Of Candy and Candles

Version Beta-3

By Tom J. Hyde (AKA Makkus)

Word Count: 4607

I recommend reading "Pyramid Scheme" before this tale, as it sets up Brooke's backstory. However, the story does stand on it's own.


Brooke Gray watched with a hooded gaze from the shadows as the man’s eyes darted back and forth. He didn’t appear to see her behind the counter. Crossing her arms over her ample bosom, she smiled, her fangs shining in the candlelight.

The man crept through the shadowy aisle between car fresheners and bath salts, with the body language of someone with everything to hide. His hunched shoulders and nervous movements radiated discomfort. He even appeared to be shivering, despite the warmth of the candlelit sales floor.

Her soft furry ears picked up every sound of his Italian leather shoes as they rasped against the worn wooden floorboards. He muttered to himself and despite the thirty feet separating them, Brooke could hear every word.

“Where is it?” He scrabbled among the bath salts. “It has to be here. They told me it would be here.”

Her eyes flashed as she adjusted her position slightly, her tail fluttering across the small rug behind the counter leading to the back rooms. She wondered who told the well-dressed man about the candlemaster. In fact, after over a month of working for the turquoise turban, she still didn’t have a clue where he found his clientele. And when she asked about it, he responded with the usual gibberish that she could barely understand.

“Damn damn damn!” he cried, his voice still soft in the stifling silence of the sales floor. He sounded despondent about his failure to find whatever it was he was looking for. She considered assisting him, but she could smell his embarrassment and unease. Encountering a being like her wouldn’t help his disposition.

The door behind her opened and the walking eyesore that was her boss stepped out from his tiny office. His head cocked, he studied her, then studied the man in the three-piece suit still searching for the phantom item.

“Sphinx girl not help?” Hasid asked beside her.

“’Sphinx girl’ doesn’t have your knack for reading people.” Brooke’s feathery wings twitched with annoyance at his constant use of ‘sphinx girl’ instead of an actual name. “Anyway, you didn’t ‘hire’ me to be your employee.”

“Hasid did not hire sphinx girl.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. The man in the aisle was quite focused on finding that one item. He didn’t even notice the two speaking behind the counter. That or he didn’t want to interact with them yet.

“Sphinx girl still ask questions. Ask if need help!”

“I barely understand what you do here, you old goat,” Brooke snapped as her eyes flashed in annoyance. “How can I possibly help?”

“Sphinx girl must ask!” Hasid’s head bobbed madly.

“I might freak him out.” She gestured to her curvaceous form, barely constrained by the black tank top and khaki cargo shorts. “Not a lot of people see sphinxes walking around these days.”

“Sphinx girl must ask!” Hasid insisted. It wasn’t a suggestion.

The sphinx girl huffed. “I’m a smuggler, not a salesperson.”

“No stealer man. Sphinx girl now. Guard and help!”

“Fine!” she groaned, pushing herself off the wall and storming through the swinging doors onto the floor. “I’ll go help the suit.”

The candlelight of the store flickered over her body as she walked, sending patterns of light and shadow over her half-sphinx, half-human form. Her feet padded silently on the wood floor as she rounded the corner and moved up the aisle. The suited man was still digging through the bath salts, utterly oblivious to her presence.

“Excuse me, sir?” she asked in her most patient tone. It still sounded like an angry hiss.

“YAH!” the suited man screamed as he whirled and stared at her. He repeated the cry when he finally processed the creature he was seeing. “Don’t hurt me! I was just looking around! I didn’t mean anything!”

He continued to babble for nearly a full minute before Brooke had enough. She put her hands on her hips then lifted a single claw to her lips.

The man went silent.

“Can I help you locate something?”

Finally, after calming, the suit became coherent enough to answer. “You…work here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh…okay…I was looking for…well…that is…” he took a deep breath and then just spit it out. “I’mlookingforsomethingthatwillmakemeadolphin.”

Brooke did her best not to rub the bridge of her nose in frustration. The people Hasid didn’t seek out personally were always so jumpy in the store. She plastered her smile back on, trying not to show her fangs and gestured to a small blue bottle on the top shelf, filled with tiny cubes. The man picked it up nervously.

“Yes yes yes!” Hasid cried behind her, causing her and the suited man to jump in fright. The only problem was that her tail wouldn’t recover as quickly as the man’s nerves. “Exactly what dreaming man wants! Sphinx girl do good job!”

“Sir, may I introduce the proprietor of this…shop.” Brooke’s voice was so sugary it could have been used for a county fair’s worth of cotton candy.

