This is Episode 4-10 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story.

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Part 4-10: Indelible

They were right about the bookcase, as it turned out.

After explaining to Deluxe that I’d psychically disabled the wifi, a fact to which she offered no immediate response, I found the others fast. All I had to do was watch for a plume of gold, and it led me straight to Persimmon.

Nothing physical about the shelf gave it away. It was the glow that did it for me—all the lines between the books shone with the same dying nightlight pallor from the office.

Persi and Fergus were investigating the inhabitants, pulling out tomes and reading titles. This shelf was less packed than its Bannerman Drive counterpart—maybe only two thirds full. I was more interested In the backpack that Ferg wore, because I could see chaos raging within. A sharp light flashed and strobed.

“Deluxe, can you text them and ask Fergus to meet me somewhere private? Washroom or so?”

“Copy that,” she said. “And for the record, your rogue signal clocks in at 2.4 gigahertz.”

“What do I win?”

“Accuracy accolades, as that’s the standard for most routers. Can you switch it off and on?”

(Have you tried turning it off and on again?)

“I’ll try once we’re away from the worst of it,” I said.

After a minute, Fergus checked his phone and murmured something to Persi. He stalked off, as she stood there with a disconcerted scowl. I followed him to the men’s washroom. It was thankfully empty, and boasted two stalls. Fergus went into the handicapped one, fished out his headset, then froze as the main door thumped. Someone else had come in.

“Fergus?” called Persi.

“What the,” he whispered, then peeked out. “Persi! You can’t— this looks— if they—”

She nudged past him into the stall and perched herself on the toilet, sitting atop the porcelain tank. “I want to hear too,” was all she said.

Fergus made a disbelieving noise, plucked out her headset and handed it over.

“Alena, where are you, you here?” he asked, adjusting his own.

“Yeah,” I said. “The last time I was in a bathroom stall with two other people it was more fun, but probably less interesting, I’d say.”

“If we survive this, I wanna hear that tale,” said Fergus. “This is your show, what’s what in Clockworld?”

I asked after the excited book. The Minder was calling, clearly. I watched, half amused, half nervous as my friend produced a pair of tongs from his backpack and extracted the pages like they were a radioactive core. Maybe he wasn’t far off—to me it certainly looked some kind of active, flashing and pulsing, a shifting checkered flag pattern surrounding its outline like it was an important objective in a video game.

“If I don’t touch it,” he explained, “Maybe I won’t get sucked in.”

“What, you don’t want to go back?” I said, laughing through my words.

“Does it frighten you?” asked Persi.

Fergus looked up, a joke on his lips, but the short girl’s face was far from mocking.

“Positively,” he said.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Me too. But I can hold it this time,” she offered.

“You’re sweet like a maraschino cherry, gal. Let me try my patented tong theory first, hey?”

Fergus gingerly opened the book with his kitchen tool, and instead of a tiny piece of text I saw another high definition picture: a fireplace against stone walls. The moment I fixed it and gave it my attention, the edges snapped and there I was, back in The Minder’s little schoolroom.

The tong theory proved untenable.

“Ah, weasel tits,” said Fergus, who was there with me, sans his grabbers.

The Minder was nowhere to be seen. We were alone in the library. It seemed colder and darker than last time, and more… still. Like it had been years since anyone had visited. I held back from bringing in the weapons, there were no immediate threats and part of me didn’t want Eden or whatever was inevitably watching us to get the impression that I was edgy.

“We don’t have all day,” I called out, wandering close to the books, trying to see if I could spot any clues. Fergus gazed towards the fireplace, and rubbed at his temples.

“The ticking is back,” he said. “Was almost gone, back in the, uh, john.”

“What’s it feel like?”

“Like… still like time is short, but it’s running out slower? The hourglass tilted, or grew more sand.”

I was about to say something about him being like a different kind of monitor, but a slow series of claps stilled my words. I drew closer to Fergus, and brought my my weapons to a blink’s breadth away in my brain.

“I knew it, I knew it, didn’t I say so?” came The Minder’s voice, from all around. “An apt pupil, Sally-Alena. Apt indeed.”

“Show yourself, Sir Dickweed,” I said, winking at Fergus. He had paled considerably after the voice had boomed. I was heartened to see a twitch of a grin on his lips.

“Very well.”

All the walls seemed to shiver, there was a wooden groan and pop, and then The Minder rose up through one of the couches as effortlessly as a hologram. He was in a seated pose as this happened, and when his ass came flush with the cushions, his form seemed to shiver as well. I blinked, and an afterimage of the checkerboard pattern retreated from him as quickly as it had half-appeared.

After a silent moment of staring at each other, he said, “So?”

I added an unimpressed lip curl to my stare.

“So how does it feel?” asked The Minder. “You’ve managed to corral the ward! Bothersome affair, so I’m told. Took The Collector an age and half to disengage it when he first ran afoul of its blinding, irritable encumbrance, and here you are, exercising precision control but with a mere prompt! A well crafted one though, if I might risk sounding vainglorious. How you managed so quickly is my chief curiosity!”

Something beyond basic mistrust told me that I should keep my tricks—what little I knew about them anyway—to myself. Diamonds and squares are the same thing, but that may not be so obvious until you’re told.

“What next?” I asked.

“Mm, a stubborn student. I cannot say I’m surprised.” He smiled and leaned forward. “I’ll share my account of the sensation, though it is somewhat secondhand, you’ll understand. The ward is quite familiar, to us. Though it burns and tears, that is only because of the grain—rough one way, yet smooth and something of a comfort when you stroke crosswise. Through an adjustment in perspective, one realizes that it is as much a servant as it is an obstacle. Am I close, Miss Sally-Alena?”

Poker face, poker face.

“Aha, yes, I see it in your eyes. At last, at long last you and I share an agreement! What progress, indeed.”

“Just tell us what your next damn lesson is all about,” I said.

“Not so hasty, dearest. Class is far from dismissed. My promise to you was to impart understanding, full understanding, in exchange for your fleshy friend. This is a promising start, but every lesson comes with a test, isn’t that right?”

Fergus made a noise that sounded like a laugh and a cough had a baby.

The Minder’s eyebrows shot up and wiggled. “I designed the educational component, but if you recall our program comes with The Collector’s blessing. He has, ah, arranged the tests.”

“So someone’s life is in danger. Again,” I said. A leaden weariness threatened to form an anchor in my heart. I stuck my tongue into the painful gap my molar had left behind, trying to stay afloat on the jabbing ache.

“The Collector’s pursuit is an eponymous one.” The Minder seemed to look past me while uttering this, then shrugged, stood up and said, “I’d like you to pass, I really would. I will even help you, best I can, as a demonstration of my goodwill and noble intent. No trickery. I do need you to progress through the curriculum, after all. Hotah here shall serve as your compass and bellwether of sorts.”

“Me a what and a who now?” croaked Fergus.

“The connection I forged between us is an unstable one, my lad,” said The Minder. He began to sink into the floor. “I’m afraid it will become taxing, but for the trials ahead, you’ll find it necessary. Or at minimum, indelible. Should you descend into madness, I prescribe seeking a swift and permanent lack of being, as the process becomes exponentially tortuous in an uncontrolled state. Until we meet again, adieu!”

And he was gone.

“Alena?” said Fergus.

“Yuh huh?”

“I hate this place. Also, what’s indelible mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said, as I made my way back to our tiny, hardcover exit. I actually knew that it meant ‘permanent.’

 

 

Continued in Part 4-11

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