Lord of the Manor -- Section 12

['Sup, yo. Now that I know my stories are set in Seven Cities, WI, it's probably about time for me to make some kind of map for myself. Also, I might have to pay attention to weather patterns in Wisconsin (unless Seven Cities is in the part of Wisconsin with a climate exactly like the climate of Utah Valley.)

[Also, I'm not sure whether I'm one-hundred percent behind this whole 'describing characters and places' thing. It's a heckuvalot of work to be interesting in my descriptions, where the characters tend to take care of funny dialog all on their own.

[Ah well. Growing pains.]


     "Do you think that was the new Master?" asked Walk, pressing his cheek against the glass to look toward the door where the boy and girl had escaped back into the manor house. The glass was cold against his cheek, and he wanted to pull away--too many demons of the air were still clinging to the walls outside, still flitting past with teeth and angry faces--but he wanted even more to be sure that the boy and girl were all right.
    "I don't know," said Tickertape. Walk pulled his face back, leaving a white cloud from his breath, and looked at the little quirk.
    "But...he was human, right?" Walk didn't have too much experience with humans. As far as he knew, the old Master was the only human who had ever lived at Daimon Home. "Do you think the girl is the new Master?" he asked.
    "Can't tell you that, either," said the quirk. "They both seem too young."
    "Young?" asked Walk, lifting his eyebrows. "They're huge! They're as big as major demons. Especially that girl."
    Tickertape shrugged. "Humans don't grow like we do. They can reach their full growth while they're still basically kids, but then they stop growing."
    Walk was surprised. That seemed too strange. Demons kept growing long after they'd reached the age where they could be considered adults. "You mean they stop growing at all?"
    The quirk gave a short laugh as he stepped to the edge of the window sill. "They may grow some around the waste, but from what I hear, that's from eating too much."
    Walk put his hand over his empty stomach. HOW COULD YOU EVER EAT TOO MUCH, he thought to himself, sure that he never could. As creatures of chaos, demons technically didn't HAVE to eat to survive, but that didn't mean they didn't enjoy it--or that it was extremely uncomfortable to go without food for very long. Walk looked up and saw Tickertape looking at him.
    "Yeah, I've been thinking about food, too," said the quirk. "If either that boy or that girl is the new Lord, they might be able to help us out in the food department. Shall we go try to find them?"
    "Yes, please!" said Walk. "Oh. Wait. Talk and Micklewhip." He looked over where his friend had fallen asleep on a giant chair, cuddled next to the lag. Micklewhip snorted and turned over onto his head, then settled back to sleep.
    "I suppose we shouldn't wake them," said Tickertape, sitting down again on the window sill. "Though how they slept through all that, I'll never understand. Why don't you get some sleep, too, Walk. New Master or not, nobody is going out again tonight. The morning will be plenty early to go find our new Lord."
    "But I'm not sleepy," said Walk, then realized that sleepy was exactly what he was. Now that things had calmed down and the battle outside was over, his arms were heavy at his sides and his feet sore. "Maybe I will lie down, now that I think about it. You going to go to sleep?"
    Tickertape stretched his legs out then let his heals fall back down to bump against the wood of the wall. "Soon, I think. I don't sleep as much as I used to. It's something that happens to quirks as we get older. We like to stay up, tinkering."
    Walk looked around the room, with the furniture covered in sheets and the vases on the tables and paintings like black stains on the walls. "But...there's nothing to tinker with here."
    The quirk shrugged. "Doesn't stop me from staying awake. Sleep, Walk. It's a good way to forget about being hungry."
    The minor demon nodded and climbed down from the window. Before he realized it, he was lying on the carpet in the middle of the room. It was so thick and soft, and he thought that he might climb up into one of the chairs, but that would be so much work. Too much work. He wanted to stay awake longer, though. He didn't feel safe, yet. He was supposed to, once he got to the North Wing, but it seemed like nothing was quite what it should be. Not since the old Master died.
    When had he closed his eyes? he wondered, and then he heard someone, somewhere, snoring.


