For a February morning, it was actually fairly pleasant out; Christian took his time walking to work, enjoying the bright sunshine. The glare on the snow was pretty bad, but that was what sunglasses were for. He always left himself some extra time when he needed to open, so there was no hurry.
He almost regretted having to unlock the door and go inside, when he got there, but he settled into the comfortable routine of leaving his jacket in the back, checking in the bathroom mirror that his hair hadn’t been too messed up by the wind and his necklace was straight, retrieving the moneybox from its hiding place, turning on the cash register and lights and turning up the heat just a little. Mostly what his spell did was keep heat from escaping even with the door being frequently opened, but overnight with the heat turned down it did drop somewhat. He flipped the sign near the door to read OPEN, switched on the radio for quiet background music, and took a walk around the store to make sure everything was in place.
Most of the inventory was books, ranging from non-Abrahamic religion to the paranormal to psychology, along with mythology and superstitions and the odd bit of fiction that fit in with the atmosphere. But there were other odds and ends, candles and jewellery and gemstones and incense for the most part, along with Tarot cards and sets of runestones and other tools for divination or meditation. He liked it here, liked being able to help the customers who came in, liked hearing about what the regulars had been doing. He could understand why Val had stayed so long despite the necessity of a second part-time job. And the staff discount didn't hurt.
A hint of motion, barely perceptible on the edge of his vision, caught his attention as he passed the table that held the most elaborate candles. He paused, scanning the area—had something decided to make itself at home in the psychically-rich atmosphere of the shop?
No, there was nothing. Stress must be making him paranoid. He finished his rounds, pausing now and then to straighten this or that.
There wasn't usually a lot of traffic through the store, rarely more than a handful at a time, and sometimes long stretches when no one came in. He hoped today would be busy, keeping his mind here so he couldn't think about all the other problems in his life right now. At least Eric and Alexandra were getting along, with only occasional tense moments which they were coping with alone, and Eric didn't seem to be suffering much from Jade's baby despite how close they were coming to the end of that situation, but counting blessings only threw the other side into sharper contrast.
One of the weekend regulars pushed the door open, the bell on the door chiming softly, and Christian turned to greet him with a smile. While they were talking, someone else wandered in, one Christian didn't recognize, who explored with obvious interest for some time.
But, a little while later, he was alone again.
He frowned, as he watched the door close. He could have sworn that, in the light oak that panelled the lower half of the front wall, he'd seen a sinuous shape defined by the grain of the wood, the eyes in the flattened snake-like face looking in his direction. He blinked, looked away and looked at that spot again, and saw only simple wood panelling. Shivering, he sat down on the chair behind the counter, wrapping his arms around himself.
Okay, pull yourself together. You, of all people, can tell whether there's really something there, and if there is, do something about it. The thought that he was losing his mind didn't bear thinking about, though he thought he had some idea now how it felt for Val and dozens of others, having to wonder. He sat up straight and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the prickling along his spine that whispered of sudden attacks while he wasn't looking. There was a stream not far away, one he'd used many times and tied the store’s heating and cooling spells to. He dropped into a light trance and tapped into it, using its power to reinforce his own while he did a slow, thorough sweep of the store, back to front. For a change, he hoped no one came in for a few minutes.
The search turned up nothing at all. To all senses, to every method he'd devised to locate hard-to-find creatures, inch-by-inch sweeps and sudden splashes and everything between, he was alone in the store.
He opened his eyes, and stood up. There was nothing there, so it had to be just stress and his extremely active imagination combined. If there'd been anything present, he would have found it.
Somewhere near the back of the store, out of his direct line of sight, something fell with a soft thud.
Heart pounding, stream power ready, Christian inched his way around the long row of shelves down the centre of the store.
There was a book lying in the middle of the aisle, that was all. Now and again one of the ones turned face-out did fall. It didn't mean anything had knocked it there. He took a deep breath, chiding himself for overreacting, and strode down the aisle to pick it up and put it back.
