Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (19 page)

Eric blushed but then looked downcast.

Kallen selected several of one brand. "Right, you’re
in the doghouse..."

Eric nodded, miserable.

"Buy her something, like a book. A big thick one with
tiny font and words that are five syllables long. She'll eat it up and have you
for dessert."

"Basilard told me to give her time alone...to sort
out her feelings."

Kallen flicked his forehead with her free hand. "Your
mentor is a middle-aged man. I am a teenage girl. Who are you gonna believe
when it comes to a teenage girl's heart?"

"Touché."

They paid for their liquid energy and discussed the merits
of their respective brands on their way to the Dragon’s Lair. Kallen preferred
hers with a kick that kept her on high volume for hours. Eric differed by
selecting a milder formula that simply took away his fatigue and did not make
him jittery. The one thing they agreed on was that both were preferable to Mana
Juice; it was too expensive for the little effect it had on drowsiness.

Kallen stopped at the door to the guild.

"May you enjoy your new celebrity, Second
Choice," she said. "It's not going anywhere."

"I'll survive it somehow, First Choice," he said.
"Do you have any plans?"

"Emily's celebratory party for winning the Winter
Blaze Festival sculpture contest."

"She won?"

“Yep!" She rattled her purchases. “I'll see you at
the Summit."

She pulled her staff out and then blew him a kiss. A bolt
of lightning struck her and she was gone. Eric started to puzzle out how she
did that but decided to shelf it for another day and entered the guild instead.

"Good morning, Eric!" Mia said with her bright
smile. "How's my favorite grendel?"

It was hard not to smile back.

"Good...Listen, Mia… I've got some girl
trouble."

She leaned forward. "Ooohhh! Do tell!"

"Before I say anything, I want to make one thing
clear—I don't want to see it on your blog."

Mia held out her pinky and they pinky-promised.

"It's a friend of mine from school. I asked her out
and... it's complicated….”

"You should write her a poem. That's what my fan club
does and if I were interested in any of you, it would work."

Eric slouched. "Do you have to put it like
that?"

Mia pulled a paper fan out of nowhere and smacked him with
it.
"You're interested in this schoolgirl, right? Then write her a
poem. You can compose one while you wait for the others."

Instead, Eric sat back and put out a call to Kasile.

I don't trust words or shallow gifts,
the queen
replied.
It has to be a grand act to win my affection. Siron and Culmus did
so, but that snake Lunas...I would incinerate him if not for the international
disaster it would cause.

Does that mean slaying an A class monster or retrieving
some priceless treasure?

Yes, it would, if you lived in the 10th century. I'm
sure you can think of something that hasn't been done a thousand times in
medieval romances.

When the team assembled, Mia delivered a handful of
mission bills. As she said the previous night, all of them were interviews with
information outlets. Some were historians asking about Dengel; others were talk
shows asking about his mutation and still others were the tabloids Mia offered
to cut up.

"I've been out of the country for over a month, out
of the
continent
," Eric said to the first professional gossiper. "What
would I know about K—Her Majesty’s love life?"

It was a coffee place known as Sun Coins. Three-fourths of
Team Four sat at one table; Tiza was stuffing scones, Nolien sipped tea, and
Basilard read his dirty book. Eric sat at another table with a columnist
searching for dirt on the local rulers.

There were all sorts of rumors flying about the presumed
heir to the Bladi Clan, the working courtship of the Heir of Heleti with a mysterious
commoner, and Kasile with the handsome Prince Lunas residing in her palace. All
of these made Eric scowl.

"There's a rumor that you have some kind of
mythical-magical link with Her Majesty and it's why you're always near when she
needs you."

"No, that's just good planning on Tasio—The
Trickster! I meant The Trickster!" he shouted helplessly when the writer
smirked and wrote something down.

