The Will of Instinct

Shadows crept down the alleyway as cars drove by and the rain beat a steady rhythm on the pavement. I wore a wool cap and the collar on my motorcycle jacket was hiked up, but the cold of the late October night still wormed its way down my back like icy fingers on my spine. I’d spent the better part of an hour looking for the Twisted Path, and there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t feel cold or wet. I hunched my shoulders and walked faster, trying to distance myself from the faint scraping sound of footsteps echoing against the brickwork behind me.

My knee protested, creaking and radiating a slow beating pain that had me gritting my teeth. It was always worse in the rain, and my limp was more pronounced. A constant reminder of poor choices, the consequences of a misspent youth. It didn’t bear thinking about, and I’d learned to live with the pain until it had become a part of me. My cane click clacked with each step as I made my way through through the rain, but it didn’t hide the sound of my shadow.

I had been in a dark mood before taking to the streets and it was getting fouler. Acorn and Thistle had tried to warn me that I was being set up, that the girl wasn’t to be found outside of the Everafter, but there was no way I was going to let her slip away. Granny Cap had hired me in good faith, and I’d promised that I would bring her granddaughter Dahlia back in one piece. It might get me killed, but I’d keep my word.

Either determination or plain old stubbornness had me headed to Goodfellow’s to see a dead guy about a dead girl, and Mr. Footsteps clunking around behind me wasn’t going to deter me one bit. If I could just find the damned path, I’d be there in minutes, but it was being difficult tonight, probably because of the rain and because I was in such a hurry.

I had a tip about a body found outside Dahlia’s apartment two nights before her disappearance. Word was the victim had been left in bad shape. Worse than bad if you weren’t used to such things. A friend from the Daily had shown up before the coroner, but the beat cops already had the area taped off. What little he’d seen left him nauseous. The police were keeping hush about all of it, but he’d described massive bite wounds and a trail of blood that went up the wall to a second floor fire-escape.

It sounded to me like something was feeding on people. Something big and decidedly mean and most likely from the Everafter, and that meant the cops were over-matched and underpowered. The list of man-eating beasties from the Everafter isn’t as long as you might think, but it’s not precisely small either. Whatever it was, I needed to know if it was related to Dahlia’s disappearance. I didn’t have a direct link yet, but my druid-sense was tingling. Either way, dealing with all the scary big, bad, and uglies from the Everafter is my job and business had been slow lately. The excitement of the chase had been a big part of what motivated me to head out into the rain in search of a way to link the body to Dahlia’s disappearance. Finding that link probably wouldn’t be easy. It didn’t need to be perfect, but I’d need some kind of proof.

Information like that could be had for a price, and Gnashing Jack was always one for knowing things. Zombies sit on the border between life and death, and old Gnasher had been sitting there longer than most. It gave him insight into the darker nature of those who chose to take a walk on the dark side. It also made him crazier than a shit-house rat, but I’d always had a way with crazy. Besides, Jack’s a friend from way back, and it meant something to him that I didn’t cash out on the friendship when he’d cashed out on breathing. If anyone could give me a solid lead towards Dahlia, it’d be Jack. I knew he’d be at Goodfellow’s drinking formaldehyde and salt until midnight, which gave me about forty-five minutes to get there if I wasn’t going to miss our play date.

I changed pace and my shadow did the same, the footsteps picking up speed to match my own.

“Thanks for letting me know you’re keeping me in eyesight, scumbag,” I whispered.

Seriously, had Mr. Footsteps never done this before? I ground my teeth at the the thought of being stalked by a rank amateur. My shadow and the weather were pushing me into being seriously disagreeable. I couldn’t do anything about the weather, but I’d be damned if I was going to let this rookie insult me.

As I entered the street I took a quick right and hid in the doorway of Murphy’s Dry Cleaning, and leaned my cane against the wall as I made sure I had a view of the alley’s mouth. I pulled Earth magic up through my legs and into my hands. My knuckles turned hard as I made thick fists formed of solid rock.  I lost all dexterity in my fingers, but the punch I could deliver would be like getting hit with a sledge hammer.

