Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 29

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When the question was put to him so bluntly, the answer was obvious.

Star wanted Dandelion there. 

It wasn’t just his own wants, though. He could overcome that in his fear for Dandelion, that much he knew. He did want to keep Dandelion safe however he could—but Dandelion was powerful. He was strong, much stronger than Star would ever be, and in a situation like this, it wasn’t just that Star was in danger. (Though he was, he thought helplessly, he was being personally targeted. He didn’t know what had happened with the nixie that they went with using Vayne to get Star instead of her, and that felt like a mine buried and ready to explode if he put too much weight on it). It wasn’t even that Dandelion or Dom were in danger. 

This whole city was in danger. He couldn’t afford not to make use of Dandelion, and if it meant he would have the comfort of being able to see him, being able to reach out to and touch him, to die with Dandelion at his side if this all went badly—well, that wasn’t selfish when it was for a good cause, right? 

“Come, please,” Star said, and squeezed Dandelion’s hand between both of his own, raising it and jamming it awkwardly against his own chest. “Please. Please. I need you there. We might all need you there. I just didn’t want—I just wanted to explore the option, in case it was best, but…”

Dandelion’s expression warmed again, and he seemed to relax into the touch, swaying forward toward Star. He winced almost absently as that put strain on the injury to his shoulder, and Star panicked, digging around and pulling out the remainder of his loaf of bread. “Eat some bread,” he ordered. “It’s healing bread. Speeding healing. Fast. Injury go away more quick.”

A blink, then Dandelion laughed. Eyes glittering, he took the bag from Star, then leaned in again insistently and kissed him.

Star made a whiny little sound as fireworks went off behind his eyes, and he wound his arms around Dandelion, holding on hard until the kiss broke.

Dandelion licked his lips, then drew a piece of bread out of the bag and handed that bag back. “You eat one too, then.”

“I was gonna,” Star complained, taking one out before putting the bag away again. “Don’t tell me to do things that I was already going to do, then I don’t wanna do ’em.”

“Okay,” Dandelion said gently. He wrapped an arm around Star’s shoulders, and they walked the rest of the way to Beanheadings like that.

It was much busier at this hour, which tracked with Star’s memories of the place. It was always doing some kind of business, but the evenings and early night were when it was the most active. Matthias was back on the till, or maybe still on the till—Star had to wonder if he ever left or if he lived here, and what kind of deal he’d made with Kearney Dillon, if he did—but he’d been joined by a human and a glaistig as servers, replacing the ‘get orders from the counter’ service by having them run to various tables as the coffee shop opened up the kitchen for slightly larger food orders and got the bar open for drinks that had a touch of something extra in them.

Good. What they needed right now was cover; if someone were to glance into the window while passing, it wouldn’t need much glamour to hide that they were there if the place was bustling. Star gestured to a table for Dandelion, then headed up to the front. “Hey, Matt! How’s it going?”

“Oh, can’t complain,” Matthias said back, equally cheerful. “What can I do you for?”

Star did not miss the innuendo. Now was not the time for reciprocation, though. “Just three americanos; a friend’s meeting us here but we can’t stay long.”

“Will do. Looks like you’re at table 8, I’ll have someone drop ’em off.”

Star inclined his head, then headed over, sliding in next to Dandelion, who was getting his phone out. “Ready for your first prank call?”

“I am always ready for a prank call,” Dandelion said. His phone shimmered as he shifted his outgoing number to Vayne’s, and he dialed. “Hey, boss.” Suddenly his voice was rough, Vayne’s kind of slimy tone sliding through. “Deal’s done, I have a freaky horse in love with me. I’m just gonna keep him in this form and hope he doesn’t get too frisky if it’s all good with you.” A pause. Star strained to hear the demon’s voice on the other end, but couldn’t make out any words. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. You better keep your end of the deal. See you.”

He hung up and let out a breath. “Good?” he asked Star, winking.

“Sounds like the guy I know,” Star agreed. 

Dom slid in across from him right then, brows lifted. “Why are we pretending to be Vayne?” he asked.

Star upped his glamour so the sound of the crowd would cover his voice, and nodded to the human—whose nametag said Gray (they/them)–as the coffees were dropped off. “One of these is yours. We need you to be alert,” Star said, and then threw himself into it, explaining everything they’d learned and found so far that he hadn’t been able to cover in previous messages.

Dom let out a wincing breath. “Well, I came dressed in dark colours for a stealth mission, but I gotta say I’m a bit nervous about getting caught breaking into the track,” he said. “You sure this isn’t gonna backfire on us in mundane ways?”

