Finally! A good magic shop!
Who: Chloe & Jericho Where: Jericho Hill magic shop When: Backdated to Friday afternoon
Jericho (this wasn't her real name, but Jericho was a mage and no mage in their right mind would give out their real name) was sitting behind the counter of her store, Jericho Hill. Her husband was off doing husband things, presumably important ones like banking. Jeri tended to ignore important things like that. She was wearing a brown hoodie with a zipper and black jeans, and her hair was braided today, and she was listening to her stereo, and doing sodoku puzzles with a pencil. She was also occasionally relighting a stick of incense that she wasn't overly impressed with because it kept going out, and she made a mental note not to get that brand for the store.
Jericho Hill was a magic shop. That was to say that everything in the front room was for sale to people who thought they were magical because they obviously had past lives as witches in Salem and were burnt at the stake for it. Oh, and because they read a book. And they wanted to make love potions or whatever. It made for good sales, though, and there wasn't any harm in it because most people grew out of that crap within a couple years - it kept the customer turn-over rate pretty fresh, too.
Meanwhile, Chloe Van Warren had been out on one of her legendary, credit-card-shattering shopping expeditions. She had four small-to-medium-sized Saks Fifth Avenue bags with her, which truthfully did little to suggest the staggering amount she'd spent. She couldn't help it, really. She had a lot of money, and spending it on her friends and herself made her almost as happy as the enormous amounts of sugar she ingested daily. Wearing a sharp black backless Chanel dress, the perky blonde walked in, humming happily to herself as she took a little look around.
Jericho turned down the stereo, but didn't look up right away. When she did, she looked Chloe up, and down, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, and wasn't particularly impressed but, as a shopkeeper, was still willing to make a sale. "Can I help you with anything?"
Chloe looked up to the woman, first giving her an almost adorable 'oooo' look, as she found Jericho's look at once unlike anything she'd ever seen, and amazingly beautiful. Then, she actually gave a bit of a disappointed look and shook her head. "No, I'm sorry... don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'm looking for a... different type of shop."
"What are you looking for, then?" Since the door was clearly labelled as to what the store was about (it helped ward off the Offended Christian Masses), Jericho raised an eyebrow. Maybe she wanted jewel-inlayed tarot cards or something. "We're as different as you can get." And it was true. The only sign for the store was on the door itself, and there weren't any windows. The entire outside of the store was brick, actually - the red kind, at one point, but faded to black, brown, and kind of grungy. This on a relatively well-to-do street, too. There were some offices upstairs. Jeri didn't look into those very often, and her back room had a skylight. But other then that, the place (on the outside) looked kind of rundown, and inside looked like a pagan fetish store.
Taking a little breath as she hoped the woman was serious and not about to laugh at her for saying it... "I need materials to cast some pretty serious protection spells. Maybe something that could even enhance then to be effective on offense as well as defense."
Jericho quirked up an eyebrow, and slowly put down the pencil. "Really. Like what exactly." Now this was interesting - a kid who sounded like she might actually know what she was talking about. "And why?"
"My best friend... she's involved in some prety dangerous stuff." Hey, it wasn't a lie... not much MORE dangerous than being a Slayer. "And if anything happened to her, I don't think I could handle it. And I'm no fighter or anything, but I know I have potential to help her in other ways." Chloe then thought for a moment about the first part of the question and winced. "And.. the 'what' part, well... that's where I need help. I'm still pretty new at this."
"So you know what you want to do, but you don't know how to do it?" Jeri raised an eyebrow. "...sounds reasonable. Bags behind the counter - I get kids in here who think 'five finger discount' doesn't count as theft and I don't change the policy for anyone." And she got an old wrought-iron key from under the till. There were etchings on it that made you dizzy if you looked at it too long; they seemed to flow and shift like mercury or another metallic liquid.
Without a second thought, Chloe handed over her bags with an infectious smile, popping a piece of hard candy into her mouth, then (as per usual for her), offered one to the woman. "Want one? SO good."
The door in the back was pretty modern - Jericho had to have had the old lock installed on it, but the key worked, and the lock clacked open. "Watch your feet; don't mess up my sand." Jeri warned Chloe over her shoulder, and opened the door.
The floor did have sand on it; different colors in different patterns, obviously wards. But there was plenty of room to walk, as long as you watched your feet. And in the middle of the room (which was much bigger than what the front would've suggested - there was a space-folding issue that Jeri had set up) and directly under the skylight was a complex set of circles set into the very wood itself. "No thanks, anyway. Books on your right, supplies on your left."
For once, Chloe's heels came in handy. Less of her shoes touching the ground meant less chance of messing up the sand and having this.. intense woman possibly maim her. She finally looked around this new room... and took a sharp, impressed intake of breath. "Goddess... it's all so beautiful..."