For just a heartbeat, as he straightened and turned towards the shelf, he was absolutely certain something was sitting on the top shelf, just above eye-level, and watching him. He had only the briefest impression of something serpentine but with limbs, of a cobra-like hood behind a face like a snake's but shorter.
He jerked back, and bolted for the counter. Cell phone, gotta find the cell phone, gotta call Lexa, Lexa can help... In utter panic, he grabbed for his backpack, but dropped it while trying to get the knot undone with shaking hands.
The chime of the bell on the door made him stifle a cry, and he whirled to face it, ready to defend.
Terri, one of the most consistent weekend regulars, blinked and backed up a step. “Whoa, Chris, chill out. You look like you are not having a good day.”
“Yeah,” he said, a bit faintly. “You could say that. Sorry.” He sank down on the chair, struggling to calm himself. There was nothing here, he would have found it, he was just tense and prone to getting hysterical. It happened to everyone sometimes, right?
“You okay?”
“Y'know those days when you're sure there's something behind you every time you turn around?”
“Yeah, been there, done that, but you're s'posed to be the one to fix that for other people, never occurred to me you get 'em too.” She looked him over, forehead furrowed with concern. “Look, I don't need help, and I know the store well enough to take care of it if someone comes in with questions. Why don't you go make yourself a cup of tea and try to relax? I'll give you a yell if someone wants to buy something or wants to know specifics. It's just as well it's me, you might've scared someone new off the way you reacted.”
He thought about arguing, but Terri was probably right. It was hardly good for the store to have him paranoid and hair-triggered. So he nodded. “Thanks.”
In a semi-divided room at the back where they kept extra stock, there was a kettle and a small microwave, and he and Val and Amanda all left mugs and tea and quick food there. He filled and plugged in the kettle, decided that caffeine would be bad and chose mint tea instead, and perched on the stool to wait. He did one more mental search of the store while the kettle heated, and again turned up nothing at all, only the familiar water and earth tones of Terri's strong, balanced aura. That was soothing; he let his mind brush against the edges of it, let it calm him.
The kettle whistled, made him start slightly, but he refocused and made his tea. He hadn't heard the door, which meant Terri was probably browsing through the new stock contentedly, and didn't need him yet. Both hands wrapped around the cup of hot sweet tea, he stepped back around the partition into the main part of the store; the chair behind the counter was more comfortable, and he had some of Eric's home-made cookies in his backpack.
Terri brought a couple of books to the counter, and smiled approvingly. “You look much better.”
“Feel much better, too. I think it's just stress. Y'know, all the rumours and stuff.”
“That'd have me feeling like I'm being hunted, too. You going to be all right now?”
“I think so, yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
She shrugged, and smiled. “So do something nice for someone else. Not that you don't anyway. Just these two, I guess.”
He rang them in, and they spent a few minutes discussing one of them, and by the time Terri left, the world felt normal and stable again.
He couldn't spend all day here having tea and cookies, there were things that needed to be restocked from the back room, the tiles near the front to be mopped as snow and slush were tracked in. He finished the last swallow of tea, and scooped up the inventory clipboard before he circled around the counter.
His only impression was of something dropping down on him from above, before instinct and Alexandra's training took over, prompting him to simultaneously jerk to one side and slam line-power into a shield. Whatever it was, it clung to the shield and clawed at it, giving him a clearer view than he wanted of something that made him think of what a snake would look like if it were a biped with arms, about twice Sid's size. Arms with small claws were nonetheless doing damage to his shield. He'd grown up knowing and trusting Seth's naga Vadin, had no particular phobia of snakes, but this thing had a sinister look to it totally unlike the intellectual, reserved naga.
For the space of a heartbeat, Christian stared at it in frozen horror—it couldn't be here, all his senses except his eyes continued to insist that he was alone!