As the columnist explained, Kasile had been displaying odd
behavior in public lately. Lunas was often at her side when she spoke and, off
camera, they had been walking suspiciously close to each other. Paparazzi even
got a shot of him pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

That snake has tarnished my image! To think he would
exploit my pain to encourage weakness! He’s just the sort of scoundrel Father
warned me about! I have to get back at him.

Does that mean I can eat him?

No. This must be subtle and unrelated. I will use the
Mana Mutation Summit to shame him and discredit his country’s society. The
information you provided and your presence will do nicely for this purpose.
Also, engage him in childish arguments if you can so I can mediate.

“Mr. Watley, is something wrong?”

Eric slitted his eyes and the columnist flinched. “
I felt a disturbance in the local
leyline. I apologize for ignoring you.
”

“Th…that’s quite all right…”

Repeat after me and I may forgive you for causing my
humiliation.

“If Her Majesty didn’t do something scandalous every week,
you’d go out of business. I think Her Majesty is simply being a friendly host
to a guest who is visiting a country that does not share his views. It’s
possibly an attempt to repair the damage King
Epidermis
has done to the
relationship between Ataidar and Latrot with his repeated land incursions and
brainwashing of diplomats. After spending time with a successful teenage ruler,
I think Loony Lunas will have a better idea of how to rule on his own,
if
his father ever lets him.”

The columnist hurried to record everything. “Can I quote
you on that?”

Loony Lunas? Really?
“Be my guest.”
You know I’m
gonna get flack for this.

Better you than me.

Another mission was a live TV show called
Check Out!
With Starven Michaels
. Unlike the tabloid, all four members of Team Four
appeared on camera. Tiza talked about her experience with monsanity, Nolien and
Basilard about their family’s medical practices and Eric, the star, about his
recovery. The host asked him about his identity as a demon, his mutation, and
other things relating to his new life.

“I’m impressed," Eric asked.

“
You’re
impressed with
me
?”

“You’re not at all worried that I’ll eat you.”

"Being The Trickster's Choice, we all kinda expected
this would happen."

Tasio appeared on Eric's right. "Are you saying I'm
predictable!?"

Starven pulled a cable and a bucket of water placed over
Tasio's position spilled its contents all over him. It was strategically
arranged before the show began. Now the trickster god was sopping wet and
dripping.

"Yes."

Tasio blew a raspberry and disappeared.

It took hours to reach this last interview and, as
Basilard predicted, Eric needed an energy shot to make it this far. His legs
jittered and he gestured when speaking. Somehow, Kallen switched their bottles
while they were talking earlier, and now he was agitated and anxious. Eventually,
he blurted out, “What do I do about girl trouble!?”

Starven was speechless. The audience was stunned. The
studio was silent.

“Excuse me; did you say you have girl trouble?”

“Yeah….I asked her out yesterday, but she didn’t say ‘yes’
or ‘no.’”

“What did she say?”

“She said ‘busy.’”

“How long have you been friends?”

“Months. Almost a year.”

 “Then you must be good friends. How about you talk things
out with her? See where you stand with her before you make another move. Both
of you should be on the same page relationship-wise before you take such a big
step.”

“That simple?”

“Simple is good.”

“Yeah! Simple
is
good!”

Eric ran off stage and out of the studio. Again, there was
silence. No one knew what to say, least of all Starven. None of their focus
groups imagined that Eric would run away to talk with his crush. At last, he
turned to the camera and said, “
That
, ladies and gentlemen, is what Her
Majesty promises for every victim of mana mutation; the opportunity to worry
about crushes instead of monsanity.” 

The grendel ran like a juggernaut to Roalt Public High.
Then he waited until the bell rang. He fidgeted, hopped, and felt more
adrenaline than fighting D-class monsters. This meeting would determine the
course of their relationship or if they could even have a friendship anymore.

The students stomped out, but Annala paused when she saw
him. She bit her lip and told the demons to leave without her. Revas made a
comment that made her blush and Oito hiss with laughter. Red faced, she pushed
them away. Then she shyly approached Eric and gestured back inside the school
building. There was a bench in the main hall. She waited for him to sit and
then sat on the other side.

