The Avenged Detective Agency

December brought a lot of mixed feelings for the group. Brian hated it, because it was always so bitterly cold, and because it would snow. Zacky loved it because it would get darker earlier in the evenings, so he could spend a lot more time outside. Matt didn’t really pay attention because he was always so tired during winter, he assumed it was a werewolf thing. Jimmy and Johnny loved it the most because it meant one thing; Christmas and the Winter Solstice.

The Winter Solstice was important to Jimmy, as a person with magic, he had strong ties to nature. Winter Solstice meant going to Yule festivals and the Winter Solstice market, and it meant literally covering the house in good luck runes and mistletoe.

It was the 21st of the December when the market was opened, which was when the sun was at its southernmost point in the sky. Wizards and witches from all over the states gathered to celebrate, and sell their wares.

When the day arrived, Jimmy made everyone wear appropriate attire, and as they were walking out, confiscated cigarettes from everyone, and confiscated a hip flask from Brian. He then smacked him around the back of the ear.

“If any of them caught you smoking you probably wouldn’t make it out alive.” He commented. Brian and Zacky just looked at each other.

The drive to the big nature reserve the town over was difficult, Jimmy went on a painfully long winded rant about how last year’s solstice celebrations were ruined by a bunch of ghouls that tried to steal fairy dust. Apparently several fights broke out because of it. Johnny kept hitting his head on the window pane on his door.

But once they were there, they found that it was worth the long journey and all the effort. A cluster of tents and marquees were set up in the centre of the clearing, and fairy lights and torches were put up around the perimeter to keep it well lit. Matt could smell a lot of herbs, but the strongest smell was that of the pumpkin and butternut squash soup being served. He mumbled something about it being ‘fucking cold’ and wandered in that general direction.

Jimmy seized Johnny by the shoulders and looked directly into his eyes. “We have to find that thing I was telling you about, the only person I know who would be selling it is gonna be here somewhere!” Johnny gave him a single nod, before they wandered into the mass of people to look around.

Brian and Zacky were left alone, they looked at the crowd, then at each other. Zacky sighed, before beginning to walk to the tents to find something to do.

“Hey! Are you just going to leave me here?” Brian shouted at him.

“You can come with me if you want, I just want to find something.” He replied.

“Find what?”

“Hard liquor.”

“I’m definitely coming with.” Brian speed walked up to him and they practically waltzed into the market.

At this point, Jimmy had whizzed past at least a dozen stalls in search of one person. Johnny was trailing behind slowly, his short legs being no match for Jimmy’s. At one point he wasn’t paying attention and walked straight into a punky looking ghoul. The ghoul bared blackened teeth at him and hissed, Johnny just ran away.

When he found Jimmy again, he’d stopped at a stall, and was talking to a woman who was running it. Jimmy smiled when Johnny arrived, and introduced them.

“Johnny, I want you to meet Brynhildr, she’s a necromancer, and she’s like, a Viking. Bryn, this is Johnny, he’s an elemental.” Jimmy gave her a proud smile.

Johnny wouldn’t have put Brynhildr down as a Viking before Jimmy had mentioned it, but now he had, he could definitely see it. She was pale, and short, but had a stocky build. She had piercing blue eyes and light brown hair, which was plaited into a long braid which ran down her back. Not much of her flesh was on show, but from what he could see, she had many rune tattoos. Her smile was warm, which helped Johnny relax.

“It is very nice to meet you, Johnny.” She nodded her head slightly and bowed. He panicked and waved. He liked the way she said his name, her accent making it sound like ‘Jun-ee’.

“Hi.” He smiled nervously, Jimmy nudged his shoulder slightly.

“I have not met an elemental in a very long time, your kind are very rare.” She gave him a reassuring smile.

It was true, elementals were very rare, but they haven’t always been. A lot of the time people with magical blood did have control of an element, but it was rare to be able to control all four. In some generations they were seen as gods, and above humans. But in others they were persecuted, many of the people burned during the Salem witch trials were elementals. This put a stop to many magical blood lines, making witches, wizards, warlocks and elementals very rare in the USA. It’s only recently that their numbers have started to pick up again.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” He fiddled with his watch a bit, clearly nervous.

“Don’t be nervous, I am a nice Viking, honest.” She smiled again, Johnny stopped fiddling and looked into her eyes.

Jimmy decided to ruin the mini moment, and asked Bryn if she’d got his letter. She nodded, before turning and opening an antique looking wooden chest. She turned back, holding a small plant pot, with a tiny sprout inside. She handed it over to Jimmy, who looked ecstatic.