“Special blend. Let dreaming man play out dream!” Hasid babbled.

The man’s eyes jumped between Brooke and Hasid, his face a rictus of confusion and fear. Brooke almost found it amusing.

“You’re sure?” he asked Hasid.

“Hasid knows! Hasid know about dream. Swim swim swim dream. This perfect. Dreaming man like.”

“How much?” The man squeaked timidly.

“Twenty dollar!” Hasid crowed. “Special blend! Dreaming man use many time. Follow direction and use many time.”

The man nervously handed a twenty dollar bill to Hasid, who somehow produced the signature electric lime bag and slipped the salts inside. With a cackle, he handed it back.

Brooke wondered if thirty years of Egyptian prison would really be worse than this.

The man nodded and rushed out of the store, eager to try his new purchase.

“You are the weirdest thing I have ever met,” Brooke said.

“Sphinx girl flatter Hasid,” he giggled. “Sphinx girl too nice.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Close shop now!” Hasid cried. “Time for guard duty for sphinx girl, yes.”

“Oh glee.”

For the next half hour, Hasid was a whirlwind of activity across the store, making sure every product was perfectly in place. Brooke assisted, verifying all the candles were still burning properly and replacing those which burnt down too low to be reconjured by the man’s odd form of magic.

She worked her way through the four main candelabras standing in each corner of the sales floor, each burning cleanly in the stuffy air. She then glanced through the shelves. The product racks were only about four feet high, enough that most people would have a clear line of sight from the counter to the door. Each of them were spaced horizontally from the door every few feet or so, stocked with a collection of the strangest items Brooke had ever seen. A series of magical lanterns hung from the thick wooden rafters, each burning away merrily and accented by a smattering of random candles strewn over the top of the shelves.

The entire store looked like it belonged in medieval Europe, not in the new indoor Plaza in the middle of downtown Haverton.

After the suited man left with his prize, Hasid materialized behind Brooke at the register and cackled. Once again, her tail fluffed with annoyance at his sudden appearance.

“Why do you even have a register?” Brooke commented. “Never seen you use the thing.”

“Important to make store look real! Hasid done. Sphinx girl guard store good this night.”

“Just like last night. I’ll sleep through it.”

“Sphinx girl be good guard. Stay awake.”

“Why the hell do you need a guard anyway? There are mall cops who wander around at night.”

“Sphinx girl no worry about that.” Those mad gray eyes whirled in their sockets. “Sphinx girl just protect.”

“Whatever, just get out you old goat, so I can go to sleep.”

“Sphinx girl stay awake tonight. Mischief sphinx girl stop.”

“Wait, what?” Her wings fluttered as she tried to understand him.

“Hasid tired. Hasid go home to bed.”

He turned on his heel, the mint green trenchcoat floating around him and marched into his office.

“Hang on a minute!” she called to the closing door. She jogged after him, but just like every other night, he was gone when she opened the door into the cramped space. Brooke glared at the file cabinet and old writing desk lying in the small office. With an annoyed huff, she kicked the desk.

Cursing him again, she limped out of office and went back behind the register.  

---

Brooke’s almond brown eyes watched the large hand turn past the twelve mark while the small hand settled upon the number one. A mighty yawn escaped her mouth as she stretched luxuriously, indulging the feline side of her anatomy for a brief moment.

She had been moments from dozing off when Hasid’s cockeyed comment about mischief came back to her, nagging at her consciousness like a yipping dog. With a huff, she stood, realizing she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

The sphinx-human hybrid still didn’t have a clue about Hasid. She didn’t know where he was from, how old he was, why he had such atrocious taste in clothing or even if he had a last name. Whenever she showed the slightest bit of curiosity, he became more cryptic than usual, usually ending in the realm of the incomprehensible. It annoyed her to no end.

Despite Hasid’s explanation back in Alexandria, she still doubted him. She couldn’t fathom why he stopped her in the middle of a smuggling run in Egypt to transform her from a normal human male to a female sphinx-human hybrid. Then, to top it all off, he ordered her to guard his bizarre little shop at night. She didn’t even know what she was guarding against. While the merchandise was definitely unique, there wasn’t anything absurdly valuable here. And all that lay behind the sales counter was Hasid’s office, a restroom, a small stockroom and a locked door that Hasid refused to speak about.

All she knew was some story about a robed man telling Hasid that Brooke could choose thirty years in an Egyptian prison or five years working for Hasid in the store. Yet in the first month, she’d begun to doubt her decision. She had no contact with the rest of the world. The only time Hasid allowed her to interact with other people was while on the sales floor or when she left the store to get something to eat. And when that happened, Hasid cast a spell on her that made her look human, but prevented her from speaking about the shop or her true identity.

