Warlock

Interview for Food

The snow dashing through the sky was bright enough to make a lightbulb look dim. Loch squinted through white eyelashes, wishing that he had thought to buy sunglasses. Unfortunately, sunglasses appeared suspicious to more than just cops. He would rather not have the Others looking into his blurred background more than they had already.

When he pulled into the street parking space by the café, it was ten minutes from opening for the morning. The naiad boy sat outside, apparently unaffected by the cold, drinking from what looked like a vodka bottle. It could not be vodka, of course, since naiads could only drink water. Liquids were essentially their only weaknesses. His own species could get hurt by everything, always heal, and never die. If they were powerful enough, at least. Their lives, his life, was a never-ending struggle through the simple pain of living. The thought of a naiad drinking vodka was still amusing, though.

"Good morning! Are you going to become a regular customer?" The creature grinned, but his gaze flicked back down to the paper in his hand. Loch could not help but be curious how old he was. He acted young, but young in naiad terms was from age zero to three hundred.

Loch simply grunted and sat at a separate outdoor table. He was glad to have thick clothes – it removed the need to create a suspicious cloud of heat around him. Curiosity, a killer, compelled him to stretch his neck to see the paper in Skelly's hand. It was written in calligraphy, which usually meant someone at least two hundred years old had written it. People were not required to learn the useless art of writing anymore.

Skelly looked up and smiled at his talking buddy's gaze, though Loch tried to quickly turn away to something else. "It's a request paper. In my free time I fetch things for my uncle. He owns a pawn shop, and sometimes people request that he find them certain elusive objects that aren't in the store. Right now I'm looking for something that looks like a large glass ball filled with fog. About seven inches in diameter. You seen anything like that in the outskirts?"

He was looking for a scrutatio orb. Loch had one of those in his... collection. It was an orb that could find people and worked essentially like a cellphone for those who could not communicate by mind. Since he could find people and communicate telepathically, he had no need for it whatsoever. It had taken him a long time to gain it, however. "Just to clarify, is it a scrutatio orb?"

The naiad looked up in surprise and the look of innocence was replaced with suspicion. "Yes. How'd you know that?"

Liar liar, pants on fire. Loch was grateful for his short spurt of acting in the 1960s; he was somewhat good at lying because of it. "I've been everywhere. I picked one up in... Greece I believe. Came with directions that had the name of it. It's probably fake, but I'll bring it after breakfast."

Skelly's expression changed from suspicious to unbelievably happy. Before Loch could react, he had leapt forward and hugged him. "Thank you thank you thank you! If I'm the first one to get it he'll probably give me a raise and everything and they'll stop making fun of me and - thank you!" Loch simply grunted and waited for the torture of contact to end. "Right, sorry. I'm easily excitable."

"No kidding. How long have you known that guy? Three days? You don't hug someone after hitting on them for three days. That's like, first base already. You'll look thirsty." The last phrase was not one he had heard of, though he could figure out what it meant by context. A female naiad with long, wavy black hair was leaning against the now open front door of the café. Skelly's cheeks turned bright blue once again.

"She's uh – she's joking. I'm not – I mean – so, breakfast? The usual?" Loch bit back a smile at the poor creature's embarrassment. He could use the boy's little crush to his advantage; love created a loose tongue, even with important information.