Panic beat down the paralysis and sent him scrambling for his cell phone, cursing himself for not having taken it out while Terri was here, but at least the cord at the mouth was untied now. He dropped to his knees behind the counter, and flung another shield over the space and across the open end, while he up-ended the backpack onto the floor. Cell phone, there! He snatched it, and cringed as the viper-thing tested the shielding across the open end of the counter.
“Hello.” Mark's blessedly familiar voice.
“Help!” He choked down a whimper as the viper thing reared back its head and spat; a glob of something yellowish-green splatted against the shield, and ate through it with terrifying ease. He threw a second shield, just inside the first, but he only had a couple of feet before he ran out of room to do that.
“At work?”
“Yes!”
“Coming.” The phone went dead.
Chris dropped the phone in the pile of belongings beside him. Okay, Lexa would be here as soon as she could, but it would take her a few minutes—Eric was probably out by now, he’d mentioned meeting with classmates about a project, so she’d have to call a taxi. He had to stay alive that long.
The viper-thing's head wove back and forth, as it inspected the results of its spitting attack.
Then it simply stepped back, a darker outline against the greenish-amber carpeting, and faded out of sight. Christian caught just a hint of motion, and then everything went still.
A trap, intended to lure him out of relative safety?
He was going to have to risk it: he couldn't take the chance of customers coming in and getting hurt. Very cautiously, he dissolved the shields, but nothing happened; straightening up brought no new assault. He grabbed the “Back in 10 minutes, sorry for any inconvenience” sign, stepped around the melted spot where the spittle had dripped to the floor, and ran for the door. He couldn't lock it, or Alexandra wouldn't be able to get in, but he could slap the sign in place at eye-level, and back it with a suggestion to not even try the door, to just walk away and come back again later. No finesse at all, but with any luck, it would keep innocent bystanders out of the way.
All right, this was ridiculous. So he couldn't find it magically. But surely he could hit it when it showed itself, right? He'd done that with others, pounded on them every time they appeared so they could attack him, and so far he'd always won. This time he didn't have to win, he only had to keep himself alive for a little while. It didn't matter that much that he couldn't find it at all when it hid, right? He could do that. Right? He just had to stop panicking and concentrate.
Keep moving, do it erratically, don't give it an easy or predictable target to attack.
A couple of times, as he paced around the store at random, he thought he saw a flicker of motion, but there was never anything there when he looked towards it.
He veered back towards the counter so he could look at the clock and see how long it had been—not that he'd thought to look when he'd called. Maybe five minutes? It certainly felt like longer. Maybe the clock was running slow.
A very faint hint of motion brought his gaze down, slowly, to the wood-veneer counter. At first, he couldn't see anything at all; then, with much the same sensation as looking at an ominous shape at night and suddenly recognizing it as a chair, the reverse happened. The viper-thing was crouched on the counter, flatter than any creature with a spine had any right to be. Looking up at him.
It knows I see it, Christian thought, then, Shit! He dropped to his knees and ducked his head, and the gob of spittle went over him and landed on the carpet. He'd have to see if he could fix that before Amanda saw it. He glanced up, just as the viper-thing's head slithered down over the edge of the counter, tracking him.
Okay, like, now'd be a good time to hit it with something! Anything!
No time to think about details or precision. He gathered up as much power from the stream as he could, and whipped it at the viper-thing in a single dense ball.
It recoiled, and the ball missed; Chris grabbed control of it again, made it ricochet and bounce back towards the creature.
Shit! Not bright! The viper-thing eeled itself out of the ball's path by going over the edge of the counter—nearly on top of Christian. In fact, that was probably its intention. He yelped, and scrambled aside and to his feet, reforming the ball's power into a shield behind him without even pausing to look.
He stopped half the length of the store away, panting, and looked around warily. No sign of it, but that meant nothing at all, he could look right over it and never know it was there. Or, for that matter, step over it...
The door chimed softly; it startled Christian into a strangled shriek, made him snatch for more power, before he felt the dark shadowy ripples of Alexandra's presence.
