I nodded. “Any specialty?”
“Elementals. Most basic kind of spirits you get, dealing with nature. Rain, sun, fire, harvest…”
“Where do they stand with Conquest?”
“They don’t. They’re in the council in name only. They’ve maybe struck a deal with Conquest, because they only send one representative a year with a gift.”
I made mental note of that.
“The Sphinx-”
“I’ve met the Sphinx, the Drunk, and the Astrologer. And Fell.”
“Ah. Okay.”
“Sphinx wasn’t a big fan of me,” I admitted. “Not big on the diabolism thing.”
“To be honest, neither are we,” Shotgun told me. “But you don’t seem to be an immediate problem, and we’re not really types to pick fights.”
“Except when it comes to pulling a shotgun on a complete stranger.”
“That’s called being ready when the fight comes to you. Not knowing anything about you… hearing only casual mention of what a diabolist does?”
“Fair,” I said. I tore into the sandwich wrapper and took a bite.
“Sphinx is old, and maybe it’s more personal for old things. Teaches at the University. Periodically goes for the kids who can’t hack it. Once every decade or so, maybe. Failing grades, depression, panic, a downward spiral everyone recognizes, and then their rooms are cleared out one night and they’ve up and disappeared.”
“Didn’t know that last part,” I said.
“She is what she is. She occasionally takes a student under her not-so-proverbial wing. We’ve talked it over, and the general consensus is she finds the stragglers and tests them. Winners get mentored. Get a natural glow about ’em, you know what I mean?”
“No, not so much.”
“Stuff starts going their way. Lucky. The right people start gravitating towards them. Things falling into place.”
“Good karma,” I said.
“Yeah. That. Girls stick around for two or three years and then take their leave, wiser, talented, brimming with confidence. We’ve seen, what, two?”
“One left a few weeks after we first joined the council,” the woman sitting under the window said. “Another one wrapped up earlier this year. Left before Summer.”
“I could do with some of that good karma,” I said. “But I don’t think even the Sphinx’s ministrations are about to help me with the massive debt my family’s incurred.”
“If she doesn’t like you, I can’t imagine she’s going to change her mind. Old dogs and new tricks, you know?”
“Suppose so.”
“Um, who else? You mentioned the Drunk?”
“Yeah. He’s, again, not a big fan of me.”
“Cultist of Dionysus. Orgies, parties, and a collection of satyrs, nymphs and other beings with a connection to fertility, hedonism or both.”
“Any story there?”
“Lots. Word is he was trying to make a play, some time back. Offered favors here and there. One of the Sisters wanted a baby, he delivered. Baited the Astrologer into falling in lust with something more spirit than person, and she wasn’t happy when that spell was broken. Even started collecting more vicious things to keep in reserve, we’ve heard. Then it all fell apart around the start of the ‘oughts. He’s mostly flying solo now, a little more inebriated a little more often. We’ve mostly steered clear. He and we march to the beats of very different drums, so to speak.”
I took a swig of coke to clear my throat. “You dabble, you’re interested, but you don’t want to stick your neck out for anyone to swing the axe at.”
Shotgun nodded. “Astrologer? Powerful. Doing a succession thing. Every time they get old, they find an apprentice, teach them, and pass on the title and the knowledge. I never really got what she did. Future sight, sure. Connections? Yeah. Summoning things from the sky? Yep. But never directly, there’s some underlying system of rules and relationships she has to navigate.”
“She’s not a fan of the… guy in charge.”
“Nope. Her old mentor offered himself up, to be one of those tragic ghosts in the Lord of Toronto’s manor, buying her safety with his afterlife. She doesn’t pay any tithe, and she mostly has free reign, so long as she attends enough meetings and doesn’t act directly against him.”
“Does that mean she’s not on my side? I can’t get her to do something?”
“No. I think she’s eager to stop Conquest, and she’s been looking for a chance for some time. I’m not sure if she can’t or if there’s a reason she won’t, but it is what it is.”
I nodded.
“Shepherd, not of much use to you. Guides the dead. Deals with ghosts, cleaning up the bad and collecting the good. Tends to stay away, but is on pretty good terms with Conquest when he’s around.”
“That sounds like a problem.”
“It’s the local landscape. Nothing more.”
“Landscape matters lot when you’re talking battle,” the woman under the window said. “Terrain? Strategy?”
“True,” Shotgun said. “Fine, we can agree it’s a problem. Who else?”
“Eye of the Storm,” Shotgun’s son said. “Queen’s Man.”
“Queen’s Man isn’t a concern. Goes between here and England. Serving a spirit of Crown and kingdom,” Shotgun says. “Not here now.”
“Good to know.”
“Eye of the Storm isn’t human. And it is a servant of our local Lord. One you’ll need to worry about. Our Lord needs something done, he asks Fell. He needs something destroyed, he gives an order to the Eye.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A fire alarm going off at midnight,” Shotgun said. “All the exits blocked by flame.”
Cryptic.
“I meant, more, what type of Other is it?”
“Don’t know. We’re not the people to ask if you want clear answers about that sort of thing. But mankind and fire have a long working relationship. A relationship that extends to times when you sacrificed things to gods and spirits. Most big cities have at least one bad fire in its past, and in cities that do, you can usually find something like the Eye, a memory of that fire and sacrifice.”
“That explanation is a bit too vague for my tastes,” I said.
“What I do know, and I’m welcoming any of the rest of you to jump in and correct me, is it’s a thing that tends to change as humanity does. We start to use wires and electricity, and the Eye became less fire and more storm, you know? It’s a living reminder that whatever we were given, whatever we took or learned, energy-wise, there’s still a danger there, if we don’t show proper respect.”
“And it serves at the whim of the Lord of Toronto?”
“Arms, legs, torso, head, but nobody’s going to look at it and think it’s human. Keeps to its own until it’s called. If you’re going up against the Lord of Toronto, don’t give him a chance to call.”
I nodded, even as I was thinking about how Conquest had brought Rose to his domain. How could I prevent him from doing the same with this ‘eye’?