Author stuff: This idea hit me in the head with a sledgehammer at 12:13am on Saturday.
It started as a modern thing that twisted into an urban fantasy thing. There's a vague idea of a bigger world that, I'll admit, is pretty half-baked. But I mostly wanted to write something that was fun. Having a couple of secret projects that deal with some darker stuff has been... tough. Hoping I can finish those soon this year, but it doesn't look like it.
Anyway, enjoy!
It isn't that much, but it's a good start
Chapter 1 - Is there anybody out there paying attention?
Aja would have punched Jim in the face if everyone else hadn't been there. She let out a heavy sigh as she watched his leg bounce up and down and attempted to crack his knuckles for the third time in the last five minutes.
She turned her head away to look out the front of the van. Stuart's head and the back of the passenger side seat blocked an uninteresting view of the world blurring past them. From what she could tell of the architecture they were slipping into the business district. There wasn't much to see.
At this time of early morning, there would be no one but police officers and security roaming these streets. She hoped their plain white delivery truck was inconspicuous enough. They'd armed it to the teeth with whatever hacking gear Krel could load into it, a handful of weapons, and a cluster of people. All of whom had been awake for too long and had too much coffee.
Her shoulder pressed to her brother's and a friend of Jim's. She didn't know the man very well, but he was slender and a head shorter than her standing. And he liked rock music. The two of them bonded over that. Other than that, though? She didn't have the time to learn much about him.
They had people to save.
Across from her, the knees almost touching, was Jim and a slender man with glasses. He was a friend of Jim's friend. She knew less about him, other than he wore glasses, than anyone else. Jim seemed to trust him and that was enough for her.
In the front, Stuart was playing some old Billy Joel music. It was the only thing keeping him from white knuckling the steering wheel.
"Almost there," Krel said, his face cast in an eerie blue light from his phone. She peeked over his shoulder to see the screen. He was tracking their movement through some sort of navigation app. She hoped it was one he'd made. He wouldn't put any trust in anything else. He wouldn't risk them being tracked.
Through the windshield, she could see Stuart pulling up to a red brick building. The face of it is as innocuous as possible. Stuart didn't kill the engine, but he did turn the headlights off. He couldn't do much about the dashboard other than stuff a black jacket over it.
"Right," Stuart said, his voice shaky. "Everyone know what to do?"
Aja adjusted the black snapback over a red wig and nodded. Her ears were still visible, but at least the wig would hide her identity. After all, there weren't many people with silver hair.
Across from her, Jim shed off his blue hoodie, tossing it under Krel's computer equipment. Even in the dim lighting, she could see his skin ripple.
The other two men raised their hoods over their snapbacks and shared a look.
"Right then," the man next to her said, an unfamiliar lilt to his voice. He got up and opened the side of the van.
She winced as it noisily slid on its tracks, and they all slid out with slaps of their shoes on concrete. There wasn't much artillery for them to grab, Aja's serrators and a case that carried a few dwärkstones. They adjusted their small earpieces to fit more comfortably.
Aja didn't like how muffled that side of her head was. It made her almost want to tilt to one side and fall over.
Krel stayed behind, opening his laptop and clacking away at the keys.
"Twenty minutes," he said. "That's all we have."
"What happens after twenty minutes?" Jim asked.
Krel didn't answer, which meant it was best that they didn't know. Stuart frowned and gave them a nod, his brows furrowed and his lips in a tight line.
Jim sighed and gave a mirthful smile to them, the bags under his eyes wrinkling even more as he did.
"I'll see you guys soon." As he spoke, his skin rippled as his whole body shifted. His freckled cheeks turned blue, and he grew taller and broader. He turned away just as two horns curled out from his shaggy hair. Somehow, he quietly climbed up and over the building they needed to get into.
The building was a four-story monstrosity. It was all white stone with too many flourished pieces and windows. She sneered at it.
"Who designed this place?" she said quietly to the two men who remained with her — the ones she didn't know. The three of them started towards a steel backdoor, one that was only guarded by a heavy deadbolt and a keypad.
