Chapter 21

Keflavik, Iceland

Friday, October 14th, 2050

The Starlight was much as I remembered it from my date with Heida, though it seemed that the Beatles cover band had moved on. Their replacements were led by a mustached man with an excellent soprano. The music was well played and sung, though the lyrics were more nonsense.

“‘Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango’?” I turned left. “Is that Icelandic or—”

“Stop it.” Heida held up her hand. “I swear to God, Soren, if you so much as imply you haven’t ever heard of Queen before, I will disown you.”

I shut my trap. She’d said it with a smile, but one never knows.

Kowalski whistled appreciatively as he followed us through the doors. I hadn’t known that he owned a dress shirt, but it didn’t look like he wore it often. The thing was wrinkled and slightly too loose. “Your friends picked out a nice place, sir.”

Mr. Maki scanned the tables. “They aren’t friends, exactly. More comrades. They’re former students of mine, and then we served in a few campaigns together.”

“And they happened to see you out on patrol? It really is a small world,” said Mariko from my right.

“Isn’t it?” replied the Divine Blade. “They’re good kids. Well, good men now.” He ran his hand through his hair, giving special attention to his greying temples. “None of you are allowed to age, understood? It’s bad enough that Mark and Hans are almost done with their tenner in the Corps.”

“I’ll take it up with the cruel march of time, sir,” I replied.

“We’re blocking the door.” Henrik brought up the rear, and I think that was a conscious choice. He was the only one among us bearing a scowl.

Then again, after an afternoon of ‘false positives’ from the ram’s bone, he was in a foul mood. How had he put it? It wasn’t so much that there couldn’t be that sort of demonic signature, but the strength of the reading implied a demon casting magic that we couldn’t have possibly missed. Thank Our Father Below that my secret was beyond most humans’ imaginations.

Mr. Maki nudged him playfully. “Buck up, Olvirsson. We’re here to relax a little!”

A cheerful brunette waitress stepped over. “Excuse me, do you have a…” Her jaw dropped as she took us in. “Wait, are you… him?”

I swore I could hear Mr. Maki flex under his dress shirt behind us. “Please don’t make a…”

She rushed over to me, taking my hand in hers. “You’re that Magpie Wizard guy! The one who saved the Tower from those terrorists!”

Between the Divine Blade and myself, I don’t know who was more surprised. “Y-yes, though the news really exaggerated my role in things.”

“I was there, too,” said Mariko in a miffed tone.

“I wasn’t, but hands off my date,” said Heida.

The waitress took a step back. “S-sorry, it isn’t often that we get celebrities here.” She gestured towards the Freddy Mercury impersonator. “Well, not real ones.”

Mr. Maki cleared his throat.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” said the waitress.

Mr. Maki visibly relaxed. “I knew you’d—”

“We’ll get you seated soon.” She winked at me, and I could feel the angry aura from Heida. “We’re all booked up for the night, but there’s always room for a hero.”

“Excuse me?” sputtered Mr. Maki.

Henrik nudged Mr. Maki back. “Buck up, Asahi. We’re here to relax a little!” The Icelander finally had something to smile about.

“Our party should be here,” I said, stepping in before the Divine Blade could get us in trouble. “Mark and Hans Becker?”

She nodded. “They rented out one of the private rooms; right this way.”

Heida latched onto my arm as soon as she turned away. “We’re not giving her a tip.”

“I should hope not; it sounded like the brothers have us tonight.” It was adorable how jealous she was over little old me. “That’s a lovely jacket, by the way. The white brings out your eyes.”

“Really? I was hoping my outfit would bring out your eyes.” She smirked up at me and flicked my nose with her finger.

I covered my stinging member with my hand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That would be telling, Magpie.”

“It is a shame we got a private room,” said Mariko, coming up alongside us. She seemed to be pointedly ignoring Heida. “I was hoping to see the live performance.”

“I’m just happy to be here,” said Kowalski. “This is the swankiest place I’ve ever seen from the inside!”

The Starlight was arranged in a large semi-circle with three different layers of tables, presumably to give the most people the best view of the stage. The rented room turned out to be at the back of the lounge, near the kitchen’s doors. Inside was a rectangular stone table that could have seated twice as many as our little party, and the walls were festooned with posters of famous rock and roll albums.

Our bushy-bearded patrons hadn’t waited for us to enjoy themselves; their steins were mostly empty.

Seeing the Beckers in clearer light, it struck me how Hans and Mark were nearly clones of each other. Only a few flecks of grey in Han’s beard showed him to be the elder. One of them leapt to their feet to greet us; I could tell it was Mark from the glasses. They were the only ones present in their uniforms, which made me feel a curious mix of over and underdressed in my red button-up shirt.

“Asahi! You made it!” He vaulted over the table in a single bound, and I detected something magical in the way he landed without shaking the ground. The scent of roasting walnuts followed the action, dissipating the moment he straightened up. Probably my Mimic Scent. That’s a shame; it smelled delicious.

“At least somebody recognized me,” he groused. “And that’s Mr. Maki to you! Look at you, you spilled beer on your uniform! It’s a disgrace!”

