Warlock

A Date in the Park

Loch ran his fingers along the dusty shelves of relics. He had not touched the collection since he had moved it to his new home. There were at least two thousand of them, ranging from miniature magical keys to giant sculptures that came to life once someone placed a scribe with the name of their new master in their mouth. His favorite was the mirror that some long-dead witch had bewitched to create a replica of the viewer that would argue and banter with them. Since his deliberate retreat from the Other world four hundred years ago, he had done no more collecting, but he still owned more important items than even the Other Archives.

The second floor of the building was completely filled with the relics, as was the first, but they were hidden and shielded from both human and Other eyes. He swept away the accumulated dust that coated the first floor with a flick of his hand and made his way to the scrutatio orb. Scrutatio orbs were not all that rare as far as magical relics went, but one of the orbs he possessed had formerly been owned by the infamous evil witch Baba Yaga. The other two were her sisters', and he had actually been good friends with them until the Other organization of the time had placed them behind bars for their crimes. They'd been kind enough to not mention their friendship during their trial, but they left him all of their belongings to look after.

Loch had no need for scrutatio orbs, nor did he have any emotional attachment to them, so he tucked all three of the fist-sized orbs into a satchel and headed out to his car. He barely managed to catch himself from staring at the car idling across the road; the lycanthrope had a shadow over it that made it invisible to humans. He drove off in his own car, noting that the lycanthrope did not follow. A quick mental check confirmed that all of his relics were still safely shielded from harm and sight.

Skelly stood outside the café, his expression alternating between anxious and excited. There were still ten minutes remaining until five o'clock as Loch approached, so he could not help but be curious as to how long the naiad had been standing there. It was strange to see him in normal clothes, rather than his waiter uniform. "Loch! You came!" Loch was not prepared for the creature's arms closing around him in a bear hug. After a few seconds of suffocating him, the boy let go and grinned at him. "So, the park?"

"Mhm." Loch pulled his scarf over his face to protect from the frigid air. The snow flurries had vanished, but their icy presence still lingered to torture his uncovered face.

As they walked toward the park, Skye began to fill the empty air with chatter about his sister, his brother-in-law the chef, and the chef's best friend who was a fellow waiter. Loch quickly figured out that the brother-in-law was the dryad and the other waiter was the lycanthrope. He generally avoided adding in information about himself, for every lie became more painful. Lying had never been bothersome in the past, but with someone as honest and cheerful as Skye it felt wrong. Except Skye never mentioned the fact that he was a different species than he pretended to be. Even this was only an absence of information, not a lie, and he only did it because he thought it was for Loch's own good. Eventually Loch could not take it anymore.

"I want to tell you something, but you have to promise not to tell your sister or anyone else. Okay?" He glanced up at the naiad. The boy frowned for a moment, then nodded. "I know you're a naiad. I'm a warlock. But I haven't been a part of the Other society for a while, and I don't want to become involved in it again. So for now I need you to just pretend I'm human. When we're around Others, at least. Okay?" That had definitely been an impulse decision. He might have just ruined four hundred years of peaceful life outside of Other society.

The seconds that ticked past in a silence stretched out for an eternity. Then Skye turned back to him with his ridiculous, overjoyed grin. "You won't die young! I can be best friends with you for hundreds of years instead of thirty!" He grabbed Loch in yet another bear hug, this time spinning him around several times. "I'll keep your secret, don't worry. My lips are zipped. So can you see what I really look like?"

"Yeah."

"What do you really look like? Warlocks have some kind of odd feature, right? Trinity's warlock has short horns and solid red hair. He's not very interesting, though."

Telling such an important secret to such a talkative man wasn't a smart move, but Loch felt that he could trust Skelly. That did not stop him from checking the park for any Others before pulling up one of his sleeves. He let one level of shadowing down so that Skye could see, but any human observers could not. Hieroglyphics covered his entire body aside from his face, each of them gold, glowing slightly, and becoming closer together as they reached the ends of his limbs. Just as quickly as he had revealed them, he returned the shadows and pulled his sleeve back down.

"So you're definitely Egyptian." Skelly's ridiculous smile would not fade. "How old are you? Did you actually get to see any pyramids get built? I was born in 1777 right in this city. I got to travel a bit when I got involved in the world wars, but for the most part I haven't done anything interesting."

"I saw the sphinx and the Giza pyramids go up. They look very different now. I don't know how old that makes me. I never kept track." Loch did not want to talk about himself. He still did not know why he had even volunteered to do this foolish walk around the park. It was a beautiful park, though, especially in the winter. Light posts lit the world with glowing orange, while art sculptures twirled over and around the wide walkways, lit by their own inner lights. Around them, the city cast its own melody of light that grew brighter as the sky grew darker.

The naiad tapped through his phone with much more dexterity than Loch could manage with his own device. "That would make you around four thousand five hundred years old. Are you one of the ancients? Are they real? I've never met a warlock older than two hundred." He watched Loch with a new sense of awe.

Loch winced and watched the ground as he walked. "Warlocks used to live a lot longer. The powerful ones, such as myself, can only die by their own hand. All of the other ancients, those that I know of at least, killed themselves long ago. Fewer powerful warlocks must be emerging if they have such short lifespans."

Skye was silent for a long time. His expression was thoughtful, but far from happy. What had he said? No, he did not care what the boy thought of him. He could be home right now, sleeping on the warm couch. Loch shoved his hands in his armpits in a meager attempt to warm them up. It did not work. "Is that why you're unhappy? Are you going to... to kill yourself?"

It was Loch's turn to walk in silence this time. "I'm gutless compared to the others. I've been thinking about doing... it for the past four hundred years, but instead I've just been sleeping. Hibernating. Waking up every fifty years to see how the world changes, to see if anything exciting has happened that I can look forward to. I woke up after thirty years the morning you served me breakfast. A lycanthrope woke me this time, but I stayed awake because I wanted to find out who was committing the strange murders." He found himself unwilling to look up and see the other man's reaction. Suicide was not looked down upon when it was done by a warlock, since they were the only species where it was truly the only way out. There were other immortal species, including the naiads, but they could still be killed. Loch had no reason to be ashamed, but...

"I don't want you to die." This time neither of them said a word.

The silence did not break until they reached the café once again around seven o'clock. Skelly wrapped Loch in yet another hug, but he was starting to get used to the tall man's over affectionate manner. Before they went their separate ways, Loch handed over the satchel. "Three scrutatio orbs. I don't use them. They were Baba Yaga's and her sisters'." Loch nodded in farewell and began to walk away before stopping. "I don't want to die yet. Not right now. Not for a while." He did not turn to see the naiad's reaction.