Chapter 50: Soiree (Patreon)

“Why do we have to wait for them, again?” Chris asked Ash.

“Because we invited them and they were gracious enough to say yes,” Ash answered.

“But the car’s not big enough to fit both teams.”

“That’s why Jason convinced Heimdall to lend us a bigger truck and only Imani and Ned are coming.”

“And you invited them because?”

“I didn’t invite them,” Ash said. “Zed did.”

They were standing out in the open in front of Heimdall’s residence where most of the town cars were parked. The sun was still out and the afternoon was late enough that evening was just on the horizon. The vehicle they stood beside was a Jeep, and Oliver stared at it as if looking at his dream car. It was clean, as clean as a post-apocalyptic vehicle had any right to be after a good washing and had enough space to sit all of them comfortably.

Zed stood off to the side holding a wide but thin cardboard box with a folded duster coat inside.

“And why did you invite them, Bloodbath?” Chris asked him.

Zed shrugged. “Backup?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Jason said, standing by the driver seat. “We’ve invited them, they’ve said yes. And they’re coming with us. I just don’t get why they’re late.”

“We could just drive off, you know,” Chris said flatly. “I doubt we want to be late. And they won’t be missed since they weren’t even invited.”

Jason said nothing to that but Ash wasn’t so inclined to silence.

“Is there a reason you’re against them coming,” she asked.

“No,” Chris said, blandly. “I just don’t like having to associate with new people.”

Zed caught the small glance she darted at Oliver before answering and suspected she knew of Oliver’s relationship with Imani. The question was, did Oliver know?

Before the conversation could proceed any further, Imani and Ned arrived looking more than ready for a gala.

Zed turned a frown on Oliver.

“And you said there were no suits available on hand,” he scoffed.

Ned was dressed in a nice black tux with a fancy bow tie. He wore it well with a polished pair of shoes that fit it just right. He smiled brightly as he said something to Imani that made her laugh that soft laugh Zed had heard when he’d first met her. Imani, on her part, wore a long purple gown with a slit down the side of one leg that fit her well enough to accentuate her curves. She was curvier than Zed had noticed when last they’d met. She’d also loosened her cornrows and now held her hair up in a nice afro bun, revealing nice, simple gold earrings. The scene was like a stab in the side and while Zed wasn’t the one Imani was cheating on her boyfriend with, he felt the loss and the greed. He could only imagine how Oliver—

A small spike in the aura beside him had Zed placing a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. It was gentle but firm, strong enough to draw Oliver’s attention to him.

“The recognized boyfriend is the one allowed to throw the first swing,” he whispered to Oliver. “The second, less recognized, boyfriend is only allowed to fight back or take his beating like a man. Not the other way around.”

Oliver’s aura settled and retracted back into him. And while Imani and Ned were too far away to have felt it, the others turned worried expressions on Oliver. Oliver ignored them, shrugging Zed’s arm off as he stalked away from him angrily.

“Shotgun,” he said without inflection as he entered the front passenger seat and slammed the door.

“What was that about?” Ash asked Zed. “Any idea?”

Zed shrugged.

“Should we be worried?” Jason asked in a disciplined voice. He sounded as if he knew they should be worried and Zed was beginning to think Oliver’s secret was more of an open secret.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” he told them with a smile. “It’s just that seeing the couple of the evening all well dressed and in love reminded him of his loveless life and how his only real friend is a mage who can’t do magic. He’ll be fine.”

“You’re not a mage who can’t do magic,” Ash said.

“He kind of is,” Chris disagreed. “And you’re not his only friend, Bloodbath.”

“Agree to disagree,” Zed said with a shrug. “Doesn’t change the fact that he’ll be fine.”

“Who’ll be fine?”

Zed turned to Imani with a bright smile. “My broken heart,” he said. “When I saw you I realized I needed a girl in a beautiful gown and a dazzling smile by my side. Unfortunately, Joshua over here gets the luxury of having you by his side tonight.”

Imani smiled a little too wide and smacked him on the shoulder. There was no doubt if her skin was fairer she would be blushing visibly.

“Stop it,” she said. “You’re not the one that’s supposed to be giving me compliments today.”

“And my name’s not Joshua,” Ned said with a confused frown.

