen. It was still, the way a predator learned to be still during a hunt. Only its fluffy head moved, those eyes, round and bright as gold coins, never leaving Davy the entire time. When Davy brushed by Peter and back into their room, he brought with him a bone-chill, and Peter let out a jerky breath.
"I'm gonna go shoo it away," he mumbled as Davy crawled under his covers.
"Whatever makes you happy, Peter," his roommate sighed.
He didn't shoo it away, though. Slipping onto the balcony, he crossed his arms and glowered at it.
"I don't know what's going on here," he hissed, "and I don't care. Whatever it is, they aren't part of it, so you can just leave them alone." He scanned the surrounding beach, speaking to the world at large. "Just leave them alone. Please."
The owl hooted softly and, finally taking its eyes from the door that guarded Davy, spread its wings and took flight.
Peter stumbled down the steps, his throat tight with panic. He barely had the presence of mind to move around to the side of the house, his oak at his back as he wriggled his hands into the sand and pushed.
Oak leaves rained down on him as the new tree burst into being before him, violently and with a great, earth-shuddering groan. Acorns pelted his shoulders, rolling down his back as tears rolled down his face.
Bad luck, he'd told Davy.
Yes.
Leaning forward and pressing gritty hands to the bark of his new oak, Peter rested his cheek against it, feeling the pure life coursing through it and trying to take comfort in it.
He supposed it hadn't been a lie. Death omens could be considered dreadfully bad luck, after all.
A shivery sob wormed its way up his throat, and he curled his legs up underneath himself, nestled safely amongst the roots of the new addition. He reached out with his aura and his fingers, running both down the older oak, and took comfort from them.
Whatever was coming, it was coming for them. There was no denying that, no matter how much he wished he could. Until he knew the nature of the threat, though, there wasn't much he could do about it except build up the Pad's protection as much as he could.
Peter dragged himself to his feet, misery etched across his face. This hadn't been what he'd wanted. When he'd left the east coast, he'd done it to get away from this, from the fighting and the sacrifice and the loss. He'd done enough of that, hadn't he? Hadn't he been through enough of that?
This was his safe place, his sanctuary. He shouldn't have to feel afraid here.
With a soulful sigh, Peter patted his new tree. "Welcome to life, my friend," he whispered dutifully.
It would be some hours before he'd creep back into the Pad and crawl into bed, having spent the time painstakingly circling his territory, laying down a Circle and enforcing it as much as he dared without lighting the place up like a beacon. Protection was all well and good, but it would be counterproductive if it attracted more skeevy things. Still, he wished he could make it stronger, make it impenetrable.
If it had just been him, alone, he would have simply picked up and run for it. He didn't like to fight, didn't like confrontation, and he had a deeply unsettling feeling that confrontation was exactly what he was going to get. It wasn't just him, though - he had people to protect, people who weren't about to just pack their stuff and hightail it out of there on his say-so. People who were being run across by rats and stared at by owls…
Quivering anxiously, Peter buried his face in his pillow, falling asleep with the memory of two gleaming golden eyes and feathers fluttering onto his lap.
When he awoke, it was partly because Davy was humming in his sleep again (This Just Doesn't Seem To Be My Day, ironically), and partly because he had to pee.
Mostly, though, it was because of the sudden cold, oily sensation creeping down his spine and buzzing behind his eyes, and he instinctively knew the cause.
There was a ghoul on the roof.
A/N - OMG YAY IT'S FINISHED. I'SE SO PROUD OF MYSELF.
Blonde Beauty being a fetish was actually the first inkling I had that spawned this idea - the concept of something being so deeply needed and loved and used by someone that it became a sort of talisman for them is something I've always been intrigued by. It is now in my headcanon, supernatural!fic or not.
Forever convinced that the real Blonde Beauty was stolen by a collector of powerful magical items to sell on the supernatural black market, a la Bella Talbot. Nothing you say will change my mind.
Anyway, chapter two will be a bit of a creepy, violent, and gory one, but definitely worth it! Do a bit of studying up on ghouls and the myths surrounding them to prep if you like…they're actually kind of fascinating, in an incredibly unpleasant way!
Tell me what you think - I LIVE OFF OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, FOLKS.