Star shook his head. “I mean, anything can happen, but Viv’s gone right to the Twilight Council to explain what’s happening and that we’re heading in first to try to defuse it. It’s as close as possible to getting permission in advance. But… I’m glad you came,” he added, putting a hand over one of Dom’s. “You know the place really well, and besides, there’s ways to ward against fairies. There’s no way to ward against humans.”

“I’ll help however I can,” Dom promised. “I’m just grateful you got me involved. If I sat on the sidelines while you were putting yourself at risk… I don’t know, it’d suck. They tried to use me to start all this and get at you and Dandelion, you know?”

“Yeah. I know. You said you wanted to,” Star said softly. “I listened.”

Dandelion shifted, and Dom abruptly cleared his throat and lifted his coffee with his free hand, downing it. It had taken awhile to explain everything, and it seemed like it was now cool enough to chug. Star shrugged, and did the same.

“Shall I do the last call?” Dandelion asked. “Once I’ve checked in as Yuree, we’ll just have to wait for a few minutes to give time for the demon to head out, and then we’ll want to head in ourselves as soon as possible.”

Star’s heart was suddenly pounding too fast. Maybe he shouldn’t have slammed the coffee after all. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Dandelion’s phone shimmered, and he called again. “Heyyyy, babes,” he said, in a flirty feminine voice that wasn’t his own. Star wondered what kind of power Dandelion had where he could do that—had he met Yuree sometime before? If she’d dated Adrien, he may have. Or maybe he was just picking her voice and speech up through his own strength of glamour. “All good here, the satyr is just taking a liiiiiittle nap now. Looks like we got all three of that bard’s bitch babes tied up nice and tidy.” A pause for an answer. “Yuuuup, just like that. You probably wanna come out here asap, though, babes, Queef or whatever her name is, she’s looking kinda sick from the iron cuffs, and Vayne might be in danger from too much stallion.” Another pause. “Yeah, uh-huh, see ya in a few, then!”

Shoulders relaxing, Dandelion hung up. “They should be on their way in just a minute. They seemed eager to get out and get control of the situation,” he said mildly. “Now, we wait.”

It turned out that waiting—for a demon lord that you couldn’t see leaving the premises of a place you couldn’t directly watch on a timeline of their own choice—sucked. The three of them sat in silence but for Dandelion’s occasional sips of his coffee, which, after about half a cup, he handed to Star. Star drank the rest, even while regretting his first coffee. No point letting it go to waste.

Whatever happened, Star decided to embrace it. He was going with two people who, if they weren’t his boyfriends, were something to him. Beloved of him. And soon there’d be no more waiting at all.

He tried to plan in those few minutes they had before leaving, running over his mental map of the track. The clubhouse was on the immediate west side of the track itself. It was a 10,000 square foot building with a large dining hall, event space, and kitchen. There were terminals all over the building for the betting, with large windows overlooking the patio that then faced the track.  To the north of the building were the conference rooms and offices. The offices were the place that Star considered most likely to have the spells set up in them as the most private areas; plus, he remembered finding several of them locked and smelling of sulphur. That probably wasn’t unrelated.

Detached from and just north of the clubhouse were the stands: the grandstand and the judges stand. That’d overlook the track, but as an outdoor space visible from a bunch of angles, he doubted much would be happening there.

Annexed to the south side of the clubhouse was the enclosed paddock, with temporary holding space for the mounts, various places to clean and pick and saddle up and all that, and of course the main indoor exercise area for warm-ups and teaching lessons to students. This was where Star and Georgio had been when Star had seen Ramullin walk by on the clubhouse side and the track had flooded just outside.

To the east of all that was the track, a long oval space that was now fully flooded. From what Star had heard, it sounded as though it were currently standing water and had not yet drained. 

On the far side of the track, again further to the east, were the on-site stables where horses could be boarded and cared for. Halle, who couldn’t leave the area and thus would definitely be at the track somewhere, usually stayed at the stables so she could watch the horsies, but since the horses who stayed there would probably have been moved elsewhere after the incident, it was hard to say if she would be there or somewhere else on-site. Unless she’d been enchanted or bound by the enemy somehow, she’d probably be on their side and willing to help.

Entrances to the clubhouse were: the main public entrance on the west, a side entrance near the grandstand to the north, and then the patio entrance from the east, overlooking the track. It could also be reached through the attached paddock, which had two entrances of its own: one from the side to the south and the larger barn-door style entrance to the east near the track. 

What was the best way to enter? Where should they go first? Was it as simple as going in through the front door and heading right to the offices, Star wondered.

And was there anything else he could reasonably do or prep in the last couple of minutes before they headed off to the track?

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