It was with more than her usual anticipation of a hearty breakfast that Lina raced past startled passersby on her way to the café the subsequent morning. Her dreams had been turbulent and vivid, filled with the breathtaking rush of magic coursing through her as she held the Philosopher's Stone in hand to do what she willed. She blasted Mazoku, invincible and brilliant, thaumaturgy as natural as breathing. She had woken up anxious to meet with Zelgadis and begin the search for the precious artifact.
Zelgadis was, predictably, already there, leaning against the wall at a shadowed table in the back of the establishment. Lina bounced over in a flood of red hair and greeted him merrily before proceeding to once again supply the chief cook with enough money to dower a grandchild. Zelgadis, evidently not a morning person, merely grunted sourly and ordered coffee. Lina, in between mouthfuls, watched in amazement as he somehow managed to pull his hood low enough to keep his face concealed as he sipped it.
"How do you do that?"
"What?"
"How do you keep yourself completely hidden like that and drink at the same time?"
"Practice makes perfect," was the biting reply.
"You mean you go everywhere like that? Isn't that just a teensy-weensy bit paranoid of you?"
"None of your damn business."
The reader may, perhaps, forgive Zelgadis this statement on the grounds (no pun intended, gentle reader) that he was only halfway through his first cup of coffee when he said it. Lina, however, was not so lenient, not by a long shot. She had had it up to here with the attitude. A little morning surliness was within the bounds of tolerance, but that had been a tad excessive. Time to let him know Lina Inverse is no one's shrinking violet.
"That's it. Before we go anywhere, I want to see what you're hiding under there. I like to know who I'm dealing with."
Something in the set of his shoulders told her he was intensely unhappy with this, but he seemed resigned. He hadn't expected her to let it go, but he still needed to steel himself for the probable consequences.
"Fine. But not in public. Is there somewhere private we could go?"
In the end, Lina decided that her apartment was the most convenient location, and the two exited the café, Zelgadis trudging along with all the joyful air of a criminal on his way to public decapitation. By now, Lina was starting to worry a bit. What exactly was he hiding? What if he was a wanted criminal? If he was, should she blast him or blackmail him? Was he hideously deformed? What if it was something else? The way he moped along seemed to indicate that by doing this he was trusting her a great deal. And not many people trust me. Was she really worthy of that level of trust? She had a hair-trigger temper, insatiable greed, blew anything that got in her way to hell….
Lina shook her head. If she kept this up, she'd be as angsty as Mr. Grim Reaper himself over there. There really was nothing to worry about. After all, she was Lina Inverse, and, as all the world knows, there isn't anything that Lina Inverse can't handle.
They finally arrived at the apartment, and Lina firmly directed her dejected guest to take a seat and placed herself in the chair opposite him, legs drawn up cross-legged and hands loosely clasped in her lap. Not, perhaps, the best of manners, but she hoped the informality would get Zelgadis to loosen up a little. The tension around him was nearly tangible. He seemed almost to hum, as if his muscles were strained so taut that every breath sawed across them like a violin bow. Guessing that actually removing the concealments might be the worst part of the ordeal for him, Lina tactfully directed her gaze to the thoroughly uninteresting wall to her right, waiting for the sounds of rustling cloth to stop. When silence once again descended, she looked back at Zelgadis who in turn was again absorbed in resolute contemplation of the wall over her left shoulder.
Carefully masking her initial surprise, she gave him a minute inspection, noting all the strangely inhuman details. His hair gleamed metallically, and she could discern the long tips of sharply pointed ears poking through it at the sides of his head. What she could see of his face under the fall of wire hair was apparently blue in color. Around his eyes and jaw line clustered plaques of black rock, somehow rising naturally out of the oddly shaded skin. His eyes themselves were an almost black shade of blue and distinctly slitted. Lina found herself surprised at just how young his face was under the rocks. She had guessed him to be much older, and was startled to realize that Zelgadis was, at most, only a couple of years her senior. These observations were sharply interrupted by his voice, chill enough to force a volcano into dormancy.
