Chapter 6

            Vince excused himself upstairs to swap out his own mud-soaked clothes. He considered bringing Bayla with him, but decided to plant her in front of the television with Luis.

            “Why am I watching her?” asked Luis.

            “Because…” Because my place is half as big as yours, and she’s going to bring it up, just like the dirt on the car. I’ll wait until it’s dark. “Because I didn’t tell Mama Rosa you dated a protestant back in community college.”

            Luis’ brown eyes narrowed. “Okay man, I’ll help out. Just don’t drag Mama into this.”

            He glanced around the one-room apartment. The furniture was mismatched and second-hand, but he kept it clean. There was a chair he could take if Bayla needed the bed. Why am I embarrassed about this? It’s not like my place is so bad. It’s just right for me, and I get a good rate. Yet, the feeling persisted.

            She was impressed when she thought I owned the whole apartment building. The truth is going to be such a letdown. At least I’m not still living at home…

Vince’s phone dinged while he changed into his favorite plaid button-up shirt, reminding him that it was time to feed his green anole, Zeke. It was a welcome interruption; Vince had always liked reptiles. Besides, Zeke only needed a few crickets every other day. Rufus is fun, but Zeke’s just the right amount of maintenance. The small enclosure took up a space next to his TV, lit by a red sunlamp.

“Hey Zeke, soup’s on.” The lizard poked his head out from under a broad leaf at Vince’s voice. It had taken a few months, but the skittish animal was finally used to him. He gave the lizard a quick scratch on top of the head before setting the live crickets loose. “Better tidy up your tank; you might have a roommate tonight.”

The lizard ignored him as he caught and swallowed an unfortunate cricket. “Good chat, buddy. See you later, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

The green lizard’s impassive gaze was his only response.

Once he was back on the second floor, Vince could make out Bayla’s voice from down the hall.

“Kill him! Kill him!”

It’s probably nothing. He still hurried, given the circumstances.

His first guess was right. By luck or because Luis felt like being cute, they had stumbled on a nature documentary. A Great White had seized a seal in its teeth, much to Bayla’s delight.

Rufus hopped to his feet and barked excitedly at Vince, drawing Bayla’s attention. The orca vaulted over the back of the couch, beaming up at Vince. “This television is wondrous magic!”

“Magic?” asked Luis, his eyebrow raised again.

“It sure is,” said Vince. “Let’s get going.”

“Do we have to?” Bayla pointed at the TV. “Luis said there was a whole week of shark images I could watch on his divir.”

“DVR,” corrected Luis.

So Luis did decide to be cute. “Those’ll be around any time, but the town’s only open so late. You don’t want to miss the Landman entertainment, do you?”

They exchanged goodbyes, but Bayla seemed a bit hesitant. Once they were out of earshot, Vince coughed into his hand. “I thought sharks were lower beings?”

“They are, but I have never seen them so close before. They usually swim away as soon as I show up. Well, except the one.”

“Oh? What happened to that one?”

“He stuck around and learned why the others ran.” Her stomach growled as she smiled at a pleasant memory, exposing her triangular teeth. “Is there anywhere we can get shark liver around here? I suddenly have a craving.”

“Probably not.” Vince studied her outfit as she ran ahead to the Meyer-mobile. Luis had set out a ribbed sweater and pinafore skirt for Bayla, but they had been a mismatched pink and green before, not the familiar combination of black and white.

When he asked her about it, Bayla seemed surprised that he was surprised. “Oh, this is my same hide from before.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and the black and white clothing flowed like water, transforming back into the sleeveless dress from earlier. “I had not realized it, but I kept my Aqua Armor when I transformed.” She ran her fingers along the silky cloth almost luxuriantly. “I did not recognize it, since it is usually a different texture.”

“Aqua Armor?”

“It’s a technique of my pod,” she replied. “We each create a set. Usually it is more for protection, but it also makes fine camouflage. I can make it look however I choose. It even made me some under-ware.”

