Patrolling without Asher kind of sucks.
   
     I'm not used to patrolling alone... it's not that I can't, given that I've been in situations of no company and bad company both (Noritorisk's Gatekeepers wouldn't even let me enter the town unaccompanied, and by 'accompanied' I mean I had three guards with guns who were definitely not there for my safety), but it's the kind of work I can't get used to. The streets look different two levels down, sure, but half the difference is that I'm well and truly alone.

     The air is thick with nervous energy, with a haze of fae dust holding over the gray sky and speckling everything gold. The streets are grown over with ivy and imps play in them, cackling and chasing each other in the main road. The weak life force of mortals shivers like a candle, and sinister forces lurk in the alleys, running their fingers down the sides of buildings. I can only imagine there are wraiths here. With a gatekeeper force this poor, people probably enter the gates all the time, then get stuck there until either they deplete into something barely resemble a human or they get eaten like the last bowl of ramen in the Academy kitchen.
Sheryl's right. We'll do everyone here a favor just by fixing the place up.

     Unfortunately, there's not much here I can kick in the face, just some minor spirits doing boring minor spirit things like cackling maniacally and shouting "Deal? Deal?" at civilians who can't hear them, anyways. There are a lot of specifics to how deals with the fae work, but one of the more interesting contingencies is that it's easier to see the fae the more well-informed you are... and the more isolated.

     I'm getting the creeps.

     Despite the haze in the air, I can still see a few lights, most of which are off in the distance. Areas of strong magical presence tend to be clearer and better lit on the second level, which makes tracking down... irregularities... so much easier. Of course, the levels aren't necessarily uniform, with different cultures having different effects to their levels (this is part of why gatekeepers are advised to return to the main floor between excursions, because crossing between two different sets levels will drive you "absolutely bonkers", as Asher would say), but things follow patterns. Picking up on those patterns and using them to your advantage is part of the job.

     I follow a winding, overgrown road out of the main city, pollen sticking to my lungs. I sense some particularly mischievous fae, probably sylph by alignment, eyeing me from the bushes. Their face split open in rows of teeth.

     "We can fix your person problems, laddie," one calls down to me.

     "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah," join in a row of other sylphs, their wings twitching with excitement.

     The bravest cries, "What's your name, fella?"

     "Sam O'Nella," I tell them, and their faces flash mutinous with hunger.

     "Well, Sam..." begins the leader, but it occurs to him only then that the name doesn't work, that I do not convulse to his will.

     Just as quickly, a nunchuck slams him in the face, and his body begins to boil. Others flock away, though I manage to catch a few with one side of the nunchuck. I swing it around a few times for good measure, lazily looking around, and find that no more fae appear to take their place.

     I was one of the few kids at the Academy who never ended up on the wrong side of a fae deal, one of the few kids who never had to be saved. Funny, but they could never offer me a thing I actually wanted.

     I approach a house that is so conspicuously fae that you could not have made it more obvious magical affairs were happening within if you had put a giant sign on it that said SHIFTY FAE MAGIC HERE! INQUIRE WITHIN. It's wood, with several trees in the front year basically covering it, and the shingles are painted. The windows are adorned with dreamcatchers, trinkets, and herbs, and there are birdhouses in the front where fae, mainly the 'fairies' or sylph, are snoozing. The whole building is slanted just to the right, which probably breaks as many mortal laws as the rest of the house breaks Gatekeeper law.

     I hold my integral in my hands, expecting the worst from a witch's dwelling. The fairies who see me have the sense to get out of the way. Tentatively, I open the door and am overwhelmed by the smell of every incense and spice known to man. The building is just as bright and clear inside as it was outside, an anomaly at this level, and 'anomaly' definitely suits the interior. Huge cat palaces sprawl the main floor, filled by sylphs, gnomes, and a few actual cats. A shifter of some sort is sipping tea on the couch, their face crumpling into a snarl as I enter. In the rightmost room is what must've been a kitchen at some point, but has since been overwhelmed by flashy shawls and tarot the way American highways are overwhelmed by kudzu.

     Of course, the most interesting thing in the whole house (uh, bad choice of words) isn't the tarot, or the ilegal dreamcatchers now sparking off with what are probably the trapped souls of people the witch has killed, or even the shifter running his teeth over what I hope aren't human bones, even though Sheryl would be spitting like a cat by now.
   
     "Asher," I say, entering the kitchen and stuffing my integral down my pants pocket. "Hey, bud, what's up?"
  
     "Gus." When he draws himself up, he looks just like his brother.
   
     "Asher." As I repeat it, more sternly, I exhale quietly. Not that kind of meeting. Not anymore.
   