Who cares if it's on the floor somewhere? He dashed across the space between and tripped on the edging where the carpet became tile, but Alexandra caught him and wrapped arms and wings around him.
“What and where?”
“I don't know, I can't find it, it just keeps sneaking up on me, and I've never seen anything like it, it's spitting acid or something and it's fast and it blends in with things so you can't see it even when it's right in front of you...” It all came out on a single breath, in utter relief that she was there now.
“Hm. I don't see or sense anything.”
“It's real!”
“I believe you. I want you to find a corner, and sit down, and shield yourself so heavily you can't even twitch, all right? I'll take care of it.”
Christian nodded wordlessly, and when she let go of him, he retreated to one of the front corners. Not until he'd actually touched walls and floor to make sure there was nothing there did he sit down, cross-legged, next to the table that held neat little boxes of tumbled gemstones. Shielding that heavily would mean he couldn't help by attacking, but then, he hadn't been doing very well in that department so far; better to just stay out of the way and let Alexandra do what she did best. Well, one of the things. She was ready to fight, barefoot and with her hair braided and coiled, in the shorts and tank-top that left her free to move.
“Well?” Alexandra said to the apparently empty store, a hint of a purr in her voice. “Afraid to face me?”
No trace of motion at all, anywhere. Sensible of it, to lie low.
She prowled down one aisle, looked in the back room, came back up the other side, alert and wary, all without any indication that there was anything there—beyond the melted hole in the carpet, and the other one behind the counter.
That didn't faze her; she retraced her steps, this time much more slowly.
Somewhere out of his line of sight, he heard the viper-thing hiss, heard the spitting noise again, like Sid bringing up a hairball; Alexandra growled, and it was followed by a series of thuds and more hissing, something that sounded like a snarled question from Alexandra mixed with a threat, and even more hissing that might have been a reply of some sort. Christian disobeyed and abandoned the shields, in favour of moving to a place where he could see—less than effective though he'd been so far, it went against the grain to not be there and ready in case he could act.
The viper-thing's size had changed. Drastically. It was nearly Alexandra's height now, which didn't do anything to lessen the snake-like appearance. He might just as well have stayed where he was, for all he could actually make out of the tangle of bodies on the floor: by the time his eyes had registered the position of a black-nailed hand or a scaled tail, it was somewhere different.
Sudden silence, broken by Alexandra's rapid breathing, as she untangled herself. She prodded the limp viper-thing with a nail, and swore viciously. “I was trying not to kill it yet! I wanted answers.” She got to her feet, and shook herself, her expression full of utter disgust. There were a few thin, bloody scratches down her arms and legs, and what looked like two puncture-holes on one arm, but otherwise seemed unharmed. “And I thought I told you to stay somewhere!”
“I'm sorry,” Christian said meekly. “I, um, had to make sure you were okay...” It sounded ridiculous as soon as he said it, and he looked down.
She sighed, and pulled him close for a hug. “It just wouldn't be you to do anything else, I suppose.”
“Most people would have more sense, prob'ly.” He snuggled against her.
“Yet, for some reason, it's you I'm living with.” Gently, she released him. “I think you'd better make what's left vanish, and get the store opened again. I'll stick around for a little while, just in case, but I think there was only the one.”
“You're all right?”
“It wasn't that much of a fight. I'm fine. I'm not sure much else could have taken it out, though. Vadin could. Probably no one else you know.”
Christian decided to take her word for it, and turned his attention to making the body vanish.
He rather expected Alexandra to switch to Mark, but she only altered her clothes into jeans and a long black sweater; when he gave her a questioning look, she said, “Poison can't hurt me, but it'll kill Mark if I switch before it's out of my system.”
“Oh.” Sobering thought. Without her, odds were very high that he'd be dead right now.
He removed the “Back in 10 minutes” sign, banished the suggestion, and pondered what to do about the acid damage.
