Grand Opening Read online

  Alastair forcibly removed her from in front of the bartender and put his hand on the side of Brechal’s neck. After a few seconds, Alastair yanked Brechal out of Madrik’s grip and onto the floor, shouting urgently, “Madrik! I can’t feel the heartbeat!”

  Vincent dove down beside Alastair, and the two men began CPR. Alastair breathing for Brechal and Vincent doing the compressions. Time and time again, they paused hoping that Brechal’s heart had restarted, but to no avail.

  An urgent demand from the BHB prompted Madrik to call out, “Everyone, stand back, we are going to try something.”

  Tendrils of wood sprang from the floor and the back of the cabinet, wrapping around Brechal, rhythmically squeezing and releasing his chest. Other tendrils that looked more metallic than wood slithered up from the floor and touched on opposite sides of the man’s rib cage. There was a massive flash of bluish-white light that left a perfume of ozone in the air. Once, twice, and finally a third time, the light flashed before Brechal’s chest gave a shudder, and the big man began to breathe.

  The mental connection map in Madrik’s mind that showed the network among the BHB, the Anchor, and the team became clear. A trail of agony and love led from Brechal off to some point in a far distance that was somehow still Brechal. Some essential part of the bartender had been left behind, and the bonding now included that piece.

  All of them could feel the agony the Brechal was reliving. Wynn was sobbing openly, and Alastair and Najeer were looking more wooden than usual. Vincent’s face showed his own remembered pain and Madrik was almost overwhelmed with remembered grief for his wife and daughter. All of them understood pain, all had experienced loss.

  Through his bond with the BHB, Madrik could feel that echo of another voice again. A woman’s cadence and speech, one in great pain and anguish, but firm with determination. The faint echo of her voice was not directed at the BHB or him. Its focus was the man who ached for her on the floor.

  By extension, it touched each of them.

  Brechal opened his eyes, and finally, he appeared to really see them. Too drained to be embarrassed, the big man slowly got up with the assistance of many willing hands. It said a lot about his degree of exhaustion that he didn’t resist their help, instead leaning on his helpers and shakily regaining his feet.

  Without a word, the cook handed the big man a large mug of steaming tea. Muttering a broken, “Drink it!” Najeer fled back to his kitchen. Shaking and withdrawn, Brechal stood drinking the tea as the rest the team allowed him space.

  Chapter 8 – Desperation

  The preparations for the Grand Opening had continued while Brechal was recovering. Things had settled down, and the cheerful chaos had resumed, although Madrik had kept an unobtrusive eye on his bartender. Ready to step in if needed, Madrik was too good of a manager to crowd the shaken man.

  Brechal seemed to bounce back quickly. If he was a bit quieter or a tiny bit slower, no one was cruel or stupid enough to comment on it. Within an hour, the bartender was moving with much of his previous energy. Only the shadows in his eyes testified to the echoes of pain that still rebounded in his mind and soul.

  Interrupting his thoughts of the momentous day in the Badger Hole Bar, Madrik was amused to hear the bartender’s voice raised in anger, shouting, “Dammit! No! I’ve told you before keep the blasted little umbrellas out of my drink setups!”

  Even in the middle of all of the action necessary to get a formal opening ready for a drinking establishment, Madrik was reassured that life was going on as usual. Brechal might be an intimidatingly tall demon-looking man with massive muscles and strange tentacles, but he certainly didn’t intimidate their little waitress. Rosalie Wynn easily stood up to everything that was thrown at her.

  The bar manager loved how his team interacted, full of interesting quirks but with no real tension. They might fuss at each other, but they looked out for one another, protective and supportive. When Wynn had entered the bar, Madrik had thought to provide her with work as a combination of desperate need and charity. She hadn’t looked like she would be a force to be reckoned with when she had come crawling through the door.

  Madrik remembered how he had once again subconsciously known that someone was coming. At least it hadn’t been as difficult as Brechal’s entry, but Wynn had definitely introduced a new facet to the life that they now shared.

  Looking over at their spunky waitress, Madrik smiled to see her subtle magic at work, changing cushion covers and arranging centerpieces on some of the tables. Sticking to the contentious disagreement that she and Brechal had over whether comfortable chairs would be an asset or detriment to the bar, Wynn had staked out her own special corner that she decorated and arranged.

  Madrik didn’t have the heart to tell the rough and tough bartender that those tables and comfortable chairs were the most desired of any in the bar. Over the last several weeks, Madrik had heard arguments within otherwise congenial groups of mercenaries over who got to sit in those chairs. Some of those discussions had become very heated.

  He was pretty sure that Wynn knew how well her innovations were being regarded, but for right now, Madrik thought he would let things settle down after the Grand Opening before he decided to expand that “special” section of the room.

  He must’ve had a smile on his face because Wynn looked up and caught his eye. Seeing the grin, she responded with a sunny smile. That look of dawning joy that she could get always made Madrik feel better. He knew he wasn’t the only one because he had seen large groups of argumentative people turn into happy drinkers when all she did was come by and smile at them.

