Jack Cain
Born Jack Kramer, Jack Cain (who I used to call Achan) is the aberration-vampire brother of Benjamin Kramer IV, great-nephew of Benny the Cat, and owner of a bookstore called Ripper's Books. He appears to be in his late twenties, early thirties, with short dark brown hair, blue eyes and the same well-built form of his younger-older brother. He's devilishly handsome, tortured, and a lot of trouble.
Jack didn't set out to be a vampire with eternal youth. He just wanted to practice magic with his brother, but Benjamin Kramer IV fell victim when one of their rituals went horribly wrong (in the original story). Jack needed to save his brother at any cost because he loved his younger brother who he had to protect. They were the only family they had left, you see. So, Jack performed another ritual, sacrificing a random homeless woman to save his brother, turning himself into a vampire. He must drink the blood of others, sacrificing them, or Benjamin Kramer IV will die of the ritual than nearly killed him thirty years previously.
So long as he lives to kill others, Benjamin Kramer IV can live a normal life, fulfilling his dreams and doing whatever he wants. When Benjamin dies of a natural death at old age, Jack will stop performing the blood rituals and hopefully die himself.
Until then, he is under the protection of Porfirio, acting as the owner and guardian of a shop which sells, holds, and protects magical books that the Council would find... distasteful.
Jack is close friends with Azrael, Loki/Coyote, and Cassandra Troy. Azrael, Loki/Coyote, Benny the Cat and Jack are all in a club trying to find a way to become human again without sacrificing some of the things they've gained from their... experiences.
However, Jack is content to wait. Here's an excerpt of how he appeared in a blog I wrote a couple years ago to pad this post out:
I had no problem with going out in general. Though, I did need to get some chores done. I told Nemo so and I witnessed something out of The Sword in the Stone... or Fantasia. The apartment started to clean itself. All the garbage marched itself into the trashcan. The dishes washed themselves. The dirt fell off the windows and then all the dirt in the carpet and anywhere else in the apartment scampered in the direction of the trashcan and sort of... hopped in... like hundreds of little fleas. Dirty clothes went into the proper baskets. I watched everything doing my work for me, feeling quite amused.
This was magic.
Not that what'd I'd seen so far wasn't magic, but when I thought magic, this is what I thought of. Things flying through the air. Seemingly acting of their own accord.
And it was flying around my apartment!!!
The nerd in me nearly wet herself. The realist in me went running out the back door screaming.
It didn't make sense. Objects weren't supposed to fly around the room in the real world. Women weren't supposed to stand on ceiling. Men weren't supposed to be vampire-like creatures that threatened to kill you. These were things of fiction. So, either my life had suddenly become a fictional story (news to me) or these things did happen in the universe.
Like before, the nerd in me was jumping up in down. Nerd Victorious!
In no time flat the apartment was clean and Nemo was dragging me out of it, her arm linked in mine. She almost didn't let me lock the door. I was afraid that if I tried to stop, she'd just pull my arm off and keep going. Remember, this is the woman I met when she saved me by beheading someone. I wouldn't put her past arm removal. She'd probably say she was providing me with a public service. Don't ask me how removing my arm would be a service to the public. If I knew that, then Nemo wouldn't be half as fun to be around.
"So, do you have a plan for where we're going?" I asked her.
"Oh, here and there, up and down. Maybe all around if I feel like it," she said with a wink, "But if I'm right it should all be within walking distance. Just don't let Porfirio find out what we're doing."
I raised an eyebrow as I looked up and realized that somehow the Lilac Cafe had planted itself in the parking lot right across the street from my apartment. As I knew that a gas station usually stood there, the logical part of me found the whole thing to be an egregious sin against reality and either eloped with the realistic part of me to another brain or just stopped trying to interfere.
Again, Nerd Victorious!
I followed Nemo as she casually walked into the cafe as though it was across the street from my apartment every day, her brown leather jacket hanging loosely off her shoulders and a multi-colored scarf around her neck (literally every color I could think of was in there, it made me want to go blind). Her hair was a sort of afro today, but still the same color that wasn't really any hair color in particular. I had stopped examining her eye color because there was simply no point in it. I tried to look at them too long earlier and they just kept changing... like those weird jellyfish at some aquariums. I think she did that on purpose. I don't know what the significance of the afro was... maybe she was feeling uptight and curly? Maybe she was feeling disco? Nemo's skin hadn't changed from the color it always had... which, like everything else about her was really neither here nor there. Maybe she was Caucasian with a deep tan, maybe she was Arabic. Maybe she was Latino. Maybe she was a bit of everything. Maybe that's the way she was meant to be? Everything and nothing?