    Tickertape looked down at the snoring demon and sighed. He hadn't slept that easily for months. Wakeful nights had been fine when he'd had his own little workshop off the kitchen, when he was Chief Quirk Exemplary and Plenipotentiary Over Dishes and Sundries, his own staff of under-quirks busily smashing and bashing and wiring and polishing around him. He felt his fingers flexing, anxious for the tools he'd left behind when he'd fled from Rope Feast. What had he been thinking?
    Somewhere things HAD to be better. That's what he'd been thinking. Maybe they would be, but he wouldn't find that place tonight. Might as well lie down while he had the chance. He kicked himself away from the window sill and landed on the thick carpet, looking around to find a chair to serve as a bed for the night--though, as a matter of fact, Walk's choice to sleep on the carpet wasn't a bad one. Tickertape shifted his booted feet, feeling the thick weave squish underneath with a faint whisper of sound.
    And then there was actual whispering. The quirk froze, straining his ears. No, he hadn't made it up. Someone was whispering. Someone was coming toward the room. Tickertape's eyes flickered over to the shadowy lump that was Walk, then up to the chair where Talk and Micklewhip slept. The chair was faced away from both doors into the room, and there was a couch that was likely to hide the demon on the carpet from any casual observation, especially in this dark. That only left Tickertape out in the open, and he took care of that as quickly as possible, scampering over to the couch and under it, crawling on hands and knees until he had a decent view of both doors. Then he froze and tried not to breathe. Or not to breathe too much. He'd settle for breathing quietly, he decided.
    The voices were coming closer. A woman's voice, angled and sharp, one that Tickertape recognized. He could still hear her laugh as her fist jerked Rope Feast's head sideways: Noise Feast. The quirk pulled deeper back into the shadow.
    The other voices he didn't recognize. One had the clipped, precise diction of a tag, but a third was rounder and richer, and Tickertape couldn't place it. Probably a minor demon of some sort. He could see them coming now, or at least he could see the flicker of light from a flicker or two, casting warm shadows into the room.
    "You're certain we've been here before?" asked Noise Feast. She sounded annoyed. Of course, from everything Tickertape had heard, she was ALWAYS annoyed--except when she was fighting. That was something she enjoyed, and too much, from Tickertape's point of view.
    "Yes, Mistress Noise." That was the tag talking. "I have it recorded right here, that we moved through this room sixteen days ago at the third turning and a quarter after the Feast of Din. 'Nothing unusual, and the Finder reported nothing unusual.' Right here in my notes, all of it clear in green and white. Would you care to--"
    "No," said Noise Feast, cutting him off. "Of course I wouldn't care to." Tickertape cringed in his hiding place. That voice was like nails and glass, and the quirk found himself thinking almost fondly of Rope Feast's round, loud anger. "So, Master Finder, would you care to tell me why we're back in a room you pronounced unremarkable only sixteen days ago? When did you make a mistake? Then, or now?"
    "I tell you what I feel, Mistress Noise, and that is the best I can do." This was the richer voice--the minor demon, if Tickertape's guess was correct--and there was resentment in the sound. "I tell you again and again, my Right was for Finding and Recovery, and the old Master's Study wasn't lost. He HID it, and my Right was never for finding hidden things. That's theft, not recovery."
    "Finding the Study is whatever I tell you it is," said Noise Feast, and now her voice was cold nails and frosted glass. "You will find me the Study, and I will claim the Kitchens, and that fat slug Rope Feast will come crawling to me. THAT is why we are here, and THAT is why you will find out what is so important about this useless, unremarkable room, and you will do it right now."
    The Finder's voice was a whisper, and if they hadn't been just outside the door, Tickertape wouldn't have heard it at all. "Yes, Mistress."
    The hiding quirk swallowed as the hunting party finally entered the room. The first imp he saw was a flicker, leading the way, with the candle strapped to his back burning his hair away in a long, bright flame. Tickertape had always found flickers slightly disturbing, though they seemed to enjoy the hint of danger--well, danger in general, actually. Always climbing onto high things like chandeliers, flaming the whole way.
    Next through the door was a minor demon that must have been the Finder. Old, clearly, with a face that was wrinkles piled on wrinkles, with wrinkles in between and four horns on top, poking through his gray hair. His hands were clasped behind his back, his shoulders hunched with age, his eyes bright and his long, long nose twitching, sniffing the air. He had on a worn backpack and pants covered with pockets, some of them bulging--with lost items found, Tickertape supposed.
    Behind him came the tag, eyes wide behind glasses that some quirk had cobbled together for him from what looked like decorative glass pebbles. He was carrying his Book of Lists and looking nervous. Actually, come to think of it, it was normal for a tag to look nervous--things get out of order so EASILY--but the master demon walking behind him was enough to make any imp nervous.
    Noise Feast was beautiful like a wasp, long and angry. She was also a walking cutlery drawer, knives strapped everywhere, sticking out at angles and threatening to take a bit out of anyone walking too close. This wasn't a demon who looked at you with soft eyes and asked for a hug. Behind her was the last flicker, keeping his distance as he looked around the room cheerfully. Tickertape envied the kind of world view that could make a demon happy just to walk around with his hair on fire.
    The entire procession stopped, looking around a room that seemed more like it was darkened with flickering shadows than it was lit with flickering light. Tickertape pulled back under the protecting couch and hoped the Finder would admit that, in fact, there WAS nothing remarkable about the room at all. The quirk watched Noise Feast's soft leather shoes and tried to think bland thoughts.
    "We're here, Finder," said the Mistress of the Feast of Din. "Now tell me what has changed to make this room worth my time?"
    "I'm not certain, Mistress. I'm working with hints and possibilities--no need to get angry, Mistress! I'm doing my best for you--and I feel that the key to finding the Study is somewhere in this room."
    "Well then, I suppose I can't ask for more," said Noise Feast, though something in her voice said that she certainly COULD ask for more. "Up, flickers. We'll search the room again, but make it quick. I’m never happy this close to Silver’s territory, the old bat."
    Tickertape heard two gleeful cackles as the little burning imps ran for the decorative ladders built into the walls of most every room in the manor house. He knew it would only be moments before they were hanging from the ceiling, and only moments more before Walk, Talk, and Micklewhip were discovered. He wasn't sure what came over him--the insanity of responsibility, he supposed--but before he knew it, he was scampering out from under the couch, dodging around a foot stool, and pounding the carpet with his feet as fast as he could. He picked a path that kept as much furniture as possible between him and Noise Feast, but he didn't try to stay quiet. In fact, he realized he was shouting, a long, drawn out battle cry of his ancestors--well, it was more a high pitched squeal like a baby bag without a rock to dissolve, but it seemed to be doing the trick.
    Bolts and screws, but that master demon was fast! Her hand lashed out over an armchair to grab at Tickertape, but one of her knives caught on the white sheet covering the chair, and the quirk had half a heartbeat to duck away. Somewhere above a flicker was cheering him on--or cheering someone on--and Tickertape caught a brief glimpse of the tag, staring at him with eyes so wide that the glasses exaggerated them all the way out to ridiculous. Then he was out the door and in the darkened hallway. He didn't know where to run, but 'someplace else' was sounding like a good enough destination to get started with.
    Then he was jerked backwards off his feet and lifted into the air, twisting from his own shirt, the fabric biting into his armpits and neck. It was getting hard to breathe, and then he was staring into the shadowed face of Noise Feast and he stopped trying to breathe at all.
    "And what, exactly, are you, my little quirk?"