“Ay, I thought it’d take you way longer than three weeks to decide!” - Sel’s palm met his shoulder with considerable force as the witch laughed in full voice, startling a group of sparrows from the rivberbank tree. Leo laughed too, watching the water and wind pass under them as indecision left his body in trickles of anxious vapor.
“Me too, honestly,” - he spit his gum into the stream and reached into his coat pocket for the next one, without thinking much, - “Last attempt wasn’t exactly guilt-free.”
“We’re no coddled college girls,” - Moss quipped through the companion drone’s speakers, not taking her cameras off the pigeons picking between pebbles under the bridge, - “Besides, Fractal Light are full of shit.”
Sel downed the last quarter of their can, this one yellow with a white pattern. Leo had long since abandoned the idea of trying more varieties of that inhuman brew.
“Gonna go alright, stacks boy,” - the witch grinned widely, - “Kat’s house got good suppliers. They’re a bit assholish but not nearly as scary as some people paint.”
“That’s an interesting way to describe them,” - Leo squinted.
“Just be respectful, pay your bills and keep your mouth shut,” - the demon chirped, - “Unless you’re a business, they’re honestly less of a pain than pigs.”
“Do you guys count as a business?”
“We look like one to you?” - Sel bounced the question back, cheekily.
Leo paused to think. The rusted railings under his hands were a bit too cold for comfort. Two pigeons were fighting over something.
“Nope, one witch’s too small.”
“Guessed right,” - Sel chuckled, wiping the corner of their mouth, - “Independent contractors or something like that.”
“How much should I expect to pay?”
Moss chirped a number. Leo grunted in frustration.
“What, can’t afford?” - the witch tilted their head inquisitively.
“Can, but barely.”
“That’s how it go,” - Sel smiled again, - “If you work somewhere interesting to them, they can exchange part of the payment for a favor.”
“A favor?”
“Usually something like stealing documents or planting tappers or parcel delivery. They know their limits, it’s very unlikely to get you killed.”
Leo shivered.
“No thanks, I’d like to not do industrial espionage while there’s a wizard snooping around our workplace.”
“A WIZARD?” - Sel and Moss yelled almost in unison. In the blink of an eye, the early autumn air was flooded with suffocating tension. Two pairs of eyes were drilling into him with extreme alarm.
“Yeah, wha-”
“What implants do you have?!” - Sel scooped the drone into their hand and took a step back, not breaking eye contact, - “List them, NOW.”
“I… ID chip and a diffuse injector,” - he tapped a spot on his shoulder over the barely noticeable bump, - “Nothing else.”
“Do you have any electronics on you?!”
“No! Had none when I saw him either.”
The witch relaxed again, stumbling back to the railing and wiping their forehead. Moss’ bipedal drone hopped down onto the weathered pavement, still watching Leo with its unblinking eyes.
“Jesus FUCK man you gotta warn us about that shit first thing,” - Sel sighed heavily between their fingers.
“Sorry, will do next time…”
“How did he look?!” - the demon was evidently still tense.
“Idunno, how these guys always look. Tall as fuck, blue skin, replaced eyes, no hair. Wide nose, kinda heavy cheekbones…”
“The antennas, dumbass! Did you see the antennas on his head?!”
“A loop on the side here and a row of straight ones near the temple,” - Leo showed on his own head, - “Something was sticking out under the cap but not sure what shape.”
“Okay. Okay that’s fine. That’s okay. That’s fine,” - to Leo’s immense surprise, Moss’ voice was now weak, almost shaking. It felt like she was calming herself down more than anything.
Sel kneeled to pick the drone up with surprising gentleness, and settled it back on the railing next to their stomach. Moss’ remote body leaned sideways, into the folds of their thick dirty sweater.
“Dude, these shitheads are fucking dangerous,” - the witch exhaled nervously, embracing the mechanical bird-thing, - “PLEASE, if you meet one again, do NOT bring any electronics you had at the time in a ten mile radius of us, okay?”
Their round face was folded into a desperate expression, fingers clutching the demon’s puppet.
“I promise I won’t.”
He scratched the stubble on his neck, unsure how to fill the awkward silence.
Wind tugged playfully at his hair. A truck passed behind them, metal rattling in the tarp-covered trailer. Evening sun glinted off the glass faces of Stacks rising in the mist far ahead, two hours by train beyond the river’s bends.
His hand slipped around the bat’s nose, making it more flat and pig-like than he’d planned. He took a step back, considering what to do with it.