“It’s not?” Zed asked. “Jacob, then?”

Ned’s eyes narrowed in confusion, brows furrowing.

“Jonathan? Jacob?” Zed went on. “I could’ve sworn it was something with a J. This is just so embarrassing. I swear I’m usually good with people’s names. I’m so sorry. Let’s start afresh.” He held out a hand to Ned. “I’m Jeremiah.”

Ned took the hand, more confused than he had been a moment ago.

“Ned,” he said.

Zed shook it once then released it, before giving him a questionable look. “You look confused. Is everything alright?”

“I guess,” Ned answered, unsure. “It’s just… I could’ve sworn when we met you said your name was Jedidiah.”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea where you got that name from,” Zed said casually. “But it’s a nice name. A little too old testament for my liking, but nice, nonetheless.”

Beside Ned, Imani suppressed a laugh so that it came out as a light chuckle.

“That said,” Zed went on, “I’m sure you’ve met the rest of the team. There’s Ashes, mean girl, and all American pretty boy. Now that you’ve all met, let’s all get in. We’re burning daylight people!”

Zed went around the Jeep and opened the boot, where he slipped the box in his hand inside.

On the other side of the car, Ned gestured at Chris who met him with a frown on her face. He already knew her and the moniker used to introduce her was aptly so. Ned’s attention was still on Zed so he didn’t see the look on her face as he asked her what was on his mind.

“Is he on something?”

“Bloodbath’s always on something,” Chris answered flatly.

Beside Ned, Imani asked, “Why Bloodbath?”

Chris shrugged. “Just because.”

Then she left the both of them to slip into the back seat. Ned continued to watch Zed as he puckered his lips and blew air out of his mouth, strolling and sputtering along to the other side of the car. Ned turned to Imani, confused.

“Is he trying to whistle?”

Imani laughed again and it came out loud and unladylike.

“I think he’s trying to whistle,” Ned concluded as Zed slipped into the back seat while he opened the door for Imani to enter.

“He looks fun,” Imani said absently as she climbed into the car, maneuvering her way in with her gown.

“He looks high, that’s what he looks,” Ned said. “Maybe he’s got weed somewhere. I miss weed,” he added wistfully. “I wonder if I’ll still get a buzz from it now that I’m a mage. Maybe the VHF have a strain that can affect mages. It’s too bad their not the good guys right now.”

“Ned,” Imani said with a chuckle. “Enough soliloquizing and get in the car.”

“Yes, love,” Ned answered, getting in.

On the other side of the car, Zed continued to sputter as he tried to whistle and Ned fought the urge to tell him to stop. After all, if Chris’s constant threat to his life by stabbing a hole in his neck so his neck could whistle wasn’t working, he doubted anything he could say would.

Jason pushed the car into reverse, pulling out of the parking lot while the car was filled with the noisy bickering of Chris threatening to stab Zed while Ash struggled between them, asking Zed to stop.

Ned was still left a little bit confused, and he leaned into Imani.

“I swear he told me his name was Jedidiah,” he whispered. “You heard it too, right? It can’t all be in my head.”

Imani smiled slightly, patting his cheek. “Don’t let it get to you, Ned,” she said. “Just ignore it.”

Oliver listened to their easy interaction from the front passenger seat with an uncomfortable frown as Jason moved the car into drive and started their trip.

……………………………..

Inside a large auditorium a few miles away from Hillview, a gathering was being set up. There were tables and chairs arranged and dressed with simple linen sheets cut up from countless linen sheets. They were brown in color, masking what stains had been impossible to clean over time. There were thirty tables arranged in interspaced manners, each one holding at least four simple wine glasses.

Madam Shaggy stood at the center of the wide room, directing traffic as a traffic warden directed cars. Once in a while she had to raise her voice when a special lout decided they were a bit too smart and moved things a bit too far.

She used hired labor she didn’t pay for. She borrowed them from all the powers of Hillview including Abed who thought himself the strongest of them all. He wasn’t wrong in his delusion but to think oneself infallible in strength was the kind of hubris men fell into.

“Not there, you retarded first born,” Madam Shaggy said with a sigh, redirecting a man who placed the lectern on the wrong side of the upraised platform. “I need it on the other side. This isn’t some pretentious ball where some oaf speaks from the lectern at the center of the platform. This is a masterpiece, a work of art. Now move it to the left before I have your balls marinating in a monster’s gut.”

