The wind blew false across my face. I didn’t know what it was like in other parts of the world, but wars of darkness were a constant in the city of lights. And I most certainly should know. I’d been living in town for most of them. The wind was picking up. That meant the magisters were making their move. I was forced to shake my head. The other immortals had fled to the catacombs a few years ago, when the foundations of this most recent war began to brew. After all, if they got in the beasts’ way, they’d be truly dead and probably food for kennels, and if they got in the magisters’ way, they would have their essence used as fuel for some terrible curse upon the world. Immortals relied on the two thing we had in spades more than their enemies: time and experience. What is a ten-year nap to one who will never die, they posited every time a war was brewing not involving them. When a pair of knights came to town and purged the Grand Magisterium, the immortals napped. When the beasts took a foothold and ran out the knights, they napped. Now, with the rise of a new maestro and new magisters, they once again nap. After each of those wars, they returned and gained influence and power, only to lose it with each nap. After the third, I stopped caring enough to listen to the leaders of the area. I was the oldest of the immortals here, by near a century. I certainly didn’t need to retire at every perceived threat.
Walking down the stairs into the penthouse suite, I smiled at my few but brilliant children. Young Marcellus, an idiot child who would have died in the streets of Messalia had I not brought him into the family, sat in the large armchair, reading a book on quantum mechanics. Science had always fascinated the boy. “How goes it, Marcellus?” I asked him.
“Bene, mater,” he replied in Latin, as though by instinct, then continued, “This is some truly fascinating research. Give the humans a few years, they might be an aid in stopping magics.” He put the book down and looked up at me, “It’s starting, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Soon enough. Don’t fret, they won’t strike here, will they, Simone?”
The eldest looking of my children looked up at me. “I’ve made the deal, if that’s what you’re asking, Pho,” she replied. She’d been wise and curious back during the enlightenment. Had she not just been a poor, illiterate spinster listening to the salons through doors and windows, she might have become famous. Instead, she was sentenced to death for stealing clothes and brought into the family.
I smiled. “That’s precisely what I was asking,” I stated, then looked around. There were only three people in the penthouse with me. “Now then, where’s your sister?”
The third child in the family, technically my grandson, if we operated with normal familial terminology, laughed. “Probably down running the bar. I told you she’d be insubordinate, Phonike.”
Marcellus, the man’s father of a sort, shook his young head at him. “You’d know, Ed,” he joked, “It took me years to housebreak you.” Marcellus, in one of his excursions around the world, had found a rich man who was about to lose his wealth and life to the encroachment of the Germans and Russians upon Poland. Marcellus, the brilliant child he was, offered eternity in exchange for the man’s wealth joining the family with him. Edmund was more than happy to accept, and we transferred his vast wealth to Switzerland, where we’d spent the Great War as a family prior, and where we were planning to spend the Second World War as well.
I sighed. “In Alex’s defense, I’d rather her than any of you managing the bar. She understands how people in the modern age have fun.”
“Go down and make sure she’s not going to do anything stupid, Pho,” Simone added, “I wouldn’t want my carefully orchestrated neutral zone to be messed with because your newest protégé got carried away.”
“Fine,” I said, then looking down at my eldest child, said, “Marcellus, you’re coming with. I need you to attend to the basement if I must deal with your youngest sister.”
The child groaned, but he got up. “Ed, get on the computer and figure out modern markets. You’re the one with the money, and I’d like that money to be put to good use.”
“What,” he asked, “Like charities?” Ed’s brow was confused.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marcellus answered, “I think I would like to fund some research. Be a dear and find a way to get me a billion dollars to do so within, say, twenty or thirty years.”
Edmund bowed his head to the young boy. “It will be done, Ojcze.” Everyone was rightly terrified of Marcellus. I’d be surprised if the boy’s name hadn’t been brought up in Simone’s discussions with each side of the coming conflict.
I smiled slightly as I entered the elevator with my son. “How are you doing, teknon?”
Marcellus shrugged. “I’ve been better, mater,” he replied, “I feel the urge to wander again. Paris doesn’t have the fascination with science that once grew with its artistic love.”
I nodded. “Perhaps you should help spur that forward? Is that the intention with the funding you have Edmund gathering?”
He smiled. “Partly,” he said, and did not add any more.
I knew better than to ask. The schemings of Marcellus would never come to hurt me. We were family. But that didn’t mean that I wanted to know what he was doing. “I think I may be opening up a second building like this, in New York, or Roma. Maybe London. Anywhere there isn’t a constant worrying about people attacking creatures of the night.”
“If you do, be sure to tell me where. I’ll be certain to visit.”
I nodded as the elevator opened for me. “Enjoy the basement,” I said as I exited into the bar.
“I won’t. Enjoy the humanity.” His reply was meant to poke fun at me. My love of interacting with the lowly mortals at their lowest points was the whole reason behind the club’s existence. I’d founded it during the cold war, as a way to get to know what people love to do. I’d done my research around the world before opening and did it again every couple of decades. Looking behind the bar, I saw Alex pouring drinks for very intoxicated men and women, all fawning over her. I sat down at the bar and raised a finger.
“Nikki,” she said with a smile as she walked over and surprised me, “How’s it going today?” Nikki, the name I’d decided to use in public. It sounds much less awkward than people calling me a name that hasn’t existed for a thousand years.
