This is the first of the Burnham Society Stories, my set of mystical comedies set in Chicago. The Burnham Society reflects my little version of Chicago, and this story introduces its primary characters. This, and all Burnham Stories, are written under my nom de plume Rowan Bristol.
“What do you tell people?”
“About the job?”
“Yeah. I mean this isn’t a regular nine to five…”
“Oh I don’t know, Clock in, do your job, file some papers, and clock out. You’d be surprised at how much we have in common with other people.”
Ned Grenier stood upside-down from the domed ceiling of the former Chicago Historical Society building, craning his neck at his partner on the dance floor three stories below. He knelt down, pulling out a pocketknife from his vest, scraping at the dome’s paint. Below, his partner kept watch both on Ned and on the unconscious security staff propped along the entryway.
“Seriously, what do you say?”
“Tery, Tery, Tery…” Sighed Ned through the headset, as his knife found a groove through the paint. He smiled as the flecks flew upwards at his partner below as he began swiftly tracing an outline, following the indentation beneath the pigment. “What do you really need to say?”
“Well I could say I’m part of a sinister secret society stealing occult artifacts…”
“We’re –hardly- sinister. We’re a 501( c )3 for goodness’ sake. You think they give that out to just anybody?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.” Ned finished his carving, making the outline of a face peering over the edge of the dome. “So when you tell people you work for a not for profit,” Ned mapped out the location of the forehead on the outline with his palms, marking the center with an ‘X’ “Not only are you not lying, but they’ll immediately stop paying attention to you. Most Not For Profits are quite boring, so people will presume you are too. Besides, Working for one usually means…”
“I get paid next to nothing?”
“Such a bright boy.” Satisfied with his work, Ned folded the knife’s blade back into itself and began hammering at the ‘X’ with the handle. The paint came down in large flakes, and Tery could see a hostile pair of eyes glaring down at him from the dome before Ned’s fist smashed further, through the dome itself.
“Heads up!”
Tery squinted through the dusty haze as a long shadow plummeted from the ceiling. With one hand he protected his face, and the other he grabbed hopefully at the object. His hands came in contact with parchment paper wrapped around something heavy. It was four feet long, and over the paper was entwined red ribbon sealed in wax.
“As soon as I’d heard the puzzle, it should have been obvious to me,” said Ned as he walked from the now ruined dome across the ceiling and down the wall. He was dressed nearly a century out of place, looking as if he’d stepped out of a Raymond Chandler novel, the kind of extremely dressy ‘casual’ that went out of style after the second World War. He was thin and animated, his eyes covered perpetually in sunglasses, the effect made all the more disconcerting by his walking down a vertical wall as if it were a sidewalk. At about three feet from the floor, he took a long step, braced his foot on the ground, and just flipped upright to face his partner.”
“How do you –do- that?”
“Change of perspective. It’s very easy once you get it down…”
“Seriously.”
“Fine. –Really- sticky shoes. Now, as I was saying, once we’d found the puzzle on the graffiti at Gino’s…Good job of spotting that, by the way, it should have been obvious. Athena’s birthplace wasn’t going to be anywhere –near- Greek town…” He frowned at Tery, who was covered in paint flecks. Ned began busily dusting him off as he guided him out of the Historical society building. “Athena erupted from the skull of Zeus himself, and the most prominent depiction of that particular deity could only be found in this venerable old building…Shame the present owners felt the current nightclub didn’t benefit from his wrathful gaze. Painting over a classic like that, the very idea…”
Tery let himself be dragged along. In his first month working for Ned and the mysterious Burnham society, this was far from the most outlandish evening he’d had. Exiting the building he took a moment to examine the parcel.
“Is this really…”
“Oh yes, straight from Glastonbury itself. Hidden away by time and mystery, awaiting the cleverest to unlock the clues as to its new resting place…”
Tery looked up at the eighteen-foot neon sign that showcased the name of the current tenants of the former Chicago Historical Society building: The very name of the object supposedly in his hands.
“Yeah, clever.”
“Now, be fair, Tery. We found it in the –adjoining- nightclub…”
“It’s the same building.”
“They’ve always been separate in –style- I can be forgiven…”
“It’s the same –company- Ned.”
“Well, It was the damned Limelight last time I was here! How was I supposed to know?”
“Yes, Ned,” chuckled Tery. “Are the guards going to be okay?”
“They’ll be fine. That brand of knockout powder hasn’t killed anyone since the society patented it in the twenties. Now, are you going to be a pain the rest of the evening, or are we going to celebrate? This is a big prize, you know!”
