Visions of an Oracle: Iron and Fluff

Ophelia curtseyed as the Harvest King entered her modest quarters. Ophelia had moved in just a few weeks before, but already she had made herself at home. The young oracle’s one-room hotel space had been fully decorated to look like the inside of a fortune-teller’s wagon thanks to the Spring Queen , in exchange for Ophelia’s talents as an oracle and entertainer.
“Good evening, your majesty! I was not expecting you; how may I be of service to the Autumn Crown?” Ophelia dared not make eye contact until she had secured her favorite veil across her face. Even then she waited to be addressed before raising her head from her bow.
“Oh no, you’re fine! I was just, like, checking up on everyone. Have you been feeling any crazy? I brought my water just in case. Well, I kind of bring it everywhere, but, like, still.” The Harvest King was far more casual than Ophelia expected, although she noted to herself how she had never seen her anywhere particularly formal outside of King Carroll’s coronation.
“No, my King. Queen Penny has kept the other performers and me on the right track towards clarity of mind and purpose.” Ophelia noticed the Harvest King mutter something along the lines of “Penny is who I’m worried about” under her breath in reaction, followed by a slight pause in conversation as the Harvest King slowly realised what she had said aloud.
“My King, if you don’t mind me asking, I must admit I’ve been wondering: how can I repay you for repairing my mind?” Ophelia was a person of principle, regardless of supernatural favors. She owed the Harvest King for giving her mind back, although it did not ease the pain of knowing the future.
“No, no, no! I’m just happy you’re here and safe! King Carroll hasn’t been working you too hard, has he? Anyway, wwweeellllllll, okay there is something I’d like to ask you.”
“Anything, my King. Past, present, or future.” Ophelia sat down at her fortune-telling “table” which hadn’t been moved yet to the theater. Ophelia quickly got into character, her eyes beginning to strain from the growing stream of information into her mind. Staring into infinity, she awaited the Harvest King’s request. As the lights dimmed, an unseen force between them blowing back their hair with a palpable breeze. The only light in the room came from the top of Ophelia’s table, although its source was undetectable. “Ask!”
“Whoa, okay! Um...... so, like, I had a vision the other day, and it all started with me feeling crazy-schoolgirl-jealous of this girl named Mina Sloan . Remy , my boyfriend, totally used to date her, but they’re like totally over, especially since that was a really really long time from now, but she like has a ton of guns but that shouldn’t be scary ‘cause now I’m the King of Fear so I.... why would I be like stupid jealous of her?” The Harvest King was rambling and seemed to have forgotten what she was originally talking about, but she had asked for an answer to a question, and so Ophelia’s sight focused in on this Mina Sloan and her connection with Remy the Fetch King.
It was a cold Chicago night outside the Balaban and Katz Theatre, Sloan had snuck out of the Cresthaven Hotel with her beau. Few people ever paid attention to Remy Reeves the Fetch Guardian, so there had been little sneaking on his part. Reeves was fairly certain the other members of Sloan’s Summer Court were well aware of her truancy; she had called her chauffeur to pick them up. Despite how warm her artic fox boa, she still claimed to be chilled to the bone. Reeves knew a simple Contract would keep her warm even if she was just faking, but he didn’t mind holding her closer.
Sloan was humming a song from Wicked. Reeves had gotten the tickets on impulse, although he later felt guilt about missing Shannon’s performance as the Witch in the previous production during the latter half of October. Her Winter obligations precluded her from performing mid-January. Sloan and Shannon’s relationship was far stronger than Sloan’s relationship with the elusive leader of Cresthaven’s Winter Court, so the two had recently grown closer due to the necessity of Court politics. Sloan would have loved to see Shannon up there on stage singing. Reeves mused the two could now at least share their affection for the role Shannon had embraced.
Before their feet could hit the asphalt of the road in front of the theater, Sloan’s personal limo pulled up in front of them. A second later her cabdriver popped out of the car to open the doors for them. Sloan gave him a slight smile and a nod, while Reeves stopped a second to shake the driver’s hand. “Thanks, Mojo . I really appreciate ya.” The voodoo doll wearing a professional chauffeur’s outfit responding with an enthusiastic handshake and wide smile. He thanked Reeves for the opportunity as properly as he knew how.