"I know I'm a freak, but is it really necessary to stare quite that long?"
Lina blinked and ceased her minute inspection in favor of meeting his eyes.
"Actually, I was wondering why you were so worried. I can see why you wouldn't want to go out in public without covering your face – I mean, even ordinary mages can find themselves on the wrong side of a mob – but you're hardly a freak."
Now it was Zelgadis' turn to blink in startlement. Not the response he's used to, I guess, Lina thought sadly. Why can't people just leave each other alone?
"You're a chimera, right?"
A cautious nod.
"I can guess you're part human and well, the golem part is fairly obvious, but there's something else in there too…."
That earned her a nearly imperceptible wince.
"Mazoku."
"Ah."
Lina pondered that a little. She could see why he would hesitate to disclose that particular piece of information. Mazoku were demons. They literally feasted on negative emotions, and delighted in pain. Zelgadis didn't seem especially sadistic, though. Just surly. It was probably safe to conclude that he had some of the advantages of the Mazoku without the major disadvantages.
"So what can you do? I'm not trying to pry or anything, but I presume you yourself are the backup you mentioned, so I'd like to know what I have to worry about."
To her relief, he nodded, appearing not at all offended. She had been worried that he would take that the wrong way, considering the level of hypersensitivity he had so far demonstrated towards his state. She was gratified to discover that her employer was practical as well as paranoid and scheming.
"I'm a lot stronger than a normal person. You'd need a seriously enchanted blade to cut me. As far as I know, bullets just bounce off, though I can't guarantee that a small enough bullet going fast enough wouldn't do any damage. I'm very fast and my senses are much more acute than a…human's."
Lina caught the catch in his voice there, but ignored it. After all, she was there to get rich, not to play psychologist to every dejected chimera who happened along.
"What about magic? I can feel that you have some, but what kind and do you know how to use it?"
"My specialty is Shamanism, but I can cast a few spells from Black and White."
Lina nodded and grinned. That probably meant he was very good. There weren't many people who could manage any spells out of their respective areas of expertise. Her grin widened as she considered the probable risks of their mission. The prospect of a dangerous adventure with a partner who looked to be competent for a change made her smile ear to ear.
Besides, all this tension was getting on her nerves.
"Alright! This will be fun! Man, are we formidable! We are so going to kick ass, Zel."
The line of rock above his eye raised in inquiry as his countenance lightened into a wry expression of humor that was not quite a smile.
"Zel?"
"Zel," she said firmly.
"Now let's get down to business. You want another cup of coffee while we plan out exactly how we're going to do this, Zel? You look like you could use one."
The remaining tension drained out of the air as he nodded an affirmative and gave her a tentative half-smile.
Several cups of coffee later, they stepped out of their strategy session with two very clear results. One: Lina was convinced that being a chimera had granted Zelgadis a supernatural tolerance for caffeine. She was positive that no ordinary being could ingest that many cups of coffee that strong (and black, no less) and remain that calm (Hell, Lina could barely take one cup herself without getting the jitters. She blamed it all on Luna. Luna had not let her drink coffee at home. She said Lina was jittery enough already.).
Two: They had a plan.
Zelgadis had been the one who hit upon it. They had started out just kicking ideas back and forth, the conversation growing more and more complex as they both started to really enjoy themselves. Lina had been delighted to discover that Zel's knowledge of the weird internal twists of magic was just as intimate as her own. Fellow mages were so rare, and the few she had previously encountered had been half-trained at best. She was already plotting to drag him into a few really theory-heavy discussions before her term of employment was up.