In the same unbroken fashion her girls were gathered in a small room off to the side. For tonight, their services would be free, entertainment freely given.

Those invited were of a specific variety of class, and each of the powers had been given the chance to invite ten people of their choosing. This part she had offered with intentions of proving a point about Abed to the others.

The plan was to follow those Abed would invite and prove her suspicion that he hadn’t requested silence about the presence of a VHF platoon in their midst for the safety of the town but because he had plans of working with them for purposes none of the others would be pleased with. She was willing to bet her greatest asset’s head on a guillotine that at least one of Abed’s invites would lead them back to a camp of VHF soldiers.

Madam Shaggy turned away from the arrangement of the hall as she noticed it slowly control itself, each worker doing what was expected of them. There was still room for errors but she took her attention to more important things. She’d gone through a lot to get enough petrol to run the standby generator all the bulbs currently in the hall would be powered by and she’d be damned if anything went wrong.

The evening was growing darker into the night by the time she was confident that the only problem that may arise from this gathering would be one of human error. As she walked over to the room that housed the entertainment in her large trench coat and wide brimmed sunhat, the generator came on, illuminating the darkening auditorium in bright yellow lights. She smiled at the beauty of the evening as she stepped into the small room that housed the true entertainment.

The room was lit by a single bulb.

“Alright girls,” she said to the nineteen girls inside. “Game faces on. Tonight’s a beautiful night, and if some of you are lucky, one of the guests just might be willing to buy you and take you to a better place than this. Even if that is a very big if.”

Madam Shaggy kept her eyes on Shanine as she said this, gaze running over her upper arm. She was pleased to find the bruise from a few days ago was gone. Whoever the girl had met for the makeup had done a very fine job. This was one of the reasons she liked the girl. Not only was she the favorite of all her customers, she was also smart. Unlike Madam Shaggy’s prized girl before her, Shanine didn’t let her beauty and intelligence delude her. She knew her place and gave no ear to ambition. Even when Madam Shaggy hit her, which Madam Shaggy liked to believe was rare, she never had spite or vengeance in her eyes, only acceptance.

Shanine was the perfect asset.

“Oh, hun,” Madam Shaggy cooed, walking over to the girl. “You look so pretty in that gown. I knew it was the right choice going all out to get it.”

Shanine wore a gown of forest green. It was tight and form-fitting, revealing all that she had to offer. It was tight in the right places and revealed the slightest hint of cleavage, enough to make a man look and crave to see what was beneath, but not so much that he got all the eyefull. With her slim and petite build, she was the perfect bait for any man.

If the girl knew the power contained in her small body, she would’ve had all the male powers eating out of her palm by now. Once again, Madam Shaggy was glad the girl had no ambitions. It would’ve been a shame to mess her pretty face up.

The party guests began trooping in at the advent of night.

The auditorium was the only source of illumination for miles around. Yellow lights streamed from its high rise windows, blazing from countless bulbs placed all over its walls. It was the brightest anyone who hadn’t gone too far from the reaches of Hillview would’ve ever seen. If they could reach Hillview within a day’s drive, Madam Shaggy was more than certain they had not seen this much light in over four years.

Madam Shaggy sent her girls out first. While Shanine was the prettiest and clad in the finest gown of them all, the rest wore acceptable enough dresses as well, most of them revealing. They might not have screamed high class, but no one who came here deserved high class. It was unfortunate that she had promised Shanine’s services tonight to Abed, but she needed him thoroughly distracted if she didn’t want him growing suspicious of anything. Sometimes the mage was keener than he had any right to be.

The guests trooped in slowly. They came in groups, all of them mages of different inclination. Some wore outfits acceptable for the occasion while most of them wore dresses that were merely comfortable. It was easy to tell those who still lived out in the wild, hunting monsters in an attempt to grow strong, from those who were comfortable in their ranks and saw no need to risk their lives for further growth.

