Witch Hunt

BANG BANG BANG

A loud knocking from somewhere below pulls me from my stupor. Once again, I am inundated in sweat and panic. I hold myself just off the floor with crossed arms, sputtering and struggling to breathe.

BANG BANG BANG

A fist, or maybe several, against wood, with glass shaking in the mix. Light streams into my living space from the still-shattered window. Every muscle in my body aches, and I am cold and clammy and burning all at once. My heart, rarely rising above a deathly 30 beats-per-minute, now feels as if it's attempting to knock down the walls of my chest.

BANG BANG BANG

"HEY!", someone shouts from the street below. I clutch at my center, close my eyes, and focus, trying to bring myself some sort of calm. No time for reflection, it seems; my deeds have caught up to me at last. Best not keep the police, or clergy, or monster hunters, or angry mob waiting. I stand, and trudge downstairs. Each step brings with it a pounding in my own skull, memories of the thousands of journeys up and down this flight before. The landing comes all too soon.

Through the door window, I discern the arbiters of my fate.

Of course.

Alabastra Camin and her cadre mill about just outside my shop. They've stopped slamming on the wood, backs turned. I almost consider returning to my spot on the floor while they're distracted, to wait for the next pitchfork-wielders to come exact bloody justice. But, no. They're persistent; they'd just break in.

I march to the door and throw it open. The three women are mid-conversation with an officious human dressed in a double-breasted navy coat. A policeman, hands on his hips, eyeing the three with a suspicious anger.

"Why don't I tell you exactly where you can put that badge", says Alabastra. Correction; they are mid-argument with a police officer. I'm not sure why I expected any different. The three notice the opening door at their back, turning to me in shock, then a confused sort of warmth.

Behind them, the officer raises a brow. "Are these ruffians bothering you, sir?" I consider leveraging the officer to force the three to leave, but... not only would that go exceedingly poorly, it's also not something I'm partial to do. Our business is the sort to be handled quick and bloodily, I imagine, and I don't want to bring the ire of the law down on them for it. Further down on them, anyways.

"No, officer. That'll be all", I say.

The policeman looks me up and down, then rolls his eyes and walks away. He mutters, "Crazies all over these days" under his breath as he goes. Without another word, I turn back inside the building. Behind me, I hear Faylie blow a raspberry at the cop's back.

The women stomp behind, and the door slams shut. I catch the wingbeats of Alabastra's raven on her shoulder, but drop my rising objections. It won't matter soon, anyways.

For a moment, I simply stand there in the center of my shop, back to the three. Waiting for their first move. But they make no indications or motions. They're not even accusing me yet. We're stalled and frozen.

"...Oscar?", Faylie finally says. I can't help but bristle, my walls fallen so far I can't even put up a front of resistance.

"Well?" My voice is hoarser than I expected. "What are you waiting for?"

A silent beat stretches out, long and empty. No weapons, no spells, just... silence. Then, Alabastra responds, voice sincere and nonchalant, "... My order?"

I turn. They're staring at me in shared confusion. Her order... They're just here for Alabastra's order. I can't help but smack my own forehead, cringing inside of myself. "Right." I let out a long, drawn-out sigh, and look Alabastra in the eye. "I don't have your potion."

Alabastra takes me in, considering me with new eyes. And then, all at once does the most expected and unexpected thing she could do. She smiles. That infuriating, cocky, unflappable grin, complete with a hand to her hip. "Gee, Moodie, don't you know not to string a girl along?"

I want to scream, to cry, to throw acid in her face, to bend my head for the sword. Instead, I sigh, close my eyes, and issue a deadpan, "Apologies." In hindsight, it was ridiculous to not have cancelled our arrangement the other day entirely. After all, there was only one way this was ever going to end. I should have recommended her another apothecary, or, better yet... Better yet... "Let me make it up to you."

"Ooh. I like where this is goin', girls." She turns to her partners in crime. Faylie claps her hands together excitedly, and Tegan burns a hole through me with her eyes, arms crossed. The blonde pivots back to me. "What's the lucky prize, Moodie? Lifetime supply?"

"In a sense. I'm going to show you how to make it yourself." As I say that, Alabastra's face falls, ever so slightly. "Follow me." I turn and march upstairs. Already I hear the three murmuring to themselves, but I tune out the specifics.

It's only fair; Alabastra shouldn't have to suffer the indignities of loss of self after I'm gone. I should know; it's a fate to avoid. To slip into something you tried so hard not to be, to feel your body take control against your will. And, maybe some good will come of trying to play alchemy teacher. She might even pick up a knack for it. At least then I can pretend to have made some tiny difference, before the last knife comes.