Zelgadis, at this point, was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He didn't have days this good. It went against the laws of nature. Whenever Zelgadis was about to have a good day, tremors raced through the quantum fields, causing possible ways to ruin his day to pile up into big, whopping, probabilities, which in turn piled up into the certainty of yet another lousy twenty-four hour period. By his count, this was actually the best day he'd had in almost a decade. He was caffeinated. He might achieve his goal within the week. He was having a tricky technical conversation on his favorite topic with an actual, personable, human being who had neither screamed bloody murder at the sight of him, nor looked disgusted, nor made his skin crawl (as much as stone was capable of doing so, that is). Something must be seriously wrong with the world. He hoped he didn't look as dazed as he felt.
They were discussing the possibility of scanning the Astral Plane for the distinctive vibrations that a Philosopher's Stone (even an incomplete one) should be throwing out. It seemed the easiest and surest way to find the item, but posed several problems in its execution, the key one being that they would have to search the whole city, a huge amount of space in both physical and astral terms. The amount of energy needed to search that area, even with the two of them working together, would be phenomenal, leaving them both drained for a week. Another problem was that the Astral Plane had its own dangers. Its ecosystem was as complex and perilous as that of the physical realm or more so, and guarding their backs while searching such a vast space was not an appealing prospect.
That was when Zel had the idea of using the Astral Plane's own wildlife to do the work for them.
Lina crowed and clapped when she heard it. It was simple, elegant, and accurate, and they would be able to break a couple of laws in executing it. Couldn't be more perfect.
The guard at the park gate eyed them nervously. There was something wrong here, he just knew it. The short, spunky redhead in front of him kind of reminded him of his niece. The guy she was with gave him the creeps, though, all covered up like that. Probably a magic-user. If his niece ever brought home someone like that, neither of the two were going to set foot inside the front door, no sirree. At this moment, his ruminations were interrupted by Lina blowing up in his face.
"What do you mean we can't go in?! Lord of Nightmares, man, it's a public park!"
"Well, you're not allowed to use magic here, and he looks like a magic-user…."
"You dolt! Just because he's a mage doesn't mean he'll actually cast anything!"
Now the guard was starting to get a tad annoyed.
"Look, missy, didn't your mama tell you not to hang around with mages? Can't trust 'em. A nice girl like you should stay away from people like that. Don't be an idiot, kid, just go home already, will ya?"
"Dangerous? Dangerous?! I'll show you dangerous! I'm Lina Inverse, not some 'kid'!"
This guard was asking for a fireballed ass, and she was damn well going to oblige the authority-happy bastard.
Fortunately for the guard, an abnormally weighty hand on her shoulder prevented the accurate discharge of the quite-sizeable-by-now fireball. The guard quaked. Lina sputtered.
"Zel, you jerk! You ruined my aim!"
"Lina, we really don't need to leave a trail of singed civil servants behind us."
Lina fumed incoherently while Zelgadis approached the indignant and terrified guard.
"You are employed by the city government, correct?"
"Y-yeah…so?"
"And as such are obliged to abide by all city laws?"
"Ummm…"
"Let me answer that for you, as it appears overly taxing: yes." Zelgadis' voice practically dripped sweetened battery acid. "Now, I can give you two very good reasons to let us in without any further disturbance. One: London's charter specifies that one may not bar a free citizen from entering any public domain without a legitimate writ from the guard. Furthermore, the bill passed in January granted mages free citizen status."
The guard snorted. Free citizen or no, a mage was a mage, and if he needed a writ, he could get one after he hauled their freaky asses off to prison.
"Two: If something should happen to you right now, there are no witnesses present."
Zelgadis' voice had gone soft and icy. The guard squeaked a little and got out of their way. Lina resisted the urge to clap. As they swept past the cowering public servant, she stuck her hand out and mouthed, "Fireba…" The dull thunk he made as he hit the ground in a faint was music to her ears.
