Work Text:
By the clock on the kitchen wall, it was five past ten in the morning, and Yue had just set down the heavy bags of groceries on the floor when the thumping began at the back door. Thump-thump-thump. Pause. Thump-thump. Pause. Thump-thump-thump. Pause. Thump. And then it repeated the same pattern.
Yue frowned. The front door of the Sanctum was visible and findable, although the ward-offs on it should discourage solicitors, prosteletyzers, or anyone who did not have a specific reason to find that particular door - Yue murmured, "Note to self: check door wards," and felt the words write themselves on the notepad she'd tacked to the front of the fridge - but the back door was more heavily warded, as it was almost never used.
Only someone who knew to look for it at all - and had been shown how to get to it - should be able to find it. She pulled her sling ring off her belt and opened a cautious portal to the second floor window, then peeked her head out through it to look through.
A young man with dark skin and dreadlocks was banging on the door in the repeating pattern, and calling, "C'mon Aunt Gloria - open up! Grandma's gone and decided somethin's wrong with you!"
Yue winced and pulled her head back inside. Well, here was a puzzle. This man knew the old seneschal, and he didn't know Yue...and now she would presumably have to tell him the seneschal was dead. And she had no idea how much he knew of what the seneschal did in a Sanctum. But...it was the Seneschal's job to take care of the Sanctum, which presumably also included taking care of the families of those who had fallen in the Sanctum's defense. Yue grimaced.
Li Wei, you did not warn me about this one. Did you not realize?
She used her sling ring to take herself outside the Sanctum, further down the alley, then walked around the concealing corner to where the young man was pounding on the door. "Hello," she said, as he paused between the pattern. "Can I help you?"
He jerked to a stop, halfway to falling over in startlement as he looked over his shoulder and saw her standing there. "Whoa! Where'd you come from?"
Yue shrugged, and he looked her up and down, taking in her dark maroon robes that marked her as no longer a novice, her hair pulled back from her face in a tight domed bun, and the sling ring on her fingers. (She strongly suspected she could portal herself to somewhere safe before he could reach her - she had that much skill - but she wasn't entirely comfortable letting him get much closer.)
He had dreadlocks woven through with green and yellow yarn, pulled away a face dominated by worried light brown eyes that were somewhere between chocolate and amber. His skin was the middling brown that Yue had come to associate with the American melting-pot of African-abductees mixed with everywhere else. He wore loose baggy blue pants and a grey-green hoodie over a t-shirt with the words, "Y U SO MAD?" painted on it.
"...you live here?" he finally said, gesturing to the door.
"I do now," Yue said. "Who are you?"
"Jamal," he said. "Jamal Kingston. Who're you?"
"Zhao Yue," Yue answered. "I used to live in Hong Kong, until I moved here, last week."
After pondering that for a good 30 seconds or so, Jamal asked, "You one of them Hoodoo folks here?" What's 'Hoodoo'? Yue wondered, and her confusion must have shown on her face, because Jamal grimaced and pointed to her ring. "You make holes in the air with that thing?"
Yue sighed in something sort of like relief but also some exasperation. There were correct, precise words to describe what she did with her sling ring, and those were definitely not them ; still, the young man was at least semi-aware of the mystical arts. That would make this both easier and harder.
She nodded. "I know how to use it," she agreed. "Why are you looking for Seneschal Gloria?"
"My grandma's near climbin' the walls, sure that something's wrong with her. We ain't heard from her in a month, and that sure ain't normal. So spill, what's up? My aunt sick or somethin'?"
Yue, gestured to the steps, and the man, taking her meaning, sat down, though his expression was confused. Once he couldn't fall over and crack his head open, Yue said, "She's dead. She and all the other people here died in an attack last month. I'm sorry."
His eyes got wide. "No way, you shittin' me."
Yue shook her head, her expression sober. "I don't know if she told you her work was dangerous at all, but--"
"Damn," Jamal breathed. "She got out, and still...damn. Grandma's...aw shit ." He put his face in his hands for a moment, his shoulders shaking. Then he took a deep breath, and looked up at Yue. "Who killed her?" There was rage and determination in his expression.
"A man named Kaecilius and his followers," Yue answered, after thinking about it for a moment. "He's dead now. The Master of the Sanctum...dealt with them."
Jamal's expression cracked a bit. "That's...somethin', I guess," he whispered, and she heard sorrow, pain, frustration all repressed under his fury. "I...shit."
Yue made a snap decision. "Would you...would you like to come in? I can make you a cup of tea, and...if there's anything that's hers left here, I can give it to you. To take back to your family."
"...thanks," he whispered, and Yue realized he was starting to go into shock.
She stepped past him, touched the doors, and triggered the entry spell that warped space around them. When it cleared, he was sitting on a kitchen stool and she was standing next to him with an arm around his shoulders so that he wouldn't fall backward off it.
" Whoa ," he gasped out, and grabbed for the counter.
"Stay there," Yue ordered, and went to start the kettle.
Twenty minutes later, Jamal had plate of gyoza and a pot of Pu-erh tea mixed with a few other herbs Yue used for bolstering resilience sitting in front of him, and he had started to come out of his stunned state. "What the hell is this?" he demanded, after a sip of the tea.
"Pu-erh, goji berries, nettle leaf, ashwaganda, and ginger," Yue answered promptly. "It will help you recover from the shock."
"Some kind of magic puke drink?" Jamal demanded skeptically. Yue felt her face freeze, and he sat back at whatever he saw there. "Sorry, sorry, ma'am, I didn't -- shit, my mouth got away from me again, din' it, I -- sorry."
"You don't. Have. To drink it," Yue said, pulling the cup away from him.
"Aww hell. Grandma's gonna tan my hide," he muttered, then looked back at her. "Ma'am, I am sorry. I didn' mean to diss yo' tea. Just...it don' taste like anything I drink."