“I… see.” He glanced around, relieved that nobody had seen her little trick. “You shouldn’t do that out in the open. I didn’t get a chance to say this before, but magic like that doesn’t happen around here. It’ll spook people.”

She barked a sarcastic laugh, shifting her clothes to match the set Luis had given her. “You expect me to believe that? Your magic may not match ours, but you have cars, the TV, and hot showers. All very impressive spells in their own right.”

“Sure, but we have machines to help with the magic.” It seemed like the easiest way to phrase a complicated truth. Telling a magical being there was no magic would be like an alien trying to convince him oxygen was a myth. “What you did there? People would call you a witch or something. They’ll freak out.”

“A witch?” Bayla’s playful attitude evaporated in an instant. She straightened to her full height, glaring at him imperiously. “Who could mistake me for one of those busybodies?”

Witches are real too? I mean, witches who can actually do magic? Vince put a pin in that for later, to go with the other pin. His conception of reality had taken enough damage for one day. “Landmen who don’t know better, which is everyone around here. Please, try to keep what you can do a secret. And don’t go saying you’re an orca, either. Please?” Vince thought that last ‘please’ came out a little desperate, but only because he was.

“I suppose we don’t know who we can trust; the hunters are still unaccounted for.” She puffed out her cheeks in a pout that was more cute than anything else before letting out a sigh that had a subtle undercurrent of whale-song to it. “Very well, you have my word. Let’s be off.”

That last noise she had made disquieted Vince, but he was fairly certain she could not control it. Hopefully nobody’s paying too close of attention to her. If she’s weird, they’ll think she’s just early for the Ren Fair.

Another worry to set aside. You’re showing off your whole civilization to a complete stranger. We want to get off on the right foot. What would an orca find interesting?

*****************

It could be a challenge to define where Port Harrington started on the island, but that was not the case for the line between the residential and tourist trap sections of the town. Somebody had sold the town council on a particular vision of what tourists were after back in the nineties, resulting in a look Vince thought of as inauthentically authentic. The asphalt roads abruptly transitioned to tightly packed red brick, and no building could legally be more than two stories tall. Every business or home was constructed with wooden planks and similar brick, or at least had a veneer of such. No chain restaurants or stores were allowed, either, which helped with the illusion.

The shops bore faux-old timey signage in a looping script that brought to mind Colonial New England more than the Pacific Northwest. Ye Olde Candle Shoppe sat next to Cuthbert and Wong’s Old Time Clothery, across the street from Schultz and Son’s German Style Bakery. The wares in the shops were a mix of handicrafts and souvenirs, which brought in bored Seattleites who wanted to experience a simpler time, even if it was not entirely authentic.

Vince knew the shops well; they were his only clients, after all, and Schneider’s Fantastic Weaponry was at the top of that list. The store itself almost functioned as a gift shop for a tiny museum, since one first traveled through the smithy, which was usually occupied by Schneider himself. After Bayla’s fascination with the campfire, it seemed the best place to start this impromptu tour of what Landmen had to offer. He had hoped for a show, and Schneider had not let him down.

Will Schneider was a barrel-chested man in his late fifties who had started the shop after cashing out early during the Dot Com bubble. Finding himself with more money and time than he knew what to do with, he had decided to try honest labor. The work had done him good, and his rope-like muscles bulged under his shirt as he hammered a replica Gladius into shape. Sparks flew through the air, singeing his uncovered arm hair, though years of little burns had numbed him to the pain.

Bayla rushed over to a railing that marked off the safe distance to watch Schneider ply his craft, transfixed by the lightshow. After a few minutes of constant hammering, Schneider held the sword aloft, inspecting the work. After nodding once, he quenched it in a barrel of oil, setting it aside in its final resting place near a neat row of identical blades, ready to be attached to their hilts.

“Unbelievable,” said Bayla, glaring up at Vince from where she crouched. It was the first word she had uttered since they had entered. “You have this in your village and you have the audacity to say there is no magic?”

