Kane's Fate 5 Chapter 4

“He’s a dealer,” Mr. Lowrey explained matter-of-factly as he pulled a fancy looking notepad and silver fountain pen from a drawer in his metal desk. “I haven’t had too many dealings with him personally, but we know each other in… A professional capacity.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lowrey,” Dax said as he took the piece of embossed card on which Auden’s dad had scribbled the name and address.

“Please, understand this, Kane.” Mr. Lowrey addressed me by my first name and clasped his hands together against the edge of his desk, and I nodded slowly for him to continue. “The business that I conduct down here… I skirt the very thin line between illegal and not, I admit that. But I do not actively go out of my way to cross that line.”

“I understand what you’re saying, sir,” I assured him in a determined voice. “We appreciate everything you’ve done for us.”

“We wouldn’t dream of implicating you, Mr. Lowrey,” Penny promised him with her voice soft and delicate. “You’ve been such a help to us.”

“Plus, Kane thinks you’re really cool.” Dax shrugged.

Silence hung in the air for a split second, until Mr. Lowrey burst out into a bellowing laugh that had him slapping the arm of his chair.

“I’d been super cool, right up until that exact point,” I sighed at my friend and shook my head.

“Your poker face isn’t as good as you think, Mr. Turner.” Auden’s dad chuckled heartily. “Which reminds me, with all of these winnings I’m paying you with, you should come to one of my poker nights. You’d meet some characters.”

“Maybe one day soon, when my personal life isn’t so busy.” I nodded.

“Well…” Mr. Lowrey shrugged and then shot a quick wink in Penny’s direction. “Women are welcome, too. They often have the best poker faces of them all.”

We extended our thanks to Mr. Lowrey once again and eventually made our way out of his magical fight ring, though not before he supplied me with paperwork and a debit card for the account he’d set up in my name.

The statement read a total of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and I pocketed the slip of paper with a suppressed grin as Dax and Penny followed me out of the establishment.

“So, we have to go and find a drug dealer?” Penny asked once we were back out on the subterranean streets.

“In a manner of speaking,” Dax said. “I guess it makes sense, considering what we need.”

“What exactly is powdered snowstone?” I questioned my charmer friend. “And what exactly is the curse on it?”

“The term curse is sorta generalized,” Dax explained as we followed Mr. Lowrey’s directions through the underground metropolis. “It’s referencing its color, not an actual hex or whatever.”

“Why?” Penny questioned. “Like, why does the color make it cursed?”

“Well, pure snowstone is white,” Dax replied with a shrug. “Makes perfect sense, right? Well, cursed snowstone is like a steely gray color. Like it’s stained. And when you powder it, its properties are totally reversed.”

“Like when you pull a reversed tarot card.” Penny nodded in understanding.

“I gotta say,” I chuckled as we dipped into a back street behind a particularly rowdy market stall selling hexed wheels of cheese that sliced themselves into portions. “I’m kinda glad I’m not a charmer like the rest of my family. The amount of stuff you guys have to remember is crazy.”

“It becomes second nature.” Dax shrugged again. “Not to mention I know more than most charmers, thanks to Imperium being shady as fuck.”

“Now that you’re working with the good guys, it’s definitely come in handy, I have to admit.” I nudged my tattooed friend in the shoulder as we walked, and Penny giggled as Dax just shook his head.

“It still puts a sour taste in my mouth,” my tattooed friend admitted. “But I’m glad I can put it to use in a positive way, at least.”

We eventually came across the place Mr. Lowrey had detailed in his note, and the sign above the establishment simply read ‘The Apothecary.’ The sign was old and wooden and lacked any sort of paint or flourish, and the front of the shop was just as nondescript and boring. It was made of old polished mahogany wood and thick dusty glass, and I could barely see any sort of light coming from inside.

Nevertheless, I pushed the door open slightly, and when I heard the faint tinkle of a bell somewhere above me, I stepped through the doorway with Dax and Penny right on my tail.