As we make it to the second floor, I think about how long it's been since anyone but myself was up here. Save for the unconscious woman, of course, it must have been a year or more at least... and no one of consequence, maybe a mover or plumber. No one who's name I'd remember, anyways; in that regard, it's been at least half a decade.

"Wow, Bromley. It's, uh... cozy...", says Tegan. Then they stop. I turn to see they're all staring at something, and follow their eyeline to the futon. The cushions are soaked through with rust-colored blood stains. And beside it, the shattered glass of the window remains un-swept. I never bothered to clean up after the incident yesterday.

This will... require an explanation. I would like to complete this business with Alabastra before they change their mind about smiting me, at the very least. "I had a patient, yesterday. A young woman."

Alabastra lets out a disbelieving laugh. "Wait, wait. You were the one that dropped that girl off at the Dawnlord's temple?" Ah, right. Of course they would have already followed up on the latest victim of their quarry.

"I was, yes. Is she..."

"She's fine!", chirps Faylie. "Well... not fine fine, but, you know! Fine!"

Alabastra steps forward. "What Glowbug means is, she'll live. Ain't woke up yet, but, she'll make a full turn around. At least, accordin' to Kansis." Her eyes drift away, surveying the scene. "But that vamp did a real number on her..."

My throat seizes. If I say anything, will they suspect me? Do they already? But, if they do, why haven't they struck me down yet? I decide to prod around the edges. "So... are you close? With your hunt, I mean."

Tegan lets out a long uhhhhh before Alabastra cuts in, "We think so. Got a couple leads, but we need some more evidence."

"Right", says Tegan.

"Right!", concurs Faylie.

"Right...", I mirror. That was as vague as I've come to expect from Alabastra. She could mean anything from 'We have absolutely no idea', to 'We're thirty seconds from stabbing you.'

The blonde walks closer to the scene, observing the blood stains with an inquisitor's eye. "Was a good thing, you did. Saving that girl."

I scoff. I wish people would stop trying to heap praise upon me for this. "It... wasn't even a choice." I look to the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but their eyes.

"Not everyone woulda done it." She crouches down, knees bent in a perch as she looks over the glass. "Where'd ya find her, anyhow?"

Tegan and Faylie fan out over my apartment, looking over the kitchen, meandering down the hallway. I almost want to corral them back, but there isn't much point. "An alley, across the street. I saw her in distress", I say to the half-elf.

"And you don't know what happened to her?" She looks directly at me, brows knit in confusion.

"No." I can make a guess, of course. But that's all it would be, really. A guess.

Her jaw grinds, chewing on the cud of the mystery she's stumbled upon. "And the glass?"

"I honestly don't know. I woke to the window broken."

"And... your glasses?"

I touch the side of my frames, noticing the fracture up my vision that I'd been mentally tuning out. "Same answer." Is this her evidence gathering, then? Am I feeding her my own demise? I don't see the point of her little games, if so. If she wants a confession, all she has to do is ask.

From down the hallway, Faylie yells, "This place is so nice!" Tegan and her begin a small squabble, that ends abruptly with Faylie darting out of my bedroom. "Way better than our hovel, anyways. But your walls are so empty, Oscar!" I look down the hallways she's bounding through, perfectly unadorned with decoration, save for the single photograph. Why would I need to plaster my walls with anything more?

Tegan strolls out behind her, giving the faun a harmless flick on the side of the head. "Ignore her." She readjusts a pauldron on her armor. "You said you healed her up?"

"It was a simple matter. A few concentrated healing potions did the trick. Though, I did have to brew an emergency batch." I pivot to Alabastra. "Someone bought out my entire stock."

"And said someone will put them to very good use!" Alabastra stands, dusting her hands off.

The three have reconvened around me. I swivel around to face them all at once. "If you're done with your interrogation, the workstation is in my office." I march down the hallway, past the paladin and the faun, and crack open the office door. Again I heard them whispering behind me, too low to catch.

Raising her voice above the din, Faylie asks, "Oscar... why can't we just keep using your supply?"

"Not that I don't appreciate the lesson", Alabastra adds, "But you know you don't owe me anything, right? You don't even charge for the stuff. And, like I said, I can wait!"

I stop in the doorway. Do they not understand? "If I'm not... here, Alabastra, you still deserve your autonomy." I can feel their eyes like search beams into my back, but I do not dare turn around. "I haven't always seen eye-to-eye with you, but you deserve that much, at least."

When they have nothing to say to that, I step into my office. The recipe calls for an abundance of water. As I approach the station, I notice the cauldron still holds the sedative, bubbling slightly, quite significantly boiled off. Only now do I realize... it worked. No further complications. I flip open my notebook, and encircle the concocted recipe. On the off chance that it will even matter, by tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow.

