"So, not to look a blank check in the mouth, but when exactly were you plannin' on tellin' me what this all about?"
Everyone had a sob story in this city, and if they didn't, they'd invent one. Barry knew - he'd had a hand in inventing a few peoples', himself.
(Not that he'd ever admit to such in a court of law. Lots of Amendments gone these days, but the fifth one you could usually still get away with.)
Point was, tragedy was something of a commonality, in this life. Testament to all the smog - if you breathed, you felt pain, you got yourself dirty. All there was to it. Didn't like it? Talk to God, write a letter to your representative, storm into a boardroom meeting - have a chat with the Man Upstairs.
See where it gets you.
"Tell you when I figure it out, myself."
"Uh huh. Well, guess we gotta have some good reason for pickin' through trash."
Everyone has a sob story, which means everyone has an excuse - and everybody's excuse is garbage. Gangbangers and drug-runners, executive powers and corporate lackeys, they all had their excuses. Yet that's exactly the same thing they had in common with everyone who wasn't like that. The homeless shelters were run by people with sob stories. The guys who dropped twenty dollar bills in homeless dudes' cups - those people had their baggage, too. Firefighters were increasingly rare in an automated world, but they were there, all the same, running into the fire, despite their pasts.
Excuses were excuses, and facts were facts, and that's just the way things were.
"You're looking for a necklace. Fake pearls, no value, but it's got a locket-"
"Yeah, that much I got. I know what we're doing. Pretty clear on the pearls we're going dumpster diving for. But, see, thing that's giving me trouble, what I'm sort of stuck on, you know, trifling thing, uh, why are we down in the literal dumps, here?"
Oh sure, Barry was a real piece of work, but he knew that about himself. He owned it. The trash was where he belonged, probably. But that wasn't because some jackoffs broke into his house and beat his dad to death when he was six, or cause of how his sister went missing on his first day of third grade and never came back home. Nah, that was just 'cause he liked things, and he didn't particularly like having to pay for 'em, if possible. Simple as that.
"Look, Barry ... I need to find this necklace."
"Yeah, but - are you makin' me repeat myself on purpose? Is this how you get your kicks? Take guys like me to wallow in filth for a few hours, leave us up to our eyes in confusion?"
"This is in no way, shape, or form, a fetish. If it was, I'd have hired somebody good-looking."
"You're literally makin' me do dirty things for your pearl necklace. You need therapy. I need therapy. You are not paying me enough to cover the cost of therapy."
"The necklace is a focus. Well. No. It's a focal point. There's enough of a legend, urban legend maybe, but a legend, nevertheless, she might be able to ..."
Other people could deny the myths all they wanted. Barry had known for a long, long time, that there wasn't any such thing as being driven to it - in your closet, under your bed, behind your back, in your schools and your police and your workplace - monsters were real. Always had been.
He was one, probably.
But you had to draw the line somewhere.
"You are standing there, bald as hell and twice as old, knee deep in TV trays and cat litter, tryin' to sell me on the idea of magic. Dude? My man?"
Old Christopher - tough old biker, maybe ex-military, one of those guys who you figured died young, sort of scary that he hadn't - was always more corner-of-the-bar than flights of fancy. But maybe he'd just ... finally cracked.
He wasn't acting loony tunes. Little quicker than usual, maybe, more jumpy, but in the immediate, he was slow. Turtley, kinda. Drawing himself up to his full height - criminy it was so easy to forget he was almost seven feet tall when he wanted you to - and sighing deeply, wiping his sludged-up hands on his ripped-up denim jeans.
"Seem to recall I'm not selling anything. I'm buying your belief. For 500 dollars, remember?"
"No, five was promised me upon condition of me helping you find your piece," Barry said, taking two steps closer, narrowly avoiding tripping on the corner of a washing machine. "There was nothin' in the terms about me asking My Little Pony into my heart."
Christopher's head tilted in an odd sort of way, almost as though weighed down. Barry recognized the flaring of nostrils, though - subject was a little touchy, huh? "Fine. You're here, digging through trash at 2 AM, because I need a witness for something. That a good enough reason to get you to shut up?"
"The docks."
"Yes."
"The docks at the south side of town, just about as far into mafia territory as you can go."
"Yeah, Barry, those docks."
