As always, the few who strayed outdoors during the city's terribly long winter were not afraid to invade his privacy. He had seen at least five people snap pictures of him, and one had started to ask him questions about the attack he had been so lucky to survive. The public interest lessened as time passed, but he still gained far more attention than he preferred. At least enough time had passed that he was able to completely heal the wound on his cheek without suspicion.
A hush came through the door along with him as he entered the café. Not only was the old building much fuller than usual, but the only customers today were Others. They were having a discussion, and the short pixie Trinity appeared to be leading it alongside the vampire that had covered the other half of the lycanthrope cop's shift. Loch was saved from more stares when Skye emerged from the kitchen with two hot chocolates. "Good afternoon. They're having a meeting, so we'll have to sit out in the cold." The waiter smiled and nodded at the pixie. She was sitting on a table rather than a chair to rise herself to the height of the majority.
Loch nodded and stepped back into the cold. He waited for the door to shut behind them before speaking. "What are they discussing?"
"A group of humans has started to hunt us. They think we're the ones responsible for those killings. They're actually successful, by the sounds of it. Some of them have started researching us and learning our weaknesses. They figured out already that naiads are only killed by poison, and they figured out that you need to burn dryads. They haven't figured out the draconem method of death yet, but I imagine they will soon. It's strange to think that I could die." Skye pulled out a chair next to Loch's. He was too close. Loch usually remembered to sit down last so that he could create a certain amount of personal space.
"I added a bit to your shadow bracelet. Even their technology isn't advanced enough to see you as anything but human. I've been keeping an eye on their organization for weeks, but I did not expect them to grow so quickly."
"You should talk to them." Skye threw an arm around his shoulder without warning. Loch barely managed to hold back a wince. At least it was warm.
He took a moment to recover from the movement and remember what the naiad had just said. "What? Why?"
"They think you're a human, and they know you were almost killed by whatever killed their friends. You can convince them that they need to help us hunt the demons, rather than working against us." He had a point, but Loch had been so noncommittal for so long that he did not want to become involved again. Admittedly, he was growing bored of simply listening to conversations every day at the soup kitchen. They had begun to treat him like a legend there, as well, which made things much worse when Darcy forced him to dish out the food in front of the crowds rather than clean the dishes and the kitchen.
He glanced over at the naiad. Having someone trust him and speak honestly with him was terrible. Skye made him feel like he was the villain when he was really just the bystander. He made a mental note to avoid talking to good people. Before he started speaking, he made sure to block out any wandering minds such as that of the demonic woman. "I know who is controlling the demons. I made a deal with her a couple of weeks ago. She was in pain, so I took away her pain. Now she owes me, but I'm still thinking about how to use this debt." Loch avoided watching Skelly's reaction.
"In the future, can you tell me when you do something like that? I know sometimes you don't care enough about the Other side of society to act on what you know, but I care and if I can save my friends' lives by learning about the human organization a few weeks earlier or by telling Trinity who to look for to prevent more killings, then I will help them." Skye forcibly turned his head to face him as he spoke. Usually he was cheerful, and everything he talked about was in a casual tone, but on this subject he was dead serious.
Loch sighed and spilled everything. "Her name is Vivian Estrada. She has rotting green scales, bat wings, and she's a draconem-demon mix. She feels a kinship with warlocks so long as they aren't the docile kind. She can stop time and cast her mind across the city to observe anyone she wants. I have her blocked from this area right now. The human organization is called Hancock, and their headquarters are two streets over across from the gourmet dessert shop. A lot of their recruits are the former homeless, but some of them are family members and friends of the people that have been killed. That's all I know."
Skye returned his arm to his shoulder to Loch's despair, then took a sip of hot chocolate. "Why don't you want anyone to know what you are? You don't strike me as someone who would rather be human."