I dump the remnant potion down the side drain, and start the cauldron boiling anew. The trio enter my office with uncharacteristic trepidation. "We'll need red trillium, ochre acid, lifeleaf, and rashvine. Collect them all downstairs. You'll find the flowers on the first floor, look in the remedies section. The ochre acid will be in the basement, in the cabinets. They're labelled alphabetically, so it shouldn't be hard to find."

The three simply stand there, nearly slack-jawed. Then, Alabastra says through the sideways slant of her mouth, "Well, you heard him ladies. Get to it."

"What? It's your potion", grumbles Tegan.

"Delegation, girls. First rule of bein' a leader. Shake a leg!" She claps her hands to accentuate. The other two roll their eyes, and march like grounded children out of the office. Alabastra crosses her arms, and leans back against the wall. Her slung quiver bumps into shelf, and she stands straight up again, startled.

I certainly do not need to stifle a chuckle. Then, she simply stares at me a moment too long. I crack. "What?"

She grins, letting out a soft snicker. "Remember, at the Institute, when you needed that one plant for your midterms? And you couldn't find it in any shops?"

I roll my eyes. This again. The incident she hangs over my head like the implicit threat of an unfallen blade. "The other students bought out all the dawn lotus in the city in bulk. It was being sold at a premium, and I'd... wasted the few I could afford."

"I knew that look in your eye, the moment I saw it. Down on your luck, without the money or influence to buy your way out."

Hands occupied with turning the burners, filling receptacles, and readjusting the alembic, I can only accentuate with an overdramatic shrug. "Yes, yes, you're a paragon, Alabastra - you know that already. Is there a point to this anecdote?"

She saunters forward, closer, towering a head above me. She leans with one hand on my workstation, trying to catch my eye as I labor. Distracting me. "The point, Moodie, is that I stole you that flower because I know what it's like to be dealt a raw hand. Because I wanted to help you. And I still do. Because you're just like me."

I look at her, incredulous. "We are nothing alike."

The very notion is insulting, to the both of us. Alabastra is everything I am not. Confident, obstructive, obstreperous, unabashedly herself in every way, impossible to ignore. Alive.

Even before she was herself, she was a rambunctious clown who nevertheless spent her time excelling at nearly anything she tried. A star pupil, athlete, and popular to boot... but also, hollow in some way. A certain sadness that only became obvious with hindsight. But since the moment she announced who she was to the world, her most admirable and infuriating qualities all at once skyrocketed, that hollowness burned out with a newfound inner light. She arrived to our political science lecture wearing the gaudiest dress I've seen in my life, complete with a sash bearing her new name in print. She assured everyone who asked that it was not a joke, or a lost bet, or an elaborate performance; it was a statement. From that day forth, she was Alabastra Camin. And she refused to let you forget it.

She lost social standing, but what she gained, I imagine couldn't be put into words. I was one of the few who still treated her as I had before; with begrudging acquaintance at her insistence. In some ways, I suppose I envied her confidence. How opposite she was from me. Perhaps that, in itself, was why I stuck near her. Like I might capture some of that self-assurance by staying in her wake. As to why she bothered with me

, I imagine she simply enjoyed that our contrast made her shine all the brighter. The darkness of space to her brilliant moonlight.

Alabastra's brows are raised at my objection. "Really?" She begins to count on her fingers as she says, "We're both gutter trash from the outer city, even if you don't act like it. Parents ain't part of our lives. Sharp as a tack... and not exactly everyone's cup of tea. And, we care. Despite it all we can't stop ourselves from caring. And!" She lightly slams her fist down on the counter, muffled by the impact of her fingerless glove. "Don't pretend to not know what else I'm talking about!"

I blink. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She sputters, sticking her hands up in disbelief. "So you just... happened to have the exact solution to my very specific problem, before I even asked to call in any kind of favor?"

"I don't enjoy owing people."

"Another way we're similar! And entirely not my point." She crosses her arms, looking down like she's waiting for some kind of confession.

Before I can respond to whatever it is she thinks she's getting at, the door to the office swings open once more. Tegan and Faylie step forward, arms full of the herbs I asked for, plus several more I did not. Faylie says, "We weren't sure what was what down there, so, we kinda just grabbed a bunch of stuff."

Tegan adds, "Also, bird's eatin' the wormwood, Allie."

"Paella!", Alabastra hollers like a disappointed mother toward the stairs. A loud CAW resounds in response.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. How do these three even survive on their own... I inch Faylie closer with my finger. "This", I pick off a maroon flower with a thick bud in its center from the top of the pile, "Is red trillium. That is rashvine, which you should not be handling without gloves." Faylie immediately drops the gathered herbs onto the floor with an eep. I slip on a large gardening mitt and pick up the rashvine, along with a large green leaf with a pulsing white vein of arcana running down the stem. "And this is lifeleaf."