Jeri actually found it less beautiful and more dusty than anything, but she couldn't be bothered doing the whole 'dusting' thing. Maybe she'd get a couple of her regulars in to clean with the promise of some of the more rare herbs for free. Or she'd just set up some sort of perpetual 'clean thyself' spell for the room. Whatever. "Better than the teenybopper play toys out front, anyway." Jericho agreed.
"Definitely..." Chloe had to look a bit... odd. A diva-looking teen in designer clothes and looking more prissy than anything, she was not the first thing one would envision when thinking of a practicing witch. "Do you really think you can help me come up with something?"
"Shouldn't be hard. Though you need to clarify. Pinpoint exactly what you want to do. If you want to protect her from physical harm, that's one thing. We could do a ward so that whatever the danger is, it doesn't touch her. But that means she can't touch it either. See what I mean?" Jeri pushed a few grains of sand back in place with her fingers.
"I do." She nodded, thinking long about it. One of the first things she learned about magic was that the less specific you are, the more things can go wrong. "Here's the score. There's a... very dangerous person" Yeah, that was ONE way of describing Frost... "that has hurt and killed a lot of people. And I have reason to believe that eventually, my friend is going to want to go after this person. I want something that... if this particular person eventually gets my friend in real danger, it can stop the person in their tracks long enough for my friend to either stop them or escape."
"So... you want less of a warding spell and more of a flash-bang grenade?" Jericho canted her head to the side, considering.
"Sort of, yeah." She felt kind of stupid now, like she was embarrassing herself in front of an obviously much more powerful spellcaster. "Just something that can severely reduce the chances of my friend getting hurt. This person I'm trying to protect her from... is really, REALLY dangerous."
"Yeah, that still leaves a lot of options open. So you're fully aware. Okay, let's see." Instead of going over to the supplies, or the books, she went over to a corner of the room where there looked to be an extensive collection of CDs. And she started running her fingers over them. They made soft clicking sounds. "Right. I got something. Did you have something you wanted to spell up, like a bracelet or whatever?"
"Yes, it's in one of my bas up front.. A ring I bought her recently that has our band's logo inset in platinum. I was going to put the spell on it, and THEN give it to her." Chloe grinned, happy that she'd thought of something properly!
"Well, what I can do here is spell it up so that if she tosses it at this 'dangerous person' and yells a key phrase, it'll teleport the 'dangerous person' to a random location anywhere in a one mile sphere. The person, not the ring. Best I can do with limited information." Jericho pulled the CD from the shelf. "It could be a foot away to the left, it could be a mile straight up in the air, it could be fifty yards underground. It's random."
She sighed, thinking for a minute. "If I were... willing to give all the info you need, could it be made more... detailed?"
"The more detail, the less chance of a fuck up." Jericho agreed.
"Fine. All I ask if that you don't laugh in my face if this sounds ridiculous." She leaned against the wall and sighed deeply. "My friend... is a Vampire Slayer. And there's a really monkeyshit crazy vampire running around loose, and the vamp killed several people my friend was close to. And I'm afraid she's gonna do something stupid and go after the vamp."
"Oh, goddamn slayers and their 'last line of defense' mentality." Jericho swore, then shook her head. She put the CD back and picked out another one. "Yeah, I know about that vampire. If y'all just left it alone, it'd get bored and go away y'know." She held out her hand. "Ring."
Chloe bit her lip and pouted. "It's in one of the bags you made me keep behind the counter." Then she sighed and the pout got bigger and cuter. "I hope she'll leave her alone then... but I'm afraid, cuz watching people you love get hurt and killed makes people do dumb things."
"Well, go get it then. I can do a spell here that'll be a one-timer. But it'll dissapate all damage, and call for help." She held up the CD - it was a burned one, and had no label. "Every slayer in the city'll want to converge on the location, like flies to vinegar."
Chloe lit up there, like the woman had just become her own personal Jesus. "You are AWESOME!" faster than one would think a girl could run in heels, Chloe booked it back to the counter, got the ring, and brought it back to Jericho. "Here ya go!"
"Watch your feet!" Jeri frowned at her, then shook her head. "It won't stop the vamp in question, but she'll be fighting fit when it comes down to it." She took the ring and set it in the center of the floor, where the complicated inlayed circles were. Then she took the CD to the stereo in the wall and popped the CD in, fast forwarding until she hit the song she wanted. Over to the supply side of the store, she picked through things until she came up with some parchment like substance, a phial of something red and thick, and some super thin but obvious bones, which she broke and scattered around the ring. The liquid was splashed on. It was blood, and reeked like it. "Okay."
Chloe scrunched up her face at the smell, and made a little 'ew' noise. "How can vampires drink that stuff, it smells really crappy."