For a February morning, it was actually fairly pleasant out; Christian took his time walking to work, enjoying the bright sunshine. The glare on the snow was pretty bad, but that was what sunglasses were for. He always left himself some extra time when he needed to open, so there was no hurry.
He almost regretted having to unlock the door and go inside, when he got there, but he settled into the comfortable routine of leaving his jacket in the back, checking in the bathroom mirror that his hair hadn’t been too messed up by the wind and his necklace was straight, retrieving the moneybox from its hiding place, turning on the cash register and lights and turning up the heat just a little. Mostly what his spell did was keep heat from escaping even with the door being frequently opened, but overnight with the heat turned down it did drop somewhat. He flipped the sign near the door to read OPEN, switched on the radio for quiet background music, and took a walk around the store to make sure everything was in place.
Most of the inventory was books, ranging from non-Abrahamic religion to the paranormal to psychology, along with mythology and superstitions and the odd bit of fiction that fit in with the atmosphere. But there were other odds and ends, candles and jewellery and gemstones and incense for the most part, along with Tarot cards and sets of runestones and other tools for divination or meditation. He liked it here, liked being able to help the customers who came in, liked hearing about what the regulars had been doing. He could understand why Val had stayed so long despite the necessity of a second part-time job. And the staff discount didn't hurt.
A hint of motion, barely perceptible on the edge of his vision, caught his attention as he passed the table that held the most elaborate candles. He paused, scanning the area—had something decided to make itself at home in the psychically-rich atmosphere of the shop?
No, there was nothing. Stress must be making him paranoid. He finished his rounds, pausing now and then to straighten this or that.
There wasn't usually a lot of traffic through the store, rarely more than a handful at a time, and sometimes long stretches when no one came in. He hoped today would be busy, keeping his mind here so he couldn't think about all the other problems in his life right now. At least Eric and Alexandra were getting along, with only occasional tense moments which they were coping with alone, and Eric didn't seem to be suffering much from Jade's baby despite how close they were coming to the end of that situation, but counting blessings only threw the other side into sharper contrast.
One of the weekend regulars pushed the door open, the bell on the door chiming softly, and Christian turned to greet him with a smile. While they were talking, someone else wandered in, one Christian didn't recognize, who explored with obvious interest for some time.
But, a little while later, he was alone again.
He frowned, as he watched the door close. He could have sworn that, in the light oak that panelled the lower half of the front wall, he'd seen a sinuous shape defined by the grain of the wood, the eyes in the flattened snake-like face looking in his direction. He blinked, looked away and looked at that spot again, and saw only simple wood panelling. Shivering, he sat down on the chair behind the counter, wrapping his arms around himself.
Okay, pull yourself together. You, of all people, can tell whether there's really something there, and if there is, do something about it. The thought that he was losing his mind didn't bear thinking about, though he thought he had some idea now how it felt for Val and dozens of others, having to wonder. He sat up straight and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the prickling along his spine that whispered of sudden attacks while he wasn't looking. There was a stream not far away, one he'd used many times and tied the store’s heating and cooling spells to. He dropped into a light trance and tapped into it, using its power to reinforce his own while he did a slow, thorough sweep of the store, back to front. For a change, he hoped no one came in for a few minutes.
The search turned up nothing at all. To all senses, to every method he'd devised to locate hard-to-find creatures, inch-by-inch sweeps and sudden splashes and everything between, he was alone in the store.
He opened his eyes, and stood up. There was nothing there, so it had to be just stress and his extremely active imagination combined. If there'd been anything present, he would have found it.
Somewhere near the back of the store, out of his direct line of sight, something fell with a soft thud.
Heart pounding, stream power ready, Christian inched his way around the long row of shelves down the centre of the store.
There was a book lying in the middle of the aisle, that was all. Now and again one of the ones turned face-out did fall. It didn't mean anything had knocked it there. He took a deep breath, chiding himself for overreacting, and strode down the aisle to pick it up and put it back.
