No Oath, No Spell [Zeke]

[Faulkner]

Boston acts the part of a living creature, a breathing and writhing city crafted of stone and filled to the brim with little lost souls, but at its heart the city is hardly more than an finely tuned machine. Atop her high-rises and within her soaring towers the engineers pull their strings; beneath her cracked and broken streets pumps the oil that keeps her cogs turning. While those above play games of grandeur, it is below their feet that the city’s less savory elements have made a sprawling and often lawless home – and the sights entombed there would have no place in the world above.

The cramped curio shop is silent at this hour. Though the Underground can never be said to truly sleep, a mirror of the restless metropolis perched above it, there is a certain understanding that has left this corridor deliberately empty. The Belfry is restocking, shelved by the few quiet men and women who have managed to find a strange sort of employment here, and to trespass now would garner the curator’s wrath.

A lifetime ban would be the least of an intruder’s worries. The severed hands that dangle from the ceiling are more than enough proof of that.

Dawn is breaking on the city above, but only flickering torchlight and spitting bulbs light the Belfry. Its docents and staff slowly dissipate; within the twisting halls a man is left alone, and though the shop’s operational hours are only beginning he has been here long before the doors were open to the mundane. Nearby is a heavy wooden table, scarred from use and age, and atop it is strewn the varied and sundry contents of an opened leather pouch. A large percentage of the items appear normal – a silver spoon, a deck of cards, a cracked wishbone – but others grow otherworldly in their make and design, to the point that their function is all but unknown.

Even Faulkner cannot claim to understand every item within his possession, but an exchange of money and a small, sealed package has seen that they are no longer his concern. He lingers now because he is comfortable here; because the Belfry is, more than most locations within – or beneath – Boston, a place he feels a confident sense of ownership of. The wolf that barely stirs within his chest has little to do with his territoriality, but it makes for a convenient excuse.

Behind him a flickering lightbulb sputters and dies, and his particular corridor is cast into darkness. Faulkner’s motion to retrieve his bag and make his overdue exit is stymied in the sudden absence of light, and though his eyes have little trouble adjusting, he seems perturbed by the loss. If the Belfry is a private kingdom, he is more its keeper than its king. He makes for the lamp while reaching beneath his coat, and when his hand emerges his palm is slick and dark.

The pad of Faulkner’s thumb swipes across the smooth glass, and at his touch the bulb bursts back into life. Its light is discolored and distorted, now: in the wake of his finger’s path is left a wet crimson trail, and the substance drips and pools in the lamp’s copper setting. A brief tang of gunmetal and spice hangs in the air. The scent is not unlike the one that clings to the man himself, but with a gust of dank cellar air it is gone, and all that remains of his work is the blood beading on his calloused fingertip.

There are those who have called him animal for his deeds, but Faulkner had been human once, too. He remembers.

He had been no different then.

[Zeke]

The Underground had not been created with ease of access in mind, nor for the comfort of those over six feet tall. Zeke had spent the better part of the morning hunched over, navigating the dark corridors that twisted their way through the city's forgotten underbelly. There was no spell he could conjure at the drop of a hat that would sooth his aching head, which seemed to have been bumped, scraped, and smashed against every low doorway and ceiling that the Underground had to offer.

Thank God for a thick skull.

A knapsack slung across one shoulder was laden with the fruits of nearly thirty years of magical adventures and thirty years of being an unapologetic pack rat. Even now he had a hard time letting go of certain items, but the bills were starting to pile up again. While phoenix feathers and gargoyle knuckles brought a pretty penny, Zeke couldn't help feeling cheated, receiving mere money for the blood and sweat he had shed to obtain such rarities.

The stone walls of the Belfry echo as he steps down from the alleyway, straightening in the comparatively roomy and open space. The relief is short lived, the meager lights dying without much of a fight. He sighs through his nose and begins to murmur the appropriate words, forcing some of his own energy into the carved runes of his staff, but another beats him to it. A flare of yellow light jumps across the sooty brick and concrete, driving things with too many legs back into their hiding places.

Leaving Zeke alone with the wizard who had conjured it into being.

The faint blue glow of the runes fade into nothingness. He blinks and moves forward, knowing he's caught the man just as he's about to leave, but considering his business more important. His back hadn't taken all that torture to leave empty handed. "Are you still open?" A wary eye roves over the shopkeeper's figure, and he inhales the melody of scents. Of must, sweat, foreign spices, of magic. It reaches across his senses, hot and vicious, rising the hair on the back of his neck like few he had come across. Zeke's voice, gruff as it is, drops another notch. "I have some things that might interest you. If you'll take a look." Long fingers reach for the knapsack and he waits, glance flickering to the ominous row of severed hands that adorn the store's front.

"Dragon's tooth, troll spit. Got an old sword here," He pats his hip where the worn katana resides in its sheathe and angles towards the battered table. Individuals were blessed in a variety of amounts and types of magic. Some were simply lucky, perhaps a trait passed down by a leprechaun somewhere in the family tree; others could range from being able to see the dead, to being able to raise the dead. This wizard seemed far from the mundane psychic. "Odds and ends, you know."

Whatever happened, good or bad, Zeke had the itching suspicion that it would be interesting.