I tried to keep my mind away from such things as I found myself enveloped by the usual purple and pink atmosphere of the cafe. Nemo and I sidled in together and she picked a seat near the window. I happened to look out as I sat down and my jaw dropped. There was a beach outside.
We had left my freezing cold apartment near downtown, smalltown, Ohio... and now we were looking outside the cafe at a bloody BEACH.
I know this is becoming a running theme, but....
NERD VICTORIOUS!
Benny had told me that the Cafe was extradimensionl... or mulitdimensional or something like that. Either way, it existed in many places at once and certain people with the right kind of magic (like Nemo) could summon it to a place where it wouldn't normally exist for their own needs. However, I had only been in the cafe twice. The first time was for the New Year Caper. The second time I visited it very briefly when I met Nemo. So, I never really got to explore the cafe or what it could do. Coyote forbade me from seeking it out on my own. I wonder how he'd react if he knew that Nemo just took me there.
The woman with many arms approached the table with a tray.I think her name was Mauve... or a name for a reddish color.
Maroon?
Oh! Magenta I just looked it up.
She set two steaming cups in front of us with a smile, "Here you go ladies." Like before, her other arms were occupied in other ways. One set seemed to be playing with a slinky while the other set was peeling an apple very slowly in one long peel.
I looked at the drink and then her, "... I-I-I didn't order this..."
The pink-haired woman smiled kindly, "Don't worry, hon, it's what you would've ordered."
The hand not holding the tray patted me on the head like a child and then she turned and walked away. I was left feeling my face turn red as I looked at the cup siting on the table. I could feel it looking at me. The white styrofoam mocking me with every second. The steam drifting up menacingly, like smoke out of a factory.
Nemo lowered her head and smelled her cup. She made a face like she'd just smelled dung.
"Why does that girl always give me cups of Sobriety and Sanity?" she asked still making the face. Suddenly, it turned to one of concern. "I'm not crazy, am I?"
I bit my tongue and shook my head slowly wondering what the hell Nemo was talking about. Cups of sanity and sobriety? What?
"I wonder what she gave you?" Nemo said as she grabbed my cup and held it to her nose for a few seconds. She sighed and a small smile crossed her lips. Then she slammed the cup down in front of me as her eyes flared red. "She gives you Happiness while I get stuck with Sanity and Sobriety?! I'm gonna murder that woman!"
Nemo got up and snatched up her cup and went over to the counter where Magenta stood. I could hear her demand, "What's the meaning of this?!" at the poor pink-haired woman, causing the other patrons of the cafe to look at her.
Left alone, and trying to pretend like I didn't know Nemo, I found myself actually looking at the patrons, and feeling some of my confidence in myself and my safety slip away. There were a lot of odd-looking people sitting around. In one corner with cushy pink and purple striped sofas, there were some men in business-suites and green scales instead of hair and skin talking animatedly about something to the point where they were the only ones not paying attention to Nemo.
In a far corner I saw Azrael sitting at a table with a similar-looking man. At least he looked like Azrael... same height, same hair, same coat... When Nemo started to shout at Magenta, he looked up at her and then to the table where I was sitting. However, he showed no reaction nor sign of knowing me. Guess he thought I'd learned what I could from him. Lying jerk.
At another table, two old women were sitting down, crouched over a book with glasses on their large noses. They're eyes, however, were fixed on Nemo and their lips were pursed.
Porfirio was no where to be seen.
I took a sip of my drink and found it tasted very pleasant and warm, like spiced cider. The warmth curled in my belly and then filled me with a sort of light feeling. I found myself smiling and I really didn't know, nor care, why. Life was good.
Nerd Victorious.
Then, after several minutes of Nemo shouting at her, Magenta snapped and that feeling vanished immediately.
Her eyes glowed pink while the rest of her whole body sort of darkened and nearly turned black. "NEMO IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT I HAVE TO GIVE YOU THEN EITHER GET OUT OF MY CAFE OR ASK ME NICELY FOR SOMETHING ELSE! I HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN DEAL WITH YOU AND YOU ARE DISTURBING MY PATRONS!"
It was like someone suddenly pressed pause on the whole place. Everyone, even the green guys in the corner. Even Azrael and his friend had frozen and stared at Magenta.
