literature

Knots

Deviation Actions

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The amber glow of a streetlight shone through the front window of Thorston Pottery, pushing away the dusk of evening and gleaming across the curved, boldly-glazed surfaces of the clay vases and decorative pots on display. A mobile of glass beads and wooden sparrows hanging in that same window scattered the light further inside, throwing spots of faded yellow against the walls and shelves of the little shop.
The inside was dim, but not yet dark; the streetlight in the window provided a vague general illumination, and a small lamp with a carved base sat on the countertop beside the till, the center of a brighter glow. Beside that light sat Brendan, a white-haired figure with a young face and hands. The right side of his face was in relative shadow, half-hiding the splotchy, faded maroon discoloration which covered that eye and spread down the side of his head and neck, disappearing under the collar of his white turtleneck. A long, loose green scarf was wound around his shoulders, the tasseled ends hanging behind the counter as he bent over his work. He tallied receipts from the day's sales, listening for the click of the back door opening.
Brendan had nearly finished his book-keeping when that very sound caught his ear. He straightened and looked toward the curtain which hung over the divide between storefront and the back room.
"Hello?" he called softly.
"It's me," responded a familiar voice, and Brendan relaxed minutely.
"Everyone's upstairs. Tell them I'll be up soon – I'm nearly done."
No reply was given, but Brendan heard the back staircase creaking. Within ten minutes he had turned off the light, drawn blinds down the window, and followed. The quiet sound of voices reached him on the stairs, but it wasn't until he was halfway up that the words became clear.
"—not saying that we should stop, but are you sure this is a good idea? It's too soon after we hit Blue Circle. That one actually made the inter-world news; they're going to be paying attention now."
Brendan emerged from the stairwell and leaned against the wall. The speaker he had heard – a tall, ruddy-furred male Virulk named Baldo – sat on the faded beige couch almost directly across the room from him. Beside him sat Clovis, the owner of the Pottery and their Hand's official leader. He was looking sternly up at Baldo, and the image suddenly struck Brendan as absurdly amusing; even sitting, Clovis was hardly taller than Baldo's elbow. Like the Rants, the Teika were a small-statured race.
"But that's exactly why we are heading out now. Any extra security will still be new; Rowan can find the holes easily. Plus, people will see these demon-makers attacked and they'll start wondering why. Between that and the number of creatures gone rogue in the last year, the Vylte'll have too much to explain away."
"Don't count on that, Clovis," Jaya said, emerging from the small bathroom. She was dressed in a brown trench coat and hood, with a baldric coated in metal plates slung over her right shoulder. Her hawk mask was tucked under one arm, and an empty black backpack swung from her hand. "My parents saw that broadcast, and it didn't change their minds at all. Hi, Brendan."
He lifted a hand. Baldo and Clovis returned to their discussion of the night's plans.
"Hey. Want me to stash your bag?"
"No, I've got it. You get suited up. Everybody else is ready."
Brendan glanced quickly around, counting two brown coats, one white, and one missing face.
"Really? Where's Rowan?"
"Kitchen," Jaya said, on her way to the apartment's only closet to stuff her backpack out of sight.
Brendan shook his head, pushing himself up from the wall and heading toward the bedroom door to collect his own coat and mask.
"I should've known."
By the time he came back out, dressed in brown over his turtleneck and jeans and with two long escrima sticks tucked into the back of his belt, Rowan had joined the others, perching on the arm of the couch beside Baldo. Her carved-butterfly mask was balanced on her knees, and she had a long, narrow chunk of dark brown bread in her thin-gloved hands.
"Freeloader," Clovis muttered under his breath and behind his bushy brown beard. Rowan proved the excellent hearing of her race by sticking her tongue out at him and then taking a pointedly large bite. Clovis chose to ignore her at this point.
"We all know what we're doing tonight?" he addressed the group at large. There were nods and murmurs of assent from them all.
"Right, then. Let's make this work. Stick with your partner and keep your eyes on your goal. And keep to your code-names; this is a high-end warehouse, better than anything we've seen before, and we don't know if the cameras have any decent mikes on them. Flutter, you make damn sure our ways are clear, and I might forgive you for making my kitchen into your personal pre-mission buffet. And Brend…Owl…the scarf…"
Brendan gripped one end of the green scarf, hanging over his coat and under his hood. His face gained a stubborn set.
"It's staying. It always stays."
Clovis eyed him for a moment, then sighed heavily.
"Fine. On your own head – or neck - be it. Let's move out, everybody."
Despite his words, Clovis stopped Brendan briefly at the top of the stairs, holding him back for a moment while the others descended. The Teika looked up at him seriously, the artificial light deepening the creases in his face and shining across the scar that cut through the outside of his right eyebrow.
"You know, Brendan…eventually, you're going to have to let go."
"Eventually," Brendan echoed, but it wasn't an agreement, and both knew it. Neither made any comment on the fact; they simply turned toward the creaking wooden steps and headed down after the others.
Their mode of transportation was, as usual, Baldo's dark-blue van. It had been a delivery truck of some description once; there were large doors in the back, two seats in the front, and very few windows. Baldo himself drove, dressed in the white longcoat and wide-brimmed hat he was so fond of, while everybody else sat in the back, swaying along through traffic they couldn't see and waiting for Baldo to announce their destination. Nobody spoke; there was nothing any one wished to speak of. The silence was filled instead with Baldo's preferred music: fast and energetic pieces featuring plenty of clattering drums and strumming instruments, music which seized their hearts and throats and made it difficult to separate true anxiety from that created by rhythm and beat.
