“So let me get this straight,” the assassin says. A strange turn of phrase. “While I was...out of it, you felt the necromancer’s magic, but chose to chase after me instead while I was acting like a maniac?” she asks. Hollyhock opens the door to her apartment and lets me in.

“Will you stop calling yourself crazy? You’re not crazy.”

“If it walks like a duck,” she says, turning on the a.c.

“Huh?” 

“...It’s a thing people say. I’m just saying if the shoe fits.”

“In any case, yes, I felt their magic.”

“Fuck...my bad,” she faults herself.

“I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad. I told you because we have to act fast. It was a little over an hour ago. I have to prepare a potion, I need a map of the city, and I need your help,” I say. 

“Is there time for me to get a quick shower?”

I’d actually like one myself, and I almost suggest we take one together but that would prove far more distracting. 

“Yes, it’ll take a little time to make the potion anyway.”

“Aight, quick five-minute shower,” she says. The assassin starts undressing as she heads to the bathroom. 

I go to my trunk to get the needed ingredients. Turns out I have some lithium with me. I grab a handful of Rosemary leaves, Dokuvisc spores, cocoocoa dust, and the rest of the ingredients I need. 

The minutes go by as I grind them together in a mortar. The pestle, made from the skull of a T-Rex, performs the job excellently. 

When I notice Hollyhock again, she’s already dressed with a towel on her head. The assassin turns on a device and checks something. 

“What is that?” I ask. 

“A printer,” she answers. 

“Now you’re bullshitting me, printers are huge.”

“You really need to update your technology in IronHenge, huh? Next, you’re gonna say that you still have cassette tapes.”

“Why, what happened to them?” I ask. She just shakes her head. 

“Doesn’t matter, I’m going to make some coffee, you want some?”

“You keep saying coffee like it’s a real thing”

“There’s no fucking way you don’t know what coffee is, I’m not buying it,” she replies.

“You don’t have to buy it,” I mumble under my breath.

“What was that?” She asks.

“Nothing!” I say clearer. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beaker, would you?”

“Yeah, let me get my mad scientist kit. You want me to get you a microscope too?” Hollyhocks answers. 

“My mentor always says that sarcasm is a soul screaming out to be taken seriously.”

“Your mentor sounds like someone I’d like to shoot in the face.”

I briefly consider the possibility of them meeting and the results are disastrous.

‘That wouldn’t end well.’ I find a beaker that I took with me. 

“Never mind, I found one.”

“Phew,” she says “that’s a load off my mind.”

“Keep up the attitude, missy. See where it gets you.”

“If it’s where you are, I’m sure it’ll be interesting,” she responds. “Wanna make coffee but I don’t want to wait.” The assassin prepares a pot for “coffee” and then gathers the pictures she “printed out”. I add water from lake Logres to the beaker and set a small fire under it. The beak floats in place just a few inches over the counter. Opening up the cupboards I realize that a lot of Hollyhock’s dishes are identical. 

I guess she doesn’t mind it, and she did live alone so what would it matter? I grab one of her orange mugs and wait for the potion to finish boiling. Hollyhock assembles the papers on her low table in the living room. 

“Okay, I have a map of the city.” She produces a pen from her pocket, checks her phone, and draws a little circle on it. “This is where we were when I blacked out. You’ll have to walk us through what happened.” 

I wanted to ask her why she walked to that particular alley, but it doesn’t seem like she’d know the answer. Only Tamara or Koki’O know but won’t share. Hollyhock wants to focus on the necromancer instead, so we will. 

I walk over and examine the map, usually, this is done with a live map but it’s detailed enough to work. 

“When we start, I have to ask that you be as quiet as possible. I want as few distractions as possible.”

“Okay. You still haven’t told me what it is,” she gestures to the potion brewing. With a turn of my hand the beaker spins in place. 

“Have you ever taken a focus enhancing supplement before?” I ask her. She licks the top row of her teeth. 

“I unintentionally did cocaine once,” she answers. 

“....how do you unintentionally do cocaine?”

“I was fighting this guy, he threw an open bag of coke in my face and I reflexively inhaled. I was grinding my teeth for the rest of the day. Also cleaned my entire apartment.” 

“Okay well this is like that but much stronger and without the crash. It’ll put me in a state of hyperfocus and memory recall, I’ll retrace our steps and we’ll get a general location of the necromancer.” I make the beaker and mug float over to me. 