"Fine!" Nemo shouted, "I don't like this crowd anyhow." She turned and walked towards the door, "Come on Amanda, let's go where we can actually get something we want."
I stood up and followed her as suddenly every eyes fell on me. Trying to look as small and insignificant as possible, I followed Nemo out of the cafe. I could hear a strange, deep voice say as the door closed behind me, "Gooooood riddanccccccccce to baaaad rubissssssssssshhh."
We were not standing in the tropical place.
Nemo and I stood in an alleyway, two feet deep in snow. Nemo was looking around with a livid expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"They scrambled it!" she exclaimed still looking around.
"Scrambled what?" I asked.
"The door coordinates! We should have come out right next door to the place I wanted to show you, but those buggers scrambled it! They must've seen through my clever ruse!" she shouted, "Those fuckers! I'll boil them both alive in molten lava and then have their remains turn into diamonds that I'll wear on my sandals!"
I suddenly remembered the reasons why you should never make friends with a half-mad woman, no matter how fun they are. Or how you can vicariously live through them as they visit frustration on those that are so frustrating to you:
They're insane.
Nerd... Not Victorious. At all.
"Clever... ruse?" I asked.
Nemo turned to smile at me and winked, "Yeah. You did brilliant! I really thought you were embarrassed. And taking a drink of that stuff Magenta gave you? Wonderful!"
I nodded slowly and tried to act like I knew what she was talking about. "So... umm... why did we have to do that?"
Nemo suddenly looked shocked, "Oh! That's right! You don't really know much about our world! Well, the Lilac Cafe exists in many places as once. I know Benny told you that. So... for those of us in the know," Nemo nudged me with her elbow and winked some more, "We can use it for faster travel. Just know where you want to go when you leave. That's the important thing... And don't let Porfirio or Magenta figure out what you're doing. They don't like being used that way."
I nodded slowly again, "So, to hide the fact that we were doing something they wouldn't like, you decided to piss one of them off?"
Nemo looked down and then around, careful not to make eye contact with me. "I didn't say it was the best plan... but it's worked before..." Suddenly she whirled around. "Oh! This is the way we want to go!"
She started walking down the alley, like we were going back into the cafe, except the cafe was no where in sight. I would have been surprised, but from the sound of it, we were lucky Porfirio hadn't sent us to the center of the earth... or Pluto. Could he do that. The nerd in me bet that it was... and my inner nerd had been mostly victorious all day.
When we came out of the alleyway, Nemo turned left her hands in her jacket pocket, looking like she knew where she was going. I followed her because I had no clue where I was or where I was going. I just felt happiness fill me as my feet and knees were no longer surrounded in snow. Of course, the rest of me still shivered from the cold. Weather in Ohio had warmed up a bit. This place--wherever it was--still suffered from cold weather... and wind. I did my best to keep it from penetrating me to the very bones, but with only a long-sleeved sweater and a regular jacket... I was fighting a losing battle and I knew it.
Luckily, Nemo just turned the corner at the end of the block and walked into a store front. I followed her in, noticing that the windows looked oddly familiar.
They were filthy except for the door, which said in big pretty letters: RIPPER BOOKS
Inside the store, the world went utterly and completely insane. You'd think that a book store would be a nice and peaceful place, right?
Wrong.
Things were whirring around in circles, I think some of them were books on chains.
All of the books were on bookcases... or attached to them by chains... At least it looked like it. Some of the books were just fluttering about close to the ceiling. One set of books seemed to be dueling on the floor, sending pages everywhere.
Books weren't the only thing in the air.
Various crystals, amulets, and candles of very... interesting shapes, also floated about. At one point I looked up to find my self face-to-face with a giant candle shaped like... we'll just call it a man's most private of organs. The wick wiggled at me and then it went zooming off.
Nemo stood beside me watching my expression. She looked like she was trying her hardest not to laugh.
"What is this?" I asked her, not really sure what to do or think.
"Do you like it?"
I looked around as the inner nerd in me sang. This wasn't like the bookstores I heard about in books. It wasn't even like Coyote's antique shop where most of the items were well-behaved. This was like the library of Unseen University...
...on crack. On every drug in the known universe at once. With onions.
Nerd victorious!
Then something hit me on the head. Afraid it was that stupid candle, I flinched and ducked, covering my head and looking up. It was a little book called, "Magick Most Powerful " by someone named Vivian Lake. It flapped in circles around my head. I looked up at it for a few minutes, bewildered while it flapped in the air, green and gold cover glinting in the fluorescent light which apparently had no source. Then, it set itself down on top my head, open with the pages down so that I was wearing it like a hat.
