Blue Negotiations

A blinding blue light filled the office's back wall, a single pane of glass looking out into a watery abyss beneath the Nemean Sea. A glow-whale stared through the window of the pitch black room, eyes fixated on the lion-man asleep in his plush office chair. The lion growled, head held up by a clutched fist. The intercom on his desk turned on, the token a mandrake carved into a rectangular brick, speakers drilled into what was previously the creature's cheeks.
"Agent Ziegler," the feminine voice rung in his ears, "you are needed in Conference Room Twelve. Report immediately."
The lion's eyes snapped open, a slight grin forming on his maw. Rotating the chair to face his mahogany desk, he pressed his finger into the mandrake's forehead. "Very well. I'm on my way."
The lights, a coral chandelier and anemone can-lights, illuminated the room at a flick of the lion's finger. Xun Yvain Ziegler read the golden nameplate he fastened to his suit's right breast, the only other objects on his desk a worn newspaper and a tarot deck. Drawing a single card, the lion tossed it back on the desktop with disgust. "Hanged Man again? But who?"
The lion shook his head, dismissing his musings and stuffing the folded newspaper into the pocket inside his jacket before hurrying to his door, the front of an elevator from an antiquated hotel. The button marked "C12" was pressed, the lion ignoring the sudden jerk shifting the entire room as it moved, corkscrewing around an underwater coil until his door led to their's.
Conference Room Twelve was elegant in its simple furnishings, a landscape by Van Gogh resting above the waist-high cabinetry along the wall behind the head of the table. The conference table itself bowed outward on both sides at its middle, designed and built to seat thirty, although the lion only saw two others in the room.
"Step forward" said the man with the long, grey moustache and brown bowler hat at the head of the table, who leaned forward with his hands intertwined, his elbows resting on the table's surface in front of him.
The lion obliged, his posture rigid, with his left hand hidden in his pant's pocket fiddling with the pocketwatch inside. He stopped behind the chair at his end of the table. He did not sit.
The third in the room, a blue-scaled man whose head was the shape of a Doberman Pinscher's, wrote vigorously notes of an unknown nature on an ebony clipboard, stopping periodically to adjust his spectacles and click his pen.
The man at the head of the table, moving nothing but his mouth, spoke again. "Z, you're needed in Austin, Texas. This assignment will complete our negotiations for your proposed foray to Dallas."
The man pulled a briefcase out from under the table, sliding it down the length of the table to Z, the lion, who grabbed it by its handle as it reached him. "Are these terms acceptable?"
Z nodded. "I trust the timeframe is acceptable? Death is not an Arcana to keep waiting, and you know how I work."
The man did not speak, instead outstretching his arm, palm up, towards the exit perpendicular to their locked gaze. Darkness washed over the room, a spotlight on the ceiling's center aimed at the door which opened itself, the sound of a bustling city street creeping in from outside. The door slammed shut behind Agent Z as he passed through it.
Z hailed a pedicab and took it to The Triangle on Lamar Boulevard. Grabbing a seat at the Italian Market, he set the briefcase on the table, clicking it open. The contents were as he expected: an encrypted dossier, a ciphering device, and a pair of sunglasses set with lens which filter out extraneous code added to further obfuscate the paperwork's records from prying eyes.
It took some doing, as the amount of information put into the two profiles Z recieved was significantly more than he was used to. It wasn't often he was given images to work with as well. He transcribed everything onto a blank square in the Business Section of his newspaper, including drawings of his "clients". His handwriting became Helvetica, his graphite became ink, the moment he lifted his pencil away from the page. The noonday sun leaked in through the window onto his back.
A blur of city lights and sounds flew by, Agent Z opening his eyes to see a massive metal star in front of him. To his left was a bench with a perfect view of the museum he now faced, the Italian Market now miles away. Nonchalantly resting one leg on the other's knee, the Agent flipped his newspaper open, his upper body hidden behind the open pages: the Sports Section.
The words floated away from his line of sight, the white paper transparent for his eyes alone. Here he could see everyone coming and going through the museum's front yard inconspicuously, letters hovering above their place on the page to list their names, numbers calculating their percentage likeness to the transcribed dossier.
Based on his predictions this was the most likely place for them to show up, although Z still tapped his foot anxiously. He needed to get to Dallas before the next sunrise, else his trip there would be fruitless.
Thankfully for the veteran mediator he didn't have to wait long. Just past an hour of observation later, a peculiar pair exited the museum's entryway, both far overdressed for a day viewing exhibits in early May.
"Tis saddening to see a museum so full of incorrectness."
"Remember, Charles, twas made by mortal hand. Fallible hand."
"True Margaret, but we did still learn much, even in the face of udderless cowboys and a cult worshipping a single star which lays in seas of stripes instead of burning."
"As stars are wont to do, at least in this world. Everything here is born and laid to rest by consistency, as baffling as such a matriarch could be."
The newspaper pinged the odd couple at 100%.
"True, Margaret."
"Double true, Charles."
"But again, we did not learn nothing. That automated theatre..."
