DRAFT ONE
EVERY THING WAS DARK EXCEPT THE MOON. She hung in the sky like a lone spotlight. The cemetery was quiet and dark, except for the glow of the moon and the ever-present glow of the Green City. Even at a good wyrm's ride away, the Green City's light was still powerful. Rafe could feel it's power.
"You can do it right?"
Rafe was supposed to be looking about the specs on the Palm Device in his hand, but the Green City was calling to him, it was distracting.
"Wha...?"
The boy looked at him, almost furious, but more upset, tears clutching to the lids of his eyes, threatening to release. "Can you raise him! Please!" The boy begged.
"Yes." Rafe said. There was an uncomfortable pause as Rafe breathed in green intoxicating power, "Yes, I can do it." Why was he so distracted!? The pull of the Green City never felt like this for him.
Necromancer barked. The black dog, covered in white spots, like a night sky full of stars, was becoming impatient. It wasn't until recently that Rafe discovered that the dog could feel the power of the Green City also. This was when Rafe had started calling the dog Necromancer. Before that it had just been Dog.
The boy dramatically grabbed Rafe's hand, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" The tears fell.
Rafe hated these moments. And in his line of work, he always had so many of them. He felt awkward standing there as the boy nearly fell to his knees, sobbing. "Mr. Martinez, pull yourself together. You will see him soon."
"How soon can you start? Is the moon where it needs to be yet?"
"She," Rafe corrected. He instantly wanted to take the correction back. He was being impolite. "Against popular belief, my powers aren't dictated by the phase of the moon."
Mr. Martinez looked up at Rafe, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"It's okay. Now get up. Your boyfriend will have most of his memories in the beginning. You'll have to try to get past explaining to him what happened. The quicker he realizes that the Green City took him, the sooner he will fade." Mr. Martinez wiped tears from his face and nodded. "Now, I can hold the returned for longer than most — but it doesn't last forever. The quicker you get out what you want to, the better." Rafe began throwing greensalt around Christopher Rice's memorystone. "Do you understand?"
Mr. Martinez was wiping his face dry. "What is the salt for?"
"It's a barrier. Sometimes the returned come back knowing exactly where they are and what happened to them. It will keep him contained..." Rafe could see Mr. Martinez's face change from grief to udder confusion. Before Mr. Martinez could lash out, Rafe said, "You did read the material that I provided to you, right?" They never read the material. "You can't take him with you."
"But I thought...Just for a little." Was this guy serious!?
"Absolutely not!"
"You have to give me one night! An hour even! His family hated me! They never thought he was in love with me! They didn't want him to be! We never got to say goodbye. Please!!!"
"With all do respect, Carlos. I can call you Carlos, correct?"
"Yea."
"He may not come out in one piece." Rafe explained.
"What do you mean?" He didn't read the material.
"Sometimes the returned are different, whether it be mentally or physically. It's something about the Green City."
"Will he know me?" Carlos Martinez asked quietly. It was almost inaudible. Rafe knew that he was afraid of the answer — an answer that he already knew.
"He loved you, right?" Carlos nodded, tears welling in his eyes again. Rafe tried to be sensitive. Man, he hated to lie to clients. "Then yes, he'll remember you."
Rafe had finished pouring a circle of greensalt around the memorystone. Necromancy was excitedly running in circles. Sometimes the dog acted as if it got higher off the residual power of the Green City than Rafe did. "You're going to want to step back for this?"
Carlos Martinez, wiping his eyes again, stepped back. Rafe did have to give it to the kid, he was dressed in a nice white and silver suit. His shoes were not the kind for walking through grass or over dirt. Much too expensive. Immediately Rafe pulled the Green City's power, and Carlos' thin tie began to blow in the wind that seemed to blow from nowhere.
DRAFT TWO
RAFE SAT IN HIS OFFICE, BLINDS PULLED SHUT AGAINST THE EVER-PRESENT SUN. He liked his office dark. The only light coming from the soft pink glow of an orb full of writhing pink glowworms. There was a pair of empty chairs on the other side of his desk. They'd been empty for a few days now. Ever since the SunPress did that article on the riches grenskins in Shining City. Rafe had been one of them.
