Ike Penworthy

Chapter |~ 1

"Hello? Noel?" I knock rather timidly on the cracked door, feeling my heart in my throat – Sages creep me out. Especially Sages living on Earth but who can't stand Humans, it's annoying. But I need an answer, and Noel is the only Sage around here that's for one, real, and two, reasonable. The door squeals open and with a slowly dying confidence I step over the threshold, cringing at the creak of the floorboards.

But my nose betrays me, smelling the calming aroma of vanilla and thieves. The house is small, confining the smell between two rooms. An open spread of den, kitchen, and dining room greet me, along with the dark presence of a closed door to my left.

A small, slumped shape moves in the kitchen, rummaging under the sink.

"Curse plumbing to the evil core of hell." Says the figure, standing to its full height of two heads shorter than me, and hitting the sink basin with a heavy hammer. The bowl groans further into the counter and crumbles around the edges. The hammer wielding woman cursing her plumbing, freezes, her head taking a harsh angle of looking at the ceiling, as if listening. "What's that? Someone's here?"

She spins fluidly, thinning wild grey hair sticking up from all pores of her head and beady dull eyes staring me down with a strong resolve. Her hammer is bared before her like a heavy dagger. She calms a moment later, glancing me over and then making her own conclusion that I'm not dangerous – or perhaps just not worthy enough to have a hammer impale me.

"Despicable little humans." She says. She holds me with a cold look, unrelenting. "You're as bad as plumbing, always clogging up pipes and making us Sages work twice as hard."

I ground my teeth, snagging a bit of my cheek with the clamp of my jaw. It doesn't bleed but reminds me to relax and deal with her comments, it's not anything I haven't ever heard before.

"What do you want?" She demands, banishing her weapon of choice in a stab at my stomach. Thankfully the distance between us keeps the injury to just mental.

"I have a question to ask." My voice is stronger than before, but the organ in my chest still pounds and my fingertips ache.

Noel rocks back on her heels, her head leaning and eyes me coolly. "I don't do charity questions."

Now I really want to say something, anything that will keep her comments at bay. There are plenty of things I could say, but I'm Human and she's a powerful Sage, there's no outcome in anything I spit out that will end in me as victor.

"I'll pay the price, but I know you can do it without a reading."

Her eyebrows arch in unveiled surprise. "Welcome to Earth, Fantasian." Her whole demeanor changes from hostile to humble. She waves her free hand toward the couch. "Please sit. I'll brew some tea and you can ask."

My feet nearly betray me. After walking all morning and well into the afternoon with an empty stomach just to find her apartment, I'm tempted to enjoy her hospitality. But I can't. Someone was following me all day yesterday and although I lost them this morning, I can't stay for a meal anywhere.

I smile as sweetly as I can muster. "Nothing against you or your home, but I'd like to ask my question and leave."

She nods. "Well, then. Ask."

I take a deep breath. It's one thing to think my question over and over again, it's another to speak it aloud. My right hand shakes wildly. I clench it shut, digging my filthy nails into my equally filthy palm.

"Is Tye Inkwell dead?" The words jumble out without a quiver and my chest loosens, but the panic is still there. Still waiting to eat me whole.

Noel gnaws on her bottom lip. Her eyes are sad and her lips turned down. "Yes."