I wasn’t going to take any chances with my shadow. I still had enough time to ring his bell and drag the chump back into the dark of the alley for some quick Q and A. That might not be how the good guys do it in fairy tales, but not everything you read is true. In my experience, reality is usually much scarier.

I waited quietly in the doorway, holding my breath and wishing the rain would stay out of my eyes. The creep following me should be coming out of the alley if he planned to keep me in sight. The rain continued to pour out of the black skies and water ran down my face as the seconds ticked by.

No one came out of the alley. I’d waited at least two minutes, and nothing. I moved out of my hiding spot and peered back down the brick-lined alleyway. Nothing moved. No sound reached me above the constant patter of the rain. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched, but there was clearly no one there.

“Where’d you go, Mr. Footsteps?,” I asked the empty alley.

I dismissed the spell, my hands unclenched and I stretched them to reduce the stiffness I’d feel for the next hour. Maybe I was just being paranoid and the rain was playing games with my hearing. There was nothing in the alley but garbage and oil-slicked puddles. I grabbed my cane and continued down the street, turning left at the corner. I took a few more random turns, but I didn’t hear the footsteps again. Either nothing was following me, or my shadow had gotten much better at stalking quietly. For some reason, that thought didn’t make me feel any better as I kept walking and turning randomly left or right at each street.

Suddenly, the wind changed, smelling of cinnamon and fresh turned earth. I heard a deep chiming in my bones rather than my ears and a fog rolled in around my feet.

“Finally. I was wondering if you’d ever show up,” I said as I turned and headed for the Twisted Path as it appeared in between an ATM and a Cuban bodega only twenty yards away.

The Twisted Path is a series of alleys that can’t be found on any map of the city, and your fancy GPS isn’t going to work either. The problem is that it’s never in the same place twice and you can’t find it by looking. Simply put, the Twisted Path can’t be found. It finds you, appearing when it decides you have enough need of where it can take you, and depending on how far you’ve got to go, it can take you a very long way.

I wasn’t looking to go that far tonight. The Twisted Path is the only way to get to Goodfellow’s, and that’s where I had my appointment with Jack. I’d been randomly tromping through puddles hoping I was putting out the right vibes so that the path would show up when I’d heard Mr. Footsteps sneaking around on my six. I’d been listening for the echo of someone following me and forgotten all about my destination. Of course the Twisted Path shows up just when I stop looking. I’d be angry, but that’s just how the damned thing works.

Tonight the entrance looked like the rust covered iron gates of a cemetery, complete with black ivy and gargoyles on the gate posts, the kind you’d see in the old black and white horror flicks as lightning flashed and the dead rose. Normally I would have appreciated the black humor of the Twisted Path, but tonight I was quite literally headed to see a zombie.

Every time it found you, the way into the Twisted Path looked different. Tonight it had settled on a mix of gothic sarcasm and campy horror that I didn’t find humorous all things being considered. It also creeped me out that the path always seemed to mock what brought you to its doors. Irony and anger, when combined, can be quite combustible, and I already felt like starting a fire just to warm up from the cold and rain. I glowered at the gates as if daring it to respond until it struck me how ridiculous this must all seem.

“Oh, look at the angry druid. Does he need an umbwella to keep his widdle head dwy?,” I asked myself.

I was being a whiny loser and I knew it. Taking a dig at myself helped to straighten out my priorities. The Twisted Path couldn’t hurt me unless I let it, so instead of getting angry, I stepped through. I just needed to get to Goodfellow’s and all would be right in the world. I could have a few beers with Gnashing Jack and get some answers about my case. I’d found the Twisted Path and Goodfellow’s was just a few short minutes away.

Goodfellow’s is an old bar that is more a part of the city than most realize. If the roads and train tracks and subways are the veins of the city, Goodfellow’s is part of whatever makes up the bones.  It’s also the only pub I’ve ever heard of that sits astride a Ley-line, making it a meeting place for all the various Folk of the Everafter. If there’s one thing I know about the Folk, it’s that they don’t play well with others.

Don’t believe me? Read an old fairy tale. All the good ones are warnings about what lives in the Everafter.  I should know.  I’m one of the few people to step foot into the place and return with my mind still intact. In truth, I’ve been there three times, which is three times too many if you ask me.