            Will Schneider raised his face covering, revealing round, ruddy cheeks and a bushy moustache worthy of a walrus. “Oh hey, Vinnie. She with you?”

            Vince nodded. “Yessir. Will, this is Bayla. Bayla, this is Will Schneider.”

            “Charmed.” Bayla stuck out her hand at the proper height, which Will gladly took.

            He raised an eyebrow. “Bayla? What is that, French?”

            “I hail from the Northern Kelp Forest,” she replied before Vince could interject.

            Schneider did not so much as blink at the strange statement, which was another reason Vince had chosen his shop first. “Oh, is that your backstory?”

            “My what?” asked Bayla.

            “Y’know, for your character,” said Schneider. “You’re a role-player, right?”

“Yeah, Bayla’s certainly got a big imagination.” Vince put a hand on the orca’s shoulder to emphasize the point.

Schneider laughed. “That’s the way I like imaginations; it’s what my whole business is built on. What brings you two over?”

“She’s an old friend who’s in town, and she’s never seen a smithy before.”

“It is most diverting,” said Bayla, her dark eyes reflecting the light of the furnace. “No wonder Landmen love fire so much.”

Vince wondered if the orca’s pyromania was going to be a problem. “I was thinking we could pick her up a souvenir on our way back home. This is our first stop, so we probably don’t want to haul a weapon around.”

“Does tend to make the other shopkeeps nervous,” he said, smirking up at Vince. “Sorry to say, I don’t have time to custom-make anything for her, what with the Fair just about here.”

“Anything would be fine.” He mentally tallied his finances, comparing them to the listed prices. “Maybe another Bowie knife? They come in pretty handy.”

“Oh, I don’t need any inferior Landman weapons,” she said. “They would only rot in the seawater. I’ve seen it myself in shipwrecks.”

Schneider’s face hardened. “Excuse me?”

“Like I said,” said Vince with a nervous laugh. “Big imagination.”

Seeing the exasperated look on Vince’s face, she cleared her throat. “I am grateful for the generous offer, though. It would simply be a sin to waste your work.”

The older man waved off the affront. “If all you want is a hunting knife, shoot, you can just have one.”

“I couldn’t,” said Vince.

“For the man who got me my new fishing boat? It’s nothing.” Schneider doffed his protective apron and gloves, waving the pair to follow him into the main shop. The weapons were kept in a locked, glass enclosure. Schneider’s output ranged from hunting knives to elaborate, impractical replicas of swords born from a fantasy writer’s flights of fancy. There were also the normal tourist trap bric-a-brac, like t-shirts with the shop’s logo, commemorative plates, and books on the history of ironworking.

A bored teenager behind the counter looked up from her phone when she noticed her boss strolling to the far wall, and suddenly found something to tidy up behind the register. A silent look from Schneider promised her there would be words later. Vince’s heart went out to her, but those were the risks you ran in retail. Boy do I know that all too well.

“How did Vince get you a vessel?” asked Bayla.

Schneider had opened up the weapons cabinet and was rummaging around with the smaller blades. “I hadn’t updated the shop’s website since the Bush administration. Vince did a little HTML and CSS magic and showed me how to run Facebook ads, and suddenly a quarter of my business went online. That’s how he got me a new boat.”

“It’s just what they taught me at the college,” said Vince as he accepted a new blade and holster from Schneider. “Nothing special.”

“You keep up that false modesty and I’ll just make you pay,” replied the blacksmith.

Vince smiled uneasily as he clipped the knife into a belt loop. “Then I’ll just say thank you and be on my way.”

Bayla studied the knife a moment as they left Schneider’s. “That looks like the one you used to free me.”

Vince’s face went pale. His existing hunting knife had slipped from his fingers during Bayla’s transformation. It was probably still out by Greene Point, but if it was sitting out in the open in that creek bed, it was going to be claimed by another hiker or rust before he could get back.

He can never know I lost the old one! Especially since I can’t tell him it was lost to a good cause. That would only lead to even more questions. At least I have my replacement; it’s like I never lost it at all. No blood, no foul.

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