It was just as dingy inside as it looked from the outside, and the only source of light was a stack of white wax candles melted to the front desk. Their flames flickered as we disturbed the air, and the candles weren’t held in any sort of container, so the long drops of translucent wax trickled down the side of the counter like frosting on a birthday cake. The shop had a dry, dusty smell like the very wood itself held the scent of every single herb and flower on the planet, and despite the call of the bell above the door, nobody appeared to greet us.

“Is anybody even here?” Penny whispered in the gloom.

“Yo,” a lazy voice suddenly muttered. “Is someone out there?”

“Hello?” I offered a greeting.

I heard a shuffle, a lengthy groan, and then a slight clattering as the owner of the lazy voice picked themselves up from wherever they’d been slumped to come and greet us.

A moment later, an incredibly tall and lean figure lumbered around the corner behind the counter and eventually came into view. He had long brown hair that was so matted it was basically dreadlocked, there was a tattoo of a hieroglyph on his left cheek just beneath his eye, and he had a pipe wedged tightly between his teeth.

“‘Sup, guys,” he muttered as he nodded to the three of us, and the pipe expelled a small mushroom cloud of smoke as he tugged on it. “What can I do ya for?”

“Uhh…” Dax shot me a quick concerned look, and I just nodded in encouragement. “We, ahh, we needed an ingredient for a potion we’re brewing.”

“Okay, right on, ingredient.” The shop owner nodded so that his hair swayed slowly against his shoulders. “What kinda ingredient, friend?”

“Powdered snowstone,” Dax said in a flat voice. “Cursed.”

“Ohhh, you got some dangerous voodoo going on, huh?” the shopkeeper snickered through half closed eyes and then sniffed loudly. “What makes you think I got that bad boy in stock?”

“Mr. Lowrey sent us your way,” I explained in a slow voice so he could properly understand me. “My name is Kane Turner. I work for him, and he said you could help us.”

“Right on, right on,” the long haired man said. “Lowrey’s alright, means you’re alright. Nice to meet you, Kane. My name is Bartholomew, but you can call me Mew. Everyone always goes for the start of their names, but where’s the fun in that, yanno?”

“Mew,” Penny giggled. “I like that. Like the Pokemon.”

“And just as legendary.” Mew tipped an imaginary hat in Penny’s general direction and then squinted at Dax again. “Cursed and powdered, you say?”

“Do you have it?” Dax asked.

“Yeah, yeah I got it.” Bartholomew the shopkeeper nodded slowly. “In the back. Uhh, gimme just a second. How much do you need, an ounce? A pound?”

“Definitely not a pound.” Dax choked out a nervous laugh. “Half an ounce would be plenty.”

“Just a little one and done, I gotchu.” The stoned shopkeep chuckled again and shuffled off behind the counter once more with a trail of gray smoke lingering from his smoking pipe.

“Is he okay?” Penny asked under her breath, and her brow was furrowed over her blue eyes.

“I think he’s just high,” I snorted. “He seems harmless enough, though.”

“As long as he gets us what we need, then I’m all for it,” Dax muttered before he looked around the shop. “It’s nice knowing this is where I can shop for, ahh… Lesser known ingredients.”

“You mean illegal ones?” I smirked.

“All for the greater good.” Dax grinned back at me.

“Okay, friends…” Mew shuffled back into view carrying a small black pouch made of velvet. “Cursed and finely milled snowstone. Measured out half an ounce, but it went over slightly, so you got a little zoot extra in there.”

“Thank you.” I smiled, though I wasn’t entirely sure he could even see me because his eyes were that hooded. “How much do we owe you?”

“Cool fifty ‘kay should do it.” Mew shrugged disinterestedly. “I take cold cash, crypto of choice, or old school wire transfer. But you can check potency first, if you want, go right ahead.”

Dax pulled the drawstring of the little black pouch and dabbed his finger into the powder that filled it. The tip of his finger came out a thick dusty gray, almost black, and he sniffed it deeply.

“It’s legit,” Dax confirmed as he brushed the substance off the tip of his finger and back into the velvet pouch.

“Well, ‘course it’s legit, dude.” Mew laughed slowly. “How do you wanna pay then, friends?”

“Uhh, I can transfer.” I grinned. “Thanks.”