Most of the people here were her guests, invited for the purpose of simply increasing the number of guests present. While most of them held no actual reputation, none were of ill repute. There were groups of mages who frequented Hillview often enough. There were a few merchants here and there who often past by Hillview peddling their wares, no doubt here to make new business connections. There was a man with a functioning robotic arm that must’ve cost a fortune to get in the black market. He covered it up properly in the blue suit he wore, but Madam Shaggy could still see the scratches that ran along the back of its metallic blue hand.

There was a girl who’d gone the full length of psychotic. She held her hair up in twin tails and painted her face like a character from one of the old world comic books, the one who fell in love with the deranged villainous clown that fought against a hero dressed as a bat. Madam Shaggy couldn’t remember the details or their names, and couldn’t care to.

True to arrogant form the powers of Hillview had yet to arrive. She knew they would be the last to arrive, coming in as late as possible when they knew no one would come in after them. It was always the propriety of the high class, those who stood in power of any society. It was their duty to be waited upon, not to wait upon others. Even Madam Shaggy, the very host of the event, intended to reveal herself as late as possible. For that reason alone, she remained locked up in the small room the girls had evacuated.

More people than she’d anticipated strolled into the auditorium, their vehicles parked outside in the growing grass for them to make the rest of the way on foot.

She peered at them, keeping tabs through a small hole in the wall of her room. She took note of those who had poor control of their auras and marked them as rookies despite their Rukh ranks. She noted those who underdressed or overdressed. Marked the too concealed auras and adequately displayed auras.

When Abed’s invites walked in, she knew them by sight and frowned.

Oliver wore a simple white shirt with long sleeves over faded blue jeans and boring boots. He was comfortable in his casual fit even if underdressed and would’ve looked as good as she remembered if he wasn’t sporting the most annoyed scowl on his face. Beside him was one of the girls that often walked around with him. She had blonde hair she wore down and wore actual cargo pants to the occasion. They came with the redhead that had offered Oliver in exchange for information in a time that seemed like forever ago and his dress code was no better than Oliver’s. Apart from his neatly packed hair, tied back with a single length of braid that fell down the left side of his face, it was as if he and Oliver had shopped from the same place and planned uniform outfits. The redhead carried a thin cardboard box and Madam Shaggy wondered what that was about.

The ever popular Jason with his all-American good looks and crooked grin walked in after them with a girl who wore tight fitted jeans and a leather jacket. Madam Shaggy recognized the girl even if she didn’t know her name and took note of all five of them when another couple walked it. These two were dressed for the occasion.

The boy’s handsomeness couldn’t hold a candle to Jason’s but, what he lacked in handsome, he more than made up for in his tux. It fitted him just right and he wore it like he was born for it. The girl with him complimented him perfectly in her purple dress and nice earrings. Her skin was a beautiful caramel, and her curves were enticing enough that Madam Shaggy feared she just might steal the show from Shanine.

Madam Shaggy was still wondering how to prevent that from happening when another lady walked in. She was alone, holding a silver purse in one hand. Her skin was fair and unblemished. She wore her raven hair styled to one side and was dressed in a crimson red gown with a dazzling slit down her left leg.

While the entrance of the power couple had caused a few heads to turn, this lady kept those heads enthralled and most of the female guests scowling. Rather than contemplate on how to keep the spot light away from the two ladies, Madam Shaggy found her business mind taking over. The foundation of a new plan bubbled in her head as she sought out how to take both ladies under her employ.

More people strolled into the gathering as those employed to wait the tables did their jobs and Madam Shaggy’s girls walked about looking pretty.

Madam Shaggy guessed at which guests belonged to which power until she could guess no longer. Besides Jason’s team and the power couple, there were a few more guests she couldn’t deduce who they were related to. There was a group of rowdy girls with only two boys between them dressed like they were more than ready to hit the road. There were two couples who looked decent and civilized with almost no sign of aura coming from them. There was the lady in red and her silver purse and red lipstick. There was a man who came alone and lurked in the shadows. And there was a large guy she was more than certain might be VHF.

The rest were not worth noting.

It was close to midnight when the powers of Hillview finally made their entrance, and Madam Shaggy fought back a scoff as she stepped out of her hiding place. She caught no one’s attention with her entrance, not that she’d intended to. But the attention seeker that had always been in her remained uncomfortable at that.

The other four powers walked side by side as if their entrance had been planned.

For some reason, Madam Shaggy hated them for keeping her out of it.