     A woman with a small bun of gray hair and eyes disguised by at least three pairs of glasses asks, "Is this a friend of yours?"
  
     "No, he's a very cleverly disguised troll," Asher says with all the petty snideness that could possibly fit in his tiny body and then some. He's like the TARDIS of spite. "Gus, this is Auntie. She runs the establishment."
  
     "This is illegal," I say, "Not that this isn't par for the course, but you know, us gatekeepers... kind of exist to enforce laws. I know your family thinks 'legal' is a kind of bird, but..."
   
     "What are your running your mouth about?" Asher asks, bewildered.
   
     "Legal... eagle... get it?" I ask.
   
     Asher very slowly gets up from the table. I grab the tea he was drinking, which is still, as the British might say, 'piping hot', and sniff. Sure enough, there's that faint scent of flowers and ash that marks magic, sickeningly sweet. I run the faucet, just to be sure, and while this may have looked like normal water on the normal or even the first level, down here, it gushes out as a black liquid with a kind of opalescence.
   
     "Honey, would you like me to make you your own cup?" asks the old woman, concerned.
   
     "Let me have a talk... with my friend," Asher says, gripping me fiercely (hey buddy) as he pulls me out of the room.
  
     "Intimate," I say. "Nice to know you haven't changed."
   
     Asher puffs up and begins messing with his hands again, scrunching and unscrunching them as if restraining them from my neck. His mismatched eyes peer up into mine with impunity.
   
     "Woof. Anyways, the lady's crazy. She's got layline juice all up in her pipes," I say, making the cuckoo sign with my index finger. I don't think this translates, but I've learned recently that a lot of American culture doesn't. (Cue me slapping Asher on the ass. Platonically.) "It would be a mercy to shut her down before it addled her anymore."
   
     "Addled. Are you aware how condescending you sound, you arse?" Asher looks practically rabid. "She doesn't realize any of this is real. Her position on the laylines just adds magic validity to what otherwise would be some touristy rubbish shop."
  
      "Doesn't make this any less illegal," I shrug.
   
     Asher raises an eyebrow. "Whatever. You know I can't stop you."
   
     "Excellent. So I'm going to go back to my business, you go back to yours, and we pretend we never saw each other. You take your prediction and keep on your wild goose chase while my guardian and I do legitimate, American procedure and handle this case in a safe, timely, and effective manner." I fold my arms.
  
      "You sound like a public service announcement," hisses Asher.

     "And I will. I like working alone anyways." He storms out and makes it halfway down the road before turning back around, opening the door again, and adding through the slit crack of Auntie's door, "That way, no one can let me down." He slams the door with gusto.
   
     "I'm sure you do!" I yell after him, opening the door again. I make a universal gesture to him before going back inside, flushed with the kind of emotions I usually bury in electronic music.
   
     "Would you like that tea, dear?" asks Auntie with the sweetest, most heart-melting old woman smile.
   
     "I'm just going to look around," I say glumly, marking down on my phone every last violation I'm going to give to Sheryl to use in her case for negligence against the Northcotts. It would be boring work, back in the day, but now it makes me upset for entirely different reasons. The list is long, I'm bored of being serious, and I remember, fondly, when my teammates at the Academy would make jokes out of creating 'receipts' for each other with all the minor illegal activities we'd ever gotten up to. Those things sold for a lot of money under the bunks.
   
     I try to remember particular instances, my face twitching slightly, but I can barely remember names or faces. They were just a group I was part of, one massive entity, in the same way no one thinks to distinguish the wind that blows over one branch in a massive gale. A similar wind blows through the trees to guide me home. I crack sticks beneath my feet as I trudge, sensing something burning in the air, but whatever it is isn't responding to my integral.
   
     "Anyone out there?" I ask, pausing at the Northcott door.
   
     Slowly, I enter, closing the door behind me, peering back out as I do. I wheelie through the house, just because no one there can stop me, enjoying the familiarity of the house at the lower levels. Structures like this are essentially magic-proof, so no matter what level I'm on, things will be about the same. I enter Asher's room, which still smells of him, mingled with my own teenage guy scent (see: Axe. Lots and lots of Axe). I can't listen to music at this level, since my integral is active and I'd prefer not to draw attention by blasting tunes. Instead, I look through the room, shuffling through drawers and closets.

     There's old patterns where the dust has settled everywhere except for on an object that was recently moved, say, a book, but no book is to be found anywhere in the room that fits the dimensions. What did they do with his stuff, burn it? Worse, the whole room is like that. There are markings everywhere fit to hold a ghost.

     Asher must have been miserable living here alone. There's no way anything living could exist with so much of the dead and the missing choking up the air.