When you go into the Everafter, it changes you in ways you don’t understand. You don’t come back the same, that’s just the way of it. The kicker of it is that most don’t often recognize the changes. The little differences just seem a natural part of you, so most never question what’s been done. Knowing that can drive a man crazy. Trust me, the Druid histories are full of it.

I needed to put those thoughts aside and focus on getting through the Twisted Path. My knee had somehow found a new level of pain to report, and the rain was showing no signs of letting up. Gnasher wouldn’t wait all night and I didn’t want to have to repeat this performance tomorrow night. I focused on getting to Goodfellow’s and continued past the gates into the Twisted Path.

In my hurry I failed to notice if the sound of footsteps had returned.

 

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Nathan Aleister Grey is a character Jaime is developing for a Contemporary Urban Fantasy novel called the Grey Codex.  It combines modern day New York City with the magical realm of the Everafter and all the darkest denizens of the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

This piece was written as an introduction to the character, his attitudes and his flaws.  Jaime is working on developing Nathan’s voice, and wants to do so by testing how the character responds to threats and disappointments.

Please feel  free to leave a comment, criticism or suggestion.

Thanks for reading.

Once upon a time there was a mean old ogre who worked as a skull cracker at the shiftiest watering hole in the city. He was big like Detroit steel and tough like old gristle. He was a knuckle dragging, broken toothed brute with hands the size of mail boxes. You know the type, a real bone grinder from the old school and proud of it.

This ogre and I went way back, and I knew better than most just how awful his reputation should be. His name was Hob, and I’d been laughing in his ugly mug when he hit me. The laughter was cut short when I fell over and spit blood on the dirty floor in front of his yellow toenail covered feet. The music stopped. People stared. I coughed up some more blood and heard someone let out a nervous giggle.

Great. I was making a spectacle of myself and I hadn’t even had a drink yet. This is the kind of sorry situation I’d found myself in a few times when leaving Goodfellow’s, but this was the first I could remember being in a bar fight before entering.

I’ll admit, that’s a poor beginning to a fairy tale, but it’s all I’ve got. Sometimes the good guy gets the girl. Other times he just gets sucker punched. Besides, it had been a long time since I’d been called a good guy. I’d done enough to deserve the punch that Hob had sent my way, but I’ll be damned if I deserved that smug grin of his.

I’d been coming to Goodfellow’s for years and Hob and I had an ongoing feud. I had once served him divorce papers from his banshee ex wife, and he wanted to grind my bones for his bread. The dislike went both ways and usually resulted in harsh words and hard looks. Hob would take a swing once in a while just to make sure I was still on my toes, but tonight I’d been preoccupied and he’d gotten a good one in.

That’s just one of the benefits to being me. All the problems, none of the thanks and no real friends but lots of enemies. Makes a guy wonder why he gets out of bed some days.

As I lay their coughing up blood, I wondered briefly if this was all there was to life, beatings and blood. It wasn’t always supposed to be this way. I’d had dreams once. Aspirations. Even hope, but all that was a lifetime ago.

My name’s Nathan Aleister Gray. I’m a Druid, and as everyone who’s anyone knows, Druids don’t dream.

Don’t confuse me with those robe wearing hippies that dance under the pale moonlight and confuse real magic with pagan spirituality. I’m not going to mix you a love potion or tell you how to live a green lifestyle. I don’t burn incense, and you’ll never catch me with ivy in my hair. I don’t own a cloak, and you should never ask me about Stonehenge unless you want to have a seriously bad day. I’m just not that kind of Druid, though I understand the mistake.

I’m a real Druid, one of the men and women born with fairy blood in our veins.

What? You didn’t know about the fairies? Yes, fairies are real, but they’re nothing like what you might think.

Do you remember everything in the dark that scared you as a child, that made you hide under your covers when your parents said goodnight? All the magical stories that thrilled you in the daylight and haunted you in your dreams are true. All the things that you’ve spent a lifetime making yourself believe were never real, they’re still out there and they can see you even if you choose to ignore them.