The one time she tried to leave the mall with the spell on her, she immediately transformed into a small housecat. The mad dash back through the mall and into the store with three security guards on her tail hadn’t been exactly fun.

She didn’t even get to drive to an actual home. When her ‘shift’ was over, Hasid had her light a crimson candle, which transported her to a small two-bedroom hotel suite. It was nice enough, though it didn’t have any exits whatsoever. She had checked thoroughly.

“I’m still in prison,” Brooke muttered, thinking of the suite. “Even if there aren’t any bars.”

In a fit of pique, she backhanded a display to the ground. Candles and incense sticks went flying, slipping down a few of the aisles before coming to a stop.

Brooke sighed. Despite the strangeness of it all, it wasn’t nearly as bad as an Egyptian prison. But she was already going stir-crazy from a month of this. She would totally lose her mind if she stayed five years.

With nothing better to do, she shuffled through the swinging doors and began to reassemble the small display. She was kneeling down to fetch a candle underneath the perfume bottles when her feline ears caught the barest hint of scrabbling from somewhere behind the counter.

A strange hum filled the air for a moment, then a lock clicked. Peering around the corner of the wooden racks, she spied the door Hasid refused to speak about. It slowly swung inward with a creak.

A shiver of fear blasted through Brooke as she whirled back behind the rack. She never expected that something would actually happen in Hasid's shop. Who in the world would want to rob a candle store? Okay, it was the world’s most bizarre candle store, filled with arcane magics, but it was still a darn candle store.

For a moment, she thought about simply running, but the door to the outside mall was locked and Hasid had the only key. She could just play possum, however that offended what little was left of her male pride. A low growl escaped her lips, when she realized she would actually have to do something about this.

Strange-sounding footfalls echoed through the store as the creature stomped around behind the counter. Her mind whirled with questions and fear when she heard the swish of the swinging doors.

“Son of a…!” A resounding crash blasted through the air and Brooke jumped. Gritting her teeth, she glanced out again.

A large winged horse-human hybrid was picking himself up off the ground, having slipped on a candle Brooke missed. He was dressed in thick black clothing from his shining hooves to the nape of his golden neck. His tail flicked back and forth with annoyance.

He stood upright and she ducked back.

Brooke looked for something she could use as a weapon against the intruder. She didn’t relish taking on the muscular horseman in hand-to-hand combat.

Her hand tightened around a small bottle of perfume. Her eyes read the label in the flickering candlelight.

“The Scent of Crimson?” she muttered. She didn’t have a clue what it would do, just like most of the other things in the shop. And there wasn’t a single bit of instruction upon the bottle. Yet there wasn’t anything else that looked promising in the vicinity.

Her ears flat, she popped up to see the horseman doing something with the register. With a mighty heave, she threw the bottle as hard as she could at the back of the enormous creature. He let out a shout of alarm when it exploded against his clothes. The horseman whirled around, but the acrid smoke blocked her from sight

Brooke grinned and sprinted to the other end of the aisle, not wanting to give the horseman a chance to figure out where the projectile had come from. Once again, she peeked out, curious to see what effect the perfume would have upon him.

Her face fell when his clothes turned brilliant crimson, followed quickly by his hair and skin. Beyond that, nothing happened.

“I hate that turbaned goat," Brooke muttered.

“Who's there?" the horseman roared. He waved at the cloud of smoke streaming around him. To her amazement, he reached inside his bulky zippered sweater and pulled out a selection of candy bars.

“Don't make me ask again!" he cried. The sphinx girl was too dumbfounded to respond. "I know how to use this stuff!"

Her eyes darted again to the shelves. She was now in the shampoo area. She had helped a young lady here yesterday so she knew a little about the merchandise. It didn't take her long to find the perfect product to introduce him to. After opening the cap, she flicked it at him with a snap of her wrist.

The open shampoo bottle flew directly at him. He was facing the right direction this time and managed to block the bottle with a swipe of his hooved hand. But not before an enormous globule splattered across the top of his mane.

In moments, his hair exploded in length and size. The horseman let out a screech as his face vanished under a waterfall of rough reddish curls. She let out a giggle of satisfaction as he careened to the floor, bouncing off the countertop with a yelp. With her foe blinded and helpless, she finally leapt from hiding, a bottle of conditioner held like a stake in her hand. Brooke soared the short distance, her wings beating a single time before slamming down on the horseman’s chest, pinning him hard against the wooden floor.