     Unfortunately, there's also nothing here to tell me about Conway as he was. I imagine him in my head as an even meaner, snootier Asher, maybe a little taller, and I can almost sense him there, rattling off trivia and being generally degrading. It's enough to elicit a little chuckle out of me. What would he say, even? Asher mentioned something about animals?

     I'll have you know that dugongs are most closely related to elephants...

     I think I just miss talking to Asher.

     Downstairs, I hear a slight moaning. "What's that?" I ask.
Who did you think was going to answer, dumbo?

     I swing down the banister and hear a rapping at the door, fast and loud. The moaning intensifies, but it also sounds like... sobbing? I open the door, hoping the jab the metal in my opponent's face, and it hits not fae but flesh. That's disappointing. My weapons will be effective, but if this isn't a fae creature, at least not one weak to fae iron like most gatekeeper houses have embedded in them, then it'll be a--

    Boy howdy.

     "Well, aren't you a... a..." I smile up at the creature. It's face is a human one degraded, like a clay sculpture doused until its body began to run. The empty eyes still have orbs in their sockets, which hang too low, but many of its teeth are gone. The ribcage shows through the body, and skin hangs off its sides like streamers. It's only coverage is a dark tendril of spirit energy, which just protects certain features and its back from view, as well as falling around its head. I know one word for it, and it's a word I thought I'd never have to mutter in earnest. "...wraith."

     Nothing like this would happen in America.

     "Iiiiiiiiirn," moans the wraith. It bears down on me with breath like death and skeletal fingers. I roll out of the way and it turns, its eyes still hardly set in its sockets. It smells like five dumpsters full of rotting fish compacted into a singularity, combined with the scent of the boy's laundry bag at the Academy. I gag, shielding my nose and face, and it slams a hand down again. "Iiiiiiirn."
  
     "Why are you here? What do you want?" I ask. Okay, that was dumb. Wraiths are rampaging, mindless shells of what used to be people. They wouldn't know what 'want' means or how to tell me, let alone have any kind of desire. I manage to hop back onto my feet as I avoid the next blow, but I'm near cornered up against a tree.
  
     "Irrrrrrrrn." Okay, it's not in, but who's 'Irn'? The wraiths mouth opens, "Feeeeeeeeeeeed."
   
     I know that one. I yell again, this time slamming it in the stomach with my integral, but it grabs me around the back and brings me down. Its mouth is heartbeats away from my face. I can smell its breath and sense its arms tightening around my back like one might tighten their hands around a hamburger, and I'm practically-- and I hate to admit this-- paralyzed with fear.
   
     This is when its head explodes.
   
     Bain stands in the doorway, leering down at me. I'm covered in wraith guts, which she seems to notice, as she rolls her eyes and says, "Let me get the hose."
   
     After I get sprayed down, leaving me shivering for a variety of reasons, Bain lights a cigarette and takes a long puff.
   
     "What was that?" I ask.

     "Just a wraith. They get close to the premises sometimes... 'specially the ones just past savin'. See, those think they can still get help." She shrugs this off. "No offense, but you're lucky that I was around."
   
     My voice shakes. "I know what a wraith is. Why were there any wraiths at all? In any civilized country, no one would get through the gates. No one would let wraiths degrade like that. No accidents would... it just wouldn't. It just wouldn't happen." I laugh. "You know, in America..."
   
     Bain snuffs the cigarette. "I don't give two whits what does or doesn't happen in America, Washington."
  
      "Oh yeah? No sympathy for your fellow mortals, huh."
   
     "I was a few hours off of being that bloke," she jerks a hand towards the front yard, where the remains of the bloated wraith corpse still lie in the earth. "Have enough sympathy to dispose of them." Bain looks at a glistening watch on her hand and begins loading her gun with a new round. "Clock's up. S'ppose I need to go."
  
     "Why, what's the deal? Who needs you?"
  
     "Asher."

     The word makes my heart beat faster. "What?"
   
     "He hasn't come back, I go after him. Look, we may not have been the closest, but I had his back... until some snooty American bloke showed up."
   
     I grab her hand. "Yeah, yeah. Chastise me later. Is he in danger?"
   
     She shakes me off, displeasure glinting in her one good eye. "Unlikely. I'm warning you, if you come, it'll be trouble for you, with him."
  
     "Oh yeah? Why is that?"
   
     "He expects his parents. He expects Sheryl. Couldn't stop them if he tried, and he knows that. But no matter how dire the circumstances, Asher specifically requested that you not get involved," she shrugs.

     "That's his problem then," I say, reactivating my integral. "Because he can't stop me either."

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Written by ChronaLilly