“So long as you’re buying…”
“Oh please,” smiled Ned, his hands in his pockets as he walked down Dearborn. “I never pay.”
To this day, Tery Lee didn’t know what in his job placement exam qualified him for employment at the Burnham Society for the Preservation of the Columbia Exposition. His last job hadn’t required nearly the legwork, or the firearms instruction. Fortunately, he was paid regularly if not well, and Ned had a passion for celebrating at the slightest provocation. Ned had a little black book that contained all the people and places which owed him favors. As of tonight, it seemed that every bar in the Gold Coast was in that book.
“It’s not…Not about preserving the history…”, said Ned, wobbling down the street, after last call. “But about preserving the reputation.” Tery worked to keep his employer on the sidewalk as he babbled. “Chicago is a pit, y’see. Just a cesspool. But all the rich people that live here want it to be Paris. Always have. So they put together this massive event, get everybody involved, and bring in wonders from all over the world. And one of those wonders…Some of those wonders…A bunch of those wonders…And a dragon…were dangerous. Blew up the whole place, razed it to the ground. But Burnham and his followers…Wanted to keep it special. One of the four stars of the city.”
“And that’s where we come in?”
“Yep. We’re here to edit the record, doctor the photos, and put all of those wonderful…wonders…back. We’re nearly done.”
“It’s the twenty-first century, Ned.”
“Did I mention the dragon?”
“Many times. But this has to be worth something…” He lifted the parcel.
“Oh yes. That’s the sort of thing you retire on…” He took the parcel from Tery. “Perfect, untouched. Not even exhibited…I could fly it to England and submit my resignation at the same time…”
Tery let Ned babble, and turned a corner, looking for some trash bins. He wasn’t nearly as drunk as Ned, but the sheer volume of liquid in his groin was causing him more than a little pain. He cursed the bright glare that filled the city’s alleys, looking for some shadow of privacy. One of the garbage bins was opened, and a shape was hunched over it, making horrible heaving noises. Tery waited patiently, hoping whomever it was would finish up and he could take over this prime bit of post-drunk real estate. After a few minutes, though, the noises didn’t stop, and Tery walked to the bin, banging on it several times to get their attention. As he did, his shoe bumped into what felt like a piece of hose that twitched as he stepped on it. A hose that was connected to the slumping form, whose serpentine neck now craned out from the bin several feet above Tery’s head.
It was the oddest thing. Tery couldn’t quite tell if he was staring at a rather scaly, glittering crane the size of large car, or an incredibly elegant, shimmering lizard…also the size of a large car. Its tail had been coiled protectively around the bin, its front and hindquarters clutching a single side; as it had been swallowing whole bags of restaurant refuse. It hissed angrily at Tery, as its neck frilled out and iridescent wings unfurled. Tery began scrambling backwards, no longer needing to urinate, at least on a restaurant wall. He turned, starting to run, as he heard a horrible burping noise behind him.
“Ned!”
Tery had just rounded the corner as a ball of filth and fire exploded against the alley wall, illuminating the sidewalk. He saw Ned some yards away, engaged in conversation with no one in particular, heedless of Tery’s screams, reacting only when the beast turned the corner and bellowed, shaking the windows of the establishments on the street. He lifted his sunglasses, as if to confirm what he was seeing, and bizarrely ran towards Tery, taking his arm, and rushing him closer to the beast.
“Back into the alley!”
Tery resisted this counter-intuitive command at first, but Ned was far stronger than his wiry appearance, and sped past the monster, turning the corner. Although the neck was swift, the beast’s body couldn’t make the sudden U-turn as well.
“We’ve got to keep it out of sight! We can’t bother the locals!”
Normally Tery was keen on the idea of the Burnham Society’s efforts being under the table; it lent a certain ‘coolness’ to his work. But in the choice between a little noise and being attacked by a monster the size of a Pontiac, he failed to see the advantage. Nonetheless, he followed Ned’s lead, throwing bags of garbage from the bins at the beast, which it began gulping up.
“Keep throwing. That should buy us some time. Try to find waste food. It uses plastic to fuel its breath.”
“What is it?” said Tery, throwing moldy bread at the snarling creature.
“Not our problem in a few minutes. We just have to stay alive until they get here.”
“They?”