“Alex,” I said, a somewhat worried but not stressed look crossing my face as I spoke, “Its begun. Now, pour me my damned drink, kid.” Alex was a good kid. Poor bartender from Chicago, trying to earn enough to get through college. She was working at the wrong time, and her bar was shot up and torched in some gang thing. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for her, I was in the area at the time to figure out what the new millennium wanted from a bar slash club and was getting drunk and chatting with her when the bullets started flying. One thing led to another, and she became the youngest member of the family, as well as the one in charge of keeping with the times.
“Alright, alright, no need to be pushy,” she said as she poured me a glass of red wine, “So, we got anyone in the club to worry about?”
I looked around. Probably, I thought. The honest truth was, I didn’t know what everyone in the supernatural nightlife of this town looked like. “Maybe,” I said, “Just keep to our meals as a family, alright?”
“Fine,” Alex pouted, and walked to serve another person their drinks.
The drunk man next to me leaned over. “So,” he began, “You’re like Alex’s sister? Does that mean you get a discount or something?”
I shook my head. “I would hope not,” I joked, “I’d hate to cut into my own profit margins.”
The man looked confused as I stood up and began to walk the club, listening to the people as I wandered and sipping with every few steps. I recognized most of the voices as regulars, though that wasn’t a surprise. I’d only been back in town for a decade and change, hardly enough time to become a popular club, but enough time to keep the regulars coming consistently. We were one of many in the underground scene, which meant on any given night, most of our clientele were regulars. Nodding to the few that recognized me as the owner, I wandered towards a group I didn’t recognize. Three gentleman and a lady, all dressed far more formally than anyone else in the place. Full suits and a flowing gown. Approaching them, I asked, “How’s your night been, friends? Hope everyone’s been treating you well.”
The woman nodded. “Everyone’s been wonderful, if a tad distant. Everyone seems to know everyone here.”
I chuckled. “That’s the way it is, generally,” I said, “Who’d you hear about us from?”
The woman looked hesitant to answer, but one of the men wasn’t. “An old friend told us this was the first place we should head in the city.” Then, with a smile, he added, “Clearly we got a slightly off impression about the place.”
I laughed along with them, then said, “How rude of me. The name’s Nikki.”
“Nice to meet you, Nikki,” the woman said, “Call me Alice.” There was something about her that bugged me, ever so slightly. I looked at the man next to her, the one who’d answered me before. I recognized him, from my most recent set of wanderings.
Seeing me looking at him, he decided to speak up. “I’m Jim, if you’re wondering.”
I nodded. “Right, I should have remembered,” I said, shaking my head. “I was the one, wasn’t I?”
Jim cocked his head to the side. “Yep. I’m finally old enough to travel the world alone, so I brought some friends.”
I nodded. “Sorry, I should have remembered you sooner.”
“Why?” he asked, “I was a kid who was hanging out with a bunch of people that you were talking with about the place. Wasn’t like I was particularly memorable.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Still, it was rude of me. Tell Alex I said the first round was on me. If she questions you, just say I did a dumb and forgot my history for a moment. She’ll understand.”
“Thanks,” Alice said, walking over with Jim towards the bar.
The other two men in suits remained behind. I could smell the stink of herbs on them, herbs only used in certain mystical rituals. “Why are you actually here?” I asked.
“My friend,” began the taller of the two.
I cut him off. “Don’t feed me that bull. I have a nose and am not unaware of what that smell means.”
He sighed. “I’m Jean. We felt something odd in town and came to investigate. We were in town the night, and so Jim pointed us here to party.”
I nodded. “You’re missing your phenomenon, you know?”
The shorter man beside him laughed. “Of course we are,” he said, “You think we want to be out there in this? Not even Jean is that good.”
Jean shook his head. “Ismael is right. He’s a fool, but he’s right.”
I sighed. “As long as you don’t bring any of your stuff into my business, we’ll be fine.”
“I would never,” Ismael said, “After all, you bought me some booze.” He wandered off to find a table for him and his friends.
Jean looked down at me. “I’m guessing that ultimatum includes discussing you’re – how to put this delicately – lifestyle situation?”
Gazing into his eyes, I knew he knew. Gritting my teeth, I replied with a terse, “Yes. Who else?”
He shrugged. “Jim probably figured it out, what with appearances and all that. No one else though.”
“How did you?” I asked.
He laughed. “You really don’t remember? We’ve met before, long ago.”
Suddenly, I recognized him. “Twice actually. I believe we also met while you were a child of one of Marcellus’s people of interest. That’s longer ago than a person, even a mystic, can naturally live.”
Jean nodded. “Indeed,” he stated.
“In that case, I’ll be clearer to you,” I said, then I leaned in to his ear and added, “If you breathe a word of this anywhere or cast a spell of any sort in this building, I’ll send Marcellus to have his way with you, and your friends, and anyone you might care about.” I leaned back and smiled. “For science, of course.” To anyone else, it might seem an odd thing to say, but it mildly terrified the well-informed man.
With a visible and audible gulp, Jean replied, “Understood.” Then walked terrified to the table where his compatriots were now seated. Returned to making the rounds of the people, sipping my wine. One crisis was averted, at the very least. I’d worry about the specifics of our neutrality tomorrow, once the war had started in earnest. I was going to spend this night enjoying myself and ignoring any impending responsibilities to the world.