“Oh my,” said Mariko in a hushed tone. Otherwise, there was a heavy silence in the room for a long moment.

The impasse was broken as the brothers and Mr. Maki burst out laughing. Mark clapped him on the shoulder. “You haven’t changed a bit, sir.”

“Except those pants used to fit better,” added Hans.

“It’s all of this soft living,” said Mr. Maki, taking a startled Mariko by the shoulders and interposing her between him and Mark. “This one’s been trying to fatten me up!”

“Trying?” said Mark. “Looks like she’s succeeding!” His eyes slid over Mariko, and a sly grin split his face. “Evening, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Well, that was the wrong thing to say. She hid her annoyance well, but I saw the twitching at the corner of her eye. “Thank you for taking care of us tonight.”

“For fellow Nagoya alums? Any time.” Mark pulled out a seat for her, which we took as an invitation to find our own spots.

I quickly saw what Heida meant by an outfit to bring out my eyes; she hung up her jacket, revealing a knit sweater with a window that exposed a delightful amount of cleavage. My reaction was subtler than Kowalski’s, whose eyes were transfixed for nearly a minute.

“I take it you approve,” she whispered once she’d sat down, giving my knee a squeeze.

“Naturally,” I said. “You know me well.”

“You aren’t that hard to figure out,” she replied. “Just the way I like it.”

Mariko was still annoyed at something or other. It must have been being called the dreaded m-word. She buried herself in her menu to avoid letting it show.

“Hey Beckers,” said Mr. Maki, “how much was it to buy off the waitress?”

Hans tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

He pointed a meaty finger at me. “Convincing her to fawn over Marlowe here and pretend she didn’t recognize me.” He chuckled wistfully. “She was very convincing.”

The brothers looked at each other, silently conferring about how to respond. “We didn’t do anything of the sort.”

Mr. Maki’s shoulders slumped. “Kids these days. No appreciation.”

“They probably didn’t recognize you out of uniform,” said Kowalski, finally pulling his eyes away from Heida. “That’s what they always show you wearing in the news clips and the cartoon.”

“That must have been it.” The Divine Blade perked up at that. “You just earned yourself some extra credit, Kowalski.”

Mariko shook her head, and I caught a flash of a grin as she shifted the menu. “That man.”

We settled into a pleasant conversation on topics other than décolletage and Mr. Maki’s bruised ego. The two brothers were Germans who had grown up in an enclave in Osaka.

“I thought there was a magic school in Osaka?” asked Mariko. “How did you end up at the Nagoya Academy?”

“Dad wasn’t going to let us go anywhere but the best school,” said Hans. “The family motto’s just about ‘Beckers are winners’.”

“Correction.” Mark ribbed his brother. “Dad wasn’t going to let him go anywhere but the best school, and I wasn’t going to let him one-up me.”

Mariko smiled sweetly. “It is nice you two are so close. I always wanted a little brother or sister.”

“You want mine?” asked Hans, jerking a thumb at his brother. “He’s mostly housetrained at this point.”

“I dunno,” said Mark, finishing off his drink. “It’d be awkward if I thought my sister was hot. I’ll try anything once, though.”

Mariko’s face flushed as she took a step back. “I might be happier as an only child after all.”

“You scared off another one, Mark!” crowed Henrik.

“My, you’re all rather free with each other,” I said.

“We went through heck in England and Madagascar together,” said Mr. Maki. “When you fight shoulder to shoulder with someone, there’s no more barriers.”

“Or manners,” muttered Mariko.

“That’ll be nice.” Kowalski had stuck to water, which seemed like a sensible mood. The Dark Lord help us if he got drunk and Buddy was even less inhibited. “I mean, getting out there, finding people you’d jump on a grenade for.”

“You’ve got to live through it first,” said Hans. “That’s the trick with esprit de corps; it’s earned, not given.”

Kowalski gulped. “Y-yeah, there is that.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” said Heida. “We’re here to enjoy ourselves, after all.”

“What’s your posting like?” I asked, nodding at the brothers. “You said you were up in Reykjavik?”

“It’s nothing too special,” said Mark. “We were redeployed after The Calamity.”

“The Calamity?” asked Mariko.

“The fall of England,” replied Mark. “We do training exercises with the mundane military most days. We’ve been on constant high alert since we got here.”

“They finally downgraded us to orange danger level.” Hans sighed. “Thank goodness they realized the demons weren’t knocking on our door up here; we’ve been asking for a pass for months, but they don’t issue those when they ratchet us up to red.”

“That was a lot of stress for nothing,” muttered Mark. “Typical League decision making: send most of the wizards down south, but insist we have ‘round the clock coverage in case they try something up here.”

Heida stiffened next to me. “I didn’t realize how good we had it in Outreach.”

“Yeah, and that’s the other crazy thing,” he said. “Here we had two combat-ready wizards nearby who could be helping us out, and they’re off chasing rumors and getting cats out of trees. Unbelievable.”

“It seems like nobody we meet believes in the powers that be,” said Mariko. “I do not blame them.”

Hans steepled his fingers. “Sounds like you’re meeting clever people. You’re students, so you still live in a world that makes sense. Asahi and your other teachers give you tests you can pass with the resources you’ve been given. When you’re in the service? You’re executing commands from people six steps removed from common sense. Get used to it.”