Nemo looked at it and me before finally losing it and laughing. I guess I had a funny expression on my face.
Nerd Victorious???
"You had better buy that," a sophisticated British voice said, "If you don't, it'll molt pages all over the store for weeks. Do you know how hard it is to rebind a book after a fit of depression like that?"
Nemo lost it at that. She nearly doubled over.
I looked up to see a man standing in front of the cash register, eying the book. His arms were crossed over his chest which was covered by a simple black sweater. His black hair was combed. His sharp, black eyes drifted to me and then to Nemo.
"Why, hello there, Alice. I have your orders here. Will the Lake be with your orders or separately?" He asked as he retreated behind his desk, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses popped into existence on his nose as he looked through a shelf until he found a box and set it on the counter.
Nemo straightened herself up and tried to look dignified. Her hair had fallen out... or vanished somehow. She stood there, bald looking quite business like and snatched the book off of my head, snapping it shut as she did so. I winced as a few stray hairs went with the book.
"Why, Jack," she said, mimicking the man's accent, "Yes I would."
She winked at me and walked through the chaos over to the counter. Somehow, it all avoided her. I wasn't so lucky. I had to dodge the fighting pair and a flying crystal ball which crashed into another crystal ball, sending glass flying everywhere... until they reformed, sailing through the air in different directions.
"Who's the girl?" the man named Jack asked as he totalled up the prices on the cash register.
"My human friend. She works for Coyote," Nemo said, "Jack Achan, abomination, meet Amanda Palmer, human."
"Ahh... I heard he got himself a human. Damn copy-cat. He only did it after I was successful," he said off-handedly. Then Jack looked up as Nemo, "How will you be paying for this? More memories? I see you have no more locks of hair..."
Nemo taped her chin for a moment, then she said, "How about I owe you a big fat favor?"
A smile spread across Jack's face like fire on gasoline. This shocked me because while Azrael had a row of sharp teeth and Coyote also could have jaggedly sharp teeth when he wanted, Jack had perfectly normal teeth by comparison. Shockingly straight and white, but perfectly human. Unfortunately, that made me more afraid of him. He was an abomination that looked, for all intents and purposes human. That couldn't be good for the world.
Oh, and he was handsome.
Oh, and he knew how to groom himself. The world was doomed.
The book flew out of where it had been set on the box and set itself on top my head again. I pulled it off gently and closed it. Then I hugged it to my chest with my arms wrapped around it. The book was about the size of any normal hardbound book. And it flew. And for some strange reason it wanted to belong to me.
Nerd Victorious!
"One big favor for all of this. What about the girl?"
"I'm buying the book for her and she belongs to Coyote...and me. She owes me her life, you know," Nemo said.
Jack rolled his eyes, "How many times do I have to tell you to stop saving the lives of lost little kittens no matter how cute they are? And this one... if it weren't for Lizzie, I'd give her a go."
I felt my face turn red at that statement, but luckily I was ignored.
"How is that going, by the by?" Nemo asked, still in British mode.
Jack sighed, "Oh, she's having a ball at college, learning magick. She comes back to me every weekend or so, or whenever Porfirio and the guardian of that universe decide to open a portal for us." He shrugged, "But it's keeping her safe from the Council, so I can't complain."
Nemo nodded, "Well, that's the best you can hope for. Is there anything else I should ask you about?"
Jack looked around, "Is there anything else you need?"
The phallic candle made a circle twice around Jack's head and headed off for parts of the store unknown.
Nemo thought a minute, "A way back to her apartment!"
Jack sighed, "You didn't antagonize Magenta again, did you?"
Nemo nodded.
Jack rolled his eyes and grumbled with a wave of his hand, "Just leave through the back and turn the dial next to the doorknob to the picture of the necklace. That'll put you in Coyote's shop. He'll take you the rest of the way home."
Coyote wasn't happy to see us. Well, he was happy to see me, but he wasn't happy about Nemo... though the minute he realized where we'd come from and that a book liked me, he wouldn't leave me alone until I showed it to him. Then he lost interest and offered to drive me home. Looking outside I realized it was nearly nightfall. How had time passed so fast? Or was that part of the whole travel thing? Or did travel by Cafe just make time work weirdly when Magenta and Porfirio wanted it to? I had a lot to ask Benny!
Just for fun, I'll say it again.
NERD VICTORIOUS!!!