Sliding into the backseat, Reeves was greeted by a question from his beau. “Where to next, hot stuff?” Her eyes pierced him. He melted.
“I hope you’re ‘ungry. I have reservations at Alinea. It took four months of side jobs for Queen Rose, God save ‘er, but I booked us the 14-course arrangement. It may be the smallest they ‘ave, but I still hope you like it.” His plan was met with a kiss and a “you shouldn’t have”. She was a hard woman to impress, and an expensive one to treat, but to Reeves she was worth it. This was the first time in his memory where she actually let him plan an evening, so he had to make it count. It was their third anniversary after all, and their first since she turned down his marriage proposal. He still didn’t know what to do with the ring.
For once she seemed excited. He was so entranced by her he failed to notice the headlights of the truck heading straight towards him. The limousine was no match for the speeding delivery truck which hit it perpendicularly, sending the smaller car rolling from the impact.
Reeves came to mere moments before the engine set aflame. The car was on its side against a light pole it had collided with, and the ensuing electrical fire started when sparks hit leaking oil. Kicking out the moonroof, Reeves dragged Sloan to safety before heading back for Mojo. The young fetch awoke just in time to grab his Guardian’s hand and get out of the way of the flame. Reeves felt a familiar switch flip, and his legs kicked into high gear. Mojo would need to find a new pair of shoes and slacks, but luckily the fire only marginally burnt his legs. He would walk away from this. Reeve’s sensitive ears were still ringing from the impact. He tripped; his legs hit the curb on the far side of the street. Sloan was nearby and quickly recovering.
Sloan dusted herself off, inspected her beau, and then moved to the halted truck. Her Wrath pushed the flames away as she walked. The truck was barely damaged, at least externally. Sloan opened the door, recoiling from the stench. Quickly pulling the driver onto the ground, she checked his breath and heartbeat. Reeves already knew the answer. Now with the flames away from the windshield he could see the blood splattered across it. The driver was dead. This would not be the first thing Sloan would inform him about their “assailant”.
“He’s a Fetch.” She stood up. She didn’t seem to mind the dirt and motor oil on the street staining her knees. She never did. It was one of the many things Reeves would never understand about Sloan. If there weren’t more pressing matters to attend to, he would have shrugged it off remembering how Lula Kent was always willing to get a favor in exchange for getting Sloan’s clothes laundered. It was always disturbing to Reeves how desensitized Sloan could be. For a woman so full of life she was completely unaffected by violence. The acts she commits defending the freehold... and yet she sleeps so soundly.
Reeves focused. His vision was getting blurry. He worried he had a concussion, but he didn’t have time to think about that. Heading for the dead automaton, Reeves pulled the dead man’s baseball cap off. “I know.. knew him. This is one of those Fetches I was talking about.”
It took Sloan a second to recall, but her eyes grew large with the memory. “This was one of the Fetches kidnapped from town?”
“Wilson Jacobs. Built by a Fae named The Alchemist. Owned an auto shop in downtown. Loved his two nephews as if they were his own. Disappeared six months ago.” The blood on the windshield had already turned to black sludge. The robot made of bronze was falling to pieces, his joints disconnecting. The blood smeared on his face, however, remained red.
Sloan saw something in the shadows. Scratching her finger on the pavement set her finger alight with a miniature star, shining strong enough to fill the nearby alleyways with daylight. They weren’t alone. The two knew their duties. Remy headed for the crashed limousine’s trunk, grabbing a tire iron. Sloan pulled a deringer out of each boot. The guns had been an insistence on Reeve’s part, who always worried about Sloan ending up in a situation like this. Summer Courts made enemies; Cresthaven was far from an exception.
“They match the descriptions of our missing Fetches?” Sloan had both guns pulled. Their company wielded wrenches, shovels, and other tools. Reeves guarded her back. “I don’t recognize all of ‘em, but all of the missing persons I know of are present and accounted for.” Reeves paused. “Ello chaps! ‘Aving a merry Saturday are ya?” The other Fetches seemed to murmuring something under their breath. “Well... the missus and I are going to ‘ead off. Dinner reservations, you know.” They moved closer.