“Oh my,” said Mariko.

Mr. Maki cleared his throat. “Careful, you two. That’s the kind of talk that can ruin a career.”

“True enough,” said Hans, a nervous quaver in his voice. “Don’t take any of it too seriously. We’re just blowing off steam.”

“I understand completely; it sounds like you’ve been in a pressure cooker.” I found the talk more than a bit unsettling. It was exactly the rhetoric I was used to from Maggie and her motley crew, though the Beckers hadn’t added the usual Holy Brother lines about the League being decadent or rife with demonkin.

“Way too heavy,” muttered Heida as she studied her empty glass. “I hope she’s back soon; I could use a refill.”

“We can all agree to that,” I said.

“We’ll go flag her down,” said Mark. He gave his older brother a nudge. “Besides, we need to go get something ready.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“That’d be telling, Mr. Magpie Wizard,” said Hans. “Trust us, you won’t forget it.”

The brothers were out the door in a flash. I turned to the others. “Am I the only one who thought that sounded like a threat?”

“Yes, you are,” said Mr. Maki automatically.

“It was a strange way to phrase things,” said Mariko. “You are too suspicious, though. Why would they threaten us?”

“They wouldn’t,” replied Henrik. “These two men saved Asahi and me a dozen times over. They’re probably bringing us a cake.”

“Or, God forbid, strippers,” said Mr. Maki. “Again.”

Kowalski’s eyes bulged. “St-strippers?”

Henrik sighed. “They had an… interesting way of celebrating the victory in Madagascar. It got them written up.”

“You were also close to Maggie Edwards,” I said. “And she tried to have Mr. Maki snuffed out as a publicity stunt for the Brotherhood.”

The Divine Blade’s good humor evaporated. “I won’t hear any more of that slander! The Beckers are a bit coarse, but they’re also rock solid.” Mr. Maki hesitated. “Though, perhaps somebody should go check and make sure they aren’t up to anything improper? We are in mixed company, after all.”

“I’m on it,” I said, leaping to my feet. Something seemed off. Meeting two dissident wizards by happenstance in the middle of Keflavik was one Hell of a coincidence. Then they just happened to bring Mr. Maki and I under the same roof to get liquored up. I smelled Holy Brotherhood involvement.

“Aw, you’re leaving little old me behind?” Heida pretended to pout.

“If it is anything untoward…”

“Pfft. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She hooked her arm in mine again. “Besides, it’ll get me my drink that much faster.”

“Well, let’s not dawdle,” I said. “If it is exotic entertainment, we don’t want Kowalski to have a stroke.”

“I-I wouldn’t have a…” He trailed off as Heida bent over to retrieve her purse, drawing his eyes to her cut-out sweater. “Um.”

“See? He’d short circuit.” I guided her out into the Starlight’s main dining area, and I could feel Mariko’s angry glare at me. Oh, come now. It’s not my fault she decided to poke the boy.

“You did that on purpose,” I whispered to her.

“Of course I did,” she replied. “He’s so easy to mess with.”

“I doubt he has any experience with the fairer sex. Perhaps that’s what he needs to get some control over Buddy,” I said. “Do you have any friends with low standards?”

“Not that low,” she said.

I found myself wincing against my will. It wasn’t very demonic of me to feel sorry for him again.

“They aren’t at the bar,” said Heida, pointing into the best-lit part of the restaurant. “Do you see anything?”

I scanned the dimmed room, shaking my head. “No, but I have my ways.” The world went even darker as I focused my Mimic Sight. Heida was a cool blue outline like before. The rest of our party looked much the same back in the private room, except for Kowalski’s now-familiar double image.

A bright flash out of the corner of my eye brought me back to the matter at hand. I locked my eyes on the two casting wizards, each of their outlines a bright orange. There was something else there with them: a brilliant, glowing device the size and shape of a briefcase.

“They’re up to something!”

“What kind of a something?”

“They’re charging a fabricata with enough energy for a dozen Fireballs!”

Heida’s easy attitude vanished in an instant. “Th-that doesn’t sound very innocent.”

“To put it mildly. This way,” I said, dragging her behind me into a narrow hallway. There was no sign of the brothers, but there were only three doors to choose from. “What do the signs say?”

She pointed at the furthest door. “‘Maintenance’. The other two are restrooms.”

I sniffed the air, which in retrospect was dangerous when standing next to a lavatory. However, I doubted somebody was roasting walnuts in the men’s room. I found the door locked.

“Occupied!” came a familiar voice from inside.

If this is all a misunderstanding, I’ll never live this down. Oh, well. “Magic Bludgeon!” All the force that would normally propel a basketball-sized Magic Bolt a hundred meters hit all at once, taking a circular chunk out of the door and the nearby wall.

Hans and Mark stood in an open stall in the back of the restroom. My eyes were drawn to the ominous looking wooden fabricata at their feet. Even without my Mimic Sight, I could see magic flowing from the wires they firmly clutched into the contraption.

“My apologies,” I said, crouching into a ready position. “But it seems to be an emergency.”