Next time: Coyote/Loki
Jack didn't set out to be a vampire with eternal youth. He just wanted to practice magic with his brother, but Benjamin Kramer IV fell victim when one of their rituals went horribly wrong (in the original story). Jack needed to save his brother at any cost because he loved his younger brother who he had to protect. They were the only family they had left, you see. So, Jack performed another ritual, sacrificing a random homeless woman to save his brother, turning himself into a vampire. He must drink the blood of others, sacrificing them, or Benjamin Kramer IV will die of the ritual than nearly killed him thirty years previously.
So long as he lives to kill others, Benjamin Kramer IV can live a normal life, fulfilling his dreams and doing whatever he wants. When Benjamin dies of a natural death at old age, Jack will stop performing the blood rituals and hopefully die himself.
Until then, he is under the protection of Porfirio, acting as the owner and guardian of a shop which sells, holds, and protects magical books that the Council would find... distasteful.
Jack is close friends with Azrael, Loki/Coyote, and Cassandra Troy. Azrael, Loki/Coyote, Benny the Cat and Jack are all in a club trying to find a way to become human again without sacrificing some of the things they've gained from their... experiences.
However, Jack is content to wait. Here's an excerpt of how he appeared in a blog I wrote a couple years ago to pad this post out:
Nerd
Victorious!
also known as...
A DAY WITH NOBODY
Well, yesterday after I told all of you lovely readers about my date with
Gabriel, Nemo came over. She wanted to go out and have some fun around
town. She refused to get off the ceiling until I agreed.
While I have no natural qualms about Nemo being on the ceiling or the walls or
wherever else she wants to be, Jenny may not understand how it's even possible
let alone why I would make friends with someone capable of such leaps from what
we consider reality.I had no problem with going out in general. Though, I did need to get some chores done. I told Nemo so and I witnessed something out of The Sword in the Stone... or Fantasia. The apartment started to clean itself. All the garbage marched itself into the trashcan. The dishes washed themselves. The dirt fell off the windows and then all the dirt in the carpet and anywhere else in the apartment scampered in the direction of the trashcan and sort of... hopped in... like hundreds of little fleas. Dirty clothes went into the proper baskets. I watched everything doing my work for me, feeling quite amused.
This was magic.
Not that what'd I'd seen so far wasn't magic, but when I thought magic, this is what I thought of. Things flying through the air. Seemingly acting of their own accord.
And it was flying around my apartment!!!
The nerd in me nearly wet herself. The realist in me went running out the back door screaming.
It didn't make sense. Objects weren't supposed to fly around the room in the real world. Women weren't supposed to stand on ceiling. Men weren't supposed to be vampire-like creatures that threatened to kill you. These were things of fiction. So, either my life had suddenly become a fictional story (news to me) or these things did happen in the universe.
Like before, the nerd in me was jumping up in down. Nerd Victorious!
In no time flat the apartment was clean and Nemo was dragging me out of it, her arm linked in mine. She almost didn't let me lock the door. I was afraid that if I tried to stop, she'd just pull my arm off and keep going. Remember, this is the woman I met when she saved me by beheading someone. I wouldn't put her past arm removal. She'd probably say she was providing me with a public service. Don't ask me how removing my arm would be a service to the public. If I knew that, then Nemo wouldn't be half as fun to be around.
"So, do you have a plan for where we're going?" I asked her.
"Oh, here and there, up and down. Maybe all around if I feel like it," she said with a wink, "But if I'm right it should all be within walking distance. Just don't let Porfirio find out what we're doing."
I raised an eyebrow as I looked up and realized that somehow the Lilac Cafe had planted itself in the parking lot right across the street from my apartment. As I knew that a gas station usually stood there, the logical part of me found the whole thing to be an egregious sin against reality and either eloped with the realistic part of me to another brain or just stopped trying to interfere.
Again, Nerd Victorious!
I followed Nemo as she casually walked into the cafe as though it was across the street from my apartment every day, her brown leather jacket hanging loosely off her shoulders and a multi-colored scarf around her neck (literally every color I could think of was in there, it made me want to go blind). Her hair was a sort of afro today, but still the same color that wasn't really any hair color in particular. I had stopped examining her eye color because there was simply no point in it. I tried to look at them too long earlier and they just kept changing... like those weird jellyfish at some aquariums. I think she did that on purpose. I don't know what the significance of the afro was... maybe she was feeling uptight and curly? Maybe she was feeling disco? Nemo's skin hadn't changed from the color it always had... which, like everything else about her was really neither here nor there. Maybe she was Caucasian with a deep tan, maybe she was Arabic. Maybe she was Latino. Maybe she was a bit of everything. Maybe that's the way she was meant to be? Everything and nothing?