Ned pointed to a white truck that had just screeched to a halt behind the beast. Upon its side, was the city’s seal. The beast craned its neck behind its body to see the new opponent, but Ned flung more garbage and began banging on the bin to get its attention, encouraging Tery to do the same. From the truck emerged five men in reflective yellow vests, orange hard hats with transparent visors, and what looked like axes. Without a word, the five pounced on the beast’s body. One of the men secured himself to its neck, wrapping a cord tightly around the windpipe. The monster struggled, and more than once, one of the men was flung off, only to rise again, securing a limb with rope and axe. Tery once again heard the strange burping coming from the monster, and remembering the fireball, took a handgun from his belt. Despite Ned’s shouting, Tery fired below the base of the creature’s neck.
The creature howled, and its chest began to swell, liquid spilling from the exit wounds that immediately ignited in the air. The men screamed at each other in Polish and ran off the beast, towards the truck. The one on the creature’s neck pulled off the cord before leaping off its body. The beast howled before it issued a horrible belch of liquid fire that shot high in the air before falling on the beast’s body, and all over the garbage. Four of the men returned with extinguishers, putting out the mess, as the fifth came to Ned and Tery’s bin, drawing a sword from his belt.
Tery tried to point his gun at the aggressor, but with a swift flick of the man’s sword, Tery was disarmed and for the second time tonight, was running away from a threat. Everywhere Tery turned that sword seemed to be in the way, until he fell on his back, staring up at an overweight man in work-shoes and blue jeans swinging a blade down at his skull. Tery didn’t even finish his prayer before Ned swung the parcel upward against the falling blade, breaking the sword in two. The man glared at Ned, glancing at his ruined sword. He took off his hard hat, as Ned helped Tery up.
“Grenier” The man snarled.
“Good evening, George. Didn’t mean to interrupt your business. We’ll be on our way.”
“Into the truck.”
“I have no intention of…Oh.”
Tery noticed that the fire extinguishers had been once again replaced with axes. Hands in the air, they walked into the empty truck, soon sharing space with the quickly rotting, smoldering corpse of the beast as the truck drove into the city.
“I never said we were the –only- group handling weirdness, Tery. Just the best.”
Tery sat miserably at a table in a small office attached to a large warehouse. The truck was small in contrast to the cages surrounding it. Contained within were beasts Tery had only seen in engravings, or his childhood role-playing manuals. If they weren’t house-sized, they had distressing combinations of eyes and talons. As he gazed, Tery determined that feathers were more dangerous than scales, and you could have teeth just about anywhere.
“So, was that the dragon you talk about?”
“What? Bridget? Oh, heavens no. She’s –massive-. The society re-routed the Chicago River just to cool her down. Even the Georges don’t go after her. And so long as she’s cool and sleepy, she’s harmless.”
“The Georges?”
Ned pointed to the vested men pulling the beast’s corpse out of the truck, and dragging it into a large vat embedded within the floor. The body slid, sizzling in the liquid, causing the other monstrosities to scream and howl.
“The Georges. Short for the Chicago Rare Animal Tracking Enterprise.”
“That’s not short for it at all. The short form would be CRATE.”
“It’s in honor of their job. They take care of the monsters. It’s a municipal service, just like taking out the garbage. Calling them CRATE seems so callous. I always found that the Saint George aspect gave it a touch more class…”
“So they’re dragonslayers. That was a dragon!”
“Yes, just not –the- dragon. Shame we never figured out how to make Bridget stop laying eggs…”
The men split up from the vat, some to check on the beasts in the warehouse, others to sort the equipment. The one with the broken sword entered the office. He was bald, with a broken nose and heavy beard covering parts of large scars. Ned smiled at him, and pulled out a flask from his Jacket. The man scowled.
“You don’t deal with the live stuff. That’s the –rule-.”
“George, I can assure you it was entirely accidental. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know I’d say the same thing if I found you scratching your behind with the spear of Longinus. These things just happen.”
Tery turned to Ned. “Is his name actually George?”
“Who’s the new kid?”
Ned smiled. “Let’s start from scratch. George, this is Tery Lee, my assistant. Tery, this is George. And George…And George…” Ned pointed to the individuals outside. “It’s easier to call everyone George, because not only are their original names unpronounceable…”
George growled. “Most workers don’t live long enough for it to matter. I used to have my pick…Descendants of the winged Calvary of the Huszarz. Now, I pick up roofers that don’t want to deal with immigration. Hell, with the same names, I don’t even have to change payroll.”
Ned took a flask from his jacket and offered it to George. George tossed the hilt of the ruined sword on the table.
“That’s my dad’s blade, Ned. Your kid killed –our- dragon, nearly killed my entire team, and broke my father’s sword. And I want to know why.”