For just a heartbeat, as he straightened and turned towards the shelf, he was absolutely certain something was sitting on the top shelf, just above eye-level, and watching him. He had only the briefest impression of something serpentine but with limbs, of a cobra-like hood behind a face like a snake's but shorter.
He jerked back, and bolted for the counter. Cell phone, gotta find the cell phone, gotta call Lexa, Lexa can help... In utter panic, he grabbed for his backpack, but dropped it while trying to get the knot undone with shaking hands.
The chime of the bell on the door made him stifle a cry, and he whirled to face it, ready to defend.
Terri, one of the most consistent weekend regulars, blinked and backed up a step. “Whoa, Chris, chill out. You look like you are not having a good day.”
“Yeah,” he said, a bit faintly. “You could say that. Sorry.” He sank down on the chair, struggling to calm himself. There was nothing here, he would have found it, he was just tense and prone to getting hysterical. It happened to everyone sometimes, right?
“You okay?”
“Y'know those days when you're sure there's something behind you every time you turn around?”
“Yeah, been there, done that, but you're s'posed to be the one to fix that for other people, never occurred to me you get 'em too.” She looked him over, forehead furrowed with concern. “Look, I don't need help, and I know the store well enough to take care of it if someone comes in with questions. Why don't you go make yourself a cup of tea and try to relax? I'll give you a yell if someone wants to buy something or wants to know specifics. It's just as well it's me, you might've scared someone new off the way you reacted.”
He thought about arguing, but Terri was probably right. It was hardly good for the store to have him paranoid and hair-triggered. So he nodded. “Thanks.”
In a semi-divided room at the back where they kept extra stock, there was a kettle and a small microwave, and he and Val and Amanda all left mugs and tea and quick food there. He filled and plugged in the kettle, decided that caffeine would be bad and chose mint tea instead, and perched on the stool to wait. He did one more mental search of the store while the kettle heated, and again turned up nothing at all, only the familiar water and earth tones of Terri's strong, balanced aura. That was soothing; he let his mind brush against the edges of it, let it calm him.
The kettle whistled, made him start slightly, but he refocused and made his tea. He hadn't heard the door, which meant Terri was probably browsing through the new stock contentedly, and didn't need him yet. Both hands wrapped around the cup of hot sweet tea, he stepped back around the partition into the main part of the store; the chair behind the counter was more comfortable, and he had some of Eric's home-made cookies in his backpack.
Terri brought a couple of books to the counter, and smiled approvingly. “You look much better.”
“Feel much better, too. I think it's just stress. Y'know, all the rumours and stuff.”
“That'd have me feeling like I'm being hunted, too. You going to be all right now?”
“I think so, yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
She shrugged, and smiled. “So do something nice for someone else. Not that you don't anyway. Just these two, I guess.”
He rang them in, and they spent a few minutes discussing one of them, and by the time Terri left, the world felt normal and stable again.
He couldn't spend all day here having tea and cookies, there were things that needed to be restocked from the back room, the tiles near the front to be mopped as snow and slush were tracked in. He finished the last swallow of tea, and scooped up the inventory clipboard before he circled around the counter.
His only impression was of something dropping down on him from above, before instinct and Alexandra's training took over, prompting him to simultaneously jerk to one side and slam line-power into a shield. Whatever it was, it clung to the shield and clawed at it, giving him a clearer view than he wanted of something that made him think of what a snake would look like if it were a biped with arms, about twice Sid's size. Arms with small claws were nonetheless doing damage to his shield. He'd grown up knowing and trusting Seth's naga Vadin, had no particular phobia of snakes, but this thing had a sinister look to it totally unlike the intellectual, reserved naga.
For the space of a heartbeat, Christian stared at it in frozen horror—it couldn't be here, all his senses except his eyes continued to insist that he was alone!
