Spinetap Spying

Carahya studied the publisher’s information on the book, and memorized the address. She was pretty sure that she knew where the site of Spinetap Publishing was from the address; having lived in the city of Boston her whole life, she knew her way around. It would be wisest, she thought, to not take the bike with her to go out. She had no idea what to expect of a company that knew so much about demons; though they published a book on defense against demons, the existence of the book on summoning was enough to make Carahya nervous. It was impossible for her to know Spinetap’s actual stance on demons at the moment, and she wanted to be sure that her presence was muted. If the company was pro-demon, she did not want to become a target. On the plus side, it would be easiest for her to navigate her way around the city from a birds’ eye view.

Literally.

           She re-loaded her pack, putting the defense book, the summoning tome, and the manuscript into it. After making sure that Mr. Fortier’s gun was still in her pocket and that her wallet was in place in the pack, she made her way to the apartment’s fire escape. She opened up the window and stepped out onto the wrought iron, shutting the window tightly behind her. After looking around quickly to make sure nobody would see, she began to shift. She shrank down in size and her skin rippled in the change. Her clothes and backpack melded to her form and sleek black feathers shot from her skin. Her bone structure changed, her arms becoming wings and her legs becoming thin and twig-like. A simple crow stood where the girl had just been, and took to the air.

The streets sprawled out below her like a map, and it was easy for her to recall where she ought to go. Anyone below would look up and mistake her for any other crow, but if they were to see her up close, they might have thought differently. Her eyes were a piercing green, unnatural for a crow, and she bore a dark grey feather pattern on her back from where the pack was melded. Only the most ignorant birder would mistake her for a completely ordinary American Crow, so she flew high enough to not be noticed. Finally she saw the old mill building that housed the publishing company. She landed on a chain-link fence around the property and watched. Some sort of scuffle appeared to be happening in the back alley. The fight appeared to be between three attackers and two victims, but she needed to get closer to make anything more than that out.

She flew up again and landed on the building’s roof, looking out over the scene. A man had run clean across the alleyway and into the courtyard adjacent, where his second, an enormous hairy demon, was waiting. The three attackers – a young woman with purple wings, a short, blond man, and a slightly older gentleman – were all taking the initiative to go after the man in the courtyard. The woman attempted to fly, while the short man started charging magic. They began to argue, and out of nowhere the gentleman bolted off at an unimaginable speed towards his target. Carahya watched as the gentleman tackled the man and was then struck off by the demon, allowing the man to escape. She noticed the open door below her perch and quietly navigated her way inside.

Blood and dead demons were everywhere. She guessed that some similar fight had happened here, though had no idea at the moment whose side the demons had been on. She perched herself on the frame of a portrait, hanging behind the desk. The man in the portrait was stern and stoic, grey-haired, and wrinkled. The plaque beneath it was branded with the name Reginald Cathburn Sr. When Carahya heard the shuffle of feet approaching the door, she stayed as still as she could and listened carefully to the three figures she had seen attacking earlier. Carahya assumed that when they referred to Cathburn, they were talking about the man she saw running away earlier. That meant that Cathburn had been allied with the demon.

“And these three people came in here and destroyed all these demons…” Carahya mused about the power that it would have taken to take out all the demons that lay about the floor, and surely there must have been more outside this room, as well.

Upon further inspection, the three people seemed to be obviously supernatural. The young woman with wings was addressed as Keera, and was dressed in dark clothes and wore her long red hair loose about her shoulders. Her eyes were piercingly green, much like Carahya’s natural eye color, and her worry for the gentleman’s well-being showed. The gentleman, called Tibias, was older than the others, perhaps in his forties, with few wrinkles and even fewer grays mingled amidst his dark black hair. One eye of his was clear and brown, but the other was paler, and glazed over. From the scars around it, Carahya deduced that he was blind in that eye. He was dressed well, which is why she called him a gentleman over the blond man who was also in the room. This man was around thirty, with a freckle-spotted face and yellow-brown eyes. He was obviously some sort of elf, due to the larger, pointed ears. It wasn’t until later, after he was sent to call upon another of the group’s accomplices, that she learned his name was Royal. The accomplice who showed up was a young man who seemed to be in his twenties, though his hair was a dark grey that hinted otherwise. He, too, had green eyes, and he wore plenty of dark grey and black. He was only there briefly, to take Tibias “back to the office,” and left Keera and Royal to find a way back themselves.

