Page 34 of Chosen Spirits (The Bartender Mage #4)

Rahul felt Sakari's hand on his leg tighten, and a quick glance showed her watching the actors with rapt attention on her vulpine face. On his other side, Julia was nearly as engrossed, her rare smile visible.

The final few minutes of the skit apparently involved gruesome, unlucky deaths for each of the perpetrators as they got their comeuppance. Mina closed out with a terrible pun, and then joined the troupe in bowing to the audience. Rahul cheered as loudly as the rest

As previously planned, the actors convened at Rahul's home for an after-party, and he congratulated them on another successful gig.

"So how was it?" Leif asked as he brought over a pitcher and refilled Sakari's mimosa. He offered to do the same for Rahul's, but he held his free hand up, declining, then put his arm back around Sakari's shoulder.

"I'll be honest," Sebastian said, sitting on Rahul's other side. "I'm not exactly sure I know what it was all about. Did all of that really happen?"

Dane laughed. "Aye, boyo, all of it true as gold. Especially the part where four of us met the reaper."

Sebastian snorted, crossing his arms.

Deirdre pouted. "I took some artistic liberties, but I thought it all went well!"

Sebastian still seemed a bit lost, but Julia came to his rescue.

"What you watched was a certain kind of interactive play that invites heckling and audience participation," she said.

"It's not a passive play like you might be used to, and the more you throw yourself into the absurdity of it, the more enjoyable it is.

Think about it like watching a B-movie with your friends and throwing popcorn at the tv.

Personally, while I enjoyed the level of camp, I don't think it went over the top enough. "

"Oh, aye, we were thinking that ourselves, it's still a work in progress. Any suggestions?"

"I got one," Rahul said. He downed the rest of his mimosa, reached forward to set the empty glass on the coffee table, then leaned back and made himself comfortable with a Sakari and a Sebastian under either arm. "Mina, your trench coat."

She took another spin on one of the stools in front of Leif's bar. "What about it? I thought it was a good prop."

"It absolutely is, but you're playing the role of a big, brawny, masculine private investigator, right? Subvert the role. Instead of the suit you wore beneath it—"

She stopped spinning. "A dress! No, not that."

"Fishnets," she and Leif said at the same time, then high-fived each other.

"Keep the illusory mustache, though," Julia said. "Also, how hard would it be for you to make it grow incrementally longer as the play goes on? Slow enough that the audience wouldn't notice it, but maybe several feet on each side by the end? "

Mina took turns pointing at them both, nodding, while Deirdre started jotting notes on her phone.

At midnight, hugs and kisses were given out as they made their farewells.

Sebastian drove his giggling wife home, assuring Rahul that he'd be by tomorrow so they could practice the performance they were going to do for their belly-dancing class at the end of the month.

Responsible Li shepherded her four drunk, hyper, sleepy, or sleeping compatriots into her minivan, driving off to their new shared apartment in the city.

Rahul shook Julia's hand, then accepted a careful hug from his long-time friend.

"Thursday at Ceasar's, you game?"

Rahul nodded. "Count on it. Hey, do you want to try the gun games with Leif's accuracy potion? Or their laser tag?"

"Laser tag, maybe, but if we do the shooting games, we'd have to get Tyrone to wipe our high scores.

It wouldn't be fair otherwise." Julia gave him a sly smile.

"If you're looking for more action, though, I'm running a squad training event next month.

I could always use a masterful villain to really challenge the agents. "

"Ooh."

"Think on it, and also think about what you could do with both mine and Leif's magics at your full disposal for the day."

"Oho, yes! Julia, you're too kind… to me.Not to your agents, no, they're about to have the cruelest, worst, most surreal day ever. Send me the date. Barring any emergency cases, I'm in."

He waved another farewell, then closed and locked the front door.

After doing a quick check around the house to make sure there weren't any forgotten wallets, left-open refrigerators, or other potential drunken mishaps, he headed upstairs to where Leif had just finished showering and was climbing tiredly under the covers.

Rahul joined him, sandwiching his cub between himself and a lightly snoring Tucker.

Both had had long days, Leif getting in some final procedural training for his new position at DOMA, Tucker having spent from sunrise to sunset in a dance battle with a trickster spirit.