“Couldn’t make my coffee come over here too?”

“No, I’m too busy.” I pour my potion into the mug. She sucks her teeth at me. 

“You just wanna check out my ass while I walk over there,” she says, getting up. I can’t even refute the claim because my eyes immediately land on it. The assassin grabs a mug from her cupboards, if she thinks it’s weird she has identical dishes she makes no indication of it. Once she pours her brew she comes back and sets her cup close to mine. 

“Okay,” she holds her pen in her hand and takes a sip of her drink “ready?”

I sip mine, the taste of cocoocoa overpowers the other ingredients, making it a sweet concoction. Almost instantly I feel my heart beating faster to pump blood quicker through my body. Everything around me comes into extreme detail. The sound of the air conditioner roars but I soon push it out of my mind. I close my eyes before it all becomes too much.

A knock blasts from the door. Hollyhock gets up to answer it. 

“I’m so sorry to bother you, but we’re having a bake sale at church and I realized that I don’t have any tupperware. Do you have any I can borrow?” a voice asks, it sounds like the woman who interrupted us before. She seems to have a knack for it. Hollyhock stands in the doorframe to block what we’re doing as if she’d understand it.

“Yeah, hang on a sec,” the assassin responds in a soft voice. She doesn’t close the door and walks very quietly to her kitchen. Grabbing some things from her cupboard she then gives them to her neighbor. 

“Thank you so much! I’ll return them as soon as possible.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hollyhock says before closing the door. She comes back to me, “Ready?” 

I nod. 

Thinking back to earlier today, I recall in exact detail what we were doing in the auto shop. I followed Hollyhock as she walked to the left. 

“We went to the left,” I say aloud. Hearing the pen on the paper I continue detailing our path through the city. As the high alertness feeling dulls I sip my drink again and put it down. We keep up this routine for a few minutes until I hear Hollyhock sip her drink and make a noise. 

“What the hell?” she says aloud. I open my eyes to see we accidentally switched places with our mugs. Hollyhock just drank mine. 

‘That’s not good.’ 

“You probably only have a few seconds before it takes effect so I need you to listen carefully to me. That potion is going to increase your heart rate to have more blood go to the memory parts of your brain.” She sits up a bit straighter and I can hear her heart beating louder in her chest. “You’re about to have a clarity of mind you probably never felt before. Anything you might think of, even things that are deeply buried, will consume your thoughts; so try to keep an even breathing rate, and just focus on the task. It’ll wear off in a little while.”

She nods rapidly. 

“Okay, I can do that.” Her eyes are dilated and she’s clenching her jaw. I’m not actually sure how quickly it’ll wear off for her. I’ve practiced with this potion many times, I know how to focus on one thing at a time, but she must have a million things she’s thinking about right now. Then again, I saw her display incredible focus in chaotic situations, maybe she’ll be fine. 

I grab my mug and move it closer to me.

“We’re getting close,” I tell her, keeping my eyes open to watch. She’s jittery as she traces the pen along the map. “I felt the pull of the necromancer to my right, pass the other side of the street. Feels like…” It’s hard to gauge a distance of a magical pull “Maybe, forty meters away?” Hollyhock draws a “V” to encompass the range. 

“We’ll check the buildings around there, see if there’s anything that’ll fit the description,” Hollyhock says. “I’m sure we’ll find something.” She then quickly looks around, like she’s searching for something.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. The potion is starting to wear off for me. 

“Yeah, I’m good, I’m wired but good. I’m cool. I’m cool.” She answers, then her eyes land on the TV. Hollyhock moves closer to it. The device is turned off, so only her reflection is visible on the screen. She stops before it, sitting on her knees. “You think my parents would recognize me?”

“Huh?” The potion has worn off for me.

“If they’re still alive, if they were in this city, you think they recognize me on the street?” She asks again, touching her cheek. “Pass the scars and tattoos, you think they could see each other on my face? Whose eyes I have, which nose I inherited, who I smile like?”

The thought that she’d ever want to meet or know her parents never occurred to me, maybe it never occurred to her either. I don’t know what to say.

“Yes, you have very unique features,” I tell her. 

“You think so?” She doesn’t turn from the screen, still examining her face.

I walk up and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah. Come on, we have a necromancer to catch.” 

She looks at herself one more time then stands up. I hold her hand to keep her focus somewhere. 

“You okay to drive?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good, because I still don’t know how to.”

“I’ll teach you.”

Chapter 15 End