"I've been thinking," she said bashfully,
"and I came to the conclusion that I owe you an apology and an
explanation."

She stroked her hair and spoke to empty air.

"When I was thirteen, my parents took me to a family
reunion. It was a beautiful day. I saw my great-grandpa Ferdinand and my great grandma
Mildred and Uncle Felix and over a dozen cousins. Everyone was happy. Then Aunt
Tris arrived with her human husband, Mori. That year marked their one hundred
and seventieth anniversary; yes, one seven zero."

Immortal
humans were nothing new to Eric. The record keeper for his guild was older than
the mountain housing it and so was the Royal Archiver. During his nine-day
library stay, he learned about the Circle of Noitearc, a religion whose clergy
could live for centuries and longer.

Eric
knew where this was going and opened his mouth. Annala shushed him.

"He
was healthy; no blindness, no deafness, no physical infirmity, no chronic heart
trouble, no senility, no liver spots, nothing. He did everything he could to
keep himself in good condition, and for a while, it worked. For a man two
hundred years old, he didn't look a day over forty. One time, he dyed his hair
and called himself 'a golden-haired immortal.'"

Eric
chuckled and then quickly shushed himself.

Annala
smiled wanly. "It's okay. It
was
funny at the time. Even Meza
admitted it was funny and he's not allowed in human settlements. Mori told many
jokes and many of them were at his own expense. In fact, he was telling a joke
that very night. Everyone was laughing and Mori suddenly fell face first into
his soup. They laughed louder, thinking it was another joke...but...but..."
Eric moved an arm around her, but she recoiled and jumped away. "He never
raised his head! He just lay there! He wasn't even blowing bubbles!"

Still,
she refused to look at him.

"He
died that night. No one could figure out how. All that super magical special
chaos technology and it couldn’t do a
fiend fornicating flatulence!
His
body just...stopped working. Aunt Tris couldn't accept it and went deep into
denial. She continued ‘walking with him,’ and even carried on conversations that
only she could hear. She became violent when anyone tried to tell her the
truth. The last time I saw her... she was in The Trickster's Shelter." She
paused. "I believe humans call them 'mental hospitals.'"

She
finally looked Eric in the eye.

"That's
why I'm busy today, and
every
day you want to be alone with me. I could
blink and you'd be a rotting corpse."

“If
he were a necrocrafter, he would never die,” said a new voice. Sitting between them
was a pale woman in a black gown. "Eric Watley, make a contract with
me."

On reflex, Annala jumped away from the bench, pulled her
bow from her backpack, unfolded it, and notched an arrow. The magic circle
appeared an instant later. The entire process took five seconds.

Suriel
appeared next to her counterpart. "Both of you possess the kind hearts
needed by all the unborn of the Great Tree. Please make a contract with me
instead."

Eric looked between the three of them and got an idea.

"Tasio! Tasio! Tasio!"

The Trickster appeared in their midst. "Yes,
Eric?"

Eric gestured to the nether creatures. "These two are
offering me immortality in exchange for becoming like them. Could you make me
immortal through chaos?"

Tasio grinned, but it wasn't that of a trickster. This one
was a predator’s. "Maybe."

"What do you want in exchange?"

Tasio glanced sidelong at Annala.

"You want me to sign your contract as well?"

"This is for both of you and both of you can pay the
price in the same way and at the same time. Don’t worry; it’s something one of
you is already doing.”

Eric inclined his head to
the
reaper and sower
. “Samael, Suriel, thank you
for your time, but I must decline your offers.”

“We understand,” they said in unison. “The Great Tree
suffers because of your action.”

A rift in time and space appeared behind the reaper and sower.
They did
not
curtsy before walking through it. The rift closed and they
were gone. Annala took notes to herself about it for her mother; not even elves
could travel between worlds (yet).
Once she
finished, she invited them both to her apartment.