"I've been the last of the ancients for five hundred years now. In my last hundred years in Other society before I left, everyone treated me like an evil god or a weapon. I'm a lazy person. I do things at my own pace, despite the power at my disposal, and leaders don't tend to appreciate that. I don't want to be human, but I don't want to be bossed around, either." He downed the rest of his hot chocolate and glanced back at the café. The creatures within all watched their pixie leader with somber expressions. She must have gathered the important members of each faction. The café was a smart meeting location, he had to admit. The friendly atmosphere promoted peace and cooperation, unlike the grey office buildings most Other organizations kept as their headquarters.
"I suppose that makes sense. Nobody likes to be bossed around. Speaking of which, my uncle wanted me to find something called a dragon key to open the dragon chest he traded some old relics for. He told me to thank my anonymous friend for Baba Yaga's scrutatio orbs, by the way. Those were worth over a million dollars, and they were important enough that the Archives bought them. But as far as the dragon keys, aren't dragons just a fairytale?"
Now they were back in his comfortable realm of conversation. Loch loved relics, hence his two-thousand-item collection. "I have at least a hundred dragon keys. Dragons aren't real, but dragon chests burn anyone who tries to pick their lock or pry them open. You can try out different keys without harm, though. The chests usually contain really important valuables due to the difficulty of creating them, but sometimes people put something ridiculous like a sock in there just to make whoever gets the chest open mad. If the chest is one of mine, then there's just a handkerchief for the finder to cry into after finding no treasure. I never collected gold."
Skye chuckled and shook his head. "It's a green chest with sand glued on in spiral designs. Are you that artsy?"
"Nope. That would be Lord Mortdecai. I used to make fun of him for his... flamboyancy." He glanced at Skye's hand on his shoulder. "I guess I owe him an apology. He was a dryad, so he should still be alive. The chest will probably have jewelry in it. He loved collecting gems, but he never wore any." Loch stood began to walk down the sidewalk.
Skye's face lit up as he sprang to his feet. If Loch was lucky, he could manage to make the naiad forget about his suggestion that he speak to the Hancocks. "Are you going to get the keys now? Can I come with you? Did not you say you live on the outskirts? How do you get there?" His questions stopped when he saw the car. "Wow."
Loch started it up, trying not to laugh at Skye's excitement. "Get in if you're coming. We don't have all day." The overexcited naiad practically leapt into the car, and he continued to gaze around it in amazement throughout the drive.
Fortunately, the lycanthrope cop-wanna-be was not lurking around his home today. He had been coming more sporadically as time had gone by without any overly suspicious behavior from his subject. Loch began to walk along the rows of relics as soon as he entered the building before he realized Skye still could not see them. He took off a layer of shadowing and grinned when Skye's jaw dropped in awe. "Don't touch. Some of them are dangerous."
He led the naiad along the rows, walking slowly so that he could take it all in, until they reached a small wooden box. Loch opened the lid and turned the pile of tiny black keys to face Skye. "I guess I only have around fifty. I sold the other fifty or so to some rich man for a ridiculously high price. They were all keys of chests made by tricksters like myself, so he lost in the long run. Each chest-maker has a theme to their chests and their keys." He shut the lid and handed the box to Skye, who took it gingerly in both hands.
"So you live here?" Skye stared at the tall ceilings of the main room in awe. It had been a grand apartment building when it was first built. Then the city grew in the opposite direction, and it was no longer close to anything important.
"I live on the third floor. The first two floors contain my collection." Loch led them back to his normal path through the dust and flicked the shadowing back over the shelves, hiding them from sight once again. He peered through one of the covered windows, but the lycanthrope still had not returned from wherever he had gone off to.
"Can I see?"
Loch frowned. Only two people had invaded the privacy of his apartment before. The lycanthrope had been invited out of the necessity of proving himself human and stopping the sound of the doorbell, and the rotting woman had not been invited at all. However, all of the furniture was new since he had just replaced everything, so he did not have anything to be embarrassed about. "Fine. Follow my step or you'll fall." He turned away from the naiad and leapt up the steps, following the dustless trail without skipping a beat. He did not bother looking back until he had reached the third floor.
Regardless of Loch's rapid pace, the naiad kept up well. His legs were long enough that he could take one step where Loch took two, and he was only a few steps behind by the time Loch stopped. He stepped off the final step and stopped to take a breath. "That staircase in itself is an adventure. This place is awesome. And just a little creepy."
