He
knocked on the front door, and rang the doorbell twice. While he waited for an
answer, he checked his phone and saw that he still hadn’t gotten a reply yet. He
walked around to the side of the house, to the picket fence. Although it was at
least seven feet tall, he was still able to get a grip and haul himself over.
The backyard was, as far as Dave
could ever tell, a shrine. Dave had almost forgotten about it. Flowers of all
colors and sizes circled around the statue at the center. The statue was Greek
looking, about six feet tall. It was a goddess of some kind that held an open
book in her left hand. From the pages dripped water. Probably supposed to
represent knowledge of some kind. The right hand was pressed against the
statue’s temple in a manner that implied she was deep in thought.
Elys had shown it to him once. She’d
said that the statue was of the Phrenic Witchseer.
Dave had never seen it like this
though. The eyes were spray-painted black, two dark circles, and the right hand
had been too. The water jets that the book had were clogged with tar, so that
instead of flowing out in a continuous stream, it pulsed irregularly. A crack
had formed at the base of the hand and water spurted from there like blood.
“Do you see?” Elys said from behind
him.
Dave turned, “Girls need to quit
sneaking up on me. Jesus. I’m going to get a heart attack and just die one
time, and then the girl is going to think I was being funny.”
“I wouldn’t think it was funny at
all,” Elys said, “It’d be a shitty joke.”
“So, Kyle did this?” Dave asked,
looking over at the fountain.
“Yeah,” she said, “It’s complicated,
but he maybe betrayed my trust. So now he’s gotta pay for his actions. You
know. It’s only fair that way.”
“Sure,” Dave said, “This is like
your religion he blasphemed against here.”
“It’s more than a religion,” Elys
said, “But I don’t expect a Chalker to understand. What did you bring?”
“This,” Dave said, pulling the knife
quickly from his jacket, flashing it out in front of him, turning it so the sun
glinted off of its freshly sharpened edge, “And a flashlight and my phone and
stuff.”
“What do you have your phone for?”
She asked.
“Just in case I end up needing a
phone,” Dave said, “You never know. We might need it.”
“Ok. And you don’t think maybe that
knife is a bit excessive? You think we’re going to be fighting bears or
something?”
“Big knives are scarier than smaller
knives,” Dave said, “It’ll make sure that no one threatens us. As long as I’m
wielding it, I’m pretty sure we’ll be safe from thugs and stuff.”
“You mentioned that there were
people other than cops who might be after you,” Elys said, “Do you think we’re trying to get you?”
“You say we but I still don’t buy it,” Dave said, “You’re not really a
member of the society yet, are you?”
“I passed initiation a week ago,”
she said, “Did you see my dad?”
“Yeah,” Dave said, “I looked away, I
hope he didn’t see my face or anything.”
“I told him to leave you alone,” she
said, “He said he would, but told me to tell you to back off of the Crown, whatever
the fuck that means.”
“Elys, it’s the Candle Crown he’s talking about, and you agreed to help me steal it
if I helped you with this thing tonight.”
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