It Will Have Been Worth It (Urban Fantasy)

You are Anna Everett, and your life has been bound to the arcane through a choice that was none. This made you a few powerful friends, who owe you after being unable to protect you.

Debts are very important, and in exchange they offer to help you through these difficult times. Unfortunately, this meant leaving behind a half-finished degree, an okay job, and most importantly your friends and family.

The result matters. You are here now, and even if you had to leave the taxi halfway to your new home, you'd make your way there once the rain stops.

So which of them are you running to?

[X] Old Man Thomas: The Lord of Breaches, an arcanist responsible for the eradication of demon worshiping monsters. The kinds of monsters that would carve the throat of a college girl out and leave her bleeding to summon something even more monstrous than them.

###

The rain stops two hours into your coffee. You are worn thin, fueled by caffeine and cold air in your lungs. Though your clothes have dried slightly, they cling to your limbs like an autumn leaf to your souls. The uncomfortable feeling grows when you make for the rest of the way on foot, stepping through puddles that reflect city lights as if they are stars.

You glare at the sky as if your anger can trigger the feeling of regret in nature. As far as you know, it's not impossible. Maybe one day your glare will be enough to part the clouds.

Until that day, your steps echo across empty streets and through the splashes of water under your heels.

Your body coils like a spring. Every blur in the corner of your vision requires your utmost attention. Every noise, a second opinion. Every smell, a comparison to the battery acid that the people behind you call coffee.

At least the cold is no longer a bother. Whatever that thing was, an aberration or a fell being, you know it will not be the last of its kind. It will not be the last time you see this specific one either.

And that knowledge drives a knife into your spine.

The apartment building is named after the city. 'Aurora Heights'. Despite this, it does not stand very tall in the distance as you make the final turn onto the street that seems uphill both ways. Thomas described it as a quiet retreat, and it can not be more accurate. Though the main street remains quite empty at this time of day, the amount of parked cars reveals the most obvious congestion in the mornings. When you compare it to the dorms you used to live in, it feels so much more tiny.

You fumble for the keys, skin feeling out the cold and jagged metal in your pocket between tissues and your phone. You grimace, your hand returning wet and cold as you grab the keys.

The door opens easily.

Electric lights announce a soft hum that whirrs above you after the press of a button on the wall. The stairwell begins with five short steps up, and there, to the left, a door. The key stands ready before you notice the tiny name next to the door.

Everett. Thomas has already added it next to the doorbell. It looks so small next to your fingers as you wipe your finger along the letters, and yet it stirs something in you. The reminder of how far from home you are. The key slips into the lock, and with a click you notice— an unlocked door, and the smell of something… delicious.

Your mouth waters.

You step in, slowly reaching into your bag, your hand cradling a knife hilt. The smell grows stronger as you turn the corner. The iron grip in your bag turns your knuckles white.

"Welcome home."

Your body tenses up so tightly that your back arches more like that of a scared cat, drawing the knife with a motion that cuts through your bag and unleashes everything inside onto the ground. The noise is so loud, it's no surprise you are caught by— well, not a monster, that's for sure.

The woman in the kitchen stands tall. Taller than you, even if it weren't for the thick boots that add a few inches. Long, blonde hair runs down her back. The clothes are closer to something you'd have enjoyed ten years ago, but she makes them look good. Ripped jeans, a dark grey top, a few tattoos on her arms and a single black glove on her left hand.

There is a baseball bat in the corner, paper wrapped around its tip.

"Who are you?" you ask. She turns, her eyes a reflection of fire.

"A babysitter," she says, a small smile on her lips. You don't smile back. Noticing the lack of response, she tries again. "Sophia. Grandpa Thomas sent me here to keep an eye on you. He's too busy."

Grandpa. He never talked about his age, but he is 'old man Thomas'. It's the name everyone calls him by. There is no way, though. He looks barely fifty, this woman must be around your age.

Then again, some people age more gracefully than others.

Some people are magic.

"Ah," you say. You try and fail to relax, your shoulders square, jaw set. She grabs two plates, fills them up with what looks like fried rice. Your stomach growls, and the hunger you feel is finally normal again. "I… was followed, from the airport. Some thing that froze the rain."

Sophia hesitates, frowning. "You are safe, though?"