“What the hell is that?” Johnny asked.

“This little fella is a lupus nocturnia flower.” He gazed at the budding flower in awe.

“What James failed to mention was that I am a botanist. He sent me a letter asking for this flower in particular. I have to admit, it was hard to track down, but I found it. It’s a plant native to Serbia, and it only flowers at night. But it’s more special than that, its petals open wider and are brighter the closer it is to a full moon. Very useful for creatures that are affected by the phases of the moon.” Bryn explained flawlessly.

“It’s for Matt! Well, for all of us really, but I thought it was really cool and that maybe he might like it?” Jimmy rambled.

“I think he’ll love it! That is such a great idea! I knew there was a brain in there somewhere.” He smirked, Jimmy just pretended to flip his hair.

“What do I owe you?” Jimmy asked.

“Next week I am going back to Iceland for a week for the winter solstice celebrations, I need you to look after my shop for me.” She told him, whilst writing something down on a slip of yellowing paper.

“You got it, hombre.” Jimmy nodded, he and Johnny turned to go.

“Wait!” She ran around from behind the stall table, revealing a long sword which was fixed to the side of her belt. She held out the piece of paper to Johnny, having to look up as she was shorter than him, he took the paper gingerly, reading it quickly and realising it was an address.

“I don’t have a phone, so please, write to me sometime.” She smiled sweetly, revealing slightly sharpened teeth.

Johnny became flustered, forgetting how to pronounce words, he stuttered and blushed before Jimmy had to step in and cover his mouth with his free hand.

“He will, I’m sure of it.” He smiled, before guiding Johnny away, hand still firmly on his mouth. Once they’d walked away, Johnny turned around and waved goodbye to Bryn.

“You looked a little flustered there, Johnny boy.” Jimmy grinned after removing his hand and wiping it down his coat. Johnny went to argue back.

“I-” he raised a hand.

“Save it, I saw the way you were looking into her eyes, ya filthy animal!” Jimmy hit Johnny’s shoulder gently, before running off to find something sweet and sugary. Johnny just sighed and trailed behind him.

At the other end of the market, Matt was clutching a paper cup filled with soup close to his chest. His teeth chattered, and he could feel his toes beginning to go numb. He thought about wandering around and going to look at other stalls, but he didn’t want to be hassled by sellers, like usual. He also didn’t want to come across anyone nasty who was trying to pick a fight, because he’d noticed that they liked to frequent places like this.

He sighed before taking another sip from his cup. He looked around a bit, noticing a few other werewolves had had the same idea as him, and came straight to where there was warm food. They all, like him, looked tired and fed up. He noticed that they spoke in German, and were all a bit older than him.

He glanced over to the far corner to see Jimmy trying to buy fae cookies, Johnny was stood behind him, looking very unimpressed. Nothing new there, he thought. The fae woman then handed over a large brown paper package, tied up with green vines and covered in flowers. Matt mentally kicked himself, realising how much sugar those damn things actually had in them, and how hyper he was going to get.

When he looked over to the other side, he saw Brian and Zacky sitting on the table of an empty stall, Brian was taking a drink out of a purple, oriental style bottle that he’d never seen before. He scrunched up his face in disgust, before handing the bottle to Zacky. He too took a swig, causing him to blink a few times, his eyes watering. Whatever they were drinking must have been strong stuff. They both laughed at each other’s reactions, making Zacky nearly drop the beautiful bottle.

Matt was just about to wander over to them, but his attention was brought to a verbal altercation that had just started. It was a banshee, practically shouting at a young man. She was flailing her arms around, and her voice was getting louder. Then a sentence passed through her lips that made everyone stop in their tracks.

“You’re a human aren’t you?!”

Matt could smell the fear in the air, and he could see pretty much everyone at the market go deadly still. Zacky and Brian had stood up and were glaring at the man, Brian’s eyes becoming luminous out of anger.

It was an unspoken rule in the supernatural community that no humans were involved with anything, because everyone wanted their secrets to be kept just that; secret. Humans had a tendency to talk and speculate.

There was an awkward silence, and the man began to panic. Then one of the German werewolves from the soup stall walked over to him slowly. He was tall, towering over the man, staring him down. He had a strong jawline and a murderous look in his eyes.

He got even closer, the man began to whimper, his eyes going wide.

Then the werewolf sniffed him, leaning closer to his hair. He then stood back, his face serious.

“Human.” He spoke, his voice deep.