They finally arrived at a small pond completely devoid of both casual strollers and necking lovers, and Lina cast the spells to mask their presence and seal off the area. It was, she reflected, entirely unfair that the city make the most potent draw point for Shamanistic magic for miles around off a no-magic zone. But, then again, mages were viewed with suspicion at best and outright hostility at worst. The granting of free citizen status had been much more than she had expected, frankly.
The spells snapped into place and they began to put their plan into action. In principle, it was quite simple. Zelgadis would summon as many of the small Astral spirits as he could and bind them to scatter over the city, tagging each with a small bit of his own magic. Lina would scan the spirits coming back, looking over their make-up for the subtle changes the Philosopher's Stone vibrations should have occasioned in them. It would act as a kind of magical echolocation and leave them with a pretty good idea of where in the city the action would take place.
Zel now sat by the side of the pond, head bowed and posture relaxed. The faint odor of molten metal suddenly filled the air as perfectly rounded globes of translucent light began to swarm about him, each appearing with a soft, indrawn pop. Soon his figure was almost completely obscured from view by a haze of curiously bobbing spirits. The haze's wavering motion suddenly froze as the scene flickered briefly into an eye-searing negative and returned to normal. Lina smiled. Good. Now every spirit called was marked with Zel's power. The Astral spirits suddenly vanished, streaking away in a shockwave from ground zero (a.k.a. Zelgadis Greywords). He exhaled audibly and motioned to Lina. He'd done his part. Now it was her turn.
Zelgadis slipped out of the Astral with relief, leaving the barest tendril of his consciousness tapped into it, just enough to guard Lina's back while she scanned. The Astral Plane always unnerved him. The longer he spent there the less human he felt. The Mazoku bloodlust, never completely absent, rose to the fore, made all the deadlier by the sudden dominance of the chill rationality imparted to him by the golem element, normally relegated to the edges of his mind. The human side of him dwindled, grimly determined to remain in control and not be intimidated by his own frightening alien-ness. Humans were not meant to walk the Astral Plane. Mazoku were natives and golems were partially powered with astral energy. No, Zelgadis did not at all enjoy extended visits to the Astral.
He felt a flicker of…Lina-ness, for lack of a better word…brush across the edges of his awareness. Good. She must have started her scan. Those little Astral spirits he had summoned and impressed were the fastest things he had ever encountered. By now Lina ought to be getting results.
Sure enough, within a few moments Lina disappeared from the Astral, and with relief Zelgadis completed his own disappearing act. Lina took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
"Well?"
"Found it. It's somewhere in that block of warehouses by the dockyards."
"Good work. Tomorrow we'll pin it down."
Lina bristled at that. She was Lina Inverse. Who did he think he was to take that tone with her? Of course she did good work. She had half a mind to fireball him right then and there, no matter that it would blow their cover, keeping hidden was not nearly as important as blasting arrogant jerks who tried to lord it over her…
But, if she blasted him, she'd probably never see the Philosopher's Stone. Damn. As soon as she got her hands on it, she was splitting, screw him, employer or not, she wasn't putting up with his goddamn supercilious attitude.
Zelgadis watched Lina carefully out of the corner of his eye. She looked distinctly pissed. So he opened his mouth and said:
"Lina? I've heard some stories about you. If you should decide that the Philosopher's Stone would be better off in your possession, I would recommend you write your last will and testament before taking decisive action. I'll meet you tomorrow, same time and place. Have a nice day."
For once in her life, Lina was left speechless as he stalked out of the park.
"Have a nice day?!"
That…that…that…BASTARD!!!"FIREBALL!!!!"
Zelgadis high-tailed it out of there at demon speed as soon as he heard Lina draw in that deep breath. No, the rumors of her temper definitely weren't exaggerated. He allowed himself a smirk under the mask. Without a potent draw point like the (former) park, no one was going to be finding the Philosopher's Stone that way again.
At the sight of the wall of pulsating magically fed fire racing towards him, the gate-guard, who had just recently regained consciousness, vowed to get out of civil service and ground his niece for life just as soon as he got home.