I tried to keep my mind away from such things as I found myself enveloped by the usual purple and pink atmosphere of the cafe. Nemo and I sidled in together and she picked a seat near the window. I happened to look out as I sat down and my jaw dropped. There was a beach outside.
We had left my freezing cold apartment near downtown, smalltown, Ohio... and now we were looking outside the cafe at a bloody BEACH.
I know this is becoming a running theme, but....
NERD VICTORIOUS!
Benny had told me that the Cafe was extradimensionl... or mulitdimensional or something like that. Either way, it existed in many places at once and certain people with the right kind of magic (like Nemo) could summon it to a place where it wouldn't normally exist for their own needs. However, I had only been in the cafe twice. The first time was for the New Year Caper. The second time I visited it very briefly when I met Nemo. So, I never really got to explore the cafe or what it could do. Coyote forbade me from seeking it out on my own. I wonder how he'd react if he knew that Nemo just took me there.
The woman with many arms approached the table with a tray.
Oh! Magenta I just looked it up.
She set two steaming cups in front of us with a smile, "Here you go ladies." Like before, her other arms were occupied in other ways. One set seemed to be playing with a slinky while the other set was peeling an apple very slowly in one long peel.
I looked at the drink and then her, "... I-I-I didn't order this..."
The pink-haired woman smiled kindly, "Don't worry, hon, it's what you would've ordered."
The hand not holding the tray patted me on the head like a child and then she turned and walked away. I was left feeling my face turn red as I looked at the cup siting on the table. I could feel it looking at me. The white styrofoam mocking me with every second. The steam drifting up menacingly, like smoke out of a factory.
Nemo lowered her head and smelled her cup. She made a face like she'd just smelled dung.
"Why does that girl always give me cups of Sobriety and Sanity?" she asked still making the face. Suddenly, it turned to one of concern. "I'm not crazy, am I?"
I bit my tongue and shook my head slowly wondering what the hell Nemo was talking about. Cups of sanity and sobriety? What?
"I wonder what she gave you?" Nemo said as she grabbed my cup and held it to her nose for a few seconds. She sighed and a small smile crossed her lips. Then she slammed the cup down in front of me as her eyes flared red. "She gives you Happiness while I get stuck with Sanity and Sobriety?! I'm gonna murder that woman!"
Nemo got up and snatched up her cup and went over to the counter where Magenta stood. I could hear her demand, "What's the meaning of this?!" at the poor pink-haired woman, causing the other patrons of the cafe to look at her.
Left alone, and trying to pretend like I didn't know Nemo, I found myself actually looking at the patrons, and feeling some of my confidence in myself and my safety slip away. There were a lot of odd-looking people sitting around. In one corner with cushy pink and purple striped sofas, there were some men in business-suites and green scales instead of hair and skin talking animatedly about something to the point where they were the only ones not paying attention to Nemo.
In a far corner I saw Azrael sitting at a table with a similar-looking man. At least he looked like Azrael... same height, same hair, same coat... When Nemo started to shout at Magenta, he looked up at her and then to the table where I was sitting. However, he showed no reaction nor sign of knowing me. Guess he thought I'd learned what I could from him. Lying jerk.
At another table, two old women were sitting down, crouched over a book with glasses on their large noses. They're eyes, however, were fixed on Nemo and their lips were pursed.
Porfirio was no where to be seen.
I took a sip of my drink and found it tasted very pleasant and warm, like spiced cider. The warmth curled in my belly and then filled me with a sort of light feeling. I found myself smiling and I really didn't know, nor care, why. Life was good.
Nerd Victorious.
Then, after several minutes of Nemo shouting at her, Magenta snapped and that feeling vanished immediately.
Her eyes glowed pink while the rest of her whole body sort of darkened and nearly turned black. "NEMO IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT I HAVE TO GIVE YOU THEN EITHER GET OUT OF MY CAFE OR ASK ME NICELY FOR SOMETHING ELSE! I HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN DEAL WITH YOU AND YOU ARE DISTURBING MY PATRONS!"
It was like someone suddenly pressed pause on the whole place. Everyone, even the green guys in the corner. Even Azrael and his friend had frozen and stared at Magenta.