“Ayye, you’re alright, yanno,” Mew giggled as he set everything up on a tablet that looked entirely too futuristic and out of place in his gloomy candlelit apothecary store.

“Well, we trust Mr. Lowrey the same way you do,” Penny said with a slight smile.

“Makes perfect sense, miss.” He nodded sagely. “Any friends of Lowrey’s are friends of mine. ‘Specially those that transfer big stacks. Straight payment for straight goods, we love to see it.”

He wiggled the tablet in the air as it dinged with confirmation and then slapped me on the shoulder.

“Much appreciated, amigo.” Mew grinned, and I noticed he had a number of silvery teeth similar to Mr. Lowrey’s singular one. “It’s been a while since I ain’t had to fight people for a dang payment, and since you’re friends of the big cheese… I insist. A tab on the house.”

“A tab?” I asked curiously.

“Yes, brother, a tab. Open up that third eye, take a deep old look inside your psyche.” Mew gently held his hands up to my head and placed a finger on either one of my temples. “You’ve got a lot goin’ on in your noggin, brother, I can feel it. You should take a load off for a sec, it does you no good keeping it all sealed and bottled, yanno?”

“And is this tab… dangerous?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” Mew snickered. “It’s enlightening. And it fades relatively quickly.”

I narrowed my gaze at the shopkeeper as I considered his proposition. I’d never been one for drugs, but he was offering it for free, and after yesterday, I knew I wanted to take more opportunities to relax when I could. Besides, my shifter healing would probably get me sober pretty quickly, so it wouldn’t be much of a problem, and maybe I’d receive some “enlightenment” about the problems we were facing.

“He’s got a point,” I muttered to Dax and Penny as I stared into the stoned shopkeeper’s leathered face. “Maybe it’d do me good.”

“It’d do us all good,” Penny admitted. “As long as you look after me?”

“I’ll always look after you,” I assured my newest girlfriend. “Dax?”

“Fuck it,” my tattooed friend sighed. “I’ve been too tightly wound since being with my parents.”

“See, I could sense you guys were in need.” Mew nodded seriously and held his hands up to his own temples this time as he massaged the skin, until he suddenly dropped his arms and then smiled widely around his smoldering hash pipe. “Follow me, friends.”

He motioned for us to dip behind the shop counter and follow him through to the back, and I was thrilled to see the doorway covered by a glass bead curtain that rattled and danced as we passed through.

Some stereotypes just made me really happy.

Mew led us to a small room covered in cushions and poufs that reminded me of Professor Orr’s meditation class back at the academy, and the stoned shopkeeper gestured eagerly for us to find a seat as he bustled around us.

“Now, you put this on the back of your tongue, let it dissolve completely, and then swallow,” Mew instructed as he handed us each what looked like a church communion cracker.

“This is it?” Penny asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes ma’am.” Mew nodded. “Just let it do its thing. It reacts differently depending on what it is that you need to see. Open yourself up to it, and it’ll quite literally work its magic.”

I placed the thin wafer on the back of my tongue and closed my eyes as it immediately began to dissolve in my mouth. It filled my mouth with the taste of medium rare filet steak, ice cold whiskey, and something I couldn’t place but very much reminded me of how my girlfriends tasted.

I resisted the urge to crunch it or swallow it until the thing had completely dissipated in my mouth, and I kept my eyes closed as I swallowed deeply and let the magic of it wash over me in waves.

After a minute, or maybe an hour, it was hard to tell, I felt the room melt away around me, and I wasn’t even sure whether I was actually still fully conscious or not.

Either way, I knew where I was.

My feet were covered in soft powdery snow that came up to my ankles, but I didn’t feel the typical biting cold of it. It felt more like sand, comfortable and a little warm. Snowflakes swirled around my head in the air and danced in the slight breeze like lightning bugs on a summer’s night, and they eventually settled into the blanket of snow that already covered the ground. I glanced behind me to find I hadn’t left a single footstep in the snow, and I realized I must have been standing in place for quite some time.

For how long, though, I wasn’t entirely sure.