"Actually, blood's not all that bad for you. Lots of iron. And they don't really need blood so much as the magical-slash-sexual connotations associated with it... it's complicated." Jericho shook her head, choosing not to explain right now. "Suffice to say there are psychic vampires out there and they feed on exactly the same thing, just not blood. Anyway." She pulled off her hoodie and hung it up somewhere out of the way. "You might want to back off a bit. I'm low on energy and it could backlash if I pull down too much."
"Yep, backing off now." Chloe said with that usual chirpiness and a grin, watching the ritual with rapt attention.
It wasn't really a ritual. It was actually her pressing 'play' on a remote, standing there, and making shit glow in a pale, kind of ghostly way. Her magic wasn't particularly subtle, but it didn't have lightning strikes either. Oh, and the entire thing smelled like cooking blood and bone. To make it all glow, she sang along with the music. "Skin to skin, blood and bone. You're all by yourself, but you're not alone. You wanted in, and now you're here, driven by hate and consumed by feeear!"
Then she just pressed stop. It was that simple. Though it wasn't, because she was visibly paler. "There, done."
Chloe just blinked, and while she meant no disrespect, it just kinda slipped out. "Dude. That wasn't a spell, that was Drowning Pool." A prissy-looking princess even knowing Drowning Pool probably sounded strange.
"And I'm not a witch, I'm a mage. I do shit differently. Either way, it worked." She picked up the ring, which didn't have a trace of blood on it now, and tossed it to her. "There are rules for this to work. One, she actually has to be bleeding, or have broken bones. I am not kidding. One, the other, or both have to happen. She also needs to fall. Like, be on the ground at least once during the fight. And she needs to wear the ring. It's not going to work if she's not wearing it."
"Got it." Chloe wasn't quite knowledgable enough yet to really know the difference between a mage and a witch, so she just nodded sweetly and took the ring. "Ma'am... would you mind if I came back sometime? I'd really like to, maybe, you know... learn things from you."
"You a witch or a mage?" Jericho asked tiredly, as she took the CD out of the stereo, and put it away carefully.
"A witch, ma'am..." Chloe bowed her head in respect.
"Right, well, I can't teach you. Like I said. I'm a mage. I do shit differently. But I'll talk to some people, see if there's any witches around that are looking for an apprentice." She rubbed a hand over her face. "Ben better let me DJ tonight; I gotta renew my wards tomorrow and I'm tapped out."
Chloe's eyes went wide then, and she almost adorably pointed at her. "OHMYGOD! I thought you looked familiar! You DJ at Avarice!"
Jericho nodded. "Yeah. DJ Jericho." As if it weren't obvious. Actually, it might not have been, considering that she didn't wear a name tag while in the store. Either people knew her or they didn't. "You drop by the club sometimes, I assume?"
"I'm there all the time! My band plays there! I'm the drummer for Suicide Messiah." She said proudly.
"That's cool." Jeri didn't actually know who that was, considering the fact that they played when she wasn't DJing and vice versa. But the girl seemed very enthusiastic about the entire thing. "How often do you play? I don't DJ a lot, maybe once a week."
"We usually play on Friday or Saturday night. You should come check us out!" The blonde was practically hopping on her toes, she was so hyper.
Jericho thought about it, cracked her neck, and nodded and shrugged at the same time. "Sure. The husband might want to see some pretty girls on stage. Could be interesting, anyway."
"ohmygod. How could he care if he's married to you?" Chloe asked, completely serious, pointing at her. "You're like... GORGEOUS."
"Whoa. Relax. Just because you have the biggest television in the store doesn't mean you can't look at the others." Jericho trusted her husband absolutely and completely, so she wasn't concerned about that. "And besides, there's something about the music and the beat and the lights that make a person seem larger than life."
"Hee." The bubbly blonde giggled, whether Jericho wanted it or not, the girl was already almost looking at her as a mentor of sorts, hanging on every word. "Well, just talk to Ben, and he can tell you when we're playing."
"I got to talk to Ben anyway. I need to DJ tonight." This wasn't just something she wanted to do, apparently. When she ran a hand through her short hair, she actually had a fine tremble to her hands. Jericho gave her a quick grin. "Remember the rules to make that thing work, alright?"
"I will, I promise!" Chloe smiled and took her hand, shaking it vigorously. "Hey... without sounding obsessive... do you accept donations for the store? This is the first really good place I've found, and I wanna help make sure it stays here."
"Nope. Just come and buy stuff." Not that Jericho had to worry about money, but it never hurt to advertise a little bit, too.
"I will, I promise!" And while naive at times, and a bit overly chidlish, Chloe was good by her word. "Thank you again for all your help!"