"My uncle," said the man Jim knew. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket.
She snapped her attention to him, eyebrows raising under the brim of her hat.
"He… He likes to try and protect the world. He locks away cursed things. Things — people — he thinks could cause… problems for everyone."
"And we couldn't think of just asking him to let them out?" she asked as they rounded the alley corner to find the door. It was some ways in, hidden in a short alcove. There was no light here. "It seems like a silly idea that we didn't think of that first."
"He doesn't listen to anyone. Causes a problem for the government, but what's the king going to do? Fire his best wizard?"
The man pulled up one of his sleeves and tapped something around his wrist, a bracelet she realized. It glowed a strange blue that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
"You're a wizard?" she hissed, eyeing the two men.
"We're not all like my uncle," he said. He gestured to the keypad. "You have the device?"
She kept her eyes trained on both of them as she pulled the small thing out from her coat pocket. It was small, barely larger than a quarter. She dropped it into the man's waiting palm, careful not to touch him.
He turned his back to her as he attached it to the keypad. He tapped the earpiece, activating it. The sound of his voice in front of her and echoing in the earpiece disorientated her momentarily. She shook her head to get rid of the sensation.
"We found the vending machine," he said. She rolled her eyes at the codewords they'd chosen, just in case someone happened to pick up the frequency
She gnawed on the inside of her cheek while they waited.
Krel — on the other end of the earpiece — took a moment to break the keypad. It popped and fizzled, sparks flying out and falling to the ground. A few hit the man, and he simply brushed them off.
In her ear, there was a sudden change to there being a slight murmur of ambient sound and then Krel's voice came through.
"It's safe to unlock now," Krel said.
The man moved out of the way, still doing his best to light the space with his bracelet. She withdrew a serrator and unleashed it. Even with her ear being muffled again, a slight tip of balance was restored now that she had a serrator in hand.
The curved blade added more light to the small space. She had to make this quick. They didn't need any eyes on them.
The serrator easily cut through the heavy deadbolt and the hinges. Without much thought, she kicked it in.
The man behind her shoved her out of the way. He threw his hands up, and a string of blue light catching the door before it could hit the ground.
He snapped his head back at her and frowned.
"Are you trying to get us caught?" he hissed.
She winced.
"As if you'd be any quieter," the other man said.
"Sorry," she said.
He rolled his eyes and slowly let the door hit the ground.
The three of them walked around it as they slipped in. The men took off their hoods, and all three of them discarded their snapbacks.
"Don't think we've ever gotten proper introductions," the friend of Jim's friend said. His human ears melted into his head, the area quickly growing hair where they'd been. Two triangles flicked up and twitched on the top of his head. Cat ears. "Just call me Archie."
"Aja," she said, nodding.
"And that feral human is Hisirdoux —"
"It's Douxie," the other man said. "Where's the door?"
"Over to your left," Archie said, a small smile pulling at his lips. In the dim light, Aja could see two sharp teeth glint in the light.
She clenched her teeth and gulped. She… had no idea what this other man was. He certainly wasn't a human or a wizard. He wasn't anything like Jim, either. She wondered what kind of person had cat ears.
The creak of a door opening drew her attention back to Jim's friend, Douxie. He'd found the way out.
"Yes, and I am the loud one," she said.
"I didn't know the door would creak," he said. "I knew that a door would make a noise if it hit the ground."
"I am here to fight, to make sure you and the others get out easy."
"Jim's here to fight and make sure we all get out."
"Jim's here because he can fight for himself and because his friends were taken prisoner. To your uncle."
"How did the Akiridion Princess get involved with a Were-Troll, I wonder," Archie hummed. He pushed them through the door. They needed to keep moving.
"You're the Akiridion Princess?" Douxie said, gaping at her.
"And you are the nephew to Avalon's High Wizard," she said, grabbing him in the shoulder. "We are all someone."
"What are you doing in Arcadia? Of all places?"
She frowned.
"Now is not a good time. Later."