"Let me guess," Yue said coldly, "you put sugar in yours ."
Jamal stared at her for a moment, and then his face split into the most amazing grin she had ever seen. It completely changed the shape of his face, from somewhat hard, with a stubborn chin and high cheekbones, to a most round, cherubic expression. And then he put his head down on his arm and just laughed.
Yue found herself smiling after a moment or two, and she leaned against the wall and watched him laugh for a good minute, until he sat up, wiping his eyes. "Aw, ma'am, I got to bring you some sweet tea sometime, just to see yo' face when you drink it. Prob'ly look just like mine did. You keep your tea, ma'am, can I just have a glass of water, please?"
She got him the glass of water, but left the gyoza in front of him. After a moment, he tried one of them - cautiously - and grinned again, before demolishing most of the plate. Yue drank the tea and watched him; she felt she could do with some bolstered resilience herself. He had a strange sort of energy to him, as though he was trying to keep it bottled up, but it kept escaping around the edges. Some of it struck her as fear, but most of it seemed to be frustrated action - the sort that a person developed after being told 'no' too many times.
When he finally sat back, she lowered her teacup and waited. "Thank you for lunch, ma'am. You said you had some of Aunt Gloria's stuff?"
"Not a large amount," Yue said, "but I will get what survived the massacre."
He winced, but didn't say anything, so Yue ducked into the office and got the half-full storage box she had packed the former seneschal's belongings away into. Not the official ledgers, but a few pictures, a journal Yue had not opened, her phone, and a few pieces of jewelry. "I also have her...outside clothing," she said, as she set the box on the floor next to Jamal. "If you would like that."
"Some've my cousins might fit her stuff," he allowed. "And...it'd save us having to hit the thrift store. Since she's not gonna be able to...help anymore."
Yue frowned at that, but nodded, going back to collect the other box. Is money so tight for them? She brought the other box back, set it down atop the first, and said, after a moment more of thought, "As it happens...I am in need of some aid myself."
Jamal eyed her skeptically. "You can walk through walls, lady, and you need help? Riiiiiight."
"Well, yes," Yue admitted, "but if I don't know what walls to walk through, what good is my skill? I am from Hong Kong. I arrived here last week for the first time, and Google Maps can only tell me so much. Not to mention…" she gestured at the dented refrigerator, the banged up microwave, "needing to replace a goodly number of more mundane items without drawing undue attention to the Sanctum." She looked back at Jamal, waiting for him to consider what she was saying.
When he nodded in a sort of go-on motion, she said, "Would you, perhaps, be able to be on retainer for me? To take delivery of some items that I would then bring here, to assist me in locating things that I am not...equipped with local knowledge to gather? I am used to a Sanctum with a staff of 20 or so others. Here…" she shook her head, and gestured. "There is only me."
Jamal's eyebrows squinched up. "You...want to like hire me as a guide or somethin'?"
"Of a sort," Yue said. "I want to hire someone who can help me make sure I am not being taken advantage of by unscrupulous plumbers and obnoxious salespeople. Who can act as a buffer between this...hoodoo place, as you call it, and the rest of the world. They are not equipped to deal with me either."
That made Jamal grin again. "Ain't that the truth. Well…." he frowned. "None of the sort of stuff that got my Aunt killed, tho, right? I ain't bringin' my grandma into that. My Uncle neither, he's a vet but he don' need more of that shit."
Yue shook her head. "Purely mundane concerns," she said. "Though if you come here too often, you may attract notice from...other things."
"Other things?" Jamal mouthed almost silently, and then, "Other things like what ?"
"Spirits. Denizens of other realms. They sometimes...leak through here. It is why we are here. Some of them are friendly. Many of them are not."
"And if I come here they'll, what? Turn my skin green or somethin'? Eat me?"
Yue could tell her smile was crooked. "Some of them might. Mostly, they will make mischief. If that happens, if you get a run of bad luck, tell me and I will see to it."
Jamal snorted. "Don' need no spirits to get that, ma'am, just gotta be me." He stood up, shifted his back until it popped - Yue winced - then said, "Y'all fancy magician types got cell phones? 'Cause if you're serious 'bout wantin' to hire me, I'll take it."
Yue snorted. "We have cell phones, thank you. Though I still need an American SIM for mine. Email?"
Jamal rolled his eyes. "I guess, sure. If you wanna be old school'n all."
Yue went back into the office and picked up one of the business cards with the work email on it. They didn't have her proper name, but that was all right, she suspect Jamal couldn't read logograms anyway. She wrote, "Yue Zhao," on it with careful pen work, then took it back out to the kitchen.
"I will wait for your message," she told him. "And then give you a list of what I am looking for. I will pay you a 15% commission on the average cost of whatever it is, but will appreciate your diligence in finding things at a lower price. It will not impact your bottom line, but it will impact mine."
That got a grin out of him. "So, you don' want me to cheat you."
Yue smiled slightly. "If you cheat me, I won't be able to pay you long term. You decide if it's worth it to get a short term gain instead of a longer term one."
He nodded slowly. "After...after I tell Grandma, an' we get...done, an stuff, I guess…" His face crumpled up slightly.
"When you are ready," Yue agreed, keeping her voice gentle, "I will hear from you. Take your time. And...please give my condolences to your family."
"Yeah," Jamal sighed. "Yeah. Thanks."
Yue let him out the door, and watched him slump slowly down the alley, with the box in his hands, and she shook her head. Whether a person died magically, or in a more normal war, the result was still the same: grief, and suffering for those left behind. She hoped her actions had helped in some small way.
She went back inside to finish her tea, and begin making a list of the things in the kitchen and the more mundane areas that needed to be replaced, and to light a stick of incense for the late seneschal.