Rafe was clicking a black ink pen. Open. Closed. Open. "This is bullshit!" He thundered. A black dog with white spots hopped to its feet in the corner. It had been curled up, sleeping. It's favorite pastime until Rafe got work. "I'm sorry, Necromancer," Rafe said to the dog. "I'm just — bored."
There was the sound of a doorknob turning and a flood of light as Rafe's office door began to open. Finally, Rafe thought. He jumped to his feet, "Welcome!"
The potential patron stepping into the dark office. The darkness was always so off-putting, Rafe noticed. But he never changed anything. The patron looked around, first at the bookshelf, then the cabinet of curiosities which was full of jars of liquid and strange creatures. Some oil paintings of more strange creatures. If Rafe had to explain, he would have to tell the guy that the creatures in the jar or the embryos or newborns of what is shown in the picture.
Rafe broke the silence, "They're called animentals. Creatures from another world."
"A...Another world?"
"Yes. Another world." Rafe held out his hand, "Rafe...And you are?"
"Carlos Mar..." Necromancer had caught Carlos' eye. "Carlos Martinez," Carlos shook Rafe's hand.
"Nice to meet you Mr. Martinez. That there is Necromancy, my dog."
Carlos smiled, for a moment he seemed comfortable as Necromancy pressed the top of his head into Carlos' hand. Carlos reflexively began to scratch the dog behind the ears. "I've have many dogs, but none like this."
"Yes, Necro is a peculiar dog."
"Like the creatures in your cabinet...? ...And please, call me Carlos."
"Yes," Rafe replied as a matter of factly. He swiveled behind his desk and sat in his throne-like office chair.
"You are grenskinned..."
"Yes," Rafe replied.
"You are the top returner in the Shining City...I just..."
"Didn't think a grenskin could be a top anything in the Shining City."
Carlos was intelligent enough to look sheepish.
"Please, Carlos, sit down." Rafe gestured towards one of the two empty chairs. Chairs that had been empty for days. Rafe banked on being anonymous. Most people were too polite to leave once they've come through the door and saw he was grenskinned. Now that people knew ahead of time, they just refused to show. "How can I help you?" He asked once Carlos seemed comfortable in the chair. They were comfortable, pink leather to match the gloworb.
"My Jack, I must see him again." There was a sudden tension in the air, a sadness that was trying to break free from a heavy cage. "You can bring him back? This is the work that you do!?" Carlos' voice was growing frantic.
"Yes," Rafe broke in before the hysterics. "This is the work that I do. I can return the citizens of the Green City — but you do realize that it's not forever." Rafe should have saved that last part for when they were actually making a deal on payment, but something made him say it prematurely.
"But you are the best, grenskinned or not."
"Look," Rafe was offended, "The color of my skin has nothing to do with my abilities!"
"I'm sorry," Carlos pleaded, getting to his feet. "Look. I probably shouldn't have come."
This was Rafe's only customer in too many days. "It's okay. I accept your apology. A few minutes isn't going to change years of ingrained beliefs. However, if I can get you to look past my green skin for ten minutes that I have done good hear. Baby steps." There was a pause, Rafe waited as Carlos sat back down. "Now! Baby steps is how I want your story. Nice and slow."
"His family hated me. Said that I turned their baby boy into a faggot!"
Rafe put the palm of his hand up to get Carlos to stop. "When do you want to do it?"
Carlos looked confused. "I haven't even told you the whole story."
"I've heard enough." Rafe opened his schedule book and began paging through. Too many dates were blank. "Let me guess," He said as he continued paging through. "His parents didn't let you say your final goodbye? Didn't let him in the hospital to see hm?"
Rafe knew that he'd hit it right on the money, just based on the look on Carlos' face. "They do that to my kind too, ya know." Carlos' brows knit. He was listening. "An interracial couple. The grenskinned partner, by law, isn't allowed in the hospital. Something in our skin can make them sicker — they say. Or our skin is cursed with bad juju. It is not our fault that our skin matches the light of the Green City." Rafe grabbed a pen with a long black feather plume on the end. "When?"