He let out a sigh and nodded.
"Later," he agreed.
The hallway before them looked average, if too modern for such an old building.
"His tower's better guarded than this place," Douxie said under his breath. He took a step forward only to be pulled back by Archie.
"There's something there," Archie said, pointing to a spot on the wall. "And there and there and there and… I think it goes all the way down the hallway."
"Can you see what it is?" she asked.
"No. It's… it's a warm spot. There's something there."
Douxie reached into one of his jean pockets and pulled out a little envelope. He dumped what looked like glitter into his hand and blew. The little specks flew out into the hallway. They lit up bright lines of white light. Lights that created a crisscrossing warpath that she couldn't tell where it ended and where it began. It was a strange puzzle or maze she'd never be able to figure out.
"We won't be able to get past that," Douxie said to her. "Not without setting off the alarm."
"You might not be able to," Archie said, taking a few steps forward, "but I can."
Aja watched with an open mouth as his form grew fur and shrank, landing on all fours.
"He is a cat?" she said.
"Dragon, actually," Archie said, turning to look back at her.
"I didn't know dragons could look human."
"Most can't. Archie is… special. He's my familiar."
She frowned. The word in this context was… different to her. She would ask about it later. For now, they needed to worry about Archie getting through to the other side unscathed.
She watched as he slipped around the strands of light with an ease of silk dancing through a flowing river. It didn't take long for him to disappear from sight as he passed around the slight curve of the hall. She could still hear his paws padding across the linoleum tile. His claws scratching against it every now and again.
"What kind of trap is this?" she said, nodding to the hallway.
"Have you ever seen a spy or heist film?" Douxie said, folding his arms in front of his chest.
"No? What is a film?"
"Wait, do they not have films where you come from?"
She shook her head, the plastic strands of hair of the wig tickling her ears.
"Akiridion elf culture is weird."
"Wizard culture is weird."
He snorted and gave her a wide grin.
"Wizard culture is weird," he agreed. "Anyway, in spy and heist films, they have these hallways with infrared lasers. If the beam is cut off, an alarm will be triggered. This is kind of like that."
"What would happen if the alarm gets triggered?" She had to remind herself to ask Krel what infrared lights were. They sounded interesting.
"Most likely, the place will fill up with slime or something disgusting that'll harden and trap us here. We'd only be able to escape when my uncle finds us. I'd probably get grounded or something. You guys, though? Probably turned over."
Her muscles tensed and she stopped breathing, a cold chill creeping up from her feet and down her spine. She looked back down the hallway, after Archie, and her vision darkened.
"I can take it that it wouldn't be a good thing?" Douxie said, his voice soft.
"People in high power want my little brother and me dead." Her voice was soft to her one unmuffled ear. She wasn't sure if he even heard it.
She wasn't until she looked back over to him, her vision clearing. His mouth was opened slightly, and his brows were wrinkled. There was a sadness in his eyes, the skin crinkling at the corners. A hand was stretched out, holding her upright.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Before she could answer, the lines of light flickered out and Archie strode back to them. As unnerving as it had been to watch him transform into a cat, it was worse seeing it go the other way around. The fur slipped back into his pores and his glasses reformed out of the markings on his face. His spine straightened and his claws drew themselves back in, burrowing under his nails. His cat ears retracted back into his scalp as his human ears reformed on the sides of his head.
"Well," Archie said, "what are you waiting for? I turned it off."
"Took you long enough," Douxie said, a little laugh catching on his words. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and started towards Archie. He paused when she didn't follow after him. "You good?"
She drew in a breath through her nose — the air metallic and cold and tasting of stone and something else — and gave him a small smile.
"Yeah," she said, "I'm good."
Author stuff cont'd.: I had the basic idea of this, like I said, at 12:13am on Saturday. It was all written and edited in less than a 30 hour period.
I gave myself the challenge to not use feel or felt, making myself try to describe sensations as I feel them. I think I did pretty okay with that.
This was supposed to be a one-shot, but it turned into a novella instead.