I was in a familiar forest clearing with a dark night sky above me scattered with a million stars. The moon was full and almost as bright as the sun, and the light reflected against the thick blanket of snow so easily that the dead of night was almost fully illuminated. The pine trees around me tenderly held onto armfuls of snow, and the only sign of life for miles around was a singular log cabin in the clearing just ahead of where I stood. It had a faint glow that indicated a fire crackling within, and the front door bore very recognizable runes carved right into the wood.

It was Frida’s cabin.

I’d seen her here before, in my dreams.

I continued to stand in the snow and waited patiently.

She would show herself, I was sure of it.

After another ten seconds, or ten minutes, maybe even an hour, a shadow shifted in the light of the window. Then the door with the ancient runes carved into it slowly swung open with a slight creak, and a figure appeared in the light that came from within.

Except it wasn’t the ancient Nordic goddess called Frida that stood before me.

It was Premier Weaver.

She was dressed in her usual pressed gray pantsuit, with an Atroba brooch glittering on the left lapel, and this incarnation of her didn’t just wear a white tiger pelt around her shoulders. She had a live white tiger beside her, obediently sitting on its back legs… With a leash around its neck that she held tightly in her right hand.

I immediately let out a shout of surprise, but the vision suddenly disappeared, and I found myself back in Mew’s apothecary.

“Ayoooo…” Mew groaned and held out a hand to me. “Brother, what’s with the commotion?”

“Nothing!” I gasped and rubbed my head. “Sorry. It was nothing. Penny. Penny?”

I gently shook my girlfriend’s shoulders, and she blinked slowly as her vision refocused on me.

“Kane…” she breathed with a wide smile. “I saw you.”

“I bet you did,” I chuckled and then nudged Dax with my toe so I could bring him back to the real world.

“Hey, what gives?” my tattooed friend muttered from where he was slouched against a huge tasseled cushion. “I was making out with Angelina Jolie…”

“We gotta go,” I insisted, and I continued to blink furiously against the drug’s power in an attempt to refocus myself. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

I dragged my girlfriend and my friend out of Mew’s shop, but not before ensuring Dax still had the powdered snowstone in his possession, and then we hightailed it back to the rickety old elevator.

“You wanna tell us what the hell went down in there?” Dax yawned as we rode the elevator back up to Croak’s pub.

“I saw her again. Premier Weaver.” I shifted anxiously, and I had to focus to stop my toe from tapping the floor. “In the forest cabin in the snow.”

“You mean you saw Frida?” Penny asked in confusion.

“That’s exactly the point,” I sighed. “They’re the same fucking person, or they’re definitely ancestors, or related in some way. I swear to god, I can just feel it.”

“So, hang on, what’d you see exactly?” Dax pressed as he hurried our way out of Croak’s pub, where the scene was exactly the same as always, and out into the street where my Ford Mustang was still waiting for us. “Tell me specifics.”

“It was Frida’s cabin, with the runes on the door, but it was Premier Weaver that came out to see me,” I explained hastily. “It was the Premier as she looks today, dressed in a fancy suit with an Atroba brooch. But she… She had a pet white tiger.”

“A pet white tiger?” Peggy shook her head as she took the information in. “Was it you?”

“No, I was still in my human form. They came out of the cabin to greet me. The tiger… It had a leash around its neck.” I frowned grimly. “Tell me that isn’t a perfect metaphor.”

“But what for?” Dax asked as I hit the gas and sent the enchanted car speeding back toward Meloria.

“That, I’m still not entirely sure of.” I sighed. “I just wanna get this potion brewed so we can work out how the hell they’re related.”

The hyper speed jump from downtown San Francisco back to Meloria took us only a minute or two, and the moment I killed the engine outside the school gates, I was already hurrying my way up the remainder of the driveway, across the quad, and back to the shifter dorms with Penny and Dax hot on my tail.

I’d already texted the girls that we’d be on our way back, and I found the gang huddled in my room by the time Penny, Dax, and I could join them.

“Did you get it?” Adi asked her big brother eagerly the moment she saw him.