Alabastra looks down at the accidental garden. "So, then which of these do I have to thank for giving me my chest?"

"That's not- that isn't how that works."

The half-elf arches her back. "I beg to differ."

I dart my eyes away. Vulgar twit. Suddenly my face feels hot... probably from the steam. "Your body does the... growing. The elixir is just a compound meant to stimulate a change in your biochemistry. None of the individual parts give you anything."

Of course, she knows this; not that knowing stops her from being purposefully obtuse to get a rise out of me. I explained as such when I first created it, after all. I happened to read ahead in my medical books, and was up to date on the breakthroughs made on hormonal synthetization. The subject was... naturally fascinating on its own merits. I lost a few nights down the rabbit hole of the theorized effects... all hypothetical of course. It was hardly a stretch to extrapolate from medicine to alchemy. I'd later discovered that I wasn't even the first to have the idea, really; only the first to execute it, in ways beyond the practices of haruspices and shamans.

Actually devising the elixir turned out to be a trifling matter, armed with knowledge as I was. And doing so ensured I would never owe Alabastra again, so... doubly worthwhile. And she herself espoused the virtues when I explained what it did (after she stopped hugging me and crying, that is); one could seek out a mage to change their body with the snap of their fingers, but she always scoffed at that. I never did understand exactly why... perhaps the cost? Or, maybe something to do with the impermanent nature of magic? After all, any spell, no matter how complicated, could be dispelled or countered. In this case, alchemy is only doing what medicine would be doing, better and faster; this is simple biology.

And besides, it was practically a necessity that I assist. Seeing Alabastra caged within her own form as she was; it was simply... wrong. Incorrect. She is a creature of unadulterated freedom. Regardless of her tiring personality, something within me screamed to help her. That she remains a shining beacon of self-freedom is a notion that cannot be tampered with. Perhaps that's why I never charged her for it.

That, and I wouldn't exactly expect her to make regular payments anyways.

I set the lifeleaf and rashvine down on the counter. "Use the mortar and pestle to grind these into a salt mixture, then add them to the cauldron. We're going to dissolve the trillium in the acid, heat it, and drip feed the resulting syrup into the batch."

For all their bumbling, the three are surprisingly attentive students. In some ways, I expected as much from Alabastra, but Faylie was always a scatterbrained sort. I've always considered her a mage in title alone... her grasp of the art is dilettantish at best. And Tegan, the only one of the four of us to not attend the Institute, I've never even seen in a learning environment. She always struck me as uninterested, uncurious, but here she sits, hanging on my words, following along, even asking questions as we go. I wonder why she never enrolled.

Soon the mixture takes on its telltale pink and bubbly consistency. A coincidence, I always assured Alabastra, despite her jests. "There", I say, "I hope you paid attention, but I'll write down the recipe in case you forget. Fill as many flasks as you can carry." I turn the next page in my notebook, writing the steps line by line.

Alabastra looks to the bubbling cauldron, then to me, then to her cadre. "Team meeting, ladies." She ushers the other two out the door, leaving me alone in my office. I finish the potion recipe, underlining the parts I suspect they are most likely to forget, and rip out the page, laying it on the workstation next to the empty flasks.

Behind the door, I hear the muffled voices of the three in heated conversation. It would be impertinent to eavesdrop, but my hearing has always been, at times to my own detriment, excellent. I catch my name thrown around a fair few times. If they're discussing plans of attack, it was foolish to leave me alone. If I were any less accepting of my imminent fate, there are dozens of methods by which I could escape.

So what are they waiting for? Surely they know. They've humored me, gotten some small benefit, pretended I am the person they used to think I was, that I was ever a person at all, for long enough. Now they have a job to do, adventurous types that they are.

I look over my office. Ghosts of my past repeat in my head, countless hours spent over this station, or deep in research at my desk. Nearly my entire adult life, confined to this room and the one below it. There's little point in dwelling on the inevitable regrets. That I didn't see more, do more. That I never loved or was loved in return. Of course it's pointless to mourn; the comforts and enjoyments of the living were never more than a tantalus temptation for me.

The door cracks open. Alabastra, flanked as she ever has been by her posse, says, "Change of plans, Moodie. Get yourself dressed - you're comin' with us."

Oh. They intend to take me alive, then. See that I face justice in a more proper way? Not what I expected of these three. That does prolong things, but it's ultimately acceptable. The same end point. "I see." I stand.

"And together, we're gonna hunt us a vampire."

...What.