  He didn’t know if this was her nature, or if the contrast between how she had lived before and now made her more appreciative. All he knew was that he was lucky to have her and hoped that she would never leave. The evening that she had entered the bar had been a gift from the gods.

  That night had been different than the other times when someone had come to the solution door on the right. Madrik had no foreshadowing of someone entering. In fact, rather than being nervous, he had been calm and enjoying the evening up to a split second before the doorway opened.

  There been a groan like somebody was in massive pain and the fire in the fireplace of the barroom had roared like an enormous creature and flashed out from the fireplace. Extending more than 4 feet out, it looked like fiery claws ready to grab someone.

  Luckily, they had planned the room in front of the fireplace, and there were no tables or chairs anywhere close to the hungry flames. Brechal and Madrik had been standing together, idly chatting. They both went into action mode at the first sign of disruption.

  Madrik had grasped his staff more tightly, and Brechal had come up to position himself even with Madrik but off to the left side. Staring intently at the door, they were ready for any surprise.

  The door slammed open, and a figure had come scrambling through on all fours. Recognizing that the being that had entered was a female, Brechal had relaxed. Madrik, seeing the undefinable mixture of characteristics and coloring that defined his own planet of Earth, had been not far behind him.

  It was indeed a woman, looking like someone from Madrik’s hometown. She was a strawberry blonde with violet eyes, but everything else was hidden behind a look of absolute terror. She had been clutching a cigar box in her hand and trying to watch behind her as she scrambled to get through the door and away from something, or someone, that was following her.

  Moving simultaneously, the two men quickly charged around her, one to the left and the other to the right, before grabbing the door and slamming it closed. The click of the door cut off what sounded like two infuriated voices crying out in frustrated rage.

  There had been a sudden quiet as everyone stood frozen. Even the taproom was silent as the patrons stared over the tops of their drinks at the woman who was sprawled on the floor. Little did Madrik know how vital that vulnerable looking woman would become to him and the BHB.

  Smiling in remembrance, he looked once
more at his busy waitress.

  Wynn saw the introspection on Madrik’s face and somehow knew what he was thinking. It was a day for things like that when all of them were obsessively rethinking what they were doing and trying to prep for situations unknown. That was indeed true of her.

  Since coming to the Badger Hole Bar, her life has been far different from what she had grown up with. Before, she had her grandmother but pretty much nobody else. She hadn’t really found her own place in the town that she lived and had not discovered a work-family to embrace her. Effectively friendless, she had few acquaintances and no emotional attachment to the world of her birth after her grandmother had died.

  What a difference between then and now! I know that Gram would be pleased with what I’m doing. I’m using my magic, even if it’s not exactly in the way that she thought I would. I suppose at some point, I’m going to have to go back and see what’s in the attic. But for right now, it just feels good to be able to look forward to each day, she thought to herself.

  Already that other life felt like a story somebody else had written. It wasn’t something that she felt like she had lived anymore. The memory still could frighten and depress her, though.

  It seemed just like yesterday that she crawled through that door into the Badger Hole Bar, full of fear and fleeing for her life. She had felt battered by faith and circumstances, friendless and alone. Coming into the BHB had been the best thing that could’ve happened to her.

  Looking around at the cheerful chaos of the room, feeling a connection with not only her surroundings but the people within it, Wynn knew that she had found her home. Whatever trick of fate had brought her here, she would decorate their altar to the day she died. She was home, and she knew it.

  Her life before now had been a waystation, a proving ground, that prepared her for this. This is where she belonged.

  Chapter 9 – Threads of Magic

  By Taki Drake and Stacey Nelson

  Slipping into memory, Wynn remembered the first conversation that she had in the BHB. It had been an interrogation, understandable after the strange manner in which she had made her entrance into the cozy and welcoming barroom.

  The tall, imposing man that she now knew was Madrik, the bar manager and companion of the sentient bar, had been questioning her and she had answered to the best of her ability. Feeling stunned, she had let the words tumble out of her mouth and create a river of communications that carried her forward into her new life.

  She could almost hear the words again, like a spectator onto the events of her own past life.

  <<<>>>

  “I’m not exactly sure what you want me to tell you,” Wynn had said.

  “I guess I want to know how you learned you could control magic.”

  “First of all, nobody controls magic. It is something you can manipulate, maybe persuade into all sorts of possibilities, but never control. Magic has a force of its own, it's all around us. All the time.”

  “Okay. How did you learn you could use magic?”

  Wynn had laughed. Her smiles were contagious, her violet eyes flashing with intelligence.

  “I think I always could on some level, Gram said I was special. I just never believed her. Looking back, I can remember so much now. It’s funny, I guess I always have, but never considered memory to be anything special.”

  <<<>>>

  As I had told Madrik, as the day that seems so long ago but was only a few weeks in the past, I was named Rosalie Wynn, after both of my grandmothers. My Father’s family was from Ireland and Mother’s came from Colombia, so I was a blend of shapes and skin colors that were reflected in my hybrid name.

  I had not known Grandma Rosa until after my parents died. I remembered meeting her one time before that day of grief and sorrow. She had seemed so fragile, now that I look back, her skin soft and wrinkled.