"It ran," you say. When you opened your mouth and it saw death on the tip of your tongue. "I managed to scare it off."

She whistles low, handing you a plate and a spoon. She puts hers on the table in the living room, and you finally notice the world around you a bit more. You didn't have time to check the apartment before, too ready to fight in your endless pursuit of paranoia.

"I'll get your bags," she says. "Eat something before you collapse."

You nod, unable to stop yourself. Your hands shake as you eat a spoonful. It's too salty. Too heavy on soy sauce, by the looks of it. It's also the most delicious thing you've ever eaten, and it takes less than a minute for the entire plate to make its way into your mouth, almost literally.

Sophia drags your bags to a door that should be your room. The apartment is… spacious isn't quite the right word. It's spartan, in a way, with the most basic of all necessities sitting in all the right places, giving it the appearance of a 'full' apartment with empty walls. You count two bedrooms, the living room you're sitting in. A bathroom door, and the kitchen corner. It's…

"Wait," you say, blinking. "You're going to live here?"

"Yeah?" Sophia says, confused. "How am I gonna keep an eye on you? Grandpa wants me to protect you until you can take care of yourself, considers the whole thing a family debt."

Debts. Such a powerful word, thrown around so casually. You know, after all, just how important debts are, perhaps more than most. Your hand reaches up, touching the invisible scar around your neck.

"You don't agree."

"I don't disagree," she says, stressing the word so much it sounds sarcastic. "He's incurred debt from his duty, and our family tries to do right by you because of it. I just don't know how we can help you."

"That's fair," you say, frowning. Sophia sits down, her own plate in hand. "He's already done more for me than I ever expected."

"And he'll continue to provide," Sophia said, setting the plate aside after a single spoon, frowning at it. Definitely too much soy sauce. "The problem is that your target is much larger than his shield. You're a golden goose for arcanists, everyone with half a brain will want you."

"Not me," you say, pointing at your mouth. "This."

The black tongue is too literal, and it marks you in a most inconvenient way. Sophia shrugs again, moving towards the kitchen and throwing away the food on her plate. She comes back, holding the baseball bat that she stowed in the kitchen corner, putting it on her shoulder as she sits back down.

"There's barely a difference, which is the issue," Sophia says. "You know the drill, right? Grandpa's good at explaining these things."

"Names," you say. And the way she smiles makes you realize, yes, this girl is Thomas' granddaughter. She manages to disarm you much like he does.

"Three of them," she starts, in an explanation that you've heard a hundred times, and will hear a hundred times more. The essence of magic, Thomas calls it. The essence of divinity, as Lahar had said. The essence of the soul, as Grace would have put it. "The one your parents call you by, the one you call yourself, and the one you steal from the world."

"One which I own," you return. "One which I am. One I have traded away."

An aberration, an exception.

"Becoming, this has made some things more difficult for me, I know."

This, you say, as if you have lost what makes you 'you'. As if twenty-four years are just gone because of something as minor as the colour of your tongue, or the privacy of your mind.

You are human.

You are just something more now.

"And there's the problem, honey," Sophia says. "There isn't a way to fix this. This is who you are now, and unless you want to be dependent on all those people who take pity on you, you gotta work your way up the food chain."

Lahar had once said the same thing to you, in the hospital after the attack. You can still remember the single word that you uttered in response: "How?"

"You lay low your enemies and build a wall of fear with their bodies." Lahar said.

"You overwhelm their desire to own you or kill you with the fear of death," Grace said.

"You kick ass," Sophia says. "And then you keep kicking ass until you're too annoying to keep fighting."

You laugh. For some reason, Sophia laughs with you.

###

Thomas' lessons were pretty simple to start with, though your grateful tenant was more than willing to make it easier for you. In the end, your unique biology makes for a rather specific field of study. Which of these did you focus on?

[ ] Summoning: The Blacktongue commands respect. Those not powerful enough to breach into the world themselves are very willing to swear loyalty, letting you summon them for short bursts to attack and defend.

[ ] Transforming: Yourself and the World. Your body is, obviously, no longer quite human. This gives you the ability to transform your limbs to your advantage. Projecting this outward is harder, but not impossible.

[ ] Channeling: You've left a hole in your soul, and filling it is much easier than it should be. You can share your body with experts in different kinds of magic, granting them some degrees of freedom to share their skills with you.