He shook his head and two shining blue eyes peered from the mass of red locks. A faint whinny came from his mouth as he stared at the curvaceous sphinx girl on top of him.

“You move an inch and you’ll never forget it.” For all the bravado she was showing, she could have held a razor sharp dagger in her hand.

“Who the hell are you?” he croaked, breathing hard. She pinched her legs tightly against his ribs.

“Better question, horsehead. Who the hell are you?” The guttural growl ripped from somewhere near her stomach.

“Somebody with a job to do,” he muttered. With amazing speed, his five-fingered hoof slammed into her abdomen, knocking her clean off with the force of the blow. She crashed into the wooden rack, yelping as packs of car fresheners rained down upon her.

Within seconds, he was once more on his hooves. Brooke’s head spun and stomach churned as he popped a small candy dot into his mouth. In moments, both his color and his hair returned to normal. He reached inside the sweater again and pulled out a sugar stick, which he pointed threateningly at Brooke.

“I don’t want to use this on you,” he said. Brooke could see every muscle in the horseman’s body tighten with the expectation of an attack.

She didn’t disappoint him. Grabbing two handfuls of scented air fresheners, she chucked them at him with a howl. He cursed and batted them away, then flicked the sugar stick at her as if it was a magic wand. Brooke dodged left, but not before sugary syrup coated her legs. She could feel the pinpricks of magic across her fur as she burst into flight and glided down a few aisles, out of range of the strange winged horseman.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, she ran a paw along her two legs, only to find that she now possessed thick purple scales and reptilian feet instead of her usual tawny gold fur and soft lion’s paws.

“What was that stuff?” she hollered, watching him with slitted eyes in the candlelight.

“It was supposed to be ‘Seaweed Delight!’” he shot back. “Stupid things all look the same in the dark. Now what are you doing here?”

“I’m the night watch!” she cried. “But if I knew there was a horse derby in town, I would have brought some extra oats.”

“And if I knew some overgrown cat was going to harass me, I would of brought some catnip.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Clever horsehead. You made a catnip joke.”

“Yours was worse!” he neighed.

There was a brief flash of mist and he vanished from sight. The clip-clop of hooves echoed ponderously through the room, making it hard for her to figure out where he was. She glanced down and recognized the enormous jars sitting on the shelf before her. With a grunt of satisfaction, she tore the seal and prepared herself.

Crouching low to the ground, she tried to sense where the horseman was. But something was making it hard to determine his whereabouts.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty…” he called.

“Bite me you overgrown Shetland,” she said under her breath.

“Gotcha!” he crowed. Her eyes darted up to see the triumphant grin on the long face of the golden horseman. Her fangs glittered as she smiled in response. With a quick twist of the wrist, she opened the jar and threw the contents at him.

She turned on her heel and exploded into the air, intent on getting out of range of the potpourri. Before she got even five feet away, a thick chain of living chocolate coiled around her waist. She let out a yelp of alarm and tried to pry it off in midair.

She heard a crash just as she was yanked back down, screeching as she careened into the horseman. With a thunderous bang, she slammed into him, the mist from the potpourri already pouring from the shattered remains of the jar. It didn’t help that the momentum sent them both crashing into the rest of the potpourri section, bringing a cascade of scented flowers, needles and other plants down upon them.

Brooke’s head swirled as the chaotic magics contained within each canister tore through her body, transforming it in thousands of different ways in a matter of seconds. She could dimly see the changing shape of the horseman next to her as he underwent the same bizarre process.

A cloud of rainbow mist floated around them like a smoke bomb, sparking and bleeping as its magics burst in contact with one another. Little jets of lightning and currents of wild color swept around them as they lay there, nearly insensate due to the transformational powers unleashed.

Brooke coughed and was answered by a male wheeze to her right. A strange sense of euphoria filled her as she spied a label from a broken jar.

“Giddy Pine,” she giggled. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she found it utterly hysterical. Odd hiccupping laugher erupted from her as the mist began to fade into the massive magical air conditioning system Hasid used to keep the heat down.

Her own laughter was echoed by the sniggering cackles of what once had been a horseman to her left. The clearing smoke slowly revealed his true fate.

Two enormous rabbit ears were perched on his head, each nearly three feet in length. His muzzle had become an avian beak, snapping with sniggers while his hair now looked like polka dotted peacock feathers. He had something along the lines of six arms and three legs, each limb being of a different species. One of the arms even appeared human. He looked incredibly ridiculous.