All that nonsense about leprechauns and ghosts and unicorns and elves and ogres? Not really so nonsensical if you take the time to see what’s in front of you. There’s even a dragon or two still sleeping on piles of treasure out there if you know where to look, though why you’d want to wake one of the cranky bastards is beyond me.

What’s important to remember is this; the fairy world is connected to ours. It’s called the Everafter, and it’s closer than you’d think. The doorways are there if you know where to look, and there are things just waiting to come through. Sometimes they come over to visit. Sometimes they decide to stay.

Hard to believe? Trust me, they’re out there.

The little old lady at the dry cleaner? She’s a 2000 year old nyad with a love of soap operas and Hawaiian pizza. The young guy living above you who plays his music too loud on weekends? He’s a satyr who dreams of being on American Idol. Let’s not forget the creepy family next door who have all their windows covered in black-out curtains. Yes, they really are vampires. No, they don’t twinkle and you don’t ever want to know what kind of freaky stuff they’re into.

Do you know why kids never ring those doorbells on Halloween? Because kids can sense fairies. They aren’t jaded enough yet to try and sweep all the unexplainable oddities under the rug. All I’m saying is that parents should listen to their kids when they say there’s a monster under the bed. Chances are, there is.

The average adult can’t deal with much more than what’s fed to them via TV these days, so the reality of fairy magic is readily ignored. It’s amazing what you can make yourself ignore when you choose not to believe. I think the idea is that magic can’t hurt them if they don’t pay attention to it.

Sometimes, though, the fairies don’t like being ignored, and that’s where I come in. With all that crossover from the Everafter it’s inevitable that something really dark will show up and people will get hurt. Hell, a lot of what comes over sees humanity as a viable part of their daily menu.

Human. It’s what’s for dinner.

That kind of ever-present danger means that humanity needs safe-watching, someone to keep an eye out for when the worst comes through the barriers. That’s where the Druids come in.

We’re peacekeepers and guides, police officers and town criers. We’re the only system of justice that works for both sides, humans and fairies. We make sure that nothing threatens the centuries old peace between the Everafter and the world of Men. Offspring with fairy blood are rare, but we’re out there, and it’s that blood that gives some of us magic.

Oh, yeah. I can do magic. I didn’t mention that earlier? Right. I’ll explain later. For now, I think it’s best if I get back to Hob and my cozy spot on the floor.

When I’d walked into Goodfellow’s Hob had made another wisecrack about the Red Cap killer. That was a sore spot for me considering that case had nearly cost me my life. It had also left me naked in the middle of the park on a sunny Saturday morning. Sure, I’d saved some lives and kept a ravening pack of werewolves from raging through the city, but in the end all anyone remembered was my walk of shame. It stung even more because I never got paid, though luckily Hob didn’t know that.

Yeah, I’ve got a real thing about getting paid when I freelance. A man’s gotta work, and this is an expensive city to live in. I’m sure you can imagine how hard it is to get a magical creature to fork over payment for services rendered. I’m lucky when it happens and even luckier if the money doesn’t turn into pumpkin seeds at midnight.

To be honest, I’ll say that I was already in a bad mood before I step foot in Goodfellow’s. I’d had a rough week and was facing the discouraging prospects of coming up short on my mortgage again. I hadn’t had a job in weeks, and what little cash I’d had saved was about to be gone. If I missed another month, the First Dwarven Bank of the Everafter was going to take back my place, and it wouldn’t just be me tossed out on the street. I had Walter to think about, not to mention Acorn and Thistle seemed to have finally settled in. If I didn’t figure out how to get some money soon, we’d all be facing a winter without a roof over our heads.

Walter is what I guess you can call my mentor. He’s a retired Druid and best estimate is that he’s almost 150 years old. Long life is one of the benefits to having fairy blood, but even 150 is old for a Druid and Walter’s mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be. Acorn and Thistle are my dryad liaisons from the Fair Council. That’s kind of like the Everafter’s version of government, though they’d cringe to hear it called that. Acorn brings me missives from the Council and Thistle is his wife. Both of them live with Walter and me in an old stone fortress in the center of Central Park.