They continued forward to the end of the apartment doors. Loch flicked the door open and immediately fell onto the couch, following his usual routine. Behind him, Skye stopped and looked around in awe. It wasn't an impressive room. The only personal objects were a globe of the world with pins of various colors stuck in it, a pile of newspapers going at least two hundred years back, and a CD buried beneath them with all of the movies he had been in on it. He had burned them onto it only a week after he had discovered the wonders of the modern internet. He had not seen a single one of them yet, but he was going to get around to it someday.
"What do the red pins represent?" Skye spun the globe and looked at the location of the closest one. Ukraine.
"I can't go to those places for a little while because I stirred up trouble recently enough that people there will still know of me." He noticed Skye's horrified expression. "Nobody died."
"And how did you get those scrutatio orbs?" Somehow Skye's suspicion unnerved him more than his attempts to get closer.
"Baba Yaga and her sisters were good friends of mine. I aided them in much of their... troublemaking. For the most part I simply created relics when they requested them. In return for helping them, they owed me a debt, so I requested that I get to take their possessions if they were ever caught by the Other Order. They agreed to the deal, and they were caught and imprisoned a few years later. So I took the orbs." He had never found a use for them, unfortunately. They were the result of a debt he had not thought through.
Skye spun the globe and looked at a pin placed on the west coast of America. "What happened in California?"
"I was an actor there for ten years. 1960 to 1970, I believe. I got more fame than I expected, so I had to die in a freak accident to hide my lack of aging. Technically I should avoid all of America because of it, but I haven't been very active since then anyway. Several websites have popped up discussing the resemblance between us since the incident with the High Demon, but nothing huge. That pixie Trinity isn't looking in the right places for evidence of my... oddities." Loch crossed his legs on the coffee table.
The naiad fell onto the couch beside him. He sat too close. At least he did not shed disgusting scales like Vivian. "She's a hundred years older than me. Anyone over two hundred is a bit reluctant to take advantage of the advancements of human technology. I'd be just as bad as her if I didn't have a business to run. We have to send out ads and stay active on social media so more human customers will come. Half of the time when Others come in we have to argue with them to get them to pay for their food. So many are caught up in the old ways... do you want me to come with you to that Hancock organization? You said you can make me appear human, even to them. I'll keep my mouth shut so you don't have to worry about my bad lying skills. I'm better at lying to people I'm not friends with, anyway. Work is getting really boring. Nobody orders food since they're just there to discuss the killings and the human organization."
He kept returning to serious topics. Loch sighed; at least he was not dating an idiot. Dating. The naiad dropped his arm over his shoulders once again, reminding him of the strange situation. Loch still had not gotten around to researching how to do relationships. He forced his wandering mind back to the question at hand. "Fine. Come with." As much as being around the naiad confused him, it was better than becoming part of an organization that killed his own species alone.
"Yes! An adventure. I haven't been part of any secret operations since World War II." Skye wrapped him in a sideways hug and pulled him even closer. "Speaking of which, do you think we could tell Lola that you're a warlock? She knows something's up, and I don't want her to figure it out and tell Trinity." Once again Skye began to flick at his curls.
"Let me tell her so I can explain my need for secrecy. We'll do that tomorrow when the pixie isn't present." Loch pulled away, trying to set his mind back on track. What were they doing? The dragon keys. He stood and picked up the box. "Don't forget this."
Reluctantly pushing himself to his feet, Skye took the box from his hand. He tried to meet Loch's gaze, but Loch headed to the door without a word. As they stepped back into the snowbound world, Loch forced his eyes to sweep over the returned lycanthrope. For a moment he had been hopeful that the Scottish pixie had given up on her attempts to catch him practicing magic.
As Loch got into his own car, he saw Skye wave at the lycanthrope and place a finger to his lips. Loch feigned a frown of confusion, but did not bother with any elaborate emotions. The ridiculous spy could not see his face from that far away, anyway. He flicked on the headlights and began to head out into the night.