"You want us to go to those docks, while carrying a necklace you're tellin' me is fake, that we found in a literal garbage dump, in the middle of the night, because apparently I'm supposed to 'witness' somethin'. "
"Look, I-"
"And your explanation for this completely unsuspicious set of circumstances is that you've gotta do some kinda magic?"
Christopher was silent, for a time. "...more like a miracle."
Barry breathed in slowly, regretting it the instant the stink hit his sinuses. "Oh, fu - that's - ugh. Look." He coughed once, then waved his hands in front of his face, trying for a smile. "This guy? He's been around the block, okay? He's been caught up in some sticky, shady shit. I know how to keep my mouth shut - you have to if you wanna survive in this town, right? So -"
"Hrngh," Christopher growled, rubbing at his forehead and taking a step away.
"So quit feeding me that bull," Barry said, chasing after him. "Whatever deal you've got goin' on, here, it's fine. It's fine. Shouldn't even be my business. Only reason it's becoming my business is 'cause you insist I ought to come along with you!" The anger was rising in his voice, no matter how much he tried to keep it away. "Five hundred ain't enough for me to walk into this thing blind, alright? Am I gonna get shot, there, huh? Is some gangster friend of yours gonna step out of the shadows and -"
"I need a witness," Christopher repeated himself, keeping turned away, "To check. To make sure other people are seeing what I'm seeing. To make certain I haven't gone completely insane."
"Oh, well," somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, Barry's voice rose into the night air. "If that's all you needed, then yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're gone, Mr. Wizard. Totally lost it! Flown out of the cuckoo's nest and landed hard in reality with the rest of us! I'll take my pay in small bills, if you-"
"LOOK."
Barry tensed, backing away two steps. Old guy was taller than him, more reach, basically all muscle, but he was off-kilter, old, slower than him. Lots of things around to use as improvised weapons. Might be able to make it out of this.
Christopher breathed, steady, slow. Visibly trying to calm himself down. He raised one hand, and pointed at Barry. "I'll triple your pay."
"...you got magic powers? That's super cool, man."
Christopher groaned. "Get back to searching."
"Aye, aye, captain."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was another two hours of digging through slime and fighting off rats before Barry found the stupid necklace.
Magic better be real.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old guy'd been fidgeting all the way to the docks.
Not that you'd notice it. From a distance, he had sort of that careful mountain man movement about him. Half military discipline, half learning not to bump into things when the whole world's just a teensy too small for you. But Barry was walking right beside him, and even 15 c-notes wasn't gonna be enough to keep him from being all kinds of jumpy in the worse part of town. Noticing everything. And ...
... well. Christopher was fidgeting.
The necklace disappeared in and out of his pocket. Pearls slid between knuckles; the locket clicked open and closed. Occasionally, the cadence of his careful march was ever-so-slightly irregular.
Fidgeting.
It was a long walk.
"So what's the story with the necklace?" Barry finally asked, when they were about seven-eighths there. Just to break the silence.
He expected his boss to snap at him, tell him to shut his mouth and keep walking, but really, Christopher just sighed. "Belonged to an old friend of mine."
"Ah." See? Everyone had a sob story. "How'd they go?"
Christopher was quiet for a moment. "Drowned."
"Hmm," Barry nodded.
A touch more quiet.
"Presumably, drowned," Christopher said. "Guy she trusted, business partner. He invited her to some kind of meetup. Her, him, some lawyers, a boat. Guess talks went bad."
Clack, clack, went the pearls.
"You had the hots for her," Barry said. Not asked. It wasn't a question.
Christopher laughed, and, wonder of wonders, it sounded genuine. "Too young for my tastes. But she had a fire in her I always admired. Never stood by when she could stand in the way."
Monster-killer. Barry could respect that. "So, figure this guy did somethin'?"
"Badges didn't exactly look too hard before they closed the case on their missing person," Christopher grumbled. "And it's kind of strange for a boat to sink while it's supposed to be tied to the docks."
And so came the "magic". Geez, now Barry felt sort of bad for shouting at the guy. "You get yours back?"
A little scoff, half a smile, and Christopher seemed like he'd taken the peace offering for what it was. "Guy's dead, now. I said anything else, it'd get complicated."
"I can do complicated." Barry paused the right amount of time for appropriate effect. "Y'know, if you double my pay."
"Jackass," Christopher muttered under his breath, and Barry knew he'd got him.
The night was cold, the fog was thick, but hey - at least Christopher wasn't fidgeting anymore.