Twenty meters to the side, Sel was blasting away at their floral pattern, somehow putting down linework with both hands at once. Their coat had been thrown to the grass next to the bags, and in the beam of his headlamp he could see their muscular shoulders shift under the weathered sweater. Moss’ puppet was perched atop the concrete fence, keeping watch on the railway tracks behind them.
He returned to his own wall. Painting over the mistake would be annoying, and the black would probably end up poking through anyway, so he decided to play into it. Distorting the remaining parts of the face in a similar way, he bestowed upon his bat a few bruises and a half-closed eye. It turned out looking grumpy as a result, which he found funny.
He took a sip from his water flask before moving on to coloring. The witch’s vine-script was folding into a big sign: LOVE IS GREEN. They were finishing up contours of the flowers around the last letter.
“Movement on the street,” - Moss chirped, leaning forwards.
Both humans froze up, killed the lights, took a step towards their belongings, ready to pack. In the cool of night, they heard each other’s breaths dissipate with the wind through the balding bushes.
A distant young laughter pierced the creosote-striped space between two slumbering treelines.
“False alarm,” - the demon puppet returned to its neutral stance.
The three laughed quietly, standing up straight again.
Night breeze tingled across Leo’s back as he gave his bat teal base and dark blue shading, hum of the highway blended with rustle of leaves nibbling at the edges of aerosol cans’ hissing.
The singular focus of the act was always soothing. He was a simple thing leaving a mark. The yesterday was gone and the tomorrow was irrelevant. Finishing up the inside of the ears, he wondered if the witch felt the same way.
He found the witch already finished, pulling on their long coat.
“Who roughed her up?” - they squinted at the bat.
“She won’t tell,” - Leo grinned and uncorked the flask again.
“Ey lemme see,” - the demon chirped from the fence. Sel stretched an arm towards the puppet. The bird-thing hopped onto it confidently, grasping the sleeve with oddly organic grace, and turned to face the wall - “Shit, good job stacks boy! I fuck with this!”
Leo blinked at the drone, disoriented by the sudden compliment. A crackling digital laugh told him Moss found it very funny.
“Thanks,” - he managed.
The metal bird hopped onto the witch’s shoulder, still giggling, while they squat down, ruffling through their duffel bag.
“You hungry?” - Sel looked up, already biting on a protein bar. Leo nodded, and barely caught another foil packet tossed at him, - “Let’s go, next one’s two kilometers down, banger spot in an old mall”.
“Always love me some malls,” - he sighed, zipping his backpack, and got up with a groan, following the witch back onto the rail tracks, - “Are your legs made out of steel or something?”
“That’s right,” - Sel laughed, beam of the headlamp jumping briefly to graze the treetops, - “Walk enough - it sorta happens.”
“Doesn’t happen with me and factory work.”
The wooden sleepers under their feet were a toppled ladder to the sky. Threads of traffic noise punctured the wind’s whisper. The waxing moon a hairclaw holding together an irregular mess of clouds.
“Suppose genetics play a role too,” - Sel shrugged, folding an empty foil and stuffing it into one of their numerous pockets. Leo still wasn’t used to the terrifying speed at which they demolished food and drink, - “Parent was like that. Hiked from Yekaterinburg to Kazan after Coral’s Word.”
“Damn. My mom has a coughing fit climbing up to her floor when the elevator is out. Were they running to old Moscow?”
“Eyup. They didn’t tell me much, but I gathered early post-Word Yek was real bad,” - the witch’s tone did not move a millimeter from lighthearted.
“Sure as shit was,” - Moss looked up at the moon, - “Don’t recommend watching video reports from the time like I did. Nasty, gross, no good. Stick to history books.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” - Leo smiled into their backs.
An ambulance siren wailed in the distance, slid through the air like a micron-thick blade, friction shattering it into fragments that dissolved back into the gloom.
The bouncer, a tall, muscular middle-aged woman, scanned them head to toe with the kindness of an automated turret. Pretending to be deeply fascinated by the patterns of branches above the pre-morning sidewalk, studying her light brown buzz cut and tangles of twisting cephalopod arm wrist tattoos in his peripheral vision, Leo felt distinctly threatened, even though her handgun was firmly holstered and arms relaxed.
“’Night, Sophia,” - Sel greeted with a tired smile.
“Business?”
“Sorta. Kat awake?”
Sophia nodded, bluntly, and tapped something into her walkie-talkie.
“Outsider, look at me.”