Panic beat down the paralysis and sent him scrambling for his cell phone, cursing himself for not having taken it out while Terri was here, but at least the cord at the mouth was untied now. He dropped to his knees behind the counter, and flung another shield over the space and across the open end, while he up-ended the backpack onto the floor. Cell phone, there! He snatched it, and cringed as the viper-thing tested the shielding across the open end of the counter.
“Hello.” Mark's blessedly familiar voice.
“Help!” He choked down a whimper as the viper thing reared back its head and spat; a glob of something yellowish-green splatted against the shield, and ate through it with terrifying ease. He threw a second shield, just inside the first, but he only had a couple of feet before he ran out of room to do that.
“At work?”
“Yes!”
“Coming.” The phone went dead.
Chris dropped the phone in the pile of belongings beside him. Okay, Lexa would be here as soon as she could, but it would take her a few minutes—Eric was probably out by now, he’d mentioned meeting with classmates about a project, so she’d have to call a taxi. He had to stay alive that long.
The viper-thing's head wove back and forth, as it inspected the results of its spitting attack.
Then it simply stepped back, a darker outline against the greenish-amber carpeting, and faded out of sight. Christian caught just a hint of motion, and then everything went still.
A trap, intended to lure him out of relative safety?
He was going to have to risk it: he couldn't take the chance of customers coming in and getting hurt. Very cautiously, he dissolved the shields, but nothing happened; straightening up brought no new assault. He grabbed the “Back in 10 minutes, sorry for any inconvenience” sign, stepped around the melted spot where the spittle had dripped to the floor, and ran for the door. He couldn't lock it, or Alexandra wouldn't be able to get in, but he could slap the sign in place at eye-level, and back it with a suggestion to not even try the door, to just walk away and come back again later. No finesse at all, but with any luck, it would keep innocent bystanders out of the way.
All right, this was ridiculous. So he couldn't find it magically. But surely he could hit it when it showed itself, right? He'd done that with others, pounded on them every time they appeared so they could attack him, and so far he'd always won. This time he didn't have to win, he only had to keep himself alive for a little while. It didn't matter that much that he couldn't find it at all when it hid, right? He could do that. Right? He just had to stop panicking and concentrate.
Keep moving, do it erratically, don't give it an easy or predictable target to attack.
A couple of times, as he paced around the store at random, he thought he saw a flicker of motion, but there was never anything there when he looked towards it.
He veered back towards the counter so he could look at the clock and see how long it had been—not that he'd thought to look when he'd called. Maybe five minutes? It certainly felt like longer. Maybe the clock was running slow.
A very faint hint of motion brought his gaze down, slowly, to the wood-veneer counter. At first, he couldn't see anything at all; then, with much the same sensation as looking at an ominous shape at night and suddenly recognizing it as a chair, the reverse happened. The viper-thing was crouched on the counter, flatter than any creature with a spine had any right to be. Looking up at him.
It knows I see it, Christian thought, then, Shit! He dropped to his knees and ducked his head, and the gob of spittle went over him and landed on the carpet. He'd have to see if he could fix that before Amanda saw it. He glanced up, just as the viper-thing's head slithered down over the edge of the counter, tracking him.
Okay, like, now'd be a good time to hit it with something! Anything!
No time to think about details or precision. He gathered up as much power from the stream as he could, and whipped it at the viper-thing in a single dense ball.
It recoiled, and the ball missed; Chris grabbed control of it again, made it ricochet and bounce back towards the creature.
Shit! Not bright! The viper-thing eeled itself out of the ball's path by going over the edge of the counter—nearly on top of Christian. In fact, that was probably its intention. He yelped, and scrambled aside and to his feet, reforming the ball's power into a shield behind him without even pausing to look.
He stopped half the length of the store away, panting, and looked around warily. No sign of it, but that meant nothing at all, he could look right over it and never know it was there. Or, for that matter, step over it...
The door chimed softly; it startled Christian into a strangled shriek, made him snatch for more power, before he felt the dark shadowy ripples of Alexandra's presence.