Never seen it? Of course you haven’t. It’s hidden by magic. Druids hate solicitors and we had a bad history of townsfolk with pitch forks and torches showing up before we started hiding our homes. You can’t find it unless you have the key or some serious mojo magic of your own. You won’t even see it, so don’t bother looking.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. If I didn’t find the money to pay the mortgage, our home would be reclaimed by the bank and we’d be out on the street.

With that depressing thought furrowing my brow, I’d taken my last twenty dollars and was going to get as drunk as I could before sunrise. Sometimes you gotta hit bottom to find a way back towards the top. As often happens of late, my feet turned for Goodfellow’s.

Imagine the sleaziest bar you’ve ever been in and then remove the ever-present sense of decorum found in any civilized society. Whatever your pleasure, if you want it, you can find it at Goodfellow’s. They specialize in no rules dream fulfillment where nothing’s off the table. Don’t let your imagination run wild inside Goodfellow’s. You might just get what you wished for.

Goodfellow’s was a sure thing and I knew I could drink on the cheap. The owner owed me a few favors and he had some of the best Everafter craft brews on tap. Unfortunately, it also meant dealing with Old Hob, which brings me back to his wisecrack about the Red Cap case.

“You again, Grey. Whatcha lookin’ so down ‘bout? ‘Nother big bad wolf steal yer panties?”

Hob’s voice was so deep it rumbled around his chest like gravel in a garbage can. His breath stank of pickled eggs, stewed alley cat and raw sewage. The things an ogre will eat would give you the heebie-jeebies for life, and Hob took pleasure in assaulting the olfactory senses of all of Goodfellow’s regulars. At the time, I couldn’t tell you which pissed me off more; his rumble or his stink.

I’d stepped up close to him and ignored the putrid breath of his laughter. I come in over six feet tall, but I still had to look up at Hob. He’s almost eight feet of bulked up muscle and mean intentions. It just wouldn’t do to let something that large and grouchy think I was intimidated. A man’s gotta maintain his reputation in a town like this.

I had put on a nasty grin of my own and stared right at the eye patch covering Hob’s left orb. He’d lost it during a fight with his ex-wife and he hated it when people looked at it.

“Evening Hob. How are the support meetings going? You finally found peace with knowing your mother mated with a dung beetle?”

I probably shouldn’t have responded like that. Ogre’s are notoriously touchy about their mothers. It wasn’t my best pitch – hell, it wasn’t my best change up – but it was enough to push Hob over the edge faster than I would have anticipated. He launched a short uppercut I never saw coming, and the floor raced up to greet me.

So, there I was. All the air in the room gone as I doubled over with a half ton of angry ogre standing above me. I looked up to see Hob’s hairy belly hanging out over his dirty jeans. He was wearing a leather biker vest that was too small to cover his prodigious stomach so I could watch as it jiggled up and down as he laughed.

“Gross,” I coughed out weakly.

I shook my head to clear the cobwebs and made a bad decision. Rolling over onto my back, I rammed both feet into Hob’s groin. The jolt of the impact ran through my legs and into my hips and spine, and I actually slid across the floor from the effort. It was like trying to squat lift a mini-bus.

Hob stopped laughing and fixed his one good eye on me.

Damn it he was big. Like Hulk big but after too many years of living on greasy cheeseburgers. Hob was impressively large, undeniably fat and increasingly scary as he stood over me. This was not going to end well if I didn’t get off my ass quick.

He moved to grab me and I crab-walked out the door into the blind alley that Goodfellow’s called home. We’d gained the attention of the people at the bar and they followed us outside.

Hob immediately took a swing at me once he’d squeezed his massive shoulders through the front door. I barely ducked it as I rose shakily to my feet, and I could feel the wind of its passing.

I backpedaled to put some distance between us, changing direction to gain some room to call up my magic. Hob knew what I was trying to do, but it’s hard to turn that much bulk and muscle on a dime. I was able to get behind him and I called upon my elemental powers to protect me.

A flow of Air magic came in through my lungs and I felt my body getting lighter, faster, quick as the wind. I could maintain that lightness for as long as I could hold my breath, which would have to be long enough to get Hob really good and angry.

