Mirages and conspiracies

I saw JJ's eyebrows rise in two neat arcs. "A nephew? How interesting!" He turned in his chair so he could put a hand on its back. His eyes stared at me with rapt attention. "Please, ma chèrie, tell me more."

I was only glad to. JJ was a great listener (though he was even better teller, that with his voice). After a quick recollection of the entire encounter and a lot of choice words for the con artist's lack of skill, I showed JJ the sketch I got as my reward.

"It feels so hot I can't hold it in my bare hands for long, but I don't get any burns as a result or anything," I said, showing JJ my healthy fingers. "It's like touching you, JJ, only with heat instead of chill. Is this some sort of magic too?"

"Entirely possibly, ma chèrie," JJ said, his face pensive. He leaned over the charcoal sketch and scratched his chin for a moment.

Then I watched him to do a strange thing—he put his palm over the sketch, but didn't touch it. Instead, he just held his hand over the paper for a minute, while his eyes closed in concentration. When they finally opened, he gave me a look of interest that, for once, had nothing to do with my body or its blood content.

"You are entirely right, ma chèrie—this is some sort of magic. Something related to pain and fire, if I were to tell—but I have to admit that neither is my speciality." JJ didn't seem as regretful about this as he tried to sound. "If you truly wish to know more about this item, you should find a right expert."

"Pain and fire?" That sounded not ominous at all. "And who will be the said expert?"

JJ gave me a smile—a wide, and I'd even say, smug, one. "A witch, of course. All magic is their domain. Who knows… you might even find a way to deal with this problem of yours."

He casually put a hand on my arm, and I jerked away on reflex, feeling shivers marching down the length of my body. My reaction made JJ smile a little wider, and I glowered at him in response.

"I think it can wait," I said. Something told me that as soon as JJ stopped chilling me with his touches as much as he did, it will be very hard to push him out of my personal space.

JJ leaned back, his face a picture of innocence. "As you say, ma chèrie. Now, did you say you wondered about… how did you put it?.."

"I wondered about how Avarice and you can be as weird as you are, and yet no one bats an eye. I mean, look at you!" I gestured with my hand. "Pale skin, fangs, these strange eyes of yours, and that's when they aren't actually red. It all screams 'vampire' to me. For a race that so big on secrecy as you told me, it doesn't feel as a mystery to me."

"Ah, ma chèrie, this is all true, yet you didn't believe in vampires before you met me. This is the whole point. It was easier to keep everything about us a total secret when information was slow to travel. Eventually, vampires realised they weren't able to contain every rumour that already existed, even if they tried. I admit, Dragon's uprising didn't help that at all."

"Uh-huh." I nodded. "If you can't stop them—take the lead, that's what you want to say? You want to say it's vampires themselves who created the myths so that no one would ever believe them?"

"Exactly, ma chèrie! That was very perceptive."

I narrowed my eyes. Now that I knew JJ's ultimate motive, I didn't trust his compliments, even if he looked as genuine as ever (which is to say, with a hint of irony). "I read quite a few books when I studied in school. The idea that myths were created by the creatures described in them for the sake of their concealment isn't new."

JJ shrugged, unperturbed by my attitude. "It still works, isn't it?"

I pursed my lips, unhappy to agree with him at this moment, even if the topic was something else. "Yeah, it does. But it doesn't explain how you can pass for a human. I mean… Your eyes alone. Cosplay lenses can change an eye colour, but when it comes to slit pupils…" I winced. "I've seen it once. It was kinda funny, actually."

I wasn't a big fan of anime or gaming, but I liked elaborate costumes and visit cons with lots of cosplayers in them. It was a revelation to find out that cosplay lenses, like any contact lenses, rotated on the eye during the course of a day. The sight of a catgirl with one slit pupil being almost vertical and one turned forty-five degrees was both a little unsettling and comical.

JJ blinked at me the same way he did when I knew he didn't understand what I was talking about, but was filing it in his brain for future google inquiries. Finally, he nodded. "True, true. So it's a good thing that we have an ability to make people ignore these kinds of things, right, ma chèrie?" He flashed me another smile.

"They seem very obvious to me, JJ."

"But you aren't just any person, my ignorant witch. Your eyes," he leaned forward and pointed at his own eyes with a finger, "like eyes of any witch, can see though illusions, mirages and glamours like these."

I couldn't stop looking into JJ's eyes at that moment. He was close enough to me I could see the small threads—muscles?—in his irises moving as his pupils dilated from thin slits into wider, almost oval shapes. I could see that his eyes weren't merely pure green, but comprised a mix of yellow and blue that mixed into that grassy colour.

"So… This is why you called me Bearer of the True Vision?" I asked, forcing myself to look somewhere else, somewhere away from JJ's face.

With a corner of my eye, I saw him nod.

"And this glamour. You had mentioned it already, once. What is it, JJ?"

"It's the name given to the ability I described to you, ma chèrie. Akin to hypnosis, it makes it easier for vampires to hide and search for prey, but it's not as invasive. If I had to describe it…" JJ waved his fingers in the air as he searched for words.

"Glamour lets me to set the impression people get from looking at me, no matter what they actually see. The emotion. I can be armed to the teeth, but make others feel that I'm harmless. I can be dirty and dressed in rags, but they will find me alluring if I want them to." JJ smirked. "Though, that won't require glamour at all."

I rolled my eyes at his cockiness. "So, you just use it to make people think, what? That you are a normal human, nothing to look at?"

"Spot-on, as always, ma chèrie. Seems like soon enough my ignorant witch will lose all her ignorance." JJ clicked his tongue as if it was something to be sorry about.

"Until now you did your best to slow that down," I muttered. It wasn't exactly fair, though. JJ did answer my questions when I had the presence of mind to ask them. But in these days I more often just wanted things to be back to normal. Sadly, normal included my dad there, alive, and that just wasn't possible. Maybe it was the time to squeeze JJ for everything I could.

I pushed these thoughts away and turned to the computer screen. "Let's look at how our trade post going. I'd like to sell that coffin before end of the month."