Who cares if it's on the floor somewhere? He dashed across the space between and tripped on the edging where the carpet became tile, but Alexandra caught him and wrapped arms and wings around him.
“What and where?”
“I don't know, I can't find it, it just keeps sneaking up on me, and I've never seen anything like it, it's spitting acid or something and it's fast and it blends in with things so you can't see it even when it's right in front of you...” It all came out on a single breath, in utter relief that she was there now.
“Hm. I don't see or sense anything.”
“It's real!”
“I believe you. I want you to find a corner, and sit down, and shield yourself so heavily you can't even twitch, all right? I'll take care of it.”
Christian nodded wordlessly, and when she let go of him, he retreated to one of the front corners. Not until he'd actually touched walls and floor to make sure there was nothing there did he sit down, cross-legged, next to the table that held neat little boxes of tumbled gemstones. Shielding that heavily would mean he couldn't help by attacking, but then, he hadn't been doing very well in that department so far; better to just stay out of the way and let Alexandra do what she did best. Well, one of the things. She was ready to fight, barefoot and with her hair braided and coiled, in the shorts and tank-top that left her free to move.
“Well?” Alexandra said to the apparently empty store, a hint of a purr in her voice. “Afraid to face me?”
No trace of motion at all, anywhere. Sensible of it, to lie low.
She prowled down one aisle, looked in the back room, came back up the other side, alert and wary, all without any indication that there was anything there—beyond the melted hole in the carpet, and the other one behind the counter.
That didn't faze her; she retraced her steps, this time much more slowly.
Somewhere out of his line of sight, he heard the viper-thing hiss, heard the spitting noise again, like Sid bringing up a hairball; Alexandra growled, and it was followed by a series of thuds and more hissing, something that sounded like a snarled question from Alexandra mixed with a threat, and even more hissing that might have been a reply of some sort. Christian disobeyed and abandoned the shields, in favour of moving to a place where he could see—less than effective though he'd been so far, it went against the grain to not be there and ready in case he could act.
The viper-thing's size had changed. Drastically. It was nearly Alexandra's height now, which didn't do anything to lessen the snake-like appearance. He might just as well have stayed where he was, for all he could actually make out of the tangle of bodies on the floor: by the time his eyes had registered the position of a black-nailed hand or a scaled tail, it was somewhere different.
Sudden silence, broken by Alexandra's rapid breathing, as she untangled herself. She prodded the limp viper-thing with a nail, and swore viciously. “I was trying not to kill it yet! I wanted answers.” She got to her feet, and shook herself, her expression full of utter disgust. There were a few thin, bloody scratches down her arms and legs, and what looked like two puncture-holes on one arm, but otherwise seemed unharmed. “And I thought I told you to stay somewhere!”
“I'm sorry,” Christian said meekly. “I, um, had to make sure you were okay...” It sounded ridiculous as soon as he said it, and he looked down.
She sighed, and pulled him close for a hug. “It just wouldn't be you to do anything else, I suppose.”
“Most people would have more sense, prob'ly.” He snuggled against her.
“Yet, for some reason, it's you I'm living with.” Gently, she released him. “I think you'd better make what's left vanish, and get the store opened again. I'll stick around for a little while, just in case, but I think there was only the one.”
“You're all right?”
“It wasn't that much of a fight. I'm fine. I'm not sure much else could have taken it out, though. Vadin could. Probably no one else you know.”
Christian decided to take her word for it, and turned his attention to making the body vanish.
He rather expected Alexandra to switch to Mark, but she only altered her clothes into jeans and a long black sweater; when he gave her a questioning look, she said, “Poison can't hurt me, but it'll kill Mark if I switch before it's out of my system.”
“Oh.” Sobering thought. Without her, odds were very high that he'd be dead right now.
He removed the “Back in 10 minutes” sign, banished the suggestion, and pondered what to do about the acid damage.