I created another flow, this time from Earth magic, and my bones became hollow like a bird’s. I was reducing my weight to allow me to maximize my speed. It was a risky move because it meant any blow from Hob would pulverize me into a puddle of goo, but it allowed me to be lightning quick. I was betting on speed over brawn because I knew no matter how much power I drew, I wasn’t going to match the size and strength of an ogre as old as Hob.

I moved to stay in Hob’s blind spot as he spun towards me. Every movement he made was in slow motion, while I was moving around like a Hummingbird. I punched him repeatedly as he telegraphed each powerful swing, and he ignored each blow as if I was nothing more than an annoying gnat he wanted to squish. We went around in circles like that for a few moments as I searched for a way to end this.

It was easy to dodge his blows, but I knew I couldn’t keep this up for long. Already I was feeling the stress of wanting to take a deep breath, and the amount of effort it took to maintain both flows was immense. A few minutes more of this and my concentration would waver once I tired. I needed an out, some way to put Hob down quick.

I whirled to the right while Hob swung. As I dodged I reached in and snatched Hob’s wallet. I moved to the end of the alley, took a breath and whistled. My magic left me, and I grew heavier as Hob turned to find me rifling through the contents of his wallet. I pulled out a photo of an old ogress with a face like the surface of the moon. I held it up between forefinger and thumb so that everyone in the alley could get a look.

“Jeesh, Hob. You’ve got good reason to be so touchy. Your mother’s face could give a blind man nightmares.”

Laughter from the crowd pushed Hob’s last button. He roared and ran at me, lowering his head and shoulders to spear me into the wall at the end of the alley. If he connected, it would be a killing blow, crushing me into pulp. I waited until the last second, called upon the flows of Air and Earth, and dodged out of the way. Hob hit the wall like a freight train, but the wall didn’t budge. He dropped to the ground and stayed there.

I released the flows of magic I’d been holding and took another deep breath. I felt light headed for a few moments as my body and mind recovered from the use of my powers. Druids may be powerful, but it takes a lot out of us to use magic. That’s the balance we pay, and it keeps us honest.

The crowd was moving back into the bar as I tossed Hob’s wallet onto the ground next to his body. I checked to make sure he was still breathing, and I could see that a huge knot was already forming on his head where he’d been cut open from the crash. Blood dripped down the wall onto his leather vest. He’d have a killer headache when he woke up, and I didn’t plan to be around to see it.

Hob hadn’t expected the wall to withstand his charge. Ogres were used to breaking through just about any obstacle in their way, and the brick wall should have exploded inward upon impact. What Hob didn’t know was that I had pushed as much Earth magic as I could into the bricks when I’d dodged. I can tap into all of the elemental powers, but I’ve always been strongest with Earth. The wall had become as hard and unmoving as a mountain, and Hob came crashing into it blind just as I’d hoped.

“Stupid ogre. What got into you tonight?” I asked.

Hob wasn’t going to answer that anytime soon, but it was a question I’d roll around for a bit. Hob and I had our differences, and he’d taken a swing at me more than once, but never like this. I’d always thought of our back and forth like dogs marking territory. It was all for show and bravado.

Tonight had been for real. Hob hadn’t been holding back, and if I’d been a little bit slower it’d be my crushed body dripping down the wall instead of Hob’s green blood.

It just didn’t feel right, and I don’t like it when things don’t feel right.

I was going to have a long talk with Hob tomorrow once he’d calmed down. In the meantime, maybe someone in the bar could give me a few clues as to why big and ugly had taken a swing at me.

I turned back to Goodfellow’s and saw that the crowd was gone now that the fight was over. I gave the empty alley one last look and headed for a drink. Hob would be out cold for a few hours and I still had that twenty bucks burning a hole in my pocket. I needed a drink.

Hell, I needed a lot of drinks, and I knew just the place to find them.

 

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Nathan Aleister Grey is a character Jaime is developing for a Contemporary Urban Fantasy novel called the Grey Codex.  It combines modern day New York City with the magical realm of the Everafter and all the darkest denizens of the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales

This piece was written as an introduction for the character to help Jaime begin to define Nathan’s voice and describe what it means to be a Druid.

Please feel free to leave a comment, criticism or suggestion.

Thanks for reading.