The man gulped, looking around to try and find a break in the crowd in which he could try and escape. But his eyes were met with glowing ones, and some very angry looking creatures. A witch with dark skin and orange eyes bared teeth at him, and a man dressed in Victorian style clothing unsheathed a silver blade from the inside of his jacket. The German werewolf stood in front of him, a deep growl rumbling from his chest.

“Why are you here?” a man from the forming angry mob shouted.

The man stuttered, a thin layer of sweat began to form on his face. He couldn’t form any whole words.

“ihn zu töten, Hans!” another one of the German werewolves shouted, his voice gravelly and malicious.

Hans nodded once, before he raised an arm, revealing long talon like claws on his hand. He pulled back, getting ready to slash the guy’s throat, people from the crowd were cheering, shouting, even screaming for him to do it. Then they all went deadly silent, waiting for the inevitable.

“That’s not gonna be necessary, sweetheart.” A suave voice called from the back of the crowd.

Hans stopped and looked up, the crowd separated slightly, and Brian stumbled forward. Matt could see from the way he was acting that he was drunk as fuck.

“Was?” was all Hans said, but he soon realised what Brian meant and stood back slightly, allowing him to step in front of him.

Brian meandered his way through the people that had crowded around the human, he winked at Hans as he moved past him, stopping right in front of the man.

“What’s your name, dick face?” Brian asked, though it was more of an insult.

“Nick.” The man whispered.

“Speak up, Nick. I’m gonna ask you some questions and you’re going to be really awesome and answer them all, or Hans here is gonna use you as a scratching post. Got it?”

Nick stared at Brian’s purple eyes, his eye twitched slightly before he nodded hastily. “yes, sir.”

“Sir? I like it. Okay, how’d you find this place, Nick?”

“I don’t know, I was just driving around and I thought it was just a Christmas market and I came to look, I swear I had no idea that any of you were, uh, non-human?”

“Fair enough, honest mistake. So your car is parked over there?” Brian pointed to the other side of the clearing, Nick nodded again.

Brian grinned. “Great, now look me right in the eyes, and it’ll all be over.”

Nick looked around once again, Hans bared teeth at him. He swallowed nervously. “A-Are you gonna kill me?” he stuttered.

“No. Now look at my eyes before I slap you.”

Nick obliged, looking straight at him. Brian grabbed his shoulders and pinned him to where he was standing, causing Nick to flinch. He stared at him for a while longer, his face going blank.

It went on for a while longer before Brian let him go and Nick slumped slightly. “Okay Nicky boy, when you get to your car, you’re gonna drive home, and you’re not gonna remember anyone here, not even my handsome face. You’re gonna remember tonight as the night you went to a club, got ridiculously drunk, and took part in a threesome with a girl and a guy. It was a blast. Then you’re going to go to bed, and probably question your sexuality. Sound good?”

“Yeah, that does sound good.” Nick replied monotonously.

“Great! Well it was nice talking to you, have a safe trip now.” Brian turned him around to face the clearing and pushing him away. Nick stumbled away, going past Zacky, who bared teeth at him.

“Well that was easy, I’m gonna go throw up now.” Brian announced cheerily, before sauntering away.

--

After the events at the winter solstice market, a new rule had been made for the house.

No one was allowed to buy any alcoholic alchemy creations from any market, ever.

Zacky pretty much fell asleep for 3 days, and Brian was ill for 2. Matt was so angry, he hadn’t stopped raging about it. He went through all the rooms in the house and threw out any hidden alcohol he found. If Zacky had been awake, he would have probably killed him, seeing as though Zacky had a massive stash of Jack Daniels hidden under his floorboards.

By the time they had both recovered from their actions, it was Christmas Eve. Jimmy had made make shift Christmas decorations, including paper snowflakes and a gingerbread house made from card and glitter. Matt had found a half decent tree, and Brian had been forced to make Christmassy treats, such as candy canes and vanilla sugar cookies.

Matt had asked Johnny to put lights up on the front of the house, but Johnny forgot, he was too busy waxing lyrical about the letter he’d received off Brynhildr. Jimmy found it hilarious, but he was then forced to put the lights up himself, so he didn’t find it that funny anymore.

They were all woken up at 6AM sharp on Christmas morning, to the wonderful sound of Jimmy screaming ‘It’s Christmas!’, Matt tried to block out the sound and hide under his covers, he even heard Brian telling him to ‘shut the fuck up’ very loudly, then hearing him shout and hiss in what were probably dead languages.

Matt heard running footsteps down the hallway, getting closer to his room. He turned away from the door quickly, pretending to be asleep. He then heard his door be opened with some force then more running footsteps, then he was squashed.