“We are The Children. You keep Mother and Father from Our Brothers and Sisters. You lock Them up in your fortress when They must come HOME.”
“Henry Wallace. Corporate Salesman. Recently engaged to his highschool sweetheart. Missing three weeks.” Reeves sighed. He’d been running his own investigation since the third Fetch, Amy Nicholson, disappeared. She was at his six o’clock with a sharpened metal fence post and breathing heavily, her eyes stained as red as the blood on her cardigan.
“Come on friends! Let’s just put everything down and talk this out!” Reeves wasn’t optimistic his amicable approach was going to work. Sloan fired off a shot outside of his peripheral, seconds before yelling, “Get ready handsome! They’re not down for talking!”
“The Children of Cresthaven will be Freed, and We will be a Family again...”
Mojo, laying down between them, struggled to get up, but Reeves lightly pushed him back down with a soft hand on his shoulder. “Stay down Mojo! Nurse those feet in case we have to leg it!” Mojo complied, peeling off the cloth fused to his burnt skin. Meanwhile, Amanda Oates, a young university girl, tried to hit Reeves over the head with a 2’x4’. A swing from his tire iron quickly had her head hitting asphalt. Sloan fired off a few more shots. Mr. Wallace grabbed Reeves by his arms, forcing the other man into an involuntary wrestling match. Ms. Nicholson seized the opening, plunging her makeshift pike into Reeves’ side. He screamed from the pain of metal and rust piercing beneath his ribcage. For a second, he saw red. Throwing Mr. Wallace to the ground, he grabbed his tire iron off of the ground and beat Mr. Wallace until he came back to his senses. As Ms. Nicholson went to pull her stake out of Reeves she met a similar fate. Using his and Mojo’s belts, the two female Fetches, Nicholson and Oates, were subdued. Sloan’s targets were subsequently dispatched. Sloan avoided lethal zones, aiming to cripple rather than kill. With bullets in their legs, they quickly disengaged to curl up in pain.
“Nine wounded. No casualties” Sloan was as curt as ever.
“Nine broken toys. How foolish to think they were Children.” Twin voices speaking in tandem came from the rooftop above a nearby pharmacy which had been closed for years.
“No matter, we still broke some of them. Six little fledglings musing themselves as guards, keeping us from our Children. We hav e no need for these broken toys anymore.” Sloan and Reeves were spared but one small glance at the terror of Mother and Father holding hands above them before the fetches around them began to snap, their appendages wriggling in random directions and breaking before separating from their bodies, beheading and maiming the innocent people brainwashed and reprogrammed by forces they had blissfully lived their lives unaware of. Soon their flesh turned to metals, woods, cloth, and pelt, before disintegrating further. When they looked back up, Mother and Father were gone.
“We have to warn the Nightwatch.”
But it was too late. Mother and Father didn’t lie. Six of the Nightwatch had been herded away from the rest and beaten to death in different parts of the city. Sloan was to be their seventh. Sloan was severely punished for sneaking out during Winter, and Mojo was taken to the hospital. Sloan’s insurance covered the accident, but she decided to donate the money to the families of the missing persons anonymously. Captain Harmon was put in charge of tracking Mother and Father’s movements, and the routing of their fetch mindslaves appeared to ward them off, despite their claims of the fetches’ frivolity. Sloan asked Reeves to stay in her Summer suite, more for his mental state than hers, but he refused.
The lights sprang back to their full intensity, hurting the Harvest King’s eyes as they adjusted. Ophelia’s faced had blackened veins creeping up on her cheeks, and her head rolled back as the unseen wind between the two died down. “My apologies, my King, but reading this Fate has tired me. I will have to rest before attempting to read Fate again.”
“Whoa, no, you do what you gotta do. I’ll, ah, I’ll come check up on you later.”
Ophelia walked the King to the door.
“Please, do not worry about me. You are pushing yourself for the safety of this freehold. You need rest more than I.”
“Yes, but...”
And the door slid softly closed.
Category:Fiction