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"Hey, boss?"
"Yeah, Barry?"
"Y'know we've made it to the docks, right?"
"Mm. I do know that, Barry."
"Cool. Just checking."
The waves lapped against the shore.
"Say, boss?"
"Yes, Barry?"
"You know we've been at the docks for a while, now, right? Like, half an hour?"
Christopher sighed, heavy and deep. "So we have," he muttered, taking the necklace from his pocket. He looked down at it for some time, before stepping forwards and holding it up. Its pearls, false though they were, rippled through what little moonlight made it through the maze of smoke and stacks above. "Barry?"
"Uh-huh, boss?"
"...witness."
"You got it."
He could watch. That he could do just fine.
(It was what came after that he was starting to get worried about.)
For a handful of seconds after that, there was just ... breathing. Barry's breath, misting upon the mist. Cold whispers of a night that was dragging ever further onward. Christopher's breath, slow and loud - ponderous, more aftershock than actual noise, like a pebble in a cave. Something small, revealing something vast.
Quiet.
For the barest span of time, so short that Barry thought maybe he imagined it, the smoke, the fog, and the smog in between all cleared, the moon shining bright upon the water. Christopher exhaled - ripple - and -
- it was just for a moment -
- Barry believed.
"Come on," Christopher muttered, and it echoed, somehow.
No light show. No wicked songs, devolving into warped chanting. No glowing eyes, or prayer circles, or human sacrifice.
The boat - and it was the boat - breached the waves like a whale, warped and broken wood repairing itself in a matter of instants before settling alongside the pier, looking pristine, polished, paint shining in the moonlight.
"Holy..." Barry breathed.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Christopher muttered in return, walking to the edge where the water met the shore - the boat's ramp moved itself to meet him - and boarding craft, half-hurried, half-hesitant.
Barry gulped, then jogged after him, 1500 dollars, grime on his shoes, tired in his eyes all forgotten. Discarded. He needed his hands free to grab the impossible -
Clump, clump, clump, went his feet up the stairs, as if to say Yes, you're not dreaming. This is real.
This is real.
He caught a glimpse of the old guy - Christopher - was that even his real name? - disappearing into the cabin, and hesitated a moment before following close after him. Hand on the handle, he hesitated again - wondering if he should press in, if he should hang back, if -
- if a monster ought to bear witness to a miracle.
Dad didn't say a word, even as his blood, his teeth, hit the wall, but oh how mom cried, she cried that day, the day sissy didn't come home, but Barry never cried, not never, not once, not even when he left her behind once and for all -
He pushed through.
There was a skeleton in business formal sitting in a chair, and Barry felt his heart jump into his throat as he saw her. Her, he presumed, with the blue pencil skirt, the tatters of the white blouse. One high heel there, the other missing. Not a touch of flesh.
There was a rope tied around her ankle. There was a crack running over her skull.
"Ah, Biyu," Christopher said, softly, from where he kneeled, across from her. "You're gonna kill me for this."
And as the necklace slipped around her neck, easily, quickly for how softly he put it on her, the skeleton suddenly gasped, and it wasn't a skeleton, any more. A Chinese woman, hair in a tight bun, panting for air, eyes fretting over the room, and then, all at once, drooping. "I'm gonna kill you."
"Figured."
The woman - Biyu, apparently - nodded, slowly, eyelids fluttering. "Gonna nap first."
And then she was out.
That was that.
Barry half-collapsed against the door, breathing out hard, running his hand through his hair. His eyes were wide, but he wasn't seeing anything in front of him, not really. This was ... this was ...
A noise brought him back to reality. The old man standing, grunting with exertion, with hurt, as though he wasn't some kind of godforsaken mythological figure, as though joint pain was something he could still reasonably experience, as though -
- he -
- Barry looked at him, thoughts slowing. Slower, slower, as though treading too quickly might cause the whole thing to tumble over, shatter apart. Flimsy, flimsy thoughts. Something just barely possible, maybe, possibly, perhaps ... perhaps?
His dad's favorite baseball card. Never told anyone, never any value, but Barry'd kept it in his back pocket all this time. Talked to it sometimes, like it was gonna talk back, as though it was his dad who would talk back if it did. Acted like his old man would even want a conversation with him. Except maybe ... and maybe, you know, his mom ... she never accepted that his sister was gone, she kept a whole room full of her stuff, so if he could just get some and get it to this guy, maybe ...?