Forcing through an instinctive alarm, Leo pulled his eyes to meet hers, and the tension instantly grew thicker, deep grey wells above him glinting in the yellowish streetlight. She could probably snap his neck without much effort, a thought bolted through his weary head.
“You good. Come through,” - a rapid thawing. Just as quickly as the threat condensed, it vanished, leaving Leo’s heart rate elevated just slightly over the point of comfort.
Turning after Sel with a blink, he followed through the battered brown door, down the concrete stairs, and shortly the far end of a long dingy corridor spit his tired body out into the warm, softly lit stomach of the Seventh Arm. The subtly sweet smell of the place creeped into his nostrils and throat as he stalled near the entrance, adjusting to a change in brightness.
This late, the bar was mostly empty and surprisingly quiet. Two tables under the far wall were occupied by a group of four young soldier girls, seemingly fresh from a shift, coats wet with night drizzle piled on chairs next to them. One of them had stripped her rifle for cleaning, two more were locked in a relaxed embrace, groggy movements and aimless smiles suggesting moderate intoxication.
Leo found the fourth, seemingly the oldest and definitely the highest-ranking, studying him with intense, deconstructing, almost predatory interest. Colorful threads woven into her long black braid were capillaries of amber under the flickering table lamp. He could not bear the hunger of her narrow eyes for long, and quickly made his way to the counter, where Sel was already locked in a half-argument with Kat.
“It is an unwise request, ▧▣▤⯬␕▣▥⭙▩▩. We are stretching Rivermother’s good will,” - Kat’s arms were crossed on her chest, tight knot of snow-touched hair stretching her displeased squint. Her gaze drilled into Leo, mouth folded into a stoic line.
“Are you really?” - Sel’s voice echoed a suppressed groan. Both they and Moss were staring directly at the bartender’s face, - “Didn’t know Rivermother’s short on basic supplies?”
Kat scoffed.
“Do not mock me, supplies are not the issue here. He is.”
“What’s that mean?” - Leo froze up a bit, tried his best to make the question sound nonconfrontational.
“Do I really need to list it out?” - The host’s poorly throttled ire was now fully focused on him. He guessed he had failed, - “You’re a man, you’re from Stacks, you’re a government worker. We have first seen you a month ago. The only way you would be more of a red flag is if you came in here wearing a pig helmet.”
“Respectfully, Kat, we’re not fucking stupid,” - Moss’ voice sizzled out of the small speaker.
The old woman made something between a smirk and a grimace of pain.
“Perhaps I trust you. But can I say the same about Rivermother? You must understand, for her this would be my plea. And if the boy fucks up and it kills the supply channel, it will be my responsibility.”
Moss emulated a rippling groan, poorly, jumping down onto the counter.
“Oh, come on-”
“NO,” - Kat’s fist landed in front of the puppet with a dull thud, forcing it to hop back, - “I will not take this on my shoulders. If you want an ID,” - her eyes, staring Leo down, left no room for negotiation, - “You and ▧▣▤⯬␕▣▥⭙▩▩ will request it yourselves. I am sure Rivermother will allow her an audience.”
In the corner of his eye, he saw Sel wince.
A flash of anger bubbled out of Leo’s exhaustion. “That’s stupid”, an apathetic thought pinged, “They’ll kick me out”.
Sel had not accepted the loss yet.
“Look, seriously, he’s safe, we ran a background che-”
“Is it that hard to call a person correctly?” - he blurted into Kat’s face. A momentary silence flash-froze between the three, Sel’s mouth open mid-sentence.
Amusement mixing into the discontent, Kat let out an unhappy full-chest laugh, disrupting the quiet chatter of the other group.
“You’ve got guts, young man. Barging in here, asking me to put my hide at risk for you, and now lecturing me on how to-”
“He’s right though,” - a raspy low voice interjected from behind them, a devious mix of cheekiness and malice. Leo heard a chair creak, and then heavy footsteps approach them from behind. A scar-lined hand practically covered with intertwining tentacle tattoos, nail polish deep black with a green glint, came to rest on his shoulder, - “You’ve gotta stop being a jerk to your own folks Kat.”
A chained waterfall of black hair coalesced on the left. It was the girl that was scanning him earlier, now playfully wrapping her arm around his neck. Despite her light build and complete non-hostility of the gesture, his body became uncontrollably tense where her tanned skin pushed into his clothes, as if expecting her flesh to erupt into a barrage of knives. She smelled weakly of cigarettes, gasoline and pine needles.
