Advent Calendar Day 6

 

Today a special treat. Haldis wrote a bit of fiction for the Adrien English 20th Anniversary Celebration. Well, as you know, the celebration got a little bit lost in current events, as I didn't want to lose this wonderful little bit of backstory, so I've folded it into the calendar. 

Cloak and Dagger

Haldis

               Angus was sitting in his dark room, enthralled by a shiny, jeweled dagger when the call came in from the employment agency.

               The thing was, Angus hadn’t been looking for daggers when he noticed the catalogue left by one of the gang after last night’s get together to watch the latest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No, what he really wanted was a cloak. One that said he was serious, but totally cool, while casting a spell, or working a circle, or summoning a demon. The black hoodie he had been using wasn’t ideal, but he wasn’t desperate enough to make a cloak out of a black trash bag and electrical tape like that one guy last semester. He was willing to wait until he had the money to afford a real cloak.

               Angus had picked up the catalogue off the milk crate that he used as a table and started flipping through the pages. Most of the stuff was crazy new age stuff like weird jewelry and prisms.

He flipped a page. Crystals.

Flipped a page. Oh, cool, panpipes.

Flipped a page. Finally, cloaks.

And there were a lot of cloaks. Gauzy, flowery cloaks, Maid Marion cloaks, red cloaks, purple cloaks, green cloaks. And they were made with a variety of different materials. Nylon, cotton, velvet. One of the velvet cloaks was black with a satiny red lining that reminded him of a Halloween vampire. Angus was pretty sure that if he ever became a vampire, he would never wear a red-lined velvet cloak. No, he would be like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wearing a leather jacket, and be all confident and say the coolest things, and not all broody and mumbly like Angel.

               Angus flipped another page and found a plain black cloak that looked pretty cool, but he would need to get a job before he could afford it.

               He flipped a page. Candles, in red, black, white.

               Flipped a page. Wow, a stuffed raven. Some goth that used to hang with them, (Amy? Allie? Rachel?) used to quote some poem about a raven. It was a famous poem. Rapping and tapping. Reminded Angus of a knock knock joke.

               Knock knock.

               Who’s there?

               Flipped a page. Staffs, wands.

               Raven.

               Raven, who?

               Flip. Oh, cool, skulls.

               Raven lunatic.

               Angus snorted at his joke.

               Flip. Swords, knives, and oh wow. Daggers. 

               Maybe he should get a dagger. Something in silver. You could control a demon with silver. Or was it kill demons with silver? Or maybe that was werewolves? Regardless, silver sounded like a good choice. With a red ruby jewel that looked like the blood of his enemies.

               There were a variety of daggers on the page, with names like athame, boline and…. How did you even pronounce sgian dubh? Many were simple blades with either black or white handles. Some had elaborate, curved blades. Others had fancy hilts and shiny blades.

               He wondered if there was a class he could sign up for next semester to help him chose. Blades 101.

               And then he noticed the bright silver dagger with the runes etched along the blade, and a brilliant blue sapphire in the hilt. It was amazing. It held Angus befuddled. Bewildered? Bewitched? Yes, he was definitely bewitched.

               The ringing of the phone startled him out of his bewitchedness.

               “’lo”, Angus answered the phone. It was the employment agency.

               “K”, he mumbled in response. He wrote down the address of a business in Pasadena.

               “K, bye”, he finished the call and hung up the phone.

               He looked down at the name of the business he had written down and a small smile touched his lips.

               Cloak and Dagger.