Maybe, the thoughts came faster. Oh, maybe. Maybe? Maybe! Could it be real? Could it really happen? Was it, could it, can't it, will it?
Movement brought Barry back to reality again, as Christopher raised his hand, bringing it slowly to his face.
"...I witnessed it, boss," Barry wet his lips and made himself say it, because, world gone mad and magical all at once, well, that's what he was supposed to do, right? "Y-y-you aren't insane."
"...yeah," Christopher muttered, slowly looking from his hand to Biyu. "Yeah, I guess I'm not."
He stared at her for a long while, before letting his hand drop, sighing more heavily than Barry had ever heard anyone sigh.
"Me damn it," Christopher muttered.
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"So," Christopher said, finally. "Any questions?"
Slowly, carefully, Barry set his coffee cup - his fifth - down, vaguely surprised that his hand didn't shake as he did. He considered the question for a few moments, before nodding, just as carefully, deep with consideration.
"What the fuck?"
"Astute observation," Biyu smirked, watching with barely-hidden glee as Christopher growled directly into his hands.
The city was rotten to its core, which made finding places left to eat..difficult. Even if there was a joint you trusted not to poison you (metaphorically or otherwise), you had to work with its owners eccentricities, sometimes. And that wasn't even mentioning the fact that only a handful of places were open past midnight, let alone at 4:20 AM. And on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day? You could probably just forget about it.
In short, the myth - In the Beginning, twice-fallen angels, wars of fire then of ice, the weight of eons, the man twice-wanted dead or alive, wandering, the age of new machines, the death of Heaven, and at last, a resurrection of sort - was told.
It was told in the corner booth of a beaten down diner that only served coffee and slightly-off chili.
("Texas Trash" it was called. "Because of course it was.)
"Lemme just ..." Barry's smart mouth had gone dumb, it seemed. Forget clever quips, he kept having to start sentences and stop them again. Like some kind of verbal lawnmower. "So - okay, like, I ... hrm." He shook his head, took another sip of coffee.
"Take your time, Barry" Christopher said.
"You told me to 'woman up and get through it' when you told me," Biyu said. Probably. It was hard to tell through her second bowl of Extra-Texan Hot-Chili.
"I was a different man, then. Different priorities. I'm not necessarily proud of who I used to be, but-"
"You just know that I'm not gonna murder you for un-murdering me while Barry's here to witness it."
"Take your time, Barry," Christopher repeated.
Barry sighed. "Okay. Alright."
"Mm," Christopher and Biyu murmured, in eerie sync.
At last, Barry managed to look the old guy in the eyes. "You're an angel."
Christopher visibly restrained himself from throwing the table they were sitting at out the window. Not that he visibly moved, but you could just ... sort of tell.
The way Biyu choked on her coffee, from snorting, helped.
"No," Christopher said, visibly calm. "I am not. That is the furthest thing from -" He ran his hand through nonexistent hair. "That's the thing you got out of all that? The thing that's the most untrue thing?"
"...so you're a devil?"
"No!" Christopher nearly shouted, even as Biyu pressed a napkin to her face, giggling.
"Well, then what the heck are you?!"
"I don't have a CLUE!" Christopher actually shouted, now. "The only thing I know is what I'm NOT!"
Barry sighed, his back hitting the seat. "...fair 'nough. Couldn't ask for more. I'm in the same sinking boat, after all."
For a while, the only noise was the hum of flourescent lights, the smack of chewed chili, and the echo of existential dread.
(The smack was the loudest. Biyu was clearly ravenous, after her long nap.)
"...how long have you been at this?" Barry said, eventually.
"...long enough," Christopher said, back.
"Man, I'm tired just hearin' about it."
"And I'm tired of telling it." One shoulder shrugged. "Still my story."
"And lo," Biyu spake, cursing the silence, "Did Christopher sit 'pon the mortal gathering, and expound upon his significant loss and oh, did they mourn, there, crying longly and loudly into their chili as he acted like such a drama queen."
Christopher gave her a look so even his eyebrows might as well have been a level.
"I was dead until half an hour ago," Biyu shrugged, polishing off her second bowl. "Plus, it's the New Year. Weird is a contractual obligation."
Barry looked at her for a few moments. "You were actually dead." Eyes drifted over to Christopher. "And you brought her back."
