Charmed
It had been a while since Zenon had stalked the heavens. It was now dangerous for him to be in the only place he was allowed to exist with the emperor’s permission. How ironic.
How much the heavens responded to their little coupe Zenon did not yet know. Homura was betting that the Jade Emperor would fail to take them seriously and therefore under-respond to them. Underestimation was key. So was overestimation: of the heavenly armies abilities.
But he had no doubt if they found him here alone, Zenon would feel pain. He was most definitely a criminal now more than he had been before, so he had to be careful.
It wasn’t hard to find the place. It was in a remote place in heaven, a slum by heaven’s standards yet palatial by Earth’s. This area had a western flavor and the building was garish pink stucco. Zenon grimaced and knocked on the door.
“Come,” a voice sounded from inside and Zenon stepped into the claustrophobic interior. The feeling of being in the Spanish speaking part of Earth was heavier inside. The parishioner had an obvious like of the motif and it struck Zenon odd. Why did heaven so often mimic Earth when it also held so much disdain for it?
The skinny god behind the counter smiled at Zenon like he had expected him, and he probably had even though he’d made no contact with the being. The charm-maker had a reputation for being excessively powerful in the area of precognition. He probably knew why Zenon was there.
“Come come!” he crooned, waving Zenon further into the building. “What I make for you?”
Something about him made the hair on the back of his neck stand up more than it usually did. There was a conflict in the man’s distinctly Asian flavor and his Mexican surroundings. It put Zenon ill at ease. His accent, one Zenon didn’t recognize, added to the feeling.
“You don’t already know?” he ground out, not knowing why he’d feel animosity towards one he was asking a favor of.
“Course, but it be better if you tell me, yes?”
Zenon pulled the necklace he’s found from his pocket and handed it to the god. It was a pretty thing, one that Zenon found attractive but also something he wasn’t inclined to wear himself. It was a gold pendant in the shape of a lotus blossom. Somehow there was a colored overlay that created the barest hint of pink petals and green foliage. It was so light as to only give an impression of color over the gold and it was this delicate color that had transfixed Zenon. Humans created the coolest things. Half of what heaven made, although powerful and high quality, were almost always rip offs from Earth. This thing he was asking for would be in that grain.
The small, strange god before him was a master at making powerful charms. He was known throughout heaven for his custom work and it was the best Zenon sought for his lover.
He barely glanced at Zenon’s pendant and bade him place it back into his pocket.
“Yes, yes, and what is it you want for it to do?”
“Protection.”
“From what?”
“Anything.”
He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Oh, you must be more specific than that! No one thing can do everything- even the scriptures of Heaven and Earth divide their powers and cannot do all alone. This is for a lover, no?”
Zenon didn’t respond, except to press his lips together.
“Well, for you I make a powerful charm, yes? Did you bring something of you lover?”
Grimacing, and feeling more than awkward for what he’d done, he pulled the small amount of hair he’d stolen from Koumyou’s hair brush the night before. He’d known something like this might be necessary. He handed the kinked up strands to the jeweler and watched the man glare it. “This all you have?”
“What did you want, blood?”
“Blood is best, yes,” he said, and Zenon’s mouth dropped open to protest but the jeweler turned away from him then. He disappeared into a back room. When he came back out he held his hands out to Zenon.
Zenon stepped backwards as he approached and the jeweler shot him a dark look before plastering the smile he’d been wearing across his face. “Take my hands,” he said and the pretentious accent seemed to wane in the face of a forceful command.
Reluctantly, Zenon took his smaller hands into his own.
“The blood of a god is better,” he said. Zenon had a scant moment to register the comment when the jeweler used some unseen device to cut into the palm of Zenon’s hand. He wailed and pulled away but the smaller god held tight.
“You will not harm me,” he said to Zenon and somehow that quelled the urge to bash the god’s brains in. Zenon recognized that the man had actually gotten a modicum of control of him in the short time he’d been in the shop.
“Powerful,” Zenon whispered into the air. He felt himself falling into an altered state of consciousness.
The jeweler held Zenon’s hand out over a bowl. Zenon watched it drip, transfixed as if poked inside the earthenware vessel.