Yet Brooke knew she didn’t look any better. Two large fairy antennas had replaced her own ears. Where once she had only the slightest of muzzles, barely noticeable, her nose and mouth had fused into something akin to a dolphin’s beak while the fur throughout her body was now a riot of brilliant yellow, deep indigo and flaming red. She was lucky enough to have still only two arms and legs, but she now possessed bat and dragonfly wings in addition to her normal feathered devices. But the most embarrassing change was the two other pairs of breasts that now swelled against her tank top.

“You l-look absurd, kitty,” the former horseman laughed, slapping one of his knees with the human hand.

“You’re one to talk!” She giggled back. Brooke knew she should be trying to restrain the creature, but everything seemed so darn amusing to her now, she didn’t know why she should bother.

“I’ll have you know, you f-furred freak,” he stuttered, sounding nearly drunk. He raised three hands in a declarative fashion. “That I am the…paragon of perfection!”

To her deluded mind, she found what was left of the horseman rather cute. It seemed strange somehow that she would think so, but she couldn’t remember why.

She flopped over and lay on her stomach, a patch of belly scales protecting her from the broken glass. Her head slipped into her hands and she peered up at the golden eyes of the creature.

“Why would you wanna rob a candle store anyway?”

“Bah, I didn’t wanna do it. And it wasn’t a robbery!” The male amalgam swayed in place, leaning against the ruins of the shelves. “I was supposed to just um…just fix up some of the merchandise. And slip some fun little tricks and stuff through the store.”

“Like what? Chocolate bars and sugar sticks?” Her four tails flicked back and forth with amusement.

“I’ll have you know that Miss Yon is a b-brilliant candy master!” he proclaimed.

“Magic candy?” Brooke said incredulously.

“Ayep!” his beaked head bounced up and down.

“And she told you to come here.”

“Ayep. It’s part of the deal working for her after she caught me!” he hiccupped.

“Caught you?”

“Stupid woman. Got tipped off about my lil’ check fraud scheme. Caught up with me outside Stormhaven at a gas station. Slipped me some of that magic candy, next thing I know I’m some Pegasus-guy-thing and I can’t remember my old name. Just go by Paul. Happened about a month ago.”

“Heh,” Brooke laughed. “Sounds familiar. Hasid got me in Alexandria. I was a successful smuggler. Now I’m a sphinx, I got breasts and I think my name is Brooke.”

Paul burst into chuckles again and pointed at her. “Y-you’re a guy? You got changed too?”

“Wait a sec…” It took her a moment to process his question and its implications. “You’re a chick?”

When he nodded, another round of raucous laugher echoed through the shop. It took several minutes for it to fade away.

“So what now?”

“Now? I go back through the door. But you don’t seem to like your boss any more than me, so feel like helping me out a little?”

A smirk appeared on Brooke’s dolphin face. “Just tell me what to do.”

Brooke found Paul’s little plan to be perfect. After working out the details, she decided to return the favor and slip him a small batch of incense for his own boss. She doubted the magic would have any permanent effects upon Hasid or Miss Yon, but it would entertain their employees to no end.

Once the plan was set in place and the magical materials were exchanged, Paul handed her a strip of purple candied dots.

“They’ll undo any magical change,” he said as he popped one in his mouth. Within seconds, he was once again the muscular winged horseman. “They won’t turn you human again, or switch your gender. But it’ll at least change you back into your little kitty self.”

She slipped one down her beak. In moments, she too had become her normal sphinx-self. They spent nearly an hour trying to repair the damage to the potpourri shelves before Paul confessed he needed to go. Leaving what was left, she walked him back to the mysterious door beside Hasid’s office. He slipped a small key inside the lock, turned it, and a pulse of light burst from the doorframe.

Smiling at her as he slipped through the door, Paul blocked her vision so she couldn’t see what was on the other side.

“Hey, Paul?” she asked, biting her lip slightly.

“Yeah, Brooke?”

“Listen, it gets kinda lonely around here. I’m not asking you out or anything, since you’re a guy right now and all, but, could you drop in from time to time?”

His smile grew wider. “Sure. Guard duty in her shop is pretty boring anyway.”

“Don’t get any funny ideas though!” she admonished him. “It would just be nice to have a friend.”

“You got it. After all, us transformed, abducted and furred criminals need to stick together right?” He winked at her.

“Something like that,” she laughed.

“See you around kitty.”

“Later, horsehead.”

The door closed and Brooke let out a purr of satisfaction. She didn’t feel quite so alone anymore. She would also make sure to find out how this door worked once Hasid returned. It would be nice finally to have a friend who understood what her life was like.

And the fact that he was cute would definitely improve matters.

She slapped herself across the face before fetching the broom and dustpan.