Six songs later, they felt the van slow and Baldo turned his music down.
"Flutter," he said, and the little Rant scooted toward the back doors in a crouch. The van continued rolling onward. A streetlight's glow filled the windshield, flowed upward, and vanished into darkness again.
"Ready…"
Yellow light appeared at the windshield's base. Jaya joined Rowan at the back door.
"Go!"
Quick as a flash, Rowan popped the door open and tumbled out. Almost as quickly, Jaya jerked the door shut again. The van never stopped until it reached the corner of the street, where Baldo set the turn signal and prepared to circle the block.
Brendan took a deep breath and rubbed his hands on the fabric covering his legs. Even after four years, he still felt nervous before a run. He adjusted the owl mask on his face and the escrima sticks at his back, and Baldo turned down yet another darkened street, fast music still playing quietly and making Brendan's heart stutter along with the beats.
"That should be long enough," Clovis suddenly said, gathering his battered old shield and obsidian sword up. Baldo slowed once more, pulling to the side, and parked. Jaya opened the back again, and they piled out, sticking to the shadows instinctively. Baldo joined them there, turning his white coat inside out to put the darker red lining on the outside and donning his wooden horse-faced mask. Brendan wondered if they were nervous as well; their masks hid their faces completely, and he had never felt it right to ask.
"Let's go," Clovis ordered, and they were gone, down an alleyway, under the shadow of a squat, heavy building, and to a side door with a heavy metal handle. It was popped slightly ajar, a stiff index card holding the latch back for them. Baldo collected the card and hauled the door open, and they entered.
The red Exit light over the door provided little illumination, but it was immediately clear that they stood in a short hallway which opened into an employee locker room. They crossed this quickly, passed through another unlocked door, and in a heart-stopping moment found Rowan turning a corner up ahead at speed.
"It's all clear," she said quickly and quietly, "except the summoning room. I heard voices – two, at least."
"Guards?" Jaya muttered.
"Most likely," Baldo replied.
"What now?" Brendan asked, turning to Clovis as their leader and decision-maker.
"We find out how many," Clovis said clearly, "and if the odds are good enough, we could still do this. Owl, I'll need you to feel them out."
Brendan nodded in acknowledgement.
"This way," Rowan whispered. They followed her, quiet and tense, through rooms and halls until they reached one last door. Brendan strained his senses and immediately felt on edge. There was something wrong about the lives beyond that door, powerfully wrong, yet familiar. Echoes upon echoes confused him as he breathed in the sensations of a flow no one else in the Hand could detect.
"Well? How many?" Clovis asked in a hushed voice. Brendan shook his head minutely and focused harder.
"Two," he said at last, "but it's strange. It's like there's more as well…but only on the fringes. I only feel two cores of life in there."
"Are you feeling the Utsuyan?" Rowan asked.
Brendan shook his head again.
"I don't think so. It's a different feeling."
Clovis was silent for a short time. Then he gave a sharp nod.
"We'll take them. Flutter, get it open quickly. Everyone else…get ready. We'll be rushing as soon as it's clear. Knock them out hard and fast, then clean out the demons."
Rowan bent over the door handle, muting the scrapes and clacks of her lock-picks with a gloved hand. Baldo's hands dropped to the pistols at his hips, and metal slid through Jaya's fingers to form a long, stout pole. Brendan reached for the handles of his escrima sticks, but all the while he was fixated on the strange forms beyond the door, fighting a feeling of sick apprehension that went beyond his usual pre-mission nerves. His senses reached for them again, double-checking…
And they were both reaching back.
"Clo—Bear, wait!"
The door's lock clicked. Rowan wrenched it open as fast as possible; Clovis led the silent charge, the square black edges of his blade flashing under dim night-time warehouse lights. At that moment, Brendan's senses and his memory connected, and he didn't need to see a face to know the identity of one of those inside. Still he rushed in behind the others, only to barely avoid colliding against Jaya's back. He wheeled around her, only to stop short himself.
Every single Utsuyan had been released from its holding cage; they were faced with a softly moving wall of monsters. Scales, feathers, fur and leathery skin shifted in a threatening patchwork, broken only by the dim flash of malevolent eyes, teeth, and claws. Just before the freed creatures stood two figures of human shape and size. One was a man Brendan had never seen before, wearing plain dark clothing and a sharp white grin. A scar stretched across his forehead and left eye, which gleamed more brightly than his other, and he held an old shotgun in a lazy manner. It was his life-presence which seemed to echo with many, stronger and brighter than any single life should be.
The other was a young woman, dressed in tan and red, with dark hair cropped short and a cloth half-mask covering the entire right side of her face and head. She held a single-edged sword in her left hand and a small round shield on her right.
Brendan knew that sword nearly as well as he knew that particular life.
He stared, stock-still and no longer completely aware of the Utsuyan, or the strange man, or the other members of the Hand. When he spoke, it surprised even himself; he hadn't been aware of his own mouth's movement.
"Kumari?"
:iconiloveitplz:

I got some very nice compliments on my prose from my professor.

Now I just need to find a way to make myself power through about five more chapters asap. Still having trouble with that.

Note on chapter: edit planned for later. Store name will NOT be Thorston Pottery; Clovis may not be super creative in naming things, but neither is he stupid enough to use his own real surname in it.
Also, chapter title subject to change...maybe.

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