“Get up, I want to open my presents!” Jimmy hit him repeatedly.

Matt hit back, growling. “It’s too fucking early, Jim! Go back to bed!”

“No!” Jimmy then tried to pull the covers off him.

“Don’t fucking do that, I’m only wearing boxers!” Matt kicked him hard.

“Yeah, like I haven’t seen it before!” Jimmy shouted, pulling on the covers even harder, Matt clutched onto them for dear life.

Jimmy ended up pulling Matt out of his room, by his covers. Brian stood outside his room and just looked at him in confusion, he scratched his bed hair and yawned loudly. Johnny opened his door, looking rather awake, before nearly being taken out by Jimmy, who was about to start dragging Matt down the stairs.

Matt ended up sitting down beside the tree, with his covers over his shoulders, all wrapped up. He looked really angry, but Jimmy wasn’t paying attention, he was waiting for everyone to sit down so he could open gifts.

When they all came back into the living room, Johnny silently passed Matt a giant mug of coffee, before sitting down next to him, nursing his own cup.

Once everyone was sat, Jimmy started handing out presents that were under the tree, there was an envelope under there for Johnny, which he Frisbee’d at his face. When all the presents were handed out, he didn’t hesitate, he started ripping away wrapping paper like there was no tomorrow.

Jimmy got loads of manga books, a long blue scarf, a knitted jumper with a duck on it from his grandma, and a voucher for the alchemy store the town over. He put the duck jumper on straight away, before curling up to watch the rest of them open presents.

Brian got guitar strings, several bottles of alcohol, and about six cooking books, which he was very pleased with.

Matt got slippers which were like monster feet, some marvel comics, the Hannibal books, and a Santa hat, which Jimmy made him put on straight away. He also got the lupus nocturnia flower, which he called Gloria.

Johnny got video games, chocolate, and bottle of fae pollen punch. He had already started on the chocolate before Jimmy could shout at him. He also opened the envelope from Brynhildr, to find a leather bracelet with Viking runes branded into them, unsurprisingly, he put it on straight away, causing Brian to whistle and wiggle his eyebrows, Johnny threw a pillow at his face.

Zacky got books, DVD’s, and someone had bought him a fake blood pouch which contained a red sugar syrup. He had a strong feeling it was Brian.

“Is it too early to start drinking yet?” Matt grumbled.

“Matt, the sun hasn’t even come up yet. Therefore it’s still night time. Which means it’s time to start drinking.” Brian said slowly, before opening a bottle of what looked like black vodka.

After a few hours of drinking, and a drunken attempt at cooking Christmas dinner, they were lounging about in the front room. Matt was wearing his slippers, reading comics under the lamp light. Johnny was asleep, head on Jimmy’s shoulder, who was reading the first volume of Attack on Titan, and Brian and Zacky were engrossed in an episode of Game of Thrones.

“Aren’t they brother and sister?” Brian asks.

“Yep.” Zacky replied, drinking someone red from a glass.

“But they’re fucking.”

“Yep.”

“And he just pushed the Stark kid out of the window.”

“Yep.”

“That is so fucked up. Can we watch the next one?”

“No, Harry Potter is on at 7. We’re watching that.” Matt called out, not taking his eyes away from the new Deadpool issue.

“Shut the fuck up, you’re not even watching TV! We’re watching Game of Thrones.” Brian shouted.
“No! That’s not fair! That’s a TV dictatorship!” Matt put the comic down, pointing at Brian and shouting back.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, I’M TRYING TO READ!” Jimmy screamed, silencing them all.

Johnny woke up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “What time is it? Is it time to watch Harry Potter?” he mumbled, still half asleep.

“For the love of god, we’re not watching Harry Potter. IT’S ON EVERY YEAR! WE HAVE ALL OF THE MOVIES ON DVD!” Zacky raged.

“Yeah but its Christmas, we have to watch Harry Potter, its tradition.” Johnny argued back.

“Okay, two people want to watch Harry Potter, two people want to watch Game of Thrones, Jimmy, you’re the deciding vote. What are we gonna watch?” Matt said calmly.

Jimmy looked up from his book, wearing a very unimpressed expression. “We’re going to be watching Anastasia, and if any of you disagree, I will impale you with that Christmas tree, DON’T THINK I WONT!” he muttered maliciously.

There was a brief moment of silence. “… Anastasia it is.” Matt said quietly, out of fear.

“Merry fucking Christmas, where’s the hard liquor?” Brian said, as he looked around for a bottle that wasn’t empty.