Carahya thought to herself, “If they’re flying back, so am I. I’ve got some questions I need answered. If these guys fight demons, we may be on the same side. But if they just want that tome from the desk to summon more, there’s gonna be trouble.” She followed as Keera lifted Royal and took off, leaving two or three purple feathers behind, floating down to the ground. Suddenly a flash of a memory appeared in Carahya’s mind. She had held a similar purple feather in her hand once, and could see it in her mind’s eye, being released and drifting slowly downward from the Fortiers’ apartment’s balcony. If they knew anything about the Fortiers’ deaths, she needed to know about it.

With a newfound mission and passion for answers, Carahya soared to keep up with the angel. Her wingspan was so much larger, allowing her much faster flight. Finally they landed at what Carahya assumed to be the “office.” What it was meant to be an office for, though, she had no idea. The building was an old, mill-style building nestled into a neighborhood near the Boston Harbor. The door inside was wooden, painted a deep green, and bearing an old, Victorian-era sign that read “Marcus and McDowlle: Piano Tuners” in faded letters. As soon as she was on the ground, she shifted as quickly as she could considering the pain of each transformation, and became a small, black and brown harbor rat. She scurried as fast as she could to the door before it could close behind Royal and Keera, who were arguing as usual and did not notice the rat following behind them. As Carahya went, she looked about her surroundings. Old Victorian wall paper with pink designs was fading and peeling off the walls. A wooden trim ran down the long hallway, which led to two doorways at the end. The first led into what seemed to be a kitchen, but Keera and Royal passed by the room without a glance. They entered through the pink door in the other doorway, leading into a dark room with four desks, where Kole and Tibias were already waiting, Tibias drinking a cup of tea and sitting at his desk, a wooden cane propped up against his chair, while Kole was on the other end of the room, specifically keeping his chilling aura away from the still-recovering Tibias.

Keera gave a sigh of relief when she walked in to find Tibias at his desk. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”

Royal chimed in, “Yeah, you surprised us all there with that demon blood. Man, and I thought you were scary with just the brass knuckles…can you imagine what Tibias could do with that and the demon blood?”

Kole turned to Royal icily and said, “Yes, I am sure we could all imagine it, but it’s a thought we will put from our minds. Tibias will not be using any more demon blood,” and added sternly, looking straight into Royal’s eyes, “And neither will any of you. Understand?”

“Geez, Kole, chill out…” Royal chuckled a bit at the pun and tore his eyes away from Kole’s, unable to keep eye contact with him for much longer. Changing the subject, he asked, “So, we get that book, Tibias?”

“Yes, actually.” He gestured to his desk, where there sat a black tome with silver lettering that Carahya instantly recognized as Ars Daemonibus Susurrit. She crawled closer to the desk, unable to see up onto it as a rat. Tibias continued, “An original copy, in Latin. This must have been what Spinetap was using to be able to translate and copy to create the English replicas.”

As Royal walked forward to examine the book himself, he stepped on the rat’s tail. Carahya sqeaked in protest, unable to vocalize English, but instinctively grabbed the tail instead of simply running like a normal rat would. She couldn’t rationalize her unusual behavior through the pain of a foot stepping on a tail, until it was too late to do so.

“Did that rat just…grab its tail?” Tibias asked, from his seat.

“We have rats? I thought this place was cleared of rodents and the like when the office was put in,” Kole added from where he stood.

“It doesn’t seem very rat-like to me…” Keera chimed in.

“You know, I thought I smelled a rat,” Royal stated, “But before now I thought it was just Tibias.”

Carahya let go her tail. All four were staring at her. She was caught like a deer in the headlights. She could not think of anything smart to do but to simply change back and let them know why she was there. Hopefully they would be the type of demon-killers who would show mercy to a human, even a supernaturally gifted one as she. The rat’s fur bristled as the change happened, and soon enough a full-sized Carahya was standing in the middle of the office, surrounded by its inhabitants on every side. Apparently, each of them had a different reaction.

“What the fuck?!?” Royal exclaimed, taking a single step backwards and standing defensively.

Tibias put down his tea and stood up using the cane. “It looks like we may have some sort of spy,” he mused, hands still shaking gently.

“Who are you? What are you?” Keera ordered, her voice strong and demanding.

“And more importantly,” Kole finished, “Why have you come here?” He held his scythe in his hand, materialized from the shadows, and stared coldly at her.

Frightened, though confident, Carahya responded to the group’s orders. “No. I am no spy. My name is Carahya. I saw what you all did at Spinetap, and I’m here for some answers.”