  She had laughed easily, a beautiful crescendo of peals of mirth that invited everyone listening to join in. Her hair was strawberry blond, and her eyes were violet, just like mine. I had felt connected to her. Daddy told me her hair was the same shade of red as mine once, but in looking at her as a five-year-old it was hard to believe.

  Grandma Rosa had only been an interesting point in my life until the earthquake. That shifting of terrestrial plates had shaken up my life and transformed it in the space of a few seconds.

  I had been asleep at the time that it hit. Experiencing the most fantastic dream. I had been in a gray space, where there were colors of light, almost like a current all around me. It was a place at once familiar and comforting, someplace I felt like I belonged. How long I rested in that comfortable, safe place, I still had no idea. All I knew was to my childish mind it had been a moment of comfort and safety.

  The next thing I knew, I was standing in the front of a dark room. Part of me had felt like I should know where I was, but there was nothing here I understood. My senses were numb and I only dimly understood the compressed nature of the space that I was in and the horrible smells in the air. Dust was everywhere, and I had started to cough.

  I had recognized my blanket wrapped around me as the ceiling opened in the dim room and was lit by a faint light.

  That illumination poured into what remained of the hotel room that I had shared with my parents. I could see that everything was covered in a layer of dirt, rubble, or wood. I had not really understood, feeling disoriented. The dust had clogged my lungs, and I had found it increasingly difficult to breathe. My younger self had started to retreat into numbness, panicked and feeling alone.

  “Hold very still, sweetheart,” a male voice had said from the open ceiling. The light behind him prevented me from seeing his face, and all I knew was that there was a large male-sounding shape that was talking to me. My mind continued to skitter, and I had not been able to form any coherent response other than whimpers of panic and fright.

  As my eyes adjusted, I recognized the familiar uniform and hat of a firefighter. The man had shown a light into the space where my feet were planted, and I had seen jagged gaps in the floor. Fire in a room below blossomed with the added oxygen sending gouts of flame toward us and heating the air to a barely breathable level. It was beautiful and warm in a deadly way, attractive to a child, and yet frightening all the same.

  I had felt the grit on my skin as tears rolled in a steady stream down my face. I had trembled and clutched the corner of my blanket. Ignoring the booming voices of caution from strange men, I had knelt on one bleeding knee, gripping the fractured beam with a grimy and scratched hand. I had reached forward and dragged the end of my blanket from the rubble. Despite the wall over the top of it, the fabric had come away easily. I had clasped it to me with a desperate need for familiarity before I had risen to stand.

  I still remember strangers shouting. I had squeezed the blanket against my chest, my fingers wrapped tightly into the folds of material. That small bit of connection to my previous life was my Anchor, the only thing that let me keep my sanity in the days that followed. Otherwise, it would’ve been too much for the child I was to bear. I would have retreated into a cave of unseeing, unfeeling retreat. Perhaps, never to return.

  I could remember every part of the days that followed, but none of it had been important. I had survived the earthquake that took my parents from me. There was a lot of talk about it being a miracle in the week it took my Grandmother to get to California.

  <<<>>>

  The currents of my memory pulled me from the long-ago child memory to one that was closer, the conversation that I had with Madrik when he had first entered the bar. He had asked, “How old were you then?”

  “Eight.”

  “You had no idea then? You never wondered why or how you survived? It didn’t occur to you that you had left the hotel?”

  “Why would I? How could I have known? I figured it was a dream even though the allure of that place grew every year, hitting me with a poignant yearning annually on that same day.”

  I remembered making that connection and
discovery even as I had answered Madrik. Up until that point, I had not put together the timing of the desperate craving to return to that safe place and the anniversary of the event. Lost for a moment in thought, both then and now, I remember being startled when Madrik had begun to talk again.

  “Rosalie, can I call you Rosalie or do you prefer, Wynn?”

  “Call me what you want, but if you want me to answer, I prefer Wynn.”

  “Is there a story behind being called by your last name?”

  I had smiled and shaken my head. “You just want to know everything, don’t you?”

  His smile had told me all I needed to know. With Madrik, what you saw and felt, was what you got.

  <<<>>>

  I had become a waitress while I was still in high school. Grandma Rosa couldn’t support us on her disability check so things were tight and we worked together to make ends meet. I had not minded the second-hand clothes, the lack of money to do joint activities and form friendships, or driving Gram’s old car. I had just wanted to take care of Gran. She was my rock and my family, the only one I had.

  Using my last name had started out as a layer of privacy, a way of keeping people away from the real me. As Wynn, I could blow off a drunken marriage proposal. As Rosalie, I felt I had to be gentler, less direct, but as Wynn, I could tell a guy to keep his damned hands to himself. He could look but not touch.

  I had been working for about five years when Grandma Rosa took to her bed, and I knew time was short. That knowledge had tainted my days and shattered my nights, approaching on shadowed feet that promised grief quickly approaching.

  The rest of my life played out like a play with short acts, scenes as vignettes. They were snapshots of different situations, but they didn’t chain together into a whole. Instead, they were diversions. Acting like commercials in a television show, they pulled me away for short moments from the overall reality before dumping me back into the increasingly torturous effort to get through each day.