DRAFT THREE
Grimoon's Satellite
One
THE SMALL TOWN LOOMED BEFORE HIM, LIT BY THE SOFT GLOW OF THE GRIMOON. The gothic-stone buildings all held a sickly-green glow that mimicked the moon above. It wasn't bright enough for Carlos. He was used to the neon lights and the fake sun of the Shining City. This small town — what was it called again? Sleeping Hallows? Was fucking creepy!
The sidewalks and lampposts that held the glow of jack-o-lanterns, were alabaster-white from the wyrm bones with which they were made. The bulbous orange fruit hung on the tops of the posts on the sides of the streets, like streetlights in the Shining City. In the city the lights were fueled by whatever powered their fake sun. Here faces were cut into the jack-o-lanterns and apparently their seeds glowed with the same light as the Grimoon.
Carlos pulled out his palm-D to reread the address. Why did such a renowned tarotmancer live here? He thought. Demetrius Galloween. Carlos pulled his trench coat closer to his body after putting his palm back in his pocket. His jacket was out of place here, in the darkness of Sleeping Hallows. He wasn't even sure how the townsfolk kept the monstrosities out! Just then, Carlos looked over his shoulder, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He could swear something was watching him! Red eyes in the darkness.
They never had to worry about the monstrosities that plagued their world in the Shining City. The monstrosities can't stand the light. It was the main reason that the fake sun was built. Everyone across the land was invited to live there... And many did, after the Great Migration.
Carlos thought he was at the building. The office building had a directory. Carlos pressed the number combination for suite 801 — the numbers he needed to press were not eight, zero, or one. The front of the door was adorned with a bird-cat-like gargoyle knocker. Maybe it was a gryphon? Carlos had heard that some worlds had gryphons — or at least beasts that were like gryphons.
Oddly enough, as he watched the bird creature, its eyes seemed to follow him. Then it squawked and he could hear a lock opening. Carlos stepped up to the door and pulled it open. It was a large wooden door with swirling patterns. In each corner was the swirling outline of some creature: A wyrm, a wolf, an owl, and a whale...
Two
IT HAD BEEN A FEW WEEKS SINCE ANYONE WALKED THROUGH THE OFFICE DOORS. Demetrius sat in his wyrm-bone throne-chair in his dark office. He liked the dark. It's why he moved here to tiny Sleeping Hallows. He was the town hero. The man that kept the monsters out. But he wasn't arrogant about it. He just hated the rules of the Shining City. He hated the rating system and how desperate people were to gain a higher ranking. He hated that your personality, your history, your hard work, all boiled down to what the government "standardized" as an acceptable amount of cards for you to hold, which everyone else could look onto and judge you based solely on that. People were not people anymore. They were a deck of cards.
Demetrius had too high a rating to keep out of the public eye in the Shining City. Sleeping Hallows suited his privacy just fine.
He was calmly petting the head of his scythound, his eyes half-closed — when there was a knock on the door. Demetrius' eyes snapped open and Necromancer, the scythound was on his feet. Demetrius paid attention to the dog's body language. He didn't growl. Demetrius still had some persistent enemies.
"Come in!" Demetrius called.
The gentleman on the other side of the crystal-glass door was a man about his height with a tanned face. Judging by the tanned skin, Demetrius knew he was from the Shining City. However, that wasn't they only give away. The pearlescent white trench coat was a definite nod to city fashion. Unless he was a wannabe.
Demetrius knew he had to stop judging people right away. That was a city habit. "How can I help you?" He asked.
"I..." The potential client seemed to stutter when he finally laid eyes on Demetrius. His office was quite dark. Maybe he'd need to liven it up a little. However, Demetrius knew why the man stopped in his steps. There was a jack-o-lantern on the corner of his desk the provided all the light for his office. It glowed lime green — which often disguised Demetrius' skin. Usually by this point Demetrius would point out the fact that he had green skin, but he let this man suffer a little. "You're griskinned."
"Yes."
"But..."
Demetrius smiled. This was the other reason he left the Shining City. "Is there going to be a problem with you accepting my services because of my skin color?"
Three
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