"'Fraid so," Christopher muttered, earning himself an elbow to the ribs.
"...could you do that for somebody else?" Barry asked, quiet.
"Yeah..." Biyu murmured, too. "Could you?"
Christopher chewed on that like it was a bite of bad chili. "Yes and no," he eventually said. "I can't just ... " a hand cut, slow, through the air. "...wave my hand and empty out a graveyard. Not yet, at least. It's ..."
More quiet, as Christopher looked out the window.
"...why do you like that necklace?" Christopher asked Biyu. "It's fake, right? Not valuable. And you can sorta tell it's fake, too, right?"
Biyu somehow managed to convey the entire sentence We've had this conversation before with the raise of a single eyebrow, but she played along nevertheless. "There's a legend about this thing. Says it'll bring misfortune to anyone who wears it, because it was cursed by the spirit of a scorned woman, name varies depending on who tells it, as she threw it from the highest building of this city. I don't know if I believe in all that or not, but ..." A shrug. "I guess I want to prove myself stronger than the curse."
Christopher nodded, turning to Barry. "There's rules to these things. Rules even I can't break." He sighed, sipping at his coffee for a moment. "It's not enough that their family and friends remember a person. In some small way, the world itself has got to know a man, before you can make him walk again. Even if people didn't know Miss Fong by name, she connected herself to the legend of the necklace, and that was just barely..."
Tap, tap, tap, his fingers on the table.
"...let's just say, there's a reason resurrecting her convinced me I had Heaven on my side again."
"...ah," Barry said. The reasons why were unspoken, they were so obvious.
Quiet. More quiet. Someone, no one was sure whom, slurped at their coffee.
Christopher leaned forwards, hands clasped. "What I'm about to say will sound pretty self-serving." A deep breath. "But I will make this solemn pledge to you: every word is true. I promise you that."
Barry considered, then straightened, then nodded. "Lay it on me, boss."
"If you make yourself a legend, Barry, then anyone connected to you becomes connected to that legend, in turn." Another lean forwards, just a little bit more. "And the stronger that legend is, and the longer it lasts, the more chance you have of being strong enough for me to ... whoever they are? You can call them back home."
Slowly, Barry nodded. "And you're the kingmaker, that's what you're saying?"
"I don't want worship," Christopher said, words a final judgement. "But I want followers. And I can make you first among those followers."
Immediately, Barry drained the rest of his coffee, slamming the cup down and laughing. "Deal with a devil. Shit."
"Yeah," Christopher nodded. "Tell you what - job's over for tonight. Go home and sleep on it. I'll cover the bill. And I promise, one way or another - no contracts."
Barry nodded. "Right," he said, mind already far away. "Right, okay. Sure."
And then he was out the door, dazedly walking down the street.
Christopher watched him go, for as long as he could see him out the window. And maybe a little afterwards. He was a rough man, with a dark past, but, hey, who was he to talk?
"You really have changed, since I was gone."
Christopher jumped. "Holy tap dancing hell, Biyu!" He coughed twice. "Good ... when'd you get so quiet? I forgot you were there."
Biyu said nothing. Just stared.
There was something about her look. Like a floating anchor, to put a paradox to it. Something weightlessly heavy, and deep with its shallow brush. As though her eyes did not need to search, to find.
Hers had always been older eyes than his.
"How do I help?" she finally asked.
Christopher blinked, then snorted. "You've been gone for twenty years, Miss Fong, I -"
"So, what, you can breach the boundaries of life and death and pull me back to life, but you can't snap your fingers and miracle up a fake ID?"
"No, I can - I don't even need magic to get an ID; that's not the point, the point is -" he squeezed the bridge of his nose. "You've earned a vacation, I'm pretty sure. At least some time for jet lag to wear off."
"You've never been good at following the rules," Biyu said, fingering her necklace. "You need someone who knows how to make the rules follow her, right?"
Right. She was right. She was always right.
But he couldn't say that.
"What are you planning, Chris?" Biyu asked, in a soft voice.
"I'm not sure, yet."
"But you know you need followers."
He grunted. "There's ... a power vacuum. And I ..." He twisted his spoon into a fork with thought alone. "...I have the power. Destiny's crock, free will's finnicky, but ... I can at least control how the dominoes fall."
Biyu said nothing. She didn't have to.
At long last, Christopher sighed. "I think I liked it better when you were pretending you were gonna kill me."