“George, let’s be clear. –I- broke your sword. I’m terribly sorry. But isn’t it something you can expense? It doesn’t seem that you’re short of axes…”
George looked like he was about to explode just like the dragon. But instead, he just exhaled, snatched the flask from Ned’s hand, and drank, sitting down, head lowered.
“We’re getting nothing, Ned. Back when his majesty…” He looked warily at Tery “Back when His –honor- was in charge, we would get all the money we needed, just like his dad before him. The threat was known, and we did our job. We were efficient, we were quiet, and my dad was the best of them. Wyvrens, gryphons, even a qez…a…qez…one of those big fucking flying snakes. We knew it would be lean with the changing of the guard; that always happens. But we’re just getting nothing now. We don’t know if we’ll get anything again”
“Doesn’t he take it seriously?”
“Seriously? He doesn’t take us at –all-. None of it. He thinks we’re some kind of payroll dodge. It’s just embarrassing.”
Ned looked grim, staring down at the table. Tery knew Ned was older than he looked, but seeing the sadness sink into Ned gave him a glimmer of the age. George sighed miserably.
“We’re so used to working under the radar, that nobody sees what’s crawling around the city. He’d rather just believe that it’s all just a story. Kind of like your guys.”
Ned nodded grimly. “You’re not alone. I have to deal with a board that’s so far removed from what actually gets done I have to beg for the basic essentials. Time was, people were happy to finance a team of mystic adventurers armed with quick wits and sleeping powder, now it’s all ‘What have you done for me –this- year?’ I don’t have anybody else anymore. I only got the assistant because I’m –this- close to retirement.” Tery looked offended, but Ned waved it aside.
“You found something?” George asked with interest.
“Just enough to get me out. It’s not like there’s much left. Some reliquaries, the Automatic Girl…Loose odds and ends. It’s not like it used to be. Tery’s job is going to end up being filing for the most part. Sure I’ll teach him some useful sorcery and –maybe- the sleeping powder, but it’s not like it used to be. There’s just not much magic left.”
George sighed. “Little by little, a knight is made little…”
Ned nodded. “By the little things in life. Kay’s dilemma: We are rewarded for success with irrelevance.”
“I don’t even have a sword to show for it.”
Ned stared at the table, his eyes unreadable behind his shades. “I’m sorry I broke your blade, George. Let me make up for it. Tery? If you would?”
Tery blinked at his employer, but took the package from where it was leaning against a filing cabinet. The seal, and the wrapping had been broken in the impact with George’s blade, and Ned effortlessly pulled it apart.
The scabbard was worn and patched, with a single row of rough-hewn jewels embedded in silver forming a line to the hilt. Scrolled in the wood of the grip was a pair of entwined dragons in a Book of Kells knotwork. The metal of the hilt and pommel were pocked and worn.
George gently placed his hand on the sword, as if it would burn him. “This…”
“This would be put to better use in your hands, than in the clutches of a bunch of inbred Germans.”
“It’s a king’s blade.”
“This city could do with a king that respected history and magic. Do you really think Richard the Third is going to be an improvement over this guy? This town’s a magic place, George. Just…Think about it. And keep the scabbard with you always. The last guy forgot, and it’s all gone to hell ever since.”
George smiled. “Fair enough. And could you teach your kid to not aim for a dragon’s gasbag when he shoots? Nearly blew us all to hell.”
Ned grinned wickedly. “I have a better idea.”
“So what’s a ‘Squiring’ going to entail?” said Tery, as he and Ned boarded the Red line back into town.
“Consider it an unpaid internship. George is right. Magic’s alive in this town, and you might as well get used to the creepies and crawlies that make up that part of the wonder. Oh don’t be upset. You’ll still work for me.”
“And spend my remaining hours with the Georges. Do I get the name?”
“Heavens no. That’s for fighters. You’ll be lucky if you get past corpse removal and gryphon dung.”
“Fantastic. So we both got screwed.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Your retirement prize. You found Excalibur of all things…you’re never going to find anything better.”
“There are worse things, Tery, than spending the rest of your life as an occult adventurer. Besides, that sword is –meant- to be given to the worthy. Not locked away. Isn’t it better to be part of a great story, than to have a great prize?”
“If the prize is leaving this crazy job, no.”
Ned sipped from his flask. “Say that to me again after two months of scrubbing the waste off of mythic beasts. I think I’m going to –enjoy- this cross-training project of yours…”
Tery scowled. At least the weekend was coming up.