"Fine!" Nemo shouted, "I don't like this crowd anyhow." She turned and walked towards the door, "Come on Amanda, let's go where we can actually get something we want."
I stood up and followed her as suddenly every eyes fell on me. Trying to look as small and insignificant as possible, I followed Nemo out of the cafe. I could hear a strange, deep voice say as the door closed behind me, "Gooooood riddanccccccccce to baaaad rubissssssssssshhh."
We were not standing in the tropical place.
Nemo and I stood in an alleyway, two feet deep in snow. Nemo was looking around with a livid expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"They scrambled it!" she exclaimed still looking around.
"Scrambled what?" I asked.
"The door coordinates! We should have come out right next door to the place I wanted to show you, but those buggers scrambled it! They must've seen through my clever ruse!" she shouted, "Those fuckers! I'll boil them both alive in molten lava and then have their remains turn into diamonds that I'll wear on my sandals!"
I suddenly remembered the reasons why you should never make friends with a half-mad woman, no matter how fun they are. Or how you can vicariously live through them as they visit frustration on those that are so frustrating to you:
They're insane.
Nerd... Not Victorious. At all.
"Clever... ruse?" I asked.
Nemo turned to smile at me and winked, "Yeah. You did brilliant! I really thought you were embarrassed. And taking a drink of that stuff Magenta gave you? Wonderful!"
I nodded slowly and tried to act like I knew what she was talking about. "So... umm... why did we have to do that?"
Nemo suddenly looked shocked, "Oh! That's right! You don't really know much about our world! Well, the Lilac Cafe exists in many places as once. I know Benny told you that. So... for those of us in the know," Nemo nudged me with her elbow and winked some more, "We can use it for faster travel. Just know where you want to go when you leave. That's the important thing... And don't let Porfirio or Magenta figure out what you're doing. They don't like being used that way."
I nodded slowly again, "So, to hide the fact that we were doing something they wouldn't like, you decided to piss one of them off?"
Nemo looked down and then around, careful not to make eye contact with me. "I didn't say it was the best plan... but it's worked before..." Suddenly she whirled around. "Oh! This is the way we want to go!"
She started walking down the alley, like we were going back into the cafe, except the cafe was no where in sight. I would have been surprised, but from the sound of it, we were lucky Porfirio hadn't sent us to the center of the earth... or Pluto. Could he do that. The nerd in me bet that it was... and my inner nerd had been mostly victorious all day.
When we came out of the alleyway, Nemo turned left her hands in her jacket pocket, looking like she knew where she was going. I followed her because I had no clue where I was or where I was going. I just felt happiness fill me as my feet and knees were no longer surrounded in snow. Of course, the rest of me still shivered from the cold. Weather in Ohio had warmed up a bit. This place--wherever it was--still suffered from cold weather... and wind. I did my best to keep it from penetrating me to the very bones, but with only a long-sleeved sweater and a regular jacket... I was fighting a losing battle and I knew it.
Luckily, Nemo just turned the corner at the end of the block and walked into a store front. I followed her in, noticing that the windows looked oddly familiar.
They were filthy except for the door, which said in big pretty letters: RIPPER BOOKS
Inside the store, the world went utterly and completely insane. You'd think that a book store would be a nice and peaceful place, right?
Wrong.
Things were whirring around in circles, I think some of them were books on chains.
All of the books were on bookcases... or attached to them by chains... At least it looked like it. Some of the books were just fluttering about close to the ceiling. One set of books seemed to be dueling on the floor, sending pages everywhere.
Books weren't the only thing in the air.
Various crystals, amulets, and candles of very... interesting shapes, also floated about. At one point I looked up to find my self face-to-face with a giant candle shaped like... we'll just call it a man's most private of organs. The wick wiggled at me and then it went zooming off.
Nemo stood beside me watching my expression. She looked like she was trying her hardest not to laugh.
"What is this?" I asked her, not really sure what to do or think.
"Do you like it?"
I looked around as the inner nerd in me sang. This wasn't like the bookstores I heard about in books. It wasn't even like Coyote's antique shop where most of the items were well-behaved. This was like the library of Unseen University...
...on crack. On every drug in the known universe at once. With onions.
Nerd victorious!
Then something hit me on the head. Afraid it was that stupid candle, I flinched and ducked, covering my head and looking up. It was a little book called, "Magick Most Powerful " by someone named Vivian Lake. It flapped in circles around my head. I looked up at it for a few minutes, bewildered while it flapped in the air, green and gold cover glinting in the fluorescent light which apparently had no source. Then, it set itself down on top my head, open with the pages down so that I was wearing it like a hat.