By the rainbow of confusion, anger and concern he saw on Kat’s face, she was getting the same message, but laser-focused. With a gasp, the bartender attempted to recover.
“▧▣▤⯬␕▣▥⭙▩▩ is not full part of the House. And rules are rules, her name for us is-”
“Oh girl don’t be so formal, not like we’re on record,” - the intruder stretched, chuckling, clearly taking pleasure in watching a woman more than twice her age helplessly seethe at being called a girl, - “Be nice to your witches no matter what them papers say. Pleeease?” - a mock-question.
For an exhilarating ten seconds or so, the three watched Kat’s face helplessly jump between starting points of sentences that were not destined to be spoken. Then, with a long, frustrated sigh, she gave up.
“Sure.”
“Thanks Kat,” - the laughter to the left of him was somewhat akin to a fox’s bark, if the fox was a regular smoker and possibly had a sore throat. Unexpectedly, Moss joined in. Leo felt the tanned hand slide back off his shoulder, - “I’m gonna bounce, extra hearts are in the blue bag.”
“Thanks,” - Kat’s defeated hissing was amusing Leo more than he recently thought possible.
He felt a palm pat his back. Uncomfortably low.
“Good luck with Rivermother,” - the menace was off towards the doors, - “I’m sure she’ll like you.”
“Owe you one,” - Moss laughed in full voice again.
As the outer door shut a corridor away, the drunk soldier girls erupted into giggling.
“So, Selene,” - there was enough acid in Kat’s words to dissolve a body, - “Anything else?”
“Give us two beers and a big plate of dried fish,” - the witch sighed.
“Gotta admit, you hang out with… Uh… Interesting people,” - Leo massaged his aching thighs under the table, chewing on a fish tail. For once, Sel’s choice of snacks was not utterly horrible, - “Who the fuck was that?”
Exhaustion of his body had morphed from needle-like alert to softly distributed dull pain. The old wooden chair under him felt dangerously comfortable to slump into; he hoped neither of them would fall asleep while waiting here.
“Hell do we know, first time seeing” - Moss scoffed, pacing back and forth across the table, - “Def Rivermother’s personal asset though. Too many arm marks.”
The witch sat across from him, distraught or disoriented, staring through him with a slowly warming mug in their hands.
“You okay?” - Leo leaned towards them, carefully.
“I… Shit.” - they sighed, pulling at their own sleeve, - “Man, thank you for that, but it was stupid.”
“I know,” - he couldn’t come up with anything better than a shrug.
The three girls finished scooping up their belongings and headed to the door. Kat was nowhere to be seen, likely in the kitchen or further down into the Seventh Arm.
“If that girl was a shithead too you’d be waiting for your train outside with a broken arm,” - the demon chuckled.
“Well, she wasn’t. And my conscience’s free.”
Sel’s eyes suddenly focused, drilling into his with worry.
“Don’t know if Rivermother will invite us over, but if she does, you will NOT do something like this in her home, you understand?”
He nodded, returning to the fish.
“How bad is having to talk to her?”
“Varies.”
Leo squinted at the witch. The witch shivered in their seat, adjusting their messy hair, trying not to look him in the eye.
“That seems concerning.”
“That’s cause it is,” - Moss cut in again, setting her puppet down next to Sel. Sel began absentmindedly scratching the dented aluminium edge of its head.
“She’s playful,” - slowly regaining composure, the witch finally took a swig from their mug, and stuffed two anchovies into their mouth at once, - “Worst kind. Doubt you’ll get away with just a payment.”
For who knows which time in the same night, sandgrains of gnawing discomfort converged at the back of Leo’s neck.
“Back out if you want, we won’t judge,” - there was a surprising amount of compassion in the demon’s sentence.
He leaned back into the chair, closing his eyes. Trying to claw some reason to stop out of the darkness.
The everpresent smell of dried flowers flowing across him. A lovingly modelled abstraction of his hand. Cold lights in the entrance hallway buzzing. Crawling through the concrete stomach of the Underside. Voice slipping away from memory. Warm wood under his hands. Proxy suit in an evidence bag. Knock on the door.
He opened his eyes.
“Eh, what’s the worst that could happen.”
The worker and the witch stared at each other, then laughed.
“Good run today,” - he smiled at Sel, - “Your one inside the mall gotta be put in a gallery somewhere.”
“Nope, never,” - the witch grinned back at Leo, - “Art’s to be cooked and eaten and digested. Yours taste good.”
“Aye, they right,” - Moss chuckled, - “Your animals cute as fuck.”