“Yes,” he said. “And I make what you desire. And in turn you give me what I desire!”
Zenon focused on the man, his smaller features, the lines in his face that bespoke age on an ageless creature. “Yes,” he said, and didn’t remember consciously deciding to answer the question.
The cut wasn’t terribly deep and Zenon healed quickly. Things swam in and out of focus for a few moments and before he could regain his bearings he was standing outside the shop, looking stupidly into the decidedly Asian foliage growing alongside pink and yellow stucco structures.
He turned and pounded upon the door and it rung a different sound than it had the first time.
“Come back in three days!”
Zenon strode through Konran Castle.
All the way he pointed at the denizens they had acquired and with each poke of his finger he chose one. “You! You and you! You too!” he said, “Follow me!”
With quizzical looks and more than a little fear they fell in behind him. When he had a group of five or six that Zenon had come to recognize as the more efficient workers in the castle shuffling before him he sized them up.
Regarding them appraisingly, with his hand cupping his chin he said. “Okay, you’ll all do.”
They looked at each other again and Zenon told them to join hands.
They looked even more perplexed but did as told, obedient in the face of nothing else.
Zenon took the two loose hands so that they formed something like a girl scout ring. Using the daisy chain contact he was able to faze the entire group of them to his place in Sri Lanka.
They arrived in the big and dusty receiving room.
These people had never been fazed anywhere before, not being true deities and having only recently conferred divinity. They didn’t really understand their position. Zenon had given them nothing to understand his intentions and they blinked about stupidly.
Glaring at them, Zenon said, “I want this place fully cleaned and restored- immediately! I want it to look like it did when people still lived here, right down to the last picture frame.”
They shuffled some more. “You, want this building cleaned?” one woman asked, tentatively.
“I want it cleaned. I want the damages fixed, hell I even want the linens washed- or replaced if necessary. I want it all new!”
She blinked at him, the others more or less falling behind her. “But sir,” she said, “I don’t know if we can! How much time, where to start?”
Zenon glared at her outwardly but in his mind he noted that this one was braver than her brethren. He would remember her.
“Start where you must,” he said, “But just start! Now!”
When they failed to move he barked, “What’s wrong? You are all gods now, surely you can fix a house!” They cowered back, except for her.
“We need some things…” she said. When Zenon approached her she flinched but he favored her with a smile, “What do you need?”
Three days later, Zenon stood before the door, which was different than it had been before. It was certainly the same place, yet the atmosphere was different. Even though he recognized it, it wasn’t exactly the western motif he’d remembered. The building was no longer stucco, it had somehow morphed into a dark grey painted material. The walkway had turned from sand to dark dirt and he could swear there were half formed gargoyles on the eves of the building. He blinked at them, not understanding how the place seemed to now be a composite of western and gothic architecture.
The Asian plant life had been replaced by cactus.
It added a new dimension to the creepiness he felt before.
He didn’t want to go inside but he needed to.
The inside wasn’t any better. He walked into a purely gothic room complete with dragons, gargoyles and stained glass in the windows. The walls were no longer shades of pink and peach but had darkened into grays and browns. He could still see areas where the lighter colors showed through.
The proprietor of the shop skipped out and said, “We are in a different mood today, no?”
He reached up to touch Zenon’s face, and he dearly wanted to pull away but didn’t. “I have made what you asked of me.”
And two seconds later Zenon was staring at the same yet different plant life he’d been before. The door shut behind him. In his hand was a replica of the pendant he’d chosen. He stared at it, and felt it pulse with power. He was aware of it almost like he was aware of his own body and its aura that somehow was mostly him and a little Koumyou, pulsed in his hand. He got the distinct impression it was alive and aware of him too.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, admiring the craftsmanship and he almost dropped it when it faintly responded to the praise. It could feel, and it liked it when its master was happy with it.
Zenon wasn’t entirely sure what in the hell he’d had made for Koumyou. He hadn’t really told the jeweler what he was after. But, when he concentrated his senses upon it, it read almost like a living thing. He’d gotten more than he’d bargained for.
He’d never had any intention of wearing it himself, it would look better on its intended than himself, but he donned it. It laid warm against his skin.
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contemplative