Tucker had prevailed in the end, thanks to sequential Cardio-Up potions, but needed to sleep off the after-effects.

"Did you have a good day?" Leif asked him, yawning as he buried himself in Rahul's chest. Then his cub pulled back, wrinkled his nose as he withheld a sneeze, then put his face back against a less hairy portion of him.

"I did, yes.It was fantastic."

"Yay…"

Leif trailed off, and in the next second was sound asleep. Rahul pulled the blankets up over them both, then laid a hand against Leif's back, feeling his every breath.

For a time, until he fell asleep himself, Rahul watched over his two lovers, counting himself among the luckiest men on earth.

◆◆◆

June 27th, Leif

"Hi again, Mr. Ikensu," Leif said, wiping some sweat off of his forehead as he set down his alchemist's kit beside the great golden tree. "And thank you for speeding up our hi ke, Mr. Snagglefawn! That was super helpful."

"It was no problem at all," a tendril of fur and fangs said to him as it descended from the sky-spanning spirit. "I am happy to help those who help the denizens of my forest."

Leif downed a Spirit Empowerment potion from a green flip-top bottle, then took a s eat on a fold-out stool that he'd brought.

While Leif reintroduced himself to the ghostly elf that appeared out of the tree, his mission escorts, Jamie and Rickert, began setting up a laptop and network relay so that they could have clear service this far into the wilderness of northeast Minnesota.

After giving Leif a thumbs-up, the two of them made themselves comfortable a polite distance away.

Once Leif had finished recording basic questions and answers on a digital mental health intake form—how are you feeling today, have you been experiencing any suicidal ideations, on a scale of one to ten how would you rate your anxiety—he clicked on the laptop, opening the video teleconference call.

"Mr. Ikensu of Greenland, this is Dr. Ryan Kissenger, who will be your therapist for today's meeting. Doctor, if you'll give me just one moment, I'll help Mr. Ikensu in manifesting corporeally so that you can see and hear him. With your permission, Mr. Ikensu?"

Making sure that the webcam was pointed in the right direction, Leif moved over to the tree, wrapping his arms around it and using his Spirit Empowerment effect to fill it with energy.

With that added help, Ikensu was able to appear as he had been before Lady I'ari had bound him, a rotund elf in outdated garb.

"Yes, I can see you now," Dr. Kissenger said. "It's a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Mr. Ikensu."

"Hey, doctor. This scrying artifact you have is like, totally out of sight."

While Leif focused on maintaining Ikensu's connection to the material world, the therapist went through a ninety-minute session, speaking calmly as he worked to determine Ikensu's overall outlook, and then to identify any concerns he might have.

The spirit was a pacer, forcing Leif to constantly reposition the webcam, but he gradually settled down as the session neared its end, sitting his ghostly self down in the nook of a tree root.

"Thank you for that comment," Dr. Kissenger was saying. "One last issue to address today would be the idea of breaking the binding that has you bound to a tree. What are your thoughts on that?"

Ikensu shook his head. "No thanks, man.

I am… I was a pretty angry dude. I led a group of mercenaries-for-hire for several decades, and it was just one storm of blood and pain after another.

Being turned into a tree was a blessing in disguise, and the silence has been groovy.

I wouldn't mind a bit more contact with others, though, if you or the green-haired mage can swing it. "

"I'll see what can be arranged," the therapist said, making some notes. "If there's nothing else, I think that will conclude today's talk?"

Dr. Kissinger summarized their session, then reiterated the goals that they'd made together before saying farewell to Ikensu.

Afterwards, while Leif called Rickert and Jamie back over, the doctor let Leif know that he was pleased with the intake form and excited at the prospect of doing more telehealth cases like this, but that Ikensu's final request fell more under DOMA's purview than his own.

He let Leif know that he'd send up the work order, then disconnected.

"So that's that, bro, yeah?" Rickert said, closing the laptop and storing away the expensive electronics equipment into a bag. "Kind of cushy for a field mission."

"They probably won't all be like this," he said, and Jamie perked up, looking hopeful at the thought.

Leif turned back to look at Ikensu. "Thank you for working with us, sir.

More people, huh? Do you miss talking with folks?