Nemo looked at it and me before finally losing it and laughing. I guess I had a funny expression on my face.
Nerd Victorious???
"You had better buy that," a sophisticated British voice said, "If you don't, it'll molt pages all over the store for weeks. Do you know how hard it is to rebind a book after a fit of depression like that?"
Nemo lost it at that. She nearly doubled over.
I looked up to see a man standing in front of the cash register, eying the book. His arms were crossed over his chest which was covered by a simple black sweater. His black hair was combed. His sharp, black eyes drifted to me and then to Nemo.
"Why, hello there, Alice. I have your orders here. Will the Lake be with your orders or separately?" He asked as he retreated behind his desk, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses popped into existence on his nose as he looked through a shelf until he found a box and set it on the counter.
Nemo straightened herself up and tried to look dignified. Her hair had fallen out... or vanished somehow. She stood there, bald looking quite business like and snatched the book off of my head, snapping it shut as she did so. I winced as a few stray hairs went with the book.
"Why, Jack," she said, mimicking the man's accent, "Yes I would."
She winked at me and walked through the chaos over to the counter. Somehow, it all avoided her. I wasn't so lucky. I had to dodge the fighting pair and a flying crystal ball which crashed into another crystal ball, sending glass flying everywhere... until they reformed, sailing through the air in different directions.
"Who's the girl?" the man named Jack asked as he totalled up the prices on the cash register.
"My human friend. She works for Coyote," Nemo said, "Jack Achan, abomination, meet Amanda Palmer, human."
"Ahh... I heard he got himself a human. Damn copy-cat. He only did it after I was successful," he said off-handedly. Then Jack looked up as Nemo, "How will you be paying for this? More memories? I see you have no more locks of hair..."
Nemo taped her chin for a moment, then she said, "How about I owe you a big fat favor?"
A smile spread across Jack's face like fire on gasoline. This shocked me because while Azrael had a row of sharp teeth and Coyote also could have jaggedly sharp teeth when he wanted, Jack had perfectly normal teeth by comparison. Shockingly straight and white, but perfectly human. Unfortunately, that made me more afraid of him. He was an abomination that looked, for all intents and purposes human. That couldn't be good for the world.
Oh, and he was handsome.
Oh, and he knew how to groom himself. The world was doomed.
The book flew out of where it had been set on the box and set itself on top my head again. I pulled it off gently and closed it. Then I hugged it to my chest with my arms wrapped around it. The book was about the size of any normal hardbound book. And it flew. And for some strange reason it wanted to belong to me.
Nerd Victorious!
"One big favor for all of this. What about the girl?"
"I'm buying the book for her and she belongs to Coyote...and me. She owes me her life, you know," Nemo said.
Jack rolled his eyes, "How many times do I have to tell you to stop saving the lives of lost little kittens no matter how cute they are? And this one... if it weren't for Lizzie, I'd give her a go."
I felt my face turn red at that statement, but luckily I was ignored.
"How is that going, by the by?" Nemo asked, still in British mode.
Jack sighed, "Oh, she's having a ball at college, learning magick. She comes back to me every weekend or so, or whenever Porfirio and the guardian of that universe decide to open a portal for us." He shrugged, "But it's keeping her safe from the Council, so I can't complain."
Nemo nodded, "Well, that's the best you can hope for. Is there anything else I should ask you about?"
Jack looked around, "Is there anything else you need?"
The phallic candle made a circle twice around Jack's head and headed off for parts of the store unknown.
Nemo thought a minute, "A way back to her apartment!"
Jack sighed, "You didn't antagonize Magenta again, did you?"
Nemo nodded.
Jack rolled his eyes and grumbled with a wave of his hand, "Just leave through the back and turn the dial next to the doorknob to the picture of the necklace. That'll put you in Coyote's shop. He'll take you the rest of the way home."
Coyote wasn't happy to see us. Well, he was happy to see me, but he wasn't happy about Nemo... though the minute he realized where we'd come from and that a book liked me, he wouldn't leave me alone until I showed it to him. Then he lost interest and offered to drive me home. Looking outside I realized it was nearly nightfall. How had time passed so fast? Or was that part of the whole travel thing? Or did travel by Cafe just make time work weirdly when Magenta and Porfirio wanted it to? I had a lot to ask Benny!
Just for fun, I'll say it again.
NERD VICTORIOUS!!!
Next time: Coyote/Loki
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