"Filling our cushions with live, flesh-eating snakes was a brilliant idea, despite their lackluster, non-flesh-eating use of it."
"And they certainly lacked your showmanship, Margaret."
"And your insightful observations, Charles!"
The Historians: members of the Gentry who looked the part; they wore the guise of a red-haired Victorian lord and lady wearing a tapioca-colored suit and dress respectively.
Agent Z stood up, folding his paper and returning it to his jacket pocket before approaching them, pocketwatch in hand.
"M'lord and lady, if you would please join me." Z clicked his pocketwatch, the six minute timer beginning. The Lord perked up.
"I feel supernaturally compelled to listen to this man, Margaret."
"As am I, Charles. Let us hear him out."
They bowed at each other, then interlocking arms to walk happily side-by-side behind the mediator. They followed him back to his bench, sitting down at its twin perpendicular to him.
"Lords Historians, the Legacy of the Black Apple has sent me to negotiate for your return to Arcadia, after it came to my superiors' attention that you entered city limits to attend a friend's funeral but hadn't left since. So, with the exception of death or impeachment of freedom, what can I do for you in return for your overdue homecoming?"
"I like this man."
"Of course you do, Charles. For six minutes you have to. We have to."
"Now Margaret, we only have to be open-minded for six-minutes. I like him on his own merit. Now no dawdling, he only has so much time. Tell him."
"Mister Mediator, we would like to bring another fae-kind into the discussion. We want things from him."
Z pulled out his paper again, opening it to the World News section. A large rectangle of the page was made of mirrored glass. Z folded the paper so only the reflective pane showed.
"Quite the bag of tricks you have there, our wily negotiator!"
"We'll be needing to speak with the Magister of Thornwatch, please."
Z breathed a sigh of relief; it was a contact he already had. "I will make it so post-haste, m'lords."
Rubbing the mirror with his cuff, their reflections three faded away, replaced by a female changeling with a black bob cut, furiously clacking away on a typewriter.
"Miss Brant?"
The woman jumped in her seat at the unexpected sound of her name. Running a hand through her hair, she turned to look at her callers.
"Oh! Agent Ziegler! I didn't see you-"
"-If you could patch me through to the Magister please. My timer has almost run out." Z cut her off. He could hear his pocketwatch ticking louder.
"Please hold!"
The reflection became a roiling mist. Shortly, the mist faded, replaced by a frostbitten skull in a green hood.
"Agent Ziegler, how may I-?"
"Magister, I have here the Lord Historians. They wish to negotiate in exchange for returning to their Domain. M'lords?"
"We want his body. You know who."
"So direct, Charles! We're willing to sweeten the deal."
"We must sweeten the deal, Margaret. We have to."
The Magister looked troubled. "I cannot release the body of a Thornwatch Officer. Besides, his body is important."
The Historians bore their too-white teeth cordially, smiling.
"We know what you've done to it."
"What you do to him."
"But we cannot take it or him."
"We are bound."
"We agreed to never take him back."
"So the deal must be rearranged. Sweetened."
"We transfer the agreement to another."
"He left everything to you, or rather you took it all."
"So you must be the one to agree."
"Else we won't get him back..."
"The same way we found him to begin with!"
"So the sweetening: We'll give you one of our other exhibits. We'll set them free with the same deal he recieved."
"And you give us his body. Then we'll go home."
The Magister hesistated. In his inaction Z spoke up, hurriedly saying " Sir, I don't know what you need this corpse for, but it's either hold onto it and be responsible for a fellow's continued stine on the other side and let m'lords continue their vacation, or set kin free and prevent a few others from sharing their fate. Decide quickly."
The skull sighed, cold mountain fog bellowing out his mouth. "Fine. Accepted, like it was a real choice..."
"Did you hear that, Margaret?"
"I did, Charles! He's finally coming home!"
The deal was struck, the newspaper and pocketwatch put away.
"We were looking forward to staying in this state a bit longer. We've heard so much about two local boogeymen who go by Al and Mo, and we wished to meet them."
"Charles, remember, we must endeavor to speak as the natives do."
"Ah, ever vigilant Margaret, I thank you. Al a Mo. We hear they live in some sort of church near here."
"We also wished to see Austin a Houston in the Actor form of their titles. So rare to see Domains such as these so out and about."
"Apart from Kerrville of course. Vain upstart that he is."
"Oh! A perfect chance for the colloquilism we learned, Charles!"
"Right Margaret! Bless his heart!"
Z chuckled, guiding the two Old Ones to the nearest Hedge Gate and seeing them off. "Another peaceful resolution in the bag. Now for the real reason I did all this. Now for Dallas..."
The lion sharpened his claws. Dallas wasn't far, not for someone of his abilities. He had to be ready. The cards told him someone would die if he wasn't at his best, someone he had no reason to want alive. Even so, he did.
As he made his way north, the rental car reeking of artificial air freshners. Z eyed the objects he had negotiated for. A hexagonal lantern stood upright in the back seat; a palm-sized wooden vial rolling back and forth on the center console. Z sighed and opened the glovebox: a magnum, fully loaded, rested inside. It was going to be a long night.
Category:Fiction