Dax just nodded silently and handed Adi the small black drawstring pouch, and I was suddenly hyper aware of the fact everyone crammed into my bedroom was staring intently at the three of us.

“Did you get high?” Demi blurted out with a giggle.

I shot both Dax and Penny a look, and despite my freak out in the apothecary, I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled its way up my throat and out of my mouth when I noticed their mussed hair and bloodshot eyes. My shifter healing abilities seemed to have cleared the rest of the drug from my system already, but the seer and charmer were apparently not so lucky.

“Yeahhhh, we kinda did,” Dax admitted with a lopsided grin. “Perk of Kane winning his fight.”

“What fight?” Adi asked as she looked at me curiously. “You got into a fight?”

“My dad got you in the ring again?” Auden shook his head with a knowing smile. “I hope he paid well.”

“He did.” I smirked. “In an account this time, too. Although, I’ve already spent a good chunk of it on whatever’s in that little baggie Adi’s got in her hands.”

“Once again…” the teenager murmured from where she was sitting cross legged on my floor. “You’re all super lucky to have me.”

“And why’s that?” Penny asked with a slight giggle as she curled down to sit beside Dax’s little sister.

“Because I’ve already pretty much brewed the potion, no thanks to my big brother here.” Adi stuck her tongue out at Dax. “With no help from my stoned big brother, no less.”

“Not stoned,” Dax grumbled. “We just… Awakened our third eye, is all.”

“Yeah, and whatever Kane saw, it did not sit right,” Penny said pointedly. “You gonna elaborate for them?”

I explained exactly what I’d seen in my vision, and how if this is what my so-called third eye, or subconscious, was getting when I really thought about it, then there had to be some possibility that my theory on Frida and Premier Weaver was correct.

“Especially combined with the fact we already know ancestors can be doppelgangers, not just from research, but we’ve seen it with our own eyes thanks to Dean Canmore,” I reminded them all. “But even Mr. Weaver corroborates it, in his published works.”

“You do have a point,” Indira said and ran her hand down my arm. “I guess now we go after proof, as always.”

“Okay, I’m gonna add the snowstone…” Adi murmured from where she was hyper focused on the ground at the small pewter cauldron beneath her. “We need something from that familial line, though…”

“Like what?” I immediately asked. “What do you need?”

“If we wanna see what deceptions the Weavers have put into place, whether known to them or not, we need some sort of link to them. A blood link, or…”

“Or DNA?” I asked and straightened up eagerly. “Like a hair, or a toothbrush or something?”

“Seth’s out,” Charlotte immediately said when she grasped what we were saying. “I can unlock his door and get a hair from his comb or something.”

“Go,” Adi commanded her as she stirred the potion carefully. “Now.”

Charlotte hurried out of my bedroom and across the hall, where I saw she popped Seth’s door lock and hustled her way inside. She returned a moment later, and she was gingerly holding something between her thumb and forefinger.

“A hair,” she announced as she wrinkled her nose. “Where do you want it, Adi?”

“Just drop it right in,” Adi said as she started to count her stirs.

“What are we looking for?” I whispered to Dax.

“You won’t be able to see it,” Dax explained in hushed tones as we all watched Adi work. “Potions and herbology and botany are all practiced by humans, it’s maybe the most common sort of magic, but it’s only charmers that can really dissect the outcomes in detail, so…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Adi suddenly interrupted with a disgruntled sigh. “It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean it didn’t work?” I demanded.

“I brewed it correctly, by design, and the snowstone was definitely legit. I even tasted it, just to be sure.” Adi grimaced and stuck her tongue out, which was slightly stained a mottled gray. “But it just hasn’t evolved like it should. I did everything correctly.”

“Yeah, but that means…” Dax let out a long breath as he locked eyes with his sister. “Right?”

“Right.” Adi nodded grimly.

“What are you charmers getting at exactly?” Demi asked with her hands on her hips. “I’m confused.”

“The potion didn’t work,” Dax explained. “But even that, in and of itself, proves something.”

“Proves what?” Indira asked.

Dax sighed heavily and turned to me with a raised eyebrow.

“It means Seth Weaver isn’t actually related to the Premier.”