I might be able to organize the periodic drop off of a Spirit Sight potion, so you could have conversations. "

"It's not so much the conversation I miss, just the presence of others with wit and life to them," Ikensu said. "Sometimes the rare hiker makes it this far off the beaten path, and the few minutes they spend nearby are swell."

Rickert nodded, crossing his arms. "I know exactly what you mean, bro!

Like, I once spent a few years sitting on top of a castle, right?

The quiet was nice, but got kind of oppressive after a while.

But then I roosted in the belfry of a two-story church, and a few times a week there would be voices, and singing, and the occasional community celebration! "

"You do understand," Ikensu said, seemingly in awe.

"This sounds like something we can fix," Jamie said.

"I suppose we could build a trail this far out," Leif suggested."Maybe encourage hikers?"

Jamie shook her head, rubbing her fingers over her knuckles as she looked up at the fifty-foot-tall tree. "No. I'm saying we should just move Ikensu's tree to a more populated area. I know that moving a tree can be expensive, but maybe that druid arbiter guy can help."

"Damn, Jamie bro, that's so smart! But in that case, I think Leif could do it all by himself."

"Oh, that's true."

At Leif's blank expression, Rickert gestured to Leif's alchemy kit. "Yeah, you've got a potion for it and everything. The one that makes trees wiggle? It was a gimlet."

" Plant Control?" Leif thought about it. It probably could work, with all of them working together in concert. He made a quick call to Dr. Kissenger, just in case there were mental health considerations about moving Ikensu that he wasn't recognizing, but received only approval for the attempt.

Kneeling beside his alchemist's kit, Leif grabbed the ingredients he needed for the gin-based cocktail, making sure he had enough for three potions. After mixing the alcohol, lime-juice, ice, and simple syrup, he poured the first serving into a glass.

"And now give it to Ikensu!" Ricker said.

Leif paused with the glass at his lips, and his eyes widened. Oh, yes!

It took the extra help of a Water Control potion to get the gimlet down to Ikensu's tap roots without being lost to dirt, but by the time the three of them had shouldered their equipment and eaten a snack of granola bars and water, Ikensu was ready to go, shuffling along the ground on his thicker roots.

With Snagglefawn's deer avatar leading the way, using his forest domain powers to turn what would be a two hour trek into a mere fifteen minute jaunt, Leif, Rickert, and Jamie chatted.

"So I want to get him something nice, but not like, too nice, ya' know?" Rickert was saying. "Just a little something to mark a two-month anniversary. Maybe a skirt or something?"

"Guys do like skirts," Jamie agreed. "But don't just buy one online and give it to him.

You should do what I did with my husband and take him to a mall, let him try things on.

And you gotta really play it up and point out that watching him try on different skirts and dresses and stuff is as much of a gift for you as it is for him!

Cheer him on every time he changes outfits, and demand twirls and shit. You get me?"

"Yeah, yeah! That's a wonderful idea. I know just where to take him, too. And I can be, like, I'll buy you any two skirts or dresses or whatever, but you have to pay for your own cute accessories."

After asking Ikensu as to his social tolerance, Snagglefawn said that he knew of a spot that would connect to a loop of one of the hiking trails, with maybe as many as thirty or forty hikers a week.

Jamie also added a checkpoint in a trail app, labeling it "Ikensu the Trouble Tree," where you could sit and tell him all your troubles without judgment.

She added a fake review saying how much better she felt afterwards, and that everyone should try it.

"That way people will stay with you for a while instead of just passing by, sometimes," she told Ikensu as he settled himself into his new spot and adjusted his branches while he still had mobility.

"But be careful about people carving their initials into you with their knives!

Anyone does that, you tell Snagglefawn, and he can tell me, and then I'll hunt them down and give them a taste of their own medicine. That kind of stuff pisses me off."

Waving goodbye to Ikensu and Snagglefawn, the three of them left the forest and returned to Rickert's modified SUV.

It was just about a four hour drive back to DOMA headquarters.

If they didn't make too many pit stops, they'd be back before seven, which would mean he could have dinner with Tucker and Rahul. Yay!

Wiggling with delight in the passenger seat, he sent out texts to his boyfriends, sharing his delight over his first successful mission.